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AN UNPUBLISHED DRAMA.

I.

ROME.—A Hall in a Palace. ALESSANDRA and CASTIGLIONE

Alessandra.     Thou art sad, Castiglione.

Castiglione.    Sad!—not I.
                Oh, I’m the happiest, happiest man in Rome!
                A few days more, thou knowest, my Alessandra,
                Will make thee mine. Oh, I am very happy!

Aless.          Methinks thou hast a singular way of showing
                Thy happiness—what ails thee, cousin of mine?
                Why didst thou sigh so deeply?

Cas.            Did I sigh?
                I was not conscious of it. It is a fashion,
                A silly—a most silly fashion I have
                When I am very happy. Did I sigh? (sighing.)

Aless.          Thou didst. Thou art not well. Thou hast indulged
                Too much of late, and I am vexed to see it.
                Late hours and wine, Castiglione,—these
                Will ruin thee! thou art already altered—
                Thy looks are haggard—nothing so wears away
                The constitution as late hours and wine.

Cas. (musing ). Nothing, fair cousin, nothing—
                Not even deep sorrow—
                Wears it away like evil hours and wine.
                I will amend.

Aless.          Do it! I would have thee drop
                Thy riotous company, too—fellows low born
                Ill suit the like of old Di Broglio’s heir
                And Alessandra’s husband.

Cas.            I will drop them.

Aless.          Thou wilt—thou must. Attend thou also more
                To thy dress and equipage—they are over plain
                For thy lofty rank and fashion—much depends
                Upon appearances.

Cas.            I’ll see to it.

Aless.          Then see to it!—pay more attention, sir,
                To a becoming carriage—much thou wantest
                In dignity.

Cas.            Much, much, oh, much I want
                In proper dignity.

Aless.
(haughtily).     Thou mockest me, sir!

Cos.
(abstractedly).  Sweet, gentle Lalage!

Aless.          Heard I aright?
                I speak to him—he speaks of Lalage?
                Sir Count!
       (places her hand on his shoulder)
                           what art thou dreaming?
                He’s not well!
                What ails thee, sir?

Cas.(starting). Cousin! fair cousin!—madam!
                I crave thy pardon—indeed I am not well—
                Your hand from off my shoulder, if you please.
                This air is most oppressive!—Madam—the Duke!

Enter Di Broglio.

Di Broglio.     My son, I’ve news for thee!—hey!
              —what’s the matter?
        (observing Alessandra).
                I’ the pouts? Kiss her, Castiglione! kiss her,
                You dog! and make it up, I say, this minute!
                I’ve news for you both. Politian is expected
                Hourly in Rome—Politian, Earl of Leicester!
                We’ll have him at the wedding. ’Tis his first visit
                To the imperial city.

Aless.          What! Politian
                Of Britain, Earl of Leicester?

Di Brog.        The same, my love.
                We’ll have him at the wedding. A man quite young
                In years, but gray in fame. I have not seen him,
                But Rumor speaks of him as of a prodigy
                Pre-eminent in arts, and arms, and wealth,
                And high descent. We’ll have him at the wedding.

Aless.          I have heard much of this Politian.
                Gay, volatile and giddy—is he not,
                And little given to thinking?

Di Brog.        Far from it, love.
                No branch, they say, of all philosophy
                So deep abstruse he has not mastered it.
                Learned as few are learned.

Aless.          ’Tis very strange!
                I have known men have seen Politian
                And sought his company. They speak of him
                As of one who entered madly into life,
                Drinking the cup of pleasure to the dregs.

Cas.            Ridiculous! Now I have seen Politian
                And know him well—nor learned nor mirthful he.
                He is a dreamer, and shut out
                From common passions.

Di Brog.        Children, we disagree.
                Let us go forth and taste the fragrant air
                Of the garden. Did I dream, or did I hear
                Politian was a melancholy man?

                (Exeunt.)




II.

ROME.—A Lady’s Apartment, with a window open and looking into a garden.
LALAGE, in deep mourning, reading at a table on which lie some books and
a hand-mirror. In the background JACINTA (a servant maid) leans
carelessly upon a chair.


Lalage.         Jacinta! is it thou?

Jacinta
(pertly).        Yes, ma’am, I’m here.

Lal.            I did not know, Jacinta, you were in waiting.
                Sit down!—let not my presence trouble you—
                Sit down!—for I am humble, most humble.

Jac. (aside).   ’Tis time.

(Jacinta seats herself in a side-long manner upon the chair, resting
her elbows upon the back, and regarding her mistress with a contemptuous
look. Lalage continues to read.)

Lal.            “It in another climate, so he said,
                Bore a bright golden flower, but not i’ this soil!”

         (pauses—turns over some leaves and resumes.)

                “No lingering winters there, nor snow, nor shower—
                But Ocean ever to refresh mankind
                Breathes the shrill spirit of the western wind”
                Oh, beautiful!—most beautiful!—how like
                To what my fevered soul doth dream of Heaven!
                O happy land! (pauses) She died!—the maiden died!
                O still more happy maiden who couldst die!
                Jacinta!

        (Jacinta returns no answer, and Lalage presently resumes.)

                Again!—a similar tale
                Told of a beauteous dame beyond the sea!
                Thus speaketh one Ferdinand in the words of the play—
                “She died full young”—one Bossola answers him—
                “I think not so—her infelicity
                Seemed to have years too many”—Ah, luckless lady!
                Jacinta! (still no answer.)
                Here’s a far sterner story—
                But like—oh, very like in its despair—
                Of that Egyptian queen, winning so easily
                A thousand hearts—losing at length her own.
                She died. Thus endeth the history—and her maids
                Lean over her and keep—two gentle maids
                With gentle names—Eiros and Charmion!
                Rainbow and Dove!—Jacinta!

Jac.
(pettishly).    Madam, what is it?

Lal.            Wilt thou, my good Jacinta, be so kind
                As go down in the library and bring me
                The Holy Evangelists?

Jac.            Pshaw!

                (Exit)

Lal.            If there be balm
                For the wounded spirit in Gilead, it is there!
                Dew in the night time of my bitter trouble
                Will there be found—”dew sweeter far than that
                Which hangs like chains of pearl on Hermo
‘Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in ampulla pendere, et *** illi pueri dicerent:
Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo.’

                For Ezra Pound
                il miglior fabbro


I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony *******? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
            Frisch weht der Wind
            Der Heimat zu
            Mein Irisch Kind,
            Wo weilest du?
‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying ‘Stetson!
‘You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
‘Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
‘Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
‘Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
‘You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!’

II. A Game of Chess

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carved dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
‘Jug Jug’ to ***** ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

‘My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
‘Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
‘What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
‘I never know what you are thinking. Think.’

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

‘What is that noise?
                          The wind under the door.
‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’
                    Nothing again nothing.
                                                    ‘Do
‘You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
‘Nothing?’

    I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’
                                                     But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?’
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
‘With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
‘What shall we ever do?’
                             The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
hurry up please its time
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
hurry up please its time
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
hurry up please its time
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
hurry up please its time
hurry up please its time
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

III. The Fire Sermon

The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female *******, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
‘Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

‘This music crept by me upon the waters’
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

      The river sweats
      Oil and tar
      The barges drift
      With the turning tide
      Red sails
      Wide
      To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
      The barges wash
      Drifting logs
      Down Greenwich reach
      Past the Isle of Dogs.
                  Weialala leia
                  Wallala leialala

      Elizabeth and Leicester
      Beating oars
      The stern was formed
      A gilded shell
      Red and gold
      The brisk swell
      Rippled both shores
      Southwest wind
      Carried down stream
      The peal of bells
      White towers
                  Weialala leia
                  Wallala leialala

‘Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.’
‘My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised ‘a new start’.
I made no comment. What should I resent?’
‘On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of ***** hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.’
              la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
                                A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
                               Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock wi
Terry Collett Mar 2013
Didn’t tell you
my boyfriend’s
in prison did I?
Julie said

As you walked
through Leicester Square
having met her
off the bus

from the hospital
where she had to stay
for her drug habit
(her parents

being doctors
had her locked away
as best they could)
no you didn’t

you replied
taking note
of her tightly tied
ponytail

her eyes unfocused
the summery dress
long and colourful
got caught with drugs on him

in a raid
she said
o I see
you said

do you get to see him?
you asked
hoping not
wishing the ******

to be locked up good
no
she said
he’s too far away

for me to get to
in the period
I have free
from the hospital

and besides
he’s not really
my boyfriend
more an acquaintance

she sat in a seat
near a cinema
and stared
at passersby

you sat beside her
remembering the times
your old man
had brought you here

as a kid to see the nightlife
or go to the cinema
for some film
he had to see

or some famous actor
or actress he said
he thought
might be there

I’ve brought you
some cigarettes
you said
o you are a dear

she said
and kissed your cheek
and took the packet
and opened it up

there and then
and took one out
and lit it
with a plastic light

from her pocket
did you want one?
she asked
no you have them

you said
and so she sat
and smoked
and in between puffs

and exhalations
she spoke of her parents
and the hospital
and the staff there

and how she still remembered
that time she took you
in that small room
off the hospital ward

and did things
as she put it
and laughed
and the smoke

went up
and the people
went by
and you sat

watching her
taking in her hands
and fingers
the cigarette

between them
the eyes still dull
and bluish
or greenish

depending how
the sunlight caught them
and your cheek
still wet where her lips

had been
and the blue of sky
and the nearby park
with flowers

and grass flushed
with green.
Jackie Mead Aug 2017
Prince Simon, Prince Jason and Princess Sophie lived a regal life.

Slaying dragons and battling witches by day, monsters and zombies by night.

Each day brought adventures new, trips on boats and to the zoo.

One particular day when feeling bored, Prince Simon decided to explore.

Down to the basement, he slowly sneaked, quietly to take a peek.  New adventures he did seek.

A rickety old wardrobe he did find and suddenly an adventure sprang to mind.

Running as fast as his legs would go, bellowing with his lungs as hard as they would allow.

"Prince Jason, Princess Sophie please come soon, I have a rocket to take us to the Moon". "Roll up, roll up tickets please, pull your dress right in Princess Sophie it's going to be a squeeze".

All three were so excited they could hardly say a sound.

Prince Simon reached around them both and pulled the door shut tight, buckle up fellow explorers you're in for the ride of your life.

The Wardrobe began to rock and shake, the Wardrobe began to lift and quake.

Destination the Moon, hold on tight we'll get there soon

The rocket started rising faster and faster, higher and higher.

All three children were delighted, the rocket ship made them so excited.

Higher and higher, faster and faster, they rose into the sky.

Higher and higher, faster and faster, leaving the earth behind.

Prince Simon, Prince Jason and Princess Sophie, all declared. "I hope we'll get there soon, I can't wait to walk on the Moon"

"Walk on the Moon", let me think Prince Jason declared, "I'm not sure that we can breathe without any air".

"No air," said Sophie that's no good!, "I need air, what about a hood?"
"A hood is a good idea," said Prince Simon "an oxygen tank and heavy shoes too". "Let's search around the Wardrobe and see what we can find".

Together they searched high and low, finding items as they go.

"A hood" shouted Sophie "just what we need at least now we can all breathe".

"Heavy shoes" shouted Jason, "thank goodness for that, now we can go walking, I heard the moons flat".

"An oxygen tank", Simon declared "together with the hood and boots we are fully equipped for our trip, whoop, whoop, whoop!".

The items they came in three sizes, small for Princess Sophie, medium for Prince Jason and large for Prince Simon and quickly they all dressed up, it wouldn't be long now before the wardrobe came to a stop.

The rocket started descending, slowly it did fall and the children curled together on the floor in a tight knit ball.

Once the rocket had landed the children all ascended to their feet,
clearly excited not one of them could speak.

Prince Simon was the eldest and took the superior role, he looked out the window and said I will be the first to go.

Prince Simon conjured up his nerve to open wide the door, stepped outside, turned around with a smile a mile wide and set off to explore.

Thirty seconds later he shouted out to Prince Jason and Princess Sophie to join him by his side, "I have an idea" he said to them both that the moon is made of cheese.

Prince Jason and Princess Sophie laughed so much they began to cough and wheeze.

"Made of cheese" they both declared "you really must be mad", but we must be sure they all said, so let's all set off to explore.

One by one they found a spot and pulled a chunk off in their hands, looking at each other daring to be first, "altogether" Prince Simon shouted with an enthusiastic burst.

"Cheddar" shouted Prince Simon, "Edam" shouted Princess Sophie, "Red Leicester" shouted Prince Jason, they looked at each other in disbelieve.

They could not fathom how they had all got their favourite cheese, so they moved around the moon, trying different spots, leaving behind them crater pots but that did not make them stop.

Half an hour later their tummies were full, having eaten every type of cheese you can name from Brie to Camembert, Wensleydale to Stilton.

Looking back the 3 space cadets could see what they'd done to the moon, "I think" said Prince Simon "we need to return soon to try to mend the moon".

But now it's time to go they all 3 agreed, we've been gone a long time and mummy will be worried.

They climbed into the rocket and took off all the clothes, set their destination to their home a million miles below.

As they approached their home, the roof opened and the rocket landed safely just in time for tea.

The children all stumbled out of the wardrobe and running through the doors found their mummy in the kitchen serving up their tea.

"Where have you been?" mummy asked, "I've been calling you 3, now you're here just in time for your very favourite tea - Macaroni Cheese!"

The children usually would have been delighted now all moaned and grumbled "Mummy" they sighed "we all have belly aches, can we please be denied our tea and just go straight to bed".  

We are sure that by the morning break we will no longer have our belly aches and tomorrow for our tea we would love Macaroni Cheese :)
2017/11/20 - Update
I am pleased to say that this story, beloved of our family for such a long time has been published today by Authorhouse.com
When I was about 10 yrs old I bought the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe book with a voucher I won at school. It was the first book I ever bought. My children were raised on all the books and films.
When my children were little I used to tell them this story at bedtime they would request it rather than a book.
When they got older I wrote the story up for them and bound it and gave it to them so they would have it for their children. I have converted the story to verse. It's a lot more difficult than I first thought and I am not entirely happy with it but happy enough to publish on HP and welcome the feedback from my fellow poets.  I will continue to work on it and will update it and republish it at a later date.
I have not plagiarised any words from the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, these words are my own and the children's names are my own too, although I am not a Queen :)
Big Virge Oct 2014
BILLS BILLS BILLS !!!!
  
Soooo Many ... **** Bills ... !!!
I don't like Destiny's Child ... !!!
This ain't a Dance Drill ... !!!
  
I’m writing this poem
cos i'm ... TIRED ... of ... " BILLS " ... !!!!!
  
BILLS ... for the Electric ... !!!
BILLS ... for the Gas  …!!!
Soon … they'll be Billing ...
For taking a .... "SLASH" .... !!!?!!!
  
BILLS ... for ... The NET …
BILLS ... for your Texts ...
BILLS ... for those ... HOTLINES ...
For .... Telephone *** .... !!!
  
What will they bill next .... !?!
They're Billing .... Soooo Much ....
They don't even want ... Cheques ... !?!
  
Just Tap In ... Your PIN …
that's how they'll begin ...
to steal ... ALL Your Money ...
  
Why don't people see …. !?!
are they REALLY .... "THAT DIM" … ???
just look ... In Your Bank ...
  
"The Beast" .... Lies Within ....
  
Cashpoint machines .... “FAILING” ....
The service is .... “SICKENING” .... !!!
  
Meantime ..... YES ...... Your Bank
is … “HAPPILY” … Billing ....
  
Now ... I really would CHILL ....
if I ..... Never Again .....
SAW  .... A **** .... Dollar Bill !!!!
  
cos ... AMERICA’S ... used them
for Killing ... at Will ...
  
kinda gets me to ... Thinking .......
that ... even .... " Bill Clinton " ....
just bombed without ... Blinking ... !?!
  
Sudanese People .... DIED ...
as the U.S. .... just .... LIED ....
  
While meantime .... Bill Tried ... !!!
to STOP .... his **** .... SHRinKing ... !!!!!!
  
Lewinski .... for sure ....
Was NOT .... "FINGER LICKING" …. !!!!!
  
But doing ... Her Thing ...
while thinking ........... Ch-Ching ... !!!!!!!
  
Meantime .... Bill's career ....
was about to start .... SINKing ....
  
" TITANIC " ..... Indeed ..... !!!
  
Bill ... fulfilled ... His Need .... !!!
  
but then came ... The Press ... !
Monica's … "All DISTRESSED ... !!!"
  
but Bill ... Tried his Best ... !!!
once again .... to .... “DECEIVE” ….
  
but ... All of A SUDDEN ... !!!
BILL made ... "A NEW SOUND" ...
  
“Okay, Yes I did it … !!!”
  
The TRUTH ... did ... come out ... !!!!!!
  
So, how many Bills ... ?
are feeding us ... LIES ... !?!
from BILLS ... that we pay for ... ?
To … “UNIFORM GUYS” …. ???
  
Oh Yes ... The ... “OLD BILL” …
over here ... NEED TO ... chill … !!!!
They're beating on ... BLACKS ...
"RACISM" ….. “INSTILLED” …. !!!!!
  
Blacks Dying in ... Cells ...
All Show ... but ... No Tell ... !?!
of how this ... CHIT ... happens ....
  
“THE YOUNG MAN JUST FELL !!!!”
  
See, that's the ... Hard Sell ….
that's what ... Blacks Deserve ... !!!!!!!!
Ask .... Warren Mitchell .... !!!
  
Alf Garnett …. I MEAN ... !!!!!
  
See …. On TV screens ...
for years ... they've been showing ...
Blacks being .... "DEMEANED" ...
Drug Dealing .... or .... VIOLENT …
  
Then they want to ... BILL ME ...
for a **** ... TV Licence ... !!?!!
  
They may well be ... "Jokes" ...
to … “OLD SCHOOL” … White folks …
  
But .... Listen up ... CLOSE ... !!!!!
  
A Joke is a Joke .... !!!
but some ... "OLD BILL" ... these days ...
are those ... “*******” ... blokes ... !!!
  
So ... who in the end ...
will have faces of ... YOLK ...
  
Well .... NOT .... Rodney King !!!
Try this for a name ....
PC .... Julian Glyn ....
  
A .... Leicester .... Policeman …
caught .... " CHILD MOLESTING "… !!!
  
See i'm SICK of ... these Bills !!!!

We're paying .... "TAXATION" ...
for these ignorant ... " SICKO’S " ... !!!!!!!!!
to get their ... "CHEAP THRILLS" ... !?!
or to use ... Dollar Bills
to get people .... KILLED .... !!?!!
  
So ….

There are a FEW Reasons ...
why ... Bills ... get to me ...
amounting to ... TREASON ...
  
Haven't YOU ... had your fill ... !?!
  
Well ... maybe you ... Have … ?
Or ... maybe you ... Haven't … ?
  
I just want to ... RELAX ...
and be able to ... " CHILL " ...
and not have to ... Worry ...
about these ... " ****** " ….
  
BILLS … BILLS … BILLS … !!!!
They just keep on with them .....
There is only this,
A smile, a kiss a moment in bliss
And it's gone.
Life wasn't supposed to last very long
And it doesn't surprise.

I have seen too many suns that have set in the East
And at least as many rise in the West.
Either Or,neither is better than the one gone before.
The day begins and will end as we bow and we bend in the wind,
Like corn in the fields or chaff in the meadow we blow,
To the breeze we must flow and in this we will know
It is time now to go.

There is only a one and ever, a kiss is forever
A moment of bliss is a lifeline.
In the fall and the rise of the dusk and the day
When night carries away your prayers on a wing
Sing to the skies.
Open your eyes
It would not surprise me that what you will see
Is the spirit set free.

And when darkness falls
Deaf to the calls of the day
Would we have it any other way?
Would we say one life is never enough to do all that living and loving and stuff?
Or would we know this,
That life is a smile and a kiss
The bliss is in the moments
We so often miss.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2017
i still can't believe that i spent almost two
hour's worth of coverage of
rugby league's world cup final...
the **** was i watching?!
          i spent a few hours prior
the game between rugby union's
match-off between wales and
south africa...
           **** me, what a cliff-hanger,
after Leicester City won the premiership
and south africa were beaten
by japan, i starting thinking:
   ***** boys gonna to be beat like
spreading butter on warm toast...
              but then i noticed how
there were no ***-bellied hulks in
           the rugby league teams...
    clones vs. clones...
               and the scrum when compared
to 8 bulls?
         i started thinking about what
i was seeing in the rugby league and immediately
got a *******...
      had to **** it off...
                 rugby league is like this
hybrid of rugby and american football...
makes no sense to me, whatsoever...
             why can you only make one
pass in american football while
all the other players are sparring pretending
to run?
         i get baseball only because
the vocab to understand cricket is too ****
difficult to allow a bat, a ball and a wicket
to be anything but complicated...
                and when compared to
a rugby union scoreline of 24 - 22,
6 - nil...
         you can score 7 goals in football...
         sorry to **** on the whole parade,
but rugby league is a mongrel of
rugby mixed with american football...
where's the line out for the throw in?
       and why is it always 3 versus 1
and then a tap on the shoulder
                   with the ref telling them to
get off so another can engage in a 3 versus 1
tackle?
              rugby union i get,
the well informed ref is a *******
  python of knowledge...
              football's ballerinas i get too,
footballers were always prone to drama
once they earned too much...
       rugby league? makes as much sense
to as american football...
                        throwing marbles makes
more sense... as does tic-tac-toe...
                     children are the game makers...
what idiot thought up the:
one throw, touch down!
                          what's that bit in the middle,
skirmishing pretending to box?
         i literally wasted 2 hours of
my time watching a world cup final
where a proper rugby scrum looks
like premature *******...
                            *******, practice
premature with a hard shaft of pure bone...
once you hit the oyster flesh of
a woman's genitals,
  pulling back your *******,
she'll start thinking less of a quickie
and more of a sunday morning...
                        god,
there's nothing as gorgeous as a foulness of
language in exchange for a clear
thought of: objectifying woman
by the ******-sack of a cow...
                       hey...
can you imagine the pervert finding a wife
in the mother of his child
by asking to also drink her milk?
       my... what an idea...
                     trans-eroticism...
      the subtle fetish that gets no kink
or whip or latex...
                              did i say that i watched
two hours of rugby league and thought
it was *******?
                      i must have,
i just remembered watching the scrums...
     and people do this professionally...
i wouldn't play this sport for leisure or hobby...
        as i never deemed a need
to appreciated boxing...
                           boxing,
metal head headbanging -
               i always preferred that sort
of "boxing" -
                             for some reason
i always preferred a game of squash
    to a game of tennis -
                    was it the whole "thinking outside
the box" aspect of the game?
            some sports are within the constraints
of confines...
                         and then there are sports
within the confines of constraints...
    like not hitting below the belt...
       well, you know -
           Beavis said - h'eh h'eh, i am cornholio!
while ****-Head just told a bad *** joke and
ugh ugh perversely sighed.
JR Rhine Jun 2016
The soda can rumbles in the bowels,
tumbling into the gaping mouth
into which I enter a hand
to protrude my sugar rush.

sssni-kah, then the slurp of an obnoxiously pleasing sip.
I let the carbonation tickle my tongue,
reveling in the effervescent sensation.

The smell of old tires,
malodorous oil and gasoline,
and stale cigarettes fill the air.

My vexatious sips go unperturbing the dense atmosphere
that thickens outside the small air-conditioned office
and into the gas station,

where the mutters and sputters of drills,
kakadoo, kakadoo,
the squeaking and squawking of rotors and axles,
the interjections of swears and grunts
fill the air.

I peek through the ***** smudgy glass window in the door
to see grimy overalled ants meandering
under the body of our red mini-van
hiked up into the air like a figure skater,
suspended by the rusty clawed accompanist,
not a tremor of strain, unflinching,
letting the greasy men crawl underneath, hiking up her skirt
to examine her anatomy.

I walk outside and sit on a dusty tire stacked with others
on the side of the building--
some growing forlorn in tall grass
weaving in and out of the aperturous rim,
the fingers latching onto fissures and pulling it down
into the hungry earth.

Another slurp and I set the can down
to step onto my skateboard--
rolling across the gritty pavement,
snapping ollies and pop-shuv-its
to add my timbre to the cacophony
leaping out of the open garage doors.

I look over to the barbershop adjacent to the station--

The off-white single room squat allowing the cylindrical swirl
perpetually pirouetting atop the door-frame
to dazzle in a placid manner.

It is there I get my close trims
and pull a lollipop from the cavernous bowl
sitting atop the counter.

The barber, working silently behind his dull gray mustache
and dull gray eyes.

Outside the barbershop to the left,
Leicester Highway ambles onward,
diverging at a fork just ahead of the lot,
and the road adjacent that winds down my neighborhood,
Juno Drive.

I've never embarked down either divergent,
and I wonder which one is the less traveled.
(Frost, guide me.)

I go to the mailbox teetering on the edge of the highway
and hastily grab our mail,
the wind slapping at my *** as the cars whisk by
in their infinitesimal haste.

I feel like time slows once you step onto Juno Drive.

I turn around and saunter back to the station to see Billy,
my Working-Class Hero,
who I mostly see strolling up to the driver's side window
of our dull red mini-van
to loosely rest his arms crossed atop the window frame,
resting his sweaty forehead on his sticky hairy forearms.

Leaning in,

his blackened hands with his greasy smile
behind a scruffy scattered beard caked with dirt and grime,
atop a dark red leather face--
but eyes bright and merry.

His laugh, a phlegmy two-pack-a-day sputter
hacking and pummeling through the van,
all the way to me in the backseat peeking around mom's shoulders
to catch a look at this superhero anomaly.

And his southern drawl wrenching out of lungs
caked in tar and exhaust fumes,
that torpid slur that executes like the garbled hum
of an Oldsmobile engine chugging restlessly--

His laugh, an engine that won't turn over, sputtering to life
but falling right back down into the dirt,
lying on the oil-stained cold concrete floors ***** boots slipping over
and sticking too like wads of gum.

The charismatic mechanic who knew the answer to all things,
always ready to flash me that crooked greasy smile
stretching across his ruddy leather face.

I step back onto my skateboard, with soda in hand,
mail in the other,
and silently say goodbye to my Greasy Eden
before making my way down Juno Drive
towards the first house on the left,

following the road as it snakes past the trees,
alongside the creek, around the bend,
and out of sight.
Childhood memories.
Terry Collett May 2015
Ingrid finds the crowds of people overwhelming the West End of London is busier than she thought it would be theyve just got off the bus at Trafalgar Square quite near from here the National Portrait Gallery he says as they walks through Trafalgar Square past by Nelsons Column its a 170 feet high he says looking up Ingrid looks up too I bet he can see for miles up there she says its been there since 1843 he says walking on howd you know? she asks Mr Finn told us in history the other month Benny says I never heard him say that Ingrid says following behind Benny you were probably asleep Benny says smiling no I wasnt she replies just dont like history I find it bores me they climb the steps into the National Portrait Gallery and spend an hour or so looking around at the various portraits afterwards they come out and Benny says what about a glass of milk and cake in Leicester Square? is it far? she asks no just around the corner he says so they walk around and into Leicester Square my old man brings me here sometimes Benny says usually Sundays and we have a look around then we have a drink some place and have a go on the machines in the pinball alleys  my dad doesnt take me anywhere Ingrid says taking in the bright neon lights and the crowds of people passing them by I came with Mum once when she did evening cleaning at one of the offices up here Ingrid says remembering my mum works up here too cleaning some evenings Benny says they go into a milk bar and sit down at a table a waitress comes over to them and asks them what they wanted to drink or eat Benny tells her and she walks away he looks at Ingrid sitting in the chair he noticed she winced when she sat down whats up? your old man been hitting you again? he asks her why how did you know? she says looking at him blushing slightly saw how you sat and winced he replies he was in a bad mood and said I was too noisy and now that my brother and sister have left home he finds it easier to pick on me and Mum too Ingrid says you should tell someone Benny says Ingrid shakes her head Mum says Ill be taken away and wont see her anymore and I dont want to go in a home away from her so I say nothing and you mustnt either she  says eyeing Benny anxiously whod believe me he says looking at her wishing he could save her from the beatings she gets but he knows no one would believe him the waitress beings their milks and two biscuits and goes off after putting them on the table I saw your mum had a back eye the other week and my mum said she told her she walked into a door some ****** door that must be Benny says she must walk into that door on a regular basis Ingrid begins to sip the milk through a straw the waitress had provided she says nothing but looks at the glass and the sound of other people talking and laughing Benny sips his milk also thinking of the last time hed seen Ingrids old man passed him on the stairs and her old man eyed him coldly but said nothing after he had gone downstairs Benny gave him the ******* gesture Ingrid is glad to be out of the flat and the Square but shes anxious about his return that night after work and what he will ask her and she finds it hard to lie to him and if she says shes been to art gallery and the West End hell whack her for going and for going with Benny and Mumll say nothing then hell thump her for letting me go off and Ill feel guilty for getting Mum into trouble you let a nine year old girl out into the West End with that Benny kid? thump thump Ingrid can see it all now as she sips her milk Benny sips his milk eyeing Ingrid opposite looking anxious her mind on something else her eyes through her glasses enlarged what are you thinking about? he asks she looks at him nothing she replies its impossible for the human brain not to  think about something unless its died of course and I assume your brain hasnt died he says smiling Daddy says Im brain-dead sometimes she says but I wasnt thinking of anything in particular she lies looking at Bennys hair and the quiff and his hazel eyes and that way he has of studying her you dont lie too good he says lying about what? she says trying not to look too guilty Im not lying what were you really thinking about then? he asks she looks away from him and sips more of the milk I bet youre worrying about your old man finding out about us going up West and you know you cant lie to save your life Benny says I wish I could lie but I just blush or my eyes give me away Daddy always looks at my eyes he says they give me away before my mouth does then Im for it and he knows it and Mum gets it also then whether she knows about me or not its a matter of creative truth telling Benny says she looks at him and she frowns whats that? she says well keep in mind something who have said or done and put it in place of something you have done or said which you know you shouldnt have done he says but we have been here she says how can I put anything in its place? we will Benny says where? she asks well go to the church on the way home and you can go in there on your own and pray or something look at the coloured glass windows and flowers and then tell your old man that if he asks where youve been and done they finish their drinks and biscuits and go back to Trafalgar Square and get a bus back to the Elephant and Castle and Benny and Ingrid go to the church at the top of Meadow Row right now you go in on your own and sit and pray and have good look at the things inside like the coloured glass windows and the altar and then if your old man asks you can tell him the truth Benny says Ingrid goes in the church and Benny waits outside and as he does so he spots Ingrids old man go by on the other side of Meadow Row but he doesnt see Benny he just walks down the Row his features grim and Benny thinks of tiny demons following him.
A BOY AND GIRL IN LONDON IN 1958.
Paul Butters Feb 2017
Dilly dally ****
Ranieri has now gone.
Sacked by the Leicester board:
Watch them wield that deadly sword.

He won the league last year,
Then made Leicester disappear.
Should have been given a chance
To win the Relegation Dance.

Vardy grabs an away goal at Seville
Then next news the manager is nil.
It was a very nasty shock,
So early in the turning of the clock.

Ungrateful and disloyal too,
Those owners haven’t got a clue.
Hard-nosed business it may be,
Whatever happened to that word “We”?

They should have built a statue in Claudio’s name:
He’ll still be blessed with endless fame.
I’ll leave you with this sorry thought:
Football’s no longer a proper sport.

Paul Butters
Began writing this at 4.30 AM. Was shocking news when it happened.
judy smith Mar 2016
It was hardly a JFK moment but if, like me, you remember what you were doing when you first heard a Spice Girls track, it may be hard to believe two decades have elapsed since the girl group released their debut single, Wannabe, in the dying days of John Major’spremiership. Together with Oasis, Blur and Blair they heralded a new dawn for Britain - selling millions of records while they were at it - before embarking on what turned out to be a lengthy hiatus just four years later. There was a brief reunion in 2007-8 but the question now is: how, if at all, will they mark their 20th anniversary this summer?

Sitting opposite me in a London hotel bar in Leicester Square, just across from where she co-hosts the Breakfast show on Heart FM withJamie Theakston, Emma Bunton - the one formerly known as “Baby Spice” - makes no secret of her hope that the “girls” (now all in their forties) will get their act together.

“We adore each other. There’s so much we’ve been through. I would love to do something,” she says. “I think we’d all quite like to do something, but it really is figuring it out. We all have such different lives. Mel B [Melanie Brown, formerly Scary Spice] lives in America. We’ve all got different managers.” Not to mention the fact they are all mothers now and their busy schedules include commitments such as school plays, which makes finding time for a reunion even harder.

It’s natural to wonder, too, if any jealousy simmers beneath the surface. Victoria Beckham’s star has risen exponentially since the group broke up, with her marriage to former footballer David, their children and her fashion line keeping the profile of the erstwhile Posh Spice higher than those of any of her former bandmates. Bunton insists she’s delighted for her though.

“When a friend does that well it’s incredible. She’s just hilarious and I know exactly what she’s thinking just by looking at her,” she says. “I see pictures and I go, ‘I know what she’s thinking about!’ I’m very lucky because I know the fun, sarcastic, brilliant other side to her as well.” The fact that Beckham invited Bunton to choose a dress for her 40th birthday in January would appear to support the picture she paints of their friendship.

When “Baby” joined the band in 1994 she was almost young enough to be in a school play herself. Now she has two babies of her own - Beau, aged eight, and four-year-old Tate - with her fiance, the singer Jade Jones, to whom she has been engaged since 2011. Although she could pass for 30, her woollen shawl, floral Kooples shirt and the glasses that frame her face give her the look of an elder stateswoman of pop.

“Wouldn’t that be amazing?” she agrees when I suggest a one-off gig at Wembley Stadium. “Fingers crossed. That’s something we’d really love to do.” While we talk, a phone rings in her bag. It’s Geri Halliwell, formerly known as Ginger Spice. Bunton ignores it. “I’ll speak to her after and tell her you suggested it,” she says of the concert idea.

Meanwhile there is her new early evening live TV show to focus on. In BBC Two’s Too Much TV, she pairs up with Rufus Hound, Sara *** or Aled Jones, reviewing and previewing what’s on the box. Her years of experience as a radio host have come in handy here, but the programme itself has reportedly suffered some disappointing audience figures.

Still, Bunton is pleased to be forming a female double act with ***. The phrase “Girl Power” - which she defines as “supporting one another in everything you do” - was famously central to the Spice Girls’ brand and is something she continues to draw on. “For me, it started with seeing my mum going back to college at 40, starting karate at 40. She just kept growing and I’ve really fed off that,” she says. “I want to grow as much as she did and still is. She was my first role model. Jade is brilliant, it’s just we [girls] have had to push a bit harder. As girls we’ve pushed things forward.”

Bunton was born and raised as a Catholic with her younger brother in Finchley, north London. Her parents worked hard to provide for their children but separated when she was about 11, which she struggled with. (“I don’t like change too much,” she says.) Until her father, a former milkman, recently moved to Ireland, she would visit him every Sunday. Privately educated at the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London, she was granted a scholarship when her parents could no longer afford the fees.

Though not one to dwell on failure, even she began to question herself when the rejections kept coming. “You’d think, ‘I’m just not good enough,” she says. It wasn’t until she auditioned to become the fifth member of the Spice Girls that her big break arrived. She was asked there and then to move in with the others in Maidenhead - and the rest is nineties pop history.

Part of the Spice Girls’ selling point was their girl-next-door image. While it could not be said that *** was removed from the equation - theUnion Flag dress Halliwell performed in at the 1997 Brit Awards left little to the imagination and many of Brown’s leopard print outfits were an exercise in cleavage-display - *** appeal was not the main draw. Yet even if looks weren’t the focus (wasn’t it all supposed to be about fun, girl power and attitude?) Bunton hasn’t always felt secure about her body image.

“Obviously [body shape] is such a big thing in this industry,” she says. “I’m 5ft 1in so I feel that sometimes being curvaceous is harder to carry off because I’m so short. But I’m comfortable. I’ve always been that kind of way. In the industry it is becoming a bit more difficult because everybody is so slight, it’s quite unbelievable. I don’t know how they do it.”

When she first joined the group she felt relaxed enough about her appearance, but went through “probably a very short stage when everything hit and there were pictures everywhere and you think, ‘Do I look OK?’” This faded, and having children has helped stop her worrying about this. “It’s something I just don’t take on board as much because I can’t,” she says. “But you’re being pictured every day or papped, so obviously there’s that pressure of hoping to look half decent in pics.”

Reflecting on how motherhood has transformed her, she goes on: “I used to be very self-absorbed, I’m sure, worrying about what I was going to wear to the next event or whether my roots were done,” she says. “I’ve changed as a person.”

So what about that long engagement? Will she ever get round to tying the knot? She and Jade will need their heads knocking together before they do, she says. “If we do, we’ll definitely elope,” she adds.

Career-wise, she remains ambitious. She has a small part in the forthcoming Absolutely Fabulous movie and would like to sing and act more, as well as branching out into comedy (she’s already been involved in Comedy Central’s Drunk History).

Pop culture doesn’t cast out the over-40s these days, so there’s no reason to think she won’t stick around. Nobody, after all, puts Baby in a corner.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2015
I traipse along fractured slabs
to get away,
away from worn floors
to a place
of haunting silence -
just cope with it I say.
From the cavern
to the cave,
beneath ***** dishcloth clouds,
a monochrome Rubik's cube
of a mind,
sluggish and masses
of ******* ideas,
there
then forgotten.
Rummage around
in the green sack,
pick out a dream
to dream
tonight
before it melts
like Red Leicester on brown bread
into an image
hard to decipher,
a TV dotted with white spots -
smack me on the back
'til a picture returns.
Blindfold me
until I cannot see,
give me another sliver
of suspect perfection.
Written: October 2012.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time, also available on my blog and first uploaded as Facebook status update.
A born salesman,
my father made all his dough
by selling wool to Fieldcrest, Woolrich and Faribo.

A born talker,
he could sell one hundred wet-down bales
of that white stuff. He could clock the miles and the sales

and make it pay.
At home each sentence he would utter
had first pleased the buyer who'd paid him off in butter.

Each word
had been tried over and over, at any rate,
on the man who was sold by the man who filled my plate.

My father hovered
over the Yorkshire pudding and the beef:
a peddler, a hawker, a merchant and an Indian chief.

Roosevelt! Willkie! and war!
How suddenly gauche I was
with my old-maid heart and my funny teenage applause.

Each night at home
my father was in love with maps
while the radio fought its battles with Nazis and ****.

Except when he hid
in his bedroom on a three-day drunk,
he typed out complex itineraries, packed his trunk,

his matched luggage
and pocketed a confirmed reservation,
his heart already pushing over the red routes of the nation.

I sit at my desk
each night with no place to go,
opening thee wrinkled maps of Milwaukee and Buffalo,

the whole U.S.,
its cemeteries, its arbitrary time zones,
through routes like small veins, capitals like small stones.

He died on the road,
his heart pushed from neck to back,
his white hanky signaling from the window of the Cadillac.

My husband,
as blue-eyed as a picture book, sells wool:
boxes of card waste, laps and rovings he can pull

to the thread
and say Leicester, Rambouillet, Merino,
a half-blood, it's greasy and thick, yellow as old snow.

And when you drive off, my darling,
Yes, sir! Yes, sir! It's one for my dame,
your sample cases branded with my father's name,

your itinerary open,
its tolls ticking and greedy,
its highways built up like new loves, raw and speedy.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2016
two bottles of 70cl whiskey later and a few beers, popping sleeping pills for an actual effect worked with (it's ten past five p.m., i'm already mentioning ~ eleven minutes to midnight, so wait)... you get the shovel and broom ushering the ***** drinkers from a town centre in Leicester or Norwich; or you implant a hope to live in Scandinavia; you're basically laughing with a russian at that point: 'eh eh, where's lithuania?' 'ah ****, it's next to yuri reciting poetry on the laika satellite.' 'thought so.' german started from monkeys, sent one into space... slavs started with dogs... like all good people, i would too have kept the cats grounded in atmosphere; well, the oedipal riddle began with a sphinx, so i'm more than ready for the cerberus.*

i'm not going to repent for
my alcoholic metabolism,
i'll wait till you turn into ostriches
ostricizing vegans for anaemia
and bulimia and the london fashion show;
bullseye market that cares for
diaphragms and diabetes; sure the arabs
are alcohol free, but diabetic
looking into the sand dunes like looking
at dunes of sugar.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
rub it in... rub it in why don't you? isn't that the point of capitalism, this competitive mentality? why're you looking at me as if i killed your mother with a ******* harmonica?

i love how people regress their national frustrations
into sports - England is perfect with football...
oh? did i poke a beehive just now?
is Brexit for real now? it is now...
apparently one of the Icelandic managers is a
dentist, he just does the coaching in the summer
part time - i was walking for my daily metabolic
dosage of alcohol a little suspicious, acting out
all doom and gloom - well, it's more fun than
paying your taxes or seeking out career promotion
to be honest, after all, abolishing asylums turned
the entire social cohesion stratification into an
asylum, everywhere you go you have the phantoms
of "men in white coats", everywhere, can't ****
in an alley, can't drink a beer in public,
forget adrenaline *** - the entire human potential
of civilisation the Englishman stashed in his semi-detached,
by the way... don't you think that a Londoner will
find himself in lost-territory outside of London?
i love how the S.N.P. are in parliament 'aving a go
at voicing their compulsion for Brussels' choc &
guillotine chop policy - they want in... oh! does this
mean goodbye Jack ol' Boy? really? well, if you need
a ***** might as well be Wales - they're hanging, they're
hanging, and finally the bubble will burst,
why not Union John (like a toilet) or a Union Jeremy?
Union Jeffrey - Jaffas? Jizzum - Jazz?
but they're out for certain, if a bunch of
barbers, carpenters and sheep herders can beat them
living the Leicester City dream, i'm thinking of them being
the second Denmark from 1992 -
i've had so much emotion in my heart that now
i have a ******* headache - go on! a third goal! get in!
bam wam thank you Black Betty, bam ba'h lam.
it's not the football that interests me as much...
you seen the fans? ha ha! *a'woo!
              a'woo!                                    a­'woo!
a'woo!          a'woo!            a'woo! a'woo! a'woo!

mind you the sober wisdom of Alan Shearer
but that ******* chant man! coupling the missing
trill in the English R (how many gym sessions was that
to get the R to not trill? 2000 years and counting?
trickier than a French phlegm hark mind you)
and extending the E, well, the A isn't really necessary,
it's still reel...
*but who the hell decided what vowel goes where
and what vowel goes in anywhere given a change from
i - aye - and í - as in a punctured punctuation of
e    - prolonged -            and c            -
            a variant of        is              i.e.           ís
and not the German                   iß                    -
called a Kama Sutra of tonguing - slightly zeddy -
you really start to get polishing that mahogany table
for starters - no one gave me the rule books,
what's an offside, what's an penalty, etc. etc.,
i'm working at the scrapheap of language -
there was no congregation akin to the Diet of Worms
(ˈʁaɪçstaːk tsuː ˈvɔɐms) - try deciphering this
educated alphabet - upside-down Cyrillic for starters,
a bit of French, Greek iota, then circus without
a sheering process to add the -ta:k, and there too
a gamma is missing due to the softening into a kappa,
tsu;?                     huh?      why not              ßu?
to mind the Chiral (kye-rawl) nature of S and Z?
ich haben, ih blaben blabshen? *****-slap this to Jupiter,
i will... Tao no mayo in this ninja chow mein -
then it just, gets nuts! ɔɐ is what i've been discussing
about the umlaut - could have just written Wörms -
it's not straight arithmetic - it's that ɔɐ... thing...
like woad but more like woo'ed - you sort of have to
speak sideways - wo'o'erms - werms - or
so i thought.
Thomas Thurman Nov 2010
I watched from Farringdon as Satan fell;
I’ve battled for my soul at Leicester Square;
I’ve laid a ghost with Oystercard and bell;
I’ve tracked the wolf of Wembley to his lair;
I’ve drawn Heathrow’s enchantment in rotation;
at Bank I played the devil for his fare;
I laugh at lesser modes of transportation.
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

The Waterloo and City cast its spell;
I watched it slip away, and could not care,
the Northern Line descending into hell
until King’s Cross was more than I could bear;
he left me there in fear for my salvation,
a Mansion House in heaven to prepare:
so why return to any lesser station?
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

Three days beneath the earth in stench and smell
I lay, and let the enemy beware:
I learned the truth of tales the children tell:
an Angel plucked me homeward by the hair,
to glory from the depths of condemnation,
to where I started long ago from where
I missed my stop through long procrastination.
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

Prince of the buskers, sing your new creation:
the change you ask is more than I can spare;
a change of spirit, soul, imagination.
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.
Bother, I've got it wrong again. Ballades are ababbcbc, not ababcbcb. I think this can be saved anyway.
Harsh May 2013
The moment that cold breeze snuck up on me at Euston,
as I stood on the right side of the escalator blissfully unaware,
and playfully ruffled my dangerously short dress,
is when I must have caught the scandalousness in the air.
The specks of Spring light appearing somewhat bright,
played tricks on my mind, rather late that night.
Arms linked as the stride casually synchronized,
while the start of the weekend brought the weary streets to life.
Thighs met over two Chai Lattes in the corner of a little Cafe,
as his aftershave wrestled Cinnamon into a subtle yet alluring foreplay.
The world went by completely unaware, as we
gallivanted down memory lane in search of a future under a sycamore tree.
If only the heart could be locked away in the Tower of London,
safely among fragile jewels coerced from Sunny lands.
Instead, the unfinished kiss in Leicester Square,
has confounded it to pursue a far more adventurous plan.
This poem is the sole property of me and cannot be copied or used without permission. [Copyright G.H. Rodrigo 13/05/2013]
Ben Jones Jun 2013
There's a tale that's spoken
When dawn has broken
By gateman and watchmen and guards
And it's echoed by thieves
As the night time leaves
As they shuffle their crooked cards

Of a demon disguised
And a doctor despised
So be weary of coaches at night
There's a roaming physician
Of the devils tuition
A curse and a bringer of plight

Oh, Doctor Sinestre
The butcher of Leicester
A man with a hunger for pain
With top hat and tails
And talon-like nails
There are many he's happily slain
He travels by night
And is fast out of sight
And away by the first light of day
He takes eyes and ears
As grim souvenirs
And your body is left on display

It's said he was born
With a singular horn
Which he uses to gouge his prey
And my grandmother swears
He was brought up by bears
Which he killed in a grizzly display

He's a magical voice
A remover of choice
To beguile the strongest of wills
He can tear you apart
And pull out your heart
So quickly the blood never spills

Oh, Doctor Sinestre
The gory molester
An animal dressed as a man
If you hear him approach
In his ebony coach
Then away just as fast as you can
He feeds on the weak
On souls of the bleak
And seekers of fortune and strife
He removes your afflictions
Diseases, addictions
As swiftly he cures you of life

He has eyes in his ears
So he sees what he hears
His teeth once belonged to a snake
The soles of his feet
Don't meet with the street
Not a print or a sound does he make

There are maps of strange lands
On the palms of his hands
And thick purple hair on the back
There's a bat in his hat
All sluggish and fat
For if ever he fancies a snack

Oh, Doctor Sinestre
The mayor of Chester
And prince of the circles of hell
He giggles and gloats
As he fiddles with goats
He dabbles in chickens as well
A spaceship he flies
Through Lancashire skies
He can turn you to gold with a kiss
He's a ghost driven mad
By his alien dad
And.... Are you TOTALLY sure about this?
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
i always favoured Händel (see the hidden γραφεμη variation of the a diaeresis - some simply sprech Hendel, also not the aesthetic mimic symbiosis with sigma - aesthetically it is written Σσς, so too it should be written Εεη - with the variations of epsilon - η - written conclusively, as with the variation of sigma - ς - the remnant, a last resort - the greeks don't believe the tetragrammaton twins of the symbol H anyway, they already laid new pavements for the road ahead, ridiculing the old testament with fanciful quotation, so that man could imbue a godliness rather than the filth of prophetic warmongering in the desert, sacrificing children to a bear like Elisha, the new testimony and the clean prophet, beware the wolf in sheep clothing, sheep equating itself to Nazarene cleanliness, but the wolf inside that will be worthy a tri-summation of interests - before universal education in the Victorian era, when finally enough horses were used up and machines took over, and people were allowed to be escorted into the cinema of uncovered phonetic encoding - taught literacy - but to no avail, having squandered that on acronym shortenings... multifaceted digressions ensue, as i am true to the purpose of suddenly injecting venomous imagery into this whole crescendo of the new regime, nightwatchman every over day, to save myself the pointless stimulus of drinking - let's leave the realm of italics and regroup with the points already made...

what a glorious night yesterday's was, by me saying,
well, there is still over an hour left to include yesterday's
night as today - the heavy Baroque organs of thunder,
interchanging with brilliance of lightning -
7,000 accounts of lightning flashing in a square mile,
perhaps more - there was me, reminiscing what i missed
about Freddy Kruger in the original version of
a nightmare on Elm's street, the 2010 revamp made it
plain (i thought Freddy was a bit of a loser compared
to the other horror icons, like Jason, Michael, Pinhead),
but then it dawned on me... he, was, a *******!
the former two were mutes, hefty mutes, bodybuilding
mutes, bulls, charging, dragging around them a gravity
of pure animal, a bit like a lion hunting although without
the growling - if only lions had cat eyes,
but lions don't have serpent eyes, their pupils are more
mammalian than cat eyes, bonsai, Asian squint, inverse,
serpents in fur - their pupils dilate proportionately
to small pupil, large pupil, not vertical Asian squint in
leather... anyway... what a night to watch a horror movie...
the big brainstorm before the referendum,
morning's newspaper and the newspaper *the times

in revamp mode of the tabloid the sun with
a Shakespeare quote: i to the world am like a drop of
water (or, whatever, water is precious, Shakespeare
is about as much a schooled sneeze / quotation in
comparison), that in the ocean seeks another drop -
told you, the times is just a revamped tabloid version,
it's under the same umbrella group - the only two
opposition newspapers with credentials in England
are the guardian (the left) and the daily telegraph
(the right) - i can see now why Freddy seems pathetic
but is more frightening - it's the ****** talking,
the nursery rhyme jingle - that's the freaky part -
but in the same night i expressively enjoyed
t.v. caviar of Versailles, no critical essay mind you,
just noticing this strange pair of aristocratic ladies,
fakes, a mother and a daughter, what's revealing
is that the girl has no interest in the king, this
builder is eyeing her up, whistles, and loving it,
she has not desire for aristocratic **** *******
of her cousin who's courting Louis XIV brother
Philippe, the gardener ex-soldier (a Socratic type)
warns him, he's asked by the builder, what the hell you
doing here? oh, i'm trying to see the garden more clearer.
he ain't though, he's questioning the entire hierarchy,
later on the same builder puts a pink rose in a bucket
and lowers it down to the garden promenade
where the same pair mother and daughter are walking,
the girl engages... she isn't aristocratic in the least!
she's more interested in frolicking in the hay with
a builder than some king or prince... the mother is poor,
she knows all the salon politics, she basically wants
her daughter to get herself a pension by ******* the king
and bearing him a *******, but there's a scene where
the daughter asks late at night... what are you doing?
the mother replies... writing letters... now you'd expect
that to mean letters in the style of Voltaire or de Montainge,
but by letters she means A B C, D E F... she's illiterate!
an aristocrat and illiterate? how else to control the
masses so long ago if not keeping them illiterate
content with fables from Plato's shadow puppet metaphors?
later the mother becomes frightened that the motto
Louis XIV emphasises (appearances are power -
deception = poker-hand perception, bluffs the higher up
you go), she's walking alone through the corridors of
Versailles and starts chatting up the court inquisitor etc.,
Fabien Marchal - he ain't exactly the aristocratic type,
she's already seeing the failures of her daughter
and the failures of too much information being passed down
to her about how to catch the eye of the king - god i love
this show, Philippe taking an ancient form of a selfie
looking into a little mirror before charging on his horse,
the power struggle, Louis flicks some porridge
onto Philippe, Philippe flicks some back,
Louis shoves a whole bowl of it on Philippe's head,
Philippe ****** on Louis, a wrestling match after:
you might have ****** on a brother's head...
but i ****** on a king's head. so why **** this entire
notion from Detective Comics and Edward (e)Nigma
******* all the brains out from a television set?
the idea of a bulls-eye is still out there - just have to know
what to glue yourself to;
but never mind that, to give closure to this whole
random escapade -
vote leave, reason? three houses of parliament in Brussels,
not a single member is elected by the public,
they're all self-appointed or appointed by connections.
vote remain, reason? cheap cigarettes from Romania,
Bulgaria and Poland - under new regulations they might
not be so cheap, i might have to resort to e-cigarettes.
probable outcome? Europe is already failing, it seems
that the idea of the free-movement of people doesn't
really apply to member states, but to non-member states,
esp. those outside Europe - the stigma born from
the grand European expansion of ~2005 fuelled the problem,
free movement of post-British Empire peoples, yes,
movement of member states in the political union? no,
no one from California and go to New Mexico,
but Mexicans can go to Washington, what a ****** up
logic - the prophesy of a revived Roman Empire is a bit
daft - and if i really did have an illegitimate child,
at what age does paying child support end? 16 or 18?
i wasn't married, i asked about the contraceptive pills,
but still the hot-bun shoved under my pillow to think about...
i'm positive that's when the buzzing in the left
hemisphere of my brain will end, and a grand L.S.D. trip
will appear in the sky, like a big Christmas mince pie -
ask me then, it's been 9 years in, i might have a break,
but until then i'm contemplating juggling Joyce with
Burroughs, and telling you... you know what i'd really like?
hearing Händel messiah in German... singing opera
is English is so so horrid, i love the opera never mind,
i was inspired by the section:
opernchor - weil von mann kommen tod -
to want to hear it in German - and trying to write German
using English grammar, and translate it, is like
a little-Oedipus fable, not as bad as mother and son,
no gauging of the eyes, more like the standard practice
in Arabia with marriage between 2nd or 3rd cousins -
and D.N.A. quick-tests in Iceland, who i'm praying will
win if the vote is to leave, fairy-tale Leicester City,
a country with the same population, 330,000;
not to mention Gudmundur Benediktsson's ******
that beat any South American gooooooooooo(h)'l /
enlarged spelling of ~gall, and so on and so forth bladder
or blah blah blah blah blah.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2016
i'm actually writing in Turkish akimbo on the floor,
****** uncomfortable,
can't do the hunched monkey spine of Blitzkrieg...
the problem lies with my cat,
a Maine **** that's actually a bloodhound
come bed time... his ******* operatic meows
get to me... he will meow down any werewolf's howl
any night of the week, with 200 variations...
he's like a dog when bedtime comes,
he rapes his way into my room,
takes comfort in my writing chair,
keeps me up listening to βετo βετα's
between two selves - i call this the reason
for never stealing from Hinduism...
outside of Hinduism the economic model works
just as effectively as Auschwitz with cows...
come to petted animals, putting yourself
second doesn't... you get to see the many variations
of character in these buggering fur-*****;
****** got gassed, i see it as a natural karma...
because why would he have a Jewish girlfriend
who committed suicide with him the bunker?
i won't pity them... ****** knew the measure
of things, having been gassed himself
he knew the wounds: and so will millions who
thought world war i was fought in vain...
remind me... as once the northern invaders
accommodated the Roman alphabet and dropped
the runes... what you conquer you express
as an incorporation of certain qualities...
luckily the German work ethic was unshaken...
but it shook the English sensible life:
work! work! work! ready meals in between:
two favourites! two! cheese cauliflower and lasagne.
to keep up the once colonial Herrwettlauf in
charity limbo... you ain't donating to any Africans...
Bobbie Geldof fooled you...
it goes into milking the ivory skinned skin-heads
once retired... Africa is more than just a suntan...
it goes back into ensuring we don't work
in Chinese factories under lynching-contracts...
case no. 0 (or contract) - we'll just call you when we need you,
otherwise we'll contract the cheap steel and cheaper
salt from the Dead Sea:
new social order... after all that colonial piracy i'm sure
we can afford investing in a body mass indexes...
is this how efficiency is structured?
quality control and quantity control...
well, capitalism knows quality control...
but it does't have the foggiest about quantity control:
hence so much waste, and supermarkets throwing out
food into the gutter... the quality control is there,
but the quantity control is missing: always excess, always
excess, always excess... sure i get the Muslim
argument about drunken Brits in Spain and Leicester...
but what about those Saudi children speeding
in their sports cars? no one going to criticise them?
after 50 years... our shame will be a greater
instigator of global warming than a diesel engine...
cheeks puffing up into rose and rose and everything's
finally not so rosy as we thought.
so here i am, writing in uptight akimbo without
the writer's hunch of reverse Darwinism,
all because my Maine **** is acting like a bloodhound,
gets depressed before bedtime...
why are these animals needing my bogus company?
when it comes to music i'm selfish; ah! he
doesn't like the night and the modern orchestra of
grizzly exhaust engines doing the baritone with rasping
the new church bell (phlegm) with a hark uvula...
it's called Irish poker for a prayer...
the van de graaff toy generator is on in the darkened room -
then the typing ****** him off, he's off...
thank **** for that...
but why is it that the once infamous Axis strategies
are creeping into those that strove to defeat them?
we are getting Japanese karaoke culture,
we're getting welcoming euthanasia programs spanning
the dicta of Belgium and Switzerland,
as people want dignity in their death...
they're queuing up to the once known enemy...
maybe it's because these Axis powers were
never colonialists...
                                 just finishing watching Indian
Summers
season two you get the picture...
god and the dodgy monkeys...
stay... sit! stay... sit! **** it, let's lynch that Eton ****
of privy accents... ol chap... ol chappy...
trot along... the turban bomber and half
the thought that a Pole learning obedience from
Russian and German would learn to be cinnamon
skinned in England... i'm almost suspecting the
Irish are the SS in the project.. generation of the Vietnam
saint soaked in gasoline... oddly enough
that has no place in Europe, apologies that i don't
share the sentiment... it's obviously the
counter crucifixion scene and emblem,
but only in: LET'S MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN...
i told you be afraid of the blonde ferret...
i see the prognosis just like Britain exiting the European
union... California is not even America,
who gives a **** about the American Secular Vatican, anyway?
it will be like as if Canada was part of America
and resembled Scotland in the Jackshit Union...
gross the vote on the puppet...
the Democrats will get New York (the equivalent
of London) - i don't know how to twin Reading,
and that blue belt of remain campaigners linking the two,
half of who would speak as much of French
as an advert concerning the sales of socks...
or enough German to order a pint of beer in a Bavarian
pub... well, Canada would vote like Scotland,
one revolutionary figure (who was actually Muslim,
and never cared for African-American concerns
of Baptism... singing hallelujah was never part
of the do)... can't be replaced with another revolutionary
figure... he was never exactly a Martin Luther King Jr.,
more of Malcolm X than you thought...
that strip between London and Reading
will be translated into Ronald Reagan's resurrection...
a billionaire is more ridiculous than
an actor? well... who we going to call the pretty boy
and the favourite of media cartoonists? boots on the ground,
a society that doesn't practice dialectics is not
only rude, but out-of-date...
the debate of the park bench now resides in separate
stadiums, monologues that involve something
that physics unearthed: two sources of negativity
existing in two places, at the same time...
if this is a debate, then i got the postal code wrong...
the dialectics of knowing nothing became: i still know
nothing, but i have 4 million people supporting me.
i imagine the cavemen to be less subjective that we
try to imagine ourselves as resembling, Michael Palin
in the Sahara... cavemen worked on instinct, not on
appeal to the intellect... that thing
about the jokes of the vibrating lips and the index finger
moving against them to invent the Mongolian harmonica...
given the complication of urban life... well...
you'll hardly revise that bit... that part of life is gone...
i assumed that the more we evolved the less
naked we became... but given evolution and having
created this parasitic symbiosis with the natural
elements... the more i think of it: the more naked we're
becoming - the more dependent -
the original sin as conceived from the delusion that we
were disabled by our originally conception of nakedness...
it only comes now... once the dependency kicks in
and we're all in bow-ties and cocktail dresses...
hello Herr Fetish and page 3 milking of the farmyard
cows of our imagination - Islamic eye-fetish,
we heard of footfetish... must be about oral ***...
knees baby knees, Arab has eyefetish on your knees...
i have a fetish for hands... see how the cameraman zoomed
in on the hands of the women fencing?
once instinct governed us... and instinct's expression
of intelligence was: i challenge the alpha male,
i'll get **** with his concubines in the harem...
these days intellect governs us... and intellect's
expression of instinct is: i challenge the alpha male,
i'll whip up a horde of lawyers, file a lawsuit
and get away it because he nudged me in a supermarket...
honestly, i don't think educating people was a great
evolutionary step forward...
we have more law-prose liposuction on the pages of
history than a Tolstoy could muster a novel -
and because we taught everyone literacy,
the once necessary backbone of our economy,
the workers... well... let's just say that the Founding
Fathers made their muscles into oysters and molluscs,
floppy protein spaghetti... wiggle wiggle, yeah, wiggle wiggle, yeah...
defeating Communism in a place of the world that was
prone to some sort of religiosity, enzyme John Paul II -
i'd bruise his forehead and lips against those airport tarmacs
i'd get to be the inventor of sand-paper and
the Antichrist's assault on the biblical reference:
it only takes on saint to defeat the congregation... it starts with him...
or with that Calcutta Lady and Hitchens...
and oh... lookie here... up pops Hydra China:
America will be great again... but chances are...
the hot dog and the hamburger will never be re-invented...
watch the pendulum... op op oop oops here it swings
while the Hawaii communal laugh about starving
on coconuts.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2015
last night, the same woman from a previous night prior to last night, walking with shopping bags into an affluent area of the town, giving me the ultimate evil stare of all famous superstitions. the second time, last night, the same woman, the same diseased stare, and this poem - as a result of being impregnated with too much evil; call me superstitious, but not all witchery is softened by psychiatric reasoning and antidepressants.*

and then i hear of my parents meeting a friend of mine's father,
an "antique" dealer for the tourists
slander me for drinking too much and not glorifying marijuana
while insults were thrown like snowballs
before my mother and father entertaining guests from canada,
i talk a bit more with him in a pub a few weeks later,
he tells me of the topic of conspiracy to commit ******
with haemorrhage symptoms like nothing: but how do you know
he says; i offend him with courting: but how do you know
whether i'm telling the truth or lying? in silence.
i raise my hands upon parting, we part:
diana wanna hugs? no, diana wanna scrap metal.
his father made our friendship less by not including a monetary
exchange of power, i'd flex a bicep my way had i a necessary
drinking partner; but i don't: the chip man sold whole potatoes
deep fried in the shape of fabergé eggs... his father sold
traffic cones in the shape of trombones at a higher price, only
because all the buyers were tourists.
socrates was wrong though: poets are not rhetoricians
or sophists, what we are we are because we use rhetoric and sophistry
to insult people, trying to remain in tact: better that
with any army, we're more armadillo word-to-word than the hoplites
shield-to-shield; idiots never known an insult for a gimmick
unless a chess-precise knuckle is utilised on unchaining linkages;
but like the saxon i too, on the vibrant islands of celt and caramel,
the second wave of saxons came, the scot and irish celts worried
about lambs of isaac, but lessened their concerns
with the norman landing - so i too originated upon using
my tongue to a disadvantage, and it worked, for hastings and for all,
"lying" myself abrupt with a burp for the sparrow to ease lighter spacing
of the advantaged footstep.
we were poets, word-to-word tighter than the hoplites shield-to-shield
for what the gladiators called armadillos of a farm.
socrates didn't get it, since he reasoned: i to noun, equating it only
as questioning pro to the guise of inquiry, but among the native nobility of greece,
poetry survived, songs and jests supreme, park bench hollows
for the termite lisp in sounds of the multitude,
had but the termite song bore a chair to rock a baby blue,
i'd too rock a baby in suffocating termites song,
but we known nouns are not delicious "out of time"
in the adjectives, for we know nouns as static insurmountable objects,
and given the unitary subjectivity of sport statistics,
they are only worth a passive commentary of nodding and passivity
to please - i.e., never was sloth a gamble to ease a fission of gambled lessening;
but if philosophers corrects poets, then poets end up correcting furtherance
with philosophy simply plagiarised for academia's salary bogus;
wishing that socrates only took the bribe rather than the poisonous brine.

i start the night off reading *the offence of poetry
, by an emeritus prof.,
hazard adams, gets me ******* to the point where i forgive the culprit
of rotten *** and jealous ****** born lute worthy out of wedlock...
why the violins i ask, chopin played a few dirges on piano,
why the sentiment to imagine Dickensian paupers?
a violin dropped from the sky with frogs & lepers didn't **** anyone,
but a piano did, once, in bad key.

i started the night off reading a book: the offence of poetry,
got *******,
walked off into the jiggle night starry for some beers,
walked past a family: mother, father plus 3, a boy and two girls,
headphones on, hushed, then my hairpiece the attention,
walked into the off-lice, picked up 8 cans,
stood there imitating conservative *******,
spotted the mother eagerly brushing shadows with me,
tilted from my eye corner into her face
and spotted a ****** up face of smiles:
girls talked about me like zoella,
i donned my pseudo self-inventive chonmage,
hair too thick;
but i egged them on in rugby, loving the tetragrammaton geometry of
two H, y for threes in dimensions and
all the tactic being: // \ for the w.
pardon me wrong but was it: eager eagle's nest the jester in clown's face paint
**** of splash in conversation?
but don't you just love a married woman with three kids
putting two wine bottles on a counter looking at you
after her children said something noticeable about you only secondary in dreams?

well... there's the rude story of a friend's father among many
to claim the accent in jealousy,
father ****** no. 2, hide his ***** in a ******* prior to the girthed birth
experience of: "rising to the top of law and commerce."
idiotic ******* the load of them;
happened in leicester sq. i have you know,
irish was blazed in ginger that day too reminiscent of celtic,
but as you know, intelligence and the irish swing into the maxim:
a man walks into a pub - they delivered the concrete!
the pub is emptied, the irish run out for hands on prayer missing -
in shakespearean metaphor of folding monks giving prayer to ****
the ***** and lips the kiss, for whatever reason was worth a rhythmic suffix as towed into -ed, -ed.
Terry Collett Apr 2013
Watching the ballerina
tying her ballet shoes
preparing for Swan Lake
you remembered

that time in London
when Judy was away
for the week in Italy
and you were held

by the black dog
its teeth holding
onto your soul
going to the coffee bar

in Leicester Square
sitting there
gazing out the window
watching the people

feeling the dark mood
deepen
waiting for time
for the ballet to begin

at Covent Garden
then you are there
sitting in your seat
surrounded by others

well dressed
high talk
posh tones
and you thought

you saw Judy
in the faces
that were there
even one

of the ballerinas
seemed to be her
the same hair
the figure similar

and when the lights lowered
and darkness held you
you thought of her
beside you

her perfume
her soft voice
but some other dame
sat there some brunette

some thin *****
dressed in blue
and yellow
then the music began

the Tchaikovsky
the black dog biting
and Judy in Italy
and you stuck there

at the ballet
some other time
some other year
and you watched

as the ballerina
having tied on
her shoes
stood and prepared

and stared
as you sat
thinking back
mixing it

with that depression dog
of black.
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
so you end up reading a book review,
about the mad myth-makers of mother russia,
the Kremlin is in thrall to men once seen
as ideological crazies: black wind, black snow,
pristine glitter of the western hemisphere:
if you regret having a conscience,
blame someone else not having one either,
motto no. 1...
Euro-Asian in russian politics:
Leicester City F.C. owned by a Thai...
mongols mongols everywhere! and not
a german to converse with! rant of the ancient
mariner... rereading, plagiarism and cheap humour;
anna akhmatova's son lev gumilev
chopping his leg along with firewood in a siberian
goo goo (dubbed the prison of the wingless
anchor of national sentiment, i.e. an eagle, quasi),
why is language to be or become an IKEA
(Sweden, Abba, great meatballs)
of putting together a table, a chair, why not take
stance with Burroughs and Tzara and make it
random? a few pedestrians along the way,
you never know when such randomness might convene
you to talk Taj Mahal postcards.
the fiend from KGB riddled east Berlin...
coca-colonialists - cola-nationalists, bought
Alaska, sold three-quarters of America to China...
#loveyourimperfections... selling love is not
like selling perfume... the thing you're selling is
an an Ayers rock sized ****... thing stank so much
you're welcome to see one bush in an acre
that's the outback...
orthodox christianity? didn't get it...
catholicism is too bureaucratic...
the Koran contradicts the genesis story of
a fire that's flameless, as the Israelites marched
a fire ahead, smoke behind them erasing tracks,
the Iblis of the Koran...
da, smert! it's all coming together like
an over-fried egg... with aleksandr dugin,
a guitar-strumming russian beatnik (
hard to be a beatnik in plateau without angry
Brooklyn streets) -
(ras)Putin based upon max stierlitz, KGB-backed
t.v. from the 1970s... or Hans Kloss,
limanov co-founded the national bolshoi party
along with behemoth (the alcoholic cat
who played chess in the Master and the Margarita)...
you've not been given any instructions,
you're already fazed with advertising interludes
changing your attention like looking into
a kaleidoscope between your favourite program...
16 years in Dresden, 22 years in England & Scotland...
but if you spent that same amount of time,
either 16 or 22 years, you might have
come across accounts of German girls after
world war ii... in the book we, children from station
ZOO
by a Christiane F. (Christine F.) -
how the three allied powers were supplying
******... teenagers on ******... the western powers...
the new treaty of Versailles... teenagers on ******...
the western powers... east Berlin waited and waited
and got the emergence of Rammstein;
o.k. fair enough, teenagers overdosing and dying
but at least three world cup titles by FRG...
and GDR doing the doping rounds of revising
world records in sprinting and acrobatics at the
Olympics... in unison the chemists just say:
please use our compounds, our additives, dope up,
all the civilians are using recreational drugs
at some point during the week, please let the
olympians use our talent to increase their potential!
Terry Collett Jun 2013
Benedict met Julie
(the druggie
and whatever
else she was)
circa 1967
at the foot
of Nelson's Column
in Trafalgar Square.

She was dressed
in a mini skirt,
tight top, her hair up.

He dressed in his red shirt,
pink slacks, black shoes,
smiled as he approached.

Never guess how many times
I've been chatted up
as a *****, she said,
since I've been
standing here.

Guess you
put them right,
he said.

Do I look
like a *****?
she asked.

No, of course not,
he said, taking in
her mini skirt,
the tight top,
the pressing out ****.

She sighed.
Anyway you're here,
where now? She asked.

The gallery? He said,
indicating the National
Portrait Gallery behind.

I need a drink, she said.
Are you allowed
with the medication
you're on?
Since when
did you become
my father? She said.

He looked at the people
round about, the pigeon feeders,
the meeting of lovers,
visitors from some
foreign shores,
middle class,  
up your *** bores.

Ok, he said, let's go
have that drink,
then take in a gallery
or cinema.

I feel a need
to make a hit,
she said.

They only let you
out of the hospital
because they think
you can be trusted,
he said.

Then they shouldn't
trust me should they,
she said.

But they do.
It's up to you,
but I'm not
sticking around
if you go back
down that alley,
he said. I said
I felt a need,
didn't say
I was going to,
she muttered.

She moved away
from the Column;
he followed, through
the Square, pass
the people and pigeons,
the kids and parents.

He gazed at her ***
as she moved ahead,
the sway of it,
the thighs, sans
stockings, her feet  
with sandals,
treading the ground.

She stopped at the edge
of the road; he stood
beside her, took her hand,
felt her warmth.

They found a bar
in Leicester Square.
Ordered drinks, sat down,
lit cigarettes, smoked.

Guess who I met
the other week?
He asked.

Who? she asked.
Charles Lloyd,
he said.

Who's he? she asked.
Jazz sax-player.
Met him outside
Dobell’s' record shop
in Charing Cross Road.

Is he famous? She asked.
Sure he is. I got him
to autograph my copy
of his latest LP,
Benedict said.

What did he say?
She asked.
Sure man he said
and scribbled on
the back cover.

She looked out
of the window;
took a long drag
of her cigarette.

He watched her profile,
the lips holding
the cigarette,
the puffing out
of smoke.
Thinking of her
in the hospital ward,
the white dressing gown,
the skippered feet,
that time they made love
in that small room
off the ward.

Another drink?
She said.
Sure, he said,
and ordered two more.

Some place inside her head
a wild wave of need
swept up the empty shore.
John F McCullagh Feb 2013
How bitter it was to be bereft
of Crown and life
in self  same breath.
Bitter it was  to fall and die
while disloyal Stanley stood idly by.
The arrow lodged close by my spine
as I was pole axed from behind.
A King of England, doubly dead,
stripped naked ,on an *** was led.
In Leicester's graveyard I was lain-
The anointed monarch they had slain.
To lie forever in this hole
while Henry wore the crown he stole.
My Queen, my son, both predeceased,
were nobly interred and rest in Peace.
While I, Richard,  ignobly lie
near Bosworth field with Greyfriars by.
Terry Collett Aug 2013
Nima splashed water from one
of the fountains in Trafalgar Square
over Baruch. Laughing she did
it again, but he side-stepped, like

one out of rain, hands wide as if
to bless. He'd met her a few moments
before; by Nelson's Column, she’d
written from her hospital bed, drug

taking recovering (so said), cold
turkey or whatever she'd scribed.
Finishing the ablutions, she walked
on, he followed, stepping beside

her, catching her in profile, taking
in her cropped hair, brown, washed
and washed. She talked of the nursing
staff, who talked of her behind her

back, some at least, she added, chat
of the *** cupboard we used, that
time you came, she said, laughing,
walking out of the Square, along by

the gallery, her voice too loud, he
thought, but sounded out by the
traffic passing. She was clothed in
a blue dress, too short, he thought,

seeing her thighs, sans stockings or
tights, sandaled feet. They went into
Leicester Square, she talking of one
of the quacks she'd seen, head case,

foreign, fancies himself, she added.
Baruch, spied the billboards, new
films, merchandise, drinks, cigarettes,
lowering his eyes, watching her sway

her hips and ****, hands swinging,
gesturing.  She stopped by a bench
and sat down, he did likewise, ears
catching her words, holding them in

his mind, something about them being
jealous of my sexuality she added,
giving Baruch the eye, maybe thinking
me a *****, a druggie slapper, she

said laughing, her hand rubbing against
the top of his, he sensing skin on skin,
remembering, the quickie in the side
room, cupboard size, just off the ward.

He talked of his boring job, the mind
numbing labours, the Coltrane jazz LP,
played on and on, he said, eyes closed.
She lay her head on his shoulder, he felt,

smelt the combination of expensive scent
and hospital smell (soaps or disinfectants),
felt her fingers rubbing his. She took out
a cigarette, offered him one, he took and

she lit up with red plastic lighter. Inhaled,
exhaled, inhaled, silence, her hand wrestled
with his, watching smoke rise, upwards,
twirling, in the hot summer spread skies.
Jeremy Ducane May 2010
It's such a pain when you lose a poem on the motorway.
Near Leicester, as I recall.
(Or not)

And it was such a good opening -

Such a line

Full of simple power - lyric heart and
Earth and you...  
But now not here
Now no more.

Like friend who died with sunken eyes
I could then just see
3 weeks ago:
A curious distance from death.

The day after I could still see him,

And in 5 years time I will again
I know.

But 3 weeks?
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
i don't think i wrote something incoherent... i mean, i could be accussed of having written something incoherent... but the way i look at it, i didn't exactly write a discourse... platonism - theatrical notation of philosophy, theatre as such... became abhorred way-back before platonistic abhorrence of poetry became established in the koranic text... so no... i don't think i wrote something incoherent, i might be guilty of writing it in a berserk-like frenzy... but it's not incoherent... it's simply said in a language, that's says θ = φ, ε = η, o = ω, ξ = χ, so you see... all the aesthetics dwindles... because i wrote this without it being reminiscent of a beautiful conversation under the moon in some exotic place... or a conversation you might have in a supermarket when buying a pint of milk... that's why the above stated greek letters are actually the same... and they exist as "chiral" if you decide to take into consideration aesthetic orthodoxy with origins in making literacy a monopoly... nothing contained in here is incoherent... the only "incoherency" of this piece is that: you wouldn't really talk to someone about it, when buying groceries, or having a nostalgic conversation with a friend... it's ad abstractum... that thing that's also not bound to any parliament or church.

some people really do aspire to be quenched
by the phenomenon status...
   to be the slang first said,
   to be the last, doctrine fed,
          i admire these people, well, admire,
like i'd admire king Solomon -
who prayed to be bewstowed by wisdom,
and what came of his prayer?
              a weak heart, and a walrus status
with a harem...
        i hold my **** like king David holds the lyre...
call it what you want...
              but you see a shagged out beauty like
Dakota Skye, and you just have to bash out
the tennis *****...
                   it comes naturally:
will i get a crown for celibacy, or should i wait
for prostate cancer...
          is there anyone in the vicinity to help me out?
not really...
i can't fanticise about either of my neighbours...
   ****-wits attest to the tried path of protestantism's
freedom-libido...
            but what i'm curious about more perverse
than that... perosnal hygiene isn't really the question
being asked...
                  yes, take a ****, partake in the double-quickie...
it almost feels like ******* and taking a ****
is a *******'s worth of v.i.p. pass when
they say shalom, you ease out the **** and
*******... hence the ******* perfume to boot...
   why do it in the shower?
       why get comfy and do it in an armchair?
   lucky me... i need no *****...
and doubly-lucky me: i read enough marquis de sade...
   oh no, he's not repetitive in his book *******
,
he's lost the ability to lullaby you to sleep
strapped to a chair in a sadist's disneyland by now...
       but hell: i see no need to glorify these assertions,
i'm just gagging for the moment my
peers will find it boring doing what they do,
when they reach middle-age and have forgotten
******* per se, as a driving factor for
imagination, or how one thrives on keeping
imagination alive by jerking off...
            it becomes a story of: not really looking
for my dream girl... just give me anything that moves
and i'll be content...
                 when was the last time you
picked up a bisexual thai girl in a park off a bench,
took her home, played her some jazz, and later
****** her in the garden by the moonlight?
       what finally convinced her?
in her own words: i've never seen so many books...
   well yeah, that's modesty creeping up on me.
    and unless you're not using the medicine:
what?! you gonna start imagining ******* your mother?
    the point is that Kant can never become a
populist philosopher... he made his life so: that
he never encountered the weitgheist of Napoleon
at Juna... Kant wasn't the antithesis of Marxism...
      you can't take Kant to a movie premier in Leicester Sq....
   you can take Kant to the pulpit...
   sure thing, you can take Hegel, as you do,
to get people mobilised...
       that's why i prefer Kant in that he gave me something
to work on... as much as i admire
                  the people subjected to creating phenomenons of
themselves... so that people can be cloned and bleached
and be told the marching orders: these days musicians
are the kings... poets are the paupers...
   i identify with neither...
                       i mean, just the one word he invented,
if you want to ask me about a priori and a posteriori
atypical things people regurgitate about Kant,
i'm not your man...
                      if i can salute to the pig through of everything
and nothing,
                       i'll make a statue from oyster shells instead...
it's enough that i told you what Kant wrote
that 0 = negation...
                               but given what i'm trying to
really say is the people who give us individuality...
it doesn't matter whether you live in a democracy or
an autocracy...
   the matter is simpler, because only one word has
any meaning right now: to congregate at the altar of
the noumenon...
                               res per se... that the latin translation...
   i don't know how best to poeticise the blurry line
between psychiatry and philosophy, given that most
    psychiatrists would put philosophers in bird cages
and asked them to howl like wolves rather than
tweet like budgies...
                            all i can say about a priori
and a posteriori though?
                                              outside of time and space,
a bit like: beyond good and evil...
    a priori i denote by the right-wing word pure...
   and a posteriori by the      ditto           word impure...
    ethnical alliance of words, you know how the 20th century
story goes...
                      a priori: a blank canvas...
          a posteriori: the painting...
                          i'm not going to stutter on the word
knowledge any time soon...
                                        i see no fascination with knowledge,
i know the world is more transit and fleeting
if i sentence my emotional whole to doubt,
than if i sentence it to denial...
                      to a rigidness... that i sentence it to a permanence,
an illusion, of growing old and having all the lovelies
at my biding, in a political cartwheel...
                           either knowledge diminishes doubt,
or it embraces denial... but the wavering of thought can't
be detached from thinking...
                     with thought being ascribed denial rather than
doubt... it soon morphs into delusion...
                 can you really sport that sort of blonde quiff and
speak about red buttons?
    it's not even Friday and i'm sorta waiting for a mob
boxing match in Washington... easy kicks...
     it's Klitschko vs. Tyson on the cards,
   if i'm not feeling it... then all the past electorate weeks
have been a waste... all the protests signifying a jack-in-a-box...
who escaped it as nothing but purple puff...
and rarely, rarely... do you see people asking
for riches in terms of the words they use...
     vocab materialism is a bit like actual materialism...
a gold-plated toilet seat is about as sought-after as a word
    without being systematically used to banish synonyms...
the horrid affair of english intellectualism...
   the presupposed moral authority...
                            i mean, they moralise *******,
you go to a brothel... they strap a pair of dove wings to prostitutes
and call you a ****...
                          and there's you doing the opposite
of what should attract *******...
       i mean: you pay an extra ten quid to ****** mollest her
oyster of a *******...
                   that has to be some sort of Gethsemane *******...
oh please lord: when will it end?! (enter herr cackle,
the self-righteous faun, dressed as a magpie)...
        never knew that a kiss meant so much
when you didn't put 1 with 2 to make it a *******
and asked the devil to debate: what did i wrong here?
ah, that bit... jumped in the bath and soaked myself
in cold water while she remained, bed bound and *******...
    god: those tickling *****!
                    i could do it 20 times a day and i'd still feel
goosebumps all over them...
                     it's like that talk of the ghost-limb
when people get gangrene / frostbite amputations...
    well, that's what i call a case of "castrato" -
             i'm getting the impressions i lost them to
serve the Catholic church... shame the pharaohs of egypt
never asked the eunuchs how to sing...
   real shame that... a right ol' spot of bother...
   they were the harem toys when the pharaoh couldn't keep up,
i say: there's a limit... the ***** count sometimes
doesn't compete with the libido...
after a while it dilutes and you're shooting blanks...
   but you have a harem of 3000 ladies, king Solomon...
how will you keep them harem bound?
   king Solomon also said: i need 300 pristine virgins
to be castrated... that's 3 to 10 ratio... but since i'm the king
i need my lineage...
and remember that crazy cat lady?
                          she kept 30 cats and those 30 cats just said:
the lady's o.k.... all these 29 cuddly ***** are bothering my
beauty sleep! dogs can sniff each other up... cats?
primo solipsists... they need their personal space...
            the "crazy" cat lady wasn't crazy, the 30 cats became
demented... last time i heard tigers weren't responsible for
wilderbeast stampedes...
                 solipsists... well: "solipsists"... bound to the strict
natural dictum of their species...
              don't you think tigers would love to
roam like hyenas or wolves, or laze like lions?
                        i was really talking about Kant through
this Dionysian frenzy, wasn't i?
                     how when not to look toward
imitating a noumenon or forging out a route toward
such a circumstance?
                            even Heidegger move away from
this ultimate pinpoint...
                                Heidegger claimed that his dasein
made very little of a constancy of the Cartesian thing,
meaning that he couldn't stand-still...
         that somehow being was greather than stasis...
which already create
            the Kantian parallel predating Heidegger himself...
   the suffix of dasein (sein) is what's considered thought...
         it's a prophetic circumstance of seeing a there,
necessarily a future time... and hence him being branded
**** eternal... when in fact that can't be the case...
            nonetheless Kant moved away from Descartes
and said: res per se...
                          and not res cogitans...
he did so, as is apparent in his critique by isolating
                       the precursor: "i think" as an ambiguous fact...
  ambiguous in a sense of: providng the encapsulating
  mechanics for what is best attested as the populist vocab
calls it: eccentricity of "i am" - that which attracts
         the reversal of "i think" being an ambiguous fact,
and more of a chance to demand a circus, of not being
quiet adept at making "i think" an amiguous fact...
and beside the circus of the "madman", having qualms
   as to why adrenaline took over the argument for
and purpose of there being thought involved.
        -  oh honey... i'll mind-******* and eat your
refrigerator out, and by the end we'll be singing sweet ol'
Alabama wishing for a single summer by a lake
frolicking like two butterflies... if this **** can ever come to
an end   -
             Kant didn't, in the cursor that's i am, posit as
a necessary ambiguity... (the res and res per se
were already established) -
                   hence Heidegger had to come...
and make thinking the ambiguity... and that ambiguity did
come, in the form of the ad abstracto there;
                         thinking fizzled out (as Heidegger himself
concluded: we're still not thinking) -
            it's not that we're not thinking, it's that not being "there"
      dictates to us the subsequently not being -
         i.e. that's the borderline distinction -
          by actually being "there" we wouldn't be thinking anyway...
no one thought in Auschwitz...
                            there was no thought encompassed in that hell...
it was dogmatism on one side, versus natural intuition on
the other...  the one side being nurtured by political dogma:
the latter half being bound to an unforgiving nature
                  of man's testmanet outside of all fears of the natural,
and elemental torture...
   as man is prone: with the fewer number of natural
tragedies... he's bound to reach for the godhead and speak
with a tongue, like the sound of Xerxes ordering the Hellespont
to be whipped still..
                  and i know this will have very or only little
appeal in the anglophone world...
                       i'm not at all bothered by it...
what's obstructing the anglophone sphere is this basic need
to pray at the altar of pragmatism...
    you can't make language complicated enough these days...
   philosophy isn't recognised as something beyond
the simple arithmetic of: i can make my speech coherent...
   or... i can write a, b, c, d, e... like Kant says of mathematical
language: 1 + 1 = 2... but then you come to university
level mathematics... and it's no longer 1 + 1 = 2 to be concerned
with... that's what philosophy testifies... a complexity beyond
learning a foreign language, so you can live in Paris,
          and buy groceries, or raise a family... so:
   even language these days can't be deemed worthy of
complication... which, mind you, on my behalf
would make me throw a punch in your face... and your attempt
at complication language a mere ugh... and me then
applauding you toward the current simplicity of the world
affairs... or at least to the psychiatric parlour...
    because... last time i heard... only anti-psychiatrists
bothered to read philosophy books... actual psychiatirsts
either read pharmacology booktlets for the poor...
    and those sofa-session monologues stemming from Freud
of rich under-****** or over-zelous in dreaming rich kids.
I love the British weather especially the sun
But I really can't stand the rain
And I love the smell of fish and chips
It just meddles with my brain

I love the coasts that we possess
Even the Blackpool shore
And to see the way my children play
Makes me love them even more

I love the nitty gritty of politics
Although I'm not to keen on the tories
Their quite happy to cut this and that
Amongst their sordid stories

I love our sporting culture
But I can take or leave the glamorous WAGS
All bling and silly makeup
And the nice Gucci bags

I love our capital London
Especially Leicester Square
Don't understand our Queen though
With her funny little stare

And finally I love the nature
From the Hebrides to John O groats
Where the people are very rural
As they tend to their pigs and goats
H W Erellson Jan 2014
Listen up barflies, tricksters and drunks,
People’s lives wasted with heads down the dunk;
What if there really is a land for you and me,
Where the bar is eternal, refills are free.

You may have heard the jokes
Escaping creased lips,
Cheeks scattered with scars
Lives rallied around bars.

But I implore you;
What if the beer runs in a river
And contains something sweet to help along your liver

Bags of peanuts grow on trees
No alley-way dogs crawling with fleas,
No aging ******, the price a humiliating tease.

We of the wasted, the broken; the done
Heaven doesn’t really sound like much fun.
Tennis greens and elegant scenes
Don’t meet our  tastes
For ***** ashtrays
Engine oil and grease;
Gangs of bikers and hordes of police.

When I find that sign creaking in the wind
I’ll indulge in one final binge;
With an ex-wife in Hawaii
A boy out in Leicester (or New Mexico)
A veteran-frazzled brother
And a daughter who doesn’t want to know;
A bank sends love letters requesting my stuff.

The bible urges me clean
I look up to heaven
Doesn’t sound like my scene.

So hear me you wasted, you hardened,
Capillaries burst staining noses red;
Let’s comply to the census
And drink ‘til we’re dead,

Because the eternal bar, the river of beer,
Is all in your drunken head.
For everyone at the Kings Head; the old boys, the hopeless young lads, the stammering drunks and quiet day-enders. Thanks for your tips, you were a pleasure to serve.
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
for three hours i sat in a forest
with today's newspaper -
Leicester foxes are champs,
Corbyn on anti-semitism:
don't mentioned ******,
or to be precise eva braun,
who was a jew, ha ha...
and the leftovers of the cantos
(30 pages till the end)...
i put so much life into that ****
book, flowers to be mummified,
a su doku square,
mirror with shelf installation instructions
(richard von coudenhove-kalergi
graffitied),
a drunk girl's scribbles about
a thesis on chocolate...
a real Frankenstein of a book
should you find it in sotheby's
auctioning rare and the macabre
of people involved in writing history...
i sat there thinking about a black
hole in a conversation from friday...
who the hell was the last Travelling Willbury?
ah... Steve Lynne, the guy from
Electric Light Orchestra - also amused by
a red pond mite, scuttling on the moon
or mars surface that my book represented
in a forest environment it's used to...
finally in Wales and China...
peering at the remnants of rex reptilian...
alien, alienation... insects, we're improving
our search;
insects, yeah,
first the reptilians, second the mammals,
the last to evolve are insects, aliens -
and you will not want to meet a massive
fly that spits hydrochloric acid saliva
as an inversion of an internalised digestive system,
i.e. with a digestive system outside -
remaining arguments for an exoskeleton,
meaning you have to digest things outside your
body to keep up the overall mush inside -
forgive the anti-muscular leisure,
internal-muscular meaning mammalian;
what? you sold me Darwinistic historicity
that kinda makes the 19th century irrelevant,
or last Sunday... **** you not i'll sell you this;
backup monkey chew of an eucalyptus branch
and you expose a Chimpanzee
baby-sitting a Koala.

— The End —