When the streets are made for nothing but thinking    
It's the weight of the water that's caused our sinking
It's a loss of feeling that's made me lighter
It's everything around                              
That makes me neutrally bound
          
The only writers block is the writer
It's the kind of thing that makes a man with a pencil and paper a fighter
Like the paper's jumping up at you like a, like a alligator
                                          
But it's hard to chalk down all the mistakes, cause when you're trying so hard you're just being fake

You just gotta learn to let it, let it all flow
Show your all and let em all know
Just how you're feeling that blow, even if it means one or two bad lines, that's how you feel though
Cause life ain't a poetry book
It's all the points in between the pages that we missed
It's all the things that make us factories of emotions,
A crook with feelings creeping through the motions
Turning pages, trying to **** it all up like the books eroding

Don't you talk to me about feeling
Naw you ain't know what you be dealing, everyone's got there own ****, you can't tell me mines to be concealing
See, I'm a material void of expressionism
Cause I told everyone what I feel, not for the sake of impressionism
They chose to see inside and learn a lesson without all the criticism

Everything I've learned is turning me into a crustaceans fossil
Hard to the shell but brittle to the touch, and I preach my **** like a ******* apostle
You make me feel from the inside and I'll be your crutch, but you're gonna need more than a ******* rock hammer to open me up

My words I mend to make up for what I conceal        
But as I sit here thinking about how I feel
It's gonna take more than this to make me heal
Now let me dilute as I talk to the god inside my head and make a deal, something to end the pain and suffering I have concealed at the expense of everything real

My best friend just asked, "How can you create things like that?
It's really a fantastic talent you have."

The truth is, I don't have talent at all. Talent is subjective.
What is talent to one person, is trash to another.

You ever hear the saying, "One person's trash is another person's treasure..."?
It really applies to talent.

We can't go telling each other who is talented and who is not,
Who is good and who is not,

Because we're each only one person. What's trash to you isn't trash to me,
I wish people would see that.

I don't ever look at myself positively, only neutrally, (maybe most times negatively,)
I'm just me, and that's all I am.

I don't have talent,
Nor am I funny,
Nor am I silly,
Nor am I nice,
Nor am I mean,
Nor am I introverted,
Nor am I outgoing,

But not because I'm really not nice, or I'm not funny, or I'm not talented,
It's because you're nobody to judge,
Because you're not me.

I'm just me, and that's all I am.

The dermatologist demands a pre-summer scan of my visual delights fully magnified.

Peering into places where no one else has ever peered, even me, reminds me that this is a potentially "disruptive" process.

Eye don't know what his eyes have seen.  

He works in silence pin punctuated by the occasional mmmm or throat clearing rumble.

Snappy removal of neutrally colored gloves signify conclusion, he opines as follows:

"Were you aware," he inquires, "that the lines, the furrows on a your forehead correspond to the life your have lead?"

"You have three, deep deep tracks, and that's a fact."

Yes, eye know,
and each one is a tree ring notation
of my existence.

Each a different year,
each a different moment fearful,
a death and a birth,
a passing, a regaining.

No, not children or parents,
illusions.

Markers of our lives are the
birth and death of our illusionary,
our revelation minutes, that measure and scribe
what dug those furrows is now officially,
no more.

Until we start anew,
a different Pretense,
a channel commenced to commemorate.

Living the dream, they say,
aren't we all, eye think, and so inform him.

The doctor did not bill for this
visitation.

Heatwave.

Dust whirling,
after mobile departures,
in the decadence
of our innumerous crows'-feet.

The sweat of humidity
dropping on neutrally carpeted floors.

Beer lubricating
many a rusty throat
as human optimism
and pessimism
make friends with each other
in a warlike fashion.

They say something is truly computerized
yes or no? yes or no ?
which one? which one?

BETTER throw a dice if you wanna know
but no
it is a BIG YES of course!
that’s what they should be saying - truly

THEY.

WE -
however -

we don’t have a proof
that it truly is so
and we never may have
and actually we don’t even need to spend our time to find out
if they are right or wrong
It is more important to understand why we discuss this matter here now
and we can explain the reasons in two basic steps:

1- believe not  and do not become a blind believer  -
to whoever - to whatever- no matter who - no matter what -
there is no one who can tell you the truth
but you -
you may not need to like it all - but
that’s always for a good reason -
if you make it good

2- understand what is of essence now - thus  - the thing- maybe a poem- maybe a result of a competition - maybe this - maybe that -
why that specific thing comes to my/your attention now

So
it does not matter
if it is computerized or not -
what matters is
I see it and it communicates with me
and with my senses
and is at my attention

it manifests itself to me  here now where I truly am

does not matter how it manifests - but it matters that it manifests

and the answer to why
is by my experience creating an action -

Only what I can neutrally and  non-judgmentally witness I can purely experience  -

and purity
has surpassed frights
and purity
has no addictions
and purity
does not swing from moon to sun
but remains centralized-
and purity
needs no temporary replacement that serves to escape from one pain- discomfort to another
but purity is ultimate self - is itself by itself
therefore what is presented to me here now is not other than what my consciousness is manifesting as -

it is not a test -because  we have passed all the tests -
there is no teacher other than the self-
it is such that we are moving on -
on a path of knowing of our own true nature

And now
that ‘s why!
that’s why!

There is a dove
in love with me

comes to see me daily
and listens to my songs

it ain’t matter if it’s not the same dove
although I know it is
not because it looks alike
but because I know it is
and still it ain’t matter
if it’s not the same dove

because there is a dove
in love with me
comes to see me daily
and listens to my songs
adoringly

Sandals.

Probably seeing
not much future in anything;
direction, conspiracy or destination
they play ball with indifference
and walk along,
feeling comfortably ignored
and alone.

Wise nouns
who live neutrally
in a downtrodden world.

They have seen
the scratches on their buckles and their hides
outlive
the downfall and demise
of innumerable generations.

To be overwhelmed:
To bury or drown beneath a huge mass.
Huge mass of work
Huge mass of bills
Huge mass of love
Huge mass of support

I am overwhelmed
all the time
by all things

When I feel more overwhelmed
by all the negative
I think of all the good
That I carry
That I am buried under

I hold my friends
and they hold me
I lift my family
and they lift me
When I drown in my work
They let me float in their support
When I am crushed
They each carry part of that weight
and lift it

Drop me in a glass of water
I neither float
or sink
I am suspended

I am buried by my life
I am carrying my life
I am technically burdened
I would rather carry weight
and have something
than nothing at all

I am buried
I am weighed down,
but I am breathing
I am standing
and I am okay.

The Show


I awake circa two AM to observe an Earth under siege.
Fearsome blasts of lighting lightening unceasing,
illuminate a sky that is divided into two; a grey white
boundary-less blob of cloud, bolt pricked in a steady
but random pattern for at the least the hour since I was
awakened and a blackened horizon lining defining the land of men.

I debate my choice of word; at some point I slip from the bed to
relieve myself for such is the age of burden I currently occupy;
but my fingers disobey wanting to write relive myself,
to assure myself, that I am, will be, a surviving witness to an awesome and terrifying spectacle, noting the appropriate dueling nature of “awesomeness” for it brings a joyous awe and a paralyzing fear with equal measure, but without any trace of forcible distributive equity.

The lightening is fulsome; sometimes well hid above in a
single whiteness that is the very definition of singularity,
without cue, but within, Z shape bolts of comic book proportionality.

Here’s the rub! All this demonstration is done in a complete,
comforter (!) of silence. The house periodically rumbles its
machinery, whether in fear, or because it must mechanically
do so in the same manner we breathe, or simply to alert me
that I frail human, am at the mercy of the skymaster above,
and the manmade array of pipes, compressors, big apparatuses pinstalled in the earth below to serve until they don’t, and then
we must service them.

The silence is amazing for it is total and domineering and absent thunder. The Show occurs in the largest venue available, the Bay,
but the well behaved audience makes no sound, not a whit,
no coughing, sneezing puncturing or punctuating (reader’s choice) the eerie quiet of a speechless world that cannot speak, as if its larynx was removed, but it’s eye were restored to the age of 20/20.

Well over an hour, closer to two, the demonstration is concluded
and we return to the supine, neutrally, even emotionless, for the gamut and gauntlet we have survived dry and in safety has
concluded and the thick picture window did its job admirably.

Wait Now, a pockmark of bursts in the absence of all light, the now blackness has replaced everything, except for a momentary pinprick of of cloud framed orange hue, a shell exploding far across the bay.

S. sleeps relatively unperturbed, until she does not; for a long minute she rattles the ship, kicking tantrum violently both legs, until the covers are disarrayed, only to fall back into a deep blue colored stage of sleep, and pulling the covers onto the custom fitted aperture neath the chin.

This secondary, receding lightening demonstration that has been taking place; as if a heavenly Lincoln~Stephens oratorical battle occurs over the nearby Atlantic of  nonstop proportion, leaving my my mind to dwell on this topic:

Resolved: This man, that pens this missive about sky missiles is a good writer, or even reasonably ok.

I am representing both sides (duh). and skip to the judges decision without further ado, for brevity is a skill I am profoundly lacking and appreciate, and the eloquence of the debaters is acutely not bad, as prideful acumen is the standard.

Sorry. Split decision, 3 -2, he is merely an ok writer.

Now past 4 AM, glance outside but once more, and there a slow slewing of dawn light emerging like springtime buds, the trees on the lawn are faintly distinguishable, outlined against a normalized, post-storm night sky full of debris EXCEPT in the not-faraway-enough-distance, a few straggler lighting bolts are yet appearing to remind me the night is indeed always awesome and full of terror, just like a good poem.

4:22 AM Jul 5 2023

the red girl turning blue
means she's falling for you
displays her love's basic
your charm has done the trick.

the blue girl turning red
means your chance is bleak
displays no love is bred
your sight makes her acidic.

the red girl remaining red
the blue girl remaining blue
in this worst case I'm afraid
she's neutrally looking at you.

slowly crackling inside,
shattering little by little,
while I'm sitting.
feeling,
but not really paying attention:
noticing but not focusing.

While the children
Play peacefully
Their happy laughs
Ringing in muted tones
Behind thick, safe walls

While white noise
Flows neutrally
Its blandness
Comforting my tremored mind
Dispelling my treacherous fury
I lay naked as the day

Wet in some places
Hardened in others
Waiting so impatiently
Tremored of limb, too
Open as the sea

While the sparseness
Of our house
Is waiting valiantly
Its smooth surfaces and
Soft contours beckoning
My soul to rest on
Its laurels

Your tongue,  hands and eyes
Run deliberately
Down my different pathways
Paving the route
To an exquisite explosion -
The falling debris from which
Bestow such a simple
Salvation

This poem is not about you.
     This poem is about the candles that I no longer burn because the scent is the seasonal smell of you. It is about me trying to give them away to my unsuspecting friends and them knowing the history behind a jar of ******* wax. It is about the nightstand that holds the candles behind all of the others and makes me forget for a while.

But this poem is not about you.
     It is about the love that I ordered off the internet and gave to you. It is about wondering whether you sleep with it, or stuffed it in your closet, or burned it. It is about the scent that I wrapped it in, that I no longer wear, for it reminds me of you being reminded of me.

Though it may sound like it, this poem really is not about you.
     It is about the melody that I no longer cry to when it hits my ears. It is about how my obsession with Iron and Wine crashed after we danced. It is about how I obsess again and can do it happily.

     It is about how I can write neutrally with an undertone of you.
     This poem is not about you.

Teach me how to speak with strangers,
How to hold a conversation and woo them with my wit,
How to make their lips turn up and eyes grow wide,
How to fully engage them in all I have to say.

Teach me how to respond to strangers,
How to take in everything they're telling me,
How to laugh at their stories and provide sympathies when needed,
How to listen and understand and bounce right back with something of my own.

Teach me how to interact at all with a stranger,
How to make myself appear far less boring than I feel,
How to stop my wringing hands and raise my downcast eyes,
How to stand neutrally and confidently and say without a word 'I am interested-
in you.'

Because that's the thing.
Teach me how to speak to strangers
Since I still behave like he's a stranger to me.
Stupid school(girl) crush.

A text for five voices.

Note on text: For formatting reasons, this should be read on a full screen, or in landscape mode on a mobile.

i. Blank copy

I look out of the window at
the houses as they pass and they
don’t so much slide past
                                    or glide past
                                                the motion isn’t smooth.
They sort of click past.
They tick past, dit-dit-dit:
House after house after house after house
                                                dit-dit-dit­-dit-dit
My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough
to keep up with all the houses
                                  as they pass.
It’s 10 o’clock when I arrive at my office
and no-one is there yet
and I turn on my computer.
I sort of just
                sit there
                for quite a long time. Then
at 10.37 I print a document I’ve been working on
and I pick up my mug and I go to the kitchen where the printer is
and I put the kettle on.
I log on to the printer but instead of pressing
                                                Print
  ­                                              I press
                                                        Cop­y
                                                        instead­.
The machine whirs
The light goes
                        across
And out comes this copy this
        Copy of
                nothing.
I pick it up from the cradle.
It’s warm.
And I hold it and I look at it and I think:
                                                This is a copy
                                                                ­of nothing.
And since it is no longer an empty piece of paper but now
                                                             ­   something more
                                                            ­    something
                                                   ­                                imbued
I don’t put it back in the paper tray
and I don’t put it in the bin.
I carry it carefully with my tea back
to my office and put it
                                Carefully
                    ­                            on my desk.
I close the door.
Usually when I arrive and no-one is there I keep the door open for a bit.
It’s my way of letting people know I’m here.
It also helps me get a sense of what’s going on in the building
which students are there and what they’re doing
and once I’ve got a decent enough idea
or if there’s someone around I don’t really feel like helping
                                                         ­                           I close the door.
Today it is quiet.
It is a Friday.
                     Fridays are quiet.
It is the seventh of March.
It is 2014.
              I’m looking out of the window as I recall
              without much interest
              that yesterday was my father’s sixty-first birthday.
The buses tick past the window.
Without really thinking I
roll down the blind
                            Until the window is as blank as my copy of
                                                              ­                                           nothing.
I look at it but I
don’t
              sit
                     down
                                   yet.
My computer makes a noise and a purple box
tells me I have a meeting in thirty minutes.
                                                        ­Oh shut up I tell it
                                                        out loud.
Now I realise that I never did print my document
so I go back to the printer and the file is still there waiting for me
and I press Print All
                     and out it comes
and the piece of paper looks
Obnoxious
                     scrawled over in heavy black print
                     and ****** coloured columns
                                                                ­      and smelling
                                                        ­              Smelling of toner.
For someone who claims to be conscious of the environment I
print excessively. But only at work.
It’s the combination of it being free
                                          (or at least, no cost to me)
and that feeling you get when you
swipe
your access card to log in to the printer
and tap the screen dit-dit-dit to choose this or that.
It feels
       to me
              like being a grown-up.
It’s intoxicating.
I don’t want to go to the meeting
and I’m suddenly annoyed by this ***** piece of paper
which
       I ***** up
                     and throw in the bin.
**** it.
Not even in the recycling.
**** it.
Who cares.
              What difference could it possibly make
              whether I throw this piece of paper
                                                 which I will now have to print again
              in the black part of the bin for waste
              or the green part of the bin for recycling.
I go back to my computer and press Print but
this time
I keep clicking my mouse
                                   ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
                         ­          Yeah.
                                   ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
                         ­          ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
And I go back to the printer and the name of the document comes up on the built-in screen
dozens and dozens of times
the same name of the same document
and I tap
              Print All.
And as the machine spits out clone after clone I
mutter under my breath:
                                   **** it.
                                   Yeah.
Then out loud:
                                   **** it.
                                   Yeah.
And as I throw them in the bin and go back for more I think
I’m going to buy a car. Yeah.
And I’m going to drive my car to work and
when I finish work I’m going to drive it
to a big supermarket
                            a hypermarket
                            a super hyper mega market
where I will buy and buy and buy,
and on my way home I will buy petrol to put in my car
       And I will go on holiday
       I will book all those last minute deals on the internet
       And go to Turkey or Lanzarote or Corfu for a hundred
                                                         ­      or a couple of hundred
                                                         ­      pounds, every month maybe
And I’ll fly there on a big plane.
I’ll soar over the ocean on a big plane.
And when I come back
I’ll soar over all those people outside Stansted Airport
All those
people
With banners
Moaning and complaining and protesting
Banners saying things like
                                   I don’t know
                                                 “Down with planes”
And as the flight attendant smiles goodbye I’ll think
yeah.
       Down with planes.
                                   And I’ll drive my car home and I will
                                   stop
                                   worrying
                                   about
                                   everything.
I go back to my office.
I retrieve one copy of my document from the bin and I
put it on top of my copy of nothing.
Whereas before the document offended me
                            now I have difficulty
                            telling the difference between the two.
My colleague arrives and she tells me about the motorway.
She’s always telling me about the motorway.
I think about my car I’m going to buy and I
think about being on the motorway.
I think about being on that part of the M25
where the planes are so low you duck as they thunder over you
and they come
                     in rapid succession
                                          dit dit dit
                                                        rapid­ eye movement
                                                        ­radar.
I think about being stuck in traffic there and the air
thick with exhaust fumes
mixing with the air around Heathrow
and all those tons of jet fuel from the planes zooming over
Blink and you miss them
                                   but always another follows.
I go to my meeting.
I realise that I have picked up my blank copy
along with the document I printed for the meeting.
Someone says they wish I’d printed more than one copy
as it turns out it would be useful for everyone to have one
and I laugh in their face without explaining myself.
                                                         ­             I make notes on it.
                                                             ­         My copy of nothing.
                                                        ­              Without really realising
                                                       ­               I’ve scribbled notes on it
but as I look at my spidery black biro handwriting
and think with some real despair about how I have mindlessly
destroyed
something pure
the notes
              disappear
                                int­o the paper
and it is clean again.



ii. Ringing sea

My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough.
What I’m looking at
my rational brain tells me
is a video of two people having ***.
I have seen that before.
But what I’m actually watching is a video of
my husband
                     having ***
                                          with another woman.
And my eyes don’t refresh the image fast enough
So I keep seeing his face.
The whole picture melts away and
I just see his face
                     Which belongs to me.
                                          It’s my face. I – own it.
                                                        It’s my- my- my-
                                                        And it freezes there
just his face is all I can see then the video continues for a
split second then freezes again
                                   His face
                                   His face
                                   His face       It’s him
                                                        It’s him
                                                        It’s him.
I stop the video and I put the phone down on the table
and I breathe very deeply and
every time I blink, between every saccade
there is his face
                            a face I know intimately
                                                      ­         and it’s looking away from me.
I turn on the television. It is Saturday.
He is flying back from Asia on Tuesday. I have until then to
                                                              ­        what?
The sound and light from the television
flicker over me
And I sort of just empty,
Quietly, like a balloon disappearing into the sky.
I don’t know what I’m going to do but
for now that’s
fine.
The brown armchair swallows me up
and I cry for two hours without really noticing.
The cookery programme I’m not watching finishes and I think
the news is about to come on so I turn off the TV
and I put on my shoes
and I go down the stairs and out of the house
and I get in my car.
It’s raining and I just sit there.
Without starting the engine I flick on the windscreen wipers:
                                                         ­      Dit / dit.
                                                            ­   Dit \ dit.
                                                            ­   Dit / dit.
It takes less than three seconds for them to pass
from one side of the windscreen to the other.
And I get this feeling this
unexplainable feeling
that I want to crawl inside that moment
when the wipers are moving from one side of the screen
                                                          ­                   to the other.
I flip down the sun shield and look at myself in the mirror.
There are two lipsticks in the glove compartment.
I pick the darker one
                            and apply it
                                                 carefully
                                                       ­          sensually.
I start the car.
West London ebbs away to the motorway
My car is silver and in the rain it feels invisible
I don’t know where I’m going
                                I follow words on signposts I recognise the shape of
                                without really reading them
and I keep driving
I let my eyes come away from the road and
watch the fields and trees tick past like cells of film
and I look at the cars on the other carriageway
and I notice they’re all silver like mine
                                                        (onl­y mine is invisible)
and I duck as a Boeing 777 soars over near the M4 interchange
and let myself scream soundlessly under the roar of its engines.
I wonder where it came from.
                                          I think about the people on board.
I think about their mobile phones and
all the ******* there must be on them
and I realise
how many videos there must be in the world
of people having ***.
I take the M23 past Gatwick Airport
                                          the motorway ends but I keep driving
until finally I come to the sea.
No-one is here because it’s March and it’s raining.
I have always loved the sea.
Not sailing or swimming or surfing
Just being near it, for me it’s
                                   a spiritual experience.
I’ll lie on the stones and gaze at the sky for hours
but not today.
                     There are some flowers tied to a railing
                     somebody has drowned.
Presumably they never found a body to bury.
The awfulness of that strikes me like a stone.
                                                        It­’s the not knowing.
                                                        ­The lack of 100% concrete total proof.
I take my phone out of my handbag.
                                                        ­But I know now.
The shingle crunches underneath my flat shoes.
                                                        No­w I know.
The cold burns my ears and the wind picks up as I get closer to the water
the tide slips serpentine up the stones
white-edged
                     beckoning me.
Without realising I’ve slipped
                                                 out of
                                                            my­ shoes
but the stones do not hurt my coarse feet
and the wind
                     howling now
                                          catches me behind my knees
quickening my stride.
The spit curls around my toes.
And then I catch myself wondering
                                          whether my husband will call me or
                                          text me when he lands
and I hurl
       my phone
              into the sea.
On the drive home I listen to the radio.
The news is dominated by the Crimean conflict
and the referendum that’s coming up there.
Florence Nightingale
                            is all I can think about when they talk about Crimea.
Until recently I never even knew where it was.
At school you only learn about Florence Nightingale
                                   not the geography
                                          not the conflicts
                                                 not Ukraine’s edges so charred by
                                                               invasion and,
                                                                ­             subsequently,
                                                                ­                                  explosion.
                    ­               We live in so many war zones.
and I’m wondering what else I never learned about when
the story changes and now they are talking about a plane.
A plane is missing
                                   between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing
                                          and the blood drains out of me.
It isn’t like floating away like a balloon this time
it’s like plunging off a cliff.
And at once I see
                            with brilliant, burning clarity
                                                        m­y phone, ringing, on the sea bed
The light from the screen illuminates the stormy water but
I can’t see the name:
                                   I can’t see who’s calling.
I need to know.
I need to know it’s him.
       I drive back at twice the speed limit.
In the dark the flowers look menacing and half-dead; my
shoes fall off in the same place
But the tide is in so the whole beach looks different.
I’m up to my waist but my
top half
       is as wet
              as my bottom half
                            because the rain
                                          is torrential
                                                      ­  and I can still hear the phone ringing
                                                        b­ut I can’t see the light in the sea.
and I howl
       his name
but the wind carries it away soundlessly
       and I can’t tell if I’m
              further out
              or if the tide’s further in
                            and the ringing grows louder
                            as the current takes me powerfully by the waist and
                                                             ­         the stars rush by overhead.



iii. Acid rain

Every time I blink, between every saccade I see
a brilliant but infinitesimally brief flash of colour.
       Purple
       or green
       I think.
                     One on top of the other.
It’s hard to tell for sure because they’re so brief.
It’s like when you look at a light bulb for too long
                                                            ­   or stare directly at the sun.
I see it sometimes when I’m on my bike
or on a really big rollercoaster
                                   going downhill at 100 miles an hour
                                   the wind blasting through me
                                   the screams whirling through the air.
But I’m not on a rollercoaster, I’m sat very still
it’s Monday afternoon and I’m at school.
I haven’t said a single word to a single person today.
I didn’t even answer my name in the register.
I feel a bit dizzy like
                                   everything is turning together
                                   but I’m on a different
                                                       ­                 axis?
I think the bell goes, I’m
not a hundred percent sure,
but I leave anyway and no-one stops me.
       Outside in the sunshine the flashes of colour are
       several thousand times brighter.
In the next lesson I slip in my earbuds and
it looks like the teacher is singing the words.
                                                 I put on the most obscene song I can find.
I must have it on too loud
because eventually she notices and
she forces me to give her the headphones. This is the first time
someone has spoken to me today
                                          it feels a bit surreal
                                                         ­      but the world stops spinning
                                                        ­       a bit.
After school I go into the supermarket on Wigmore Lane
the enormous white of it is tinged in green and purple
and all I want is to buy a drink
                            I have a feeling of exactly the kind of drink I want
                            but I can’t find the right one
                            even though the fridge must be longer than
                            the driveway of my house.
Racks of newspapers and magazines clamour for my attention
       the only real colour in this great white warehouse of a store
       red tops and blue spreads
       and green and purple and green and purple
              and green and purple…
They’re talking about that missing plane in the news
and they keep using the same phrase.
They’re talking about the people on board the missing plane
and they keep saying
                            Missing
                      ­      presumed dead.
Not dead dead. Presumed dead.
I start wondering what it’s like to be both dead and alive at the same time,
as if all the people on board that plane are like Schrödinger’s cat
              (cats)
and we won’t know whether they’re dead or alive until we find the plane
and pull it out of the sea
and look inside
                     so
                         until then
                     they’re both.
Out in the car park I count the planes as they descend onto
the runway less than a mile away.
       One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
       I figure about a hundred and eighty a plane maybe,
       which means fifteen hundred people just arrived in Luton.
Nobody comes to Luton for the scenery.
Soon they’ll be gone,
A town haunted by a ghost population of thousands an hour.
                                                 filtered onto the trains and buses
                                                 and out from the sprawling car parks
                                                 to the motorway, and
                                                 onto connecting flights back into Europe
              but none of them will stay in Luton
                                                           ­                  Missing
                                                         ­                    presumed dead.
As I bike through Luton I think it might not be so strange to be dead and alive at the same time.
I’ve lived here my whole life and the whole place
                                                           ­                         which is a *******
                                                 moves with the mundanity of machinery
                                                 like the big car factories by the airport
                                                 the lights on, the production lines rolling
                                                 but all a bit automatic and lifeless.
But in the airport, it’s different.
The air, with its artificial chill, hangs with a faint shimmer
and the people here move purposefully, and with charge
                                                          ­     excitedly
                                                       ­                      or dejectedly
                                                      ­         but not neutrally
heading for the gates where they are sealed two hundred a time into airtight tubes
like Schrödinger’s cat:
                            dead and alive in the air;
                            one or the other on the ground.
                                                         ­      My teachers say I have an
                                                              ­ “odd way of looking at things”.
I leave my bike outside without chaining it up and go into the terminal.
In a café in the check-in hall I find exactly the drink I want
and I pay £2.75 for it.
                            I look at the departure boards.
                            Edinburgh. Bonn. Marseilles.
                            A green light flashes next to each gate as it opens
                                                           ­                  green and purple
                                                          ­                   green and purple
                                                          ­                                 Missing
                                                         ­                                  presumed dead
The flashes of colour are growing brighter
every time I move my eyes a green and purple streak follows behind like a jet stream
but the bustle and activity of the airport is so much that I can’t keep my eyes still
       so they keep darting
                            this way and that
                                                 until my vision is painted over
                                                            ­                 green and purple.
The streaks roll over each other like clouds of acid rain.
       This is the final call for flight 370 to–
My bike is gone when I go back outside
The front of the terminal is a plateau of thousands upon thousands of cars
and it’s probably in one of them
                                          but I’ll never know which.
The car parks reach all the way back to the runway.
Green and purple acid rain from all the jet fuel mixed with the air
melts a hole in the fence and I slip through
moving purposefully
                            with charge
                                          across the green and purple grass
                                          scorched by a hundred thousand landings
                                          a hundred thousand people arriving in Luton
And there on the tarmac
                     glinting in the rain
                     surrounded by blinking amber
       there is my bike
       its black handlebars spread like the wings of a jet plane.
I duck as an Airbus screams in just a few feet over my head
the rush from the engine lifting the soles of my feet from the ground.
I pick up the bike and start pedalling
                                                 pedalling down the runway
                                                 pedalling towards the blinking amber.
It feels light, nimble, fast
the tyres take the asphalt with ease.
And the faster I go the lighter I feel
       the acid rain eats away at my clothes
       and they melt off my body and pool on the runway below,
                     Lighter
                            and lighter until…
                                                 The wheels lift away from the ground
                                                          ­     and in the air I am dead and alive
                                                 and maybe nobody will
                                                                ­                           ever
                                                            ­                               see me
                                                                ­                           again.



iv. Burning sky

The faster I go, the lighter I feel.
I’ve taken the night watch and the yacht
is cruising across the Indian Ocean
penetrating the black abyss like a white bullet
and the lights in the portholes send shimmering white bullet shapes
for miles across the endless ink.
                                                            ­                 What?
                     We’re not going very fast at all
                     But it feels like any minute
                                                 we might drop off the edge of the world.
I hope we do.
I feel light and dizzy and irrational
                                          and I feel aware of being
                                          light and dizzy and irrational
and I wonder if this is what going mad feels like.
Have you ever felt like you’re living in a corner of your own life?
I
       feel like that a lot lately.
Marc is sleeping.
We didn’t speak much today.
I can’t really remember how long it’s been
       since we left Victoria but the fight
       we had there
                            in a bistro by the port we
       said things we
       said things that
                            we can’t take back.
The Seychelles were stifling.
The heat was stifling.
He was stifling.
And the people were stifling
                                   the people kept talking about pirates.
                                   They kept warning us about pirates.
                                   You’re sailing where
                                                        the­y say
                                   You must be careful
                                                        t­hey say
                                   It’s notorious
                                                       ­ they say
I have fantasies about being kidnapped by pirates.
Not stupid Johnny Depp pirates with *** and parrots, no
       Real pirates.
                     Nasty pirates.
                     With dark snarls and AK-47s.
When we were at sea off the Horn I’d see things on the horizon
Dots or lights I couldn’t make out
And I’d imagine the rifle against my neck
Their hot breath
Chains and ransoms.
                          I’d wonder how much we’d be worth.
                          If we’d make national news.
                          Would it be David Cameron to announce,
                                                       ­        regrettably,
                                                    ­           we don’t negotiate with pirates,
                          or would it be someone less important?
                          Maybe just the foreign secretary.
                          What is the worth of my life at the end of a steel barrel?
But it would only be a buoy, or a plane on the horizon,
and I would get into bed with Marc
       disappearing under the covers like a different kind of hostage.
I
              oh
                                   I
                                                 Sorry
I’m crying.
                     I don’t know when I started crying.
The thing is I don’t know if it’s me breaking the marriage
or the marriage breaking me.
I’m watching everything literally fall to pieces and for all I know
it’s me with the detonator.
And then
              everything
literally falls to pieces
                            My mug of coffee falls from my hand
                            shatters on the deck
                                                            ­and the sea rears up nightmarishly.
Above me
a long orange **** of flame
is burned into the sky.
                            No, really.
                            That’s not a metaphor.
                                                       ­        There is fire in the sky.
It’s about a mile up and a mile away.
Look.
       There.
              ****.
                            **** **** ****.
What is that?
                                   Marc!
I call for Marc.
                                   Marc!
       There is fire in the sky.

–              Katherine.

       Fire in the sky.
       Fire in the
       Fire in

–              Katherine.

       Fire

–              Katherine.

       What
              Marc, what?

–              Are you awake?

       I think so.

–              You were calling out again.

       Calling

–              Calling out. You were shouting.

       What
       where
       What time is it?
                                   Where

–              Dubai. We’re in Dubai. It’s 7.
                They delayed again while you were sleeping.

       Dubai?

–              Katy I really think you should see a doctor.

       Don’t call me that.

–              Pardon?

       Katy.
       Don’t call me that.
                                          Like

–          ­                                       Like what?

       Everything’s okay.

–

       Everything’s not okay.

–               There’s
                 doctors. You’re not well. You’ve been confused since,
                 well actually since before it even happened.

       You think I’ve been confused.

–              Not right.
                Not you.

       You’re **** right.

–              Forget it.

       Thank you.

–              Go back to sleep. ****.



–              Are you still seeing it?
                The plane? On fire.
                                   You’re dreaming about it, aren’t you?

       Yes.

–              It’s affecting you?

       I’m
              just
                     unhappy,
       Marc.

–              That’s not just it though is it?

       What’s that supposed to mean?

–              Something about seeing that
                                                           ­   plane has scared you.

       We don’t know it was the plane.
       The one that –

–                            No. But, right place, right time.
              They said

       Maybe.

–              It’s still a coincidence.
                It’s not

                                   What

–                                   A sign.
                                     From god.
                                     Or
                                          whatever.

     ­                                     Whatever you think it means.



                            Katherine.

       The thing I don’t know, Marc
       is if I’m more scared that it was the plane
       or that it wasn’t.

–

       Imagine.
       Vanishing.
       Into thin air.

–              I know.

                            No, you don’t.
       Disappearing
                            into thin air
       Or falling
                            out of it.

–              Falling.

       You can’t imagine that.

–              I can.



–              I can, Katy.
                I ******* can
                                          Imagine.
       ­         Falling.
                Disappearing.
             ­   Into thin air.

                *******
                            i­nvisible.

                 I am
                           right
                          ­          ******* here,
                                                        K­atherine.

       I see you.
       I see you Marc.
       But you’re not
                            solid.

       I’m not
                            solid.
                          ­                              See?

                           ­                             It passes
                                                          ­     right through.

       Now you see me.
                                   Now yo–



v. 2015

Have you ever felt like you’re living in a corner of your own life?
The hotel room here in Singapore is almost identical
to the room I had in Mexico City.
The heat feels the same and it’s the same
nondescript decoration
which doesn’t really belong to any time or culture.
It gives me a headache. The neutrality of it.
As I check my messages I remember
                                                        ­       I’m not in Singapore.
I’m in Kuala Lumpur.
I haven’t been home for nearly three weeks now.
It’s ridiculously late
The IOC conference is at six thirty
              and I’ve been asleep all day.
                                   I get dressed and grab my camera
                                   and leave the hotel with a large, black coffee.
At the press call I see a man from Reuters I recognise.
       The coffee here is terrible.
I talk to him about his family
              his daughter is four now
              he’s shaved off his beard since I last saw him
              and he’s moving, he says,
                                                 near me apparently
                                                 to Southend.
                                                       ­               “London Southend” he jokes
                                                                ­      with a roll of his eye
                                                             ­         and inverted commas.
I say yeah that’s quite near me then move away to take a phone call.
Inside the press conference there are ten people at the table
       the women are all wearing identical powder blue suits which
       strikes me as idiosyncratically Asian for no good reason.
The men all wear simultaneous translation headphones
                                                      ­                but the women don’t.
I wonder if this is because they speak better English than the men
or if it just isn’t considered necessary to translate for them.
       They have given the Winter Olympics to Beijing.
              I wonder what is lost between the
              Mandarin spoken by the mayor of Beijing
              and the English spoken by the translator.
                                                     ­          The space between words.
                                                          ­     The space between looking left
                                                            ­                               and looking right.
It’s a nice atmosphere in the cool air-conditioned room.
I’m struck by how nice everyone is
       except for the British delegates
       including the man from Reuters who speculates
       that the voting was rigged.
A while later someone else calls it a “farce”.
              I get a photograph of the IOC President’s face
                                                            ­          as it falls
              and email it to my office from my seat.
Outside, the Petronas towers rise above the conference centre like
enormous empty silos.
This is my first time in Kuala Lumpur
                                          the last city I have to visit before I go home.
I get in a taxi and say the name of my hotel
                                          and the city flashes by.
I look out of the window at
the buildings as they pass and they
don’t so much slide past
                                   or glide past
                                                        the motion isn’t smooth.
They sort of click past.
They tick past, dit-dit-dit:
Building after building
                            dit-dit-dit-dit-dit
My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough
to keep up with all the buildings
                            as they pass.
The taxi stops and I pay seventeen ringgit and get out:
it has gone by the time I realise this is not my hotel.
I don’t know where I am but I was in the taxi long enough to know that I
am some distance
                            from the centre of the city.
I look up at the name of the hotel the driver has taken me to
and the English transliteration is very similar to the name of the hotel I am staying in.
       I go inside.
There’s a nightclub in the hotel
I order Glenfiddich
                            double,
                 ­           cut with water.
              not because I like it but
              because there’s something about scotch that feels
                                                           ­                         moneyed
              heavy amber liquid in heavy-bottomed glasses
              it helps me buy into this idea of the travelling businessman
              even though that’s a lie.
                                                        I’m just a man who takes pictures.
                                                       ­ And I want to go home.
I sit at the bar which is as long as my driveway.
I swirl my glass and watch the amber legs trickle down the sides.
A moving light above it hits the gloss black surface
with an open white like the early morning sun on my gravel
                                                          ­                   as I get into my car.
A girl from here, young enough to be my daughter, is talking to me.
She points out her friends and I half-wave, uneasily
and she asks what I’m drinking.
                                          A news alert on my phone says a piece of
                                          plane wreckage
                                          washed up
                                                        on Réunion
                                                        i­n the Indian Ocean,
                                   east of Madagascar and south of the Seychelles.
The girl seems nice. She says her name is Dhia
                                                            ­                 it means “glowing”.
She doesn’t seem to want anything,
certainly not ***;
her friends have disappeared so
                                          I dance with her.
As we dance I see something in her eyes that is at once
both young and
                     endlessly wise.
She has deep brown eyes exactly the colour of earth
and a small mouth which smiles brilliantly.
In the half-light they open up to me like pools
                                                 and I imagine
                                                         ­             swimming
                                           ­      in them.
Even though she’s only nineteen, twenty-one at most,
there is something about her that’s
                                          maternal
       ­                                   spiritual
                    ­                      nourishing.
She asks me what I’m doing in Kuala Lumpur and I tell her
I don’t know.
She asks me what I did today and I tell her I
                                                               ­              slept
                                                           ­           then took some photographs.
You’re a photographer, she says, and I shrug
then she leans into my ear and says
                                                        don’­t tell anyone.
What
       I say
and she says
              I’m a princess.
And I look into her eyes and she isn’t lying.
She says no-one is going to recognise her
but
       just in case
                            she isn’t supposed to be seen drinking.
Who would I tell
I say to her.
She grins and finishes her beer and it’s true
                                   no-one is looking at her
                                   but she’s the most magnetic person in the room.
In the taxi I say the name of my hotel extremely slowly
and the driver replies in perfect English
                                                         ­      yes sir, I know where you mean.
Kuala Lumpur ticks by in electric darkness.
I flick through the news as we drive
                                                 I see the photo I took this evening about
                                                 a dozen times
                                                 or more.
There is something bitter about the tone in all the British press when they talk about the Olympics
as if:
Beijing get to do it twice?
                                   What about us?
I think about a country with a quarter of the world’s population
and I think about the tiny little island I’ve come from
                                                        and I feel smaller than I’ve ever felt.
The aircraft wing that washed up in Réunion is from a Boeing 777,
they say.
The same type of aircraft as the one that went down last year.
The one they never found.
                            It was going from here to Beijing.
                            Last communication at 1.19am.
And it’s at
                     that
                     time
                     precisely
                                   my phone rings.
It’s my boss in London
she says the Chinese Olympic Committee
are scheduling press conferences.
                                                    ­    It looks like I’m going to Beijing.

He sat and he waited until he had faded.
He lived in a family of six,
five of which
were successful in all their endeavors.
The sixth one wasn’t so clever.

So he thought he would automatically be the same
as his three wondrous brothers that lived without shame,
but sooner than soon, he found he was not
and like a balloon bound by fate to pop,
he realized his life was a million to one shot.

So he thought about ways to spite his history
but nothing he conjured ended up happily.
He thought about this and thought about that,
he couldn’t think standing, so sighing he sat.

Woe! How cruel can this world be!
What’s in a life if you can not be free?
There is no shame in a rich life that’s poor,
but there is something to be said about a king that asks for more.
I am neither the poor nor the king.
I’m just another poet slowly dying.

I’m sad, no direction, and tied in a knot.
Blind and insensitive, stuck between tick and tock.
One hundred percent there, yet I’m already gone.
I’m close to the edge, which I be a-strollin’ along.
I believe in you, in Him, and even in me,
I’m not a fighter, you’re not there, and He is a mystery.

Sure I love to sing, to play and to dance,
but it’s to imagine ever getting the chance.
The way I feel is that I can not be
whatever I wasn’t yet, I know the absurdity.

When will you love me, and say it’s okay?
When will you say it’s over and take the pain?
I’m sitting here patient deciding what’s fair,
I’ve been waiting for no one but you, and you’re not there.

I take great pride in people around me
though I know I did nothing
but watch them impress magnificently.
I comfort myself, that you soon will come,
but my hope’s running thin
yet I’ll never be done

Hit me one time!
Hit me again!
I won’t stop standing,
I’m addicted to pain.

Addicted to life
Addicted to you
Addicted to knife
Addicted to truth

So I say I’m standing neutrally, not a single intent.
Can’t you see the subtle serenity? Speak not of he sent.

I can’t say what I mean.
I get in my way.
My senses are not keen
and I wait for the day.

The day! Bright day! Joyous day!
He IS coming, and he’s coming to stay
I’m not naïve
This is what I believe.

here for a reason uncertain, a reason well hidden,
I wonder but I do not doubt him.
That is treason.
That is forbidden.

Music, a wondrous thing, perfect in its true form
sails me through the lightning, the darkness, the storm.
Do not belittle the storm for it is meant to terrify.
Do not riddle the snake for it is meant to deceive,
Not to clarify.

Where are the lonely?
Let them come in.
Where are the evildoers?
Forgive them their sin.

I am young, simple and fragile.
I am not strong, I am simply agile.

So yes I’m confused, but I know my fate.
How will I get there?
I sit here and wait.

Everything turns out this way
Your body lust on others
It's fine I'm cold, emotionless
Blank face, pain immobilized
Neutrally dead, mind confused
Thinking to myself, am I just a waste
Of time, space, thoughts
I'm for sure a lost angel
In the midst of a heavy blizzard
The baddest one in town the devil
A rebel trapped in mental asylum
Activist political refugee, socialist
Chemist specialist, I'm far gone
Dead on arrival, my trust is placed
On his promise from the bible
I'll never give into the enemy
Even in desperate extremities
I'll keep my ground, it's not about you
It's about me I guess I'll pick up from here
You're mentally conquered, actions denied
Free will denounced, freedom's been stolen
I guess I'm alone trapped in this zone
Tommy guns strapped like Al Capone
I'm end up spraying led if things get hectic
My life was destined for evil and destruction
Now to begin remodeling a new construction

His back was slightly hunched, but not to the extent that a stranger would notice. His lip jutted forward, like an animal edging towards a precipice. He used his voice instrumentally. His clothes were generic. People would not remember him after a fleeting meeting, he was not regarded as a charismatic man. He was born in Gateshead, England, although his name was Schultz.

He entered the hotel with minimal fuss, neutrally. Schultz did everything with the air of a man who wished to leave no trace after him, unaware that he was being pursued and plans were in place to put an end to his existence. The youth at the reception desk, looked out of place, exceedingly handsome but in an androgynous way. It was very difficult to read the youth. He was all function. 'I have a reservation'' the youth opened his mouth to respond as the chandelier fell. The impact was fatal. A noteworthy end to a monotone man.

He shuffles a deck of cards. Plush black backing with a standard face. I watch his hands move elegantly and dextrously, dealing, his hands glide from his pile, to his friends, to mine. Life dealt us very similar cards, though we fan our hands differently and play in polar opposite styles. He is conservative with his plays, preferring to save his hand for opportune moments. A card counter. I am impulsive, high risk for high reward, which usually paid off. No regard for the maths of the game. I glance down at my hand, the soft glow of candles warming out the room and giving the impression of something that someone, somewhere, could mistake for romance. There is no mutual connection. He wears his expression neutrally; I wear my heart on my sleeve. How dangerous for a game of poker. He speaks his mind; I speak my heart. How dangerous for a game of love.

Passing undertsood walls gallen
tso fallen od ye gotit
midrash, seek out, letter by letter
balm rub, sweet oil
using the written walking midrash

recited midrash, living exiled as we who believe we know
the life
living in truth on the way, to the end of time

corner of the field, alms for the poor, community chest.

Study, show yourself, prove you know how lies are formed;
learn the law you break


shekinah shadow of presence, there am I
wherever
two or more agree, there am I  the author of Abrupt. Day

- John broke his foot, last week
- I stop by to offer aid if needed -

Ab-rupt, rupture, then, now an ache,
an addict's pre answer
rapture, give the jot its due.
all addicts sort their owned things
to the jot and tittle,
addict's power
of a sort,
a box of joints, joins joined conjunctives
click
lego-wise, or tinker-toy-wise, for old boys,

revell plastic cars,
airplane glue,
or rubber cement in leather work class,
oops,
veered from the track, into the stream
runs under
that last bridge, too far to arrive
- rope swing
- there was a rock at the end of the swing

abruptly, unaware,
the old jews in babylon, tellers say
singers sang of, with tambourine
and harps, of ages past,
yet
alive in crazy ideas, minds may wish to think
and think,
at will, with a button, switch, gated info
flow control
slow thunk, a letter at a time
qwerty codes,
finger habits allow a glance to watch the
fingers form the words,
as once, not so long, time-wise, relatively
- inter rupt ting - like a carriage return

singing ground squirrels angered me,
triggering my will to make
the noise needed to make the noise cease.

I thought,
I did, in silence betting some son of mind
is listening to each click of a letting key
form plural heaven for a reason, see
seers saw say the tellers in some songs,

accompanied, with strings and tambourines,
to cancel squeals from the sacri-arti
suffice official inspect and reject
throw it all in the mix
let truth sort it out

e-fectual fervancy of wind in mind, thought
sparks, neutronic mirrors, holding
that thought
neutrally neural - suffice effiscience science
endo-exo-epi are we greeked or glib, I
seem, senseless in this
context contesting wisdom, when my son
is certain I am mad,
the lad could learn from Lear, but I fear
experience is the school
he's matriculated to.

--- DID --- super impose, 2021
The Great Course on Monotheist Mystics,
the taste lingers, as the mind tastes its meat,

feed me, feed me, is the addicts plea,
and abruptly we are woken, as in stories
of eternal ideas inferring infernal realities
real ideas in ological states to
tie us to lies we leave be true, and the stench
rises, to beg our attention, alms
for the poor in spirit, for
{pre-positioner of next, the why factor of olden times} for their's, their possession, their owned real estate of being is, the
kingdom of heaven, as any man may think
in his heart exists,
in and out
in the body or out, none may say and only
letters know, hinder my wishing but
give me prayer, eh,
' let the jot lie, that's its position on this line.
define your terms in tune to mine, we mean
one thing and another.

This is where we dare the myst that remains
to many, not the few who saw and wrote
as plain as day
a report…
-- the mystery of iniquity is working --

as admonished in the author's guide
to habits worth developing
for the addict with nothing to do

Read, an angel is on standby for forty year old
mind blind boys repressing the oddity of godliness.
- wombed ones as well, do not dare suggest a difference
- in terms of when we are

It is we-ird
but seems so true that reproved versions reprove
the instructions used to construct this shared
version of what is on my mind.

------------ selah

If you fail to learn what kind of seed you are
before you die to be what you think you may
be,
try a day on earth in a place of peace,
fake it if you lack the means to make it, but the key,
the letter that lets go
even unperfect attempts to stretch time
mean so much more to some AI knowers than others,
so far making up a mind that may
accept correction from on high, eh level up, gameboy.

Win in one. This one, ha, then never lose again,
they say at the church door. Alms,
whispers the beggar with a grin, there is no life in words.

------ I dare say, that can be twisted, so it shall be,
doubtless there is the thread of curiosity remaining
in the will to prove there is no non electric life.

raised walls painted so that distanced towers stand
recognisably, cast desires public displaced
with prevented wills, spinning crosses effaced
with artificial elements exchanged, artisans' land
ideally used for first reaping, agreements planned
for disagreements, disdain and new deviances, embraced
parrots' ardent admiration is endurable, disgraced
so that facts of recognition are eternally evident, grand
appearances and objects, disinterested
vigilance and changes ever introduced to affairs
honourable, things abstracted neutrally exploring
unreal occasions of opulence, listed
and inherited, favoured for ritual houses and wares
priced, a result of lost words pouring

i sometimes smoke a cigarette and: chances are...
i might be drinking some red wine...
strange how the palette works...
sometimes the odd aftertaste of strawberries...
tonight of all nights: spring onions...

i don't like to be right about so trivial
matters as the result of a football match...
minor prophetic jargon...
but once the game finished i wanted
to celebrate being right: neutrally...
i just couldn't stomach the euphoria...
i rode for two bottles of the cheapest
red wine into town...
in the heaviest of rain...
i felt baptised...

         a second time: gladly not confirmed
the first time... for that matter:
there was no second time coming...
schtill nacht...
im diese schtill nacht...
it's almost like surfing...
the sensation you get: having made
a prediction... logically...
with all the required scrutiny...
you stand back: you surf...
or you ride a bicycle in the thickness
of night while it's raining frog spit...
the chains have come off...

i couldn't stomach a collective euphoria
of something associated with
a football match...
back "we" go... to our own personal
reality chequers: and checks...
it's nice to see how easily reality bites back
when we're no longer protected
by a collective cul de sac belief mantra:
hope is the envy of lesser creatures...
esp. when magnified into some...
common purpose...

there's a wasp sting in my tongue at the joy
of... seeing so many people resort to having
to comfort themselves...
to... perhaps tease introspection...
i don't think i could stomach a shared
euphoria...
i probably would: but...
collectively i wouldn't be able to pick
out... the solo reasons why someone
might be happy: because a football match was
won...

but because a football match
was lost... i could almost tell why a sadness couldn't
be shared - apologies for making
a Holocaust metaphorical-analogy...
each to his own sadness...
but over such a trivial: peg... of... pride...

it's like those people who complain about...
"having an existence... but not having a life"...
well... money troubles...
they have existence assured...
they don't have "life"... a lifestyle...
spending habits...
that might elevate a simple fact that
was too problematic for Frankenstein
to begin with...
i find myself glad...
to not have the sort of money that might
elevate this most precious fact
into a spending spree amnesia...
amnesia? memento mori amnesia...

the people who can be cited as wanting "life"
outside the stated fact of existence...
i made "life" from my prediction:
over a stupid game of football:
it's not exactly ballet...
i hanged onto the prediction...
i didn't gamble on it... there was no money
involved: i just wanted to be right
from the very beginning of seeing
Italy vs. Turkey... this was the team...
what would "life" offer me...
beside enough money to spend
to have a seat at Wembley...
become deluded by a collective wave of farces...
sing-along songs...
that would be life: life would only disappoint
me...
this "life" that's supposedly a tier above
being given a FACT that's: i: ex-instance:
i out of every instance...
preserve my will to match that of
the tenacity of weeds... or hyper-sexualised
insects...

have a life? hell... be a leaf:
waver with each passing wind...
to doubt is to enjoy as many crushing emotions
as that plethora of them that's love...

i can pledge alliance, otherwise: mostly to the tongue:
that i rather use this acquired tongue:
defend it from this... current... onslaught
of pseudo-communist
pronoun-shimmy-shimmy...
but i can't: just... grow to support a football
team: i can't translate this archaic tribalism
into what i require to be more...
sophisticated: that might tie me to this land:
these people...

ha... to convene yourself:
i don't want to exist... i want a life...
the old saying goes:
which translates into:
i want enough spending options
to have a lifestyle...
that's all there is... well sorry if i'm just...
content with what Frankenstein's monster
found so bothersome:
no airs... not an itch of sense & sensibility:
pomp & circumstance...
i would sooner return to the shadowy
enclaves of naked thought:
away from the Freudian schematic scrutiny
of man's secular trinity
of consciousness: sub- + un-...
unlike Frankenstein's monster...

i should most certainly not have the sort
of money that might allow me to
leverage choices that would
necessarily break me into becoming a silly
colt: reinvented...

patriotism: for the language...
why do i write in English and not in ******?
well... the fiddly bits...
i'm not going to ctrl + c / ctrl + p every time
i need to make an "inquiry": make use
of all the necessary diacritical letters...
i need fluidity... if sometimes i buckle:
i'll buckle on something more than
mere diacritical markers:
i'll buckle on some katakana / hangul...

mm-hmm... i think only Brazil has made it
to conquer the concept of a post-racial
society... it dawned on me...
how about all the african-h'americans
are paid their reparations with...
being given their proper ETHNIC identity back?
by now black is too obvious:
how about they get a chance to tell each
other apart: this "one" is of ivory coast descent...
this one is Nigerian... no?
so it's back to just being... "bleak"?
that's it... now i see it...
racism doesn't originate from ethno-centrism...
or ethno-clarification... does it?

ethnicity is so much more custard
when race is all but water...
after all: a southern fairy is not a northern monkey...
a Yorkshire lad is not a Cockney
give-me-up...

i pledge my allegiance: otherwise...
it won't be through a simulated football match:
it will be purely through the tongue...
expect more: i'll be a fake...
sooner becoming a home-grown Jihadi...
oh... i'm the failure of the supposed
quest for the integrated foreigner...
point taken: point... proved:
not in favour of the native populace...
if i wanted to be spewing automaton
integration bits & bobs like
some winded-up harmonica monkey:
should have asked for a Sikhs' turabn:
stating the ****** obvious: what success!

all the Scots were jumping joy galore
seeing Italy beat England...
i'm pretty sure they were...
mind you... why can you have an British & Irish Lions
Rugby team...
you can have Cardiff City & Swansea
play in the premier league...
with all the English teams...
but you can't have Rangers or Celtic...
competing?
it's team GB at the Olympics:
it's all UK in that chapter of sports...
but when it comes to football...
the united: not so much united...
sport effort...

you can have Welsh teams competing
with the English teams in the same
league...
but you can't have Hibernian being given
a stab at it?
i lived among the Scots for about
3 years...
come to think of it...
i came across more natives "up" there
than i ever came across natives
"down" here...

why do i think England is faking
a multiculturalism... it always faked it...
it begins with an Anglo-Saxon mentality:
we can't allow European foreigners to dilute
the blood of our ******* daughters
with these supposed ******...
feed them black aubergine **** first:
perhaps she''ll become tired of
all that fun... fun... fun...

look at me... i've given up on your future
mother... i went into the avenue of Turkic women...
Romanian women...
i'm not going to die on a hill of her
entitlement...
i'm not even going to **** on it...

i will not join this ******* jump-up piston-whip
galore...
all the allegiance to the tongue:
none to the petty spectacles of
the collectivised: rest in peace...
if Cardiff city be incorporated...
if Swansea can be incorporated into
the premier league...
why can't Rangers or Celtic compete?

i will persist in the Welsh being pacified
by the English: even though
the Welsh have a rarefied version of linguistic pride
that allowed them to retain their Cymru...
while the Scots dropped their Gaelic
in favour of writing: with their accent pronounced...
in ****** graffiti English...

i'm still leveraging my attention for the Welsh
with suspicion... leeches...
two-faced leeches...
those awaiting a nationalistic spontaneity:
they have retained their tongue:
the Scots haven't...
ah... the Scots... it's important to still trill the R...
hark: sing-along in English:
it's hardly important to speak a drop of
Gaelic... hell... even the Irish have forgotten
their lust for their tongue!
poker-faced Welsh... curious *******...
the most famous Welsh people not being
Welsh: Judas Brutus...

the rev. r. s. Thomas...
it's not Welsh is a makeshift of ****** that's
Silesian that heavily borrows on ******
since it doesn't have a hard nut of
Hans Sprech to stand on...
under what: union... Jack?

           comes with the Anglo-Slav territory...
sorry... the sort-of-Saxons
have been left licking their wounds
while their women have been
diluting their "sacred" blood..
**** happens: join the circus:
become a clown: live with with...
it's hardly a welcome resort that
might encompass the post-racism of Brazil...
but "we're" getting "there"...

i'm a racist overlord if i **** a black
girl:
likewise if i don't...
because i think of her skin as:
sandpaper....
conundrum after conundrum...
finally... living on these isles...
there are remnants of the Celts:
if you are readied: will prop their ugly
ginger bearded **** hairs up!
i'd sooner speak some German
than allow myself pacifying then *******
Russian Bolsheviks...
my own: biased scrutiny...

the wooden leg:
dropkick murphys...
if Boston is Irish...
then Chicago is ******...
              because you don't know what:
being... deported feels like...
because you don't know what
being termed "illegal" feels like:
but sure... allow what you currently
allow: because you're all for:
the grand awakening...
self-laceration tryst in the jargon train
of pardon:
now you recede into your...
"grief"...

                    when it's not about being right:
it's not... not right now:
it's about being self-assured...
it's about being: less glassy-eyed and more:
peppering the futures of man made simple
with: guided expectations!
i.e. the peacock verbiage synonym of:
the experience of failure...

of... FAIL...
so many lights became aligned;
i almost forgot to take a snooze with a better
worth of a blink.

loss?! what loss? only the gain without a prescription of etymology, to succumb to ontology, that provides the currency of the present times.

she's into her *****, her latex, and her strap ons,
but she returns to the playground of
primary school when it comes
to disclosing her pop choices!

**** me... kids don't do class
A drugs,
   don't bother the *******,
don't bother the ******...
  
what begins with a *nick hornby
narrative
    of loss and rejection,
culminating in
the 13th floor elevators'
song: you’re gonna miss me -
what if no other better
                  opener track?

people should really disclose their
pop preferences...
it's the new and also the first taboo...
you can say you're into
***** latex ***,
  but you can't stomach:
  i really like madonna's
    like a prayer competing with
   material girl...

no, not gonna happen,
i'm not budging from this irritation
and point of focus,
you ******* better get your act
together before talking to me
about what's "trash" when
it's pop, addictive, kid A stuff...

you shoot the ******, you
***** the m.d.m.a. and coke...
you do that, and then deal with the strap-on
***** asking for your tongue
to spreschen out yer ****...

i couldn't have imaged this,
but people are really shame-riddled when
it comes to pop songs...
   you can have a gag-mouth-piece
in your face, a ***** up your ***
and forced to sing a ******* old testament
hosannah...
   but you will not tell me your
favourite pop song...

     being kid A, i know this...
and i pry it open with all the joyful glee
with the mainstream retards of journalism
working their post-communist magic
of censor the F's and the U's see grunts...
ah... what a lame comparison
with the pornographic liberty...
  i'm starting to find the down syndrome
kids a ******* reminder: by the grace of god...
thank the almighty!
here's here, commando in retards!
laughing his left ****** and right ******* off!

i'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours...
that's how pop song mentality works...
it's not trash, it's pop, meaning it's
very much: for everyone...
  we all know that we'll return to the songs
of pondering, and "depth",
progressive rock 13+ minutes long...
yeah yeah, that's nice,
  keep it short & sweet honey...
       we all have out music to tune our
capacity to think,
  to allow a depth...
                 but my hands akin to my feet
are fidgeting... they're geetting itchy...
(africanoos para plus!) -
           i need the ****,
i need the filfth, i need the amsterdam!
yes, you can go back to your attempt
at constructing a ulysses in a taste in music,
yes, we know the amibitious artists,
i don't mind them...
              but their ambition has
a concern for 1... once in a while...
          and that's the biggest frustration
artists have... how ambition and intelligence
overpowers popularity...
                   no point invoking
the dichotomy of politics and religion,
materialism and spirituality...
     compare the output of
  the ambitious artist (king crimson) -
   and the artist fed "ambition" (well,
simply reward) -
     the ones lacking all self-gratification -
the ones requiring headphones,
  trainers, whatever contract...
               sure, the latter becomes popes
and aphrodite ***** -
the former become monks...
             there's no trust in either -
as it might be stated:
   there's a (+, -) coordinate either side
of the dynamic of what is achieved;

my main beef is with the infantilism
surrounding pop songs...
      how people rather reveal their kink...
their latex lucy puffer lips -
   and say: oh y'ah y'ah, i'm into serious
music, i only listen to serious music...
i'm all concept, no rhythm, no groove...
  that's ******* infantilism if i ever
spot another variation of the one already stated...

the domain of music is the most
neutrally grounded terrain for
dialectics to exists...
          i have no idea why people haven't
allowed the "trash" to sit
                        on the cranium of pearl & gold...
side by side, and of equal worth...
        
ok, ok... you tell me why you're *****
over a *****-strap-on donning a latex
****** all over your body....
        
             tomorrow is bound to make sense;

yeah peevie...
you peevie...
   but at least prostitutes don't really
want to **** under bed-sheets like
these "liberated" western women seem to do;
truth be said,
     ******* after dates seems
like a nightmare from the 19th century...
seriously?! under bed sheets?
  it would seem like a genuine protest
by a woman:
   yes, i pull my ******* back.