Shut, open once more
Mortal eyes to welcome the light:
The modest ushering in of photons
who tiptoe towards the photoreceptors
dancing, gingerly between their fingertips
whispering their electrochemical messages—
tens of millions of data-bits—
bundled and strung up in between synapses
Sent to a distant place in the back of my head
Segregated, sorted
rearranged until the details emerge.

You look at me,
that is all it takes, and temptation tumbles towards me

Electrochemical codes stretch themselves thin
taught and winding
cooing and fluttering in axonal cornices
Echoes rush through neuronal chambers,
charged and pulsating.

My mind in harmony and fully drawn to you
synchronized by the network.
The messages reach my cortex, aesthetic appraisal follows
I know not the meticulous, miraculous mechanics of such a wonderful process but
You beauty is magnified now.
Touch receptors tell my whole body to tingle
Sensory splendor is so scary.

The cascades have commissioned the deeper circuitry:
Those ancient blueprints of visceral demands
from which wicked temptations of man are born,
the veteran fossil of primordial impulse, a buried luxury, a relic:
My reward system
permeated by your kiss.

I am dangerously, fearfully humble to the power of pleasure
It is awake in the under-structure of neurobiologically institutionalized euphoria,
ablaze in the basic backbone of bliss
It is stirring in it’s ancient wires.

I can say I am somewhat privy to the elusive nature of experience.
being a human being alone grants me this
being a scientist of the brain only dilates my sense of love’s incomprehensibility.
And so I sink into your touch, your presence unresisting.

The soul
Is seen beneath a face of glass
With eyes looking up
As
Beads of water from clouded skies
Dispersed across the pane.

title: at <H. 20>
body:
troop movement
w.
ammo shortage:
abandon
   <H. 20> position.   502 bad gateway bypasses have become more fun than looking for google-whacks

i once tried to be this dad-rock sort of guy:
a massive fan of the stuff from the 1960s and the 1970s...
but... the more i explore the 1980s...
i'm finding out that... in all honesty?
sure... the 1990s grunge scene etc.:
not to mention TOOL... Fugazi... etc.
   but... hmm... well... there's a war on...
no one knows how far its going to go: or how
it might escalate...
          i'm not going to take sides: or write with
moral overtones regarding what is good
and what is bad...
i've heard the argument that moral judgements
are not right: to mediate this conflict as
a third party... or just as a person...
moral grandstanding: Ukrainian flags on profiles...
pouring Russian ***** into the drain...
just drink whiskey...
                          this stems from the Pariah Principle...
i'm just guessing to giggle a little:
the doping scandals finally got to ol' Vlad...
because it was funny when Mo Farrah pulled out
at some point... as did Bradley Wiggins...
started making income from adverts...
           yeah yeah: no, doping of athletes is not
systemic... all over the world...
   i guess some countries just have better doping
schemes...
   and while Russian was kicked out from
the mighty club of the G7 that was for a while G8...
i guess no one likes being left out...
no mention of China expanding the club into
a G9 or India for that matter... G10...
            plus... if the whole world spins the narrative
that you're evil... Russian subversion of American
politics... you're going to one day wake up and be
like: o.k. - fine... i'll be evil...
             aren't people liable if they slander someone
for no good reason / proof? can't someone be
sued for slander? i always thought the Russians
to be evil geniuses... but that softens the blow:
they're smart - in a malicious way because:
hell... what's there to do in a Russian winter...
you can only **** so much and drink so much *****...
so you get into hacking... for fun...
        but it's not Ukrainian politics was ever pristine...
i remember the days of the Orange Revolution
when Poland was involved in Ukrainian politics
for a while... long ago i said to myself...
it would be useful is Ukraine was allowed to join
the E.U. - just after the "famous five" joined back
in 2004... obviously i have no proof that i said something
along those lines back then... i wasn't writing then...
blah... politics... as ***** as money...
   i rather think about... how i managed to get
a ******* to want to meet me outside of the brothel...
rent a hotel room for the night...
pay for dinner... get a free **** all night... talk...
improve her English... learn some Turkish in return...
and music... i rather think about music...
i was going some ironing in the afternoon...
and i realised... of all these old vinyl records
that i brought back from Poland from my grandparents'
house... the ones my parents collected...
i was stuck on Maanam's Nocny Patrol (1984)
for too long on repeat... let's see what else is there...
oh... the original New Order Low-Life vinyl (1985):
**** me... an object that is older than me by
a year... well i did already know that New Order
emerged from the collapse of Joy Division...
well... the suicide of Ian Curtis... the precursor of
Curt Cobain - post-punk... well what came of that...
i never liked punk... more into psychedelic rock...
prog rock... but like i said... 60s and 70s music...
it grew on me... then... i grew out of it...
the whole boomer schtick of: we had the best music
your music is ****... give me a break...
- and it's not like i could get into Joy Division either...
i tried... it would be much easier to get into
65days-of-static if i were going to be perfectly honest...
or boards of canada...
      i tried... but... you can't let a tragedy go to waste...
so with the emergence of New Order...
and never looked into them... blue monday... faith...
but never looked into entire albums...
gateway album... Low-Life...
   and then it hit me... this is really the proper alternative
to The Cure... the Smiths... Depeche Mode...
i must be having this post-punk phase...
               at one point youtube was spewing out
post-punk suggestions all the time for me...
as if in the good old days of youtube being the best
jukebox on the internet...
plus... on a vinyl that's 36 years old...
oh: with the older vinyl you can hear the imperfections...
"imperfections" or rather the crackling...
newer vinyl doesn't have that crackling...
now i have a few good hours in the bag of going through
the entire New Order discography...
again... this conflict... i'm not even following it...
i've built-up a media burnout after all the repeated
news about Covid... i followed it at the start...
until... people started clapping for the NHS...
i switched off... i' already switched off regarding
this conflict... i'll make that dreaded hippy statement:
make love, not war...
  well... i'm on it... perhaps if i could be a mediator...
i'm not going to use moral language...
i'll just show people what life can be life...
do some ironing... put on a decent vinyl from the 1980s
plan a *** marathon in a hotel room...
with a girl you have no qualms over the "body count"
as some guys look for frigid nun types...
ah... what a mandible beauty...
            elsewhere... yeah... people are fighting...
but people are always fighting elsewhere...
- and it's not like nothing is being done...
over 1 millions refugees fled to Poland...
      i went into a forest and found something symbolic...
a branch of wood in the shape of a Cossack sword,
the shashka...
             i think my extended family might have
been affected by the UPA genocides during the Second
World War... mind you: the Ukrainians cheered
when the Nazis invaded... mind you: such wounds
should run so deep in me... it's ridiculous...
i should, maybe, just maybe: have the English attitude
toward the Norman genocide of Anglo-Saxon nobility
after Hastings from a purely historical point of view...
but then again... i knew a woman: my great-grandmother
who had to give opiates to her new-born daughter
(my grandmother) so she wouldn't cry when
they were running and hiding on the front...
  or how my grandfather remembers his uncle lying dead
in the back garden after being shot by the Nazis...
or how he would run up to two SS-men in their infamous
Hugo Boss black and shout: herr! bite bon bon!
and they would give him sweets so sweet that
his hands would be stuck together... etc.
           there is a lineage... memory... it's almost like
one person having many hosts... you can't exactly cut it
off... but... how ridiculous western democracies look
now, for their former criticism of Poland not taking in
enough refugees... really?
just like Turkey didn't take in enough authentic
Syrian refugees? oh... the type of refugees that drove
the trucks of peace in Nice... or performed
the Bataclan attacks? the Cologne *** party?
no Ukrainians on rubber-inflatables crossing the Channel
from Calais? i get it... the wrong sort of hue...
well... i guess old grievances can rest for a while...
you must really try your hardest not to be called
racist... but then one day you'll wake up
   like a Russian... after being called evil, foreign affairs
meddler... Olympic cheat and be like...
**** it... i'll own that slander... i'll just act upon it...
hmm... Dinosaur Jr. - but that's more grunge
than post-punk... no no... post-punk is something
very beautiful... it gets mixed up with the term Indie...
like... the Smiths are probably considered Indie
rather than post-punk... but i think they're post-punk...
god... i hate punk... probably as much as rap...
- and it's sort of a crying shame...
Russian, back in 2007... was such a welcoming place...
obviously my then Russian girlfriend
timed trying to get impregnated without my knowledge...
how does it work with women?
the highest chance of getting pregnant is just after
a woman's period: i'm not a woman, i don't know...
she was supposed to be on the pill...
hey, unprotected ***... well... she was rich enough
to not need my money, just my genes...
but the people were so welcoming...
i'd put the Russians on par with the Scots...
oh hell: her father was a timber oligarch out
in Siberia... she had multiple flats scattered around
St. Petersburg and even Moscow...
i look at it as follows: being a ***** donor doesn't
really cut it... what, just reading a man's profile:
window-shopping for *****?
obviously she wanted the relationship
to get to know the character of the man...
rather than some objective rubric: education X,
employment Y... but character? in person?
in practice? well... that's Z(ed)...
               well... if i'm not going to the type to
shoot bullets from a machine gun...
i might as well be shooting something else
somewhere else...
                              is that the conclusion you come to
when she calls you... tearful... in a happy way
and says: 'i think i'm pregnant!' - i think therefore i doubt...
i don't think that applies to how women
use language...
years later when i visited her... hmm... toys scattered
all over the apartment... hush-hush atmosphere...
she invited a lot of people round...
i think she was still with her newly wedded
neuroscientist: would be dumped months later...
married some poor Scotch schmuck...
well... at least she's keeping a tally...
    she might get to no. 5 and finally be like:
                     well... that was a good enough party...
no ***, just watch t.v. with me...
   oh hell no... i was exposed to Marquis de Sade
"too early" in life to somehow ******* without
a proper hard-on...
              well... first shot with the Turkish girl...
second one might hit the mark...
who knows... but this one photograph she sent me...
there's this young pretty thing sitting
in the background... a nice looking bump...
hmm... the last time i was there....
and shot a load into a ******... must have been...
oh... 4 months? 5 months?
what happened to that ****** with the payload?
women are such subtle creatures...
i might just be living in La-La-Land...
             but your mind sometimes goes out to lunch
in a non-demented way...
   it's not like people are transparent with each
other... it's not like we don't have our secrets...
secret avenues that other people never hear about...
it's not like that doesn't happen...
maybe the less i know and the more i speculate...
the happier i am... whether it's true or not...
i like to think that women like for a full beard
a hairy chest and a hair stomach, a 6ft2 100kg posture
is something that's worth salvaging...
freely given, on a whim: because... eh...
   i'm not a fat 4ft9 stinking Mongol who left a lot
of people in Pakistan with a surname: Khan...
and he done that by ****...
                                 spectacular... life...
and as long as i'm in a working environment and
i treat the... less lucky guys with candour:
with a camaraderie... what could possibly go wrong?
obviously everything...
                     but if they don't know jack ****...
and i keep them at a mutual-respect length...
ah... no open flirting with female coworkers...
at work... i feel so fake at work sometimes...
   at least in the schoolyard there was open banter...
at work i have to force myself: all the time...
            i just want to be left alone... do the shift...
*******... go back into seclusion and scribble down
thoughts to remind myself: i would never say as much
with my mouth as i "say" with the use of my
itchy-finger-tips... it's staggering how rhetoricians find
talking so easy... what's the old suggestion?
they enjoy the sound of their voice?
must be... i drift... mmm hmm... 1980s post-punk...
feels good... now that New Order discography to sift through.

You say —
it is impossible
to read
people within
your own frame
of reference.

You’re a neuroscientist,
so I should probably believe you,
because you know
more
about how
the brain processes
information.

You say —
communication is the closest thing
we have to reading someone’s thoughts.
You can't infer the type of person someone is
or what they'll do
from their actions alone —
you just need to ask them.

Evolution is a testament
to the power of speech.
It allows us to co-exist peacefully
with other human beings,
warn them of danger,
or tell them where the food is.

But evolution isn't so
intelligent, and I would premise
that communication
is just a workaround
telepathy.

First of all,
humans lie
when they want
for us to read
what is NOT in
their mind.
Rarely will one
get a straightforward answer
to the question: "Are you lying?"
And should you really expect to?

You say,
of course you can tell
when people are overtly lying.
There are biological signs
of deception
and we're hard-wired to detect
them —
the overly detailed stories
prolonged eye contact
calculated breathing,
are all indicators
of fibbing.

Ok, so there is truth-telling and lying,
but like most dichotomies
there are several somethings
in between.
Like when people don't mean
what they say,
but say it anyways — miscommunication.
Or when people genuinely
believe the words they spew
are true, but they are — mistaken.
Or when people
want so badly
for words to be true...
but they
are
just
not — denial.

For example,
someone like you
could tell me over and over again
that you're sorry,
But communicating isn't gonna help
heal the bruises, honey.

I’m so scared
you'll hit her
when you raise your voice.

I don’t know how to talk about it
because when I do,
she suffers the consequences.

I’m so nervous
I’ll have know about it
the entire time
and still have done nothing.

If I say something,
I’m so worried
she'll think I’m overreacting,
and then stop telling me stories.

What is the least about of harm
you can do
before I’m allowed to speak.
Is it a bruise?
Why must I wait
for the inevitable
just to say
I saw it coming all along.

The complete disregard for her as a partner,
your disrespect, the verbal assaults,
are known precursors of domestic violence.

As is my silence.
But I can't seem to
communicate the situation
without making it worse.

I can’t known for certain
why you treat her this way
from my frame of reference,
because the evidence neither supports or denies
my claim, and I am judge-mental if I infer it anyway...

until it is too late.
Because it wasn't a truth or a lie,
just a thing I knew deep in my bones,
but was told I have no
evidence for
from people like you.

People rarely mean what they say.
Why should I trust their displays
over my own judgement.
Yes, sometimes we are trapped in perspective
and then our perspective turns out to be wrong
about people.
But it takes someone strong,
to risk being wrong,
when she is
chastised for it.

The mystery of where our thoughts come from
That's the expression of GKC

Moving within our motion minds
Moving mysteriously

Many brain researchers
Spend billions trying to find this

But I know a man who said
Ask a philosopher
Don't ask me
I'm just a neuroscientist

hardly, it's offensive to see the correct spelling of f&&&, but not so much the sight of a page 3's *******... if only english had an orthographic dimension, they''d appreciate the graffiti joke in poland: ****, i.e. the correct version being chuj, and the wrong alternatives: huj, hój, chój... but then i find that english is a language regarding dyslexia... since it has no orthographic rules, since it applies no diacritical markers to form a rubric, which means; minus the orthographic graffiti joke; oh, right, and poland has what england doesn't, homeless dogs, and feral cats that occupy graveyards; truly, miles apart. personally, i still think the orthographic "wrong" aesthetic of huj looks better than the "correct" orthography... just as a metal-works factory huta, will always look better than chuta; both are a haa haa - even though that ch = h ought to own some grapheme symbol, mentioned later, with the german s / z.

one of those dead-funk *******...

what? i end reading more book reviews
than actual books,
i haven't the time,
            i'm about to admire a mighty sunset
and i don't require a flaubert to tell me
of salon mannerisms of french ladies in waiting
to boot...
    ****-facing, fracking the next
******* of a shooga-daddy-oh...
                    and thank **** that my hand
feels like doing ****,
taking a dump and doing a ***** roger handshake
never felt so good, as it did,
  when it was performed.
apparently massaging your **** by
straining it into an opening while jerking off
is almost, but not quiet, the **** experience.
        oh right, books...
*swearing is good for you, by an emma byrne:
a neuroscientist...
sky's the limit!
               japanese - manko or plain dumb
****...
                kutabare - or drop dead;
i'm still wondering why the *** yuppies didn't
invent poker...
                 squint-eyed double enforcing the stoner
eye-contact... huh?
             ah, when it comes to swearing,
i was at a pyjamas party in edinburgh once,
you knoiw students, complete party freaks...
  i has by tartan pyjamas on,
and this exchange student walks up to me,
and starts to compliment me
on the noun kurva, yes, written as kurwa -
but in english that W? = a Ł -
              which means two is a churchill -
3s a kit-kat...
                         and if you know the antics
of experimentation, that means 3 fingers up a manko.
don't ask me how stretch armstrong got
involved... he just did.
              but imagine paying the
compliment on how the western slav
managed to not numb the R (akin to the
english) - or hark it (akin to the french) -
but encrusted the trill...
  he called the word kurva a genius
statement, akin to a tool, like a hammer...
he called it a cushioning effect -
the cushioning effect of the word kúrva -
               something akin to a boxing bag...
sooner will you throw a punch than
actually neutralise it with a word -
  and the necessary rattlesnake effect of the R...
     scheisse nimmer ******* es
                           (**** never cuts its)...
           mind you the word kurva is bound
to a tectonic shift in the use of language,
categorically speaking,
    it's not a noun...
    it's a conjunction...
                       a conjunction just shy of being
a punctuation mark.
   yet i'm still wondering what happened
to the oath in german, scheisse -
  well...
  there's the ß (sharp s, i.e. z and somehow
nearing sh - + it) -
  but scheisse exposes the german s /ch -
i.e. a soft s...
                              which out to be its own
individual grapheme -
and there actually are...
ch, dz, rz, cz, sz, sch, central european
graphemes...
with only ß to congregate on -
  and even then it's not an es zett -
  nor a sharp s, rather a double s -
like rudolph heß -
                            why aren't these sounds
turned into graphemes symbols?
aesthetic reasons?!
                hardly...
                             ­     i've seen english text
slang... the poles and the germans can hardly
make it uglier than c u l8er,
   i swear to god... we've his the wall,
and the test dummies are mumbling in
some form of english that only exists in
pixel paper, text, tech, techno,
             **** know what they call it -
it's most certainly peppered with the americanism
of acronym, e.g. b.s.,
                                        f.t.f. -
fatty *** ****...
                                you know the usual
spare me, dear lord!
                       and why is this all relevant?
the same reason i can jump off a hyena /
             gorgon of a *******,
jump into the bath and have a cold shower
while she watches me and masturbates -
  and we have our little ***** moment on mute...
        we keep our *** in the realm of
onomatopoeia, mostly vowels and one or two
consonants...
                  the only "*****" talk i ever provide
is when i think...
        makes me less suspicious of myself ever
having encouraged ****** profanities.

Does our mind
have an underground
where our innermost secrets
are hidden
immersed in murky waters
which we would never want
to revisit?
(the door to the key
we had flung into
some faraway sea
so long ago)

there's no darkness
that's gloomier
than this
our purgatory--

don't mention
Freud--he wouldn't know
even his own mind
he struggled to understand

the brain
is not the mind
and the mind
is not the brain
(grey matter is substance
thought has no form)

don't mention
the neuroscientist
he's but a machine-reader
and all machines
have faults
where's the dwelling place
of genius
and how are thoughts born?
(it's stupid to guess-
science and technology
are in their infancy)

if one knows not
what one's own mind is
how would others?

I would not go down
the path of thinking again
let me be a child
let me escape the prison
of my own making

give me
a fresh corner
(however small)
of a distant field
let me sow
new seeds
born of pain
and suffering
this time
I know
a new plant
would grow

sprouting
into the sky
seen by all
I would have nothing
to hide

and my underground
would go away
forgotten
and vanish
for evermore.

I can't put my faith
in the neuroscientist's MRI machine
brain is not mind which is not measurable
the printout is the result of guesswork--fit for the bin!

The most important job in this world
Is not that of president
Nor the latest billionaire
Whom all seem to be a tad bit bent

It's not in being a doctor
Or a neuroscientist
Not the king or queen of a foreign country
If I were to make a list

It's not someone who happens upon
The greatest discovery
Or the person who, tried and true
Goes down in history

Not a star out making movies
Who recite their rehearsed lines
Out of all the ones you're thinking
You'd be hard pressed to find

A more important job in this world
That far outweighs all others
Is the one that we should all applaud
That of being a mother

Everything I’ve been is a conflict,
a constant afflict with fate.
For someone who’s been redistricted
into multiple lives,
the depiction of me is an undecided verdict.

Past houses have been abducted,
childhood friends are abstracted
and every cassette has been unloaded.
Everything that’s built this aggregation,
collapsed.  

But I am definite
on the idea of being anew.
Interview me and I’ll tell you,

My favorite color is blue.
This is like my 7th abode.
I play the guitar.
I’m gonna be a neuroscientist
so I can rip my brain out and see if I am who I say I am.

Sorry.
That last line was askew,
I’ll withdraw,
review it till it’s sewn.
Until my existence isn’t new
to me.

I must’ve misdrawned
the memories of myself.
Abbreviated, it’s all abandoned.
I’ve destroyed
every souvenir that I adopted.
conflicted,
I am starting anew.