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LDuler Dec 2012
You tell me that I am young
That life has merely licked me, not stung
That I do not understand, that I have not yet lived
Enough to grasp the substance

I have known disease
Slow tears, muted pleas
Pain that nothing could appease
I have known the smell of hospitals for summers
The beeping and slurping of machine in massive numbers

I have spoken to voiceless loved ones,
Loved ones with teethless mouths and twisted tongues
Distorted jaws and wheezing lungs.
We have spoken with little green charts
And broken hearts
From the inability to connect the mouth to the thoughts in the head
And I left without understanding,
What they had said
Because I eventually had to let it go
(I still don't know)

I have spent countless summer nights
In nature’s garb, floating silently in a river
So warm that my limbs, skimming the surface, didn't shiver
Under a clear sky, the stars like paradisiac lights
Without anyone ever finding out
About these wild and primal escapades

I've drank, I've smoked
I have burned my throat
With coarse lemon gin
Until I could no longer feel my skin.

I have been frightened
Yes I have felt fear, like a noose around my throat being tightened
Like a gruesome black crow, perched on my shoulder
I have often awoken affright at night,
Longing, praying, for the morning light
I have felt fear, wild, fierce and turbulent fear
More than anyone will everyone will ever know
By men, by life, by myself
Desolate under the sheets, like a forsaken toy
All by myself

I have seen Paris in the rain
Traveled the French countryside by train
I've woken up to New York window views
And seen New Orleans afternoons, filled with heat and blues.
I've swam the Mexican Baja waters, turquoise and clear
With snakes as sharp as spears

I have known humiliation
Causing my cheeks to turn carnation
A spoon, emptying my insides out
Like a gourd

I have loved
I have known the aching pain of a swelled heart
And the way it can tear you apart
I have gushed torrents upon my pillows and sleeves
Tears running down my chin like guilty thieves
From a lit-up house

I have known death, and grief
The meaning of "never"
Whimpering in the school bathroom
And cold, lonely nights

I have seen the works of Van Gogh, Mondrian, and Miro,
Modigliani, Cezanne, and Frida Kahlo
Of Monet, Gauguin, Matisse, Magritte, and Picasso
I have wandered through hallways of masterpieces
Holding tight to my grandmother's hand
And I have wept shamelessly for joy
Before Degas's La classe de danse

I have been diagnosed
I have undergone computer programs designed to shift my brain, to better it
To get me to be normal, to submit
I have had brain-altering medicine shoved down my throat,
Like stuffing a goose,
To make my brain run a little less loose
And I have submitted and gotten use to my brain being altered.

I have had kisses that were mere trifles
Frivolous, yet fierce and acute like shots from a rifle
Lips of mere flesh, not sweet godly nectar
And gazes that meant everything
That seemed to connect with an invisible yet indestructible string
Iris like distant galaxies and pupils twinkling like black jewels
Eyes that seemed enkindled by some ethereal fuel
Speaking of emotions far too secluded, cryptic and cluttered
To be worded and uttered

I know the way in which violence resides
Not in commotion, brusqueness, nor physical harm
But in silence
In the time that covers pain and secrets
In the slow impossibility of trust
In the way that some secrets become inconceivable to tell, time has so covered them in rust
In that dull, dismal ache
In all that is doomed to remain forever opaque.

I have read, for pleasure,
The works of Balzac, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Voltaire
Of Bobin, Gaude, and Baudelaire
Of Flaubert, Hemingway
and good old Bradbury, Ray
Émile Zola,  Primo Levi
Moliere, Rousseau, and Bukowski
I have read, and loved, and understood

I have known insomnia
The way a beach knows the tides
Sleepless nights of convulsive, feverish panic, of clutching my sides,
Of silent hysteria and salty terror.
I know what happens at night, when sweet slumber seems so far away
The worries and woes seem to multiply and swell in hopeless disarray
My lips grow pale, my eye grow sunken
As a time ticks by, tomorrow darkens




I have witnessed horror
In the form of a blue body bag
Being rolled out with a squeaking drag
By two yellow-vested men
With apologetic eyes
That seemed to say "Oh god
We're so sorry you had to see that
Please, please
Go home
And try to forget
"

But you are right
I am still just a child
Naive, innocent, and pure
I have known nothing dark or obscure
I have not yet lived.
irinia Nov 2021
he would have discovered him
trying to change the water formula in his tears
he tried to exist/insist/resist
where no body was thinking
the man without moon
suspended in a terrorizing labyrinth of faces
His own
he was a method man
growing salt in his eyes like minefields
teaching it the taste of the earth
anxiety like mountains of fog eradicating crossroads
he wants to exist inside the body of the world
with the decency of negotiated desires
and the hands get lost in translation
truth is a black truffle
sweating and swearing
sensuous craters perhaps
he killed many singing birds
searching for imagination, his body
muted, renegotiated soon after birth
staying alive, denying the soul of zebras
He lacks verbs, some nouns
learning from the theory of absence
how the effortless U(n-conscious)
is a Poet that
rhymes the body with the mind
of the world

He summoned the shaman, the artists, the tango teacher
to the wake of his body
while learning how summer waves contribute to a theory of mind
his self white
white while forgetting Magritte,
a taxi for Chopin
or the whiteness of the cotton pickers
perhaps
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
repetition, that's a good technique, a form of
reiteration, emphasis, as you like to
move in the river of synonymousness -
i mean, plenty to choose from -
well it's a better technique than rhyming,
it's like Kaiser Karl Lagerfeld said
about Coco Chanel's legacy after she died
in 1971: 'people tend to forget, that,
once upon a time, Chanel was old hat.
it was only Parisian doctors' wives who
still wore it. nobody wanted it - it was hopeless.'
(oh i can be couture no problem,
the other side of me that's into galleries -
even though that never brought me much
luck with the ladies, Beelzebub ******* on my
face and i started to squeeze out maggots
ensuring my face was forever crater riddled
moon - yes, excess white blood cells).
that's the same with poetry, it can't be
love me doo d'ah mushy mushy candy-floss
longing crap - mate, i'm a bus ****** and
this bus is coming but it's already 20 minutes late...
and it's ******* cats, dogs, frogs... Norwegian
acid rain, my anorak is peeling like a snake
shedding its skin and you're rewriting the early
Beatles unleashed on the American public:
shaved, hair trimmed into mushroom bops
all that Rene Magritte **** 'love, love me do!'
forget it, it's not going to happen, rhyming is the last
resort, i prefer the chance rhyme, it sometimes
happens, and it's too cute when it happens randomly
rather than with premeditation;
you can also throw out all the other premeditation
of techniques that poetry is known for...
what's the point? and back concerning rhyming,
you really want your poetry to be discussed by
schoolchildren and an english teacher in between
grammar lessons
                                  rhyming schemes and all?
that's how it goes:
         her name was Dazie          (a)
         she was never lazy             (a)
         i wrote her a sonnet           (b)
         reclining on a car bonnet  (b)
                                                               that's how they
do anatomy on poetry, the forensic team will
be with you shortly, the only reason i can think of
and know of as to why people are abhorred by
poetry (it's a natural repellent, spray it on weeds
             and insects, a natural insecticide,
****, spray it everywhere) is, because people on
the academic level have scrutinised it, analysed it
to the extent that it's not even there, it gets you thinking:
so who the hell was paying attention to the mammoth
novels of Tolstoy? oh right... no one!
the forensics, the post-mortem of poetry,
it has literally been mummified - the brain came out
as porridge ****** out through the nose.
are you familiar with Tenacious D's one note song?
that's what rhyming is to me, ever hear it?
it's the -ing twang
                            it's the -ing echo echo echo echo echo...
halfwit variations, you're hitting the same note,
great if you're penetrating a girl and she's giving
you an Opera of Vowels... otherwise it ends up
in a schoolroom, with an english teacher
and the rhyming scheme of a sonnet is?
                          ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
or?
                                                              abracadabra.
personally though Tenacious D's song kiełbasa,
etymology:
                    kieł       (canine, in polish)
   -basa (i'm guessing: the base of)             -
it's a sausage                                based on canines,
kieł (insert a           w    for the         ł.. tongue tied, eh?)
is a reference to a canine, a sharp tooth anyway,
and with -basa             i just intuitively thought of how
a hebrew would write it (i.e. hiding vowels)
and therefore juggled in an      e                  for -base.
they do, even though hebrew has Aleph (א) it hides
the vowels: S VRYTHNG RDS LK S - or i might
just be bullshitting you.
No Name Oct 2012
Clean shaven, bowler-hatted, crisp-suited men
are spattered across the canvas,
       with stiffened spines,
              vertebrae militarily ordered,
Plunging toward the ground,
       not falling,
              plunging,
              leaden,
from a sky the color of a smokers’ lungs,
        gray and blue from lack of oxygen,
sputtering them out.
       They seem not to notice.


Blank-faced, easy-armed, composed,
they seem not to notice they are doomed
        to be piles of splintered bones
                webbed with sinew and lumps of skin,
Thinking as they head toward the ground,
         praying,
         “If I pretend it’s not happening,
         maybe I’ll be okay”
from the heartless pavement,
         gravity with the whole world behind it,
yanking them like teeth from the air.
         Only a few clenched fists betray their terror.


Or,
the

Choking, muted, and embittered city
could be letting them go,
          allowing them to evaporate
                 back to the sky where they belong,
Welcoming them home, that sky,
           not with violence,
                  welcoming,
                  gently,
to a sky where ennui is beautiful,
           star after star after star,
whispering that they are important, splendid, lovely.
           One can only hope.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2015
it's not the case of irrationality with the usage of pronouns as a way of being assertive away from the existentialist dittoing of the pronouns; even if i utilise the pronoun to be a noun or a verb via dittoing, with the framework of an esp. exemplar "irrationality," i am still, after all, the speaker of the noun and verbs, and the keeper of them; i am not irrational to the extent that i ditto myself outside of other categorisations of words, since dittoing myself within the pronoun category opens the accusation that i use all other words with ambiguity while allowing no moral ambiguity into my actions - but there is a clear morality to the use of words as the worthwhile exchange of meaning, in newtonian sense in the least and foremost not going beyond the dropped stone or insinuation of passerby engagement into games - but clear crisp cut - silk scarf tagged twelve quid was sold on the haggle for ten quid - so that haggling wasn't an ambiguity, but the price of the scarf was! so how many sexualised insinuations have i heard with impromptu to no action?! too many! all of them declassified from furthering action because of too much innuendo and nuance of that famous disguised dialectics lost - known as the death of god. cartesian in existentialist terms, thinking presupposed as the notation via "i." thought no longer as an existential certainty... but because of the dittoing of pronouns... an... ambiguity! well it was originally an ambiguity, but why excess pausing to counter? the english are a nation of shopkeepers... yes... and the french are a bunch of nosy café patrons with rude lovers disguised as bartenders muscle aching to munch the next croissant in drag and feel sexed up gagging.

verum, ego scribere similis rumi*; scribbles and similitude -
worth an afghan worth of eyes in syria for an afghan girl
saying to her loved up something or other:
see it come back, god forbid you hear the calculative laugh
of augustus on the way back, just while europe resigns from involving
the remnant slavs like libyans or syrians or hebrews in the original format
of strength: let the hebrews deal with them
in their own vatican - we need to curb north africans
and the mid-middle-eastern olives
when taking over the northern peoples for economic harvests.
but then the madman laughed without ordinance and impunity -
he laughed augustus' rationalism into the grave of choking chock fudge brussels
with spare tonsils eating nothing but cauliflower and lard -
elsewhere in movie via ghent; or was it in bruges or
was it in brussels starring jean claude van damme?
i call it... writers went mad on excess phonetics never readied
or introduced - except with magritte wearing a diaper
rather than a full james bond when painting.
i heard it was a proper heist to keep the police numbers handy,
i had it all tanned in argumentation for hued brown in the nordic
special; oddly enough no nordic special sailed for a sinking of the vasa
with predestination - airport was nice - we argued then -
we're not a continent of north harmonicas with jokes
between mythological four lead clovers and oak real canada threesomes.
well i was a continent with croatian and scandinavian,
i'm not originally a mc donald continent - although that 'MADE IN CHINA'
helps to resolve all future wars with the silkworm beginning:
rodeo in the haven of horse's burp and fall of the cheap spain due to tourism -
old continental had corrida - new continent has rodeo -
somewhere between the ****** and maidens came oceans elves for a bet on
who could write a horse out from riding into a blunt metal clasp of stirrup eager sounds:
or a twenty aged colt sounding like an eighty year old nail wrinkled with rust hammered.
blunt metal won, horse gasped for air, the ***** was taken home with stitches,
the maiden was taken home with a groom in stitches also, although
stitches of old age prior asked for in her meringue dress to suit: wrinkles;
but hey! there's **** in between! who's the loser, the aviator or the aqua puncture of thought?
but still augustus laughed it off with nero on the waiting list of possible re-encounters;
israel received the southern cicero of the roman empire,
while the rekindled empire got the north-eastern and northern part of
the unexplored without saints travelling elsewhere,
and for that it got implosions, with the schengen approval reminded
to cloister the leftists eager to holiday in syria on unesco cruises in sand and sheep ****
of kept marble - for that cocktail party convo, and next day article in the new yorker;
shame on you for using children to ploy en masse morality of guilt
to later reproduce the hydra with so much racist cribbing
of a seahorse riddling perpetual dynamos
as to imagine the future cot rock-a-baby-jihadi saladin:
the fire is in his own house, runs with a
              flaming matchstick to his "neighbour's house"
to start the fire rather than trying to put the fire out in his own house.
honestly? sounds a bit binary in bangladeshi.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
and would i ever get embroil myself in a morning of: coffee,
croissant and a newspaper? i find it strange how newspapers
are printed for workers - sold in the morning,
and read in the hazy hours before the mind
catches up with the body at noon
lead to nothing but village sentimentalism -
and dupe sensationalism -
they really know when to baptise them:
a few weeks into their lives (most never
object to confirmation, i, for one, started inquiring
about the Gnostic cults, and said: nah, you'll
alright without me) -
baptism is a bit like newspapers:
i really didn't ask for it... sorry, i was in diapers,
i knew that i'd be wearing diapers
if i went to my confirmation by the Bishop
of Chelmsford - imagine what a cardinal
could do to me... but that's what newspapers
are, they are written in reasonable comfort,
i don't mean the sort of journalism
akin to all the president's men -
that's valiant... i mean the opinions sections,
i read a newspaper and think of only one thing:
****! i threw away something i actually
need in the recycling pile of garbage...
so you go back to the bag and sift through it...
which is what it's all about:
newspapers pulverise the half-awake readers
on the tube... making newspapers free is also
a tactic... i read newspapers, about this time,
nearing midnight... i've spent the entire day
occupying myself with colours, squares and clouds,
i leave my desire to see phonetic encoding a - z
till last, when i can relax, and actually recycle
all the opinions of the day...
shamefully, others pick up a newspaper,
early in the morning, and just nod, agree, nod, agree,
pigeon on parade... makes it easier to earn
a few more disciples when half of them (if not all)
are still trying to remember a dream at 7 a.m.,
all the opinions sections are fabulous!
mental health matters... like **** it does:
you're saying a box inside that storage room that's
your brain aches like broken arm...
you go to a doctor, and he replies: it's all in your head...
well, d'uh, metaphysical health was always clumsy
with what became spaghetti entanglement
for philosophers - the one never translates into
another as honing in on, and synonymous -
but that's life... but the two were never supposed to
be at odd, or, quiet simply: parallel -
after all, thinking, if a limb or an *****,
is more than what the automation of the brain is:
receptor to nervous stimuli - if there's an *****
such as a mind, and it's verb optimum is sick...
it's like seeing the desperation of someone doing
cartwheels on a tightrope, while deciding a next
chess move playing someone down below,
and smoking a pipe - thought, in the end,
is a dilemma where to many verbs are associated with it:
it's so spatial in that it tries to encompass a near
exponential number of ? / hmm hiccups -
                              as it does encompassing a near exponential
number of ! / eureka hiccups -
the German Chancellor and the fourth cottage -
and the opinion: nacktarschuzdeckenwunsch
(the desire to cover their own naked backsides) -
ah, newspapers and the morning,
whoever reads a newspaper in the morning is a sheep...
who doesn't even thinks that comics didn't slowly evolve
to be comics? they are pristine Geminis -
i wouldn't read a newspaper in the morning,
because i know most of these articles are written in
the afternoon, notably the opinion sections,
by people donning kimonos, drinking wine
and smoking Magritte's phrasing of: not a pipe.
i can't treat them as trash either... i call them
midnight literature... after i've spent the day not
looking at phonetic encoding symbols,
i finally zoom in, revise my eyes and ease into a crescendo
of appreciating newspapers, for whatever they're worth,
which, according to the Thursday's edition of the times:
£1.40 - but reading newspapers in the morning
is horrid - too much world, too much care,
too much moral acting - too much conversation...
the world is too big, and i'm too small...
so i do what the writers of these articles read:
although i have a stronger solvent to read their preaching
parody of Mt. Sinai - but what i found, apart from that,
well... couldn't poetry steal something from
the journalistic medium? in the way art is appreciated
without critics? shouldn't poetry be the only medium
of art where other art mediums are appreciated?
for example, i find that when i'm hearing the clicking
of the keyboard, and there's a record in the background
i have a full meal in front of me,
i forgot how good tubeway army's album replicas
is... as a second course meal... nothing of the top 30
canape charts of nibbles of artistic output...
poetry can congratulate over mediums of art,
it can steal from what journalism encompasses -
namely the critical pieces of the journalistic anatomy -
art, doesn't necessarily have to be a matthew arnold
moment of as soon as i returned home, i pulled off
my coat, flung myself on the sofa, and wept the
bitterest, sweetest tears
: after coming back from
a Liszt concert... really?
i think that ballet is supreme sadism and Bach
had wax in his ears... fame and the adoration of women?
too lazy... like drinking too much, and listening
to what i like: without adverts selling me car insurance
and German shampoo.
yes, i am bothered, i'm seeing something in England
that's worrying, something akin to a Marx & Engels'
study of Victorian England - only this time it's
existentially tinged - not economically -
and yes, reading a newspaper at any "sensible" hour
of the day is rather pointless...
you can get very impressionable in the morning,
at around midnight, with a whiskey and a cigarette...
while everyone is already nodding off in Luna's
embrace - never understood reading newspapers
in the morning... or in the early afternoon -
it's better to digest the **** of the individual by the world
while everyone is asleep... less democratic constipation
of everyone having a go... or as Auden said:
all the ****** of the world write at night...
well, during the night: everything is apparently black
& white... the vacuum of the space, and the punctuation
of Zodiac are what this sort of writing best describes,
given that, we are the mediators of two opposing
chasms... to be honest... poets hate colour,
the whole spectrum of colour, from
red (λ nanometres 760 etc. and Herr Hertz, whatever)
to violet (λ nanometres 424 - 380) -
    so tiny, this puncture... equatable with
the size of the universe and that spec that's called earth -
to me? all of this is a massive accident -
as the gambling king said (god): oops... dunno.
but from what i can see... poets have colour -
hence the white page where all colours are entombed,
and better than scattering the white into the visible
spectrum, beginning as Newton with a needle hole
and a prism... no... we're probing it with something else,
intent on it being given to us in total,
a sum of all parts... or as they say: shying away from
the people in grey suits... virtually taking risks on meeting
the people in white coats - and how to slur and
window-lick our way into confined spaces
perfecting our skills in Paper Mâchés and Matisse-like
cut-outs.
Rapunzoll Nov 2015
i swirl in van gogh.
i am charcoal stains
on blue,
a smile of barbed wire
for the painter,
i am mona lisa, true.

monet, he paints me
calm waters,
water lilies floating
in solitude,
he doesn't see
the fire sprouting
in my veins.

picasso cannot stain
my heart with colour,
magritte cannot
create a masterpiece
out of my eyes.

to be immortalized
i beg in pink
lick the brush
and paint myself
alive.

end my days
in escher,
sketch myself
out of the stairway,
into the globe.

throw myself
at deaths eye,
kiss the canvas
rotten, ******,
*pretty.
© copyright
dead head the roses,
suffocate in silk. stifle
their feelings.

dead head the roses,

suffocate in silk, stifle

their feelings.

bundle them blind with
bloodied rags, boiled

clean.

bind them twice. the smell
is decay.

Magritte.

sbm.
Holly Salvatore Nov 2012
This is not a poem.
Ceci n'est pas une pipe
Clouds
cover my thoughts
the fruit of knowledge
covers my face
I can,t keep up
with hypocrisy's pace

break it up break it up

I wish I could smile
just once for real
it feels so vile
just for a while
make it real

How can you just move on?
A highway to ignorance
200 mph
until you crash into reality

I am the forbidden fruit of knowledge
Or am I being covered by it
Do I even have any?
maybe it's all a lie
Imagination to face reality
show me your
true face
face the truth.
Leslie Srajek Feb 2010
“How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,
looking at everything and calling out
Yes! No!”
–Mary Oliver, “Yes! No!”

1.

The coils of this labyrinth remind me of the small intestine.  This vexes me.  Walking the labyrinth is supposed to be a spiritual experience, isn’t it?  Neither time nor place for unlovely images of the body.  The truth is that I dislike the labyrinth.  I find it too constraining, too tedious—all these looping, repetitive coils.  The truth is that I hate the labyrinth because it is pale and remote, and silently indifferent to me.  If I am going to engage with something, I’d like for it to talk back, please.  I have questions, you know.  I have some concerns.  And perhaps just one or two small issues with control, and delayed gratification.

2.

“I think serenity is not something you just find in the world, like a plum tree,
holding up its white petals” (Mary Oliver, “Yes! No!”).


3.

“Watch how we encounter each other,” you say, and we walk, slowly, separately.  Around one turn we meet, and you kiss me, and your tongue is muscular and wet.  Around another turn you say, over your shoulder, “Hello,” and continue walking.  It is hard for me to keep my balance even though the path is smooth and flat.  I feel like we are in a Magritte painting.  Your white shirt glows softly somewhere to the left of my awareness.  A voice not connected to your body says, “Do you like my hat?”  We are walking.  We are together.  We are not together.  


4.

“Imagination is better than a sharp instrument.  To pay attention, this is our endless
and proper work” (Mary Oliver, “Yes! No!”).


5.

So now:
Quiet, quiet—the darkness is full.
Your skin is listening
to the night air.

In the center of the labyrinth, someone has placed a gift.

Quiet, quiet—someone is telling you a story.
The oldest story in the world, and his body hums and pulses
under your fingers.

In the center, there is a gift.

Quiet, quiet—this is not walking.  
This is surrendering to the path, your body long and outstretched
against the stones.

In the center, someone has placed a gift.
©2010 by Leslie Crowley Srajek
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
the devil in hell is constant, reminding as a tombstone -
each and every knock-knock - my imagination resides
in this hellish equivalent of life lived elsewhere -
for the devil in hell is merely a tombstone with
a living inscription that's a clock rather than epitaph and
insignificant dates given Darwinism
and the Big Bag - i.e. 1779 and August
and the 7th makes little difference - or none at all -
oh how welcome buried to be imprinted within
minding anonymous - hell and the tombstone -
an enlarging of life not lived -
or heaven, well, even Dante described Hell
with prefrontal cortex exactness -
Dante's inferno dealt with more detail -
the paradise left to abstracts;
and so the netherworld spoke toward
mortal interests incubated as apt resource
for expression in what aerodynamic was to be
in a lepidopteris catching magritte umbrellas
with accented whirls - like pebble skipping
on the shattering of the Narcissus mirror
to hold sway of reality, worded: how you aged,
while the lake remained standstill intact -
whenever the philosopher inspected you even
more frequently than Sisyphus;
many climbed the highest peak
to only watch the Sisyphus boulder roll with their
bravery downhill -
but so few sat like stones about to be thrown
across the pristine mirage of the awaited
plagiarism of your first inkling into the shallow
depths - for indeed demigod assured -
embryo of thought, missing artist,
missing a self-portrait - what say you
to claim near-role of Poseidon?
i expect you'd only quack van Gogh -
and feel less inclined to imbue thought of mirror
as thought of beauty as self-worth and
the mind preserving it - rather than a mind
inclined to translate the stillness of the lake
into compressed aluminium and chewed sand for
the seen-through; a paradoxical world:
so much worth ascribed to so little -
and so little worth ascribed to so much -
this world is not worth a human zenith -
nor the nadir of insect savagery -
not the curtail phantom of scientific theatrical excavations,
nor the complaint of humanism attached similarly to
the same theatre -
mine assured the Chinese fairy-tale of a poet-drinker -
restless in metabolism, but when auburn comes named
Autumn, or spring and the Japanese cherry trees
of hanami - the low-caste infuriates mindful spectacles
of how to cross a busy urban crossroad of traffic
and look less at app. with additions for a minute's
silence among 15 minutes of modern crave of holy grail fame,
long lost among the objective success no
individual can profess - but specie kindred ha-yah,
ohayō - manga sigh you - conning chihuahua -
they **** and the English limit of theology, pronoun
debacle he v. she - V-she - mate, an E! an E! if theology
is to be so debated no longer the existence is to be debased
and atheism acquired - albeit not Oriental atheism of
Jackie Chew kangaroo karate - more like
addicts in a gym with fast-food exercises joining the
granny club of arthritis and bad joints;
'cos you're a bunch of wankers and that's that -
you smoke those opiates! you do! never was a Pole
more vocal than with the European Union -
embark on inviting the Turk! the coup is over!
invite the Turk! invite the Albanian! invite the Serb!
the Brit is leaving! hello Scootland!
irinia Jan 2014
I’ve written on a flyleaf: I hate you, mon amour
with hard working passion I hate you.
Ceci n’est pas une pipe, your father have told you.

you’ve been so busy to cut the day off from the night
-quite an old fashion-
and just when the silence evacuates  its void to be the great pretender
perhaps Magritte had dreams about annihilation to compensate a ******
but I was dreaming of you sleeping with lions

I’ve felt your cage – the splitting of now and then into so many suspicions –
unbearable waking hour -  I wake up in the dark and I can see that I love you

when the hour gently subsides to the moon
and I can find no comfort in haunting memories
I pray to the air to touch my lips with your gaze
Marius Surleac Apr 2010
  dedicated to Rene Magritte *

An image of my grandmother
her head appearing upside-down upon a cloud
the cloud transfixed on the steeple
of a deserted railway-station
far away

An image of an aqueduct
with a dead crow hanging from the first arch
a modern-style chair from the second
a fir-tree lodged in the third
and the whole scene sprinkled with snow

An image of a piano-tuner
with a basket of prawns on his shoulder
and a firescreen under his arm
his moustache made of clay-clotted twigs
and his cheeks daubed with wine

An image of an aeroplane
the propellor is rashers of bacon
the wings are of reinforced lard
the tail is made of paper-clips
the pilot is a wasp

An image of the painter
with his left hand in a bucket
and his right hand stroking a cat
as he lies in bed
with a stone beneath his head

And all these images
and many others
are arranged like waxworks
in model bird-cages
about six inches high.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2018
/                                          i might fail,
               and i probably will...

but when i do?

    i'll do it, in the most
spectacular fashion...

   hands outstretched:

- )wearing socks,
a ****** t-shirt,
   work
             shorts
and a pair stinking slippers;
forget the fluorescent
  gypsy
boxer shorts( -

               like a ***!

ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!

   god, some people are
not even allowed to laugh
at this sort of ****, content,
****! "thing";

why can't
people find like a ***, funny?
5am, mid july isn't
exactly funny to me either...
so?
      point to the beef!

   ****...
                      chops anyone?
can't get cheaper than that:
                                 swear to god;

the ******* already sold
the original intention
and subsequently called a case
for copyright.

- and the next item of history?
well...
   it's not like they're invited!

    i know, horrid, cheap, comedy,
i already know the censor aspect
of me writing it:
(a) you consider it to be "comedy",
(b) you shut the **** up...
(c) ha ha ha ha -
(d) a very personal
joke
   (e) no actual sense of humour
to begin with to craft
a laugh...

                 one word:
  a wave of the hand attempting to fake
brushing off flies like a cow's tail
and...
                           'whatever'...

i tried, i failed,
     now i'll...

                     the brighton pier burn,
as it did...

    so?

         i'll watch habana implode...

       then?

    surely that didn't happen...

well...

     whatever and doesn't

                                 happen next:

just so we can get a snapshot of
a muted: oops! contrasted
by an authentic
****** expression worth
of a model looking "surprised".
Donall Dempsey Dec 2015
HEART GALLERY

You step forth
from your bath

as if you were
a Bonard

come alive

spread yourself
across crisp cool sheets

as sensationally
sensuous

as a Modigliani
****

or a Noguchi
sculpture.

Here, you
Matisse

if only
for a brief

moment now so
Ernst!

Now so
playfully Picasso...ish!

I smile
as you Vermeer!

"Come here
& kiss me!"

You my Magritte!

You my Dali!

You my laughing walking talking
'art gallery!
René Mutumé Aug 2013
Back down the million mile road
down south again, buildings
familiar love, fashionable stones for throwing
across the Thames, office fields, floating stocks,
driving to the train rythm of city gulls and movement,
eager, bored, and feral, but
you’ve gotta choose your home…

London-queen of
mimetic ceremony
silhouettes cornered in pristine rooms,
finer than the attire of imagined skin, remembered and felt,
classic
projected
films
moving
into one line
of crowded parade,
stepping to
and fro, dressed differently
every time

the city and i- we
head to a shop
that puts a crate of beer
on my shoulder,
and a better drunk than us both
asks me for one

i say:
“sure man, take one”
and i offer him my smoke too,
“take it, just made it”
we add,
“ah! you’re Captain Scarlet!” he tells me
as the man sings the theme song and rewards
me
with a dance.

And sometimes the sickness and poverty of it all
helps
and its ok
tell me that after two breakfasts land down,
for a while, and two tumours laugh
in an empty car park
at the same thing.

The name for god always changing,
some days a digital
word,
sometimes
a bird stood upon a lamp post
at 10:16,
the way
someone smiles,
the science behind welcoming,
cancer guns
and the engravings
on the handle,
that you care for more
than all the dry sweat
night dripping,
the kind that paralyses
insomnia
and rises from your bed
outside your mind,
again:

that familiar smile.

We won’t be a salary in the morning,
we’ll be a Magritte, or a Picasso
at the weekend,
we’ll stand in front
of artists dead
and see no difference
between lamb, now roasting-
and the experiment in seasoning,
that you, or I
added

there’ll be a non-charging cash point,
counting sounds
that are lost in chaotic uncares,
and if my lights go out at 4am,
whilst we’re linked,
the vat
will at least
be made of us

the androgyny
of burnt climaxing sky line
will be clear through the polluted hive line
of buildings,
we’ll be wearing hooded macks
in the rain – sliding between still light
and shadow,
crossing the intersecting lines
of humming traffic
and unheard noise
we’ll pass without tickets,
as they fall from the bridge,
and the edge lifts away
from our feet

and the rest goes underground,
behind ageing tunnel wall of aging
graffiti skull -
tracks nulled by snow in winter,
body late, perspiring -
pouring peddle down, response
automatic,
eyelid better for counting
time, than opening eye -
synthetic wait for for any fire
that is kind,
raising corners that blink
in false dream

our seven seeming tied, and untied, bonded,
and unbonded,
gropes untied with hunger,
the sky kicks in the brick walls slaying the hours
with calls from strangers and friends
indifferent-

one.
-
two.
-
three.

seconds
and faces.

(and the city hates slowing down
doesn’t (s)he?)

until its ready that is,
the only joke being to wait and drool over corpses and post mortem like
thought the place being in your heart and the ever-glow being the same
as any love that you feel and the way you need it to take you forward
and just let you ride the and forget that its there because I’ll die
before I stop acting on my instinct for you the ever-gloom and the skull can unwind elsewhere! Oh the poison
that forgets itself if only needing the same formaldehyde
to keep it still-

That’ll do.



Perfection is a woman without eyes.

Perfection is a man without limbs.

Perfection is the home that walks you back when the day is yours,
and someone elses.

Perfection blinds the crippled mask.

Beginning.

One that fits your birth.

Your death.

All of the ****
islands.

All
of the ******

****

islands.
JV Beaupre Jul 2022
My first day modeling for Monsieur Magritte,
he asked me to take off my clothes,
and stand facing the easel.
During the next break, I snuck a peek.
There I was , fully clothed,
wearing a bowler
but, instead of a face,
there was a green apple.

As I found out, this was typical.
I have posed as a tree,  and a cat in a hat.
My shadow has been a window.
My face has been a bird,
My torso a bird cage,
A pipe was an organic extension of my nose.

I never understood why he needed a model at all,
perhaps an immediate someone to share his visions.
The money was good, and I faked it.
Wouldn't you?
I like rene magritte's paintings.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
around here, you either go to bed early, drink yourself silly,
or read Kant... to be honest i still imagine
Kant like René Magritte - suited
and booted for the "next best thing",
not scruffy like Diogenes or Socrates,
the epitome of civilisation: a well dressed man,
or simply conveniently blending in,
like me wearing tracksuit "trousers" and
a t-shirt, the same thing, over and over
again, for god knows how long...
oh i have a wardrobe, i just chose
to have the feline tastes in the mundane -
why bother? it's a simple question worthy of
a creaking table - why bother?
the pride of the English resides in having
a mortgage rather than a wife - it's all
a frenzy after that contract is signed,
they're all hip-hip-where's-the-*******-hooray!
basically, if i know, Putin knows,
Kant was accused as "being" a Prussian spy, i get
the jokes, hence i execute, and think you out
into thinking i'm irrational due to chickenpox
(even though i've had a vaccination),
no, please, you invented the clockwise route of
traffic and the Shanghai roundabout, you first...
no, seriously, i was just kidding and then you
take me all serious i have to give a Kamikaze
salute, death to us all, and none shall return...
imagine Jesus (big up the Bible Belt States!)
and his rejection of doctrine on the third day,
the whole thing about body resurrected /
resuscitated... am i in heaven? am i in hell?
i don't know! resurrection of the body happened as
it happened - me? personally? i imagine heaven
a place where you don't ****, eat, or feel -
hell where you do each and etc. to excess,
******* is like having **** *** - heaven you just
float about, Hades' lava lamp airy fairy...
i'm writing this because my mortality expired,
i'm angry like a teenager and a fusilier convoy
target for Islamic terrorism...

as you know, within a poet many voices speak,
in polite society the practice of poetry is
best described as schizophrenia -
a polite society, a polite society, a politeness,
doesn't ring the bell that adjective -
since you vote in dichotomy versions of unity -
dichotomic (underlined), a word you should know well -
oh now a theory above a non-approval of
a word? how eloquent... we can have dual
and the self- as in -containment
but we can't seem to have the dicho... ****'s sake 2,
antidote of pre-Christian Greek endeavours
focused on the number 2,
sign your name on the petition to obstruct
any synonymous activity -
post-and-inc.-Christianity Greek endeavours lost
itself into abstracting the no. 3
(prior to β-reduction-ism - i.e. because -
into γ-reduction-ism, i.e. cause) -
well, if there ain't no bench and no one to speak to,
you're bound to find fascinations in symbols
to the outreaching mentions of meaning,
i.e. insinuation - hence what psychiatrists have done
all along in bringing Freddy Kruger and the unconscious,
enveloped, and as antidote, insinuation:
collective unconscious / common sense = intuition.
i know this is abstract, i know the grammatical words missing
to write an essay, it's a poem,
look at it as if all the ******* of the current
Tate Modern exhibition put together - why else?
why take an umbrella out when it's raining
instead of thinking of yourself as sugar?
under my skin? people tend to be tattoos under your skin,
you release them by etching out fingerprints of
their genitalia onto the world, nothing more,
the ***** to guillotine the father, or mother -
should have worked on it, the carpet in the kitchen
as an escape route to explore America? the ***** to guillotine
that crap... the cat playhouse in the living room?
should have guillotined that... why not **** them off
before all that "adventurous horizons" crap of Ms. Caterpillar
turned actress, formerly known as Mr. Model
with a burp and get it away and done with?
well... i was born in a bigger ****-hole than this,
to me Romford, Essex, is like mother-******* Hollywood...
oh ****... i think i just shoved my ball-sack into fresh cement...
heave! heave! heave! n'ah, that ****'s stuck...
i think i'll compass the **** out of all Irish Catholics
along the way to the Hammadi Library; duh, nimwit!
(and a) shotgun! me get ******* first(!)
on our way into a Brighton pier photo-cubicle to get a passport
photograph for flight MS804...


                                                      ­     wankers.
Emmaline E May 2013
Wind whips, whistling in the seat belt,
Crooning along to the emotional ululations
As I succumb to the emphatically teenager-like emotions,
Grand in their extremity,
Both realizing and fully embracing the cliché-ness
And dramatization of every quip, gesture, glance.
My mood soars irrationally with the voraciousness of my tires,
Devouring every granule of cement at velocities upwards
Of 30 miles per hour.
Jason Mraz and I make an excellent duet,
As I’m quite certain the disgruntled woman a lane over
At the stoplight thinks as well.
He sings of skies “getting rough”
And I allow my eyes to wander to our own ominous clouds,
Creeping from the east like panthers prowling in search of prey;
I appreciate their slate undertones and umber rumples,
The gold shining from behind and within, tinting their edges,
But I turn my attentions slowly, with a bittersweet notion,
To their fluffy brethren, friends of Magritte,
Iridescent and captivating as they weave among the rays.
Possibly one of my only happy poems, written in a flurry of exuberation.
Donall Dempsey Dec 2018
!HEART GALLERY!

You step forth
from your bath

as if you were
a Bonard

come alive

spread yourself
across crisp cool sheets

as sensationally
sensuous

as a Modigliani
****

or a Noguchi
sculpture.

Here, you
Matisse

if only
for a brief

moment now so
Ernst!

Now so
playfully Picasso...ish!

I smile
as you Vermeer!

"Come here
& kiss me!"

You my Magritte!

You my Dali!

You my laughing walking talking
'art gallery!
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2020
that there's a death of melody in music
and that it's coincidental
                        with a poetic death
of rhyme -
                      all precursor of:
res vanus - and a moving beyond
res cogitans -
                 building up a budding
of a frothing emptiness -
                           along with misnomers
as alt metaphors:
                   perhaps then coinciding
with a need for a glue of an imposing
maxim...
           now i want to put on a pair
of latex gloves and write like a perfect
******:
                a mahler or a penderecki ******...
where there was once
an aesthetic...
   there's only a sterilization process
that quasi "beautiful"...
   i'd love to get drunk on alfred jarry's
pataphysics... but i am compromised
by all the social engineering currently
  in process...
                if i could only find relief
in a rhyme...
                          thus rushing to engage
with an cul de sac of sleep:
with each night i prize open a prayer
of an otherwise uneventful narration
that my thought embryo has become
with the words:
let me not become an architect of dreams...
some variation
of technicality.... willful for
an etymological promenade of details....
otherwise a return to a language
summary akin to the final conclusion
of numbers: 1 + 1 = 2 via something
akin to: i ate bread: i fattened the lean
pig with a telepathy of digestion
and the absorption of nutrients...
and fibre for glue-****...

      variations of conjunctions: in
that a letter can transcend mere sound...
or a classification as either
vowel or consonant:

                  w:               in
                    z:             with...
o:            about
                          polakk slavic...
        i:                and...
                    th­ere might have
been a return to concern oneself with
the alphabet...
but what is the use of such
trifles...
                         now i'm starting to gag
on a fear that's turning my sessions of language
use: i hoped for the informal...
  i hoped for a delight of some
unfortunate circumstance:
             translating a death in public
with... the ultimate solipsism of
******* in public...
      some neu grand biting of the ice...
this eating of the ice...
                  counting one's teeth...
a completeness of a crescendo into
a heaving of procrastination:

that instagram stole from
                       the comic book...
            once upon a time: declan... tan...
gave me a comic book
for my birthday: batman vs. alien...

and that i am wearing latex gloves
while i write this: a momentary lapse
in a self-defining critique...

mind the articles in english:
a (indefinite) is akin to a telescope..
the (definite) is akin to a microscope...
mickey mouse turned magician spectacular...
i am sure of it...

i put on a pair of latex more times...
than i have put on a ******...
and that's not because i'm somehow
shy: the brothel and ******
are not... foreign to me...

i imagine the perfection of skin
in latex... what i wouldn't do...
when i otherwise...
squeeze... beelzebub's white pulp
of phlegm coagulating with
maggot brains of acne from my cheek
and nose...
          i imagine latex as that...
olive skin... that apple sunset burn...
it's beside a b.d.s.m. manual for
a total body covering
with a variation of exposed genitals...

i think of all those poor *******
strapped to role playing and uniforms...
i just want to **** a sensation
of an oyster shell one minute...
and exoskeleton slick of knee...
the next... then there's no clarity
of need or will...
      there's just this...
perverted persuasion of an unwillingness
and sabotage... tantamount...
in excavating new burdens
of reproach... for an otherwise basic...
safe and thereby senile:
striptease of a lost artistic...

              latex again... there's no concept
of dry ice... when picking up
cubes of the "stuff"... it's impossible for...
the dry... cold cube...
to attach itself liker a spider
to the rich lipid surface of the skin...

no hindering the typing...
process... but it's not like i'm about
to excavate a paragraph from this iron
maiden of a thought:
ego or inner voice or...
some other synonym as vague as
the architecture of god for
the diligent disguise of: fed on prayer...

because i have lost control of my ego...
i can't be an egoist when
i have come to assure myself...
this feral fraction of the sigma
that's me... this debilitating contraband
unit...
          to employ hands dressed
in latex gloves, to find paper...
to magically invoke ink with a machine-esque
precision...
      
       and because rene magritte used
to... take on the full attire...
of a suit... and paint: while standing up....
i imagine the thrill of gravity too:
this way... of jerking off while standing up
rather than... while sitting on the
throne of thrones and pushing out
a chestnut of:
dilating the **** a little bit more...

- and because this is not ancient rome
and that, "somehow"...
the gynocentric model of...
surrogate fathers even if complimented
by the status of emperor is beside
a question of the old / new norm...

roses bleed a colour such a near impossible
gesticulation at the beholder's eye...
a robed bishop of lavender...
scentless roses...
          give me a flower that...
impossible... the sound of a weeping
willow... rustling... being
rearranged by the rummaging of a wind...
clarity of the closure of sensation
come the petal...
this desire to find... the plethora of
***** as akin to flowers...

           my rotting crease of:
are you looking for paper...
are you looking for paper...
      i look for edible paper with a taste
of blisters... and nails...
like it might be disguised in
papyrus...
              
    give my heart enough strain...
and i will heave a mimic
of certain avenues being solaced
as having been fashioned for some:
agreeable loot of eyes...

sometimes the articles in english
are never used...
the corpus of restraints...
not that it matters...
the restraints are such
that the transgressions mean so very little...
except for a theatre of the absurd...
cruel becomings and symphonic
whirlwinds of the absolute cause...
like riddling a pyramid as a tourist...
rather than... heaving an excavation
of a height of a mountain...

to envy mountains is to construct
pyramids...
  it to also scatter ambitions toward
the primordial and always first:
looting of a sand dune pitch...
                 to compensate the tides:
one of rain and the subsequent
              sea...
or... the grains of sand...
and that deserted place..

          efficiency in the workplace
as a concept for purgatory...
and so many borrowed themes of pressures...
in a society of unit basis:
this greasing of a leather that's
not a pair or trousers or...
       which will become apparent...
a pair of disused latex gloves...

  such a paranormal fear of this...
otherwise possible yield of base:
                                       cradle the dilemma
of a yoke... without the white
protein hive...
         **** a lemon...
forgo the ***** gesture and...
limit: because there's a hybrid
in "question"...
      
otherwise... shrapnel base to base
basics...
some variation of the closed off secure...
adrian leverkühn:
the near impossible
"dialectic" of a oink's anatomy...
the pig foretold the limbo
of a sheik's compromise...

nearing death and a juice of
grey / variation:
nearing death and the juicing
of grey...
                  my no nearing...
death is such a devilish heave...
                 language has to half...
such beside nuance worship of
impromptu / beginner's luck...
  my samson and.. that *****'s riddle
wedded to a D...
            
                     E.L.P.:
emerson lake & palmer...
trouble with acronyms...
conjunctions are sometimes used,,,
while wearing latex... ghosts!
exoskeleton winding up
a giggle.,..
          my nearing a loot
of an oeuvre..
       childless creases of a fabric of
atoms...
this hierarchy of mirages...

                        asking for a friendship
with the moon...
a lacklustre of the three dimensions
of the old speckled hen...

a three legged dog...
                 my own father...
of which i make both sorrow and *****
having found no replica...
this tamed grandiosity of worded
junctions...

               snorkeling is somehow akin
to snoring... here i perfect...
a dickensian plot-hole in "laziness"...
but not really...
         to tame the crab bucket...
to tame: "above the hive"...
a question of why... wisteria might bloom..
seemingly, independently...
yet coincidental...
base repertoir of grades...
      completely useless when
sole verb projects are employed..
    
       i have reason to vain-belief
in the use of: a dreamless attire for the credo:
that's ambition...
bit i fear i'll sooner advent
an anger and a death... before..
i can be allowed a stomach...
and an allowing / alluring concern
for... persaverance...

         like it's a gilding...
an unfathomable first prized...
                     Edison-esque project...
           was there / could there ever be...
a scrutiny of a lightbulb?
                 a mountain reeked of a scent
of havoc...
      the confines of canyon
that of an all-encompassing tomb...

                 to have to riddle
with a rubric of skeletons...
             maya niqab... maya tow
a mouth that doesn't speak
or a nose that doesn't distinguish
a lobotamy from a prose...
new basic invasion of iraq...
  which is no new iraq:
i just devolved onto the topic of...
the rat that stank...
with a gravity of spectacular of...
wishing for the atom bomb...
wishing for the atom bomb.
Abigail Ella Sep 2016
After Magritte*

Maybe that man in the painting,
Grey, upright, unfeeling,
really is the Son of Man—
Divine: of the father and of the son,
And of the holy ghost.

How did he spend his Christmas mornings as a child?

If he is mortal after all—
the kind who strolls along with an Eve at dusk:
Who is his Gabriel?

Did he ever place an offering on the desk of a Teacher?

Whoever he is, does he wash them all away,
Or rather hide behind his sins?

And is that really even an apple?
Third Eye Candy Dec 2019
without gills, we breathe on the moon.
the humble tortoise has a house and our theories
are quaint. we have all the havoc of time
in an opulent balloon.
an unusual as usual, floating in open wounds
where the worlds on fire are the frozen ones
and all the Islands of our apostrophe
all pause the revelation
as quickly as you
Like.

summer in a spoon is all the cheap heat of our medallions
suckling the ambivalent inferno  of our ice age
spooling an endless wrinkle of our entire folly on a plinth
‘neath a pillar of vaporous Dawn!
Empirial in aspect,... but as fleeting as the miracle.
concave sparks are the Eldar Sign of our implicit medieval chicaneries.
all is the storm of an imperfect thing gasping for black holes-
at the senior prom. the corsage of our immortal souls
adorning the brevity of Life Itself.
we continue in this way
for no reason
with a hat.
Andrew Geary Nov 2014
So, there is nothing
that can arise from this
except for the ultimate
leveling: Maya Angelou
and Wallace Stevens: equals,
until opinion renders
their worth.

And the canvas colored
by Magritte’s vision is equal
to a child’s ***** matter
framed in a special place,
until your eye comes
and favors one over the other.

Yes, I’m ready to accept
this fate if it means no one
can ever declare
that my **** stinks
and makes the air faint.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2016
when i die, i'll relinquish so many riches...
that even king solomon would be envious.*

a reinterpretation of rené magritte -
man in a suit with an apple disguising him -
student with dreads and some
artsy fartsy clothes with a traffic cone
to disguise his face.

why do people cling to poetry?
its innocence - people loath poets who
rebel against poetic innocence,
they still want much technique
and little resolve - they want cute
rhyming, cute topic matters,
when the serious arts that allow
no strain provide prodigious outputs
that are later morphed into genius
(genius being prodigious output
in free-fall, spirit of gravity),
the poets concern themselves
about who's the most naive of them all:
poem poem on the page, who's the
most naive of them all?
you see, defining genius in poetry
is equated to the extent of emotional turmoil,
the less of it, the more ideal, technique prone
the output is... the more of it?
well... e.g.

yes, the english do not read philosophy,
they're too practical for that,
so practical in fact that their practicality
stems from creating problems,
rather than solving them,
they're the ones that say:
we care not for philosophical matters,
we care for practical matters,
we rather not abstract real matters
with unreal solutions,
but rather negate unreal matters
with bureaucratic solutions -
basically handing hot coal from
one person to another until the hot coal
becomes hot ****, and then thickens
and becomes un-fascinating for even the
congregation of flies.

but of course you know it stemmed back
from darwinism plaguing writing,
the necessary clear-cut plot, so everyone
knows what's going on... writing,
esp. fiction, is still just about drawing straight lines...
not circles, not squares... straight lines,
lucidity of some congestion of character intersection
with the narrator trapped in parallelism
of either allowing or obstructing tangents of
characters to involve the narrator into
being disguised.

but of course, you weren't the one punching
a brick wall when home office officers
came to take your father and mother,
handcuffed them and took them to the police station
while you were left in the room,
looking tearfully blank at a wall,
with one of the home office enforces coming
in and saying the words: 'you have a nice computer',
then turning around with... not an evil eye,
but a death eye stare... you were ~10 at the time,
shifted back to your fatherland to become
quasi autistic in silence...
only because your father provided an honest
hand for an honest profession,
while the niqab ***** multiplied in tax havens
of taxpayers' rented accommodation
in west london...

or as mickey mouse and donald would say:
make america déjà vu again... again again?
no, make america déjà vu:
rocky ***** balboa robocop sequel no. 17...
the imagination has to die at some point,
might as well be now.
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
stranded, 10 a.m. and ahead
of me Salem, the great witch trials,
although not against hypnotising women
of great beauty, but against artists -
gone the hedonism of the 1960s
and the way the public revelled in
it as much as the artists - bog standard
ontology - you allow me to do my bit
i make you happy, done... next!
but no, not these days, everyone these
days demands toilet cubicle *******
sniffers to give you anything
decent art... honey... too much shame,
it was planted for a purpose, it has to be
smoked, drank, or sniffed... no point creating
an idea / ideal as the only escape route from
this massive **** vacuum with a few glittery
bits and pieces - you got to smash the piñata
somehow...
but yeah, the 5 p.m. metabolic rule (should
you have been exposed to a frequent
use of alcohol) - meaning i can't take it
after 5 p.m., i can binge on the x-files
(backlog of 6 episodes, yes, they're screening
the whole **** programme on spike),
prepare dinner (a stew with groats and a salad
on the side), but waiting longer for my
medical surrender to this great sedative is
that after i drink to reach a certain plateau
i can relax, read, write what i find...
i never understood art to have ever been written
without any sort of intoxication and sane...
unless of course you practice what René Magritte
did, and paint everything as if you had a *****
shoved up your *** (i.e. wearing a suit).
Aa Harvey May 2018
Gold is your soul


The drive there will be boring.
The arrival so momentous!
The disappointing greeters;
The sights not quite as expected.
The smell at times will be rancid.
The art of it all will be lost.
They will say “Welcome to The City of Romance!”
As you sip your hot coffee, whilst you worry about the cost,
Or getting lost…


…as you take in the views you will realise you have been left behind.
Nobody said anything; you were forgotten, not for the first time.
So you rush off to find the tail at the back of the line
And as you return to the flock, unnoticed by all except one,
You will relax once more and at last notice the sunshine…


…the noise of it all will not be music to your ears.
The occasional cliché will ride by unknown to you,
As you are so deeply engrossed in your list of fears,
Of not being what they expect you to be;
Or not enjoying or appreciating what they did;
Or not feeling what they expect you to feel…
What exactly is it this place is meant to make you feel?


Your heart will sink, as you begrudgingly sip your cold coffee drink
And the clouds will arrive overhead.  Merci!
Others will continue to talk,
As you walk hand in hand with your silence,
Through all the streets
And all the halls
And all the endless corridors,
Until you have nothing left…


…as you pass through the musicians like the spirit of winter,
All the accordion’s and violins will call out “Come back!”
Your soul will only paint a black and white photo,
Of a woman alone, in the cold of the night, street lights shining black.
Smoke rising from her cigarette holder and aging her beauty,
Death is called The Taker.
She smiles as The Joker;
She has become The Wrinkler.
Now her make up is running,
Her lipstick has been smeared,
You are staring into the reflection of a puddle,
With frizzy hair all around you,
Wishing just one person,
Somebody!
Anybody!
Was near.


All you will hear are the tears in their voices,
As they whisper their stories; their stories of love,
From beneath the branches of the boulevard of broken dreams.
All you will hear are the peace breaking shouts and screams
And the sound of old cars as their tires screech.
Real people in a real place with their own busy lives to lead.
This is not the Disneyland you imagined;
This is no place you asked to be.
Lost is the face of the love you hoped to meet.
Where do you find your own Rene?


At long last you arrive at the galleries
And further still will ride the disappointment,
As the Mona does not affect you, as they say “It does!”
But it doesn’t.
You think it is nice.  They will say “It is magnifique!”
You don’t think it is…
And you will continue as they speak only ‘their mind’;
Still never speaking, you casually pass on by
And leave Mona to all the tourists.
You are the only purist.


You will not speak your truth because the truth is not heard.
All they hear are ‘their words’.
‘Their words’, without the feeling;
Just ‘their words’, without the hearing,
Which have all been said a thousand times or more before.
There is no more original…
Thought…


But then as you sit there alone eating a beget you brought for lunch,
You will at last find some peace and quiet.
Everyone else will have gone away to discover their own loves;
Their pictures within pictures,
Which they will all duplicate;
So trying.
Second rate, after second rate, after second rate,
But wait!…


…you put your food down, eyes glued to the image ahead.
You will rise to your feet, you will squint your eyes,
Just to be sure; just to be questionless.
But you will still be unable to truly see,
So forwards you will go.
Forwards into the unknown;
Carried along on feet of uncertainty.


Only video eyes watching you forget your phone.
It could have been stolen!
But it rests next to the broken bread.
All concerns have evaporated;
Shot away from your apple head,
For you have seen something nobody else has ever seen,
Within the lines of a Rene Magritte painting
And it is yours.


This moment,
This time,
This feeling has left you agog!
Unable to write anything without consequence in an artificial blog.
Unable to use the What’s-app-messenger-application,
For you have become lost in the spirit of the master craftsman
And the muses in your head are all a-dance!
And chants can be heard, so you pick up your chalk.
Go on take a chance!


So with metamorphosis and the possession of your artistic soul,
You create your own master piece…

…as the silent smiles cast their eyes over its beauty,
You simply say its name is,
‘Gold is your soul.’
It is the perfect reminder of that which you wished to know…

Aren’t you glad you went?
Tell me, what did you see?


(C)2018 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
Tom D Mar 2023
I dream of an empty chair
in a field of golden wheat
It’s a lonesome scene of solitude
with no one in the seat
I peer
I stare
Nothing seems to be there
but a surreal world
of Monsieur Magritte
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2018
to follow up on a citation from

art & fear by
david bales and ted orland:

/ it seems that while the “quantity” group
was busily churning out piles of work -
and learning from their mistakes —
 the “quality” group had sat theorizing
about perfection, and in the end had
little more to show for their efforts
than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. /

imagine asking a mozart to appeal
to both a quality and a quantity,
point being,
    quality will always remain
POP... while quantity will shut itself
off in  king crimson song,

    take what you're given
and stop acting like a pretentious
communist that even the Soviets would
have hated, as this overt censor
who censored so much,
   that he turned an ancient oak
into a toothpick, and not 10,000,000
packets if not more...

much easier to call in a
quality surveyor when it comes
to carpentry: you sit on a chair
and it doesn't break:
     give us 10,000 more replicas...
"apparently" rushed...

a mirage of qua (as being)
      and quo (where?)

        almost indistinguishable
after enough practice, and,
patience... but some much for these
little words...

             that sequence of a tree
made into a single toothpick?
     loony toons,  foghorn leghorn
episode...

  quality is a spare
   of what dedication to quantity
arrives at...
           quality is a byproduct
not the product itself...
        
don't ask me how capitalism rings
a bell, seeing how it's exhausted
       in pumping out quality,
and quantity simultaneously,
having to tap into a.i. & algorithms
because, apparently:
   human creativity is without
an imagination lax,
there are, apparently,  
   25,000 ways of reinventing
the hammer and the nail...
  given that the fear of the hammer
and the he sickle disappeared...
  Columbus discovering America
in a ******* can of sardines...
woo, hoo, honk honk.

sarcasm is not an easy humour,
witty people hardly notice
that wit and sarcasm are the Hanzel
und Gretyl of the comedy spree...
dry, martini, fixations on the image of:
getting away with easing out
a wet ****,  only because attired
in what Rene Magritte would wear
when painting.

oh wait... **** **** ****....

   both instances mind th3 qua-
prefix...
     mind you, etymology of suffixes
with a strong latin prefix?
not my strong point...
   -lity contra -ntity are not my strong...
     what point of intrest
and: the most certain points
worth debating over?

we are summoned by the fickle nature
of: whatever comes our way,
much easier had it been but
a crude snout of a dog
with only a howling or a barking
to emerge from within:
so curse the mind the tongue the thumb,
and the spine,
    or however else you might
want to evaporate expanding the senses
and not clinging to these pillars...

thing about quantity...
    beggars at the feet of spontaneity,
never for a minute in need of:
attempting to perfect a square...
beside a rhombus?
       a bonsai everest of cow dung,
towed by 12 horses and one donkey,
dubbed: Γołgoθa -
      seems Pythagoras was an Aussie...

what with the up-side down right angle
like a swallow nest on a barn...

******* yob mismatched: oi oi oi...

how else to end it if not
with John Frusciante?
        
                       it really takes but one song
to cite, warm tape...
           THAT CHORUS, IZ...
            how do I put it...
the point of helium trapped in a ******?
    the point of
   mixing the dentist high on helium
and the patient high off nitrous oxide?
I mean, **** me,
   is it to remain of matter of
hiding a higher realism in unachievable
cartoon sketches?
    
             a theological dull and grey,
any day, compared to
man's phantasmagorical taste of colour
to revitalise urbanity with
a Braille reading of Vivaldi scores...
no clichés at this point,
even with the behemoths,
given the already exhausted and fly-riddled
moonlight sonnata...

hell, red hot chilli peppers, ooh, pop,
john frusciante, not carvel...
warm tape chorus:
  remnants of...
     pierdolone, baz'groły...

           since how can the artist be
not deemed a pretentious ****,
if he perfects by sole theorising,
and not by making a *** note...
    take an artist and a carpenter...
    after a while the two concepts
are indistinguishable,
a bit like reading the tedium that
is the overburdened suicide explanation
lost in Zen and the art of motorcycle
maintanence
...

   QUA, sure, but then what?
        10000000000 contra 1.0000000001?
numbing terminology,
contra: litany prospectus?
          
elsewhere in the discussion,
waiting rooms with jazz, rather than muzak
playing in the background,
qua-qua intersectionability...
     no categorical imperative,
or an imperative to build walls and learn
to juggle a a third entry,
a joker sly upper-hand...
    quality,  and quantity,
         are indistinguishable in jazz...
muchos gracias...
   and your, ******* gospel choir
dance moves and jazz and all
the other encyclopedia entries of
black...
    highschool,
         black girls inventing cat fights,
and when vaseline cream first came
in contact with, afro.
13-17 May 2019
though coffee never
I could see in the corner
René Magritte, tacitus
handing me the lovers
lovers under a white quilt
he didn't bother
only my fingers
on the tiny postcard
induced the feeling of
evanescence
that night I was alone…
my venerated lover
which down the river flowing
initiated slowly
a strong concupiscence
Concupiscence- such a beautiful word, but with hidden meanings
First time I saw it while reading "One hundred years of solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez & it clicked

— The End —