Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Leonoah Apr 2020
Alas sais y medya na ng umaga nang makauwi si Natividad mula sa bahay ng kanyang amo. Pagkababa n’ya ng maliit na bag na laman ang kanyang cellphone at wallet na merong labin-limang libo at iilang barya ay marahan siyang naglakad tungo sa kwartong tinutulugan ng kanyang tatlong anak. Hinawi niya ang berdeng kurtina at sumilip sa kanyang mga anghel.
Babae ang panganay ni Natividad, o di kaya’y Vida. Labindalawang taong gulang na ito at nasa Grade 7 na. Isa sa mga malas na naabutan ng pahirap na K-12 program. Ang gitna naman ay sampung taong gulang na lalaki at mayroong down syndrome. Special child ang tawag nila sa batang tulad nito, pero “abnormal” o “abno” naman ang ipinalayaw ng mga lasinggero sa kanila. Ang bunso naman niya, si bunsoy, ay kakatapak lamang ng Grade 1. Pitong taong gulang na ito at ito ang katangkaran sa mga babae sa klase nito. Sabi ng kapwa niya magulang ay late na raw ang edad nito para sa baiting, pero kapag mahirap ka, mas maigi na ang huli kaysa wala.
Nang makitang nahihimbing pa ang mga ito ay tahimik s’yang tumalikod at naglakad papuntang kusina. Ipagluluto niya ang mga anak ng sopas at adobong manok. May mga natira pa namang sangkap na iilang gulay, gatas, at macaroni na galing pa sa bahay ni Kapitan noong nangatulong siya sa paghahanda para sa piyesta. Bumili rin siya ng kalahating kilo na pakpak ng manok, kalahating kilo pa ulit ng atay ng manok, at limang kilo ng bigas.
Inuna niya ang pagsasaing. Umabot pa ng tatlong gatang ang natitirang bigas nila sa pulang timba ng biskwit kaya ‘yun na lang ang ginamit niya. Pagkatapos ay agad niya rin itong pinalitan ng bagong biling bigas.
De-uling pa ang kalan ni Vida kaya inabot siya ng limang minuto bago nakapagpaapoy. Siniguro niyang malakas ang apoy para madaling masaing. Kakaunti na lang kasi ang oras na natitira.
Habang hinihintay na maluto ang kanin ay dumiretso na sa paghahanda ng mga sangkap si Vida. Siniguro niyang tahimik ang bawat kilos para maiwasang magising ang mga anak. Mas mapapatagal lamang kasi kung sasabay pa ang mga ito sa kanyang pagluluto.
Habang hinahati at pinaparami ang manok ay patingin-tingin s’ya sa labas. Inaabangan ang inaasahan niyang mga bisita.
Mukang magtatagal pa sila ah. Ano na kayang balita? Dito lamang naikot ang isip ni Vida sa tuwing nakikitang medyo normal pa sa labas.
May mga potpot na nagbebenta na pan de sal at monay, mga nanay na labas-masok ng kani-kanilang mga bahay dahil tulad niya ay naghahanda rin ng pagkain, at mga lalaking kauuwi lamang sa trabaho o siguro kaya’y galing sa inuman.
Tulog pa ata ang karamihan ng mga bata. Mabuti naman, walang maingay. Hindi magigising ang tatlo.
Binalikan niya ang sinaing at tiningnan kung pupwede na bang hanguin.
Okay na ito. Dapat ako magmadali talaga.
Dali-dali niyang isinalang ang kaserolang may laman na pinira-pirasong manok.
Habang hinihintay na maluto ang manok ay paunti-unti rin siyang naglilinis. Tahimik pa rin ang bawat kilos. Lampas kalahating oras na siyang nakakauwi at ano mang oras ay baka magising ang mga anak niya o di kaya’y dumating ang mga hinihintay n’ya.
Winalis niya ang buong bahay. Maliit lang naman iyon kaya mabilis lamang siyang natapos. Pagkatapos ay marahan siyang naglakad papasok sa maliit nilang tulugan, kinuha ang lumang backpack ng kanyang panganay at sinilid doon ang ilang damit. Tatlong blouse, dalawang mahabang pambaba at isang short. Dinamihan niya ang panloob dahil alanganin na kakaunti lamang ang dala.
Pagkatapos niyang mag-empake ay itinago niya muna backpack sa ilalim ng lababo. Hinango niya na rin ang manok at agad na pinalitan ng palayok na pamana pa sa kanya. Dahil hinanda niya na kanina sa labas ang lahat ng kakailanganin ay dahan dahan niyang sinara ang pinto para hindi marinig mula sa loob ang ingay ng paggigisa.
Bawat kilos niya ay mabilis, halata **** naghahabol ng oras. Kailangang makatapos agad siya para may makain ang tatlo sa paggising nila.
Nang makatapos sa sopas ay agad niya itong ipinasok at ipinatong sa lamesa. Sinigurong nakalapat ang takip para mainit-init pa sakaling tanghaliin ng gising ang mga anak.
Dali-daling hinugasan ang ginamit na kaserola sa paglalaga at agad ulit itong isinalang sa apoy. Atay ng manok ang binili niya para siguradong mas mabilis maluluto. Magandang ipang-ulam ang adobo dahil ma-sarsa, pwede ring ulit-ulitin ang pag-iinit hanggang maubos.
Habang hinihintay na lumambot na ang mga patatas, nakarinig siya ng mga yabag mula sa likuran.
Nandito na sila. Hindi pa tapos ‘tong adobo.
“Vida.” Narinig niyang tawag sa kanya ng pamilyar na boses ng lalaki. Malapit niyang kaibigan si Tobias. Tata Tobi kung tawagin ng mga anak niya. Madalas niya ditong ihabilin ang tatlo kapag kailangan niyang mag-overnight sa bahay ng amo.
“Tobi. Andito na pala kayo,” nginitian niya pa ang dalawang kasama nitong nasa likuran. Tahimik lang ang mga itong nagmamasid sa kanya.
“Hindi pa tapos ang adobo ko eh. Ilalahok ko pa lang ang atay. Pwedeng upo muna kayo doon sa loob? Saglit na lang naman ‘to.”
Mukhang nag-aalangan pa ang dalawa pero tahimik itong kinausap ni Tobi. Maya-maya ay parang pumayag na rin ito at tahimik na naglakad papasok. Narinig niya pang sinabihan ni Tobi ang mga ito na dahan-dahan lamang dahil natutulog ang mga anak niya. Napangiti na lamang siya rito.
Pagkalahok ng atay at tinakpan niya ang kaserola. Tahimik siyang naglakad papasok habang nararamdaman ang pagmamasid sa kanya. Tumungo siya sa lababo at kinuha ang backpack.
Lumapit siya sa mga panauhin at tahimik na dinaluhan ang mga ito tapos ay sabay-sabay nilang pinanood ang usok galing sa adobong atay.
“M-ma’am.” Rinig niyang tawag sa kanya ng kasama ni Tobias. Corazon ang nakaburdang apelyido sa plantsadong uniporme. Mukhang bata pa ito at baguhan.
“Naku, ser. ‘Wag na po ganoon ang itawag niyo sa akin. Alam niyo naman na kung sino ako.” Maraan niyang sabi dito, nahihiya.
“Vida. Pwede ka namang tumanggi.” Si Tobias talaga.
“Tobi naman. Parang hindi ka pamilyar. Tabingi ang tatsulok, Tobias. Alam mo iyan.” Iniiwasan niyang salubungin ang mga mata ni Tobias. Nararamdaman niya kasi ang paninitig nito. Tumatagos. Damang-dama niya sa bawat himaymay ng katawan niya at baka saglit lamang na pagtingin dito ay umiyak na siya.
Kanina niya pa nilulunok ang umaalsang hagulhol dail ayaw niyang magising ang mga anak.
“Vida…” marahang tawag sa kanya ng isa pang kasama ni Tobi. Mukhang mas matanda ito sa Corazon pero halatang mas matanda pa rin ang kaibigan niya.
“Ano ba talaga ang nangyari?”
“Ser…Abit,” mabagal niyang basa sa apelyido nito.
“Ngayon lang po ako nanindigan para sa sarili ko.” garalgal ang boses niya. Nararamdaman niya na ang umaahon na luha.
“Isang beses ko lang po naramdaman na tao ako, ser. At ngayon po iyon. Nakakapangsisi na sa ganitong paraan ko lang nabawi ang pagkatao ko, pero ang mahalaga po ay ang mga anak ko. Mahalaga po sila sa’kin, ser.” mahina lamang ang pagkakasabi niya, sapat na para magkarinigan silang apat.
“Kung mahalaga sila, bakit mo ginawa ‘yon? Vida, bakit ka pumatay?”
Sasagot n asana siya ng marinig niyang kumaluskos ang banig mula sa kuwarto. Lumabas doon ang panganay niyang pupungas-pungas pa. dagli niya itong pinalapit at pinaupo sa kinauupuan niya. Lumuhod siya sa harap nito para magpantay sila.
“Anak. Good morning. Kamusta ang tulog mo?”
“Good morning din, nay. Sino po sila? ‘Ta Tobi?”
“Kaibigan sila ni ‘Ta Tobias, be. Hinihintay nila ako kasi may pupuntahan kami eh.” marahan niyang paliwanag, tinatantya ang bawat salita dahil bagong gising lamang ang anak.
“Saan, nay? May handaan po uli sina ser?” tukoy nito sa mga dati niyang amo.
“Basta ‘nak. Kunin mo muna yung bag ko doon sa lamesa, dali. Kunin ko yung ulam natin mamaya. Masarap yun, be.”
Agad naman itong sumunod habang kinukuha niya na rin ang bagong luto na adobo. Pagkapatong sa lamesa ng ulam ay nilapitan niya ulit ang anak na tinitingnan-tingnan ang tahimik na mga  kasama ni Tobias.
“Be…” tawag niya rito.
Pagkalingon nito sa kanya ay hinawakan niya ang mga kamay nito. Nagsisikip na ang lalamunan niya. Nag-iinit na rin ang mga mata niya at nahihirapan na sa pagbuga ng hangin.
“Be, wala na sina ser. Wala na sila, hindi na nila tayo magugulo.” ngiti niya rito. Namilog naman ang mga mata nito. Halata **** natuwa sa narinig.
“Tahimik na tayo, nay? Hindi na nila kakalampagin ang pinto natin sa gabi?”
“Hindi na siguro, anak. Makakatulog na kayo ng dire-diretso, pangako.” Sinapo niya ang mukha nito tapos ay matunog na hinalikan sa pisngi at noo. ‘Eto na ang matagal niyang pinapangarap na buhay para sa mga anak. Tahimik. Simple. Walang gulo.
“Kaso, ‘nak, kailangan kong sumama sa kanila.” Turo niya kayna Tobias. Nanonood lamang ito sa kanila. Hawak na rin ni Tobi ang backpack niya.
“May ginawa kasi si nanay, be. Para diretso na ang tulog natin at para di na tayo guluhin nina ser. Pramis ko naman sa’yo be, magsasama ulit tayo. Pangako. Bilangin mo ang tulog na hindi tayo magkakasama. Tapos pagbalik ko, hihigitan ko pa ‘yon ng maraming maraming tulog na magkakasama na tayo.”
“Nay…” nagtataka na ang itsura ng anak niya. Namumula na kasi ang mukha niya panigurado. Kakapigil na humagulhol dahil ayaw niyang magising ang dalawa pang anak.
“Anak parang ano lang ito…abroad. Diba may kaklase kang nasa abroad ang nanay? Doon din ako, be.”
Bigla ay nagtubig ang mga mata ng panganay niya. Malalaking butil ng tubig. Hindi niya alam kung naniniwala pa ba ito sa mga sinasabi niya, o kung naiintindihan na nito ang mga nangyayari.
“Itong bag ko, andiyan yung wallet at telepono ko. Diba matagal mo nang gusto magkaroon ng ganon, be? Iyo na ‘yan, basta dapat iingatan mo ha. Yung pera be, kay Tata Tobias mo ihahabilin. Habang nagtatrabaho ako, kay ‘Ta Tobi muna kayo.”
“Nay, hindi ka naman magtatrabaho eh.” Lumabi ang anak niya tapos ay tuluyan nang nalaglag ang luha.
Tinawanan niya naman ito. “Sira, magtatrabaho ako. Basta intayin mo ‘ko be ha? Kayo nina bunsoy ko, ha?” Hindi niya napigilang lambing-lambingin ito na parang batang munti. Kailangan ay sulitin niya ang pagkakataon.
Paulit-ulit niya itong dinampian ng maliliit na halik sa mukha, wala na siyang pakealam kung malasahan niya ang alat ng luha nito. Kailangan ay masulit niya ang natitirang oras.
“Nay, sama po ako. Sama kami ni bunsoy. Tahimik lang kami lagi, pramis, nay. Parang kapag andito si ser, hindi naman kami gugulo doon.” Tuluyan na ngang umalpas ang hikbi niya. Naalala niyang muli ang rason kung ba’t n’ya ito ginagawa. Para sa tahimik na buhay ng mga anak.
“Sus, maniwala sa’yo, be. Basta hintayin mo si nay. ‘Lika ***** tayo doon sa kwarto, magbabye ako kayna bunsoy.” Yakag niya rito. Sumama naman ito sa kanya habang nakayakap sa baywang niya. Humihikbi-hikbi pa rin ito habang naagos ang luha.
Tahimik niyang nilapitan ang dalawa. Kinumutan niyang muli ang mga ito at kinintalan ng masusuyong halik sa mga noo. Bata pa ang mga anak niya. Marami pa silang magagawa. Malayo pa ang mararating nila. Hindi tulad ng mga magulang nila, ‘yun ang sisiguraduhin niya. Hindi ito mapapatulad sa kanila ng mister niya.
“Be, dito ka na lang ha. Alis na si nanay. Alagaan mo sina bunsoy, be, ha. Pati sarili mo. Ang iskul mo anak, kahit hindi ka manguna, ayos lang kay nanay. Hindi naman ako magagalit. Basta gagalingan mo hangga’t kaya mo ha. Mahal kita, be. Kayong tatlo. Mahal na mahal namin kayo.” Mahigpit niya itong niyakap habang paiyak na binubulong ang mga habilin. Wala na ring tigil ang pag-iyak niya kaya agad na siyang tumayo. Baka magising pa ang dalawa.
Nakita niya namang nakaabang sa pinto si Tobi bitbit ang bag niya. Kinuha niya rito ang bag at sinabihang ito na ang bahala sa mga anak. Baog si Tobias at iniwan na ng asawa. Sumama raw sa ibang lalaking mas mayaman pa rito. Kagawad si Tobias sa lugar nila kaya sigurado siyang hindi magugutom ang mga anak niya rito. May tiwala siyang mamahalin ni Tobias na parang sarili nitong mga anak ang tatlo dahil matagal niya na itong nasaksihan.
Pagsakay sa sasakyan kasama ang dalawang pulis na kasama ni Tobias ay saka lamang siya pinosasan ng lalaking may burdang Corazon.
“Kilala namang sindikato yung napatay mo, ma’am. Kulang lamang kami sa ebidensya dahil malakas ang kapit sa taas. Kung sana…sana ay hindi ka nag-iwan ng sulat.”
“Nabuhay ang mga anak kong may duwag na ina, ser. Ayokong lumaki pa sila sa puder ng isang taong walang paninindigan. Pinatay niya na ang asawa ko. Dapat ay sapat na ‘yon na bayad sa utang namin, diba?” kung kanina ay halo humagulhol siya sa harap ng mga anak, ngayon ay walang emosyong mahahamig sa boses niya. Nakatingin lamang siya sa labas at tinititigan ang mga napapatingin sa dumadaang sasakyan ng pulis.
Kung sana ay hindi tinulungan ng mga nakatataas ang amo niya. Kung sana ay nakakalap ng sapat na mga ebidensya ang mga pulis na ngayon ay kasama niya. Kung sana ay may naipambayad sila sa inutang ng asawa niya para pambayad sa panganganak niya.
Kung hindi siguro siya mahirap, baka wala siya rito.
unedited
Wenglou Apr 2015
Inday unom na katuig ang nilabay
sa dihang nahikagplagan tika milabay sa balay
sa handumanan ko nahipatik ang katahom sa imong hulagway
may mga panahon sa kasing2x og damgo ko imong kaanyag mobisita gamay

Karon dili masukod ang kalipay sa dihang nagkaila ta
Adunay panahon magkachat ta lingaw sige kog katawa
sa dihang nakahibalo naka sa tinuod og naglagot ka sa akoa
maayo man ng makahibalo ka sa tinuod samtang sayo pa

Kung moabot ang panahon mosugot na ka magdate ta
Por syur ako man jud ng gasto more pa
be conscious lang sa imong dayet aron conscious pud ko sa akong bulsa
kung cge na ta det2x chippy og tubig na lang gani ang order para natong duha
pasabot KKB nalang ta sunod, salamat sa pagsabot hap...

og kung ugaling dili na jud nimo maagwanta imo nakong sugton
ayaw kabalaka ipanaad ko imong gugma akong amumahon
sa kanunay ikaw akong panggaon sa mga gakus ko ikaw akong prisohon
tanan nimong gusto akong buhaton imong mga sugo akong tumanon

Og kung imo naman gali kong sugoon sa merkado
pwede ayaw pud ko paalsaha og bugas isa ka sako
basin og tungod sa kabug-at di nako makaya makaigit ko
kung pwede lang unta kilo kiloha pud na og mahimo.
aurora kastanias Jun 2017
When Archimedes jumped out of his bathtub
Shouting ‘Eureka’ naked down the streets,
He had finally found a way to uncover
The deceit on behalf of His Majesty’s goldsmith.

Had he stolen gold replacing it with silver
While carving the divine wreath commissioned by the Tyrant?
The Golden Crown of Syracuse to be placed on the head
Of a goddess to be tested without being disturbed.

It all began with overflow as he dipped his body in water.
It was evident and easy to observe
That some objects floated while others sank,
Occupying more or less, tri-dimensional space.

Fluids rejecting or enveloping the intruder,
Displaced proportionally to the latter’s
Volume, density and mass, led to the revolutionary
Discovery of buoyancy, sparkling new beginnings.

The understanding suggested, that if an object displaced
An amount of water heavier than its weight, it would float.
The opposite being true, an object displacing
An amount of water lighter than its weight, would sink.

Fluid’s volition to reclaim its legitimate space.

Although the system was unable to assess the fraud,
As shape came into account and a kilo of solid gold
Was smaller than the kilo of golden wrath,
Dipped into water discrepancy ignored the math.

Unpredictably, the genius found higher purposes,
Buoyancy to determine whether a steel ship would sink
Or float, make it through the Mediterranean and beyond,
Where the Pillars of Hercules warn sailors to go no further.

Non plus ultra to the realms of the unknown.

The understanding suggesting that if an object displaced
An amount of water heavier than its weight, it would float,
Bigger volumes, lower densities, empty hulls and ballasts,
Succeeded in opening the gates to new oceans and new worlds.

Buoyancy to explain why our bodies float at sea
Apparently rejected by expelling waters claiming back their territory.

Gases being fluids, air acts the same,
With the extraordinary result that a kilo of feathers
Is indeed lighter that a kilo of lead.
By 0,9 grams.
Àŧùl Apr 2017
Red, dark and light, apples,
They sell it for Rupees 80 a kg,
Available sans the ripples,
But sans bargaining not so easy.

Even the grapes, delicious,
They sell it for Rupees 80 a kg,
Appears to be so luscious,
There're many other fruits here.
My HP Poem #1510
©Atul Kaushal
n stiles carmona Jan 2021
Hindsight, hallowed be thy name.

All I've got is luggage... luggage!
My God! Turn around; find my comrades slumped under the weights strapped to their spine!
Limping, bearing, burdened by non-negotiables while the High Court of Good Karma takes collective sabbatical —
and this knapsack of shame, I've partial credit in filling.

Grey handkerchief, original sin:
one. single. suckerpunch. and my fists are raised forever,
begging for the chance to swing and prove my own strength
— supposing the opportunity never fell into my lap — I'd said "**** it," packed a

hundred grams of bushy brushed-out curls, stop-sign red
fifty grams of lips to match (uniform too, now I think about it)
fifty grams of raccoon eyelids and coloured-in brows
hundred grams of halls of mirrors, circus-attraction Alice
lose a hundred/gain a hundred/repeat til dizzy
hundred grams of ******-in stomach, eyes averted in changing rooms
wigs by the armful — that's three — nom-de-plumes thrown in gratis
(it's only a journey to the rest of my life anyway, I'll need them,
alternative being cinematic debut as Myself)
hundred performances to imaginary audiences, less-than-stellar reviews
hundred grams of overwhelming then underwhelming "on purpose"
hundred grams of laughing off any belief in potential
hundred grams of scratch-marks and verbal fountains of venom
hundred grams of giving almostneverquite as good as I got
hundred grams of group-work alone thank ****(?)
hundred biro-holes stabbed in martyred pencil cases
feral in broad daylight spoiling for a fight
kilo of aiming for 'scary' and landing on 'strange'
kilo of being third to make good company a crowd
kilo of taking sixteen years to find Her
— Shadowboxer Fiona, rhythms invisible, catharsis in art —
hundred doodled superstitious evil-eyes in the ruled margins
hundred laments over the inability to provide a better future

(removed one by one whenever I think the future's mutable)

that one glimpse of white lightning in a violet storm
one single minute's pause to look over my shoulder
scarce-to-zero progress made
endless miles to go
breathless body soaked to the bone
and this useless! *******! bag! of Everything and nothing of value!!
mansions worth of loathing yet there's nothing to lose
did I decide that because I can't change the world, I can change nothing at all
(instead throwing darts at reflections/emotional *****/kicking stray dogs as a full-time hobby)?

O clarity so saccharine that I cannot be angered by the wasted years
only because THERE ARE MORE TO COME
I take it
   off my shoulder,
the first kind action I have spared myself in time unguessable
empty
     the
        contents...
   really
    air it out...
and trudge on
    unaccompanied.
The world's enough of an uphill climb.
written after too much time poring over allen ginsberg. ambivalent about this but the alternative is endless writers' block so this way i've at least got something to show for myself
Labyrinth Apr 2014
How much chocolate does it take for a heart break to go?
Oh ****, whoa,
I have a kilo more to go.
My Norman Nomore
I think maybe you gave up on me already
25.04.14
Autece Soul Jul 2014
She was an exotic creature
A true one of a kind
Pure pleasure for the wondering eyes
And the hopeful spirits
And the truthful souls
A goddess is an understatement
For the mighty Zeus cannot obtain such beauty
And with her it is truth when they say beauty is beneath skin
For her Soul and Mind were radiant with life
Vivid such as the orchards in fall
And a body awaken from the spring’s slumber
An alien girl from the third rock
Understand the metaphor as her presence has no ID
A mystery only to me
For previously I was too blind to see her inner truth
Brace your minds for this story has just been intertwined
With my sorrow for losing such a being
A fool finally awaken after the departure was too late
Puzzled, Dazed and Confused was of my own construction
As I slowly rebuild the soon to be my own destruction
Shattered heart
Shattered soul
A broken will for such a Fool's rush of gold
The treasure of seeking independency
No longer being held down by a man's woman pulling the string
Stopping me from hanging with the homies...
But the joke was on you
So you were too caught up with your own self pity
Drinking the fluids from Mount Look at Me I'm Boring
Gaining kilo after kilo in front of the interactive TV screen
Until you became repulsive to be attracting
But through her Moon struck eyes, you were beautiful
Yet distracted by the less important you detached
In hopes you can distract her Love for you
But look at her fool
Her love ran deep within your veins
Your Heart succumbed by her lengthy hands
She was not going anywhere
So drastically and bold was your next move
That at the end
It became your own demise
Your own heartbreak
Your own anger
You no longer trusted her and as such abandoned her
Forcing her to go back home to start a new
Not giving her the chance to show just how much she loved you
You made her bare pain
You made her lonely
It was only a matter of time before her heart went down the drain
And by the time you wanted her back in your life
She already moved on
And found another man to make her gain
The life you chose to run away from
Happiness, Joy, Humor, Prosperity
And most important
Eternal Love…
You fool
Euphrosyne Feb 2020
Milya milya man ang layo mo,
Pero sisiguraduhin kong kakayanin ko,
Kakayanin ko, kakayanin natin lahat ng mga pagsubok na darating, Pagsubok na sabay nating haharapin,
Pagsubok na kahit tayo ay magkalayo'y alam kong ating malalagpasan,

Wala sakin kung kilo kilometro man ang layo mo,
Wala sakin kung hindi kita nakakasama o nakikita,
Pero sakin sapat ng alam kong mahal mo ko,
At sapat ng malaman **** ikaw lang ang laman ng puso ko,

Hindi ko man hawak ang iyong mga kamay,
Hindi man kita mayakap gamit ang aking mga bisig,
Hanggat nandito ka sa puso ko,
Mananatiling ikaw hanggang dulo

Mahal, Gusto kong malaman ****
Kahit ilang milya o ilang kilometro ang layo mo,
Wala ng papalit sayo dito sa puso ko.
Hindi man ngayon, handa akong maghintay hanggang sa magtagpo tayo.
Para sayo ito ulit diane. Kahit ilayo mo pa sarili mo kusa akong lalapit sayo. Determinado parin ako.
I believe it's, typically,
about two stout deep
when the thoughts of my queen creep-
into the vibrant spotlight of my mind.
These internal gears begin to grind;
this mind, slips my grip... I begin to lose.
Thus, & as such...
I continue sipping brews,
with such high amounts
of ethanol & yeast-,
for- you see- the love that I do love
lays her beautiful mind
about one hundred kilo-'s nor'east.
February 9th, 2016
Ronald D Lanor May 2013
What's up, Chicken Little? Whatchu think you know?
The sky is fallin', Skittles droppin’ out the rainbow.
Don’t hate me cuz I’m fast. Don’t hate me cuz I’m keen.
Hate me cuz I got more tiger’s blood than Charlie Sheen.

My rappin’ is a skill, wait, matter fact a habit.
This rhyme is so rare I threw a Masterball at it.
Ima get you to the point when you done think you had it
then keep on chuggin’ through like the Energizer Rabbit.

Runnin’ this game since I was born in 1990.
Ball so hard like Waldo everybody wants to find me.
Watch me as I fly free, practicing my Tai Chi,
soarin’ through the sky like Ben Franklin with his kite key.

I slay wicked verses like they fire breathin’ dragons.
Always down for an adventure so they call me Bilbo Baggins.
You got your feet draggin’ from all your pithy laggin’.
Chokin’ on my farts, left you in my dust gaggin’.

My girls be elegant while yours be nothing but ******.
No diamonds in my ears cuz I don’t like to be flashy.
You just can’t get past me, kilo in the backseat.
NOS tank in the front so them piggies can’t get at me.

Lyrics like the plague so they call my **** Bubonic.
Sittin’ at the bar gettin’ drunk on gin and tonic.
Blowin’ on that chronic, so fast they call me Sonic.
Watch me transform as I go Megatronic.

Is my **** too fast? You need to stop and smell the flowers?
I am just a human, I ain't got no special powers.
I could go for hours. The rap game I devour.
Like Frodo with the ring takin’ down the Two Towers.

My rhymes are heavy duty while yours be made of plastic.
Better call the Doctor cuz this **** is getting’ drastic.
Snap back like elastic, I made an instant classic.
Light the roof on fire with a flick of my matchstick.

I’m tellin’ all them haters that I’m wicked sick nasty.
Dissin’ all they want to but they too scared to come at me.
I go where the cash be, rappin’ makes me happy.
Don’t wash my hair for days cuz I like that **** *****.

All I really wanna do is have a rap battle
cuz my rhymes are so disgusting they’ll make your head rattle.
You’re in a boat with no paddle, on a horse with no saddle.
It’s lookin like you’re gonna hafta ******* straddle.

I know I have the sickest flow that you have ever felt.
There’s nothin’ you can do it’s just the hand that I was dealt.
Killa Kraig will make you melt, yes it matters how it’s spelt.
Get it right the first time or I’ll leave you with a ******' welt.

My game will give you chills from your head down to your feet.
Sittin’ on the couch cuz I love to chill with Pete.
I’m the man to beat cuz I bring all the heat.
Grew up in the burbs, didn’t grow up on the street.

They gave me a gold medal when I scored a perfect 10
cuz I got the versatility of an erasable pen.
Singin’ like a ren, no need to pretend.
Murkin’ rhymes like zombies like my Asian friend Glenn.

Honesty’s a virtue so you know I never front it.
Always swingin’ for a homer, ain’t no need to ever bunt it.
Now you really done it, watch me as I run it.
I made it to the center of the Tootsie Pop in one lick.

Crusin’ round town in my green 6-4 Impala.
Drop so many bombs that you think I worship Allah.
Dolla’ after dolla’, cute as a koala,
but ruthless as a renegade Viking in Valhalla.

My lyrics kick you in the nuts now you talkin’ like a munchkin.
Drop you to the floor like some Mohammed Ali punchin’.
Where is Conjunction Junction? Do the number crunchin’.
Get you home by midnight so you don’t turn into a pumpkin.

Stickin’ to the game like some universal duct tape.
Give you three tries while I nail it in one take.
I'm the sugar on the cornflake, the reason for an earthquake.
I'll toss you like a salad or a chicken in some Shake n’ Bake.

Now grab a pen a paper cuz here’s the final lesson.
I know who’s on first so now tell me what’s on second.
I did the number checkin’, I’m the best I reckon.
While you standin’ at the wrong end of my ******’ Smith & Wesson.
A kilo of fish brinjal pumpkin
Cauliflower raisin and bean
Washing soap and eggs one crate
Need to buy bring from market!

Mustard oil some milk and rice
Cashew nut and a horde of spice
Gourd and potato spinach cabbage
The list is long fills a page!

Feel confused from where to start
How to pile and stack on a cart
Shoeshine cream to adhesive glue
All calculations and maths to do!

Ticked what’s got unticked what’s not
Cash dwindles with much unbought
Trudge back home in sweated daze
She checks items and fumes in rage!
CarpeNoctem May 2015
This place seemed strange
like home never was
nothing more than
a halfway house
caught between dimensions
a cell to open your eyes
to this lucid nightmare called reality
hopelessly lost
without the slightest hint
of a cause
as to why
the ground is pockmarked
with craterous scars
as the foliage  falls
bled dry for another shopping mall

but all is well
in the fertile lands
of the democratically free
even if its democracy at the end of a gun
jobs are on the rise
the army needs boots on the ground
paid for from the taxpayers purse
of course
the night is dark and full of terrors
so you better pick a side
after all
it's not like terrorism
was figmented in the imagination
as just another means of control

while freedom hangs overhead
like the illusion of a carrot
as the donkey
desperately avoids the stick
consuming the soil
for capitalistic gain
apathetic to plight
empty..

nothing more than a synthetic mess
a big mac wrapper
thankful the global elite
cares enough to feed the drones
marching conformingly
to the drummers beat

when did the darkness burn so bright
while everyone sits idly as the light fades
why did no one intervene
who cared to know
what happened here
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
.i'm in luck, they're selling it at under 11 quid right now,
stock dry - gone in an instant - laphroaig like -
but not as smoky - but smoked scotch it it
at £10.34 - oh the little joys of having little money to spend -
you end up less picky and less hoarder and
the junk yard.


na głowe sypano mi, tak popiół:
     popiół! a obiecano mi *****!
           popiół! a obiecano mi *****!
                 popiół! a obiecano mi *****!

                  (not my words... lao che's dym)...

me, beer, cigarette, outer-suburbia -
police whizz past, silent with flare
or screaming toddler and Odysseus' 20 sirens
with wax in the ears of oaring company
akin to Ajax'ς vitality -
along the way, my neighbour (who's mother
killed my cat.. listen, i know he had
heart problems, he was on aspirin -
but kidneys, even if complicated are not
real problem, felines take longer to ****
than do the no. 2, pigeons don't have kidneys -
they're always of an **** diet of diarrhoea;
write like Aristotle sometimes,
forget the facts, be wrong, get it wrong,
never put a glass cup into the waterfall of
poetic cascades - get it wrong, be wrong -
get to know yourself - it's not that dumb
to be predictable in yourself -
if you allow self-predictability you will
see certain social events as being pointless -
you'll see friends and "friends" -
self-predictability is a verb, compounded -
i already know i'll make references to grammar
and it being missing in philosophy -
no, not coherence and appropriate arrangement -
i mean undoing the box of thing-in-itself
and the subsequent tennis with a brick wall,
to surprise yourself when something is unearthed,
a little piece of the puzzle - simulating awe,
the genesis of all that's to come, even awe from a yawn
and boredom... it's here somewhere... i'll karate
catch it with chop sticks.... (looking around)...
i don't know, might be a moth or a fly...

Antichrist: or a summary of Antisemitism - a variant of,
or at least a concentration - mainly confiscated
by Christianity - prime complaint:
a democracy of Anointed One (Messiahs) -
obviously a manifested justifiable practice of Antisemitism -
the throng of Golgotha intelligence quotient -
Jew v. Jew, and one convert from the delusional
4 x 4 (in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy
                                         spirit... hold on!
                                    i make four gestures... and make a fifth
                 with Romeo and Juliet talking -
St. Matthew-Luke-Mark-and-John... penta penta pent-up
pentagon - evidently there's a pentagrammaton somewhere:
ah! i b l i s.                       Surat no. via Rumi - 7:143 - veils and
the one - reward in heaven - more veils, gardens veils,
grapes in heaven veils - stomach a veil - hunger a veil -
rewards in heaven also veils - the poem?
praise be Jesus - and Jason and the Argonauts - and whoever
wanted a strawberry flavoured pastiche to lick tears off -
love's apocalypse, love's glory -
         well bloodhound eyes say it all - droop drool -
droop & drool... Jack & Jill... went up the hill, and passed
the Grimm Bro. baton to Hanzel und Gretyl in the 100m x4
relay of Disney Limps - then rabbinical literature to sober up -
Albotini's Sulam HaAliyah (Ladder of Ascent, formerly Jacob's
ladder - to be: Ladder of Skip-rope; Oxford, hello! yes,
can you please consider un-hyphenating what is desirably
a compound worthy word in the practice of German?          )?
is a bracket necessary anywhere and i missed it?
Antichrist - or a very strange form of antisemitism -
be like a Jew, congregate applauding in the right corner: Jesus -
in the blue corner: Crux Golgothia.
export from Portugal - the said book -
key principle (kefitzah) jumping or skipping (dilug) -
and this being applied to the one practice of mystic Judaism -
the ****** gematria; hishtavut (stoicism) -

me - is it still 20 quid for an eighth?
Sim (my neighbour) - yeah, but these days
                                       they sort of cheat,
                                       you'd get an eighth nibbled on,
                                       twenty for a tenth?!
me - ******, well, we can't expect it to not happen,
         we had coin debasement - clippings of silver
         keratin with Siliqua, third stage and
         all encoded authority is gone: Thomas and Anne
         till death and nail clippings be fraud unison in
         the depart (or when narration extinguishes
         a character, the character is worth nothing -
         the narrator wakes up - all the characters run
         like phantom-hares into nonexistence -
         phantom! thin air!
politeness said: only one **** at the wacky wee ö wee
(umlaut O / double oh, 007 - 00'7 - double u... oh!
                                 i get it!                             Jamie Oliver!)
DEI.GRA.REG.FID.DEF.
   "   (-tia) (-ina)(-ei)(-ensor) -
all that would have been clipped - authority of visage -
the courtesan only knew the mint in silver
and the mint in the flesh - hence clipping of coin
to erase the authority from the holy authority of words -
in the beginning - but once dei.gra.reg.fid.def.jpeg /
                                   dei.gra.red.fid.def.gif.

that ****** moth is here somewhere! there it is! catch it!
                                                             ­   catch it!
SLAM!          and the job is done )                                      ).
i really waiting a bus stop pretending to wait for a bus
toking on a joint - joint is mix tobacco and wee wee
and spliff is pure? i forgot the slang - haven't been
addicted to it in years.
Sim - yeah, that's how it is. work in central london -
         have to get up early in the morning.
         corporate finance - no that's a commercial firm,
         corporate finance - McDonald's, etc.
me - oh cool waiting for  ghost bus - never get paranoid
         then?
(police cars whizz by)
Sim - n'ah, a perfectly decent area, got stopped once,
          three years ago.
and the price goes to the laziest narrator in history - absolutely
no engagement with characters - it's too real, everyone's
lying - this is the second time i spoke to my neighbour properly
in the past.. ooh 2002... 14 YEARS - it's not even funny -
no amount of marijuana will make you feel comfortable -
you can mate and make Kingston handshakes and what not -
this is purity of absurdity and western isolation,
we went against the maxim: no man is an island on purpose,
not by chance like Robinson Crusoe -
at least Crusoe had a talking Friday - we have a ghost
of Michael Faraday on Friday - ******* disco blink blink -
poet... or alt.: the narrator complex - inhibitions toward
character craft and pseudo-schizoid symptom -
believing in ghosts is easy, fiction writers and their ghosts
and abortions, hardly a way to escape from that -
poetry: rebellious narration - just anything with narration,
modern fiction is read like a chess match between deep blue
and Kasparov - or Pavlov v. Jezebel playing gynaecologist.

blank.... blank... wait for the atoms trilled R to make
their toady presence felt -
the more pricier the whiskey the more pristine water,
i.e. you get drunk more easily -
anyone that smokes marijuana and thinks
they're clever are stupid; how many people are out there that are
stupid!
- resounding hearsay-hooray!
drugs, ******, crack, blow, marijuana, ****, ***,
  cannabis, dope, ******, mary-jane, 13, M - herb shake -
Humphrey saying to Bogart - that joint.
as said in Saudi
Arabic - a Ferrari G.T.I. and MeKubalim HaMitbodedim
                  )
                                  -chism - schism - sky - ski -
                                  cha cha, cha cha - kilo or 100th -
                                  1000 thd. - hundredth a thousandth -
                                  - where then the acute,
                                  timber from Czechs -
                                  kebab from Mesopotamia -
                                  and the Trojan horse to boot -
                                 chatter - chopper whopper -
                                 astoikism - not chew off
                                 curve into cherish but
                                 cravat chew in -
                                 Slavic mining zed - czarna
                                 ciasność - blackened claustrophobia.
a Buddhist clap
                   immersion -
left handed the right hand claps against air
                  )             )              )               )            ) ) )            )
a night at the Opera, right handed the left hand claps against air
(                       (        (            (               (          ( ( (            (
scimitar Luna - so they said, would like an audience with the
further unmentioned mention -
you're mates with neighbours who over 14 years you only
spoke to the count of thumb and index on occasion -
and thus necessarily high -
i was going to write something really important before
i finalised this draft... but i forgot what it was...
got almighty this whiskey is good...
i'm smoking salmon and pickling reindeer hooves and antennas;
a bit like practising Chinese miracle medicine with
whale blubber and Mongolian nostril hairs.

it's not about loving your enemies -
this love sinister must be invoked as: making your
enemies bearable.

i'm sure i had something concerning poetry and narration -
ah! it was... poetic compensation -
a.d.h.d. narration - attention deficit hyperactive disorder -
true - all psychiatric terms are metaphors -
at least outside the psychiatric realm -
poetry as a.d.h.d. meaning: shrapnel narration -
a custard pie of missing characters -
poetry: i.e.: the inability to believe in ghosts
or write characters - claustrophobic or agoraphobic narration?
a mix of both - poetry - the inability to conjure
Ouija fancies - poetry, the over-specialised gift for
narration, but an inability to invent characters -
poetry, the truth of the narrative, and the truth of un-invented
characters, poetry: the ability to narrate, coupled
with the inability to create characters -
fiction and the dumb narrator - poetry and the exquisite
narrator - fiction and the exciting characters -
poetry and the God - our focus is based on that vector,
or bias to that vector - fiction and the Oscars -
narrator and director - when to change from first person
to third person - again Burroughs was right -
images 50 years ahead of writing - a bit obvious,
nothing spectacular with that phrase -
lightning and the sons of thunder: 12 of them -
made the tetragrammaton less spoken and swear words
fucken-uppen censored so the crucifix and **** could
collide - a fine fine excuse - the Boeing 747 first
and later the quasi-sonic broom shoo' 'mm -
poetry as fiction disguised when fiction was given
a seance with pure narratives - splinter group:
philosophy's juggling with pronouns esp. the plural deviation
from first person as if to proper punctuation -
psychiatry and the theory of pronoun usage -
poetry and the pronoun rōnin (macron = umlaut -
count to two, or prolong - reasonable man / **** sapiens, pre-noun pro-adjective / adjective attache-noun, noun counter-noun es duo-adjective, Kellogg's sunrise cockle-doodle-dip-in-tartan-chess) -
only poetry mediates the parallel vectors of prose-fiction and philosophy - it consolidates the use of pronouns, art of poetry alone -
pure narration we're talking about,
the narrator and characters of its fancy,
philosopher and dialectical placebos (character equivalence)
with self-conscious moments, mono-pro-noun - alone i name -
the sacred squash wall of lecturing an invisible audience -
rummaging epitaphs in a graveyard along with birth dates
and live by dates - yes, that sacred we philosophers use -
an entire theatre was summoned to continue in appearing
sensible when writing without fictive apparitions -
enabling a fluidity in pronoun use, without sensible letter
writing, as in dear sir,
                                       me in reverse, thank you.
w
Fah May 2014
I just tasted a memory. BANG . slapped me on the tongue like a freight train out of a rip in space and time,

of garlic and peppercorn chicken with jasmine rice , a clear broth and fresh cucumbers, a wedge of lime and chrysanthemum tea.

oh .. my mouth  , how could you spring this on me .. when i'm so far from the motherland...

then they come thick and fast -

thai iced tea , thai iced coco , thai iced coffee , thai lime soda ..

papaya salad with sticky rice , Mango and coconut sticky rice , Roti with condensed milk and banana , coconut ice cream in a white bread bun with coconut sticky rice and peanuts, fresh fruits of rambutan and mangosteen for 30 baht a kilo......oh.....oh...who could forget the fried flat noodles , or the fried pastry's called explosion *****..... oh... oh my

heart..... my heart...... my stomach... calls out to you , oh glorious green curry with roti , morning congee with little pork ***** and soy sauce..... come to me my dumpling and noodles let me lick the chillies and sugar off my lips , may i taste once more

the conception of such marvelous treats , unfathomable to the western palate , little sweet corn and flour discs cooked on a special cooker over a real fire...dried squid sold on the back of a bicycle , fried garlic with sticky rice , a pink soup !

I just had a taste memory
****.
Paul Hansford Sep 2016
Green glass
but it's French
which makes it
verre vert.
The French should like that.
They appreciate
their jeux de mots.

Not a statue
of a man
but it could be.
Not a piece of art at all
except
I have made it so
by saying it is one.

Its qualities
are visual
and tactile at once
the material heavy
(over a kilo)
not so much transparent
as translucent
the colour
from under the sea
the surface curved
smooth
glossy
the shape functional
admirably suited for its purpose
its name
embossed on the back
(or the front?)
giving a clue.

L' ÉLECTRO VERRE
redundant insulator
from an overhead power cable
found object
(objet trouvé)
from the garden
of friends
in the Alpes-Maritimes.

This souvenir
potential paperweight
ornament
sculpture
is more than all of these.

Souvenir after all
is French for memory.
This doesn't give the full impression without a photograph.  Luckily, that is available at < flickr.com/photos/48763199@N04/5901032327/ >
Today I bought from the market
a kilo of tomatoes
and a few cucumbers.
Totally 4.80 leva.
She also bought a kilo –
less cucumbers
more tomatoes.
For 4.80 leva.
A sunny day.


Bulgarian monetary unit, approximately - $ 1 is 1.5 leva.
Today I bought from the market
a kilo of tomatoes
and a few cucumbers.
Totally 4.80 leva.
She also bought a kilo –
less cucumbers
more tomatoes.
For 4.80 leva.
A sunny day.


Bulgarian monetary unit, approximately - $ 1 is 1.5 leva.
Edna Sweetlove May 2015
This is a prose tale about the great superhero, SNOGGO
(as told in the first person by SNOGGO to his amanuensis, Edna)

*'You can't have "Jew",' I said.
'Why not? It's a perfectly good word. Are you anti-semitic or something?'
'Jew has a capital J,' I said.
'Not necessarily. I've used it before.'
'Not with me you haven't. There's the dictionary. Look it up.'

Jumbo grudgingly picked up the Shorter Oxford and looked up "Jew". He sniffed loudly, slammed the dictionary shut and removed the tiles from the board. His replacement word was a sodding disaster.

'That's twenty-four points you've cost me with your nit-picking, you *******,' he said through gritted yellow teeth, his flabby body shaking with rage. 'The J was on a triple letter score.'

I sneered derisively and laughed long and loud, making Jumbo froth at his ugly fat nostrils with anger.

'Watch this and weep, Jumbo,' I said, playing out all seven of my tiles onto the board to create a stunning word: UNZIPPED. 'The Z's on a double letter score and it's all on a triple word score, so that's 90, plus 50 for playing all my tiles, 140 in total and the end of the game,' I declared in triumph. Jumbo was caught with 14 in his hand (remember: he still had the J) and thus I, the great SNOGGO, became Greenwich Scrabble Champion for the 25th year running. Not only that: but 25 consecutive defeats in the final for Jumbo.

Jumbo roared in frustration as he saw his hopes of taking the coveted 24ct gold "Queen Anne" cup away from me, SNOGGO, dashed to the ground yet again. And, by centuries old tradition, 25 consecutive victories meant the priceless cup was now mine to keep for ever. Jumbo's scream of uncontrollable, incandescent rage could have been heard as far away as the Vanbrugh Hill Municipal Waste Disposal Centre.

'******* you for all ******* eternity,' he bellowed unsportingly as he waddled out of the cheering hall. In so doing he flouted the gentlemen's convention of always staying to take part in the closing ceremony. He missed seeing me, the great SNOGGO, receive the shining gold cup from the gnarled hands of the Lady Mayoress, the Hon. Mrs Snotte-Wragge, who whispered in my ear 'Fancy a quick **** later, back at the mayoral parlour, SNOGGO dear?' For the fifth year in a row I told her to go and get stuffed as I didn't go for ugly old bats with arses on them like a double-decker bus.

Later that evening, as I sat in the splendid Georgian surroundings of Snoggo Manor, cradling the gold cup and admiring the row of 25 Championship certificates on the walls of my elegant dining room, finishing off my second bottle of Bollinger Grand Cru '89 and stuffing my 18th oyster down my happy throat, I heard a knock on the door. Who could that possibly be at nearly midnight?

It was Jumbo, my fat defeated foe. He looked downcast. 'SNOGGO,' he said, 'I've come to offer my apologies for my inappropriate behaviour earlier. You deserved to win, you are the finest scrabbler in all of Greenwich. I have come to offer you the hand of friendship and to invite you to my humble home for a midnight snack to celebrate your stirring victory.'

'Jumbo,' I replied, 'that's uncommon civil of you, old man. And your timing is excellent, as I've just finished my apéritif and was on the verge of kicking Mrs SNOGGO, my new 17-year old Thai mail order wife, out of her hammock to make my supper. So what's on the menu, squire?'

'Well,' said Jumbo, 'I was thinking of pâte de foie gras - naturally made by Mrs Jumbo using our own force-fed geese, with a bottle of Château d'Yquem '78 to start with. Then perhaps a kilo of blood-red filet mignon avec pommes frites, washed down with a rather good magnum of Brouilly '99. Then there's Mrs Jumbo's famed cheeseboard with a tumbler full of vintage port, followed by a dozen crêpes suzettes, a few petits cafés, a monster Armagnac and a giant Havana each.'

I considered the proposed menu carefully before replying. 'Sounds quite good to me, Jumbo,' I declared, glancing over his shoulder at the Bentley waiting outside. I could just see the peaked chauffeur's cap of the diminutive Mrs Jumbo peering myopically over the leather-covered steering wheel.

And so, having told Mrs Snoggo to tidy up a bit whilst I was out, I went off to dinner with Jumbo. In all our 25 years of Scrabble rivalry I had never once set foot into his house, so I was eager to check out what sort of lifestyle he enjoyed. Once inside Jumbo Villa, I cast my eyes over the luxurious furnishings with an expert eye, evaluating their immense worth and rarity with incredible perspicacity and knowledge.

'Not a bad pad you've got here, Jumbo,' I conceded. 'Not in the same class as Snoggo Manor, of course, but still ****** impressive.' He was visibly flattered by my compliment.

'A glass of sherry while we wait for Mrs Jumbo to serve us?' queried Jumbo jovially. I sniffed at the huge portion of delicious amber nectar appreciatively. 'Lustau Amoroso Bodega Marquès de Mierda '42?' I guessed instinctively. Jumbo nodded. '******* spot on, SNOGGO,' he admitted in stunned amazement.

I took an enormous gulp and felt the alcohol hit me like a slam in the abdomen from Cassius Clay's butcher and more vicious brother. The room spun and I closed my eyes in resigned delight.

When I came to I found myself hanging unclothed in chains on the wall of a dank cellar. My head was pounding and I felt distinctly below par. I looked over my shoulder and beheld Jumbo standing there with a sjambok in his hand. He was stark ******* naked, naked as the day he was born, and I have never seen anything so repulsive in all my life (with the sole exception of that incredible day when, as a child, I caught my paternal grandparents bonking on the Persian rug in the Great Hall at Snoggo Manor on Christmas Eve). Jumbo’s huge pendulous ******* sagged over his bloated fat belly, which itself hung so low his genitals were mercifully hidden from my view. He was a ******* monstrosity.

The tiny Mrs Jumbo stood to the rear of the cellar, also naked, pallid and with her public hair died a shocking pink. She was a skinny freak, a vision of *** Hell. I noticed the tattoo on her belly. It showed a depiction of the crucifixion which I felt was in dubious taste, especially with Jesus sporting an enormous *******.

What I, the wonderful SNOGGO, suffered in the next few hours was truly indescribable, so I will only summarise it. After a seemingly endless whipping from Jumbo (assisted by Mrs Jumbo, but her puny lash strokes were almost pleasurable), accompanied by their combined frenzied cries of demented hatred and loathing, I was forced to suffer the supreme humiliation. Jumbo mounted a set of fine Regency library steps, positioned his Hellish lumpen body behind me and unceremoniously inserted his tiny ***** into my outraged ****. Oh the shame! Oh the shame!

‘O Jesus Christ help me!’ I yelled in rain and pain. And suddenly a voice spoke unto me. 'O great SNOGGO,' it intoned, 'thou needst not suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune so needlessly. Only have faith in me, the great loving Jesus, and I shall give thee strength to deal with thy ******* awful tribulations.'

It was a miracle! SNOGGO could and would be saved! Quickly I mumbled a couple of Ave Marias remembered from my youth as a leading mutual masturbator in the chapel choir, and I silently promised a quick twenty thousand quid to the local faggotty priest ******* fund, and my chains fell to the floor with a blast of heavenly thunder. Halle-*******-luliah!

'Right, Jumbo you fat ****,' I snapped, 'you have ******* had it.'

And with one mighty blow of my right arm I smashed him against the wall. His huge hideous body crumpled as he slid to the floor, blood oozing from his fat gob. I gave him a ****** good kicking in the face and in the heart region and shortly he went to meet his maker, with a sickening grunt and expulsion of *****.

Then I turned to the horrified naked ugly skinny tattooed Mrs Jumbo and said: 'OK, *******, where's my ******* supper?'

She shrugged and headed upstairs to prepare the meal I had been promised by Jumbo earlier, as I was seriously hungry by this stage. Little did she know I would be obliged to put her out of her misery later. Or if she were lucky, I might offer her a position as unpaid toilet cleanser chez moi.

Yes, it was yet another stunning victory for the fabulous SNOGGO, thanks to timely divine intervention for which I am very much obliged.

And don't forget my luscious 17-year old Thai mail bride would be waiting to give me a really good ******* once I got back to Snoggo Manor. Either that or I would give her a good belting and send her back to her grotty poverty-stricken village with a demand for a full refund, chop chop.
Àŧùl Oct 2016
A costly privilege at rare times
Inquired my dad, "How much the onions?"
The seller, with a gasp,
Replied: "It's for 55 Rupees a kilo,
And you're holding almost two times."
A humorous poem. A limerick.
HP Poem #1209
©Atul Kaushal
Stanley Mungai Feb 2012
I am an umbrella, a rain jacket,
For the Cinderella, a stored away packet,
Till the day the skies sputter rain.
I am a tool box, a first aid kit lain
In a dark, webs-infested dusty corner,
Touching no light; seeing no cleaner.
The kitchen accident and toys’ breakdown
Are such welcome picnics to the town.
Could have been a willow, nor am I a pillow
To cry on in times of immense pains in kilo
And to hug out of a heart exploding joy.
But I am a bomb-shelter, a floating life buoy,
A tower of refuge in times of need;
A furrow-deserted land planted no seed,
Awaiting to be useful again in season,
Not Jesus, but bearing a crystal reason
To be also a rock in that weary land.
I am a handkerchief in a man’s hand;
Ironically stuffed useless in the back pocket,
To blow away flu mucus off the nosy socket,
Or wipe the intermittently rare solitary tears
That graces the dry eyes from heartbreak fears.
I am not a flowerbed; I am a mango tree;
Having no admirers save the monkeys, free
To shelter, mate, play and make all merry,
Spring has come with flowers and I draw very
Much attention; the promise of fruits abundance,
Needed, loved, and embraced in a scarce annual chance.
I am an audience for the sad breaking news;
The princess’s Eulogizer in dilemma to possible views,
I am a lawnmower in her abandoned backyard,
A joker of little importance in her game play card.
I am a muzzled ox treading the corn;
A mockery of treasure, glittering scorn,
In her darkest times, the cherished glow-worm;
An apologetic shelter in the times of storm.
Kyle J Jul 2016
One night in a blacked out dream , I saw the queen.
****, ****, ****; strong and dark with no cream.
She keeps me up.
Beautiful art unframed and unfinished; begging a young Picasso -
To put the touch of his brush.

Kilo for kilo she's my addiction.
As the queen, I hit her 'gram' with the smoothest diction.
Not trying to collide but I'm lovin' her friction -
And despite impending demise and my lates affliction;
I see in her royal eyes, "Is he real or fiction?"

Those brown sugar eyes, they won't gleam - Even if a young prince got green and clean.
She discerns what glitters and what ain't gold.
She doesn't know much about love but she knows about soul.
That's why her heart isn't package and her time ain't sold.
She walks as if she's in glass slippers italicizing a beautiful woman in bold.

She's the dopest so she's never fiend and she's never leaned.
That black never cracked and her aspirations, she's never quit.
She a lil bit thick but she ain't never bricked, all net my baby;
I'll never pass her, that's just swish.

She got that Bantu up in Bambu -
Don't get it twisted.
That melanin poppin', not her cherry,  she won't risk it.
She put Lynch on the bench - ain't no ***** ever ran through but they ran to.

She's the reincarnation of her mama, but she embodies her grandma.
She got the realest figure, before never after the comma.
Divined by God, designed by God;
Her eyebrows stay 'fleek' and her edges stay laid.
Her ideal man: good cook, a good lover and a good maid.
She always talks about living on her own, she actin' so grown.
She just wants a house with a man who knows how to go out but stay home.

To her, her womb is like the treasure of the Earth,
Don't talk about planting no seed unless you nurturing the dirt.
She's all about last, cause her last is her first.
And for all her dinner dates she hopes they end in desert.
By twelve midnight, she adorns her head-cloth, head wrap, head scarf -
Don't hit up her FaceTime unless you just want to talk.

She's the queen of all colors, she wears that black like it's true.
Milton Robertson Apr 2018
This is the story of Joe he was all aglow, love to put on a show and whatever he did he did like a pro.

One day he was feeling low said life was moving to slow, he felt he needed to grow and make more dough.

So he tiptoed to the sto came back with a kilo of blow, pure snow and hell soon followed.

He felt on top of the world until he met Pearl such a beautiful girl. Much to his suprise she was the Devil in disguise.

The man didn't have a prayer, his life turned into a nightmare, she made him his best customer

She turned his life into a movie thriller full of snakes, wolves, gangsters and killers.

He went from all aglow to full of woe. He started pacing the floor because he needed to score. So she took him to get a play but in rushed the D.E.A.

What Joe didn't know, he had become the prey. You see, they were planning on putting an end to his days, I guess The Lord do work in Mysterious Ways.

Now that mess, Joe let go and good seeds he's starting to sow. Instead of the night he see a beautiful rainbow and basking in the afterglow.

So if you want it fast and you want to stray off that straight and narrow path take it from Joe, don't go. You could be lead through the wrong door and be no more.
Take it from Joe DON'T GO.
Fah Feb 2015
Responsibility is so rare in those who leak their oily fingers across rivers and into bloodstreams, toxic waste never tasted as good as refined sugars.

Some people find themselves desperate.
That’s what happens when the community is run on decision
fueled by fear.
It murders the capacity to react
whilst exposing all of the soft, fleshy bits that constitute a human.

Oh yes,
split dinosaur bones and acid poured on a young woman’s face in North London are connected.
Lacerations of the largest mine in the world cut across the face of earth like another young woman who could not pay a sufficient dowry.
Oh yes those two events are connected.

To the men who sign the papers or wield the knife or pour the acid your payment is also desolation
your eyes will also be blinded and your face scared,
the trauma will live on inside of you as you see earth mother dug out,
kilo by kilo

You have silenced the very thing that makes you alive.
Oh yes.

The current schooling system of sit down, ask permission, don’t be late or I will hurt you in some way is connected to those men and their disassociation with their humanity.

It is connected to the women who can not love themselves and apologize for every moment of their existence not in words but in actions and not in actions but beliefs and not in beliefs but in pure, boiling hatred of being a woman because since the time of classic antiquity men have been hating the mother.

Oh yes,
the sugar and chemicals added to our diets combined with pharmaceutical money oriented ideology
year after year
are connected with every case of suicide, every act of homicide every police brutality every bill passed by a man who thinks the womb can be accessed through the stomach.

These events that are the cornerstones of our current society
hold a space that allows and encourages the greediest, meanest
most scheming parts of us to surface, dusted in powdered sugar and sing hallelujah.

It relies on the desensitized laziness of ourselves, it relies on us to keep on believing.

A red string ties these events together and they are destined to meet again and again in livingrooms and in courtrooms, boardrooms and massacres, rapes and violent deaths
At the hands of each other until we stop murdering our own humanity for the sake of an award, the sake of being accepted.

We all have Stockholm’s syndrome.

These institutions and companies are not friends, our captors in the forms of insensitive executions or laws against one another are not our saviors
The people who are making decisions over vast swathes of mother earth land are not our gods who wish to give us sunshine seen on the side of a truck advertisement.

But it may just be our saving grace
our empathy and compassion
fuel to our desires of seeing the world left to future generations
with some dignity
love the mistakes we've made as humans, thank them
for their teachings
and evolve.


These are the strings that bind us together.
( And you think you are not important? You think you make no difference? We are hand cranking the wheels of time over here .)
Tetra Hachiko May 2023
Im playing good girl now, but you tempt me so
Im better off in my life having told you no
It astounds me that I cant just seem to let go
Cause Im trying to be good, but Id rather shoot low
Entertaining any thought of you is low IQ
The idea of being entangled is too much to chew
But somehow I still get this feeling thats brand new
Its a rush, a flux, a one-off..god i think im gonna puke
Man, I'm trying to be good, but low looks fun to shoot
Its frustrating
And Im not containing
Myself all that well
Its delusional
Inexcusable
Trying not to dwell
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
The dot by your name,
The yellow lighting bolt
High tide warning
You have sent me a message private.

A tap, a flick,
We are communicating,
Comparative woes and lives
That could not be more different.

There but for history's twists,
We would share the same country.

But here comes the confess.
I do not rush to read them,
A savory, a wine that must decant,
Just knowing that you care
Put me in your prayers
Is nothing short of insanity.

Who puts me in their prayers?
Who confesses to saying prayers, anyway?

The pleasure of knowing that a you-message awaits,
Eye candy for the my mind,
But more real more truthful is
I am afraid for myself.

Distance real and virtual cannot be overcome,
Your troubles, a surrounding circle.
No angle, no escape, and I am there,
Next to you, as close as I want to be,
I, cannot be close enough.

Do you notice that I write these days
Tween midnight and six,
When the painkillers wear off?

You gift me 97 pages of reveal,
After page 2, you make me squeal.
Wordy tears are unveiled at 100am,
Force myself to open, to it, deal.

Three times a day, with food. Pain killers.
So from now on,
I will eat at midnight, take that pill,
And maybe sleep.

But for now, but for you,
There is no pill that drives away the pain
That is ten years old and still haunts.
Different pains, different pills.

But what I can do,
Is put you in something
With which, I am way out of practice,
Knee'd, put you in my prayers,
Which always get answered, tho
Ain't necessarily positive.

This pain has me hobbled.
Besides, when in the past,
Knee'd, always made Him uncomfortable, so,
I write vertical, standing up,
Overlooking the East River
And you reject my your-composure admiration,

Ok.

Here is a funny word that captures you,
And me ironically, the now stand-up poet.

aplomb
— noun

imperturbable self-possession, poise, or assurance.
the perpendicular, or vertical, position.

You possess it by the kilo.

If you say it out loud,
One of us will laugh,
And one of us still be weeping.

100am and the prayer thing comes back to me,
Way too easy.

But reciprocity of kind
All I ask for.

I know the creator is up, listening.
Cause we talk, as you know.
None will be more surprised than
He,
To see a black dotted, yellow lighting message
From his earthbound buddy.

Will it be opened,
Or like me,
Left unread, for the savory pleasure
Of knowing he has me vertical too,
Asking for his intercedence?

I don't know.
So while we wait, I give you this poem
Free and clear.  You own it.
This lighting poem,
This prayer.
For whom this belle poem rings, will know it. Let it stay that way too, please.
Marieta Maglas Aug 2015
(The captain of the pirates and one of them were in the cabin of that stranger having dogs while talking about him.)



''In Athens, he hired us to help him take the gold, '' said the captain.
''How could he take it as long as the messenger was alive? ''
The captain laughed, '' Maybe he has waited an accident to happen.
He caught the ship; before the sunset, wanted there to arrive.''




''He had nice dogs! '' '' Yes, the dogs would help him find the messenger
To **** him and to take the documents; he understood this
While he was hiding to hear those men talking, '' ''He was an avenger.''
''He didn't know the messenger, but he knew the gold's bliss.''




''He heard that a ship carrying five hundred and twenty bars
Having one kilo of gold each one would have to anchor
Near the Prinylas' shore, '' said the captain while lightning two cigars.
The other one started to smoke, '' I've satisfied my hanker.''



''The messenger should wait that ship to take the gold after
Presenting the documents; then, he should go to help a nun.''
''Those men should meet again to make arrangements thereafter.
One of them is on this ship; he goes silent until all is done.''




The stranger heard only a part of the dialog between
Ivan and the messenger's servant, who had been sent to Athens
To meet him; then, this stranger hired the pirates- around sixteen.
'' Follow me; I must embark on that ship to watch what happens, ''



(...He had told the pirates after killing the servant of the messenger; then, he intended to **** Ivan.)



He didn't know that Ivan should give the map to the messenger
To see the description of the road to the monastery,
The sketch and some details; Ivan didn't sense the danger.
The servant had to go to meet someone else; ''Let's be merry, ''



(...Said Ivan. They should meet again after three hours to go together to the messenger. The stranger did not know this secret.)



The meeting never took place 'cause the connection man had been killed.
Fortunately, he had told Ivan where this village was placed.
Ivan had caused that square sail's damage, but his heart hadn't been stilled.
Freddy needed time in Athens, when with this problem he was faced.




This way, Ivan forced Freddy to stay longer than he intended
To be in Athens; Ivan needed time to bring the map
To the destination; because the servant's life had ended
And the repair had been made quickly, Ivan fell into the trap.



(Ivan didn't have time to understand why the servant had died. He was prompted to divert the ship to the known place of Corfu, in order to land ashore. Then, Ivan would search for the messenger.)




The stranger was the one who paid attention to all those
Movements on that ship in order to grab the gold while thinking
That the pirate ship was behind him; he couldn't suppose
That the pirates had run ashore while using fast horses settling




In Prinylas before the Frederick's arrival; they
Killed the messenger and captured the vessel containing
The gold bars; they also killed all those sailors; on that day,
They attacked the carrack to find out who had lost that meeting.



The pirates wanted to **** that man, whereof the stranger
Had told them, and to remove the traces leading to the gold.
For this reason, they were willing to put them all in danger,
But the fire caused by Ivan their eyes started to behold.



(Ivan wanted to give Erica a chance to take the map and go ashore to search the messenger. The captain of the pirates took all the documents, the treasure and the seal belonging to the stranger and jumped overboard into a boat, apparently and inexplicably abandoning his companions. After an hour, the army began to fight with the pirates' crew.)


(..To be continued.)

Poem by Marieta Maglas
hvis jeg kan skære det væk fra
mine lår og blive bare få kilo
lettere, så jeg ikke skal pines,
når jeg går
åh,
det ville være noget af
en lettelse bare at være let
der står ikke nogen dér på
sidelinjen, der hvisker, du
skal presse lidt hårdere
men alligevel frister dine
fingre hinanden
og skriger
og tramper på venerne
og pludselig kan du ikke
finde dine håndled

hvis jeg kan binde silkesløjfer
langs hoften og gemme de der
velkendte dage væk, ville jeg
da gøre det, men hemmeligheder
er lavet af jord, og jeg smiler
kun, når jeg græder, og det gør
jeg jo ikke mere
men du må da gerne se på
mine negle i bussen, og du må
jo gerne fortælle mig historier
fra i tirsdags, men jeg vil ikke
love, jeg hører efter,  for der er
så mange, der taler på en
gang, selv når der er helt stille
og du slet ikke siger noget
- digte om et papmachesind
spysgrandson Feb 2015
fifty trillion of them,
give or take an exponential few,
programmed to replicate, then die, ad infinitum
spawning perfect copies to ensure
molecular harmony

their perfection could not keep
their host from huffing on tar sticks,
gobbling bacon by the kilo, or worshiping the sun's crisping rays
until one of their eternal days, a perverse mutation occurred
one at first, then two, then four, then more
forgetting that all were once destined to die,
in a crimson clockwork fashion

apoptosis
the new invader would hear nothing
of this strange word, for it was the emperor of maladies,
its geometric procession a spinning spectacle to behold,
purloining space from the mortality hobbled trillions
evicted by cancer's kangaroo court

it will have its reign,
this galloping ghost maker, until
the host gives up the fight, and
that which fed its gluttony  
will starve it as blithely
as the body gave it
******* birth
inspired by my reading of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Emperor of All Maladies, A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
JGuberman Sep 2016
The moon over Rio
is upside down for someone who's only
ever given it thought from New England,
so while in Rio
I hang myself upside down
like a perching fruit bat
before it goes on its nightly
raid of Senhora de Andrade's hummingbird feeder.

I hang myself upside down
to see the moon as I'm used to it
and the blood flows to my head
accompanied by Gal Costa
and I right myself
return to  my senses
and hope that the local kilo restaurant
is still serving, otherwise
it's hummingbird nectar tonight.
Só Louco is a song sung by Gal Costa and means "just crazy".
Kuzhur Wilson Sep 2014
One Sunday
On one of our many births  
We
must become the Pappa and Mamma
of an ancient Nazrani tharavadu.

I will go in the morning
And return with
A kilo of beef  meat
With bones
Two kilos of tapioca
And may be also a *** of toddy
From the toddy tapper.

While I slice the meat
You will crush the coconut mix
In the grinding stone.

I will come, now and then,
And wipe my face
In the chatta and mundu
Draped folds of yours.

Go away you shameless man
You will dub  
The slogan of a coy mistress.
Meanwhile
I’ll drum quick rhythms  
On your buttocks
Graced
With pleats.

The kids will see
You’ll repudiate, with your eyes

With the sun
Our bodies also will get warmer
Drops of sweat
Will make studs
On your
Nose.
With the fold of
My chequered mundu
I will wipe them off.

The sun will grow warmer
The toddy inside
Will simmer
In our bodies
An insatiable hunger will torment.

The aroma of
The beef curry with the coconut mix
That you cooked
Will drift into my nose.
Unable to control the craving
I will pick
Tapioca pieces from it and eat.
The hot bits will smolder my tongue.

“You Glutton”  
You will then
Whisper to my ears

By the time I wash my hands and sit
Calling out to the kids
And you, to come for lunch
The 12.30 bell will ring in the church.

From that unexpected
Sunday
Which we spent
Stingily
We will set aside
Some memories
for the next creation.



**Trans: Shyma P
1  Andrew Marvell’s To the Coy Mistress, imagines the normative woman as one who is shy and slow to respond to the ****** advances of the lover.
Jon York May 2017
It never stopped as they came at us day and night and they knew every move we made because the surrounding jungles were filled with them and as we thought we were hunting them, in reality we were the ones hunted and as they watched us set up for the night, the enemy would try to fulfill a single purpose: to **** me and my fellow Marines that made up the deadliest Marine combat unit operating in the ASHAU Valley (Valley of Death) at that time in 1969.

Arriving in Vietnam I discovered that it was very different than the nightly news reports that I watched from my Hotel room in Alaska and that the American public watched safely at night in their homes, and strange as it may seem I remember watching Marines walking through the rice paddies while the announcer was announcing the number of KIA's and I was thinking, maybe that's where I should be. Be careful what you think!!

Nothing could have prepared me ( a 20 year old "hippie"drafted and taken off the streets of the 60's ) for what I was about to face and what I was about to have to do in order to make it home on my feet and not in a body bag.

Trained to be a 20 year old killing machine by the United States Marine Corps, I did what I had to do to arrive home on my own two feet but it
would change my life forever and I didn't know it until 40 years later.

The adrenaline rush that came after each ****, and the more kills you recorded the more you got off and the more power you had and the
more you wanted to **** some more and it became an addiction and this
was suddenly gone when I got home and I reacted by covering my fear
with humor but 40 years after I knew something was terribly wrong with
me as I listened to reports of 22 Veterans a day, 24/7 committing suicide and at first I didn't understand why until one day I was thinking about different ways to die.

The physical pain had set in along with mental scars that would not go away as I thought about Vietnam every day as I began entertaining ways to die to get off this miserable train of thought and all the VA would do is to give me a PTSD disability pension and prescribe pills for the pain and during all those years it became clear that I was going nowhere and had become invisible to the world so why should I not go ahead and do the same as those 22 a day.

2017 and I am still here but I still think about Vietnam every day but I choose to write to keep my mind away from those days in the jungles shooting anyone I saw and these days I write for those 22 a day that can no longer deal with what they had to do and crossed that fine line between life and suicide that is so very close for me but for some reason I stand tall and am proud of my service to my country and feel sorry for those who will never know the depth of a Veterans pride and if I am still alive when you read this poem it is because someone drove home the fact that they actually cared whether I lived or died and that they actually appreciated what I did so many years ago in that far away jungle but that place is still on my mind every day and probably will be until the day I die and that is all I have to say on this Memorial Day.
                                                                                   Jon York  2017
                                                                                    Kilo 3/5
                                                                                 Vietnam  69- 70
Anthony Williams Jul 2014
Can you know how much I want you in the parking lot
to be strung out like meter maids in a fiddle
against my cheek and hard shoulder relayed
avoiding no string explanations but easy riding
stretched out beyond once at a Beyoncé concert
just to see your halo tyres screech echoes
aglow in the ccs of my tiny mind
as it wrestles with your personal youi toy issues
like a playful puppy with a soft-fix-rated wish list
to bite a whole lotta wish bits of open road can you
bare to test how serrated tongues kiss in tune

it's a don't miss love once thought I can fixate on
sense passion peach scent parking zone zany catch
pitching selfies of us two so perfecto we're in pinches
clinching made-up rows with post-cuticular itch scratch
u-turn buff out delecto smiley multi-teethy smooches
a no blame game mile after mile lost in the now
distracted in your put me through mobile beeps
full on not coping in the full brunt of my own alone bed
we motel back to hands off places
into back-out but no back-off welcomes

like a newly opened up sink whole from car to sofa
we click an unbuckle so well whenever choice strapped
telling goofed dippy love yous in nuggets kilo unlocked
staking times to care unextractable from distractions
wacky made from all your spills of tickle-tacky flesh
not wondering if its drive away thrills will go to waste
it's great transferring the apricot dream deposit as soon as
we dessert amuse each other after another amazing inference
goodnight speak for can I never come down from this highway

more and more under the covers of darkness accepting
without a hundred replica 'oh... don't' thanks
about who amongst our friends we can invite due to starving
for a combination of something they think we might be cooking
because we hate surprising add-in too except samfaina sauce
the spice of safe healthier for the solar farm morning recovery
your orange sunjuice extras converting tact without put downs
into staying cool out of the fridge and try not wanting to be set
in ways runny over your chin causing poaching without a permit

I know how it looks but I can't face not facing you
that wrinkle in your nose when it twitches to say
I see where you're going with this enroute idea
and pull me into the fast lane for the unbelievable
believed fully in you for a lie moment
needing you flat on your face and up front indecent
with the café latté grounds for chatting late
you gave me such a let's revisit French roast stare
you melted the café glacé I saw inside with a party intuition

the cheer me sense you uptake and bring to any cold space
by star walk in **** roles enough to water any dry as dust pan
slowly across with room for all eyes following
and brush aside arguments
so I can stay here tonight?
OK I'll drop my things in the got it all together
now on a successful detour
hearing your exalted exam declaration arrive "yes" in the mail
a result with female passes so nicely played on a level field

stepping up so mall boutique professionally to a border crossing
you were in a graphic position to stay
in shape in a way not relaxing
but with visa entries for multiple tourism
volumizing my eyes with an apply now unzipped boo-boo
uploaded in youtube to dual carber eater in full HD biker
rolling in hard drive definition a bluray inexhaustible backfire
shining out between leather studs your patch
“I live to ride”
and for the rest of the world's club it stops there
how not frustrating is that heart's topper for me
by Anthony Williams
Michael R Burch Mar 2020
Buna
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mangled feet, cursed earth,
the long interminable line in the gray morning
as Buna smokes corpses through industrious chimneys...

Another gray day like every other day awaits us.

The terrible whistle shrilly announces dawn:
"Rise, wretched multitudes, with your lifeless faces,
welcome the monotonous hell of the mud...
another day’s suffering has begun!"

Weary companion, I know you well.

I see your dead eyes, my disconsolate friend.
In your breast you bear the burden of cold, deprivation, emptiness.
Life long ago broke what remained of your courage.

Colorless one, you once were a real man;
a considerable woman once accompanied you.

But now, my invisible companion, you lack even a name.
So forsaken, you are unable to weep.
So poor in spirit, you can no longer grieve.
So tired, your flesh can no longer shiver with fear...

My once-strong man, now spent,
were we to meet again
in some other world, beneath some sunnier sun,
with what unfamiliar faces would we recognize each other?

Buna was the largest Auschwitz sub-camp, with around 40, 000 foreigners “workers” who had been enslaved by the Nazis. Primo Levi called the Jews of Buna the “slaves of slaves” because the other slaves outranked them. Despite Buna’s immense size and four years of activity, according to Levi it never produced a kilo of its intended product: synthetic rubber. Levi described Buna as “desperately and essentially opaque and gray.” He said not a blade of grass grew within the compound because its soil had been impregnated with the “poisonous juices of coal and petroleum” so that nothing was alive but machines and slaves, with the former “more alive” than the latter. Levi also related hearing a Buna Kapo say that the only way Jews could leave Auschwitz was “through the Chimney” of the crematorium. It is possible that the companion being addressed in “Buna” is Primo Levi himself, recognizing what he had been reduced to. Keywords/Tags: Primo Levi, translation, Holocaust poem, Auschwitz, Buna, mud, chimney, smoke, crematorium, corpses, bodies, death, ******, starvation, gray, colorless, invisible, nameless, slave, slaves, slave labor, horror, hell

Shema (“Listen”)
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable homes,
who return each evening to find
warm food and a hearty welcome ...

Consider: is this a “man”
who slogs through mud,
who has never known peace,
who fights for scraps of bread,
who lives at another man's whim,
who at his "yes" or "no" lies dead.

Consider: is this a “woman”
shorn bald and bereft of a name
because she lacks the strength to remember,
her eyes as void and her womb as frigid
as a winter frog's?

Consider that such horrors have indeed been!

I commend these words to you.
Engrave them in your hearts
when you lounge in your beds
and again when you rise,
when you venture outside.

Rehearse them to your children,
or may your houses softly crumble
and disease render you equally as humble
so that even your offspring avert their eyes.
Synthesis Jul 2015
I been bumpin frank Sinatra

I been chillin with these mobsters

Perfect Italian girl put the parmesan upon the pasta

We had  white sauce on the angel hair

We were sipping on the pinot

Her hair was black as mine,

but her skin look like a kilo

Thighs look like a hundred grand

Eyes green like a c- note

Liquid nitrogen in her veins  

The tongue game ****** she wrote

She whispers fortunes in my ear

While tracing plans upon my skin

Lead me to a life of sin

Then gave the roulette a gentle spin.

I never gave her a wedding ring  

I proposed to her with the shell

wedding dress was made by Prada

The  coloration red as hell

Showin fangs in a crooked smile that she hid behind her veil

Death upon her breath, it turned the atmosphere stale

Unholy matrimony pastor trying to hide his thorns

Ring bearer bared his fangs

flower girl throwing thorns

Bridemaids holding bouquets made  of wilted lillies

She drove a knife through my heart and said

“ baby do you feel me?”
Louise Mar 26
Matalino naman ako,
alam rin iyan ng mga tao sa paligid ko.
Maingat naman ako,
kung hindi ay hindi ako tatagal sa mundo.
Ngunit bakit sa sarili ko'y ginagawa ito?
Bakit ako naglalakad patungo sa'yo?
Alam kong masasaktan muli ako,
baka nga ito pa ang maging kamatayan ko.
Ngunit bakit patuloy pa ring lumalapit sa'yo?
Naglalakad ng masaya at magiliw
patungo sa aking kalbaryo,
para lang maipalasap sa'yo ang paraiso.
Habang pasan ang krus na tonelada ang kilo,
para lang madala ang walang hanggang kaligtasan sa'yo.
Este corazón pesado es la cruz que llevo.

"Semana Santa Sadgirl Series": no. 3
Ken Pepiton Apr 2019
things I know nothing of
things I know little of
things I know more of
things I know all of

where should I wander?
where should I linger

seriously?

lighten up. time I know, little
enough,
now is, then was, soon

we see
we note
we mark the place on this horizon
that big star rises
or seems to rise
from, but now we know,

some how that star is moving in
time, same as me

how can any knower know
the sweet influences of pleides?

look closely,

------------------

this time, this generation

here,
we're smart, we can do math in poems
12800 years ago, 1280 decades,
128 centruien measures in each

of which, lay remnants of four generations
of **** sapiens,
of **** sapiens sapiens, and
of **** sapiens sapiens augmenticious,
all mixed up and tangle tongued.

Now, 512 generations of beings of our genus
since the
speciation of we, the people of earth;

this time, this generation

now,
we're smarter, more able to know and use
the knowing, than any
we imagine real
before us
in these past five hundred and twelve steps,
from mitomom,

to you. Individuatible you.
to you, thinker of thought things,

to you, thinker of thought things augmented
by with for through witty

inventions, for instance, example gratis, et al

the Vitruvian man made the Vitruvian wheel,

tapping the flow of rain returning to the sea, pulling, nicely, with thanks, at first,
to the river,
power at a rate of two kilo watts per hour,

The old mill stone groaned as it ground seed
that could'a' been boiled
and chewed, but for the lack of knowing

how a fire could be started,
after all the ashes have grown cold.

Oops, time skip. Now, then back

Gen one, post all hell breaking loose

who knew how to start a fire?
was it a secret kept for the few who knew?

Was prometheus as real as jesus,
had we any evidence of things unseen,
had we any substance of things hoped for?
-- why?
-- because there is a liar on the loose. And now nothing hidden remains, save what you never knew anyone could know. Or so it seems, to me,
For fifty cents
we bought ten eggs

For fifty cents
we bought a kilo of oranges

For fifty cents
we drunk espresso
in a coffee
across the street

For fifty cents,
at the flea market,
they were selling
at the car hub,
Jacque Prevert’s
- Charmes des Londres…

We bought that too

………………………………………………………………...
Jacques Prevert wrote “Charmes des Londres” in 1952.
*Grocery list for the market 15.02.2003.
BKS Aug 2010
Sleeping with a tear stained pillow,
headphones broke
so turn on my radio,
lock the doors
to my room
forget chores.
Give me a break,
some money.
LET'S GO!
Large home under the willow,
single stroke
a measure by kilo,
small sport soars
footsteps boom.
**** ******
don't see the steak
add a little honey,
and so?
(c) Bryn K. Summers
(c) flippup.deviantart.com
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
.i said what? all i heard was the sound of a keyboard clicking: click click click... the breaking of bones in the fingers... the wind brushing the craniums of trees... a siren... a bottle being opened... a blank page being filled (a variant of a one man squash match being played out)... and... you're free to peer on this, but this is not speech... well... either your tongue or your eyes; since technically you didn't hear this, you saw it... so what? i don't care for the freedom to speak, but i am all for the freedom to think; and unless you're strapped to a chair, about to be tortured, and the torturer says: blink once for YES and twice for NO... well?

like Kierkegaard said:
people busy-body themselves
defending their "freedom" of speech,
and take little concerning
for the freedom to think,
-of speech
                       -to think...
it's like that grammar game:
to think is to do, something,
a freedom of?
         doesn't tell me much...
that apple vendor at Romford market
is talking... let's listen...
  two for one love!
      quid a half kilo bag!
talking...
                        i much prefer giving
my hands to the devil,
than my tongue to god...
         honest sailor, prior to a boy scout,
and his virginity, and honor...
it's so... invasive...
              talk...
                       writing? that's not talking,
not unless...
     'and i said this', see? quotation marks...
i really did say that out-loud simultaneously
within the confines of writing this...
and there's no "ambiguity" to go with it...
comments section: technically talking...
throwing words onto a blank piece of
paper, while having a stitched-up mouth?
well...
            i guess what i am doing is
showing you my thought...
  this... this is after all the P.E.A. meeting?
the phonetic-encoding "anonymous"?
yeah? great!
       good thing i brought a bottle of
whiskey with me, to pass the time.

— The End —