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Tersely "Ugly"
Not "Nari Keri"
Just "Ugly"
Unfinished
LACONICALLY "UGLY"
UGLY
Meagan Moore Jan 2014
We watched the sun fall down and scrape its knee again, across the horizon.
Effusing amaranth, carmine, and cochineal across polluted vista.
It felt petty to issue guttural laughs, or engage the myofacial crescents beneath its visual lament as the Earth turned its back again.

We watched the sun rise, bruised, tender and shy this morning.
Its muddled contusion obviated by the gauze of fog.
A mottled neophyte -
Luminescent crepuscular rays defied dregs of interstellar debris and cloud.
Aching to kiss your skin -
In stellar cloud nursery, it eschewed the torque of orbit and gravity - eras before verity of your essence.
Humbly settling concentrically about oblate sphere, and gaseous tome.
Latterly - It altered the atmospheric pressure on the other side of the planet a week antecedently, as you clung to your dream lattice, and Earth innately turned oblate nucleus.
Its intent –
A veneration of you.
It bade the atmosphere convey a breeze echoing about your dermis, as it gilded your frame laconically, betwixt shaded steps beneath cloud and arbor.

The sun yelled at me at its pinnacle today,
Pallid bone – molten - miasma of rage
Its core missive garnered inertia – coronal plasma warping ellipsoid factions in inflections of elusive filigree
Pirouetting spicules spattered smelted torrents in the dismal anchorite
Atomic schism – silent but felt
It stoked humidity under shadowed niche - casual vaporous smears evinced no clemency.
Flesh torqued, and seized beneath itself, briny globules shed from puckered pore.
Culminations of sensitive fluid sacs scorched into the shallows of my chassis.
Insignia knit in cellular shrapnel

The sun ignored me today – or perhaps, it was I it.
Enigmatic tenacious resolution – an echo of its gravitational collapse
Inverse thermonuclear fusion
It is not fear in a relationship that keeps you apart, it is neglect of the infinitesimal.
betterdays Nov 2014
the days subsides,
with adoring colour
and the racous choral,
of retiring lorikeets.

we sit upon the deck,
cold bevvies in hand
and watch the master
painter at work,

over on the mountain range
the clouds gather.
ben, laconically states,

"storm tonight"

and yes that smell,
so wonderful,
sits heavy in the twilight air.

petrichor, heavy on the eucalypt, ****** beer,
and warm tar....
the smells of a stormy,summer afternoon.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2016
what's with these juicy bits?
got talking to a cashier at a supermarket
because i wanted cash-back
rather than using the automated till,
she was part of a book club,
her grandchildren, something something,
oh yeah, into tudor english,
prope'h east ender but more into
o romeo o romeo why art thou bits of slicing
the butcher's expression, tudor english...
'so what do you do?
finish work early? work in
a slaughterhouse of mammon
and his slot machines?'
'i've only just begun, i'm an
adolf ****** of poets according to w.h. auden,
i mean, wait wait, i can make a calypso's worth
of sound with rhyme, and look ironically intelligent too!
i have ~40 adamant readers elsewhere,
yes,  had to look for a publisher on the continent.'
you know, all that jazz & bass talk,
when you're buying whiskey laconically day to day,
and we both agreed: it's nice to leave an imprint
on someone, somewhere else, far far away,
rather than just an echoing footprint of a pacified
stranger passing en route on a shopping spree;
so don't up your game thinking writing is
a mind game of ups and ups...
it's a task like anyone else's, although it doesn't
pay out bundles of Ferraris or ******...
there ain't not glamour in it...
you only get recognition in terms of the numbers
doing it after you're dead...
because it looks easy, because it looks like
a granny in an armchair...
what's that, 30 poems in and finito -
             carpe diem hasta la vista baby?
strap me rigid on that train, i'll pay with all my
teeth being punched out to see where this is going;
juicy bits my ***.
Helen Oct 2015
I left you
seven hundred miles ago
with a note that read,

I'm done with this ****

you should have known

when you woke up upon sheets
that were soaked with our final weeks, and you realised, that you woke alone, it wasn't just a joke,
that one thing should have made you know,

seven hundred miles later,
your bare *** is alone...

you should have known

and now I'm down the highway
seven hundred miles away
from you
checking out the sunset
wondering if you
see it
as blue as I do
are you seeing the splintering
and fracturing of the lightening
that splits between clouds
of such a perfect grey?

Do you even remember that day?

I do!

you should have known

how the ventricles in your heart
clip clop at such a slow pace
how the neurones that fire
within your brain
stitch together memories
so laconically

you should have known

that seven hundred miles
down the road
I was going to be more open
More free to be me
Less inclined to practice
this inhumanly farce

Seven hundred miles ago

You should have known

*It was never going to last
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
i lied... i must have the dates mixed up...
the last exhibition i saw wasn't From Russia
at the Royal Academy of Arts...

it was either Edward Munch at Tate Modern
or the Pre-Raphaelites at Tate Britain...

but i found it impossible to not cycle into London
today... i finished some whiskey at about
1pm... got on my bicycle... stuffed about 10 empty
bottles from various liquids:
*****, whiskey... cider into my rucksack:
dropped them at the recycling bins by the supermarket:
because i'm green and all:
i just have a fetish for recycling...

   my god... this writing is terrible: i haven't drunk
enough... sober writing is dishonest writing:
unless you're old... then sober is probably honest:
age does the trick... but when you're a little bit younger:
nothing like a little bit of ***** to make
you speak the truth...

obviously i was going to do exactly what i wrote...
and some Plato (taking off a mask)
was almost a thought experiment:
was i going to write fiction? or was i going to write
poetry? was i going to cycle from Romford
to Tate Britain and watch the Walter Sickert
exhibition?

             i got there... smoked a cigarette...
sweating like a pig being chased...
how i love to punish myself on the bicycle...
i'm like a remora when it comes to traffic...
the shark? oh... a bus...
                 a truck... a heavy-duty truck with a skip...
i'm the remora sort of using it as momentum
generator...
because i never cycle in the blind spot...
a wise remora is the cyclist that keeps to the outside
of the shark...
since i've started cycling around London i haven't
heard of any cyclist deaths...
   well no: i'm not saying it's because of me...
but i'm not exactly invisible...
like today i spotted someone imitating the way
i give direction...
  *******-pencil pusher type stretch out their hand
wide like they're about to do a horizontal
seigl heil!

    me? i laconically lift my hand and indicate
with my wrist / hand a blinking motion of a car's
indicator: up and down... up and down...
i'm turning... but usually it's me: the remora
and the big *** shark of a bus or a truck helping me
cycle past... Sunday drivers... it's Tuesday!
stay awake! focused! you're not walking!

i love getting bicycle rage... oh rarely with pedestrians...
what i do with pedestrians is that i cycle
really close to them when they have
crossed their allowance of road...
they usually jump back: startled...

    because in an urban environment:
i punish myself... unconscious spatial coordination...
i love that there are so many objects moving around
me... big objects... small objects...

i hate cars... not that i've ever driven one...
i tried... once... eh... this exoskeleton doesn't suit me...
it's different in a bus... because hey...
Cliff Richard and ****...
                   walking... the bicycle... or a horse...
either one...
hell: even "god" can't beat the bicycle with his
donkey or a horse...

it took me less time to get from Romford to Tate
Britain than if i had to use public transport...
plus: what do you get to see on the tube
beside quasi-autistic faces with the taboo
of no-eye-contact...
**** that... i'm going to punish myself: 101kg...
not good enough... i can feel my spine...
plus i just might find some fury to swear
in my native language... because English is just
too soft...

i have to write the following sentence in Deutsche
(obviously i'll translate it)
ein radfahrer ist ein verkehrschäfer -
a cyclist is a traffic-shepherd...
countless times i've seen this at work...
we're not sacred cows...
i know my place in the "gutter" of either
the double yellow or the single red
or the double red or the single yellow...
but i know my place... i can orientate myself
around pedestrians blah blah etc.
only someone solipsistic enough will get themselves
killed when using the roads:
pristine inventions!
  even the English flow of traffic is logic-proof...
entertain the roundabout...
it works like a clock... how does "time" move
on the clock... at some point prior to 12am or
12pm... from left... to right...
that's how the hands move...
the rest of the world is wrong: wong! wong!
they drive on the wrong-wong side of the street...
traffic flows up on the right side...
but down on the left-side of the road:
no! traffic should flow up the road on the left...
and traffic should flow down: on the right!

- i was supposed to get a birthday present...
opera? eh... ballet? i'm getting bored of sitting
and having to applaud...
      i'm just bored of hearing applause...
i've heard enough over the past few months
at football matches... translating that to opera
or ballet is... i don't even have a word for it...
there might be a word: but i'm not too bothered about
finding the 1cm in 100m: designated pin-point.

i'm suspicious that women are looking for artists (men)
once they reach old age... decrepit "fools":
senile buggers... life experience and all...
where's the fun in that?
   the youthful artist: or rather: entertainer in his youth...
but no, oh no... the artist needs to be old...
to hell with that... when's my next shift?!
Saturday... Sunday...
tomorrow's Wednesday... vet appointment...
maybe tomorrow... maybe Thursday...
i'll need to punish myself some more
and drink plenty of white wine... then off to Khedra...
to hell with painting nudes...
**** the nudes: literally...

who was that English poet that came home crying
after seeing Liszt play: jealous...
about how many women swooned over his performance?
Matthew Arnold?! yeah... it was him...
hell...
  poets and musicians don't mix...
                  achtung zu d'eh-tile... detail...
verdrehen auf gestalt: verschmieren auf farbe...

poets and painters?! ooh... that's another topic altogether...
i walk into an art gallery: i'm home...
i'm happy that i didn't opt for the opera tickets...
i had this arts review from the 8th of May...
i knew i was going to see this exhibition...

not since Edward Hopper...
   then again: i haven't heard anything about Francis Bacon
being showcased... i'd give a toe of mine
to see him being showcased...
who else could compete:
i've only recently become acquainted with Walter
Sickert...
disappointed? no... not that i can think of...
should i have swapped the exhibition ticket
for a concert ticket?
no... not that i think it would have been necessary...

it's a completely different experience...
i'm my own best and worst DJ in private...
i've been in mosh-pits at Slipknot concerts...
i've been to the best Tool concert: to the best concert
i've ever been to in Glasgow...
wrapped my arms around with German girl:
protected her from being squashed...
shared water... have her water...
came back with snogging...
   snogging a random girl at a Tool concert...
well: that's life...
   but i do remember seeing her standing all alone...
lonesome as the crowd was dispersing...
trying to look for me... i walked past her...
oh right: the man is supposed to instigate the chance-lance:
charge...
   regrets that i didn't?
i was going back to Edinburgh talking to this
teacher / pub Celtic band... what did he play?
flute? banjo? i do remember telling him:
the quintessential pop song? Material Girl... by Madonna...

eh... friendly conversation...
but if i were to approach that German girl...
and say: let's go back to your and ****...
and i'll leave you the next morning and never talk to you?
i think the snogging in the crowd...
sharing water...
  it was one of those splendid moments that
ought to have been only a moment...
    i can't imagine the alternative from that...

why?
only today... while i was smoking a cigarette i noticed
these flock of "seagulls": about three elderly matriarchs
and two birds readied for the slaughter...
as i walked into the gallery they kept hovering around
me... is he interested? isn't he interested...
to be fair: i was there for the art... not for some hook-up:
so libido stirring...
that's the "problem" when you're already paid
the devil for one of his concubines...
devotee women of "god" / "culture" stop interesting you...
not that i'm shy: i'm calculative...
but once you've paid for a *******:
so what, WILL i be paying for?
dinner and a maybe-****?!
  
   let's just skip dinner and get into the *******...
people are already making that horrendous
faux pas of profiling themselves...
so at a dinner date: i know what she likes,
i know what she dislikes... what the **** is there
to talk about? **** it: call the butcher in: let's cut up
some meat!

for a minute i took my gaze away from
the paintings: hook-up culture not working?
dating-apps the bane of your existence?
too bad... i never used them...
thank **** for that...
i don't know how or why i was ****** into
this social media frenzy...
validation? oh no no... bypassing the sloth
of the editorial process:
the: first appeal to the selective elect:
who then... make appeals to the rest of the public:
public first... the editors like ancient Greek
sophists can shove it up their *****!

wait wait: yeah: wait and i'll be dead!
to hell with it... this is open season!

is this one of those regret moments or memorable
moments? i think it's a memorable moment...
why would i regret some "hunt":
some classically inspired heterosexual finicky game
off a rom-com inspired:
reality is something that moulds us...
temporal creatures trying to figure out a way
around a "claustrophobia" of genetic inheritance...

to hell with that too! genetics-blah-blah...
if we were not such "god-fearing" people:
secular as they come... but also phobic prone
regarding the full extent of science...
we'd be doing gene revisions like the Chinese
are doing... hey... all the toys are in the sandbox...
why not play with them?
to avert the chance of having your limbs
aputated because of diabetes?!
Western civilization has become: Ssssss-LOW...

it's almost somewhat ******* but at the same time:
i don't even know...
backward moral superiority
over... something it originally instigated...
or broke rules for the existence of...

i can't imagine myself waking up one day and...
having regrets: instead of memories...
i won't allow it!

funny that... i'm still to write about the actual Walter
Sickert exhibition...
i think i'm about to write about it now...
"i think": well: that's always been synonymous with
"i doubt": the plethora of emotions that comes
with think that verges on doubt... it's almost akin
to being in love...
           i am: regardless...

oh my god... i only spent about 40 minutes in
the exhibition: do you need more?
i spend £120 for an hour with a *******...
so what's £20 for 40 minutes spent with a dead
artist? peanut... whenever i go to an exhibition
i have a tendency to: not want to: overstay my welcome...

the ******* lighting was all wrong!
who curated this!
who curated this! the lighting is all wrong!
i was actually bound to looking
at a painting... ballerina in me:
shuffling... left... right... forwards... backwards...
the heavily oiled: layered paintings can't
have this sort of lighting...

it's like my argument for subtitled movies...
why... why why why! why!
are the subtitles running at the bottom
of the scrreen?
don't people know how difficult it is to read down
and then look up?!
what horrible "thing" could possible happen
if you ran the subtitles on the top of the screen?!
you know how much easier it is to read at the top
and focus on something down below!
it's as simple as: why no culture on this earth
wrote like: it might be an imitation of a tree growing?!
from down toward up?!
even the logicians of Mandarin wrote:
up to down...
they didn't write down to up...
****'s sake!

couldn't you try... moving those lights...
"downstairs": to illuminate the paintings from down-below
rather than from the top?
who the hell walks into an art exhibition and in
his cognitive "seance" think:
oh this looks pretty... no... this is not still-life...
the lighting is all wrong...

i seriously had to look at some paintings from
the side...
some had mirror protections on them...
so there was clearly some distorting reflection...
me or some object...
this lighting is ****! who curated this?!

i wasted £20 of a worth of a birthday present, on this?!
****** lighting!
   couldn't you have lighting coming from
the side... or from the floor?
why from the ceiling: all the ****** time!
no imagination: nada... zilch!

it would have been better not buying
a ticket and instead buying the book for £40
than £35 with the ticket...

first room i entered: always the best stuff:
the portrait of an artist as a young men...
self-portraits...
i had a smile on my face...
i was mesmerized by:

- self-portrait (circa 1896)
- self-portrait, the painter in his studio 1907
- self-portrait: the bust of tom sayers 1913

i don't care what anyone says...
the last reference? it looks better in real life than
it does in print... those hollowed out eyes...
was the skull to ever have
the capacity for eyes?!
worm by the eye... worm by the mouth...
by the ear... nose..
you need to see it: in this! ****** Tate Britain lighting!
who curated this?!
this is the first time i thirsted for excellence!
came short... not the artist: the curator...

first room: beginnings... self-portraits...
ha ha... "Lazarus": slurping oat-meals...
the servant of Abraham: another good one...

one of my ultimate favourites becomes
this Mona Lisa... tiny little thing...
Venice: the little lagoon...
circa. 1884...

architectural interests... crap... crap... crap...
well: good... but... thank god some of the stuff
is still there... but i don't need to paint
what i can blink at... against...

then the nudes...
oh the nudes...
   each artist and his ******* nudes...
Picasso had at least some imagination
to contort the **** beyond recognition:
to try to get a proper hard-on...
Freudian hammers and sickles...
or as i like to call them:
swastikas and scythes...

what?! aren't we to not inherit the horrors
and make jokes of them?!
terrible lighting... absolutely terrible...

the sea paintings drew my attention...
where: the: ****: is: Dieppe?!
la saisons des bains...
               seascape circa 1887...
    
ah! there she sits pretty!
   Cicely Hey 1923...
      you just want to **** her nostrils off!

Off to the pub 1911: Freddy ******* Kruger!
ah... that's why...
that's why... an artist... **** it: painter...
might compromise with a poet
for something... someone...
images are yet to be born from the images
that are to come...

that makes no sense...
images are yet to be born from the already
born words...
yeah... that makes sense...

i wasn't exactly moved by the nudes...
i had a poker mask on...
i've seen enough: plenty...
the the architectural stuff bored me...
i know boredom: unlike any other boredom:
the habitual need to continue
the mechanisation of replicas...
but the subject matter isn't there...
a sort of a writer's block...
you persist... writing about the most banal things...
painting the most banal things:
in order to keep up with
your own: well established technique...
but it's unimportant crap...

can't be fascinated by **** paintings...
Narcissus ate all my nudes....
i **** before the altar of mirrors...
i know when a mirror eats the contorted expression
of a prostitutes face....
i'm no jack the ripper...
      
surprise me with: horror ****...
not *******...
  surprise me with...
    people imitating... from the last movie i saw?
that wasn't imitation...
that was *******: readily available...
******... handcuffs... lubricants...
cucumbers... shame-tactics...
at least with men pain came with war...
women at nut-job crazy:
***-warfare...
   shaming tactics... no wonder i get
a limp **** with a woman that isn't
a *******...

   no wonder i go to art exhibitions:
perhaps... just perhaps the fairer ***...
but most certainly the uglier *** should
the inverted become extroverted
and: likewise... the antonym... compound...

the days of Jack the Ripper are gone...
i still don't know how someone like Samuel Little...
did what he did?
no *******: casually...
a proper ******* with a *******...
come on... at least they're giving it up for an asking
price! there's no *******: nuance!
there's no dating involved!
  these days, can you imagine?
going on a date... you match profiles...
what's there's to talk about?
she already mentioned all her interests...
all her dislikes... her likes...
what's left?
you order steak...
    chips blah blah...
does your steak taste like beef?
do your chips taste like: potatoes?!

then again: we're supposed to be switching diet
to synthetic "meat": bean born alternatives...
whatever... that's why i figured out:
focus on art... don't bother with gene replication...

and as i cycled home like a demon...
now i'm sitting down...
listening to "pleb" culture...
fat boy slim's: right here, right now...

i don't want to wake up one day and have
regrets.... instead of memories...

this exhibitions was a revelation... Plato's
false beliefs? not in bad faith...
those three old women and those two young girls...
psychologists?!
oh sure sure... they were really gearing up to
talk to me... i was more than willing to
destroy my inner-boundaries...
for some love with narrative:
than *** without it...

    clearly i'm out of touch!
   what appeals to the masses can never appeal
to the individual... why didn't i choose
a ticket to see an opera? i read about this exhibition
come May 8th... gusto... Waldemar Januszczak...
he has good taste....
i wanted to fizz out... to zone-out...
at the FA cup final i was hearing a crowd...
but also church bells... i was fizzing with sound
in my ears...

painter! painter! get me a painter!
i need to relax!
that's what it felt like... cheap *** pseudo-*******
potentials... three matriarchal psychologist
types... two lambs for a slaughter...
you want to catch me, now?
should have tried to catch me
ten years ago:
then you could have pharmacologically
strapped me in!
        now?! fwee-byrd!

               angry at the traffic...
the world has moved on! get with it!
i was told to get "with it" once, or twice...
times change: things: move...

none of these women will ever be regrets...
the women i paid for are never regrets...
they're women i paid for...
i'm reluctant for enforce a switch of the power
dynamic from man to woman...
woman offers ***... man pays for ***...
women doesn't offer ***:
man... becomes: self-sufficient....

it's almost like that brainstorm moment...
which arrives... in a football stadium...
before the crowd arrives and gets all hot & bothered...
listening to: fat-boy slims' song: right here:
right now...

there's a greater silence:
allocated to an art exhibition...
   oh: but i can find it..
i have found it...
most of the people: simple are...
there's no to be or not be
concerning them...
they're like mountains... like trees...
they simply are... replicas...
****** cues...
        
   to hell with thinking that i might be
high-brow... some people are just ******!
if that's an insult for someone being
******: while someone intelligent
is getting bashed... to hell with the ******
fetishist!

no! you ****-beard-funkies don't
get away with it that easy: who... these days...
allows a 14 year old daughter to become
pregnant?!

when life was: ah... ha... ah...
                           when you wanted to paint life...
rather than discard it as a photograph...
once upon a time... a time: that never was.
I walked among the garden, passing by where long ago you once planted daisies—how those buds once bloomed. I walked a-ways farther until I came to a hearth, torn asunder. Its warmth gone cold and gray. The air about the garden is murky and slick, and I can feel it hang low in the snood of the evening mist. Up ahead I see where the path narrows, and like a siren it lasciviously calls out to me. It lies barren beneath the wet winter wind that blows restive. I know that it knows the way not. The wind sets the tawny leaves to caper and dance this way and that. And laconically they cross atop the worn-out grass. The sun now set save for the trailing penumbras, that set ominous among the darkening clouds like floating tundras. I catch a chill and realize for the first that I am out here alone; among the ancient pillars in the shadowy garden that I have for so long known. Why is it that year after year I must return here, is it to visit you, set things straight, or is it to recover a thing I might have lost to the atavistic gait of chaos and time? I know not—it is not for me to know. But, out here among the spectral shadows I am returned to the primordial. The nonpareil decay of clay and dust.
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
502 bad gateway bypass:
chuckle baron,

mishaps at 0.5 degrees
of a circle.


picked up an unfinished cigarette from a jar i have
placed on my windowsill
instead of an ashtray and smoked it...
ooh: those ***** little pleasures...
    so ash on the filter... and in general:
***** cigarette finish...
                 sipping my whiskey...
   found a new band i can't stop listening to...
SJÖBLOM: which is a surname by several
Swedish people... the album? demons...
i always found that the Swedes have an incredible
pop sensibility...
a bit like Abba... a bit like Roxette...
it's infectious music...
   i don't care whether someone calls its "emo":
it's not... there are not screeching vocals of teenage
angst... it's melodic...
it's a bit like discovering Alt-J or the XXs...
or Porcupine Tree...
           then again: it's like trying to find the antithesis
of the major bands of the 1980s...
i needed to get something from that decade
beside only listening to the Cure or Depeche Mode
or Duran Duran... since that's what my uncle was
raised on...
turns out the 1980s were probably the best
decade for music: nothing mainstream matters
when you discover post-punk, dark-wave...
and no: not that pretentious indie music from England
from the 2000s...
   even Brit-Pop is bearable compared to that
strange movement...
   i was a child when Brit-Pop was a major force
to contend with American Grunge and Metal...
      to be honest: anything from the 1980s that wasn't
mainstream is... better than anything mainstream
that came out in the 60s or 70s....
   dad rock...
                well: progressive rock was never mainstream:
King Crimson will still have a special place
in my heart: i don't think there's a better album
than: in the court of the crimson king...
    it's my youth...
        well... Roxette's Joyride... that album is pristine...

tomorrow's F.A. cup final between Liverpool and
Chelsea ought to be fun... i'm already gearing up...
how long to stay up and doodle?
what time to wake up...
    eat something prior leaving?
shine my shoes... doubly iron my trousers...
iron a shirt...
     i already asked to be placed inside rather than
outside... near the VIP section... near the Royal box...
hell... i might even brush against the future
King of England...

i sit back and remember my grandfather:
how long has it been?
   2 years since he passed?
      he was a peoples' person... he could make
people work for him...
   i'm sort of growing into this role too...
even though: we're not talking: proper work...
in a metallurgical plant...
heavy duty stuff... Die Krupps - im schatten der ringe...
i still don't think this is work...
trying to make people not drink in view of the pitch...
trying to make people not drag their mobile-shishas
in stadiums... searching bags...
general security *******...
    i guess i don't think it's much work:
but it would have been... if something like
the Manchester Arena terrorist attack took place...
maybe i'll be made a supervisor again...
last time at Wembley i was frantic...
   a Tyson Fury boxing match... trying to tend to about
20+ people under my supervision...
this one guy... mental health issues...
broke down crying... poor mother:
i'd get slapped about for saying the stuff he said
to her: and she bought him the tickets...
the amount of time it took to calm him down:
panic attacks...

while he was running backwards and forwards...
insulting my stewards...
i had to step in... thankfully this black guy helped
me... a steward under me...
it's like in those 1970s movies about mental asylums...
all the orderly seemed to be black...
i didn't want a response team involved...
i hoped the two of us would reason with him...
and we did... he stayed...
he didn't know London: had no money
and as i sat down with his mother
she told me he was being a little brat...
a 25+ year old man needed my support...
cried in front of me... while i tried to tend to him...
touch... touch... hand on his shoulder...
   etc.: no need for the details...
i just said to him: you paid to see this event!
it's not fair that i'm getting paid to "sort of" see this
event too! look! bright lights! stay!

i still bewilder myself... this isn't work:
i don't treat it as work... i've already got used to
the infrequency of toilet breaks...
sometimes i come home constipated like a turtle
that only ate sandpaper...
   and it takes me about a day later to recover...
i don't even mind standing like a ceremonial soldier
at Buckingham Palace:
i swear... 4 hours on a bicycle is less exhausting
than standing still...
what's sometimes on the news?
ceremonial soldiers dropping from exhaustion:
because they're imitating statues...
which is more exhausting than... movement...

this is a "joke" of a job compared to roofing...
whenever i tell someone i used to be a roofer
they're like: what's that?!
Romford is the capital of roofers...
oh you know, tar work, hot-melt, waterproofing
roofs? on an industrial scale...
that summer of 2004 was probably the most
glorious summer... working, sweating on
a housing project in Beckton...
   shame that in the same year: i was on site
when we heard the news about the bombings in London
my ex-girlfriend was going to catch that
bus that exploded...

i think she missed it because she was running late
or some ****...

i miss those days: because tending to people is
hardly work if you are both an introvert
and an extrovert... although: i don't really know anymore...
i've recently come across this acronym I.N.F.J.
acronym: i watched some videos...
mein gott: what ego-stroking...
sometimes: no, all the time... it's a vanity project...
this sort of categorisation of people
is laziness... psychology is lazy compared
to philosophy...

   ooh! really?! are you that special?!
the term advocate? in the ****** language?
it translates as: lawyer...
   but it's true... i've seen people with these S.I.A.
badges that are trigger happy on violence...
i'm always certain any issue can be resolved by conversation
alone, by building a positive rapour
by standing your ground...

psychology is boo-ring to me... it's predictable:
it makes people predictable: cagey... caged...
superficial... psychology used to mean something...
it used to be theoretical: almost philosophical...
now... since it's pop culture...
it's useless... you better look into the underbelly
of psychology: psychiatry... after all...
psychiatrists are psychologists *** pharmacologists...
that's the ugly side...

or see a priest, or see a *******... or read some
philosophy...
         i might have been hurt...
but it was a sort of a pain mollusks feel when:
that ex girlfriend of mine that was almost blown up
in 2004... she once told me that as a child
she would pour salt on snails...
    
         yeah... and when i was much younger
i came across these two boys that caught frogs...
smear them with lipstick and then set them alight...
go figure...
  
to lessen suffering... i always thought that was best...
perhaps that's why i don't think i will ever
have to put up posters of: LOST CAT...
on trees in my vicinity... how can you,
for ****'s sake, "lose" a cat?! you don't ever "lose" a cat!
the cat has had enough!

just a little bit of tenderness... understanding...
i'm thinking: if this isn't work: crowd control...
i should maybe start looking into work related
to metal health... it would be sort of funny:
a guy, diagnosed with a psychotic disorder
starts working in a mental hospital...
    that would be kind of funny...

on a scale of 1 to 10... how mad are you?
10: mad enough to read Kant and Heidegger in the 21st
century... i think that's mad enough...

what a ******... only two days ago
people were complaining about traffic surrounding
Romford... what happened?
a 22 starling... a boy... not yet a man...
jumped off a four storey car park...
and a pretty pancake he must have made...
between 8:52am and 9:02am he was.... GONe...
gone...

when i was having a hard time during my "breakdown"
i tried to imitate Odin... by hanging myself
from a tree...
the noose was there... i was sitting on the branch...
i dropped... ******... the branch broke...
some of us are not so lucky...
even my godmother mentioned this story once...
drunks and madmen... we have all the luck in this world...
we're talking... 7 storeys... high...
in one of those Communist style living blocks
of concrete...
the guy fell... like a... ******* sack of potatoes...
landed in a bush... about an inch from
a metal ****...
got up and simply said: o kurva!
                           oh ****...
and walked on: for another dabble with some
***** mistress...
                                
i sometimes wish this was fiction...
but drunk people fall like sacks of potatoes...
there's no defense mechanism...
they don't try to pretend to fly flapping
their hands in the air...
i remember when i tilted back and fell down
the stairs... did a Lucifer's dive...
of being born: head first...

i don't remember any bruises: any plum tattoos
on my body... that other time...
when the summer was really... really hot:
unbearable in England... 2016?
i'd wake up gasping for air... run but naked
into the garden and lie on the grass in the shade...
but this other time i escaped my bedroom
and decided to snooze in the hallway...
i rolled from side to side... dropped about 2 metres
down onto the stairs...
like a ******* sack of potatoes...

falling to your death: it must feel like that "analogy"
in Salman Rushdie's the Satanic Verse...
one of the characters drops to earth: laconically...
is that the right word? while the other...
is hardly in a freefall...

this 22 year old darling was lucky: he died...
i would have thought it would take a much higher height
to drop dead like that...
at least he didn't survive the fall and have become
bound to a wheelchair and being fed milkshakes
of protein through a tube...
let's be absolutely frank about this fact...

but that's the luck of drunks and madmen...
i was about to start work on the Olympic Village
prior to the 2012 events...
i panicked when my father said:
you'll be drug-tested: he always ******* lies...
they do test... but not to the point of paranoia...
i was about to start the next day...
what did i do? i ****** off to Athens...
the next morning...

i've never been to Athens! i remember catching a bus
from the airport to some random hostel
in view of the Acropolis... on the mountain side:
illuminated... it truly reminded me of Edinburgh...
although... there's not much on Arthur's Seat...
by comparison... first night?

in Athens?! drinking absinthe... putting a hand over
my eyes... left? right? then spontaneously giggling,
laughing... pointing forward...
from what i later heard: it was the ******* district
of Athens... the philosophical quarter of Athens...
plenty of "bums": did i meet a Diogenes of Sinope?
nope... second day i met a few guys who i thought
were Syrians... i got into a car with them...
we drove far ******* far from where i was staying...
to a *******...

at one point: what's the policy in a *******? no touching...
i had two broads on either side of my shoulder...
mingling my lips with their collar bones...
elbows... that parts of the body men can biceps and triceps...
*******... running out of money fast...

escorted by one of the gorillas (bouncers)
to withdraw some more cash: account empty...
******* my pants... literally... i ****** myself...
over excitement or whatever...
sneaking out onto the streets of Athens:
a city i've never visited... we must have been driving
for about half an hour...
yet my drunken GPS woke up...
how i made it back to the hostel:
i will never want to know...

amnesia...

i return to this memory because i remember the coach
trip from Greece... via Macedonia...
Serbia... via Hungary... via Slovakia...
the snow of Serbia: just outside of Belgrade...
looking like a ghost when i encountered my grandparents...

it's a burning in my mind:
i was so cautious whenever i visited Paris...
when i went to Stockholm... i was always so sober...
but in Athens?! random strangers?!
*******?! **** it...

i remember this girl talking to me dropping a green
peg onto the table: insinuating:
i'd like a private audience with you...
i even remember what song was popular in Greece
back then: Rihanna's: only girl in the world...
it was playing on the bus from the airport...

but "we" freefall like a sack of potatoes...
there's no hands flapping...
that boy was lucky: thank god he didn't end up
in a wheelchair... being fed protein milkshakes
through a tube...
lucky *******...
   i sometimes wish the branch i was sitting on didn't
break and i managed to hand myself to
the eternal night of the gods...

but like drunken GPS: how it gets turned on...
don't ask me:
i must have migrating bird genes...
how do storks migrate back to central Europe?
storks... most associate with ****** mythology...
i must have a pea-sized-brain or something...
since... first time in Athens...
and... driven to a ******* minutes from
the city centre where the Parliament is...
**** my pants... and still manage to walk back
and get a good night's sleep!

it's a bit like when i first came to England aged 8...
what knowledge of the English language did i have?
maybe one... or two words... having seen them
written down...

you want to know the slang term for klawisz?
i.e. klaveesch? a button... a key...
on a keyboard... or a piano...
in Poland it usually refers to someone who's
a prison guard...
everyone: or rather, everyone ought to know
about the failure of the Stamford Prison Experiment...

i'm not a klawisz: in this "work" i'm "supposedly"
doing... i'm the mediator...
i never ask for assistance: those... sadistic little
busy bodies i could twist a wrist off if i wanted to...
talk... talk talk talk...
violence comes last: first comes metallurgy...
first comes roofing...
first comes: the art of judo...
first comes compromise...
brute strength comes last...
  but all these ******* i'm working with are:
technically: "rapists"...
i don't agree with their techniques...
talk... talk... we're civilised people... or: i hope...
i believe anything can arrive at a compromise...

i'm already working with people who have
complaints... made complaints...
like that one time against Liverpool fans
when they played the semi-final at Wembley against
Manchester City...
i had a woman from Liverpool walk up to me and kiss
me... she wanted to feel what ***** on a man's face
felt like... and when they were walking out
en masse... ugh... childish *******...
one started tapping me on my shoulder to my right:
i looked left... "no one"...
then some other started tapping me on my shoulder
to my left: i looked right: "no one" there...

i love that we can return to being children!
that's the whole point!
i know i' return to being a child by being
easily irritated!
but at the same time... this easily irritated me
understands that: it's archetypical!
i'm not serious about: whatever the hell this is...
but people can be... dealt with:
without employing: even the least amount of force...
with my own eyes i can attest that:
convo... mere convo...
if by staging this macho you create a subversive
allure of authority...
guess what... i'd rather **** than showcase a taste
of strength...
        
no no... none of this: you think you have authority therefore:
i have no authority to ****...
but i'd rather **** than showcase
a sputnik's worth of authority...
because this showcasing: this grandstanding is:
a load of *******...
it concerns people who never had
to wrestle with themselves to cycle for 4 hours...
who had to break themselves...

that's all it is...
it's just in plain ******* sight!
why didn't i get laid when i dropped round her house,
twice... when i defended her integrity on one of our
trips back:
on the way toward the shift the guys were
making ****** jokes...
i told her: i'm coming back with you: don't worry...
what did the boys talk about? ******* cereal brands...
she didn't have to posit her elbow on my knee
and relax... she didn't have to do anything:
drink my wine... laugh...
giggle... smile... sing in front of me...
she didn't have to invite me into her home...
she didn't have to make me want to drop her
Valentine's flowers in the middle of the night...

she really didn't require me to make her
feel the requirements of feeling protected...
apparently any football hooligan is immune
to the argument: imagine if i were you mother...
a different story if i just stand there and... wink...
oi oi... ups to two toe nothings, eh eh?! wink-wink...
wanna giggle?!
i know a proper rattle that even giggles me
about...
    i like to... put out cigarette buts on my knuckles...
you... want to try?!
it truly is a: transcendental experience
of "emotion"... well... more like feeling...
well.. more like...
              can i break your knee into cartilage?!

but she was so perfect! ginger 'n' all!
ah man... a ginger girl... just 4 years older than me...
a ******* bombshell!
she already mentioned that this guy wasted
20 years of his life to approach her with enough:
******* or... ego or... ****** or... unicorns...
and i was like: **** it: bungee!

   eh... no wonder... what a glorious shrimp: ginger: imp...
there's another one on the horizon...
but this one is less cougar and more: mousey...
but ginger and freckles is like...
cumin and coriander... powder... curry base!

well i get what i can get... alttürkischrabehaar:
old turkish raven hair...
i was born with a fetish for blonde haired girls...
sorry... the story twists...
gingers... Celtic gingers... time's up... the night's
most welcome.
Evan Stephens Apr 2019
Do you
think about
when we
discovered
hornets
in the grass
lot by the
apartment?
They were
drunk on
fallen apples,
and just
watched us
laconically.

I hope you
think about
yourself the
same way -
look back
& remember
you were
a hornet,
lance-cruel,
drunk on sugar,
having wings
you didn't use,
as I walked away.

I'm sure
you don't
think of me
at all. Good -
I hope that
I am your
lacuna.
Aditya Roy Oct 2018
"You're blocking the light."
She said laconically
God replied,"Sorry, I think I was being shortsighted.
Here you go."
Almighty doesn't move
"Thanks" he approbates
"Dominus Iluminatio Mea"-Oxford Motto (The Lord Is Our Light)
Marshal Gebbie Sep 2020
Pitfalls in perfection are beyond the ken of man
With a yen for paranoia on this page without a plan,
Skipping forth with egomania through a paradox or two
When there’s ****** all to brag about, even if it’s true!
For you know it’s all a homily, a house of cards, a ruse
When it flicks across the conscience, (to laconically abuse),
When it slides up to the reputation, (hanging by a thread)
And you wish to Christ you’re indisposed, (or preferably dead!)
A hallmark of the day that thou can never quite slam shut…
Particularly when encountered, friend,
.....for it has found you, three parts cut!

M.
2 September 2020
"Three parts cut" denotes a measure of intoxication...You've been on the Bushmills, again!
Aditya Roy Aug 2019
I knew the bliss
In the knees folded in prayer
Pieces on your stomp bebop don’t burn the bedrock
In the room, rook on the board
Laconically talk to our forthcoming rights
To governance and growth, growing with each prayer
I learn how to pray for less sadness, and more eternalness
Moreover, we need you to be happy about having children
Christ in heaven looks on your soul with affection
The light baptizes the sacrosanct boy, and the girl I’ve known all my life
Is now praying with me and taking me to church

— The End —