The Middleman is at the start
with a fistfull of pockets.
He walks more than he talks it, with
empty hands.
Orange Peel knuckles; peeling, showing
A segmented truth. He mocks it.
   Wholly revealing hisself with
waterbottle lungs,
   Breathing, squeezing; knuckles popping
   cracking, rabble-rousing-
The
Jenga game of a rib cage -
   - sounding skeleton and shouting -
As the beating heart un-falls apart
Unprotected, Uncontained.

By what unscrutability
can a pure heart be blood-stained?
   As his vain-ed cadence flows below the stone
The stone; a frame, posed.
Humble, yet reigns.

Like, the middleman comes to the end and
By God! Someone's killed the messenger, By God!
   Inadvertent
   Changing channels, all this
   static passive
   staging Battles
   A rib cage match like unintended, homicidal rattles
      As spinal shivers, the Middleman Delivers.

You
  could cut
        the air  
with a knife
it was just that thick
it had me
  chewing my nails
     gnawing them to
        the quick.

A small voice
  inside my head said
- you are not the boss of me -
     No question about it
         I work hard to be free.


I plan for
the worst
but I hope
for the best
born to create
I take my imagination
and put it to the test.

They say that a bad
   attitude is like a flat tire
       you have to change it
   if you're going to get very far.
     Free will,
         choose the things you choose
            But you just can't go pinning all
                your hopes on some far away star.

As life goes and go it does,
I hold on tight and
leave my past in the dust.
I've come face to face with my demons
and lived to tell the tale,
I was backed right up against the wall
but my morality is in tact,
this cat's not for sale."

I'm alive for two reasons
        yeah it's down to that.
Reason number one I was born
                and two I didn't die yet.
    I am no go between
        it hasn't come down to that
           I can't deliver what I never had
       Although sometimes I have to
give my head a shake. I always remember
to give a sucker an even break.

©2013

You could cut the air
With a knife, it was just that thick
It had me chewing my nails
Gnawing them to the quick

I plan for the worst
But I hope for the best
Born to create
I take my imagination
and put it to the test

They say that a bad attitude
Is like a flat tire
You have to change it
If you are going to get very far
Free will
Choose the things you choose
But you can't go pinning all
Your hopes on some far away star

As Life goes, and go it does
I hold on tight and put my past in the dust
I have come face to face with my demons
and lived to tell the tale
I was backed right up against the wall
but my morality is in tact...
'' This cat's not for sale''.

I'm alive for two reasons
yeah, it's come down to that
Reason number one is I was born
And number two well, I didn't die yet.
I am no go between it has come down to that
I can't deliver something I never had
Although sometimes I have to give my head a shake
And always remember to give a sucker an even break.

When I was eighteen I worked for a company called GLENCOM. You probably haven't heard of them, you're not supposed to.
They're the invisible middleman.
What happens is, when a company wants to set up a call centre but doesn't have the space or the manpower to do it themselves, they call Glencom.
Glencom then puts together a team of people in Swindon,
teaches them the bare minimum about the product they need to sell and sticks them around a table with headphones on,
completely cut off from the people around them being force-fed phone numbers for eight straight hours a day.

They do this for dozens of companies. And there are dozens of companies just like it.
Producing nothing, just doing other peoples ***** work.
The jobs they don't want to do themselves.
Like Telemarketing. Cold-Calling.
You know when you've just got into the bath,
or you're sitting down to dinner and the phone rings and you think
'I don't want to answer that but it might be important'
and when you answer it it's someone you've never met desperately trying to sell you something you don't want?
And no matter what you say they don't seem to listen, or care,
they just keep reading standard procedure from a script until you can't take it any more and you just hang up?
Chances are, that person is a Glencom specialist telephone agent.

I loved that job, I really did.
You probably think I'm crazy for it, it's the kind of job that middle class kids do for a little extra cash while they're at university,
until they get sick of the soul-crushing routine of getting yelled at and hung up on, yelled at and hung up on and they stop showing up after six weeks.
Year after year, cold-calling is rated in the top ten things people hate about the modern world.
I was part of the problem.
And I loved it.

You see, when you get one of these phone calls, you don't realise that it's a real person on the other end of the phone.
Of course, you do know that it must be a person, that's common sense.
It's just not in your nature to think of that disembodied voice as having a face and a mind
and a favourite food .
and a family
and a history
and a home that they go to every night at seven thirty.
They're a spirit.
One-dimensional.
So you don't treat them like a real person,
and that's OK, really it is, we're used to it.
As far as you're concerned, whoever you're talking to is just a faceless corporation,
so you yell, and you swear,
way more than you would if you were face to face with someone, say, at your bank or in a shop.
Every little thing that has ****** you off that day gets unloaded onto that person because,
for those five minutes,
with your bath getting cold,
or your dinner getting overcooked and blackened,
they are everything that's wrong with society.

So by the time you finally slam the receiver down, and return to whatever it was you were doing,
you're face red, out of breath, can't remember the last time you were that angry
they've ruined your evening.
You swear you're going to complain,
but you know that if you do that you'll just get caught up in their red tape and rhetoric all over again.
There's nothing to do but let it go.
So you do, and with it, something strange happens.
All that anger and tension that you've been carrying around all day just leaves your body slowly.

The traffic that morning;
your workload at the office;
that cold you just cant shake;
the barista who got your coffee order wrong, but your were running late so didn't have time to complain and get a new one;

All those little things that you can't control,
it doesn't seem worth worrying about them now.
You think of how angry you were at that little voice coming out of the telephone speaker and you feel sort of proud,
like it makes up for bending over and taking **** from your Boss all those years.
from your bank all those years
from the gas and electric companies
and your phone company and internet service provider all those years
from your politicians all those years
all that doesn't sting so much any more.

Because you just stuck it to the man.
You stood up to the big corporations and you got the upper hand.
You start to see the funny side,
you'll tell everyone at work about this.

That's the thing about telemarketers: They're one of those little annoyances that people love so much,
like the weather or queue-jumpers.
Something we all hate, but can all relate to,
a lynch-pin of small-talk,
that inoffensive comedian you like so much was talking about it on tv the other night.

But this time you get a chance to stri ke back.
It's not like getting a parking ticket,
or stubbing your toe,
you get to yell at this inconvenience, tell it exactly how you feel without any fear of repercussions.

Without you realising it, that telemarketer has just done you a valuable service.
You've just saved yourself an hour in front of a punch-bag,
or a session with your therapist or *****.
Without knowing it you are in a better mood than you've been all week,
so you don't smack your kids when they spill paint on the carpet.
And you don't yell at your wife when she forgot to pay the electric bill.
You float on a cloud of air until bed time, and probably make love to your partner for the first time in weeks.
You sleep a healthy eight hours and wake up to breakfast  and coffee and drive to work feeling like you did when you first started there,
when you could still see a bright future ahead of you.
All thanks to that soulless,
faceless,
nameless
disembodied voice on the other end of the phone.
All thanks to me.

I worked out that in any given day,
I got yelled at or told to ******* or otherwise unnecessarily lashed out at maybe thirty out of every hundred calls.
That was thirty families who were going to have a nice dinner,
without the usual arguments for once.
Maybe a few times a week I could prevent an abusive husband from having that one whiskey too many and bashing his wife from room to room.
If you believe in a butterfly flapping it's wings in Tokyo, and all that,
then maybe I, without ever leaving my desk, could stop a ****** from happening, perhaps once a year.
I was making a difference and all I had to do was let my computer dial a random phone number and to introduce myself as
'whoever calling from wherever to let you know about a valuable promotion...'

When I realised all this I decided I would work harder to up my productivity.
A hundred and fifty calls a day,
two hundred.

And I had to provoke more anger.
Subtly of course, I would try to be more obnoxious and inept.
I got peoples names wrong;
I talked over people.
Soon I was getting fifty hang-ups a day.
So I, like a good employee, constantly tried to better myself.
I sniggered at peoples names;
I requested needlessly extensive and intrusive personal information;
asked to speak to 'the man of the house'.
I was getting balled out with every other call.
Seventy, eighty, ninety times a day.
Every time I was called a nuisance I gave myself a pat on the back.
Every time someone said they wanted to speak with my supervisor, I just said they weren't in and then rewarded myself with a cookie at break time.
I got more competitive with myself.
I considered it a personal gift when I got someone with an Indian name,
or a speech impediment.
Gay couples were a Godsend.
I corrected peoples grammar;
I cursed;
I slurred;
I made thinly veiled ****** references.

I was thorn in the side of everyone just trying to enjoy a quiet Sunday afternoon.
I was the itch that no-one could reach.
I invited venom, longed for hatred.
Because if it was aimed at me, it may as well have been aimed at the moon.
I was a necessary evil.
I was the common enemy of the whole country.  
I can't say how many relationships I must have saved,
how many lives I touched.
Suicides prevented? You never know.
I was making the world a better place, one botched customer service attempt at a time.
I was saving people without them even knowing my name.
The anonymous benefactor,
the masked hero.
I was Zorro, I was Batman.
And I loved it.
I thrived on it.
I had found something I was good at.
I could have stayed there, soaking up insults, absorbing peoples troubles, lightening their burdens, forever.

Until three months ago when my manager saw my sales reports.
He, of course, didn't understand why we were really there.
He thought it was about money, about generating figures for whatever company we were hired by that month.
He threw buzz-words and management speak at me.
Improving Revenue.
Optimising Productivity.
Promoting Synergy.
Utilising Opportunity.
Sentence fragments that wouldn't make sense if he meant them.
Nonsensical ramblings littered with capital letters.
By Glencom's standards, rather than my own, I was the worst specialist telephone agent that he had ever seen.
I didn't bother trying to explain.
He wouldn't have understood,
I wanted something real.
Glencom could have been the first call centre to truly,
what's the phrase he would have used? Attain it's Potential.
We could have been pioneers in the business world, providing a service that the public really needs.
But there was no point, he had listened to recordings of my calls and had no choice but to fire me on the spot.

That job was the only thing I had loved for a long, long time. T
he only thing that gave me purpose,
my reason for getting out of bed,
for putting on trousers and shoes.
It was all I had and I lost it,
blacklisted by the employment agency that placed me there.
For a while I tried calling people at random from the phone book but it didn't work out.
You have no idea how much it costs to make a hundred phone calls a day on a pay as you go mobile.
Ten pence a minute
times by sixty minutes an hour
times by eight hours a day  
minus a half hour for lunch equals more than jobseeker's allowance is willing to provide.
I switched to contract but these days everyone has phone number recognition,
so everyone can see that you're calling from a personal phone rather than a business one.

Eventually I started getting phone calls from the phone company explaining that I'd be cut off
and fined if I was using a personal phone for random telemarketing without a license.

The operator was clear, polite and ultimately very helpful.

******' Amateur.

The day begins with a friendly voice,
a companion unobtrusive
plays that song that's so elusive
and the magic music makes the morning mood.

A rider hits the open road,
there is magic at his fingers
for the spirit ever lingers,
undemanding contact in his solitude.

Invisible airwaves crackle with life.
Bright antenna bristle with the energy.
Emotional feedback on timeless wavelength.
Bearing a gift beyond price, almost free.

A familiar song plays,
and he starts thinking to himself:

It was a long, long time ago, wasn’t it?
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
that I could make those people dance,
and maybe they'd be happy for a while.
But February made me shiver
with every paper I'd deliver,
bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step.
I can't remember if I cried
when I read about their widowed brides,
but something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

I see the bad moon a-rising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin'.
I see bad times today.
There's a bad moon on the rise.

So bye-bye, Miss American Pie.
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye
singin', "This'll be the day that I die,
this'll be the day that I die."

They’re modern-day warriors
mean, mean stride.
Today's Tom Sawyers
mean, mean pride.
Though their minds are not for rent.
Don't put them down as arrogant
their reserve, a quiet defense
riding out the day's events.

And what you say about their company
is what you say about society.
Catch the mist, catch the myth
catch the mystery, catch the drift...

“Who are you?”

The tap drips,
the rider finishes his whiskey,
“I've looked under chairs,
I've looked under tables,
I've tried to find the key
To fifty million fables.

They call me The Seeker.

I've been searching low and high.
I won't get to get what I'm after
'til the day I die.”

They look at each other, then back at him,
“Who? Whaddya here for?"

He turns his glass upside down,
slams it on the bar
and says on his way out,
“I like smoke and lightnin'
heavy metal thunder
racing with the wind
and the feeling that I'm under.”
He gets his motor runnin',
heads out on the highway,
looking for adventure
in whatever comes his way.

Yeah, darlin' gonna make it happen.
Take the world in a loving embrace.
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space.
Like a true nature's child
we were born,
born to be wild.
We can climb so high,
“I never wanna die.”

Company, always on the run
destiny is a rising sun.
Oh,
he was born, 6 gun in his hand.
Behind a gun,
he'll make his final stand.
That's why they call him
bad company,
and he can't deny.
Bad company
'til the day he dies.

Screams break the silence,
waking from the dead of night.
Vengeance is boiling,
he's returned to **** the light.

Then when he's found who he's looking for
listen in awe and you'll hear him
bark at the moon.

Years spent in torment,
buried in a nameless grave.
Now he has risen,
miracles would have to save
those that the beast is looking for.
Listen in awe and you'll hear him
bark at the moon.

It's all the same, only the names will change.
Every day, it seems we're wastin' away.
Another place where the faces are so cold.
He'd drive all night just to get back home.

He’s a cowboy.
On a steel horse he rides.
He’s wanted dead or alive,
wanted dead or alive.

In the day he sweats it out on the streets
of a runaway American dream,
at night he rides through the mansions of glory
in suicide machines
sprung from cages on Highway 9.
Chrome wheeled, fuel-injected, and steppin' out over the line,
oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back
it's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
he gotta get out while he’s young.

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future.
He wanna fly like an eagle,
to the sea,
fly like an eagle, let his spirit carry him.
he wants to fly like an eagle
'til he’s free,
oh Lord, through the revolution.

But a storm is threatening
The Seeker’s very life today,
“If I don't get some shelter
I'm gonna fade away.
War, children!
It's just a shot away.
War, children!
It's just a shot away.
See the fire is sweepin'
our streets today,
it burns like a red coal carpet
and a mad bull lost its way.”

Out there in the fields
they fight for their meals,
they get their back into their living,
“We don't need to fight
to prove we’re right,
we don't need to be forgiven.”

The seeker feels around for his honesty,
“So, so you think you can tell
heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
a walk-on part in the war
for a leading role in a cage?”

“There must be some kinda way outta here.”
Said The Seeker to his radio,
“There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief.

Businessmen, they drink my wine,
plowmen dig my earth,
none will level on the line
nobody of it is worth.”

Invisible airwaves crackle with life.
Bright antenna bristle with the energy.
Emotional feedback on timeless wavelength.
Bearing a gift beyond price, almost free.

“No reason to get excited.”
The radio, it kindly spoke,
“There are many here among us
who feel that life is but a joke.
But, uh, but you and I, we've been through that
and this is not our fate,
so let us stop talkin' falsely now
the hour's getting late.”

But he knows
that we'll be fighting in the streets
with our children at our feet.
And the morals that they worship will be gone.
And the men who spurred us on
sit in judgment of all wrong,
They decide and the shotgun sings the song.

We'll tip our hats to the new constitution,
take a bow for the new revolution,
smile and grin at the change all around,
pick up our pens and poems,
Just like yesterday,
then we'll get on our knees and pray
that we don't get fooled again.

After this thought, he promises himself,
and any who’s listening,
“Well, I won't back down.
No, I won't back down.
You can stand me up at the gates of hell,
but I won't back down.”

Carry on, my wayward son,
there'll be peace when you are done.
Lay your weary head to rest,
don't you cry no more.

Once he rose above the noise and confusion
just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion.
He was soaring ever higher
but he flew too high.

Though his eyes could see, he still was a blind man.
Though his mind could think, he still was a mad man.
He hears the voices when we’re dreaming,
he can hear them say:
“Carry on, my wayward son!”

He hears! riding off he says,
“Don't stop me now,
don't stop me.
'Cause I'm fighting for my country, fighting for my love.
I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky,
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity.
I'm a peaceful man who must fight
so I'm gonna go, go, go!
There's no stopping me.
I'm burnin' through the sky,
200 degrees,
that's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit.
I'm traveling at the speed of light!”

There's a place up ahead and we’re goin'
just as fast as our feet can fly.
Come away, come away, if you're goin'
leave the sinkin' ship behind.

Come on the risin' wind,
we're goin' up around the bend.

Bring a song and a smile for the banjo.
Better get, while the gettin's good.
Hitch a ride to the end of the highway
where the neon's turn to wood.

Come on the risin' wind,
we're goin' up around the bend.

In a place he only dreamt of,
where his soul is always free.
Silver stages, golden curtains
filled his head, plain as can be.
As a rainbow grew around the sun
all his stars of love who died
came from somewhere beyond the scene you see,
these lovely people played just for him:

“Green grass and high tides forever.
Castles of stone souls and glory.
Lost faces say we adore you
as kings and queens bow and play for you.
Those who don't believe us,
find their souls and set them free.
Those who do believe and love,
this time will be their key.
Time and time again we've thanked you
for peace of mind.
You helped us find ourselves
amongst the music and the rhyme
that enchants you here.”

Then the door was open, and the wind appeared.
The candles blew and then disappeared.
The curtains flew and then he appeared,
Saying, “don't be afraid.
All your times have come
here but now they're gone.
Seasons don't fear the reaper
nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain.”

We're leavin' together,
but still, it's farewell
and maybe we'll come back
to Earth, who can tell?
I guess there is no one to blame.
We're leaving the ground,
will things ever be the same again?
It's the final countdown,
it’s his final breath,
and with it
The Seeker finds his mark,

“We all hear the call of a lifetime ring,
felt the need to get up for it.
You cut out the middleman.
You got no time for the messenger.
Got no regard for the thing that you don't understand.
You got no fear of the underdog.
That's why you will not survive.”

It wasn't the fear of failure that sent me plunging into the pool of electric currents, it was act of failing.

I go into everything with a "**** it" attitude, with low expectations so I'm never disappointed,

But when things start spiraling down my immediate thought is to abandon ship.

If there's a chance I'm going to hit rock bottom, I want to get there on my own terms, before anything has a chance to drag me down.

Failed a class? Might as well drop out

Had some ice cream while on a diet? Might as well eat the whole tub

About to get pushed onto thin ice? Might as well start jumping til it cracks

If something is going to go, I need it to either go all wrong or all wrong

be rated or berated
what choice have you got
no room for mediocrity
in societies melting ***
aspire to higher places
or expire in the rotten hole
you call a home
poor and forgotten

(Arturo, Lucca, Miguel, Frederick, Marco, Cruz, Pedro and Ivan were playing cards and chess. Lucca, Cruz and Miguel started to smoke clay pipes.)

''Nice angled bowl with a coat of arms, '' said Lucca. ''Yes, '' said Cruz
While smoking and relaxing, ''where did you buy them, Lucca? ''
''This one is made in Holland- a way to liberate your muse.''
''Give new life to a broken heart, '' said Miguel, '' It's like scuba, ''

Laughed Lucca, '' Ivan, how could you avoid the army as a serf? ''
''As a yeoman having my own land, I had an accident.''
Cruz asked him, ’’Did you receive some support from a dwarf? ''
''I broke my left leg when I fell from my horse- a strange event.''

''Interesting! '' said Marco. ''You became a rich merchant
In the Ottoman Empire.'' ''Yes, I sold my land, '' smiled Ivan.
''You could go to Moscow, '' ''I didn't want to be a servant.''
'' I was a middleman in the fur trade, '' ''Let's enliven

This game with some wine! '' '' These cards are unique, '' said Pedro.
''This rare pictorial pack is made in London, '' said Marco.
Marco told Cruz, ''If you need new cards, I'll give you pronto.''
''Give me the most immoral hand, '' laughed Cruz, ''come in, Fargo! ''

(Fargo entered to bring the wine, which was served using glasses. Ibrahim brought dried fruits, nuts, biscuits and small cakes. The women had spent over an hour dressing for this meeting because it was customary for women to change their entire outfit for any event on the ship. Rosa, Geraldine and Erica were doing some needlework. Carla, Chiara and Pedra were reading some expensive books. Chiara chose to read a book written by Elena Piscopia, Carla was reading some philosophy by Mary Astell and Pedra liked the books written by Aphra Behn. Francesca started to paint and Bella was trying to play ‘’Capriccio stravagante’’ by the Italian composer Carlo Farina using a violin.)

Francesca said, '' The violin replaced the viol, ''
''The music written for it established its identity, ''
Said Rosa, ''I like the opera 'L'Orfeo' and its tale.''
''Through polyphony, Monteverdi has supremacy.''


Francesca continued, ''Chiara, what are you reading? ''
''A book about Christ written by the monk Laspergio and late
Translated by Elena Piscopia, a nun being
The first woman that graduated with a doctorate.''


Carla said, ''Francesca, what are you painting in that blue? ''
'' I'm not Caravaggio, still I paint a medusa.''
Carla replied, ''You used amazing hues, and it's sweet in view! ''
Chiara said, ''It's an image of the port of Siracusa! ''

(Francesca embraced Chiara.)

‘’ ''It's so lovely to see you together; you are good friends, ''
Said Geraldine while finishing her work, ''do you have children? ''
''I've married Arturo six years ago and our love ascends
After his long widowhood; Francesca is his daughter.''

Chiara took Geraldine's hand with a noble gesture
She told her that Arturo lost a fortune three months ago,
And this trip was offered by Lucca to change their life's texture.
''Maybe Francesca painted to petrify the time's flow.''

''Francesca is the sweetest child I've ever seen until now.
She's adorable in this purity of her mind.
She's shining like a star belonging to Ursa Major Plough,
And I love Arturo even in affairs he is so blind.''

(Arturo and Marco were the last passengers who left the room while talking. Arturo ended the conversation.)
‘’ Russia is a force needing an expansion quite quickly
But, unfortunately, her friends are not really her friends.
Pushing Russia, who is an honest power, clearly
Will turn the destiny of the whole world into dead ends.’’

(to be continued.....)

Poem by Marieta Maglas

Imagine a world
With no greenery.
With no lightning bugs,
Or fire flies.
Where children didn't catch them in jars,
To use as a night light later.
And put grass in the jars,
To nourish and feed them.

Imagine a world,
Where the trees didn't sparkle and glitter
For a few weeks in June.
Like Christmas,
Come early.

Imagine a world,
Without curiosity,
Without childhood.
Where games of House and Tag were replaced--
With screens and simulators.
Where personal connection developed through a middleman,
An electronic screen.

Imagine a world,
Where all your food was made,
Not grown,
Or raised.
Where machine made meals,
Not man and not mother nature.

Imagine a world,
Where the Sahara
Took over central park.
Where we built skyscrapers,
On what used to be farms.

Imagine a world,
Where all light was artificial,
Flourescent.
Where the sun was rarely seen,
Or appreciated.

Imagine a world,
Where birds never chirped,
And bees never buzzed,
And flowers never bloomed.

Imagine a world without lightning bugs.
Imagine a world without light.
Is that the world you want to live in?

Where are
The ecstatic saxophones that
Slung forth swank slurs of
Beauty,
The ***, ***, ***
Bass lines,
The snaps and snares and the
Sweet rhythm of the Night?

Music had character
And minds followed, in following
Soared.
There were no glittery vampires,
No prepubescent
Brother boy bands.
Soulful crooners never
Warbled over Alejandro,
Or the boots with the fur, with the fur.
We wrote letters and shared thoughts and ideas
And convictions.
There was no need for the techno
Middleman
To wrap our
Real thoughts in LOLs
To make opening
Up to another
More efficient.
Mass media
Gluttony drowns
America till I strain and struggle
Only to barely stay afloat
In this sea of apathy.

But you won't buy and sell my soul.
I'm not going to
Be your
Consumptive,
Quiet,
Couldn't-care-less,
I won't get in the way,
And I won't raise my voice,
Good American,
2.5 children,
Christian,
Conserva-libera-publi-crat,
Self-centered, Illiterate, Ignorant
Sheep
Only to follow the power.

**** no,
I'm mad as hell;
I want to leave the next generation
A world where
You can confess your
Love and be a man or
Love another man and have
Basic human rights, and it all
Starts in your
Mind
And your
Expression thereof.
It's the saccharine pop
Culture that has
Made free-thought unfashionable, a crime.

Art is
Revolution.
Hang
Up,
Log
Out,
Unplug and just look
At what you've let the
World become in
Letting yourself be
Little more than
A faceless source
Of merciless dollars.
Wrest free our
Culture from the
Calamitous and indifferent
Claws of rampant capitalism.

Express yourself or submit,
Stand up for a free America.

I will not be sold.

When the night falls,
I am at my best.

I could topple from the sky for a saunter amongst the wingless owls arbitrarily.
Carrying my futile attempt on serving the sun with a contempt glance,
As I let my imagination run free like nine jockeys in one horse race.

When the night falls,
I am the captain of my own ship.

I could set my course straight to my hiding place without any further ado;
Where I'd sail to where dreams and phantasies collide until the clock strikes two.

But most importantly,
When the night falls, life isn't like crossing a palisade or walking through a horrible gale;
Life isn't like a perpetual movement of climbing up the rickety stairs or losing a bet to the middleman.

Life isn't as stilted as when I stood dead on the yawnful street or as boisterous as the crowds watching King Louis guillotined to death.

Because there is only peace.

The skies may be the blackest black; the air may be the emptiest space,
but none like the night
where I can sit and stare,
and watch as the moon and the stars
shine my way.

It’s time once more to get
down to our small-town brunch.
We’re sharing an identical
caffeine headache but we
know that a swift combination of
dog hair and sore eye’d

stares will ****
the cures they send our way.
Today,
the menu is plagued by locust
taste, and it’s only after
we begin to recognize
drought in our speech that
the coffee comes.

Now, I know you’ve heard my spiel
about impact communication
(I have a fervent need to
talk minus the mouth as
middleman) but I’m currently
wishing for
the vivid fluidity of
talk before evaporation,

when it’s red on your tongue.
My longing’s born in
absence of such; here,
even the coffee’s dehydrated
and gray. I drink

and I dream of a summer spent
crafting paper boats out of paper
and breathing life into their
folds, sailing them
soggy in whirlpools and eddies
sorry to be seen off

too soon.
We finish our desert meal,
syrupless pancakes that
stick to the roofs of our mouths.
The bread we finish with
is stale earth. As we leave,

I imagine a return to the drained
creek. I can see now
your cracked hands
laying the disposable vessels
onto dry ground
and asking them
to float.

“...But Turkey is part of the story of Trump’s treachery. Erdogan, like Putin, Kim, and Zelensky, has learned that in the United States-- as in other authoritarian countries-- only one man really matters.”
_________

I wrote this after the brutal ****** of Jamal Khashoggi. I highly suspect the timing and the players of this backroom agreement:

The timing of Khashoggi's disappearance and the release of the Evangelical pastor, Brunson are not coincidental. The players were all there and the timing in place.
Here's what I think happened:
Turkey plays middleman, gets rid of bad press and high-pressure detainee, American Pastor Brunson. Saudi Arabia gets rid of its problematic critic, the newspaperman, Jamal Khoshoggi. The United States gets Pastor Brunson back plus the huge photo-op with Trump on his knees right before the election, claiming to his evangelical base, “See what I did for you? Does that buy your votes?” Everybody gets what they want, except Jamal Khoshoggi, who is tortured, killed, and dismembered in the Saudi embassy in Turkey.
Too diabolic and smooth for Trump alone. I think Russia and high level, intelligence brokered this deal. The agreement for it came between Saudis, Trump, and Turkey's Erdogan. Russians standing just out of sight on this – waiting.
_______
Gotta wonder what our economy is based on? More-so, the morality of our government. We should be outraged and deeply ashamed!
Feel terrible for his fiance--not knowing-- not even able to bury him.
Support the free press everywhere!


...Latest: Trump's response:

But Trump also reiterated his earlier concerns that any punishment of Saudis shouldn't impact trade with Saudi Arabia, signaling that cutting off U.S. military sales to the kingdom may not be an option.

"I don't want to hurt jobs," he said...."

Fast forward--
10-8-19:

Now we learn a little more about what Turkey wanted from the deal.  
Open season on the Kurds, anyone?

Trump's letter to Erdogan all but threatening him to cooperate with cease-fire in Syria allowing Putin into the territory he wanted.  Not sure who actually framed Trump's words as he is a a blabbering *******.  Jared perhaps?  

The letter does Not promise reward for cooperation-- but in carefully couched words-- threatens Erdogan that he could end up like Khashoggi.  As Michael Cohen testified, “Trump never says anything directly.  Sorta like a mafia don-- everything is in code”

When did it get so hard
Just to talk, not to run
Well I’ve been here before
I know all the signs
The dead ends

Just know that I’m still here
Patiently waiting for a sign
Just to hear we still share
The same Earth, the same stars

Ever since we’ve been apart
There’s no light on
But I’m always up

There’s no one here
To pick me up
To calm me down

And the Earth
It don’t spin
No it just throws me
All around


I’ve grown jaded, I know
Nothing’s changed
It never will

So I’ll play the middleman
For a few weeks more
Then I’m gone-
If not before

Captain Obvious non-profundititties:

The same individuals, families, groups, institutions, organizations, governments,
and foundations that fund and profit from the research, development, and manufacture of weapons/arms/firepower, and that spark wars with propaganda, sloganeering, and social moral tribalism in general, profit greatly from the use of bombs that damage cities.

That same Apex power structure gains massive profits from the rebuilding of the damaged cities and from the modification of socioeconomic platforms and systems, and profited gravely from the genesis of those cities in the first place.

Apex power uses a middleman saviour syndrome power structure within Crisis Management Economics to perpetually keep the peasants divided against each other in groups that achieve groupthink psychic phenomena within an overall state of inner hyper-conflict, guilt, shame, uncertainty, and neurotic fear. The Apex power structure has three main nexus points that are the Unholy Trinity:

The Vatican: Spiritual (variants of ******, an ancient concept, require spirituality/Occult and quasi-science to merge with the pre-existing centralization and monopolization of authority and corporation spawned via fascism)

City of London/The Crown Corporation: World Bank driven global economy

Washington D.C.: Military and hyper-surveillance/Big Tech

The Sun Tzu saviors play good cop/bad cop in slow-boil, two faces on the same Judas coin lying and flipping at the bottom of the ***. Both sides have the concentration camps. Both sides push dope but gaslight kids for using drugs. Both sides engage in non-consensual **** on many different levels. Both sides are directly connected to 72+% of all negative pollution, and gaslight the poorest to supposedly help fix the problem with giving money to the entities that **** Earth. Both sides sell arms/weapons to all sides, and both sides obviously don't want the peasants to know how the world functions and operates.

it's a toss-up between either silverchair's song
shade, or neil young's old man,
i actually remember the latter
more,
was on a date, with a persian-pict
mongrel of a fine gal,
in a shady edinburgh jazz bar,
and it was covers night...
chambers st.! that's it!
right next to the old college...
mind you, once the scaffold was
up, i climbed the building,
and sat on the roof...
pretty **** decent (point of) view...
i still miss edinburgh,
    i miss it more than i'd
ever wish to...
   but the "i miss it" parts come
dislodged, like jigsaw
puzzles: i can never really
solve the puzzle, and hope
for reminder that's revived,
permanent, re-lived...
it's just the past...
  and by default of the standard
set of questions?
no, i just think kant's should
be canonised...
as the patron saint of bachelors...
****** seems pretty stable,
head up his ***,
   solipsistic, falsely debated as
an autistic brain-child...
   i have no qualms with him...
i've always considered myself
a solipsist, than an egoist...
bogus alpha "male"
  suggestions seem to be missing
when inviting solipsism...
the game is over, it's
a the end / game over...
why is it a the end though?
it's an end when you take to
watch franchises, isn't it?
     ******* don't even bother writing
it these days...
       so why is egoism
so riddled with bogus
anti-athos (three musketeers)
   advice? best advice? to not give
any advice...
   shut it up, show yourself
in your current narrative chronology...
i still don't understand why
some dip-**** american would
say that solipsism is a mental illness,
and that egoism was: just, plain, natural;
probably did seek the patron saint
of reading kant...
        st. kant... sounds nice...
ridiculous to be sure,
   but more of a saint than john paul ii
who merely kissed airport tarmac...
and forgave a turk: in a jail...
****! send mustafa what's his name
like god sent cain into the wilderness!
what sort of forgiveness is
a forgiveness in a confined space?
shady, as ever, given the vatican mafia;
yeah yeah, don't worry,
next time i go to church
i'll **** one off to compensate my
lack of dough: you can call it a *****
bank donation...
  but then again: that's what you already
are! ha!
sick bollocking of the matter...
  it's a harem, oh harems do exist in the west,
don't get so ****** nervous
that you're missing out... you are!
sure, there's no arab sheikh...
but there's the first choice ***** donor
in western society...
       soon we'll be ******* our
far removed cousins...
    nice to know: even better to disengage
from;
but as all honesty goes:
    those two songs... probably the most
pleasurable to play to...
          in a world where there's nothing
new, or is, exponentially new -
nothing to seems to change, nonetheless,
even with all the cinematic futurism,
the same debates rage on & on,
those archetypal narratives never seem
or "want" to change...
   it will be just as mundane in the year
"anno domini" 2302 as it is in 2017...
the same archetypes, "fixations" of man's
ultimate endeavour: of being unable
to foresee a benevolent change of character:
sure, the circumstance will change,
but the character? it will still boil down to
either a god, or the devil;
and yes, i really, really do believe that
the sahara desert was once a mountain
range, akin to to alps or the himalayas...
what? you think that history is still
only intact with a monkey to man transition?!
geology outstrips biological historiology,
o.k, john wayne?! ******:
drool, while i draw you an in-between
between the big bang: what a ****** name for
a genesis... and the dawn of man.
big bang my ***, more like a timid ****
on a crowded train.
  same with the gobi desert, once a mountain
range: now a desert...
      there had to be a middleman
          coordinate! third party sources!
i just became bored with only 2 origin narratives...
this is there a 3 origin was spawned,
where chemistry fused itself with geology
and said: these deserts you see?
they used to be mountain ranges once...
i'd be ******* daft to listen
to the same ******* for the next 30+ years...
and yes, i've been asked
to a co-op membership card,
apparently i'd have saved 89 pence on
today's purchase... it costs a quid for
the membership...
  dunno... i might get it...
             a quid back after just two purchases
of a litre of *****;
plus the staff resemble the less-beat-down
version of the tesco staff...
      i like looking at scared workers,
but i also like looking at permanent workers,
who don't agree to 0 hour contracts...
******* ******...
           i mean:
it's good to see people being given
job security...
                   what i don't like
is what i see elsewhere -
  band-camp of capitalism is probably
worse than the nazis,
  i'd probably prefer 5 years in auschwitz than
an entire lifetime in this current
capitalist model:
           arbeit wie witz versklaven
          (work as a joke enslaves);
and capitalism has a made a joke of work...
this isn't working, this is poncing,
this is modelling...
you ******* "think" the chinese will give
their jobs up? nadda.

Silent screams and rages
verse dreams and sarcastic sages
The row believes in the youth of middle aged men
All belittle the your heart when hoping your pang fear
And spring into delirium, and bright gold
Bright light makes heat light asking for you to kneel
In red and leaves of gold, I ask for company
In dead cyka soldiers, the dead of the night
Brings out the company, where you might want a piano key
Loosened, and a guitar string, tuned and pulled

Silent svelte girls all are on the shore
As you she shifts she hasselblad fought him ****
Tea, as the ballad of the hounddog
Go the round midnight, call me after life
GO here, and come back by her fingers girls
In her life, is white, there is blyke
Everyone has a Jekkyl Hyyde
She doesnt know who he she means
After the shindig of time, singing life
Keep it in her, she rights the wall, and rides the fences
She rides the friendly horses, I know you before friends have ***
Feel my living, light my love with food of life
Make me right wrong is the rife
Kaddish sits on the wrong her
Reflection of lapas lazuli and Meer
Urst auf von bon, werst worde gert
Someone took the art killed it with joy
Someone lifted her with the ploy
**** and feet tastes summer and winter tastes like sum
Feets and passerby, touch my *** please master
grace my pallor with your heat, and gush in the blood of the great hand
Slow dots and polka dance that enrichen the glib gleam of Arriana
If friends were enemies and enemies were friends, and friends were summers
The winters would leave with the lush green forests that smell grape and touch my dots and follow my valley
On a figged donkey sorry masturbator
I want you to ride the wind, with gully
I want you rise with the wind, and touch my langstromme with lakes of stowaways
I want you to leave with the wind I feel the wish that touches your heart
I want yin and yang, not love
I want your balance, and not your senses

The end is the beginning when the fire comes out of the blessed wind
The end is near, the tin can man fires the black and blue
The middleman has her hips in the red roses and the masks, and so Im here to **** you
In my whips and my black college wants your education
Education is near, and you are far and tresses of your hair
Egregious error, was to frame you and keep you in my heart
When I couldn't see the picture
Innocence is a true picture
I want you, I want you love me
I want gush virgins and rush astral stars that hearts cant keep
I want the rushed visions that allotropes the love keeps me lively
Me and Ann lively

In the era of "Omar-al-bashir" president a.k.a the Con man.
A man, black and tan,
Wearing a caftan in capital of Sudan

Protesting against the price of Food and fuel
To raise his son named Abdul;
Trying to save some money and send him to a good school.

The situation's started getting brutal
People went down to gruel
Do you think it's unusual??

Chemical weapons, rapes in Darfur years ago
Ignored by United Nations Security Council
Now, Sudanese tortured again by a military commando
"Hemedti" the scoundrel, Head of Military council.

Meanwhile, Bodies dumped in the Nile
The river known for its crocodiles.

People lost life for democracy
Watch the world burn in hypocrisy.

Authorities Broke down the internet to disconnect
Hiding actions incorrect;
That may have been broadcasted weeks prior on our television set

Others are so obsessed with World Cup as a sports fan
Ain't got time for the world fam.

Armed van with symbols of middleman
Humanity is something that ends, when you **** a man
Who needs Satan??
Humans are already doing what he can
Don't let him control your mind, pray for a better world and help people in SUDAN...

All important glimpse of mood
paperclip straightened through a cardboard filter
veiled understanding, their minds peer through
comprehend the heady attitude
every step forward, a chain rattles with weight
dragging feet, spitting curses a fight
bring it out before it's too late
ringing ears, faint legged, stumble into natural light
maggot-fleshed being, crawling on the floor
seems so quick with tongue as it cuts with gaze and word
to lock outside the interlopers, one side of the door
everything it has not dealt with it has not seen or heard
this is what you leave behind, the future is painfully bright
is this what you had in mind, passed down a blight

I sleep in an orchard on rotten eggshells,
far from the tree that I fell
a black sheep who will not let this empty nest sit well
my station overbears on my back, I bleat in agony
never letting up, I stand fast, I will not abandon you
I am a conduit for negative energy
I don't need light to see, the darkness does just as well for me too
all the shocking treachery, debauchery and base savagery
it reads as plain as a charge to me,
I let it wash over and it carries me through
when I lower these horns, count your sheep while you can
for you will see an animal bursts from this man,
when a goat leaves the herd to run over you
there will be a whole horizon of storm clouds following calmly, but I will strike like a bolt out of the blue

I am a medium who channels negative energy
and I return it to the world in an inane state,
from the frostbitten touch of a sunless place
I am a conduit for antisocial behavior, murderous rage, crusades, tirades and decades of lectures that second rate tyrant's blush to berate,
I host an oni, who meditates on carnage daily, and finds strife in others brings humor and grace, a verbal savage who kills ids with words and egos with actions, who never shows my face
I have the capacity for evil, but I make a conscious choice every time I use my voice
I am a middleman for idle-hands, I have always sought to create or isolate
if I have ever fallen off, I have never wanted to destroy,
my only love is to write now; it is one of the few things in life that gives me joy.

How life is so still!
Lives are lost, and livelihoods of so many,
and fears crippling for today and tomorrow.
And yet some have a feel,
how life is so still!

There is chaos and commotion -
saving lives, preparing foods, running jobs,
busy keeping the world in motion.
And yet there is an emotion,
how life is so still!

Poor becoming poorer, and rich becoming richer,
but middleman suffering.
And yet the need of gathering,
how life is so still!

You worked so hard to earn,
to eat, to dress, to live, and to flaunt.
And so did we!
How life is so still?

No, not your fault for what you have,
but for what you do,
all the reminders of don’ts and dos,
constant reminder that you are bored,
and uncountable insta lives and stills.
How life is so still!

Thanks for your charity,
your sanity and even humanity,
but not for what you have that we don’t,
and not for how life is so still.