Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
a Jul 2019
I fantasize
about marching with my friends
down wellington
forcing the government
to look below,
and think
"maybe they're right."
but instead, they think
"shut it down."


i fantasize
about taking care of the wounded
doing my part
and truly feeling
that there is power in unity
forcing the government
to look below,
and think
"maybe we're wrong."
but instead, they think
"send more troops."


i fantasize
about singing "l'internationale"
with thousands of my comrades
as we fight for justice
arm in arm,
hand in hand
forcing the government
to look below,
and think
"maybe it's us."
but instead, they think
"casualties don't matter unless the goal is reached."
Andrew Springer Jan 2013
Yevgeny Yevtushenko*


No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
            Today I am as old in years
as all the Jewish people.
Now I seem to be
                a Jew.
Here I plod through ancient Egypt.
Here I perish crucified, on the cross,
and to this day I bear the scars of nails.
I seem to be
            Dreyfus.
The Philistine
              is both informer and judge.
I am behind bars.
                Beset on every side.
Hounded,
       spat on,
              slandered.
Squealing, dainty ladies in flounced Brussels lace
stick their parasols into my face.
I seem to be then
                a young boy in Byelostok.
Blood runs, spilling over the floors.
The barroom rabble-rousers
give off a stench of ***** and onion.
A boot kicks me aside, helpless.
In vain I plead with these pogrom bullies.
While they jeer and shout,
                         "Beat the Yids. Save Russia!"
some grain-marketeer beats up my mother.
0 my Russian people!
                   I know
                         you
are international to the core.
But those with unclean hands
have often made a jingle of your purest name.
I know the goodness of my land.
How vile these anti-Semites-
                            without a qualm
they pompously called themselves
the Union of the Russian People!
I seem to be
            Anne Frank
transparent
           as a branch in April.
And I love.
          And have no need of phrases.
My need
       is that we gaze into each other.
How little we can see
                     or smell!
We are denied the leaves,
                         we are denied the sky.
Yet we can do so much --
                        tenderly
embrace each other in a darkened room.
They're coming here?
                    Be not afraid. Those are the booming
sounds of spring:
                 spring is coming here.
Come then to me.
               Quick, give me your lips.
Are they smashing down the door?
                                No, it's the ice breaking ...
The wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar.
The trees look ominous,
                      like judges.
Here all things scream silently,
                               and, baring my head,
slowly I feel myself
                    turning gray.
And I myself
            am one massive, soundless scream
above the thousand thousand buried here.
I am
     each old man
                 here shot dead.
I am
    every child
               here shot dead.
Nothing in me
             shall ever forget!
The "Internationale," let it
                            thunder
when the last anti-Semite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage, all anti-Semites
must hate me now as a Jew.
For that reason
                I am a true Russian!
Megan Sherman Mar 2017
Across the ancient shimmering sands
Blows the medley for all lands
Uniting all with exquisite blare
In which the babes of the earth doth share
Swaying their heads and clapping their hands

This is the song. Hear how it flows
Consists in it a truth that grows
To which we are wed and betrothed
In it the light of justice shows

To vanquish evil as it crows
Banishing mortal fears and woes
The song is ours, we sing it loud
Rejoice in voice that is sure and proud
That hath all ears rapt in throe
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2021
i shouldn't be writing this... it's too mediocre: or, rather: just ****** obvious... i have to elevate this impromptu with higher thoughts: this bottle of cheap wine just finished has given me a sinister, wry, teenage girl sort of a smile: where ha ha deafens since you're laughing inside your own head... it's hochnacht... only yesterday i raged with a silent scream... i'm not going to wake the neighbours up... when the writing flows freely and it feels good: once upon a time... the howling and the laughter... i have come to the realisation that i require restraints... the silence scream almost dislodged my jaw... a bottle of wine and i'm all squinty eyed... absolutely content, thinking about tomorrow's dinner... what will i conjure... well... i haven't had prawns in a long while... a prawn carbonara... 2nd bottle of wine or take the shorter route with a night-cap of whiskey? ah... decisions decisions... if drinking doesn't **** me: let's just say i'll be midly irritated: but most certainly disappointed...

this is the original:

at least while in Russian i didn't have to spend
the time bothered about totalitarian democracy...
mob rule... however authoritarian
the Russian model is... no political ambitions:
beside the ambitions to live a simple life:
political correctness: but i'm not a politician...
to live among people politicised to the point where:
every second person might be Babushka doll tyrant
with micro-pet-peeves:

i can't actually improve on it...
unlike drink-driving...
drink-writing is... jumbled up with:
the deed of Pontius Pilate:
i was my hands clean
i drown my tongue...
   the much needed lubricant i always claim:
plus... i can claim...
what's that legal term...
gross negligence?
         it's not ****** it's manslaughter...
i'm not going to stand trial:
by any mob...
i was drunk all the way through: me Lowd...
i could be held accountable
if i had a sober: hard-on for what i was
writing... perhaps i'm writing without
conviction... or rather: the drink allows me
to decorate my "conviction" with
floral patterns of digression...
i really don't see how someone sober
can treat a drunk's words seriously...
but it's there as a lubricant...
again: to reiterate...
writing is not driving a car...
i can't be held accountable on these
being sober convictions...

coming back to Russia...
well... hasn't democracy reached a pivot
of its history that makes it:
lacklustre?
democracy is status quo...
democracy is more bureaucracy than
   it was a democracy when the barons
came together and attacked king John...
it was a democracy
during the years of electoral monarchy
in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
i veto: i never vote...
i tried once... but the paperwork
suffocated my interest to do so...
if everyone is involved in: "democracy"
then sooner rather than later
it degenerates into political correctness...
i'm not a politician: or for that matter
a rhetorician: why should i care what words
might: words get things done...
words allow being to do and be...
things will never be equipped with words...
i lie: i can arm a knock on wood
with a terrible onomatopoeia...
besides the point...

               in Russian i wouldn't expect to find myself
in a quasi-Stasi curriculum...
my fellow citizen leaves me: as i invite him
as suspect?!
that's not fair on the project: citizenship:
civility... oddly enough politicians are
hardly involved in matters that truly bother people...
wait... wasn't i supposed to recount
the *** i've had: let it drag out for a few
more entries before fizzling out
while i might return to my eclectic tastes?

all of a sudden... there's no: "oh... suddenly"...
that Walt Whitman reference...
prove your point...
that i once went to a gay bar with my cousin
that i allowed my *** to be groped...
that i allowed a man to put a tongue in my mouth...
that i have kissed men with tenderness:
of note... Ben... Tristan's friend from Bristol...
one night of all nights:
Hogmanay...              i'd steal pieces of Paris
and give it unto Edinburgh...
Paris first... Edinburgh second...
and there was St. Petersburg and Moscow...
Venice and Amsterdam... Stockholm...
Warsaw... Athens 3rd... because of the strip-club...
there was Barcelona and there was also Mombasa...
eh... Paris 1st... Edinburgh 2nd...

otherwise? oh... did you watch the France vs. Swiss
match? i missed the Spain vs. Croatia game:
i was watching some Whim-Bled-Don...
never mind...
it's good to see a plateau...
the ol' David vs. Goliath...
   or how... kylian mbappé became: fully human...
i don't like schadenfreude...
it must be a trait of the Germanic people...
even if they later dilute their blood with the Welsh
and the Celts and become Anglo-Saxons...
it's not that i fear: c.c.t.v. karma...
i just find pleasure in the sensation...
but it was beautiful to watch a talented,
aspiring footballer come against his first
proper: hurdle... like the rest of us...
almost as beautiful as the whole match was:
come on... after the missed penalty...
then 1 -1, 2 - 1, 3 -1... ending up being 3 - 3 and
unresolved in extra time...
then the roulette of penalties...
rarely can a football match be this: beautiful...
truly... as much as i love the soloists in
tennis... it's impossible to compare:
chalk is cheese... some might say...

- why are so many national anthems:
anaemic?
i only have a few national anthems that i like...
not via bias: the ****** Mazurek Dąbrowskiego...
the H'American: the Star-Spangled Banner...
Russian "The Internationale"
the French La Marseillaise
hell... thrown in the Shvabs
und zee Bavzarians with their Uber Alles...

oddly enough not the English anthem...
isn't it enough that Auld Lang Syne
beats all the above, songs?
i don't like international football:
sure... too much money in club sport
but i never want to feel as part of something
greater: bigger... not from the confines
of a football match...
no... sure: to be part of something bigger...
but not from the starting point
of a football match...
     i watch the game for the sake of it being
a game... how some people arrive at
a conclusion that it's a religion:
how they procreate and later
come to passing on their support allegiance to
club (let alone country) to their children?

well... something had to fill the void
if the original religion wasn't up for proper scratches:
so much for secularism...
i don't underestimate the value of said: new
religion... but we're still "talking" about sport...
hence my love for the underappreciated sports
at the Olympics: classical Greek wrestling...
table-tennis... archery...
and all the solo sports that also pay well:
like tennis...

bringing a flag of the individual to an event
should be seen as a faux pas...
it's a shame that it sometimes happens...

- yeah... why are so many national anthems:
anaemic... forgettable?
the Spanish and the Italians have ****** anthems...
suppose the Norwegians had a decent anthem:
oh, just because Norway produced a Grieg...
but Norway didn't produce a Grieg:
Grieg produced Grieg...
that's my problem with the lasso of:
national ownership of the people that stand out...
i'm not going to bombast this dear reader
with a quote by some ancient Greek philosopher
living in a city-state who was quoted as
saying: i'm the citizen of the world!

the current vicinity is my world:
i sometimes extend it when i cycle towards St. Paul's
cathedral...
how people become so... engrossed in their
football teams... that they pass on the banner
of support... allegiance to their children:
i don't think smart people reproduce...
i don't see the point of passing on my...
   shortcomings...
added the fact that i can entertain myself:
just pretty **** dandy well while...
seeing demon faces in clouds at night...

or faces in trees... pareidolia...
but they're not human faces...
i'd cite pareidolia  if someone accuses dear reader
of transphobia: whereas arachnophobia is
tingly: real...
well... what can one do:
if something is relocated into the crab-bucket
of shared-experience: a phenomenon...
anyone with a questionable sanity will
still pursue finding himself: his self:
via establishing working parameters of
the noumenon: the res-per-se... Kantian:
i wouldn't settle for a phenomenological
answer... i guess that' my "original sin"...

to state oneself unique...
not spaz-y'all... special...
  it's a conundrum to be and not be...
unquestionable dictations that repeat themselves:
like the years and the seasons that rummage through
them... the tides of the seas
and the burdens of earthquakes that
rumble like the sounds of a starved stomach...

i still fall asleep to...
christopher young's hellraiser II: hellbound
soundtrack most of the nights...
horror music: done proper...
the only romance...
the wine helps... he's no Prokofiev with
that Lt. Kije Suite... but...
i never seem to get bored:
i'd love to be this grand architect of dreams...
i fall asleep and fall into the abyss:
i'd imagine dreams to be...
             obstructions...
i'm almost glad since that one great adventure
of death is: tilting given the years...
i'm yet to make my own...
well... concerning the dead:
it takes nine months of mr. tadpole...
and several more to get memory functioning
before consciousness is arrived at:
memory comes prior to imagination...
memory is cinema:
a welcome cinema: if you can honestly account for
yourself:
the odd nights when you were found drunk
in public somehow don't matter:
asking for a police escort because you were
immobilised: m'eh...

ugh... such anaemic anthems...
of all the people in the world: the Italians have
an anaemic anthem...
a spaghetti bundle of murmur and morose...
how?

good to know: an interlude of a shot of ms. amber
between all that's: in vino veritas etc. etc.
in vino: vivo!
life: blood the bundle of hopes...
i might be deemed cowering into a corner
****** by shadows and succubus delusions...
i stated it felt cold while cycling through
the heat of cement of central London
wearing an 1813 t-shirt with a depiction
of the EISENKREUZ...

my ******* were hard and pinched...
it wasn't cold...
was i a breast-feeding ***** of a dog
or something?
i noticed a stare or two...
i started to blame it on the fabric...
later on the detergent...
how do we begin to fathom: dreams?
not the content of dreams: but dreams per se...
i have one memorable dream:
although i have so little...
running on an abstract that was a *****
while men imitating sheep were rolling down
chased by demons chopping their heads
off while i was... saving them from...
falling into the depth of nothing...

i was a teenager back then...
eh...
     so much for Freud and the altar of metaphor-objects...
insinuation-objects: or whatever the hell
you want to call a cucumber "if" it "isn't"!

- i know how alcoholics operate...
ooh! oh! suddenly the outbursts of "amnesia":
i call it a moral hangover...
they never bother to trace their deeds while
in the process of drinking...
what am i doing, while drinking?
i write...
i've seen at least one of my grandfathers
succumb to the drink without ever producing
some depth to his drinking...
unlike my father the near teattottle (****... 23
google result... tease me... add one more
obscure word...

teetotal on the topic of alcohol consumption:
well... it's probably genetic...
he had sleeper genes... the grandfathers worked
in the metallurgy industry...
not drinking would seem daft...
but seeing how my maternal gran-
managed to break my grandmothers hand...
most alcoholics will not account for their deeds:
drink and write: what drinker writes?
perhaps this is why i suspect all that's
ever written within the framework of
sobriety?

chevalier: mult estes guaritz...
i drink and listen to medieval songs...
why wouldn't you?
hell: if the moon is the right blue:
i'll swerve toward listening to an Adhan...

hey presto! teattottle rag... a googlewhack...
teattottle dig... another...

but i drink with accounts...
       i'm not going to... stumble into:
quasi-narcolepsy...
ingest some neuroleptic (anti-psychotic)
drugs: yes... yes...
the agitated soul (the sigma of animation)
disgruntled with a body: per se...
transgenderism can take a back seat
when it comes to: being disgruntled with
the body... eh... merely the focus on ***...
is... base... pointless...
the body is rock...
the mind is water... the posit for
consecrating oneself with animation is air...
gender-"confusion" is still bound to the quote:

to angels - vision of god's throne -
to insects - sensual lust...

to be this entombed with the ownership of this
carcass... to elevate ***-change therapies
over... cancer-treatment...
selfish *******: don't you think?
oh... wait... in a "democracy": i'm not supposed to judge...
the minority holds the sway: swerve...
argument...
and why is it that i drink?
sober people with all their self-aggrandizing
posturing...
they don't believe: half... halve the half and halve it
some more and more...
they still won't believe it...
their fellow citizen... comrade has been endowed
with powers that might make them:
buckle... or stipend themselves with
taking a knee to some ghostly authority...

again: i can't enjoy the suffering of others:
i've delved too much into the mime language of
animals...
there's no pleasure in seeing something
expected of civility be reduced to:
this heap of dung and bleeding *******...
it's no fun... if there was ever the noble savage...
i imagine myself the antonym:
the savage civilian...
oh how the subversion gummy squad of
pink breeding brine and brown
how they come at words...

what's next? i replace letters with...
chopsticks imitating Morse code? tap tap tap...
tap tap... tap... tap tap tap tap... tap tap... tap?!

- i like writing during the night: because...
i'm comforted by the... "image":
reality... of other people being asleep
while... the same people later wake up
and have to... succumb to a formality of language...
i never liked formal language...
language of the: "expected":
at times a misnomer "..."
other times a metaphor... with gagging rights
to shoot with bullets of ridicule...

not when the minority hold sway over
the majority:
with each chance to vote: i veto my right
to vote...
there was a time when
the majority held values to uphold the status
of minority: but since then
the minority wants to sway
the argument of the majority:
have your whittle rainbow gimp ****...
without me!

no! nein! nein! nie! niet!
i admire Russia...
if the people require a leash and a muzzle:
the thrills of freedom get in the way
of keeping **** together?!
so be it!
   these ******* westerners and their
"concerns" of "freedom":
**** me... what good is "fweedom"
when it becomes oppressive in the hands
and tongues of the many?
it's one thing when it holds its finicky sway
in the hands of the few
but among us everyday greyish folk?

once upon a time...
the king and the democratic barons...
now... the Russian tyrant
and the piggish suckling at the ****
oligarchs...
hell... if i owned a dog... and i was drinking:
the ****** "thing" would probably bark
at me as it barked at my grandfather...
thank god i own a cat...

i drink and just show it more tenderness...
a bit like i do with prostitutes...
i'm no Jack the ol' Ripper...
i give us much love as can be allowed...
and give some more... to sprinkle some salt
on the already available wounds...
i'll love and love more until it starts to ache...
i don't want to understand women:
i love them too much in their freedoms:
working from some previously gained
or otherwise...

i don't want to understand women:
hence? i chose to delight myself on some stumbling
block of clarity...
now... if they can't understand this:
to hell with being loved:
to be feared! as a man...
i fizzle through the static and watch myself
become: potential... the ugliest potential
i've already cited...
perhaps my words will agitate someone to
do a synchronised bidding?
you never know...

  blah... blah... and more gagging: blah.
Ken Pepiton Mar 2020
I found my self
asking the following question, after I got a yes
on is the universe friendly,

what good can I do in it?

This now, is after me, catching me, shooing a fly from the kitchen.

Uncle Toby did that sort of thing,
I heard,
I swear, I would if that were something I know I know how to do,
I would swear not at all,
otherwise.
Knowing,
I never understood either the marbled page or the black one,
and I barely recall Uncle Toby sparing the life
of a certain fly,

which reminds me, I chose to recall all I do know about that,
and share it, by tossing it back.
Tristam Shandy is full of powerful words lain idle now, some time.

-fishing for truth in this realm of words, thereś rules and hereś rules,
keyboard internationale now allows ¿ possible quest reject buttons

but at the price of normal apostrophes, we can live with that ś means
usually a karmic possession of the previous phase phrasing through

your attention span... jest ride on through..

the flaky bits of inimical karmas, make some people sneeze, when they
breathe,


thatś the better choice, when no real rules are known
but pain is a possible outcome of points
stumbled on unawares,
in far flung plains,
where the act of
polishing diamonds, or any hard thing, leaves the teensiest

shards that jest scrape away the **** of the earth,

collected in yo art trees, happy little trees,

jest put one
here, no, combine the two, to be like man-kind,
body and otherwise,

full and empty, both, in here.

Now, this is how we make a bubble be,
inside out.
You would be inside my mind, one line at atime.

— The End —