before i pull this one out of my *** (again - listen, these words are not coming from either head or heart, it's best to pull them from the bowels, a gut-wrenching-feeling is more potent than that "something" that "something" delusional pulled from a clenched heart... as far as i know, the brain is incapable of emotions, it doesn't understand them, and since it doesn't understand them: it ridicules them)... which brings me to point:

(a) perhaps the idea of a soul is out-dated... why wouldn't it be, 21g worth of breath does not equal a soul... hence the autopsy of man, each detail studied seperately, the cardiologist knows the heart, the neurologist the brain etc., but some items work in a solipsistic mode... the heart is robotic, automaton pump queen (and not the kind of pump you'd get from Shveeden) - thump thump thump! come to think of it, most of our bodies are robotic, automated... lucky for me: i don't have to think about the heart doing what it does, it just per se does it... i'm not even sure i'm gifted with the a.i. brain functions... but there's an underlying principle that governs all of these items... some call it the self... i prefer: the Σ ultimatum... some would call it soul... but there has to be something akin to the Σ ultimatum that allows me to become detached from this body, while at the same time be bound to it: high blood pressure, heart attack on the horizon... take the high blood pressure pills... ****... what was (b)? oh... yes...

(b) i'm sorry, virginity doesn't cut it for me, lucky me that it was isabella of grenoble that allowed me to move aside from: god, prior to losing my virginity.... roxette: do you feel excited, you're still the one (shanaia twain), fade to black - metallica... i was such a romantic before i lost this dreaded curse... i was a romantic... 19th century style romanticism... but you really can see past this sort of romanticism unless you haven't ******... these days the right complains about cultural marxism: plenty of things to complain about... it makes as much sense as a pickle in a dollop of custard... or cooking with pale indian ale to make a stew: bad idea... wine, brandy, cider? fine... beer? terrible idea to cook with... but unless you haven't lost your virginity, you can't see what cultural marxism chose as its opponent: cultural darwinism... you know how little you hear about darwinism outside of the english speaking world? zero to none, yes, it's an accepted fact, but this fact does not permeate outside of the fact per se, the fact contains itself and the whole subsequent narrative because subconsciously stored... no other people than the people who found it ensure there are subplot proof statements of a reconfirmation of the validity... the whole social science bogus trap of rating people on looks... contradicting the meritocracy of that old Socratic saying: let me be as beautiful on the inside as on the outside... if you haven't ******: you're still the same old romantic i was at puberty... once you ****... well... cultural marxism dwarfs... yes yes it's there... so? but at the same time you can at least appreciate seeing the antithesis: cultural darwinism... the romantic needs to die the most carnal death via experience... all my ideals were shattered, this perfection of woman... i very much liked the idea / not even the ideal of a woman... but when the idea fizzled out and there was no ideal to begin with... i saw cultural darwinism for the very first time and... it was as ugly as cultural marxism so heavily criticized by the conservative right of the west... so... i decided to walk the middle ground, ignoring both sides (of the argument).

(c) i wouldn't have come up with a point see, unless my favorite square schematic didn't pop into my mind, Kantian, as ever: the best philosophy is the antithesis of English pragmatism and overt-politicisation, so it has to be German, ergo? i will not explain these terms, i figured: if i nail a decent example to fit each category, that's enough: since you can then visualize the concept via the example:

analytical a priori                           synthetic a priori
there's a need to throw                   learning
a ball at                                                to throw a ball
a target                                                 at a target once
                                                            ­  the need has been
                                                            ­  established...



synthetic a posteriori                    analytical a posteriori
there's a  need to                           perfecting to throw
      throw a ball at                               a ball at a target
a target, in order
to perfect this need...

                                            baseball..­. cricket...
at least: that's how i define knowledge of something
simple without having to use mathematics
that Kant used to explain... 2 + 2 = 4...
mathematics isn't exactly a man's best friend
at explaining philosophy...
you write philosophy that alligns itself
to mathematics... no wonder: moths in books...
yawns, unfinished works...
i found that sports work just as well
as mathematics... and you have the already
primitive objects to work with...
rather than pseudo-objects: i.e. numbers...
the abstracts of perception: i'm actually 6ft2...
not 6ft1... karolína plíšková is 6ft1...
       as noted when watching her today...

  i'll admit, i'm always a bit shaky when it comes
to this sqaure, whether it's over-simplified,
notably the top left corner: analytical a priori,
i'm always of a mindset that wants to associated
this definition with: analytical a- priori...
  i.e. borrowing from atheism:
    to analyse something without there
being a prior to example...
               analysis without a prior example...
i guess that's the mojo of science... the driving force...
back to sports... bow and arrow...
   tools: target...
       whether a bow and arrow and a deer
to begin with...
or a hand and ball and a wicket to end with...

there's a need to throw                  
a ball at a target...

            and cricket was the precursor of
baseball, but prior to cricket?
   there was archery...
              and prior to archery...
   there was forever a fundamental need,
e.g. to go from point X to point Z...
   see... as much as Kant wanted...
   numbers don't really solve the "problem"
of explaining something: algebra would be
better suited... x + y = z...
                    with numbers either hovering
above, or below (in the instance of chemistry's
subscript)...

talking of squares... sūdoku...
well, if at any time the french were to receive a hard-on
in terms of inventing something,
the english: rugby, cricket, football, tennis...
the french really did read some of the hebrew
qabbalah literature, as i am doing...
magic squares...
       the secular version of this puzzle
first appeared on july 6, 1895 (the modern version)...

it came to us from India and China...
again... why do western cultural darwinists
always tell our genesis from
the perspective of: "out of Africa"?
aren't there elephants in India?
            i will not believe i originated in Africa,
i'm not an "out of Africa" sorry state of
incompetence... i place my origins in
the sub-continent... at least that's where my
current language originates from...
the great migration across the Siberian tundra,
rather than some African savannah...
after all the Bangladeshi and the Sri Lankans
(the tear of India) resemble burnt cinnamon
in tone, some even as dark skinned as
east africans...
   if the germanic people want to stick to
the "out of Africa" narrative (notably the English):
let them have it... i place my origins in
India...

   never mind, now i'll write a name's dropping
history of how july 6th, 1895 happened...
the "magic" squares...

    from either India or China (chess from India)...
moschopulus of contantinople
  introduced them (the "magic" squares)
in the early 1400s... apparently ancient qabbalists
had knowledge of them
  (so... a trip well spent)...
                             rabbi joseph tzayah (1505 - 1573)
magnum opus: responsa...
             rabbi joseph castro: avkat rokhel...
tzayah in jerusalem wrote his major work
Evven HaShoham (the onyx stone) - 1538 -
   a year later the book: tzeror ha-chaim discussing
the Talmud: he never really bothered about
the Zohar...
               the hebrai word for "letters": otiot...
divided into two:
                         tav aleph (a line of aleph)
and tav yod (a line of yod)...
                   one is to never concentrate
upon the keter within the realm of the sefirot...
hence the matisyahu expression:
   king without a crown...
                         one example of a "magic" square
later dictated into a 9 x 9 newspaper puzzle?
      2     9     4
      7     5     3
      6     1     8     (up down across = 15...
my date of birth? 15th may 1986,
no coincidence, just stating an oblivion's
worth of a "point)... 15 x 3 = 45...
   and that's about as significant as any
                               insignificance can be...

album of choice?
    old horn tooth - from the ghost grey depths...

and without even associating the arabs
to the hebrai practice of gamatria,
i once inquired an old pakistani (who tried to convert me)
what: Alif, Lam, Meem
implied in the opening of the al-baqarah sutra
implied?
   he replied: god knew...
        so i thought, you don't know what
alif (letter) what lam (letter) and meem (also a letter)
means? you have to search for god
for the answers? good look making me into
a proselyte... mind you:
if the jews abhor proselytes,
while the muslims are so so oh so *******
welcoming... isn't that a tad bit suspicious?
how can a muslim convert me
when he can't explain to me what
alif lam and meem implies at the opening
of al-baqarah?!
            let's play some hijāʾī order game...
and the three letters...
       28 letters in total...
alif (28), lam (6), meem (5)...
    i'm not even going to go into the gamatria
mental gymnsastics related to any
"significance"...
   point was made upon the question being
asked... if a muslim tries to covert you...
and he can't explain to you
the significance of alif lam meem at the beginning
of al-baqarah... they're letters...
well... how is he going to explain to you
what's bothersome about those letters
to begin with? ALM... does that imply: zakat?!
to give alms? zakat being one of the pillars
of islam?
  **** me... i haven't even converted
and it would appear: i know more than the person
who tried to convert me!

.i. Yuri Gagarin and the yo-yo

if ever the potency of a "keyboard crusader"
existed, it's now -
   i can dangle a mouse above a bear-trap
and tell an elephant of a phobia concerning
mice any day of the week,
          when in fact i'm talking about
a mousetrap: nothing more.
     hence the exaggeration in the imagery
comparison:
        or it begins with a story told in the 20th
century:
             when women put down their mascara
brushes, men put down their swords:
never mind the voice in the wilderness:
       mind the voice in the crowd -
there's absolutely no reason to speculate
urbanity and tribal environments without
addressing, or regressing the crowd,
or as i like to call it: what Nietzsche said,
minus the Wake... but now inclusive of the wake
and the Bacchus cult of fun fun fun.
            the Wake in condor terms?
we congregate praying for something to die...
      i don't pretend to be whatever
that sachet of concrete-Cartesian labels entitles me
too:        for the most part
        people say 'i am' without a thought to
govern the rain shaman telling you what thought
is required to 'be', oh, a very old ontological
stipend: you need people to experience a collectivisation,
a herding, a "bound together" sort of mentality
before the critic arrives and says: well, that's not
what i'm really about.
                    a bit like the **** firs, mouth second
debacle...
                but what heart they had, our predecessors!
what heart!
             they'd wage war over a woman,
a Helen,
                  would you wage a war against
the feminist version of Helen these days?
would you pluck a Scottish thistle over an English rose?
      true: you might be a bishop
and of lesser rank... but would you wage a war
over the women of these days?
my **** is in a pickle jar anyway! we have become
a *** of a species unburdened by an obligation...
             finally! we can become eternal bachelors
sort of ******* that we're here, and hear less and less
of sayings about the "things that matter".
            you know what vile? really really vile?
oh i know my contemporaries when i bother to
hear them talk, oddly enough never bother when they
think, i'm quiet content with a Godot stage of
a park bench and an old man as my company,
      i know Douglas Murray,
               i know the wild-eyed Icke,
but a thing that concerns me is why: the safety room
parallel to the leftist thesis of offensive speech
was put in play when a discussion took off
concerning feminism, between milo yiannopoulus
and julie bindel - that's like saying:
ask a pederast to talk for a heterosexual man
with a woman safe-space...
                                no one wants to hear
the heterosexual side of the argument....
  you'll sooner see heterosexual intellects have their
marriages come undone then get paired with either
side of the argument...
     little richard is in the pickle jar anyway,
and he's not coming out...
                it's a bit like ****** for dummies....
       hence i have to succumb to violence without
the glory, tongue waggling blah blah
when i'd gladly take a weapon and shove it into
a shattered cranium bone: had i the ****** chance to
do so!
           no heterosexual is taken seriously:
and won't be:
    of a woman to be like a rosy cushion on which
i can lay my head after the darkly toils of
    roofing, or laying bricks, or excavating the sewers...
no! let the Chinese do that:
the basic argument of slavery, although imported
therefore ****** ******* fine.
                         cryogenic fathers,
      pickled *****:      where's the middle in all of this?
     a coconut just fell from the Boddhi tree:
money!           and those that defend it,
don't know squat about the tribalism of squatters!
but hey! they have the ****** stage!
         i have a bench when someone approaches me
and talk, doing the best thing possible:
               knitting opinions -
i don't want the truth of opinions: i want a sweater,
or a pair of socks! that's metaphor for something
different altogether.
  keyboard crusader? really? can i ask you for
directions to the high street, in every single town
across the country? i can't find one!
         no one hears a heterosexual argument
on the various topics: because there isn't one -
                     as of the end of the 20th century,
working classes in the west striving to ensure
there is something mundane to do during the day
and kick back with the family in the evening
are the "inferior" neanderthals: who
haven't jacked into discovering a 3D reality
of what's otherwise a 2D computer screen and
aren't hooked on #crack;
honestly, so much debating ought to be opera,
and so much opera ought to be debating -
    ah: that famous tingle of utopian paradoxes
never in duality, but always in dichotomy.
   keyboard crusader?
really? i thought people were always moaning
about how many emails they receive:
   and never a single postcard from, say,
someplace like Venice?
           it's still early days,
                   and already we're brewing enough
cliches to replace all known nouns in
    the surrogate mother that's the dictionary
of our completed version of a soul -
if ever to be experienced upon meeting the omni-vocabulary;
jigsaws, i know my idiosyncratic version
of events, he says photosynthesis within parameters
                            of photon deconstruction of hydrogen;
'cos' it's sub; d'uh! i say god i say this perfected
version of nearing telepathy - you say god i hope you
don't mean satan's clause - great anagram to frighten
children with: the Babushka surprise of a Pumpkin head
laughing it's way toward: how easy life would be
if we had all that time to think it through as being hard,
rather than that mortal fleetingness in both thought
and body.

ii. Macbeth

it really dawned on me, when i was watching the film
Macbeth (2015) -
            there was an eeriness to it, a near perfection
of Shakespeare on screen...
           honestly? i'd rather read Kant early on in life
while i have the vigour, and leave old age to Shakespeare...
but it truly was eerie all over the place.
      i do recall seeing Romeo + Juliet
          and reading the script, and imagining the fallacy
of word for word translation from theatre to cinema
of the script: the narrator a news channel anchor,
and everything said, word, for, word.
that film with DiCaprio as Romeo and Claire Danes
as Juliet - it just felt itchy, uncomfortable -
                            Shakespeare, word for word, on screen?!
     (surprise, then astonishment, not !? or astonishment,
   then the surprise, because: it didn't really work);
and it didn't! you can't adapt Shakespeare to the screen
and put everything in! i noticed it at that ******
generous scene in Macbeth concerning the battle
of Ellon... so i was like like... this isn't typescript...
(and thank **** it isn't) -
you can't depict Shakespeare word for word,
to be honest, Macbeth (2015) is the only worthy
translation of Macbeth (the text) into Macbeth (the movie);
all this scientific exactness in previous examples
like Romeo + Juliet, the Merchant of Venice
and a Midsummer's Night Dream don't work,
it's their precision making,
     a theatre cast can take it, but a cinema going crowd,
with all these cutting and copying and repasting
    succinct moments? it doesn't work!
maybe because there's no actual narrator in the staged
examples? narrator as a necessary character understudy:
surely Puck and the news anchor are there:
don't know about the Shylock scenario...
           but these screen adaptations didn't work for me,
too rigid, too formal... in the case of Macbeth?
finally! the long awaited piquant version of Shakespeare:
all that matters, and the rest is thrown into
poetic technique: imagery, metaphor,
                everything that's necessary can be given grammar
as image and not word!
       want an example? from the text...
the Royal Shakespeare
  from the text of Professor Delius
  and introduction by f. j. Furnivall, ll.d.
         vol. v (special edition)
Cassell & Company, Ltd.
        sure, it feels like a Roman Polanski moment
akin to the 9th Gate scenic affair of a bibliophile
fetishist, and it is:

     ... (the only enemy of enso poetry
is the bladder) ...

well the screen play first:

banquo: what are these?
macbeth: live you? or are you aught
                          that man may question?
       speak if you can - what are you?
1st witch: macbeth! hail to thee
                    thane of Glamis!
2nd witch: macbeth... hail to thee,
       thane of Cawdor!
3rd witch: all hail Macbeth! that shalt be king in-after.

but such disparity, such **** as if once
of Lucretia, then of the authority,
for i have before me the original composition:
which is not worth cinema -
nonetheless, a **** takes place:
an assortment for the abdication of a king:
or as ever suggested: the wrong footed path:
never was tossing a coin in a gamble
that of tossing a crown into the air
for a court jester to appear less amusing
and more scolding.

act i, scene iii: post the battle of ellon...
  if ever the refusal to give up Greek myth,
then Macbeth's witches
      and Perseus' Graeae -
                            or naturalise a myth:
like you might not naturalise a strengthened
economy.... canonise the nation
with Elgin Marbles - Elgin: less than
what's said to be the exfoliation of the Aegean -
a municipality somewhere in Scotland:
west of Aberdeen, on the Northern Sea's
battering of the coast...
but word for word? or how to write Shakespeare
into cinema?
                 herr zensor must come into play -
you have to bypass imagery in poetic tongue
and relay it with actual images, a direly needed
necessity:

just after the three witches arrive,
enter Macbeth and Bonquo...

   Macb. so foul and fair a day i have not seen.
Ban. how far is't call'd to Fores? - what are these,
     so wither'd and so wild in their attire,
that look not like th' inhabitants o' the earth,
   and yet are on 't?
             live you? or are you aught that man may
question?
                  (how word for word, but the words
waggle from a different tongue, namely that of
Macbeth, and not that of Banquo, hence
italicised).
                   continuing:
       you seem to understand me,
by each at once her choppy finger laying upon her
skinny lips: - you should be women, and yet your
beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.
Macb. speak, if you can - what are you?
         the witches. all hail, Macbeth!
     hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
         all hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane
of Cawdor!
         all hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter.
            
so does he really belong on the psychoanalytic
couch? is he really that necessarily wonton of talk?
  Cawdor v. Gondor - it's an ongoing narrative.
but is he in need of a couch?
                 what sort of talk is talk when
in fact the only talk that's need to be said is the talk
of man's sexualised naturalisation for strife,
and here: as if knocking on a door:
you want to simply hear the onomatopoeia of
the Kabbalah in a woman gasping for breath
while puny Jewish boys under strict rabbinical
studies study?

                mama, take this badge from  me,
i can't use it, anymore,
            it's getting dark, too dark to see,
feels like i'm knockin' on heaven's door -
      my big mouth and man as a piston
                                               Ferrari acrobat

(even the soundtrack is a shrill, a strangulation
variant of higher pitch of the bagpipes -
not that braveheart ****** of whisking out
a song like for the love of a princess addition to:
  and can i have a madonna to boot too?
it's piercing, a whale sonar above refrigerator
white noise hum for the new age Buddha -
and that's because all the poetry has been excavated
  to suit cinema: not theatre).

and this is the first adaptation of Shakespeare i actually
could stomach...
     the genius was in how Macbeth spoke the lines
of Bonqua - so the character didn't start smacking
the narrative ****** in terms of solipsism:
even Shakespeare can be attacked on this front...
        if in the movie Banqua said all that was in
the typescript: the film wouldn't have worked...
i don't know what the big deal is with Lady Macbeth:
i thought that in the olden days
Macbeth suggested to King Duncan that:
can i leave the warring if you **** my wife?
i can go on the contract that you **** my wife
and i stop serving you?
      first impressions: strange English.
well, i'm sure she's important as it might be said:
within the programme of Orthodoxy,
            but never catholic (metadoxy) tradition of
saying: way hey! ensnare the mare in a funfair!
       and play the game: pin the tale on the donkey!
heads or tails?      it looks pretty damnable
     in the first place: as all honesty hogs to pout and
***** a hoggish sneeze out of the story.

iii. shaken, not stirred

and indeed, how many a times
did not a neon blossom sprout,
thinking it might rattle an oratory
with an oak in autumn, and behold
a swarm of leaves descend -
not out of passing ease,
but out of wishful thinking
that some indentation might be made:
with whom the hands of will reside,
and yet: to no gratifying effect,
to whatever atomic-centralisation
dream, be that ego or be it hydrogen
(lending hands: so too
electric or thus negative, neutral and
thus proto) - shake foundation
and give a revising repertoire of
              the covering dust humanity
that once made famous: never
again to learn the humility of the start;
        to whatever centric dream that
does not waver in demands of orientation,
be it father (sun), son (shadow)
  or the holy spirit (night) -
  make them earn! be obscure!
            or simply say: in the community
of the stated congregation:
  i find all to be as night,
   and safer that plague the father:
  i am not akin to the shadow:
                   but the shadow in mirror.
so, a centric dream that does not
waver in demands for orientation,
has ever or will be enthroned in man's
heart as the stability of Sabbath's demands
       for less, oh so much less to agitate with!
as too, when the ancient appliances
were adorned by countless demands of
mimic, so too our modern
fibbles are to stage a usurping of
such things demanded and their mimic;
for with such disclosure does all fate
of anewed become burdened in what
history could be: shaken,
rather than simply a stirring of the void,
nothing more than the unburdening
of sweetening a cup of coffee, of that and
the layers: or bitter at the top, drank
through toward the sedimented sweetness -
and all that: hoping i could have retained
that silver spoon lodged in my ***
          when i first met her and thought about
consolidating marriage: so fresh, eager prune
of the flesh embodiment as first
    watered ash, then entombed in marble
and the eternal... ah
               but it was all just the faintest of dreams;
so lumberjack sleep ensued,
                      as did a kindred worth ethic:
we are a long way from Eden...
      there is but the idyll of the absurd fruition of
albreit macht frei... or a redefinement of
such stakes as: what occupies our days?
                    if not war, if not disease,
if not the Chinese... what does, occupy our days?

My Jigsaws Missing Piece


Dad?
I still remember.
I was just 5 when you left us.
I asked every day for a week when you'd be home.
I missed you, I hurt, I ached...


...But you never came home.


I missed your voice Dad, your smile and your laugh.


Dad?
I still remember the fun that we had.
Before you left, we had our one family holiday.
Me, perched on your shoulder.
I was invincible and happy. Carried on the shoulders of a giant.
My Giant.
My Dad.


But Then something happened Dad.


Dad?
I don't know what happened.
I was too young to notice, too young to understand.
One day we were family,
The next you were gone.


Dad?
Can you help me?
How do I recall that jigsaw piece that happened so long ago?
It's the only piece I'm missing from my old broken home.




All the things that I recall during every waking hour,
They're all pieces, of a part of me, they're pieces I hold dear.
I close my eyes and hold you there,
You're still my shield and my guide.
You help me through my darkest hours, when I feel I'm most in need.
Your laughter and your smile and the funny names you gave,
They are all pieces of my broken jigsaw.
They're my memories of you, my Dad.


Dad?


John Flanagan 4/1/2017

I hate jigsaws,
****** happy pictures
cut into shapes
so we can
put them back together
and smile at how far we've come,
only to rip them apart
and scatter their pieces
haphazardly
without a shred of care.
I hate jigsaws
they remind me of what we've become
they remind me that the word human has no place within the word humanity anymore.

It's curious to think
our individual body parts
do very little
to tell our stories
or reveal our identities.

But when added
together and contextualized,
we comprehend more
than words can bear.

I wonder how many
pieces it takes
to recognize
a puzzle as such
and for fragments to
heed deeper meaning.

I wonder at what point
the soul enters and attaches
itself -- and at what point
we dignify ourselves
as more than
mobile jigsaws.

ACT I: Collecting Jigsaw Puzzles

My life has been a series of jigsaw puzzles, the first as pretty a picture as you could wish to see.  It never occurred to anyone that anything could mar the image of a bonny baby in all her glorious honey-hued, gurgling perfection.  

They never found out who crept into the playroom and stole the first piece. It was only one little piece – the size of a sixpence on the baby’s left ankle.  Hardly noticeable. A pity though that such a pretty puzzle should be incomplete.

The next piece to vanish left a leaf-shaped hole in the baby’s back. Did someone accidentally knock over the board? Perhaps the lost pieces are on the floor or down the back of the sofa.

But if that is so, why could they find no trace?  Surely it had to be the work of a thief because it did not end there.

The next puzzle was a toddler.  How strange that the same pieces were missing here too.  Not only that, but a third and fourth piece had gone – the other ankle this time and now a tiny gap at one corner of the child’s mouth.  Why would anyone want to remove random pieces of the puzzle? And how did they do it without getting caught?

No one had any answers.

Successive puzzles depicting a panda-eyed schoolgirl, a shy adolescent, a carefully groomed young woman – all plundered by unseen hands – revealed more and more of the blank surface beneath and ever less of the subject herself.

One day I opened a new box and asked myself “Is this puzzle half here or half gone?”

There comes a point when a puzzle ceases to be a picture with gaps and becomes a blank space strewn with fragments like the excavated remnants of an ancient mosaic.

Would some archaeologist dig me up and fill in the blanks to show posterity what I once looked like?

The jigsaw of a woman in her 40s would have been quick to complete, since so few of the pieces actually connected. Scattered across the board, it was impossible to decide if they, or the space between them, were the real object of the exercise.

I suppose it all depends on how you look at it.

Over the course of 50 years my unplanned jigsaw collection progressed from Bonny-Baby to Can-You-Tell-What-It-Is-Yet? What would the next puzzle be called… The-Invisible-Woman perhaps?

If you think jigsaws are frustrating, try my next hobby…

ACT II: Painting by Numbers

Number 1 was the original skin tone, a light golden beige, my favourite pigment.


Number 2 was the colour of nettle rash, mottled and roughly textured.


This was closely followed by number 3, a stark white, applied almost symmetrically in random patterns, some clearly delineated, others splashed carelessly across the canvas like spilt milk. (No sense in crying over it. There is no cure. It won't **** you.)

There’s nothing quite like summer for bringing out the colours of a painting.  A hat and long sleeves were no match for the persistent sun and by the time the picture was finished, the numbered paints ranged from 1 to 20 with a different abstract brush stroke to go with each one. My canvas contained a tortoiseshell patchwork of shades from brilliant white to violet, golden ochre, burnt sienna, chestnut and scarlet.

And yet this was the height of my blue period.

I had to paint by numbers for 50 summers before I could enjoy my third (and final?) pastime…

ACT III: Joining the Dots

By sheer fluke, at the age of 51, I discovered the secret of the missing jigsaw puzzle pieces. They were there all along – just not visible to the naked eye.  


They had been starved into transparency but, as I began to feed them, atoms of them materialised like specks of golden ink on blotting paper.  Tiny dots like pixels on a grainy satellite image, jostling, overlapping and joining together until they looked something like the missing jigsaw pieces - if a little mottled with mildew.  

And gradually the mildew has faded - along with the sense of loss - to reveal glorious, even colour.

Of all the activities I ever found in the playroom of my life, the most cherished, the most miraculous, the most deeply longed-for and appreciated has been this game of Join the Dots - an unremarkable pastime, you may think (if you have never walked in my shoes), but one which has brought me on a return journey along a jigsaw road from
Almost-Invisible
via Can-You-Tell-What-It-Is-Yet?
past Half-Here-Or-Half-Gone?
by way of A-Pity-That-It’s-Incomplete
and finally – if not quite back to Bonny-Baby – then at least back home to a grateful woman of a certain age who can look in the mirror and smile to see her whole self.


   Vitiligo: A Play(room) in 3 Acts © August 2013 Vitiligo Protocol

You were always a grand mystery to me
Just like that ten thousand piece puzzle I had always attempted
Scrambling on the floor
Trying to fit a million jigsaws together
That were from different puzzles

There was one in the corner of the room from a puzzle
Of a few cats sitting in a wheelbarrow
And ones from a dolphin in mid air
Trying to flip through a hoop
As mesmerizing as it was to finger through the pieces
It sure was hell trying to shove them together

But that's just it
We can never shove the pieces of life together
Especially someone else's
It never works out
So perhaps if you let that person be
They'll figure out their own jigsaw
Complete the cats in the wheelbarrow picture
And finally see that dolphin jump through the hoop

I am a jigsaw of many different
Pieces, all of lost instants never
Quite fitting into the moment.

But never the less I am a distorted
Picture of my true self, a frame of
Pieces never quite right but whole.

"Write fourteen lines on Growing Up, a sonnet,"
the teacher told us. "Don't forget, the rhymes
must make a pattern; I've told you several times.
The subject's easy. You've all got ideas on it."

Who does he think I am? Some second Milton?
Another Shakespeare? An Eliot? A Tennyson?
Compared to theirs, my mind's as dead as venison,
slightly less fresh than over-ripened Stilton.

"A poem's the equivalent in words
of something I once felt," the poet said.
Clues to another's feelings, like the sherds

of ancient pots, or jigsaws in the head.
A few curt words my feelings clearly tell,
one simple sentence: Growing Up is hell.

I hope you find it brave girl
i hope you find someone that does more than embrace your flaws
no, i hope you find someone that colors outside your lines
someone that sees your rough edges and jigsaws themselves to fit into you
i hope that you find that brave girl
i hope you are loved like you deserve

I call it the Changeover;
like an analogue radio searching for a signal
sometimes it's clear
sometimes it's static
sometimes it's in between
somewhere between far away and near
somewhere lost in the middle
between Signal and Static.

Clear Day the signal reaches out its arms as far as the eye can see
and the ears can hear
and the senses can feel
and taste buds pop and linger
and revel in new experience
and comfort in knowing
and wrapped in wonderment.

Changeover Day is somewhere between Clear Day and Nowhere
struggling to tune in
backwards or forwards
or sideways or upwards
to something
to anything that resembles a signal
like hearing voices in another room
an argument through a wall
the indecipherable murmur of music
the clamber of ushered noise
the mishmash and cacophony
like a symphony of Morse code.

Static Day is dark day
there is no signal
no senses
no sound
only indeterminate fuzz
and the crackle of broken glass
and the foghorn
and the white noise
the confusion and delusion
the paranoia of shifting jigsaws
changing pieces that never fit together
can almost make out a face through the frosted glass
the smear like bird **** on a window
halfheartedly wiped with lackadaisical whimsy
and greasy chip shop newspaper.

In the Static there is no wind
no heart to beat
no empathy or sympathy
just
cold
hard
steel
out of place in a room of feathers and feeling.

You just have to ride out the storm
tell yourself:
it'll be calm soon
it'll be calm soon
it'll be calm soon

The Changeover
from Static to Signal
and the welcome return of voices
and breathing
and beating
and feeling.

Courage is something I will never have.
Like Christmas presents,
I will never get what I asked for.

Content is something I never understood.
Like history and math,
I never really bothered learning.

Truth is something I can never believe.
Like magicians,
They put you at awe with a pinch of misdirection.

Passion is something I can never maintain.
Like Swiss watches,
Too much effort, too much time, too much risk.

Games are things I will never play.
Like Scrabble,
I have too little vocabulary for too many variables.

Greed is a part I can never avoid.
Like speed,
The faster I go, the faster I go.

You are something I will never get.
Like poker,
I must never cash in more than I can afford.

I guess you are something I truly regret.
Like soap opera,
I cried for something unreal, tear for nothing surreal.

I guess you are something dismay.
Like rainy nights,
Sad songs drummed the rain drops.

I guess you are you, ultimately.
We disconnect like two unfit jigsaws,
We reconnect like two fit strangers.

We reflect, deflect and subject to many a change,
But at the end,
We conclude in silence.

As the curtain drop to a close,
Stillness filled our hearts.
Emptiness filled our dreams.

While speechlessness filled our mouths,
We forget every nip of attraction lost.
Lost to, not mine, but your utmost desire.

Whatever floats your boat they say
But hey,
kinda hard to reach them anyway

Sir, my ideas and dreams were hue yesterday.
Today, it's blue and grey
Where are my happy colors?
Will you folks ever be back anytime, today?

My goals,
are thousand pieces of jigsaw puzzle.
Hard to connect each other.
Some pieces are missing.
I know. I know.

Young man, always remember
Your dreams are just scattered jigsaws
Nail it to your soul
You're not a broken mirror.

Escaped, is that truly the objective adjective
A feeling perhaps everyone has projected
Or are we seeking within filling to feel secure
Are we affixing words for our selfish cures

Let us take our thought and dissect its pieces
Fit the jigsaws, does it compliment with ease
Photographs stuck on milk cartons like cement
The directive is the fleeting human element

Living in ones past, shadowed assurance from last
Foibles of human inquiry questioning with haste
Lapsing the collective logic of the inner sage
Soul bombarded, thwarted, strengthening with age

Examine not observe nor merely think your being
Vignettes to films are you truly sure your seeing

Take a trip inside of my mind
But be warned that there are worse things than
Lions, and tigers, and bears.
The monsters that guard this jungle mind
Aren’t soft and nice when they choose to be
They are horrifying,
Bloodthirsty,
Larger than life,
All sharp teeth and horns.

Take a trip inside of my mind
But know it’s easy to get lost in
Mazes, and illusions, and metaphors.
The jigsaws aren’t easy 50 piece puzzles
They are thousands of broken words
With no guarantee
That they will fit together
Nicely-
Or at all

Take a trip inside of my mind
But remember that you will find memories
Broken, and wonderful, and messy.
These recollections will tell you who I am
They say where I came from,
fears,
dreams,
hopes,
And lack there-of.

Take a trip inside of my mind
But it isn’t overly charming between the
Monstrosities, and mazes, and memories.
If beautiful is what you were searching for
You can only find it in glimpses between
Sharp teeth,  
Broken words,
Lost hope,
And jumbled jungle vines.

So if you decide
To take a trip inside of my mind,
Take note of the
Beautiful disaster,
Organized chaos,
And sweet sorrow.
Be gentle,
Be cautious,
Be aware.
Because this is one mangled mind,
And you are one of the first
To go inside.

life can be a jigsaw you make the pieces fit
live it day day take bit by bit
make your self a picture of how your life should be
put the pieces in so you can plainly see
when your jigsaws finished very nice and neat
then you will see your life now it is complete

Dear shattered moon
Let your pieces drag the sun
Shooting stars forming rainbows
Untill the dawn has begun

Jigsaws in formations
Millions of dreams to explore
Basking in the rays of you
Reflecting the waves on shore

Towers leaning, obtaining
The warm décor
Flowers on the open air
The smiles painted under a dusty floor

Little whispers of art
Black holes in empty rooms
Constellations in the moon
Loves evaporating fumes

To be not one with ones self
Half and half inside your coffee cup
A difference between
Six feet under and a million miles up

Never disturbing
The content of the beast
The savaging lust
The constant of the feast

Patient of a rendering love
Picture frames holding foreign lands
I could only roam in silent days
When darkness and light came hand in hand

Drown not just the stars
But the strings attached
Puppets of a sinner
The bridge collapsed

Mighty hands are the only hands
That could build the moon again

I fear a day
When you'll sit next to me
And my phone will vibrate
A message from you asking what's for lunch?

I fear a day
When talented beings
Educated with graduate degrees
Will work in MacDonalds
For minimum wage

I fear a day
Where I'll need to take out a mortgage
For a parking fee
Daylight robbery

I fear a day
Where kids will no longer
Play at the park
No one ever heard of jigsaws
And wooden train sets

I fear a day
When strangers would be able to see
My every post
People I don't even know
Will know all about me

I fear a day
When people will drive to the gym
To run on the treadmill
And we'll all forget
The luminous glow of the moon

I fear a day
We'll forget about stars
And handwritten cards
When we'll care more about cars
Than our counterparts

I fear a day
When the world will all speak English
And read shakespeare
Wear the same high street gear
And eat KFC

I fear a day
Where honour and dignity
Respect and modesty
Will be a thing of the past
And those who hold steadfast
To their culture and traditions
Ways of life
Will be mocked and ridiculed as backwards

I fear a day
When all my fears
Come true
And that day a part of me will die inside
I'll lose the sound of your voice
And mums special home-made recipes with secret ingredients
I'll lose the way your letters felt
Slanted and joined so rounded together
The way the cross on the t and the dot on the i's leaned to hug one another
I'll lose the rush of the wind
As I felt how it was to fly on a swing
The reassuring touch on my back as you pushed and held me back then helped me to stop
I fear a day
I will breathe but cease to exist
Lost in mere memories of a past
Where I was meant to be

noise and confusion front
centre of pure light
rolling grey mass obscures
it
mills white into frequency
that has peaks touching
lows
it
steals night pricked into
spectral stall spaced out
on god labels and sci-
gobbledygook
so
dreamers can dance
fragile hearts into hope
lies

grey is white
rainbows are gold
names are cures

passionates lean hard
fragments that lore's
peddle as jigsaws
boxed with image
of whole

complex puzzles rattle
the futility of :

cover
whole and virtuous

open
inside is the same : broken

fix
me


(no bits missing
the grey is my underside)

frustration until
completion then
frustration with
maintenance of
completeness

(Back in the box)

reality reels results in
fondness for familiarity
played on
simpler puzzles

when we knew the shapes
by touch
and we put ourselves together
in the dark

smaller than anything, no talk or touch
on the inside you’re growing a rose bush, a thorn in your side
i know this, because i helped grow it there.
it is dying now. you forgot to look after it, its drying up in your gut
hardly red at all
black and tarred and all *******.
i lean in and i ask it sadly  “do you need some help?”
but it does not reply, and you are sleeping though
you do not reply anyway.
your skin tells me that you are warm, alive, but by the way you’re breathing
on my shoulder, and the nicotine stains in-between your fingers loose across your cheek
tell me that you have never felt the warm at all.
and then maybe i pull you closer
to keep you from freezing over like the iceberg
bodies fit like jigsaws when they are in love but ours do not fit at all and the bits in between where my skin lacks your’s make me want to arch and die in-between the white.
and in my frail effort, in your limpness, pale, it occurs to me that
you are the white, the iceberg
half-asleep with you my eyes are closed but even when they weren’t
i couldn’t see you anyway
you are bigger than anything i’d imagined.

i haven’t felt anything in 7 weeks and 1 day and if i woke you up i think i might cry.

the cold killed the rosebush and where my palms try desperately to hug your stomach
im crying, saying
*i cannot bring the sunshine back to you
i cannot bring the sunshine back to you

Faith is like breathing.
You can rest assured that
no matter what you are doing,
your lungs will keep on
drinking the air and
carrying oxygen through your blood and to
every last vestige in your body.
Give up trying to control it,
as it will do as it pleases
regardless
of your attempts to slowly **** yourself or
extinguish all ambiguity and randomness
in the world around you.
Control out of chaos?
Your eyes waking up in the morning is chaos.
Each lash bending
slightly in proportion
to every other lash it is connected too.
We are like plants,
where our roots interconnect and
stretch back further than
recorded history to a time where
we planted the seeds
in fear
that our family would splinter and
mutate into a massive **** of
imaginative constructs like
nations and creeds
which we knit so tediously into
every new idea or situation that attracts itself to us.
Like mirrors to the world,
our eyes only reflect
what they have been shown.
Both in distorted waves of fantasia and
in clear pictures and representations of
our fragmented pasts.
Our memories are jigsaws,
putting them together only to realize
that the reward looks nothing like
the picture we thought we were building for ourselves.
No matter how dark and dismal some pieces may appear
they are only there to keep us from
going blind in the light.

You darken light
so shine bright

oxymoron's juxtapositions finding oneself in pondering situations
humor in each step , fairy lights guide the path less traveled
feeling the peace pieces fit together
jigsaws of unabridged meaning

simply seething with the intimate feeling of moonlight
hopping from idea to idea to thought to thought

love's boundaries are naught and love's hugs are many
loves kisses flow plentiful
indigo rivers on far off archipelagos snake into brown rivers flows mixing merging
the same happens in the soul

culminations and starters
Pudding just a little while after

A lot around , a lot within , a lot in addition to the whimsical nature of life's flight of fancy
floating feather drops.

With hair strung down like
Arachnid spit
Sleeping lakes ripple in terror
At your feet
Jigsaws torn by frustrated agonized
Hands
Pieces that will never fit
Never did
I want to polish it like a trophy for the sun
But instead watch it spoil
Dry tangerine in a humid attic
It's just never good enough
Make like the chimera
Like the souls of iguanas
It's just never good enough
But you don't have to be
That
No, not at all

life can be a jigsaw you make the pieces fit
live it day day take bit by bit.

make your self a picture of how your life should be
put the pieces in so you can plainly see.

when your jigsaws finished very nice and neat
then you will see your life now it is complete

Spun up from ground level
A thousand blades of grass
Under a pair of scarred feet
Ocean breaks calmly on sand and smooth pebble
We find a space between it
Colors broken down into coded text
Light refracted, time distracted

I smiled under the shade of the paint chipped wall
Over the scent of juniper and gin
We drank from the bottle like heathens
Wandered crowds, a microcosm of a world
gone mad
Here’s to you babe, here’s to you

We chose this, you know?
Fleeting streams of style and ****** days
Of such tired contemplation
Collar bones carrying the ink of skilled fingers
dexterous and agile
These hands carry bones broken
set like jigsaws

A reflection of Koi and Hygrophila
A breeze through thin cotton
shirts
A smile, a smile and a hand to hold
As we adventure through this life,
wandering to wander


A moment to hear you breathe
Lungs full and tired
Heart ready to burst
Smoke the last one down to the ****
filter

My brain is a wondrous thing. It's calm ocean waves drifting sparkles of valuable shells to the shore and tsunami storms crashing down houses and flooding eyes, soft cushiony fabric to dig your face into and sharp daggers to bleed from, a rocking cot and a resting graveyard. I am neither happy or sad. I can neither have pain or pleasure as a tattoo upon my undecieding soul. I do not live by what I feel but where those feelings take me. Moments are fleeting and identities are scarce. I am confused in a beautiful way, scattered in a gifted way, like colourful stained marbles across tile floors. I am the rage of light at day and the blooming darkening shine at night. But black and white I cannot be. My colours lie as a mess in the middle, my canvas life, my pallet the directions, my paintbrush the weapon, the creator. Many masks slip off, labels start to peel, and face paint washes away in the rain dance that is life. That is me. I am a wonder. I am unfitting jigsaws of all the things that make me think, and alive, waiting to be discovered and reborn, reshaped once again. Stardust and black holes consume my thoughts and both fill and drain my heart dry, but empty I can never be. For my soul is the universe, most unexplored, but never ending. I am a masterpiece.

I am the dancing queen of all the eyesores
who sprang to the stars from one of the seesaws
in the moody playground where heaviest rain pours-
there’s no compensation for what the gutter endures.
When I fell back to Earth, I landed on seashores
between the horizon and an endlessness of moors.
I saw a single seagull take to sky and how it soars
and wonder about other things one usually ignores
until I seek out scuttling ***** carrying their claws
to protect them, I imagine, from the way the sea roars.
I saw a small wooden boat missing both of its oars-
that must hinder the rower wherever he explores.
After some time watching the bigger outdoors
I begin to feel sad about ceilings and doors.
But thunder comes in echoes of rumbling applause
and I don’t feel a part of it. It reminds me of wars.
The war is what happens while we do our chores,
or sit close to a mirror to examine our pores,
or pass away a rainy day completing jigsaws.
We are mutually something that the war ignores.
I skipped some stones and didn’t keep scores.
I tangled with questions of consequence and cause,
pondered my way back from fossils and dinosaurs
to a creaking house with long narrow corridors.
I wake up when the **** crows and the crow caws.
The Cheshire Cat smiles and licks invisible paws,
'We're all mad here. You think that dream is yours?'

shadows slow

to the point where only the wine matters

they stop and watch awhile wondering,
"today"?
perpetual Sundays denounce tomorrow across a fictional bridge,
constricting as a pulmonary sigh, though even the laziest of walks would suffice to sluice a cleaner way

but I jaw the sky from where I lay, expect that it should change into a major key,

corroborate my sickest dreams and mimic mouthed mischief



and I lie in many more ways
dreary under the prescription of nervous attendance


beyond the arctic eye, the blue skied sighs
stare through the Artex topography of childhood
behind the curtains patterned with glimpsed bears,

at best,
at worst the horror of a dead childhood friend

amongst the machine drawn memories
a path beyond the puddled neon jigsaws might lead me

to a closed set where the gentlemanly objects of debauched and thrilled robberies decline

while stretched behind the soft reach of a silken knee,

a nyloned thigh
the plainest lips pose the riddle

that entertains your pity
yet ***** all hope of a shy siege and leave me hints

in kiss shaped welts,

roses smeared like lipstick misses,
somehow innocent in the routine of predicament
then parcelled into dreams of hyena logic

I am of a mind
that, in winter, the oxygen levels
decline as the trees hunch
like upturned, diseased lungs
breathless and malign

we were born of blood and bone
pieces of jigsaws never seems to be fitting
waterfalls missing their endings
sunshine always going far far from their planets
and hitting, the small ones, the ones

we've long since forgotten!
so these missing pieces picked up in
the lonesome sand, we gave them names
and wished them the best of luck in the eternal
lands, hoping one, someday would write our names
wherever they landed.

somewhere far from here.