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I.

One night at the Troubadour I spotted this extraordinary girl.

So I asked who she was.

‘A professional,’

That was my introduction that on a scale of one to ten

there were women who were fifteens—beautiful, bright, witty, and

oh, by the way, they worked.

Once I became aware,

I saw these women everywhere.

And I came to learn that most of them were connected to Alex



II.

She had a printer engrave a calling card

that featured a bird of paradise

borrowed from a Tiffany silver pattern

and,
under it,

Alex’s Aviary,

Beautiful and Exotic birds.



A few were women you’d see lunching at Le Dôme:

pampered arm pieces with expensive tastes

and a hint of a delicious but remote sexuality.

Many more were fresh-faced, athletic, tanned, freckled

the quintessential California girl

That you’d take for sorority queens or future BMW owners.





III.

The mechanism of Alex’s sudden notoriety is byzantine,

as these things always are.

One of her girls took up with a rotter,

the couple had a fight,

he went to the police,

the police had an undercover detective visit

(who just happened to be an attractive woman)

and ask to work for her,

she all but embraced her

—and by April of 1988 the district attorney had enough evidence

to charge her with two counts of pandering

and one of pimping.

For Alex, who is fifty-six

and has a heart condition and diabetes,

the stakes may be high.

A conviction carries the guarantee of incarceration.

For the forces of law and order,

the stakes may be higher.

Alex has let it be known that she will subpoena

every cop she’s ever met to testify at her trial.

And the revelations this might produce

—perhaps that Alex compromised policemen

by making girls available to them,

—perhaps that Alex had a deal with the police to provide information

in exchange for their blind eye to her activities

—could be hugely embarrassing to the police and the district attorney.

For Alex’s socially correct clients and friends,

for the socially correct wives of her clients and friends

and for a handful of movie and television executives

who have no idea they are dating or

married to former Alex girls,

the stakes are highest of all.



IV.

Alex’s black book is said to be a catalogue of
Le Tout Los Angeles.

In her head are the ****** secrets

of many of the city’s most important men,

to say nothing of visiting businessmen and Arab princes.

If she decides to warble,

either at her trial or in a book,

her song will shatter more than glass.





V.

A decade ago, I went to lunch at Ma Maison,

There were supposed to have been ten people there,

but only four came.

One of them was a short woman

who called me a few days later and invited me to lunch.

When I arrived, the table was set for two.

I didn’t know who Alex was or what she did,

but she knew the important facts of my situation:

I was getting divorced from a very wealthy man

and doing the legal work myself

to avail lawyers who wanted to get a big settlement for me.


Occasionally, she said, I get a call for a tall, dark-haired,

slender, flat-chested woman

—and I don’t have any.

It wouldn’t be a frequent thing.

There’d be weekends away, sometimes in Palm Springs,

sometimes in Europe.

The men will be elegant,

you’ll have your own room

—there would be no outward signs of impropriety.

And you’d get $10,000 to $20,000 for a weekend.





VI.

The tall, slender, flat-chested brunette

didn’t think it was right for her.

Alex handed her a business card

and suggested that she think about it.

To her surprise, she did

—for an entire week.

This was 1978, and $20,000 then

was like $40,000 now,

I knew it was hooking,

but Alex had never mentioned ***.



Our whole conversation seemed to be about something else.



VII.

I was born in Manila

to a Spanish-Filipina mother and German father,

and when I was twelve

a Japanese soldier came into our house

with his bayonet pointed at us,

ready to do us in.

He locked us in and set the house on fire.

I haven’t been scared by much since that.



My mother always struck me as goofy,

so I jumped on a bus and ran away,

I got off in Oakland,

saw a help-wanted sign on a parish house,

and went in.

I got $200 a month for taking care of four priests.

I spent all the money on pastries for the parish house.

But I didn’t care.

It felt safe.

And the priests sparked my interest in the domestic arts

—in linen, in crystal.



A new priest arrived.

He was unpleasant,

so on a vacation in Los Angeles I took a pedestrian job,

still a teenager,

married a scientist.

We separated eight years later,

he took our two sons to another state

threatened to keep them if I didn’t agree to a divorce.

Keep them I said and hung up.

It’s not that I don’t have a maternal instinct

—though I don’t,

I just hate to be manipulated.



My second husband,

an alcoholic,

had Frank Sinatra blue eyes, and possibly

—I never knew for sure—

had a big career in the underworld

as a contract killer.

Years before we got serious,

he was going out with a famous L.A. ******,

She and her friends were so elegant

that I started spending time with them in beauty salons.

They were so fancy,

so smart

—and they knew incredible people,

like the millionaire who sat in his suite all day

just writing $5,000 checks to girls.



VIII.

I was a florist.

We got to talking.

She was a madam from England

who wanted to sell her book and go home.

I bought it for $5,000.

My husband thought it was cute.

Now you’re getting your feet wet.

Three months later,

he died.

After eleven years of marriage,

just like that.

And of the names in the book

it turned out

that half of the men were also dead.

When I began the men were old and the women were ugly.



IX.

It was like a lunch party you or I would give,

Great food Alex had cooked herself.

Major giggles with old pals.

And then,

instead of chocolate After Eight,

she served three women After Three



This man has seen a bit of life

beyond Los Angeles,

so I asked him how Alex’s stable

compared with that of Madam Claude,

the legendary Parisian procuress.

Oh, these aren’t at all like Claude’s girls,

A Claude girl was perfectly dressed and multilingual

—you could take her to the opera

and she’d understand it.





He told me that when she was 40

she looked at herself in the mirror

and said

Disgusting.

People over 40

should not have ***.

But She Was Clear That She Never Liked It

even when she was young.

Besides, she saw all the street business

go to the tall,

beautiful girls.

She thought that she never had a chance

competing against them.

Instead,

she would take their money by managing them.





X.

Going to a ****** was not looked down upon then.

It was before the pill;

Girls weren’t giving it away.

Claude specialized in

failed models and actresses,

ones who just missed the cut.

But just because they failed

in those impossible professions

didn’t mean they weren’t beautiful,

fabulous.



Like Avis

in those days,

those girls tried harder.

Her place was off the Champs,

just above a branch of the Rothschild bank, where I had an account.

Once I met her,

I was constantly making withdrawals and heading upstairs.





XI.

We took the lift

and Claude greeted us at the door.

My impression was that of the director

of an haute couture house,

very subdued,

beige and gray, very little makeup.

She took us into a lounge and made us drinks,

Whiskey,

Cognac.

There was no maid.

We made small talk for 15 minutes.

How was the weekend?

What’s the weather like in Deauville?

Then she made the segue. ‘I understand you’d like to see some jeunes filles?’

She always used ‘jeunes filles.’

This was Claude’s polite way of saying 18 to 25.

She left and soon returned

with two very tall

jeunes filles,

One was blonde.

This is Eva from Austria.

She’s here studying painting.

And a brunette,

very different,

but also very fine.

This is Claudia from Germany.

She’s a dancer.

She took the girls back into the apartment and returned by herself.

I gave my English guest first choice.

He picked the blonde.

And wasn’t disappointed.

Each bedroom had its own bidet.

There was some nice

polite conversation, and then



It was slightly formal,

but it was high-quality.

He paid Claude

200 francs,

not to the girls

In 1965, 200 francs was about $40.

Pretty girls on Rue Saint-Denis

could be had for 40 francs

so you can see the premium.

Still, it wasn’t out of reach for mere mortals.

You didn’t have to be J. Paul Getty.





XII.

A lot of them

were models at

Christian Dior

or other couture houses.

She liked Scandinavians.

That was the look then

—cold, tall, perfect.

It was cheap for the quality.

They all used her.

The best people wanted

the best women.

Elementary supply and demand.



XIII.

She had a camp number tattooed on her wrist. I saw it.

She showed it to me and Rubi.

She was proud she had survived.

We talked about the camp for hours.

It was even more fascinating than the girls.



She was Jewish

I’m certain of that.

She was horrified at the Jewish collaborators

at the camp who herded

their fellow Jews

into the gas chambers.

That was the greatest betrayal in her life.



XIV.

She was this sad,

lonely little woman.

Later, Patrick told me who she was.

I was bowled over.

It was like meeting Al Capone.

I met two of the girls

who worked for her.

One was what you would expect

Tall

Blonde

Model.

But the other looked like a Rat

Then one night

she came out

all dressed up,

I didn’t even recognize her.

She was even better than the first girl.

Claude liked to transform women like that.

That was her art.

It was very odd,

my cousin told me.

There was not much furniture

and an awful lot of telephones.

“Allô oui,”



XV.

I had so many lunches

with Claude at Ma Maison

She was vicious.

One day,

Margaux Hemingway,

at the height of her beauty, walked by.

Une bonne

—the French for maid

was how Claude cut her dead.

She reduced

the entire world

to rich men wanting *** and

poor women wanting money.

She’d love to page through Vogue and see someone

and say,

When I met her

she was called

Marlene

and she had a hideous nose

and now she’s a princess.

Or she’d see someone and say

Let’s see if she kisses me or not.

It was like

I made her,

and I can destroy her.

She was obsessed

with “fixing” people

—with Saint Laurent clothes,

with Cartier watches,

with Winston jewels,

with Vuitton luggage,

with plastic surgeons.



XVI.

Her prison number was

888

which was good luck in China

but not in California.

‘Ocho ocho ocho,’ she liked to repeat

Even in jail, she was always working,

always recruiting stunning women.

She had a beautiful Mexican cellmate

and gave her Robert Evans’s number

as the first person she should call

when she was released.



XVII.

Never have *** on the first date.



XVIII.

There will always be prostitution,

The prostitution of misery.

And the prostitution of bourgeois luxury.

They will both go on forever.



“Allô oui,”



It was so exciting to hear a millionaire

or a head of state ask,

in a little boy’s voice,

for the one thing

that only you could provide

It's not how beautiful you are, it's how you relate

--it's mostly dialogue.



She was tiny, blond, perfectly coiffed and Chanel-clad.

The French Woman: The Arab Prince, the Japanese Diplomat, the Greek Tycoon, the C.I.A. Bureau Chief — She Possessed Them All!



XIX.

She was like a slave driver in the American South

Once she took a *******,

the makeover put the girl in debt,

because Claude paid all the bills to

Dior,

Vuitton,

to the hairdressers,

to the doctors,

and the girls had to work to pay them off.

It was ****** indentured servitude.



My Swans.



It reached the point

where if you walked into a room

in London

or Rome

as much as Paris

because the girls were transportable,

and saw a girl who was

better-dressed,

better-looking,

and more distinguished than the others

you presumed

it was a girl from Claude.

It was, without doubt,

the finest *** operation ever run in the history of mankind.



**.

The girl had to be

exactly what was needed

so I had to teach her everything she didn’t know.

I played a little the role of Pygmalion.

There were basic things that absolutely had to be done.

It consisted

at the start

of the physical aspect

“surgical intervention”

to give this way of being

that was different from other girls.

Often they had to be transformed

into dream creatures

because at the start

they were not at all



Often I had to teach them how to dress.

Often they needed help

to repair

what nature had given them

which was not so beautiful.

At first they had to be tall,

with pretty gestures,

good manners.

I had lots of noses done,

chins,

teeth,

*******.

There was a lot to do.



Eight times out of ten

I had to teach them how to behave in society.

There were official dinners, suppers, weekends,

and they needed to have conversation.

I insisted they learn to speak English,

read

certain books.

I interrogated them on what they read.

It wasn’t easy.

Each time something wasn’t working,

I was obliged to say so.



You were very demanding?

I was ferocious.



It’s difficult

to teach a girl how to walk into Maxim’s

without looking

ill at ease

when they’ve never been there,

to go into an airport,

to go to the Ritz,

or the Crillon

or the Dorchester.

To find yourself

in front of a king,

three princes,

four ministers,

and five ambassadors at an official dinner.

There were the wives of those people!

Day after day

one had to explain,

explain again,

start again.

It took about two years.

There would always be a man

who would then say of her,

‘But she’s absolutely exceptional. What is that girl doing here?’ ”





XXI.

A New York publisher who visited

the Palace Hotel

in Saint Moritz

in the early seventies told me,

I met a whole bunch of them there.

They were lovely.

The johns wanted everyone to know who they were.

I remember it being said

Giovanni’s Madame Claude girl is going to be there.

You asked them where they came from and they all said

Neuilly.

Claude liked girls from good families.

More to the point she had invented their backgrounds.



I have known,

because of what I did,

some exceptional and fascinating men.

I’ve known some exceptional women too,

but that was less interesting

because I made them myself.



Ah, this question of the handbag.

You would be amazed by how much dust accumulates.

Or how often women’s shoe heels are scuffed.





XXII.

She would examine their teeth and finally she would make them undress.



That was a difficult moment

When they arrived they were very shy,

a bit frightened.

At the beginning when I take a look,

it’s a question of seeing if the silhouette

and the gestures are pretty.

Then there was a disagreeable moment.

I said,

I’m sorry about this unpleasantness,

but I have to ask you to get undressed,

because I can’t talk about you unless I see you.

Believe me, I was embarrassed,

just as they were,

but it had to be done,

not out of voyeurism, not at all

—I don’t like les dames horizontales.



It was very funny

because there were always two reactions.

A young girl,

very sure of herself,

very beautiful,

très bien,

would say

Yes,

Get up, and get undressed.

There was nothing to hide, everything was perfect.



There were those who

would start timidly

to take off their dress

and I would say

I knew already.

The rest is not sadism, but nearly.

I knew what I was going to find.

I would say,

Maybe you should take off your bra,

and I knew it wasn’t going to be

beautiful.

Because otherwise she would have taken it off easily.

No problem.

There were damages that could be mended.

There were some ******* that could be redone,

some not

Sometimes it can be deceptive,

you know,

you see a pretty girl,

a pretty face,

all elegant and slim,

well dressed,

and when you see her naked

it is a catastrophe.



I could judge their physical qualities,

I could judge if she was pretty, intelligent, and cultivated,

but I didn’t know how she was in bed.

So I had some boys,

good friends,

who told me exactly.

I would ring them up and say,

There’s a new one.

And afterwards they’d ring back and say,

Not bad,

Could be better, or

Nulle.



Or,

on the contrary,

She’s perfect.

And I would sometimes have to tell the girls

what they didn’t know.

A pleasant assignment?

No.

They paid.



XXIII.

Often at the beginning

they had an ami de coeur

in other words,

oh,

a journalist, a photographer, a type like that,

someone in the cinema,

an actor, not very well known.

As time went by

It became difficult

because they didn’t have a lot of time for him.

The fact of physically changing,

becoming prettier,

changing mentally to live with millionaires,

produced a certain imbalance

between them

and the little boyfriend

who had not evolved

and had stayed in his milieu.

At the end of a certain time

she would say,

I’m so much better than him. Why am I with this boy?

And they would break up by themselves.



Remember,

this was instant elevation.

For most of them it was a dream existence,

provided they liked the ***,

and those that didn’t never lasted long.

A lot of the clients were young,

and didn’t treat them like tarts but like someone from their own class.

They would buy you presents,

take you on trips.



XXIV.

For me, *** was something very accessoire

I think after a certain age

there are certain spectacles one should not give to others

Now I have a penchant for solitude.

Love, it’s a complete destroyer,

It’s impossible,

a horror,

l’angoisse.

It’s the only time in my life I was jealous.

I’m not a jealous person, but I was épouvantable.

He was jealous too.

We broke plates over each other’s heads;

we became jealous about each other’s pasts.

I said one day

It’s finished.

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and say:

Break my legs,

give me scarlet fever,

an attack of TB, but never that.

Not that.



XXV.

I called her into my office

Let us not exaggerate,

I sent her away.

She came back looking for employment,

but was fired again, this time for drugs.

She made menacing phone calls.

Then she arrived at the Rue de Boulainvilliers with a gun.

She shot three bullets

I was dressed in the fashion of Courrèges at this moment

He did very padded things.

I had a padded dress with a little jacket on top.

The bullet

—merci, Monsieur Courrèges

—stuck in the padding.

I was thrown forward onto the telephone.

I had one thought which went through my head:

I will die like Kennedy.

I turned round and put my hand up in a reflex.

The second bullet went through my hand.

I have two dead fingers.

It’s most useful for removing bottle tops.

In the corridor I was saved from the third bullet

because she was very tall

and I am quite petite, so it passed over my head.



XXVI.

There were men

who could decapitate,

****, and bomb their rivals

who would be frightened of me.

I would ask them how was the girl,

and they’d say

Not bad

and then

But I’m not complaining.

I was a little sadistic to them sometimes.

Some women have known powerful men because they’re their lover.

But I’ve known them all.

I had them all

here.



She will take many state secrets with her.



XXVI.

I don’t like ugly people

probably because when I was young

I wasn’t beautiful at all.

I was ugly and I suffered for it,

although not to the point of obsession.

Now that I’m an old woman,

I’m not so bad.

And that’s why

I’ve always been surrounded by people

Who

were

beautiful.

And the best way to have beautiful people around me

was to make them.

I made them very pretty.





XXVII.

I wouldn’t call what Alex gives you

‘advice,’

She spares you Nothing.

She makes a list of what she wants done,

and she really gets into it

I mean, she wants you to get your arms waxed.

She gives you names of people who do good facials.

She tells you what to buy at Neiman Marcus.

She’s put off by anything flashy,

and if you don’t dress conservatively, she’s got no problem telling you,

in front of an audience,

You look like a cheap *****!

I used to wear what I wanted when I went out

then change in the car into a frumpy sweater

when I went to give her the money she’d always go,

Oh, you look beautiful!



Marry your boyfriend,

It’s better than going to prison.

When you go out with her,

she’ll buy you a present; she’s incredibly generous that way.

And she’ll always tell you to save money and get out.

It’s frustrating to her when girls call at the end of the month

and say they need rent money.

She wants to see you do well.





We had a schedule, with cards that indicated a client’s name,

what he liked,

the names of the girls he’d seen,

and how long he’d been with them.

And I only hired girls who had another career

—if my clients had a choice between drop-dead-gorgeous

and beautiful-and-interesting,

they’d tend to take beautiful-and-interesting.

These men wanted to talk.

If they spent two hours with a girl,

they usually spent only five or ten minutes in bed.



I get the feeling that in Los Angeles, men are more concerned with looks.



XXVIII.

That was my big idea

Not to expand the book by aggressive marketing

but to make sure that nobody

mistook my girls for run-of-the-mill hookers.

And I kept my roster fresh.

This was not a business where you peddle your ***,

get exploited,

and then are cast off.

I screen clients. I’ve never sent girls to weirdos.

I let the men know:

no violence,

no costumes,

no fudge-packing.

And I talked to my girls. I’d tell them:

Two and a half years and you’re burned out.

Save your money.

This is like a hangar

—you come in, refuel, and take off.

It’s not a vacation, it’s not a goof.

This buys the singing lessons,

the dancing lessons,

the glossies.

This is to help you pay for what your parents couldn’t provide.

It’s an honorable way station—a lot of stars did this.



XXIX.

To say someone was a Claude girl is an honour, not a slur.



Une femme terrible.

She despised men and women alike.

Men were wallets. Women were holes.



By the 80s,

if you were a brunette,

the sky was the limit.

The Saudis

They’d call for half a dozen of Alex’s finest,

ignore them all evening while they

chatted,

ate,

and played cards,

and then, around midnight,

take the women inside for a fast few minutes of ***.



They’d order women up like pizza.



Since my second husband died,

I only met one man who was right for me,

He was a sheikh.

I visited him in Europe

twenty-eight times

in the five years I knew him

and I never slept with him.

He’d say

I think you fly all the way here just to tease me,

but he introduced me

by phone

to all his powerful friends.

When I was in Los Angeles, he called me twice a day.

That’s why I never went out

he would have been disappointed.



***.

Listen to me

This is a woman’s business.

When a woman does it, it’s fun

there’s a giggle in it

when a man’s involved,

he’s ******,

he’s a ****.

He may know how to keep girls in line,

and he may make money,

but he doesn’t know what I do.

I tell guys: You’re getting a nice girl.

She’s young,

She’s pleasant,

She can do things

she can certainly make love.

She’s not a rocket scientist, but she’s everything else.



The world’s richest and most powerful men, the announcer teased.

An income “in the millions,” said the arresting officer.

Pina Colapinto

A petite call girl,

who once slid between the sheets of royalty,

a green-eyed blonde helped the police get the indictment.

They really dolled her up

She looks great.

Never!

What I told her was: ‘Wash that ******.’





XXXI.

Madam Alex died at 7 p.m.

Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,

where she had been in intensive care after recent open heart surgery

We all held her hand when they took her off the life support

This was the passing of a legend.

Because she was the mother superior of prostitution.

She was one of the richest women on earth.

The world came to her.

She never had to leave the house.

She was like Hugh Hefner in that way.


It's like losing a friend

In all the years we played cat and mouse,

she never once tried to corrupt me.

We had a lot of fun.


To those who knew her

she was as constant

as she was colorful

always ready with a good tidbit of gossip

and a gourmet lunch for two.

She entertained, even after her conviction on pandering charges,

from the comfy depths of her blue four-poster bed at her home near Doheny Drive,

surrounded by knickknacks and meowing cats,

which she fed fresh shrimp from blue china plates.



XXXII.

She stole my business,

my books,

my girls,

my guys.

I had a good run.

My creatures.

Make Mommy happy

Oh! He is the most enchanting cat that I have ever known.



She was, how can I say it,

classy.

When she first hired me

she thought I was too young to take her case.

I was 43.

I'm going to give you some gray hairs by the time this is over.

She was right.





XXXIII.

I was fond of Heidi

But she has a streak that is so vindictive.



If there is pure evil, it is Madame Alex.





XXXIV.

I was born and raised in L.A.

My dad was a famous pediatrician.

When he died, they donated a bench to him at the Griffith Park Observatory.



I think that Heidi wanted to try her wings

pretty early,

and I think that she met some people

who sort of took all her potential

and gave it a sharp turn



She knew nothing.

She was like a little parrot who repeated what she was supposed to say.



Alex and I had a very intense relationship;

I was kind of like the daughter she loved and hated,

so she was abusive and loving at the same time.



Look, I know Madam Alex was great at what she did

but it's like this:

What took her years to build,

I built in one.

The high end is the high end,

and no one has a higher end than me.

In this business, no one steals clients.

There's just better service.



XXXV.

You were not allowed to have long hair

You were not allowed to be too pretty

You were not allowed to wear too much makeup or be too glamorous

Because someone would fall in love with you and take you away.

And then she loses the business



XXXVI.

I was pursued because

come on

in our lifetime,

we will never see another girl of my age

who lived the way I did,

who did what I did so quickly,

I made so many enemies.

Some people had been in this line of business

for their whole lives, 30 or 40 years,

and I came in and cornered the market.

Men don't like that.

Women don't like that.

No one liked it.



I had this spiritual awakening watching an Oprah Winfrey video.

I was doing this 500-hour drug class

and one day the teacher showed us this video,

called something like Make It Happen.

Usually in class I would bring a notebook

and write a letter to my brother or my journal,

but all of a sudden this grabbed my attention

and I understood everything she said.

It hit me and it changed me a lot.

It made me feel,

Accept yourself for who you are.

I saw a deeper meaning in it

but who knows, I might have just been getting my period that day!



XXXVII.

Hello, Gina!

You movie star!

Yes you are!

Gina G!

Hello my friend,

Hello my friend,

Hello my movie star,

Ruby! Ruby Boobie!

Braaawk!

Except so many women say,

Come on, Heidi

you gotta do the brothel for us; don't let us down.

It would be kind of fun opening up an exclusive resort,

and I'll make it really nice,

like the Beverly Hills Hotel

It'll feel private; you'll have your own bungalow.

The only problem out here is the climate—it's so brutal.

Charles Manson was captured a half hour from Pahrump.



I said, Joe! What are you doing?

You gotta get, like,

a garter belt and encase it in something

and write,

This belonged to Suzette Whatever,

who entertained the Flying Tigers during World War II.

Get, like, some weird tools and write,

These were the first abortion tools in the brothel,

you know what I mean?

Just make some **** up!

So I came out here to do some research

And then I realized,

What am I doing?

I'm Heidi Fleiss. I don't need anyone.

I can do this.

When I was doing my research, in three months

I saw land go from 30 thousand an acre

to 50 thousand an acre,

and then it was going for 70K!

It's urban sprawl

—we're only one hour from Las Vegas.

Out here the casinos are only going to get bigger,

prostitution is legal, it's only getting better.





XXXVIII.

The truth is

deep down inside,

I just can't do business with him

He's the type of guy who buys Cup o' Noodles soup for three cents

and makes his hookers buy it back from him for $5.

It's not my style at all.

Who wants to be 75 and facing federal charges?

It was different at my age when I

at least...come on, I lived really well.

I was 22,

25 at the time?

It was fun then, but now I wouldn't want

to deal with all that *******

—the girls and blah blah blah.

But the money was really good.



I would've told someone they were out of their ******* mind

if they'd said in five years I'd be living with all these animals like this.

It's hard-core; how I live;

It's totally a nonfunctional atmosphere for me

It's hard to get anything done because

It’s so time-consuming.

I feel like they're good luck though....

I do feel that if I ever get rid of them,

I will be jinxed and cursed the rest of my life

and nothing I do will ever work again.



Guys kind of are a hindrance to me

Certainly I have no problem getting laid or anything.

But a man is not a priority in my life.

I mean, it's crazy, but I really have fun with my parrots.



XXXIX.

I started a babysitting circle when I wasn't much older than 9

And soon all the parents in the neighborhood

wanted me to watch over their children.

Even then I had an innate business sense.

I started farming out my friends

to meet the demand.

My mother showered me with love and my father,

a pediatrician,

would ask me at the dinner table,

What did you learn today?

I ran my neighborhood.

I just pick up a hustle really easily,

I was a waitress and I met an older guy who looked like Santa Claus.



Alex was a 5' 3" bald-headed Filipina

in a transparent muu muu.

We hit it off.

I didn't know at the time that I was there to pay off the guy's gambling debt.

It's in and out,

over and out.

Do you think some big-time producer

or actor is going to go to the clubs and hustle?



Columbia Pictures executive says:

I haven’t done anything that should cause any concern.

Jeez, it's like the Nixon enemies list.

I hope I'm on it.

If I'm not, it means I must not be big enough

for people to gossip about me.



That's right ladies and gentlemen.

I am an alleged madam and that is a $25 *****!

If you live out here,

you've got to hate people.

You've got to be pretty antisocial

How you gonna come out here with only 86 people?

That's Fred.

He's digging to China.

You look good.

Yeah, you too.

It's coming along here.

Yeah, it is.

I wanted to buy that lot there, but I guess it's gone?

That's mine, man! That's all me.

Really?

I thought there was a lot between us.

No. We're neighbors.



He's a cute guy

He's entertaining.

See, I kind of did do something shady to him.

I thought my property went all the way back

and butted up against his.

But there was one lot between us right there.

He said he was buying it,

but I saw the 'For Sale' sign still up there,

So I went and called the broker and said,

I'm an all-cash buyer.

So I really bought it out from under him.

But he's got plenty of room, and I need the space for my parrots.

Pahrump will always be Pahrump, but Crystal is going to be nice

All you need are four or five fancy houses and it'll flush everyone out

and it'll be a nice area.

They're all kind of weird here, but these people will go.

Like this guy here,

someone needs to **** him.

I was just saying to my dad that these parrots are born to a really ******-up world

He goes, Heidi, no, no; the world is a beautiful garden.

It's just, people are destroying it.

I’m looking into green building options

I don't want anything polluting,

I want a huge auditorium,

but it'll be like a jungle where my birds can really fly!

Where they can really do what they're supposed to do.

There were over 300 birds in there!

That lady,

She ran the exotic-birds department for the Tropicana Hotel,

which is a huge job.

She called me once at 3:30 in the morning

Come over here and help me feed this baby!

Some baby parrot.

And I ran over there in my pajamas

—I knew there was something else wrong

and she was like

Get me my oxygen!

Get me this, get me that.

I called my dad; he was like,

I don't know, honey, you better call the paramedics.

They ended up getting a helicopter.

And they were taking her away

in the wind with her IV and blood and everything

and she goes, Heidi, you take care of my birds.

And she dies the next day.

She was just a super-duper person.



XL.

I relate to the lifestyle she had before,

Now, I'm just a citizen.

I'm clean,

I'm sober,

I'm married,

I work at Wal-Mart.

I'm proud to say I know her. I look into her eyes

and we relate.





I got out in 2000,

so I've been sending her money for seven years

She was…whatever.

Girlfriend?

Yeah, maybe.

But ***, I tried like two times,

and I'm just not gay.

She gets out in about eight or nine months

and I told her I would get her a house.

But nowhere near me.

I didn't touch her,

but I'd be, like...

a funny story:

I told her,

Don't you ever ******* think

about contacting me in the real world.

I'm not a lesbian.

Then about two years ago, I got an e-mail from her,

or she called me and said, 'Google my name.'

So I Googled her name,

and she has this huge company.

Huge!

She won, like, Woman of the Year awards.

So I called her and I go,

Not bad.

She goes, 'Well, I did all that because you called me a loser.'

I go, '****, I should've called you more names

you probably would've found the cure for cancer by now.



XLI.

No person shall be employed by the licensee

who has ever been convicted of

a felony involving moral turpitude

But I qualify,

I mean, big deal, so I'm a convicted felon.

Being in the *** industry, you can't be so squeaky-clean.

You've got to be hustling.

Nighttime is really enchanting here

It's like a whole 'nother world out here, it really is

I’m so far removed from my social life and old surroundings.

Who was it, Oscar Wilde, I think, who said

people can adjust to anything.

I was perfectly adjusted in the penitentiary,

and I was perfectly adjusted to living in a château in France.



We had done those drug addiction shows together

Dr. Drew.

Afterward we were friendly

and he'd call me every now and then.

He'd act like he had his stuff together.

But it was all a lie.

Everything is a lie.

I brought him to a Humane Society event at Paramount Studios last year.

He was just such a mess.

So out of it.

He stole money from my purse.

He's such a drug addict because he's so afraid of being fat.

He liked horse ****, though. He did like horse ****.

This one woman that would have *** with a horse on the internet,

He told me that’s his favorite actress.

Better than Meryl Streep.



XLII.

The cops could see

why these women were taking over trade.

Girls with these looks charged upwards of $500 an hour.

The Russians had undercut them with a bargain rate of $150 an hour.

One thing they are not is lazy.

In the USSR

they grew up with no religion, no morality.

Prostitution is not considered a bad thing.

In fact, it’s considered a great way to make money.

That’s why it’s exploding here.

What we saw was just a tip of the iceberg.

These girls didn’t come over here expecting to be nannies.

They knew exactly what they wanted and what they were getting into.

The madam who organized this raid

was making $4 million a year,

laundered through Russian-owned banks in New York City

These are brutal people.

They are all backstabbers.

They’re entrepreneurs.

They’re looking at $10,000 a month for turning tricks.

For them, that’s the American dream.



XLIII.

If you’re not into something,

don’t be into it

But,

if you want to take some whipped cream,

put it between your toes,

have your dog licking it up and,

at the same time,

have your girlfriend poke you in the eye,

then that’s fine.

That’s a little weird but we shouldn’t judge.



She was my best friend then

and I consider her one of my best friends now,

because when I was going through Riker’s

and everyone abandoned me,

including my boyfriend,

I was hysterical,

crying,

and she was the one that was there.

And, when somebody needed to step up to the plate,

that’s who did, and I have an immense amount of

loyalty, respect, and love for her.

And if she’s going to prison for eight years

—that’s what she’s sentenced for

—I’ll go there,

and I’ll go there every week,

for eight years.

That’s the type of person I am.
Robert C Millar Sep 2010
They grace our tables

with their elegance and their beauty,

Support us in our careers

as though it was their duty,

They listen to our problems

day after day,

The same old problems,

They´ve been listening to since May,



Chefs, accountants, nannies and councillors

are just a few of their talents.

And when things are hectic

they mostly keep their balance.

And what do they get

when they've worked a long hard day.

I'll tell you something gents

they don't ask for any pay.


So how can we show gratitude for what is clearly so demanding.

Its quite simple

Gentlemen, please be upstanding,

The Ladies
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2015
sample precursor: there are three binding directions of a chemical group (e.g. CH3) to the benzene ring - the ortho-, the meta- and the para-... but i'll ask a different question: what is copernican north what is copernican east a copernican west or a copernican west without a "flat-earth" / how else to read / navigate a 2D map going from point (a) via vector (c) to point (b) along the short-cut of the hypotenuse - which, isn't a short-cut, but the logical conclusion of walking neither the middle path nor the right path, but the logical path? we're no astronauts... we didn't see the proof... we can only entertain the "idea" of a 3D object we live on, but we're still strapped to a "flat earth" in order to navigate... endless stories of how GPS tech. fooled people off the edge of a cliff... "flat earth" is no reverse psychology ploy... i'm no ******* astronaut... i never stood left right or center on the moon to have the foggiest sense of admiration for that awe-balancing moment that leaves so many deluded in it being otherwise: first come first served, last come: what's there's to serve that last man if not merely the drudge-report of a commute? besides... trans- and cis-, why are people borrowing from chemistry and attaching gender to what is exlusive to chemical compounds? look at them... pop chemistry... cis-trans isomerism... fine, let these people have that... my new n.e.w.s. (north, east, west, south): orthography, something clearly missing in the anglophone world (no diacritical markers, i and j do not count)... ergo? orthography = east... paranormal = west... since the west is obsessed with either aliens or hush-hush military projects... now... both north and south are meta- coordinates... on the basis, on the basis of what? two words really work well to establish a foundation: from ars poetica? metaphor (borrowed from a change of mind - meta- and -phren - mind, a change of mind, all mental illnesses are changes of the mind, alternatives to alleviate the stranglehold of the commune of the greater picture known as society)... but... there's also metaphysics... which is in the interest of philosophy... how else not to explain the obvious, how else to treat both the reader / audience as the well informed genius(es) but mistreat them as would be grander genius(es) if the socratic endeavour of "pretense ignorance" was not to be established? it's a hard juggle... east is already well established in orthography, west in paranomal... literally: metaphor - a change of mind, literally metaphysics - a change of groundwork physicality of things... a rock remains a rock in either "heaven" or in "hell"... metaphysically there seems to be a direct translation... this is why i'm terrible at crosswords, this whole puzzle structure of either working from a direct definition to the word itself, some random geographical posists, some historical posits, some outdated out-of-vogue words related to specified period idiosyncracy, a tinge of the therausus... my current crossword is an interchange: meta-phor, meta-physics, meta-phot, meta-physics and on and on it goes: even with the isolated prefix of meta-, if i return to the words: as they are... would: denoting a change of thinking (state of mind) or... denoting a change of physics, i'm met with metaphysics, i.e.: a branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles... sounds like a priori physics, yet all i can fathom if i wrestle this word to its casual use: isn't it a posteriori physics?! the what comes after physics? i should think that most people understand metaphysics on an a posteriori basis rather than an a priori basis... hence the question: what happens when we die? last time i checked: death happens last... birth happens first... any question-worthiness (according to heidegger) should begin at: the beginning rather than begin at the end, in the same way that all questions should be sought in a medium of predating the dates of events, rather than with a spirit of hindsight, hindsight belongs to the "what if" of history in that dynamism of expressed time... on the canvas of an infinitely expanding space: we seem to be riddled by a very cul de sac concept / expression of time: our quill - given that ****** didn't learn from napoleon when it came to russia... perhaps finding out what copernicus found out: "we" figured: get me off this ******* celestial carousel where i can't even feel the dizzy immediate of a ferris wheel! again: i'm terrible at crosswords, sudoku? no problem... but words: if not gushing out of me, waiting like a lizard predator for a linear narrative spew? count me out... i don't play with words, i use words... i'm a wordsmith, hence the ethnic origin denote: słowianin: slav - i don't know where these west-saxon punks derived their etymology from: słowo = word... *****-liquor juice teens thought it was: oh fo' sho' smart... still: metaphor, metaphysics... metaphor... metaphysics... disgruntled with the immediate compound readied for pop use... meta-physics... the vector is the prefix... why do philosophers push metaphysics so much, but in turn rely on the crutch of metaphor? to change their mind, if metaphysics is an abstract theory with no basis in reality, then the schizoid / metaphorical mind is an abstract in an abstracted theory of the mind - which has "no" knowledge of reality, or rather: "reality" excludes such a mind from ever absorbing an expression in it... a schizophrenic can't explain the reality of a person who can solve crossword puzzles... just as someone who solves crossword puzzles with a fear of alzheimer's: who treats the fatty tissue that's the brain as a muscle... given that the cells of alzheimer's disease are killer proteins... proteins as the antithesis of white blood-cells that feed of fat tissue... after all: what else could the brain be if not fat and water? slow burner... first the sugars, then the more complex carbohydrates, then the fat: last? the proteins... the process of starvation... you want up? you want down? again: metaphysics / metaphor... ta meta ta phusika... the things after the physics... so what's with the inverted: prior things? hence people associated a life after death... hence how philosophers have to escape into the poetic realm to quickly change their minds on the definition... a change of mind is much easier than a change of what physicality entails... most spew metaphors but keep on course... after all: given the genesis of the metaphor, a metaphor is just a tool, a humble stop-off pause... born from humble poetics: it's only a literary tool, it's not some grand pillar of morality associated metaphysics, which nonetheless dictates: first principles come last and last principles come first... here's my crossword puzzle: metaphor, metaphysics, meta-alpha, meta-beta, metaphor and the meta-alpha, metaphysics and the meta-beta... etc. etc., i will not solve this crossword puzzle, even though it doesn't look like a crossword puzzle... it's a narrative crossword puzzle, i'm just looking for the sort of fixed point people associate with prime words: red, left, blue, right, up, fox, dog... words of readied vocabulary, readied vocabulary dissociated from puzzled vocabulary... i want to established a fixed permanence of the dissociated close proximity grounded in the meta- prefix of the words meta-phor and, meta-physics... i'm starting to find this impossible, given how the words have dissociated themselves from the grounding in the meta- prefix... phor alias phren (mind) and the whole gush of isolated metaphysics of beginnings: meta a priori vs. meta a posteriori - and of course: meta a- apriori... hell if i can't solve crossword puzzles: since i already have a crossword puzzle in my head... what am i to do? try writing pop?! a dog does what his master orders, a jester tells a joke his king would find amusing... i'll just treat this enclave of an audience as a bunch of people subscribed to ulterior forms of voyeurism (dissociated from pain / pleasure gratification, esp. that of a ****** nature).

.you know like in latin you had the interchangeable tongue twisters æ and œ? well... english resurrected one more... au... oh stralia... auntie; ******* hell i've been speaking this since aged ate and i still can't get my tongue into that phonetic plughole... or what's that onomatopoeia for: it really hurts? awe... nah... aw... aw... well no cute kitten about to say aww.

well it began with the usual... i wish i didn’t...
sitting in the autumnal garden
drinking coffee and eating a nicotine croissant,
watching the fog recede into nothing
while the earth showed its naked cleavage
after what seems like centuries of arcane dryness
befitting a story of an egyptian idol...
then the panic set in...
what to cook?! what to cook?!
my mother is away visiting her parents in poland,
who celebrate the feast of all saints with the usual
tackle formidable in poland:
forget the paris fashion week, forget the london fashion week...
forget the next gucci advert...
all the action happens in poland’s annual all saints’ fashion week...
through the cemetery (ahem) cat walks
(more like death on rollerblades donning a tutu
and looking fatter than size 0 models)...
because that’s when the fur coats are worn,
the make-up is heavier and everyone comes
to discuss the materialistic jealousy of a small town...
it is a small town after all...
death knocks with all the nine cat’s lives just to prove
the point...
anyway, so i’m the head chef, and in panic
i search for a recipe... i’ve only got pork on the ready
in the recognisable frozen state...
but i also have shrimps... tiger prawns...
so i look through the usual suspects... thai green curry...
ah ****! no coconut milk!
what’s it going to be? prawn korma curry
(better mild than hot i say, with all this maple syrup
and honey colours about... talk about decay),
active ingredients? chilli powder (1/2 tsp), cinnamon
(1/2 tsp), turmeric (1/2 tsp) and ground almonds (2 tbsp),
there ready... looking suntanned my gorgeous twirls of seabed manure...
enough to spare my father making himself sandwiches (i always
disguised my “dyslexia” by associations... sandy witches...
the t broke the barriers and the floods entered)...
with toasted nannies / au pairs... relatives of some sort...
then onto writing my father’s invoices:
project plaistow hospital and some housing development near
the city airport... beckton we call it... backwards and forwards
stink crowned with drinkers regurgitating on the pave...
now that is a *******... recycling centre or horse manure?
then to tesco... for the nightcap...
oddly enough tesco has become a friend of mine once more,
i divorced the turkish shop, they added 10 pence to the polish beers,
now i’m on the sedative medication of this bottle bavaria beer
and whiskey... 1 quid for the former... 10 quid for the latter -
i’ve sold my soul! never mind...
then to the beacon that’s home... it’s night... it’s spooky...
it’s essex: that non-touristy place in england people with passports
never dare to visit, shambles.
well one thing came out true... none of the above though:
you ever consider the theory of the aeroplane syndrome in writers?
you know, like with rock stars you get the full package,
you get the aeroplane and the retrieved delay of the engine mushroom,
but with poetry (which is competing with music,
philosophers just wait in that queue for the cheese, wink, whine and wrinkle)
you only get the sound... that delayed mushroom...
you see the poet but never hear him...
it’s a typical delusion i’d call parallel or even adjacent to narcissism,
you walk down the street and the closest you come
to someone recognising you is a stranger uttering out: ‘hey richard!’
‘name’s matt mate.’
‘oh... sorry.’
it’s this aeroplane syndrome theory... it’s perfectly acceptable...
you have the image but don’t have the delayed sound...
you have the delayed sound... but you only get a photograph...
you have the english national health service mental health unit crisis...
and then you have people shunning intellectualism
trying to cure people by burning / not reading philosophical books;
the day ends with drinking and reading
an article about keith richard’s antics in the sunday times’ supplement
and the thought: well i gave her a stabbing chance
at feminism... she thought the active ingredient in anti-contraception
pills was placebo... she phoned and gave birth to me...
i said abort... you’re no post-teen mum at university, you won’t be...
******* was great but i’m not that much of a match from a cosmopolitan magazine quiz
(as duly taken on my way from st. pestersburg to moscow to see
metallica play), plus there are no roofing jobs in scotland...
the scots have mountains already... there’s no point building
scratched sky skylines with mountain ranges nearby...
so even though i went to a catholic school...
i did my first redemptive act by reading about gnostic heretics...
and not getting confirmed being the second...
i would have not taken first communion... but playing the xylophone
at the nativity play was too much fun...
plus it is the only salvador dali bit of the story...
after that you have st. sebastian...
plus you see where this is going... the greeks translated
the tetragrammaton into the gospels
of st. matthew, luke, mark and john...
and the romans were duped into the legality of
things... first name, second name, confirmation name...
surname.
Nat Lipstadt May 2019
the spring mantra arrives with distinctive citified sparkles

a family of ducklings splash, mimicking young children,
shaking, spraying, squeaking, babies bath bathing,
jumping in and out of a fountain pool
of a tall-storied Manhattan apartment building,
the mother-leader attends them well for she recalls
the untimely end of the babies of last year,
lost to wanderlust on York Avenue,
cars and taxis as instruments of mass murdering,
but new spring is the season of new birth

the Cercis Siliquastrum tree trunk (!) oddly sprouts
unusual pink flowers
well before it’s branches grow up into a fully blossoming tree,
a signed spring time ritual, but since it is a/k/a, the Judas Tree,
we wonder if spring hints of Cerci Lannister’s fate betrayed,
in this, her final May dance, oh, which Judas brother/lover
will bring us a winter fin finale

the temperature control dial busted, the variability too wide,
the youngers are skipping the interregnum season,
going direct to elect shorts and T-shirt, while those who no longer bloom in the semi-warm, recall the wet chill of past evenings,
voting to dress defensively, wearing their aging skepticism
aware that all changes are exact crossing line-defined, wrapped in
medium weight coats, concealing embarrassing gloves in pocket,
decorative silk scarfs for non-decorative purposed,
all betting the under/over the spring is here all-in not yet sighted

the streets are busy, the momentary pleasantries
of warm sky and sun push the apartment dwellers out,
a magnetic force pulls us to the outside to exhale, in order to inhale,
guises manufactured excuses appear, a loaf of bread, a latte necessity,
the children desert happily their wintery confinement,
by pushing their own carriages, containing in their stead,
their lilting accented nannies, excited by their version of spring break

Me? toy shopping for this month brings rashers of birthdays,
more May galorey, singing come Dancer and Prancer, Ian and Isabel, Alex and not-a-baby anymore Wendy, and because the weather so pleasant, cautions ignored, the credit card swiped repeatedly, frequently and joyously, xmas reimagined, another May time ritual, rooted in the September month of *******, of staying warm, staving off winter *******, and winter planting for spring harvesting

children score grand-multiplicities for god made in his place
grand parental substitutes, each with two hands each equal,
so both must be filled with maypole ribbon, brightly colored
toy bags, presents wrapped in paper unicorns and all manner of
sporting *****, as we turn 2 and 6, 7 and who ate 8?

all that my eyes did see when we surfed strolled the streets,
vignettes fell like the spring rains, they, now, from daytime banished,
to after-midnight to do their breast feeding of tulips and weeds,
letting little children grow up snuggling in still over-heated rooms,
naked legs kicking off winter blankety snow remnants while dreaming of springing onwards and forward
into the party of life by inhaling nature’s

nature.
5-3-19  606pm
Timmy Shanti Jun 2012
To smile at the carnation,
So gallantly growing,
At peace with this world.
In silence...
I tune in a short conversation
Between minds and bodies -
Incredibly cold.

My heart has surrendered
To nightingale's song.
I dream of Rhode Island...
I'm leaving! So long!

The winds of Sonora,
My nannies and friends.
My love for Evora -
My tears know no end.

The shadows of Mordor,
With sunrise they fade.
Grace, Kindness and Splendour:
Three Buddhas in jade.

I feed roastede pidgeone
To poor ryebread crumbs.
Avoiding curmudgeons,
I'm playing professional dumb.

Caressing the grass-blades,
I live in a drop.
Arcadian arcade:
There, God has no job.

In hurting the Nature
We drain our souls.
Let’s all at once cease
Being ignorant ghouls.

...To stroke the carnation,
To gently kiss buds.
To eat simple meals
Like lentils and spuds.

To carry some water,
To chop down some trees.
To stop feeling rotten.
My soul is at peace.

The time is forever,
The purpose is now.
No “when” and no “where”,
No “why” and no “how”.

The light effervescent,
The sound circumaural,
The hearts ever-pleasant,
The dreams polynomial.

...Collapsing eternity,
Upheaving humanity,
Rock-bottom fraternity,
Defying the gravity.

Creative destruction
Is staunchly forbidding.
The wisdom of ancients
Is widely-misleading.

Depleting our anger
Is key to survival.
Harnessing the hunger,
Improptu revival.

Combustion of senses,
Precarious laughter.
Incurable sepsis,
Delirious canter.

Regrets are forgotten,
Bright days are all-cherished.
Let’s live unbegotten
Until we all perish.

13.06.2012
me Aug 2012
Of Nannies ‘n houses ‘n Pink Flamingos
Cars ‘n clothes ‘n foreign lingoes
The rich hate the poor, the poor hate the rich
Did you see “Her” today?
Boy, she sure is a *****.

How did they get here, a chauffeur you say?
‘Cause Mom and Dad are Always away.
They remembered her birthday
Or so said the staff
A party, a clown
Just make her laugh

The rich hate the poor and the poor hate the rich
Did you see “Her” today?
Boy, she sure is a *****.

He stood on the corner outside a shack
Schoolbooks in hand, his lunch in a sack
He remembered his birthday
Or so said his mom
His dad wasn’t drunk
Just tired ‘n run down.

The bad hate the good and the good hate the bad
Did you see “Them” today?
Boy, they sure did look sad.

All the dreams and the dollars
Or missing of such
Builds a foundation or makes us a crutch
Better built on kindness, compassion and love
Understanding that all are the same from above

We all hurt the same deep in our heart
Forgotten, abused, life plays its part
Dressed up in spangles, bobbles or beads
A yard full of flowers, garbage or weeds
Under the crust is a person who bleeds

The bad hate the good and the good hate the bad
Did you see “Them” today?
Boy, they sure did look sad.
Ben Jones Apr 2013
Now I'd like to tell you of a liquid
And a beverage clearly divine
It matches the holiest spirit
And most blessed communion wine
But it's not to be found at the altar
Of the temple, the mosque or the church
You'll see it in glasses lined up on the bar
Wherever the pensioners perch

Oh Gin, Gin, fabulous Gin
Finest concoction there ever has bin
A knee to the crotch and a kick in the shin
To him that speaks ill of that heavenly Gin

I had a great aunty called Floris
Each morning she'd sternly arise
With a fire in the pit of her stomach
And a merciless scowl in her eyes
But thanks to a magical fluid
By the end she was quite the reverse
And her face was serene and so tranquil
As they bundled her into the hearse

Oh Gin, Gin, glorious Gin
Remover of troubles and varnish and skin
There's many a baby that wouldn't have bin
If not for a bottle of beautiful Gin

Edith was crippled with cramp of the back
And terrible gout of the thighs
Her walk was askew and her bottom had swelled
To a rather astonishing size
But with Gin in the morning, the noon and night
She was right as proverbial rain
She still couldn't walk but now couldn't talk
So no one could hear her complain

Oh Gin, Gin, medicinal Gin
Bracing your face with a permanent grin
Cleans up the silver but tarnishes tin
Joyous the juice of the juniper, Gin

Tis a regular modern elixir
And a kick in the liver to boot
It's companion for many a mixer
To the tonic or blending of fruit
Instilling a mighty contentment
And removing all traces of rage
Though it's mainly imbibed by ladies
Those of a particular age...

Oh Gin, Gin, magnificent Gin
Clean as a whistle and sharp as a pin
Puts hairs on the ears, the chest and chin
Of nannies and grannies all guzzling Gin
Another copycat,don't do that it's all been done before and one more pretender shown the door,
swing out
swing in and another cat comes ring a ding, ding.
I need uniqueness
I want to feed on the sweetness of novelty,there seems to be less and less of that deliciousness and not much of that newness I can claim for my own,
I think I'm fading into the woodwork,full of knots and gnarlings and look at me darlings as I disappear.

No copycat here,
this is a first time,straight from the bread line into a basket case and how can I possibly face that which is new?
New is getting fewer and the few who do new don't know and never knew what few could be in this land of lots and plenty for me.
I was told that old is the new folding currency and that doesn't suit me,too many wrinkles,too many nooks and nannies with crooks,like little Bo-Peep,I wish they'd all sleep,
there is time for the sheep to try on for size,oh my dear Lion what gigantic eyes,
is that a bit new or just me cooking stew?

A copycat like folding currency folds flat and I'm having none of that,I like the chinking and clinking of real gold and that don't fold.
So beware if you share and don't credit the writer,who with meagreness in his pockets pulls his belt a bit tighter,one more notch he can't feel,,one more meal never felt in his gut,but
copycat see,copycat do,copycat never think anything new.
What are you?
Antony Glaser May 2014
For therapy i call the fire brigade to
to inform them Westminster bridge
here i come
and daydream of pushing  nannies
and their charges towards  tumbling waterfalls
and with my friend Judy
we watch tall men jump over ditches of dahlias
in the foggy dew
for no other reason than
we want to be amused.
Max Vale Jul 2018
The vans on the interstate
they go real slow, they go real slow
the vans on the interstate
20 MPH below, 20 MPG below
the limit

I'm too fast for this road,
There's nowhere I can't go.
I'm free I carry no load,
Speed limit? No.

The vannies are nannies
don't ya know, don't ya know
vannies are nannies
really slow, really slow
it really is
no secret

Time goes quickly,
Soon it'll go below.
But life's too quick,
For me to go slow.

I'm not sure they
comprehend, comprehend
really not sure they understand
either GMC, or Chevrolet
whether GMC, or Chevrolet
being the clot
in the road

Embrace the speed while you can,
Before you blink.
It'll disappear,
Before you can think.
Sally A Bayan Mar 2017
I saw...
a huge, open space, arrayed  with pink and
yellow roses and zinnias...there were benches
under trees that  stretched towards a lagoon,
for those gone weary, from their walks...

I saw...
a family...children were playing
on the green, lush carpet grass,
dressed in their bright-colored clothes
of red and yellow,  and blue jeans...
confidently hopping, and tumbling
wearing expensive rubber shoes...while
having bites of sandwiches, and sips of juices...
from a safe distance, seated on a bench, were
the overseers...the parents...as two nannies
kept close watch over the children.......

I saw...
a group of noisy children come in from the streets
running barefooted, feeling the cool, moist grass...
some refused to remove their rubber slippers,
their clothes were old and tattered...too excited,
they jumped.....lay on the grass without a care,
they shrieked, as they climbed and fell from slides,
obviously enjoying their visit....their shouts, their
laughter seemed contagious, the well-endowed
children, stopped their games and observed...

I saw...
how the parents summoned the nannies,
they gathered the children, and all their stuff
then marched towards a less peopled area,
and there, they let their children play....while
they sat on a nearby bench, pulled long sighs,
one after the other...i wondered...were they
exhausted?  or, pricked by their conscience?
were they sighs of relief.......because their
children were now distanced......."safe,"
......from the less fortunate ones?
:::::::::
whatever happened to  noblesse oblige?
are these just two foreign words,
with obsolete meanings?
::::::::::::::


Sally

Copyright March 9, 2017
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Jeff Barbanell Oct 2014
Trolling Amazon I found my inner Kurtz
Harrison foreswore my bear totem: darkness
Lady gal pal taught me soul-mating hurts
Martha Muffins vinyl v. Kirby’s Agatha Harkness
Saved my twins made them productive
Mutating FF X to Avengers indie 80s on me take
Man-starring all the boogie children say code this grandpa
Gaiman Miller Moore Morrison invade Waid
Wrightson Kaluta Jones Smith put bronze to paint
McKean Sienkiewicz Mack Maleev mimic The Studio
Now let’s gallery our portals strung from kid dimensions
Makers engaging history NOW NEW 52 intervals starstruck
Spread indie throughout known multiverse in craft crooks
While nursing nannies coddle light corners scuttling roaches
Bell & Schrödinger's cat transport trainspotting to a fine art
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
the oddity of it all, i can sound like a 70 year old, writing in 2016, by simply writing about 2004 - and that's the excuse everyone gives for lazy English text form: 2 (abc), 3 (def), 4 (ghi), 5 (jkl), 6 (mno), 7 (pqrs), 8 (tuv), 9 (wxyz) - where you had to press a button several times to get the right letter (even with spellcheck helping you shorten the digit-bag sequence) - but that's no excuse with digital phones and a complete keyboard... but that's how it looks, after only 12 years... i'm actually aged 70 given the advances of the technology advent... let's forget the technology of the 1990s... i've circled round and met up with people who collected vinyls... that's how old i am in respect to my buying habits... we're the silver-compact-vinyl kids: the ghouls of the 1960s, born in the 1980s and not getting down with the kids... and to readdress just two books: all that stream-of-consciousness made the latter end of Ulysses a bit like writing by candle-light... as was reading the plagiarism of the above stated in Sartre's iron in the soul... or as the puritans said: we're filling for at least a ¶ (pilcrow) to be inserted: not to mess up the idea of a river and "thinking aloud" where punctuation marks mean: stopping suddenly because you become self-conscious... i just needed a ****** bookmark! the monks at the time of Charlemagne used the ¶ quiet often, condensed bibles, ink was worth 20 camels and paper was worth 20 dresses for a queen... ah, the times when paper was as precious as silk... so the puritans condensed writing, they weren't as sparing in their inner feng shui - a room the size of St. Paul's... and two words in it: Jesus Christ... they were like modern day delivery guys, packaging words together, they didn't have the luxury to write paragraphs with the now established spacing afresh, i.e.:

            and Jimmy went up a ladder into the loft etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
             Florence was making a cup of tea when she heard Jimmy yell: 'my long lost golf clubs!' etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

i.e.

¶ and Jimmy went up a ladder into the loft etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

alternatively the ¶ went out of fashion in the literary world, once writing became affordable and changed into a profiteering case of bravado... but i still think ¶ is a bit like using a clef.*

or how to keep one's intellectual integrity: have a drink or two,
and muster enough creative energy to use this encoding -
or... how to make poetry akin to computer
programming - a subtler way to encode
the now slothfully rising moon:
half of it, not full, nor scimitar crescent,
a half bitten honey biscuit, just above the forest
horizon, and the semi-detached houses
of English outer-suburbia - in a sense
transcendentalism, a box with many words
in it attributed to the cause,
as is the reason why Christianity became
the most schismatic religion that has ever
graced man's "good will" (ambiguity,
not an approximation) - in line with philosophical
whims of vogue: idealism, realism, transcendentalism,
existentialism, ism after ism after the Methodists
and the Baptists and other mongrels of current
affairs... already stated: populist Platonism
and the ransacked and burnt library of Alexandria...
yes, decidedly, poetry as a variation of
computer programming - although more akin
to: the tetragrammaton and the Noah's
checklist of paired onomatopoeia(s) (plural
form is underlined, Oxford hasn't picked up
the circumstance: there are neurotics out there
who'd send you to the guillotine for not
updating "spelling mistakes" that aren't
"spelling mistakes" quickly enough!) -
to the cause or as signatures of being easily
recognisable as: yes, that's that... a moustache
and a bowler hat...            alternatively
watch a stand-up show by Miranda -
the very typical English-ness inside out:
hysterical from the word go... the ministry of
funny walk from Monty Python ***
                      the two walks at the airport -
or the trip-up on skewed pavement slabs
checking the impromptu socially acceptable
version of the other seeing us -
comedians do it oh so well: the inside-out,
stern exterior, boy ******* a thumb and relating
to a blanket as if it were an umbilical chord...
what a tightly knit individual...
                          made complete with about a dozen
patches...
                       but it is! it is! it really is already
ready to be likened to computer programming,
perhaps there's no <xerox> or other commands,
but poetry deals with encoding sounds,
no man can encode a proper roar of a lion
or a squirt of a skunk, that's sheer travesty that
so many people can actually muster enough
encouragement to encode these sounds...
i imagine a world where we don't even care
to write knock, and knock on a piece of wood
and a noumenon is born, the sound isn't noted
down, it remains a thing in itself (synonyms,
in italics) - it's probably akin to getting a tattoo,
great if you have a short-term memory loss
like that guy in Memento... but it's going to
be hard to displace knock-knock -
again this is already an approximation -
onomatopoeia upon onomatopoeia -
it doesn't even sound akin or properly dressed
to mention Plato's theory of forms -
sounds can be forms: apparently they're waves...
no waves are forms (shapes) -
or that demigod who fell in love with his shadow,
rather than his image reflected in a lake,
he fell in love: because it gave him enhanced reflexes...
every single time... boom... shadow... boom...
shadow... and so much of language goes into
these nonsensical types of encoding -
blah for: talking a lot -
                                           hmm - when negatively
pondering something -
                                            i believe that
there should be a grammatical elevation of the onomatopoeia
to the status of nouns, verbs etc. -
                           but it is, it is, it really is
like computer programming,
               above and beyond the sheltering vacuum -
how would we ever write a word to encode the
sound of lightning, or a volcano erupting,
or the earth spinning - in these areas i find god -
       i will find man in these areas:
but i'll be hinged on mathematical explanation:
and mathematics is pure optics -
                       so what that we can write one and write
1, write two and write 2, three and 3, four and 4 -
    by now we can write to, too, free and for...
and this is just the start -
                             by acknowledging onomatopoeia
for something, we acknowledge our limitation
of encoding something in that realm -
this inability gave us the emergence of nouns -
   sooner or later when someone started
talking about an earthquake... a litmus test of:
brr grrm boom bah dobble aah! etc.
we got the picture - and why would a monkey
evolve from its conscious-sleep reservoir
to say just as much as with a simple grunt and ooh -
actually, some onomatopoeia(s) became sophisticated -
a grunt is a sophisticated onomatopoeia -
       as is weeping and crying and shouting -
as is shooing (or to shoo) -
well, that's how i see it... poetry as reality programming -
since there's more than just a computer -
at the moment it just resembles a game of
whack-a-mole -                 although there's more than
the mere 26 primary moles -
      and all this talk does relate to something,
something very important at the beginning of the
20th century... well, a century later, and something
similar is being discussed... Ivan Bunin?
noble prize winner from 1933, the first russian to do so...
  anyway... this goes beyond his concerns...
his concerns were akin to that dud i made
with the word mruwka -
                               personally? i feel that the "correct"
version of the word is aesthetically displeasing -
and anyone who says otherwise treats orthography
not as an aesthetic question, but a question
of rubrics and regime - so there we have the "correct"
version mrówka                               (ant)       -
anyone agree with me? well, the English language
doesn't have any concerns for orthographic
regulation - it has excessive spelling and that's that -
what bothered Ivan was the Bolsheviks rewriting
orthographic rules... the word in question?
izvestia - that really peeved him off...
                      everyone in intellectual circles was
disturbed by the changes (can't recall the original) -
but the changes were approved by the Russian Academy of
Sciences (immediately before the revolution) -
there would have been any dispute about the "evolution"
in orthographic terms if done prior to Feb. 1917 -
the war postponed the changes, and with the Bolsheviks
in power... then obviously the suspicion...
   now... such changes are but farts in hurricanes
in comparison with what happened in the realm of English...
i mean, ****'s sake, we're talking minor aesthetic tweaks
here and there - the changes still encompass the form
that's understood by the ear, and it's only a matter of
taste where you write the word ant as either mruwka
or mrówka - well, mind you, i'm already asking
for the incorporation of the Czech š (sz) and č (cz) -
but what's happening in English... my god: it's terrifying!
all these acronyms? all these emoticons?
        i know that English journalists are in favour of
:) and :( and ;) ;) [wink wink] - and next thing you know:
you're talking to a monkey... you soon realise:
the deaf have nurtured a superior system of communication,
as have the blind than these poor, healthy, ably nimble
*******...                   how they're superior, i don't know,
and in all honest? don't care...
         for goodness' sake: a heard a story that a girl
wrote her g.c.s.e. English language paper in text format:
   e.g. c (see) u (you) l8r (later)          -
now you see why i think that poetry is like computer
programming?
these people are scripts from a classical software program
that looks something like: 3;r/d]]aq"pk.0    etc.    
it's a complete and utter mess!
                         fair enough saying: O Shakespeare O
Milton... those guys are turning in their graves...
and they ain't showering the English language with
graces mind you: they're calling it the new
***** & Gomorrah - and it's not England was the sole
inheritor of the computer -
                                       that's what not having
diacritical accessories does to you...
                             you get hacked...
and this... pretty much... is a form of a hack:
you'll wake up tomorrow with a pair of sunglasses
or think you're looking down a microscope;
i swear to god...       me and Ivan are just laughing...
he's not drinking, i'm drinking, but we share
the same intuitive devices - the same puppet strings
pulled him in 1919 as they are pulling me in 2016...
the same ****** trials of a variation of zoology -
some look at monkey behaviour,
            others look at how language is cradled in people:
and i'm not even going to bother
elaborating on anything by Chomsky -
which brings me to the following conclusion
(back to Miranda) - i don't believe in fame apparent,
fame apparent, as in: tabloid crap and c.c.t.v.
and 20 nannies and 50 bathrooms, and not being
recognised wearing a virtual reality gear when walking
down a street when otherwise imprisoned on
a television screen rewind - that's not fame,
that's tyranny under the masses -
                         i don't believe in it... which answers
one famous English scientist's question:
why does posthumous fame exist?
                                    it's like that Camus question
about suicide - well... i guess it's a question of
endurance... a bit like a fail-safe mechanism about
why the pyramids are still standing even though
they experienced so much weathering by the elements -
well, as endurance has it: posthumous fame is
filled by introverts...
                                          i dare you to name that
famous Bolshoi ballet dancer, or that famous 1930s
actor or actress... they're part of the extrovert side of
what's called "fame" - but that's only a minor point
i wanted to make... the real zest i already explained -
ah crap, summary in maxim:
   the concept of modern fame is the result of a god
that has been attributed such qualities as omnipresence...
               well, aren't modern celebrities... a bit like that?
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2022
promise me! promise me to get me out of this hell-hole i put myself in! promise me! i don't know why i put myself through, several days of transcribing a snippet, this was merely a snippet from Kierkegaard's oeuvre, but, how unbelievable! each word was a labour, prop up the book in the right place, read, don't look at the keyboard, let the devil find work for idle hands... look for the devil who would be able to write like he might read Braille! my god, the punctuation, ****** an elephant's ***...the essential Kierkegaard - edited by howard v. hong & edna h. hong: hurt my sensibilities, or, rather, my pedantry, when it comes to punctuation... transcribing is not plagiarism... its brick-layer toils... one word, after another... if i were translating from Danish, i think i'd punctuate the text better: to give it some... panache! some: oomph! you know? this is my dedication, i'm supposed to be awake at 7am... i already shined my shoes, i've already prepped my white shirt, black trousers, black clip on tie, i have my papers (credentials) in order... tomorrow i'll be at the London Stadium overlooking West Ham take on Leeds United in the FA cup... like always, i'll be more interested in the crowd... spotting a pretty girl among the "yobs"... because i truly care about football when it's on the t.v.: in real life... i once stood with three cans of beer and watched a non-league / non-professional match compromising of enthusiasts in a park, at a distance... i couldn't see much... i still don't see much difference... unless it's on the t.v.: the stadium doesnt really "frighten" me... but this one time in the park, i sort of looked the Michael Myers part... headphones in... one young woman was trying to... communicate to this older woman: also walking her dog... about confronting me... i think i "said": gaze... i looked at them... the younger woman was trying to tell the older woman about confronting me... the older woman told the younger woman: YOU, HAVE, NOTHING, TO TALK ABOUT, WITH THIS, MAN! i was drinking a beer, standing... a decent distance from the football match: but i also remember that... that 1995 Charity Shield game at the Old Wembley between Manchester United & Newcastle: ants kicking a grain of sand... obviously i didn't understand why i might pretend to be a *****... my new favorite word... *****... alias for paedohpile... if i don't look menacing and some woman can "think" she stands a chance against me: merely posturing... then we have issues... oh **** me... transcribing... that's worse than plagiarism.... i once did the most pristine plagiarism job on some... social-science course up in Edinburgh... i was having to make up credit scores, being the romantic idiot... losing my virginity to Isabella of Grenoble... oh, get a French girlfriend, take up French... i hate the language... they write what they don't speak: phonetically... which is sort of in line with my prior ambition for the plunge - to transcribe some Kierkegaard, but also translate some SZYMON STAROWOLSKI observations... circa... 1650... the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth... sorry.. it's not going to happen... i've done enough transcribing enough *******'s worth of: this punctuation needs to... "go"... to better understand myself... through this iron maiden of: someone else wrote: what someone else wrote... i'll leave ol' SIMON for another take... given... transcribing is a labour... writing, freely... idiosyncratically: appealing to my, appeal...  how, why, when... oh i can deal with that, these days... it's not even concerning what sort of thesaurus peacocking exfoliation is being used / abused by the writer... i'm... more allured... by... punctuation... since i don't bother to rhyme, since i find all lyricism a tad bit... crass... what else is there? the measure of: how to stop... how to begin... how to "objectify" the conjunction-intermediacy of... punctuation... no manner of human speech can be / could be encapsulated by comparing it to a river... point being... i'd rather write as freely as i can, about the most mundane events in my own life: prop up my subjectivity than... somehow... "somehow"... succumb to some sensible objective reality... objectivity does not give me a drive... it does not equip me with a manly persevence... it's antithetical to what i understand as human nature simply because... ha ha... objectivity has been owned by the English... it's their lot of being sensible... like watching would-be journalists looking at what's currently happening in Kazakhstan... then trying to compare it to... the posturing: the civilian security of protests in Ham-Ham-H'America... and it's like... so what? the people are simply, expected to, take it?! the liberty's of the individual that believes himself to be outside the collective will... sure... well... sounds nice... unless of course... the hive really does come after you... i'm all for individual liberties, after all... i own a private library that could put the public library where i live to shame... although... i'll give them a sly one: Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus... they owned it, i simply loaned it... fair enough... but i'd rather write about women... i was having my haircut done... closed my eyes... because... hell... the mirror and ****... with my eyes closed i was stroked by this blonde bombshell... we talked about owning dogs, about owning cats... Alsatians? oh, i really have a hard-on for them... i used to own a dobberman... prior to it being illegal to snip their ears and cut their tails... she was a cat that does that to her? like she looks to be self-harming? perhaps she should nickname him Freddy Krueger?! my maine ****? oh... it's rainy, he just sleeps in my bed... he usually sleeps with me.. what?! the bed's big enough for the both of us... i'd love to own a boxer... i'd love to own a rottweiler... i'd also love to own a Triumph bike...

one of my replies... you know, a liter of whiskey can go down well... i get double drunk from good conversation, i rarely encounter what i'd consider a good conversation... that's why... i much prefer to drink alone, of note... i had more fun pretending to talk to myself than expecting "talking" to be an anti-canvas with some, living, breathing: might have kidney failure, etc. punk or, sociopathic? here's the script:

see you now,, i'm just about to rewrite a Kierkegaard transcript.... i can't imagine it being much fun... the whole process is so unoriginal... but oh, oh so necessary... that i sort of don't want to live without it... bonus points... i''ve drank enough to make it... bearable... trans-scripting....i danced a little in my bedroom, donned my cat with a pair of sunglasses.... thank god i'm not kind of a sort of H'american version of a... "winner"... so much of life can be tolerated when it's not being competed for!...

i've just filled out an induction form for the West Ham stadium, played niceties with my supervisor, sent her an emoticon, LOLz back... i'm pumped up, ready to smack a few teenage boys into shape, what, could possibly go wrong? speaking below the depth of breath / audibility, watching the birds... i want, i want to give them a second, a third, a fourth... chance... let me give these people a chance... i know their failures... but... the possibility of being loved by one of them, whether man, or woman, whether pseudo-woman... i'll go as far as to say... i wouldn't mind a "Thai surprise"... i know they're capable of it... give me this already acquired heart of stone... and i'll show you... that they'll bleed rivers of honesty... just a little while... that is all i ask...

this is all, of course, before the plunge begins...
wait...l of course there's more, there have to be constellations
involved!

it was originally titled: Private Library Allure...
now, i'm "thinking": two ripe mangoes...
a mango curry or a mango chutney,
or perhaps, both?!

i have this one particular constellation in mind, that's visible to the naked eye, don't worry about - wait... let me take a second look:


                  •


                    •
      •



           •


    

            •          (circa)... the big wheel...
the grizzly she... in terms of gods & men...
there's an replica: much smaller...
so i guess this is the microscope: since it is enlarged
while the identical constellation
is a telescope...
       no matter... i'm thinking of this constellation

                                 •
                          
                          •
      
                   •
                       •
                    

                          •
                             •
                                •



              •
          ­                                            •

the scorpion constellation, it only appeared once
(to my knowledge) in pop culture,
in Dreamworks' the Prince of Egypt...

now wouldn't that be a waste... me simply drinking,
not allowing alcohol to be the extra calorie intake
that might require me to scribble...
waste of a good whiskey: should i simply drink it
and not focus on scribbling...

point being, i'm about to undertake something
i'm not very keen on, to prove a point,
i'm about to transcript two of the most profound pieces
of writing that recently caught my attention...

not to mention i'm reserving bragging rights...
my private library is... richer...
than the public library of the town of Romford...
i might be an alcoholic,
but i'm also a bibliophile...
there's nothing more precious thank a book...
perhaps a tonne of bricks...

why did i decide to cycle in these temperatures...
****'s sake... i'm old school,
i don't "trust" wi-fi cordless earphones...
the temperature dipped so low that
now the wires are performing at sub-optimal standards...
sort of hushed...
mind you... i love the cold of the January nights...
******* get such a hard-on for the wind
that they almost feel like they've been pierced...

none of the following will be original content,
but i just have to transcript it...
maybe a whiskey refill... a cigarette...
i need to get into the groove of typing up
someone else's work...
oh ****, there are two of them...
well... at least one of them i will not have to translate...
however: do i want to include the original...
all those diacritical markers (ctrl + c / ctrl + p)
will be rather fiddly... do i have the time?

- oh, right... i'm here... the above was...
"somewhere" / "sometime" else...
a sort of... quantum-dasein...
past-participle... black hole... blah blah...
i'm still gearing up for the transcript
of Kierkegaard...
the translation of that ****** equivalent
of the Czech: YAN HUß

-------------------------------------- (pending line)

the pending line is not moving... i've already
written a pre-scriptum a day "late"...
i think i'll manage the Kierkegaard...
but none of the ****** "crap": since...
i'm not about to translate...

once more, please refer to the essential Kierkegaard...
edited by howard. v. hong...
& edna h. hong...
            hong? i too have a terrible surname...
a bit like ******, or Stalin...
people see Elert... they immediately prompt me
with: so... you're AH-LERT?!
i never hit them back with with...
you sort of missed this zeppelin...
it's etymologically german...
in earnest... it's missing: SCH...
that's... ESCHLERT...
          but i have no trouble with people
who like... low hanging fruit...
pedestrian interactions...
         a peasant among among peasants...
a peasant who can discriminate against
peasants...
my given surname at birth was no much better...
fellow countrymen...
oh... i remember it... this one time...
tricked me...
open your mouth...
so i opened my mouth...
then quickly closed it...
i was spat at... a fellow countryman spat
in my face...
although he was aiming at my mouth...
i hold... not allegiance to the English...
1997... why was i deported?
for being an economical migrant?!
oh... the world is now, somehow, ******* welcome?!
i hold not allegiance to the English:
to the tongue: all...
but i also hold not allegiance to my inherent
****** reference... i'd rather just call it
a "reference"...

i abhor both parties... one for sort of telling me to
******* because:
they're now the church-going party of people
and my grandfather was conflated with being
a communist party member:
sure... since... socialism in a soviet
satellite was very much the same sort of shin-dig
as it was in RaSHa... ROSIYA...
*******... wanking me off a little...
**** Poland... **** England...
both can sink... to... whatever they deem
to be acceptable by their standards of...
oh... in England... peer Lord Ahmed... *****...
Rotherham... fun times!
i don't even want to know anything about
Poland.... my ethnic class by birth...
i'd rather ******* and create trans-ethnic mongrel
gremlins with a a girl from Kenya...
in Kenya...
yeah... me... in Kenya... creating a pseudo-Brazillian
republic of... copper-skinned polymaths &
multilingual freaks!
sign me up!
                  
i really didn't expect to mind much of me...
it's nice that... they read so little nd watch so much regurgitation
of a t.v...

like i once pointed out: objectivity is...
overrated... hell... it's more than that...
by now it has been hijacked by fake-news and
anti-science pseudo-narratives...

which tells you a lot about a people who
seemingly tolerate Muslims...
tolerating Muslims that don't tolerate Sufism...
i'm good with the Turkish barbers...
anything else... you better ask a Hindu...
how do Hindus "tolerate" Islam... if, at all?

these are not my words... they are a verbatim
transcript that most public libraries will not own,
but i own... ergo...

the subjective existing thinker is aware of the dialectic of communication. whereas objective thinking is indifferent to the thinking subject and his existence, the subjective thinker as existing is essentially interested in his own thinking, is existing in it.

(insert: my own questioning furthered from the genesis of this 19th century Danish thinker... point aside... i am... the queen's subject... i am not, the queen's object... the queen is not forcing me to be subjectively objectionable to... say... building a new wing for Windsor Castle... i can't be, regarded as the queen's object... constitutional monarchy doesn't work through the expedience of extension... i am the queen's subject, i am not her object... i am subjected to the queen... the monarch... but i'm not... "objected"? i'm not objecting to the hierarchy she presupposes, predisposes with... it's almost a "paradox"... but as a subject... in the most immediacy... as a subject... i am not her object... i am not her servant! that some people, within her immediacy are her objects, by regal extension, her guards, her... ******* tea nannies... sure... but... i am beyond her claim for being objectified... i am "subjectified"... how? i can fester... concern for the monarch, i can adorn her with "dasein": care... but her regal extension dilutes itself... her regal power... the cut-off point... is... when she can no longer objectify me... i can be no more her ******* tea-*****-nanny... her soldier... hell... a police officer is not made a police officer by some royal decree.... a police officer is a subject of the regal authority... a soldier? an object of the regal authority... why? the soldier serves the crown... the police officer? serves the public: the subject of the subject(s)... not... like the solider: the object of the object... to be subjected to "something": is hardly demeaning when otherwise the supposed stance of being "demeaned" is to be: objectified... counter to any sort of "argument": to be objectified... is to be spared... the experience of being: subjected to... i.e. / e.g. to objectify a woman... is a synonymous expression for... not subjecting a woman to... what objectifying her in the first place might... entail... by objectifying a woman... you're at least not subjecting her to... the undercurrents of objectification per se...

even i am thinking to myself: this sounds stupid...
the fox is currently having an asthmatic fit of giggles
come 2:20am...
if i am objectifying a woman as a "thinking thing"...
then... i'll be less likely to subject her to: think...
if i am objectifying a woman as a hammer...
then... i'll be less likely to ask her to:
also bring some nails along...
that's the positive on the micro-scale...
because on the macro-scale?
i'd rather be the queen's subject than...
be her... well... the extension of the queen:
her object... her tea-*****-nanny...
her soldier... her... prime minister...
it's a ******* weird dynamic... but...
it's the most pristine that has ever existed... period...

constitutional monarchy ought to be
the envy of the world, for some of the bad apples...
it still i... it should never be undermined...
should it ever be... i'd call that... treason!
to the very fabric of reality!
and as someone who was diagnosed as schizophrenic?!
go figure... but don't come cryuig to me...
make, sure...
you have some "ice-cream" **** readily available
to sa e you, some Rotherham **** heart-throb...
why oh why... having lived n these Isles...
for as long as i have...
the would me mothers of my would be children...
i'm not even going to beg to, ask...
low i.q. breeds low i.q.:
naive... people(s)...
           genius is an aberration...
it's a  mutation...better stuid and reproductive...
work along: plenty for the ants..
*******, ants...
and once they age?
darts?! football matches?

i can't blame them!
i have yet to cite them proper...
although: thank god the filter
of having to invest in having to read...
in people actually reading

therefore, his thinking has another kind of reflection, specifically, that of inwardness, of possession, whereby it belongs to the subject and to no one else. whereas objective thinking invests everything in the result and assists all humankind  to cheat by copying and reeling off the results and answers, subjective thinking invests everything in the process of becoming and omits the result, partly because this belongs to him, since he possesses the way, partly because he as existing is continually in the process of becoming, as is every human being who has not permitted himself to be tricked into becoming objective, into inhumanly becoming speculative thought.

the reflection of inwardness is the subjective thinker's double-reflection. in thinking, he thinks the universal, but, as existing in this thinking, as acquiring this in his inwardness, he becomes more and more subjectively isolated.

the difference between subjective and objective thinking must also manifest itself in the form of communication ˣ. this means that the subjective thinker must promptly become aware that the form of communication must artistically possess just as much reflection as he himself, existing in his thinking, possesses. artistically, please note, for the secret does not consist in his enunciating the double-reflection directly, since such an enunciation is a direct contradiction.

ordinary communication between one human being and another is entirely immediate, because people ordinarily exist in immediacy. when one person sttes something and another acknowledges the same thing verbatim, they are assumed to be in agreement and to have understood each other. yet because the one making the statement is unware of the duplexity (dobbelthed) of thought-existence, he is also unable to be aware of the double-reflection of communication. therefore, he has no intimation that this kind of agreement can be the greatest misunderstanding and naturally has no intimation that, just as the subjective existing thinker has set himself free by the duplexity, so the secret of communication specifically hinges on setting the other free, and for that very reason he must not communicate himself directly; indeed, it is even irreligious to do so. this latter applies in proportion to the essentiality of the subjective and consequently applies first and foremost within the religious domain, that is, if the communicator is not god himself or does not presume to appeal to the miraculous authority of an apostle but is just a human being and also cares to have meaning in what he says and what he does.

objective thinking is completely indifferent to subjectivity and thereby to inwardness and appropriation; its communication is therefore direct. it is obvious that it does not therefore have to be easy. but it is direct, it does not have the illusiveness and the art of double-reflection. it does not have that god-fearing and humane soliciude of subjective thinking in communicating itself; it can be understood directly; it can be reeled off. objective thinking is therefore aware only of itself and is therefore no communication, at least no artistic communication, inasmuch as it would always be required to think of the receiver and to pay attention to the form of communication in relation to the receiver's misunderstanding. objective thinking is, like most people, so fervently kind and communicative; it communicates right away and at most resorts to assurances about its truth, to recommendations and promises about how all people someday will accept this truth - so sure is it. or perhaps rather so unsure, because the assurances are recommendations are the promises, which are indeed for the sake of those others who are supposed to accept this truth, might also be for the sake of the teacher, who needs the security and dependability of a majority vote. if his contemporaries deny him this, he will draw on posterity - so sure is he. this security has something in common with the independence that, independent of the world, needs the world as witness to one's independenceso as to be certain of being independent.

ˣ double-reflection is already implicit in the ideas of communication itself: that the subjective individual (why by inwardness wants to express the life of the eternal, in which all sociality and all companionship are inconceivable because the existence-category, movement, is inconceivable here, and hence essential communication is also inconceivable because everyone must be assumed to possess everything essentially), existing in the isolation of inwardness, wants to communicate himself, consequently that he simultaneously wants to keep his thinking in the inwardness of his subjective existence and yet wants to communicate himself. it is not possible (except for thoughtlessness, for which ll things are indeed possible) for this contradiction to become manifest in a direct form. - it is not so difficult, however, to understand that a subject existing in this way may want to communicate himself. a person in love, for instance, to whom his ****** love is his very inwardness, may well want to communicate himself, but not directly, just because the inwardness of ****** love is the main thing for him. essentially occupied with continually acquiring the inwardness of ****** love, he has no result and is never finished, but he may nevertheless want to communicate; yet for that very reason he can never use a direct form, since that presupposes results and completion. so it is also in a god-relationship. just because he himself is continually in the process of becoming in an inward direction, that is, in inwardness, he can never communicate himself directly, since the movement is here the very opposite. direct communication requires certainty, but certainty is impossible for a person in the process of becoming, and it is indeed a deception. thus, to employ an ****** relationship, if a maiden in love yearns for the wedding day because this would give her assured certainty, if she wanted to make herself comfortable in legal security as a spouse, if she preferred marital yawning to maidenly yearning, then the man would rightfully deplore her unfaithfulness, although she indeed did not love anyone else, because she would have lost the idea and actually did not love him. and this, after all, is the essential unfaithfulness in an ****** relationship, the incidental unfaithfulness is to love someone else.


as a side-note... these impossible, to my mind:
imaginary "problems"...
say, for example...
the racist... the non-racist... and the... anti-racist...
do i use racial slurs, sure, but i always tend
to "translate" them to by implicitly urban scenario
tokens... i'm a "******" if i don't get on time,
i'm supposed to work for free...
i think of racism along the lines...
well... you, know... that Pakistani grooming
gang in Rotherham...
it doesn't affect me personally,
i'm a bachelor, i don't have a daughter...
but... even on my level, since i'm so far away
from the issue... i start to get affected...
**** is the lowest of the low...
i once ****** a *******... all giggly and drunk
at first... but then... she started crying during *******...
a burn-out moment on her behalf...
i had to stop... o.k. you're selling yourself... willingly...
but... i'm not going to... whatever...
if she might have claimed p.t.s.d.
i could also claim the same...

*** is ugly... just before perching myself on the windowsill
once the night arrived...
i heard a voice in the darkness... thanking me...
at the end of my garden... i wasn't exactly listening:
i never listen... but these words of: thank you
sort of penetrated me...
where is the supposed "Ummah"
when it comes to the Uyghurs?!
the fond fellows of Arabia... would rather send
their suicide virgins to the western land
with prospect of conquest, with prospect of seeking
our proselytes... than...
keep their Ummah intact... do the Arabs really think
that their Chinese believers are...
worth so little to them?
           where are the attacks on China?!
eh... Pakistani uncle said grandma
then decided to **** some cousin...
  sorry... low... hanging... fruit...
   i need a drink...
                            
        i can understand racism... esp. given the attempt
at a multicultural society...
i rather think of myself as a non-racist...
****** a black girl, ****** a Thai girl...
****** an Indian girl...
but... this... white, female, anti-racism stance?
i don't get it... daddy issues?
they must be daddy issues... parental issues...
you have to purposively make yourself anti-racist...
affirmative action buzzwords...
you can never be: the highest pinnacle of negation:
not-racist... you have to be actively: anti-racist...
you can never be passively: non-racist...
you have to... do... "x, y & z"...

these words shouldn't even see the light of day...
so much *******...
all of it... crass...
as much as the Brazil-Project of interracial
new-Arab interbreeding sounds great...
newly tanned "Spaniards"... "Arabs"...
"Indians"... if you've ever visited Kenya...
i remember being approached by these three gorgeous
Kenyan girls working the pandering circuit...
black skin glistening in the moonlight...
as if someone rubbed them with butter...
plump... one of the local Kenyan boys asked whether
i'd like to visit a local bar... i declined...
i forgot myself... took to the hammock...
slept the whole night in the open...
some ****** stole my cognac while i was asleep...
me? we best interact...
but... interracial breeding sort of disrespects...
the seeming aeons of... what allowed black people
to be black... what allowed white people to be
white...
it's no good, like... black girls are not angry
when the white girls are giving up so much ***
to their male counterparts?

if i'm supposed to "think" about race... sure... i'll give
it a short shot... because i'm expected...
i have a furry river and.. by now:
i'm more res vanus than res cogitans...
i don't think i need to think on the basis of
narration... i'll just be reactionary...
not because it's easier... it just seems rather...
necessary...

anti-racist: tropes! they are just that... people try
so hard to not-be... X... that they almost forget that...
they are X... because they are compensating for
the environment they were brought up in...
daddy's sins... mother's opinions...
by now a racist is better suited for conversation
than an anti-racist... who the ****** bleached "us"?
it's like: i can't the difference between people...
like... Somalis don't look more ancient than the rest
of the Africans?! maybe i should find more Ethiopians...

i sometimes think of "existing" in a way that...
elevates the posit of: exiting...
sure... cogito, ergo... blah blah...
but that's not enough... to exist is also readying
yourself to exit... existing is a pseudo-continuum
of rented... time, body... in order to...
make the banal finalities of / for an exit...
Madison Brewer Apr 2013
Strange magnificent magnetism
nominates nomenclatures managing to nimbly
grasp their gamy mouse.
Nannies nibble, notoriously naive,
masking their matronly magics.
gabersons Jul 2020
I guess my name is Fentyn
And I'm here to **** you all
Head to toe in xannies I don't give a **** at all
I'm coming for your grannies all your underpaid nannies
But first I'll **** your life up bet on every nook and cranny
made a couple asian friends their eyes are always slanting
But now from where you're standing I can do a some more enchanting
Now your boys suckin **** and your girl is dropping *******
This could have been avoided with a tiny bit of planning
It's almost rock bottom now you're panting when you're ranting
You're just another grain or two from hearing angels chanting
If it's death you're really after I'm then pretty close to granting
Just be prepared for landing

Come and meet my friends
Come and meet my friends
The only ones I know who'll be around until the end
They're all I've ever known and the bond has only grown
Look for my obituary, 23, unknown

I'm a little alcohol
Here for good times
And when you sober up its gone
Then you'll know you're mine
When we hang I'm feeling fine
But when you leave I can't ignore the tingle in my spine
A little longer and it hits my face and fingers but I'm fine
Except now I'm seizing and alone but this isn't how I'm dying
No one to reach if I could reach my phone but man I'm trying
Try to change it all you want man our fates are  intertwining
Face it you'll be buried with a fifth of scotch and red wine
Then when you're feeling like the grapes hanging on the vine
Bleed out internally or be a *****
bring a nine to the pines

Come and meet my friends
Come and meet my friends
The only ones I know who'll be around until the end
They're all I've ever known and the bond has only grown
Look for my obituary, 23, unknown

I'm a little doctor, short and stout
Here are your pills, now get the **** out
When I get all steamed up hear me about
Jesus ******* **** me please I really just want out
Swallow the medicine smoke synonyms get the venom in
Bring your inner felon in, it's not a matter of melanin
It's a matter of dosing before you blow your melon in
Wake up with regret take half and try to sell them then
Use the rest on dope and rent and pay them off in 5s and 10s
Visions so blurry think you're paying out in yen
Get some sleep, I'll be here, we can do it all again

Ahem
I can talk about it because it's okay we're all friends here right?
Love you guys til the end
Dead friends and bad habits
Liz Feb 2013
Stalks of bronze leaves croon and
the manicured trees burst jade
against the sky, dangling over
tilted dark green benches.
I pretend to read,
trailing over the pages the oily noses of
dark-eyed, wide hipped nannies
willowy limbed women whose
scarves unfurl under artless chignons,
business men with careful mouths,
long, frecking strides.

He broke the fourth wall without warning and
my laugh was sporadic while I crumbled,
under the slightest of foreign touches, there,
above my shoulder blades,
where another hand
once brushed.
sailboats at anchor
rocking slowly to and thro
small dogs barking high
frisking down the seawall
passing nannies and strollers
till i chase them back again
ringing my bicycle's bell
swooping around the corner
laughing in the wind
Choka
Belle Dec 2017
Mom
May 27, 1998.
It was a Thursday at 7:50 p.m.
I was one of two.
"Name her Isabella, because she came out screaming. She's loud, like her grandmother."
My sister was 10 minutes later, quiet and feeble.
Her name, Andreana.
After my father Andrew, who wasn't there. He died two months earlier.
My mom, obviously she was there. But not really.
Atleast she wasn't around.
We had Jamie, and Erika, and Ausra, and Deb.
Me and my sister had eachother, and my brother, when he felt like it. When your dads dead and your mom works full time--because that's the only way to make a living.
You're really, well you're an orphan.
I remember when my mom went on business trips,
I'd bang my head on the wall because I was so miserable,
I'd cry myself sick.
I would sleep next to my sister and we'd look at the stars, I remember we used to stay up late and wait for her to get home. She'd hold me and whisper "soon."
As I felt the tears from her eyes gather in my hair, and rub against my skin.
My mom would bring us home gifts, as if gifts could mend our broken hearts. As if gifts replaced the love and attention we weren't getting.
I got to first grade and I stole from my teacher, I hung out with the "bad girl" in class and we used to bully this boy. My mom wondered why I had anger management issues and why I would lie.
She threw me into therapy, because she couldn't solve these problems on her own.
Except when I went to therapy all I wanted to do was play with the games. I just wanted someone to play with me.
I just wanted someone to care.
My nannies cared.
But they weren't my mom.
And eventually they left.
When they left, then we had Maria.
Maria pushed me into the wall when I was having tantrums and grabbed my face, told me to "stop misbehaving!"
I hated Maria.
My mom cared. She cared a lot. Maybe that was the problem.
She got so caught up in caring and making sure we were cared for that she forgot how to love.
When all the other kids parents came to the Halloween parade, I never saw my mom. My sister and I would sit together, while everyone else would sit with there mommies and daddies. But hey atleast we had eachother.
Right?
My mom wasn't able to make it to Shoreline or state championship track meets, or award nights because she had to work. She wasn't there when I became captain of the track team.
My best friends mom gave me a hug, i closed my eyes and pretended it was mine.
She cared, but she was never there.
I still looked for her face in the crowd every time I stood at that starting line.
Most times when I didn't see it, I wanted to cry, but the few times I did, I wanted to cry even harder.
july hearne May 2017
it was almost two months ago
my new job was going terribly

i had two managers
one was either a compulsive liar or losing her memory
to dementia or early alzheimers
the other one was a typical single, white, overweight woman
who enjoyed flying into fits of rage and preaching about white privilege
when she wasn’t giving angry lectures about how howard schulz’s wife
had nannies to help her raise her children

she didn’t like me
so i just quit, with no notice other than an email
saying i was resigning effective the time stamp of that email

two weeks before i quit, i had the saddest dream
about some guy i had a mental breakdown over ten years ago
i haven’t talked to him since some sad
emails in 2010, he never responded to my last email
i’de been looking him up online lately but retrieving no matches
because his name is so common and it’s been so long

in my dream he texted me or emailed me
magically, he had gotten my phone number
or one of the email addresses i use now
he wrote that he would be in my town
and asked if we could meet

i was really looking forward to it in the dream
i was getting ready, hair, make-up, clothes
i realized my dress had a ketchup stain on it
towards the end of that part of the dream

i don’t think my hair or makeup or face or body looked good
i looked like i look
ten years older and haven’t kept up or maintained anything
not that i looked good ten years ago, but i look a lot worse now
i sort of realized that when i saw the ketchup stain

then it occured to me that he never responded when
i either emailed or texted him back:
“yes, yes, let’s meet again”
there i was, excited, getting ready,
vacuuming a car I haven’t driven in years
i just wanted everything i wanted back

i thought we were going to meet that weekend
but then he emailed me saying
no, he wouldn’t be in town until the 22nd

march 22nd was on a wednesday this year
so i would have just been working late
and getting a bad review for anything i did

i quit my job on tuesday, march 21st, after a hard day of doing nothing
since then, i’ve drank a lot of wine, gotten ******, and smoked cigarettes.

i also found his mom’s facebook page
and his.

his is set to mostly private, but his mom had posted
some recent pictures of him and his girlfriend

he looked weak and unhappy in the eyes.
The bitter pills and the ruins of cotton mills where dreams where played out on looms and woven in the semi gloom of a half lit room by children so old,who were told to do as was told or don't do at all.

Some escaped to the drudgery of the great hall where Lord Diddlywhat would squat and pass praises like water to some lacklustre daughter of a man in the town,
half a crown a month and eighteen hours a day,threepence in the offertory on a Sunday to pray for deliverance.
Though none would come for the sun didn't shine on me and mine,only on them,
lardy arsed gentlemen,willowy ladies with squawking fat babies and nannies,grannies in every nook and cranny who fed on the fat of the land,
took the bread from our hands
took the love out of life and the life of our loves,
iron fists in silken gloves.

Now finished,
the thoughts of those times diminish with age but the rage still holds true against the blue stockinged brigade
who would raid on us,put the shade on us,despise and degrade us,use and then beat us,contused and confused we would still go and labour,
wrap ourselves in the looms and in half lit bits of the day,we thought it was the only way,
'til the war came
changed the rules of the game
it was never the same after that little spat
and we spat at the gentry
who stayed behind to do sentry duty as their duty demanded.
We branded them
the landed men
wouldn't work for them no more.
Let them go hang and sing for their supper
we'll scupper them yet,
but I forget
the fat don't get wet
they float.
I'm ancient but not ancient enough to remember these times first hand.
Sonufrad Feb 2012
Between the crooks and nannies
In a booth with seven *******
There's no way they could stand me                                                                              se cre t swi mm ing
pools
Heathen if they're understanding                                                                   a bed wetting fool
Could that mean they understand me                                                                            I'm sure I'd Right that too
I hear a lot about our standings                                                     If I had nothing Left to say
but what I think will be standing                                                          
is the dust particles of landings
and the Sun light filling crackings                                                                                            away  
I'm too good for the attackings                                                    
I understand my lackings                                                                        and     then we float
Got a tenacious grasp for love love love love love  Stacking bodies to the flood





Limb to a tree
     Flower to a bee
          You to a meeeeee
and eye to eye
     I have left myself dry on and Island watching the 4th of July
                 Why oh why Did I ever lead that guy into a terrible lie

Mask to a Foe
         Mask of a Friend
                 Do you ask to wear it well or can I see you again
alavandala Feb 2016
in suburbia there are no dogs
only knuckle sandwiches and unclean litter-boxes
the mailman comes every day at two
only to keep on going
once there was lemonade stands and yard sales
now piling junk and rotting fruit
we stack all the flat bicycle tires up and climb to the sun
only to fall back down again
sometimes we can smell the stench from the landfill 4 hours from here
or two minutes - depending on how you get there
everyone has a car
nobody has a jack-o-lantern
anymore
the grass is starting to get tired of eternity
"i never signed up for this" they say
the windowsills are planes of dirt
<4, 2>
ladybug carcass heading to rotterdam
i think the sun burned all the stars away
the snow that used to fall now sinks into the ground
listen close to hear the drab hum of the political gurus speaking in tongues
exponential growth, i think
from nowhere to somewhere to nowhere in ten seconds flat
paperboys, sandbuckets, travelling salesman
telescopes, watering cans, wagon wheels
nannies, idle time, hide and seek

now everyone's got something important to say
but not to the gods
only to heaven

maybe there are dogs in suburbia
but that's all there is
anymore
Between two caves
deep underground
lies a place they call
the whispering sound.

Once
a place of castles
Kings and Queens,
a place of silence in
your dreams,
a place where Arthur has the throne,
where Robin Hood is known and
speaks of John and Will and
Friar Tuck,
where
Puck ***** on the nannies ***.
(the last bit an irrelevance)
but needs must speak
of past and all events.

They were seen,
the courtiers passing vessels to
the Queen,and she who
plots against the King was seen by
Fairies in the fairy ring.

Spells were cast
a ruling passed
and
death flew in on scarlet wings.

In the whispering sound
deep underground
silence sits alone,
no king no throne,
the whispers whisper
all alone.
Joy Munde Aug 2017
Take my hand,
Join me in this trek,
Down memory lane,
To relive it all,
And see it a fresh!

Stories told,
May never be worth,
But once upon a time,
We lived the stories,
We were the main acts,
So buckle up!

Wailing children,
Screaming mothers,
Absent fathers,
Mean nannies,
That was my world,
A bit of my life!

Rob or take,
Was the society...
Shots fired,
The police are here,
Let's just watch from the sidelines.

An eye for an eye,
Or just a tooth for a tooth,
With clenched fists,
And clubs in our hands,
How we dealt with issues!

To have fun...
Just kiss the bottle,
Smoke the puff,
Chew the khat,
Make out as you wish!

The paths I took,
The life I lived,
All not worth a rematch,
For in them mistakes were done,
And in regrets we live on!

So this day I choose,
The paths I take,
The games I play,
The people I meet,
For I'm older and wiser!

©Joy
CJ Sutherland Mar 2018
Raised by my father
I was knee high to a grasshopper
My brothers and sister and I had
Many Nannies and Babysitters

When I turned sixteen
I applied for my drivers permit
The paperwork returned
Wrong date of birth

It had to be a mistake
Crazy right  everyone knows
their own birthdate

I Requested my birth certificate
Come to find out
My birthday is 13 days later
I felt lost in the shuffle

Forgotten hurt
Of course leave it to
One brother to call every year
On my fake birthday
Laughing
happy fake birthday


the irony I was my father’s favorite
Charmin Carmen
Well at least he calls right in a day when families drift apart
Paul Butters May 2020
Inspiration to the nation
That’s what I’m all about.
Inspiration to the world,
That without a doubt.

I’m a Meerkat teaching the kids to forage
Something much juicier than porridge,
But I show everyone how to dream
Of better pastures
Full of honey and whipped cream.

Meerkats may have lookouts, nannies and fighters
But they are smart little blighters
Capable of vision
In spite of facing derision.

Imagination is the key
To shaking off our shackles
(Whatever they may be)
And running free.

Paul Butters

© PB 4\5\2020.
First a sleep, then a bath, to come up with this one.
Yenson Sep 2018
The ******* of plenty has time for romancing absurdities
Mother Parliament hugs and soothes and nannies don't rest
Mummy P has the wet rag and the dettol for glazed brusies
Off you run eternal kids to life playgrounds for there's no test

Look Free milk for you drink and grow like giraffes in zoos
Jason that's not your father he's just a man I met at the pub
Your dad's not working but he gets a free weekly cheque too
School is free but you really don't have to go just sit in a hub

Do whatever you like and listen to nobody cause you're free
Coppers are pounces so give them no respect pay them no mind
Shaun and Alan mugged a Pensioner now on a spending spree
No worries mate they'll just rob again to pay the Court's fine

Can't read and write properly so what's the effing bother man
You'll still get your check mate..haha after-all it's not your fault
Did you beg them you want to learn when it's better to get a tan
My mate's father JC can teach us how to pick and unlock a vault

There's chinese and Kebab, Pizza, Pies, Fried Chicken and Chips
Can never go hungry Parliament provides everything you need
Rent paid an Free Medical care when you fight and bust your lips
I reckon they should pay us when we poke ***** Joan and Coleed

We're bored, Nannies is too busy running around to play with us
Lets go rob some more and vandalize and get rat arsed and ******
We can commit crimes and give those Coppers some work to suss
Or look for a lone small Asian man and batter him with our fists

Poor Mother Parliament work day and night and blames herself
If only there's enough money all these bad attitudes will go away
My kidadults will be good model citizens with prizes on shelves
And immigrants can run the ****** country while I ******* !!
When too much is too little
Indulgent,  arrogance,  entitlement,   demotivation, madness,  spoilt kidsadults.
Juliana Apr 2021
Freeze Yellow Iguanas
Bees Tease Warts
Ears Tarnish Antarctica
Orange Monkeys Groove
Alpacas Knit Ascots
Nannies Babysit Anteaters
Teachers Tolerate Yaks’ Lazyness
Armadillos Merge Armys
Music Includes Axolotls
Newts Free Lizards
Not All Sloths Annihilate
Insects Dance Knowingly
Dainty Arms Require Elephants
Bathe Rabbits Biweekly
Dorky Iridescent Yellowfish
Tamborine Bearing Anglerfish
Unicorns Float Occasionally
Flinching Antelope Quake
Warthogs Torture Hamsters
JB Jul 2019
It is ****** like the hot breath of a dangerous man, he knows you and wants to do you harm. His sunglasses betray a bravado, but the smell of a last-minute cigarette lingers in your nostrils and you realize like the gazelle just as the lioness pounces. You make a choice to move and you turn to kick him in his soft stomach to propel you forward through the wall and the next room, stunned faces gawking a your newfound god powers. You meld through the cinderblock and reinforced concrete like hot caramel easing itself with absolute purpose into the crooks and nannies to settle and harden. Hot pulses through your veins and breaks you down, disintegrating and de-construct you in an unavoidable all consuming pain as you fall through the layers of metal and concrete, atomically and fully indistinguishable from molecule to molecule before again that violent re-structuring, and again and again until you reach me as I reach you in the very same way. We collide with such violence, the pieces of us fly off in molten hot chunks that destroy everything around us as our molecules and atoms again arrange together until we are finally indistinguishable.
My definition of absolute love and desire
They'll tell you that you don't have a clue,
but you know what they're doing and what
they're doing to you,
who do they think that they are?

Posh toffs or ***** twots?
dripfed by nannies,
seldom leaving their cots,
getting dressed by their butlers
who then butter their toast,
coasting through life as if they're
the most in this life that anyone could be,

but they're not fooling me,
don't let them fool you into
thinking it's you that doesn't
have a clue

Or it'll be
Eton or Harrow
never
Toxteth or Jarrow
that gets the icing on
the cake.
Yenson Aug 2019
Baser thoughts, baser scripts from baser life for baser deeds
live and do by numbers as regimented primal fodders
programmed legions marching in primed unison
hence the ideology of data generally applicable
un-programmed a crime meriting expulsion
demand is one track minds for one track
do as we say not do you think is right
say as we tell you not say yours
see what's shown no discerning
we are your Nannies, hear us
yours is not to wonder why
yours is to do just as told
so living ghosts march
vacuously purposeful
in all colors and shades
bland empty entities
to their masters' voices
to the command of...
smoke-screens
and mirrors
The black raid Escalade see me block the shade
Haters love to fade mad cuz i made scope out the preyed
On the strong Christen bongs write dope songs wrongs
Flexed over right my sight ignite my mental to new heights
Scary Mary listening to her windy cries across the skies
All lies footsteps dressed in blue and red still fed
The same lies through the same eyes I be the wise
Got a tip from Solomons goetias got no patience
No more built for war multiple scars tears of the poor
Still flooding the earth but humidity keep the rich gritty
Sillys laid up in the sunshine finna be grind turned slime
Snakes hiding the grass that's why I keep a low stash
180 on the dash as I mind mash away from problems
Paradigm new age dimes chipping to nickle signs
Masked just to make a daily bask expose the wrath
Thanos attitude spoiled like 8 month seafood
Fouls smells sniff out the tattle tails holy grail
Hung on since I gotta grip reality still on a slip
Into darkness mark this visions of a steel carcass
Silver surfer dodged the meat merger splurger
Only on the mint greens govs nannies babies
Industry Hades hard to beat the if ands or maybes


Complex like Doom got ya ears consumed bloomed
By the thought that' was brought by ya paying attention
Wicked ambition done by sinful living still giving
Wishful thinking no blinking see ya souls sink in drinking
Holy wine enlighten my thirty three spines close divine
Threw aways the pines summersault fines
Thrown but I skipped over the skulls and bones clones
By drones tryna pick my every move time wise grooves
Grandfathered clocks twirling portals hurdles
Back up in the black age uncaged filled with rage
Swords knives grenade still leaning of Nats guage
Blast from the past tilt the flask chemical rash
Eating up the coils of rotten humanity sanity
Rationals to abnormality fantasy painted vividly
Across the TVs getting a dose of the over most
Can't think with a clogged mind supreme broken lines
Judged by the afterlife faceless entities hidden energies
Just an unlocked mystery black as an abyss be rollin' 5D
Placed back up in the sunshine where my pineals glands be
ConnectHook Nov 2020
Muzzling the masses, sowing fear,
Inspiring every viral breath,
Democrat dairy-farms grow rich
Milking that Covid cow to death.

Self-contradicting messages;
Milkmaids panic, udders shrivel . . .
The coronation. Then, the reign:
Media hypes the fearful drivel.

Bigging up that Chinese chest-cold,
Karens cluck while nannies scold us;
Golden goose for global tyrants—
Chinese take-out. (What they told us.)

Pestilential testing frenzies;
Killing the patient with the cure.
Social distances grow further.
There is no god. That much is sure.
Looking out over hazy London rooftops
that remind me of flying nannies
with bright lipstick and stern shoes
giving solace in the land where
my amicable ancestors stalk
abroad, yet, you . . .

Those relentless church bells
chiming interruptions
into our little red phone booth
conversation, a separation,
a sign for me to stop talking
as loud as they were
I didn’t know how to listen then

For five years our locket necklace
would be left undone
an antique globe in faded taupe and turquoise
spin it to the right
another part of the world, a ten hour flight
but half a decades time, then double dimes

Another rooftop view
a sage colored loft with angled ceilings
and ocean-scented air
California the land of the fair
with honey-covered hills of hay out window squares
and you and me there
our hair mixed together on the pillow

— The End —