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Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
yes, i know he said he was a vegetarian, delicate counter-priesthood prince - a manner of vegetarianism that expressed an abhorrence of the practice of Eucharist, i too think the Eucharist as a metaphor is a bit porridge: i.e. yucky.  but as Wagner said to him: up north, either you eat meat or you lose the plot (loose - ß - again, not scharfes S - but die scharfes'zart - sharp-tender - already prerequisite of what sharpening omega meant for the w); mind you: salt & pepper to taste according to your own palette - if you're not a sugar ****** you won't over-salt the sauce... and you certainly will not overcook the pasta, halfway between dreadlocks and poodle hair: desirably experience bound al dente, and here comes Socrates with his knowledge of al dente: me no muffin! true that... like all these excess sugar breakfast cereals - ******* the outside, soft inside... or like the idea of ants having an exoskeleton... that's pure culinary theory - al dente exoskeleton; did i already mention salt and pepper to taste? yeah, the beef stock cube is salty, but not salty enough, given the already unsalted meat and vegetables: i cook, i take care of a toddler - Nietzsche keeps bragging: cooked by a cyclops.

who would have thought that a personal
revision of mama Italia's classic
could end up being so tasty;
Nietzsche is the foremost diner in my humble
abode: i just like the way he says:
who let woman into the kitchen?!
that's right, i deviated from the standard recipe
of mama Italia's cooking for papa don
Giovanni - honestly? in lonely times at
university when everyone was into ******
ad drunk debaucheries, and ****** fancy dress
parties? Aria Giovanni saved the day...
just look at the classic beauty, plump as a plumb
in between two cream bergs - such
exfoliation... where's that daddy long-legs
on the catwalk... come on! shove a malteser up
her *** like a suppository escutcheon - i'm sure
the salad leaves will keep her starving even more,
or walk her in Gucci with a drip-pole -
intravenous therapy while on the job -
but can you believe what only a quarter of a teaspoon
does to the Bolognese sauce recipe?
wonders... you don't add the carrot, or the celery,
among the vegetables you add button mushrooms,
and the three colours of peppers -
onions and garlic (a lot of it) as standard -
oregano, rosemary and thyme too,
some Italian five-spice - but the fennel seeds!
the fennel seeds! after i learned to cook i see
ready meals are diabetics in disguise,
and restaurant foods as defunct -
what? we're all expressing our capacity to
make choice, apologies if you made the sort of
choices you now hate... hardly a reason to
complain about my exercise in freedom,
i don't blame you, i'd have chosen differently
if i were you too... but there we go...
i'm cooking Bolognese from scratch because i like
to tickle my sense of smell and the buds of
the palette garden, i look at the sauce and
write fiction: the plot thickens...
                                                     and that's the great
3 minute microwave sequence on the other
side of the spectrum... because we're all so *busy
-
busy bees and that's merely the generation Y
dads getting hormonal treatment from tending to
babies - choices choices choices -
                                                          oddly­ enough
the mediocre work that goes on in those glass
shards - by comparison, the default argument is
pretty obvious: i too would have not invested
in caring for art, or as i once said:
you can't get good art and raise a family -
you can create good art that will support the family,
you'd end up being a great technician,
an artistic engineer - the standard model of bridges /
already in your head - is refining yourself
via plagiarism - you end up plagiarising yourself -
but come one! a quarter of a teaspoon of fennel seeds?
well, i'm not talking cumin seeds...
or maybe it was the turmeric powder that
coloured the onions yellow while frying?
2 tablespoons of garlic - for sure, enough garlic
and we're already talking Dracula -
~5 strips of bacon too -
                                          no, not necessarily involving
carrots and celery - why be boring?
this is me in my furore days in an organic
chemistry class at university - back to the esters
and perfumes, but this is raw, it's analytical
chemistry, it's nothing synthetic -
birds and the bees and some hippy buckles over
a giant butternut squash - which is why i find
people who ably memorise and recite poetry
are the same people who probably write polemics,
and do the peacock verbal dance for a woman
in a restaurant - rather than give her raw grub
of your own calibre - 1 cube of beef stock
dissolved in water - simmering for about 40 minutes,
tomatoes chopped - obviously tomato puree -
500 grams of mince beef -
                                                ever think that poetry
could reinvent journalism and also the way of
writing recipes? FENNEL SEEDS! that's what goes
in first, you roast them in chilli infused olive oil -
let them sizzle for a bit - and yes,
you pour some oil into salted water where
you'll be boiling the spaghetti - the oil means the
spaghetti won't stick together, plus pouring
oil into a saucepan of boiling water is the other
famous pastime of chemists... the former?
watch paint dry. i'm pretty ****** sure i missed something,
like mama Italia missed something to keep
the recipe a secret - well... there's Parmesan cheese
to garnish and fresh basil -
                                                and if i were raising a family,
i wouldn't be listening to the dead skeleton's album
dead magick... oh sure, the reward would be:
i'd have a little crowd at my funeral, some gibberish
about how many people knew me so well... but really
didn't... the whole street profession...
                i never got the idea of solitude and how it
might be sad from the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby song -
don't know never became an impressionable counter -
oh yeah, Darwinism helped! it helped a lot
in creating a world view, a world view that said:
don't touch this ****... leave them to it:
these people are more influenced by opinion columns
of newspapers than philosophy books -
in England, where, i dare say, the daily telegraph
is actually respectable, as is the guardian -
and the central of the two opposites? tickling
tabloid, i call the times posh tabloid, because it is
a posh tabloid: i like the way fame
desired for sales becomes toilet paper
the next day... or the newspaper on the street
that gets the footprint on the plastic surgery escapades...
love it! mm, yes darling! lovin' it!
asgarth Jan 2017
was i expected to just stand there and take their *******?--yes, i walked away, i said that i'd stay and get that information, but they were playing me for a fool and when i figured as much out, i walked out without saying good-bye, for who would say good-bye in such a set of circumstances as this?--wasn't it already bad enough that when they'd seen the planting of fennel happening, the ladies made me pull up to the hedgerows where it was all going on so they could get out and walk around and feel like they were part of something that they actually weren't a part of, something that, in actually, they'd been apart from their entire live so?--oh, i'd wanted to tell them, believe me, that they were ******* hypocrites, but what was the point of ruining a day that, for me, had been ruined the very instant they'd asked each other if that group of cars over there, up on the hill, had been theirs, if these were the ones responsible for all the activity that they considered losing themselves in--wasn't it bad enough i'd been dragged all the way out into the country just to drive through a bunch of cemeteries because they thought it'd be romantic to see what the old gravestones were like?--and what had they done when we'd gotten there other than say that those weren't the headstones they'd imagined, that those were too modern, too ugly, too *******, and why had i even taken them there when i could've taken them to this or that other cemetery?--wasn't it bad enough that for whatever reason the biological imperative had divined, i'd wanted to **** the both of them and knew in advance, knew even before i opened my eyes that morning, that i wouldn't end this day inside either of them?--and yes, i would dare to be this honest with them if i thought they'd be able to look me in the face afterward...it's not like i didn't know they didn't want me--it's that i had had nothing to do with my days so that i found myself in their company and after not a very long while, i ended up desiring the both of them--i'm not saying this makes me a good person, or a romantic person--quite obviously, i'm not talking about holding hands with them or losing myself in the depths of their eyes--no, i said good-bye to all that nonsense when i was still a young man and now that i'm not a young man anymore, i find myself asking if could pull off the whole "lothario" scene, you know?--just sleep with women and not find myself in a relationship with them...it's something i'd feared becoming all my life and yet, i'd ended up becoming a lot of things i'd once feared becoming--just look at how i woke up every morning: alone and in silence with only my breathing out a sigh so filled with the ennui of this world that i thought eventually the ceiling might start raining its own precious tears on my behalf--this was my life now and i wasn't quite thrilled at the prospect of living the next sixty or seventy years of it, not like this anyhow...and yet there they were, consciously splitting off from where i was standing by going off on their own, and was i to presume there were merely taking in the sights of nature around them?--were these two just innocent city girls walking about and snapping pictures of the volunteers planting what they told me was fennel but might've been anything on earth?--maybe they'd separated because they were going to whisper about how they'd been having simply an awful time and wasn't i just the most awful person to imagine themselves having a ******* with?--maybe they were kissing each other and snapping pictures of each other's face of pleasure and repeated ****** as they went down on each other...this is all the paranoia that was trapped inside my head, this is why it wasn't fun to be me sometimes, why i would try to lose myself in the previous night's dreams: because who in the world would want to walk about on his own knowing that two women, possibly lesbians, were ridiculing him as they were making each other *** and keeping their experiences "for posterity"?--yes, this is why when i'm asked at times, "why the long face?" i just smile and chuckle and say, "everything's fine"--again, would anyone want to be the one to say, "well, actually, if you really what to know, i've been dying to get this off my chest fora while now," and let those monsters in my mind off the hook they're barely fettered to now?--it was just here, when i was about to fell pretty deep into the whole "woe is me" routine that the people who'd been planting all their sprigs had found me and asked if i wanted to come inside and read their literature and listen to the tales of their collective journey, so i said sure because what else did i have to do, i was just killing time till those two came back wiping their mouths and looking at each other like i was some kind of ******* idiot not to know when, in reality, they might've just been out there really and truly taking in the sights and smells of the country they rarely got to walk about in...and yet, when those fennel people, as it really had turned out to be fennel they'd been planting that day, discovered that neither of the women they'd seen me with had been my wife or my girlfriend or even a lover, but were both friends--and, yes, i even think they sensed i'd wanted to put air quotes around "friends" when i said it aloud--that's when they understood their collective or cult or whatever this whole fennel thing was a beard for wasn't going to accumulate into its ranks three more that day, that's when they told me to stand there and that someone would be with me shortly, and of course, like a polite ******* i stood there and smiled when one called over two or three more to point me out and crack a smile as they tittered to each other and walked away...i stood there and looked at the interior of that home that looked like they'd just killed someone and assumed control of it for themselves: i stared at the pristine oak floors, the pristine white banister of the steps going upward where the pristine light shone sympathetically down as though it too were laughing at me--why didn't i just ask them who i had to **** to get some acknowledgement that i existed as someone separate and apart from all others, but who was a whole human being and didn't need to be attached to any collective or cult to feel like he was "someone"?--of course, this wasn't a real question, it was just my sheer frustration at feeling like i was being dismissed by everyone in whose company i was in that day: the lesbians who might not've been lesbians, the cult-murderers who might not've been cult-murderers...it all just bespeaks of the kind of headspace i'd been forced to live in all my life, really, i understood this too...and here i sound like i'm writing from the grave of one of those nineteenth century writers with all of this grammar that makes the writer seem so far away from whoever his audience is, but it's only because this is how i've been forced to live--i've been forced to accept that i just don't get along with people and this is so because i just don't trust them and this is so because i've been betrayed too often to ever trust anyone again--yes, it all makes me sound like a child, but isn't trust what everything in a relationship is based on?--true, there must be respect, and there must be some kind of human feeling or caring for the person, but without trust you're just going to end up like me: don't you see me looking all around the room, using my eyes, swiveling my head, turning around so or three or more times when it feels like there's something happening, something about to happen behind my back?--it could go on like this forever, and yes, with me holding their stupid ******* pamphlet in my one hand looking and swiveling and turning and turning...which is why i just left, i didn't even wait for whenever was supposed to get back to me with the time and number of their first meeting to return with that information because it was probably all just their way of having fun, of taking a break from the break that was their life doing all this "conservative work," which we all know is the labor of the rich, the pastime of those with too much money in their banks accounts and too little imagination in their heads...but i know, i know, here i am with far too much imagination in my head, here i am heading out and leaving those friends of mine, who are no true friends of mine--but who i wish were "friends" of mine--to their fennel fields with with fennel sprigs and to those who might be cultists or murderers or both because they all deserve each other, and whether or not it's all true isn't my concern anymore because i've been made to feel this way, i've been made into this creature now stalking its way back to the car--yes, i am an "it" these days, i am a sort of post-post-modern and meta and very self-aware monster that should not be and yet look at me, just look at me: i'm not even looking around when i start the car, i don't even care who i back over even though i know already no one's around, and when i reverse the car and get ready to turn back onto the highway, i roll down the windows just so i can try to hear what might be taken for the strains of their cries over the engine and in the distance, but i try to hear them so i can feel some sort of satisfaction as i press the gas enough to begin a gentle roll--i don't think i'd ever stop even if i could've heard them screaming for me to come back for them, to come back and save them--for all i know, they might've been in on it the whole time...or they still might just be going down on each other back there--
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
.via ghana: i iz welcome the haiku poetic extractionz of the maxim: full-on potentiality of - few words maximum effortz! one wishes to almost die from feng shui minimalism! chinese geomancy and european chiromancy (reading balzac et al.) - but the sigh poetic of pepsi max effort iz wot iz the breaking of the camel bonk and backß... last time i heard from a kenyan bartender... all the timber comes from ghana... as does the wheat from ukraine and the salt from poland... coal is always "elsewhere"... or no coal... wind... the wind comes from: far far away... beyond the language of the seven vowels...

it took much of an effort to have to overcome
a reading of Stendhal...
esp. when you find him in your teens..
almost impossible...

it's enough to visit a brothel:
once a year... perhaps skipping a year...
and there's enough body,
and skin, and warmth...
to contrast... what i'm yet to read about...
otherwise have read, i.e.:

2010s through the 2020 summary...
lucy holden now 29...
sexting, dating apps, bisexual flings
flatmates with benefits...
millenial serial dater...

all the details are already known...
mine? that strip-clup in athens on a whim
with two strippers either arm
burrowing my face solving the mole
in their cleavage...
the goodmayes borthel with the romanians
that said a very bulgarian word, once...

and who can ever forget
the south african cocoon ****-accusation
of: not unde the bed-sheets and please
oil up rather than dry-******* me...
or the thai surprise picked up
in a park and that a little bit of heavyweight
beer and some jazz and a garden shed will allow...
the number of times i've had ***...
well... what are fingers for?

the black girl with a coccyx like an iron maiden
attempting to tattoo itself onto my pelvis...
2nd time round?
i heard she had a child and his daddy
would be bringing him home the morning to come...
and this other black woman,
oh i mean: full detail - woman...
two children sleeping on the bed...
get dragged off...
thrown to the bed...
and i'm there to **** an imitation ******
of... a tight fold of legs...

it's not exactly **** but even with that:
i'm not a best fitter...
so tell her: it's not going to happen...
we pretend to sleep or at least i do...
when this afro-fur-ball with a plucking sound
of a smooch is standing at the end of the bird...
he's naked i'm naked everyone's naked
i pick him up like i pick up maine *****
and lay him on my chest...
i can't allow a river of fingers through
his afro tangles... so i pat them down...
and he falls asleep...

***... oh no ***** word about it monsieur!
just this *******...
oh but i'm glad that some girl nearing
her 30s has made up her mind up...
only recently i've heard that my mother was
attempting to woo a married man
who was part of the Solidary movement
and probably waiting for a greencard...
i heard this... from my grandmother...

i'm still pampering on the sly for
a Mary Antoinette...
Ilona was wrong... i wouldn't become
a child strapped to a hellhole of a teenager's bedroom...
i'd become a leech hybrid...
as along as i have enough excuses
to return for "the word"... and never rap it...
i'm fine fine... best be on my optimal behaviour...
to never find myself in a baptists' church choir...

- there's also a quick fix procedure...
the match of the day is watched
with the mascots on screen...
the ben-hur's not making it to
prophetic status... yes the bread...
yes the circus... and all those cul de sac...
soap operas of parking scenes...

and there's always language...
best expressed when drunk...
never sober because is what delves into
the formality of: dear sir / madam,
kind regards...

the day when i stopped combing my fair
and peered at the beard...
uncombed hair: almost reminds
me of donning a pineapple on it...
an ancient buddhist balancing act...
like performing the act of gravity...
without copernican mathematics...
as simple as finding the CENTER on
a bicycle... or like finding
buoyancy in a swimming pool...
perhaps i am more water than flesh...
but i'm also a fraction of fat...

i can float on water if i can find
the balance... i don't need to play
the drunkard treading water surviving
to stay afloat.... i... relax...
then i float.... or bob-on-the-surface
teasing an unexpected shark-bite-attack...
although: swimming in a sea
is not my thing...
i very much appreciate seeing
the bottom i can dive down toward
and touch... the chernobyl stink of chlorine...
is almost a parisian perfumery...

heat breeds diseases it breeds...
insects...
i abhor the heat...
the zenith of winter is yet,
is yet to arrive... and for the help of god:
i can't arrive at... writing sober...
should "poo'etry" ever be written sober
to begin with?
i mind: that i don't mind...

i can find 8pm and 9pm quite:
which implores you to not quit - curb colt...
i was making a sponge apple stuffing
roulade...
after having made some biscuit
with brown sugar and diadems of hazelnuts...
and prior to some sausage rolls...
three fillings...
cranberries with some peppers and
chillies...
fennel seeds with apple...
and the third... the third...
i don't quiet remember...

my head was exploding with a brain being
towed and all was:
i am yet to grieve a passing,
a tax of death...
i am yet to be left half imbecile and half
of any other texas hold-up poker game...
i'm wishing for...
that quarter of a million of a bet
i placed on:
one team wins...
but both have to score...
ergo... catching a mosquito by the testciles
donning boxing gloves chance...
2 - 1 etc. victories...

i don't want to blame women...
the last one i was serious about...
she's on her 3rd marriage or whatever...
and i'm still in woad: in deep blue
coinciding with...
god's roulette...

as a testiment of man...
there's the ambition to find: the void...
to find nothing...
and from that... find the thinking thing...
res vanus: the emptiness
that can be fathomed with more or less
thinking, than a yawn's presence...
because...
descartes doesn't really exact ontological,
whatever...
i can't be and be:
when i churn out a day-dream and
a day-dream is all that is...

thankfuly i have nothing to "work"
with... most women only have boredom to begin
with....
at exactly 20 minutes to 1am...
i'm not so sure...
a mother can say: you stink...
then you go and buy something from
a convenience store...
and the cashier stresses how fresh you smell...
that's quiet something...
a woman likes the way to smell to her...
in between doing these *******
tribunals of sweating over
apple roulades...

and Stendhal... it's only my mother...
i just have to gnash my teeth
and apply the burden of sober...
this canvas... no other...
i drink for the 1 hour pleasure
of disorientation...
a shot in the head in some Ukranian
prison...
stiched to the next to be executed...
chikatilo...
i'm not exactly fond of the company...
but i'm pretty sure...
kurt cobain... and his shotgun antics...

and how the prolonged death appeal
of Christine Chubbuck lasted much longer...
Kafka said it right:
a stab at the heart...
**** colt and boyo... don't aim for the head!
that's how Ukranian convicts die...
shot in the back of the head...
in a cell... never in the open...
it's not like the brain delves into
the automated unconscious of the pump
that's the heart... how do you think
the urban myth of the cockroach that lived
for 2 weeks more was born?
the head didn't have a mouth to ingest
food with...

shot in the back of the head is an execution
that, done in an Ukranian prison cell...
is pretty much all of Dante not visiting
either heaven or a hell...
but two weeks with... in the presence
of death... the body starving...
that magic finger-pointing exercise
of seeing death in movies?

well thank god they did a movie about
Christine Chubbuck's (rage against the machine):
bullet in the 'ed!
i was lied to, no matter...
i'm here to hush and sweep the leftovers...
because why would you march
a man into a prison cell...
shoot him in the head and close the door
and wait... because no: in the open...
with a chance for rabid dogs to feast on...
in the darkened night just shy of Kiev
would ever matter...

Christine Chubbuck was left dying on
life-support machines after her half-high Kiev
attempt to pop the balloon...
psych- myth of the brain as source
of the sigma soul...
my left toe has more soul than this
rubric forever explained as forever to be explored
goose-fat sponge...
come to think of it...
after a haemorrhage that no one believes
beside me, some neurologist and a dementia
riddled grandfather who easily forgot...

what's this brain this brain this nought?!
**** it... kamikaze cockroach!
as ever oh but always so much when
someone has to mention...
has to mention: with no exacting details
of fancy...

also called the drought period when pakistani
gangs are up in Leeds and i'm strapped
to the outlier Loon'don culture:
as ever playing the obedient schizoid...
because that's, just fair game...
centuries behind what the youth
of Denmark have to offer...
the mutterzunge and the l'inglese of:
any future of tourism with Jack's flag...

heavy influences stemming from
st. andrew and all the worth of wordworth
with a tinge of punk...
but never a baron of lexicon coming from
just shy of 4 hours away from
the lisp of masovian warsaw...

what could possibly be wrong?
how about... stemming it down to the root
of... sober people and the lacklustre of
when writing: under no influence at all...
apparently "now" the high moral ground!
the sobers usher in the words
that we are abide by when the football hooligans
their casual Tuesday mundane,
their casual Tuesday mundane custard
splodge of oats in regurgitation...

i can almost but not quiet...
imagine myself being the cameo in this dear diary
of these "free" women of the western world...
give me a feral black woman pulling
two kids from her bed in order
to imitate a ****** by folding her legs to
pretend...

it's still a bullet in the back of the head
for some, minor or major
andrei "cain" chikatilo -
no... with a full crop of cranium of hair...
and a grandmother that says...
well... how busy your chin hairs are...
that you are able to lodge a pencil in there
and it doesn't fall out...
hair here and all other hair elsewhere...
chest and... where the antioch identifier
of achilles ought to be of a six in sixes
packaged...

since who is buddha... or a christ when...
an thích quang duc "oops" happens...
the people will never leave their unison...
their get-together "happening"...
but what's to be celebrated should...
the crucifix be turned into that "other"
torture ordeal of being: piked...
crucifixion the tsunami wave of history...
when one can expect the fate
of being piked by the more imaginative
sorts?
if only the antichrist was gay
and was sentenced to levitate on a pike...
passion and ecstasy via
the Walhalla doing ****... again:
sorry if the pike missed the **** baptism
of ecstasy... and instead aimed
at ripping apart the flesh and bone at:
whatever pivot was made available
to work from reverse ingestion:
beginning with the pelvis...

i'm just tired and cooking and shooing
shadows for the past month and i know that it's
just an exaggerate lounge period...
and all i want is an added arm...
and the serenity leg to take the step to return to...
footsteps... with a bulging echo to command...

it needs to be stressed that these women were black...
i call them ivory beauties of chocolate come
quicksilver moon glistening...
i can't remember... no... "you're" right...
i never managed to **** anything
of an ethno-centric "perspective"...
i'd be arrested for that...
as if starting a hitlerjungen movement or
some other random "****"...

i'd package myself with a mexican strapped into
alcatraz...
the Louis of the Aztecs and some
long lost St. Juan of the Mayans...
leash me... Russian or Prussian or...
what's that third otherwise power of influence
that this body was allowed to morph into?

perhaps i once was allowed to control these words...
but that's how drinking goes...
it's a homocodie when you **** someone
when under the influence of alcohol when driving
a car...
this is a sort of homocide...
i trully gave my hands away to the devil...
and the brain: oh forget that old fabble of a pickle...
what's in brine was always supposed
to be in brine and pickled...

- and what were the chances of me becoming
a sentimental drunk... listening to some
crowded house - weather with you?
the la's - the la's... no... not merely the 1990s
epitome of h'american tourism lodged in london
of myth... as any ******... that myth translated
itself into paris... there she goes...
i mean the whole album...

whale! whale! a beached whale!
Grindadráp...
and some want to go on the Hajj...
and die in a human stampede at the Mecca...
but... well... some want to...
of all of Europe...
Venice, Paris, Rome, Athens,
Amsterdam, perhaps Edinburgh
(wink-wink nudge-nudge)...
Barcelona...
or... Grindadráp of the Faroe Islands...

capture a polyphony in language that is hardly
ever going to be much more
than a chance to... to do that...
shove three fingers into your gob...
expect an elevated volume of sounds...
call the hounds! a mile away!
i was never allowed to learn that
whistling "trick"...
perhaps that's why i never managed
to play the trombone or the clarinet...
the ****-poor leftover guitar...
which is as much as having to read
braille!

reality: i live in england but i'm a ******...
i haven't ****** an english girl...
or a ****** girl...
i was close! a ****** girl licked my face
like a cow, once...
chin, lips, nose and forehead...
i was actually waiting for e.t. when that
happened...
the pakistanis have all the english girls...
sorry... it's sad...
but... the australia...
the fwench... the russian...
it's a decent rubric...
crude... nuanced...
so is buying fwesh meat at the butchers...
the perfect crime is less severe...
fiddling with a tombstone...
then towing it for 2 miles...
to bury the remains of your cat...
after your neighbour "accidently" killed him
when you were away...
and of course they deny it...

after all... i live in a society...
innocent until proven guilty...
said jimmy saville...
it's not the old... european "misunderstanding"..
of guilty until proven innocent...
if not a real story of Tomasz Komenda...
there's the Shawshank Redemption...
or there's... the Count de Monte Cristo...

if all are innocent until proven guilty...
what's that? the genesis story never happens...
it's hardly a moral deterent...
isn't it? people will do as any aleister crowley
would command them to do:
do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law;
this is a naive presupposition of
fudge-packed jurisprudence...
what should have been egg-whites..
it merely some sugar dissolved in water...

statistical counts aside...
i would be more inclined to... fear...
being held guilty... to then be allowed "innocence"...
that to being held innocent...
to then be forced as a doubly-culprit!
how does the double jeopardy paradox arise...
from the high pillar of: innocent until
proven guilty?!
law is at one's own leisure...
should all be bound to an innocence...
revisions of the biblical metaphor...

if we can all be innocent...
wouldn't we at least all fathom an innocent
attempt to break some law?
for a matter of: testing the waters?
even if innocent until proven guilty is true...
there's no narrative of redemption...
why is it that the shawshank redemption
is such a popular movie?
since it adopts the continental motiff of:
guilty... until proven innocent...
it offers... redemption...
it's a popular movie because it's unfair
for the basis of a single individual...
not some amassing of victims of a jimmy saville
recount... that have... none... zilch...
no redemption!
their redemption: ist tod!

because if i were to be found guilty...
with no chance of defence...
i would exercise a double-think in relation to this...
rather than exercise this leisure into
grieving the orwellian zeitgeist monstrosity of
but the one novel...

i'm not convinced of the english model...
this... innocent until proven guilty...
this pontius pilate argument...
i'm not for it! this sinking to the core of my heart
and hopefuly, prevents me from a heartbeat...
perhaps so fewer examples of
the #metoo would come to the fore...
if... one were not so easily allowed
a ststus of innocence...
perhaps... guilty until proven innocent...
doesn't allow...
so readily accessed accusations...
perhaps this modern, english model of
jurisprudence...
is missing a medieval lisp?

as law abiding as would suggest...
i would be much more deterred from inacting
a grievance should i be found guilty...
without a benefit of a doubt of a jury...
than if i were to be given the a priori: innocent
status...

i don't like this: england and greenwich in tow
is the bellybutton of the world
demand of... all else is less than we...
no... did i come from Algiers?!
what has Algiers to do with it and Leeds
shouldn't?!

at least that's how a man sobers up...
while still drinking...
he might focus on sober demands...
of topics that only drunks should speak of...
and since neither of the two meet...

because i have stood as a witness
in a court...
and i was given a photograph to...
"compare" having identified him in a mugshot...
the photograph i was shown still
had a date imprinted on it...
and this was the ******* argument...
the photograph was years old...
i identified the culprit in the police mugshot...
but the case was "won"... for no apparent reason...
the witness said: i...
this photograph is years old...
i can grow a beard and hippy attire in a year's time...
of course i was the witness that said:
note down the registration plate
of the car this camel-jockey jumped out of
and grabbed m'ah fwends mobile...

i've seen how: innocent until proven guilty works...
i'm not conviced...
i can't be... there's something instinctual preventing
me from adhering to this english...
jurisprudent sensbility...
it's hardly a ******* charles dickens novel...
if it were... and i greatly underestimated
charles dickens... no... really...
i shouldn't have read any of dostoyevsky...
i should have read charlie ****'oh'ends...
believe me when i say that is hould have...
since... heidegger's ponderings VII - XI
will retain their shelf-status as... the book most
probably unread...

such is the sobering process...
am i, in no way, allowed to sacrifice my 'ed
on the premise that: innocent until
proven guilty is the right categorial imperstive
to buckle on... since...
the anglophonic world buckles on it...
like a spectacular breakdance feat of
a penguin on steroids...
doing the diving header tsunami
of chore: the crowd goes wild!
it's no operatic applause and being
"superficially" reminded as to how...
find your proper seat...
before the castrato peacock does his
singing bit...
apparently finding one's seat
when it's never going to be a maggot-pit
at a slipknot concert is all that's
about to happen...

come by the butcher's and let's attempt
in finding you some oysters
among the volume of red boisterous...
to replica your genital parts
and sordid caviar letfovers...

perhaps i could be angry...
but la ilah illa blah'lah...
i am... halway bound between
being simulation circumcised
and being castrated...
i never which is which...
notably, given...
circumcised men are not allowed
the impetus of taking up
web-cam Susan on promise of...
also pleasing themselves
without wanting to earn some money...

it's a real problem though:
innocent until proven guilty versus
guilty until proven innocent...
relish...
the english indiosyncratic
wishing they were scandinavian iceland...
no... honey too sweet tooth bear...
this is not how the GMP affair that exends
with its genesis in the jimmy saville affair
looks like...
this quest for: apparently "superior"
is not going to work on me...
kin of a kind-of luvvie dubby...
bon voyage!

the entire continent is listening...
individualistic rights...
innocent until proven guilty...
the more i reiterate these words...
the more i sober up...
because i can't see how...
i am: a thief...
until i am proved to be... a thief...
by having performed the act
of thieving...
or not even an "after"...

sorry... please expose your divine
rational intelligence and tell me
via a reiteration that 2 + 2 = 4...

i am not a thief,
but i am a thief...
only if the act of stealing is proved...
and if "the" act of stealing is not proved...
i'm way more than a thief...
i'm a thief with a baby driver!
this anglican logic *****...
if innocent until proven guilty...
is to sustain the individual flourishing...
i'd rather make theatre of the original,
biblical deterrent...
a queen of this sort of popish claims
and her duaghters of yorkshire because...
the pawns of justitia...

conventionality of continetal thinking...
there's not even a "what if" or
"it would be better" should... allow,
extended into:
guilty until proven innocent...
rather than... innocent until proven guilty...

i sometimes find myself chattering...
in the cold...
but i'm not chewing anything...
i'm pretending to pivot the piano on a ghost...
being played as some per se magician's
excavation of: whatever time...
thus it was spent...

i call it chattering chopin...
bite marks available... like the multitude
of signature most willing to be...
allocated a collection foreseeable...

the would the artichokes of arabia...
or the fennel roasted roots of Italy...
there's something to be had of a woman
sporting the "cherokee" leopard-skin prints
on something that's...
90% cotton and 10% lycra?!

and the reason why i visited a brothel
in the past ten years was because?
if i want to play poker...
i'll play poker...
easy ***? it's not so easy in the act
and you want to find a kiss and...
she tells you: it's against the laws
of this sort of nunnery...
but you still manage to slurp a lip or two
of a shy pluck of the tulips of the sea...
or however this thing that
language is works...
if it's not going to be a hammer and nail...
forever... this "excuse" to allow nothing
more than YA novels...
metaphors and... pedantry of elswhere
from punctuation?

herioglyphic assumptions of :) emoji?
wink barrel baron! oi!
non-responsive...
black also implies: ivory beauty...
i started to admire their teeth...
since mine were always going to be
custard yellow death grin...
like bone to the rot...

no... i'm pretty sure tonight ends
here; now;
the prodigy - destroy...
given how... keith flint...
and that horse... and it was never a tale
of the stormy badger...
and how the fox is my aid and will
never make it to...
transcend the red coat hunting parties...
because... just because.
Onoma Jan 2012
Zeus, your predilection for banishing Titans to Hades...
anathema of them--revolt was theirs of you...Titanomachy.
Enter Prometheus, second generational Titan, brother
to Atlas--Prometheus of whom Titan revolt at first ran
no fire through his veins.
Thus, Zeus was well pleased and employed Prometheus
to put earth to water, water to earth...as to yield man.
As so man was, and was unto Prometheus...a fondness
entered him of them.
And in of passion Prometheus' veins were run through
with fire...fire fought fire--thus Prometheus reached out
taking hold Zeus' lightning.
Hid in a hollowed fennel stalk, to be bequeathed unto man.
Torrents of fire now ran Prometheus' veins, and in a fit of
infamous mockery presented Zeus with two packets of
slaughtered animal parts.
A hubris was born in Prometheus that being so halved
God-man gave itself fully to that polarity...he gawked at
Zeus and bade him choose between the two packets.
One of ox meat and innards coated in stomach lining, the
other of ox-bones coated in its own abundant fat.
Thus Zeus chose, the wretched lesser of the two...
inconsumable ox-bones coated by fat.
A charged and terrible air cut and heavied all direction,
pointing assuredly that Zeus was one given over to the
surface of things, a psychological casualty of his own
vanity.
Zeus overcome with Prometheus' disaffection for the God
of him struck at Prometheus' family.
At length, this assault could not, would not put asunder
Prometheus from the ground he stood.
A certain Haphaestus was summoned by Zeus...whose
directive was writ in torment.
Chain Prometheus to Mount Caucasus...where from on
high a sackcloth cloud shall shake loose an eagle, whose
homing hunger shall have only a taste for Prometheus' liver.
Day in, and day out, that accursed ***** shall be the
bounty of itself!
as Oct 2017
There was too much life in that man for him to...
2. It is possible to associate sadness with your name.
3. Strength now walks without a counterpart. She is tired.
4. Your un-presence billows louder than your renditions of "O Sole Mio" ever did throughout this home - throughout this heart
5. There will be no more music. Only everlasting echo
6. The sound of shuffling slippers was my favourite song
7. This house is now a museum. I am 5 years old, flashlight in hand, creeping creaky corridors. I stare as each of his artifacts slowly disappears before my very eyes.
8. We share the same shoe size
9. Now, when I remember him, I think of his hands - sturdy as he grates orange peel, fennel, Parmigiano-Reggiano, smooth as he stirs his shaving cream - Forever moving
10. This hospital is now a museum. I am 21 years old, sister's hand in hand. We all stare as he (yes, you) slowly disappears before our very eyes
11. There was too much life in that man for him to be ever silenced by un-music box
12. There was too much life in that man for anyone to be able to fill his shoes
13. There was too much life in that man for him to disappear with artifact body
14. Now, this man, he is somewhere untouched - the smell of orange and fennel fill his pockets (saved for rainy days). He lives inside and out of The Music, with soles(souls) bouncing.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2016
.the crows' persistent croak undermines all attempts at man's adventure into universal fame, or one that might distinguish man's composition, from earth, as intended for adam, to air, as intended for odin, to water as intended for poseidon, to fire as intended for the tetragrammaton.

it fails, most of the time,
poetry is scarce,
too much fondness of the abstract,
hence residues of
distracted verse, whimsical,
overburdened pronoun usage -
such likes - complex punctuation
to replace diacritical marks in
france or germany or norway,
poetry doesn't have the impetus,
just doesn't have the impetus to
package fudge, package fudge paragraphs
of fiction, poetry isn't anything
unless it's anti-fiction,
there's no point idealising
how you would fit into a glass stiletto
when it doesn't allow a fitting: cindarella was first
two jealous sisters got their heel
and big toe cut off, you want to encode
that as .pdf or .jpeg?
technophobes ***-standing:
is that enough for a start-up religious cult?!
i'm just wishy washy wondering,
all bets on it taking off - congregation of
en masse suicide seems a fanciful expression,
mind you, i have no excuse.
where there's a middle there ain't no finger,
no message evaluation and furthered to
an execution, the middle has an eroteme:
not exactly erotically thematic, just
a hunch off huh...
so... poetry... it's scarce, tumble **** practice
of a lost joke...
poetry exhibits itself sometimes in tight-tangle prose
of a knausgård - fancy wording a mile apart
would make traffic accidents aplenty,
and it happens... ramble ramble ramble (worded),
then some poetic ecstasy like an unguided tour
of a gallery making you kneel in anti-catholic
gesticulation of a painting by francis bacon...
shouldn't happen, but it did...
so while prose writers are like things infused
with packaged designation of the right
digestion and right diet content of carbohydrates,
poets are like: what sustenance from air?
we ramble sometimes, **** naked i presume,
but we do, and when we do, we draft novels
for other people, we're not into nation building
or writing novels... we're the anorexia of prose...
and that's grand... because it means
that our readers have to be self-involved,
not ready to grasp the rooting of prose diction...
more fused to the open airs
of writings' scarcity...
we need strong readers not numbers...
we need people who are self-involved,
who would spit and kick a copper statue of
the poet represented in a public square with
people of the spoken tongue the real tourists
wondering: who's that?

that aside...
          i went to sleep thinking about chess...
into bed at around 1am
woke up at around 9am...
past two nights? interludes of
perhaps 2 / 3 hours...
    cutting on the alcohol is one thing...
keeping a tally?
proof: co-op sells 1liter labelled bottles
of scotch,
but as it turns out, according to my braille tally?
it's: ⠷⠷ (500ml) + ⠷⠷ (500ml) + ⠷ (250ml)...
they label it as a liter...
but it's actually 1.25liters...
three days later: you get the full picture:
-esque akin to 'and on the third day he rose
again, according to the scriptures...'

good luck to the men and their vanity
projects...
   i will never become as famous as
the man who "invented" stumbled upon
fermentation to produce beer / wine...
distillation to produce whiskey / *****...
dom perignon and albert hofmann
are known now... give it a few centuries later...
****! gone!
       but to overshadow the universal
stability of a woodland pigeon cooing,
a crow croaking, a fox laughing?
   my words are here: yet these examples
retain the future unchanged...
by void, crook, vogue or folly...

so i went to sleep thinking about chess...
there's the king: the point
of the game...
              to topple the king...
get ol' charlie firsty on the chopper...
distract charlie zee 'eck'und
with pseudo-harems and handel...
and fireworks on the thames...
little learning tool offshoot of louis XIV...
the king is just an elevated pawn...
it seems the king only controls the pawns
given his own movement rules...
the queen though?
   she's the bishop and the rook combined,
as she's also the king and pawn, combined...
the knight is the only odd piece
on the whole board...
   why? didn't queens feast their eyes
upon knights of old, at tournaments...
chivalry: the dropped oopsie handerchief moment
when the king wasn't looking?
the knight piece is the only outsider piece
on the board... hence it's ontological
grasshopper routine of jumping
outside the line of pawns and then
jumping back into line...
the king is a king in name only:
it would appear...
  while the most powerful piece on the board
is the queen: since if the king merely
control the pawns:
   at a battlefield a king command pawns
(soldiers)...
  in the background...
the queen will command...
   the bishops, the knights,
   the rooks (houses, castles) -
she's not on the battlefield with with pawns...
and soon knights become judges
and lawyers - merge with the bishops...
i never like playing chess -
but i liked thinking about chess...
  from the perspective of: the queen is
the most powerful piece on the board...

you could even rewrite chess by expanding
the board... so it would look like so:

1. denotes pawn         9. denotes king

2. denotes bishop        6. denotes queen
3. denotes knight        4. denotes rook.


1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
         9 3               (battlefield formation)
      2 4 4 2             (behind the scenes formation)
        3 6    

but the board would have to be expanded from
64 to say... 100 squares... per board...
it's still chess... but with a twist...
it's what real life would look like...
one knight would be faithful to the king
and stand behind his army on the battlefield...
the other knight would be *******
the queen in secret surrounded
by castles and the clergy / the judicial system...
well: so many people have become so good
at the game of chess...
   kasparov vs. deep blue...
         so smart: and yet no imagination.

besides... i had more important things to do
today than remember what i fell asleep with...

1. making the perfect sausage rolls...
the most pristine invention of the english
and how the french fumed when their puff
pastry was "degraded"...
never use meat from sausages...
always minced pork...
and instead of adding carrots...
celery... and who would have thought
that fennel seeds are the secret ingredient...

2. watching india get their *******'
whipped and their ***** put into
a meat grinder by the new zealand side
at the cricket world cup...
**** me the last 5 overs!

3. lamenting the state of cinema...
the pursuit of "being" via distraction
with the end goal of fulfilling "happiness"...
so much for "being" and so much for "happiness"...
take two prime examples...
it only took 8 years to spare all the details
that seperate them...
1958's the inn of the sixth happiness
starring ingrid bergman...
those movies! mmm hmm!
i would gladly take away all the current
heavy editing and metallurgy scaled
CGI for a classical western panoramic view...
no dialogue... just an expansive camera
distance where the characters are dwarfed
by the grander scheme of things:
even if it's just a valley or a field...
cinema dropped the paranoramic
   interlude, resorting for the clausto-****
of heavy editing with multiple cameras
switching backwards and forwards
like watching a game of tennis...
    actually: both genres degraded themselves
dropping the panoramic view at times...
less in sport, more in cinema...
but this is 1958... the 1950s! the glory days of cinema...
fast-forward to 1966... and the film:
ALFIE...
       what's the difference between a lothario
and a ****? a self-employed ******...
or some other weird combition of 'not-a-joke'...
wait a minute... why are the women
so ******* dumb come the mid-1960s in cinema...
while back in 1958: they were so admirable?!
ingrid bergman learned mandarin,
she was ambitious, she was stubborn...
she was bossy...
  come the 1960s we're talking about
    beings without either soul or will
simply orientated at being dumpster *** toys...
i don't even know where the men
did that to them...
           the women in 1950s cinema
gained respected... they were commanding...
or at least decisive in giving
the least expected virtue: generosity
and on top - a sense of fairness -
                             a merit pyramid...
1960s cinema women, "women" are nothing
more than sloppy teenagers...
these women are not women...
1960s cinema doesn't depict women...
it's starting to depict one direction:
  pissy-pants teen girls...
               ******* at the sight of harvey styles
sighing and ****...
        plus... back in the day:
cinema used to be... engaging...
ben-hur? how long? 5 hours?
  gone with the wind? how long? 7 hours?!
cinema like opera: 15 minute interludes,
toilet breaks before the next part went on...
now? a quckie 1.5 hours long CGI ***** fest
of minimal dialogue and the heavy editing
juxtapositions of "angles"...
       people don't watch modern cinema
because it's engaging...
they watch it... because it's... distracting...
pretty bright lights! ooh! aah!
i love the fact that i'm being snarky
           and sarcastic... what else can you be?!
   i don't even think is missed that much
when it comes to the sub-culture of drugs...
psychadellic or otherwise...
i ****** well missed on a decent amount
of cinema...
   and when that happens...
       look at me...
                            what's that phrase...
a bitter old man... aged 33...
bitter doesn't even cut it...
              it's not even a bitterness...
it's an elevated sense of nostalgia...
   for me nostalgia is something i was present
at when it started going to ****...
late 1990s... cartoon network, early internet...
etc.,
              1990s date night movie quality
requiring adults to employ babysitters...
i was there...
1950s cinema? yeah: i wish i was nostalgic
about that... but i wasn't there...
hence the technical observations...
and how, objectively: movies were...
oh god so much better.
has licorice taste                                      
tea can calm upset stomach          
feather leaved fennel
st64 Nov 2013
let's all hold hands, dearly loved ones
and express gratitude for those living..
        as if..
the table high-decked with every sweet-meat
        fennel-sprigs clipped and hazelnut-oil on roast
        a mixed-salad of vivacity and touch of chili in sauce
        a dose of pesto and a dash of chopped-chive
        a pinch of salt on cut sweet-pepper
and so much more....
        means that much

but do they remember..?
surely they do



1.
there was a time when she needed you
but your harsh-judgment turned its back in stiff-penalty
which later led the flow of her life in slow-drip out
on the filthy-floor of a public restroom
as she pushed out her legacy
alone and no friend
                 to grip her departing-hands
                 to clean up the red-mess
                 to wipe down the bawling new-
blob
surviving its necessary-squirm on the cracked-tiles

you heard the knock-of-need at your Hellenic-door
and the pillow you flattened and stuffed further in
    you couldn't offer a slit of time
    you wouldn't open that wretched-door
    you could not stop choking back old-tears
and when you checked your porch in the evening
your recently-scraped leukocytes blew a green-fuse
a small white-cat in a corner sat pondering your move
as a pile of singed-feathers lay in neat-disorder

now, here you are, grimacing with her crying-babe in arms
this poor orphan will be at bitter-play with some coarse-baubles
just like her scraggly mother, but she'll outlive that false *stain



2.
you swallow two blue-ones
        lose track of yourself
you never remember what you forgot
while you glibly insult those who pass by
belittling their big-arses and blue mini-purses
until the cycle goes round that beguiling-circuit once more
and you can't open a paxity-envelope with arthritic-heart
'cause you'd endure anything not to relive..
until tinkling-coins are all you hear falling
from your grandfather's endless-pocket


3.
appearing at the side of the latest arrival
we all welcome the burly-figure yet with tapered-fingers
who sits next to me and we try a smile, comes out dry
    I lost my grandchild to an accident last spring
    and he lost his daughter (we learn)
hello, Ixion.. yes, so sorry to hear..

he recounts his open-horror and mouth-dropping hell-tale
of his sweet-kin's blind-search for escape
he acknowledges what he never could.. at home
his final gin-soaked treachery against humanity

I am silent in here
I am at odds with this circle of strangers
          who pour out laden-things, some getting their catharsis
          everyone talks of how they loved and who was lost
but who remembers the broken-lives left behind
on the rickety and twisted conveyor-belt of life?

     my daughter now believes she sees her child's face in trees
     and has taken to counting each and every new-leaf she sees
                                                            ­                              fall
                              ­                                                            fall
­     when she remembers to open her eyes (in her morning)
                                         to step off her bed
                                         to go to the toilet
                                         to blot out the sun
                      to count the leaves on windy-days
she ends up re-counting and I have no heart
                      to correct her
                      to fix the frustrations that fate fuel-flung her way

I wonder.. where she learnt this habit?
they do say all behaviour is
learned..

daylight beckons again in gentle, yellow slants
and I recall the two silver-marbles in my pocket
       on its secret-bed of old-leaves, some soft and some crunchy
       thirsty for the soothing-touch of my fidgety-fingers
count.. one, two..
                      one, two..
                               one, two..
yes, one for her.. and  w-w-w-w.. one
for me

one two.......

(oh, one too many a disaster - perhaps perdition has a friendly-face
and I sit with her 'neath
the three trees in the alcove-garden)





some things don't escape the sheer drop
of.. resultant excess-distress
in dark-parched mind-tunnels
untrod for fear of slipping..
in the mess




(now, everyone.. it grows cold
let's eat)






S T - 22 nov 2013
fancy a deck?
hm... thought not!

anyhow.. when I took off my hat today
I found this poem stuck inside
ha.. it musta fallen out me head.. lol





sub-entry: brink

on last hard-brink
unexpected fine-link

wondrous-pearls
on the deep sea-bed

blink once.. and then
dive...
Third Eye Candy Jul 2014
a late harvest in Brigadoon
plucked from good earth
by strong hands
hauling
uphill, until
a gentle
*****
rewards
a stiff
back; easing
a grateful
burden
that levitates
famine

[ bushels ]

now
ziggarats
in a root
cellar

a Sumerian skyline
of parsnips and rhubarb
with fennel minarets

where Gilgamesh slept
in a pantry of pagan loot
underneath a corner room
at the very back
of a round
house.

where four seasons bunk with an almanac

mason jars of pickled beets
breathing their own blood
hanging gardens from the ceiling
of the Underworld
like fliers of missing children
on telephone poles

i go outside and wander off

you stay home
A Friendly Re-Post of an early work. Forgive.
Danzel Jun 2015
You found me in the underlit,
Said I was worth saving
So you stole the fire
Only to put it back inside of me

I licked the flames from your fingers
Like a fennel stalk
And in turn, your immortal mouth
Met my soft,
Devoured my flesh
And each time we kissed,
We burned
With only bones left

But the gods were not so pleased
With our offering
They picked on your insides, dissected you
For the parts of me
That made you whole
And left you aching, aching, aching
And empty

My brave titan,
I will never forget the warmth
Of your scorched hands,
The taste of salvation
A poem based on the Greek myth of the Titan god Prometheus
Two asphalt patched lanes through
the plains bounce our transportation
like bunnies toward the lay of some lake
we wanna survey for fishin'~ just two
tumbleweeds reclaiming time, so we are
flying down the road and barely blink
at the rust bucket gas pump pit-stop  
hole in the road with 45 acre
land lots for sale on all sides as we
drive as dry as deadwood past
one car every 30 pastures
We left the 3 bladed Mercedes wind
generators Ginsu-ing wind
into sashimi current and a random
"Fireplace Restoration Specialist"
sign forgotten as fennel-****  
never knowing what might be over
the grain bin hill-crests next but, all in all
it was a spectacular day of espionage

Written by Sara Fielder © Sept 2016
Softly Spoken Aug 2017
In the arid dust I can see a shimmer of you in the distance, the red of your hair mixing with the ochre earth
Amid the noise and collision of caravansary in Jemaa el-Fna I hear your soft drawl joking with Snake charmers, always in hustle
In souks the sweetness of fennel and myrrh swirl in the wake of travellers steps and I'm reminded of your desert scent, like cedar and musk covered dust
In the dissonance of the call to prayer I can feel your awe as struck as mine, while the roiling sound of voices lifted in faith erupt over the Medina
In the coolness of Jardin Majorelle, I can feel your head resting on my shoulder as I contemplate the reflection of Lotus blossoms in stark blue pools
I see your eyes in the green of the Atlas Mountains, echo your amazement at Saharan navigation, feel your peace as the stars appear over the Riad
But can't feel your hand in mine as the sun sets over Marrakech
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
it's largely based on the introduction, drunk poetry of Bob Dylan's blonde on blonde, or Dave Bowie's heathen albums that can be treated as fully-loaded novels with missing charting song, you can champ the narratives akin to nearing ancient symphonies making Nietzsche more of a German Chopin than an idea formation, excusing himself with too maxims; yep, Bob Dylan's blonde on blonde given Nick Hornby's care for the music in what's a fluke of care for piquant fidelity, country and blues, bought at a supermarket; or avoid both and head straight for Ticlah's si hecho palante.

for some strange reason i woke up early,
usually i miss the morning staying up
till 5 or 6 a.m., like a vampire scared of sunrise,
winter is my most productive period,
summer my least productive,
spring and autumn are seasons when
magic happens, just today the oak tree was
brushing away its flowery bloom
before the fat yoke of chestnuts would fall
a few months later, the spring bloom
of pink or white was already tailored for
the excess greenery of summer, over a period
of two days the flowers withered and
the green leaves appeared.
she once complimented on my cooking skills
and my taste of music, notably *tool
,
i first met her when we got together in the
student flats and two girls were *******-up
frying pancakes... the dough stuck to the
frying-pan... so i said 'you need to put some
oil into the mixture!' hey presto a Michelin star
on my attire rather than Victoria's crux
of a soldier... that's how it goes with philosophy
nothing pompous i promise you,
Plato misquoted Socrates talking about
looking funny at men who sought brothel comforts
(the norm in Amsterdam, no guilt, no tabloid spice,
o.k. o.k. Leo Getz style, 'it's like going to the gym,
she was South American, plump, she had a little nergo
boy fetch beers for her clients, she kept the window
open so passersbys could hear her moan after laughing
at my addressing her genitalia with may i taste the fleshy
floral patterns?
ah ****, didn't work, you get to write
about *** and it just ends up a string of cliché
like philosophy and the maxim - prostitutes and the
Gemini lips, try kissing both at the same time);
i'd be funny-looking at the other route of philosophers,
mainly through the army, i'm all lazy eye cross-eyed with
those *******... (i do "pending" interludes since
with drunk finger playing the keyboard i tend to
delete by accident about 1 poem for each 10, heartbreaking
experience) - lost the drift, i must be in Birmingham:
no river... no flow. standard model always included
rivers for people congregating, in the countryside
a church would be enough, but for urbanity a river...
this phenomenon of canal cities like Venice is
truly staggering, call it the Maldives of the west,
the Maldives of Europe, 100 years from now
it will probably be more than a Glastonbury fashion
statement of donning farmer John's galoshes.
i've lost the plot... fun-*******-tastic!
oh yeah, the pancakes... well after falling in love
with organic experiments i learnt to love cuisine,
well d'uh cooking, my flatmate just cooked risotto
after risotto until i started pulling rice grains from my nose...
esters and perfumes, the smelly ****, like pickled cabbage,
the grand joke of british asians...
yeah sauerkraut and chicken escalopes are the grand
joke, although try shoving asian spices under your
armpits and you'll be walking the catwalk of Versace for
sure (hey man, stick has two ends!)...
it's an escalope and that's hardly the profanity of
a chicken Kiev, also called a schnitzel... but not schabowy...
you know there's this great aesthetic joke concerning
polish graffiti about the orthography of ****** / phallus
in poland? yep, the variations: huj, hój, chuj, chój...
technically they all sound the same,
they're found next to the anarchists' A and swastikas
on communist apartments.
she wanted so so much, i was at the end of the third year,
and there she is, moving out of her student accommodation
to live with me in my private flat (rented)...
i mean, great... but i'm about to sit my final exams
to get a piece of paper telling others i'm qualified...
what a ******* mess: i know a 3rd of examinable material
i was studying i'll fail, physical chemistry is not my
strong point, organic i can ace, inorganic i can do well on...
but she's there, full-on intense teen... it's a juggling
act that requires a clown, rather than a man,
i'm not saying i'm perfect, but there's too much idealism
in her that requires a hefty stash of pecunia bratus
(money trees)... ah i wish, but had i wished it
i would be writing such uninhibited poems...
up-to-speed... on today's menu!
that's the culinary abhorrence of poetry, remembering
ingredients in recipes rather than rhymes,
for example Thai green curry, and the ***** curry,
the former with spoonful of green Thai sauce to replace
the use of lemongrass, and lime leaves,
actually the limes we replaced with lemons,
the Thai sauce was added, the garlic & ginger paste used,
onions, mangetout added last to add a crispness on the bite,
new potatoes avoided, half a jar of Thai green curry paste,
Thai fish sauce, not salty enough soya sauce was added
(both light and dark), coconut milk of course, caster sugar,
chicken (well, d'uh), basil... yes... basil! lemon zest
and rice, chilli powder!
the second curry involved: cumin seeds, fennel seeds,
a cinnamon stick, garam masala, chilli powder,
turmeric, chopped tomatoes, sugar, chicken stock,
chopped coriander... all in all this is a culinary attack
of poetry, it's not clearly an ancient revenge,
but when i was younger i was instructed to memorise
a poem, aged circa 7... the poem in question was
school bell, i didn't get why we had to memorise it,
it wasn't anything spectacular, i protested,
gave an oath in swear words against my classmates,
got told off... culinary principles invoke the need
to memorise recipes rather than poems,
curbing the influence of fast-food outlets...
i rather remember the ingredient lists of dishes than poems...
indeed i did make these dishes today,
but only because i switched the radio off
and inserted bought art into the device:
Tom Petty's and the Heartbreaker's greatest hits
and !!!'s (chk chk chk's) myth takes album.
betterdays Aug 2014
there are some things,
that just smell so good:
corn freshly shucked, potatoes roasted in campfire coals, carrots fresh from the ground, then washed   and stovetop roasted
basted with butter
and lavender honey.

the nape of my toddlers neck,
that clean fresh hopeful little boy smell.
coffee, straight up, freshly brewed
caramel warming,

passionfruit, strawberries, citrus any type, zested. freshly planed fennel curls, mint crushed for a mojito, roast lamb and rosemary gravy.

the smell of planed wood in the palms of my man's hands as i kiss them. frangipani, coconut tanning oil,
earth newly rained upon. popcorn popping, chocolate melting,
jasmine, orange blossoms,
a grove of pine trees.
warm gingerbread and mulled wine.

salt tang on the morning breeze.
the smell that lingers after the lovin.
garlic and ginger in a hot wok.
salt tang on the evening breeze.
prawns all sea salty and
a crisp cold beer.

sandlewood and citrus aftershave lotion on your smoothed cheek.

nectarines, apricots,
a yellow juicy peach,
freshly bitten.

apple scented shampoo daphne & lilac my nana's smell,
bay *** newspaper print and palmolive soap,
my pop's study.

rose petals crushed.
earl grey tea,
toast just before burning damper and cocky's joy
crisp fresh linen warm from the sun.

so many scents, so many smells...
these are my favourites please feel free to add your's, as long as it's clean
and above board.
damper=camp fire bread similar to soda bread
cocky's joy=goldensyrup.
I wonder how you feel to-day
As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

Help me to hold it! First it left
The yellow fennel, run to seed
There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,
Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder ****
Took up the floating weft,

Where one small orange cup amassed
Five beetles,—blind and green they *****
Among the honey meal: and last,
Everywhere on the grassy *****
O traced it. Hold it fast!

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air—
Rome’s ghost since her decease.

Such life here, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting nature have her way
While heaven looks from its towers!

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control
To love or not to love?
I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O’ the wound, since wound must be?

I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul’s springs,— your part my part
In life, for good and ill.

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul’s warmth,— I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak—
Then the good minute goes.

Already how am I so far
Our of that minute? Must I go
Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,
Onward, whenever light winds blow,
Fixed by no friendly star?

Just when I seemed about to learn!
Where is the thread now? Off again!
The Old trick! Only I discern—
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.
Down, you mongrel, Death!
  Back into your kennel!
I have stolen breath
  In a stalk of fennel!
You shall scratch and you shall whine
  Many a night, and you shall worry
  Many a bone, before you bury
One sweet bone of mine!

When shall I be dead?
  When my flesh is withered,
And above my head
  Yellow pollen gathered
All the empty afternoon?
  When sweet lovers pause and wonder
  Who am I that lie thereunder,
Hidden from the moon?

This my personal death?—
  That lungs be failing
To inhale the breath
  Others are exhaling?
This my subtle spirit’s end?—
  Ah, when the thawed winter splashes
  Over these chance dust and ashes,
Weep not me, my friend!

Me, by no means dead
  In that hour, but surely
When this book, unread,
  Rots to earth obscurely,
And no more to any breast,
  Close against the clamorous swelling
  Of the thing there is no telling,
Are these pages pressed!

When this book is mould,
  And a book of many
Waiting to be sold
  For a casual penny,
In a little open case,
  In a street unclean and cluttered,
  Where a heavy mud is spattered
From the passing drays,

Stranger, pause and look;
  From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
  Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
  Search the fading letters, finding
  Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!

When these veins are weeds,
  When these hollowed sockets
Watch the rooty seeds
  Bursting down like rockets,
And surmise the spring again,
  Or, remote in that black cupboard,
  Watch the pink worms writhing upward
At the smell of rain,

Boys and girls that lie
  Whispering in the hedges,
Do not let me die,
  Mix me with your pledges;
Boys and girls that slowly walk
  In the woods, and weep, and quarrel,
  Staring past the pink wild laurel,
Mix me with your talk,

Do not let me die!
  Farmers at your raking,
When the sun is high,
  While the hay is making,
When, along the stubble strewn,
  Withering on their stalks uneaten,
  Strawberries turn dark and sweeten
In the lapse of noon;

Shepherds on the hills,
  In the pastures, drowsing
To the tinkling bells
  Of the brown sheep browsing;
Sailors crying through the storm;
  Scholars at your study; hunters
  Lost amid the whirling winter’s
Whiteness uniform;

Men that long for sleep;
  Men that wake and revel;—
If an old song leap
  To your senses’ level
At such moments, may it be
  Sometimes, though a moment only,
  Some forgotten, quaint and homely
Vehicle of me!

Women at your toil,
  Women at your leisure
Till the kettle boil,
  ****** of me your pleasure,
Where the broom-straw marks the leaf;
  Women quiet with your weeping
  Lest you wake a workman sleeping,
Mix me with your grief!

Boys and girls that steal
  From the shocking laughter
Of the old, to kneel
  By a dripping rafter
Under the discolored eaves,
  Out of trunks with hingeless covers
  Lifting tales of saints and lovers,
Travelers, goblins, thieves,

Suns that shine by night,
  Mountains made from valleys,—
Bear me to the light,
  Flat upon your bellies
By the webby window lie,
  Where the little flies are crawling,—
  Read me, margin me with scrawling,
Do not let me die!

Sexton, ply your trade!
  In a shower of gravel
Stamp upon your *****!
  Many a rose shall ravel,
Many a metal wreath shall rust
  In the rain, and I go singing
  Through the lots where you are flinging
Yellow clay on dust!
Luna Feb 2019
Madness like a red coat
Around her throat
Drowning in the ruins
Of her own misery
And
Own sorrow
O’ dear child,
You should have stayed
In that garden of yours
Among the myriads of
Growing daises
And
Gifting each of us a violet
For centuries to keep
But how long can
Leaves shade you
From the
Many faces of fate—
The cruelest ones always name after us,
Victims.

Dwell in the many layers of rosemary and pansies;
Look how is ironic history just became
With its indelible smell of
Fennel and Columbius ;

Drawn towards the many
Spun webs of the
Golden singing spiders—
She floats amongst the
Water lilies
From here on.
Lucy Tonic Nov 2013
I hear the shriek of the mandrake
As my future dies
Kiss me under the cherry tree
So we can be lucky
A universal sponge absorbing fennel
Waiting for the mind’s revival
Cooperating with my enemies
Hanging by the cemetery cypress tree
The naked and cunning chameleon
Tries to show his true colors
As Cain the unicorn says,
“Have a good line”
She wears a necklace of opal
It ruins her spiritual insurance policy
Born from the foam of an underwater church
She emerges with St. Christopher
As the future Buddha’s laugh at fate
They pick the road narrow and straight
I hear the shriek of the mandrake
As my future dies
So kiss me under the cherry tree
I want to be lucky
Tryst Sep 2015
Did you ever, as a child, chase a butterfly,
A tiny Golden Birdwing, perhaps
Or a Bronze Roadside-Skipper?

Flitting, faster than an arrow,
Over a rusting wheelbarrow fortress,
Under an electrified washing line,
Dive-bombing plastic remnants
Of the light infantry,

Before spinning away,

Courting the breeze in a whirling dance,
Winged-eyes blazing bright as childrens' buttons,
Vanishing in a cluster of gold chrysanthemums,
Reappearing, fluttering freely,
From a sea of bronze fennel.

Did you dash dash dash,
Arms flailing madly,
Mouth locked in a giggling grin?

And did you ****** ****** ******,
Tiny hands grasping, clutching at air,
Desperate to hold natures princess?

Do you remember?

            Dashing,  Snatching,  Grasping,

And suddenly,

                          She      Was      Gone?

And­ did you dare peep, clumsily,
Into your tiny hands,
Between your fragile fingers,

Half afraid you missed her,
Half again, you may find her,

            Crushed  In  Your  Hands?

The quest for desire is a chase,
So demanding,
So determined,
So distracting,

Attainment without consequence
Is your end game,
And is all that matters

Until you face the consequence
Of your end game,
When all that matters

            Is  What  Remains  In  Your  Hands?
Being the third ...
James Floss Jan 2019
Bless me Padre for I have sinned
My last confession was 3 poems ago

Padre, I watch ****; food ****
Lamb shank in a garlic fennel sauce

Pig parts unknown wrapped in bacon
Tri-tip and tripe marinated in marrow

Padre, I eat my veggies
(caramelized broccoli florets in a Béarnaise sauce)

But **** that man Bourdain!
Again and again and again!

I find myself drawn to pork stewing
In decadent assorted sweet-meats

Padre, I need a chlorophyll cleanse
Please accept my humble supplication…

What? Three kale martinis and one cauliflower?
I repent! Let the cleanse begin!
Caroline Grace Jan 2014
Once a month the doctor visits.
She makes her trip inland, driving from
her coastal town to our village
hidden in the hills.

Here, people rarely get sick.
They say whatever's carried in the wind
stops them getting dizzy in the heat.
They believe in the hills,
gifted with sweet smelling herbs
waiting for the miracle of alchemy
to transform them into oils, infusions,
syrups and decoctions-
feverfew for headaches, fennel for digestion,
lavender for dreaming.
The doctor's young,so has an open mind.
Never critical, she's always willing to listen.

Most days, she's woken by the ocean
on its way to demolish the dunes.
Dragged back by an invisible force,
it roars in frustration, straining
like a tethered beast demanding
to do what it pleases.
But Earth won't allow it just yet
and the ocean knows who's in charge,
the rules will change only when She decides.

The doctor's irritated.
She can't see the ocean any more,
her view's obscured by unfinished business-
silent carcasses of half-built villas.
She can taste the salt.
Feeling trapped, she would like to find shelter
in another skin.

But today, her cure is in the hills.
At her door, she waits for the mist to lift.
It whispers there are other choices.
To unlock another door while she still has time.

                     *

In each on of us there survives an intuitive preference
for all things natural. The great continuum of life that
contains and sustains us.

copyright © Caroline Grace 2014
BB Tyler Oct 2014
wave-front
cloud-break
blue-grey-movement

~~~

below the wind
watching
Redwoods quiver

~~~

the hallowed wine glass
but ah!
the sweet on my lips

~~~

Fennel every Fall
through the chain link fence

~~~

the warmth of my lover
passed hand to hand
polished blue stone

~~~

dust
breaks the silence
sneezing

~~~

a Rose opens
aging
gracefully

~~~

proud Maple
among not yet
yellow Oaks

~~~

peninsulas
embrace the bay
wave-break kisses

~~~

white Aspens
out of sight
white Egret

~~~

Cypress light
spiked and pining

~~~

paying respects
around the lumber mill
procession of Trees

~~~

October road trip
picking haiku
from the breeze

~~~

cloud layers
puzzle piece
the sky
Humboldt, CA
Through olive trees in wooded groves
across sparkling streams swiftly he goes
in a golden chariot that is keenly pulled
by four black Panthers, to the joy of their lord

For this is Dionysus lawgiver wine drinker
god of peace son of Zeus and Persephone
he holds tight the reigns of vine and ivy
to reach the shrine of Apollo finally.

He dismounts his ride still holding his thyrsus
that fennel staff adorned with Ivy poisonous
topped with a titian pine tree cone
here to pay homage to one of his own.

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Ben Dec 2013
the green fairy visits
if only for a night
to soothe this troubled mind
and take away the strife
the minty taste of spearmint
and peculiar taste of fennel
play of tongue and mind alike
in passing and in action
a quick spirit burn and
the blurry edge of truth
shine a light on my emotion
and pass a pass for you
let the race
go on and
be won and
be lost
inevitable
fast
without me


I will be
playing
on the side
of the road
with the daisies
and the crickets
and the wild-growing
fennel


a fleeting whoosh
to the rushing
passerby
and they a whoosh
to me


as clouds
hang humid
and yearn to
speckle their
summer mist
a-top puffs of
breeze and
rosy cheeks
and
saplings


I will be
spending my
sunshine day
with face
upturned and
hair a-mess
and
eyes not
looking where
they're going


© 2017 Adelaide Heathfield
You can choose to race toward a predetermined end alongside a slew of equally eager competitors. And end up exactly where you decided to be, with a number fixed to your shirt and if you're lucky, a medal hung round your neck.

Or you can choose to wander off the track completely and see where it takes you. It might be dangerous. It might be lonely. It might be peculiar.

There are racers and there are gallumphers, I suppose.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2020
no other - a windowsill and an open window -
sitting on a folded leg and slouched
like a crow - i would be begging for it to rain -
no other music can capture rain -
safety net of all that sporadic improv. -
                      other other music - except jazz...
whether it be rain nibbling on the countryside
or the full-on cosmopolitan havoc of grey,
dust, grease, cement and rats and glass...
                 never mind: because i never thought
i'd say this...
                of the moderns... closely ruling out
wojciech kilar - for no particular reason other than
he's probably more known -
christopher young - since his hellraiser stint...
what's new - the revamped pet cemetary?
well... if christopher young was primo...
      soon to follow him... graham... plowman...
work on h. p. lovecraft adaptations...
                     horror as a genre...
                                the music wins me over...
however spectacular the visuals are...
                               if the music isn't bone grinding -
unsettling the nerves -
well... that's like pop music when it's raining...
i guess: oh i guess jazz can capture more feelz
when it comes: when it's raining...
when it's lazily sun-dazzling with the impression
of an "underneath" sizzling sensation -
or melting butter - or for that matter melting chocolate...
or adding splashes of cornflour made in water
to a sauce and watching it thicken...
this recipe i will remember by heart...
i will have to at someone point...
but this dhal was quite sublime...

   scrap book recipe...
          a man in a kitchen...
               and in hell... the devil's mastery...
almost like a chemistry experiment...

       half and half: masoor and mung dal... lentils...
kabuli chana (chickpeas)...
    a bay leaf...
              3 cloves...
  a tsp of cumin coriander turmeric
                     chilly powder and another of kashmiri
   chilly powder
                chopped tomatoes
  coconut milk...
            onion ginger garlic
                spinach
      gochugaru flakes coriander for garnish...
veg and chicken stock...
                          ghee...
butternut squash...
                    cayenne pepper (1 tsp)...
    i was looking for a pinch of asafoetida...
i knew it was in the kitchen...
    alas... also know as a substitute for those
vegan cults that don't include eating onions
and garlic... or perhaps just onions...
    cinnamon stick? no...
but three decent pinches of a homemade
garam masala...
  and yes...

   https://ministryofcurry.com/moms-garam-masala/
is the only spice blend...
   the russians can have their nukes...
the americans can have their nukes...
i have an arsenal of the following spices and...
i'm feeling... like i just had a manicure done...
the only garam masala:
asafetida, bay leaves, black peppercorns,
black cardamom, cardamom, cumin seeds,
(sorry, no black cumin seeds),
      cinnamon, cloves, cordiander seeds,
dried chillies, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds,
(mace? no mace)...
         nutmeg, poppy seeds, star anise...
turmeric...
          again: no stone flower...
well... that's almost covered it...
                it's not the recipe asks for black
mustard seeds... those i do have...

                   cult recipe and it says: who needs...
meat?! even i'm convinced...
god i do love a good steak tartar...
    anything ****** and oozing wriggly bits
of life - as tender and gelatin grizzly as a...
even the names: bleu... ooh... saignant...
  haha... medium: demi-anglais... what else?

the butchers rolling in their graves
when someone orders a steak: fini-bien...
                          or some other frankenstein of the kitchen...

coleman hawkins - the high and mighty hawk...
some guys were putting up a fence
for me and my neighbour - it only took 15 years
but who's counting - they were told to
cut out all the bushes and foliage in my garden...
so that they could get a straight line
and so the fence would be put up...
unlucky for my rosemary bush...

r.i.p. my rosemary bush...
        today i started to salvage the poor thing...
the newer shoots i placed in water for
a drink and hopefully 2 weeks from today
i might think about planting them back in
the ground... for the rest of the bush?
i had to freeze the rosemary...
all afternoon my fingers were scented with rosemary...
which is fine... when you're working
with a raw piece of lamb...
but i'm no walking and breathing and aching
lamb of god about to be hanging
on the cross...
                even through the soap...
an afternoon of my hands being heavily scented
with rosemary...

vivaldi can have spring and the other three
faces of "god"...
holst can have his mars and the other circle of hell...
but thank the high-flying-****
that jazz can capture a rainy day better
than that song: i'm only happy when it rains
by garbage...
            
  guess i'm not letting go...
         an active rebellion against classical music...
one jazz record after another and i can gravitate
to...ward... the entire e.p. being played...
none of that new wave harakiri diat l.p. scene -
much appreciated... but i always need to move
beyond the half-an-hour mark...

         then again: i can't see how jazz could
compensate for snow - snow on the exit format -
jazz doesn't - then again...
no, categorically...
                           if there's only a sly insert of drum...
no horns - the piano and some guitar -
  
   otherwise you can't go wrong with
joshua redman - back east...
         a modern classic - notably with zarafah...

speed-conversations - none clinging
to a cameo of a date...
                 fickle minded - always changing
the course of events that... nonetheless remain
intact on binding themselves to a blind will -
        
music and all these interpretations are my own -
too bad to see and have to work with
a cipher - what's behind this image -
what's behind that image -
at least music stands stark and shivering naked...
less chances to abide by some propaganda...

unless of course mathematics is to be given
the crown - i hardly think: one shouldn't really
think about music -
                one can never really fathom
the constraints and the escapees from these
constraints... these constant revisionary scribbling
over and skimming the orthodox:
brick-on-brick intricacies of: immoveable objects
being: nonetheless moved...

- i too am waiting for my libido to die off -
anytime soon... like right now...
no harem therefore "jazz hands" and the algebra
of "magic fingers"...
idle man and all that *** that could have been...
until that magnetism is steered off a cliff
of: not another tomorrow -
                    at least no ***** or *** doll upon
the horizon -
            no point getting intimate or personal...
only a few days back i found a weakness in
this exoskeleton -
standing in a shower... pouring running water
onto the back of my head...
i almost knelt and said my prayers from
the exhaustion of succumbing to this multiple-******
of nuance...
       right on the spot where
a higher evolution of a more, protruding occipital
bone: as i've heard it once before: being noted...
i'm waiting for my libido to **** itself off...
in the meantime no harem...
imagine my luck when it comes to
the wisdom served up by men like king solomon...
even by then:
this most exhausted man had
to settle for a swan's dignity in monogamy
with the queen of Sheba...

                 but it's hard to translate wisdom
when you have all the basic forebodings
already at your disposal... the harem will discover
***-toys and you will be...
the limp **** in the whole affair...

                 such hard-on feats of fear when it comes
to... two cakes too many
when all you've been asking for is, merely a slice...
jazz... i can't find
a clint eastwood in alcatraz...
or steve mcqueen in sagan...
               or witold pilecki in auschwitz...      
but i can find myself in jazz...
hummingbird or some, other, champagne flute
and that bothersome fly...
nothing against flies: everything against
mosquitos... i would **** those buggers with
the same joy of donning wool having
just sheered a sheep or two...

jazz and: the wriggling fish...
jazz and all the fish out of water...
i'd call them constipated ***** and lobsters
but... jazz and the wriggling fish...
jazz and smoking a cigarette to appreciate
the deaf centre point of night's culminations...
living close by to central london...
"walking in" and not feeling like
anybody important: or a tourist...

       if i wasn't a billy joel: i would most certainly
not want to be a bob dylan -
hard to be living the obscure with a cross
made up of iconography...

the applauded and the: billy joels' piano man meets
neil young's old man...
they shake hands and subsequently depart
where the crossroads begin, and end...

believe me when: i'm the last to be believed...
usher in a dozen penguins attired
to be... fizzy kosher dosh...
in all their napkins and bowtie-neck strangle 'em
into a hush of a bamboozle...

such the life the music the mathematics
of living in shackles - wriggly ol' ****** with
those improv. would-be-turns and...

how many words will it take for it to be clear...
i have nothing but rejoice at clinging
to my obscurity... primo amigo:
alea iacta est: too bad for me...
or too bad for my shadow...
                       faking being a gemini
in the horoscopes of fate and superstition...
shadow: mime out of the confines...

      these is my second chance at retaining
the crown of obscurity? is it?! is it?!

   to have to burden oneself with love...
akin to... well... if i were about to spoon her...
but no... i wanted to catch the 8 hour kipper....
but every time i would fall
to sleep... i'd fall asleep with a tarantula bite...
numb all over to one side...
because i was oh too willing to fall asleep
when clinging to her...
like a bracket fungus to trunk and core...
one side of me complete in numb...
which had a rubric of recitations
should all else not be true...

but *****! that slap in the face...
                             come to think of it...
i'd like something to eat...
less **** with... that could pinch me...
i'm starting to think that
being ganged up by a group of hyennas
is not such a bad way to go...
perhaps being mistaken for a tuna
when a shark attack is being
noted...
            hard to imagine
sharks or bears or lions as having
sadistic undercurrents to their day-in-day-out
beats...
  even sharks nibble but never gorge
and feast on... this cranium solid first and only
hope when it comes to god
not making mistakes when gambling...
the ******* roulette or a black jacks' "choice"
of cards...

i can't exactly "think" this out to appease
a gravitating en masse...
                       pour me another shot and
debackle! all in the faith and hope
of un-thinking thinking...
trying out this suction tenticle of the void...
replacing descartes' res cogitans with
res vanus... what is due: is due...

no more wisdom from me aged 34
as me aged 73... there's only rain and jazz...
i'm buying time...
concerning whether it would be even
remotely likely to appreciate jazz
when it's snowing... unlikely...
very much hell-bent unlikely...

      - who would have thought that peering
into an aquarium would have to,
become more entertaining that zombie-clad
watching a t.v....
what ever happened to the watching
a klepsydra... or the tick-toe-tightening
of seconds into minutes into hours...
dying from the skeleton diet of time
whenever catching-up: unaware with
the clock in the confines of:
old people not really...
no, not really, listening to coleman hawkins'
much of anything...

                     because this doesn't tease
the affections of the young...
like a trainspotting revamp might....
because there's, clearly no new dracula...
and there's no new: new....
                     i wait patiently like a salamander....
no easy picking no low hanging fruit...
no fatty boy'oh to matter...
         no leeching off the three-quarters
of                               the better part of the engineering
cohort that were behind
the manhattan bridge... or Malbork Castle...
and hands on hands: do touch...
the event horizon of a dead star...
                    in that: pulling fabric...
basic genesis... talking fire "misanthrope": "god"...
bushes outgrowing fungus when
it came to 1970s ***** flicks:
notably in fwench and italian...
                   prune the perm hair...
                             keep that afro on a leash!

these days ***** is half of the cure's nostalgia
and more...
onomatopoeia and...
    refining the contorts with painting...
and keeping the act on a hush...
               the lazy hands speaking
dozen **** cracks being discovered but
none being experienced...
bone the hand...
it's called a ****** just because
of oysters... it's called a ******
because of the clams and of the irises...
and because the tongue:
god... ever time i wanted it to exfoliate...
it's forever that timid tulip!

         what came of a ****** became a hand
and the cusp... and what would never
become a San Francisco needle hinge epidemic...

was anyone praying that
one direction would become the next rolling stones...
cougar: meow...
that **** jagger was going to be
the "reincarnated" harry styles?

           knock-knock... who's there?
a premonition... i.e. touch-wood...
base: i will require the wood to be touched
by bone - notably a crunch of the knuckle in how
the fist is formed / fathomed...

        otherwise known as the lap-lapping-dance-off
with a tongue wriggling in imitation
closure of a worm...
or a fighter for a boxing champ. contender...
belt-up... knot and noose down....
the new news is no: good skit...
i **** myself to fickle my shadow
whenever i see a hoopla or a trance inducing
recoil of the swinging dancing spare
of a: rope that's not leftover for
the dangling first come first served...

daydreaming zeppelins...
the day the elevated english man will fall...
and bring down the bowler hat with him...
touch the philosopher's stone and turn
that attache of good taste into an umbrella...
the same day i stop daydreaming
about zepplins...
will see me think of the anglo-saxon
as whittle brother... the younger Swabian...
and all part of the infuriated minor
Germany that found inkling to behave
like the nomad Yids...
and move... and move... and...
never the sort of people to conceive of a ship...
without also being receptive of carrying
an anchor!

then again...
                   monkey man albino and...
forever the one to follow the white rabbit back home.
Antony Glaser Jun 2016
Glad you got some fennel
from the Sunday market,
it's delightfully culinary
it look good in the alleyway.
Your  neighbour is spot on
there's a profusion of  scaffolding
in the street.
she jokes maybe subsidence ?
But  it's more,
keeping up with the Joneses;
spending as a reflex action.
People are as elevated as busy bees
Activity, activity,
idleness can turn us into tripods,
staying still, is no good.
Mateuš Conrad May 2021
at what point that the sense of taste before
subjectively exclusionary
to the point of teasing itself as being
synonymous with objectivity?

beside: taste as subjectively inclusionary
is somehow a: bias
for example in two statements

(a) the Indian-subcontinent cuisine
is superior to the rest of the world...
  
   (b) Baltic "sushi" is superior sushi-sushi...
sushi-proper... Japanese "mushy" - no shy-moo
in sight...

well... question is... what can be objective
about taste...
perfect example... pasta al dente...
no one can argue with that one...
pasta is either just underdone and therefore
perfect or it's overdone and it's
only worth to put in some chemo-tomato
soup canned...

you can also overcook rice...
objectively you cook without salt...
which implies that if you don't cook with salt...
you're not exactly cooking at all:
as i once heard: food without salt isn't food...
it's produce...

it's not subjective to say: under-seasoned...
but still... the statement -
the Indian subcontinent cuisine is superior
to all the rest...
since there would be an argument for
south-east Asian cuisine... Chinese cuisine...
Italian...

there would be but...

(b) raw herring with gherkin, apple and dill
in a creamy sauce on a slice of toasted rye bread
is... well... what's the alternative...
a slice of raw salmon on a cushion of mushy
rice dipped with soya sauce / a green horseradish...

(a) a curry is... in all fairness... a gravy...
a stew...
   yes... but what over gravy / stew has an arsenal
of spices that could match you
to the Soviet stockpile of atomic warheads?
even yesterday as i was recovering from (a propos,
more on that later)

i came about a curry base recipe...
most other recipes involved merely
throwing some Kali dust mindlessly at tinned
tomatoes with the usual suspects
of onion, garlic and ginger...
however many times i did make this
recipe: turns out there's a difference between
a korma and a pasanda
        and since i was defrosting some lamb...

- but that i have a korma powder in my arsenal...
it's never enough to just... use a "swiss army knife"
when cooking...
i can't stress it enough, for the base:
onions, garlic, ginger... carrots... a green pepper,
a red pepper, chopped tomatoes,
say... madras curry powder, cumin, coriander,
turmeric, SMOKED paprika...
and of "course": ground fenugreek!

there's only an exclamation mark
after fenugreek since once i followed a recipe
that said to use seeds...
the first time i used fenugreek... like the first
time you use... Szechuan pepper...
or a black cardamom...

and then obviously... some sugar...
sultanas, ground almonds... coconut milk...
the best ****** sauce i ever tasted:
but there was more to it... you can't just
throw Kali dust at a can of tinned tomatoes...
or restrain yourself to merely onions, garlic, ginger...
what if i were a priest and i'd frown
at garlic? well... that i know:
                 asafoetida (a fennel like the scent
of rotting garlic)...       anyway...

am i being objective or subjective?
          for me the Italians can't just cut it with...
rosemary, oregano, fennel, thyme, marjoram...
plus... the health benefits of turmeric
and ginger?
it's essentially a stew... a gravy...
but no other cooking allows you to play
chemist once more...
  and i sometimes do miss those organic chemistry
experiments at Edinburgh
that could sometimes last for weeks...

subjectively this... objectively: under-seasoned,
not al dente, overcooked, too salty...
too spicy... bland... but there will always be some
h'american comedian who'd say:
burgers and frankfurters make the world
go round...
yeah... and in Russia you have this
pancake fast-food outlet that serve you...
well pancakes... with caviar...
because you can drive a car and eat a hot dog...
apparently...

the Indian-subcontinent cuisine...
give me that... and i can forget the rest of the world...
with one exception: Baltic "sushi"...
that food is ingrained in me like bone
or a croak-and-gargle to a crow...

- but if taste cannot be subjective to be a "respected"
opinion...
then it's back into the robotic, objective:
edible... inedible...
and the minor-objective cues of... al dente...
spicy... salty...
   this whole "superiority" statement...
                                  even though the amount of spices
& the kaleidoscope of nuances
of say: merely fennel...
                          a tulip is not a tulip is a rose
isn't a rose is a blimmin' buttercup...
nonetheless, elsewhere: a tomato is a tomatoe
is toad-matted-o... hiccup...

which brings me to... the toothache...
this close to a second astra-zeneca jab and
i might be on course for a second round of health
tourism...
it's not like i haven't tried...
over a year ago... visiting my local NHS
dentist...

- can i register? i was registered elsewhere
but i neglected that practice
plus i moved from the Ilford vicinity...
no i haven't been to a dentist in over a decade...
but now this 15+ year old filling has come loose
and...
- we are currently not accepting any new
NHS registrations...

well sure, with the pandemic and "pandemic"...
so i called the emergency number
and managed to squeeze in a visit for
a makeshift filling that... if i wouldn't bit into hard
toffee could last me well into 4 months...
apparently...
but when an opportunity arose circa June of last
year i hopped on the chance to travel abroad
to see a dentist...
well... it's been almost a year & that one hiccup
when that tooth hurt again:
why have we lost out intuitively-superstitious
grasp of sensations? it hurt to the bone...
when my grandfather died and... what... nothing?
here it is... at it again...
a year later and i still can't register...
i'm guessing... another year to wait for registration
and then... maybe 5 years to see a dentist proper:
for the root-canal treatment!
or... get that second jab... ******* to Poland
to see a dentist... privately...
well... even if I saw one privately in England
based on the quality of the temporary filling?

well... the filling is still intact...
what came across as a toothache might have actually been
a gum infection...
but since any sort of acute pain first disorientates...
antibiotics all that painkiller sobriety:
mr. zombie dr. sleep...
after the feud with the brain passes...
after your mind has opened up to nonsensical dreams...
the alleviation of acute pain brings back focus...
tooth-tip below the berg of gums...
rat's a labyrinth clearly i don't care much
for the jab to meat-head through a moshpit at some
festival, or turn into a copperneck on some beach
in Greece...

elsewhere: simultaneously... a cacophony from the news
outlets...
when Christine Chubbuck shot herself in the head
because her toe was too small...
and a movie was made about her...
with the end scene of her being strapped
to a hospital bed... because... well...
she didn't use a cockcroach buster of a shotgun...
a Shasha Johnson... and her litany of race-baiting...
it's like that butterfly effect:
one man's toothache is another man's bullet in the head...
or a woman's in this case...
Christine Chubbuck wouldn't die from
that urban myth surrouning headless cockroaches
dying from starvation...

the list though:
      CLINDAMYCIN-mip (clindamycinym) 600 μγ-
the antibiotic...
    codeine phosphate hemihydrate / paracetamol 15 / 500μγ
      CO-CODAMOL...
and since this painkiller is prone to give
you constipation...
   something for your stomach-lining:
    OMEPRAZOLE 20μγ...
    
but of course... a curry would help... to get your
digestion up to speed...
3 days of constipation and a mere thought of an Indian
arsenral of spices... a whiff of them...
charge of the **** brigade!

- and for someone who loves food... chewing more than
yapping with a red-hot poaker of a propaganda juice toong'...
however est. or anti-est.
   one brain-wash less either side of the fence...
but i know which side is a rhetorical cascade
and which side is a mantra machine...
which side is grizzly-arghh and which side is...
boistrously waspish...

but that's not all of it... you'd have to be familiar
with the Marathon Man...
Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier...
   whoever said all nazis were evil?
   Christian Schell...
               well... it's a joke...
EUGENIA CARYOPHYLLUS...
              syzygium aromaticum... if you've seen
the movie... aromatherapy? clove oil?
em... sure thing... yeah... it's primarily aromatic...
sure, the bottle reads: only for external use...
insufficient evidence to suggest analgesic properties...
hello mr. rat... hello mr. chimp...
hello mr. southpaw chubby-jab brigade...

time's for experiments... anyone and everyone to their
scepticism: what works best for you...
chance of me getting root canal treatment...
a drowning man will grab a razor's edge...
a drowning man wilbb grab a razor's edge...
because all medicine is beyond rancid beyond
chalky... i wasn't expecting the clove bud oil
to be... syrupy sweet mind you...
but as someone who wants to return to evenings with
ms. amber whiskers and the basic point
of the mouth and teeth: to ol' chew-chew...

lessons learned... waiting in line -
       to bypass the waiting game with placebo scepticism
of the otherwise effective painkillers and
antibiotics... but as a man who's irresistable
to any sort of agitation & momentum...
the immediately available: whatever proof or lack
of it there is...

in the back of my mind: it's hardly arsenic;
for now it's just me, the tooth and Christian Schell
and a song: 'if i had teeth made from diamonds,
             if i had teeth made from diamonds,
             i'd be on a diet of milkshakes!'
          
p.s.

original title: by
original "work":

bitter sweet
myopic
glutton

    anything to push through Eugenia & Herr Schell.
brooke Sep 2017
what do you call that--in the morning?
between dried citrus fruits, orange and
lemon pinwheels strung on fishing wire
persimmon and crystalized cinnabar
soft bread rolls wrapped in muslin
with filtered sun refracting
through the crown glass
around her head like parhelion--
and she touches the spices
sumac, saffron, fennel, mustard seeds
and she touches the dishcloths
and she touches
and she touches
and she touches.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
SkinlessFrank Oct 2016
Macerate a few herbs aromatic
fennel, thyme, cardamom
inside the fifties housewife’s head scarf
before she stows away on the back of
an air force drone
to the old country
where her mother’s
slaughtering a goat with a
broken Coke bottle
and her father’s learning how
to dog proof the Christmas tree
No one’s taken off their boots in months
and when she passes them the shoe horn
it’s all over as soon as the landlord says
“Please, no ethnic cooking”
and you foolishly reply

“It’s just hard boiled eggs”
SkinlessFrank Sep 2016
Macerate a few herbs aromatic
fennel, thyme, cardamom
inside the fifties housewife’s head scarf
before she stows away on the back of
an air force drone
to the old country
where her mother’s
slaughtering a goat with a
broken Coke bottle
and her father’s learning how
to dog proof the Christmas tree
No one’s taken off their boots in months
and when she passes them the shoe horn
it’s all over as soon as the landlord says
“Please, no ethnic cooking”
and you foolishly reply

“It’s just hard boiled eggs”
The absinthe was poured
Soon thirst will be quenched
The water then added
The green fairy did change
So my brain could be drenched
And my mind would derange
What was peridot green
Is now most opaline
The fennel and anise
Are present indeed
But the taste of the wormwood
Is the flavor I need

— The End —