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I lie on my back at midnight
hearing the marvelous strange chime
of the clocks, and know it's mid-
night and in that instant the whole
world swims into sight for me
in the form of beautiful swarm-
ing m u t t a worlds-
everything is happening, shining
Buhudda-lands,
bhuti

blazing in faith, I know I'm
forever right & all's I got to
do (as I hear the ordinary
extant voices of ladies talking
in some kitchen at midnight
oilcloth cups of cocoa
cardore to mump the
rinnegain in his
darlin drain-) i will write
it, all the talk of the world
everywhere in this morning, leav-
ing open parentheses sections
for my own accompanying inner
thoughts-with roars of me
all brain-all world
roaring-vibrating-I put
it down, swiftly, 1,000 words
(of pages) compressed into one second
of time-I'll be long
robed & long gold haired in
the famous Greek afternoon
of some Greek City
Fame Immortal & they'll
have to find me where they find
the t h n u p f t of my
shroud bags flying
flag yagging Lucien
Midnight back in their
mouths-Gore Vidal'll
be amazed, annoyed-
my words'll be writ in gold
& preserved in libraries like
Finnegans Wake & Visions of Neal
softcomponent Feb 2014
There is the latent hum of some probably-industrial sumthin-or-another in the distance. Sounds like a ferry at dock, or the Townsite mills characteristic hum of eternity as it once acted as the forever-whitenoise of my past life in Powell River.

Sasha has gone to see her friend a floor down. I sit candidly at her desk typing these words on her MacBook Pro.. her dorm is an ambient water of a place, but with every passing night I spend in it, it becomes harder and harder to fall asleep. The bed feels like wood board or padded cement now. Sasha rolls around in her sleep, occasionally choking on her tonsils and gagging a prolonged operatic note of snores. It's not like she can help it.. often, she talks about removing her tonsils as if it's something she can do with a spare moment between classes.

The dorm was easier for me to inhabit when I imagined her living quaintly and quietly without my constant everywhereness.. on her first night alone in bed, she slept like a baby and the overheating, I'm sure, was less to bear in my absence as there wasn't a ******* furnace spurning mammalian blood to every antipode of my body for the sake of staying alive.. just her capillaries attending to the night-shift and leaving no feedback loop between our ***-drenched thermostats. There was a feeling of otherness to it that I could warm my soul with as if I were people-watching at a mall filled with everyone I've ever encountered in the matrix.

She's beautiful. Sasha, I mean. Superstitious despite her attempts to claim otherwise, but of a massive intelligence often unspoken and endowed with a linguistic nature that can speak regardless of words. Highly suspicious of some perceived bond between Anya and I that can't seem to be severed, and playfully dousing suspicions of general infidelity into many of our brink-night conversations.. I can't say I do much to remedy her paranoia as I always kick it back with consistent jokes of having '30 girlfriends' or 'that was what the girl I ****** the other night said as well! Trippy.'

These are obvious jokes. I would never cheat on her and it's a pain to have her imagine I would.

Christ be honest, I can never find the time to write anymore because I keep pretending I'm busy. I keep glassing my eyes apart with coffee and **** and feeling the inner sting to write and write and write until my fingers are bruised and my entire demeanour is nothing more than an existence in pure, floating consciousness of sleet-covered panic attack self-immoliating itself in a Wal-Mart parking lot just to say hiya, Good God, how's the cloud of idolatry today? Fleeting? Empty? Shat? I'm starting to think you have the shorter end of the stick cuz I'm pretty sure I've found the Kingdom of Heaven and it's all a bunch of beautiful panic remedy exacterbated by SSRI psychedelic depersonalization with a life-wish disguised as a death-wish to push the envelope for mails sake, cuz I've got a message for the human race and all it says is 'humanity is not a RACE chill the **** OUT and become the human pace for the sake of nil planet without a plan you aren't a ******* poster-boy you're a poser' all very stone-cold thoughts in a volcano.. all very valid but pointless semantic gestures towards Finnegans Wake and the sequel I'd like to write called Finnegans Nap.

The other day, I stole a book from the university library.

I had a freelance article I had to start and preferably finish that same day, and Sasha had decided to skip psychology for Charles Bukowski so we scouted a quiet space on the windowsill overlooking the perpetual busk of student body.. I plugged my laptop in and sourly gazed at the flakey subjects I had to choose from until I noticed we were right next to a giant section entirely dedicated to the study of the Beat Generation. I picked out the closest book, and dove up on some academic diatribe about the implementation of Timex making watches an affordable commodity during the post-war boom, causing economy to become totalitarian in its accuracy and thus mental hegemony. It worked its way into stating that Jack Kerouac's On the Road was a blatant and concise rebellion against this form of timekeeping in its hedonic, careless flow that was not marked by 6 o'clock or on-the-dot redundancy.. the subject matter being so dense and alluring, I turned to Sasha and said, 'I have to steal this book.'

She chuckled a little, being a chronic kleptomaniac herself, and retorted, 'are you sure you can do that? They have these sensor things that go off when you leave.. they'd catch you probably.' In my mind, I was needing to exorcise myself of Judaeo-Christian morality so as to guarantee a survival and thriving intellectual feed regardless of red-tape or monetary symbolism.. I saw myself adapting to a hedonic habit of robbery for the sake of food and freedom or some such half-witted excuse like that, and took Sasha's warning as a challenge to transcend my typical moral comfort zone.

Glassy-eyed, I asked Google how I'd go about bypassing the security scanners and, lo and behold, within 5 minutes I had my answer and was already digging through the books binding with my house-key to remove the magnetic strip hidden in the spine. After 10 minutes of exhilaration and anxiety at potentially being caught, the strip was out and jammed between two loose wood-boards in the window sill. I told Sasha we should try to leave.

As I neared the scanner, I let go of consequence in remembrance of my mortality, the blank expressions on our faces probably hinting at some form of degenerate nervousness had someone decided to analyze us aaaaaand yet.. we made it through as safe as a bird through an open window then out the other side.
excerpt: "the mystic hat of esquimalt"
Donall Dempsey Jun 2017
HITHERING AND TITHERING WATERS OF..

Aaw sure she's my own
little Finnegans Wake.

For my little skeowsha
language is lava

the mind is molten
flowing.

She catches tones and hones
in on the last word.

"pleaseyawannanicecupof...TEA?"

She knows how to
stick question marks on

things like
"...sweets?"

The thunder scares her
on Thursday

& becomes
Thundersday.

The flies bother her on Friday...
becomes Flieday.

Not realising  she is
quoting Mr, Joyce

following in his WAKE.

Or she makes up her own

"ONESDAY...TWOSDAY
WEDDINGDAY...FATTERDAY
SOMEDAY!"

She my little trinketotes
my dear ***** Dumpling.

I read her to sleep.
Not a peep

when Anna Livia Plurabelle...
tells her tale.

Beside the tickling waters of.
Beside the chuckling waters of.
Beside the laughing waters of.

She loves
the music of it all.

"Again!"
she agains it!

" Can't hear with the waters of.
The chittering waters of.

Night now.
Tell me, tell me, tell  me elm.

Night night!
Tellmetale of stem or stone.

Beside the rivering waters of..
Hithering tithering waters of.

Night."
Ryan Jakes Aug 2014
Off we go with a loud hurrah
dog and kid and stuff in the car
buckling up and blasting some tunes
singing along like a couple of loons.
Taking a ride on a sunshine highway
stopping off at finnegans wake
we'll poke out our tongues at the world rushing by us
and belly laugh wildly for belly laughs sake.
We'll sing of tattoos and rowdy bar fights
and rats lounging in vats of ale
I'll silence myself as the bagpipes start blowing
and smile as my little guy takes it away
I'm not sure he quite understands what he's singing
nor that he cares as he fist pumps the air
I watch as he blushes at the lyrics with swears in
then sings them quite loudly, as if I'm not there.
This music you sent us, makes us feel alive
and Kiss me I'm ******* is fun when your five
not suitable listening for such tender ears
but his grin is far wider than it's been in years.
So God bless the Murphys and God bless you too
for bringing such joy on our trip to the zoo.
Thanks for the tunes Cal! :-)
Donall Dempsey Jun 2017
HOW NOT TO SWEAR WHEN ONE IS SWEARING

After I hit it
with a hammer

my old thumb takes on
a now cartoonish character

pulses and throbs
grows biggerandbiggerANDBIGGER.

My three year old
gasps in astonishment

that an adult would/could
do such a silly silly thing.

"Bold Daddy!" she scolds "Bold Daddy!"

My mind screams in silence but
my tongue longs

to utter in the demotic
a good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon

ffffffffffFFFFFFF...word!

I somehow( don't
ask me how )

gaze into my little one's
baby blues

delete the expletive
carefully in slow motion

substitute the first
thing that pops into the mind

the first( as it happens )
of Mr. Joyce's thunderwords.

None of Eliot's
"  Shantih     shantih     shantih "

I had the presence of mind to
"Finnegans Wake" it!

"BABABADALGHARAGHTAKAMMINARRONNKONNBRONN
TONNERRONNTUONNTHUN­NTROVARRHOUNAWNSKAN
TOOHOOHOORDENENTHURNUK!"



"Funny Daddy!" she chortles "Funny Daddy!"

Now whenever things
go wrong and

they will go wrong
( as sure as words is words )

she begs me
to "...do the thunder!"

Waits for her little
bit part so she can

chime in with her
". . .TOOHOOHOO..."

and I gather her up
in my arms and we

both declaim
as one

". . .THURNUK!"
"bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk" is the first of the ten "thunderwords" in James Joyce's FINNEGANS WAKE. Each is a hundred letters long except for the tenth which is a 100 and one words long!

1 ) (thunder):
Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk

2 ) (thunder):
Perkodhuskurunbarggruauyagokgorlayorgromgremmitghundhurthrumathunaradidillifaititillibumullunukkunun

3 ) (clap):
Klikkaklakkaklaskaklopatzklatschabattacreppycrottygraddaghsemmihsammihnouithappluddyappladdypkonpkot

4 ) (*****):
Bladyughfoulmoecklenburgwhurawhorascortastrumpapornanennykocksapastippatappatupperstrippuckputtanach

5 ) Thingcrooklyexineverypasturesixdixlikencehimaroundhersthemaggerbykinkinkankanwithdownmindlookingated

6 ) (shut the door):
Lukkedoerendunandurraskewdylooshoofermoyportertooryzooysphalnabortansporthaokansakroidverjkapakkapuk

7 ) Bothallchoractorschumminaroundgansumuminarumdrumstrumtruminahumptadumpwaultopoofoolooderamaunsturnup

8 ) Pappappapparrassannuaragheallachnatullaghmonganmacmacmacwhackfalltherdebblenonthedubblandaddydoodled

9 ) (cough):
Husstenhasstencaffincoffintussemtossemdamandamnacosaghcusaghhobixhatouxpeswchbechoscashlcarcarcaract

10 ) (Norse gods):
Ullhodturdenweirmudgaardgringnirurdrmolnirfenrirlukkilokkibaugimandodrrerinsurtkrinmgernrackinarockar
Donall Dempsey Oct 2017
HITHERING AND TITHERING WATERS OF..

Ahhh sure she's my own
little Finnegans Wake.

For my little skeowsha
language is lava

the mind is molten
forever flowing.

She catches tones and hones
in on the last word.

"pleaseyawannanicecupof...TEA?"

She knows how to
stick question marks on

the end of things
like: "...sweets?"

The thunder scares her
on Thursday

& becomes
Thundersday.

The flies bother her on Friday...
becomes Flieday.

Not realiasing  she is
quoting Mr, Joyce

following in his WAKE.

Or she makes up her own

"ONESDAY...TWOSDAY
WEDDINGSDAY...FATTERDAY
SOMEDAY!"

She my little trinketoes
my dear ***** Dumpling.

I read her to sleep.
Not a peep

when Anna Livia Plurabelle...
tells her tale.

Beside the tickling waters of.
Beside the chuckling waters of.
Beside the laughing waters of.

She loves
the music of it all.

"Again!"
she agains it!

" Can't hear with the waters of.
The chittering waters of.

Night now.
Tell me, tell me, tell  me elm.

Night night!
Tellmetale of stem or stone.

Beside the rivering waters of.
Hithering tithering waters of.

Night."
Jude kyrie Dec 2015
Finally I am over her at last.
She is melting like a
half forgotten tune.
No longer my ex beloved.
Now fading into old memories

I packaged all her
things she left here,
It's in my storage area.
Fitting into a
single cardboard box
Can you believe that?

I have purged her from
My favorite bar Finnegans.
Now reclaimed I stop
On my way home
from work for
a beer and wings.

Occasionally I forget
she's not with me and
Wait in the car for her
To bare her teeth and
ask if she had
chicken stuck  in them.
But it passes.

I get miffed when I
Come across her
lipstick tube in my glove box.
Or a single woolen glove
of hers in my
winter coat pocket.

Yesterday I found a kibble
Under the sofa
from her yappy little dog.
I had my place manicured
by the cleaning lady.
Muttering to her
about bugs and mice.

But what I  think that I
was really cleaning
Were  old pieces of her
she had left scattered
about in my heart.
Treadmill      


I recite poetry in my head
To pass the monotony
Of my sore knee
While I exercise anyway          

Words tumbling in my mind
To be or not, it still aches
It's like I'm caught in Finnegans wake  
Surfing words, beginning at the end

Ending at the begining for now
Just time consuming rhymes
In my head, told by mimes
Useless mental gestures

Great words insulted
By walking, iambic strides      
Just to count out time, besides
It's just repeated repetitions          

Copyright 9/23/17
Richard L Ratliff

— The End —