Do make it clear if breakfast is included. If not, make a disclaimer: "I am in the belief that you coming over is good. But that somehow this twisted world resulted in someone twisted as me. Who although enjoys the company of someone like you at this hour, cannot accommodate you past sleep. That you can choose to either leave before I doze off, or that in the morning you will readily accept if I can only open the door out for you. You can make yourself coffee. But know that I am wary of being with awake people while I am asleep, as I think you can easily understand."

There are two types of people in the world: the foodies and the cranky ones. I do not intend to be the latter.

Do make sure you expect only as your place can allow. You cannot hope for me to clean up the eye makeup that heavy drinking had caused to drip down my face when what you have is but a cracked mirror and a broken sink. I cannot fix myself up amid your chaos. I would have to look the part. Act the part. Smell the part. You either want me to receive you messy or put you back up. And I know there aren't too many choices, but still. You gotta make one.

Do say only words that you will not choose to forget the next day. Do not make promises of more future promises. Do not paint images of love, kindness, and honesty when we both know our story will only last as long as this night. This is not a contest on who'll be more unforgettable. We both know why we're here in the first place. We both remember too much.

Do consider the possibility that a sleepover may include only sleeping beside each other, but that it does not mean "nothing happened." A conversation can **** me up just as much, perhaps even more, than the real thing. You cannot share to me a universe that you expect me to pretend not knowing the next morning. You cannot accuse me of meddling when you've told me a story of how umbrellas scare the crap out of you and so every time it rains, I remember you. And so every time it rains, I text you, "Where are you?" not in the possessive way others do, but simply to make sure you are somewhere dry and not dying.

Do smile at me the next time I see you, even if we both know we've tried to avoid each other. I, only because I felt you were trying to avoid me first. Even if bitterness starts welling up, please do not look away. You perhaps may have been a mistake, and I may have been yours as well, but we've never been followers of others' ideas of what constitute a tragedy. My love, our love may to them look ugly, but we've agreed their beautiful ***** anyway. Every time they tell me you like a pretty thing, I always think you are being sarcastic. And that only I could see your sardonic point.

[Beer break]

At heto naman ang mga bagay na sana'y 'di mo gawin.

Kung ipagpipilitan mo ang kwarto mo, sana'y siguraduhin mo na mas malinis ito kaysa sa akin. Na 'di ka nakatira sa bahay ng mga magulang mo (dahil maingay ako at matatanda na tayo) o wala kang ibang kasama (sa parehong kadahilanan). Kung tatluhan ang hanap mo't 'di mo naman nakayang sabihin na may ibang babae na pala sa'yong kama ay mas mainam pang makipaglimahan ka na lamang gamit ang iyong mga daliri, mahal.

Wag mo ipagsabayan ang pagkain at ako. Alak at ako, pwede. Ngunit kung ikaw yung tipo na pinagsasabayan ang sarap ng dila't kalamnan, bibigyan kita ng ibang numerong tatawagan. Tayo'y Pilipino't kapag pagkain ang mapag-usapan, kasali ang tuyo, bagoong, balut, at itlog na maalat, mahal ko, seryoso ka bang maihahalo mo ang mga isip-isip na'to sa klase ng almusal na binabalak mo? Je ne suis pas Francais. My kisses will not make you think of food.

Wag mo akong ikalia. 'Di ko ikakahiya anong oras man akong lumabas mula sa'yong tahanan, basta lamang 'wag kang sumalungat kung ang tanging bukambibig ay galing ako sa kanya. Kung ako'y matingnan at mapansin ang biyak-biyak kong puso ngunit bakit nga ba 'di magawang mapalitan, kapag ba'y sinabi kong ito'y dahil sa'yo sana'y 'wag itatwa't angkinin **** minsan kasi'y nabanggit mo na ako . . .

Kaya't kaibigan, 'wag naman masyadong pikon 'pag ika'y na-friendzone, kinakausap ka pa rin naman, diba? 'Wag mo sabihing tunay ngang mas nana-isin mo ang trahedyang dulot ng malisyang 'di nabantayan. 'Wag mo sanang isipin na ang bawat pagpakita ko ng kahinaan ay pagtatawag na bigyang ligaya ang katawan kung masid mo namang lungkot ang siyang nakapaglapit sa'ting dalawa. Walang paghihiwalay sa pagkakaibigan, at kung sasabihin **** wala na tayo'y ipagkakalat ko na minsan nga'y naging tayo, pumili ka.

At ang huli'y sana 'wag **** ipamimigay agad-agad ang sarili mo sa sinuman matapos sa'kin. Madali kang mahalin. Mabilis kang matutunang unawain. 'Di naman sa kita'y ina-angkin. Ang sa'kin lang ay sana'y 'wag **** pagsabayin ang lahat-lahat . . . ng dinarama. Hindi lahat handa na ika'y mahalin ng buong-buo, lalo pa't 'di isa-isa. Tuloy nagmimistulang halimaw sa ilalim ng katre, kahit sa katotohanan nama'y kapareho lang na minsan di'y naging musmos, kapwa walang alam, kapwa nangangapa, kapwa takot, ngunit patuloy pa ring sumusubok.

https://soundcloud.com/lanox-alfaro/the-dos-and-donts-of-1

Vous serez toujours dans mon coeur.
Vous serez egalement mon port dans la tempete.
Essayant de ne pas faire trop d'erreurs,
si je le fais, sourire, t'aime mon ami.

C'est bien de te voir mon ami, A bientôt
I liked the time we spent, when will you come and go
Comment ca va, tu est très occupé avec la vie
I come and go as you Know, but I am free
De rien, voulez-vous être mon amie
I may come to visit, lets wait and see
Prend un jour à la fois
Yes my friend day to day
Viens ici mon amour, pour un baiser*
Sigh I never could resist your accent

I'm having trouble with
The voices in my head
While I speak simple english
They speak fluent french
So I never really know
Just what is being said
Which makes it hard to understand
The voices in my head

I never know exactly
What it is that I should say
Did I arrive at the conversation early
Or am I much to late
Either way I hate to make
The voices sit and wait
While I pull out my French-English Dictionary
And flip through every page

So now every Tuesday
Since Tuesday last
I have been preparing
By taking a French class
So I'll be at the ready
To give an answer back
In case the voices in my head
Ever feel the need to ask

dire je t'aime,
signifie la meme chose
en francais ;)

I woke up this morning
Sporting a Beret
Speaking in an accent
Parlez-vous francais?

With a scarf around my neck
A pencil thin moustache
Afraid I might have woke up French
A slight giggle to my laugh

With a strong urge for fresh Baguette's
I head to the grocery
I told my cat I'd be right back
He looked at me... Cest la vie

Laying down the law of how I react,
Each verse in tune to the universal drumbeat but the thing about
No longer strange the way that miracles occur on a day to day basis

Meditation extends beyond the lyrics
Beyond the sitting still and coming to a peace
Certainly it starts at that but where it ends well depends when one defines
The ending of the meditation
An alternative , alter , degree of difference , meaning to medition could be seen as a conscious act of thinking , but that does not mean there are limits or borders to the edges of the known in fact it extends beyond into the daily uncertainties that flow

Foolish atrocities line our mothers womb and the simple pleasures become lost in fear of life and the only way we know how to counteract that kind of pain is fear , a confused kind of fear
One of distaste and eventually ignorance , ignorance is bliss they say
Well I say it’s not ,just that , I’s ignorance can be hindering , to ignore the mission is the wonderful to breathe in the restraints of feeling as if there has to be an emotion for everything , a deep attachment that clings to the very surging’s of the soul and go open


Open the Pandoras box, of a place so called shame , and see who is waiting there , try the door marked locked because who knows what’s inside , try the bathwater before you step in you might get hot you might see that the mosquito bites are actually just a test to see if you can resist the stress if you can slide past the friction into the aspects of tests that eliminate the need to be greedy into each dead unto each  creed

I hail from the land you call Thai , oh but there’s my Hatian side , tu parle francais? Well I wouldn’t know what to say but I’m French, my accent will tell you I could make a good brew but that’s the highland fence

What’s wrapped up in your DNA? Stories from a bygone age ,
What’s wrapped up in your psyche? Whole worlds that I can not see

I'm having trouble with
The voices in my head
While I speak simple english
They speak fluent french
So I never really know
Just what is being said
Which makes it hard to understand
The voices in my head

I'm never really sure
Exactly what to say
Did I arrive here early
Or am I much to late
Either way I hate to make
The voices sit and wait
While I pull out my French-English Dictionary
And flip through every page

So now every Tuesday
Since this Tuesday last
I have been preparing
By taking a French class
So I'll be at the ready
To give an answer back
In case the voices in my head
Continue speaking French

cold turkey time
hid the remote in the linen closet

playing
alicia keys ‘fallin’ on repeat and
    she ain’t got no chance

keep on fallin’ and she can’t say anything
except répétez après moi s.v.p.

and repeat we do
baby I’m crazy
in the bed is paper and pen
when inspiration says breather time

two tongues tonguing intertwine like two two headed snakes,
spilling ink and sweaty ***** and the paper is filling up fast

sleep begging and oil offshore exploration calming explosions
love her *****  poetry

and
how she deletes every  “and” in every poem we ever writ
saying
“and if, you need an ‘and, ‘
the verse is weakly unclear”

we write in perfect clarity

cannot recall where the **** remote is hid

when she complains

i lover-whisper in each ear her,
turning her body over and over again,
in case I miss an ear,

"and and and and"

retaliation,
she sticks me with pen
"taps" the top of my head
with that yellow blue lined lady pad

saying repeat after me if you please en francais


"and and and onlylovepoetry"

sunday @ 5:13am sunday 'Sunday kind of love'

A lovely Barry Hodges poem

People think that Calais is just a charming port on the flat French coast
Replete with exquisite restaurants patronised by English visitors
Who have crossed the Channel to get a decent meal for once,
And who want to take advantage of the wondrous *savoire vivre francais,
Even though they will get wittily insulted for their English accents.
There is more: the town has some of the finest late 40s architecture
To be found anywhere in the western world, spontaneously thrown up
After la ville ancienne was 95% flattened by the gallant but clumsy Brits
In what is still patriotically referred to as "La Libération".
But there is yet more to this gourmands' and cheap ***** buyers' mecca:
Believe me, I know, I have suffered a grievous and terrible loss there
When I blundered into a cheese shop on the Rue Royale one summer's day.

My companion that day was my dear fifth wife,  Winifred
(a four foot high but stoutly built ***** with a major speech impediment),
And, being attracted from five streets away to Maison Le Merde,
The world-famous fromagerie, by its unearthly overpowering pong,
My dear one, my lovely ****** spouse, dragged me through the door.
Choking back a desire to gag, she started stammering away to M. Le Merde,
Trying to order a couple of hundred grams of Carré de Mort Absolue,
When Mr L.M lost his rag totally and assumed wifey was trying to mock him
(How could one have known Monsieur was the French stuttering champion?)
And so he took out the cleaver he habitually kept behind the counter
To deter English tourists from stealing his cheesy comestibles,
And severed Winny's darling head in a single fell coup de grace
Which left her dramatically shorter than she previously was.

I managed to escape a similar dire fate by running like the clappers
And hiding in a nice toilette publique (femmes) while he stampeded by,
His mighty chopper in his cheese-impregnated Gallic paw.
And when I reported the matter to the gendarmerie, were they sympa?
They were no more helpful than seins sur un taureau fou
And insisted I should pay for the funeral there and then in advance,
Threatening me with a real good thumping dans mes **** should I decline.
Dear God, I shall have to use a different entry port to France next time
(although sur le grapevine I hear Boulogne is a bit of a dump),
But at least there aren't so many ******* would-be refugees.

a soft packet of Marlboro's seems ****
these days,
and can i be the flirting first
to give a **** movie critique?
three black guys,
a white girl -
elephantiasis thoroughly established -
no, not the ******* part, the thing you flinch
as to have said: embraced -
      i'd be called a knife-weaving loner with
that sort of dangle -
    and there's me thinking:
that thing is readied for a Serena Williams'
buttocks - it's doubly pelvic in terms
of gravity, how many more inches
do you actually need to bypass those
*******? 12" ain't enough!
              plus, given the size of the actual
thing, how much of it will you actually
get soaked in phlegm while she ***** it
off into an ice-cream? i'd say a third if
not a fifth of it - the rest is kinda lost...
you need an African girl with enough
**** to tickle the tip of that skyscraper you'll
never get to build.
hard looking at the truth, isn't it?
you sorta hope it were a Pythagorean sample
of lecture notes on a beach on Rhodes...
      **** me: and they told me i was naive
but there's still
that:
and all that Darwinism and white self-loathing
to eradicate colonialism -
those 12" chocolate extensions were there
with fat enough bums... 'cos' you had to
bypass enough third-party jiggles
to get to the opportune part of insemination -
white girls and their ******* idea
of a shortcut... well done...
if you have an *** that's bulging enough
to be called the double pelvic or what
geneticists call the double-helix:
then i'd mind singing: and i am a tripod too!
believe me: in 20 years time Kubrick will
not be relevant... **** on the other hand?
next to the apples at a market stall.
               and i am holding a packet of
Marlboro's in my hand, a soft-packet,
sexier than Kenyan Camels sold without
filters (in a soft packet also) -
                  i'm still wondering about the white
girls' shortcut... a ******* tried to make me
strangle her neck by saying: all the black
boys have it... inch for inch...
               i told her: i bought an hour of gymnastic flex,
not your opinions.
         then in dodo the theta goes missing
when everything goes albino crazy when stated
in: discotheque -      techno oceanic -
                         tec (as: shortened) -
odd, isn't it: we are perpetually stating the halves -
never really the blunt obvious,
      charismatic loss of dynamo of language -
oh i'm not jealous, i'm thinking of all the things
i don't have to buy: perfumes, jockstraps,
     daffodils, we're-strangers-type-of-dinner-dates:
        let's freshen things up: escapades Francais -
the new risque - pervert dogs ******* strangers'
legs in the escalator sort of: till death do us part.
                       i just have 12" of concept
in a Nigerian buttocks to define gravitational
                                            pistons when
           that excess is matched with a buttock that's
twice an armchair: and only half to the said, ****:
or what i like to call the onomatopoeia filter:
         it doesn't sound like i'm knocking on a door
and the subsequent opening -
it sounds like i'm knocking on a crocodile's cranium
                and the ****** thing never shuts up!

Loose glasses shimmer beneath the tune of looser morals. I hear the drinks spatter, intention belied by raucous jest. Toupee like frayed lightning, red-nosed, he leads the pack, insists on staying drunk, rather than sitting at their table. Tones, moody, hypnotic, just waltz around the outer rings of paying ears. Customerial fashion: wax political, smug murmur; who will tip this French waiter the most? The electric wig stares vulnerability into my skin-grasping ensemble. A man in front of his wife, tongue spattering over my appearance, and tonight I can’t tell if he’s hitting on me, or if this is just how they always speak.

  French waiter saunters in through the corridor, kisses them all on the cheek, takes my hand. Lips two millimeters from my veins. Heart skips, slight. I feel his breath, there on my hand, for the next hour. I would have  kissed him back, if we didn’t have the same taste in men. All the waiters here have that effect. The phone chimes, me just some answering machine. Prerecorded. I feel like people call up, testing. Questioning: why a New Zealander at a French restaurant? Parlez-vous Francais?

  Most of the time, my eyes are torn to the wide glass walls, to the harbour. To get a glimpse of the lights on the palcid waters. Watching the sunset kiss the hilltops, draping its simmering cold cloak over the buildings, as tiny people race home to their absolute importances. Fires in houses turning on, as the spotlights on Te Papa fade to cold grey. My favourite place is the kitchen. Behind the glamour, the pale blues and pale pinks, lie these white tiles, this plain room, filled with chef-de-cuisine jokes, the pastry chefs acting out Statler and Waldorf; laughing together from their arches.

  Back at my desk, the night begins to diffuse in, a stalking black cat, no lack of prey. All that can be seen within the darkness are the crisp square windows of this conscious, some lone stranger walking against the water. Left to ponder his relentless thoughts. In another world, a customer offers his opinion; his companion purses her lips. Extended smile, occasionally, to relinquish some silent apology. I smile back in turn. Vicious cycle. Of course, she knows how I understand. Frequent reprimand: talking too much to customers. This relaxed manner of hospitality is lost to the French. How easy it is, to spot a New Zealander in this crowd. The profuse, oblate, continuous laugh. Goes up to the bar, grabs their drink with their own hands. Never let a chair be pulled from underneath you, never let a napkin fall into your lap. I can feel the radiant annoyance, the wait staff just trying to do their job.

  I absolutely adore it.

Your walk was pure poetry,
you my teacher,
I your student.
"Parlez vous francais?"
"Non"
You were a total rousse, I presumed.
You'll never know how much I wanted to learn.

4 AM
Foreign film
Bored hunger
Dry throat.

Getting late
Parlez-vous Francais?
Chocolate craving
Sore chest.

Darkest hour
Prefer Spanish
More caffeine
Matchstick eyes.

Endless night
Travel needed
Coffee tea
Much relief.

I've been here before
I'm sure

Flickers of memories
trickle and tickle
the edges of my mind

Shouting and waiving in the distance

For now
not knowing where i am
is pleasant

I don't need to know

Diamonds sparkle
and dance with butterflies

The shouting is getting louder now

"Parle vous francais??"

What?

The diamonds now magnify the light into jagged daggers
And the butterflies fan a hurricane that slaps me in the face

"Parle vous ok?"

What?

"Are you ok?"

What?

Senses return with crashing crimson temples

What the ****?

"Are you alright?
You got hit in the head with the bat
Wear the helmet next time if you wanna play catcher!"


Dust off
Helmet on

Play ball!!

Hmm, good ***** is what all you guys want right?
Yeah, ******* and a bubble ****.
Get her white girl wasted, twerk'n hard,
drunk enough so you can put it in her ***.

She never had it up there before and she's
drunk enough or rollin good and strong so that
she thinks hands and ***** equal romance.

Speak a lil French or German...just a couple words
Francais or Deutch and she'll be begging for you
to fill her up with your crooked sausage right?

Yeah baby **** me good but don't
*** in me because I don't love you,
I just wanna be ******* to take my
angry thoughts away.

We all have had that one person we
really loved, but that **** fell apart,
so go ahead and pretend that it wasn't
your fault or hers or his.....

Oh man when you *** it's magnificent,
but you leave her there empty,
while you think you've given her
the best lay of her young life right?

What you don't understand is that
she wasn't in it for the ***, she
wasn't letting you do what you want
because she felt good, no matter what she said.

She only wants what you want,
which is real love,
but you two are too scared
of what that really means.;

I think I'd like to recline into my mind
for a while and just speak French.
Ooh la la my pretend friends
inside my head are real again
their little voices sont parfait
here I drink tea and discuss politics
au francais and he didn't leave me,
Rachel isn't dying and it's okay.

I Broke English
I’m trying to get better at it,
I swear I am.
I’m trying to reach my full potential,
But right now I have a fool’s potential.
It’s the only abstract thing you can break
Besides love.
And that is—
English.
My parents have broken English.
But did they have to pay for it?
Is English a vase with a price tag?
I thought that was called China for a reason?
Was English a mishandled shipment
With the label “fragile” on it?
Is English a person whose feelings have been hurt?
I thought that’s why there are therapists for him or her?

Anyways, my mom once asked me,
“How come read and read look the same?
But read and red sound the same?”
And my dad asked,
“Why is it pronounced lie-in,
Instead of lie-on?”
I always hear the saying, “I put the emphasis on the wrong syllable,”
But really, who here determines such things?

I always hear the question “Can I use the bathroom?”
Only to be hit back with “I don’t know, can you?”
Well, guess what.
May I tell you a secret?
I don’t really care, I just need to use it.

Heck, we need math to solve English.
Do we derive the root from the word?
And finally get an origin?
This plays an integral part
In our English.

People use it around the world!
Instead of hearing Bonjour! Or Hola!
We get
Hey! Hello! What’s up!
Because French isn’t universal
We don’t get to hear
“Je ne parle pas en francais”
And same for Spanish
We don’t hear
“Yo no hablo espanol”
But instead, we hear around the world
“I don’t speak very good English”
I speak
Broken
English.

Much like my broken brain
I can’t piece it together
How this dang jigsaw puzzle
Works altogether.

It’s difficult to speak in these words
Without tripping up.
Trust me it was hard to memorize,
I swear, I was all caught up
In the moment of knowing these letters.
But I didn’t take into account
The meaning of grammar—
It’s a nail that’s hard to hammer
The meaning of pronunciation—
I don’t know, can you hear my enunciation
The meaning of punctuation—
Maybe I can put an exclamation?
Or make it a question!

I finally figured out what English is.
It’s a law that I’ve broken several times
But can get away with it
Because I was born with the proper accent and the language.

mon amour,
je ne sais pas le francais,
mais je vais etudier ca pour tu.

En Francais of course, it is
a storage place for bread.

In rural villages all over La France,
Boulanger's  are ceasing to exist.

The young no longer want to work
what they see as inclement  hours.

Le Coq Sportif has become lazy, so
bread is delivered to a Depot de Pain.

I lived in Lacoste en Luberon dans
la Vaucluse de Provence, sud de France.

It was the home of Le Marquis de Sade,
who lent his name to the adjective Sadism.

I often wondered, when tourists, not familiar
with French, thought when they saw "Depot de Pain".

Would that be a serendipitous symbiosis, or a
coincidental metaphor, for du Pain and Pain (hurt)?

If one is a foreigner, we are Piston’s,
but the village Cranks are never Shafted.

To be exhausted by omission is to be
expected, we are, beside The Points .

Bright Sparks are rarely found in these
positions, only bureaucrats, function 'ere.

Not in The Hub of things, is refusing to
wear the Dust Caps, then, you are Estrange!

When a Head Gasket blows, chances are,
it will be by a Francais, mais pas grave.

A meeting of minds to discuss a local
SDF (neer do well) Bohemian, A Gitane.

Mr. Ron has an idea to help the Peu Jo but
Le Mayor said, Sit Ron, to the Do Ron Ron!

The timing is not right, can tell by the idling,
so, the Do Ron Ron's concept is filtered.

To be Re-Tyred en France is not a Re-Mould,
it is a birthright, (issued with a spare) for time.

Dynamic people are replaced by Alternators
therefore, what is current, is usually oscillating!



Ryan O'Leary.
Poet Author Playwright Humanist Vegetarian.
Currently living in Lacoste France. © 1st/July/2018