The Miner, Absolom
(a haibun)


green hill where sheep graze
white bones and coal, buried, held
seasons all the same
  
My grandfather worked in the mines from age thirteen to seventy. His life was closed in by mountains, the green one at the back, the dark looming one at the front and the pit head along the valley., winding the men in and out of the shaft, day after day, dawn until dusk when they came home singing  

boots ring on the road
deep valley voices echo
backyard starlit smoke

.
They worked on their bellies or crouched, often in water for days, water that undermines rock. Shaft collapses where frequent. Life was cheap. He came home covered in coal dust to his wife and two sons, sons he was determined to keep out of the mines. Yet he loved that coal - coal that he always polished with care before lighting a fire, brushing dust off black diamond surfaces.

water breaks through rock
with wood and straining shoulders
man becomes the beam

He saved twenty lives that day, men he had known from boyhood. When his lungs were affected they laid him off, no pay, no pension, no life. He bought an insurance book with the money he had and every day he trudged over the mountains and valleys gathering pennies that would help to secure some livelihood to the widows who lost their men in the mines. He never told his wife that when a family couldn't pay he put the pennies in for them rather than leave them unprotected.

winter, summer, fall
the mountain hangs over all
tired to the backbone

When the mines were nationalised my grandfather went straight back to the coal face despite his age. He wasn't going to miss those days of glory. Safety was suddenly the watchword and changes were made very fast. Hot showers were installed at the pit head and the miners came home clean at last.

men stripped to the skin
hot water, steam, baptised
brothers singing hymns

‘Once fire is the form of the spectacle the problem
becomes how to set fire to fire.’
—Joshua Clover, ‘My Life in the New Millennium’

i’m back
back with a thunderclap.
no wait, scratch that.
back with a thunderous tone from the seldom seen soul
groaning lonely long sung melodies, if it please.
welcome to a kingdom of dreams
and agony.
a stone’s throw from here:
a face
Unseen.
and somewhere between(:) low
oceans rolling under the moon,
a storm approaching,
crazed wind whirling,
my sails unfurl, searching for the open seas of your gaze;
sick of being furtive;
i live and i yearn and i speak what i learn
and i know when i haven’t earned it,
too often too stern and i know you don’t deserve it,
i know everyone i know and too many more deserve so much more
and for them to have this i live and i yearn!
Justice!
for this i live and i yearn
on the turning earth that gives
no rest to the world weary
left alone
to burn out, i burn out, i burn out
i rise from the ashes
a phoenix grasping wheat and hammer in its talons,
seeking to pass out gifts and set fire
to fire itself, to sing Clover in the streets,
to render the helpless
helpless no longer.
i am (not) unbroken
like infinite waves.
friends fan the flames of my brazen heart
ablaze at three minutes to the midnight of my flagrant soul.
a toll on your life,
a tax on your poverty.
shouting: no more!
shouting: we will not settle for less than we are owed!
shouting: down with the dictatorship of the plutocrat!
shouting: down with the rich Man’s socialism!
shouting: …
in a fantasy, odiously
no more, doubt ridden,
not yet traversed nor even intraversed,
not yet reified, not quite versed;
apartheids’ unovercoming, voices atrophied,
walls rising higher, reception terse
and curse those bless’ed curses
transdescending themselves
in blessings through me!
they haven’t yet found me at my worst
so things couldn’t get worse if i hurt them.

my intentions a mess,
my effect bereft.

wake me from my slumber, let be the aching of my chest;
let the heaviness of my heart be the weight of solidarity;
let be! the political is personal to some, life and death to some:
that’s why i’m so glum, chum,
they’re killing quicker than i finish another straight ***…
****.
and on our own soil too – see, it’s partly not for oil;
blind to land grabs and assets stolen, our toil exploited – that’s what’s up.
can’t handle serfdom? physical, mental, or spiritual health problem?
abject subsistence and misread decisions not assuaged by some other ***?
unconditional basic income?—say what?
choose starvation, hypothermia, suicide, fear—
it’s a numbers game
and every loss is a ******,
it’s ****** up.
state cuts ****, zombie banks ****, transnationals ****, TTIP will ****,
our heroes are experienced
as torturous humiliators and mass murderers in other countries,
it’s ****** up.
and reactions to shock and awe, pollution, imperialism and stolen raw materials be the chorus.
and i hope the NSA and other such state ***** hear clearly what i have to say.
and always from the pools of blood,
money trickles up.
structurally omni-parasitic,
-cataclysmic, -containing
an unlucky lucky one formula;
“profits today, **** tomorrow!”;
a system of mass extinction and violence;
cultures of hate;
distain for compassion;
secret social cleansings;
privatised gain, nationalised pain;
a plaguing absence of understanding;
sanction fetishes;
rational genocides;
wages; ***; television; grumpy cat; death drive;
armies of invisible slaves and pillaged unpeoples,
and sordid crowds of visible ones in denial or denied;
and an honest and patronising pastiche poet!
to not even begin.

but a promise shall be a promise.

weeping won’t get it done.
i shall muster my forces even before four horsemen,
the long attricious charge toward a universal freedom from fear
and hierarchy shattered
under banners of equality axiomatic sworn.
my wingbeat shall be adorned with thunderous applause,
it shall disclose smokescreens and it shall cleanse you of opiates
and not just those you have in mind.
watch me soar, join these skies;
rise above the immoral laws and their warped economic concord;
be aware of where the wealth is hoarded;
don’t concern yourself with lies,
concern yourself with liars and who they’re lying for.
be wary where your desire’s from.
there’s still longer than a long way to go
but your sense of urgency is needed now.
the shadows of the Bomb and of ecological catastrophe now grow longer
than the shadow of death
in any old sad song in history
in scarcity, surrendering abundant potential for post-scarcity
to strings of the superego, demons, conductors, controllers
and orchestrated outrage!
and i know we have more to lose than our chains.
but the view from the night of Terror is of the far off tranquil stars
and the moon never brighter!
bind, unbind, entwine.
i will not leave behind only wasted time.
find yourself, find the source, give out your hand
to dance, to share, suffer, fall—
find the hand of another, there find recourse—
and consider the Call, and consider the Course.

i hardly think workers matter by now, given the overt desire for self-employment... not so much a party of workers, but a party of investors... and did you know that when, self-employed, companies transcend working rights, by not explaining the reasons behind cutting wages? by comparison **** germany seems like Eden; oops.

please, tell me, how the ****, did i mention
to live with my parents, drank
a litre of whiskey every night for the past year,
treat poland as a quasi-rehab....
  and still continue writing?
      **** me, then it dawned on me...
i can't be such a bad person, after all!
             rehab was:
        sleeping in the same bed my great
grandfather died in, overlooking
a cemetery...
                    the greatest irony is death...
i only mentioned i was a "****",
simply because, if i were alive in poland
in the current political climate,
i'd probably be in those freedom marches
attracting 60+ thousand flag weaving patriots...
shame that it's called
patriotism in north america
and nationalism in europe,
immigrantion in england,
expatriation in england...
                       due to the elsewhere...
flares, hello?! flares! not tiki torches...
i really feel though, that it's nice to have
an outlet of nationalism outside the football
stadium...
               but i did manage to attach
a counter to the term ****...
     *nationalkapitalistisch -
or what i'd like to call the: kamikaze.
         america is a national capitalistic
society...
      beside the fact that it's labelled
MADE IN CHINA...
                        cut the ******* Matt
give them the acronym feeding...
      nakies!
                            you're dealing
with N'AH-KEYS!
                                   nakies!
two fat ladies naked, cooking up a storm...
  not yankees, n'ah-kees...
               however you spell it...
        that's nákee without the H...
        what did you expect?
  i'm laughing!
                   point being...
or the joke being:
             there's actually no party to identify
this movement with...
the love of democracy begins with
the love: passing on, rather than identifying
with the blame...
  so we'll never know...
democracy was conjured up by
cowards...
                       democracy is nothing
short of Chinese whispers...
               at least in an autocracy you
don't have to listen to ditto-heads,
given the one, and only, gottkopf...
                          1 gottkopf is worth more than
100 ditto-heads...
  which end up turning into a Hydra of
1000 heads...
           we only go to school to learn
structure... but then some people
ask us to rebel and brake from norms...
notably in the realm of language...
and so we do, and cannot find the adhesive
to be "reunited" with society...
       i don't why people didn't pick up
the remains of nationalised socialism and
merged to the answer that is, what remains
of socialism, in that what remains
  is the lost nation, but the existing economic
model of capitalism,
ergo? nationalkapitalistisch...
   national capitalism...
                    but heavy the head
that dons the crown,
   given this nationalistic capitalism is so
heavily reliant on Chinese socialism.
DESIGNED IN CALIFORNIA
means jack ****, when the end credits
read: MADE IN CHINA.
           the same sort of **** that's
equivalent of social media...
which is only accounted for by content
creation...
     the repeated "revision" of what is a blank
slate,
    that is merely a context canvas...
how original... to be celebrated
for creating a blank piece of pixel "paper".

Despite or because of the wreckage strewn through last night, the tower of darkness slips into what light shall become,

The Sun has not yet arrived, it's probably been nationalised.

The Fun Run.

and that's not a bad idea, we should all be nationalised and then we can run when we want to like British Rail used to do.

Anyway which is usually the way
it's Sunday.

i'm constantly bemused, and rarely, amused, when reading heidegger... that's what i like about this genre above all other genres... sure, poetry is freeing, from the claustrophobic and sometimes overly "pedantic" plots, that borrow from some other stories and merely replica the originals... at least within the confines of poetry there's always an element of spontaneity, and there is no need to over-stretch something with periods of mundane mini-sub-plot drama... poetry is was crude oil is to refined petrol of a narrative... it's the raw material... philosophy on the other hand? well... it gives you the reaction materials, or rather: if philosophy is a reflective realm of narrative, a poet can read philosophy, and provide the reflexive narrative... with a snap of the fingers, he or she is already geared up, ready to spew a counter-narrative...
                       and that's the only truth you will ever, truly hear, from a heart that would rather cry at beauty of a byzantine chant, and give tears of joy to the beauty, as alms, rather than invoke the wrath of god, and give into using words while *******, as also praying... i can't remember whether i contaminated *** with words, i ****** like an animal... silently... sometimes i even refrained from expressing an "onomatopoeia" of gratification of broken syllables upon ******, i would sometimes eat it with silence... you allow words into ***? hail the formidable temple of satan... why require god (the word) in such acts, to later use the same medium to pray to god? why even bother praying? vain are the words of prayer, these mantras... god? is it really such an infantile / delusional hope? what was the prime motivation to continue life over the centuries... was it... a darwinism realization?

      a scientific fact moved people along? saturate people with enough science, show them their capabilities while hiding or mocking their flaws... and what sort of future is settled? no one needs to be right about everything in some i.q. caluclation to find a motivation, a will to live, to continue, or preserve... however snarky the new atheists or skeptics are... i say... well... god is over-imagined for personal gratification... i never came into this world: expecting what is before me, and past me... why should i expect whatever is behind the 9 month curtain in the confines of Our Mother's womb, Death's ***** (ah! at last, a non-gender neutral noun in the english language! death, in english, is, feminine! it's something welcoming, even if we depart unwanted, we arrive at... the point of being universally welcome, for all that live, die... as i once spoken with my grandfather on the balcony overlooking a graveyard: there... there is your democracy! there is you egaliterianism! no one is more equal, than they are equal, with a cross as shadow, lying in the hearth - we rise, we don't rise, it doesn't matter, if no great thing was ever accomplished by us, at least petty squabbles with neighbours do not bother us, anymore).

that's why i never understood why darwinism has dazzled so many people for so long, mind you, only in the anglophonic world... if you look elsewhere... darwinism is not a championed idea, as true as it might be, it's not elevated to an unshakeable dogmatism, differences are settled... but this anglophone "history" (current year) to no history jumping, between man and ape... and then even further to a big "bang" (can you, hear anything, in a vacuum? so why is it a big "bang"?!)
                                        it's a bit of a frenzy, jumping across so many histories... picking and chosing, cherry picking the best bits of the bible, or the quran, the same is with history, in these western lands, cherry picking... history is also subject to the same scrutiny at any of the holy books... again... heidegger... i am bewildered when reading him, circa 1938... when he writes about "the" Germans... by the looks of things, these "Germans", are not the Germans of heidegger's time... when i read about the aspirations of one philosopher, and put that against the current times... who were these people, who gave birth to the 21st century upon defeat in 1945? was it it also the ****** crisis smothering western berlin by allied forces right into the 1970s and early 1980s, children on ******?
                             wir, kinder von bahnhof ZOO -

                  who were these mythical Germans that heidegger is citing? of course, the pacified vierte ***** experiment, its ****** name for a currency, its even ******* currency aesthetic, of course there was going to be a pushback... after all, germanic peoples, goths, moved all the way past the Iberian peninsula and died off in northern africa... but... again... attention-seeking ***** that's England had to stage a politico-media frenzy, milking, milking, milking into their 3rd year running, after a while though... lethargy kicked in... but... there are still countries with their own currency... attention-seeking ***** still has her Lizzie on the FIAT... so... again... who are these mythical Germans of the early 20th century? these... standard bearers... they are to me as mythical as ancient Greeks or Romans... ashes in the sand... not by current standards would i place such hopes on their shoulders... such hopes would soon become too burdersome and they would not withstand the burden...
                   which is kinda of ironic... there was a prophesy... about the revival of the roman empire... it's not like i'm exactly religious... but it is being fulfilled... how the revival of the roman empire would ultimately fail... book of revelation... and, lo and behold! but you always hope... that people would not succumb to prophesy, by fulfilling it, rather, averting it... one thing is for sure though...
               das zweite heilig römisch *****...
has reemerged...
                         although... it's still not properly unearthed...
and... it shifted a little bit to the left... east...
        of **** me... its catholic claustrophobia **** show
over there... the way children are indoctrinated
in jesuit schools in the "alchemy" of catechesis?
           i would rather listen to a ******* adhan,
and that's as much honesty as you'll ever get...
                      i like visiting my grandparents...
                                   but...
          i much prefer the shitshow of England...
     i like grit... i like the grime...
                                                   the local *******...
i like the Irish, teasing me: oh but there are so many
neo-Nazis in Poland these days...
                  and then i wait for the same
       ******* mushrooms to pop up, in England!
oh they're always certain, the IRA...
                    see... it's a beautiful dream!
                       eh... less a united kingdom,
more... the anarchic kingdom...
                 since everyone is so so eager to grab
and pull... to burn the magic carpet from
under the ***** of Windsor...
                               still, heidegger, and those mythical
Germans! who were these people?!
i can't see them, not even one generation
later, hell, forget about two generations later,
who were these people?!
                     it's only been less than 100 years...
and i'm thinking about them like they're
       contemporaries of Pericles, for ****'s sake!

and now for the original draft:

.famous, those sardine-like-crammed trams of Cracow... you almost get the ultra-tourist experience of the trains heading to Auschwitz... mind you, poles are the most audacious commuters, making the packed trains of the London tube look like feng shui art-spaces... god almighty, even the english tourists screamed: thank god for the London transport service! i really was reliving being shipped off to a concentration camp... i tried to fiddle my hand into my trouser pocket to check the time on my phone... nope... started sweating like a porky on an enlarged hamster-wheel when in fact standing still... i'd call it a claustrophobic dying of a heart-attack type of commute from the airport into the centre of town.

there's nothing more abhorrent
than irish catholicism,
wait, there is: polish catholicism;
just overtly riddled by
freud's madonna-***** complex
in women...
   no wonder it's so hard to get
a hard-on around these women...
              and why ukranian /
bulgarian prostitutes give it to you
straight away...
                 nationalised catholicism
is just about as ugly as
individualised protestantism,
  notably in england...
      both are twice as bad at attempting
to be good.

- for a tomorrow of any "me":
i'm not a moral actor...
if i had the gratifying morality
that allows itself to clone...
yes... i would be a moral actor...
and beside moral acting
and sycophancy...
grand-standing before the mirror
details of whatever focuses itself
in a mirror and acts...
like ice but never the water...

but i can't be a moral actor...
if i'm already a mortal act...
for man to deviate into morality...
as some escape from
mortality... "it's only a 'missing' T"...
we can't escape mortality...
yet there are people who usurp
the reality of fatalism: mortality...
with a "reality" of moralism:
nihilism... the "reality" of a loss...
who would be the "wiser"...
the man who says:
do what you can in gravity of your days,
or...

what retains patterns of vogue...
ask the puritans!
what is moral one year...
is immoral the next...
and then they clash over escaping
the chains of taboo!
but for the "moral agent"...
there's only the "taboo" of mortality...

to have to die a moral man...
an antithesis of a nihilist...
to "escape" nihilism?
perhaps nietzsche wasn't pushed far enough...
i can't find an escape from fatalism...
not because i can't...
but because i don't "want" to...
otherwise: i only want what i can will...
and what i don't want...
is what lies beyond my capacity to will...
it's not a will toward "powerlessness"...
it's a will-within-itself...

but a moral man panics... when staging
an "argument" against the mortal man...
i'm not an moral man...
in that i am a mortal man...
a nihlism without death...
is... like... fatalism....
with enough cherry trees to take your
pickings to simulate a state
of solipsism... i.e.: you don't get in my way:
i don't get in your way.

Brit Milah Conversion Kits


President Macron has advised

  French Jews to use cubicles

   when urinating, he has also

opened a ******* donor bank

fully funded by the state health

system. Refugees will be given

10,000 Euro’s and citizenship

  for every transplant transfer.

Suella Braverman is offering

free transport to boat people

wishing to avail of this great

opportunity to be nationalised

providing they stay in France.