Dear Friends, kindly read the Foot Notes at the end for
better appreciation. I tried to convey some interesting
information in my verses for my few interested readers!
Thanks, -Raj

THE STORY OF ALPHABETS:
PART ONE

INTRODUCTION
Alphabets are the noblest and the greatest of
inventions of our civilization,
For transmitting human thoughts and concepts
through visible notations!
In the olden days those magical symbols and
signs,
Could be written and understood only by the
priests and scribes !
But with the invention of printing, literacy began
to spread, * (see notes below.)
When people began to read and write with standard
Alphabets!
The 26 English letters with which we read and express
ourselves so easily and well,
Has a legendary and checkered past, and an unique
Story to tell !

FROM PICTOGRAM TO WRITTEN SCRIPTS :
The story of writing can be traced back to over
thousands of years you see ,
From pictogram to ideograms and various cuneiform
scripts!
From the ancient Sumerians and the Egyptians, to
the Semitic tribes;
Up to the Phoenicians, the Greeks, right up to the
Roman times !
Till the Latin script got refined into modern alphabets,
And with 26 letters our literary aspirations were met !

PICTOGRAM & IDEOGRAMS :
Ancient pictogram and symbols were painted and
carved on rock walls and caves, -
But speech sounds and letters remained unrelated !
Followed by the ideographic, logographic, and the
syllabic stages ,
Evolving into written alphabets through these different
phases!
Ideograms expressed an idea through visual or graphic
symbols,
Giving rise to Chinese script without alphabets, but
with only ideographic symbols! @(notes below)
The Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs
were the oldest of these,
Let me now tell you something about the Sumerian
script !

CUNEIFORM WRITING :
On that land between the two rivers the Tigris and
the Euphrates,
Which the Greek’s called ‘Mesopotamia’,
Rose the earliest of ancient civilizations called
Sumeria!
Those Sumerians used a stylus, - the head of a
squared-off reed ,
To inscribe wedge shaped angular symbols on
clay tablets - for their accounting needs!
These tablets could be dried in the sun to form
hardened scripts ,
And also recycled if necessary, giving birth to the
Cuneiform Script!
The earliest clay tablets date back to 3500 BC ;
While archeologists and linguists could detect
and see ,
That with modifications over the centuries this
script was also used, -
By the Akkadians , Elamites , the Hittites and the
Uratians ;
And scholars say that it was the forerunner of the
hieroglyphs of those ancient Egyptians!
The earliest clay tablets found in Mesopotamia,
Indicate accounting of barley crops by the Sangu
of Sumeria!
Sangu was the Chief Official of their Holy Temples ,
Who recorded all temple wealth on clay tablets, –
with cuneiform symbols !
Herodotus the Greek historian tells us a story ,
About a letter sent by the Scythians to the Persian King
during the days of Scythian glory!
This letter contained symbols of a bird, a mouse,
a frog, and five arrows;
When translated it read: “Can you fly like a bird, hide
in the ground like a mouse, leap through the swamps
like a frog? If not, do not go to war with us, -
We shall overwhelm you with our arrows!”

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS :
Hieroglyph comes from a Greek word meaning
‘sacred inscriptions’ ,
Consisting of a large variety of images representing
sounds, as well as ideas and actions !
The images were depicted in rows or columns , -
oriented from right to left ,
And the signs were positioned as if looking towards
the beginning of the text!
They were used from end of Prehistory to 396 AD,
And the last text was written on the walls of the
Temple of Isis, on the Island of Philae !
The oldest one dates back to 3100 BC, - inside the
Temple of Ramesses II at Abydos ,
Where Thoth the ibis-headed God, - patron Deity
of Writing and Scribes is seen ,
Holding a scribal palette in one hand and in the
other a stylus of reed ;
And King Ramesses II holding up a water *** , -
To assist the great Thoth, their Writing God !

HIERATIC, DEMOTIC & COPTIC SCRIPTS :
The hieroglyphics were used for many varied
situations; -
Written on temple walls, statues , tombs , papyrus ,
and as monumental inscriptions !
Through its 3000 year’s long history it developed
into three other written scripts; -
The Hieratic, the Demotic and the Coptic, as
reformed hieroglyphic scripts !
Hieratic script was simplified with a more cursive
form ,
Could be drawn more quickly as over the years it
also reformed !
Though used in administrative and business text ,
Also found its way into literature and religious texts!
Around 600 BC it was supplanted by the most cursive
of all scripts,
Herodotus called it ‘Popular’ so it became a ‘Demotic’
script, meaning 'popular' !
Unlike the Hieratic, which on papyrus with a stylus
and ink was written ,
This 'popular' one could be engraved, and also hand
written, -
On a hard surface, and on papyrus by the ancient
Egyptians !
This script was found in the middle section of the
famous Rosetta Stone, $ = (see notes below)
Which for centuries held the secrets of the Hieroglyphic
Code alone !
And finally, during the 4th century AD, when Egyptian
was written with Greek alphabets,
We arrive at the last stage of the Egyptian language;
Which came to be know as the Coptic Script, with the
adoption of the Greek alphabets.
During the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD , Coptic became
the pre-Christian Egyptian language.
However, after the conquest of Egypt by the Muslims
in 642 AD,
Arabic became the main language of Egypt gradually.

A PAUSE & A BREAK :
It is interesting to note that all these ancient scripts ,
Inscribed on rocks , or written on papyrus or
engraved on wooden strips ;
Were written from right to left, with only consonants ,
Without any punctuations or any break!
Till centuries later, due to the innovative Greeks, -
Vowels got introduced to shape up the Alphabets!
Here friends I pause to take a break .
In my Part Two I shall tell you about those Semitic
Scripts ,
About those seafaring Phoenicians who preceded
the Romans and the Greeks;
Those worthy forefathers of the Latin alphabets ,
Which gave birth to ‘English’ with its Anglo-Saxon-
Germanic roots ,
Happily blending with some French vocabulary, -
Making English as unique as it possibly could !
-by Raj Nandy

FOOT NOTES : -
Friends, I tried to keep it as simple as possible for my readers;
adding Notes as explanations & for all knowledge seekers!
= Johannes Gutenberg in 1440 set up the first Printing Press in
Europe. William Caxton in 1476 set up the first printing press in
Westminster, England, he was the first English retailer of books!
* = Lascaux cave paintings of animals in SW France are 16,000
years old! Similar types also found in Spain and Africa!
= Pictogram date from the earliest cave paintings; represents
concrete nouns. Some civilizations like the North American Indians never
ventured beyond pictogram stage! Ideograms – the next stage, represents an abstract idea and verb also.
The Egyptian word-sign showing image of an Eye +a Bee+ a leaf = meant ‘I Believe’, i.e. Pictogram & Ideogram combined ! Since they did not write verbs, we do not know how they pronounced it!
Logograph = each written sign represents an actual word & Not sound of the word!
A tree is shown by the image of a single tree. A single logogram could be used by a plurality of languages to represent words with similar meanings.
After 3000 yrs of use, a large no. of symbols & the chasm between oral & written script made the Hieroglyphs obsolete!
The Semitic people tried to improvise a better script with limited consonant signs only!
@ = The Chinese use a combination of pictogram & ideograms along with complex symbols, but with only through association of spoken words; instead of alphabets!
$= Rosetta Stone, discovered by the soldiers of Napoleon in 1799 in Rosetta. The hieroglyphics on the stone was inscribed in 196 BC in the Ptolemaic Era. The French scholar Jean Champollion deciphered the script, and thereby solved the mystery of Egyptian Hieroglyphics for the world! .
* ALL COPY RIGHTS RESERVED BY RAJ NANDY

A white tablecloth
shines brightly
in your empty eyes.

I call your name
But you don't hear.
You never heard.

I sit before the window
behind the wooden table
And look at the white
bright tablecloth.

There is only one
black hieroglyph
fallen from my heart
launched by my soul.

The brightness hurts
The sun burns my eyes
The hieroglyph melts
My heart freezes.
And you never saw.

Analytical minds share symbols like currency, defining the present's possible.
Tip an 8 sideways and infinity tumbles out,
but sadly for us, there is no word for          , so it doesn't exist.

Modern idioms can string together only hints of divinity:
A Hebrew Prince raised by Egyptian Pharaohs wrote a book about the I Am.
Our language fails pathetically, scarcely the words for what Moses saw in that burning bush.

We know he saw God, lived to tell in writing.
Grasp the Key for the 6th Angel's Little Scroll, unlocking his original Ancient Hebrew.
Like math, each letter is a picture hieroglyph, and a meaning, and a number.  
Add letters together, each word is a painting, and a poem. 
One sentence is paragraphs of meaning, on four dizzying levels.
One concise chapter speaks a vertigo of encyclopedic volumes.

First to Analyze the most important hieroglyph in Genesis,
so important, do not pronounce it, so its sacredness will never fade:
At top, the sign of Life, then doubled, and the sign of Intelligible Light between.
So becoming a unique verb; all other verbs derive from this, the Creator.  
Then add the sign of potential manifestation, with foundation in eternity.
IHOAH  
a verb/noun signifying exactly The-Being-Who-Is-Who-Was-And-Who-Will-Be
A vertical hieroglyph pictorially resembling a Man.

Then:
The letter with the sound of A looks like:     , and means the physical manifestation of  
A= the physical manifestation of, D= man, A= the physical manifestation of, M= woman.
ADAM, with its root word in red clay.
A noun, collective humanity in physical form resembling spirit. (one meaning)
Vertically hieroglyphic one sees a man; but it is smaller  (another meaning)
Adam, a shadow of IHOAH.

Let me explain how Moses reveals DNA....

the river flows as
living memory

the birds of the
Nile are its
knowing eyes

fly catchers
ply the rich
delta
probing
sediments
of sand
washed
from
distant
Nubian
mountains
eons
ago

layers of
recollection
go fathoms
deep

shrieking
gulls
plumb the
mud flats
with heroic
persistence
as they did
when the
first rafts
drifted out
of the
Great Rift
ferrying
civilizations
forebears
to the
opening chapters
of world history

the first
seafarers
competed with
greedy spoonbills
to navigate
porous
papyrus
crafts
through
the narrow
channels
of the
Damietta,
transporting
ideas, skills
and goods
to build an
emerging
world

mallards
troll the
same
gentile
eddies that
goaded the
Mother of
All Waters
to float the
basket cradling
Yahweh’s
infant prophet
Musa, into the
loving arms
of Bithiah
who nurtured
the vanquisher
of Osiris’
galleries of
Gods

a litany
of conquests
rolled on the
silver waves
of this river

conquerors
maneuvered
the truculent
currents
like sharp
eyed hawks
skimming the
pliant waters
with well
extended
razor quick
talons
picking the
Nile’s bounty
clean

this fertile
delta remembers
more than
6,000 seasons
of harvests

the
cycles of time
has produced
seasons of plenteous
abundance and
desperate privation
all cleverly exploited
by generations of
fearless herons
who wrangled
the demons
of hardship
to route the
dread of hunger
expelling despair
from the Egyptian
DNA, etching
a new hieroglyph
of freedom onto
survivors hearts

the Niles
sorrows
and glories
perpetually
wash this
magnanimous
delta
surely as
the gentle
wakes
of feluccas
continue
to lap its
shore

the marshes
have not withered

the verdant
reeds prosper

flamingos find
the water
rich in fish

in due
season
the red
lotus will
paint
the arcuate
alluvial
fans in
scarlet
autumnal
hues

In the
Valley of
the Kings
the shadows
of migratory
flocks mark
the foundation
stones of the
pyramids
as they did
when slaves
pushed them
into place

the eternal
lines of
pharaohs
rule has fallen,
their gods
imprisoned
in hieroglyphs
adorning their
royal tombs
on display
in the worlds
museums

the weathered
pyramids continue
to crumble

the face of
the sphinx
withers away

torrents of
blood flowed
in this rivers
currents, now
strained clear
by the reeds
anchoring
its banks

the fleeting
rule of regimes
are pictured
as momentary
reflections
skimming along
the ripppling
water; the
rise and fall
of rulers is
captured like
the shifting hues
sunrises and
sunsets bespeak
upon the waters

the ascending
waves of
the Sacred Ibis
dance atop
the Nile’s gray
waters; the
river jumps
to life as the
graceful wings
take flight
to foreign
destinations;
expecting
to return
again as
the cycles
of seasons
round once
more

as the Nile flows
its memory deepens
the eyes of the birds
watch and remember


Music Selection:
Gary Bartz, I've Known Rivers

Oakland
3/31/12
jbm

1

Senlin sits before us, and we see him.
He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him.
Is he small, with reddish hair,
Does he light his pipe with meditative stare,
And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes?
Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise?
Did no one see him enter the doors of the city,
Looking above him at the roofs and trees and skies?
'I stepped from a cloud', he says, 'as evening fell;
I walked on the sound of a bell;
I ran with winged heels along a gust;
Or is it true that I laughed and sprang from dust? . . .
Has no one, in a great autumnal forest,
When the wind bares the trees,
Heard the sad horn of Senlin slowly blown?
Has no one, on a mountain in the spring,
Heard Senlin sing?
Perhaps I came alone on a snow-white horse,-
Riding alone from the deep-starred night.
Perhaps I came on a ship whose sails were music,-
Sailing from moon or sun on a river of light.'

He lights his pipe with a pointed flame.
'Yet, there were many autumns before I came,
And many springs. And more will come, long after
There is no horn for me, or song, or laughter.

The city dissolves about us, and its walls
Become an ancient forest. There is no sound
Except where an old twig tires and falls;
Or a lizard among the dead leaves crawls;
Or a flutter is heard in darkness along the ground.

Has Senlin become a forest? Do we walk in Senlin?
Is Senlin the wood we walk in, -ourselves,-the world?
Senlin! we cry . . . Senlin! again . . . No answer,
Only soft broken echoes backward whirled . . .

Yet we would say: this is no wood at all,
But a small white room with a lamp upon the wall;
And Senlin, before us, pale, with reddish hair,
Lights his pipe with a meditative stare.

2

Senlin, walking beside us, swings his arms
And turns his head to look at walls and trees.
The wind comes whistling from shrill stars of winter,
The lights are jewels, black roots freeze.
'Did I, then, stretch from the bitter earth like these,
Reaching upward with slow and rigid pain
To seek, in another air, myself again?'

(Immense and solitary in a desert of rocks
Behold a bewildered oak
With white clouds screaming through its leafy brain.)
'Or was I the single ant, or tinier thing,
That crept from the rocks of buried time
And dedicated its holy life to climb
From atom to beetling atom, jagged grain to grain,
Patiently out of the darkness we call sleep
Into a hollow gigantic world of light
Thinking the sky to be its destined shell,
Hoping to fit it well!-'

The city dissolves about us, and its walls
Are mountains of rock cruelly carved by wind.
Sand streams down their wasting sides, sand
Mounts upward slowly about them: foot and hand
We crawl and bleed among them! Is this Senlin?

In the desert of Senlin must we live and die?
We hear the decay of rocks, the crash of boulders,
Snarling of sand on sand. 'Senlin!' we cry.
'Senlin!' again . . . Our shadows revolve in silence
Under the soulless brilliance of blue sky.

Yet we would say: there are no rocks at all,
Nor desert of sand . . . here by a city wall
White lights jewell the evening, black roots freeze,
And Senlin turns his head to look at trees.

3

It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening,
By a silent shore, by a far distant sea,
White unicorns come gravely down to the water.
In the lilac dusk they come, they are white and stately,
Stars hang over the purple waveless sea;
A sea on which no sail was ever lifted,
Where a human voice was never heard.
The shadows of vague hills are dark on the water,
The silent stars seem silently to sing.
And gravely come white unicorns down to the water,
One by one they come and drink their fill;
And daisies burn like stars on the darkened hill.

It is evening Senlin says, and in the evening
The leaves on the trees, abandoned by the light,
Look to the earth, and whisper, and are still.
The bat with horned wings, tumbling through the darkness,
Breaks the web, and the spider falls to the ground.
The starry dewdrop gathers upon the oakleaf,
Clings to the edge, and falls without a sound.
Do maidens spread their white palms to the starlight
And walk three steps to the east and clearly sing?
Do dewdrops fall like a shower of stars from willows?
Has the small moon a ghostly ring? . . .
White skeletons dance on the moonlit grass,
Singing maidens are buried in deep graves,
The stars hang over a sea like polished glass . . .
And solemnly one by one in the darkness there
Neighing far off on the haunted air
White unicorns come gravely down to the water.

No silver bells are heard. The westering moon
Lights the pale floors of caverns by the sea.
Wet **** hangs on the rock. In shimmering pools
Left on the rocks by the receding sea
Starfish slowly turn their white and brown
Or writhe on the naked rocks and drown.
Do sea-girls haunt these caves-do we hear faint singing?
Do we hear from under the sea a faint bell ringing?
Was that a white hand lifted among the bubbles
And fallen softly back?
No, these shores and caverns are all silent,
Dead in the moonlight; only, far above,
On the smooth contours of these headlands,
White amid the eternal black,
One by one in the moonlight there
Neighing far off on the haunted air
The unicorns come down to the sea.

4

Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Bending his small legs in a peculiar way,
Goes to his work with thoughts of the universe.
His hands are in his pockets, he smokes his pipe,
He is happily conscious of roofs and skies;
And, without turning his head, he turns his eyes
To regard white horses drawing a small white hearse.
The sky is brilliant between the roofs,
The windows flash in the yellow sun,
On the hard pavement ring the hoofs,
The light wheels softly run.
Bright particles of sunlight fall,
Quiver and flash, gyrate and burn,
Honey-like heat flows down the wall,
The white spokes dazzle and turn.

Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Regards the hearse with an introspective eye.
'Is it my childhood there,' he asks,
'Sealed in a hearse and hurrying by?'
He taps his trowel against a stone;
The trowel sings with a silver tone.

'Nevertheless I know this well.
Bury it deep and toll a bell,
Bury it under land or sea,
You cannot bury it save in me.'

It is as if his soul had become a city,
With noisily peopled streets, and through these streets
Senlin himself comes driving a small white hearse . . .
'Senlin!' we cry. He does not turn his head.
But is that Senlin?-Or is this city Senlin,-
Quietly watching the burial of the dead?
Dumbly observing the cortege of its dead?
Yet we would say that all this is but madness:
Around a distant corner trots the hearse.
And Senlin walks before us in the sunlight
Happily conscious of his universe.

5

In the hot noon, in an old and savage garden,
The peach-tree grows. Its cruel and ugly roots
Rend and rifle the silent earth for moisture.
Above, in the blue, hang warm and golden fruits.
Look, how the cancerous roots crack mould and stone!
Earth, if she had a voice, would wail her pain.
Is she the victim, or is the tree the victim?
Delicate blossoms opened in the rain,
Black bees flew among them in the sunlight,
And sacked them ruthlessly; and no a bird
Hangs, sharp-eyed, in the leaves, and pecks the fruit;
And the peach-tree dreams, and does not say a word.
. . . Senlin, tapping his trowel against a stone,
Observes this tree he planted: it is his own.

'You will think it strange,' says Senlin, 'but this tree
Utters profound things in this garden;
And in its silence speaks to me.
I have sensations, when I stand beneath it,
As if its leaves looked at me, and could see;
And those thin leaves, even in windless air,
Seem to be whispering me a choral music,
Insubstantial but debonair.

"Regard," they seem to say,
"Our idiot root, which going its brutal way
Has cracked your garden wall!
Ugly, is it not?
A desecration of this place . . .
And yet, without it, could we exist at all?"
Thus, rustling with importance, they seem to me
To make their apology;
Yet, while they apologize,
Ask me a wary question with their eyes.
Yes, it is true their origin is low-
Brutish and dull and cruel . . . and it is true
Their roots have cracked the wall. But do we know
The leaves less cruel-the root less beautiful?
Sometimes it seems as if there grew
In the dull garden of my mind
A tree like this, which, singing with delicate leaves,
Yet cracks the wall with cruel roots and blind.
Sometimes, indeed, it appears to me
That I myself am such a tree . . .'

. . . And as we hear from Senlin these strange words
So, slowly, in the sunlight, he becomes this tree:
And among the pleasant leaves hang sharp-eyed birds
While cruel roots dig downward secretly.

6

Rustling among his odds and ends of knowledge
Suddenly, to his wonder, Senlin finds
How Cleopatra and Senebtisi
Were dug by many hands from ancient tombs.
Cloth after scented cloth the sage unwinds:
Delicious to see our futile modern sunlight
Dance like a harlot among these Dogs and Dooms!

First, the huge pyramid, with rock on rock
Bloodily piled to heaven; and under this
A gilded cavern, bat festooned;
And here in rows on rows, with gods about them,
Cloudily lustrous, dim, the sacred coffins,
Silver starred and crimson mooned.

What holy secret shall we now uncover?
Inside the outer coffin is a second;
Inside the second, smaller, lies a third.
This one is carved, and like a human body;
And painted over with fish and bull and bird.
Here are men walking stiffly in procession,
Blowing horns or lifting spears.
Where do they march to? Where do they come from?
Soft whine of horns is in our ears.

Inside, the third, a fourth . . . and this the artist,-
A priest, perhaps-did most to make resemble
The flesh of her who lies within.
The brown eyes widely stare at the bat-hung ceiling.
The hair is black, The mouth is thin.
Princess! Secret of life! We come to praise you!
The torch is lowered, this coffin too we open,
And the dark air is drunk with musk and myrrh.
Here are the thousand white and scented wrappings,
The gilded mask, and jeweled eyes, of her.

And now the body itself, brown, gaunt, and ugly,
And the hollow scull, in which the brains are withered,
Lie bare before us. Princess, is this all?
Something there was we asked that is not answered.
Soft bats, in rows, hang on the lustered wall.

And all we hear is a whisper sound of music,
Of brass horns dustily raised and briefly blown,
And a cry of grief; and men in a stiff procession
Marching away and softly gone.

7

'And am I then a pyramid?' says Senlin,
'In which are caves and coffins, where lies hidden
Some old and mocking hieroglyph of flesh?
Or am I rather the moonlight, spreading subtly
Above those stones and times?
Or the green blade of grass that bravely grows
Between to massive boulders of black basalt
Year after year, and fades and blows?

Senlin, sitting before us in the lamplight,
Laughs, and lights his pipe. The yellow flame
Minutely flares in his eyes, minutely dwindles.
Does a blade of grass have Senlin for a name?
Yet we would say that we have seen him somewhere,
A tiny spear of green beneath the blue,
Playing his destiny in a sun-warmed crevice
With the gigantic fates of frost and dew.

Does a spider come and spin his gossamer ladder
Rung by silver rung,
Chaining it fast to Senlin? Its faint shadow
Flung, waveringly, where his is flung?
Does a raindrop dazzle starlike down his length
Trying his futile strength?
A snowflake startle him? The stars defeat him?
Through aeons of dusk have birds above him sung?
Time is a wind, says Senlin; time, like music,
Blows over us its mournful beauty, passes,
And leaves behind a shadowy reflection,-
A helpless gesture of mist above the grasses.

8

In cold blue lucid dusk before the sunrise,
One yellow star sings over a peak of snow,
And melts and vanishes in a light like roses.
Through slanting mist, black rocks appear and glow.

The clouds flow downward, slowly as grey glaciers,
Or up to a pale rose-azure pass.
Blue streams ****** down from snow to boulders,
From boulders to white grass.

Icicles on the pine tree melt
And softly flash in the sun:
In long straight lines the star-drops fall
One by one.

Is a voice heard while the shadows still are long,
Borne slowly down on the sparkling air?
Is a thin bell heard from the peak of silence?
Is someone among the high snows there?

Where the blue stream flows coldly among the meadows
And mist still clings to rock and tree
Senlin walks alone; and from that twilight
Looks darkly up, to see

The calm unmoving peak of snow-white silence,
The rocks aflame with ice, the rose-blue sky . . .
Ghost-like, a cloud descends from twinkling ledges,
To nod before the dwindling sun and die.

'Something there is,' says Senlin, 'in that mountain,
Something forgotten now, that once I knew . . .'
We walk before a sun-tipped peak in silence,
Our shadows descend before us, long and blue.

[Dedicated to Austin Osman Spare]

Have pity ! show no pity !
Those eyes that send such shivers
Into my brain and spine : oh let them
Flame like the ancient city
Swallowed up by the sulphurous rivers
When men let angels fret them !

Yea ! let the south wind blow,
And the Turkish banner advance,
And the word go out : No quarter !
But I shall hod thee -so !
While the boys and maidens dance
About the shambles of slaughter !

I know thee who thou art,
The inmost fiend that curlest
Thy vampire tounge about
Earth's corybantic heart,
Hell's warrior that whirlest
The darts of horror and doubt !

Thou knowest me who I am
The inmost soul and saviour
Of man ; what hieroglyph
Of the dragon and the lamb
Shall thou and I engrave here
On Time's inscandescable cliff ?

Look ! in the plished granite,
Black as thy cartouche is with sins,
I read the searing sentence
That blasts the eyes that scan it :
"**** and SET be TWINS."
A fico for repentance !

Ay ! O Son of my mother
That snarled and clawed in her womb
As now we rave in our rapture,
I know thee, I love thee, brother !
Incestuous males that consumes
The light and the life that we capture.

Starve thou the soul of the world,
Brother, as I the body !
Shall we not glut our lust
On these wretches whom Fate hath hurled
To a hell of jesus and shoddy,
Dung and ethics and dust ?

Thou as I art Fate.
Coe then, conquer and kiss me !
Come ! what hinders? Believe me :
This is the thought we await.
The mark is fair ; can you miss me ?

See, how subtly I writhe !
Strange runes and unknown sigils
I trace in the trance that thrills us.
Death ! how lithe, how blithe
Are these male incestuous vigils !
Ah ! this is the spasm that kills us !

Wherefore I solemnly affirm
This twofold Oneness at the term.
Asar on Asi did beget
Horus twin brother unto Set.
Now Set and Horus kiss, to call
The Soul of the Unnatural
Forth from the dusk ; then nature slain
Lets the Beyond be born again.

This weird is of the tongue of Khem,
The Conjuration used of them.
Whoso shall speak it, let him die,
His bowels rotting inwardly,
Save he uncover and caress
The God that lighteth his liesse.

By dumb luck our toes have kicked the dust from remnants, mysteries of the Ancients.
Sandblasting time has reduced their instructions for miracles down to perplexing sketches,
Littering a roofless sun-baked labyrinth of echoes.

Science in Genesis?  To be brief, just one example:   Turn the pages to
God broke off Adam's rib and created Eve.
Crowded centuries' have defected over this one in utter disbelief, perhaps you as well.

But analyzing the ancient Hebrew hieroglyph, by letter, by word, by connotation:
within a circumferential envelope, an exterior covering, protecting, shelter
to break off one of the involutions of him
the fixed form, configuration, exterior appearance, animal substance
in repetition, or doubled    (thus a spiraling winding)
into the action of shaping, and the other the object of this action.

Did Moses learn about cellular DNA from his Egyptian royalty pharaoh-teachers?
or was this observation divinely bestowed, a vision in the burning bush?
To describe God's breaking and altering part of Adam's spiral blueprint,
Moses tried to steal electric fire for his goat-herding brethren.
Either way, translators scratched their collective heads and wrote "Rib."

Then, so that humanity would not be alone, God created "Eve"
(But btw, her word actually writes out as Aisha )
Which does not translate to universal woman, Moses repeats that several times.
It translates to a companion, auxillary force, the intellectual woman of universal man,  
The Power and the Act in Will.
Now unique among animals to imagine complexities and bring them about.

With this Creative Volition, Adam becomes a shadow of and a companion for God the Creator.
Moses gave this creative ability a feminine aspect, paired with logic's masculine.
(Not only did he describe our very cells, he understood our minds' anima and animus.)

Does this restore faith, or shake it?  
Sweet on the tongue, but how to digest it all?
And what about the snake?
A serpentine looking hieroglyph, one meaning among many is leaving God's Will.
And if one does, life become difficult, hard labor.

So how do translators pack so many meanings which they don't even fully comprehend,
into a smaller language?   pick one, maybe two meanings:
adapt pictorial and symbolical highlights into an Allegory,
populated with Ribs, Apples, and Snakes...discarding the literal.
The organic sphere of activity = a garden
sentient and temporal  =  basic sensual desire
anteriority of time  = morning      
matter in travail  =  a tree.
Feminine Creativity paired with Masculine Logic  =  "she" is a helpmate.

History will have to apologize,
The new patriarchs couldn't accept Woman with such an equal trait,
Interpreting Allegory literally for use in a power struggle,
Blaming "Her" for their own ignorance,
Bestowing only on her the wayward's punishment of difficult labor. (childbirth).
and having already edited out Yahweh's wife.....
(oh, gratefully a different poem.)

I've barely explained   four   words,   but what do I know, this amateur philosopher?  
Fabre D'Olivet said it best:
"language, the ineffable language.
Those whose dull glance, falling upon these pictures, these symbols, these holy allegories,
saw nothing beyond,
were sunk, it is true, in ignorance;
but their ignorance was voluntary.
From the moment that they wished to leave it, they had only to speak."

we love a guy with a black eye blood shot

those cute five-finger dimples in his jawline up in millennial graphs

of x-time and y-self worth

increasing steadily in units knuckles and palms

lips and prods in a smooth

arching crescent down-facing hieroglyph of his swollen socket as

the plane descending for Cropper and kudos

touchdown

Autumn racing red and gold
behind half-open eyes of icy blue.
27th Fall. Step into cold
          and race through
          alleyways I've known.
A crunching stride, solitary breaths.
               Staccato notes
banged out on sidewalks' grey scales...

               ...I'm every inch
          of this softened ground,
these shoe treads, hieroglyphics...

               ...My town appends
                      its runic fate
                                    onto
              my story's granite page.

Crisping air, engulf my lungs.
Ensconce my face in drowsy weather.
Sleepy eyelids, sliding down
to Main & Dow Street. Watch me hover
                                         along the margins.
These last 4 months of quiet aching
engraved in me come roaring out now.
               Autumn streets stay silent.

And Kendrick Park
               has whispered low
                              in bashful rustling;
I climb the boardwalk,
               my thoughts are gilded,
                              responding slowly.

The breeze abates,
               it's halfway warm.
                              Bellevue & Lewis
I am a statue;
               smooth, cold marble,
                              still in November.

And, soon, the Summer comes with angry glares.
And, soon, this stony face will disappear.

These months will always linger in me.
Does my ghost haunt this place already?

I'll return here every Autumn when

October signs off on the Summer's death.

And I'll be tracing all your features with

forgotten footsteps' ancient hieroglyphs...

i

i think why not to let
but proved the query set
a double somersault-twist
or kiss your sweet lips..

can  end in cold death-
still the birds in the trees
go cheep or not at all..
i have reason to not question..

ii

i have memories return from the crib
it is all just part of the aging process
we beetle by saying that can´t be right
the lights´ get bright and bright..!

birds talk to us but i don´t hear voices
we become preoccupied with prices..
i recall four blackjacks  a penny
dying has a long curious way..

i am pretty sure i am someone else
absolute and completely and yet
these early feelings as blithe pictures
remain constant..



iii


more work less ******* about
but creation is just living
some absolute and indistinct
(it is tough being a poet..)..

iv

lily says,for it is her,
you don´t play no more,
only i say in mind
the years don´t lie
content´ s fragile store..
repetition dulls the brightest
core..eventually a silent purr ask´ s why
not why not..

v

why write poetry says lily
because it is a futile act
of achieving something perfectly..
we like that..


or like stubbing one´ s little toe
a rabbit from a dream hat
in a vain effort to retain what
remains of my memory..

lily why not or why bother..
lily red diamond from her
eyes sparking like a star is
just a ******* star baby..

she half nelson bottle wine
why do anything..a sign
a metaphor an hieroglyph
love and hate lily..

or the little bird in the agaves
i would like to shoot that one
hate and love lily
porquoi-pas..

vi

i read o twenty years before actually commiting to paper
not much but i knew the stuff i loved and kept there
i know it was charles bukowski i loved his funky gear
thank you norwegion liz for lending me his books dear..

ham on rye and factotum you say don´t lose them mf
i swore i would not lose them i would not lose them kf
kind friend..but i lost them i lost them..df..
dumb ******..


i leant them to someone that swore the same
they suffered an horrendous head..crang..
on and the books lost the books got lost..
there was scant satisfaction in plaster form..

maybe they went to a happy home
so not my fault that his drunk poems
god is he fun liz i hear your laugh then
such a wild sound ..generous so!

you said i should write and thank you
only human to encourage me true
and always a good drinking companion
you bought decent wine..

i adored cognac o..that was my poison
you always attracted van gelis errant tounge
unpleasant but one had to watch him..
that was his fun..

and then backgammon
goes a bit faint then..
i would like to say i won
you told me roland was cheating..

i think it was fun to play him anyway
esspicially on cement truck day..
not that he ever bought me a drink
not that i liked cement..

i lived with roland actually
this stopped any conversation
i met him by accident in eilat
that place was a laugh..

i think i enjoyed the second time
first loads of day jobs though i
played in the streets..and living with
the russians..

that a blast lily..my immediate neighbor
we never spoke..and the police pulled his hair
and yet not a squeak..a match box of grass cheap
i went to silently get a light..

he did say never run boy..
i thought alright for you
alright,
who was playing late night
in the soft quiet night..

so i was nosy
within the deepest hush
a glass and bottle jungle
impossible this silence

and i could hear him swallow
once the army ran through
i was tucked up in bead reading
by hopeless candle light..

i met roland in the peace cafe
a misnomer if ever there was
he picked me up and tossed me
around..

hey mike we got ****** and under
the landing planes roaring down
aint had hash like that in so many
years..

there was the red lion and at seven
free food and a drink and a movie
i read miguel cervantes..they
play the eye of the tiger later..

then the hard rock cafe with killer
egg and chips
i worked with an architect and made
a few shekals.

vii

i got out of there man i went south
dhab a quiet hut and goats..
that is the life right there..
o the corral beauties..

the stars as glimpsed through the palm..
pretty carpet and soften-songs of balm
brain blown and fly blown
and then back to town..

which came as a shock then
i had a drink and a very nice mention
for the cafe at the bus station..
i salut the the patience of the librarians..

I want to drop you off a cliff
And turn you into hieroglyph
Accessorize you with a noose
This time I'll be Zeus
I'll burn you to ashes
Or would you rather hear splashes?
Drowning you wouldn't be too bad
What else should I add?

.you should really see the two comments left, and the 700+ views to begin with.

mind you, i did write an ode to the gods
(yes, that infantile pleasure,
not associated with cosmopolitan new york
atheists)...
how the roman plagiarißm of the the greek
pantheon happened too soon,
how the semite god ate up ba'al
and beelzebub "too quickly"
   turning them into fallen angels...
      like how he infiltrated the roman empire
due to their close-up plagiarißm so early...
father Zeus, father Odin remained...
as did their phonetic encoding...
as did the glagolitic script turned cyrillic...
sorry... where was the african phonetic
encoding? beside the hieroglyphs?
  what's swahili for:
red earth, gave birth to me?
   nyekundu dunia, alitoa kuzaliwa kwa mimi!
see... that's african speech:
but what are the letters behind it?
last time i checked... there aren't any!
and i came from africa?
maybe the anglo-deutsche did...
i didn't... i source my origins
in india... after all... indo-european
is my higher category, the mongols...
i don't care if the germanic people "think"
they originated in africa, i've come from india...
people who minded phonetic encoding,
had an alphabet,
              i'm still stuck with germanic
people with african stereotypes not being
able to swim...
   heavy bones they say...
    **** that and the whole i.q. "conundrum"...
i still watch t.v.,
       after all, after prometheus
brought down the flame from olympus...
some demigod had to bring down /
steal the rod of zeus / electricity...
and turn the t.v. into the modern fireplace...
the b.b.c. had this 2nd season running,
killing eve...
             sandra oh and jodie comer...
there's this instance in season two,
when jodie comer, villanelle...
  is interrogated by aaron peel...
                and "kind" aaron is asking villanelle
all this philosophical quips...
anselm's ontological argument...
    occam's razor (i wish)...
            he has so many books on his
bookshelf...
   yeah... books you look at like comic
book strips, books you don't actually read...
books you look at...
            and what does villanelle do in the end?
she brushes aaron's nose with one of
these books "he's read"... what is it?
ha ha!   a dictionary of philosophy...
a... dictionary...
basically short-script...
                     cheat...
         you really want a dictionary
definition of philosophy? a philosophy dictionary
definition, a sound-bite?
you know... last time i checked...
i read bertnard russell,
kierkegaard, kant, heidegger...
not for a dictionary definition...
or regurgitating rubrics akin to
a university lecturer...
        i hate regurgitation...
                i read for myself,
  in the end, hoping, my narrative could
find expansive ground for work-arounds...
i don't like playing the happy
harpsicord dancing monkey...
    to give "proofs"...
              i don't like people,
akin to villanelle, when questioned
on a university entrance critique...
               like i might "know my ****",
or not "know my ****"...
                                       pretty boring...
i am starting to resound in the conviction...
there's no point in knowing other people,
there's only one person worth knowing,
yourself...
       mind you, i'm still waiting for the alternative
phonetic encoding system to come
from africa, as an alternative counter
to the egyptian hieroglyphs...
i'm not seeing it...

   tender skin: the moon does see...
     zabuni ngozi: ya mwezi haina tazama...

eh, chinese script is all syllables and no
letters...
        glagolitic - Ⰿ
        rune - ᛗ
        roman - M
        greek - μ
        hebrai - מ
        devanagari - म
        arabic - م
        hieroglyph - owl
        mandarin - 冊
        hiragana - ま(a) み(i) む(u) め(e) も(o)

didn't i mention this already,
interchangeable, between a letter and
a syllable... given the hiragana example...
depending on what vowel
you attach to the base sound (consonant),
the vowel modifies the base (consonant)...
five ******* variations of the consonant / syllable...

           ergo? no atomic reality in these languages...
syllable understanding...
the mendeleev table...
                He: helium...
             Xn: xenon...
                          Na: sodium... etc.,

            depends...
   after all... a base letter (consonant) in hiragana
looks like the following schematic:
i.e. no one really knows what M looks like,
like mmm-humming...
without an added vowel...

                                     ま(a)
                                      |
                   め(e) ----- "x" ----- む(u)      
                                   /    \
                                 /        \
                          み(i)          も(o)
                                                            
.Nietzsche was wrong about dialectics, he suggested that the non practice of dialectics, even the anti presupposes a polite society, he invoked that comparative tenet of a society in saying: a polite society does not engage in dialectics (finding the truth of opinions).

which is akin to the slander against Voltaire,
that not engaging in dialectics
one has a chance to have an opinion about almost
everything, there's no chance these days
to have a polite society as there is no chance
to establish a Utopia... the way dialectics is
avoided like some surreal horror movie
is to have many opinions, to not engage in
dialectics is to be opinionated, hence Nietzsche's
style of utilising aphorisms and as many
maxims as possible, without useful applicability;
it's like that metaphor for a venomous bite,
the carousel of the many many thoughts,
likewise, no truth are established, since many
truths are proposed - hence the paradoxical
venture into nothing, simply walking in circles
on plateau nihil, it's polite, well of course it's
politeness! politeness by having many opinions
readied for a quick change of subject or
the simple act of shame and shutting up.
all this? with regards to a woman writing about
her abortion: we, the great reverse-amphibians,
so she's writing about it... 4 weeks in she's ready
to erase the dot... they tell her to come back 12
weeks later (sadists... why not remove the dot
rather than wait for the geometry to construct itself?),
again... why not remove the dot and the abstract?
she mentions a dot... remove the ******* dot!
the tadpole outside the gooey yoke is fastened
to maturing in the fresh water stream or lake,
i can hardly be a human being inside the ******
if my **** and bladder muscles are not matured,
i'm an abstract in that sense, tadpoles ahoy!
now see how living in a "polite" society i can't
engage in dialectics but have to reverse the process
of discussion and engage in picturesque comparatives
using toads? it's called applying anaesthetics - well,
an anaesthetic, or a placebo - in polite society people
get over-excited, unconditionally so, over-stimulated,
unconditionally so, with having to muster having
many opinions, politics can become a circus de facto,
de facto as in: detached from rural England.
so if we'll never attack the status quo with dialectics,
will be constantly multi-opinionated, changing the
subject all the time, and when challenging, we'll
only feed an anaesthetic, an anaesthetic that will become
a confession booth in a catholic church:
a quasi-solipsism, the listener and the other person
talking, mono-dialectics, so well entrenched these days
that there's even a good reason for practising
psychiatry rather than a catholic confession in church,
psychiatry is, after all, a secular version of the catholic
practice - more intimidating though, since you're
facing each other, rather than sitting at parallel positions,
shrouded in secrecy of the wooden mosaic wall of
the booth... i'm just wondering if this attempt to feel
the naked soul does not intimidate the clothed body
more to later undress itself in ***.

Best poems are lost in the morn's toothbrush
wash away with rinse fade like first crush
run away with the trail of the bus you miss
fly with summer clouds melt like first kiss!

Best poems are lost with the winds' dusty blow
half seen half known through half shut window
burn away like fire on a long winter night
lure with contour eluding full sight!

Best poems are lost in the crescent moon's glow
when your mind is too weary head hits pillow
evanesce like youthful time smoothness of face
undecoded hieroglyph untraced address!

Best poems are lost like petals in the rain
in the race for vain pride rush for self gain
seen through smoked glass pages unread
crumbling with time wasted like ****!

Sands traverse oceans to envelop me
within the coercion of a dream of Egypt
as I search the turquoise of the medallion in my hands
to match the gray-blue of his eyes.

Too long have I willed for him
to sail the Atlantic,
stride through the door,
and sweep me from haunting this view of London.
But for now I am left
to my own image and a pane,
so I muster the meat of my palm
within this sleeve of lace
to brush it across the glass for a clearer look,
yet my efforts have revealed
no more than engorged eyelids reflected…
manacles of me.

Behest of self,
maniacal I am slated
to perform involuntary tedium,
hopeful to unlock deeper meaning
within each hieroglyph,
once so purposefully etched in a semblance of bronze.

I long to surrender
to the warmth of the taste of iron
caught in his sights over a tomb blanketed in gold.

I will come for you, Daughter of Heaven and Earth.

Spontaneous peristalsis of phrase
connects with the drop
gurgling through the candid quiet
and I wonder
if the image that now reflects would indulge him,
or if he might ****** the lock of dark hair
that he cropped from my neck with the skill of an assassin
when our paths first crossed in Cairo.

Time has softened the image I hold of him;
his eyes are satin,
burning like a flag still waving
as his army advances over our forbidden dig.

There is something
sensation-like in downfall…
copious saline embodies the fractal curve.

I found no scrolls of the Book of the Dead.

Here in my olive skin I rot like a peach
that’s been left in a satchel
forgotten to dust of the ages
disturbed by picks and axes
that strike with the determination of discovery.
A peach, never to be savored;
never to nourish or to pleasure,
or be trampled by insects
and carried off in pieces
to the hollow of the ant queen.

My eyelids are hard to turn like wet pages
forced to envision a river that is not the Nile
where I am held within the binds of propriety,
corsetted, bustled, and locked out of Egypt
dammed from the salvation
of even an intermittent Dutchman’s finger
by dunes and shores and footfalls
to find words that stream in liquid resonance
where firm succumbs to self and
I can feel passion writhing through my intangibles.

Thusly, clouds form over a city that blackens and distorts
the way a river's reflection of my face
would ripple from the plunging body of a dove,
belly-up, encased in wings,
and two thousand miles from him.

Arousal is a moccasin seethed in spasms
of peristalsis and musculature
toward the beckoning pulse of breast.

Any hope for contact collapses into flesh,
venom sheathes each corpuscle,
and a woken neck flails in judgment
before the truth in his eyes
under the shadow of the Great Pyramid
where Ramses II lies supine
across the Turin Papyrus.

I imagine the other side of me
and where she might reflect when
all that there is in such a study
contributes to my wanting
to wreak my bellied freedom
beneath crevices that sink as crevices do
in downward angled layers
to withstand the ages.

Dark hair gleams in contrast,
more for strip of scalp
than the trickle of red down my back.

Breached like sugar that candid—
starburst wings of Monarchs dripping ancient like sunsets
over magenta and milky mauve in the reeds—
my ankles revealed and inverted to the sky they glean, yet...

his arrival is delayed
when the pistol ***** three times.
The still of my breast compounds
with the steady union of the dark, and
somewhere denial flows with the sands.

So cycles change, like a fable for Eternal.

“Daughter of Heaven and Earth,” written by Dionne Charlet, appears in print in Cairo by Gaslight, the second anthology in the By Gaslight Series from New Orleans small press Black Tome Books.  Books in the series include New Orleans by Gaslight (ISBN 9780615801186) and Cairo by Gaslight (ISBN 9781516961528).  Both collections feature poetry by Charlet, under the pseudonym Dionne Cherie. Look for the upcoming anthology Paris by Gaslight, which will feature a poem of the same title by Dionne.

no... it's not one of those what came first
type of questions revolving around
a chicken and an egg...

but... since we became innate in translating
images into audibility,
of a more potent system of encoding...

i'm starting to question one "clue"...
did humanity discover the current
encoding system of meaning,
from what, let's just posit: hieroglyphs
as the starting block...

well... because whatever the Chinese
invested in originally... has remained intact...
but i'm wondering...

did we discover the Greek Δ (delta) first...
or... was it the case that...
encoding sounds, using images,
became so outdated...
that looking up at the stars...
               we figured a second tier of
the abstract of communication?

basically... did we discover the skeletal
phonetic first... or did we discover geometry first?
geometry: the basis for an abstract
spatial coordination, with regards to
whether time should be inclusive,
or exclusive in this new field of study?

to me it's a big question...
does the letter Δ (delta) predate the concept
of a triangle?

              new chicken, new egg dynamic...
i'm just curious...
   i'm trying to suggest that...
according to the Greeks...
         the triangle had to be
an a priori concept with the a posteriori
Δ...
               i could be wrong...
but... like an aeroplane conundrum...

i'm thinking: Δ... so... people talking about
climbing mountains?!
how else could you even begin abstracting
a letter, delta, conjuring up a triangle?!

I VM ᛏ Δ:
                   i walk up mountain...

primordial languages,
which primarily originated in verbs...
not the elaborate nouns and noun
distinctions of today...

so what came first? the triangle,
or Δ?
                 in Latin that's I VM T D...
WM? zigzag, or the anti-image
representation of side-winding,
walking: up-down-up-down-up-down...

so what came first?
the letter Δ... or the discussion concerning
triangles?

well... if you look further in time...
i'm pretty sure that I predates 1,
V predates 5,
                        IV predates 4...
X predates 10...
      a time when even 0 wasn't conjured
of looking into the void of Omicron...
so...

                  Δ predates the concept of
studying a triangle...
Δ is the a priori variant of the a posteriori
triangle...
given the Roman numerals...

and i'm pretty sure Δ was derived
from the contorts of a mountain...

i like that summary in the title:
I VM ᛏ Δ        : i travel up mountain...
Roman, Runic, Greek...

                  which just bewilders me,
how much of the ancient tongues had
to improvise with hand-gestures,
the same gesticulations that are still with
us when it concerns deaf people...

i did write a contradiction in this
piece didn't i?
   i might have written that the triangle
predated the Δ,
which is impossible...

                  given that...
Δ is an abstraction of a hieroglyph construct
of encoding...
   at having written the encoding Δ,
having spent some time looking
at a mountain... there was no triangle
in sight... no 2D pyramid in the world...

but then some scholastic book-worm
concentrated on the letter Δ...
and conjured up a triangle!

                         i guess i should make
this an ode, an ode to the god Tyr.

p.s.

there is a variant of how sign-language
provided the enzyme of evolution...
the gnostic A / Λ (lambda)
to denote the unit of 1, or the vector
encouragement posit of:
  one's actions -
                                   the gnostics
tend to focus, not on the iota, I...
the index finger... but the alpha...

                            i.e.

                      (  )     (  )
                            A

the blanks denoting the presence of eyes...
    by comparison Λ (la-mbda)
                                    how many African
languages use the mbaku - the mb-
prefix?
                                   Λ VM ᛏ Δ -
           i.e. i'm the first (on top)
to walk up the mountain...
                  the mountain is a mountain
because its foundation is the ground
i walk on...
               but among the people,
the people are not my foundation...
i am the foundation that pulls people
forward...
                                      otherwise...
conflict stemming from Λ in the form
of A...
                       hierarchic conflict at the cut
off point... whereby... a large majority
of people: fall into the abyss...
     as it definitely does happen
in real life.

The dead are all around us
they are as alive
in their way
as we are
in ours

We share a world of shadows
with these manes
and step awkwardly
into the light

Every breath of the wind
is a dead soul passing
every autumn leaf that falls
a secret hieroglyph
from the beyond

Beasts in the wild
know this
thus the coyote
sings his mad lament
the raven turns his dull eye
toward the east
expecting not light
but a flight of dark wings

And dark wings
command my attention these days
my eye
turned inexorably toward
the night

Where every word
is farewell
where all commerce ends
and I rejoin the stream of stars

Done with all of this.
And surely
it will be bliss.

I've been
     trying
     to find
            words to describe
the secrets
            of ancient bones
            hidden within this temple
in which i've made my home.
Perhaps if you took the time
to study
              the walls I call
                    my skin
               covered with
graffiti & hieroglyph,
You might find
                           some
                                    greater
                ­                                 truth
obscured by
my own lack
of knowledge
                         on where
                               and how
                         to begin

So maybe I'll start
                                 with the
                                 original
                             big           BANG
Detail
every moment
of recorded history
that lead up to the exact
                                  explosive moment
when our lips met for the first time
and i slipped
into a new    
                        universe
                          where­    

I only want to fill silence

           with your                             
                                                    name

we use or misuse each other
we don't ask as often as needed
the eye of the needle
the sky is closer
storms are wiser
waters sleep in the seeds of wind
everything so holy entangled
sweet deceit in lustry illusions
glamour for amour
cover up for unforseen
the unbearable unknown
everything so wise
like the eagerness of colts

So it goes, said Vonnegut

casually I am your anything
a strange causality a presence
this cocoon of desire
of course, urgent lover
next day another mirror
friend in the afternoon
a simple woman in the morning
slippery oblivion by midnight
unearthed hieroglyph
all night wide
foe and moan &
foam of laughter
SOS in a bottle
but not of wine
******* from time to time
not a dime piece, but she is
a penny for your thoughts it is
you can make and you can take
the cinema on/of my skin
let's speak with our ribs
for the sake of mimes
I could be your slave, but wait
when bus sirens fade away

incandescence is my name,
the patience of graves
of grapes

Scientists made a lofty discovery
The universe continually expands and contracts
In the exact same manner absolutely
So we ultimately live the same lives for all eternity
So we devised a way to send a message to the next universe
A message that would stay in place
Even without the existence of space
A message that would survive time
Even through the end of our line
The message conveyed:
Don't make our mistakes
Correct our sins

Our universe ended
The new one began

The first humans mindlessly worshipped the message
Hearts of the willing sacrificed
They killed for control of its mystic power
It belonged to whoever owned the ivory tower
Until religions were developed
Although they were all somewhat derived from the message
People began to see the message itself as a pagan hieroglyph
An incoherent interference
They killed all that worshipped it
Senseless slaughter
Things got hotter
When people were finally intelligent enough to understand it
They saw all the things we did wrong
And how to avoid those mistakes
But the things we did that were wrong
Seemed much more convenient and easier
They used the weapons we told them not to make
And the ideas we told them to steer clear of
Swords became guns
Racism became genocide
Love became hate
More direct ways of imposing their vision onto the world
Foregoing empathy and compromise
They submitted to the fascism of their subjectivity
And were plunged into the Dark Ages
Steel ***** and chains
Followed by bullet rain
Humanity was lost and found
Humanitarians gagged and bound
People had to make mistakes for themselves
Until they decided to stop living in hell
Humanity collectively decided to follow the message righteously
After they saw hope for the future
Through the vision our message provided
And they realized they should write a message of their own

This morning, between two branches of a tree  
Beside the door, epeira once again
Has spun and signed his tapestry and trap.  

I test his early-warning system and
It works, he scrambles forth in sable with  
The yellow hieroglyph that no one knows  
The meaning of. And I remember now
How yesterday at dusk the nighthawks came  
Back as they do about this time each year,
Grey squadrons with the slashes white on wings  
Cruising for bugs beneath the bellied cloud.  

Now soon the monarchs will be drifting south,  
And then the geese will go, and then one day  
The little garden birds will not be here.  

See how many leaves already have
Withered and turned; a few have fallen, too.  

Change is continuous on the seamless web,  
Yet moments come like this one, when you feel  
Upon your heart a signal to attend
The definite announcement of an end
Where one thing ceases and another starts;  
When like the spider waiting on the web  

You know the intricate dependencies  
Spreading in secret through the fabric vast  
Of heaven and earth, sending their messages  
Ciphered in chemistry to all the kinds,
The whisper down the bloodstream: it is time.

'And am I then a pyramid?' says Senlin,
'In which are caves and coffins, where lies hidden
Some old and mocking hieroglyph of flesh?
Or am I rather the moonlight, spreading subtly
Above those stones and times?
Or the green blade of grass that bravely grows
Between to massive boulders of black basalt
Year after year, and fades and blows?
Senlin, sitting before us in the lamplight,
Laughs, and lights his pipe. The yellow flame
Minutely flares in his eyes, minutely dwindles.
Does a blade of grass have Senlin for a name?
Yet we would say that we have seen him somewhere,
A tiny spear of green beneath the blue,
Playing his destiny in a sun-warmed crevice
With the gigantic fates of frost and dew.
Does a spider come and spin his gossamer ladder
Rung by silver rung,
Chaining it fast to Senlin? Its faint shadow
Flung, waveringly, where his is flung?
Does a raindrop dazzle starlike down his length
Trying his futile strength?
A snowflake startle him? The stars defeat him?
Through aeons of dusk have birds above him sung?
Time is a wind, says Senlin; time, like music,
Blows over us its mournful beauty, passes,
And leaves behind a shadowy reflection,--
A helpless gesture of mist above the grasses.

What does infinite longing
sound like?
Where is the vault that holds
the seed corn of sadness?
And how can we mute our fear
when the barred owls in these
dank woods sob in perfect
sympathy
with the night?

Here
the tense oboes find their range
silence pervades their thoughts
the drum marks a beat
while the string section weaves
a hieroglyph of grief
and resignation.

This symphony is called
the song of the night
and night proves to be
full of whispered life
rustling leaves
and the courage to face it.

But night is not synonymous
with darkness.
Its ways and means
harmonize with the light
render half the whole
parcel our sleeping hours
into dreams
and fitful moments
beneath the staring moon.

In the morning
a plaintive bird song
stirs thought
brings the sun into the east
and wraps night's dreams into
a silk handkerchief
where dreams are tightly bound
and forgotten.

Standing at the edge of the cliff
Want to swing but afraid to whiff
Waited too long my bones are stiff
Trying to interpret like a hieroglyph

Over analyze your over analyzations
Embrace all the nervous sensations
Inner voice shouting accusations
Fading and drowning aspirations

Pardon the interruption
As my heart skips a beat
I propose an introduction
How nice of us to meet
Suffering silent suffocation
To finally breathe is a feat
To follow no instruction
An empty blank paper sheet

Excuse me maam,My name is Drifton, and Im really not a threat
But I can see it from your shoes and I know you have to jet
But to me you must see the worse thing in this world is regret
Weighing heavier on me than any imaginable amount of debt

So many things to say and potential memories to create
Yet we will never know as my writing made me hesitate
I watch you walk away with a rapidly racing heart rate
What am I gonna say..start a debate,ask for a date...great
She's gone forever as I fill up with self indulged irate hate
Erase her memory eternally,my spotted minds blank slate
How many times has your soul lead you astray to a mate
Forever Immortalized within these words, a far better fate

Your eyes touch the back of my mouth. Make it so hard to swallow.
I never breathed so evenly, my stomach feels so hallow.
I'll bury my face in your neck. Allow me to sink my tongue, and
Drown my teeth into your arms. Your breath fills my lungs.

Everything is easy now, since we simply let it be.
This is anything but sarcastic, the way our colors bleed.
I love your golden irises, I love your sepia skin.
Wrap yourself around my bones and melt into my ribs.

I feel like our arms glide through each other,
Like dancing lovers, after years of familiarization
Predictability in every step, but for once
Comforting to know what's going to come next.

Your hands hieroglyph the language of my fingernails
Decoding a sensation that belongs to something bigger than us,
And finally understanding that it's okay to touch that.

Contentment for war. Trading pity for empathy.
Trading sympathy for care.
You were always in the confines of my aching head,
Your name is in all my search-bars.

If I had the right fingers, I would create you in marble
I would design a statue and have it be gilded
In your honor. And if there was a temple for us,
It would be in the shape of a man, aimed at the earth.
He would be bowing to a large evergreen tree.
And our initials would be carved on the side.

Let's finally spraypaint our faces in underpasses
Eyes like this deserve to be gazed into.
Eyes like yours.
Deep breathing, my face in your chest.

Breastbone meeting skull
Dripping my lips onto your skin
Like candlewax.
If you kiss me with finality,
"I promise, darling, I'll kiss you back."

i.

On the aisle of Clarin, misamis occidental
Attentive i hadst becometh, ashore a chaste purity;
I kneweth her, she's been waiting for me.

ii.

Afore in the jungle's, wherein ourn touch hath connected
Aloft in the starry nebula's, whence when Pharaoh's directed;
Yet me and mine wild child, were streaming banner's of feral.

iii.

Althedish Hieroglyph's told of ourn second coming
Ourn craft was as in Ezekiel's time, circle's inside circle's;
We illuminated beshowing, towering ticking with none time.

iv.

No custom to be payed, for we art not slave's
I've waited this long, for mine queen of the shade;
I shalt rest with her, on the aisle of Clarin, risking, daring.



©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
©Earl Jane queen dedication

You rewrite me.

I learn the hieroglyph for longing,
the derivative of sigh.
Ours is a softly spoken love

and I'm a breathless scribe.

A rose in the snow
A diamond in a plow
A single cloud on a hot day
A lone bud amongst the flowers of May
A sole tree on a cliff
Amidst lines, there is a hieroglyph
A white lily in a field of red tulips
A solar eclipse
A volcano in the ocean
A center of planetary revolution
An aurora atop icy regions
A rainbow above desert nations
A sunset in the sea
A sunrise in the city
A moon in the afternoon sky
A mother's unique lullaby
A bright evening star in a cloudy night
Within darkness, a presence of a candlelight
Still, nothing can compare
To you, none would resemble, none can dare
You are beyond comparison
And I can only provide one reason
I don't shiver or stutter when you're present
Around you, it just feels pleasant
I've never met anyone like you
Nor heard anyone say my name like you do
When the sound of my name slides from those lips
I feel safe
You make me feel safe to be me
You make me feel safe

You are my one absolute favorite drug.

If you were a beer, I"d most definitely chug.

I need you like a purple dinosaur needs a hug.

I"ll pour you in my mug, even fill up a to go jug.

If you happened to be a bottle of wine
I"d savor each and every single last sip
A tribute to every grape on your vine
Head rush with each touch of the lip
I"ll be all yours, won"t you be all mine
Come with me and journey on this trip
Be my shade from the bright sunshine
Whisper till you blush, I gave you a tip
Breezy Hair blowing looking so finely divine
Preceding a gush,got me on an IV drip

Now Let me be your cocktail
You can make me extra stiff
Hand me the keys to your jail
Paint the walls like a hieroglyph
Blindfolded, your body's my Braille
Using your scent, I catch a whiff
Night"s coffin about to receive a nail
As you reach the precipice of the cliff

Let us propose a toast with champagne
That roller coaster ride was so insane
So cheers to us, and all we have to gain
May the years be kind and free of pain
And tears only be artificial from rain
No fears, we"re all on the same train
So may our time never be taken in vain
The way I feel, words, can never explain

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Not stated
( though it’s understood )

she will not say a word

like dust
swept under a rug.

Good
Housekeeping.

His anger
ripens

into the bruise
she wears upon her skin

a jewellery
of fear

written upon pale flesh
his hieroglyph of hatred.

Love’s lustre
tarnished from the first

the tattoo
of boot and fist.

Holds her hand
under the grill

until her eyes bulge
gulls screaming overhead.

The bilge
of his vile

vomiting insults
upon her scared face.

“****...****...****”
his screams in a rut

matching each word
to each rising fist

a blow by blow
account.

He the liturgist
in the nightly rites

of violence
uglier than can be imagined.

Lilies cower
in a vase.

He the high priest
of her despair.

An ugly bruise
upon her soul.

Her eyes now
null and void

slit wrists
upon polished table tops

in a room
now sunlit...now unlit.

I had known you in the womb
telepathically - or possibly a ghost
a lost twin or lost soul
(maybe not, you were four)
or maybe
all of existence and time -
as cosmic brothers
and my neighboring universe
or a shared galaxy
because when you walked in
my legs were crawling back to me
after a long hike through the seven summits
and my arms have paddled through the seven seas
to joyfully return to land
twisted and contoured
so painfully blissful to see the shore
and the meteors about shouted
from the sky in their tapered bleeding orange gowns
of eldritch scripts and manuals
rejoice rejoice rejoice rejoice rejoice

yet I cannot say your name correctly
(like an ancient hieroglyph yet to be understood by scholars)
I'm sorry that I cannot
hopefully you will whisper it to me
as I sleep
so it will never be forgotten again

what could empty you?
          in the weight
of our divines
the un    thinking
deep within us
strokes of pure spirit
      our fleeting fall


labour — the early war;
                 original sin
in between the earth and sky
            is the shade
            of the galaxy
why limit sorrow?
why blank the source?
             conquered,
             we go on
and put life first


ignore the    remnant artifacts
                      merciless undoings
turned pools,
                      nudge    of time
ordinary notes of care
unleashed poisons
etched
into skin

history’s suitor to time,
         shards,
                      debris
remember   remember
           remember
the blank silence echoing

days go on,
        fewer,
               sleep escaping
crying out
                   it was a home.


cursed nights into mornings,
         who can make of this?
what once was theirs,
          whatever is left?


emptied, murdered, obliterated
             an annihilation
of the ego
              the anguish,
                     the anguish

eyes still seeing last touch
feeling
ancient alone abandoned
what is a year
              a month
               a decade
but a moment?


—lost and burned
            futile devices,
fervour’s writing

mailed to the void

and the sea?
        the sea?

the saltwater dead, my love,
the saltwater dead

the last great epitaph
of our love:

           i am nobody
           i am nobody
           and you
           are gone

oh, August, a season deceased,
tell me again
the hieroglyph
of your name

Ive found myself at your door again
The dusty, leaf riddle square of Tiannamen
I felt less like a body and more like a pathogen
A lung piercing javelin when you try to prove your masculine

I knock three times and get no answer anxiety fills my molecules more aggressive than a cancer; crumbling my composure like a tank that's panzer
voices chanting violently in my head like they were a cantor

I go for the doorbell but have no luck
I find a piece of tape over it with a note that says it's stuck
with a little smiley face that I know you wrote you're the queen of this castle and I'm just drowning in the mote

Just as I faded into a sense of self doubt and started to walk away from your house I noticed a blur walking down the stairs, a beautifully crafted creature twilring her hair
not a single of the seven world wonders could ever compare

You know that feeling that starts stealing and revealing you from the inside out leaving you kneeling when that person you love, you crave, you need comes back into your presence an energy that comes back with a vengeance; double homicide, no parole life sentence.

The pure essence of her atomical presence raises questions to the lessons you had already taken suggestions on to fill your objections to this paralyzingly beautiful connection of affection leaving you in an antagonizing state of introspection to this abduction of seduction that's like a bed from ikea with no ******* instructions

You keep your eyes on the ground as you greet me but I don't notice because I'm doing the same, I like your shoes by the way. I like your everything though so I guess you could be dressed in nothing but rags beauty is something that you just can't lack.

We took a drive as we often do and slowly midnight turned into two and small talk is all that has creeped out of our mouth spiders of pointless ******* anecdotes all throughout.
I stop the car and we sit there in silence both of my fists begin to tighten; controlling the water in my eyes like I'm ******* Poseidon I didn't know this talk came with a hyphen

I turned to her angerly

as we speak it's like you can't even look at me I eagerly made your life so ******* leisurely and all you ever did was ******* commit thievery and decievery when all I ever wanted was just to be treated ******* equally

YOU KNOW how hard I've tried how many nights I've suffocated into a pillow and cried how each and every failure a part of me died black dhalia on my chest heart cut open wide

It sounds like I'm just trying to be dramatic but this always seems so ******* systematics you always take an oath that I thought was Hippocratic you act like my hopes are way up in the ******* galactic

You came back every time when it was too late and I had to pretend I was filled with hate while the weight of your sadness flooded my limbs and I couldn't see straight

you've pressured me into hatred and I feel so ******* degraded because no one can save this I've called friends late at night asking for help because I've swallowed every last bottle on the shelf

you've made me forget what I like and how to breathe and how to feel and how to see the world in color. you made me lose friends and burn bridges and lose jobs and success.

where was this ******* interest when I needed it most why is it I can't ever reach the peak of the mountain but I always get close? WHY THE **** IS ROMANCE JUST A GHOST DISPOSED AND DECOMPOSED

WHY CAN I BE THIS WAY AND STILL CANT SUCCEED WHY AM I THE ONE THAT NO ONE EVER NEEDS WHY DO I ALWAYS PLANT THE SEEDS OF FLOWERS BUT ALL I GET IS WEEDS

I told her to get the **** out of my car before I drive it off a ******* cliff I've tried to read you but you're a ******* hieroglyph I don't even think 26 is an age I can outlive that was the exact moment I know my soul went stiff

a few years went by

I went through my drawers and pulled out a pen my chest started to sink and fill with phlegm I started to second guess but when push comes to shove...

I started the letter,

Dear Love

I.

i'm always nostalgic when listening to the Mortal Kombat soundtrack... for a reason only i know... it's not that there was a shopping mall in Ilford (Essex... but there was the inner London border of the A406) so... perhaps: technically still London... i.e.
not Essex...  and it was a predominantly Jewish bit of London... Ilford... Barkingside... Gants Hill would showcase a Hanukkah Menorah on the roundabout: when the roundabout was still fun... as fun as the Gallows Corner roundabout still is... i.e.: no ******* traffic lights... gear up... front gears on 3 (of 3)... back gears on 3 (of 7)... imagining holding onto a fox's tail... or a big ask akin to a truck... line up on the outside of its body so the driver might see you in the rear-view window... what happens before the supposed "white flight" from an area? the Jewry are the first to leave... the Holocaust has sharpened their take on trends... demographic tides... it's not like the rest of the Semites (Ha'ha'king'Raabs) have them in the "good books"... intellect before a hard-on... i'm nostalgic because... i remember what Cranbrook Rd. used to look like... i remember what technology felt like... fiddly... Blockbusters... renting VHS video cassettes... the mantra: please rewind this cassette after watching it... so that the next person renting it will not have to rewind it... hardly a Luddite... i still prefer to fiddle around with cables connected to an MP3 player when cycling... i have nostalgia for late 20th century technology... wires... plugs... VHS... the ******* compact disk... i still have a hoard of those that i burn and "translate" into MP3... the Ilford of my youth... when there was still a visible presence of Jewry... before... once again: the division into the labyrinth of their diaspora... i can't count myself "lucky": or so entrenched... "we": the Polacks... number... at best estimate... around 815,000 on these isles... the Romanians have come... if we're not welcome... we won't outstay our welcome... but what became of Ilford: what it is now... little Bangladesh... i once had an "angel" in the Ilford OurPrice (whittle **** the Branson) started making his money via ****** Records having signed up Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells or... the Exorcist Soundtrack... or... (the) Halloween soundtrack... in OurPrice i first bought this Mortal Kombat soundtrack... the sheath read (past participle: red... but not like the colour... ergo not reed: to read)... original motion soundtrack by George S. Clinton... i wasn't sold that... i was a whittle Hans back then: i'm still a Conrad... a white blonde beast... beside my still intact blonde moustache that my grandmother decided to call ginger (strawberry blonde)... and if i grow my hair long like a barbarian: a streak of blonde in the hair: ha... the accents of grey appearing... slow so ever slow... how mortality evaporates... caste in a clinging remark for... bones... good thing he... she... looked out for me when buying this CD... i was sold the proper soundtrack...: gravity kills... KMFDM... traci lords, orbital, psykosonik, geezer, sister machine gun, bile, ****** death, type o negative, *****'s day out... that's the first time a proper mistake was made...  second time... when Batman Forever came out... i was still the puppeteer king of solipsism... playing with figurines of superheroes... making random sounds and narrating what my hands were freely left to do: being available... and i wanted the proper... classical soundtrack... not the songs of: seal - kiss of a rose... U2... hold me kiss me, thrill me... i wanted... the OST... for... elliot goldenthal's fledermausmarschmusik... it's just over a minute long... such were the times... boys still played with figurines... i'm not going to blame myself: having ejected the Jewry from Europe... what came after? still people... but... it's hardly the sort of people that one could relate to: great food... hardly a people that will be willing to create Yiddish... yet still speak terrible ******... like my francophobia... i have a fear of speaking French: simply because i will not speak it with a French accent... i'll speak it at best as some Novak Djoković... but once you speak English with... well... i'm not going to spell out Scouser... pretend Essex-lad or Cockney-cockers... just this... generic London cosmopolitan... foreigner hiding a fake native... i can pull it off: but... to speak French... without a French accent? what's the point? it sounds: fair-enough... passable... but i'm used to the psychology of integration... to the point where i'm indistinguishable that a Scottish English teacher will not suspect i'm not an Englishman from the south when talking to me... while insulting two Polacks at a bus-station... hell... my affinity with my fellow ethnic clusters... oddly enough to see ****** first and white second... has to be the case... unlike the trouble in H'america of the collective mr. brown, mr. coco... mr. cinnamon... mr. auburn... but no herr nigeria etc. that's the "problem": if some Arab insinuates i look like a German... my fetish for the deutsche-zunge starts to boil... after all: i write in English but i think about... the migration of the Saxons... no... not the Pomeranians... or the Swabians... or the Rhine-dwellers... Ruthenians? still... that nostalgia for the technology that was available at the end of the 20th century... fiddly technology... none of this current: wireless radioactive ******* makes you want to engage in "things"... ethereal culprits... like that one time when Gants Hill roundabout had an Odeon cinema... by mistake i was sold a ticket to see the Little Princess... i sat through the horror... i was supposed to see Jumanji... but i saw through the horror... watching to old ladies knit... socks? throughout the whole flick... later i imitated Jonathan Edwards running down Coventry Road on a bouncing gallop... i never ran so fast as i did then... come to think of it... little... little princess... Manga... i must say... Manga has been a greater influence on me than Disney could ever be... ウロ津キドジ... obviously you won't find a katakana syllable-unit of TSU... it wasn't hard to find what the alternative was... TSU-NA-MI... TSU - a bit of a hieroglyph... it can't be written as a sound - vowel or consonant... between ア イ ウ エ オ  ン... i remember that summer... when i was eating fried chicken while my uncle was cleaning his Porsche... listening to either Californication by the R.H.C.P... stone temple pilots: art school g/f... or... how did these brats pull off frogstomp... in the assemble of silverchair?! well... TSU- i already arrived at... that ******* pseudo emoji... but how NA-MI became... what it already was...? ナミ? i used to play guitar... i still sometimes do... but when i remember how it sounds... to play silverchair's SHADE... eh... first irksome lesson... Black Sabbath's Black sabbath: let's forget the chords...

D|---------5-----------------------|
A|-----------------4---------------|
E|-3-----------------------­--------|

which is almost "something" akin to...
Atomic Rooster's: death walks behind you...
Deep Purple's: Black Night...
Spirit: when i touch you...
Free's: all right now...

II.

this can't be achieved: purely verbatim... although i'll look for the extract: from unbearable lightness of being - that encounter between Tomas & Tereza... eyes wide shut... slug mouths always open... insatiable hungers & subsequent delights at the relishes... did he prefer to have *** with his eyes closed... or did she... one of them was most certainly looking...

trouble with ***: there's no trouble at all:
i want to see as much as i might be allowed:
i want my eyes to burn...
since... stomaching enough *****:
i will never... exactly... see in 3rd person...
all that happens in a *******...
with one using my well hydrated little richard
and another sitting on my gob
for me to slobber...
all those 3rd person antics of the ****** are missing...
it's not so much fun if there
is that: envious parade of: it takes three to tango...
one will do...
even if i were a king Solomon...
there would always be a Queen Sheba...
there would always be a father:
a King David: the psalm renegade...
what wisdom from a man
with a harem?
ha...                                i'll just
expatriate myself to a time:
a posteriori... i'll detail all the facts...
after the deeds... wisdom for some comes
with a relief at finding regrets...
no Buddha to tow...
i'll die hungering for prostitutes...
Turkish Romanian...
Macedonian...
because... the English girls played
the game of nun...
no offence: but i i read offence
all over what was made available
for the Pakistani groomers of Rotherham...
girl... if you only asked...
i had all the banana skins
the *****... sure... i was missing
the Colombian fairy dust...
excuses, excuses... this Pontius Pilate
punishment of:
i am... to be absolved from the concept
of free will: from agency:
third person authority:
leverage a blame...
what a zombie-riddled life of welcome:
solo-sorrow...

oh hell... please ask the Mongolian horde
to invade the second time:
i have nothing to defend!
what i might have wished to defend is
already available on the free-market!
they're bragging about it...
choking as they go around...
   i'm surrounded by older women
telling me not to marry...
imagine that...
in the trenches during world war I...
there arrived a makeshift brotherhood...
women are ******* unto each other:
watch them starve for a place in an Ottoman
harem... secure... watch them turn into...
cannibalistic chickens in a courtyard of
farm...
where once there was this Jewish
matchmaker witch / aunt...
there's now... a woman who has
a son that married... while she tells her neighbour's
son: not to marry...
no problem... Rachel: RA-KX-EL...

-  oh what a loss of momentum...
that: what happened when pushing too much coagulated
ice into a narrow neck of a glass...
for ms. amber to play catch-up to what
i already arrived at with the wine...
and a sly beer...

oh right... he was looking at: the following list:

- Loch Lomond
- Zodiac (dolly alderton... i can use her
actual name... she uses it... in print)
- Milan Kundera
- *** after 13 years looking: thai surprise etc.
- Zeus: Swan...
- peek-ah-boo... at the barbers

payroll of journalists - poet: what priest?
lackey? the "sensibility" of journalists...
beside the opinion sections of
the weekend magazines...
no... not all the president's men typo... sorry...
type of journalists...
what's left?
simulating depression by:
listening to the hellraiser soundtrack
for a month: finding relief in some other music...

no... i was pretty much depressed for the number
of nights i put on christopher young's soundtrack
for a month... then i switched to the XXs
and some Trentemoller... etc.
i slept less hours... but upon waking i felt a Faroe Island
invigoration...

wait for the bracket: in & out...
most certainly in: "no" out...

- a pre-scriptum technical note: how best to approach this,
what will eventually become a collage
rather than a narrative cascade: column -
since (it) will hardly be worthy of teasing at
a paragraph...

however it will be approached:
it will most probably be approached with that
first: an impromptu by a goliath ****
done in two parts...

idiot me pushing an iceberg of cubes into
a tall weak glass...
obviously pushing them hard enough
to break the glass up
and leave with the index and middle
finger with a deep cut...
then... me writing this...
delayed by... my body to do its magic...
the bleeding to stop...
no... no plaster... no mastic fantastic...
hands washed...
paper towel wrapped around each finger...
applied pressure...

give or take... the time it takes
to "smuggle" 35cl of whiskey into my room...
god... how **** a bottle of liquor looks
in its first minutes out from
a refrigerator...
and when you pour it?
there's no: glug glug glug sound
of the top-head heavy: i.e. full...
it's liquid amber...
any loose liquid would ****** itself
like a cascade from the narrow
spear-head of the bottle neck..
but not ms. amber... sub-zero...

give or take... 10 minutes...
now my fingers are itchy again...

... if you want the proper version... please see
https://allpoetry.com/poem/16014743-two-bleeding-fingers---in-cervisia-felicitas--PENDING...­-UNFINISH-by-Matthew-Conrad