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Mateuš Conrad Jan 2023
i've noticed that, upon ushering words from the depth
of nothing, or as an interlude in Knausgaard's day-to-day
musing in vol. 6 after inviting Geir over:
this "i" or that "i" or for that matter "my" i...
however you want to frame it...
    i noticed that if i allow myself an evening of not writing...
esp. on an electric screen for someone else to see...
if for example i lay down to go to sleep...
not exactly asleep: dart out of bed and scribble something
on a piece of paper for only me to see...
i will still dream...
but if i sit down and face the electric screen:
pixels like the eyes of a fly... for someone else to see?
i don't dream...
   otherwise... having scribbled down the following
on a piece of paper:

   exploring Heidegger's dasein in another language...
my native, which i will translate into English,
basically prepositional coordination of(f) being
off not necessarily implying non-being -
perhaps merely: being-in-itself or rather the other...

tu-być : be-here
              to-bycie : this-being
ten-byt :                      ditto
although: nuance... there is a distinction...

i also scribbled down something i heard a long
time ago about how Russia, India and China are
re-orientating themselves with the slacking of the western
influence on: whatever it was that the west had
for the past three decades beside
proxy wars, collateral damages and "culture"...

i heard the term: post-ethnic-nationalism
post-ethno-state post-nation-state...
ergo: multiculturalism... which, oddly enough:
i can't come to grips with trying if not trying to
pretend to be a native of these isles -
perhaps it might be a shock for someone outside
of London - but in London it's almost
second nature to... be surrounded by people
from all around the world...
needless to say: the natives are not so disgruntled
once they're sitting all pretty-cherry on top
of some hierarchy: esp. in the journalistic
opinion sections of the Saturday / Sunday magazine...
then it's an open bonanza against
the "lower class racists" and what not...
i can't be an anti-racist: after all...
                                     anti-racists once produced
a schematic for us to learn from in primary school...
which shower the size of brains of...
a white person, a black person and a racist...
and some other brains...
the racist's brain was under-developed:
smaller...                                      ­ really?!

anyway... so Russia, India and China have opted for
what has come to be known as the:
civilization-state...
                                     given the ongoing zeitgeist
******* blowing up in the Anglophone world from
H'america... the culture-war(?!) -
i would bet fairly and say that pretty much all
former nation-states of western Europe
and beyond are currently in a state of morphing
into: buzz buzzword: being - culture-states...

but whereas a civilization-state seems an abrupt
optimal to counter and disagreement with regards
to continuity: civilisations don't merely come and go...
whereas cultures do...
   culture is somehow a totality of the little things
in life... fashion, the arts, politics, faux pas innuendos,
trends, diet...
that's culture and some...
but civilisation? to me that's like saying...
the foundation of Rome was the creation
of the aqueducts...
                  civilisation to me is like saying:
the British Empire and the steam-engine...
civilisation to me, London, exclusively is... the tube...
the underground network...

seriously... i don't need to go to a West End Play
i don't need to go and see Ed Sheeran play
to a sold out Wembley stadium of 100,000+ people
(although, i did, even though i did because
i worked a shift there doing security,
so, technically i didn't, but did)
            i don't need culture... as such...

all i need to do is first, do a shift at Craven Cottage...
hope that the Elizabeth Line won't be working
travel on the Central Line from Newbury Park all
the way to Holborn... and then blah blah...
instead of trying to look at the tired faces opposite
me admire the map of the Central Line
(it's a toss-up between the Central Line map,
or the District, Northern or Piccadilly)
and then, on some sunny day... get my bicycle
out... and bicycle for most of the route... notably...
skewing... merging at Fairlop working my way
through Barkingside, coming to Gants Hill
then less of the tube route (mind you...
between Leyton and Stratford it's pretty
much over-ground) -
   and then from Stratford - through to Mile End...
from Mile End via Whitechapel... to Aldgate...
from Aldgate to St. Paul's... Chancery Lane...
Holborn... rat beneath the ground:
like a rat needs a bicycle -
   well this rat is no hamster: hence the bicycle
and not a hamster-wheel...

what culture? movies?! i tried watching something
relevant to the 1980s today... ***** Dancing...
great soundtrack but... cringe!
that's even before Malcolm X and how inter-racial
inter-****** relations had to be the new norm:
i mean: ******* fair play...
    building the new Brazil -
    but i still think there's an under-representation
(and isn't everyone supposed to get a fair share
of representation) of white boy Romanian girl
(Roma, gypsy) or white boy Turkish girl...
   or white boy half-white half-Indian girl...

i know i will not dream tonight because someone
will see this...
my little itchy thoughts, my freed from the reins
"i" that doesn't really have these words clogging
up its mind - only until the itching of the fingers starts
and i have a blessed day...
like today...

why is it that a Saturday evening can feel like
a Sunday evening?
oh, right... i made steak for dinner tonight...
potato wedges (skins on, first boiled until
the the water started boiling, turned off, soaking
for 5 min, drained, olive oil, cajun pepper sprinkle,
into the oven)
    and some baked vegetables:
leeks, carrots, parsley root, red onions,
celeriac, swede... balsamic vinegar,
    sambal, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper,
sugar (i stopped using honey,
   it sticks to the baking tray plus the vegetables
lose their crunch, and vegetables need their crunch)...
2 steaks (456g total) shared between three people...
seasoned with sea salt and grain black pepper
(i prefer pepper grains than pepper powder,
i.e. pockets of explosion of that spice)
    3 min each side... a perfect medium-rare blush...

however the Indians might sell their spices...
chillies etc. there's still something wholesome
when it comes to eating certain types of food...
given that... i wouldn't be eating beef in India:
i wouldn't be seasoning beef with chillies!
that's why pepper is important...
that's why horseradish is important...
i let most of the Indians slip up: oooh! the Europeans
didn't have any spices...
apart from thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender,
mint... pepper, horseradish, i#m sure we
were also familiar with cumin seeds -
as well as that anise-seed that' not the star
(i forgot the name of it, it looks like
a cumin seed, but fatter, and split down
the middle - green) oh and of course:
plenty of salt...
what's all the spices in the world in the culinary world...
IF, YOU, AIN'T, GOT - SALT?!
   (if you don't have... i know i know...)

it's rather bewildering talking to certain Asians...
although, saying that...
most of Eastern Europe had plenty of interaction
with Asians, namely the Mongols
and the Turks - which the western Europeans
sort of... "forgot"... after Darwinism they
skipped over Asia and went straight back
to Africa... personally? i feel more akin to Asians
(esp. the oriental folk) than i do with anyone
from Africa... however Christianity was born...
after all: what's the definition of a white man?
Caucasian? and where's the Caucus?
Asia... Europe was always going to be
a funnel - a bottle-neck continent -
a port... a departing point...
       perhaps we shouldn't be so clingy to it...
unless of course:
   oh the parody of Jesus never came out of
Europe: "we" had to wait for it coming from
North America, but by then it was no longer
a parody of Jesus but a parody of North American
Christianity... a North American parody of Jesus
is... oddly enough... a European parody
of North American Christianity: via Jesus...

which brings me to another thing... only upon
doing a shift at Craven Cottage did i first hear
the parakeets... never before...
     i'm not going to bloat my ego this much but...
since then i've seen an article on Wikipedia that
i never saw before, the article just appeared out of
nowhere: feral parakeets of England...
subsequently... only a day ago:
you're only here for the parrots, fans chant
as birds swarm Leyton Orient pitch (Evening Standard
4 hours ago)
and bare conker trees overrun by bright green
parakeets make them seem vibrant despite leafless
branches (Daily Mail, 3 days ago, somewhere
in south London)...

today i was given the chance to walk back into my old
haunt... as much as i love cycling...
it's sometimes refreshing to walk...
the slowing of pace, the horizon almost intact...
more so... if walking into a forest...
Bower Wood... i know it is a curated wood...
it's not as feral as the pine woods of Eastern Europe...
but: if life gives you X... you make XY...
x = lemons, y = juice ergo xy = lemon juice...

i'm pretty sure i was familiar with this wood...
i was out hunting for souvenirs for my mother to dress
the table / fake deer antennas for candles to sit in...
holy, some other greenery with black berries...
i was hunting for ferns, almost near impossible
given this time of year... found some! bright blush
of childish envy... oh... and birches...
some oak barks fallen off... just me alone in the forest...
i was so thankful by myself...
but usually i heard crows, magpies and woodland
pigeons... but now?! parakeets?!
here?! now?! parrots in winter in these parts?!

i swear the world is standing-up-side-down...
it's hard not to miss an under-current of a serious
pagan revival weaving and slithering its way through
Europe: if only you care to listen...
i switched off from whatever is available in culture
these days... i know that what i'm listening to
will not gain popular traction...
i can walk into the forest and... there's the forest...
i go back home... cook dinner...
go into my bedroom, open a bottle of cider
thinking: no champagne will beat this...
put on a record akin to...
Heilung's TENET and... hey presto!

                       i was in company of a good friend:
someone already dead who...
i don't know how someone can lose themselves
in the forest... pareidolia...
   you can sometimes see paths already trodden...
unseen but somehow: you can see a "ghost"
of a foot here and there...
    you know: you just KNOW where a human foot
prior to yours once treaded...
there are patterns... better sticking with pareidolia than
the iconoclasm of celebrity...
i always thought that was better...
i like to think i'm in the company of strange
creatures: phantoms of my mind...
but hardly! how can these be phantoms of my mind?!
i didn't spontaneously conjure a face in a tree
when the ******* tree is older than me!
the tree was here before me!
what?! some sin?! some psychological sin
of non-conformity?! i don't adhere to star-gazing
in the filth of commodities and entertainment?!

i know why this feels like a Sunday evening even
though it's a Saturday night...
i was planning on going to the brothel tonight...
but... oh hey mother, hello father...
i'm going out... where? you don't have any friends...
blah blah... yeah... well... i'm kind of happy
because of that: no social-constraints of expectations...
as the conversation usually ran with the last
remaining friend i had from high-school...
- so, what have you been up to?
- nothing...
     and he knew that i was scribbling like mad...
what's there to talk about when it comes to writing?!
last time i heard: you read what is written...
you don't talk about it...
hopefully the reading of something written goes
back into thinking and is not spoken of:
since the conventionality of everyday
formality of social-speech crushes anything delicate
that is born from i-ought-not-but-regardless-i-must!
it's a compulsion!

i went to the shop about 3 hours ago to buy an extra
bottle of cider because i knew: having read a little more than
usual i had to keep the Libra of conscience in place,
"conscience": never write more than you read...
and never read less than you write - so so...
          wow... FORK in the "ROAD"...
                        this is me replaying the opening of the song
TENET - the sound of the horn...
well... i didn't have a horn in the forest...
but i had my pagan statue... a dead white tree...
i left this little stick next to it... i used to walk this wood
more times than i can remember...
sometimes i walked into it bare-chested...
blind from the darkness, but somehow illuminated
by the moon... sat on a stump of wood...
silence... then a breaking of a branch...
not the sort of breaking of a branch still attached
to a tree... something stepped on it...
i wasn't alone... i froze but then ushered in my voice
to compliment a shared bewildered amazement:
that is not a foot of a man stepping on a branch...

in the same wood i saw my first GARMR...
would i really have to go with the flow
of a Christopher J. MacCandless?!
                                       if hell is going to send its hounds
out to meet me, it doesn't matter where that might
be... i don't need to visit the northern most parts
of Norway to find what i'm seeking...
and what i'm seeking i found: since i'm dragging what
needed to be found around...
it's not surprising that at Bower Wood i was
alleviating a traffic problem when
two does and about 5 fawns were causing havoc...
"havoc" in the night implies 3 cars pulling over...
me coming down from the hill running up to
the village of Havering-atte-Bower spotting one...
not caring if there was a stag nearby running
with the fawn which subsequently ensured
the two does and the rest of the fawns
started to gallop and disappeared into the Wood...

i wish i could make this stuff up...
but then again: i'm not jealous of people
who have seen the Galapagos Islands or the Maldives
or... ah... just recently...
i took that rat-above-rat-below trip on my bicycle
into central London... i said to myself:
circle round St. Paul's cathedral... nope...
not good enough... around the Old Bailey then...
o.k. - and i "prayed": please! not another flat tire!
hey presto! on my way back... a flat tire at Aldgate!
great! well... i walked this distance before...
i can walk it again... walking back...
passed the East London Mosque and then...
Allahu Akbar! a bicycle repair shop!

walked up - leaned the bicycle against the wall,
the Chinese guy said: just 10 minutes
(while he was fixing this Deliveroo rider's
electric bicycle) - no problem -
i took some times to each some gelatin sweets
and drink some water, looking at people,
i felt like i was in some exclusive club,
only cyclists allowed - it felt like a very urban
sensation that most punks must have felt,
or goths, standing out...
i paid too much compliments to those guys
in Cycle King bicycle shop in Chadwell Heath...
i knew the front tire was worn down,
but i thought: get the professional's opinion...
they would be more than willing to change
the inner-tube for the Nth time before telling me:
oh... you need to change the actual tyre...
how many times did i change the inner tube?
**** knows! milking it... ******* were milking it!
but this Chinese guy said outright plainly...
it's ****... i'll change it for you...
inner tube, tyre and labour... £55...
done!
               he changed it to a tyre that...
well... let's face it... 2nd gear front
and 4th, 5th 6th and 7th gears in the back...
i was whizzing past home... he said:
less width... more grip... for the grit...
   but at least he was ******* honest...
that's what i mean about a European's relationship
with the Asians... i'm honest, they're honest...
they're not some SCAM MERCHANT KNIGS
of NIGERIA: CNUT-MBAPPE typos...

oh... and it's not like anyone didn't notice
that Indian girls think they're the bomb?!
oh yeah... oh no, not the Muslim girls... those girls
are whipped into always staring down...
like white girls are whipped into peering into
their smart-phone screens and envisioning:
anything outside of inter-racial relationships is:
pederasty (loose term)... whatever it might me...
bulimic antics: not done properly, mind you...
not in the Roman style of training the oesophagus
to just spew on a whim: i.e. i ate too much...
apologies... i need to... ugh! ugh! ugh!
                      get ready the trampoline!
we're going to launch half-digested fish-heads!

now i'm happy... my Trek Merlin 5 is compatible...
fun... looking at that *** trying to chase me down
working my way down toward the Old Bailey...
Asian ceramic raven haired
no helmet... and never, never... ride a bicycle
in an urban environment minding
the sticker on the inside of a large vehicle:
BLIND SPOT... well... d'uh... so use the large
vehicle like a battering ram against all the gnats
of smaller vehicles... ride on the outside of the large
vehicle... always on the outside...
what are you, cyclist... a Hebrew forced by
the **** brown-shirts to walk in the gutter rather
than on the pavement?! what am i?
just because i'm a cyclist i'm no less a hazard
to a motorcyclist?! momentum, self-generated!
i like my legs... let me know when you're dealing
wheelies and whizzes on a ******* wheelchair...
until i have my legs... i'll be skimming through
traffic... Norman Davis might have called
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth God's Playground...
i think i'll call London my playground...
there's plenty to play with around here...

                 but for once i listened to my ego...
for some reason i didn't require a depth of the
Freudian secular trinity of the addition of superego
and id... i was just about to think about going to the brothel
but then my ego said: you're not feeling it...
and i wasn't... i still had to clean the kitchen up,
take the garbage out... i was oiling myself up...
"oiling": checking if i still had a 30 year old's hard-on
i stopped using the fake diet of ******* of
actors: disposable, unattainable...
i switched to: ROMANIAN AMATEUR ****...
well... it's what i'm going to get...
but i checked my hard-on too many times today...
checked, i.e. checked without climaxing...
checked about 4 times... the 5th time i checked
i was thinking about going to the brothel...
but then my ego (not my ego) checked me...
you're not going anywhere:

THE FICKLE MIND AND THE FIRM TRUTH
OF THE BODY...
the mind lies more times than the body cares to admit...
until, of course... the reality of body steps in
and the mind has to retreat... just as happened with
my excess drinking... i went to buy that extra bottle
of cider and waiting in the queue while a mother
with three daughters "****'s sake" the mother retorted
while the girls were undecided what else
to add to the basked i looked at the shelves
with all the spirits... no! no! no more whiskey!
no more *****! no more!
i checked my supposed "impotence" too many times
today... "impotence": more like being
insulted by the madam: beached-whale...
she just flicked it when it went limp because
i found her physically abhorrent...
flicked it... like it was a worm...
like she was 6 years old and i was 5 years old
and she was still playing with Barbie dolls
and unlike she was...
because she knew what a key was and what a keyhole
was... but she had no idea what
physical attraction was...

                        reciprocated...

well ****... it's working... guess it's not working with you...
a bit like the horse that Christopher Reeve rode
when it dropped him and recalculated Superman:
without a spine...
plus i had no excuse to leave the house...
i had plenty of excuses to read some more of Knausgaard
and write this...
tomorrow i'll have the excuse of "working late"...
going to a brothel is not like saying:
oh yeah... i'm going on a date with a girl
we're going to the cinema blah blah...
       no... dearest ******* Madam...
she's the one that chased away both Mona and Khadra...
what the **** happened?!

what am i? a Duracell bunny?! there's an ON and OFF
switch with regards to my phallus?!
if that's the case... what's the dynamic of ****?!
is ****... no... it can't be... **** is a man *******
a turned-off woman? i once had an experience
of a woman who... let's put it mildly:
her **** was as dry as the adequate metaphor
of sensation one might regret to feel from rubbing one's
hands on sandpaper!
hands... finger tips... rough skin...
ergo the ability to play guitar or rock climb...
we're talking tender skin...
so... technically: hardly a pleasure for a ****** to feel
pleasure from an unaroused ****!
ergo?! that was an aroused **** and it's all psychological:
not physical... the shame of giving it so freely
and unwillingly... whereas playing games with
those one might want to give it up to...
i can hardly **** with a LIMPY -
   but i certainly wouldn't want to **** a timber-mill worth
of toothpicks, match-sticks and left-overs...
**** is psychological it would seem...
                the shame of it... all those labyrinths of playing
games suddenly disappearing from the case of
"spontaneity"...
   you should ask her: South African... Sancha...
worked in a private school... teaching boys Mathematics...
maybe she was a *******... by now who knows?!
i do know that i wasn't terrible aroused by her
the first time we tried...
i got a limp... like i got a limp with Ilona:
a forewarning... but she was adamant and whispered
into my ear: you will not deny me...
second time i was in her teacher accommodation
i brought a copy of the Machinist with me on DVD...
she must have spiked my drink because then the horror
of cocoon *** ensued and that's when
she climbed on top of me and gave me the sawdust
sandpaper **** treatment in the dark...

it kind of follows through to the casual mode of
argumentation people have concerning the schizoid condition:
it's all in your mind...
right... so the schizoid condition is simply: so...
your i-think detaches itself from thought
and forms a i-hallucinate complex as if: spring follows winters?
well then... it's all in your mind...
**** is probably in most of women's minds...
it doesn't actually exist in reality:
in the physiology... **** is a mental construct...
it must be... since i don't recall any ******
talking about: oh ****... i had to pull out...
her **** turned into a mantis or the mouth
of a worm from the planet Dune... i just couldn't
continue!

the next day she drove me to the station and i never saw
her again...
ergo? i have a strange relationship with a limp ****...
it's not impotence: per se,
it's more a judge of character concerning a ******
partner: however brief, however informal...
it's like a wild animal freezing still...
     deer in the headlights...
                                      i should have known better
with Ilona... but she pressured to the point where it
finally started "working": i wish "he" didn't...
it would have saved me so much pointless drama...
if i were a man with a child i would tell him just as much:
it's not working for a reason...
that ***** is a mantis... you're not a robot...
this isn't a *****... you're not an extension of a *****...
it's not working for a reason...
go and check... watch the most realistic "*******":
switch to amateur stuff...
                                that's all you're going to get...
and can you, get it up? well then...
it's not you...
                                     once all the glamour is gone
and you're left with a butcher's cut of antics...
                              well... if you're aroused by that sort of stuff
in private... why can't the partner reciprocate?
maybe that's just me finalising some logistics for
tomorrow...
shift at the Ice Rink tomorrow...
me... two girls...
   one butch lesbian... she keeps rubbing off on my arms
every time the home side scores
and she's celebrating...
      one rub by chance i can understand... two rubs
and i'm thinking: this isn't homosexual conversion therapy,
is it?
the other? got me the job to begin with...
started taking dieting pills because she feels depressed
because she thinks she's fat and this is what
working with women looks like if you're not
in the business of being a plumber: in the realm of
customer service...
    
                 that's how this new girl i fancied at work
got fired... about 4 other girls ganged up on her
and she was literally bullied out of work because...
            
it's coming up to 1am... i need to get up early tomorrow...
do a cycling shift...
trim my mustache, my beard, my ***** region, my arm-pits...
finish one more bottle of cider for good luck:
or no luck...
           listen to some more pagan music...
think about Bower Wood and how i wish that if i weren't
working tomorrow
i'd buy myself a bottle of whiskey and walk
into it, right now... to howl and wake up the crows.

p.s. oh, right, that dream i had last night when
i didn't scribble any words for anyone else to see?
two night ago i was swimming with
pseudo-jelly fish on the edge of the universe
transmitting vibrations of light...
last night i was watching while some colts
were gleefully celebrating their ability to drink
shots of absinthe... until i walked up to the bar
and showed them how to drink absinthe
properly...
i took out a spoon, dipped the spoon in some
sugar... poured some absinthe onto the spoon...
lit the spoon and the sugar alight...
watched the caramel form...
then poured some water into the glass
to clue them in into the secret of drinking absinthe:
you don't drink absinthe like *****...
you need for the green-milk of wormwood
to emerge!
    sie müssen für die grünmilsch von wermut
zu auftauchen!
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2023
Kaiser's hiccups
/are/
   and \were\
   legendary
and probably
  |will be|

having a little break cleaning the house, after having taken out the garbage, the dustmen always come later than the postman, around 2am, i'm guessing my street is their last point of call... which suits me just fine... the house was almost entirely cleaned, vacuumed, floors wiped with detergent... ugh... **** it... lazy fingers... i opened up my guitar case, the PIECYK (amp) is ******, i still have my first ever acoustic guitar but i'm missing three strings, my electric still has all 6 strings... i'll get some jam out... i haven't practiced in years... i figured: if i can't find a drummer... if i can't find a bass player... try the mandolin outside a girls window once, give up the dream, put a poster of a rock band on my wall... do some art when i'm completely "out of it": drunk... poetry: not a most spectacular art... well: it would be spectacular without all the ******* puritans of form, rhyme and: meter? they call it a meter but not a metre? that's a bit like telling someone you weigh... that's mass in kg multiplied by "X" is... 999.6N... ah... i know... science shoved it's pickled brain into casual talk: the distinction between weight and mass... mass came after weight... weight is still commonly expressed foundation akin to height... but it was a welcome break with my seemingly dead electric guitar... dangled a few jangles and jingles of remembering when i used to play... Silverchair's Shade, Red Hot Chilli Pepper's Under the Bridge... Eric Clapton's Layla... Link Wray's Rumble... Grieg's in the House of the Mountain King...

only today i realised that people are truly lonely...
odd... when i was in my utter depths of despair:
no one came... but who did come? me!
i picked myself up, no one was willing...
but then... coming across a descending /
an ascending choir of song in an empty church
then hearing a great wind disperse the singing:
i did have my technological asset with me...
the hallucination, the, "hallucination" was so potent
that... regardless of putting in my headphones
or not... the singing continued...
it was only when i scuttled and hid beneath
the altar and took the altar cloth off the altar
and covered myself momentarily with it
then starting running around the church like
a headless chicken... i know! i know! i know with
a BURNING I KNOW... if i uttered a word
i would hear the wrong reply!
either a god descending or a devil ascending...
after all... either side has a singing choir...

people are truly lonely...
i'm alone... loneliness is something that
attracts people to me...
i can't stomach loneliness...
for me that's like... the cul de sac of former
extroverts having an orange with no
orange juice to trickle down into a glass:
half full? regardless the optical misnomer of
calling the same glass: same... half empty...
i am more than willing to do this security
job because i get to do some decent work...
like being a chemistry teacher...
it's a great narrative canvas...
i write over what was already talked (over)...
that's how you get to paint by writing...
you're not some Tolstoy's...
no... not some Pavlov's dog trying to wet his appetite
but also sweat... via drooling saliva...
before my shift i had that random conversation
with mother...
she was watching the t.v. adaptation
of Leo Tolstoy's War & Peace and i said to her:
i don't recall having ever read Tolstoy...
he's not like Dostoyevsky, is he?

so we compared: Tolstoy is the writer
of the macro-cosmos... of events that shake nations
and the individuals: "individuals" are sort of:
chess-pieces...
it's the sort of literature of the salon...
Dostoyevsky is a psychologist...
a world war II might be taking place...
but... but... some Heinrich *******is getting dealt
a terrible hand of both luck and fortune...
like i said to my ailing mother:
she half-jokes aligned with giving birth to me
being her crucifixion...
i joke back: maybe if i wasn't born
i would have both my hinds...
i was once called a: hunchback angel by a guy
advocating the advent of the DUB-STEP musical
genre... way before DUB-STEP became bust
and only associated with SKRILLEX
"drop the button buster, beat, blah blah"...

reimagine drunk conversations in a pub...
in a PLOOB... Scouse? i don't know... maybe somehow
someday, maybe...
    ich sehen rot.. ergo: ich aufladung,
i.e. go! i.e. gehen!

people are so lonely, not having read anything of
philosophy...
if i were to learn anything from the sage-father
that my father isn't....
read philosophy when i'm old and clinging ton sanity
with a chance: oops...
*******... death end clue...
what?                        before you're dead...
please leave your nappies alongside the rest
of the remains of you...

i was having a: drinking session with
newly married couple... Irish traveller...
i downed his, my, his, my: whichever pint
long before the closing hours were done...
Frankie... Francesca...
**** me... Matthew Conrad "m.d."

it's called: tunneling!
me what?! a **** was asking me to g back
to her flat to sniff some *******...
smoke some ****....
i'd love to...
        but i need to make my mother
a coffee come 9am...

i never realised people could become so lonely
and when drinking enough become so blatantly obvious
about it...
it took me one night trip to find a fox's corpse
by the side of the street
to subsequently find a skip and some black bin bags
wrap the road-****... walk with it for almost five miles,
stopping off at the house to weigh myself
then me and the carcass...
amassed to about 7kg... a big, healthy *******
of a fox...
when i was picking him up from the pavement
at 5am a man and a woman were eying me up
like: no... not a ******... a shaman...
they should i might be pretending to chop the fox up...
i just didn't want such a beautiful creature,
beautifully dead, serene, lying on the side of the street...
the only burial i gave him was throwing him
into some thorny bushes by a stream...
another time i was playing i-see-you-but-you-don't-see-me
with another fox... sat on a curve and just eyed it...
until a woman passed the fox and me sitting across
the street drinking a beer... WE'RE MEDITATING!
did the fox flinch? nope... the woman walked about a metre
from the fox... ****** didn't flinch...
i was working up to the TOTEM...
it took one afternoon of the door being opened to
my kitchen and me cooking up two curries...
hey presto: BRODY...
that ****** came for leftovers from meals for over a month...
until, he stopped coming...
i'm guessing he was hit by a car...
but... i'm guessing my care for one fox being
somewhat properly buried and another fox coming
to inquire about: what smells so good
is the reason why i have captured such great photographs
of a fox in my garden...

- hmm... date? or after work coworker drinks?
i know that i scribbled in my little notepad
when she went on her Nth visit to the toilet...
my guess is that males have weaker bladder
of the sexes... a SPRINKLE OF SOME MARIJUANA..
i'm waiting for VOLTAGE...
i'm about to hallucinate in ink... burgundy mixing itself
with Bishop Purple...
those first 30 minutes after a sunset...
cycling down the A12 with heavy traffic... reaching the Green
Belt between Romford and Mark's Gate...
breathing through the nose...
Spring is teasing... Spring is teasing with her
oncoming stealth of scents...
the earth is yet again starting to breathe...
first comes the botanical kingdom,
soon after will come the kingdom of the insects...
wait! i have not heard of an angel or a demon
associated with botany! in charge of, say... roses...
too good of a mark for a Saint George with...
or was that St. Stephen...

write like an imitation of ice-skating...
pretend to fall... gain momentum...
think out a thinking of shadow, curb,
night and walking Ninja hey-presto! feline...
think a loudness: think the loudness...
the ***** of a 4 x 4 pedestrian cross
section of Tokyo...
leave your cycling attire on the bed, stinking of you...
watch a female cuddle and curl up to your Lycra
long-shanks for the specific reason: been cycling...
acid on a bicycle... the 1st and the only ever tRIP...

i always wanted to travel to India...
and walk back to England...
i always wanted to do that...
second: if? aha... QUESTION "question" questing onion
quest of an onion... ANSWER:
i swear, i: as it were... as it is... i: as it were:
i of i, i off i, i vs. no-i...
not i vs. not-i: schizoid broo... Brrrrr... BWOOM(B)
***** a-plenty with witches...

fly fly away my little star...
fly fly away my little st'ah... st'ah...
Stachurski! da da da... ditch Z-Detusche:
na minute, na chwile! na jedno
i drugie dingo dingo!

Lord of the Mushroom!
and mushy peas... and... dhal...
Lord... Bel
              פִּטרִיָה               (Be-EL)

i'm shocked that the gnostics didn't...
to be honest? what was missing in Hinduism?!
what was missing in Hinduism?!
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

oh yeah... that's a Satanic laugh that is...
a laugh that makes the existence of soul viable...
it is a glowing...
when one internalizes laughter with eureka
and mixes it up with stage-fright and a "hate"
for the sound of one's voice...
but then from time to time...
one is caught singing while doing chores and finds
one's voice appealing to be given song
rather than words to speak or write...

but not even in Egyptian mythology...
it was coming! it was ******* coming home!
the botanical godhead...
in the pantheon was missing!
was missing in the pantheon!
the

פ
P / PH / F (greek sidelined, referee: TH)eta
ט
T
ר
R(esh)
י
    YOD: first son of Yiddish: YON... by a boy named
YON...                  a

      e                                               i
                            Λ
                            Y                                  (LY)HH
    
                  o                       y

ה
hello friend: vowel catcher and laughter generator ...
ה not Π... that one connecting letter: ח

hmm: older than capitalism and communism,
but to simply the problem up:
capitalism is the lion
and everything English...
capitalism is the bear
and everything Russian...
vice versa for communism...
the English bred their mythos on the superiority
of a lion and... a unicorn... more a Celtic, Scottish... thing...
the Russians on... a union with the bear...
the bear and the two headed eagle: ergo:
another unicorn...
like the Srbs... serbs... two headed eagle?
the Soviet downfall with the two-headed eagles
of Chernobyl?
       ******: moi... i seriously sometimes forget
my own ethnicity i'm so caught up in English
metropolitan... cosmopolitanism...
      the Global City-Free-States... CITIES AS STATES...
very imaginable...

not City-States... rather... on the global connectivity
project?
what Dinosaur what meteor?
what super-volcano what Yellowstone
what man?
  it's a bit like Pompeii...
give the worlds greatest party and then the volcano
explodes...
better than a meteor: a volcano killed us...
Yella Big Yella...
            the greatest, supposedly no OB-EASE:
into obese...
          ah ah... tongue out... speak! the prolonged A
of neither ah not āh...
                      -
                        2

                                      ****... that's chemistry's notations...
                     2
                  -                                 (huh?!)

the macron over the A... for AAH...
i.e. not an:                                                      ah!

                        á!
                                               A
    
                                   H                        H

           á                                   'ey?!
                                ha ha: key?    hey?!

the burial ground of...
    hmm...
               BEE-EL...
      
PHTRYH: the godhead is that of a mushroom...
people partied to the music of: infected mushroom...
a god is making himself known...
like the false god of H. P. Lovecraft
horror-imago: Nyarlathotep...

precisely! what vowels!
PH or P or F?
   two H's emerged... a good sign that it's PH
for aesthetic reasons...
scribbling this down...
i feel like i'm actually left-handed...
a diametrical opposition to the stasis-enforced
gravity of nothing falling: everything sitting...

ph(aeiou)t(aioue)r(aouei)y(aueio)h(aeiou)

if insects can be allowed the dimension of godly
creatures: thousand blessings on the head!
the lion's head the eagle...
emblem of the Volk of the Volcano:
a Mushroom-Head...
                    
toilet... ah... welcome relief... the water is running...
running...
hmm... from a top... otherwise flowing...
if...
lake: mirror imitation, Lake Narcissus and
his brother Sea Samael: Death...
     like absinthe before adding water like it
was milk...
the water is in tide: with tide: use the FORCE...
tide...
   like water found the force... the force:
with force water found gravity via tide...
earth found gravity with the quake
fire found gravity with the sparkle of the stars...
fire... charcoal peered at night at the already
lighted... as he admired the lightning with fear...
no lightning ever warmed...
comforts of a distant home... fire found gravity
envying the stars... Prometheus who?
and the brothers of Gaia?
Fero...
                fire...
                              AQ... the water brother...
ah... forgot about the younger sister:
AIA...              air...

what a weird ******* date, coworker after shift drinking...
i've never been on a date with a lesbian...
i felt... TESTED... we watched almost the entire match
Chelsea women vs. Tottenham Women Hotbras...
coming close to the end of the shift she asked
if i wanted to go drinking...
sure... why not...

            hmm... it became a date... after she bought the two
rounds i paid for on our previous encounter
when we actually went ice-skating and i became
a local internet sensation for teaching seagulls how to fly:
wearing ice-skates, frozen lake: fly fly!

so we start... the pub is getting busy...
it feels worse than a strip-club...
at least in a strip-club most people are naked
and people get to wear imaginary masks...
in a pub? **** me...
people are dressed up and are made to wear
imaginary clothing! ha ha!
masks?! what masks... a LIE is 10 masks... one lie equals
10 masks... because a lie concerning
the body of soul... is accented with more than
a physical imprint...
LIE MASK AS IF PRETEND SUPPOSE SO
AS IF AS SO CALL IT QUITS
ACTING

it felt like a date... she was getting all nervy...
going to the toilet... checking her phone all the time...
i was patient, smart girl, while i was pretending to
opt out from her OCD... check the phone...
check the fridge-freezer... check your opt out
capacity for a TV license...

how do you go out on a date with a lesbian?
neither you nor her are advocating for woke talking points...
about pronouns or... Furry? listen...
she talks to me about getting FIFA '22...
i finished gaming off at PS1 and reliving the golden days
by re-watching the walkthroughs of
MGS2 (metal gear solid 2)...

because? movies are ****...
i don't want to want these women...
i want... a ******* canoe and a ******* paddle!
and a grizzly bear cub to cuddle and a birch tree to cuddle!

MUFFA!
YEROYI... AHMADI-DEM-BASHAI
YAMSH'EH GIBYT!
VAZOL: OCH TIBI IM PEO-OM-KATA
ES O I TOBOM.

no language suddenly praise with the rigidity of
continuation...
i'll be honest... what do i need a woman for?
to get old, get a haircut... buy food...
not watch the sunrise or the sunset...
instead watch the news on t.v. watch the t.v.
not watch the aquarium?
don't own an aquarium?

own a car but don't own a bicycle?!
in London...
it was 2: so nie to know you: snooze:
represented by letter Z or 2...
if 5 is S and 6 is b...

                     the marriage of letters
to numbers... numbers? meaningless...
absolutely... meaningless...
199 KILOGRAMS
200 CENIMETRES
X contra "x"...

        dead-weight marrying
      1 + 1 + 1 = 3
when marrying
o + n + e = one...
              ah! but 3 and one are different!
former? the forever unit...
latter? the splinter, E3...
forever question...

               turn 3 into omega...
when sharpen it up for a SH... hide the H...
wake up the Z... hide the Z
emerge with a v above an
                           S

call it crown....

     - so Francesca asked me to go drinking again:
again a date doesn't feel like a date...
am i supposed to know about the plethora of female
sexuality?
         **** McDonald one day...
   straight out of Orange is the New Black the next?
just for drinks... i thought we would equal out the tab
on who paid for what previously...
went into the pub at around 20:30 came out around
00:15... we watched the females' football league...
her team, Chelsea beat Tottenham at the Leyton Orient
ground: no plague of parakeets...
honestly: hand on my heart and one on my ear
standing naked before four mirrors:
i did not hear about wild parakeets... parakeets
in general since: only since i worked the Craven Cottage
shifts... Bishop's Park was full of them!
there were no wild parakeets in Essex... not that i know of...
i once listed down all the birds
i could see from my garden...
seagulls, kestrels, two hawks battling in the air,
woodland pigeons, urban pigeons,
crows, magpies, sparrows, swallows,
robins, blackbirds, Canadian geese (migrating),
mallard ducks (also migrating), swans (migrating ditto)...
but sure as **** no parakeets!

in that session i bought only 1 round...
she was hungry so she ordered food...
three plates of food...
fried wings with two sauces...
a bowl of cheesy fries with strips of bacon
and a bowl of popcorn chicken which
i first thought was: battered and deep-friend
mozzarella nuggets...
i had three things... showing off my eating skills...
my grandparents never used to eat
the cartilage and the best meaty bits
off of the chicken legs, drumsticks or wings...
i went a step further...
a bit like eating a whole apple... including the core...
aa magic trick of eating:
you begin with holding something in your hand...
then it disappears completely...
holding an apple, whole, and eating it whole...
subsequently is a bit like playing with a top hat
imagining red eyed albino bunnies, from Albania
(albino >< Albania).. clash of borrowed letters
but two completely different meanings...

etymologically: Albania: land of the Albinos:
Albanios? more like a he, noun...
a mountain, a he...
                 a lake: he and she... neither, always:
if reading English like a native
of the tongue...
                        Albatross from Albanions...
poetry borrowed from a dictionary, rigid function:
hiding the rhyme
exposing the etymological "rhyme".
Alba-
                                      white...
a dyslexic meets a Daltonist in Dover..
the dyslexic arguments are along the lines of:
Dawid Bovie... dead... pish-poor shapes to be be
before huddling out the grave
for a Madame Tussauds pose and a quick nap
and not asking for
a Doppelganger like Sisyphus without a stone
but the equivalent worth of the stone
in pebbles...

    i would be a fair god...
if i'm willing to give birth to an angel of the Botanical realm
since there's the Lord of the Flies... Beelzebub..
and there's the Lord of the Mosquitos: Jesus "sacred heart"
reincarnated by Jungian inspection
a literal: MOTHER... ******...
Chirst...
                      it's not enough to play the pig's blanket
and pretend a crucifix is a ***** and in dire need of being
used by a ******* according
to Marquis de Sade...
Phateroyah...
                     obviously the vowels will change...
with vowels like water and consonants like earth...
punctuation is like air... punctuation and a physical
representation of writing: nothing ethereal,
nothing metaphysical... writing with expression
on our faces... writing as something less and less
a claustrophobic or its implosion: to an effect...
writing less about an extension of thinking...
in the Cartesian dynamic:
res extensa: via writing, alternatively:
if one were to be prone to smoking enough marijuana:
auditory hallucinations... writing is
by definition the same variant of the EXTENDED classification
as a schizophrenic's auditory hallucination...
the former just forces it upon others...
the latter is unwarranted access to a corrupted ego...
a hurt ego...
an ego without the capacity to imagine,
to dream, to digress...

i showed her how to eat chicken proper...
i ate three wings, two chips avoiding the bacon and cheese,
and about three popcorn nuggets...
i forgot myself: once all the cartilage on the bones
was cleaned off... i went in to bite into the bones...
the ends are sort of soft and marshmallow-almost...
not in texture... in my reimagining:

reimagining - hmm... Kant...
         remembering...
a prior... remembering...
   a posteriori: reimagining...

if a crime happens we don't have an a priori remembering
tactic... ingesting the realm of a prior
with memory... remembering...
that's what we do...
what came before 5? S? or !!!!! five exclamation marks?
or? >>>>> five more-than signs?
did 5 come before five?
did words spawn numbers
or did numbers spawn words?
clearly they're not identical...
and they operate two different realms...

we have words for numbers...
as we have numbers that are also letters...
but numbers are not words...
even 3.14159....
                   is not a word, but a letter: Pi i.e. P...
it's not a word... it's at best a letter...
i'm thinking the gods are words and the angels
are letters...
  while the anti-gods are constants
and their "angels" are numbers...

constants?
                         3.14159..... is not a constant... it's a freak of O...
a circle... and a whole mythology of the Wheel...
O... ****** VENUS...
  phallus... the egg... Oh and 0ero         Z: zed extended
via snooze: zzzzz... harps and snoring... terrible music...
constants? in numbers as if creating a word?

6.02214076 × 10²³ mol⁻¹

                     Avogardo's: the equilibrium dynamic if
i remember correctly...
today i learned about...
     Jakob Fugger... back in his day worth around
400 billions "x"... who financed the construction
of St. Peter's in Rome...
i now wish i visited Rome instead of Venice...
          i would have had more fun in Rome...
  
(algebra is the reply, letters imitating
numbers... should the inclusion of MOL be a problem)...

i bit off the chicken legs marrow...
she was in the toilet about fifty ******* times, each time,
ordering more drinks...
we came in at 20:30 and left at around 00:30
at one point she was in the toilet and
i just remembered something...
they have this "thing" in Japan... where you pay a stranger
to pretend to be your friend...
i'm not pretending... but conversation is dry...
i try to ask questions: i ask questions,
i hear replies... but i don't hear reciprocating
questions... Mr. Familiar has or had no problems?
people confide in me and yet
whenever i try to confide in them
i'm told to shut up...
oh... i get it... i do...
before i knew it i was this heaven-sent ideal...
i was the strength and they were the weakness...
i see it now more than even...
she can tell me about her abusive past...
her drunk father who kissed her mother with knuckles
instead of lips... how she's a lesbian but also
a butch ******* **** with hands almost as large as mine
and how her daughter was put into care
because "X"...
but my shizophrenia is a "schizophrenia" is...
i wasted my 20s on anti-psychotic drugs and psychiatrists
that i bundled up and threw into a hornets' nest of
******* *****, threesomes (just the one, but one is
the threshold)... prostitutes: you talk more with your
eyes and your hands and your other endings
and your nose than you care to ******* lasso a string
of coherent words together...

my problem? what problems?! exactly...
there's nothing wrong with me: i have no regrets...
i don't need to speak to someone with an endearing
sake of self definition... i can just scribble notes down
and leave them for some yet to be born
****** of petty things...
i can do just that... no wonder i can't open up...
talk about... "me"? that's still packaged goods...
i'm waiting for the morbid call of a biography
postmortem...

it's strange going on a date with a lesbian...
it's not a date it's me going for after-work drinks
with a colleague...
it's me and her eyeing up the same behind the counter:
tight ***, fake eyelashes she can pull off...
her unwashed pink-fading dyed fair:
feminist... it's me telling her a little about my past:
i had long hair before,
i couldn't pull off a Jesus...
i would only grow a beard if i cut my hair...
short...
she's still trying to find me on social media...
god: i love keeping a girl in suspense whether or not
i have any social media presence...
best try it out with a lesbian first...
we talk about dating apps:
i have a knowledge of their existence...
but hardly a knowledge that might demand
the pressures of: USAGE...

i end up drinking the night away with a revelation...
i was eyeing these two pairs of love birds for some time...

when i was at the Ol' "John's" taking
a whizz... this Greek version of Freak... o.k. o.k.,
ETHAN ROARK type... balding on the top
of the cranium, allows his hair to grow long...
didn't you know...
Garry Glitter was released... he's already
been harangued by the ******* "police"....

what like Batman did a "forever"?
          
   i get paedophiles doing a second jester runner
with meeting up with underage:
sorry... not boring enough?
it's like pretending to be a mandible,
aerobic classed agility with
a prosthetic... that's what ******* a teenage girl
might feel like:
i rather run with deer....
or charm a fox into becoming my totem...
should i be reincarnated what might i come back as?
i'm not banking: i'm saying: fuchs!
fox! LIS!
if i were to freely roam the prance-lands of Essex
as a fox... that's me, done and dusted...

but i wouldn't inhibit a man willing to repent...
after all: if no forgiveness?
the Muslims were right: no crucifixion took place...
did it?
a 78 year old can be given a heave's sake....
life's fruition and that's done...
sorry for the hurt parties... living their:
adamantly purposive lives
with the weight of: Abel not dead...
sorry... the story goes... Cain murders you....
you're still live yet:
you're supposed to be dead...

i'm only making excuses for Gary Glitter...
i wouldn't be for...
Ralph Heimans...
                                 it's music and i can't stop
listening to Rock & Roll parts I & II...

**** me: i ended up the night...
she hated ***** accents.. Liverpool-day-john-ion...
part Eirish: skirmish: scoot!
a Swabian swap... an "oops": Ludwig... or was
that Lufthansa...
this girl, a ***** bridge,,. i'd love to add hired
bride...
                  but instead?

Traveller Irish... i was talking to a bridge...
bride...
you want a drinking race?
ejecting the two pairs...
i snuggled down my pint: his pint...
in 3x glugs... i saw a phantom of an opera...
what?she told me she never used social
media before marrying?
why do i need to Afghanistan to find
datable brides? i squeak and wriggle myself
into the CAMPER VAN culture...
Irish travellers... so? i'll drink with them...
i'd drink with a repentant ******* asking:
was it anything like Nabokov prescribed?!

£30 for 3.5grams of ****...
time excavated? 30+ hours...
£120 + £10 for entry for an hour with a *******...
well... i'd love to prove my masculinity
with having a competing:
hopeless: always alive sort of battery life:
kept up: *******...
but even i think *** is primarily a dosage of
insect desires...
mammals like us sometimes
tend to play games to escape the pressures
of ***...
requested: what? getting my beard trimmed
or getting my underwear "lost" or my ******* "trimmed"?

i get it... ******* are people who are not afforded
a chance to compensate...
relieve themselves through the shared
antics of (shared) grief...
just like Jesus Christ once crucified can't be
resurrected! n'est ce pas?!
what if... the ******* can be left alone...
in his freedom and a freedom-sickly-cage...
what if?!

a bit like saying:
but i can't be anti-racist...
i can be a non-racist...
but i can't be: anti-racist...
                    there are humans either side of
the "argument"...

one mighty argument of goo after another...
inverting the whole dynamic of dates...
seen your face for over a year...
now i heard your voice: your soul...
you heard me laughter...

a naked table, a naked chair...
a dressed table, a dressed chair,
a lightbulb with a cloche...
rigid Slavic KLOSZ...
walls: brick or slab...
naked... wallpaper slapped on...

   how did that "date" end up?
i was speaking to Irish Travellers...
the ****** types... caravan dwellers...
with the girl... snogging before
ordering a pint....
how she was Lady Margaret all pristine
didn't drink or use social media
before getting married...
i was chasing pints...
race: 3x glugs down...
  i out-chased him...

the pub was closing, we wanted the people out...
strange so, talking to this Irish Traveller Lassie,
most settled people with mortgages or
council houses, flats... avoid speaking to Irish Travellers...
but the revelations she uttered...
i might as well been talking to a Muslim girl...
by her account...
she didn't start drinking before she was married...
she didn't use social media,
she said that in the travellers' community having
a social media account is a bit like *******...
hell: i think it's much worse...
fair play to the capitalistic system...
but social media is what it is...
         it has marketed our private-lives...
not written as a complaint...
                        i allowed for that to happen...
willingly...
now i can't simply walk away from the gallery...
i still don't know what to do with it
instead of making if a reference point akin to:
the red and the amber and the green
of traffic lights...
the "system" wasn't going to capitalise on the market
of my dating preferences and ****** encounters...
sure... i don't mind a public "dear diary"...
a place to store links to music videos when i forget
to add them to my browser's bookmarks:
because i've probably added the same song twice...

but Kant has been bothering me...
ever since i wrote:
a priori remembering
    and a posteriori reimagining...
why do i think that it's impossible
to a priori reimagine?
              
i need to go back to the rubric
and try to burn it into my head like the alphabet
was burned into my mind once...
one of the following four
is impossible:
    with the simplest expression for each:

(analytical) a priori                             (analytical) a posteriori
1 + 1 =2                                                   not every man is a ******
wrong!                                                   some men are
that's synthetic a priori!
+, /, £

(synthetic) a priori                               (synthetic) a posteriori
1 + 1 = 2                                                   £: money makes monkey
i synthesised these                                either that shaman
numbers...                                              mushroom on an ant's
analysed what prior?                            buttocks or:
the increasing number                          the botanical "anomaly"
the added, subtracted,                        money is: asexuality it's
multiplied,                                              what if Adam gave Eve
by god sq. rooted?!                              her first un-earned banknote...
1, 2, 3, 4...                                              spend freely! not having
                                                                earned it!
                                                               what if Eden and the apple
                                                                are wholly outdated
                                                                metaphors?

hmm...

the first £10 she got? was that money earned or money freely
given? was she handed down an allowance or
her first earnings? the trickling down idea follows suit:
if her father gave her money for free... for completing "chores"...
if he gave her an allowance: worse still...
without chores...
why wouldn't expect the sane fir passable:
future partners: daddy day-care "hoes"...
                           my daddy this, my daddy that...
HUBBY no. 2... give give...
i drink less... i smoke some marijuana
and i remember that i read some philosophy...
no new grounding since Wittgenstein
gobbled down Spinoza in a ferocious
of homosexual madness of jealousy...
misunderstood by at least 4 parties...

*** and women unplugged...
some of us boys are playing a game of Alchemy...
solid silver, liquid silver...
i guess plastics are gassy silver...
***... can i please assume there might be
two mouths breathing?

I ate your breath before you ate the apple...
i ate your breath while you gauged
my eyes and saw milk in your *******...

in the labyrinth of: i sigh...
i'm to your bidding bound, sire...
i ate your breath long before you might have ate...
that fruit of autumn, fallen, rotten...
fermenting.... this rotten fruit...
no, not plucked from three... ripe and sweet...
rather picked up attired in autumn's clothes:
auburn, over-ripe cinnaamon-brown,
orange and yellow...

you gave me a drunkard's bear or ilk!
male deer! you gave me a drunkard's apple!
i might be stumbling:
but i'm still chiming with the blues!
what Mosad Mandarin faction of
the intelligence community?

   ching-fang-*******-wall'ah-CHANG
wrote a similar (liar) armistice peace-war:
if we can't use this military equipment...
let's, make... ******* movies!
woo yee HA!

Baron astronaut, ergonomic... a house ought
to have two doors: H... a house
ought to have rooms focused upon the dynamic
of Y...
oh **** your woo! woo! glue my ***
of the Tetragrammaton:
i heard it once before:
the Arabs got their pearly and Kentucky bound
Timothy....
while the Hebrews got the paranoia...
windmills in Chelsea, London,
not Kansas... New Lit Bits of Jersey....

i was left aghast... um... i laughed...
i couldn't say the words ****... pairing it up with her voice...

well... according to sources all knowledge a piori
is ANYLYTICAL... but what was i "analysing"
when i was conjuring the letter R or the number Z?
i borrowed the circle from the sun
and the house from the cave?
i must have done so...
i probably conjured the game of rugby from
the sea's tides and yoyo from an egg of a dodo...
and the goal posts from the letter H...
ripples in the water ZigZag and M and W...
cosine as the refined W
and sine as the refined M...

   a parabola confined in a W...
D in do and devil...
God with Dog and: all?! ah!

    i'm not dumb: i just want to extract more from Kant
than people, ever had, toyed with a jihad of had the Hadiths
in a puddle of paper: equaling the refined weight:
of the organic worth of bark? timber: temples of stone
have turned the gods all cold:
about 5 kilograms for a stash of a week's worth of newspapers...

please please don't let me understand myself:
please oh please don't let me understand myself:
when i'm sober and especially when i'm slightly drink...
drunk... drunk... and smoking a bit of ****...
and...

grass is green: after having established that
not everything is grass
and not everything that's grass is green
wheat? grows like grass...
but it's not green...
and it grows taller than grass
and cows and horses don't eat it...

i could watch a thousand movie and listen to a million
songs... i could even manage to love a woman
and her tell me in the cravat adorning mammal skin
caravans... but i'd still go to bed with Kant...


   it's not that difficult but i need to ask myself to burn
this rubric into my mind...
under each the easiest expression: an abstract...
i just can't word it differently:
a priori remembering...
true...
a posteriori reimagining...
also true:
after the fact of seeing a tree...
can i see a tree prior?
ergo? i can't be capable of a priori reimagining...
first i have to see a tree...
but upon seeing the tree i can't reimagine it...
therefore i can only reimagine what comes after seeing it...
how do i practice a priori remembering?
on the most practical level...
i remember 1 + 1 = 2...
history and memory...
sure... but what of history as epistemology?
as a child i'm not really taught that 1 + 1 = 2...
knowledge and 1 + 1 = 11... not "somehow" just by
"coincidence" of the missed meaning of the cipher +,

epistemology and etymology are the only
two branches that should be given access to the study
of history...

reimagining a tree is impossible in that it's a realm
of geometric abstractions that borrow from
geometric orthodoxy and render them useful:
a tree is a home, i can, reimagine a tree...
if i reimagine myself as a bird or a monkey
perched in a tree... reimagining the roof...
via the sky... but that's hardly likely,
mountain and cave dwelling: home...
a prior reimagining is in its own right something...
but reimagining resulted in the dimension
of a posteriori...
i reimagine a tree and make it: a talking tree...
i apply pareidolia...
or like with clouds... those favourites...
why would i reimagine clouds a priori?
i can... but then that would imply reimagining
cauliflowers... or rather: clouds remind me of
cauliflowers: but that's not reimagining either
clouds or cauliflowers: it's remembering what each
looks like and why, subjectively i remember:
that i think they're alike...

hmm... proof: no pudding....
clearest blue...
          or solid green... the Jade from China...
XINY X= CH
we can apply the letter X in our tongue...
that's what marijuana morphs:
the perception of time... 10 minutes already
feel like an hour....
xolera... cholera H! hhhh...
                 xorwat - croat...
                   xemia - chemistry....
chmiel: xmiel:
                              toad breath!
the stuff i sniff up before going to bed!
you ******* DYSLEXIC...

choroba: xoroba...
sickness...

  DYSLEHIC...
                   i'm asking for upgrades...
i hope my upgrades are not too: demanding...
i'm asking... i'm asking...
i'm getting **** all...
well then... best not become a priest
and conjure up what i might need...
i may need this that and the other...
Hebrew...
i'll need the vowel hiding prerogative
to be minded... i'll need Kant..
punctuation marks and numbers....
most certainly letters...
plus akin to comma....

                                 if still alive: i'll lso require death...

chwila: xwila: a fleeting moment...
lapsed timing...
           c H-A
arecz: samo-H-ah...
                  nie na xixota.... śpiew
raptem: tak! ha! ha! aha!

daj znać gdy ty i ja,
tak nagle żyją... i nie... o tak!
i mihght have a Frenchman's heart
to want: Romance after news of
a hereafter..
the moon is blue
the sun is bronze...
the air is milky in the morning...
the water is traffic and there's no
traffic... i'd like death before the explaining mantra:
what's worth a life: squid parody on... ******* skates?!

the love of the gods is doubly insulating...
first they try to demolish you: one ******* fatal claim after another...
the they employ women... they too... *******.. fail...
what are you rounding up against, you?!
sails without winds and no boats to sail with,
the supposed... great artefacts of claiming
the winds!

i once sat alone in a park... hair growing freely....
i had no addition of a face with the addition of hair...
i had no beard, not stubble...
the wind was and my long hair was
and there was, no war, no famine...
there was only dancing and twice reading
into a Charles Dickens...

twice: a rereading a text not available
for journalistic imprints of:
that satisficed mantra of derailing:
expectations of the meddling-ground....

oh well: oh nothing...
oh riddle me some more: nothing...
life is cheap: buy it bought!
sell it sold!
       earn it not living (it); earning it!
ergo: "living"... and (existentialism)...

   a king's frown is a beggar's stomach...
money makes money:
onions grow on trees!

giving birth to the son of Mammon
was... not... hard?
seriously?!
                          thank god i'm twisted in my own
sort of superstitious way...
when there's talk of a birth of an angel...
my ****** demands become joke...
i forget something, and within the confines
of something: almost: everything...

save180:

p'oh tay t'oh
but not
toe-may-toe
that's not
t'oh may t'oh
but...
t'oh m'ah t'oh

         if only it was a p'oh t'ah toe t'oh.
Lyra Brown Apr 2014
i have a feast full of love for you, darling
that is waiting for you on the table of my heart.
every time i see you,
you say that you are starving. you sit there
with wide eyes and shaky hands, devouring
nothing.
i have a feast full of love for you, darling
that is waiting for you on the table of my heart
but I am afraid it is slowly turning
into poison for the parakeets.
because that’s what happens when you love someone you
can’t have, you want to give them everything
but since you cannot, it just sits there,
slowly rotting, gently decomposing with heartbreak
covered in flies. this hurts
more than i was expecting, i was not planning for this
to happen again.
i am beyond furious at myself for cultivating a love
that is going everywhere but inside of you,
down the drain
in the trash, in the bellies of a flock of geese flying in
the opposite direction of where they belong.
even though you said you will,
deep down i know that you might never make up your mind.
which means i have to make up mine regardless of
if or when you actually decide to.
there is a fine line between hope and heartbreak
there is a fine line between love and longing.
this is the part where i choose not to be stuck.
this is the part where i clean up the table, do the dishes
open up the cage of parakeets singing love songs inside
the gazebo of my heart,
and set them free.
whenever you think of loss,
i hope you always think of me.
Matthew Goff Nov 2015
A flock of mandarin parakeets found themselves a perch amidst the strategy play in green palace trees, for which they are responsible, having laid not one single claim upon future tyrannies. However, the forests in their emerald, sensing disarray, took on a maternal stare while attaching silencers to those beaks in nests where, cries of newborn chickadees may attract the murderous affairs of flight invasion. The young baby birds now protected inside carefully wrapped tiny leaf cones. How unfortunate for them, with their cruel linear perspective of this cylindrical summer!

The army of parakeets pitch up their parachutes in invisible tents. They do in fact plan to stay for awhile. As they keep close watch over the tree terrestrial, their heads spin 360 degree tropical smiles.

They have come to avenge the ****** of color orange.
Matthew Goff May 2016
A flock of mandarin parakeets found themselves a perch amidst the strategy play in green palace trees, for which they are responsible, having laid not one single claim upon future tyrannies. However, the forests in their emerald, sensing disarray, took on a maternal stare while attaching silencers to those beaks in nests where, cries of newborn chickadees may attract the murderous affairs of flight invasion. The young baby birds now protected inside carefully wrapped tiny leaf cones. How unfortunate for them, with their cruel linear perspective of this cylindrical summer!

The army of parakeets pitch up their parachutes in invisible tents. They do in fact plan to stay for awhile. As they keep close watch over the tree terrestrial, their heads spin 360 degree tropical smiles.

They have come to avenge the ****** of color orange.
Above the forest of the parakeets,
A parakeet of parakeets prevails,
A pip of life amid a mort of tails.

(The rudiments of tropics are around,
Aloe of ivory, pear of rusty rind.)
His lids are white because his eyes are blind.

He is not paradise of parakeets,
Of his gold ether, golden alguazil,
Except because he broods there and is still.

Panache upon panache, his tails deploy
Upward and outward, in green-vented forms,
His tip a drop of water full of storms.

But though the turbulent tinges undulate
As his pure intellect applies its laws,
He moves not on his coppery, keen claws.

He munches a dry shell while he exerts
His will, yet never ceases, perfect ****,
To flare, in the sun-pallor of his rock.
Jessie Nov 2012
They have been uprooted from the only life they have ever known,
the poor things.

New so-called family, new barred cage, new fake toys.
Scared shitless. (Literally.)

They will try to tempt you.

"Pretty bird." "Pretty bird."

Don't you dare trust the humans.
Don't you dare let them clip your wings.
Michael R Burch Feb 2020
When Pigs Fly
by Michael R. Burch

On the Trail of Tears,
my Cherokee brothers,
why hang your heads?
Why shame your mothers?
Laugh wildly instead!
We will soon be dead.

When we lie in our graves,
let the white-eyes take
the woodlands we loved
for the *** and the rake.
It is better to die
than to live out a lie
in so narrow a sty.

In October 1838 the Cherokees began to walk the "Trail of Tears." Most of them made the thousand mile journey west to Oklahoma on foot. An estimated 4,000 people, or a quarter of the tribe, died en route. The soldiers "escorting" the Cherokees at bayonet point refused permission for the dead to be buried, threatening to shoot anyone who disobeyed. So the living were forced to carry the corpses of the dead until camp was made for the night. Years after the Cherokees had been rounded up and driven down the Trail of Tears, John G. Burnett reflected on what he and his fellow soldiers had done, saying, "Schoolchildren of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point, to satisfy the white man's greed... ****** is ****** and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country... Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile." Keywords/Tags: Cherokee, Native American, Trail of Tears, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, ******, Evil, Death, March, Death March, Infanticide, Matricide, Racism, Racist, Discrimination, Violence, Fascism, White Supremacists, Horror, Terror, Terrorism, Greed, Gluttony, Avarice, Lust, ****, mrbpig, mrbpigs



Cherokee Prayer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As I walk life's trails
imperiled by the raging wind and rain,
grant, O Great Spirit,
that yet I may always
walk like a man.

This prayer makes me think of Native Americans walking the Trail of Tears with far more courage and dignity than their “civilized” abusers.



Native American Prayer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Help us learn the lessons you have left us
in every leaf and rock.



Native American Travelers' Blessing
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us walk together here
among earth's creatures great and small,
remembering, our footsteps light,
that one wise God created all.



Sioux Vision Quest
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux, circa 1840-1877
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.



Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own brother, my own blood.
When you are disconsolate, I will wipe the tears from your eyes.
And when you are too sad to live, I will put your aching heart to rest.

Published by Better Than Starbucks and Cherokee Native Americans



Cherokee Travelers' Blessing II
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Happily may you walk
in the paths of the Rainbow.
                  Oh,
and may it always be beautiful before you,
beautiful behind you,
beautiful below you,
beautiful above you,
and beautiful all around you
where in Perfection beauty is finished.

Published by Better Than Starbucks



Cherokee Travelers' Blessing III
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May Heaven’s warming winds blow gently there,
where you reside,
and may the Great Spirit bless all those you love,
this side of the farthest tide.
And wherever you go,
whether the journey is fast or slow,
may your moccasins leave many cunning footprints in the snow.
And when you look over your shoulder, may you always find the Rainbow.

Published by Better Than Starbucks



What is life?
The flash of a firefly.
The breath of the winter buffalo.
The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset.
―Blackfoot saying, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Warrior's Confession
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh my love, how fair you are—
far brighter than the fairest star!



Cherokee Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Before you judge
a man for his sins
be sure to trudge
many moons in his moccasins.



Cherokee Prayer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As I walk life's trails
imperiled by the raging wind and rain,
grant, O Great Spirit,
that yet I may always
walk like a man.

When I think of this prayer, I think of Native Americans walking the Trail of Tears.



The Receiving of the Flower
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us sing overflowing with joy
as we observe the Receiving of the Flower.
The lovely maidens beam;
their hearts leap in their *******.

Why?

Because they will soon yield their virginity to the men they love!



The Deflowering
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Remove your clothes;
let down your hair;
become as naked as the day you were born—

virgins!



Prelude to *******
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lay out your most beautiful clothes,
maidens!
The day of happiness has arrived!

Grab your combs, detangle your hair,
adorn your earlobes with gaudy pendants.
Dress in white as becomes maidens ...

Then go, give your lovers the happiness of your laughter!
And all the village will rejoice with you,
for the day of happiness has arrived!



The Flower-Strewn Pool
excerpt from a Mayan love poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You have arrived at last in the woods
where no one can see what you do
at the flower-strewn pool ...
Remove your clothes,
unbraid your hair,
become as you were
when you first arrived here
naked and shameless,
virgins, maidens!



Native American Proverbs

The soul would see no Rainbows if not for the eyes’ tears.
—loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A woman’s highest calling is to help her man unite with the Source.
A man’s highest calling is to help his woman walk the earth unharmed.
—loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.
Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
—White Elk, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What is life?
The flash of a firefly.
The breath of a winter buffalo.
The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset.
—Blackfoot saying, translation by Michael R. Burch

Speak less thunder, wield more lightning. — Apache proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

The more we wonder, the more we understand. — Arapaho proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Adults talk, children whine. — Blackfoot proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Don’t be afraid to cry: it will lessen your sorrow. — Hopi proverb

One foot in the boat, one foot in the canoe, and you end up in the river. — Tuscarora proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Our enemy's weakness increases our strength. — Cherokee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

We will be remembered tomorrow by the tracks we leave today. — Dakota proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

No sound's as eloquent as a rattlesnake's tail. — Navajo saying, translation by Michael R. Burch

The heart is our first teacher. — Cheyenne proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Dreams beget success. — Maricopa proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Knowledge interprets the past, wisdom foresees the future. — Lumbee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

The troublemaker's way is thorny. — Umpqua proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch



Earthbound
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

Tashunka Witko, better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse.

Earthbound,
and yet I now fly
through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting ...
so high
that no sound
echoing by
below where the mountains are lifting
the sky
can be heard.

Like a bird,
but not meek,
like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey,
I will shriek,
not a word,
but a screech,
and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay—
the sheep,
the earthbound.



Years after the Cherokees had been rounded up and driven down the Trail of Tears, John G. Burnett reflected on what he and his fellow soldiers had done, saying, "Schoolchildren of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point, to satisfy the white man's greed ... ****** is ****** and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country ... Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile."

In the same year, 1830, that Stonewall Jackson consigned Native Americans to the ash-heap of history, Georgia Governor George Gilmer said, "Treaties are expedients by which ignorant, intractable, and savage people are induced ... to yield up what civilized people have the right to possess." By "civilized" he apparently meant people willing to brutally dispossess and **** women and children in order to derive economic benefits for themselves.

These nights bring dreams of Cherokee shamans
whose names are bright verbs and impacted dark nouns,
whose memories are indictments of my pallid flesh . . .
and I hear, as from a great distance,
the cries tortured from their guileless lips, proclaiming
the nature of my mutation.
―Michael R. Burch, from "Mongrel Dreams" (my family is part Cherokee, English and Scottish)

After Jackson was re-elected with an overwhelming majority in 1832, he strenuously pursued his policy of removing Native Americans, even refusing to accept a Supreme Court ruling which invalidated Georgia's planned annexation of Cherokee land. But in the double-dealing logic of the white supremacists, they had to make the illegal resettlement of the Indians appear to be "legal," so a small group of Cherokees were persuaded to sign the "Treaty of New Echota," which swapped Cherokee land for land in the Oklahoma territory. The Cherokee ringleaders of this infamous plot were later assassinated as traitors. (****** was similarly obsessed with the "legalities" of the **** Holocaust; isn't it strange how mass murderers of women and children can seek to justify their crimes?)

Native Americans understood the "circle of life" better than their white oppressors ...

When we sit in the Circle of the People,
we must be responsible because all Creation is related
and the suffering of one is the suffering of all
and the joy of one is the joy of all
and whatever we do affects everything in the universe.
—"Lakota Instructions for Living" by White Buffalo Calf Woman, translated by Michael R. Burch



Veiled
by Michael R. Burch

She has belief
without comprehension
and in her crutchwork shack
she is
much like us . . .

tamping the bread
into edible forms,
regarding her children
at play
with something akin to relief . . .

ignoring the towers ablaze
in the distance
because they are not revelations
but things of glass,
easily shattered . . .

and if you were to ask her,
she might say:
sometimes God visits his wrath
upon an impious nation
for its leaders’ sins,

and we might agree:
seeing her mutilations.

Published by Poetry Super Highway and Modern War Poems.



Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung their medal to the river, child.

They hung their coin around my neck; they made
my name a bridle, “called a ***** a *****.”
They say their gold is pure. I say defiled.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.

Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong
that never called me ******, did me wrong.
A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild.
I flung their notice to the river, child.
I flung their notice to the river, child.

They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun,
and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.”
At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.

My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold,
a coin God stamped in His own image―BOLD.
My blood boiled like that river―strange and wild.
I died to hate in that dark river, child,
Come, be reborn in this bright river, child.

Originally published by Black Medina

Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. Confirming his account, the medal was recovered by Robert Bradbury and his wife Pattie in 2014 during the Annual Ohio River Sweep, and the Ali family paid them $200,000 to regain possession of the medal. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying: “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a ******.” The notice mentioned in my poem is Ali's draft notice, which metaphorically gets tossed into the river along with his slave name. I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in an Iranian publication called Bashgah. ―Michael R. Burch



evol-u-shun
by Michael R. Burch

does GOD adore the Tyger
while it’s ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Plague
while it’s eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur intelligence
while u pray that IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?



Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name.

Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy the land,
descending like a raging storm,
howling like a hurricane,
screaming like a tempest,
thundering, raging, ranting, drumming,
whiplashing whirlwinds!

Men falter at your approaching footsteps.

Tortured dirges scream
on your lyre of despair.

Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land:
growling over the earth like thunder,
vegetation collapsing before you,
blood gushing down a mountainside.

Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance!

******* of heaven and earth!

Your ferocious fire consumes our land.

Whipping your stallion
with furious commands,
you decide our fate.

You triumph over all human rites and prayers.

Who can explain your tirade,
why you go on so?



Temple Hymn 15
to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Most ancient and terrible shrine,
set deep in the mountain,
dark like a mother's womb...

Dark shrine,
like a mother's wounded breast,
blood-red and terrifying...

Though approaching through a safe-seeming field,
our hair stands on end as we near you!

Gishbanda,
like a neck-stock,
like a fine-eyed fish net,
like a foot-shackled prisoner's manacles...
your ramparts are massive,
like a trap!

But once we’re inside,
as the sun rises,
you yield widespread abundance!

Your prince
is the pure-handed priest of Inanna, heaven's Holy One,
Lord Ningishzida!

Oh, see how his thick, lustrous hair
cascades down his back!

Oh Gishbanda,
he has built this beautiful temple to house your radiance!
He has placed his throne upon your dais!



The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts
by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and the high priestess of the Goddess Inanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers!
Lady of the resplendent light!
Righteous Lady adorned in heavenly radiance!

Beloved Lady of An and Uraš!
Hierodule of An, sun-adorned and bejeweled!
Heaven’s Mistress with the holy diadem,
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her own high priestess!

Powerful Mistress, seizer of the seven divine powers!
My Heavenly Lady, guardian of the seven divine powers!
You have seized the seven divine powers!
You hold the divine powers in your hand!
You have gathered together the seven divine powers!
You have clasped the divine powers to your breast!

You have flooded the valleys with venom, like a viper;
all vegetation vanishes when you thunder like Iškur!
You have caused the mountains to flood the valleys!
When you roar like that, nothing on earth can withstand you!

Like a flood descending on floodplains, O Powerful One, you will teach foreigners to fear Inanna!

You have given wings to the storm, O Beloved of Enlil!
The storms do your bidding, blasting the unbelievers!

Foreign cities cower at the chaos You cause!
Entire countries cower in dread of Your deadly South Wind!
Men cower before you in their anguished implications,
raising their pitiful outcries,
weeping and wailing, beseeching Your benevolence with many wild lamentations!

But in the van of battle, everything falls before You, O Mighty Queen!

My Queen,
You are all-conquering, all-devouring!
You continue Your attacks like relentless storms!
You howl louder than the howling storms!
You thunder louder than Iškur!
You moan louder than the mournful winds!
Your feet never tire from trampling Your enemies!
You produce much wailing on the lyres of lamentations!

My Queen,
all the Anunna, the mightiest Gods,
fled before Your approach like fluttering bats!
They could not stand in Your awesome Presence
nor behold Your awesome Visage!

Who can soothe Your infuriated heart?
Your baleful heart is beyond being soothed!

Uncontrollable Wild Cow, elder daughter of Sin,
O Majestic Queen, greater than An,
who has ever paid You enough homage?

O Life-Giving Goddess, possessor of all powers,
Inanna the Exalted!

Merciful, Live-Giving Mother!
Inanna, the Radiant of Heart!
I have exalted You in accordance with Your power!
I have bowed before You in my holy garb,
I the En, I Enheduanna!

Carrying my masab-basket, I once entered and uttered my joyous chants ...

But now I no longer dwell in Your sanctuary.
The sun rose and scorched me.
Night fell and the South Wind overwhelmed me.
My laughter was stilled and my honey-sweet voice grew strident.
My joy became dust.

O Sin, King of Heaven, how bitter my fate!

To An, I declared: An will deliver me!
I declared it to An: He will deliver me!

But now the kingship of heaven has been seized by Inanna,
at Whose feet the floodplains lie.

Inanna the Exalted,
who has made me tremble together with all Ur!

Stay Her anger, or let Her heart be soothed by my supplications!
I, Enheduanna will offer my supplications to Inanna,
my tears flowing like sweet intoxicants!
Yes, I will proffer my tears and my prayers to the Holy Inanna,
I will greet Her in peace ...

O My Queen, I have exalted You,
Who alone are worthy to be exalted!
O My Queen, Beloved of An,
I have laid out Your daises,
set fire to the coals,
conducted the rites,
prepared Your nuptial chamber.
Now may Your heart embrace me!

These are my innovations,
O Mighty Queen, that I made for You!
What I composed for You by the dark of night,
The cantor will chant by day.

Now Inanna’s heart has been restored,
and the day became favorable to Her.
Clothed in beauty, radiant with joy,
she carried herself like the elegant moonlight.

Now to the Noble Hierodule,
to the Wrecker of foreign lands
presented by An with the seven divine powers,
and to my Queen garbed in the radiance of heaven ...

O Inanna, praise!



The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines, an Excerpt
Nin-me-šara by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers,
Lady of the all-resplendent light,
Righteous Lady clothed in heavenly radiance,
Beloved Lady of An and Uraš,
Mistress of heaven with the holy diadem,
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her high priestess,
Powerful Mistress who has seized all seven divine powers,
My lady, you are the guardian of the seven divine powers!
You have seized the divine powers,
You hold the divine powers in your hand,
You have gathered up the divine powers,
You have clasped the divine powers to your breast!
Like a dragon you have spewed venom on foreign lands that know you not!
When you roar like Iškur at the earth, nothing can withstand you!
Like a flood descending on alien lands, O Powerful One of heaven and earth, you will teach them to fear Inanna!



Temple Hymn 7: an Excerpt
to the Kesh Temple of Ninhursag
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, high-situated Kesh,
form-shifting summit,
inspiring fear like a venomous viper!

O, Lady of the Mountains,
Ninhursag’s house was constructed on a terrifying site!

O, Kesh, like holy Aratta: your womb dark and deep,
your walls high-towering and imposing!

O, great lion of the wildlands stalking the high plains!...



Temple Hymn 17: an Excerpt
to the Badtibira Temple of Dumuzi
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of jeweled lapis illuminating the radiant bed
in the peace-inducing palace of our Lady of the Steppe!



Temple Hymn 22: an Excerpt
to the Sirara Temple of Nanshe
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house, you wild cow!
Made to conjure signs of the Divine!
You arise, beautiful to behold,
bedecked for your Mistress!



Temple Hymn 26: an Excerpt
to the Zabalam Temple of Inanna
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O house illuminated by beams of bright light,
dressed in shimmering stone jewels,
awakening the world to awe!



Temple Hymn 42: an Excerpt
to the Eresh Temple of Nisaba
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of brilliant stars
bright with lapis stones,
you illuminate all lands!

...

The person who put this tablet together
is Enheduanna.
My king: something never created before,
did she not give birth to it?



Update of "A Litany in Time of Plague"
by Michael R. Burch

THE PLAGUE has come again
To darken lives of men
and women, girls and boys;
Death proves their bodies toys
Too frail to even cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Tycoons, what use is wealth?
You cannot buy good health!
Physicians cannot heal
Themselves, to Death must kneel.
Nuns’ prayers mount to the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty’s brightest flower?
Devoured in an hour.
Kings, Queens and Presidents
Are fearful residents
Of manors boarded high.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

We have no means to save
Our children from the grave.
Though cure-alls line our shelves,
We cannot save ourselves.
"Come, come!" the sad bells cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

NOTE: This poem is meant to capture the understandable fear and dismay the Plague caused in the Middle Ages, and which the coronavirus has caused in the 21st century. We are better equipped to deal with this modern plague, thanks to advances in science, medicine and sanitation. We do not have to succumb to fear, but it would be wise to have a healthy respect for the nasty bug and heed the advice of medical experts.--MRB



Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .

once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .

unleash
the torrent
of your hair . . .

and show me
once again―
how rare.

Published by The HyperTexts and The Chained Muse



The Stake
by Michael R. Burch

Love, the heart bets,
if not without regrets,
will still prove, in the end,
worth the light we expend
mining the dark
for an exquisite heart.

Originally published by The Lyric



If
by Michael R. Burch

If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.

If I forget
even for a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.

If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.

If I should burn―one moment less brightly,
one instant less true―
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.

Originally published by The HyperTexts



The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh ...

our soft cries, like regret,

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...

now that I have forgotten her face.



Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget,"
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget,"
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET,"
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond ...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.



To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
translation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?

A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss

from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:

the lost gold of vanished stars.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.



Turkish Poetry Translations

Attilâ İlhan (1925-2005) was a Turkish poet, translator, novelist, screenwriter, editor, journalist, essayist, reviewer, socialist and intellectual.

Ben Sana Mecburum: “You are indispensable”
by Attila Ilhan
translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

You are indispensable; how can you not know
that you’re like nails riveting my brain?
I see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions.
You are indispensable; how can you not know
that I burn within, at the thought of you?

Trees prepare themselves for autumn;
can this city be our lost Istanbul?
Now clouds disintegrate in the darkness
as the street lights flicker
and the streets reek with rain.
You are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...

Love sometimes seems akin to terror:
a man tires suddenly at nightfall,
of living enslaved to the razor at his neck.
Sometimes he wrings his hands,
expunging other lives from his existence.
Sometimes whichever door he knocks
echoes back only heartache.

A screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih ...
a song about some Friday long ago.
I stop to listen from a vacant corner,
longing to bring you an untouched sky,
but time disintegrates in my hands.
Whatever I do, wherever I go,
you are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...

Are you the blue child of June?
Ah, no one knows you―no one knows!
Your deserted eyes are like distant freighters ...

Perhaps you are boarding in Yesilköy?
Are you drenched there, shivering with the rain
that leaves you blind, beset, broken,
with wind-disheveled hair?

Whenever I think of life
seated at the wolves’ table,
shameless, yet without soiling our hands ...
Yes, whenever I think of life,
I begin with your name, defying the silence,
and your secret tides surge within me
making this voyage inevitable.
You are indispensable; how can you not know?



Fragments
by Attila Ilhan
loose English translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

The night is a cloudy-feathered owl,
its quills like fine-spun glass.

It gazes out the window,
perched on my right shoulder,
its wings outspread and huge.

If the encroaching darkness seems devastating at first glance,
the sovereign of everything,
its reach infinite ...

Still somewhere within a kernel of light glows secretly
creating an enlightened forest of dialectics.

In September’s waning days one thinks wanly of the arrival of fall
like a ship appearing on the horizon with untrimmed, tattered sails;
for some unfathomable reason fall is the time to consider one’s own demise―
the body smothered by yellowed leaves like a corpse rotting in a ghoulish photograph ...

Bitter words
crack like whips
snapping across prison yards ...

Then there are words like pomegranate trees in bloom,
words like the sun igniting the sea beyond mountainous horizons,
flashing like mysterious knives ...

Such words are the burning roses of an infinite imagination;
they are born and they die with the flutterings of butterflies;
we carry those words in our hearts like pregnant shotguns until the day we expire,
martyred for the words we were prepared to die for ...

What I wrote and what you understood? Curious and curiouser!



Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.



Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased;
even when you lie underground, it encompasses you.
So, those of you who anticipate the shadows,
how long will the darkness remember you?



Zulmü Alkislayamam
"I Can’t Applaud Tyranny"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I can't condone cruelty; I will never applaud the oppressor;
Yet I can't renounce the past for the sake of deluded newcomers.
When someone curses my ancestors, I want to strangle them,
Even if you don’t.
But while I harbor my elders,
I refuse to praise their injustices.
Above all, I will never glorify evil, by calling injustice “justice.”
From the day of my birth, I've loved freedom;
The golden tulip never deceived me.
If I am nonviolent, does that make me a docile sheep?
The blade may slice, but my neck resists!
When I see someone else's wound, I suffer a great hardship;
To end it, I'll be whipped, I'll be beaten.
I can't say, “Never mind, just forget it!” I'll mind,
I'll crush, I'll be crushed, I'll uphold justice.
I'm the foe of the oppressor, the friend of the oppressed.
What the hell do you mean, with your backwardness?



Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war?―
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a triangle of land besieged by countless vessels.
Oh, what dishonorable assemblages!
Who are these Europeans, come as rapists?
Who, these braying hyenas, released from their reeking cages?
Why do the Old World, the New World, and all the nations of men
now storm her beaches? Is it Armageddon? Truly, the whole world rages!
Seven nations marching in unison!
Australia goose-stepping with Canada!
Different faces, languages, skin tones!
Everything so different, but the mindless bludgeons!
Some warriors Hindu, some African, some nameless, unknown!
This disgraceful invasion, baser than the Black Death!
Ah, the 20th century, so noble in its own estimation,
But all its favored ones nothing but a parade of worthless wretches!
For months now Turkish soldiers have been vomited up
Like stomachs’ retched contents regarded with shame.
If the masks had not been torn away, the faces would still be admired,
But the ***** called civilization is far from blameless.
Now the ****** demand the destruction of the doomed
And thus bring destruction down on their own heads.
Lightning severs horizons!
Earthquakes regurgitate the bodies of the dead!
Bombs’ thunderbolts explode brains,
rupture the ******* of brave soldiers.
Underground tunnels writhe like hell
Full of the bodies of burn victims.
The sky rains down death, the earth swallows the living.
A terrible blizzard heaves men violently into the air.
Heads, eyes, torsos, legs, arms, chins, fingers, hands, feet ...
Body parts rain down everywhere.
Coward hands encased in armor callously scatter
Floods of thunderbolts, torrents of fire.
Men’s chests gape open,
Beneath the high, circling vulture-like packs of the air.
Cannonballs fly as frequently as bullets
Yet the heroic army laughs at the hail.
Who needs steel fortresses? Who fears the enemy?
How can the shield of faith not prevail?
What power can make religious men bow down to their oppressors
When their stronghold is established by God?
The mountains and the rocks are the bodies of martyrs! ...
For the sake of a crescent, oh God, many suns set, undone!
Dear soldier, who fell for the sake of this land,
How great you are, your blood saves the Muslims!
Only the lions of Bedr rival your glory!
Who then can dig the grave wide enough to hold you. and your story?
If we try to consign you to history, you will not fit!
No book can contain the eras you shook!
Only eternities can encompass you! ...
Oh martyr, son of the martyr, do not ask me about the grave:
The prophet awaits you now, his arms flung wide open, to save!



Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”)

by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

for the refugees

The time to weigh anchor has come;
a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown,
cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts.
No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure;
the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief,
scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring ...
Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing!
There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life!
The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile,
for they cannot know where the vanished are bound.
Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves,
since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey.



Full Moon
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch

You are so lovely
the full moon just might
delight
in your rising,
as curious
and bright,
to vanquish night.

But what can a mortal man do,
dear,
but hope?
I’ll ponder your mysteries
and (hmmmm) try to
cope.

We both know
you have every right to say no.



The Music of the Snow
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years!
This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years!

Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery,
It rises from a choir of a hundred voices!

As the *****’s harmonies resound profoundly,
I share the sufferings of Slavic grief.

My mind drifts far from this city, this era,
To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey.

Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear,
With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul!

Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me;
I keep them at bay all night with my dreams!

Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer.



Thinking of you
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Thinking of you is beautiful, hopeful―
like listening to the most beautiful songs
sung by the earth's most beautiful voices.
But hope is insufficient for me now;
I don't want to listen to songs.
I want to sing love into birth.



I love you
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love you―
like dipping bread into salt and eating;
like waking at night with a raging fever
and thirstily lapping up water, my mouth to the silver tap;
like unwrapping the unwieldy box the postman delivers,
unable to guess what's inside,
feeling fluttery, happy, doubtful.
I love you―
like flying over the sea the first time
as something stirs within me
while the sky softly darkens over Istanbul.
I love you―
as men thank God gratefully for life.



Sparrow
by Nazim Hikmet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Little sparrow,
perched on the clothesline,
do you regard me with pity?
Even so, I will watch you
soar away through the white spring leaves.



The Divan of the Lover

the oldest extant Turkish poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All the universe as one great sign is shown:
God revealed in his creative acts unknown.
Who sees or understands them, jinn or men?
Such works lie far beyond mere mortals’ ken.
Nor can man’s mind or reason reach that strand,
Nor mortal tongue name Him who rules that land.
Since He chose nothingness with life to vest,
who dares to trouble God with worms’ behests?
For eighteen thousand worlds, lain end to end,
Do not with Him one atom's worth transcend!



Fragment
by Prince Jem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Behold! The torrent, dashing against the rocks, flails wildly.
The entire vast realm of Space and Being oppresses my soul idly.
Through bitterness of grief and woe the sky has rent its morning robe.
Look! See how in its eastern palace, the sun is a ****** globe!
The clouds of heaven rain bright tears on the distant mountain peaks.
Oh, hear how the deeply wounded thunder slowly, mournfully speaks!



An Ecstasy of Fumbling
by Michael R. Burch

The poets believe
everything resolves to metaphor—
a distillation,
a vapor
beyond filtration,
though perhaps not quite as volatile as before.

The poets conceive
of death in the trenches
as the price of art,
not war,
fumbling with their masque-like
dissertations
to describe the Hollywood-like gore

as something beyond belief,
abstracting concrete bunkers to Achaemenid bas-relief.



Excerpts from “Travels with Einstein”
by Michael R. Burch

for Trump

I went to Berlin to learn wisdom
from Adolph. The wild spittle flew
as he screamed at me, with great conviction:
“Please despise me! I look like a Jew!”

So I flew off to ’Nam to learn wisdom
from tall Yankees who cursed “yellow” foes.
“If we lose this small square,” they informed me,
earth’s nations will fall, dominoes!”

I then sat at Christ’s feet to learn wisdom,
but his Book, from its genesis to close,
said: “Men can enslave their own brothers!”
(I soon noticed he lacked any clothes.)

So I traveled to bright Tel Aviv
where great scholars with lofty IQs
informed me that (since I’m an Arab)
I’m unfit to lick dirt from their shoes.

At last, done with learning, I stumbled
to a well where the waters seemed sweet:
the mirage of American “justice.”
There I wept a real sea, in defeat.

Originally published by Café Dissensus



The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men ravish, dishevel her . . .
till both are cut down
by mere ticks of the Leveler.

I believe I wrote this poem around age 20, in 1978 or thereabouts. It has since been published in The Lyric, Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly and The Aurorean.



The Hippopotami
by Michael R. Burch

There’s no seeing eye to eye
with the awesomely huge Hippopotami:
on the bank, you’re much taller;
going under, you’re smaller
and assuredly destined to die!



Ballade of the Bicameral Camel
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a camel who loved to ****.
Please get your lewd minds out of their slump!
He loved to give RIDES on his large, lordly lump!



The Echoless Green
by Michael R. Burch

for and after William Blake

At dawn, laughter rang
on the echoing green
as children at play
greeted the day.

At noon, smiles were seen
on the echoing green
as, children no more,
many fine vows they swore.

By twilight, their cries
had subsided to sighs.

Now night reigns supreme
on the echoless green.



Unlikely Mike
by Michael R. Burch

I married someone else’s fantasy;
she admired me despite my mutilations.

I loved her for her heart’s sake, and for mine.
I hid my face and changed its connotations.

And in the dark I danced—slight, Chaplinesque—
a metaphor myself. How could they know,

the undiscerning ones, that in the glow
of spotlights, sometimes love becomes burlesque?

Disfigured to my soul, I could not lose
or choose or name myself; I came to be

another of life’s odd dichotomies,
like Dickey’s Sheep Boy, Pan, or David Cruse:

as pale, as enigmatic. White, or black?
My color was a song, a changing track.



Spring Was Delayed
by Michael R. Burch

Winter came early:
the driving snows,
the delicate frosts
that crystallize

all we forget
or refuse to know,
all we regret
that makes us wise.

Spring was delayed:
the nubile rose,
the tentative sun,
the wind’s soft sighs,

all we omit
or refuse to show,
whatever we shield
behind guarded eyes.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



The Shijing or **** Jing (“Book of Songs” or “Book of Odes”) is the oldest Chinese poetry collection, with the poems included believed to date from around 1200 BC to 600 BC. According to tradition the poems were selected and edited by Confucius himself. Since most ancient poetry did not rhyme, these may be the world’s oldest extant rhyming poems.

Shijing Ode #4: “JIU MU”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches
thick with vines that make them shady,
we find our lovely princely lady:
May she repose in happiness!

In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches
whose clinging vines make hot days shady,
we wish love’s embrace for our lovely lady:
May she repose in happiness!

In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches
whose vines, entwining, make them shady,
we wish true love for our lovely lady:
May she repose in happiness!

Shijing Ode #6: “TAO YAO”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The peach tree is elegant and tender;
its flowers are fragrant, and bright.
A young lady now enters her future home
and will manage it well, day and night.

The peach tree is elegant and tender;
its fruits are abundant, and sweet.
A young lady now enters her future home
and will make it welcome to everyone she greets.

The peach tree is elegant and tender;
it shelters with bough, leaf and flower.
A young lady now enters her future home
and will make it her family’s bower.

Shijing Ode #9: “HAN GUANG”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the South tall trees without branches
offer men no shelter.
By the Han the girls loiter,
but it’s vain to entice them.
For the breadth of the Han
cannot be swum
and the length of the Jiang
requires more than a raft.

When cords of firewood are needed,
I would cut down tall thorns to bring them more.
Those girls on their way to their future homes?
I would feed their horses.
But the breadth of the Han
cannot be swum
and the length of the Jiang
requires more than a raft.

When cords of firewood are needed,
I would cut down tall trees to bring them more.
Those girls on their way to their future homes?
I would feed their colts.
But the breadth of the Han
cannot be swum
and the length of the Jiang
requires more than a raft.

Shijing Ode #10: “RU FEN”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

By raised banks of the Ru,
I cut down branches in the brake.
Not seeing my lord
caused me heartache.

By raised banks of the Ru,
I cut down branches by the tide.
When I saw my lord at last,
he did not cast me aside.

The bream flashes its red tail;
the royal court’s a blazing fire.
Though it blazes afar,
still his loved ones are near ...

It was apparently believed that the bream’s tail turned red when it was in danger. Here the term “lord” does not necessarily mean the man in question was a royal himself. Chinese women of that era often called their husbands “lord.” Take, for instance, Ezra Pound’s famous loose translation “The River Merchant’s Wife.” Speaking of Pound, I borrowed the word “brake” from his translation of this poem, although I worked primarily from more accurate translations. In the final line, it may be that the wife or lover is suggesting that no matter what happens, the man in question will have a place to go, or perhaps she is urging him to return regardless. The original poem had “mother and father” rather than “family” or “loved ones,” but in those days young married couples often lived with the husband’s parents. So a suggestion to return to his parents could be a suggestion to return to his wife as well.

Shijing Ode #12: “QUE CHAO”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The nest is the magpie's
but the dove occupies it.
A young lady’s soon heading to her future home;
a hundred carriages will attend her.

The nest is the magpie's
but the dove takes it over.
A young lady’s soon heading to her future home;
a hundred carriages will escort her.

The nest is the magpie's
but the dove possesses it.
A young lady’s soon heading to her future home;
a hundred carriages complete her procession.

Shijing Ode #26: “BO ZHOU” from “The Odes of Bei”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This cypress-wood boat floats about,
meandering with the current.
Meanwhile, I am distraught and sleepless,
as if inflicted with a painful wound.
Not because I have no wine,
and can’t wander aimlessly about!

But my mind is not a mirror
able to echo all impressions.
Yes, I have brothers,
but they are undependable.
I meet their anger with silence.

My mind is not a stone
to be easily cast aside.
My mind is not a mat
to be conveniently rolled up.
My conduct so far has been exemplary,
with nothing to criticize.

Yet my anxious heart hesitates
because I’m hated by the herd,
inflicted with many distresses,
heaped with insults, not a few.
Silently I consider my case,
until, startled, as if from sleep, I clutch my breast.

Consider the sun and the moon:
how did the latter exceed the former?
Now sorrow clings to my heart
like an unwashed dress.
Silently I consider my options,
but lack the wings to fly away.



The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out.

Although I am only four years old,
they say that I have an old soul.
I must have been born long, long ago,
here, where the eerie mountains glow
at night, in the Urals.

A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes;
now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking
fills us with dread.
(Still, my momma hopes
that I will soon walk with my new legs.)

It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss,
drawing the mermaids under the ledges.
(Observing, Papa will kiss me
in all his distracted joy;
but why does he cry?)

And there is a boy
who whispers my name.
Then I am not lame;
for I leap, and I follow.
(G’amma brings a wiseman who says

our infirmities are ours, not God’s,
that someday a beautiful Child
will return from the stars,
and then my new fingers will grow
if only I trust Him; and so

I am preparing to meet Him, to go,
should He care to receive me.)

Keywords/Tags: mermaid, mermaids, child, children, childhood, Urals, Ural Mountains, soul, soulmate, radiation



On the Horns of a Dilemma (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Love has become preposterous
for the over-endowed rhinoceros:
when he meets the right miss
how the hell can he kiss
when his horn is so ***** it lofts her thus?

I need an artist or cartoonist to create an image of a male rhino lifting his prospective mate into the air during an abortive kiss. Any takers?



On the Horns of a Dilemma (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Love has become preposterous
for the over-endowed rhinoceros:
when he meets the right miss
how the hell can he kiss
when his horn deforms her esophagus?



On the Horns of a Dilemma (III)
by Michael R. Burch

A wino rhino said, “I know!
I have a horn I cannot blow!
And so,
ergo,
I’ll watch the lovely spigot flow!



The Horns of a Dilemma Solved, if not Solvent
by Michael R. Burch

A wine-addled rhino debated
the prospect of living unmated
due to the scorn
gals showed for his horn,
then lost it to poachers, sedated.



The Arrival of the Sea Lions
by Michael R. Burch

The sound
of hounds
resounds in the sound.



Hounds Impounded
by Michael R. Burch

The sound
of hounds
resounds
in the pound.



Prince Kiwi the Great
by Michael R. Burch

Kiwi’s
a ***-wee
but incredibly bright:
he sleeps half the day,
pretending it’s night!

Prince Kiwi
commands us
with his regal air:
“Come, humans, and serve me,
or I’ll yank your hair!”

Kiwi
cries “Kree! Kree!”
when he wants to be fed ...
suns, preens, flutters, showers,
then it’s off to bed.

Kiwi’s
a ***-wee
but incredibly bright:
he sleeps half the day,
pretending it’s night!

Kiwi is our family’s green-cheeked parakeet. Parakeets need to sleep around 12 hours per day, hence the pun on “bright” and “half the day.”



Ah! Sunflower
by Michael R. Burch

after William Blake

O little yellow flower
like a star ...
how beautiful,
how wonderful
we are!

Published as the collection "When Pigs Fly"
1
Who will honor the city without a name
If so many are dead and others pan gold
Or sell arms in faraway countries?


What shepherd's horn swathed in the bark of birch
Will sound in the Ponary Hills the memory of the absent—
Vagabonds, Pathfinders, brethren of a dissolved lodge?


This spring, in a desert, beyond a campsite flagpole,
—In silence that stretched to the solid rock of yellow and red mountains—
I heard in a gray bush the buzzing of wild bees.


The current carried an echo and the timber of rafts.
A man in a visored cap and a woman in a kerchief
Pushed hard with their four hands at a heavy steering oar.


In the library, below a tower painted with the signs of the zodiac,
Kontrym would take a whiff from his snuffbox and smile
For despite Metternich all was not yet lost.


And on crooked lanes down the middle of a sandy highway
Jewish carts went their way while a black grouse hooted
Standing on a cuirassier's helmet, a relict of La Grande Armée.


2
In Death Valley I thought about styles of hairdo,
About a hand that shifted spotlights at the Student's Ball
In the city from which no voice could reach me.
Minerals did not sound the last trumpet.
There was only the rustle of a loosened grain of lava.


In Death Valley salt gleams from a dried-up lake bed.
Defend, defend yourself, says the tick-tock of the blood.
From the futility of solid rock, no wisdom.


In Death Valley no hawk or eagle against the sky.
The prediction of a Gypsy woman has come true.
In a lane under an arcade, then, I was reading a poem
Of someone who had lived next door, entitled 'An Hour of Thought.'


I looked long at the rearview mirror: there, the one man
Within three miles, an Indian, was walking a bicycle uphill.


3
With flutes, with torches
And a drum, boom, boom,
Look, the one who died in Istanbul, there, in the first row.
He walks arm in arm with his young lady,
And over them swallows fly.


They carry oars or staffs garlanded with leaves
And bunches of flowers from the shores of the Green Lakes,
As they came closer and closer, down Castle Street.
And then suddenly nothing, only a white puff of cloud
Over the Humanities Student Club,
Division of Creative Writing.


4
Books, we have written a whole library of them.
Lands, we have visited a great many of them.
Battles, we have lost a number of them.
Till we are no more, we and our Maryla.


5
Understanding and pity,
We value them highly.
What else?


Beauty and kisses,
Fame and its prizes,
Who cares?


Doctors and lawyers,
Well-turned-out majors,
Six feet of earth.


Rings, furs, and lashes,
Glances at Masses,
Rest in peace.


Sweet twin *******, good night.
Sleep through to the light,
Without spiders.


6
The sun goes down above the Zealous Lithuanian Lodge
And kindles fire on landscapes 'made from nature':
The Wilia winding among pines; black honey of the Żejmiana;
The Mereczanka washes berries near the Żegaryno village.
The valets had already brought in Theban candelabra
And pulled curtains, one after the other, slowly,
While, thinking I entered first, taking off my gloves,
I saw that all the eyes were fixed on me.


7
When I got rid of grieving
And the glory I was seeking,
Which I had no business doing,


I was carried by dragons
Over countries, bays, and mountains,
By fate, or by what happens.


Oh yes, I wanted to be me.
I toasted mirrors weepily
And learned my own stupidity.


From nails, mucous membrane,
Lungs, liver, bowels, and spleen
Whose house is made? Mine.


So what else is new?
I am not my own friend.
Time cuts me in two.


Monuments covered with snow,
Accept my gift. I wandered;
And where, I don't know.


8
Absent, burning, acrid, salty, sharp.
Thus the feast of Insubstantiality.
Under a gathering of clouds anywhere.
In a bay, on a plateau, in a dry arroyo.
No density. No harness of stone.
Even the Summa thins into straw and smoke.
And the angelic choirs fly over in a pomegranate seed
Sounding every few instants, not for us, their trumpets.


9
Light, universal, and yet it keeps changing.
For I love the light too, perhaps the light only.
Yet what is too dazzling and too high is not for me.
So when the clouds turn rosy, I think of light that is level
In the lands of birch and pine coated with crispy lichen,
Late in autumn, under the hoarfrost when the last milk caps
Rot under the firs and the hounds' barking echoes,
And jackdaws wheel over the tower of a Basilian church.


10
Unexpressed, untold.
But how?
The shortness of life,
the years quicker and quicker,
not remembering whether it happened in this or that autumn.
Retinues of homespun velveteen skirts,
giggles above a railing, pigtails askew,
sittings on chamberpots upstairs
when the sledge jingles under the columns of the porch
just before the moustachioed ones in wolf fur enter.
Female humanity,
children's snots, legs spread apart,
snarled hair, the milk boiling over,
stench, **** frozen into clods.
And those centuries,
conceiving in the herring smell of the middle of the night
instead of playing something like a game of chess
or dancing an intellectual ballet.
And palisades,
and pregnant sheep,
and pigs, fast eaters and poor eaters,
and cows cured by incantations.


11
Not the Last Judgment, just a kermess by a river.
Small whistles, clay chickens, candied hearts.
So we trudged through the slush of melting snow
To buy bagels from the district of Smorgonie.


A fortune-teller hawking: 'Your destiny, your planets.'
And a toy devil bobbing in a tube of crimson brine.
Another, a rubber one, expired in the air squeaking,
By the stand where you bought stories of King Otto and Melusine.


12
Why should that city, defenseless and pure as the wedding necklace of
a forgotten tribe, keep offering itself to me?
Like blue and red-brown seeds beaded in Tuzigoot in the copper desert
seven centuries ago.


Where ocher rubbed into stone still waits for the brow and cheekbone
it would adorn, though for all that time there has been no one.


What evil in me, what pity has made me deserve this offering?


It stands before me, ready, not even the smoke from one chimney is
lacking, not one echo, when I step across the rivers that separate us.


Perhaps Anna and Dora Drużyno have called to me, three hundred miles
inside Arizona, because except fo me no one else knows that they ever
lived.


They trot before me on Embankment Street, two hently born parakeets
from Samogitia, and at night they unravel their spinster tresses of gray
hair.


Here there is no earlier and no later; the seasons of the year and of the
day are simultaneous.


At dawn ****-wagons leave town in long rows and municipal employees
at the gate collect the turnpike toll in leather bags.


Rattling their wheels, 'Courier' and 'Speedy' move against the current
to Werki, and an oarsman shot down over England skiffs past, spread-
eagled by his oars.


At St. Peter and Paul's the angels lower their thick eyelids in a smile
over a nun who has indecent thoughts.


Bearded, in a wig, Mrs. Sora Klok sits at the ocunter, instructing her
twelve shopgirls.


And all of German Street tosses into the air unfurled bolts of fabric,
preparing itself for death and the conquest of Jerusalem.


Black and princely, an underground river knocks at cellars of the
cathedral under the tomb of St. Casimir the Young and under the
half-charred oak logs in the hearth.


Carrying her servant's-basket on her shoulder, Barbara, dressed in
mourning, returns from the Lithuanian Mass at St. Nicholas to the
Romers' house in Bakszta Street.


How it glitters! the snow on Three Crosses Hill and Bekiesz Hill, not
to be melted by the breath of these brief lives.


And what do I know now, when I turn into Arsenal Street and open
my eyes once more on a useless end of the world?


I was running, as the silks rustled, through room after room without
stopping, for I believed in the existence of a last door.


But the shape of lips and an apple and a flower pinned to a dress were
all that one was permitted to know and take away.


The Earth, neither compassionate nor evil, neither beautiful nor atro-
cious, persisted, innocent, open to pain and desire.


And the gift was useless, if, later on, in the flarings of distant nights,
there was not less bitterness but more.


If I cannot so exhaust my life and their life that the bygone crying is
transformed, at last, into harmony.


Like a Noble Jan Dęboróg in the Straszun's secondhand-book shop, I am
put to rest forever between tow familiar names.


The castle tower above the leafy tumulus grows small and there is still
a hardly audible—is it Mozart's Requiem?—music.


In the immobile light I move my lips and perhaps I am even glad not
to find the desired word.
K Balachandran Dec 2014
Indiscreet Parakeets

Lovesick parakeets,
Eager wicked fornicators,
climaxed with a shriek.


Bat Trick

This bat, wants to act,
Only in a position
Other species find
Hard to imitate.


The Serpent's Last Chance*

Hissed aloud, in vein, none seemed impressed.
Swished around, ****! it's polished marble floor.
Only makes miserable after all the false moves.
No escape route found after so much struggle.
Serpentine arrogance desperately seek a burrow,
Finding the lethal  poison of King cobra useless.
In a situation too slippery to bite or frighten
He could only coil in dejection, pretending dead.
Steve Page Mar 21
The flash of parakeets in the rain,
in darkest Ealing,
raise heavy souls away
from the drizzle,
up from the road
long enough to gift
a memorable
collision.
Things you see on  Sunday morning
Jonny Angel Jan 2014
I find my refuge in poetry.
For in twisted stanzas,
that passionate-scribbling,
I can read of blue skies,
write amber waves,
dream rusty signs squeaking,
flapping in hot summer breezes,
oil rigs pumping & wavy-trees,
behind broken screened doors,
I hear phone’s ringing,
laughing children screaming.

I can eat biscuits & gravy,
savor catfish & string beans,
see the rolling plains,
feel the clapping thunder,
listen to yellow parakeets
as the morning sunlight
peeks through stained-glass,
the pitter patter of gentle rain.

Sitting on porch swings,
watching ripples on streams,
inhaling rivers of cigarette smoke,
I visualize hay rolls & barbed-wire fences
under flocked geese in flight.

Soothing wind chimes in c-minor,
jingling, meandering
through lace curtains,
I lay on lily white tiles
crying, clutching my tissue,
trying to make it through
another starless night.

Rocking with Eric’s slow hand,
wearing Tony Lama’s & driving Buicks,
this random selection of cells
I cannot keep inside me.
There are millions of things hidden
in my stronghold of words,
yet to be written.
martin Apr 2014
There was a vicar from Crewe
Whose congregation were few
To make amends he brought in his hens
And they all lined up on a pew

Then he compiled an avian choir
(For the singing voice of the hens was dire
And the only song the cockerel knew
Was ****-a-doodle-do)

The church fell silent as we heard
The Lord is my Shepherd from the minor bird
The vicar invited us to pray
And we got the Lords Prayer from the African grey

There followed a rendition of psalm thirty four
Performed without fault from the tenor macaw
The parakeets squawked and scratched their fleas
As they jumped up and down on the ***** keys

The vicar was thrilled it was going so well
The geese gave a honk as they pulled on the bell
But then there appeared right at the back
An evil sparrowhawk poised to attack

Calamity reigned inside the church
The African grey fell off his perch
The first to escape was the tenor macaw
As fast as he could through the open door

The chickens shrieked and went home in a flap
The minor bird had a heart attack
The geese walked away back to their pen
And the church fell silent once again
the vicar found a pile of parakeet feathers in the churchyard the next day
Sara L Russell Oct 2015
Sara L Russell, 27th Oct 2015, 00:50am*

I send you out into the world my dear ones.
Here is light and shade; and I see that it is good.
Here are the waters of life poured forth in shimmering splendour
all for your delight and to nurture your thirst;
behold, here is a paradise of sunlight scattering
diamonds of fire on the ocean,
sunlight filtering through the leaves of tall palms and little olive trees
in splinters of dappled emerald light and shade;
here are dazzling white sands and shady mangroves
it is all for you, for I love you, my children;
you belong to me
and to all of the earth.

I send you out, dear ones, amid the steamy jungles,
out to swim free in the dancing liquid light of rivers and streams,
I set you free in a garden of plenty.
Here are fountains and waterfalls overhung with intoxicating
  swags of white jasmine and scarlet hibiscus
entwining with vines heavy with ripened grapes.
Flamingoes and bright parakeets fly out of the
greenery before you, in a flurry of rainbow fire.
Rejoice in this life I give you
and take care of this beautiful domain.
Keep it safe; make it last
and you in turn will last;
safe in an infinity of peace.

I send you out into the world my treasured ones,
free to walk naked, resplendent in the satin of your skin;
needing to conceal nothing from the sun's nurturing rays
or the eyes of beasts, or each other's loving gaze.
Behold, you are pure and untainted with shame;
you have the freedom of earth's bountiful beauty
and you are lovely as the flowers that carpet the forest floor.
Taste freely of the berries and the sweet delight of earth's nectar,
Let the pollen of the lotus bring you dreams of deep serenity.
Only touch not the fruit of the tree by the dark
fountain sealed. The Tree of Knowledge
is mine to know and yours only
to behold in silent wonder.
Mark this well, my children,
for it is my only rule.
as the morning breeze wafts
over fragrant jasmine and bela

and the parakeets roost
in guava trees

and the slant of the mango tree
welcomes the sun on dewdrops

i hear the call to prayer and my heart supplicates
my body trembles and i kneel

my hands fold in prayer
my fingers run over the holy beads

and as my body surrenders
to words as old as time is told

i feel the rivulets of sweat down my back
my body continuing it’s dance of offering

and as i hear the raucous chatter of the birds
and the sounds of the house stirring

i give thanks for another morning
and give in to the pleasure of being
Michael Bauer Feb 2015
walking through the big flea market

off of highway 19 north of Tampa

looking for whatever and something

curious and kitsch or campy



merchants selling in the parking lot

used blenders and old cameras

burnt out or faulty devices

DVD cases and game cartridges



old rednecks shout out opinions

in a cacophony of drawled signifiers

representing visions of despotic rulers

reigning a tyranny of taxes and decline



old glass containers and windshields shine

scattering high afternoon sunlight in the Sunday sky

sitting and resting used and content waiting

waiting for the wear and reduction of time



the market continues into indoor aisles

criss-crossing within a ramshackle structure

plywood walls supporting sheet metal roofing

an aroma of every greasy food wafting into one



people wrapped in worn fashions

whites in Ts and denim

muslim women in headscarves

a black deputy strapped down in uniform



the deputy enforces commerce laws

around the alternative marketplace

a variety of commodities are still available

bongs and e-cigs and incense and **** ****



parakeets cry out down one aisle

a stack of blue aquariums drone a bubbling hum

the stench of cedar and rat **** and hamsters

reptiles basking in the arid glow of heat lamps



all is right in America’s America

the flea market is the floorboard of that promise

an opportunity for anyone to begin

or start again and over and over



a liberal conservatism can be guarded well

with rifles or tazers at bargain rates

a conservative liberalism is applied openly

in the atmosphere of everyone for anything and everything



the dream of the flea market

a black market and a carnival

all of America’s cheap art on display

its people swirled into one



equal in their struggles and desires

reaching for resources and derivatives

buying low and selling higher

stealing and selling short



walking through the big flea market

on a hot and cloudless Sunday afternoon

looking for whatever or something

it’s a fun thing to do


**originally posted to my blog https://sublimeobscenities.wordpress.com on 4/27/2014
K Balachandran Sep 2012
In deep layers of silence
I used to hear music,
without words or instruments
it did flow,
the birds used tell me-
secrets of listening to nature.
Parakeets spoke in resonances of green
crows and egrets
complemented again and again,
the music, I thought, was a divine hallucination,
but now
it all turns upside down,
You, complain
you keep on hearing someone crying,
from within.
I see eyes welling up,
which are those memories
that blow up, surge out?

Shh..keep quiet for a moment,
a commotion is getting nearer and nearer,
the ice caps are melting,
but who cares,
the crowd has no mind,
they are braying for blood,
Whose blood?
their own, but can the blind distinguish?
*"come, this is my blood, drink it,
cut this bread in to pieces,
eat it, be satisfied.."
There was mist up high on the mountain
There were bones along the shore,
And a line of caves that met the waves
Around that evil tor,
There were screeches in the forest
But they weren’t from parakeets,
And the heavy sound of breathing
Late at night, and from the deeps.

While the waters round this island
Seemed to mutter from the reef,
When the tide would urge them forward
They would pile and then retreat,
It was if it was forbidden
For the waves to beat the shore
As an ancient Atavism
Gave out its primal roar.

So we camped out there on the beaches
Within sight of Hartley’s wreck,
That the reef had torn a hole in,
There was water to the deck,
It sat forlorn on a *******
Within reach, when the tide was low,
We hadn’t a plank so the vessel sank
And we had nowhere to go.

We lived on fish that we netted,
We traced out ‘Help’ on the sand,
We hoped that a plane from overhead
Would rescue our little band,
There was John who was the bosun,
There was Jane who cooked and chored,
Myself for the navigation,
And Hartley, that made four.

But seven others were lost at sea
Were afloat beyond the reef,
The tiger sharks had left their marks
With their cruel razor teeth,
So we kept a silent vigil
With the single flare we had,
And hoped that Keith would bring relief
In the merchant ‘Iron Clad’.

(for alternative ending, jump to *)

‘We need to go in the forest,’
Said Jane in a bleak despair,
‘We need to find what fruit and berries
Might just be growing there.’
So John went off with a bucket
As the sun began to rise,
But soon was back, he had been attacked
And was missing both his eyes.

‘A thing rose up in the forest,
It had no shape or form,
It just looked black but it still attacked
And I felt my face was torn,
It had a gutteral growl as old
As the earth that formed this place,
A sense of aeons before the storm
That created the human race.’

He died that night with a whimper,
With everyone else asleep,
I began to shake as this evil shape
Was taking him up the beach,
It dragged him into the forest,
Food for its larder there,
And I so scared and unprepared
That I fired our only flare.

It lit the heavens above us,
It lit up the sand, and then
It lit the trees in the forest
And the bones of other men,
When Hartley woke with a curse and spoke
The most welcoming words he had,
As Jane got up from her sleep, he cried,
‘By God, there’s the ‘Iron Clad!’

(Alternate ending from *)

When Hartley woke in the morning
We saw he had gone quite mad,
For John lay dead with a bleeding head
And a wound where he’d been stabbed,
While Jane took off and ran up the beach
To shelter in one of the caves,
And I was forced to listen to him
Engaged in one of his raves.

He was blaming John for wrecking the ship
And blaming me for the tack,
‘You were the Navigator, Jim,
So what do you say to that?’
I said that the fog was thick and deep
When we drove up onto the reef,
‘And you should have been up on the deck
Not down in a drunken sleep!’

He went for me with the rusty blade
He’d used already on John,
But I was younger and far too quick
As he came stumbling on,
I wrestled him to the ground and found
The knife had entered his side,
Then belching blood on the sand he cursed,
Lay on the beach, and died.

When I went to look for Jane I heard
A single scream in the cave,
Where a giant octopus held her,
I was just too late to save,
It’s tentacles were ten feet long
And were wrapped around her frame,
Though I slashed and cut off three of them
She was dead before I came.

So I wandered back to the lonely beach,
The only one alive,
My heart so low at this latest show
That I thought of suicide,
But then out there in my bleak despair
I fired the flare we had,
And there, beyond the reef I saw
The shape of the ‘Iron Clad’.

David Lewis Paget
Valsa George Jul 2017
We live in a house, simple and nice
With a garden lined with crotons in rows
Not so neatly trimmed or pruned as before
And a lawn not always well manicured
But abounding in plants with blooms of varied hue
From shady corners, orchids peep
They bring forth flowers in bunches and mass
Only on certain seasons, not the year round.
Then a visual treat to the eyes, indeed!

Trees big and small border our land
Mango trees and jack fruit trees
Coconut palms and guava trees
Twining creepers with globular passion fruits
Bushy plants of sweet and sour berries
Rose apples, papayas and Chinese limes
An epitome of country abundance!

In front of the house was once a stretch of fields
Lush and fresh with paddy plants in June
And in autumn, bent with arching sheaves of corn
Green parakeets used to come from far
To eat the grains ready to be reaped
Having their fill they would fly westward in flocks
Such scenes were a source of instant delight

But sad enough, those fields were gradually filled
In place of paddy and other seasonal crops
Industrial units, big and small have emerged
By degrees, the quiet and coolness of the place
That once soothed our frayed nerves are gone
Now an exodus of men have landed here
Laborers who have come from Northern states
To eke out a living in a better clime
Speaking languages, Bengali, Hindi and Tamil
Leaving the area noisy with incessant chatter

Along the road that runs parallel to our house
Now speeds past, motors in unbroken row
Honking horns and raising a screen of smoky dust
Spoiling the ambiance of our verdant setting
And badly impairing the neat surroundings
But with every change of scene and setting
We, like nomads cannot change our stay or dwelling

Well acclimatized to all noise and commotion
We now stick to our home, our humble haven
And strive to create within an inner landscape
Not polluted by the ravages of time or clime

Home is the sanctuary where we roost and rest
A sweet dwelling, more than all mansions blest
And it should be an abode of love where hearts embrace
Every turn of life, grim or merry with no fuss but with grace

How sweet it is to dwell beneath this roof
Our wedded life’s enduring love’s living proof!
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2016
I’ve strode this road of war and love
And born it’s bile and spleen,
I’ve wept at death and laughed at birth
But nowhere have I seen,
A sweeter place to live and die,
To quest for things supreme,
Than to forge these days of hard forays
In the Land of In Between.

Candied apples hang from boughs
Like jewels bequeathed by Queen
And silver sounds of bubbling brook
Cascade to tumbling stream,
Parakeets in vivid hue
Fly by with shreeking scream
In forest’s green majestic light
In the Land of In Between.

Paint no man black or vivid white
Whilst points of view be gleaned
With race and politics ignored
Then manifest, obscene.
Where labour be a man’s reward
And filthy lucre screened
As noxious be a spider bite
In this Land of In Between.


Where hate be strangled to the end
Then with a keen blade ,sheened,
Be put to death with avarice
No guilt or guile redeemed.
Leaving in the pristine wake
A countryside so clean
That God be queuing up to live
In this Land of In Between.


All ****** love be sacrosanct
And soft endearments seemed
As normal as the light of night
When by the moon dust preened.
And that laughter be our currency
Affection always seen
As bonding in fraternity
At the Land of In Between.

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki NZ.
30 January 2016
topaz oreilly Nov 2012
String vests with spittle trailing
Budvar to invariably show independence,
they snare the spectacles of the respectable evenings sheen,
later calling the night *****, and kicking  hoardings
as if they had wanted to disinter the dammed.
The former love of parakeets,
by once fine people,
also released Yellow to this New World
matching the jaundiced jab
of a hooligan denying  his head
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2022
drama for queens

teenage boy is no
teenage girls' dream.   (502 bad gateway hack mobility, scooter)

i never know how the story goes, esp. this story: dentes qua stellae or whether it's stellae qua dentes i.e. teeth as being stars, or stars as being teeth... so much for the "son of man's" suffering upon the cross, there were plenty more horrible ways to die, i know for certain that "my" fellow countrymen in the late middle-ages preferred to impale culprit Ukrainians... they'd grease them up and impale them on a "1" / an "I"ota... so much concern for the suffering of the "son"... i'm pretty sure Zeus had "one too many"... but never in "question" is the suffering of the father... all those stars juxtaposed, into geometries and not geometries, if not an ideal sq. then most certainly a triangle, no circles in constellations... but it's abstract in a way that would be fiddly on paper... gods bend the rules for what's already here while men try to make sense of said bending of rules, men and gods meet halfway, there's a common language to be shared by both creatures... whoever was the dentist-sadist that was... i'm pretty sure my "father" endured more suffering than simply dangling from a cross... i see him now... like a worm from the planet Dune.... whirling in a gravitating darkness... himself the darkness and the gravitational pull of it... for each star upon the nightly heavens is his tooth... pulled out from his mouth... sure... a pretty grin... at first... a dissolving all blindening of light... but now? all his teeth have been pulled out and scattered in his mouth agape that's this vacuum of: no chew and no bite... how hungry he sits... unable to: nonetheless willing to sieve through every other living creature having its fill... long will it be before his teeth implode into "nothing" and are returned to his mouth... i'm guessing i should dream more often, only recently i encountered a dream from one of my ex-girlfriends, a Russian girl... she actually painted a picture of the dream... i was standing facing the third eye of her dream-architect backwards... a bit like Judas in one of those paintings of the Last Supper... i was holding a sword in my hand while she was kneeling and had her arms outstretched insinuating mercy... a kneeling woman in the form of a crucifix... but that was over 10 years ago... i found my shashka wooden sword over a year ago long before the Russia-Ukraine conflict started... i just stashed it waiting for the right moment to hang it on my wall... funny... i guess that's what happens when one doesn't dream... one create a reality from the dreams of others.... this interpretation of a dream of hers? i have, in a way, turned my back towards the west... in the grandiosity of dream-language i am standing over a kneeling Russia and refraining from using my sword... it makes sense that i dream of nothing... i just remember her giving me this picture she sketched... it looks like her dream came into fruition... but me standing with my face hidden... hell... i never liked the idea of the Russian being the scapegoat of the whole of humanity, this evil genius boogey-man... to isolate the Russians is like... a recipe for a perfect disaster... i was never inclined to make an Anglophone fetish for America... and i never will... the east is calling me... "my" people would rather wage war against each other than succumb to Western decadence... but at the same time i can't the Russian claim for defending Christianity: Christianity is indefensible to me with the emerge of the Naag Hammadi Library that coincides: almost precisely with the Matthias ben Josephus' account of the times, about an Egyptian False Prophet who attempted to sack Jerusalem, failed and fled back into the Egyptian desert... just by "coincidence" the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the atom bomb exploded twice and was subsequently tested... too many ******* coincidences if you ask me... i don't feel or subsequently think i have any impetus for either western or eastern culture... i'm a no-culture culture... i'm sure i'll figure something out as i age (god permitting), for the time being i'm just hyper-focused on a second schism in Islam, spearheaded by the Turks... perhaps i'm mad... perhaps... but even the psychiatrists i met with discharged me as being free-thinking untamed... sure... they tried to medicate me, they did, i put on a lot of weight... then i stopped taking the "medication" and got my libido back, lost weight, cycled to Epping and elsewhere walked a marathon to St. Paul's and back... blah blah... am i mad or is it just that everyone is too ******* sane for anyone's willingness to enjoy life with a thrill?!

mmm hmm... traffic is bad on the internet,
someone explained it to me,
this 502 bad gateway phenomenon
i listed and heard the explanation like someone
might hear an echo... it sort of vibrates
a silence that has a second laugh when told:
you'll die...

that women are better at language than men
that men were supposedly better at science
and mathematics than women...
sure... i too am seeing seismic rearrangements
taking place...
given the change in industry...

i'm still serious about going into primary school
teaching...
when the scrutiny of my teaching ability
is out of the room and i'm well established
into my role... i'll teach them...
those gremlins... ha! you'll hear that the Europeans
arrived at the current numbers
from the Hindus and the Arabs from the Hindus
and we poor poor, pauper thinking northerners
were enlightened by the sands of squiggly
lines of ink!

ha ha! like **** we were...
the Ancient Romans used letters as both letters
and numbers! IV... what? not 4?
what's 4? i look at G and see a mirror and a
clockwise turning...
i see an 8 i see a B...
i see a 9 i see... a P...
                        iota for everyone eleven 11...
2 for a Z... S for every 5...
                        3 for every E...
7 for every L...
                               6 for every Bb...
0 for every Oh Oh Oh!

                 fake news... self-taught truths and the the world
can go to hell with the usurpers of my arrived at
figuring out how: to send a postcard from
a defunct Third *****... just a stamp will do...

much a bigger whirlwind than with the advent
of the 20th century... bigger?
well... the 20th century was the whirlwind,
the hurricane... the 21st century?
ha ha! it's going to be a butterfly!
you know about the butterfly effect...
the 21st century is going to be just that...
the horrible has already happened!
i'm just here to invigorate a metaphor of what could
have happened...

sure... white girls are staging a "coup d'état" of ***...
black guys... hell... i too find them handsome...
trouble is... i can't go down that little "Nile" of hers
to the equator for equal parallel...
i went east... to the lands of Gypsies and vampires
and Mongols and Orcs...
sorry girl... we were always disparaging creatures...

ofiaruje mojej dziewczinie... szlafrok w którym utonie...
przy świecach i koniaku...
po pas po szyje... piegi i policzki blade...
tak, tylko ona, jad jedwab...
ofiaruje... Hollandi morskie owoce...
dziwne przyprawy...
farbowane rzesy...

                      ofiaruje mojej dziewczynie:
rodzinki, krewetki, mandarinki!

i will offer my girl... a bathrobe in which she we drown,
before candles and cognac,
unto the waist unto the neck... freckles and pale cheeks...
yes, only her, like silk...
i will offer... Holland's sea-fruits...
strange spices...
dyed eyebrows...

i will offer my girl:
raisins, prawns, mandarins...

i lost myself in conversations...
only 2 weeks ago i watched two brown eagles
fight over a meal just above me
while i was doing something in the garden...
but lately... ever since doing shifts....

two brown eagles fighting over a meal
just above my garden... huh...
i was familiar with Parakeets lingering
at Bishops' Park Fulham...
i... today... not even today...
what the **** are three flocks of
Parakeets doing flying across my horizon
and garden included...
if i asked for Messerschmitts i'd ask for a cláwd (cloud)
of crows or a flock of woodland pigeons...
i would be asking for ******* parakeets!

the former is a Welsh take on things...
but i don't want to beat my own drum...
obviously the Scots are dreaming "big" in terms of
what's united and what's disunited...
we're living in funny times...
i'm starting to think the sclera in my eyes is
turning yellow from all the whiskey i'm drinking:
mind you: there are worse ways to die...
from drinking excessively and writing
originally...

as you age you realise: there's no Romeo in you:
but there was...
i know i had a Romeo in me...
then the splintering happens...
as you age you realise you need to learn juggling...
it's not exactly juggling if there's only one
women in your life...
you need at least 6... whether you **** them or
not is not part of the "plan"...
me? 5 i ****... and the rest?
i don't count... i'm more an anti-dyslexic
sort of guy rather than an arithmetic sort of guy...
i like: a, CLA-RI-TY OF SPE-LLING...

just today... i met up with Frankie...
a work colleague...
we tried talking for about 20 minutes not being
in uniform of either shirt and black tie
or black t-shirt and all things black...
i did stretch it that far along...
but it was ******* difficult...
we're already in our lanes...
we know our mistakes and we know
the sort of people we can replicate these mistakes
with... ergo: we pursue the sort of people
we can make the same mistakes with...
even though: as a man?
i can't exactly become pregnant either the first
or second time, actually: never...
prostitutes wouldn't make that sort of
mistake of trying to get alimony from
a pundit...

         ergo? before feminism... i was telling
these two girls are work...
my grandfather mentioned that back in the day...
in a little nation known as Poland...
the sort of cousin of the rebirth of Israel...
there was this "thing" known as: Bachelors' Tax...
oh yeah... Bachelors used to pay a tax
on them remaining single,
it was called a BASIORY...

and i would be paying that sort of tax for...
exactly what? tax freebies of western single mothers?!
me?! getting a council house / flat?!
as a man?
**** me... i'll need to grow a womb and pop
a hungry brat out for myself to use as TOOL...
oh i'm not bitter...
sure... i live with my parents...
but i take care of them...
plus i drink to excess and write to excess
when they're asleep:
it's an unhealthy healthy relationship...
i do most of the cleaning and the cooking...
i dreamed of one day following the Biblical quip
of breaking away...
but then i saw what that entailed...

you marry a woman: you break away from your mother
and father... you abandon them...
you marry a woman... and?
you get a ******* mother and father in-law...
GREAT! ******* all ten (are) thumbs up!
that's just ******* brilliant! sign me up!
no...
         if that is the fate of man...
i'm in no way part of being a man...
i want to be an aman...
                                i was so close to bagging this
deal... the overtly friendly in-laws...
the woman... well... in the biological: mammalian
sense... she wouldn't... do the mantis ****
during *******...
she would just **** you years later...
replacing your mother and father with her father
and mother...

i ******* ran as quickly as my mind allowed
and my legs couldn't provide when she first
performed oral *** on me...
the words: what would father think...
what?!                       is that supposed to be:
a ******* "turn-on"?
  what you dada-tink?!
                                                    y­ou what?!
you just told me what i would "think" if
you'd think what it would be like
for you giving you actual father oral ***...
basically... un-basically basically:
well: ma'am used to the be spy "code word"...
in a queer world... qua is the new ma'am...

i purged my former ****** experiences
within the puritanical uninhibited experiences with
prostitutes...
i came out? rather unscathed...
i accustomed myself to sitting across at least
5... all of which i ******...
sort of glittering with an aura of:
dentes qua stellae!

that teeth could become stars...
each time i see a migrating star
i conjure up the passion of one of my own
being uprooted from my jaw and
bone licking, straight out of Belgium's
flat-land-demand!
to hell with these chocalatiers!
it's Belgium: currently the heartland of Europe...
otherwise a non-country...
certainly nothing geographically worth minding!
it is! it isn't!
who gives a **** or a white shirt's worth of minding!

of all the philosophy books...
so few write about ***...
   actually: none do... Platonic love my ***...
which ought to have been written by a homosexual...
but then there's that extreme with Marquis de Sade...
i'd rather write about ***
than actually utter a single word during *******...
i refrain: yet still they come
cackling with: ooh... you're tiny... jokingly...
actual *** is so much more interesting
than what ******* has to offer...
******* is acting! *** is anti-acting...
it's the one view of what
upstaging the Thespian Tyranny can ever look like!
the only way to attack the Thespian Tyranny
is to attack the asexual pornographic actors!
they're ******* actors! literally!
they're ******* ******* actors!
they "enjoy" *** on the basis of PRETEND...
me? i love *******...
i'm already gearing up for Thursday...
i'm doing two days of bashing the bishop
without ****** to get the blood flowing...
i need to starve and excite myself
at least 2 days prior to *******...
my ***** are tingling and so is my *******
while i write this...

i need to perform! if i don't perform
i won't be smoking that hash Frankie gave me
after ***...
oh... i'm not young and stupid (again) enough
to smoke and write something...
i'm going to go straight to bed
and have my head massaged by a H. P. Lovecraft's
octopus horror godhead...
because i **** Gypsy girls...
Gypsy or Turkish? whichever...
   as much as i'd love a blonde... hell...
  if you don't have what you like...
might as well like what you have...

                           i'm currently surprising myself
with what i just sent my coworker
in a private message.
Sharon Stewart Nov 2011
Driving through the old town
where my father was born,
I'm stunned to silence while
he tells me the stories of houses.
This man I've always feared
who acts like he can't remember
mistakes or childhood,
legends and accidents,
who I'd swear was never born,
just always existed, strong,
who my mother claims
is incapable of memory and
sentiment, tells me, quietly and
unannounced, about an old woman.
Sat on her porch, Sharon,
at that house there on the corner.
He tottered over and talked to her
at four years old.
She had blue and green parakeets.
Took a drag of her cigarette
watching the world pass her by
wearing memories only she
knew the pain of bearing alone.
Debopriyaa Dutta Apr 2020
it seems that the only antidote to the poison of existence is to write. to write, like our forefathers did - purposeful seclusion, months of trance-like writing, like a murderer maddened by the idea of salvation - writing, with ink-stained fingers, aching joints on the same old, trusty typewriter; writing, while wallowing in the deepest pits of despair, stuck inside a shabby room, dishevelled with books unread and re-read countless times…

to witness the act of writing - be it a staged enaction, wherein  an artist just slips his malleable soul into the garb of the prophet - to witness the act itself is a travesty, an ache on the roof of one’s mouth: out of reach, foreign, uneasiness swirling. nothing soothes, or quite imparts the strength to digest reality like the simulated sound of a virtual typewriter - the old, familiar clang that sustained generations of kindred souls, the tolling of the bell that eclipsed the knell of death, of betrayal, of a life cut short by cruelty, of unrequited love, of angst, of abuse - that of others and the self.

our modern machines that make life so easy, appear as a hindrance, an obstacle to the realization of my true self. or is it just incompetence, meandering as un-bloomed fantasies, that have been thwarted by none but my own futile sense of pride, which, in the very end, is nothing, but a pile of dust, that glints in the sunlight, and appears like the first pearls of dew-like snow?

beauty seems to be the only parameter for any semblance of human emotion we are willing to spare for another - beauty, or rather the bastardization of beauty, has rendered us barren, so dreadfully ugly. beauty consumes those who fawn upon it, destroys worlds, invades peaceful colonies, robs the poets of sleep, and urges the beguiled to sin.

my disfigured mind, once a slave to beauty, has broken its shackles from its dastardly regime. in the process, I've had to encounter my own ugliness - both without and within - bloated egos of the world that match my bloated skin - but it is dissatisfaction that I’m bursting with. dissatisfaction at the absence of prodigious blood in my veins, the kind that can foretell worldly events, conjure multiverses, concoct reservoirs of colors undreamt of, and feel the fabric of the world, the way one obtusely feels their own skin shielding their inner darknesses. ennui mingles with narcissism, flowers bloom at the edge of deserted lakes - the forest nymphs weep and wail under the blood-red moon, and the lovers die, without loving one another - alone, forlorn, their death a meaningless crease in the fold of the universe.

staring down at the unimpressive rising and falling of the telltale buttons - the very mechanism that allows me to stay afloat - I choke with tears that do not quite justify the source of my misfortune (perceived?). the faint, dull wail of the automation keeps me warm, but the sudden silence fills the home, no, just an apartment, with thunderous, ominous vulnerability. my bones ache along with the foundations of the house - the parakeets have made a nest among the polluted shrubberies, unlike their usual design to avoid large, empty cities. they screech , in imitation of my acute helplessness, mocking my hapless complaints, rendering me completely alone, while being surrounded by blood of the most coagulated, and thickest kind.

the neighborhood cats feast upon leftovers, as I look into the window of a world unexplored , ridden with darkness visible, and demons that admire your flesh while you  are half asleep. the walls twist and boil over, while i savour, in disgust, the heaviness of my existence, the meaningless lull of my name, called out by someone who brought about  an acutely unwanted genesis. the cries of the parakeets fade away, and the automation starts crawling around my skin again, enveloping me in a almost-comfortable embrace…the spell is broken, by the vision of my forefathers, on their animal parchments, and blood-like inked etchings, their truly broken hearts and the deceit of my own.
Jack Jul 2013
~



Staring,
as I often do
This distant place of wondering

Afforded of a mystic view
Raising flags,
woven free upon the wind

Across the sea

In your pocket
to remain
A piece of me in charms upon
a silver coated chain

Floating of its own ebb and soul
Waving as forever comes
Sent of lost and feathered shore
Grinning ear to ear

Taken from a prison camp
Framed in ocean’s mist
Found and lost and found again

Something I can not resist

Each day I reach,
in lengthened gathered steam
Drinking of a lemon scent
and foaming parakeets

Dancing on the beach of wings
Searing on the feet
Floundering, dreaming, asking…

When will you come to me

Fingers shade the sun
Bleaching on its way
Bountiful of endless love

So, so far away

This distant place of wondering
As I often do,
staring

Hoping to find you
Jack Jul 2014
~



Staring,
as I often do
This distant place of wondering

Afforded of a mystic view
Raising flags,
woven free upon the wind

Across the sea

In your pocket
to remain
A piece of me in charms upon
a silver coated chain

Floating of its own ebb and soul
Waving as forever comes
Sent of lost and feathered shore
Grinning ear to ear

Taken from a prison camp
Framed in ocean’s mist
Found and lost and found again

Something I can not resist

Each day I reach,
in lengthened gathered steam
Drinking of a lemon scent
and foaming parakeets

Dancing on the beach of wings
Searing on the feet
Floundering, dreaming, asking…

When will you come to me

Fingers shade the sun
Bleaching on its way
Bountiful of endless love

So, so far away

This distant place of wondering
As I often do,
staring

Hoping to find you
Stephan Jun 2016
.

Pressing patterns patiently protecting priceless pillowed pleats
Proudly pasting photographs of proper preening parakeets
Pushing plastic pinwheels past the park where purple peacocks played
Panoramic pixies practice prancing down the promenade

Paying people for providing pizzas to pentathelets
Picking peppers privately, politely pleasing prom petites
Painting pulpits perfectly in places preaching pastors prayed
Posting pretty poetry on paper pages on parade
Just having some fun on a Friday.
Caroline Shank May 2022
It's been a long day.  You
died so soon ago and we notice
your noise is gone, the parakeets and me.
You should comment somehow on
the oddness of things
since your disease.

The paranoia and lies the dementia
played made your dreams seem like
waking and your sleep tore into

you with fantasies and confusion.
You shouldered the  nurses by
telling them you felt fine.  That
lie pushed you to more agitaton.

I never knew you would get well.
I was cursed with a colder reality.  
As I drove to see you in the cocoon
of the nursing home I wondered
would you be crying or well.  

It was the crying I never unfolded.
in your room where we so carefully
braided the colors to your whims.
The colors are the same today.

Now wilted, the bright sun's rays
like the daylight dim but your harsh
yellow teeth spread around my
name and you saw me beaten
and unforgiven

You took me with you to the
Hell of brass urns.  I thought
to ask you why but the look
on your framed face said you
were waiting and your yellow
grin dared me to be quiet.

I saw the years in stark
isolation.  
You in a painted slicker,
I knew you
loved me once and
briefly.   Your journey
was a long one. Mine is

to shower daily your burnt
name across the
yellow ******* of

chared Sorrow

off.

Caroline Shank
May 15, 2022
.
seven inches long
are able to learn to talk
love nuts, parakeets
B Wasserman Aug 2016
Over the hills
where the daffodils grow
cross the pond
where the honey flows

If there is one
place I would
rather see
oh it would
be grandma's
place for me

birds in the cages
birds perched in the trees
hawks owls finches
and showy parakeets

muffins for dinner
**** roast in the morn
oranges and porridges
served at noon
better get it before
a skunks licks it
clean off the spoon!

no rooms are without
a heart or a soul
grandma is quite eclectic
if not the least eccentric

If there is one
place I would
rather see
oh it would
be grandma's
place for me

monkeys snoozing in the closet
pidgeons roosting on the stools
rats in the cellar
and koi fish in the pool

many games as animal's names
polo with the zebras
boxing against the roos
wrestling with the bear
though I'd sure lose

If there is one
place I would
rather see
oh it would
be grandma's
place for me
smokesMbowls Feb 2015
wash my sins and tumble dry,
a coin is on what most rely,
give two sniffs and call it clean,
have no cares long as it gleams,
pay no attention underneath
stitches come apart at seams,
wicked seamstress knows my secrets,
fixing pieces now she keeps it,
***** hamper tucked away,
filled with words too scared to say,
save them for a rainy day,
burn them all to keep it safe,
unload bags like charity,
smother squeels like parakeets,
flapping, flailing, i repeat,
same mistakes most every week,
wander back to laundry mat,
separate my whites from black,
poison bleach is my combat,
social accepted attack,
convinced its clean but its a lie,
wash my sins then tumble dry.
Serendipity Aug 2022
***** of feather
fill the air,
flutter and flap,
their wings tear
the atmosphere
with expertise.
Two little birds:
Plum and Bean.
This is different than what I write andI love my birds so much.
Sam Hammond Oct 2018
It's often the birds and the bees
That teach us how *** is a breeze,
But had they before
Said it's all metaphor
I would still have my pet parakeets.
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
Can’t get no
Status faction
Satisfaction guaranteed
Just parakeets
A pair of beats
Commodifying
Cost of need
The price of greed
Inflates like ego
Gives you power over me
Or so you’ve seen
The dream machine
Forever justifies
The means
But in the hands again
Of people
Breaking equal
Treatises
We feed the treachery
The fallacies
Of drama queen decrees
Thomas W Case May 2020
In a dream,
I see the raven
fly into the night;
his dark song beckoning
from his beak.
Shiny black wings promise
flight,
but to where?

I watch as the
pair of doves bellow
their songs of love
and with a rush of
angels wings
fly heavenward.

I hear the
bluebirds and
sparrows little hum of
hope fade softly into
the afternoon sun,
and I wonder,
what does it all mean?

Then I see them, and
many other kinds of
birds, with beautiful bright
colors,
Parakeets and parrots,
eagles and herons...even
a dodo and they are
all rotting in cages.
Some of the cages are
open,
others are closed,
but all the birds are
lying on their sides,
sad dead eyes,
staring blankly,
finished and flightless.
and I get it.
Check out my you tube channel where I read my poetry from my recent book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, available on Amazon.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0-hHZ6O8u0
Olivia Kent Mar 2015
Candles burn brightly guiding the sight cruising from midnight unto daylight....aforesight dreams of daily scenes, images in magazines, all at the turn of the hands of the clock.
And so the **** crows.
He gets up your nose, he begs you awake.
Strangle the noisy beast.. the tone on the cell phone that steals your sleep.
Where cobwebs hide behind the eyes of the sticky sleeper, tear filled weeper. starlight sweeper, secret keeper, chaste with tight, secrets hid in the night.
Locked inside here where shadows hid, where love's denied and shall all shall hide, for never ever rest in peace ,of raging dreams and stolen sleep.
Of parapets and parakeets that keep you away from rest,the
noisy birds they are the best.
Locked inside there was two of us now there's only one.
He melted in the heat of a vibrant summer sun.. a puddle on the pavement, a melted mess of sticky stuff, missing sleep, mourning love.
***** tonic and all that stuff.
(C) Livvi
Inspired by a chat conversation with noted lyricist Martin Brisland.
Thanks Martin!
Do you recall rollicking through cultivated country lanes ?
Playfully tromping down our gravel drive in the afternoon heat ?
I held you to prevent a stone bruise on your tiny little feet ..
Can you recall late Summer evenings on the front porch swing ?
I read you nursery rhymes until you fell to sleep ..
Do you remember tents in the living room , Captain Crunch cartoon
mornings dragging a gallon of milk to the TV ?
Playing hide and seek in the house , jigsaw puzzles and parakeets ?
Remember the puppies and kittens , lavender mittens and the Blizzard of '93 ?
What about climbing up Stone Mountain nestled in your papoose , just you and me !!
Copyright January 21 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved

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