"this is hoffman, what's going on, where can i find her?"

"there's a nursery rhyme delivering your baby in 114."

"wait, what are you saying, ma'am?"

"nurse heimlich is delivering your baby in room 114!"

"oh sorry, i've been under the weather (chasing the dragon)."

      the fog finds you,
      it'll take your place in time,
      there is no rhyme or reason,
      or even frame of mind.
      the fog blinds you,
      it can't segregate,
      it'll capture all your secrets,
      it doesn't hesitate.
      
      memory recalls you,
      don't procrastinate,
      synapsis fire like machine guns,
      in the middle of the day.
      sensory remembers truth,
      better claim your fate,
      this ain't the time to run,
      new life won't cleanse your slate.

"jane! i'm here. how is our girl? where's doctor klein?"

"she's..."

"shush! mr. hoffman, i'm nurse heimlich. please take a seat.

there were complications with jane's umbilical chord."

"****."

"your baby's lung collapsed, causing her to suffocate. now, we did the best that we could, but the air and blood just wouldn't flow back to her heart."

"i was told there was a nursery rhyme delivering my baby in 114. this isn't a nursery rhyme!"

"then learn something from it, mr. hoffman. I sure am."

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You

If he’d known
The world would mourn his passing,
Would he have overdosed on ******?
How much self-love does it take
To break the habit?
Would you grab it, if you could?
I think I would.
Even kids and wife
Can’t make that change in life:
The skid, the slide,
The gliding down and down
And even more…
Until you’re on the floor,
A needle in your arm,
Unconscious of your heart’s alarm
Whispering “Stop
– or else your time is up!”

SPH, you never knew
They’d mourn your passing
As they’re doing.  
That it would cry: the bylines, headlines
Sounding, bounding, ‘round the world in living print.
If you’d been more intuitive, more self in-touch, less self-indulgent,
Drugs might have been out-of
Thought and need, thought and greed, but…
Habit feeds on thought
And you were caught.  
And so,
We throw
No stones at windows,
Even if and though
We know the world will not cry at our passing.
We’ll mourn
And learn.

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You 2.3.2014
Special People, Special Occasions; Small Stories Book; Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin
  



https://arlenecorwinpoetry.com/2017/02/03/seymour-phillip-hoffman-the-world-is-crying-for-you/

Three piles of stones…

Three I held most dear to my heart,
Three are those that perished,
Now three piles of stones fill the gaps,
That their ashen bodies have left.

Black reflective stones for my mother,
Who taught me all I know,
Who named me Green for my love of the garden,
My mother, who preferred blue-jay feathers to her pearls,
My mother, whose gap,
Occupied now by black stones.

Silver clear stones for my father,
Who was strong and honest,
My father, who once whistled a tune,
A tune returned by the surrounding sparrows,
My father, whose gap,
Occupied now by silver stones.

Pure white stones for my sister,
Who was beautiful and wild,
Who ran through the woods laughing
Who chased frogs through the mud,
My sister, who shone more bright than the moon,
Her gap,
Occupied now by pure white stones.

Three are those that perished,
The same number that I held most dear to my heart,
Ashes are their body remains,
Three piles of stones,
Now fill their gaps.

Ashes and stones…

Ashes and stones are all that is left,
Of the garden I loved to tend.
Zucchini and purple onions,
Peppers and blueberry bushes,
Row after row of prolific treasures,
Burned,
Banished,
Out of existence.

Onion and Ghost…

Onion,
My sister’s little terrier,
Who knew exactly what happened,
Who barked at the ash filled sky,
Onion,
The little terrier,
Who missed Aurora,
His watcher,
My sister…
My beautiful and wild sister.

Ghost,
The white grey hound,
A ghost dog,
White as a cloud,
Moving through the woods like mist,
The ghost dog,
Who resembled sorrow.

Onion and Ghost,
My two constant companions,
Who like me,
Have had their lives split into two halves,
The first, one of happiness and abundance,
The second, one of ashes and stones.

My neighbor…

The old woman,
Whose house stood in the woods,
Surrounded by an apple orchard,
The old woman,
Who had thrown stones to drive away,
The looters in my garden.

The old woman,
Who I repaid,
With a bucket and mop,
And made her house shine.

This old woman,
Wise and friendly,
Who traded birdseeds
For my bread loafs.

The Forgetting Shack…

The Forgetting Shack,
Where boys and girls drink gin to forget,
Where Heather Jones, with her white dress,
Dances around the fire,
Alone and lost.

Heather Jones,
Whose parents had perished,
Just as mine had.
Heather Jones,
Whom I gave my mother’s blue dress.

Heather Jones,
Who danced around the fire at the Forgetting Shack,
Whose feet were ****** from dancing all night,
Whose eyes were empty and sad.

Heather Jones,
Who soon disappeared,
Too busy with trying to forget.

Heather Jones,
Whose blue dress,
I found in torn pieces,
In the ashes of the fire.

Diamond…

The boy who ran from the fire,
Ran across the river,
In search of his mother,
Her portrait close to his heart.

The boy who didn’t speak,
The boy who was tired of running,
Who stood still as a shadow in my doorway,
Who wore his black hood to hide his eyes.

This boy,
Who I named Diamond…

Diamond,
With his hidden voice,
Me,
With my clouded eyes.

Leafs that were once black, now an apple green…

There was Onion and Ghost,
The sparrows and the wind,
And now there was Diamond.

I soon found myself singing,
Dancing,
Smiling.

The black ink leaves,
The black ink roses…
Slowly transforming into
Apple green.

Where did this change come from?
I was Ash,
With black ink in my skin,
With gray clouded eyes…

Green…*

Diamond is gone,
Diamond, who brought about change,
Diamond…
Who kissed me goodbye.

I missed Diamond,
Who painted watercolors,
Who believed the garden would grow again.

I missed Heather Jones,
Who wore my mother’s blue dress,
Who danced too close to the fire.

I missed Ghost,
A white mist through the trees,
A ghost dog,
Who resembled sorrow.

Most of all,
I missed my sister,
Aurora,
My beautiful, wild sister,
Who chased frogs through the mud.

I dreamed of those I missed,
I woke crying,
I cried away the cloudiness in my eyes,
Sun shown out the window,
Seedlings grew in the garden.

From then on, there was no Ash,
Ash blew away with the wind.

I was Green again,
Green who tended the garden,
Green who sang with the sparrows,
Green who danced in the sun,
Green who smiled.











*For my english class, we were assigned an independent reading project, and I chose to write a poem from the main character's perspective. The book is called "Green Angel" and the author is Alice Hoffman. Hoffman is one of the most beautiful writers of all time, and her books are extroadinary! I strongly suggest all you hello poetry friends to read it!

Winnie the Pooh is trying to think
As are Plato and Socrates
While The Little Rascals get rambunctious
And The Marx Brothers cause calamities
Jim Jones stirs the Kool-Aid
And Georgie Porgie makes his move
Bo Peep and Miss Muffett start to blush
Red Ridding hood just swoons
The Muffin Man does a deal
With Johnny Apple seed
These beings and people our real
In our Surreal Reality

******* lets the paint splatter
And Moses parts the sea
Belushi buys an eight-ball
Bruce is on trial for obscenity
Rorschach is on the case
Right behind Sherlock Holmes
John the baptist goes for a swim
Along with Brian Jones
Jack and Jill meet Hansel and Gretel
They're hungry, they're thirsty
These figments of imagination do exist
In our Surreal Reality

Rasputin was so evil
As bad as Captain Hook
Now was it ** Chi Minh or Nixon
Who said "I am not a crook?"
Mao Zedong looked at Stalin
With a shared murderous grin
Booth stormed the Ford theater
And shot President Lincoln
Kennedy and King we're both casualties
Of the process of the deciphering
Of our Surreal  Reality

Zeus said to Aphrodite
"Wow, you look real good tonight"
And Handel says "Hallelujah!"
As the Wright Brothers take flight
Baby Face Nelson
Teams up with Dillinger
Moe, Larry and Curly
Mengele, Mussolini and Adolf ******
Three bears, three little pigs
Along with three blind mice
Sit together, while Maurice Sendack
Cooks them chicken soup with rice
Charlie Bucket had a buy out
Wonka gave up his factory
Fiction or nonfiction it's all a apart
Of our Surreal Reality

Chicken Little tried his best
To warm The Little Red Hen
Of the sly trickster
They call Rumpelstiltskin
Rimbaud applauds Leonidas
And his 300's final stand
Da vinci  paved the way
For both Newton and Edison
Folklore and war heroes
And those with intellectual mentality
Are all just pieces
Of our Surreal Reality

Wee Willie Winkie's scream
Wakes up Rip Van Winkle
But not Sleeping Beauty who's been asleep for thirty years
But has no acquired a single wrinkle
Caligula has lost his mind
And Nero's lost his fiddle
What does Beethoven's hearing aid
Have to do the March Hare's riddle?
Abbie Hoffman fights for civil rights
Thomas Jefferson for democracy
Products of the conceptual
In our Surreal Reality

Berryman writes an ode
To Washington's wooden teeth
Manson speaks of Helter Skelter
Neruda damns the fruit company
Charles Schultz frames the story
And Seuss gives it rhyme
Some where far, far away
Taking place once upon a time
And the villagers all had omelettes
Thanks to clumsy Humpty Dumpty
It's all food for thought
In our Surreal Reality

Santa brings us presents
And Cupid bring us love
But we can never get back
The members of the 27 Club
Warhol makes his movies
And Buddha meditates
Joseph Smith reads the golden plates
Mohammed and Jesus save
Theses figures bring people hope
In life's dualities
Trusting faith
And our Surreal Reality


Han Solo is in carbon freeze
Don Juan's preoccupied
Sinbad sets his sails
Simple Simon didn't get his pie
Caesar looked at Brutus
Brutus looked at Saddam Hussein
Hussein looked at L. Ron Hubbard
Who prayed to Eloheim  
Dionysus can out drink us all
We cringe at Achilles fatality  
As Ra soars through the skies
Of our Surreal Reality

Aristotle says to Shakespeare
"Well Billy you old bard"
Frodo trades the ring of power
To Fidel Castro for a Babe Ruth Baseball card
Biggie and Tupac write their lyrics on paper
Ted Bundy is put in jail
They're making another skyscraper
For King Kong to scale
Hemingway is too far gone
Kant's take on morality
Einstein says it's all relative
In our Surreal Reality

Churchill said victory
John Lennon said peace
Judas gave back the silver
Then hung himself in a tree
Tojo and Kim Jong-il
Wanna be as cool as Brando and Dean
George Carlin warned us all
Now Hermes leaves the scene
So do the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker
Followed by Old King Cole and his Fiddlers Three
As they make their way to find
A sense or Surreal Reality

Odysseus pines for Ithaca
Paul Bunyan chops the trees
The Jersey Devil has not been found
Noah herds the animals by twos not threes
Anubis wraps the mummies
And Augustus leads Rome
Bugs Bunny laughs with Pryor
All at the expense of Job
So what can we all make of this
Is this all actuality?
Symbolism or nonsense?
Realistic Surrealism or Surreal Realty?

I moved a few years ago
To the upper state of Vermont
Although the place is beautiful
At times it can be one great big yawn

That's when we put our heads together
Me and my best friend Shawn
And came up with the great idea
To start a Hippie Farm

Our noggins were a knocking
Not sure how this could be done
Do Hippies come from packs of seeds
Or like flowers, in a bunch

And can you start them off by grafting
Like they do on Apple Farms
Where you get rows and rows of Hippies
From just a single one

That's when Shawn remembered this mail order magazine
That we took out and took a look inside
It came with an assortment of Hippies
From Raw to Roasted to Highly Deep Fried

So we sat and weighed all of our options
And ordered a bushel of Hippies alive
Then we set out cultivating the fields
Till the day our Hippies arrived

The package  arrived a few days later
In an old beat up VW Bus
With psychedelic smoke pouring from the windows
Pretty sure they all came buzzed

Of course Hippies don't come with instructions
Only bell bottom jeans and old Jefferson Airplane tapes
Can't tell you how many Hippies we went through
Before we learned from our mistakes

Like don't plant a Hippie face first in the dirt
They need a bit of air to breath
And they don't like to be over watered
Just dust them off when you feel the need

Now that the farm is up and running
We seem to have come into our own
We've even come up with  a way of branding
Some of the Hippies that we've grown

We started selling them in flavors
Like Ben and Jerry's down the street
From our Abbie Hoffman Radical Cherry
To our Hendrix Hazy Purple Berry Treat

But it's our Groovy Rainbow Roundup Hippie
Whose sales have never let us down
In fact I'd put that Hippie up against
Anybody else's Hippie in town

I've never been much of one to brag
But we're known on the East coast, up and down
We've had people as far away as Florida
Come and buy our Hippies by the pound

So next time your up in Vermont
Stop in and take a tour and watch us grow
Don't forget to stop by our gift shop
And purchase your very own Hippie to take home

I know nothing about this discontentment,
This irritation and friction with sanity,
Suddenly it feels like I have not known my sanity,
Ever.
I have a confession to make.
To my parents,
3 decades older than me.
To tell them that I’ve been lying to them,
Lying about my degree, education and academic wealth,
For almost two years.
The fact is,
I had no choice but to tell them all is well
When the awls were pricking into my tender innards.
The time has come now,
Because I can no longer continue telling the untruth,
I tried if I could crawl in the campus,
Under the tag of being institutionalized,
For them.
Every day that I kept a straight face to them,
I trembled and felt the roars of the rising schizophrenic worlds, bit by bit, all around me.
I felt the unknown telugu that I heard in my mother tongue,
In my dad's voice.
Him renouncing me.
Him grabbing his head,
So as not to explode from the dirge of my living dead.
I hear my parents abusing me, in the random shouts of my neighbors.


I saw it all so clear.
I screamed.
I ranted.
But, found no warmth anywhere.
The fear, anticipation and confusion have killed my sanity.

Today, I flutter like a half-winged bird,
In the darkness of yesterday,
That my parents count as lit.
But then I released,
Knowledge is free.
And, knowledge is everywhere.
And knowledge came to me,
not with the stamps and seals of degrees,
But the enlightenment
From a concoction of three snorts of ******* and a dash of a little LSD on a Hoffman blot.
I rebelled mad in my high,
That I will no longer be institutionalized.
That I’m a free soul.
I became sober,
But my interests did not change.
Its been two years,
And I’m still astray, waiting to fully feel the freedom I have opted for.
For the pain of the mismatch I pour into my parent’s ears,
It kills me each day, second and time.
I have the guts to confess to my parents,
With neither shame nor embarrassment,
That my path is true and solid.
I wish not to be trained no more, to live.
I wish to simply live on my own.
I want them to know the truth.
That I have my house.
My kitchen.
My milk pan, mixer and fridge.
Today, if that **** that happened 5 years ago to me,
had happened now,
I know how to stand.
On my feet,
and hand him, my ******,
over to the law's eagle blind beaks sharper than the awl of my gossamer mists. Rather than bend my conviction, arrogance and identity to that ******* of a coward.

I want them to know that this is the only way.
Today,
I earn myself.
I live myself.
I’m free.
I have to be free.
I write all that I will.
And do forever the same.
I just,
Have to be free.
I will be free.

‘Twas but a rare, snowy day in Paris,
a January day, as all the lights of the city
rested, as dancers of the Moulin Rouge
fixed their make up during the intermission

And in the graveyard of Père Lachaise
there stood a solitary figure of an old man,
his hands gathered together politely,
in front, clenching on to a tattered flat cap

The man stood in front of a grey wall,
“a tomb without a cross or chapel,
or golden lilies, or sky-blue church windows,”
but with an equally lonesome little plaque
that read, ‘Aux mort de la commune,
21 28 Mai 1871’

He lit a cigarette, from which he took just one puff,
stuck it upside-down on a patch of dirt,
then notwithstanding the thunderstorm
of camera flashes from Japanese tourists,
he started to sing, with a hoarse yet firm voice,
“Debout, les damnés de la terre,
Debout, les forçats de la faim…”

As the wrinkle on his forehead began to stretch,
the dusty particles of ice piled higher and higher
on neighboring graves commemorating
French members of the International Brigades
and Spanish maquis of the French Resistance
-apparently the 3,400 meters height of Pyrenees
was merely a backyard *****
for ideas and fates to tread over barefooted-

His song was a ballad of unrequited passion;
when he got to the chorus about some final struggle
and the unity of human race in a silly hymn,
a song that was never played on a radio,
for which no cool kid would ever
spend $0.99 on iTunes store,
his voice started cracking in amorous choke

The old man was a lifetime lover
in the truest spirit of a Frenchman,
spent all his life trying to charm a girl named Emma Ries,
and whenever he dreamed of holding
the eloquently bruised hands of that sixteen years old seamstress,
his eyes swelled of nostalgic heart,

And he used to cry joyfully,
dropping tears of bullets back in the days,
whether by the guillotine in Place de la Concorde,
behind the barricades of Belleville amidst the cannonballs,
******* in front of the Gestapo firing squads,
or under the truncheons of gendarme in Quartier Latin

As the expired old ******* moaned wet dreams,
hallucinogic delusions of his bygone youth, however,
the chilly, soggy winter of 20th arrodissement piled on,
the ashen slums of Ménilmontant depressingly ugly as always
with brownish-grey molten snow spattered all over
the streets trotted by drug dealers and wife beaters,
and neither the fiery oratory of Maurice Thorez
nor the sanguine grenade of Colonel Fabien
was around to arson the frost into the proletarian spring

In the same winter that the old man sang
the first, only, and last lovesong of his life,
it had been more than two decades already
since the Berlin Wall had tumbled down
and the ruling parties in Greece and Spain,
both socialists,
had just driven 500,000 workers out of their jobs

-J.P. Proudhon, Marx and Engels, Jean Jaures, V.I. Lenin,
Leon Trotsky, Antonio Gramsci, Leon Blum, Abbie Hoffman-
by the time the old man muttered an old pop-song nobody cared for,
all of those names were as relevant as some Medieval knights,
characters from an obscure chronicle centuries ago,
who died by charging horseback into windmills,
mistaking them for giants that held whom they thought as
a princess of an ugly peasant woman,

Eventually, right before his voice cracked
into an embarrassing fuddle of choked-up tears,
impressive for a seventy something years old,
the man finished the song from his memory,
all the way up to the sixth stanza;
yet the curvaceously splintered palm of a seamstress,
it was still so far away from his hands that’s been pleading
since 1871 for that glorious *******
which once stood so proudly in the face of a Czernowitz magistrate

When the cigarette he stuck upside down on the dirt
burned all the way down, he reached into his coat,
took out a rose, laid it softly, like his own infant child,
in front of the plaque which golden inscriptions
turned grey from unwashed grimes of ages
and as the old fool walked away,
his back turned away from the solemn wall,
there was but one little patch of dirt in the whole of Paris
uncovered by snow, still hoping for the spring to come.

whatever i wrote, found below... sorry, enjoying my *** and ms. pepsi... i know that even when i sober up, it won't make any sense to me, because it only made sense to me in drunken trance; as in? ah man, i'm here for a good movie, even a "******" movie, and definitely some pop songs when i'm trying not to give some sort of intellectual critique when easing back, and glug-glug-glug some fire-water down; all these arguments? maybe tomorrow, maybe next-week, maybe (please god!) never; honestly, listening to these arguments, actually made me want to break my "ramadam" of not jerking off... i simply hard to ******* after the threshold was breached: too few feminine vowels in the argument, after all, consonants are *******, prompt, *****... never really bubbles of pleasure, but sure as ****, logical, brick on brick, and a mile high... still, gets to the point of being tiresome that you have to move the tongues into a down-south manoeuvre; and i can, i am excluded from the biblical onan quest, since i haven't been m.g.m'ed.

so hold on,
               atheists think about god,
and later talk about god          as a void?

wait wait, too much ***...

and theists don't think
about god,
  and later turn into automaton
kneeling pawns?

****, this is confusing,
i thought that *** would
clarify...
      evidently, it hasn't...

what's confusing is the anti-theist
movement,
what's the anti-atheist movement
look like?

   ******* alice, walking through
a mirror glass...
   tricks of sophistry -
   you really can't even wish
for a fishing-hook
   to rein that word in...

oh god i'm trying...

  so:

   an atheist is someone who think
about* god,
      but states that there is no god -
well, the +? at least he's not
in a coma, or brain-dead,
  or a vegetable,
   or someone seeking a comfy couch
after the sunday services.

and a theist? is that someone who
"thinks" about god,
but states that there is no "god"
(i.e. thought) to be concerned with
the argument, beginning with:
my purpose is to gain a mercedes-benz
and turn flashy before the congregation?

no, wait, this is turning into a spiral
i can't control...
    can someone get me in touch
with mid-west tornado hunters?
   i'd love to spend a life watching
those things...
     i'm literally a convert
    after watching the film tornado
starring
oh **** me, what a great ******* to movie,
with the late philip seymour hoffman,
ever imitate the oiled-up *******
while pulling your cheek skin from
your jaw?
     sounds about the same as
chewing a beef steak...

oh right, right, these people are serious
atheists,
         but can't fathom the basic
solipsistic delusion
  that we're not living in alaska,
on our own, hunting, gathering, whatever...
that's atheism for you,
  in a society: solipsism lite...
    sure, it's a great talking ground
compared to the ritual of prayer
and the act of kneeling and singing
hymns,
    but the one thing atheism or anti-theism
(whatever the **** that means)
       will not be, is? solipsism...
  
            i can't fake either a belief
or a disbelief in a god - but i can empirically
state that i'm sitting in a room, by myself
and writing on a blank piece of
pixel "paper"...
                     that's the nearest i get to
grasping a "solipsistic" attitude in terms
of a self-sufficient self-dependence...
    who the **** will take my trash away
with regards to pencil-sharpening
the atheistic argument?

    atheism shouldn't exactly lead toward
anti-theism, that's anti-poetry, and i can't stand
by that... if only atheism leads toward
solipsism, i could understand you,
you pseudo adams...
          women will never exactly succumb to
a form of atheism that men seem to try to
make pop...
      this atheism has no potency for
the kind of pop that music can provide people
with...

wait wait... i'm still confusing terms, aren't i?
seagull 1 says the same as seagull 100...
        that's going to be hard to formulate,
given that we don't know who
the first atheist was...
       buddha? buddha thought he was
a levitating head of a god attached to
a body of a human being...
  who was the first atheist?
                        so this is seagull 100 talking
with seagull 200, with seagull 1003...
     now... now i lost the plot...
   who's seagull 1?
               ah! seagull 0!
  there's no seagull to begin with...
           so why are we talking in seagull 1's
talk?
        
so atheists "think" about "god"
          while "theists" think "about" god...
the former translates as talk,
while the latter translates as worship...
       **** me, the "theists" invoking
   the "about" is a mind-****** -
  where is he? mecca?!
            yes, about as in coordinating...
    funny though, how atheists manage
to talk more "about" god,
   than theists get to pray "to a" god...
atheists can indulge in their activity
24 / 7... theists get to only do it for 1 hour,
every 7 days... what a scary comparison...
             and when i remember going to
church, i remember the comfort of
being able to yawn during the service...
whenever an atheist speaks,
   my ears turn into agitated antennas...
        can i cite a one word quote and end this?
*losers!

reinventing the resurrection of the Roman Empire with
a pseudo-Christ in tow will prove fatal -
or simply propelled to an established
norm for all the wrong reasons
other than a quasi-Narcissism fully embracing
fetishes beyond the standardised
practises of human evolutionary concerns -
see how Darwinism is incubator
of fatalist vocabulary? too much arrogance -
they're nothing more than Spanish
Inquisition leeches - because when was
atheism intended as a fashion statement
with mismatched socks and matching
loafers? probably never.
we already sought to put atheistic economics
on the guillotine tablature -
the temple named: all men are born equal
was always Samson's prize for demolition's
just escapade, in or anywhere outside of
a Glasgow housing estate -
a Scot making a joke about Scots:
how was copper wire invented?
two Scots arguing over a 2 pence coin...
a stretch Armstrong moment i'd like to see.
all we need is Hillary for the unholy alliance
to materialise - the birth of horse racing
and womanised politics -
and are you the baby tarantula on the back
of mama tarantula? no? oh... don't
expect much from mama tarantula
if you're not part of her family and genetic vector.
the resurrection of the Roman empire as cited
by Divine John has a major fault...
the original intention prior to the authority of
Augustus was based on republicanism -
not democracy - the autocracy evolved from
republicanism, not democracy -
and if this be the McDonald model of work
ethic and success, it will be hard finding a few wise
old men to quench a rise in despotism -
the naive-expectation will over-power them -
we could see America as our safety laboratory once -
where the fates of Greek democracy and Roman
republicanism were played out -
rule of the many v. rule of the informed worthy few -
if elections came about the former would
have a lot of numbers anonymously signed X -
while the latter a few numbers but identified with
articulate signatures - democracy is basically
a stab in the dark, that precipitates to a vote of
no confidence - and an immediate imitation of
Pontius Pilate's quest for conscience and washing his
hands in pseudo-Dostoyevsky's the machinist,
with bleach - ****** courtroom -
when older poets recite their republicanism knowing how,
the newer ones recite their democracy knowing neither
how or why - thus the resurrection of Rome built
around democracy and not republicanism -
the washing of the hands and loss of conscience -
this prophesied resurrection of Rome was not based
on republicanism but on democracy, for the simple
fact that democracy had its martyr - a republican member
should another be fixed to compete with him -
no Platonic notation of the idea behind the republic
was ever established - but indeed a lot was noted
concerning democracy - which in practice wasn't
a practice in dialectics, but in dichotomy -
the polarisation of opinions in the simplest terms:
man v. woman, old v. young...
the republicans only had one dialectics ruining them:
the dichotomy between one man and the many -
is man to be as automated as insect or Satanically
rebellious and in his own sway "himself"?
there need not be a conjuring of biblical myths with
this concern - man was not temped for insight
into the disparity of good and evil and subsequent
confusion of attributing each its invested share
of expression in the world of choice -
but man was made an ontological alliance with
the famous villain (i too, akin to Milton's sympathy
a pledged allegiance do make an oath to consummate
a rival marriage, kindred of celibacy shared
by truth or perception, royal, named Elizabeth I) -
for if not by rebellion Satanic not make elemental conquests
or at least improve on them?
Francis Bacon died attempting to conjure up
a refrigerator with a dead chicken - dying from
hypothermia, or a really bad cold; never mind that,
if the resurrection of a united pseudo-Rome is to be
established it cannot take root in democracy -
but it already has, and is doomed to fail
given one of its former provinces risked all to exit -
it has to be rooted in the origin, in republicanism -
but it can't take root there, given the lost vitality of ancient
old age and modern old age leaving behind
only disparity - audacity of youth in every sphere
of life - and the blatantly over-stretched comforts of
old age - the American experiment of having
democracy v. republicanism staged failed -
that was the intention - to see which one was more the success
story of the revival - i appears neither or precisely both -
in that democracy has fuelled the city-states once again:
globalisation and the city-states: London, Paris, Germany...
they exist as separate entities in a web segregating
themselves from national politics and associating themselves
in global politics with only their counterparts -
the Greek city states have been revived by such dynamic;
so if democracy fuelled that, then surely republicanism
has fuelled what happened in the British exit from the union?
coup d'état in Turkey (on the waiting list, joining in
2020 along with Serbia and Albania etc.) - if you can't see
xenophobia and a choice of politically correct vocabulary
you don't see the naivety of Polish pensioners and English
pensioners - Turks at home in Germany - but let's revitalise
the memory the Iraqis share with Mongols and the sacking
of Baghdad and the Siege of Vienna between Turks and Poles -
i've assimilated into British society i don't identify with
such ethnic historicity - i was taught history including Roman
conquests; do i think the Scots will break from the Union?
i think they'll break for ethnic moral - that's
the other member of the unholy alliance, a real cat fight,
2nd Ms. Thatcher in Downing Street? the youth voted
in - the old voted out - when they were concentrating
on the gender gap a milieu gap was convening -
outside of London the impression of the family environment
suggested the youth didn't vote, in the urban environment
youth mingled with youth, to later hear their parents
or grandparents were dying ****-stained in care-homes...
strange: you always seem to wish to be part of a Mongolian
horde in such times for the oddest but the most blatant
reasons... oh yeah, and i read 5 books today...
well, i told you, once you read enough books of your
own choice you end up reading poems and reviews to
give yourself some slack...
- les parisiennes by Anne Sebba (review by Daisy Goodwin)
  (always women reading books by women,
   and men reading books by men... what sexism
   in this post-sexist culture of FEMININE EQUAL)
- Paper: passing through history by Mark Kurlansky
    (review by John Sutherland) p.s. best citations
    from this review... maybe some other time...
-  The Age of Bowie: how david bowie made a world of
     difference by Paul Morley (review by Will Hodgkinson)
-  the Girl who Beat Isis: my story by Farida K(h)alaf with
    Andrea C. Hoffman trans. by Jamie Bulloch (review by
    Catherine Philp)
-  Pinpoint: how GPS is changing our World by Greg Milner
    (review by Damian Whitworth)
and finally...
- All things made New: writing on the Reformation by
    Diarmaid MacCulloch (review by Robert Tombs)...
                                indeed,
                                 the terrible has
                                 already happened;
never leverage on
a positive thought when
working from Pompeii -
as the lessons of failure
from the past magnify -
there is nothing
but hindsight and pessimism
in the past to unearth -
while uncertainty and optimism
toward the future readying
itself for the burial rites
of the already unearthed artefacts
in continuum imito (in a continuum of imitation).

it's inherent ontology, it's not even necessary to process inherited ontology; inherited ontology can be riddled and lost to abstraction like the invention of crosswords as antidote to the drilling-in of the Bible... but inherent ontology? inherent is a tautological invitation to italicise the word ontology - tautology anti synonym - the doubly stressed, point origin secured, but from two adjacent / adjective angles - well, might as well be a compound, the adjacent-adjective, when language meets math and math meets.... d'uh... or simply arithmetic, because that's how it's easily translated, arithmetic is grey people and math the rich... language the poets and grammar the farts.*

a shortened critique of pure reason -
                                                               ­   a) based on phenomena
                    (things most likely talked about)
and
                                            b) based of noumenna
                                        (things least likely talked about)....
i.e.                    a) and the ego implant,
and                                                     ­ b) the god implant -
likewise the zealots on either side,
bleep bleep beep r r e r s.... and muslims...
i forgot to mention that Kant forgot
to mention the trigonometric foundations
as justifying owning a villa or whatnot,
the same foundations of having
the implant ego secured and willed
are the same parameters of the
implant god secured and thought
the point being dynamic parallelism,
mid-way between cosine and sine
rigid fluctuation tangents occur,
the ridiculous abbreviations, the p.s., and ibis.;
you're basically born with ego
or you're born with god -
there's no woof woof Pavlov chime chime in between -
ring-a-ding-ding-surprise?
there's no side-winding to create cinema -
being born with ego is explained clearly, coerced
with monetary affairs;
being born with god is explained "clearly", coerced
with murderers, lastly -
no psychological theory will box-me-in
given the lost tribalism and the usage of
the trans-valuation of the synonym of thing -
with money came slang - and all thorough evils,
with slang, synonyms, antonyms, critique of vocab.,
Arizona in the ******* Amazon -
i'm basically saying what Kant said:
god isn't uncool or whatever atheism tends to forget,
it's an implant of functioning, we can't rid it
by argument, and we certainly can't accept it
by prayer - unless we're dumb enough to do either
for worth of understanding tornadoes;
because that's were Seymour Hoffman started for me,
filming Twister.

Rainbow village Episode 17



Fred, Lyle and Georgina decided to walk down to the shopping mall about 15 minutes away from Rainbow village, and as they were walking some of the young hooligans were skidding down, burning rubber, and some bikies did wheelies, which made Lyle jitter and he ended up saying, that you guys ate a pack of losers and should be f..n locked up, and one hooligan threw a rock right in his face, and Lyle collapsed straight away, while Fred stayed with Lyle, while Georgina went for some help.
Fred told Lyle not to panic, even if he was in pain, and then 2 hours later. The culprit came over, and told Fred, when I was a little boy, I was taken from my home, by a weird man who fits his description and his age, and I know his name, because I don't forget much from those days, and when he said that Gia name was Lyle Hoffman, Fred couldn't understand,
And Lyle told him, that he didn't **** him, so why do you want revenge, and he said because no one ever gets his hand on Peter Buchanan, and now, Lyle, you are going to be ******* in the public toilets, but I think I want you not to be as lucky as I was, so Fred, you go back to your retirement village, (which he said moving his fingers up over his head) and let me deal with Lyle Hoffman and Fred pulled out his mobile to call the police and Peter knocked it out of Fred's hand and then he said, that he doesn't trust him, so Peter took Lyle and Fred hostage and brought them to a rundown factory, and when he got them into the machinery room, Peter set the bomb to go off, in 3 hours, Peter wasn't wanting to **** Fred, so he made his rope escapable, but Lyle's ropes were on tight, and when Fred got free, he went over to rescue Lyle, but his rope was too tight, and he couldn't get the rope loose.
Lyle told Fred, his version of events, which didn't sound good for Lyle's defence, because it sounds like Lyle made his bed, and wanted Peter to lie in it,
What Lyle said, he got sick of Peter and his mates teasing him and to get revenge Lyle grabbed Peter and pulled him into the car and drove him off to the country, and then when he got him there, Lyle decided to get his gun and stick it at Peter, to make him too scared to say anything, but Lyle said in his defence, he let Peter go before the police arrived and shot through, and then he told Peter, tell a soul and your dead, and Peter was scared shitless, and apparently Peter hasn't worked since, but Lyle called him a gutless trouble maker.
Peter came back in and Fred told him, I see why you are doing this, Lyle told us the whole story, but you are making you just as bad as him, and Peter said, he is the reason why I am walking around psych wards all my life, and if you don't let me **** Lyle, I will go to Rainbow village and tell the manager that Lyle should be locked up, and not given the lap of f..n luxury, and Fred told Peter, please spare him, I have the name of a good lawyer, and he can help you get justice against Lyle, and Lyle went. 'hey'.  And then began to be super scared of Peter, because what happened was a long time ago, but Peter didn't give a hoot, but Fred's advice made sense, though, if he loses Fred will cop it, big time.
So Peter let Fred and Lyle go, but that wasn't it, no Peter rang up this bloke and, yes, Lyle went to court, and in court Lyle was getting fried, a he can't seem to defend himself properly, Lyle said one word and the prosecutor kept throwing stuff at him, and despite Lyle having Rainbow village giving him character references and all thar, Lyle's defence wasn't looking too good, and after 1 week of 3 sessions, the magistrate brought the matter in front of a higher court, which could mean jail time for Lyle, and the date was exactly 3 months time, Lyle was scared as he said to Fred. It's all your fault, he was a blushing trouble-maker and Fred said, yes but it still ain't right.
The end

i could conceive the western concept of the rehab,
but then for 3 weeks i was in poland
i didn't touch the bottle for that period of time...
i don't see how an addict with a bunch
of addicts can be cured by anything other than
stigma... i'm actually happy addicted to
addiction: i entered my reading-mode...
   that said, most people can't digest a Kraszewski
book... **** me, we read Bradbury in snippets
just to tow in an essay for A-level english...
       philip augustus, or the chess player concerning
the Angevin family... great stuff...
   i didn't choose the book, my grandfather did,
he owned half the Kraszewski collection and read
nothing of it, he had to find a ******* "bored"
enough to read one of the books,
   and as i once said: i've seen the movie adaptations
of the Sienkiewicz trilogy...
         the cossack uprising, the swedish deluge...
and i said to myself: i can't and i won't...
thanks you jerzy hoffman, and yes: thank you
peter jackson...
              the infinite supply of elven arrows
and Legolas shooting orcs at point-blank range did
it for me...
                thankfully i can write something
as obscure as this, and know, for certain, that
there's a back-alley of the human populace out there
that might be searching for something like this...
   but that's what i found entertaining,
i actually had the opposite of wanting to compliment
the film adaptation of sienkiewicz, with an actual
sienkiewicz book... mind you: Kraszewski covers
the same period... and it's all the same time frame...
   should i write a proof that i read the **** thing?
maybe... but the main idea is that:
a metropolis cannot provide the right environment
for a book... or completing a book...
books are read in the countryside, in small towns,
in palaces... in hunting lodges...
          and i dare say: reading a book, getting into
full swing of the narrative is best done in daylight hours...
and i'll come back to the daylight hours,
  as a drinker and writer i chose the night...
  you know how long it took me to restore my
biological clock, and regain the nocturnal realm after
spending 3 weeks with a clear schizophrenia
of sleeping in the night and wriggling about during
the day? 2 weeks! i restored the biological pendulum,
but i have to admit: i feel ****...
    but i guess it's a worthy sacrifice...
i'm planning to go back to my country of origin
during late spring to read some more books...
i couldn't have read don quixote, the brothers karamazov,
bertrand russell's history of western philosophy
    yada yada yada... or kierkegaard's either / or,
or finished off kant's critique without my place of birth...
  and isn't it like a badge of honour?
                some will tell you to speak out an eastern
mantra... om... and the shattering of chandelier...
the western mantra is also a type of hypnosis,
you have to find a rhythm with a book...
  the mantra is the narrative of a book, and the silence
that incubates you has shark-teeth should anyone approach...
   but urban living makes this spot harder to find
than a begger or the ******... you can read books
in large cities... before you head home you're
bombarded with the psychology of exploiting your
literacy, in adverts, in orientating signs...
        with them being so authoritarian, it's hard
to find time for a liberal attitude to books...
            esp. what books are, best described by people
who'd probably like to throw them like molotov
cocktails in protest marches: thick as bricks those
gargantuan apostles of the void are...
       and so we are: sitting in times of hyperinflation
of literature... if that isn't the case, let me know by
Tuesday next week, i'll brood the assumption myself
until then...
      that's 2 weeks it took me to return to my writing mode...
to get back to the nocturnal realm
where everything is doubly black & white...
                 the point is: i want to write at a time when
the surrounding world sleeps...
     last time i remember, i didn't get a message in my dreams,
i'd love to see letters in my dreams, fortunately
i can't... i haven't seen these artefacts in dreams,
      but it's hard to blame memory as not strained enough
to do so... the unconscious and memory don't really
interact that well... it's a paradox that they even do
and that dreams have some sort of existence involved in
the architecture of our psyche...
                        last night i dreamt of lego batman because:
d'uh his endearing sarcasm... and godzilla!
   boo ya!         and this large city being eaten up
by a tornado, and other things phantasmogorical....
well pandemonium here, pandemonium there...
    don't get any ideas about the nature of dreams and
oedial repression... please! unaffordable housing prices
these days can only mean i'd really earn a mortgage
if my ***-drive went to the dogs, of the profession.
    so 3 weeks of a sober life and enough time to read
books... and my return into a writing life, a nocturnal
life, and drinking...
   mind you, in between there was that masters final
with ronnie o'sullivan (at least romford is famous for
something) vs. joe perry... in the last frame, when they
had 30 odd points each, and they were plucking at the
last remaining red ball for the snooker?
       snooker is a metaphor for the savannah...
you either watch snooker, or a david attenborough naturalist
show... there's the herd of buffalo (the red *****)...
           and the cue ball the hunting predator...
well... it's all a bit abstract, there are just ***** on a green
table... but still... at least in snooker you can bug
the "pawn" (red) ***** without having to *** them,
in chess you destroy completely... the pawns go...
there's no time to keep them for a no-man's land pause...
and i just turned 30... which goes to show:
                  if the game of football was perfect,
i mean perfect like tennis is with hawk-eye and
    6 judges vertical, 4 judges horizontal...
                  then football wouldn't be so passionate,
so religious... the reason it is so religious is because
judging it is so ****** imperfect...
     there's a reason why football can't be perfected in a way
as rugby can, where the referee can pause the game
and ask for a replay... the unfairness principle!
it has to be unfair in order for people to feel even more
impassioned by it! that's why in that film
when Alec Baldwin says something along the lines:
god comes first (while his hand holds out
the index and *******), and football comes second
(the index finger disappears)...
      football can never be a sport that has perfect
refereering... which makes me surprised as to why
it can grace the Olympic games...
                   football (in english, not that theme park
of jumping torpedoes) - yes the football known as:
ballet with hairy legs...
                   it has to remain unfair and subsequently
quasi-religious because it generates the most money,
but apart from that, it has gained a quasi-religious
status because it reflects a sort of life we acknowledge:
the referee made a bad decision, god did this... blah blah...
  and we get passion, religious passion that's
best represented by football hooligans...
                        but whereas other sports perfect their
techniques of refereeing a game, football hasn't done
the least possible, because it requires the whole debate
of: life's unfair!
    if it wasn't for unfair refeering, the game would not
be alive, as it is alive, to stage a confrontation
with: apache west ham, and sioux millwall...
       it's the best way to ensure tribalism...
         make the refereeing unfair, don't improve it...
blame it on the man in the sky, or the ponce in new zealander...  
mind you....
   the last football match i went to was at Stamford Bridge,
Chelsea lost to Newcastle United...
             i just just there like a stoic twant...
           i couldn't imitate the screams and the chants...
   i was just mesmerised at how it's so different from
watching a football match without the television acting
like a microscope... i am sure i was looking elsewhere
when someone scored a goal...
                 i probably went to the toilet when i
missed another goal...
                        and i'll reiterate...
   it can't be a gentlemanly sport, the rules can't be fair,
that's why they call it the sport of the rabble,
they have to contain the illusion of being unfair...
       because it's a "rabble" sport...
the referee has to make bad decisions,
otherwise there would be a "what if" dimension...
ask any Pole about the 1974 semi-finals with Germany
and ask them about the weather that day...
  then ask about the Polish wingers... and how fast they
were... and how the pitch was so slosh, and ice-puppy
fudge that the slow germans won it...
                     because the Poles always say:
we could have beaten the Nedetherlands in the final...
        again: football, if it is to be stated as the secular
alternative to religion, has to have an inherent unfairness in it...
all the other sports will perfect their judgement,
football will not move an inch... just like a religion -
perhaps that's also because we live in times of
cold-consumerism,
       a quick comparison is:
   the reactions of antonio conte vs.
                       ivan lendl -
   the former looks like a raving lunatic when something
good, or bad happens...
   the second? is he watching tennis, or playing poker?

.with rob zombie's: ***** liquor in the background,
a man perched on windowsill,
              one foot tapping along,
                                 the other foot folded
and sat on...

    come to think of it,
                 why am i not bothered,
   not bothered by the neighbours?
well, one ****** tried it,
complained about me smoking out
of my window,
   and that one time i was making a b.b.q.
and he said: 'you should have warned
us!'               the ****?
            all beause he had been doing
his washing and was drying his clothes
on a washing line, 20 metres from my b.b.q.,
and now they're moving house.

the english,
     they always want a house with a garden...
in the vicinity?
    you know how many times i've
seen the english use their gardens?
              roughly 5 times per year...
they rarely even attempt to switch
the garden to a ******* venture when
the one toilet is occupied by someone
taking a shower...
                      for all the wants of a garden,
i haven't seen anyone around here
take to planting a cherry tree,
            or burrying their cremated cat...
i guess i must be the odd one out...
            i mean: i'll integrate up to a point,
but then... well there's just me,
               rumours...
rumours...
      apparently donald tusk got
the job as the president of the european
council, because he mingled
   with frau kanzler
   over the position...
                     **** me...
        27 prime ministers,
    but only 1 chancellor...
                  who said the stereotype
of jews being good with money,
never made it to the stereotype of germans?
   the rumour is...
   he got the job...
       only because his father was
in the wehrmacht...
             after all, he did write
a bestseller book about the city of Danzig...
no surprise there,
  given that Danzig was reminiscent
of a city-state akin to Athens or Sparta...
mind you, better than any movie
on a friday night,
   tuning in on the 66th minute
of Liverpool vs. Southampton...
                waiting for the 1 - 1 draw...
but the genius of jürgen jürgen (klopp)
came through...
                     funny that,
people with funny surnames...
             dialect distinctions...
      klop in western slavic implies
the ******* - ide na klopa -
      i'm going to sit on a toilet...
            ****** must have been a funny surname
before its notorious prominence...
but rarely do you get to see 28 minutes
of a football match of this sort of quality...
    wolverhampton wanderers...
they're playing a very interesting piece
of football this season...
very portugese barzilian-esque...
      everybody knows that
        italian football is boring
  (too many passes),
   and german football is just too predictable...
but how the hell did Liverpool
come up with 2 goals in a period of 28 minutes...
mind-boggling...
       i'm always there for the sport per se,
i don't really feel inclined
to have a vested interest in the sport
as to pick a side,
               what once was
          religion, now becomes infused
in sports... seriously...
  count me out of this secular take
on religiosity...
            i'll pay my dues: were deserved
dues are due...
                   that's probably i much
prefer the olympics to this coming farce
of a world cup...
   how many footballers are going
to drop dead, from heat exhaustion?
we must thank our camel cockey bwovers
for cracking up the heat
          in air-conditioned stadiums...
once upon a time, the arabs had,
enviable traits...
   now? with all that wealth?
                                         take a guess;
if muhammad was raised from
the dead?
                     you'd see a forest
of pikes, on top would sit, decapitated heads
of his own people...
         but that's a wild idea,
perhaps even he, couldn't avoid
the temptation;
nonetheless, is it wrong to say that some
sports are over-represented?
   well, d'uh!
                 olympics comes,
and i always look forward to classical
wrestling matches,
    archery,
                             ha ha... ping-pong...
sure... none of the tennis allure...
  but it's a welcome break from
mainstream sports...
                                 and this whole
team religiosity influence...
                  that **** bores me to death...
clearly religion didn't die,
it just morphed...
                oh, really? it's that time of year?
the one time of the year
where i become a gambler?
   what? it's the quiche thing to do
in england, a bit like sipping
                 pimm's and eating eaton mess
at wimbledon...
       the grand national...
   betting on a horse...
                     and just to prove i'm no
gambler - why would i dream about
going to las vegas?
                   that shitshow of a town?
all the best strip-clubs in the world:
but no brothel.
      eh?!
                 tiger roll (7 to 2)
is attempting to make history,
     by clinging to: two years in a row...
i only have 4 quid to spend on the bet...
   so 2 horses...
               2 quid each...
                         hmm...
                      'further rain would help
him to step forward'
             i checked the weather forecast
(the grand national happens somewhere
south of liverpool, i think)
                     rainy...
overcast...     step back (25 to 1)...
                         now a compensation
horse...
                          i'll need a few more whiskies
before i make this blind bet lucky hope...

i'm not betting on tiger roll (7 to 2) -
the odds are not wildcard enough...

mind you, not being a gambling *****:
i do know that rolling tobacco
needs to be fresh,
   slightly moist, in order to roll it,
you can still roll the dry tobacco,
but then you'd also require
obc cigarette tubes,
         and one of those "gizmos" /
machines, to pull off
             a perfect match...
no in a millions years will you get
out a perfect rollie
with dry, pall mall tobacco...
when no golden virginia is available...
point: but you're also
not going to **** dry the filter
with dry tobacco...
harder to roll,
               but an easier smoke...

anyway...
   back to the grand national...
look, i'm no dustin hoffman
rainman hack...
         i felt like ******* away
4 quid's worth on an event, sue me...

   1             up for review (25 - 1)
         'could relish this test;
      must be a contender'

2a            folsom blue  (50 - 1)
          'mud-lover; stays well
   but at veteran stage'

2b           general principle (40 - 1)
     'best not ignore this irish
national winner'

3            ramses de telilee   (25 - 1)
             'welsh national second;
               stays well and improving'

4   ballyoptic    (28 - 1)
   'scottish national second;
                   cannot rule out'

  5a       mala beach (50 - 1)
               'fresh; could suit;
              a lively outsider'

    5b go conquer      (33 - 1)
         'bids to give his trainer
a third national'

      5c     lake view lad      (14 - 1)
             'improving steadily and
this trip should suit'

   5d jury duty    (16 - 1)
     'should relish this trip.
         could get a positive verdict'

6 vieux lion rouge             (33 - 1)
     'has tried three times in
this; fourth time lucky?'

   7       bless the wings                (66 - 1)
              'would be the oldest winner
       since 1853'

so...
      gambling, fascinating,
   how there's no objectivity argument,
and all the sort of superstitions associated
with it... a truly, magnanimous,
secular age...
   football as a religion,
   gambling on horses as the trials
of fate / luck / whatever belief...

       truly... gratifying...
   and i don't imply that in any pompous
sense, i'm about to invest 4 quid
in the whole affair!

   my pick?
              step back 25 to 1 odds
first choice...
   so it's either between
the mud-lover folsom blue... 50 to 1 odds,
ah... i'll need more wizard like
uncertainty when it comes
to gambling,
repeating to myself:
   there's no such thing as luck,
there's no such thing as luck,
gambling is only subjective,
gambling is the reiteration
of a religious experience,
        it's the sensible option,
it's the sensible option, ****...
i'll just split the 4 quid over 4 horses
rather than bet 2 quid on 2...

per quid:
                      step back
                      jury duty
                      up for review
                      go conquer / folsom blue

****...
                   no wonder i never got
into gambling...
         i never fathomed the aspect
of winning
as much as i never fathomed
the aspect of losing,
   or how they're paired up
     and consecrated on the same
altar of, "thrill"...

    that cut               /
betweeen
       go conquer  and folsom blue...

horses have the oddest names...
          dogs?
                 probably the shittest names
in the whole of the kingdom...
oscar darshan...
                            quorus...
these being cat names...
                                           go figure.

**** this restricting world!
**** this corporate America!
Just kidding, we’re free

or

we’re told we are free
given a right to life liberty and property,
well originally,
but now we have the right to pursue happiness,
not to be happy, just to look for it,

But my search is over.
Who could ever be happy in this polluted world?
No polluted like the air,
polluted in the mind,
We are sick twisted carbon copies of what was once greatness

No room in the curriculum for questioning
MCAS MCAS MCAS
SAT SAT SAT
AP AP AP
these standardized tests **** originality  
****** questioning
Memorizing the test is blinding,
shutting out the good things in this still wondrous world,

you see me sitting quietly in my room,
My mind is screaming
you see me sitting calmly at my desk
I violently ****, and pull, and stretch the cage I’m in
taken captive by a so called reality

A reality in which money is the same as success
A reality where feeling is a sign of weakness,
and a reality in which fun is only for stupid children
when did this horror begin?

Money is meaningless just a piece of paper
feeling is NOT weakness it’s what reminds us we are human
and fun is something everyone needs sometimes

I was given hands, a mind, a mouth and legs
these are (from what I’m told) the tools required to rise above this reality
Yet this image, this illusion is stopping me
this illusion that my tools are inadequate broken

It’s like that favorite toy a young child has because
as I said fun is just for kids, by the way thanks for denying us Trix
anyways he’s at school all day
just waiting to play with it,
unable to think about anything else,
and he gets home and runs through his mom cooking in the kitchen
rushed up the stairs
almost trips but doesn’t
and he gets to his room picks up this fantastic toy and
it’s batteries are missing

This is like me

My hands have the ability to write,
to draft new ideas
beautify the world with diction and rhetoric
unify the world with strong words
that have positive connotation,
because I don’t want to pursue happiness
I’m a little greedy and it’s like this
if I have the right to live
and the right to liberty
than I am making **** sure that I am happy

My mind is a holy vessel
or it was before I let it be molded
before I betrayed the great thinkers that came before me
it should be home to morals and ethics,
yet it’s filled with lies
all my productive thoughts blocked
by the newest TV series on ABC and FOX

My mouth would be very useful
if my mind would help me think of something intelligent to say
oh I wish I didn’t betray
let them in day by day
infusing me with poisonous thoughts
thought of memorizing facts not understanding them
thoughts about questioning being the same as stupidity
thoughts lacking individuality

My legs should help me
stand up for what I believe in
Like Martin Luther King did
Like Fredrick Douglass did
Like The Framers, Rosa Parks, Abbie Hoffman
and Abraham Lincoln did
Stuff I would fight for
live, cry, and die for-
But I’m feeling crippled today

We’ve run out of Prophets Renegades and leaders

we are part of a generation too easily influenced and too quickly swayed
but what can I say? I am a victim just like you
and I’m curious as to what we need to do

I have-I’m not sure yes yes I think it’s an idea
and I might need you

Lets hold each other up
support our crippled legs with one another
lets question even when we’re told there’s no room
lets resurrect originality I mean after all
we have the right to life liberty and property,
well originally

It has happened again
While I'm not looking...
Snow drops and crocuses
tumbling into tulips and azaleas
The slow muted understory of color on the snow
Traipsing toward the waking sun
that herald robin
V of the geese
ever-pointing the direction
out of darkness
into life

...to reach the crescendo, yet again
Leave behind the bud ~
exquisite ~ Hope
of mere possibility
of dew jewels scattered in the green

And never grow tired of this procession

to love life
to love life

Love ~
Inexpressible

Love inaccessibly fragile
fool of a child
we always long to be
Love ripped apart at the V

symphony arrangement for poetry - personae distinctions of hidden violins and woodwinds, somewhere along the way brass - leaving Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), moving to the Beat Hotel (9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur, Paris), ending up on the Cowgate (Edinburgh).

when you read newspapers you realise that dinosaurs roam
the land, the fortress of printing press, unlike the printing press
(which was taken seriously from the word go!)
the internet has been largely squandered; you read these
things in newspapers, the evolutionary reaction - ensuring that
among these dinosaurs are also opinion pieces, dinosaurs write accounts of what's happening, batrachotoxin amphibians write
opinions: i.e. what isn't happening: opinions go forward unchecked
and undisputed, added that there are many potions in the cauldron
it's hard to pick one out and dig deeper until both parties are in no position to hold such and such opinion, given the missing
muscle of implementing change or the skeleton to keep
the status quo - but this is a slight deviation from what i
was intending to convey - the old guard of printing is worried
sick that it might be usurped in the long run - it prints damaging
reports about the existence of the internet, looking at it as not
a niche environment, which it technically is - but cats, ****, cats,
****, apparently we all log on to meow and moan -
as a tool of entertainment it's the least thrilling source of
the desired "entertainment", the unscripted nature of this niche environment is what's actually good about it, in that a single
person can become both writer, editor and publisher -
but indeed, the internet has been squandered,
although it improved from what used to be a wholly anonymous
environment peppered with dangers of random encounters -
the infamous chat rooms changed even more to infamous
phone-books: you heard it, stories of cyber bullying - the internet
has been squandered, by all means, trying to save it is a bit like
trying to save the world, or as one Tao principle suggested to me
early on forged in me: the best way you can aid the world
is to forget the world, and let the world forget you.
a film director would say, well, i'm stuck in the house,
i'm thinking of shooting a biopic of Lawrence of Arabia...
i see a desert, a man riding a camel through it...
but you have to then start muling over the facts: you'll have to get funding, get the casting right,  but no one likes shooting in
the desert, you have to get  the catering sorted, you start shooting,
but the camera track ruins the desert, so you have to move
to another part of the desert that's pristine with wind parallel
ridges in the sand, then the studio calls you and says you're
spending too much money, then peter o'toole stumbles
out from the trailer hungover almost everyday; sure, you need inspiration and ideas, but that's only 1% or the whole,
99% is working with people - as a director you're not actually
playing god, you're helping other people, De Niro preferred
mumbling something prior to a scene, but Seymour Hoffman
went into a scene like a crocodile quickly snapping
to the shout of cut! and the clapperboard.
i suppose poetry could be like that too,
99% being the audience and the necessary oration,
that would work - unless of course you'd do the same with
painting - but whereas with painting you're invited to critical
thinking, see an artist next to his painting elaborating on
the themes and use of colours? i don't want to assert common sense
wisdom from one profession and apply the same wisdom
                                      to another with a trans-occupational
relativism: that red           is relative to               crimson -
              but we'll have to do away with lighting,
              darkening and what not, so yes,
red is relative to crimson insofar as we forget lighting
and Edward Hopper. anyone can appreciate the
lazy approach, but i took to some mammoths without the help
of audio books, a reasoning man, not a mob gob emotive conjurer worth a tonne of heckles and haggles - but i guess the dream
through this gamble would be the monetary reward...
you know... after so many years writing for peanuts i have lost
all appetite for spending money beyond what i consider
to be a workable cure for insomnia - i don't have to buy music
any more since i can stream it, i have more privacy without
a mobile phone, all i have is this little brick wall that's stationary
in this virtual jungle on which i scribble - with the radius from
this point being anything ranging from 1 to 6 sensible miles,
beyond 6 and we're talking blisters on feet; can you imagine what
our predecessors could endure in terms of walking? they had hoofs
instead of feet, while we have skin as smooth as a baby's buttock
cheeks on the soles of our feet. the strangeness of modernity:
1. a man drives a car with with a bicycle on the roof, just so he can    
    peddle down a scenic route...
2. the volume of skimmed milk bottle is the same as full fat milk,
    but if you bought full fat milk and added water to it the volume
    would triple (via semi, so yes, triple)...
3. healthy diets - 350% increase in vegan population
   in Britain over the past 10 years - the protein problem
   (once it was the fat problem, low fat yoghurt came about,
    turned everything into a sugar problem), i.e. women aged
    between 19 & 24 requiring to hit the 58 gram daily
    recommendation of protein would have to eat:

everyday foods
chicken breast (251g = 276Kcal)
eggs x4 (460g = 658Kcal)
salmon fillet (291g = 533Kcal)                                 v.

clean-eating foods
quinoa (1,318g = 1,582Kcal)
chia seeds (371g = 1,818Kcal)
                              goji berries (405g = 1,504Kcal)
                              kimchi (3,222g = 863Kcal)
                              tofu (707g = 70Kcal)
                              ******* (384g = 632Kcal)
                              coconut yoghurt (3,422g = 6,844Kcal)
almond milk (14,500ml = 3,625Kcal)
avocado (2,900g = 4,843Kcal)

  as healthy as stuffing turkeys for Thanksgiving, can you imagine
  drinking fourteen, fourteen litres of almond milk?! i don't even
  have to imagine drinking 700ml of whiskey to get the point
  and reach the threshold of the effectiveness of sleeping pills...
  no alcohol, no sleeping pills, better sit it out than take so near  
  ineffective buggers; although as a warning: you might end up
  sleeping for *12 hours - variations on the BMI and previous habits
  of drinking - socially? not so much, medically? primarily -
  not in favour of the anti-alcohol lobby being part of the "safety"  
  guidelines given to the public...
4. charities' costs eat up 78% of donations,
    another 21st century anomaly, effectively dismissed
    by the church's alms giving history depicted in Sistine opulence,
    so no wonder whether in cardinal robes or suited and booted for
    the near-invisible secular religiosity, such poverty of symbolism
    compared with the predecessors, at least back then you'd
    know who to send to the guillotine - and this is how Louis XIV
    treated his courtesans, he made a certain type of clothing
    mandatory, a Versailles school uniform as it were,
    most the the courtesans went bankrupt having to buy the
    clothes, some pieces would be equivalent of a sports car,
    they went bankrupt to remain in the club,
    so they borrowed monkey from Louis, and so Louis kept
    them in his pocket: poor rich people, or necessary
    leeches (as once used in medicine, Louis' absolutism
    being the sole malady, abuse of power necessitates
    paranoia); or to quote Lisolette about the royal *******
    'mouse droppings in pepper.' Philippe (Duc d'Orléans)
    was the transvestite who charged into battle
    and conquered the Dutch, much to his brother's
    shame at having only made conquests in the bed - well
money here, money there, shoving a piano into a concert hall accompanied by an orchestra, something Chopin would never
do not wishing to leave the comforts of salons - although
Metallica dared to.
                                                             ­           welcome to
the age of silica and chameleons (cha cha cha champ a camcorder anyone? well, imagine what scrutiny Narcissus would pay a photograph, imagine giving a photograph to Narcissus and
wonder would he change his behaviour), get fooled by
the adverts once, second time you'll eventually see needing to feed
a charity's bureaucracy rather than an African, hence the migrant
                                                                                                    crisis...
sometimes there are no surprises as to where certain things
originate, Marxism and England, zenith of the empire,
or as historians claim, the decadence of the Romans was their fascination with food prior to the end: ready-meals and
microwaves among cooking shows, currently the daily program
of channels, esp. that of 4 is culinary and horse racing,
all the interesting programs are broadcast when everyone
is about to fall asleep... Saville bankrupted the B.B.C.
posthumously: a game show, "jackpot" of one grand.
- advertisement didn't expect live T.V., the mute button,
the pause button and the fast forward button...
but in a 100 years time if not more they'll look back at us as
having finally exhausted Groundhog Day (starring Bill Murray) -
sure, the technological breakthroughs were great, magical,
but the content? 20th century most probably,
the ideal time of fluid and at ease plagiarism - obviously
exceptions were made, but this walking nightmare
of the exhausted second half of the 20th century caught up
in the 21st century - dialogue replaced by visuals,
clash of the titans (1981) v. clash of the titans (2010) -
the only good bit of the latter is the inclusion of Hades -
it's beautiful, i'm nostalgic to a history i was born in and
belonged to, i'm not a nostalgic Nietzsche or Hölderlin
bumming about singing praises of the Ancient Greeks -
you see, it's close-at-heart nostalgia because i belonged to it,
the infant of it - a peculiar circumstance to be in; or coming
to terms with the first signs of decay: cartoon network's
cow & chicken with i r baboon - have you seen the horrors
of modern cartoons compared with computer graphics?
readies them to  pick up gaming soon after,
given gaming graphics. in summary - some say sitting behind
a computer screen is a sign of a lack of self-assurance,
or confidence, self- anything you want to suffix with, well,
that could be true, but you have a photograph included,
and the days of the typewriter are over - but i could also say
the same about certain brands or shops, are they too lacking
self-confidence to stop their existence on  the high street?
the royal mail delivers junk, you might get 100 junk envelopes
and a christmas  card... o.k. make that 1000 to 10,000 envelopes
of junk and one letter directly addressing you that hasn't been
written using an analogue like

dear mr. / mrs. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

we would like to inform you that your insurance
claim has expired.            etc.

the infancy of this century is what's deceptive, the greatest
deception i can think of - the great health scares and subsequent
over-usage of antibiotics breeding super-bugs in hospitals
anything and everything under the sun - including
that damnable idea that the planet Mars employs people whom
it's attracting into its orbit - earthly geologists must be bewildered
that the only subject of learning from all of man's
capacity to send into space is geology: and on the return flight
home we realised that we'd only be bringing back some arenite
(sandstone); that quote about about painting being 50 years
ahead of writing, the same is true with science fiction and
actual science.

I offer a few quiet
words under my breath. (1)

“I wish you a tongue
scalded by tea.”(2)
“I was born
of the fist. The hot Irish
Temper.”(3) “I am a master of Escape. Show me a body,
I’ll show you an exit ramp.”(4)

(For,) I want everything
to call me night.(5)

This is the dream where I play
God. And the front door opens(6)
In lakes, floating
logs ignite, burn. All the
fury is finally here:(7)

Once wayfaring strangers(8) as tall as steal as the New York Times(9)
that once they sang from our dark street (10), the song goes: Heart.

Ribcage. Envelope.(11)

______

(1) Adam Falkner, Poem for the Lovers at Pickerel Lake, http://friggmagazine.com/issuethirtysix/poetry/falkner/pickerel.htm

(2) Jeanann Verlee, Guilt, Not Grief, http://www.wordriot.org/archives/4780

(3) Jeanann Verlee, The Brawler, http://www.radiuslit.org/2011/04/09/radius-roger-bonair-agard-jeanann-verlee-adam-falkner/

(4) Joanna Hoffman, On Learning to Open My Eyes, http://www.pankmagazine.com/three-poems-37/

(5) Kallie Falandays, If Morning Never Comes, http://www.pankmagazine.com/two-poems-75/

(6) Benjamin Sutton, Notes from the Daydreaming, http://anti-poetry.com/anti/suttonbe/

(7) Jenny Sadre-Orafai, Treasure In Timber, http://www.pankmagazine.com/two-poems-74/

(8) Lauren Yates, The World According to My Heart, http://usedfurniturereview.com/2013/03/20/the-world-according-to-my-heart-by-lauren-yates/

(9) Robert Gibbons, These Mean Streets, http://www.poembeat.com/fall2011/RobertGibbons.html

(10) Michael Lauchlan, Unseen Larks and Immeasurable Intervals, http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/march-2013-michael-lauchlan.html

(11) Leigh Philips, Dear New York City, Learn Gentle, http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/march-2013-leigh-phillips.html

(*) Jeanann Verlee, Good Girl, http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/january-2013-jeanann-verlee.html

The drone swept silent
between the maple tree
and the shed

zapped my dog Shep
with an electric bolt
that vaporized him instantly

while Mr. Stone next door laughed
I told you, Hoffman
to shut that **** dog up

just as my drone
launched a fire grenade
up the exhaust pipe
of his new Lexus

yet somewhere
in the akashic record
of my sweet country
a muleteer helps
pull his neighbor’s wagon
out of the mud
that follows
a torrential rain

Venomous slithering silk gown
Adressed the chandeliers in the
Marrakesh's dusky evening, just
To outshine the simmering glass

There were gentelmen and ladies
Chit chating politely, uninterested
Awaiting on a dinner to be served.

He noticed the scarf, she thougt to
Herself. Unending in memory are
Hoffman's grand thrilly fairytales.
I wish he'd gather the bold pirates
Of his conquering intentions and..

there comes a time when you have: enough...
you listen to these pundits,
these so-called shuffling journalists and
becomes overwhelmed as if sitting by
a blackjack table...
    you never imagine their respect
for their craft,
  some do manage to become
all the president's men, but few, fewer
han you might think: ever do...
        buy ups, cut offs, wishing they were
all screeching banshees on the ready,
but there never are any,
   just any pornographica pornstars who
said: i'm ready for a ******* henry.
        and the callousness, the easiness,
makes drinking a whiskey
all the more respectable...
              i know i've chosen rightly with
ms. amber...  i feel less like a ****
and more like a connoisseur with every
minute...
                   tell you what,
let's meet down the middle whereby actions
are worth are more than words,
and the whole "freedom of speech"
is but a bad dream...
            isn't it? i thought that actions
spoke louder than words, so why defend them?
it really, really comes down to the
nietzschean inversion of cartesian "talk",
apparently inverted the original
into a sum ergo cogito (a footnote
remark in his white zombie inspired
     human, all too human
entry point into pop culture -
as ever, the silent mind,
    makes use of waiting for the mass
of prey) -
              i can do the same with heidegger...
i listen to these journalistic endeavours,
i listen to them intently...
but i have a problem..
   this da-sein is peppered with difficulty;
you can call me a res cogitans
a thinking thing, but i sometimes
am not, namely: heidegger's dasien
is the antithesis of res cogitans...
     we're not heroes or villains by thinking
about the act in the da / momentum
   - in the "there" / momentum...
               the "carpe diem"...
            there's no carpe illic (seize a there)-
       as there's no esse in diem (being in a day) -
       find a niche, weave a web...
               journalism has already killed off
heidegger's dasein,
        it's either called blackmail or extortion,
we are handled with a perplexity of
feeding the bacon of "handling" facts...
      we are required to ensure there's an
empathetic comment subsequently readied,
we are to enforce empathy,
a fakery of empathy...
          heidegger couldn't have predicted
the death of his idea so fast,
  in that journalism (legacy) killed off
the concept of dasein so quickly and
effectively...
                sure, journalism stresses a
da - a "there" - but where i'm at,
there's hardly any talk of correlative translation
to a sein: i.e. being.
              first the education system
erodes the faculty of memory with pointless
arithmetic tables, then the "real" world
erodes the faculty of imagination with
pointless jobs and the grand carnation
wishes of disney's bloom...
             and the two two come together
and: after that? let's pretend we "think"...
        the notion of the existence of free will
is not answered with a first amendment,
it's answered with a freedom of thought:
   freedom of thought comes prior to the freedom
of speech, that danish bachelor kierkegaard
pointed it out: better to think freely,
than to talk freely, since not everyone will
have the vocal capacity of a sophist!
nonetheless i listen to the news,
   and am abhorred by it...
            not because i care:
hey! you don't care about my problems,
why in the world, should i care about yours?
what am i, the imitation of "saint" theresa of
calcuta?
          heidegger's concept translate directly
into current journalism...
        me, i prefer to think of his concept
to reverse nietzsche's reversal of cartesian
thinking: not all existence is purposed to
merely think, i.e.
       the: being there (dasein) is reversed
into: there's being (sein ist dort) -
     heidegger is the father of modern journalism,
and also the person who can be utilised
to combat journalism stagnating into
voyeurism...
         both are pretty much the same these days...
journalism = voyeurism...
                sure, i don't like being forced
into being "there" - primarily because i have
a blocking membrane "antibiotic" of simply
retorting: well, there's being;
  the **** would i want to suggest a worthy
escapade of "imagination" into a spirit-cooking
session, i rather spend the rest of the day
in a butcher's shop! and yes, i like my memory
intact, i like the memories of my childhood,
i don't need my memory undermined
by ******* arithmetic or stories of pythagoras
selling baked beans to pursue his
lessons!
     and i really don't care if heidegger was
a **** party member, what i don't understand
is the western left: you ever talked to
a communist proper? a real one, no fakes?
my grandfather was a proud communist party
member...
           even his take on transgenderism as being
a leftist agenda would have been: wha'?!
     you sure we don't need to castrate
these people?
                   never mind,
i'd actually love to be called a ****...
  i have no problem with that:
  the only thing i have to lose is a chance for
a punch-up in an alley, and i've been training:
punching myself in the face until my jaw
starts aching can be fun, but not as much as fun
as talking down police brutality:
the colt's screaming while i'm kneeling having
just finished ******* in the alley,
and he's screaming, the female officer is
making notes, because the screaming ******
is probably dyslexic, or a D in g.c.s.e. english...
puts the handcuffs on, i tell him
a cameo version of an autobiography...
so they release me... see...
  screaming does very little to scare someone...
the fact that i was being ridiculously stoic
****** him off...
   never thought that ******* in an alley was
a crime... so i said: you don't own this
shaded corner, do you?
as the joke runs, better than frying bacon:
two police officers walk up to you -
(a) one will surely be able to write...
(b) the other will surely be able to read...
(c) a + b = a guarantee!
     besides the point, heidegger is the father
of pre-modern journalism,
well, journalism up to robert redford
& dustin hoffman, oh yeah, and david frost...
hell, that was, journalism,
        the whole notion of dasein was
invigorating the whole movement,
  but then journalism shifted its attention from
heidegger... and people were forced into
"emoticon" politics of a "there" and a "being",
i.e. being the killer, imagining the torture cell,
etc. etc.,
                 can i watch some ******* disney,
for ****'s sake?!
            i want the journalist to be there:
and the reason why i don't want to be "there":
is because: i'm not!
   but this only produced journalists
who weren't even "there" to begin with...
    cordoned off by police "protection" -
people talk about a snowflake generation
that the millennials are, "apparently";
can we start off with the "journalists"
of the prior generation?
                   besides the point...
heidegger is the father of modern journalism,
but he's also underread...
      which is great, since you can become
pro-elitism after a book or two...
    yes, if i wanted to wipe my *** with
a modern novel, i'd sooner take to reading
a roll of toilet paper... sorry...
but leisurely reading material is for people
sunbathing on a deckchair on barbados;
i don't like easy...
   and i certainly don't like reading books,
that might as well have been
written in braille...
  perhaps in braille they might be "mildly"
stimulating,
      yes yes, i know,
bestsellers and all,
   but from what i've noticed:
     why do people need to talk so much to reach
that sort of status?
             once upon a time i wanted to
be "famous", but after watching enough
people reach the status of "fame",
having watched how exhausting it is...
i thought to myself:
       keep to the "karma" of tao -
               keep that obscurity,
   it's perhaps not the case that enough
people have woken up, it's perhaps the case
that not the right people: have been born.

America, you never had a chance
America, you and I both know there's only one way this ends
America, you aren't going to like it

America, what did you do to deserve the millions of revolutionaries in your streets?
America, whose bones are in the ground beneath your feet?
America, what did your father say before he left?
America, what did your sons bring home  from war?
America how holy was your birth that you can't move on?
America, who will be left behind when you do?
America, I'm too sentimental about you and I know it
America, I watched the workers hold the line for months and you locked the doors
America, I watched those people starve
America, I watched you build a cage and call it Chicago, call it Missouri, call it Baltimore, call it Dayton call it what you want and forget
America, I watched you forget
America, you forgot your angels
America, the saints want to destroy you and I don't feel sorry for you not anymore
America, I let go of you in pieces
America, I watch your flag burn to cinder and drift away
America, I watch you die every night
America, I loved you once and now I'm nothing
America, how did you repay Ginsberg's love?
America, where did you bury Eugene V Debs?
America, did you follow Abbie Hoffman to hell?
America, where are your heroes?
America, what did you do to the workers who never crossed the picket lines?
America, what did you give the black kids for Christmas?
America, what price do the immigrants pay for your freedom?
America, who do they pray to?
America, what do you pray for?
America, I pray too much for someone who doesn't believe in you
America, you never had a chance
America, I pray you get one, I owe you that much at least

How many heroes have chosen this path,
Of least or no resistance?
In the face of overwhelming odds,
Or staring at cubicular, corporate submission;
Elect instead the stance
Of simply
Doing
Nothing?

Victorian ladies thought it amusing;
20th Century Centurions and Puritans condemned it.
The spoon-fed rich live it and lose nothing.
Russian aristocrats sometimes recommend it…
When spurned in love & up against it.

Oblomov, for instance, whiled his time away,
In bed, or staring out at the wood,
Writing meaningless letters and ignoring the day,
Yet it still did him some good.

Marat in his bathtub, Proust in his bed,
Still accomplished SOMETHING
Or we’d have forgotten them instead.
Is there still no virtue in doing nothing?

Against the tide of corporate work,
Aquarians rebelled with dance.
Later on, Generation X
Came to work in a greedy trance.

Peter Gibbons was hypnotized,
To escape his lifeless job,
Destroyed the office as it was downsized,
But was promoted by “the Bobs”.

Some lesson there, for those who strive,
That work alone is not enough.
Attitude is more important to our lives,
That revolt by nothingness is not that tough.

Abbie Hoffman was thrown through windows,
While preaching peace instead of wrath.
Despite nobility of cause, does humanity still go,
The inexorable way of sloth?

Sharon Talbot

"I'm sorry," I remembered saying.
"I'm having a hard time with words right now."
My brother nods his head,
unsurprised and worried.
"I'm going to go get another drink," he says,
and I understand that much,
before words lose all meaning
again.

Vulnerable
Like the small turtle crossing the road alone.
Confused
Like having Christmas lights out in mid-July.
Self-conscious
Like the dock that seemed to be hiding under the water rather than conquering it.
I dreamt about being lost
Like the people in apartment 66 who have been evicted
Free to be the person I want to be
Like the wildflowers that sprout along the road.
Independence here
Like the only pink house on Hoffman Street.
Real friends
Like being part of a flock,
Like being part of a town,
Like being a part of my Poughkeepsie.

I wanted to be like
Abbie Hoffman before,
until I built a prison
of my own.
Now I am trapped within
the usual circle
that I have grown
tired of,
even before I start,
even before everything ends.

Fade in: Ext. Theater - Day
Cue clouds: gray shrouds
blanket the sky
and the sun's last remaining rays
Cut to: Ext. Theater - Noon
Cue crowd: no sound,
no song comprise
the mise en scene
of this somber scene
Fade in: Int. Theater - Night
Cue sound: few gasps,
some oohs and ahhs,
some cries comprise
the mise en scene
of this joyous scene
Cut to: extreme close up
Their eyes reflect the faces on the screen:
Newman, Hoffman, Brando, Ledger
Pacino, De Niro
Penn, Caine, Dean
Fade out

Like an expectant batter at the plate,
sitting on the Pitcher’s change of pace,
Philip took the speedball for a strike.
Imagine the surprise upon his face.

Found by a friend upon his bathroom floor,
The last used needle still stuck in his arm,
Philip heard the Speedball called strike three.
Inevitably, the addict came to harm.

Some will weep to see such talent wasted,
while Realtors will inquire on his space.
Philip Seymour Hoffman burned too brightly;
some other star will come to take his place.

So shut off the lights and close your eyes
The demons come crawling in
Their creeping deep inside
These shallow thoughts now becoming so vivid during the eerie nights
It’s definitely not alright
Can’t seem to escape them or break the chains they display in your mind
Constantly battling the urge to feel the pain their causing you inside
It’s taking such a toll on one’s daily life  
Missing the bright crystal blue skies in the days we often felt alive
Moods constantly changing like the seasons and in our heads their telling us “trust it’ll be fine”
Can’t seem to shake them in the darkest of times
Can’t seem to break them out of the chains that they live shackling inside
Getting tired and restless it’s becoming so hectic
Don’t sleep well most nights
Should we just slip and let them rip us alive?

-Brian Hoffman (9-13-20)

The friend I know
is not the friend I knew

His once open smile -
focused, pleasant -
has become a fast fade,
changing instantly
into a serious unforgiving expression,
a Dustin Hoffman smile,
fleeting, formidable,
a solemn face that closes gates,
builds walls,
seals fate,
the expression of an
enigmatic character
in a strange novel
speaking endlessly
with great authority
and then
just like that
vanishing
with a turn of the page...
never ever appearing again

He smokes. Lips pull thin white clouds of relief into his lungs but when he is done he will head back in to the dark den of machine men. There used to be better days. Now strange alchemy has turned his soft body hard, smooth skin wrinkled, white teeth cracked and yellow, and soul into a mutilated mess. The fence vibrates with his passing frustration as one foot cracks the corner. Would have been a ****** mess if not for the tight steel toed shoes, that add about half a pound a piece. His fatigue weighs so much more. A heaviness stops him at the door. It is like he is walking in a world of gravity set at twice the normal rate. Safety goggles, lunch lady hair net, and ear plugs have become his nighttime uniforms.
“Five hours and twenty-three minutes to go.” He recites like Dustin Hoffman’s rain man.
The mechanical madness beckons him in with a thud da dud, thud da dud, thud da dud.
“At least it is a midnight shift and not a hot summer day shift.” He thinks as he shrugs off the last remnants of his reservations.

a many a great things have happened recently...
hmm (insert a weasle's snigger)...
i was watching a russian production of...
the escape from sobibor...
yes... i know that rutger hauer is dead...
but not unless listening to some vex'd...
citations from blade runner:

    firey the angels fell - leaping thunder rolled
around their shoulders -
burning with the fires of orc...

at least that's what i heard...

    i want, more: life... ******... which echoes...
no not that 1987 tv flick...
the russian produiction...
      of recent years...
          upon this the god's green earth...
        i could watch... schindrel's list two times
in a row... before being subjected to...
escape from sobibor...
                if only i had a toothpick handy
and pickles and some martini and god forbid
the onslaught of yawns...
         only one aspect of the film stood out...
a sort of:

    the death of Matti Nykanen...
the finnish ski-jumper who ended up being
a stripper...

    i didn't recognize him at first...
or "at last" i'm usually good with faces...
esp. those on film...

         i think the film itself was supposed to
be... the need to capture "the look"!
      oh believe me... a cary grant or
a gregory peck would never...
                                a rock hudson?
a john wayne: drawl... yep: that six-a-piece
sharp shooter...
guns 'n' roses: civil war...
opening citation: from cool hand luke...
paul newman eating all those... hard-boiled eggs...
paul newman couldn't give "the look"...
that antithesis of roxette's pop stamp...
the verb that is actually a noun...
when there's someone worth it...

no... they could never convince me of ever
having: "the look"... these major actors...
paul newman or a robert redford...
i'm counting only the men...
this one's spezial...

        from first hearing queen... to seeing the movie...
Karl Frenzel...
   that same tortured soul
of a Ralph Fiennes playing Amon Göth...
i had to wonder...
did they decide upon psychopaths...
or was it already a priori from the words
first uttered in the hitlerjunge?

nope... completely amiss...
is that really christopher lambert?
raiden from mortal combat...
connor macleod...
                 hell: if this be the fate of skin
to be a much later devised
disguise in stretch-armstrong of leather...

but it was all about "the look"...
it was so intimidating in it being intimate...
"do you still remember me"...
i don't think i had such trouble
with val kilmer...
then again: who's the busy body
in my receding memory loop-hole to loot
from?

  they must have used dubbing...
otherwise it would seem that christopher lambert
spoke the very base of german
like a puppet of a ghost...
most certainly a changed man...

he had that look in his eyes that read:
i don't remember myself...
this face is no good: for you... either...
and it truly wasn't...
truly petrifying this enigmatic cloak
of ****** features...
but those two voids like a lemniscate (∞)...

i can X with my eyes when concentrating
on the egoism of the tip of my nose
and see the water inside the aquarium
all blurry and salty and mirage prone...
but not this...
this was a sensation of...
seeing an unrecognisable face...

again: i'd sooner revisit watching schindler's
list: because of it being in black & white...
otherwise cudos for the work
by a yanuš kamińци... that red dress:
"here" and... "there"...

for a russian the poles are traitors...
but thank god for the bulgarians
being the bell-boys of their whole
affair of wounded pride...
given the bulgars frequent the aisles
of st. cyril...
             but it looks like... the mongolians
are having... "counter-productive"
thoughts: themselves... good for them!

so close to the germans:
is it eastern europe west of kiev?
is it?
  traitors... oh god... those minor
denominations of the baltic states...
   perhaps... once upon... a time...
prussia would have been just a pocket of influence
akin to estonia... or latvia...
let's not mention lithuania...

it was a christopher lambert... by god...
sure... he was suited to age...
isn't everyone? but not like this...
in a positive way, though...
incomprehensibly unrecognizable...
a loot of enigmas...
well... if gérard depardieu a citizen
of ol' mother russia...
what doesn't stop a christopher lambert...
being dubbed when speaking german
like a manakin does running...
eyes that scream rather than peer...

it's one of those sad affairs of appreciating...
beside theatre... acting...
of course everything is in the detail
of the edit and the production of the end
product: with at very little hiccups as is to be
avoided...
it's a russian production: nonetheless...

but thoese eyes...
i didn't remember him...
was it perhaps donning the uniform...
or was it perhaps... perhaps of:
    seymour hoffman?
   but why couldn't i pick out...
a b-list actor... look at me... mr. hierarchical prone...
but no?
    chris cooper... bruce greenwood...
sure... no problem...
always the general, the "protagonist" of
"real" life... somehow along the line:
hardly a basis of a shadow meets shadow
compromise...

i think i saw a human being that became
unrecognizable from the burden of life
off-screen! i actually found a conviction from
a thespian... i saw two blinding cauldrons
of ire... which was...
ire... it wasn't fire...
    two blinding cauldrons of ire: i saw...
a blue tinge of flame... i saw tears...
it wasn't a purity of fire that will be later
made into a recycling power...
it was...

a fire that keeps intact a status quo...
that unfathomable perspetive
and an unmoveable object:
even if armed with the binding will
of a sisyphean determination:
where are the demons whipping him
to comply?!

   i was two blinding cauldrons of ire...
i saw fluorescent blue of glowing squid and less
revealing monsters of the deep...
i saw... a face disguised as a mask...
i saw a face from beneath a donned niqab...
more clearer than the glee of smile...
the chubby moon-clip
or the scythe of reasons behind...
the bulging shadow of harvests pending...

all this... and not much more...
  i'm good with faces...
   apparently not good enough...
was it really christopher lambert playing
karl frenzel in escape from sobibor?
i try to bypass the glamour and all that dry
artifact affair of keeping score...
to denounce all actors as...
the last and the least obliged to put pressure
and fathomability of the concern
for human... "things"....

what sort of a man is a christopher lambert
wearing.. if his eyes are...
pencils and needles piercing me...
that i can't recognise his face?
have i been gorging on too many
digestive biscuits... or something?

    by faking it... but i didn't see a slouch
of wanting to fake it...
given the numbers...
          what are the puny rhymes...
                   i want to see a rhyme
that riddled a blunt hammer-axe at the end
of this... foreboding of "contemplation"...
i want to find it soothing
for man to justify the antics of a slaughterhouse
concerning the wailing pigs
and the... cowering aum litany of the...
sanctity of beef...
            or the lesser kind via
the goat of the graces of riccota...

          i don't exactly know what i saw
in those eyes...
    but i saw enough to make me forget
a face.... i would most, be assured to...
have a memory of...
i was drawn into the eyes...
it's not like brian may aged so badly...

i did see the flabby skin of a pig become
stretched... then contracted...
over a square mile of a Berliner's post-code
"hum and oops"...
    little ******* good that would ever
do me!

              these tires need to be burned...
this soil needs to be shovelled...
this butter needs to be spread on
oozing warmth toast...
this rootweiler requires a leash:
are you the sort of walker
to allow a lessening of tension...
mind you: this "hanz" and "heinrich"
tends to tug along like
a pirañha on a diet...

                 the other head
of... the clamour fest... of feeding of...
cerberus... this night-walker this...
shadow-thief...
                   this... burden of my pride...
synonym coupled with ego...
rottweiler to the east...
       dobermann-pinscher to the west...
get this...
a ******* pop-up head of
a dachshund heading south:
                                        in lombardy!
hey presto...
                    my luvvie-dubbie companion!

for me... give me a harem of 72 dogs...
i'll sooner dog-wrestle bit
and chow-mein
and clash with teeth before...
         don't make me...
preside over the gratification of having
72 virgins: that same number
of the names ascribed to the hebrew god:
you and not you...
"you" hairy-hey-rab! ibin!

there's a barking... i'm pretty sure i don't
hear anything worth biting into?!
i'm quiet unamused hearing barking...
when i'm not entertaining
the convinction to suma summarum
it with: chewing...

              i would most certainly like
to hear less barking...
****** punctures of flesh...
i'd like that very much...

              i'd like filled stomachs of dogs
to be the only precursors...
the wolves are at the gates...
    
           words like daffodils easily
plucked up...
                  is that serious enough of "us"
to have these minor griefs...
as... vectors for what's to become
of the unfolding rest?