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Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
October 2013

for Maria and Logan...

you need two hands, one foot.
count my years.
each finger, worth a decade.
each toe, well, a century...

birthdays.

point of inflection,
point of opportunity,
presents itself,
to rewrite history.

a second coat of paint,
gift-wrapped in weak excuses.
how I lied, how I ain't,
grimm-fated fairy tales
somebody created.

invisible suits of gold-cloth
worn to my party of
past rewrit and
future foretold.

one single thought,
memory,
seizes my heart,
as I fall to my knees.
cracks my temperate ease,
renders open the
woof and weave
of recycled deceptions,
causing all to be revealed
and ask,

what if the poetry ceases?

you know prostrate?
you taste grief?

have you not but
one pain,
one act,
one deed,
one memorization,
act of cowardice,
act of desertion,
mistake maden, taken,
for which
forgiveness
can never
be given,
be taken,
attained?

do, does, did.

let me then
win the birthday lottery,
let floods of relief from
daily chores, not drown me,
chauffeurs to drive,
masseurs to massage,
cooks to cook,
les delicious treats,
keep theologians, logicians
on retainer, if need
explanations.

none know, can provide,
still and yet, a
priestly sacred chord,
grants relief,
absolution,
song of hallelujah
the ache of
perpetuity worry,
that ancient pain,
grows fresher daily,
the loss of one,
of my body,
my primal knot
unreasonable,
everything should be
permitted to be untied,
on my birthday, no?

this day, these days
breathe through words,
molecules of vowels,
stem cells of consonants,
the fabric, the tissues of life,
veins are a dictionary
of corpuscles,
red blood cells are
nouns of nutrients.

this day, these days,
the infection of my soul
is tempered, kept at bay,
tamped down from the
full flowering
of white blood cells
of rhyme, verse.

what if the poetry ceases?

Though the bones creak,
the body they carry. resurrect
for morning, afternoon
and evening prayers.

thrice daily poetry I recite,
roses red, violets blue,
my marrow transfused.

though my prayers refused,
the poetry act immolates
the fringes of my disease,
for which the common cure
is not currently invented....

what if the poetry ceases?

but be assured, told
scientists hard at work,
on the
forgive n' forget drug.

meantime,
take a bubble bath in
rosemary and mint
trap some words,
tap some words into
your cell phone bone,
the poetry heat that
provides aspirin relief.

through this poem,
on one day annual,
I am relieved, relived
the muse is feted, sated,

gone for few moments
concerns, worries of
exposure today,
agnostic's foxhole of hell
is dis-remembered,
the gloss returns,
the faux dispatched,

ain't birthdays grand?

what if the poetry ceases?

what rhymes with
Sorrow?
mmmmm,
could it be
Morrow?

bath drains, rosemary and mint
odors dismissed, the  Argentine disparu,
the Spanish Medievalists,
the Neo-Raphaelites,
all gone,
didn't they have birthdays too?

didn't know
the Renaissance come
and go,
and nobody
tole ya?

please recall t'is the day
after my sweet city recorded my
naissance in the
Hospital of the Flowers
on Fifth Avenue.

the 'crats put the datum
in the bureau with the
night creams and
the statistics
as follows:

on this day + a few,
six or twenty decades ago +
a few centuries,
a question was born,
and an ache that is
sometimes relieved,
by a poem song.

though do not celebrate,
t'is a day to calibrate,
review, edit, tinker,
rewrite, often a stinker.

always one thought recycles:

what if the poetry ceases?

(how will I breathe?)
Notes: my birthday was a few weeks ago. One of a number poems I've written about birthdays.  This one was modified, but only slightly for Maria and Logan.
Irate Watcher Aug 2014
When the
mess bred
by ancient
logicians
is put to rest
and we dicover:
The chicken
and the egg
hatched
in two
different
places at
the same time;
Love was
an inverse
relationship
between lust
and time;
Infinity was
a universe
we couldn't see.

Will conversation
cease?

Will silence
replace
speech?

Will the larynx
become a vestige?

How will
we debate
the notes
that compose
silence?
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2023
October 2024
11 years later…dedicated to all my dear friends here,
some who may be reading this for the elventh
time!

<|>

you need two hands, one foot.
for counting my years.
each finger, worth a decade.
each toe, well, a century...

birthdays.

point of inflection,
point of opportunity,
presents itself,
to rewrite history.

a second coat of paint,
gift-wrapped in weak excuses.
how I lied, how I ain't,
grimm-fated fairy tales
somebody else created.

invisible suits of gold-cloth
worn to my party of
past rewrites and
future versions three and more
foretold.

one single thought,
memory,
seizes my heart,
as I fall to my knees.
cracks my temperate ease,
renders open the
woof and weave
of recycled deceptions,
causing all to be revealed
when I ask,

what if the poetry ceases?

you know prostrate?
you tasted grief?

have you not but
one pain,
one act,
one deed,
one memorization,
act of cowardice,
act of desertion,
mistake made, taken,
for which
forgiveness
can never
be given,
be taken,
attained?

do, does, did.

let me then
win the birthday lottery,
let floods of relief from
daily chores, not drown me,
chauffeurs to drive,
masseurs to massage,
cooks to cook,
les delicious treats,
keep theologians, logicians
on retainer, if needed for
explanations.

none know, or can provide,
still and yet,
a priestly sacred chord,
that grants relief,
absolution,

please
a song of hallelujah
the ache of
perpetuity worry,
an ancient pain,
grows fresher daily,
the loss of one,
of my body,
my primal knot
unreasonable,
everything should be
permitted to be untied,
on my birthday, no?

this day, these days
breathe through words,
molecules of vowels,
stem cells of consonants,
the fabric, the tissues of life,
veins are a dictionary
of corpuscles,
red blood cells are
nouns of nutrients.


this day, these days,
the infection of my soul
is tempered, kept at bay,
tamped down from the
full flowering
by white blood cells ,
champions of rhyme, verse.


what if the poetry ceases?

Though the bones creak,
the body they carry. resurrected
once more,
for morning, afternoon
and evening prayers.

thrice daily poetry I recite,
roses red, violets blue,
my marrow transfused.

though my prayers refused,
the poetry act immolates
the fringes of my disease,
for which the common cure
is not yet currently invented....

what if the poetry ceases?

but be assured, told
scientists hard at work,
on the
forgive n' forget drug.

meantime,
take a bubble bath in
rosemary and mint
trap some words,
tap some words into
your cell phone bone,
the poetry heat that
provides aspirin relief.

through this poem,
on one day annual,
I am relieved, relived
the muse is feted, sated,

gone for few moments
concerns, worries of
exposure today,
agnostic's foxhole of hell
is dis-remembered,
the gloss returns,
the faux dispatched,

ain't birthdays grand?

what if the poetry ceases?

what rhymes with
Sorrow?

mmmmm,
could it be
Morrow?

bath drains, rosemary and mint odors dismissed,
the Argentine disparu,
the Spanish Medievalists,
the Neo-Raphaelites,
all gone,
didn't they have birthdays too?

Michelangelo didn't know
the Renaissance come
and gone,
and nobody
tole ya?

please recall t'is the day
after my sweet city recorded my
naissance in the
Hospital of the Flowers
on Fifth Avenue.

the 'crats put the datum
in the bureau with the
night creams and
the statistics
as follows:

on this day +/- a few,
seven or twenty decades ago +
a few centuries,
a question was born,
and an ache that is
sometimes relieved,
by a poem song.

though do not celebrate,
t'is a day to calibrate,
review, edit, tinker,
rewrite, often a stinker.

always one thought recycles:

what if the poetry ceases?

(how will I breathe?)
first penned some years ago,
annually tinkered,
weirdly prophetic
and still spot on…

in the “early” days, wrote my poetry on a cellphone
while soaking the venoms out…
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
Conjunction:
a small class of words distinguished in many languages by their function as connectors between words, phrases, clauses, sentences

- the act of conjoining; combination; the state of being conjoined; union; association:

- a compound proposition that is true if and only if all of its component propositions are true.

- the coincidence of two or more heavenly bodies at the same celestial longitude.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am in a relationship.

a colorless word
a word of no clarity
a good one? a bad one?
a professional deal,
or one that makes you squeal
with pleasure or despair

without context or content,
a description of a status,
not a state,
but a quid pro quo

I prefer
I am in a conjunction

well recall the day
our orbits
more than crossed,
but synchronized,
when two bodies
began to travel
upon the same longitude
one direction
in conjunction

t'was the day we coordinated
on our mobile phone,
co-configured our future,
our calendars


nowadays,
I answer her questions
while she is commencing to think,
when her foolishness prevails,
she questions, "did you remember to..."
my answer, a question returned,
connected, constant and conjunctive,

"and what's my name?"
an answer conveying constancy

relationship
oft the farthest place from logical,
but you know that,
say I am in a conjunction
and the logicians will celebrate
the end of your lonely celibacy,
well they understand the truth
inherent in and of and about
your compounded proposition


what unimaginative creatures we be,
dispensing with beauty for factuality,
but facts are easily misread,
your fact and my fact, relationship,
the exact same fact, conveys neither
an agreement as to what that means

are we unionized, associated, or conjoined
what is the quality of
our related ships?


so
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,
amend my status please,
post me
as being in a state of:
a) conductivity b) connectivity c) concoctive

no, none of those
capture
what we have
captured,
so let create a new state,
a new world,
using a very old world word
post us as follows,
"Nat is in a conjunction"
No swooning allowed
Bb Maria Klara Feb 2015
The best of logicians make the worst of lovers,
They do not believe in four-leaved clovers
Logicians know what's done is over
Lovers in love-drunkenness don't often think sober.

Logic is a thing of "the free men".
And lovers are not free especially when
They are chained to emotion and even then,
Love lets them fly free over tall feet ten.

When love set's you free, you cannot be caught
In so deep, haunting, immersing right thought.
When logic makes you free, love does not.
When love makes you fly, logic does naught.

There's no middle ground, there's no in between.
Only one or the other, only one could have been.
Tis a truth that only I might have seen,
So deep for someone who's merely a teen.

To concur, I say that even I don't know
Of on which side I would dare go.
I could have both, maybe, although,
Only one will reign a worthy glow.
Written 2/6/2015, the date of a major quiz in my logic subject. Written on a whim in the middle of my reviewing an hour prior to the quiz. I cannot say I am sure of what I've written now, but, I don't think that's important anymore.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2014
yesterday may have been my birthday.

you need two hands, two feet,
a multiplication table
an abacus to count my years,
each finger, worth a decade.
each toe, perhaps, a century.

birthdays.

a point of inflection,
a point of opportunity,
a present presents itself,
to rewrite history.

a second coat of paint,
gift-wrapped in weak excuses.
how I lied, how I ain't,
grimm-fated fairy tales
somebody else created.

invisible suits of gold-cloth
worn to my party of
past rewrit and
future foretold.

one single thought,
memory,
seizes my heart,
as I fall to my knees.
cracks my temperate ease,
renders open the
woof and weave
of recycled deceptions,
causing all to be revealed
when asking myself

what if the poetry ceases?

you know prostrate?
you have tasted grief?

have you not but
a singular pain,
one act,
one deed,
one memorization,
act of cowardice,
act of desertion,
mistake made, taken,
for which
forgiveness
can never
be given,
be faked,
attained?

do, does, did.

let me then this day,
win the birthday lottery,
let floods of relief from
daily chores not drown me,
chauffeurs to drive,
masseurs to massage,
cooks to cook,
les délicieuses friandises to sweeten life,
please keep theologians, logicians,
philosophers on retainer,
even historians, those future fortune tellers,
if needed, unnecessary explanations -
or just satisfactory rationalizations.

none know,
or can provide,
still and yet,
a year round
a priestly sacred chord,
to grant relief,
absolution,
songs of hallelujah,
erasers of the ache of
perpetuity worry.

those ancient pains,
grow fresh daily,
the loss of one element
of my body,
prevents my primal knot
reasonably to be untied,
everything should be permitted
on my birthday, no?

this day, these days
breathe through words,
molecules of vowels,
stem cells of consonants,
the fabric, the tissues of life,
veins are a dictionary
of corpuscles,
red blood cells are
nouns of nutrients.


this day, these days,
the infection of my soul
is tempered, kept at bay,
tamped down from the
full flowering
of white blood cells
of rhyme, verse,
and asking myself

what if the poetry ceases?

though the bones creak,
snap, crackle and pop,
the body they carry, the heart
eccentric~centric: tire shop patched,
yom kippur white resurrected this day,
for morning, afternoon
and evening prayers,
and the last one special,
spoken standing.

thrice daily poetry I recite,
roses red, violets blue,
my marrow transfused.

though my prayers likely refused,
the poetry act immolates
the fringes of my disease,
for which the common cure
is not currently invented....
so I ask myself

what if the poetry ceases?

be assured, I am told
scientists hard at work,
on the forgive n' forget drug.

meantime,
take a bubble bath in
rosemary and mint,
trap and tap some words,
into your cell phone bone,
the poetry heat, scented waters,
provide aspirin relief.

through this poem,
on one day annual,
I am relieved, relived,
the muses, the Devils
all herein, feted, and sated

gone for few moments
concerns, worries of
exposure today,
agnostic's foxhole of hell
is dis-remembered,
the gloss returns,
the faux dispatched,

ain't birthdays grand?

yet, I cannot help but ask

what if the poetry ceases?

what rhymes with
Sorrow?
mmmmm.

could it be
Morrow?

bath drains,
rosemary and mint odors dismissed,
the Argentine disparu,
the Spanish Medievalists,
the Neo-Raphaelites,
all dispatched,
didn't they have birthdays too?
didn't you know,
Hey Michelangelo!
the Renaissance come
and gone,
nobody tole ya?

t'is the day
my sweet city recorded my
naissance in the
Hospital of the Flowers
on Fifth Avenue.

the 'crats put the datum
in the bureau with the
night creams and
the statistics
as follows:

on this day + a few,
seven or twenty decades ago +
a few centuries, some blackbirds,
a question was born,
and an ache that is
sometimes relieved,
by a poem~song.

though do not celebrate,
t'is a day to calibrate,
review, edit, tinker,
rewrite, often a stinker.

yet, but,
always one thought recycles:

**what if the poetry ceases,
how will I breathe?
Written years ago. Tinkered and edited once a year.
Kagey Sage Nov 2021
Someday last April
I lost my sincerity
Life became too fleeting to blink at absurdities
and after all, it's all you hypocrite logicians
that ****** **** up for me
but not just me
I'm just drones in society

I'm using a machete as a tea-cup coaster
to protect a table that's hacked to bits
Ellsworth Land's prima donna of the Latin sing-a-long
lassoed Joss' hollow demoiselle crane
a pair of circuitous logicians finally deciphered
her grammatical Denebola into oblivion.
The insipid petifog skeleton storyteller, behind
incessant green quibbling eyes, ticking
impatient thoughts in dreams tomorrow.
I kind of flipped through a dictionary, found random words, and strung them together in slightly coherent thoughts.
Overwhelmed Feb 2011
half of the teenagers I know
make art, and songs, and
poetry just to lash back
at the things they don’t like
in the world

complaining about their friends, or
rebelling against their parents, or
crying about how unfair everything
is

and the stupid ones,
the really stupid ones,
call someone out in
their work

but it’s not just the idiots.

the geniuses, the logicians,
the thinkers, the wise-childs,
the high-school cool kids,
the suicidal geeks, the god-
driven outcasts, the losers
too fat or too weird to hang
out with the “normals”

anyone.

anyone,
who makes any
sort of art,
has done
it.

and they feel stupid,
really, really, stupid
when the person finds
out and the **** hits
the fan and everybody
is on everybody’s side
and nobody’s evil while
everybody’s the bad
guy and it’s funny if
you’re lucky enough
to be outside of it
all

so just like every
stupid habit of man

(like love, and hope,
and destiny)

we cling and repeat,
and rinse and redo,
and keep writing
poems about people
we hate without
saying their name
and instead,
screaming
it

I grin at those
who get this
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2015
~~~

Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.


Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice

~~~

Dedicated to all people who are
persecuted for their ethnicity


~~~
Therefore, Jew

know all ye men by their
presents
an invitation
to be seated in the imprisoning box,
resting upon and before imbalanced scales,
perforce, by force,
this low world court
of the blinded
and still, and yet,
a chamber filled
of honesty-depleted
unjust men,
courtier witnesses,
of hate repleted

expect only mean justice serviced
for in the course of justice,
none of us
should see salvation


the scales pre-set,
one side favoring,
by the "virtue" present
of the tipping lean of
finger-pointing, weighty, pointless,
consuming hatred

the world despises you, Jew

this sunrise surmise,
no surprise, routinized,
freshly delivered daily
to thine inbox's unsettling
junk mail

so,
inviable victims, you bookish people,
be well unforgiving,
for to fore,
the new day commences,
supplying fresher welts and taunts,
soured served upon a
cracked, blackened,
break-fast plate

no finale,
no solution,
to our rooted rutted hated fate

yes, ours,
for am I not too
numerically wrist-tatooed,
guilty for praising God and
seeking favor with all the people,
the Lord counts me in our numbers,
every day by day,
these present and souls past,
living mated with despotic hatred

be ever sophisticated,
cyanide cynical,
no news here, this too
shall pass,
parse a new year approaching,
and none the wiser

refrain from the pain,
cease to pine and whine,
de-rank from sniveling logicians
for all such propositions,
are
by silence answered

Hath not a Jew eyes?
Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions;
fed with the same food,
hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases?
healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the
same wind?

but even the wind
turned against us,
for nothing is sacred,
even a deity's creation,
when men
raise up their children
to rise up
to hate

Therefore, Jew,*

seek no mercy
in the court of men;
thy salvation
and thy recompense
has forever been and will to be,
seak not to wash away
the surfeit return of the ilk of unwarranted hate

code nurture the silent
divine spark
within,
for that is the entirety
of your obligatory,
ancestor-inheritd gift,
this alone
you shall
warrant
and speak,
acting accordingly,
for this is the whole of
your plea
*. http://m.jpost.com/Israel-News/Sports/Israeli-youth-windsurfers-barred-entry-to-Malaysia-for-world-championships-438220#article=6017MTMyQzAyOTEzQThCRjRBQ0RFMUNFNDkwRTBGNzZBNjM=

hardly a surprise to me,
that the reception to this poem is
chilly
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2023
“catharsis, the purification or purgation of the emotions (especially pity and fear) primarily through art. In criticism.  It is a metaphor used by Aristotle in the Poetics to describe the effects of true tragedy on the spectator.”

<>

composed many, months & many, many years ago, and hazily recalled, written in a moment of purification and purgation, petrified by aging and it’s companion, self-pity from fear of approaching death, sought purity by its very composition, when someone just recently poked my eyes with the word c a t h a r s i s, and this old poem resurfaced…no, no, it’s not my birthday anymore…

<>

yesterday was my birthday.
you need two hands, two feet,
a multiplication table
to count my years,
each finger, worth a decade.
each toe, perhaps, a century.

birthdays.

a point of inflection,
a point of opportunity,
a present presents itself,
to rewrite history.

a second coat of paint,
gift-wrapped in weak excuses.
of how I lied, of how I ain't,
grimm-fated fairy tales
somebody created.

invisible suits of gold-cloth
worn to my party of
past rewritten and
future foretold.

one single thought,
a memory,
seizes my heart,
as I fall to my knees.
cracks my temperate ease,
renders open the
woof and weave
of recycled deceptions,
causing all to be revealed
and asking myself

what if the poetry ceases?

you know prostrate?
you have tasted grief?

have you not but
a singular pain,
one act,
one deed,
one memorization,
act of cowardice,
act of desertion,
mistake maden, taken,
for which
forgiveness
can never
be given,
be faked,
attained?

do, does, did.
did; does; do.

let me then this day,
win the birthday lottery,
let floods of relief from
daily chores drown me,
chauffeurs to drive,
masseurs to massage,
cooks to cook,
les délicieuses friandises to sweeten life,
please keep theologians, logicians,
philosophers on retainer,
even historians, those future fortune tellers,
if needed, for explanations -
or just satisfactory rationalizations.

none know,
or can provide,
still and yet,
a year round
priestly sacred chord,
to grant relief,
absolution,
songs of hallelujah,
erasers of the ache of
perpetuity worry.

those ancient pains,
grow fresh daily,
the loss of one element
of my body,
prevents my primal knot
unreasonably to be untied,
everything should be permitted
on my birthday, no?

this day, these days
breathe through words,
molecules of vowels,
stem cells of consonants,
the fabric, the tissues of life,
veins are a dictionary
of corpuscles,
red blood cells are
mounds and nouns of nutrients.

this day, these days,
the infection of my soul
is tempered, kept at bay,
tamped down from the
full flowering
of white blood cells
of rhyme, verse,
and asking myself

what if the poetry ceases?

though the bones creak,
snap, crackle and pop,
the body they carry,
resurrected this day in white
for morning, afternoon
and evening prayers,
and the last one special,
spoken standing.

thrice daily poetry I recite,
roses red, violets blue,
my marrow transfused.

though my prayers likely refused,
the poetry act immolates
the fringes of my disease,
for which the common cure
is not currently invented....
so I ask myself

what if the poetry ceases?

be assured, I am told
scientists hard at work,
on the forgive n' forget drug.

meantime,
take a bubble bath in
rosemary and mint,
trap and tap some words,
into your cell phone bone,
the poetry heat, scented waters,
provide aspirin relief.

through this poem,
on one day annual,
I am relieved, relived,
the muses, the Devils
all herein, feted, and sated

gone for few moments
concerns, worries of
exposure today,
the agnostic's foxhole of hell
is dis-remembered,
the gloss returns,
the faux dispatched,

ain't birthdays grand?

yet, I cannot help but ask

what if the poetry ceases?

what rhymes with
Sorrow?

mmmmm.

could it be
Morrow?

bath drains,
rosemary and mint odors dismissed,
the Argentine disparu,
the Spanish Medievalists,
the Neo-Raphaelites,
all dispatched,
didn't they have birthdays too?
didn't you know
the Renaissance has come
and gone,
but nobody tole ya?

t'is the day
my sweet city recorded my
naissance in the
Hospital of the Flowers
on the fifth Avenue.

the 'crats put the datum
in the bureau with the
night creams and
the statistics
as follows:

on this day + a few,
six or seven or decades ago,
perhaps even fourscore,
a few centuries,
a question was born,
and an ache that is
sometimes relieved,
by a poem~song.

though do not celebrate,
t'is a day to calibrate,
review, edit, tinker,
rewrite, often a stinker.

always one thought recycles:

what if the poetry ceases, how will I breathe*?
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
i lied... i must have the dates mixed up...
the last exhibition i saw wasn't From Russia
at the Royal Academy of Arts...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

when life was: ah... ha... ah...
                           when you wanted to paint life...
rather than discard it as a photograph...
once upon a time... a time: that never was.
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2019
With each tick of the second hand
  the immeasurable on trial

Imagination deposed
  all parameters set free

The Poets acquitted
  the logicians suicidal

All reference and syntax
  —imploding at light speed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2017
h'americnas are also quietly
"evolved" as savages...
the part of an equation
with: something missing...
like: are we hiking
in bahamas?!
        americans
are the most savage people
to speak of,
wet socking phellatio
all the ******* time...
show me barbarian and
i'll sport you an image
of Idaho!
mm mm Minnesota blue!
blue blue on the catch phrase
henry gimmick
you ******* ****-brick ****-load!
              last time i heard americans were
savages...
               scoot **** and minors
on amphetamine alliances...
  pimped up broccoli flurries...
stage a **** excited and you have me in:
abandon.
                americans were always **** faced
velvet smearing chimp donning
jersey hippy junk-**** logicians...
i'm a savage, said by a *******
leprechaun....
savage...
                    savage?!
          breed more of these, types...
     we're anorexic without 'em!
******* duck-treading tow with trot
h'americans!
gluttonous ******* wet worth a whip
shy and grotesque and all the more
soggy...
          lazy ***** one calls them...
              something equivalent
to a david copperfield being skimmed through.
i was never left the most
impressionable regarding this:
fungus super power...
grown on ****, grown into a stench.
Knowledge of the future
memories of the past
Caught within a final vacuum
dissipating fast

Wanton disbelieving
eyes are liars still
Perception changed then rearranged
sensation thrice distilled

The philosophy of physics
logicians burn and melt
Time but smirks as gravity flirts
judgment prior dealt

Memories of the future
knowledge of the past
Once you slow the ebb and flow
— the moment is recast

(Dreamsleep: August, 2024)

— The End —