man leisured by the least obliging functioning
of what he terms “proper” manual endeavours of the biceps
will clearly resolve the matter being his last adventure that’s consumerism,
creating as many menial jobs as possible without the freedom
to enjoy hardish and the elements;
but of course man’s life will become easier,
but his adventure seeking will
simply become a zoology, a safari,
a safety netting - consumerism is hardly
an adventure, it’s a bicycle schematic:
one wheel produces, another wheel consumes;
most of the jobs under the hammer
were not menial, they became menial
only when heidegger’s hammer was involved
and the rebellion came when hammering nails
in turned into discussing philosophy;
it’s hard to commence an emergence of philosophy
window shopping, woman’s new kitchen area:
you know how many marriages i have seen fail
because of over-cooked pasta? too many.
you know how many glass houses i’ve seen constructed
by women peering into shop windows at mannequins?
too many. i sometimes think about sartre’s c.c.t.v. voyeurism
pervasive in english society alongside paedophilia,
and i guess the jigsaw parts fit... they do;
once dubbed the nation of shopkeepers,
now dubbed the nation of integrally ~foreign mortgage lenders
(nation of property developers / landlords... indeed,
once a nation of shopkeepers, now a nation of landlords):
or a nation re-evaluating communism
by importing slavs to talk of the ups and lows of communism
by trying to curb capitalistic egoism and turn it into a collective
without communism’s egoism father stalin:
                            or queen bee or queen ant china.

Think!
In the Past, under clear sky, any could walk
all over Bharat, though an Indian or not so.
The notion of a nation merging petty kingdoms
dimmed the vision of the people of tolerance.
Selfish kings and selfish landlords together
severed India proclaiming "save India", alas!
     In the post independent India, I was born,
walked freely even in the starry night, till 1970s,
enjoyed outing, slept in lodges, snored under trees.
Then came the Emergency, amidst it, against people;
politicians exploited communal thoughts, Delhi burnt,
for votes; created vote banks; nothing learnt from riots;
no merging, but diverging forces hurled us, viciously
forced us to riots-in Gujarat, Assam, Bombay;
panic people run helter -skelter, in Delhi, elsewhere,
in Pune, Bangalore, Poovar or Marad, no exemption.
How lucky were Adi Sankara and Swami Vivekenanda!
The former founded four Mutts at the pulse-points
of Bharat- the latter roamed not in Rome but in India
(the land of saints, temples, home of gods and godly men)
instilling the spirit of nationalism and social reformation.
    But…while dollars roll over the sovereignty of rupees,
as a ****, with drooping eyes among nations -a land
de jure integrated and de facto dissipated and dejected
by linguistic, fiscal and parochial aspirations strutting us on-
we stand.. Who cares? Sitting around the dying culture  
all Jackals, devour and howl as vultures hover around-I shudder
to move along the road, freely breathe; as espionage, tolls
identification cards, to the satisfaction of the jackals,
that create hurdles on my way, materially, spiritually; and
bribe legislature, corrupt executive,  and blur judiciary,
****** growth and progress -even a lively move of nerves.
Independence led us to dependence to MNCs , in fact
from East India Company the baton went to British kings
and Queens; to lobbies of MNCs later it glided wasting
the blood of revolutionary freedom fighters, hurting them.
The Red Fort became the fort for the corrupted blabbers
who roar by constitution breaking the constitution of the polity.
     I don't dream of Lord Krishna dancing on the hood
of Kaliya on the banks of the Kalindi waters-polluted.
How nice to recall the glory of the past with love and toleration
that assimilated all thoughts of human beings in the world
and flowed  for ages through the canopy beside my cave,
than to shudder at every knock, and to brood in my flat gasping!
……………………………………………………………………
Note:1.Gujarat , Assam, Bombai(Mumbai), Pune, Bangalore, Poovar or Marad, :  these are places where riots or blasts occurred in India
Adi Sankara and Swami Vivekenanda!:two sanyasins(monks) of India the Former proponent of Advaita Vedanta Philosopy and the latter preached it disciple of Sri Ramakrishna  and founder of Ramakrishna Mission in Kolkota, India.
four Mutts: the mutts(Seminaries) established by Adi Sankara in Badarinath in the North , Puri in the East. Dwaraka in the West and Sringeri in the South of India to propagate the Vedic philosophy. It also proves the Undivided Indian concept the ancients had .
MNCs:Multi-National Corporations.
Kaliya on the banks of the Kalindi: A very venomous snake representing Power and torture.Lord Krishna danced on the hoods of it and killed it as per the mythology. Kalindi is River Yamuna in India that divides Delhi in to two.

Freedom to Think!
In the Past, under clear sky, any could walk
all over Bharat, though an Indian or not so.
The notion of a nation merging petty kingdoms
dimmed the vision of the people of tolerance.
Selfish kings and selfish landlords together
severed India proclaiming “save India”, alas!
     In the post independent India, I was born,
walked freely even in the starry night, till 1970s,
enjoyed outing, slept in lodges, snored under trees.
Then came the Emergency, amidst it ,against people;
politicians exploited communal thoughts, Delhi burnt,
for votes; created vote banks; nothing learnt from riots;
no merging, but diverging forces hurled us, viciously          
forced us to riots-in Gujarat ,Assam, Bombay;
panic people run helter -skelter, in Delhi, elsewhere,
in Pune,Bangalore ,Poovar or Marad ,no exemption.
How lucky were Adi Sankara and Swami Vivekenanda!
The former founded four Mutts at the pulse-points
of Bharat- the latter roamed not in Rome but in India
(the land of saints, temples, home of gods and godly men)
instilling the spirit of nationalism and social reformation.
    But…while dollars roll over the sovereignty of rupees,
as a **** ,with drooping eyes among nations -a land
de jure integrated and de facto dissipated and dejected
by linguistic ,fiscal and parochial aspirations strutting us on-
we stand.. Who cares? Sitting around the dying culture
all Jackals, devour and howl as vultures hover around-I shudder
to move along the road, freely breathe; as espionage, tolls
identification cards, to the satisfaction of the jackals,
that create hurdles on my way, materially, spiritually; and
bribe legislature, corrupt executive,  and blur judiciary,
****** growth and progress -even a lively move of nerves.
Independence led us to dependence to MNCs  ,in fact
from East India Company the baton went to British kings
and Queens; to lobbies of MNCs later it glided wasting
the blood of revolutionary freedom fighters, hurting them.
The Red Fort became the fort for the corrupted blabbers
who roar by constitution breaking the constitution of the polity.
     I don’t dream of Lord Krishna dancing on the hood
of Kaliya on the banks of the Kalindi waters-polluted.
How nice to recall the glory of the past with love and toleration
that assimilated all thoughts of human beings in the world
and flowed  for ages through the canopy beside my cave ,
than to shudder at every knock, and to brood in my flat gasping!
……………………………………………………………………

In the Past, under clear sky, any could walk
all over Bharat, though an Indian or not so.
The notion of a nation merging petty kingdoms
dimmed the vision of the people of tolerance.
Selfish kings and selfish landlords together
severed India proclaiming “save India”, alas!
     In the post independent India, I was born,
walked freely even in the starry night, till 1970s,
enjoyed outing, slept in lodges, snored under trees.
Then came the Emergency, amidst it ,against people;
politicians exploited communal thoughts, Delhi burnt,
for votes; created vote banks; nothing learnt from riots;
no merging, but diverging forces hurled us, viciously
forced us to riots-in Gujarat ,Assam, Bombay;
panic people run helter -skelter, in Delhi, elsewhere,
in Pune,Bangalore ,Poovar or Marad ,no exemption.
How lucky were Adi Sankara and Swami Vivekenanda!
The former founded four Mutts at the pulse-points
of Bharat- the latter roamed not in Rome but in India
(the land of saints, temples, home of gods and godly men)
instilling the spirit of nationalism and social reformation.
    But…while dollars roll over the sovereignty of rupees,
as a **** ,with drooping eyes among nations -a land
de jure integrated and de facto dissipated and dejected
by linguistic ,fiscal and parochial aspirations strutting us on-
we stand.. Who cares? Sitting around the dying culture  
all Jackals, devour and howl as vultures hover around-I shudder
to move along the road, freely breathe; as espionage, tolls
identification cards, to the satisfaction of the jackals,
that create hurdles on my way, materially, spiritually; and
bribe legislature, corrupt executive,  and blur judiciary,
****** growth and progress -even a lively move of nerves.
Independence led us to dependence to MNCs  ,in fact
from East India Company the baton went to British kings
and Queens; to lobbies of MNCs later it glided wasting
the blood of revolutionary freedom fighters, hurting them.
The Red Fort became the fort for the corrupted blabbers
who roar by constitution breaking the constitution of the polity.
     I don’t dream of Lord Krishna dancing on the hood
of Kaliya on the banks of the Kalindi waters-polluted.
How nice to recall the glory of the past with love and toleration
that assimilated all thoughts of human beings in the world
and flowed  for ages through the canopy beside my cave ,
than to shudder at every knock, and to brood in my flat gasping!
…………………………………………………………………….

How can I be the closest to your home, and still unknown,
How can I be the closest to the Sun, closest to the scorch,
and still have the most icy landlords in my poles,
and why can I and twilight be seen by you alone?

How come from my surface, light does not work--light does not hurt, I do not blink as I think, even as the sunset pours lava forth, and that sunset is that lie of time, as you disappear in darkness, I almost disappear in light, then the stars scream across the sky, in a geminid shower rewind, in my unblinking muse, in the solar hues, the great inferno retreats, and the slower speed of Earth I view, And I see the astrologer, with his useless scope, trying to track my path, futile as the priests trying to invent gold.
They cannot understand my core, with machines that are perfect because I am perfectly mercurial on the surface,
with the intense cold of my poles, and the intense burning solar gold of my repose,  I view blinding light, then infinite starry night, and cold dark logic they are encased in--my deep dark basins--and the rolling triumph of my surface's relief is from breathless sandy ovation beneath.


        But now is my silver region where I compose, between extremes, no ovation no gold, only metallic mercury upon the barren from faint starlight strobes.  Here is where my dark volumes are known, but  like shifting shadows--from light are closed.  Then a clock strikes the hour, when my surface is reinvested with power,  the oncoming of a sunset getting louder and louder,  and in my face a cold severe place, and on my stare intense solar glare.

   My theater is caused by applause, my temple is lit with pale light of long dead stars, and I crash and die young forever like my short lived geminid sparks,  In your twilight is my house, and with my intense and icy blood, I protect the memory and mystery of love.

Burnt adolescence, the smell of survivors
The satiric regime beholds.
White-gloved landlords, picking at grapefruit
By what means was this chapter told?

By a pigheaded guerilla lad
In a trench coat and top hat
With an ego to the distance of the sun
Alcohol is flammable
To the ones with sharpened mandibles  
For myself, it was all jolly good fun

Hell with Manu! Manu go to hell!
The wrath of your interpretation,
Put us under an inhuman subjugation.

You turned a group,
Dictators of a merciless culture,
Transformed us worse,
Than a scavenging vulture.

You gifted us the psychology of the worst slaves,
And robbed our culture, worship and God,
Who is there to get us out from these graves?

For centuries till now continue our struggle,
We are forced to live with worst strangles
In the poisonous jungle,

We the humans treated much worse,
Than dogs insects and poo eating pig,
Our scars wounds and blows,
Still remain untouchable and big.

Poisonous **** declared the crops untouchable,
Proclaimed itself the most unconquerable,
Less than a second it takes,
To **** the poisonous weeds with a cutter,
Throw them into the useless gutter.

Landlords, who rule the land and hill,
Put the lives of untouchable crops to a standstill,
Multiplied the existence of poisonous ****,
At the expense of the healthy crop seed.

Our journey in the doors of
Movements, struggle and legal
Was quite a win,
That proved out to be absolutely lethal.

We won successfully in the battle of right,
Till the end of the topmost administrative fight,
We lost to erase your caste ridden thought,
That is useless rigid and tight.

With your caste names,
You remind and hurt us, with useless exhibition
In hearts, we created die hard flames,
To take up the long term ambitions,
And get us out from these addicted inhibitions.

From mother's womb to a cemetery,
We have a same human life,
But when it comes to temple sanctum,
You **** us with a political double edged knife.

We built the temples,
You played a gamble and created troubles,
Pushed us to convert,
Got our identities to subvert.

World belongs to everyone,
Our life does not hold value.

Nature belongs to everyone,
We do not have access to water by Vedas virtue.

God is equal to everyone,
But we are restricted entry, as an oppressed queue.

There is no use to argue,
Of course it is untrue,
Let's put ourselves to the rescue.

What's next? What's next?
Let's create a new humanity societal text,
Let's create for ourselves new religions,
Let's begin to reach out to the next generation,
Work with them to build new revolution.

Let's create a new religion,
In nooks and corners, all areas, rural and urban,
That treats humans as humans,
And give life to the humanity slogan.

Change the rules! Yeah change the rules!
Throw into gutters all these useless fools,
For human lives, there can be nothing to tally,
Human life remains invaluable and holy

Being human is my true breed,
Crows and cuckoo belong to our creed,
Mountains and sea belong to our human group
Be proud, you will belong to this peaceful troop.

Let us get up, where we fell
And put this curse to the hell.

We catch the sunset
while eating
breakfast: ignoring
mothers, ignoring
landlords, skinning our knees
and skipping supper,
using the kitchen with some
improvisation, forgetting to stir
the pasta, blotting bacon
with coffee filters,  
flinging linguini on the walls
and the ceilings (for
if cooked it will cling
but if raw it will fall).
“Is that pasta on the wall?”
“Is it purple?”

Outside a boy
in a dress shirt and a girl in
a paisley skirt walked past
the window, holding hands
and clutching palm
Sunday leaves.

Then the strand of linguini
began to detach itself from
the ceiling, like a break dancer,
with flimsy limbs,
and when it dropped
it fell through the air
like an Olympic
diver, twirling and curling
with two ends clung
to one another
and then unfolding
underwater.

'i've only ever really read one poem. i, i have to admit.*  
You know, that, that one poem that everyone’s read, whatsit,
Howl by Ginsberg, 'best-minds-of-my-generation-destroyed-by-madness,-starving-hyste­rical-naked,' , yeah, that one;'
'It's just, I identify with it so strongly.' she says,
'That poem is soo me.'
It's funny how commentary on a generation 60 odd years ago come across as timeless insights..
how we learn that true spirit of rebellion and counterculture three generations ago,
  as it is taught to us by two generation ago countercounterculture academics.
but I guess, inevitably
                                         we
                                                  return,
  to those half drowned pontifications inevitably decried into transcendental truth by the onward spilling ratchet of cultural recognition;
  that sense of universal oneness generated by the unwashed ramblings of beat-generation hipsters dense innuendo in run on sentences running, running from their upper-lower-middle-class New York homes and their privilege of true vacant meaninglessness and despair,
   to those nervous tucked in shirted clean shaven scholars swooning over the same seme drugged, melancholic bearded men profussing the deepest of opaque truths only found up the furthest reaches of their own *****.
  As we push through to our lectures, the mosaic in motion of blazer wearing mac-users and mac-pac wearing blazers,
  As we hysterically interpret the formatting conditions for our reports, which could hang in the balance of whether the dreams we once had will ever be actualised,
  As we felt lost and found and found and lost at those park benches under the stars, where occasional strangers strolled by offering sessions and life-stories,
  As we paid exorbitantly to get out of our parents homes, and into tin-can flats with broken windows, absentee landlords and cracked paint only held together by all the moss, (the empowerment that is wage slavery,) for in our youth, poverty is not an ever-present pejorative, but the rite of passage to show that we are alive,
  As rituals of manhood are defined by two things and two things only; how much insomnia one can accumulate to meet insane and inane deadlines, and how much one can illuminate the walls in ***** from all the beers, spirits, cheap wines and questionable home-brews,
  As the government dismantles the human-rights commission, and we nervously attend the rallies initiated by the radicals, and the man on the megaphone calls on the crowd to chant and we can only mumble and laugh nervously at ourselves,
  And when the next speaker runs onto stage feeling the need to plead to this already nervous, placid mass that this is in-fact a PEACEFUL PROTEST, and that we are all true patriots and they insist everyone start singing the national anthem and we all look down and we again mumble, or pretend somehow not to hear them,
  and when, in this biggest independent rally around a unified cause our generation's ever seen, we have never felt so alone ,
  and isolated,  
                                  we
                                             remember,
                                                                    those earlier days,
  When we'd bleach our hair; we'd poison ourselves white, in the vain mystic hope that this was just the transition period to the time when we'd get true colour into our lives,
  Remember our wonder at the Eurocentric Asiatic television representations of the Abrahamic faiths, given transubstantiated holy revival by the medium of Saturday morning digital pastel pasture; when we were children staring excited and wide eyed into the Metatrons Fire of Sinai 'Random Almighty Mega Damage'; as Dante and the seraph class Tyrant-infused-Michael inevitably made battle with YHWH, -in the one True End,- as we grinded within the monolithic emerald obsidian halls, Mystical wonderment spilling forth from our reddened hollow eyes, at the beautiful unlimited expansive world contained within our console/consoling digital unit discs; conformally mapped and etched into the convex hull of our minds,
  Where we were gods, doing battle with every possible creature in morphospace, filleted into overpriced cards and cartridges, for which our strategies meant so much to us though none of us really understood the game,
  When we could quote verbatim every piece of dialogue in GTA2, and get concerned glances from our parents as we conjured veiled imagery of bukake-ladled innuendo which we didn't really understand until six or seven years later,
  When sexuality was a special secret club our elders and the kids in the years above came across so wise for being a member of, rather than an anti-turing test; a farcical ritual where everyone tries their best to imitate the hyper-reality of MTV while hiding the nervous feelings that this whole thing was really meant for someone other than us,
  When creating a whole new lexicon for our self-hood (be it artistic, ******, political or philosophical) felt like existential emancipation; a transcendental rebellion against the normalising identities and semantics of old, rather than an impenetrable circle-**** taxonomy,
  When one day we'd unveil a new term in some text, and it would completely change our outlook on every corner of our lives,
  Or, the next day, when we'd give up and just sit back on rolling banks, and look out at a veil of stars,
  Or the next day, when we'd wonder desperate and painfully, which of the last two was the real pursuit and which was wasted time? (Or was it this day, the day spent building an illusory dialectic between them?)
  Remember when we were in kindergarden, and you had to pass through the kitchen, -the adults zone,- to get to the toilet, and you'd feel both shame and wonderment listening in of the snippets of conversation muttered by these titanic figures; discussing abstruse issues from the newspaper in foreign yet noble tongues?
  Remember when we were teens, and every form-checking observation and question from these same adults was so painstakingly pedantically banal and asinine, that one could only respond with monosyllabic grunts and silent hysterics?
  And remember as 'young adults', when we'd inevitably entered this same dull Aristotelian world of forms, how we'd ask the same adults for advice on filling these paperworks, at once still asemic gibberish, and at once the fine-print that contained and predicted our lives?
  Remember when our dreams for the future were not bounded by the economy of our grade point averages and just how much debt we were willing to incur
                                …
I've seen the best minds of my generation climb into pre-packaged little boxes; and pay through the teeth for the privilege of doing so.  
  Akin to a 'Howl' they call it? Our cry for selfhood? What a scream.
It's not even a cry. Barely a whimper.
More of a zombified groan, completely aware our intrepid Journey of Self is just a pricey guided tour. (Tv Ad's static commodified existential emancipatory platitudes; 'your place in the world' / 'well it's my place and it's my time' urgh.)
And so we march asleep; all lame all blind.
  Trudging through the mind-fields; arguing, unravelling the semantic distinctions between the empty boundaries and the boundaries of emptiness.
  Transcribed down for essay deadlines,  /  assessing our lives trajectory as dead lines,
Becoming increasingly aware,
  We are not the living beings, the dasein, the Übermenschen being actualised; we are the machinery through which the institutions, the factories, the markets and education facilities actualise themselves.
  (While the only acceptable language we can breathe in opposition to these ratcheting pedagogical machines is the lexicon they provide us..
  ('oh, you hate systemic neoliberal alienation; the deestablishment of ontological anthropocentrism? Tell me more about the esoteric uselessness of academic culture.') bluh.)

But

       the more we follow those phantom images we built of ourselves,
the more we become aware they are but sirens; hypnotic dreamlike figures luring us to our doom,
  and as this awareness dawns; and the cognitive dissonances and schizophrenia grows,
       We


                                just try to keep calm and carry on regardless.

Can we really claim the arrogance of having a better path?
The conceit that there's a better cliff we should be guiding ourselves to to top ourselves off?
I don't know,
I reaally
really
just don't know.

given but only two algorithms of time, or trigonometric said in chemistry, vectors: para-, meta-, and ortho-, i'd be bored with merely mind two assertions of a beginning, one with that in this atmosphere, and one with all possible atmospheres... and a third missing? that wouldn't do! i'd need a third algorithm, to fluctuate between the atomic and the fully formed, clearly historical, ideally biased on humanism to the point of being scientifically fictional, or, to put it mildly, a Welshman in the Jurassic Period; forgetful about Freud's necessity of having allocated dreams a complexity of language necessarily worth deciphering: i want to know why the Welsh invested their lack of unconscious-imagination's (dreams) worth of the couch to digest dragons, as a much dated predisposition to unearth dinosaur skeletons, and feel absolutely no revealing remnant of collecting a people to the assimilated tongue, yet upon discovery disperse them, and abhor the nativity of the said tongue as futile when given the agility of a colonising tongue.*

what the difference between only my entombed heart
knows the difference to, write a poem as personal as this
one enables me to write one in the φarmacy (φ + θ = F...
nein veto) - politicians have lost the art of ρetoric - they simply
lost it... it's a sunken ship they try to revive while mending the sails...
we keep the Indian Summers and my hope that the
(a double definite, paradoxically accurate
given this) turnip fade-away
red becomes godly ivory when her cinnamon
choc auburn pleases her heart,
just then it might please, and i might
redeem myself, away from the Irish pub
and the aunts knitting a wedlock of
salient harmony for the churchyard
where the Sunday's best made the most
impression with the forthcoming grave
of a Kubrick marriage: redeemed with wearing
masks, later a damnation, of worn
lied attention, performed for a social status excuse:
x ambassadors: mainly Jews...
rage against the machine: mainly Black
converts to Islam...
where's the energy, with a skateboard of:
white cool everyone's happy,
or with: i'm angry... i'm angry...
                              martin Luther King was a renegade
without a hippy skateboard....
                       so it sold a million of toothbrushes
and a million fluoride attaches of rot...
cos the buck was necessary for the pristine example
of the founding father: Abram Lincoln -
got the appropriate shave, never got the congress
to suggest the kiss was a (fl)oral excuse for oral ***
upon the f.g.m. Eden minded when Egyptian
contra was suggested - yes, also called fluoride -
or Fl... then oral...  so the Frappuccino
and later the khaki chinos,
or ambrosia Mussolini and the 5 p.m. tea
catch phrase, so it just felt like dodging a meteorite
so the people could yawn when watching a movie
about Dinosaurs... or like i said:
just before earth was inhabitable, Mars was wheezing...
just before Earth gave us the sterile environment of
having landlords we had the masters of Mars...
they lived there, when Earth was inhabitable we had
Martians... compared to Earth Mars became the second moon...
but prior to the hospitable nature of earth
acquiring us, Mars was just as habitable...
this is the point where we acknowledge common sense
of the Chinese and the Welsh prescribing us Dinosaurs with
Dragons when digging up fossils and carbon dating....
this is where N.A.S.A. says... **** me... we just invested in *******...
between Darwinism and the microbe and a lot of blanks...
and the big bang... the best intermediate solution we
have is to say: before earth became habitable Mars was the first
project of divinity's expressing competence with failure
and revision.... when Mars was habitable
the sun was much smaller and much warmer...
this is the third route to seek origins,
you have route 1: from monkey came the rational man,
or the **** quasi sapiens... later the
**** deus pseudo sapiens...
2. the big bang and on the basis of nouns:
a real ****** way to say genesis...
or... 3. prior to earth Mars was the prime concern
of divine ingenuity...
through the times Mars became less volcanic and more Saharan,
just like earth at the beginning...
i mean Mars was the first earth... hence we inherited the
warring archetype...
or like philosophers: standing outside all of time and space
and a toilet blockage of imagination...
we're waiting for the third version... Venus turning
into earth... forget the monkey and man...
i itemise the sphere of the sun third time lucky...
as faked war we inherited, so too the fake love of those
to inherit our blunder... and thus the combination
of what's to be said in the first place, or anything at all...
Venusian love of the purified mammalian leveraging
simpleton onomatopoeia knock-knock... who's there?
woof! this is the alternative third route...
the one establishes us in the dynamical face of monkey
gene disparity economic, i.e. so similar... yet so different...
the other the big bang.. and then the third...
before earth became habitable, Mars was the suggested
preference... well, with the two obscene time-scales
this third alternative is in no way equally obscene.

(Inspired by article below)

I.

Continuity
your filibuster egg of sand
dazzled curiosity
with creaky shell of hints
heaped upon the tedium
of knowledge's unfurl undeterred
by encyclopedic impatience

Assurances of rip(Van Winkl)ed
economics shooed paper strings of
revelation like anarchy-powered
taxes summoning a foreword
to anachronistic campaigns
of environmental friendliness

II.

Meanwhile years
have been filed down to flashes of
chronology for continuity's organic rebus

However long it took
the economic karma to fall into the
abodes of hedonistic pharaohs
it was instant

Skin that ruled behind the constitution
of allergic breath
bailed on the bones against their most
sublime intentions

Limbo-treading landlords
huddled in their mummified freeze
after breadline bashers scolded them
with the spoils of a new brand
of pyramid scheming

Robbers of the coffin palaces
stole the intimations of identity
theft from today

Immortality and freedom
were compelled to share a meaning
like estranged siblings
or bound dynasties

I(a).

Abydos
how you coyly toyed with us
with a diversion bordering on monolithic

04 23 14

.i (am) giddity giddity getting it... lying is an economic policy that
exhausts all investment in reality.

blow backs and...
i've never heard so much
politics on the citizenry level of
implementing the discovery
of politics...
    
    i love Tuesday nights in
these parts of the world...
German army jacket, hood...
walking really slow,
drinking a beer,
smoking a cigarette...
tense upper-body frame,
not moving my hands
that much,
intimidating posture...

  passing cars don't count...
**** me...
like a scene fro the Vanilla Sky
beginning...
in Times Sq.....
but this is Romford,
the outback that somehow
constitutes London...
i made a count...
how many people did i spot?
3... and that includes me...

i love Tuesday nights...
and then making lunch
for my father going to work...

next time i hear the following...
all these internet bums
imploring for donations...
they're...working?
making ******* videos?!
that's work?!
  that's work?!
and me writing is what...
Stephen King ***
David Koontz?!

they're working?!
right... making existentialist
quasi-*******
with a return of: how else
to be a consumer?!
that's work?!
    work... come to think of it...
what's work?
low unemployment levels...
yeah... go figure...
but the jobs on offer...
aren't they, just a tad bit
*******?!
         the sort of work that
is summarized by ctrl + c
              and a cntrl + p?
if there is so much work available,
sure as **** the work is "work",
i.e. it's *******...
it's not a plumbing spot...
it's... the sort of work
that... could also come with
a contraceptive message,
a ****** career...
            why even bother doing this,
this... "job" when you can align
yourself to making contraceptive
precautions?!
so... you want me...
to do this, "job"...
this waste of time bollocking of
the lesser actor?
        no ******* chance...

unemployment is down...
well of course it is...
more meaningless jobs
have been re-imagined!
    no wonder!

i'd understand a cinema cashier,
there was a sense of aura,
notably with the popcorn scent...
but now?

no... over-population isn't
a problem...
but meaningless jobs are...
a ******* problem...
    ******* attempting to suffice
my escapism with a meaningless
function that is...
about as much a trade
as a peanut is a watermelon...
*******!

i'll huff... and i'll puff...
and... ****... forgot the cucumber...
make my father
the sort of lunch that
kings dream of...
   yeah... but just sandwiches?
and only sandwiches?
  ****... forgot the cucumber...
      a thai cucumber pineapple salad...
oh no... you little ***** bank donation
******* and *******...
you get to rent...
       you get to rent a flat...
coughing up money to the most
deplorable people... your landlords...
should have thought about your
teenage tantrums...
   and thought about
  talking to your parents differently...
incidence...
i dated a Russian girl once...
and she told me...
that her grandmother was her mother,
and that her mother was her sister...
a ******* confusing relationship...
**** yeah that it ended!

well... evidently the retards coughing
up money into strangers' coffers
will deem me ******...
    then again...
only in the west there's the parental thesis
of being a child, and subsequently
an adult... only if: you are ashamed
of having parents to begin with;

hello, test-tube Dan,
frozen egg Hilary,
           IVF... Peaches?!

counter argument: well...
i could live in a shack in a forest,
or call my shadow a roof,
lingering on the paved streets...
then again...
my neighbors lied that
they bought a house,
and they're... what... 30 something?
saying they're renting it out...
and yet...
  they have house parties
under their parents' roof...
and smoke **** in their car...

lying is an economic policy that
exhausts all investment by reality;
i do not find lying
to be a moral encompass,
more an economic bypass...
      lying, simply doesn't make any
economic sense...
  "morally" (in question)
      advantageous in
the short term...
   but economically...
lying is exhausting...
            given that it's a lived
fiction... rather than
a non-lived fiction of a book...
i don't lie...
  because...
              what one cannot love,
one better be ashamed of...
****... does that even make sense?!
to be denied a love,
     one can at least bask in the shame,
that the truth of denial entails...
yeah... that sounds better.

214

I taste a liquor never brewed—
From Tankards scooped in Pearl—
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of Air—am I—
And Debauchee of Dew—
Reeling—thro endless summer days—
From inns of Molten Blue—

When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove’s door—
When Butterflies—renounce their “drams”—
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats—
And Saints—to windows run—
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the—Sun—

Hiroshima Poems

Let Us Be Midwives!
by Hiroshima survivor Sadako Kurihara
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Midnight . . .
the basement of a shattered building . . .
atomic bomb survivors sniveling in the darkness . . .
not a single candle between them . . .
the odor of blood . . .
the stench of death . . .
the sickly-sweet smell of decaying humanity . . .
the groans . . .
the moans . . .
Out of all that, suddenly, miraculously, a voice:
"The baby's coming!"
In the hellish basement, unexpectedly,
a young mother has gone into labor.
In the dark, lacking a single match, what to do?
Scrambling to her side,
forgetting themselves . . .

It appears that my translation above has been used by Hiroshima University in a new field of study called International Peace and Coexistence. I found my translation on the university’s Peace and Coexistence Facebook page. Being a longtime peace activist, I am particularly happy with the name of the course!



Now the remaining Hiroshima survivors are aging, and they must wonder what the world has learned from their harrowing ordeal:

See: whose surviving sons
visit the ancestral graves
white-bearded, with trembling canes?
―Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



We should always consider the fates of innocent children:

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
―Michael R. Burch, "Epitaph for a Child of Hiroshima"



The intense heat and light of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts left behind ghostly silhouettes of human beings whose lives were erased in an instant:

Hiroshima Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

Hiroshima shadows ... mother and child ...
Oh, when will our hearts ever be beguiled
to end mindless war ... to seek peace,
            reconciled
to our common mortality?



Poets remind us that we all share a common destiny:

Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
―Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Something
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost―
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.

Something uncapturable is gone―
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.

Something unforgettable is past―
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
and finality has swept into a corner where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.



Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this―
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...



Lucifer, to the Enola Gay
by Michael R. Burch

Go then, and give them my meaning
so that their teeming
streets
become my city.

Bring back a pretty
flower,
a chrysanthemum,
perhaps, to bloom
if but an hour,
within a certain room
of mine
where
the sun does not rise or fall,
and the moon,
although it is content to shine,
helps nothing at all.

There,
if I hear the wistful call
of their voices
regretting choices
made
or perhaps not made
in time,
I can look back upon it and recall,
in all its pale forms sublime,
still
Death will never be holy again.



The day the Cloud reigned
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was clear on Hiroshima,
sealing her fate.
The report of the weather plane,
neither early nor late,
was certainly plain.

The few innocuous clouds did not refrain
from abandoning the city.
Only the silence, monstrous in its complicity,
regarding man’s error
acknowledged the horror.

Only the small, astonished victims
understood the immaculate heavens:
the inconceivable light
igniting their bones;
the Cloud, all of a sudden,
billowing unbidden,
and then the apocalyptic rain
descending again and again.

So that where white chrysanthemums
had once whispered with bemused tongues
instantly only ashen ruins remained
the day the Cloud reigned.



War Close Up
by Hiroshima survivor Kurihara Sadako
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stirring bugles! Rousing martial music!
The announcer reporting "victory"
like some messenger from on high,
fanning, fanning the fervored flames of battle!

Masterful state magicians materializing
in a wizardly procession,
spreading cleverly poisoned words
to bewilder reason!
Artistic expression abracadabra-ed into state-sponsored magic!

The sound of boots, guns, bombs, cannons
as our army advances, advances, advances toward the enemy!
The thunder of our invincible tanks advancing! Alleluia!
The sudden, sweet gurgles of drowning enemy ships!

The radio broadcasts the sounds of battle:
A war hymn resounding to the skies,
sung by courageous men and women
who worship this cruel idol, War.

Oh, so powerful the merest whiff
addles even the most independent spirit―
the ***** of patriotism!
the religion of race!

While on scenic islands
scattered like stepping stones across the globe,
and on farflung continents,
driven by boundless avarice,
the landlords rage and rave again,
instilling hatred in indigenous populations
then prodding, driving them into battle.
Full of high-sounding pretexts
inevitably adapted to expediency
they raise indisputable banners―
God is on our side!
Righteous war!
Holy war!

"Right" becomes the password of thieves.
They square their shoulders:
"To secure world peace
annihilate
the evil opponent!"

They bark commands:
"For ten years, a hundred years,
fight to the last man, the last woman!"
The master magicians' martial music
resounds magisterially;
fanatic bull-mad patriots
roar and run amok;
completely bewitched, the people carol in unison:
"O, let me die by the side of my sweet Sovereign!"

Keywords/Tags: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, atomic bomb, Japan, Japanese, translation, nukes, nuclear weapons, nuclear war, epitaph, child, children, mother, mothers, father, fathers, WWII, apocalypse, Armageddon

Trees hold the deep earth together way below with crooked fingers of the underworld and catches foul above
Upward to the heavens on finger towers,
clapping on winds they shake their dander
And the makers of green bras on mountain tops

They are the landlords of ground,and air beasts, and
incumbent giants of the ages
They whisper being puppeteered by winds of old
They are the alchemists of oxygen
They are dangling playgrounds
They are the Autumn crunches beneath our feet

Trunk etchings by bards, trees reflecting
cultures' dissemination
We walk under penumbras that deny the scorch of summer
as cool water douses fire, so too, shade douses heat

Watching trees in my pleasant reverie I observe how they
help break the carpeted land, bringing about a  certain diversity in moving tranquility and rustling of their songs

the last time i was home
to see my mother we kissed
exchanged pleasantries
and unpleasantries pulled a warm  
comforting silence around
us and read separate books


i remember the first time
i consciously saw her
we were living in a three room  
apartment on burns avenue


mommy always sat in the dark
i don’t know how i knew that but she did


that night i stumbled into the kitchen
maybe because i’ve always been
a night person or perhaps because i had wet
the bed
she was sitting on a chair
the room was bathed in moonlight diffused through  
those thousands of panes landlords who rented
to people with children were prone to put in windows  
she may have been smoking but maybe not
her hair was three-quarters her height
which made me a strong believer in the samson myth  
and very black


i’m sure i just hung there by the door
i remember thinking: what a beautiful lady


she was very deliberately waiting
perhaps for my father to come home  
from his night job or maybe for a dream
that had promised to come by  
“come here” she said “i’ll teach you  
a poem: i see the moon
               the moon sees me
               god bless the moon
               and god bless me”  
i taught it to my son
who recited it for her
just to say we must learn  
to bear the pleasures
as we have borne the pains



Nikki Giovanni, “Mothers” from My House. Copyright © 1972 by Nikki Giovanni.

New-mown hay smell and wind of the plain made her
     a woman whose ribs had the power of the hills in
     them and her hands were tough for work and there
     was passion for life in her womb.
She and her man crossed the ocean and the years that
     marked their faces saw them haggling with landlords
     and grocers while six children played on the stones
     and prowled in the garbage cans.
One child coughed its lungs away, two more have adenoids
     and can neither talk nor run like their mother,
     one is in jail, two have jobs in a box factory
And as they fold the pasteboard, they wonder what the
     wishing is and the wistful glory in them that flutters
     faintly when the glimmer of spring comes on
     the air or the green of summer turns brown:
They do not know it is the new-mown hay smell calling
     and the wind of the plain praying for them to come
     back and take hold of life again with tough hands
     and with passion.

1.  Inability to throw away possessions


ive never been able to get rid of the bracelet you gave me. my cat broke it the first week i had it, but something about throwing it away wraps my wrist with a sensation of betrayal- like im throwing away your company with it. the string still sits on my nightstand.


2. Severe anxiety when attempting to discard items


even though i’ve never worn them, your jackets and shirts outline my bedroom- curtains that block the clarity of what once was with a dressed up version of you i’ve never been able to tear down.

3. Great difficulty categorizing or organizing possessions


it was when i began to leave my thank you notes beside screws, and love letters near lighters, that i realized i’d forgotten how to feel the differences between them.

4. Indecision about what to keep or where to put things


disregarding the good because of the bad feels like an admission of defeat to a ruler i never knew was in charge. when i pick up the way you held my hand, i dont mean to put down the way you wrapped yours around my neck- but i only have one drawer and its not big enough for the two of them.

5. Distress, such as feeling overwhelmed or embarrassed by possessions


when i offer an apology, it is because the amount of landlords that have evicted me for having too much inside myself is more than i ever learned to count. im afraid that i will never stop living in someone else's home, loving in someone else's heart, before i learn to build my own.

6. Suspicion of other people touching items


each day feels a little lighter- as though someone is removing a stone from a bag i didn’t realize i had been forced to carry. ive yet to understand if this ease is unwelcome.

7. Obsessive thoughts and actions: fear of running out of an item or of needing it in the future; checking the trash for accidentally discarded objects


you’ve not read a book in ten years. your novel still lays on my nightstand.

8. Functional impairments, including loss of living space, social isolation, family or marital discord, financial difficulties, health hazards


i havent been able to bring another person to visit the garden i spent years tending to. when the water stopped coming in, i’d no choice but to begin withering- and i’d rather go peacefully than to be let down again because i trusted you to end the drought.

Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
And granted me the freedom of their state,
And in their secret senate have prevailed
With the dear dangerous lords that rule our life,
Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
And pitying through my solitary wont
Shot million rays of thought and tenderness.

For me in showers, in sweeping showers, the spring
Visits the valley:—break away the clouds,
I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air,
And loiter willing by yon loitering stream.
Sparrows far off, and, nearer, yonder bird
Blue-coated, flying before, from tree to tree,
Courageous sing a delicate overture,
To lead the tardy concert of the year.
Onward, and nearer draws the sun of May,
And wide around the marriage of the plants
Is sweetly solemnized; then flows amain
The surge of summer's beauty; dell and crag,
Hollow and lake, hill-side, and pine arcade,
Are touched with genius. Yonder ragged cliff
Has thousand faces in a thousand hours.

Here friendly landlords, men ineloquent,
Inhabit, and subdue the spacious farms.
Traveller! to thee, perchance, a tedious road,
Or soon forgotten picture,— to these men
The landscape is an armory of powers,
Which, one by one, they know to draw and use.
They harness, beast, bird, insect, to their work;
They prove the virtues of each bed of rock,
And, like a chemist 'mid his loaded jars,
Draw from each stratum its adapted use,
To drug their crops, or weapon their arts withal.
They turn the frost upon their chemic heap;
They set the wind to winnow vetch and grain;
They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime;
And, on cheap summit-levels of the snow,
Slide with the sledge to inaccessible woods,
O'er meadows bottomless. So, year by year,
They fight the elements with elements,
(That one would say, meadow and forest walked
Upright in human shape to rule their like.)
And by the order in the field disclose,
The order regnant in the yeoman's brain.

What these strong masters wrote at large in miles,
I followed in small copy in my acre:
For there's no rood has not a star above it;
The cordial quality of pear or plum
Ascends as gladly in a single tree,
As in broad orchards resonant with bees;
And every atom poises for itself,
And for the whole. The gentle Mother of all
Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds;
The innumerable tenements of beauty;
The miracle of generative force;
Far-reaching concords of astronomy
Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds;
Mainly, the linked purpose of the whole;
And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty,
The home of homes plain-dealing Nature gave.

The polite found me impolite; the great
Would mortify me, but in vain:
I am a willow of the wilderness,
Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts
My garden-***** can heal. A woodland walk,
A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine,
Salve my worst wounds, and leave no cicatrice.
For thus the wood-gods murmured in my ear,
Dost love our manners? Canst thou silent lie?
Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature pass
Into the winter night's extinguished mood?
Canst thou shine now, then darkle,
And being latent, feel thyself no less?
As when the all-worshipped moon attracts the eye,
The river, hill, stems, foliage, are obscure,
Yet envies none, none are unenviable.

Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,
Possessed the land which rendered to their toil
Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood.
Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm,
Saying, "'Tis mine, my children's and my name's.
How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees!
How graceful climb those shadows on my hill!
I fancy these pure waters and the flags
Know me, as does my dog: we sympathize;
And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.'

Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:
And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.
They added ridge to valley, brook to pond,
And sighed for all that bounded their domain;
'This suits me for a pasture; that's my park;
We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge,
And misty lowland, where to go for peat.
The land is well,--lies fairly to the south.
'Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back,
To find the sitfast acres where you left them.'
Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds
Him to his land, a lump of mould the more.
Hear what the Earth says:--

Earth-Song

'Mine and yours;
Mine, not yours, Earth endures;
Stars abide--
Shine down in the old sea;
Old are the shores;
But where are old men?
I who have seen much,
Such have I never seen.

'The lawyer's deed
Ran sure,
In tail,
To them, and to their heirs
Who shall succeed,
Without fail,
Forevermore.

'Here is the land,
Shaggy with wood,
With its old valley,
Mound and flood.
"But the heritors?--
Fled like the flood's foam.
The lawyer, and the laws,
And the kingdom,
Clean swept herefrom.

'They called me theirs,
Who so controlled me;
Yet every one
Wished to stay, and is gone,
How am I theirs,
If they cannot hold me,
But I hold them?'

When I heard the Earth-song,
I was no longer brave;
My avarice cooled
Like lust in the chill of the grave.

Alone, Forgotten, Lonely, Out Of Sight Out Of Mind.*
(Dedicated to all homeless and street people throughout the world)

Alone, forgotten, lonely, out of sight out of mind
Neglected by our society, rejected by mankind
The mentally ill, the homeless, the vulnerable, human beings are everywhere
Dozens dying daily;* drugs, drink, disease, deprivation, despair.

Languishing in the hostels, bedsits, dumps in need of repair
In places of oblivion where no one seems to care
Exploited by corrupt, unscrupulous landlords who look on with disdain
Their only real concern is of how much they can gain.

For others not so “lucky” who are looking for a bed
They'll turn to any place of comfort to rest their weary head
Alleys, stairwells, doorways, basements, any place will do
So long as there is shelter for one night, maybe two.

Another day is dawning, another day of doom
Where to move on next from the cold, the rain, the gloom?
Wandering about aimlessly, searching for a clue
To find a place of refuge for the many, not the few.

“No room” in such places, “Full up”, closed doors all around
It’s back to that place of misery the previous night they found
Danger, cold, wet, abject squalor beckons yet again
For the thousands in our society; vulnerable, teenagers, young women, young men.

But just how many make it to see yet another day?
Some will not awaken, found dead, frozen where they lay
Another lost, forgotten statistic which no one cares to keep
Figures of huge numbers, enough to make you weep.

And what about the others that those dead friends leave behind?
If you look in the right places, this is what you’ll find:
Sickness, destitution, chronic ill health are matters of fact
Deterioration of bodies, lost souls, minds about to crack.

Misery, dejection, deep depression is the norm
However strong the individual, whatever shape or form
Existing mental illness; minor, moderate, severe
Will clearly be exacerbated by torment, uncertainty, fear.

Confused, weak, weary, frightened, very much alone
Another day of hopelessness, another day unknown
Too tired to go on any more with illness, apathy, despair
It's time to say “Goodbye cruel world, no one really cares”.

One more death, a suicide, caused by complacency, neglect
Isn’t it time to treat our fellow man with a little more respect?
Help, care, understanding would certainly be a start
Act now to prevent more deaths Those-With-Power, compassion, heart.        

Let’s start to radically rethink, review our “Community Care”
We must stop leaving our vulnerable unassessed, unmonitored, unaware
Two years have now slipped by since the start of this disastrous Act
It's time to change this “system”, which is failing, that’s a fact.

So come on health staff, social workers, politicians across the divide
Get your acts together to stop this rising tide
Of needless deaths, human suffering, tragedies that put you all to shame
“A national disgrace, disaster, scandal” - who will take the blame?


*A poem based on vast personal insight, knowledge and experience.
March 1995 … What’s really changed in all those years?!

This is no love poem
No love, no art work, no poem
No music nor rhythm
But of images

Of farmers exultant
Though they break their backs,
Or their bones creak,
With every slash of their sickles,
The heavy strokes
Wounding light in the fiery heat of noon,
The gaunt-faced sons of earth,
Bringing home harvests of gold
To the people's granary,
Where no greedy landlords are in sight.
For centuries, the land robbers
Had squeezed their souls dry
In constant toil.
It may be that their time is up.

But this is no love poem
No love, no art work, no poem
But of history

Of workers milling around a lingering twilight.
Pounding their hammers with their might,
Ecstatic at the thought of freedom,
Yet battling still, long dreaded ills
Of feudal *******, barratry,
Imperialism
Storing up for the people’s cause,
Building a new commune in the new place
Freed from the landlord-minded President
From the imperialist ogres
Of IMF-World Bank and Uncle Sam,
The warmongers,
From oppression
And poverty and wretchedness
That, like a python, had wound
Around them to the end.

But this is no love poem
No love, no art work, no poem
No fictive tale but of radiant truth.

As throngs of men
And women march
Out of their homes
With new-found hope,
Gathering strength
As from a blasting storm,
Defiant now of lying saints or heroes
Or of murderer Presidents
Who speak with forked tongues,
As the throng march out into the streets
Flooding the cities,
Ready to offer their lives for freedom
To them would come such happiness,
Such love
No poem would express,
No art suffice to render.

This is no love poem
No piece of art, no song
Only a sense
Of how it is to tell of battles won,
Of folding in to feel the surge of triumph
Though brief perhaps,
Within this flashpoint moment
Of the people's war.

I wonder how they dug the graves
and shoveled in their young.
When grass was your last supper
your reserves are clearly done.
My forebears wouldn't" take the soup",
they wouldn't sell their souls.
So perhaps determination, then,
gave them strength to dig those holes.
To starve in the midst of plenty
was the saddest sight on earth,
but to their London Landlords
Irish serfs held little worth.
It's known that a potato blight
was the famines primal cause,
but I still blame beef eating men
and the cold uncaring laws.

Famine had come to our shores
The poor and weak it claimed.
It was our staple, the potato, which failed.
There was no lack of grain.

The landlords were exporting crops
While they watched their tenants bide.
A crueler death than Cromwell gave
Back when he let God decide.

The Wealthy were the Protestants,
centuries in the ascendant.
The victims, mostly Catholic,
of native Celts descendant.

Starvation is a lingering death.
It is not quick or kind.
Green Grass was, for many,
the last meal on which they dined.


When our neighbor, Kitty Kelly, died,
too proud to take the soup.
We boarded ship for old New York
And left behind our youth.

it has been exactly since ~3p.m.
                                                            yesterday...
                                       through to
3p.m. today: that's 24 hours +
                                      4 o'clock, 5 o'clock rock,
          6 o'clock,
                                          7, 8, 9
                     10, 11 and the upcoming twelve
         24 + 9 + excess passing the 36th hour...
oh this is just target practice -
                  what used to be
   serotonin has become adrenaline:
   spawning cobweb shadows with
   a mere arm-hair aligned with an itch:
i say to my cohabitants -
        i'm too poor to rent an apartment
with my contemporaries,
         and i can't be bothered to look cool
for 10 years... before the money starts
coming in... a day before a tongue spoke:
and see you in 20 years...
         and see you in 30 years...
the people born prior to 1975
       and after 1969 came out to earn
£57,000 a year... while those born
after 1979 and before 1985 had a wealth
*** of £27,000...
                            who are the landlords?
quick digression, i love how the idea
of exiting the bloc (it used to be designated
to the eastern bloc, now anything east of Calais
if a bloc... the European bloc -
        my my... ain't it love-ly?
   they wanted an Australian points system,
so first came the Australian plastic currency,
boy, i was happy, cashing in my first Churchill
miniature that i could dip in baked beans
and use as a spoon) spread beyond the old
stereotype... and the points system?
you know who's smoking the hookah of
panic here?            
                            the freelancers of nationality...
   they haven't fitted in...
don't worry... they'll keep you,
but after seeing you they just thought:
once the cheeky chappy, now a chavvy chappy...
  we love the E2 dialect, it's hardly Coccers
or bonkers... but after my day
(i'll relate to it in a moment)
       i heard to prop'ah Cockneys giving it
all the guv' and n'ah and
        what's Kilimanjaro in Cockney slang?
all the Cockneys are living in Essex,
   Romford, Chelms and the Essex lads
from Ireland are a bit shy, never talk to
the old people who used to live on
the Isle of Dogs or the Wharf -
              East London moved, and i'm in
the thick o' it... you ***...
                       i'm here,
open ******* spaces and hedgehog counts
to mind... never the next Susie from
Whitechapel doing the runner from Jackie,
             and funny that,
the day began during the night,
sober, i tested the idea: if you gonna go
nocturnal, stay sober...
                  fast... drink coffee in the morning,
and what some proper bollocking
        on the box...
                               i say: revivals never
sounded more like bells, the 1970s
had Patois... the old parle with dread-lock Sam...
             i squeeze in a bit of Norse
and hey presto... Ahmed's your uncle...
                     'cos we all like a bit of
way-hey banter, the: back in the day
   when the 1966 squad was best known
for West 'am...
                               am i sensing the idea that
i'm licking off the prop'ah beef burger 'ere?
                    what the **** rhymes
with Kilimanjaro?
                                wait! got this one:
apples & pears - stairs...
                          you gyro?
                        no! wait... the two Cockneys
weren't from south London,
this ain't Peck'am talk... this is proper grub...
         jar squared: verb, meaning?
     i know my neighbour, heard him
lecturing his wife over the wall about
the diminishing concept of family in the "west",
           to me that's
the Cockneys meant by guv'nah:
                           aw right der geezer,
   stop that fidgety: don't be late tomorrow,
let a man eat his plums and wear his trousers...
       i swear: the only good cinema these days
is English cinema...
                                 i said! the only good cinema
these days is English cinema...
               if i didn't watch
       we **** the old way during the night,
after spending my day as i did (i'll get onto it,
hold your submarines)
                               i would have pricked my ears
on the two Cockneys next door
   at 4p.m.                  finishing some job...
but given the "guv'nah's" attitude: 'aving
a laugh at coming early tomorrow, if at all.
     my day?
                 i wished i could say i woke up
early...
                            the entire spectrum
of sunrise...
                            epileptic shock from the sun
after smoking a cigarette at 5a.m. when
all the constellations where out...
                          not enough sleep,
as the Russians say: no good to live but to
not have seen snow.
                               it shivers with enough
hours under your belt...
                                      i'd love those
Soviet torture chambers of sleep malnutrition...
gents? when the ***** and the cards and cigarettes?
    i'm currently the most loathed
  person in America... which technically makes me
more than simply unemployed...
        anyway...
cut my hair... two millimetres off the helmet...
off the cranium... not crew cut, not skin on side
and some ***-fluff on top...
in the night, when the moon is bright,
   my two millimetres of hair look like skin...
oi! Skinners! the shame would have really been
to have protruding ears...
                                    come to think of it,
i love the contorts of my shadow more than
the body my shadow disdains...
                  i decided to visit my old school
after that...
                     ...............................
do you know the feeling of getting onto a bus
when you having been on any other form
of transportation (other than your legs)
for a few months?             surreal...
                   and even that's a bad way to describe it...
this is where words simply fizzle out...
                            they just did the white rabbit
trick and you're felt with nothing else to
do but squeeze into the top-hat and hope
that some other magician will pull you out
rather than another: white rabbit.
                          so the 499 from my house
up to Romford (sunny! glorious day!
   shirt, sleeves rolled up,
           denim trousers, navy suede shoes,
azure shirt, headphones, bus ticket,
wallet, packet of smokes, and the ride -
smile all you want - when you smash a sports
car you don't have the view of a dozen
horrified passengers there with you
to practice your ultimate Buddha gimmick -
Ching-Chong Eyed and smiling)
                oh yeah, the insurance... huh?
   off at Romford central, and onto the 86
courier from Bangladesh to Ilford...
                    what did i miss in the list above?
ah... three copies of poetic optometry...
written by? moi, n'est pas? oh come on,
let's not get the ruler out: mangetout and manage trois...
                           (only fuel is horses)
           the 86 is a double decker, the 499 isn't...
sun in my eyes behind the glass the enhanced star
gleamed: what privilege -
               by day the star
                                           by night the star in
   a mirror that's the moon -
                                         selfish helium
giggling into a hydrogen Hindenburg fury!
                 or that's what the scientists say...
how they worked it out, i'll never know...
                            but apparently the sun
is a H-He           something or other...
            H because of atom bombs,
   and He because we giggle like idiots when we see
it: never the thirsty horse in cowboy movies.
   got off at Seven Kings...
in between school girls eyeing everyone and everything...
just my luck... schoolchildren...
                               everywhere on the bus...
just there...
                                    and also just nowhere...
         so i got off at Seven Kings and went into my
old catholic school...
                                  waited at the reception for a good
5 minutes (good to know they're still teaching
people manners with regards to the uttermost
productive necessity of bureaucrats)
               -              i asked about my old English
teacher: does Dr... er... does Mr. Thomas,
        er, does Mr. Bunce (Thomas) still work here?
   yes, he does.
             you see, i'm a former pupil of this school
and i wondered if i could have a meeting with him.
oh, that's impossible, he's currently teaching.
                     Kafka... note this in your afterlife...
         well... in that case, could i leave him a message?
oh sure, just write your name and your contact details
and he'll get in touch with you.
   well... i need a bit more than a scrap of paper,
can i have a notepad?
                 sure.
                                    so i took  the pen
and the notepad and sat in this grand refurbished hall
of the school that used to remind me
of chemistry labs stinking of old wood and sulphur,
of the old ways... of being beaten and Pink Floyd
escapism and all the hippy crap...
                               what a grand place this has become...
it's no longer known as C. P. Catholic School...
but the plus version: C. P. Academy...
  but you still walk into the plus surroundings and there
are still pamphlets written by Father Ted
about *our Lord and Saviour christ Jesus...
          or Hey! Zeus! in Spanish... same ****...
different cover...
                               but i was well dressed in my
Indian summer wear that's Indian summer:
English September and October...
              i'd move the calendar up a bit...
get the kids off anti-depressants...
                           anyway, i had my three copies
of the "first edition", try tell that with the internet
breathing down your neck... it doesn't, matter...
             but i did write him a lovely note:
unchaining me from the straitjacket of grammar!
                  i wrote from what year i graduated
2002 (g.c.s.e.) or 2004 (a-level),
                        and blah blah and one more blah
later                    walked back to the reception
  and asked for a rubber-band...
                   then i bundled the whole thing together
and asked if she could give it to him...
                    of course, she replied.
                            p.s. if you don't mind,
Mr. Thomas, you can always shove one of those
copies into the school library...
                         p.p.s., someone stashed
the book about the Gnostics by some German in
there once... maybe i'm thinking along the same lines.
      the journey back?
i walked.
                                 i walked from Seven Kings
to Romford...
                               taking a stroll
with one hand in my pocket (left)
because holding a cigarette in the other is never
exactly great when it's not doing something...
that's what the pockets are for...
not exactly suited for your wallet... but your hand...
when you're strolling in the green-belt fields
segregating the outer-most London (wannabe
Londoners / Eastenders) and the Essex inheritors
of Cockney... Kilimanjaro?
                                  Kilimanjaro?
                 ­                          me, i don't Essex
either...           most of the bankers chose this
district for the scenery, i.e. standing in a field
that isn't a hill or any sort of elevation
and beyond, yonder, the glass shards of their
former institutions...
                                        4.7 miles... not bad...
  a stroll... and that's without any food and solely
on coffee and a sleepless night...
           a butterfly fluttering along the way (only one)
and a fresh ripe auburn conker lying beneath
an oak tree (also, only one)...
            but what hit me was walking back...
it was truly like reading the book of revelation...
13:7... all the way from Seven Kings through to
the Romford: the street vendors, the bookies,
the Muhammedian car dealers...
                  the bewildered ones walking into
mosques, Sikh temples...
                                       one man cleaning the patio
entrance to a church from weeds...
                           cheap Kentucky chicken from America
         (if you think, that they don't synthesise
the meat in cat food and call it tuna or beef
but rather use actual meat... you're grossly mistaken,
    it was on the news...
                                         they are already
capable to synthesise meat...
                                     they do it in the perfume industry,
they're doing it in the food industry -
    a childhood memory of asking why they were
smearing lipstick on the frogs they caught...
they replied: they burn easier...
                  and they did... paint a frog lipstick
pink and boy... that's a French marshmallow, right there)...
           but if you ever walk that stretch of road...
               revelation 13:7...
          i'd like to see the Evangelists wriggle out
of that one...                       oh sure...
i treat religious television like some meathead
might watch football... it's game on after 5 minutes...
but anyway... that was my day...
           all 36 or so hours of it... how was yours?
                                                          ­                        g'day!

left you behind
left a small *** of forget me nots, queen’s park, bakerloo, about an hour away from you
a goodbye letter in a plastic bag
“you’re the best lover i’ve ever had.”

“i loved you most when we said goodbye”
i’ve never seen more beautiful, actually, darker eyes

forget me not as i fly across the sea
airplane crashes and you promise to remember me

making love in my landlords living room
a bicycle thief “you’re leaving too soon,”
how did it feel to stay
how are your ankles
your eyes
too grey?

A cabin in the forest
far from the city- bleak
where the air so crisp
would cleanse your soul
as you breathe in the morning mist.
colossal trees tower over your presence
Let it be known human-
the landlords who reside;
are the grizzlies and the robins-
effervescent.
Tranquil silence & enigmatic sounds
Piques my curiosity all around.
The slight possibility
of a bigfoots presence
eery sensations & the moon in crescent.

Give me cigarettes, give me chocolate
I like it Joe...

My soles rested on this cotton-white candy land
Unsure if it was the cold touch of these featherbeds
Or the flakes of hesitation that brought chills
Into my clueless mind

Give me cigarettes, give me chocolate
I like it Joe...

This 1945 song played over and over in my head
As if it helped lessen the shame and discomfort
That was traveling from the tip of my toe
To each in every active follicle of my hair

Ah, I savored the strange moment that it was
Of what I considered triumph. Strange,
That I even felt achieved in this strange land
When the real war of time and belief is yet to come

I wore Chinchilla coats over my dignity
Yet to me, every stride was irrelevant
An account for differences, even partiality
The Dr Pepper in my hand seemed out of place or was I?

The white backdrop where I was standing
Only served to amplify my striking shade
And how fool I was to even think
That the landlords would consider me germane?

Who was I to even presume acceptance
When their own predilection as old as time still lives?
Is it perfidiousness to long a taste of a miracle
In the land of dreams?

Give me cigarettes, give me chocolate
I like it Joe...

One soul speaks through all beings. Do you feel your breath this instant? Listen to your gut. So much for laughter that never hurts.
Maybe that's true if only for less than a minute.
But prisons have rhythmic fences. And sentences are full of repetitive dissonance.
Listen to inflections upon inflections of assonant elements.

Permanent renegades find solace in their bank accounts.
Routine check-ups in tenements are redundant.
As are our abundant landlords.
Saddled with debt, sandwiched between apartments and developments.
It's a cantankerous day in the city.
Our feet are fired up. Like living in an aquarium.
A solarium is a serpent's ideal apartment.
Kindness is always humble.
So I stumbled into your arms and found my retirement package.