Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Non Jarvis Sep 2014
Heno, ‘dw i’n syllu,
Heno, ti’n gwingo,
Heno, ‘dw i’n gwintyllu
Yr awel sy’n ddi-flino.

Heno, ti adra,
A’r hiraeth wedi cilio.
Heno, ‘dw i adra,
A’r atgof yn fy mlingo.

Heno, does na’m newid
i be’ ti’n deimlo,
i be ‘dw i’n gofio.
Heno, nid oes addewid,
Heno, nid oes ni.
This poem is in Welsh, my mother tounge. The translation below is literal, and therefore does not rhyme as it does in Welsh;

Heno - Tonight

Tonight, I'm staring,
Tonight, you're writhe.
Tonight, I'm dissecting,
The breeze that's non stop.

Tonight, you're home,
And the longing has dissapeared.
Tonight, I'm home,
And the memory is skinning me.

Tonight, there's no change
to what you're feeling
to what I remember.
Tonight, there's no promise,
Tonight, there's no us.
Mateuš Conrad May 2020
.for two days a song was haunting me, seemingly unheard before, hidden in the deep recesses of my mind - unrelated by sound or memory... yet burning itself a presence regardless of my faculties... restless... i had to take a walk through bedfords park, havering country park and hainault forest country park - through sun and rain and two bottles of wine... twice seeing bambi and at times scuttling like a rat / misanthrope from the unusual traffic of these parts... to finally find peace... Borodin's prince igor!

there's just enough of gloating to have to muster...
before some grander detail has to take form:
i've been trying to capture the song
i want to listen to: but it's hardly a genesis
of an #A... or... whistling...
             kik kershaw's the riddle?
                         it's not - now that the hindsight ("spoiler")
is presented... it wasn't a bach aria:
or a batCH... well: who's the good surd?
'ere boy... vat's a good tau: ba'ch...
     the would be baчelor: j. s. baχ...
                            a juggling act of... less than...
what james joyce's finnegans' had to offer:
and more: the diacrcrcr-detail-of-antics...
       pop sort of reference points?
                   would they be... if they weren't...
for the per se reasons?
                  details are in the noumenon -
that... axe-folding: exfoliating lesser demand
for: **** in machina...
                                      the sort of details
that mind: the over-simplified woman...
and... the terrible complicated seance of...
when witches were detailed about...
their broomsticks were to be replaced with...
vacuum cleaners... terrible details of
"unnecessary" complications...
man of science man of technology man
of engineering and man of mathematics...
much later... the man of linguistics and...
the troop of ballet dancers... the choreographers
and the composers...    

i have taken enough days to gloat...
working an addiction in reverse...
a bank-roll filled with: plenty of nicotine...
and chem.,
           just waiting for the completed
day... an exercise in language:
and jack daniels bubblegum:
pale blue... blueberry images... gluttons
of colour: those pearls...
back to music... back to music...

   i wanted: rather than tried...
to fathom a pause in the construnction
of the res cogitans: with the usual
punctuation markers...
it's hardly a semi-colon...
          a full-stop... a comma or a full-stop...
hardly the detail of syllables
with diacritical markers...
    hidden letters...
rare in english that sheer and chisel
should come together...

i was thinking of a punctuation marker
to block of all narrative...
not a mere punctuation marker -
not some apostrophre...
                precursor to the possessive article:
's..              's...
even the russians do not have
what i already have...
         namely... дж...   джик is an approximation...
something is hidden within...
dzik itself (boar)... dzikość - wildening...
        a lost attribute for the civilized man...
   дж is... slightly off from the intended:
   дз - while ж (rz or ż-art - joke) -
              is... well... it appears...
but is a few letters apart...
       for example in: drzeć (tear - ter:
not tier - nor teer - backwards to forwards...
latin diphthong of æ) -
                        to tear paper into pieces...
   a tear ran down my cheek...
   to have read: rather than... to simply: read -
and... the reed - a stalk of a bulrush...
               the eastern lands...
                      synonyms and two best known
aliases: the birch tree and the bulrush wetlands...

this is the only best: approximation
of a song akin to Borodin's prince igor...
that can't be hummed... unless heard proper...
not from an abstract of memory...
conflation of adjectives?
abstract is more an adjective than a noun...
for this presentation...

      hiding letters like a good 'ebrew...
           surds detailed with apostrophes...
mollusk legs... exercised...
  a day later and the extreme cigarette high
is "missing": not found...
   щыт "vs" szczyt / ščyt -
                 no less congested than:
                                       dość! enough!

from the initial fascination of working
english into greek...
                     things had to translate themself
into "mordor" regions: Ruś, Krym, Tartar...
the Caucaus...
                        and the Turkic dwarf plebs
of mythical Constantinople... takeover...

- with thinking i wanted to capture:
res vanus: the empty thing...
       a synchronised: symphony of...
with what's being emptied...
while at the same time... with what's being
filled...
the years passed when pacing
with a heart of a turtle...
compared to... the heart of a mouse...
i call it: no known noun...
              to think is to have the heart
of a mouse... easily agitated...
no room for lost narratives...
      hell: better still... without haikus
and all those condoms of denial and...
delayed view-count murmurs...

          a case of: res cogitans:
a thing most animate...
a case for: res vanus:
   aa thing most inanimate...
         it's... a slingshot... a strain on purpose...
it's an incremental addition of purpose...
it's a punctuation mark akin
to: lost the linear...
up toward the copernican east we go...
and then back toward the flat-earth
project of... being able to read a map:
topography... without: the need for 3D:
3D the copernican: it's all very imaginary...
vector alpha:
points beta and gamma...
to find punctuation: a silence...
a bit like... finding gravity...
which isn't a sound... but if it was...
it would be... the sound of falling rain
on leaves or lead plating of a roof...
or... the sound of recycling...
of water... in a waterfall...

by now all the ******* readers have
disappeared... there's no more...
instagram haikus in the system...
there's the drone drill sequence...
a very distant humming sound...
perhaps an impromptu crescendo of
variations of a cat's meow...

absolute: total: шит... more like шитышит:
    шыт if i was... to be honest...
   sheets of paper... floating about...
                    well... i too once thought:
those russians... with they cyrillic...
but no diacritical markers...
      well K in a mirror: ж...
                      no one told me about brining
mirrors into the project...
     sh-ch-
sz-cz-                щыт - height: well... zenith...
bl-ы'h bl-ы'h: blah... blah...
       it's a letter: the russians call a "sound"...
like the english should start calling
the letter "g" or the "h" a >sound<:
surd...    an apostrophe: gnome: 'nome...
gnosticism: 'nosticism...
                                 'alf the 'arvest...
prop'er: cockers and pouch of punches...
   very ******* irish sober to me...
brings all the harlequins and loon'doon'ish
to the backyard for:
                   milch-schütteln-und-schäkel...

and then i return the cork back onto the corkscrew...
as i pa'k - my... packaging... CCCP... comrade...
the folded soviet shop...
don't worry terrible ivan... there's a new shop
in town... the iron has morphed into silicon...
see-through curtains and...
this virus... did more damage...
than any... brave lion of the jihad would ever...
circumstance of the affairs of westminster bridge...
they would "epstein" one through
one in a while...
                 to **** chicken the populace
into a cucklicking KKK strut dance of:
burning hoods and bras and crucifixes...
and ******...
                              conventional... formal...
language usage? please reserve that for...
the golf course and business talk...
                write? write what? a kandinsky?!

yes... a big hello ******* from
tiktok and twitter...
1 minute videos and... 180 characters...
         i feel constrained... claustrophobic...
if... i can't write an imitation Dickens chapter...
1000 words is ******* lemonade...
2000 words is... regurgitating a day's worth
of a newspaper... saturday edition...
which includes the editorial and the magazines...
3000 words? a truly rare thing...
      given that... conjunctions and their details
are not counted: ' - is both an apostrophe and a surd
letter... t'at all depends: on the "v.a.t."...

the whole point was...
finding excuses to write about quitting smoking
are other... they were all fine: crack ******* smoked
when the levels of nicotine were dropping...
the upper body was exercised...
but the legs weren't... mollusks and oysters for *****...
or... toes...
to count... oysters for toes...
but when the legs have been exercised...
and a balance has been reached...
there's little to gloat about... about...
quitting smoking...
there's a need to say: the glory of the tongue
and its palette when walking...
the budding beauty of things surrounding me...
all blushing envy of the green...
  self-respecting green and its almost
teasing green phosopherscent insomnia
in the rubric of the sun: next to wake...
next to hide... a bud of bishop hues...

insomnia green of the forest...
                     poor bambi (x2)...
                    zinfandel rosé!
count! syllables! nurse! scalpel!
zin!-f'ah-del... rou-s'eh...
                              oh remind me of the night...
and the forest... the blinking moon
by count of clouds obstructing its glee...
turned into a melting moon...
spray-painted over the leaves with
its last will of agitated: clingy mercury tinge...

the debate: "debate" wasn't about...
i took 3 days to gloat about quitting smoking...
there are more important affairs to mind...
notably! notably?

example!

la traviata is an opera in three acts by (giuseppe) verdi
set to an italian libretto by francesco (maria) piave
                                                 (verbatim: i.e. borrowed)...

there... they cite... the composer...
    who doesn't need a first name, since: verdi is...
synonymous with verdi and opera composition...
but...
         yeah... you need to mention the first name
and the surname of... the libretto: francesco piave...
the opera...
      music... and... the words...
well so much for the music...
but... last time i heard... a violinist holds...
a violin and a bow...
                         what's the opera singer
to hold? the melody? no! he needs to hold...
words...

   today i passed a family in the forest...
a mother, a father... two children...
                   and a grandfather...
maternal / paternal... i don't know...
i was already on my second bottle of wine...
the woman asked me:
   'will we get back to the car park if we turn
around on this route?'
        i was already eyeing them with
a curiosity prior...
i uttered the words... 'you should...'
          not... 'i hope so... since i'll be
testing that question'...
or 'you will...'
                           several minutes later
in my own solipsistic interlude...
            you should... i swear to god...
sometimes i say something and can't
see letters behind the sound...
      like: i shouldn't really see: meow...
behind the sound a cat makes...
since... a cat doesn't just make an: ego sum: meow
universal statement...
there are variations...
    'you should'... i repeated...
slightly drunk and... whatever... i didn't see
any letters in the sound i made...
           for once... not the last time, though...

to abide in such joys from a past -
chevalier, mult estes guariz -
                 to cite charmlemagne and prince rolo:
the scandinavian convert -
who's (whoz: not who is) descendents
were the morphed vikings: the normans...
who conquered england...
        since the predecessors couldn't...
walther von der vogelweide:
                    palästanalied...
all through the german autobahn...
                   the word... AUSFAHRT!
the lands owned by the lithuanian who
married: and by marriage became converted...
from the last pagan prince of europe:
enclosure rhapsody of caged
elephants: prior: mammoths...
  the estonian bulwark...
von meer zu meer (von baltisch zu schwarzes meer)
these jagiełło platitudes of envy... chełm...
      sch'war'zes...

begotten not made: blistered...
the scarf of colour to capture the frenzy of
autumn... a shawl best worn to...
loot the colour and suffocate the subject
with: no past a dream and a dream
without rucurrence...
to borrow from the past as much
if not more from fiction!
to say: once they pickled Barbarossa...
come the third crusade... disgruntled oath-breakers...
sought the prussians...
and the lithuanians... and all that land
to the east...
had they only known... what the prussians
would make of the absence of the saxons
of the pomeranians and the bavarians...
i wasn't there... no...
but a romance is a romance is:
here's to... no ode to a ******* sailor:
capn' ahab... or the rodin instruction
knee deep in the mud at ypres...
or the mass-graves of german youth
or: how kaisser wilhelm and that in-breeding
crew of familial ties tore europe
on the altar of the bull...
before this bourgeoisie whittle adoolph HIT!
came about and charged the former
bitzmarck ***** and the elites with...
eh... the story is so told and so old...
"they" couldn't fathom the middle-project
of the khaki and ******* not coming
from their... high-brow... aristocracy...
better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven...
choir boy whittle adoolph said:
i'll borrow the schnurrbart from chaplin...
after all... with a surname like mine...
a ****** or a chaplin is no... WIN-D'SOR!
yes... apostrophe 'ere if not to hide a surd...
it's to elevate punctuation...
for the sake of syllables... the hyphen is not
enough... vowel catcher tetragrammaton
invocation! the first arm of the god:
the second arm is for: ha ha ha! laughter!
cynic and satyr!
            eh... let's leave the stoics to their
love of labouring over the fate of oysters!
protestants and pre-destination-alists...
clarvoyant calvinists!

                         from the decadence of a "lost"
empire... what "pseudo" history is to be
resurrected... romanced...
the angevin empire?! that there is a past...
the "lesser" dream...

a patrick and andrew a george...
and ef bwy newid troi (he who...
altered path) -

troedfilwr - petty velsh:
quasi-silesian / kashubian / little warsaw
of the "bigger picture" masovia...
CAPital neu...
          
- ever write something...
at a snail's pace: crow pecking...
because a moth has just flown into your room...
and... unlike... holding a seashell to your
ear... to find the ivory shore...
and the details of false echo of... galloping
waves...
you clench your hand...
and hear... fluttering... like the sound of...
desperately falling rain..

madame butterfly is an opera
by (giacomo) puccini, with a libretto
by luigi illica and giuseppe giacosa

the magic flute, k. 620, is an opera in
mozart to a german libretto by
emanuel schikaneder:

           der verk is in the form of a singspiel:
singing and spoken dialogue...
my demise: the awe... interludes of...
theatre... in an opera!

               rushing rushing and... kandinsky
the colt serenade kind...
  with... canvas... and an auction house
of reserve that... fridge magnet enterprise
of a single mother of... 6...
              
you couldn't get an opera...
working from the carmina burana...
the... libretto... thankfuly...
constricted the music...
you'd only get what you already have...
a medley... opertics instead of an opera...
sketches of an opera...
    the whole custard mess...
the rhubarb the rasberry "finicky"...
         the Goliards and the... gonnards...

               were diu werlt alle min
               von dem mere unze an den Rin,
               des wolt ih mih darben
               daz diu chunegin von Engellant
                lege an minen armen


the quid pro quos and the... anon. circus
spectacular sheen!
  
  what is the composer without the libretto?
the violin player has his violin and bow
attached: like some... frankenstein's take
on an elaboration of an autumnal fallen:
leaf of: a "false" limb...
dire desires for a lingering crescendo...
of a piece... without an overture...
bothercome children and the good life...
nothing worth clarifying the nouns:
to a supper... a goodnight...

                       bedtime with nabokov?
my take... well... it becomes apparent...
when... the local... easily accessed by the many...
avenues of love... are exercised...
what remains? taboo...
and once the taboo is... investigated...
invested in... well then...
there's that all overpowering tease of
thought not materialised into a will...
a 14 year old girl... below the mark...
she's 16 and i'm 18...
and i'm not her... cousin and this is not
israel...
                  after a while... the only *** available
is... the forbidden type...
and there's... so much freedom in
what's forbidden... when it's only thought...
the complex: θ(ought) complex
that becomes φ(inking)...

              the moment "she" starts to
perceive the mirror...
       and you're looking into the concept
of time and of glass...
  
but then... there's... the libretto... and the composer...
the rare event of: richard wagner...
where there's a schizoid... bilingual...
"in theory": der kommissar working 7/11
on the advent of: neu-muzik zu kommen!

  queen of the night aria contra...
my sleeping karma - satya - ahimsa...
that one: "last" cigarette...
me... a wife and a child...
        tidy... if i only aimed at...
the fraction to no effect...
the wife and the sole child...
i'd be doing all the proper details...
a wife and... the hungarian model...
of at least: towing 2...
      hardly an embitious venture if only
towing the holy trinity of:
fake hey-gay-zeus fake myriam fake josephus...

not looking for queen of the night aria...
   nor satie's gnossienne no.1 sampled...
ezio bosso - under the trees...
           vittorio monti
jean-paul egide martini {/^.5.p 6^)_(0$drd...
toast!
it was... bothering me... started last night...
took 6 rough miles to get the tune
out from my head...
into a coffin... of sorts...
it was... borodin's prince igor! all along!

p.s. re-flex: the politics of dancing...
       duran-duran: the reflex; ******-pointer-ler;
h'american pie contra dad:
   the gay bar: electric sexes und siebens:
hefyd...                         deutsche bankschisch...
zeit (time) and the ruschischen:
              цeit... always conflated as...
indistinguishable by a ****** / lithuanian...
           цeit - bißcuit... crumble: чarcoal...

hey presto: a *******... voilà contra eureka!
Chris Slade Jul 2019
I was a sales rep in the 70s…
selling art materials to education in deepest Wales
Back in the day those in the far West were passionate.
There were tales of fervent nationalists who didn’t like the English for what they’d arrogantly done.
scouted round for the nicest cottages just for weekends.
These were early Yuppy trends.
They invited down Drusilla, Rupert, Jacintha & Giles
and other poncey friends.
for Pims and Taramasalata and Lava Bread…
“made from seaweed’? Such Fun!

There was a spate of ritual burnings of the cottages
of the weekend renovator’s pride
It was a powerful statement of the Welsh anger at those raiders from… well, the other side.
Cottages burnt regularly caught wider attention on the international news…
so, many understood the Welsh, their hurt, their motives, their PR and their views.
but it was my job to travel the principality hawking paint to primary heads and secondary art teachers
So the nationalist bar was set high. It was their home game and mine only just features
powder and poster paint, brushes, plaster and clay… But I wasn’t daunted… no way!

It was Cardigan,  Aberaeron Primary to be precise…
That was my next call.
And I stood perplexed, staring blankly at the notice board in the entrance hall.
Until recently signs had always been bi-lingual.  
I glazed over….Today… worryingly they were just single!
All I saw was  “Pennaeth, Campfa, Neuadd Fwyta, Swyddfa'r Ysgrifennydd, Ystafelloedd Newid
So… I snapped out of it and took a guess… This Newid one… Girl’s Changing Rooms!!… I flew!
Thanks heavens nobody saw me… I got back to the notice board and re-viewed the list anew…

Thank the Lord, just then, I heard female voices as they clip clopped along the parquet
I turned nervously and said “excuse me I’d like to see the head Mr Meredith… Is he in today?”
with the sweetest smile the lady said… “Mr Mer-ed-ith? Yes I’ll have word…
She disappeared behind the door that said “Pennaeth”…
“Head” I thought! Mmm.
“Mr Mer-ed-ith would like to know if you are a Welsh speaker? “Fraid not I said… I’m from Yorkshire”.
"In that case he says Na! I’m sorry I mean No. Your company should employ a Welsh speaker to sell to us in Wales".
If only I’d been able to say “Rwy'n siŵr mai'r dyn sy'n cymryd y swydd pan fyddaf yn gadael fydd eich dyn!”

Instead I said… If you tell me where I can pick up a phrase book I’ll give it a go! Diolch am eich help, hwyl fawr!
True Story

— The End —