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Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
apologies, but i will not be abstracting people
as mere pronoun users,
i know i should, but i kinda like "painting"
and giving peoeple race, and differences,
i can't really establish what pronoun-bleaching
would do to, oh i don't know,
perhaps i'd be writing this...

back when i still worked as a roofer and was doing
a project in Greenwich,
  nice try, construction industry men don't
go to the gym... what a joy to remember my roots...
anyway...
    what was i saying?
   so i commuted from north east london
this this little village...
and it really has a feel about it that it is a village...
i went into the Greenwich waterstones
bookshop and spotted something interesting...
    a j. k. huysmans trilogy (beginning with la bas)
and ending with *cathedral
, or something like that,
if i knew what the internet was saying,
i'd buy all three books...
     but i did the dumb thing of buying
the first book of the trilogy, that's always in print...
anyway, no small loss...
   and there stood sideways joseph roth's
the antichrist...
              i can't compare it to nietzsche work,
even though i should, given roth was jewish...
and i figured: if the concept is not originally
jewish and greek, and anti- is a prefix much
more easily understood these days with
the existence of anti-matter...
            than say... armilus...
    well... so i was commuting day to day,
and over the course of the project probably read
two of three books, roth's was one of them,
alongside nikos kazantzakis' blockbuster...
but something weird happened when i read roth
for the first time...
     sitting in this dockland train heading south
of the thames, a group of muslim "women"
spotted that i was literate,
     they sat, about 10 metres away from me...
but the word antichrist must have prompted them,
one just said out-loud: you're satan's *****...
huh?
   there i am, reading my own book not raving
mad reading it aloud, and there she has the prank
of associating a book to a very mysterious person
who riddles the bible being completed...
      mein gott: two world wars ever since nietzsche
wrote he was the person with the title kept
sorta on a whim for nearly 2000 years...
     and then two days ago my father has a car accident
and this hijab clad woman is driving,
  but she does a Pilate and doesn't take responsibility,
the passenger that's with her jumps out
   and gives my father his details
and the woman is pristine...
     a *******, what do you call it: sacred cow?
most pedestrians in england are treated as such...
  so she phones her son and gives the phone to my father
and her son says to my father: it's against
the law to phone the police, you can't phone them...
well... hey presto! we're in Saudi Arabia!
and this is what's worrying me...
no... nope... this is what pains me...
    i had to take my ego for a walk tonight...
i had to think a lot of ******* out,
how the ego would whimper and whine like a dog...
there's your "janus" / "contronym"...
ego... dog...
   the leash? i'm thinking with it...
and suddenly, clarifty, i can pierce it's *******
narrative and think about it... as any id might...
what i experienced was an ego-dispossesion...
   i lost it, it turned into an automaton,
robotic misery... hardly the angry Frankenstein monster...
i lost the care for an ego-embodiment...
i was dispossessed by it, robbed, thief! thief!
i needed to come back home and read
heidegger's aphorisms 174 through to 178 from
the ponderings (it would help that you read the
ponderings... after reading being & time)...
the pain i felt was very much akin to being British,
even though it's something i assimilated into...
which could mean that's it's the odd bit...
should i, shouldn't i feel some sentiment for my host
culture?
word are flying around the place,
they're calling it cultural marxism...
well... i come from a culture that had stated
marxism, period, i.e. supported by an economic model,
that worked, and would have worked,
had capitalism not done what capitalism does
naturally: compete!
   i'm watching these cultural marxists and, i think,
i'm watching penguins in a zoo...
  i don't know what to make of these marxists,
who aren't even leninists...
            where's the economic model?!
  
that's the problem of going to a catholic school
in england, attempting to stress multi-culturalism,
i even ojected to being confirmed ritually,
with a bishop from Brentwood,
sorry, too much Irish around the place....
i too thought i was about to say something in Gaelic...
outer-east london: a complete ******* jungle
of biodiversity...
     so did i misplace my allegiences?
to the tongue? to faking an ethnicity?
    of course i'm pisssed off, i spent the past 2 hours
walking the most mundane of walks,
bewildered why this woman in a hijab wouldn't
own up to causing a traffic accident...
i helped him will out the police forms,
and there she is, on paper, smug like some ****** mary
because i'm the one that really doesn't think
that Islam got Project Hair wrong,
me? personally? i think that woman's hands ought to
be covered,
     in thinking terms, a woman's hands could
get me more excited than a woman's foot...
but sure... hell... why not hair?!
              the last time i checked, normal people
have an aversion toward hair...
ever see that person almost vomiting when they found
a stranger's hair in their soup?
  that **** that grows on your hair is the only silk
you've got... how about a few toenail clippings
to boot? first thing a sane would think: ****! ****!
oh, we're going to get on... just fine, just fine...
   the next time i think about encouraging
an **** ******* position's worth of prayer
i'll be a ******* cardinal.
   what's wrong with taking responsibility?
why are Islamic women so immune to the tractātus
of law? where's the jurisprudence?
   i'd call it something more than diabolical...
you can really become a vampire when you're told
the lesson: those that thirst for justice...
  lesser leech...
            who gives a **** whether it was: "but a scratch"?
woman! take responsibility!
  pampered little coconut jugglers...
   now to think of it... leave those curtains,
and this one time: she was walking with a buggy
and a small child and she unveiled herself from
a niqab before me...
           the perfect arabian nightmare i could
have ever witnessed...
             i had long hair back then...
what she revealed from under that niqab?
wait... am i writing this in the times
when the French occupied the Holy Land and had
the first thirst / idea of a colony?
  
this is me, imitating punching a brick wall...
this is me... in a boxing ring...
bashing myself...
            this is me thinking about how man
has no capacity to usher in karma,
how man's concept of law is hardly cosmic,
how man is a kniving ******* that
deserves something beyond a heaven and a hell:
rather: a return to his self...
that's what i keep telling myself:
i don't want heaven, i don't want hell...
i, just, want, to, return, to, my, self...
    yes, that's a reflection,
hence the pronoun has no compound, i.e. isn't
a reflexive understanding for the fluidity of language
expressed by the concerning compound: myself.
perhaps that's just the beginning of understanding
the noumenon / thing in itself, or rather to counter
the fluidity of the word itself, since, evidently
it self makes no sense that could ever produce
a concept akin to the noumenon...

why wouldn't this woman care to give an inkling into
her concept of right and wrong...
she's driving the ******* car, she makes a doo doo...
pauper... **** up!
            i still don't know why it was about hair...
you like a stranger's **** in a soup?
   what's with this middle eastern fetish for covering it?
hey! beginning from 1986, am i sorta automatically
involved in a cult that has a vintage of ageing from
a **** of a camel a long time ago?
  no wonder the knighthood ceremony was initiated
by slapping a newly initiated knight across the cheek,
like i said, a woman's hand is more ******
than her hair...
      i'd say: take up ye care to don gloves!
and that, i'm sure, will never happen.

it's probably the most delicate thing a woman can possess...
a hand...
the rest is what darwinism cared to provide us with:
a black widow, a mantis;
and that's talking pure earnest about the matter...

listen, i spent the past two hours having the ordeal of
an ego... which i had to anti-narrate into theory...
yes, the id was helpful, is actually told me, or rather,
interrupted the ego from the narrative
to give me this *******'s worth of profanity
(and yes, with due reason; ever fill out a police form
concerning some accident? do that, then you'll be equipped
to read Tolstoy)...

so it was ego-possessiveness,
      the ego already thinks its eternally subject...
that's one of the implants...
eternity and god are inherent in ego,
   your heart means absolutely nothing when the ego
has been given certainity that it can't shake off...
what the ego isn't given is a unit of reason
that sees past it... the id...
in relation to dualism and the much active dichotomy
as alternative to an equilibrium of dualism
i will outrightly exclude the superego
  as nothing but antithesis to the ubermann theory
of overcoming man...
  and on their shoulder they once had
the epitomes of cartoon conscience, an angel and a demon...
but thanks to the superego: they had mama
on their left shoulder, and papa on their right shoulder...

just the mere act of shutting that thing up
was enough, and it was apparent,
that writing fiction could be to blame,
   writing fiction can be rightly guessed at
for levitating a condition of medical proportion
into the realm of mythology,
    we have already depersonalised the unit
of ego to the extent that it has become polarised,
bipolar, e.g., comes from a depersonalised
gravity of ego,
we're no longer in need to write books,
we're in a dire need to write our own psyches...
and it all stems from making the basic human unit,
bound to the privacy of thought,
as needing a system that outweighs the moral
stratum,
           what can a person actually be or become
to even dream about asserting that there is
a da-sein (i.e. something, somethingness)
          "happening"?
i feel that there's something worse than a second
nakedness emerging,
         it's this incapacity to move on,
it's a mental nakedness, i am more easily prone
to dress my body in clothes
than i am able to dress my ego in thoughts,
than can correlate adequately, and peacefully...
toward something akin to a symbiosis
that can reach a = status, rather than an
   ≠ or an ≈ status... ****! Aquarius!
isn't the ≈ symbol the basis for it?
oh hell, back into the zodiac...
              
     i know my ego can be a downer,
but at least that's who i am talking about...
aphorisms no. 174 through to 178?
i do odd experiments with books,
     this is the first of its kind,
i'm actually going to rattle-******* this book out
till it feels like having wanked it 20 times
in a single day... i'll write what i "feel",
funny word, that word feel...
you never get to use it these days,
man is more about hammering in nails than
saying: ooh... that hurts...
and we all know what happened to Jesus'
teaching... forgive strangers...
     make sure your former friends are
crucified up-side down...
                 that really went far...
                      i can just see him...
an oasis of bullet-proof clauses...
              about how to handle people...
give them l.s.d. unconsciously!
         then wait for actual l.s.d. to arrive
and then worry...
when they took to their Swiss bicycles...
and writing poetry... and eating a soft-boiled
egg... given the concern for cholesterol:
a hard concept to fathom: that runny yoke...
     never ate mine with salt, i always like
that idea of legalised abortion...
                and we can be just that...
so imaginative to consolidate being mammal
that we can fathom eating chicken eggs
as easily as abortions... runny yokes have no basis
for a morality, or a compass...
they just are... runny... yummy...
             i call yokes the male version of
a woman's fascination with chocolate...
  i think egg yokes are the equivalent of cholocate
for men as chocolate is for women...
or so the advert said...

aphorism 174: as language...

          aphorism 175:
              philosophy catching up to science,
akin to theology catching up to philosophy,
both condescending extracts
that end up with both of the extreme parties
dressing up funny.

aphorism 176: such that newspapers are
the natural preservers? i.e. the idea of historical
escapism.

      (toilet paper does, much much more,
than a newspaper actually provides,
   press freedom is a bit boring to be honest,
beginning with the need for a moral agent
that's less and less moral, and more prone to
darwinism, i.e. selective, which is also said via:
what's natural, in a more and more techno-savvy culture?)

aphorism 177: only as, a rural thinker unto
a rural thinker... a case of describing a perfume
of those thinking about a day after tomorrow,
   but more precisely:
  the day before yesterday that didn't involve them...
say, on the ethnicity basis,
  the talk of being inheriting from the form
of ancestry... how we cultivate cucumbers,
tomatoes, prejudices...
   which is why i'm a slav happily talking a tongue
that's germanic, an off-shoot saxon,
and hopefuly defending it.

aphorism 178:
         "everything great wavers and wobbles,
stands in a storm. the beautiful is difficult."
   Ezra too, with the last, alas.
     but it's true... what happened in england in the second
part of the 20th century was great,
  and it did indeed wobble past the storm into
a desert of retirement...
            a peaceful coming toward terms of
a natural agreement...
   the generation preceding mine enshrined in their
psyche an england they heard over the radio...
king crimson... all such artistic expressions
found a case to take root...
     how parasites never attack a feeble creature
and only take roost in a strong symbiotic partner...
once it was said england could resemble ancient greece,
and it did, from the second part of the 20th century...
but that ended...
               it's gone, i have inherited a communist
past, a marxism with a concept of money,
and economic policy that wasn't inherently competitive,
but it also wasn't a welfare policy of the Marshall Plan,
and all i get is this freakish counter-movement
known as marxism in culture...
   that's worse than marxism in economy!

it should be heartbreaking to say this,
but coming from a monochromatic society,
watching the death of communism...
     i could say it was perfect... but then i can't
given my grandparents have a secure pension plan
that the state provides... i like that joke,
i just said it, and it makes perfect sense...
there is much more of Pilate in the history
of the peoples than there is of Jesus...
washing my hands clean, the companies said,
meaning self-employment...
     unless you have a really hungry libido
you actually do start worrying about keeping up
the numbers...
  companies don't...
      it's a bit of a bollocking...
i come from what could be imagined as a safety
economics of marxism into a marxism of culture
that i simply can't comprehend...
              well: it did give "us" a sense of pride,
and a will to rebuild warsaw without any american
money...
        the russians just said: where's your pride?
do you want to take their money and have it easy?
and when i ask that question:
i just start thinking about arabs without their oily diapers...
oil diaper... not exactly black gold:
oil diapers...
             Ahmed gonna poo poo?
              &nbsp
Like a psychotic docent in the wilderness,
I will not speak in perfect Ciceronian cadences.
I draw my voice from a much deeper cistern,
Preferring the jittery synaptic archive,
So sublimely unfiltered, random and profane.
And though I am sequestered now,
Confined within the walls of a gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55 lunatic asylum (for Active Seniors I am told),
I remain oddly puerile,
Remarkably refreshed and unfettered.  
My institutionalization self-imposed,
Purposed for my own serenity, and also the safety of others.
Yet I abide, surprisingly emancipated and frisky.
I may not have found the peace I seek,
But the quiet has mercifully come at last.

The nexus of inner and outer space is context for my story.
I was born either in Brooklyn, New York or Shungopavi, Arizona,
More of intervention divine than census data.
Shungopavi: a designated place for tribal statistical purposes.
Shungopavi: an ovine abbatoir and shaman’s cloister.
The Hopi: my mother’s people, a state of mind and grace,
Deftly landlocked, so cunningly circumscribed,
By both interior and outer Navajo boundaries.
The Navajo: a coyote trickster people; a nation of sheep thieves,
Hornswoggled and landlocked themselves,
Subsumed within three of the so-called Four Corners:
A 3/4ths compromise and covenant,
Pickled in firewater, swaddled in fine print,
A veritable swindle concocted back when the USA
Had Manifest Destiny & mayhem on its mind.

The United States: once a pubescent synthesis of blood and thunder,
A bold caboodle of trooper spit and polish, unwashed brawlers, Scouts and      
Pathfinders, mountain men, numb-nut ne'er-do-wells,
Buffalo Bills & big-balled individualists, infected, insane with greed.
According to the Gospel of His Holiness Saint Zinn,
A People’s’ History of the United States: essentially state-sponsored terrorism,
A LAND RUSH grabocracy, orchestrated, blessed and anointed,
By a succession of Potomac sharks, Great White Fascist Fathers,
Far-Away-on-the Bay, the Bay we call The Chesapeake.
All demented national patriarchs craving lebensraum for God and country.
The USA: a 50-state Leviathan today, a nation jury-rigged,
Out of railroad ties, steel rails and baling wire,
Forged by a litany of lies, rapaciousness and ******,
And jaw-torn chunks of terra firma,
Bites both large and small out of our well-****** Native American ***.

Or culo, as in va’a fare in culo (literally "go do it in the ***")
Which Italian Americans pronounce as fongool.
The language center of my brain,
My sub-cortical Broca’s region,
So fraught with such semantic misfires,
And autonomic linguistic seizures,
Compel acknowledgement of a father’s contribution,
To both the gene pool and the genocide.
Columbus Day:  a conspicuously absent holiday out here in Indian Country.
No festivals or Fifth Avenue parades.
No excuse for ethnic hoopla. No guinea feast. No cannoli. No tarantella.
No excuse to not get drunk and not **** your sister-in-law.
Emphatically a day for prayer and contemplation,
A day of infamy like Pearl Harbor and 9/11,
October 12, 1492: not a discovery; an invasion.

Growing up in Brooklyn, things were always different for me,
Different in some sort of redskin/****/****--
Choose Your Favorite Ethnic Slur-sort of way.
The American Way: dehumanization for fun and profit.
Melting *** anonymity and denial of complicity with evil.
But this is no time to bring up America’s sordid past,
Or, a personal pet peeve: Indian Sovereignty.
For Uncle Sam and his minions, an ever-widening, conveniently flexible concept,
Not a commandment or law,
Not really a treaty or a compact,
Or even a business deal.  Let’s get real:
It was not even much in the way of a guideline.
Just some kind of an advisory, a bulletin or newsletter,
Could it merely have been a free-floating suggestion?
Yes, that’s it exactly: a suggestion.

Over and under halcyon American skies,
Over and around those majestic purple mountain peaks,
Those trapped in poetic amber waves of wheat and oats,
Corn and barley, wheat shredded and puffed,
Corn flaked and milled, Wheat Chex and Wheaties, oats that are little Os;
Kix and Trix, Fiber One, and Kashi-Go-Lean, Lucky Charms and matso *****,
Kreplach and kishka,
Polenta and risotto.
Our cantaloupe and squash patch,
Our fruited prairie plain, our delicate ecological Eden,
In balance and harmony with nature, as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce instructs:
“These white devils are not going to,
Stop ****** and killing, cheating and eating us,
Until they have the whole ******* enchilada.
I’m talking about ‘from sea to shining sea.’”

“I fight no more forever,” Babaloo.
So I must steer this clunky keelboat of discovery,
Back to the main channel of my sad and starry demented river.
My warpath is personal but not historical.
It is my brain’s own convoluted cognitive process I cannot saavy.
Whatever biochemical or—as I suspect more each day—
Whatever bio-mechanical protocols govern my identity,
My weltanschauung: my world-view, as sprechen by proto-Nazis;
Putz philosophers of the 17th, 18th & 19th century.
The German intelligentsia: what a cavalcade of maniacal *******!
Why is this Jew unsurprised these Zarathustra-fueled Übermenschen . . .
Be it the Kaiser--Caesar in Deutsch--Bismarck, ******, or,
Even that Euro-*****,  Angela Merkel . . . Why am I not surprised these Huns,
Get global grab-*** on the sauerbraten cabeza every few generations?
To be, or not to be the ***** bullgoose loony: GOTT.

Biomechanical protocols govern my identity and are implanted while I sleep.
My brain--my weak and weary CPU--is replenished, my discs defragmented.
A suite of magnetic and optical white rooms, cleansed free of contaminants,
Gun mounts & lifeboat stations manned and ready,
Standing at attention and saluting British snap-style,
Snap-to and heel click, ramrod straight and cheerful: “Ready for duty, Sir.”
My mind is ravenous, lusting for something, anything to process.
Any memory or image, lyric or construct,
Be they short-term dailies or deeply imprinted.
Fixations archived one and all in deep storage time and space.
Memories, some subconscious, most vaporous;
Others--the scary ones—eidetic: frighteningly detailed and extraordinarily vivid.
Precise cognitive transcripts; recollected so richly rife and fresh.
Visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory reloads:
Queued up and increasingly re-experienced.

The bio-data of six decades: it’s all there.
People, countless, places and things cataloged.
Every event, joy and trauma enveloped from within or,
Accessed externally from biomechanical storage devices.
The random access memory of a lifetime,
Read and recollected from cerebral repositories and vaults,
All the while the entire greedy process overseen,
Over-driven by that all-subservient British bat-man,
Rummaging through the data in batches small and large,
Internal and external drives working in seamless syncopation,
Self-referential, at times paradoxical or infinitely looped.
“Cogito ergo sum."
Descartes stripped it down to the basics but there’s more to the story:
Thinking about thinking.
A curse and minefield for the cerebral:  metacognition.

No, it is not the fact that thought exists,
Or even the thoughts themselves.
But the information technology of thought that baffles me,
As adaptive and profound as any evolution posited by Darwin,
Beyond the wetware in my skull, an entirely new operating system.
My mental and cultural landscape are becoming one.
Machines are connecting the two.
It’s what I am and what I am becoming.
Once more for emphasis:
It is the information technology of who I am.
It is the operating system of my mental and cultural landscape.
It is the machinery connecting the two.
This is the central point of this narrative:
Metacognition--your superego’s yenta Cassandra,
Screaming, screaming in your psychic ear, your good ear:

“LISTEN:  The machines are taking over, taking you over.
Your identity and train of thought are repeatedly hijacked,
Switched off the main line onto spurs and tangents,
Only marginally connected or not at all.
(Incoming TEXT from my editor: “Lighten Up, Giuseppi!”)
Reminding me again that most in my audience,
Rarely get past the comic page. All righty then: think Calvin & Hobbes.
John Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year old boy,
Subject to flights of 16th Century French theological fancy.
Thomas Hobbes, a sardonic anthropomorphic tiger from 17th Century England,
Mumbling about life being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Taken together--their antics and shenanigans--their relationship to each other,
Remind us of our dual nature; explore for us broad issues like public education;
The economy, environmentalism & the Global ****** Thermometer;
Not to mention the numerous flaws of opinion polls.



And again my editor TEXTS me, reminds me again: “LIGHTEN UP!”
Consoling me:  “Even Shakespeare had to play to the groundlings.”
The groundlings, AKA: The Rabble.
Yes. Even the ******* Bard, even Willie the Shake,
Had to contend with a decidedly lowbrow copse of carrion.
Oh yes, the groundlings, a carrion herd, a flying flock of carrion seagulls,
Carrion crow, carrion-feeders one and all,
And let’s throw Sheryl Crow into the mix while we’re at it:
“Hit it! This ain't no disco. And it ain't no country club either, this is L.A.”  

                  Send "All I Wanna Do" Ringtone to your Cell              

Once more, I digress.
The Rabble:  an amorphous, gelatinous Jabba the Hutt of commonality.
The Rabble: drunk, debauched & lawless.
Too *****-delicious to stop Bill & Hilary from thinking about tomorrow;
Too Paul McCartney My Love Does it Good to think twice.

The Roman Saturnalia: a weeklong **** fest.
The Saturnalia: originally a pagan kink-fest in honor of the deity Saturn.
Dovetailing nicely with the advent of the Christian era,
With a project started by Il Capo di Tutti Capi,
One of the early popes, co-opting the Roman calendar between 17 and 25 December,
Putting the finishing touches on the Jesus myth.
For Brooklyn Hopi-***-Jew baby boomers like me,
Saturnalia manifested itself as Disco Fever,
Unpleasant years of electrolysis, scrunched ***** in tight polyester
For Roman plebeians, for the great unwashed citizenry of Rome,
Saturnalia was just a great big Italian wedding:
A true family blowout and once-in-a-lifetime ego-trip for Dad,
The father of the bride, Vito Corleone, Don for A Day:
“Some think the world is made for fun and frolic,
And so do I! Funicula, Funiculi!”

America: love it or leave it; my country right or wrong.
Sure, we were citizens of Rome,
But any Joe Josephus spending the night under a Tiber bridge,
Or sleeping off a three day drunk some afternoon,
Up in the Coliseum bleachers, the cheap seats, out beyond the monuments,
The original three monuments in the old stadium,
Standing out in fair territory out in center field,
Those three stone slabs honoring Gehrig, Huggins, and Babe.
Yes, in the house that Ruth built--Home of the Bronx Bombers--***?
Any Joe Josephus knows:  Roman citizenship doesn’t do too much for you,
Except get you paxed, taxed & drafted into the Legion.
For us the Roman lifestyle was HIND-*** humble.
We plebeians drew our grandeur by association with Empire.
Very few Romans and certainly only those of the patrician class lived high,
High on the hog, enjoying a worldly extravaganza, like—whom do we both know?

Okay, let’s say Laurence Olivier as Crassus in Spartacus.
Come on, you saw Spartacus fifteen ******* times.
Remember Crassus?
Crassus: that ***** twisted **** trying to get his freak on with,
Tony Curtis in a sunken marble tub?
We plebes led lives of quiet *****-scratching desperation,
A bunch of would-be legionnaires, diseased half the time,
Paid in salt tablets or baccala, salted codfish soaked yellow in olive oil.
Stiffs we used to call them on New Year’s Eve in Brooklyn.
Let’s face it: we were hyenas eating someone else’s ****,
Stage-door jackals, Juvenal-come-late-lies, a mob of moronic mook boneheads
Bought off with bread & circuses and Reality TV.
Each night, dished up a wide variety of lowbrow Elizabethan-era entertainments.  
We contemplate an evening on the town, downtown—
(cue Petula Clark/Send "Downtown" Ringtone to your Cell)

On any given London night, to wit:  mummers, jugglers, bear & bull baiters.
How about dog & **** fighters, quoits & skittles, alehouses & brothels?
In short, somewhere, anywhere else,
Anywhere other than down along the Thames,
At Bankside in Southwark, down in the Globe Theater mosh pit,
Slugging it out with the groundlings whose only interest,
In the performance is the choreography of swordplay and stale ****** puns.
Meanwhile, Hugh Fennyman--probably a fellow Jew,
An English Renaissance Bugsy Siegel or Mickey Cohen—
Meanwhile Fennyman, the local mob boss is getting his ya-yas,
Roasting the feet of my text-messaging editor, Philip Henslowe.
Poor and pathetic Henslowe, works on commission, always scrounging,
But a true patron of my craft, a gentleman of infinite jest and patience,
Spiritual subsistence, and every now and then a good meal at some,
Sawdust joint with oyster shells, and a Prufrockian silk purse of T.S. Eliot gold.

Poor, pathetic Henslowe, trussed up by Fennyman,
His editorial feet in what looks like a Japanese hibachi.
Henslowe’s feet to the fire--feet to the fire—get it?
A catchy phrase whose derivation conjures up,
A grotesque yet vivid image of torture,
An exquisite insight into how such phrases ingress the idiom,
Not to mention a scene once witnessed at a secret Romanian CIA prison,
I’d been ordered to Bucharest not long after 9/11,
Handling the rendition and torture of Habib Ghazzawy,

An entirely innocent falafel maker from Steinway Street, Astoria, Queens.
Shock the Monkey: it’s what we do. GOTO:
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey/
(HQ music video) - YouTube//
www.youtube.com/
Poor, pathetic, ******-on Henslowe.


Fennyman :  (his avarice is whet by something Philly screams out about a new script)  "A play takes time. Find actors; Rehearsals. Let's say open in three weeks. That's--what--five hundred groundlings at tuppence each, in addition four hundred groundlings tuppence each, in addition four hundred backsides at three pence--a penny extra for a cushion, call it two hundred cushions, say two performances for safety how much is that Mr. Frees?"
Jacobean Tweet, John (1580-1684) Webster:  “I saw him kissing her bubbies.”

It’s Geoffrey Rush, channeling Henslowe again,
My editor, a singed smoking madman now,
Feet in an ice bucket, instructing me once more:
“Lighten things up, you know . . .
Comedy, love and a bit with a dog.”
I digress again and return to Hopi Land, back to my shaman-monastic abattoir,
That Zen Center in downtown Shungopavi.
At the Tribal Enrolment Office I make my case for a Certificate of Indian Blood,
Called a CIB by the Natives and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The BIA:  representing gold & uranium miners, cattle and sheep ranchers,
Sodbusters & homesteaders; railroaders and dam builders since 1824.
Just in time for Andrew Jackson, another false friend of Native America,
Just before Old Hickory, one of many Democratic Party hypocrites and scoundrels,
Gives the FONGOOL, up the CULO go ahead.
Hey Andy, I’ve got your Jacksonian democracy: Hanging!
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) mission is to:   "… enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. What’s that in the fine print?  Uncle Sammy holds “the trust assets of American Indians.”

Here’s a ******* tip, Geronimo: if he trusted you,
It would ALL belong to you.
To you and The People.
But it’s all fork-tongued white *******.
If true, Indian sovereignty would cease to be a sick one-liner,
Cease to be a blunt force punch line, more of,
King Leopold’s 19th Century stand-up comedy schtick,
Leo Presents: The **** of the Congo.
La Belgique mission civilisatrice—
That’s what French speakers called Uncle Leo’s imperial public policy,
Bringing the gift of civilization to central Africa.
Like Manifest Destiny in America, it had a nice colonial ring to it.
“Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent,
Allotted by Providence for the free development,
Of our yearly multiplying millions.”  John L. O'Sullivan, 1845

Our civilizing mission or manifest destiny:
Either/or, a catchy turn of phrase;
Not unlike another ironic euphemism and semantic subterfuge:
The Pacification of the West; Pacification?
Hardly: decidedly not too peaceful for Cochise & Tonto.
Meanwhile, Madonna is cash rich but disrespected Evita poor,
To wit: A ****** on the Rocks (throwing in a byte or 2 of Da Vinci Code).
Meanwhile, Miss Ciccone denied her golden totem *****.
They snubbed that little guinea ****, didn’t they?
Snubbed her, robbed her rotten.
Evita, her magnum opus, right up there with . . .
Her SNL Wayne’s World skit:
“Get a load of the unit on that guy.”
Or, that infamous MTV Music Video Awards stunt,
That classic ***** Lip-Lock with Britney Spears.

How could I not see that Oscar snubola as prime evidence?
It was just another stunning case of American anti-Italian racial animus.
Anyone familiar with Noam Chomsky would see it,
Must view it in the same context as the Sacco & Vanzetti case,
Or, that arbitrary lynching of 9 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891,
To cite just two instances of anti-Italian judicial reach & mob violence,
Much like what happened to my cousin Dominic,
Gang-***** by the Harlem Globetrotters, in their locker room during halftime,
While he working for Abe Saperstein back in 1952.
Dom was doing advance for Abe, supporting creation of The Washington Generals:
A permanent stable of hoop dream patsies and foils,
Named for the ever freewheeling, glad-handing, backslapping,
Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF), himself,
Namely General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man they liked,
And called IKE: quite possibly a crypto Jew from Abilene.

Of course, Harry Truman was my first Great White Fascist Father,
Back in 1946, when I first opened my eyes, hung up there,
High above, looking down from the adobe wall.
Surveying the entire circular kiva,
I had the best seat in the house.
Don’t let it be said my Spider Grandmother or Hopi Corn Mother,
Did not want me looking around at things,
Discovering what made me special.
Didn’t divine intervention play a significant part of my creation?
Knowing Mamma Mia and Nonna were Deities,
Gave me an edge later on the streets of Brooklyn.
The Cradleboard: was there ever a more divinely inspired gift to human curiosity? The Cradleboard: a perfect vantage point, an infant’s early grasp,
Of life harmonious, suspended between Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Simply put: the Hopi should be running our ******* public schools.

But it was IKE with whom I first associated,
Associated with the concept 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I liked IKE. Who didn’t?
What was not to like?
He won the ******* war, didn’t he?
And he wasn’t one of those crazy **** John Birchers,
Way out there, on the far right lunatic Republican fringe,
Was he? (It seems odd and nearly impossible to believe in 2013,
That there was once a time in our Boomer lives,
When the extreme right wing of the Republican Party
Was viewed by the FBI as an actual threat to American democracy.)
Understand: it was at a time when The FBI,
Had little ideological baggage,
But a great appetite for secrets,
The insuppressible Jay Edgar doing his thang.

IKE: of whom we grew so, oh-so Fifties fond.
Good old reliable, Nathan Shaking IKE:
He’d been fixed, hadn’t he? Had had the psychic snip.
Snipped as a West Point cadet & parade ground martinet.
Which made IKE a good man to have in a pinch,
Especially when crucial policy direction was way above his pay grade.
Cousin Dom was Saperstein’s bagman, bribing out the opposition,
Which came mainly from religious and patriotic organizations,
Viewing the bogus white sports franchise as obscene.
The Washington Generals, Saperstein’s new team would have but one opponent,
And one sole mission: to serve as the **** of endless jokes and sight gags for—
Negroes.  To play the chronic fools of--
Negroes.  To be chronically humiliated and insulted by—
Negroes.  To run up and down the boards all night, being outran by—
Negroes.  Not to mention having to wear baggy silk shorts.



Meadowlark Lemon:  “Yeah, Charlie, we ***** that grease-ball Dominic; we shagged his guinea mouth and culo rotten.”  

(interviewed in his Scottsdale, AZ winter residence in 2003 by former ESPN commentator Charlie Steiner, Malverne High School, Class of ’67.)
                                                        
  ­                                                                 ­                 
IKE, briefed on the issue by higher-ups, quickly got behind the idea.
The Harlem Globetrotters were to exist, and continue to exist,
Are sustained financially by Illuminati sponsors,
For one reason and one reason only:
To serve elite interests that the ***** be kept down and subservient,
That the minstrel show be perpetuated,
A policy surviving the elaborate window dressing of the civil rights movement, Affirmative action, and our first Uncle Tom president.
Case in point:  Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman & Metta World Peace Artest.
Cha-cha-cha changing again:  I am Robert Allen Zimmermann,
A whiny, skinny Jew, ****** and rolling in from Minnesota,
Arrested, obviously a vagrant, caught strolling around his tony Jersey enclave,
Having moved on up the list, the A-list, a special invitation-only,
Yom Kippur Passover Seder:  Next Year in Jerusalem, Babaloo!

I take ownership of all my autonomic and conditioned reflexes;
Each personal neural arc and pathway,
All shenanigans & shellackings,
Or blunt force cognitive traumas.
It’s all percolating nicely now, thank you,
In kitchen counter earthen crockery:
Random access memory: a slow-cook crockpot,
Bubbling through my psychic sieve.
My memories seem only remotely familiar,
Distant and vague, at times unreal:
An alien hybrid databank accessed accidently on purpose;
Flaky science sustains and monitors my nervous system.
And leads us to an overwhelming question:
Is it true that John Dillinger’s ******* is in the Smithsonian Museum?
Enquiring minds want to know, Kemosabe!

“Any last words, *******?” TWEETS Adam Smith.
Postmortem cyber-graffiti, an epitaph carved in space;
Last words, so singular and simple,
Across the universal great divide,
Frisbee-d, like a Pleistocene Kubrick bone,
Tossed randomly into space,
Morphing into a gyroscopic space station.
Mr. Smith, a calypso capitalist, and me,
Me, the Poet Laureate of the United States and Adam;
Who, I didn’t know from Adam.
But we tripped the light fantastic,
We boogied the Protestant Work Ethic,
To the tune of that old Scotch-Presbyterian favorite,
Variations of a 5-point Calvinist theme: Total Depravity; Election; Particular Redemption; Irresistible Grace; & Perseverance of the Saints.

Mr. Smith, the author of An Inquiry into the Nature
& Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776),
One of the best-known, intellectual rationales for:
Free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism,
The latter term a euphemism for Social Darwinism.
Prior to 1764, Calvinists in France were called Huguenots,
A persecuted religious majority . . . is that possible?
A persecuted majority of Edict of Nantes repute.
Adam Smith, likely of French Huguenot Jewish ancestry himself,
Reminds me that it is my principal plus interest giving me my daily gluten.
And don’t think the irony escapes me now,
A realization that it has taken me nearly all my life to see again,
What I once saw so vividly as a child, way back when.
Before I put away childish things, including the following sentiment:
“All I need is the air that I breathe.”

  Send "The Air That I Breathe" Ringtone to your Cell  

The Hippies were right, of course.
The Hollies had it all figured out.
With the answer, as usual, right there in the lyrics.
But you were lucky if you were listening.
There was a time before I embraced,
The other “legendary” economists:
The inexorable Marx,
The savage society of Veblen,
The heresies we know so well of Keynes.
I was a child.
And when I was a child, I spake as a child—
Grazie mille, King James—
I understood as a child; I thought as a child.
But when I became a man I jumped on the bus with the band,
Hopped on the irresistible bandwagon of Adam Smith.

Smith:  “Any last words, *******?”
Okay, you were right: man is rationally self-interested.
Grazie tanto, Scotch Enlightenment,
An intellectual movement driven by,
An alliance of Calvinists and Illuminati,
Freemasons and Johnny Walker Black.
Talk about an irresistible bandwagon:
Smith, the gloomy Malthus, and David Ricardo,
Another Jew boy born in London, England,
Third of 17 children of a Sephardic family of Portuguese origin,
Who had recently relocated from the Dutch Republic.
******* Jews!
Like everything shrewd, sane and practical in this world,
WE also invented the concept:  FOLLOW THE MONEY.

The lyrics: if you were really listening, you’d get it:
Respiration keeps one sufficiently busy,
Just breathing free can be a full-time job,
Especially when--borrowing a phrase from British cricketers—,
One contemplates the sorry state of the wicket.
Now that I am gainfully superannuated,
Pensioned off the employment radar screen.
Oft I go there into the wild ebon yonder,
Wandering the brain cloud at will.
My journey indulges curiosity, creativity and deceit.
I free range the sticky wicket,
I have no particular place to go.
Snagging some random fact or factoid,
A stop & go rural postal route,
Jumping on and off the brain cloud.

Just sampling really,
But every now and then, gorging myself,
At some information super smorgasbord,
At a Good Samaritan Rest Stop,
I ponder my own frazzled neurology,
When I was a child—
Before I learned the grim economic facts of life and Judaism,
Before I learned Hebrew,
Before my laissez-faire Bar Mitzvah lessons,
Under the rabbinical tutelage of Rebbe Kahane--
I knew what every clever child knows about life:
The surfing itself is the destination.
Accessing RAM--random access memory—
On a strictly need to know basis.
RAM:  a pretty good name for consciousness these days.

If I were an Asimov or Sir Arthur (Sri Lankabhimanya) Clarke,
I’d get freaky now, riffing on Terminators, Time Travel and Cyborgs.
But this is truth not science fiction.
Nevertheless, someone had better,
Come up with another name for cyborg.
Some other name for a critter,
Composed of both biological and artificial parts?
Parts-is-parts--be they electronic, mechanical or robotic.
But after a lifetime of science fiction media,
After a steady media diet, rife with dystopian technology nightmares,
Is anyone likely to admit to being a cyborg?
Since I always give credit where credit is due,
I acknowledge that cyborg was a term coined in 1960,
By Manfred Clynes & Nathan S. Kline and,
Used to identify a self-regulating human-machine system in outer space.

Five years later D. S. Halacy's: Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman,
Featured an introduction, which spoke of:  “… a new frontier, that was not,
Merely space, but more profoundly, the relationship between inner space,
And outer space; a bridge, i.e., between mind and matter.”
So, by definition, a cyborg defined is an organism with,
Technology-enhanced abilities: an antenna array,
Replacing what was once sentient and human.
My glands, once in control of metabolism and emotions,
Have been replaced by several servomechanisms.
I am biomechanical and gluttonous.
Soaking up and breathing out the atmosphere,
My Baby Boom experience of six decades,
Homogenized and homespun, feedback looped,
Endlessly networked through predigested mass media,
Culture as demographically targeted content.

This must have something to do with my own metamorphosis.
I think of Gregor Samsa, a Kafkaesque character if there ever was one.
And though we share common traits,
My evolutionary progress surpasses and transcends his.
Samsa--Phylum and Class--was, after all, an insect.
Nonetheless, I remain a changeling.
Have I not seen many stages of growth?
Each a painful metamorphic cycle,
From exquisite first egg,
Through caterpillar’s appetite & squirm.
To phlegmatic bliss and pupa quietude,
I unfold my wings in a rush of Van Gogh palette,
Color, texture, movement and grace, lift off, flapping in flight.
My eyes have witnessed wondrous transformations,
My experience, nouveau riche and distinctly self-referential;
For the most part unspecific & longitudinally pedestrian.

Yes, something has happened to me along the way.
I am no longer certain of my identity as a human being.
Time and technology has altered my basic wiring diagram.
I suspect the sophisticated gadgets and tools,
I’ve been using to shape & make sense of my environment,
Have reared up and turned around on me.
My tools have reshaped my brain & central nervous system.
Remaking me as something simultaneously more and less human.
The electronic toys and tools I once so lovingly embraced,
Have turned unpredictable and rabid,
Their bite penetrating my skin and septic now, a cluster of implanted sensors,
Content: currency made increasingly more valuable as time passes,
Served up by and serving the interests of a pervasively predatory 1%.
And the rest of us: the so-called 99%?
No longer human; simply put by both Howards--Beale & Zinn--

Humanoid.
CK Baker Dec 2017
sages and brethren
gather, and share
and slowly souls
are bared
their tempered voices
and quiet eyes
reserved of judgment
with passing smiles

moments blend
in current trends
opinions wide
and reflections deep
the concepts
and irregularities
once murky
now clear

they prioritize
and familiarize
that staunch resolution
of generation net
will remunerate
and illuminate
through the checkpoints
and formal reviews
through the purple curtains
and open stage
nothing tainted
or bitter
left for taste

cause its they
who’ll plant the seeds
the captains of commerce
healers and jugglers
the coaches and councilors
negotiators and compromisers
the kings and queens
hustlers and hellcats
(who've all found their way!)
let us tip our hats
and salute them
Mike T Minehan Jan 2013
She is equipped with sensitive *******
and those other secret places
that ladies give out as prizes
to deserving guys as long as
they adopt the right disguises
of gods, gurus, intellectual giants,
goats, children, father figures, macho brutes,
sugar-daddies, supermen, seminal vessels,
house-repairers, jar openers, jocks, hate objects,
handy shoulders to cry on, emotional support systems,
sensitive, intuitive, yet strong silent types
who can also pay the bills,
tall dark and handsome total strangers,
toy boys, clowns, jugglers, jokers, millionaires,
wood choppers, ******* removers,
bottomless reservoirs of reassurance
or just plain spunky studs when the moon is right.
In fact, anything but woffly wimps.
Oh God, no.  Anything but woffly wimps.
Yes, but what about stoic, steadfast SNAGS,
you know, the Sensitive New Age Guys
who won’t face-shift for a ****?
Yes, well, let's try to sum all this up here right now.
I think that the woman is dripping
with a brimming reservoir
of luscious and sensitive resources on tap for  
the man who can figure out her cosmic kaleidoscope  
of swirling dreams and desires,
which is definitely not to say she can’t be totally independent.
Although please don't be confused.
Friendly boy-next-door types who are handsome,
aren't too hairy, who like to laugh, who have a boyish braggadocio,
who are students, who appear to be intellectuals,
who are not nerds,
and who can **** it in the kitchen, who  can be oh, so cool,
who can convince a maiden that she is in distress,
and is in need of rescuing, while he has
a swaggering hard-on will do, too.
Oooh. You devil.
And if you think this poem is misogynist, misanthropic or myopic,
well, I’ve been around and by now, well,
I really should be panoptic
because I’ve seen all the fads,
and really, it’s sadly too bad
about those poor old
earnest SNAGS.
But you know what?
I don't think I understand anything, because
I'm really a victim of worshiping women.
I'm bedazzled and as blind as the next man, and
yes,
I'm just happy whenever I'm with them.
Yes. A complex topic, this one...
A circus lives inside my head

Fortune tellers control my fears

Clowns are in charge of my humor

All you can eat contests make me crave certain foods

A Ferris wheel of thoughts

A merry-go-round of emotions

Jugglers toss around my decisions

Fun House mirrors showing my insecurities

Face painters create my expressions

When will I become the ring master of my mind?
The posters said tomorrow
At eleven on the dot
The Mishkin Brothers Circus
Would be here ....on this spot

There would be no carnival or midway
Just one tent and three rings
And all of the excitement
That a good old circus brings

There would be elephants and lions
Trapeze artists overhead
Dancing dogs and ponies
And zebras painted red

Clowns of all description
Answering to just one man
In the center of the circle
Was Mishkin brother....Dan

He'd run the show for twenty years
Gone from town to town to town
In one day they would get set up
And in two, they'd tear it down

One day to show the locals
The circus still was an event
With magic, form the Barnum Days
All housed inside one tent

The sideshow barkers and their geeks
Were not with this fine group
Dan Mishkin had assembled
Only the finest circus troup

From Russia he had jugglers
Knife throwers, just the best
******* riders from Decatur
Along with all the rest

Fourteen trucks and trailers
Pulled into town the night before
Breaking ground once they arrived
Working right through until four

Just old time entertainment
No travelling gypsy band was this
It was the Mishkin Brothers Circus
It was something not to miss

The show was started promptly
At twelve o'clock, like the sign said
A parade of all the players
And the zebras painted red

Two shows and it was over
The whole routine began anew
The field was once more empty
Gone was the Mishkin rolling zoo

A year from now, we'd see the signs
And we'd all go to the tent
To see the Mishkin Brothers Circus
The best money ever spent
‘Just where do you think you’re going, girl
With those ribbons in your hair?’
‘I’m off to the world of Make Believe
To the Hart Midsummer Fair.
They say there’s a Magical Fairy Ring
Where the maids dance round a pole,
Where the step of a dainty pair of feet
Can win you a *** of gold.’

‘There’s Lords and Ladies and Dukes and Kings
Come down from the Castle Kragg,
Wearing their Crowns and jewels and rings
And they roast a new killed Stag,
There are clowns and jugglers, Gypsy bands
And the Phantom Fiddler’s there,
Playing an ancient Irish jig
At the Hart Midsummer Fair.’

‘The gentlemen from the town come down
All dressed in their best array,
Looking to win a country maid
To hang off their arm that day.
And those as willing, the auctioneer
Takes maids from the countryside,
Bangs his gavel and calls the odds
For the sale of a country bride.’

‘I’ll not have you at the County fair,
You can stay at the farm by me,
We’ve been affianced for over a year
And wed in a year, we’ll see!’
‘I’ve waited long for your promise to wed
But nothing has come about,
I’ll not be wed to an Ostler, when
A gentleman calls me out.’

He locked the maid in the pantry, so
She wouldn’t get out that day,
But she slipped the lock, and changed her dress
And managed to get away.
She went the way of the hidden lane
On the old grey dappled mare,
And rode on over the hills to find
The Hart Midsummer Fair.

She was late for the clowns and jugglers
She was late for the Fairy Ring,
She wasn’t too late for the auctioneer
Who told her to come right in.
She couldn’t see who was bidding for her
But she took it with a smile,
It must have been some fine gentleman
For the bidding was done in style.

‘Four pounds I’m bid, for this comely *****,
Four guineas to you out there,’
Another pound brought his gavel down
‘I believe that you’ve won her, sir!’
They tied a blindfold over her eyes
And her wrists were bound with cords,
She had to walk for a dozen miles
Tethered behind a horse.

The horse’s hooves had a hollow ring
As they hit the cobblestones,
The walls were damp and the air was filled
With a smell like drying bones.
Her ‘gentleman’ took the blindfold off
And her knees began to sag,
She’d sold herself to the Pantler of
The household, Castle Kragg.

The Pantler, so very old and grey
With a blind, white staring eye,
He said that she’d be the scullery maid
There were pots and pans to dry,
There wasn’t a single window in
The kitchen, down below,
She ****** the money he’d paid for her
And she begged him, let her go.

‘That’s not enough,’ said the wily serf,
‘To free you from these grounds,
If you want to purchase your liberty
It will cost you twenty pounds.
Your value is in the work you’ll do
Both here, and under the stairs,
If you pay your shilling a week to me
It will take you seven years!’

That night she slept on a pile of sacks
And she ****** the man away,
She said, ‘You’re not going to touch me
For as long as you make me pay!’
But late that night in the pale moonlight
A horse’s hooves were heard,
And a shadow crept to her bedside,
Whispered, ‘Don’t say a single word!’

He led her up to the courtyard where
There stood the dapple grey,
Hoisted her up behind him, spurred
The horse, ‘Now let’s away!’
She clung on tight to the Ostler she
Had spurned, without a care,
And laughed when they crested the hillside
As the breeze blew through her hair.

The banns went up the following day
They were married in the fall,
She said, ‘I finally got my way,’
And he answered, ‘Not at all!
‘You only married an Ostler, not
The Pantler under the stair.’
‘An Ostler’s all that I wanted since
The Hart Midsummer Fair!’

David Lewis Paget
david badgerow Feb 2012
a penny is a penny
and i am a monk hawking birth control pills
without any shame or pride
disguised in flamboyant tinfoil.
i am an extra sensitive *** on my daily street corner
turning into a crumb of hunger
staring down a long alleyway and eating the flowers
that grew up in concrete.
there are shadows of jugglers on the wall
jumping into the sun, and i am a burning lampshade.
henry miller is in a wheelchair now
and i am a walrus with a backache
being forced among the proverb writers,
but i'm no prophet because i've seen the bubbling fire
and the swords on the doorway.
i am a lover with a guilty conscience
and i have too much on my mind.
i stole the bread from the riot squad and
i blow out these words from a keyhole,
pounding my fist on a book
while the mystics get drunk with skinny ******.
i don't go to birthday parties or funerals
instead i'd like to do something worthwhile
but i am your typical flunky, writing eccentric jokes about rich pimps
while my father lies dead on the hill.
mark john junor Feb 2014
the nature of this night
spreads its thin harvest upon my table
a gruel and water porridge feast
with the fanfares of her jaundiced hand
many more lined up with eager grin
for the warmth of paupers kinship
thin blanket wrapped round our shoulders
snow gathers at feet
she captures the moment on paper
the image of all of us gathered like when we were young

the grandiose illustration
with its brilliant colour fanfare with
jugglers and wine swilling laughing men blinded by drink
chorus line of female dancers who wear costumes of the hundred years war
lead the assault on the last bastions of the ignorance of bliss
all descrying that we can ill afford to be sleeping
while empires are built in our namesake
the so daintily shod soldiers whos feminine wiles misunderstood
have taken over the dancehall beneath us
and have taken up song
the grandiose illustration
caught by her pen on sketch pad
has leanings to the Marxist revolutions
and philosophys of the rhetorical
but in the end we join them and
drink the port sing the song

a thousand years of tales to be told
in the eyes of a single girls sweet thoughts
epic landscapes filled with noble men and storybook girls
the grandiose illustration
shows the two of us on the beach
with the sun racing down to touch the high towers of miami
and fill the laughing joys of thouse who toss and
tumble in the breaking waves
the nature of this night
in one small corner of the illustration
a simple window with the shade drawn
that says goodnight
Brycical Aug 2012
You aren't big ****
'till you're on a stick,
not even legitimate
like gator, hotdogs, sausage and chicken.
A stick gets your mouth waterin'
and your tongue lickin'
you can get your veggies on a shish-kabob
and cotton candy handed to you at any sport
or circus,
we even got religious services about servin'
this person on a stick!
Wanna be famous? Get your wish
and put somethin' on a stick--
the get rich quick types stick 'em up their ***
while the rest of us gather
at fairs and carnivals to mindlessly laugh
at jugglers, clowns and ride circular rides.
All the while snackin' on somethin' on a stick.
I don't feel this is finished.
Onoma May 2019
ash-jugglers

at water's

wayside...

smiling

gladly.

left off--

for the ginormous

come in.

unblinking doors--

unblinking

windows.
Daily walks would lead me down

The tourist laden streets

Where people from all walks of life

Would congregate and meet

Buskers, singers, ne'er do wells

Would work throughout the throngs

But in back of Giannis restaurant

Sat an old man sharing songs

He didn't sing so much as talk

His voice was hoarse with age

But a milk box and an orange crate

Were his table, chair and stage

His instrument, an old guitar

Scarred, battle worn and black

His guitar strap was as old as he

An old potato sack

He sat and played to nobody

He just let the words be there

His audience could be a hundred deep

Sometimes it could be air

His music was his lifes blood

It was everything he had

So he shared it with the people

And the people....they were glad

The tourists, stayed away though

They were more attracted by the flair

Of the buskers and the jugglers

Not this man who wasn't there

He never left to join the crowd

And to sell his songs to those

Who really wanted nothing more

Than to hear some manufactured prose

The people who he played to

Were just others from the street

They worked the bars and restaurants

And at night they'd find a seat

In front of this old bluesman

Sitting by his orange box

Playing his guitar by candle light

Taking in his songs and talks

He sang songs from the heart, I guess

About those who'd he'd met

He'd sing about a dozen songs

That would constitue a set

Then he'd open up his silver flask

And ******* two gulps down

"This here's just my medicine"

"My past lives just to drown"

He sang of Truck Stop Beauty Queens

And of Walks out in the park

He sang of people living life

Not just hiding in the dark

He sang of things so real you'd see

Their pictures in your mind

He'd sing of places and of things

That others would not find

But tourists, they just stayed away

Near the buskers blowing fire

While yards away this old man sat

Just like an old town cryer

His audience would leave a bit

of change for their free show

He never asked for anything

For this was his row to ***

At two though when the street shut down

He closed his show down too

But he always had an extra song

A special one for you

His music came from in his heart

He shared it without fear

For once it left his throat it was

A sound that was so dear

The tourists went to hotels

Once the buskers all went home

But he just moved his crate and box

He slept out here alone

He sang his songs of characters

Who helped make us his life

His words were sometimes gentle

While others cut you like a knife

His world was just that orange crate

And his music helped unfurl

The melodies in this mans mind

It helped him share his world

He knew some things and people that

Would take rather than give

He sang about the street people

Because among them he did live

His home was just a cardboard box

Behind Giannis bar

And if you want to see a real good show

You don't have to go far

It's just a little beaten path

Away from tourist fare

Where this little, old, shy

Bluesman sings to hundreds or the air..
"The Beatles had no genuine musical talent, but were a product shaped according to British Psychological Warfare Division (Tavistock) specifications, and promoted in Britain by agencies which are controlled by British intelligence." Why Your Child Became A Drug Addict" Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., Campaigner Special Report, Copyright 1978*

Don’t let it be said,
That nothing chipped off his father’s block,
The father who played
In ragtime and jazz bands,
In Liverpool, England.
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, and
According to “another clue for you all”
Compliments of Glass Onion:
“The Walrus was Paul.”
But I digress.
Sir Paul, erstwhile Beatle,
Certainly had the ear-for-music gene,
Percolating through his spiral double helix.
And the clever linguistics gene as well,
Lyrics seemingly crafted in an earlier era,
Back when fine-tuning & finesse,
Ruled bouts of social chitchat.
When men could sing when they spoke.
The music of the spoken word:
Homeric and magical,
Casting spells upon us.
Like English scops:
Medieval Minstrels, Jugglers & Clowns,
Who memorized and recited long heroic poems
And stories. Usually both.
The music of the spoken word;
The magic of an aural experience;
Back before those words conjured up oral experience,
“You are correct, Sir!” mouths Johnny’s sidekick,
Back before mouth-on *** crossed over to the Straight Population.
Back before Gordon Gekko/Liberace
Blamed his oral cancer on *******,
No. Not Colonel Angus.
Think Cole Porter--
Sophisticated, ***** lyrics,
Clever rhymes, complex misdemeanors.
Think Tin Pan Alley.
Cole Porter--a Yale graduate by the way,
Demonstrating another critically-important genetic fact of life:
The gift of Ivy-League DNA.
But, again, I digress.
Paul was the happy Beatle,
Not to be confused with John, the serious Beatle, or
George, the quiet Beatle.
Not to mention Ringo: the utterly extraneous Beatle.
Let’s map the social dynamics of their band.
Let us scrutinize that famous mop-top barbershop quartet.
Immediately we comprehend the creative tension,
Centered largely on that giant clash of personalities:
Paul vs. John.
The surprise is not that the Beatles broke up.
It’s more a sense of unsuspended disbelief,
That this particular band,
Ever got it together to show up for a gig,
Let alone last long enough to record their first album,
And go on to become the first
(Can we forget Elvis for a moment, please?)
Truly viral sensations of this earth, this realm, this England:
Pop stars of the Nineteen-Sixties.
John vs. Paul:
For every “Strawberry Fields Forever,”
There’s a “Lovely Rita, Meter Maid.”
Mike Hauser Nov 2013
I dream often about the circus
A place I loved to go to as a child
Mesmerized by clowns and jugglers
Enthralled by animals from the wild

As the lights dim and the spot light shines
The ringmaster steps into its glow
"Welcome one, welcome all
to the Wilkie circus show! "

That's when things take a turn
As they always do in dreams
The spotlight finds me in the crowd
As the ringmaster calls my name

I find myself in the center ring
Dressed up just like a clown
Fuzzy yellow hair, big red nose
And grandma's paisley gown!

It turns even odder I'd say as the animals parade
With heads and bodies that are mismatched
Lions with the heads of monkey's
and zebras with the smiles of Cheshire cats
It doesn't get much stranger than that!

A flash of light and everything changes
I find myself on the high wire
My balance beam a giant matchstick
And "HELP" its been lit on fire!

That's when I start twirling it like a baton
As the crowd below chants my name
You never know what will happen next
In the circus of my dreams
Another fun collaboration with the wonderful poet and friend Fiona Crouch!
With faces so different and indifferent hearts
They play with humanity for small benefits
Maintain their financial charts on their arts
On the name of religion they implement writs

For every crime and sin they pay the price
Confession and price give them liberty to do
For every such action there is different device
Hence they portray them pure as drop of dew

Forsaken by God and overtaken by humanity
They play ***** in sheer dark to remain hidden
When humanity from their cruel clutches be free
When they will be ****** to eat fruit forbidden

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Martyn Thompson Aug 2011
A warm glow radiates through the bones
that are usually filled with aches and groans
as I pass my place of birth.
The street screams my name by day
and whispers it softly when light has gone away
smell the air, smell the warmth rising from the earth.

The street entertainers of Portobello road
the cool saxophone, the sweet notes blown
the sound of a thousand footsteps.
The jugglers, magicians and the market stands
balancing, conjuring and selling their brands
the warm breeze scatter their scent.

Watch out for vagabonds and confidence tricks
souvenir shops serving countless tourists
the sound of a thousand tills ringing.
Eat in any language, speak in any tongue
dream of hustle and bustle and days long gone
still you can hear the street singing.

From Pembridge Road to Westbourne Grove
these streets tell me that I am home
they call me, repel me, thrill and destroy me.
This land that did bear me keeps willing me back
to walk it's streets and follow it's tracks
this land is the place I must be...

If I die, think only this of me,
through every pane of glass, behind every windowsill
there will always be a place called Notting Hill. 
As tha vinyl goes round and round
Put my vocals on the sound
Make minds astound
Like they blazed a pound
spiritually buried in a ground
Many awaited so many hated debated
But ya only created
A bigger badder mc flawless the rawest
To ever touch a beat leave ya off ya feet
Ya in high heels drink Dom P no spills
Ice chills windmills sittin' on the 22s rims
Tilted brim far for slim lights dim
Smoke sessions prepare for the aggression
When fools hear my sound they'll start a recession
Lyrically insane off my brain
No pain no gain pushin' weight in differ states made estates hold ya pate
Cuz it's bound to get popped off ya soft
As Doughboy check my rhyming ahoy
Gettin' girlies made joy don't act coy
My apparatus the baddest yours the saddest
A **** without Gladys
I'm on the Midnight train to Georgia
Got some led for ya
Caps I peelin' more than onions
Leavin' nigguhs holy like funions
Funk baby born in the eighties
I'm the shadiest of the shady
Hate me now but it's all gravy
Burnin' emcees like Monks thai skunk
Put the funk
In my mind always on the grind
Watch for one time and I'm
Never gonna die from this
Respect ya royal highness
Check my pedigree ya gonna wanna
re-re-re rewind this







****** stop pretendin'
The masquerade is over
I thought David Porter told ya
The massacre just begun
When my guns bust fools begin to run
Into four-corner hustlers street jugglers
And stick up mugglers
Bounce my **** I'm the hardest to hit
Guard ya **** this a blow harder than Tyson
Sweep up the street call me Dyson Slicin'
Competition to pieces for stereo thesis
As my brain increases droppin' feces
That cant eradicate or debate
End up bitin' they own death date
Ivs' pumpin' from the leds dumpin'
Blood clots bumpin' body humpin'
This is a take over I don't pull til the nut is over
Never see me sober refer to me as Jehovah
Positionin' plots when emcees touch the spot
End up mad shot???
Askin' who shot ya? Nobody knows
It's the Htown ****** raw and hyper
160 kills with out the trickle of a sweat
I make more threats than a terrorist
George Bush couldn't even stop it
Mass mayhem slam opponent til they open
Dilate pupils after the loot principle
***** tricks haters can *******
Neck slit now ya can't talk ****
No love I'm in it Cuz im greedy
Don't feed the needy I'm black as Nefertiti
Yall can't see me
Even if yall wanted too
Chumps talkin' like they smoke me
But I'll have stunned more than Haitian Voodoo


Bob Spears Nov 2013
I believe in just the right amount of light.
I've learned that in photography.
Not enough, means the subject is in the dark,
Too much and everything is washed out.
In either case, the texture of the subject is lost.
Too much light and you lose the shadows,
and shadows are important for the vibrancy of the picture.
Too little light and the shadows overwhelm.

I believe in just the right amount of light in life.
Too much and you have the Pollyanna syndrome.
Too little and you fall into despair.
If it's just right, life will have a rich and vital texture.
And the shadows are important.
They give the highlights contrast and meaning.

The photographer also believes in color.
Black and white has its place,
But in the end color is king
And gives a photograph life.
Color depends upon light,
The right amount of light.
Color is a fracturing of the rays of light.

I believe in a colorful life.
Not too garish
Certainly not too drab.
But just right.

How do we get there?
How do we balance the light and color in our lives?
No balancing act is ever easy.
Even Goldilocks had to deal with three hungry bears.
Angels find it hard to dance on the head of a pin.
After years of practice jugglers sometime drop the ball.
I'm still dropping the ball far too often.
But now and then a burst of light breaks through the clouds
And for a moment, I glow in the dark.
phil roberts Jul 2017
There's a quiet murmuration
Of figments of my imagination
Dreams and broken notions
Feelings and emotions
Swirling and rearranging
Into ever-changing shapes in my mind

There are absent gods and howling dogs
And the broken backs of the poor
While jugglers perform tricks with wealth
As nobody seems to care anymore
Amidst marching boots as children shoot
And hope lies dead on the floor

There seems to be a ghost somewhere
Wandering high in purple mountains
And low in deep green valleys
And this roaming soul may well be
A kind of long lost truth
Inside my hidden mind

                               By Phil Roberts
drumhound Mar 2014
On Saturday
any Saturday
every Saturday

multi-themed pedestrian parades
pour down commercial corridors
celebrating a holiday known as

WEEKEND.

Middle school queens throw
exaggerated waves
from backseat upholstery tops

in imaginary convertibles marking
the current flow route between
Foot Locker and Game Stop.

Marching throngs display
personal banners on
plastic handled brand bags

drawing peer clusters,
human petaled floats,
vying for ribbons

passing devoutly interested
sideline spectators
now feeling a bit empty

without score cards.

Hippos, thin men, package jugglers
stroll along the branching avenues
labeled in chest advertisements

including everything from
Magnetic Health to Jesus.
No mega-city floatilian

compares to the mall regalia
in a midsize hometown
duck-n-spend.

Though it may be
a little short on free candy
it is still sponsored in part

by Macy's.

Interlocked peddler palaces
reign as shopping centers,
though shopping is the least

of the reasons to be here;
not unlike people going to
a hockey match

are not going to watch hockey,
or partakers in Nascar
don't actually go for racing.

Truth is,
we are all hoping
to see a collision,

Haves with Have Nots,
Lovers with Haters,
Colored Hairs with High & Tights

Refined with Undefined
Talkers with Solitaries
Personal Loathing with Itself.

Unanimously, they all come
for the curiosity of encounter
incalculable, anxious, wanted

or unwanted.

In secret,
dreamers hold royal hopes
praying to Aeropostale gods

pleading favor with credit cards
and a bump in popularity
that if so anointed

the purest of this parade's followers
would be next week's
Grand Marshall.
phil roberts Oct 2017
There's a quiet murmuration
Of figments of my imagination
Dreams and broken notions
Feelings and emotions
Swirling and rearranging
Into ever-changing shapes in my mind

There are absent gods and howling dogs
And the broken backs of the poor
While jugglers perform tricks with wealth
As nobody seems to care anymore
Amidst marching boots as children shoot
And hope lies dead on the floor

There seems to be a ghost somewhere
Wandering high in purple mountains
And low in deep green valleys
And this roaming soul may well be
A kind of long lost truth
Inside my hidden mind

                               By Phil Roberts
Tommy Johnson May 2014
Step right up just come inside
We've got food, attractions and rickety rides
It's only ten cents to lose your mind
It's the carnival-circus of Cedric and Clyde

The magic man cuts the conjoined twins in half with giant shears
Then makes them instantly disappear
Then shows you your card as he chugs a beer
"Who's next?" "How about you my dear?"

Something isn't quite right with this side show
You sense there's something going on but you don't know
You need to get out of here but you still won't go

The sword sallower has something to say
But can't for hes devouring a flame
He tells the audience to try and imitate
He has them **** themselves then goes on his way

The snake charmer plays his tune
Down at the midway people lose
They throw the ***** but the bottle are glued
And the bearded lady and amazon women have decided to get ****

Something isn't quite right with this side show
You sense there's something going on but you don't know
You need to get out of here but you still won't go

The fortune teller looks into her crystal ball
And predicts society's failure and fall
And insists that you put up a wall
She gives you the number of a contractor to call

The muscle man and ****** are doing lines
As the lion tamer ***** on lemon rinds
You ask if everything's fine
They answer you in some sort of coded rhyme

Something isn't quite right with this side show
You sense there's something going on but you don't know
You need to get out of here but you still won't go

The clowns ****** each other for a laugh
They use exploding pies and poison gas
You see the fully loaded clown car crash
And they all lay lifeless and gashed

The merry-go-round is going mach five
The freaks and weirdos come out to say hi
The geek takes you on the Ferris wheel and get you high
And shows you the spot where they put those who have died

Something isn't quite right with this side show
You sense there's something going on but you don't know
You need to get out of here but you still won't go

The fun house mirrors are all cracked
Except for the one that makes you look fat
The roller coaster has run off the track
Those who went on can never come back

The contortionist talks backwards
The acrobats are up in the rafters
One is pregnant and plans on seeing the back alley abortionist after
She just needs to knock and give him the password

Something isn't quite right with this side show
You sense there's something going on but you don't know
You need to get out of here but you still won't go

The rabid animals come out from the petting zoo and under the tent
The elephants tear up in lament
The tigers eat the trainer and smile with content
And the escape artists swims with shoes of cement

The ringmaster walks out with his top hat and cane
And says "thank you all for coming, we'll return again"
With his handle bar mustache, hes looks absolutely insane
The whistle blows and they all board the train

Something isn't quite right with this side show
You sense there's something going on but you don't know
You need to get out of here but you still won't go

The jugglers and unicycle bears all have gone
The illusionists and tight rope walkers pass on
As have the knife thrower and human cannonball
The haunted house comes down, the brass band plays a good bye song

So there you are surrounded by dead bodies and horse ****
Stale popcorn and some kind of hit list
Of souls and cities they plan to visit
It's the Cedric and Clyde Carnival-Circus

All proceeds go to Mr. Jacques
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
it's hard to imagine gin gin gin a pseudo-ariθmeτic behind every coupled word utilising the Logos, a -logy, because what is the motivational word behind it, truly? it could be any word, mind me saying. logistically speaking each compound aligning itself to some -logy (logistics) will know the parameters, in question π, the infinity basis, the irrational ever-after, 3 point whatever, we can scrutinise with millimetre, and the infinitely regressive divide of the circle, hell, heading toward the nanometre, but still the compact, intact π... but there has to be some ariθmetic involved! the easiest to understand logic of mathematics is buried in arithmetic... but words are too large to suit patterns in consistently changing: try fitting a word like apple through a keyhole denoting five one three (513 / five hundred and thirteen, arithmetic conjunctions, spelling)... in the end all you need is A... that's what happens when you riddle the stupidity, you can't make-up 26 units with the craze of ∞, not so much 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0  1, no algorithm bouncy castle: no hip hip hooray! i mean, what logic is there behind these philosophical words, what arithmetic? what words are required to say 1 + 1 = 2 ontologically? i have an etymological example, but prior to the example i was told to state: certain phonetic encodings are for aesthetic purposes, the C and the K, musicology, cat, clever, clover, kettle, keenly etc. - existence of aesthetic purposes, and dyslexia - we write in complex encoding for the encoding to look the ***** - otherwise we'd be writing like salvaged Latin of Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli (famous for his sonnets, e.g.): the city (acronym c, i know, unitary acronym, the wonder) - both S & K whenever the lady minds to change her posture of SIX P's, popes, priests, princes, prostitutes, parasites and the poor - in poem, the lost aesthetic, excess spelling, no diacritical reprimand: starting with the word cappuccino - perfectó! (ó, not like a Polish u morph, but like a shove, a throw, like an olé! tremor prior to the gesture... a Mexican wave at a football match, the build up... oooooooooo lé! that included no W - see, the tetragrammaton coupled with a systematic vocabulary does wonders, hence the necessary shortening... OH LÉ! catch a breath, catch a breath... take two. the two hatches of the tetragrammaton are more than a deja vu, they're more like jugglers of vowels, the first extends, the second curbs - i might not love the Jews but i love the geometry of YHWH... love it to the extreme, never have i come across people who desire nationhood but are so reluctant to settle there, the intelligent ones preferring exile (the exodus) than hope for a genesis (Zionism). i swear i was supposed to write an etymological poem, sidetracked mentioning Giuseppe and cappuccinos... chinos or khaki? never mind...
vio sentite una madre. ammalappena la cratura c'ha
ffatta ha cquarche ggiorno, ggià è la prima cratura der contorno,
e ssi jje dite che nun è, vve mena -
he salvaged the ******* Titanic of all Titanics and left it aesthetically ugly - look at the alphabet, ugly as **** in the practice of composition, what did he do? look at it! gee gee, if two letters joined necessary, clones, there exists no law to coerce them into a grapheme, like in cappuccino - or Gucci, or Coco Chanel - can't make a tongue-tie within cappuccino if you don't know the basics: like Chino, Chai Tea Latte... siberian grizzly... rrrrraaa... mimic schizophrenia,  the best advice is to mimic a Roman Forum, democracy, make writing democratic, this is democracy, we will not have authoritarian rule of a rigid narrator! burn 'em! burn 'em! no peeping toms here, no omni-voyeurism. but you'd be lucky to pick out the slobbering with accents to a piquant stress worthy of distinguished notation, say it's all Cockney and you'll throw pears down a few ladders; oh yeah, ****'s stable: Coco Shanel but written Chanel - and we're selling chastity while burrowing in chimneys on the shly.

seriously... an etymological poem, using one word:
skleroza* (yes, colon and italics after, a heresy, i know,
but a necessary double emphasis).

paranoia and pronoun usage: the notorious they and he.

so, skleroza, etymological root-prefix: sklera-
or, simply sclera, i.e. adjectives opaque,
fibrous, protective - Westminster Abbey bells at
a wedding - ding ****, ding **** -
so relating to the eye, pertaining if you must -
now what to do with the suffix -roza?
well... there's Barbarossa - pinkish, i say,
although stressed to a geographic region a rose
is actually róża - yes, rose - couple them
together and you get: a rosy blankness -
simulation of momentary dementia -
****! where did i leave the keys?! skleroza
is a short-lived memory gap, a momentary
loss of memory, a funny sort, means you're
abstracting, abstracting a pain akin to
the arithmetic of, e.g. 1 + √43 + 23 - 100 x 2 ÷ 50 + 1000...
a weird sort of pain trying to work that one out...
so, to the limit of the what's behind skleroza,
utilising the arithmetic of etymology:
a rosy blankness - the automated form of forgetting,
that's protective, in terms of a permanent association
of forgetfulness - the easiest burden:
so there you have it, etymology, the logic infuriated with
linear associations and modulations using +, -, x and ÷.
Lee Mar 2013
Pendulum hours spring slow forward
seasons swaying trigger festivals
and the dancing banners
on windy streets
spell sales
for slack jawed jugglers
eager to pedal wears to the weary
under the growing sun of a dieing season.
I am a beast in the cage of these streets
one way bars holding back barbarism.
My snarling is better suited for the trees
my guttural bark out car doors at street performers
better suited for stick beaten drum circles
spinning madly under the moon.
I lap from the sewer grates like a lost dog
too proud to die their like my hero
on a post above
to me
the raven quoth, what a bore.
Only men behind electric glass have seen me
on drunken nights
I confess my heart
and dance away my soul(s)
before their iron eye.
In this city I do not sleep
my heart glides to grassy groves
when my eyes close
to lock out the bright and unending
street lights that are suspending
my cowards heart above the darkness i still fear.
I am a child
take me to where the wild things are.
Scot Powers May 2013
Journeyed  from
a far off land
through the forest
across the sand
like a restless beast
never at peace
wandered for years
laughter and tears

A family of wanderers
have traveled the path
acrobats and see'ers
jugglers and rats
all move together
for it would seem
safety in numbers
they're often seen

Raven haired beauties
with large almond eyes
pry coins from the menfolk
tell them sweet lies
they stay for awhile
then they move on
when their welcome
is truly gone

misunderstood
for hundreds of years
the travelers have wandered
despite all our fears
the gypsies have lived
like we wish we all could
living and laughing
loving as they should

don't be so hard
on those you don't know
could be a friend
let you in from the cold.
Irate Watcher Aug 2014
If Rihanna and Bob Marley had a baby,
it would be her. She was as fierce as peace can be.
Born in the suburbs, I had never seen
coffee-colored rastas with caramel tips,
pulled back from a shaven head
into a ponytail.
She skated in an oversized hoodie
across San Marcos square — a watering hole for
porteños playing hippie.
Mad man strummed ukuleles wildly;
couples dancing interpretively; jugglers rode on unicycles,
as if they were all training for a jester convention.
Still, I couldn’t tear my eyes from her
broken strands tied in knots swinging freely.

Her sea-foam stare met my blue gaze.
I looked like a dork; my hair plastered
and sweaty. I wore a black tank top,
waiting for another bus to another city.

She dismissed her band of perros
and grasped my hand, asking me
if I wanted to sleep by the river with her.
It was late so I said yes.
We walked from the yellow lights
of the town square.
She grimaced.

No more bones for starving dogs.

I wasn’t starving, just lost,
a traveler,
dried from a bucketful of adventures,
I dreaded repeating as empty stories
over
and
over
and
over.


O Celia,
you were a coyote wearing a hoodie;
no one could tame you, refracted by the white
light of the moon that embraced each
of your steps by the shrubbery-ridden riverside.
I stumbled as we approached
an embankment sheltered by magic trees,
the glistening water chilled waves to perked ears;
reflections of villagers, we pitched tents together,
tipi-ed by the ritual
of finding niche in transition.
You built the fire; I prepared the mate;
your weary locks whispered callejero wisdom.
Your stories were everything I wanted to say,
but too timid to be.

You were dancing in my basement,
bathing in moonlight *******,
unashamed to say how good the water felt.
You probably lost your virginity in your tent;
shadows of leaves shaking a disturbed night,
unlike I, crying, semi-drunk, wishing I hadn’t.

You actually played the guitar;
you bought it yourself;
it was tied to the skateboard
you drug behind on open roads.
I got a guitar for my birthday after
watching Lindsay Lohan be a rockstar in a movie once.
I was inspired to play for a while.
Then it just sat in my room.

So you taught me your favorite song, Legalizenla
We didn’t even have a porro — you wished we did.
But all I wanted was to memorize those chords
So you listened to me play them out of tune for hours,
pressing my fingers on the fretboard like butter.
Strums shuddered my soul.
You wrote the lyrics in my journal
with the note, con mucho amor.

Now, each time I dust off my guitar,
I warm up with that song  
to remember your vibrations.
Honest opinions here? What do ya'll think?
Turoa Feb 2019
Night Circus

A black tent stands in front of you
red flags, chilling wind
welcome to my night circus
you found my red curtain door
I’ve been waiting for you
so step right in

Put this mask on, bizarre but
soon it’ll be clear
there are no faces,
no faces,
no faces down here,
No faces no light,
your mind misty, unclear,
and you don’t know it yet
but you need to be here

I hear whispers in your head
they are sounding
your heart’s beat in your ears
it’s pounding
warped mirrors, evil seen
is your reflection shattering
the person you knew
is gone, curtains drawn
my wicked dream
it’s magnetic, riveting,
astounding

Cold blood will course through your veins
look away
but all around you, look, see
you’ll reel from their stains
you say you’ll leave
but where
how did you lose the way
you came here, you entered
there’s a price you’ll pay
there are no refunds
no second chances
..and oh the games
we will play

You knew it hurt, but went back
every time
through a once white skin door
until your own skin matched mine
the colors of pain,
my black, red decor
until now
you’ve always asked to endure,
to taste just one more
you did this to yourself
bought the ticket
now settle your score

Bring the reflection of yourself
behind your mask in the crowd
my curtain’s pulled back for you
step through
not a sound

No one here will see you
cry as before
no one here will silence you
or muzzle your roar
as you end the life
of the person you knew
of the self that was you
who you were before

So welcome to the show
you arrived just on time
The Rules
don’t lie, don’t touch,
and don’t waste my time
You came to my circus
my tent,
you entered my mind
now you’ll hear and you’ll suffer
the ringleader’s rhyme

You feel strange down here,
yes, at first
thinking you’re alone
Ha ha guess again
check the stands
every second
look and see how they’ve grown
faces you can’t see
but there’s an army within
wondering
why did they come
you see, there’s few ways out
endless ways in
held by nothing but curtain
in this place created by pen

I hold a lighter
to this cigarette and
I can show you the way
you've found my hell, child
so come take my hand
fangs glistening, lets watch,
watch your own show begin

Join the legion here,
seeking belonging, refuge
lost and alone, savages
behind masks
here we all are people
monsters
creatures like you
but this is your trail
you’ll see it through to completion
don’t fall to the side
perhaps you can grant to me,
grant an end to my own story
my own obsoletion

I live this circus
every act, done them all
the show of the ******
my kingdom written
in red, every seat
in black, every wall
this is my world  
my guest
you're welcome to know
a little about me
take in the sights
with my ember in darkness
the hope I have
as you go

I was born here
somehow caught and strung up,
the first exhibit
the freak show,
a forcibly twisted, stiff contortionist,
a broken puppet's
head hung low,
clowns hammer to the head
that drum-roll cadence you hear
thumping, ringing,
a bearded lady singing
my art's crescendo,
each act slowly, chipping away
each step bringing us, closer, today
I’m the no-net trapeze artist
who wildly swings
while mad jugglers toss
swords across delicate strings,
the magician who saws
his woman in half,
the strong man crushed
beneath the weight on his back,
the tamer pray to his lions
bones not whips crack,
the disfigured clown who hopelessly fails
every attempt to make you laugh,
I'm the fire-breather choking
hearing cheers for his burn,
the acrobats diving into a cement empty pool
each gracefully standing waiting their turn
I was the tigers
who brought
the elephant down
and the helpless escape artist
chained, humiliated,
destined to drown
And now here I stand
your host
Ringleader
your showman
maitre d'
you're welcome to join
mais j'espere, tu ne reviens jamais
jusqu'au port de mon coeur
Le Cirque de la Nuit

-A bow without applause-

You’ve hosted your show
feel free to do more
but this tent will be bigger
each time you perform
I belong, some are trapped here
but you, you are not
the choice is still yours
so when you decide
you are free
to the world
I’ll release you
but let you be warned
wherever you go
the key you carry within
your night circus
your shadow behind you
is waiting
hungry
I plead
..don’t fall back in
nivek Oct 2016
death is the best and worst of it.
we juggle these two everyday.
Jackie Mead Apr 2018
Once there was a young man, who lived from hand to mouth.
Finding work where he could while travelling South.

He had in mind to make his fortune, see his name in lights.
He had a special trick he could do, while riding on his bike.

He pedalled into a new Town one day, and set about to explore.
He began to look for work, by knocking on people's door.

He wasn't very fussy, there wasn't anything he wouldn't do.
From mopping floors and pulling pints to cleaning people's shoes.

One day whilst riding on his bike, his luck was on the turn.
He came upon a circus and travelling merry go round.

He saw his opportunity and knocked upon the door.
Asked if the Ringmaster would let him show his trick upon the floor.

The Ringmaster agreed and found some jugglers, dancers and a lion tamer as an audience for the trick.

The Ringmaster informed everyone the show would be free and to invite anyone else they liked; the show would begin at half past three.

At half past three the lad turned up, riding on his bike.
He pulled a double bogey pike, while standing on his head.

The Ringmaster was delighted it was the best trick he had seen.
He asked the lad to return the following night to perform before the Queen.

The lad was so excited he decided to phone home to invite his Mum and Dad.

The Ringmaster supplied his family tickets and paid their fare.
He put them up at a Hotel overnight and treated them with care.

The lad was top of the Bill that night, following the jugglers and muscle men   in leopard skin tights.

His time had come and in he rode with confidence and no fright.
He took a bow and pulled his wheels back and with a roar stood on his head, turning the handles left then right, he did a 360 degrees.

The crowd were a frenzy and showed their delight.
He rode a lap of honour round the ring on his bike.

Children came up to him to ask him to sign their books and for a photograph of his good looks.

The lad was delighted, his family too, no more mopping floors or shining shoes.

Now his name is in lights atop of the big tent, his name draws in big crowds and the lad never again paid rent.

His family are very proud and again he met the Queen.
This time the Queen with a sword announced the lad was now a Lord.

The lad became a man and duly met his wife, they went on to have four children, all of them learnt at an early age how to ride a bike.

The man grew old and in time passed away but his legacy would always stay; his kids had developed the trick to now include skids.

His name would always be in lights, he would always be known as the lad who developed a double bogey pike while standing on his head.
A little bit of fun writing this. I hope you have fun reading it.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
sooner or later you get the grips of cherry-pop nudes
imagery instilled in pop music -
just because your heart
suddenly turns into
a candy-floss cloud
with a hard bit in between
the fluffy-puff - and
you'll realise your teenage idol
got laid by a cougar 40 year old:
and, h'eh, with your reality displaced
you'll be left with a choice of jugglers -
they're only entertainers,
and they have their expiry date;
i just don't see this age
of impeding concerns as the
generation that was bothered about
displacing care for politicians
with a shortened high of
being attentive to entertainers -
back when the entertainer was
a hobo, a gypsy traveller...
oh ****, art, mattered back then...
yeah, you're in my bedroom,
i'm not going anywhere,
i live in times of accepted thieving,
and exchanging music
records for the third mobile phone:
you could call it the
technological Paraolympics -
i've got legs built on stilts and
they're shock-absorbing titanium,
ever heard that Pistorius joke?
me neither... oh right: the righteousness
of the c.c.t.v. god and curbing the
total potential of human freedom?
sign me up to believe in a theocracy
in the mouth of man... comrade numero
uno! moi! omni non est uno!
moi!
          but ask a 50 year old listening
to pop music if it doesn't feel like
some sort of the 50 available shades
of paedophilia and marketing...
of the 50 asked, 49 would lie...
it's a different statement of youth...
not young punk...
      young pop: mostly feminine appellation:
because money was invented for women:
primarily. get the stranger to do the plumbing,
dream big, make a man elaborate on
a tree-house... turn into a Medusa in
social-shambles situations... dragon-lady
with patch-up *** later... or not so later...
insomnia's grand harvest of suicides...
well... within grounding of a stereotype:
money ended tribalism...
            not a negative... but it was primarily
invented by men to curate for woman's needs:
             prostitutes?
       male equivalents of billionaires-easy-buck,
    still that dream of the Hawaiian horizon
and the kiss - men? sure, shopaholics
with a mid-life crisis - women?
           centipedes on speed -
          40 pairs of shoes but only two legs.
if possible... pyjamas... a morning dress,
and afternoon dress, and evening dress...
a special occasion dress...
                      and comparably floral?
   one colour, one season, one sun,
    one repeated temperament to bloom.
well... who would have thought that
pop music was a bit like paedophilia...
god, i love shoving this fake guilt into the air...
but then again, pop has changed since
the days when someone wrote high fidelity
and ascribed the denotative status of the
13th floor elevators as akin to present-day
pop; poets, gangsters and chefs...
                   bodies and colours
in shadowy disguises: of the people from whom
dreams are born.
The rain and the wind, ragged and wet weather
unlike any other out in the forlorn West.
We go at it all the same, buzzin'
in the soaking precipitation.

That night I saw a man realize he'd spent years of his life
wasting around G-town, and'd naught to show for it.
The lure of endless craic and perpetual sessioning
had ensnared him and he'd lost himself to this place,
Became a character in the local scene that recited his lines
and acted out his part.
What was all that he felt?
Were it at the behest of his
town, the jester himself
knows this place well.
Artsy-types, buskers,
Hippies and jugglers,
Crusties, line-backers
Shams and knackers,
Sesh-heads all.
Passing students, wanna-be teens.
All pretending they're larger than life
or whatever, in this way they almost are
but in-keeping their company you'd easily

become a fixture of the town. Ah,
You can't blame the city for its nature,
Though you may certainly curse it some.
After all you're the changeable one, being.
Locked up in the stocks
and they're all laughing their socks off at me.
Soon I will be free
unlike
those other poor souls who are swinging in the morning breeze
up on the freshly painted gallows
made especially so more could see
the face of death,
what they could be.
Come and watch the matinee
where three more souls will swing today.

A party atmosphere
a dead man here or there
it's like a summer fayre with jugglers and a clown
and 'Hey presto' magic
one more soul drops down to meet his fate.

Lately I have noticed that the police are getting tougher
and the rough and ready treatment
meted out to those who fall foul
of the local law enforcement
has become a talking point in boardrooms
by the Admiralty Lords
who were often heard to cry when in their younger day
'hang them high,hang them high
make those malefactors pay.
It's a sin
you try to live and all these people want to give you is some grief
you can't get by on the sly
and if you try to you will die as so many have found out
to their cost
I do not doubt that ii could happen here to me
I could be up there swinging free.

So today I'm in the stocks
you can laugh your socks off
laugh your heads off if you please
but I'm not swinging in the breeze
just yet.
jeffrey robin May 2014
(•) (•)
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                                                             ­    (•) ( •)
----

above

We have my rendition of the famous

BERYLDOV LEW

Painting entitled

**** DESCENDING A STAIRCASE

( because of the presence of so many delicate young girls
on this site ---- only the upper parts of the body has been shown )

-----------------------
_

Come into the Dream





She said

HEY - **** ME !

I laughed in her face

••

I said

COME ON !
I'LL TREAT YA  TO A PIZZA !

She said

OKAY !

••••••

I knew she was really just a kid

••••••••
••••••••

Mountainside

Peddlers and jugglers

High

( where the children play )

••

Come
we shall wander til we find us a saint

---

Til we find us a human being

••

Til we find us a community

••

And we can lie together once again
old soldiers sporting bravery's medals
  then comes the blaring marching band
  next are the clowns and the jugglers
  children waving flags don't understand

  still too young to know war's truth
  soon enough it will be their turn
  fresh young faces eager for glory
  will march into their hell and burn.

— The End —