Bright windy November
with the slap of cold sun sending frowns
and the absent rain not beating down
choleric substitutes of alcohol withdrawal
and spatial omissions of home fires stoking
empty remembrances of faded potential and
misplaced amorous regret
Haunted by the lingering smell of the souls of
last night's GUINNESS intake staying swell in
the nostrils which is in reality the gulf breeze blowing
gullshit down the river Liffey giver of life.

...And here I am Dublin pillaged and funded
en route to the hour-rate slog
shiny white commerce bleaching out of
windowsills distracting from rooftop
Chiaroscuro  serenading a sky
which old ****** forgotten Sons and Daughters
will die under.

Boots tapping mock-goosestep to the ground
past a girl who speaks on her IPHONE to someone
who presumably not only wants to be seen speaking
to someone on their IPHONE but who also cares enough
to listen as the girl announces to all-and-sundry
human dodging on Bachelors Walk this fateful morn
that "I realised what my problem is Now! People
think i'm saying N when I'm really saying M!"

.....quite an existential crisis you got there, EH DOC?

("This girl's SITUATION belongs in a scenario in the TV show GIRLS which young
Woman Europe-wide have embraced as their spiritual saviour in an era of Consumer
impulse control. By placing the mundane generalities and perceived social failings
interpreted by young American female comediennes as instead representing a means of
self-forgiveness and attempted new-wave soft-core feminist self-celebration young American
actresses are inspiring a new generation of young woman to speak openly in a more in-depth level about everything that usually happens to themselves or some girl they know"-From "The Post-New Male Gaze: Interpreting Critiques of Stereotypically Feminized Pop Culture in Westley Barnes's "Notes on a Rant: The "Took Me Up To Dublin Where It's Famous" Notebook
:2013)

This is the new white noise.

White Irish Male Critiques perceived socially-announced problems of White Irish Female over White Technology on a white morning in a grey city.

A grey city which subliminally stinks of shame and left-over guilt and of spending too much money on tecno-toys and new-improved nullifying debauchery and even rent during a significantly rough stretch of fiscal years. After a lot of years of white nonsense, really.

But this is where I took myself, and this is what happens once you take yourself here and this is where its famous for it.
Dublin,
Once Monto-based FUNDERLAND for the rich and royal turned over-waxie infested tenement slum district and second city of an industrialised economy waiting for the rest of the world to pay its way.
Dublin,
capital of green and squeaky saviours of the third-world who made some money and forgot about everyone else they used to know back home. Mr Poverty, Mr Humbleness, Mr Sense of Catholic Shame.
Until the rents got too high and they had to move home again.
Dublin,
no matters what it achieves, always putting itself down.

But I can adapt.
I've lived in Rathmines and Portobello before living in either was a
really hip decision to make.
I can find somewhere else before its gets gentrified
(after I find some job that's not worth complaining about
or I eventually leap into becoming to middle-class
to complain about it.)
enough that its a headache living there, too many men wearing the same winter
jackets. Too many packed restaurants and your local actually preparing the tables
in the run-up to the Rugby game on Saturday.
The less of all that, the better for me.

I used to day dream about all of the above, honestly, but I
somehow managed to regain my innocence by living through it.

As for the girl who discovered self-realisation on her (through her?) IPHONE?
She'll be alright. If that's how she starts wading through the floodwaters of relating
herself to the world, misunderstood syllables, name-fails and all, this time in twenty
years, she'll be laughing. Don't worry yourselves, she'll adapt with the times.
Sure, Dublin's famous for it.

Portobello mushrooms, I use them all the time
No matter how topped they always taste just fine
From cream cheese and crab to chicken fajita
No matter what you just want to eat ‘em

Philly beef cheesesteak, they’ve also been topped
So many possibilities, I’ll never stop
Bleu cheese and steak makes a hell of a filling
Portobello themed restaurant, I’d make a killing

Chicken Alfredo, or coconut shrimp
How about spinach artichoke dip
Turkey and dressing or how about pulled pork
You’d want to eat those with your fingers or fork

Taco, or nacho, or enchilada
How it gets better, I got zip, zilch, and nada
Or I don’t know how about spinach frittata
You could go Greek, lamb, feta, and Kalamata

Mediterranean, flavored quinoa or couscous
So many options, man just turn me loose
Lemon pepper, scallops, or Oyster Rockefeller
Or Chicken Rice saffron, it would be yeller

At this point, I feel like Bubba from Forrest Gump
Going on about toppings, oh well over the ****
Buffalo Chicken or Asparagus turkey parm
Just about anything you can get at the farm

Goes great on a mushroom I think you can see
Most people wouldn’t, but, hey they’re just not me

Fashion designers love foraging through the antique markets of Clignancourt in Paris and Portobello Road and Alfie’s Antiques markets in London snuffling out vintage pieces for inspiration. The flurry of romantic Victoriana on the catwalks for autumn can clearly be blamed on this obsession.

There has been an undercurrent of reserved, covered-up fashion ever since Pierpaolo Piccioli and his former co-designer Maria Grazia Chiuri introduced a more demure aesthetic to Valentino five years ago. Longer skirts, prim higher necklines and covered arms have become the slow trend of recent seasons creating a hyper-feminine look.

Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy and Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen have long been beguiled by the Gothic romanticism of Victorian fashion with their use of corsetry and dark dramatic lace and velvet for eveningwear.

In fact, London-based vintage fashion dealer Virginia Bates admits she doesn’t remember there ever being a time when Gothic Victoriana didn’t feature in at least one designer’s collection. “The fascination with the romantics, poets, artists and even horror [classics and films] give designers a great source of inspiration,” she says. “It’s an irresistible era.”

Certainly a lot of it has appeared on the catwalks this season at McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Burberry (shown only a month ago in the see-now, buy-now collection), Simone Rocha, Preen, Bora Aksu and Temperley London, as well as at smaller brands such as Alessandra Rich, Three Floor created by Yvonne Hoang and A.W.A.K.E.

There were dark distressed Linton tweeds, unravelling knits and black tulle in Simone Rocha’s autumn collection. Rocha was pregnant when she started designing it and was inspired by Victorian dress and motherhood, in particular the nightgowns and matrons.

“All the wrapping and swaddling of babies,” she says, before elaborating on how “the Victorian ideals of properness were made perverse with the conservative and covered-up pieces contrasted by the sheer and embroidered fabrics.”These gauzy vaporous fabrics succeeded in making her eerily romantic silhouette look rather contemporary and daring.

Subversion is key to making such a prim and proper period in fashion history modern and relevant for women today. Marc Jacobs, for instance mixed long Victorian coats, ballooning crinolines and crochet doily collars with sweatshirt tops and laser-cut leather for skirts and jackets together with some scary Goth horror make-up. Nothing is, or should be literal.

As Justin Thornton of Preen says “we love the Victorians, the laces and the white shirts, but it is the vintage pieces rather than the era that inspire us”. His partner Thea Bregazzi has collected aristocratic laces and ruffly vintage shirts from Portobello Road market for as long as he has known her and these frequently find their way into their collections, “but linings would be ripped, garments will have holes in them – it is a deconstructed look”.Virginia Bates once owned a famous vintage fashion emporium in Holland Park with a client list including the biggest names in fashion from John Galliano to Donna Karan and Naomi Campbell. Now she only works with private clients and designers and they, especially, she says were looking for genuine Victorian pieces when planning their autumn collections.

“A black fitted jacket with inserts of handmade lace [that is] embellished with crystal and jet beads, ***** and silk lined ... How exciting and inspiring is that? Silk and fine lawn shirts, soft and flowing with ruffles. Don’t we all want to wear one and live the dream?”

Thankfully a few designers do right now, and there were lots of heavenly creatures in fragile asymmetric lace dresses toughened up with leather corsetry at Alexander McQueen, and richly coloured swishy dresses at Bora Aksu. While Christopher Bailey cherry-picked the centuries in his Burberry collection, lighting upon frilled white cotton shirts, nipped in jackets and military capes from the Victorian era. Given that Victoria reigned for more than 60 years there is a lot of history for designers to plunder, so this will not be the last we will see it.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Portobello mushrooms washed and gilled
sprinkle salt and pepper and a little dill
slice a chicken breast, into strips that are thin
bell peppers and onions, go on the grill with them

Chile powder, cumin and garlic, minced
against these flavors, there is really no defense
mental trip to Mexico, dining on the street
relive vacation through smells, isn't that neat

Sauté until the chicken is just cooked through
put this on the 'shroom, in a pan with a little brew
on the top sprinkle a large amount of cheese
cheddar, or mont'y jack, whatever kind you please

Pop this in the oven at 350 degrees
ten minutes, the smell will begin to tease
you will know its done, when the cheese is golden brown
put it on a plate, pour a margarita, and chow down.

My sister dreams of flying tortoises,
cockatoos and parrots flapping in a
perfect randomness. She watches
from the porch of her cabin on the lake,
strangely grown into a manor, and recalls
the promise of someone soon returning from
a time on the water. The tortoises make her think
of portobello mushroom caps, frayed and black
against the stainless blue. She wonders what this means,
this tumbling opulence, this message in the night that my sister dreams.

A warm glow radiates through the bones
that are usually filled with aches and groans
as I pass my place of birth.
The street screams my name by day
and whispers it softly when light has gone away
smell the air, smell the warmth rising from the earth.

The street entertainers of Portobello road
the cool saxophone, the sweet notes blown
the sound of a thousand footsteps.
The jugglers, magicians and the market stands
balancing, conjuring and selling their brands
the warm breeze scatter their scent.

Watch out for vagabonds and confidence tricks
souvenir shops serving countless tourists
the sound of a thousand tills ringing.
Eat in any language, speak in any tongue
dream of hustle and bustle and days long gone
still you can hear the street singing.

From Pembridge Road to Westbourne Grove
these streets tell me that I am home
they call me, repel me, thrill and destroy me.
This land that did bear me keeps willing me back
to walk it's streets and follow it's tracks
this land is the place I must be...

If I die, think only this of me,
through every pane of glass, behind every windowsill
there will always be a place called Notting Hill. 

Flowing footsteps from skytrain to street
Trying to stay calm, but I'm so excited to meet
You, here, under the changing glow
Of signs, of places, hoping we slow our
Pace and enter. But we are in search
Of another establishment, on the whim
Of a word, a nudge in the right direction.
The winds blow us into the red glow
Of ambiance, of elegance, the right selection
Portobello perfection, Mezcal gin,
Beautiful soul sitting close with a grin,
We can't help but laugh "this is how you win!"

Foggy to recall the way that we went
Home on the bus, or the money we spent.
None of that matters much when you are lost
In the depth of another being, intriguing
To find kin where you are not used to seeing them.
Laughing up the stairs in the corridor,
Knowing in this moment, this is your life,
It is beautiful, you are not needing more.
Both of us feeling this as we reach the door,
"Welcome to Buzzer 2" let's see what's in store.

Waking up cuddling, always a delight.
So much accomplished already, but you might
Have to run out quickly and buy some beans
For the bullet coffee that will be our means
Of mobilization, into the street,
Rubber soles on our feet, ready to meet
The pavement outside which will guide
Our path from delicious morning smoothie
Over bridges, through the downtown core,
Both realizing we would make a great movie
If film could ever capture the way that we soar.

Hats tilted slightly sideways, we even get work done.
Painting quickly so we may continue our run,
Over the Granville bridge, lilac in the air.
And there is no hiding the way that you stare
At my ***, and the mountains, a beauty so fair.

Rangoli's is next, fine dining, the best chai!
Decadently treated to Portobello twice.
Sweaty in our running gear, we are here
Trying to avoid timestamped bills and clock chimes
But you give me your best guess, lately spot on!
I glance at the sun to figure how much day is gone.
Even though there are so many moments left
To unravel, I embody the feelings - being
Ever present to crystallize the memory of our travels.

We turn towards the sinking sun, and I run
My fingers through windblown lion-locks.
Basking in the energy we emanate, we stun
Onlookers with our badassery and good looks.

Granville island is next on the docket
Searching for elusive sumac, in the spice shop
It is tucked away on a shelf, among rarities.
You light up at the till, and guarantee
The next place we head to is going to be
The crown of the afternoon - The Distillery

In shorts and tanks we stroll in with class,
Walk up to the bar and order a glass
Of the finest and most signature gin,
But just a taste, not enough to make the head spin.
A nectar so pure, so incredibly smooth
We continue our stroll, we continue to lose
Sight of places you were expected to be,
Apparently easy to do when you hang out with me.

Crossing under the bridge, sunset rays shine
Through the city canopy, it is nearly time
For the moon to transition us into the night,
But I pull you aside for a moment, while its still light
And kiss you with passion, with fever, with might.
That gin in the afternoon has increased our delight.

And it's not over yet, we play for a while.
Horsing around at the bus stop, we smile
And pose on the blue wall, gangster-style.
Moments in snapshots, spirit of the child
Creating our reality, embracing our WILD.

i was about to start writing this up when i thought:
another whiskey Quincy? **** storm,
spilled the remains of the one i barely touched
before having to pour myself a:
puritan Scot in Cheltenham.

now, i heard people say any town in Essex
is a ****-hole...
                            fair enough...
but there are darker recesses of England you
must get to know before making that
assumption...
                  sure, London, proper London,
zones 1 - 4, E17 (post code, outer reaches,
Walthamstow, used to have a dog racing
track - played there once,
like a typical Paris catwalk, those hounds)
can skive off Greater London
                    like New York can laugh off
New Jersey, it's pretty much like that...
the only thing is: Londoners don't know what
exists outside this area: the buffer zone.
this is the buffer zone...
                 you experience England outside of
this very sensitive area of integration,
take for example a 3 hour coach trip to
a little town of Cheltenham in Gloustershire
not far from Oxford (a hub of learning)
and Bristol (Massive Attack, and that
bridge by Brunel - funny, engineers are above
architects, in that engineers build things
that *work, architects are like science-fiction
novelists rather than scientists -
do you know how many problems workers
experience, because an engineer
"forgot to mention" something essential in the plans?
at least an engineer gives you a read table,
all architects work for Ikea -
          ah, here's pieces a - z,
put it together yourself) - anyway...
              spilled my Quincy whiskey, now i'm a puritan
of scotch - unlike that damning quote from
1950s Hollywood: whiskey with a drop of water...
   ok ok... a little **** of ice floating about...
when will the nagging stop? no one says jack
about putting water into authentic absinthe...
      why? cos it goes cloudy green when you do!
(too much digression, news paragraph).

   i was leaving London on Friday,
murky the way i like it... Albert Bridge never seemed
so out of cinematographic urgency -
               but the west end with its grand buildings
appealed to me to start imagining
                    Oscar Wylde ghosts leaving these places
for promenades in top cats and tiaras for the ladies...
                     west London... the best way to see it
is in transit... preferably rather urgently...
                    and in a coach with other people not paying
attention...
                       the Thames receded into the estuary (
as it does), those housed in boats experienced a wake-up
call with a 10° ***** into the mud -
                                past the Chelsea pensioners' abode,
past many monuments to be exact...
   and then onto the open M4... past Windsor Castle
and the streak of aeroplanes about an aerial mile
apart landing at Heathrow -
                                  3 hours later, there i was,
in Cheltenham - chitty chitty bang bang,
apparently dubbed the hub of all English literary
endeavours - well, if you're going to host
a literature festival, wouldn't you claim to host
it with at least one patriotic son of the word?
did i see any statue of a famous poet or writer in
that little rugby stockpile of excess triceps?
nope.
           well, at first i thought it was cute...
                                a little Portobello, albeit
without the St. Petersburg paintwork on the houses,
houses as grey as the skies...
                                           got lost looking for
the b & b hotel i was supposed to be staying at for
the night, went into a gas station, asked,
i was apparently only adjacent lost -
                           old school, map printer and no
g.p.s. on foot -
                                  i once read a map and navigated
a car from an obscure Essex city,
to an even more obscure city in eastern Poland,
past the dreaded Penta Germania consisting of:
Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Wuppertal and
obviously Dortmund -
                                           i call it the whirlpool
of navigation...
                            anyway, so i found the abode,
what a nice little place it was, shied away from
all the traffic - a lovely garden,
a room fit for a journeying writer,
          actually, everything a writer could hope for
to lock himself away and write,
            tunic scenic - everything to ease the literary
constipation - the surroundings, the whole decor,
i even took a picture thinking: shame if no
Balzac were to not emerge from these rooms...
                           i sure didn't,
i dropped all the things, took a shower,
went into town to do the g.p.s. topographic of
the city so i wouldn't need a map in the future -
bought a bottle of whyte & mackay with a huh?!
apparently this brand isn't popular...
               went back to the room and found myself
drinking in front of the dreaded sight...
well... it was a room fit for a writer...
               but it had a double bed in it...
and a mirror at the desk...
                                    i downed one puritan glass
and looked in the mirror: i don't need your company.
looked away and found to my amazement the
truth of modern writing: the industrialisation
of writing... it emerged in the 20th century when everyone
did it by himself, with a typewriter -
        the industrialisation of writing on an individual
scale can be quiet debilitating when trying to
rekindle the quill... i didn't write anything, i doodled,
and those were bad doodles, it wasn't writing,
it was doodling... i drank a quarter of the bottle
and went out...
        went into the first bar, ordered a Guinness and
and sat down by a table with a
(later disclosed) Gloustershire University student,
a Canadian, jacking-off a script for some
B-short-movie in a public place: to catch the oozing
exfoliation of inspiration from crowded places -
if ever that worked, it might have ever worked
in a graveyard...
                             we were joined by his friend,
some peasant, we got chatting, boy, it was such a thrill
to exchange names... the Canadian's name
i did remember: Darcy...
                          he had that look about him that made
it worthwhile to remember his name,
ah, when names fit the image...
                         chubby, pig-blondish, hairy...
i'm guessing a native of Quebec...
                               but i could be wrong.
so a few hey hey, yeah yeahs later i asked if they
knew something about this gig on the festival slot
that was starting tomorrow, 5 p.m. and for free...
sure sure... got to eye the guide... so i asked:
so, maybe we could meet up at this place at this time
and go from there....
                                  Titanic looked more graceful
sinking than the reply...
                                                 i had to really check myself,
this isn't London psyche chess, this is:
we are small people from a small town,
we think a charming stranger is a serial-killer...
                    the Yorkshire ripper case scenario,
not last... first.
                              i might have been ******* a lemon
by then and pretending to be drunk squirming
a Buddha look - i pretended the polite noting down
the details: suddenly i didn't think like attending
this ****** venture that would start at 5 p.m., end
at 12 a.m. and according to my travel diary:
having to wait 2 hours to catch the 2 a.m. home.
so i went to the first instalment of the "literature"
festival... lemn sissay and salena godden -
and i have to admit, it was a corker - a true
a champagne cork popped and hit the crystal
chandelier and i laughed... and that's how i lost my
virginity to "spoken word",
                                         i wasn't listening to poets,
but i was thoroughly entertained, i swear that
at the end of her performance Salena pointed into
the dark (great tactic, how can they be nervous
if they can't see anyone? they stand on a pulpit of pure
light and see black ahead, where the nerves?)
and said: esp. to my friend over there...
                i might have involuntarily back-laughed /
snorted like a pig trying to catch enough lung volume
for a ha ha...
                          got chatting to this lovely middle-aged
couple: told them: i'm being ***** with gags.
                prior, i was watching the queue build up
into the room, with a god-awful grin on my face...
i couldn't take it off...
                         perhaps because i was looking at
the demographic and thinking: where are my peers?!
i spotted about three people in a close age proximity -
the rest were farts and soon-to-be-farts...
                             now Sissay freaked me out...
in a good way... i met the two after the show,
i brought two copies of my own printed work to give to
them... i had to ask their publicist if i was allowed
to touch the Aegean marbles... luckily i did,
but then i asked the stupid question to Sissay:
so who were you trying to imitate when your eyes
were bulging out nearly gauged out like a Pink Floyd
song video of: teacher! let these children go!
               i should have associated something African
freakish in mask, a strengthening - the sort
of look that New Zealander rugby players put on
to frighten people off when dancing the haka -
he really did talk like that...
                                       the little devil voice didn't help
either... but i only asked that "stupid" question
while mumbling something about how hard it was
getting published and how anyone aged nearing 40
forgot the free press of the internet emerging and
how he asked for a q & a after the performance...
and... hand on my heart:
                                   got asked one question...
          and answered... only one question...
                                        a complete and utter ******* meltdown...
   not: oh yeah, so who's your major influence...
                      a Samuel Beckett moment from not i.
later i standing outside and smoking, a grand English
dame of the west approached me,
chitty chatty kiss the hand later i got to say the most
famous line known to the current Englishman:
unfortunately... from Essex.
             honest. anyone asks you in Essex the question
they always ask: so where you're originally from?
                         anywhere else in England
they just ask you: whe

Arriving, I find her briefing three press assistants on her upcoming catwalk show while simultaneously rifling through her closet — a dressing-up box filled with animal print and lacy confections — to choose her outfit for our shoot, while Desert Island Discs plays in the background.

Tucked at the end of a row of terraced houses close to London’s Portobello Road, Temperley discovered the six-bedroom property was on the market two years ago through her close friend, the designer Jasmine Guinness. The unique two-storey villa has a studio-style extension on the back of the property designed by the Victorian architect, Richard Norman Shaw.

She moved in 18 months ago with her son, Fox, 7, and her boyfriend, Greg Williams, 43, a portrait photographer, along with his two children from a previous relationship. ‘I’ve always been a Notting Hill girl at heart. I love that it’s so green, I love the market and my offices are around the corner.’

Temperley cites the interior designer Rose Uniacke (the creative genius behind the Beckham’s Holland Park home) as inspiration for fashioning her own interiors: ‘Rose has beautiful taste, sleek, clean but still really soft.’

The house’s all-white interior provides the perfect backdrop for Temperley to hang her beloved antique cut-crystal chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling mirrors sourced from Golborne Road’s Les Couilles du Chien — famous for its historic bric-a-brac — and the Clignancourt flea market in Paris. The most striking of these is an intricately etched diptych of French brasserie mirrors that sits proudly over her living room sofa.

For colourful accents, she looked to her archive of textiles, which ranges from heirlooms from her great-grandmother’s travels around the Orient to remnants of past fashion collections: ‘I have big haberdashery drawers, which are used for storing my collection in a warehouse in Greenford,’ she says. Having such a vast collection gives her the chance to indulge in some serious upcycling; a Mexican rainbow throw livens up a plain cream sofa while a wedding cloak from Turkmenistan makes a quirky wall-hanging.

Despite the global influences, the Union Jack is a recurrent motif: ‘When I worked in New York [in the mid-Noughties] I was called ‘Little Miss English’. I loved using materials such as lace and lots of references to Victoriana — all very British.’ Look closely, and you’ll find red, white and blue accents everywhere — on teacups, Roberts radios and on silk cushions.

‘To me, being British represents being able to be individual, eccentric and not taking yourself too seriously.’

Temperley was born and grew up in Somerset on her family’s cider farm in Martock, before moving to London aged 18 to study fine art at the Royal College of Art. The countryside has an ineluctable pull for Temperley and she carves her time between her office — ‘probably 80 per cent of the time, 10 per cent of the time here, 5 per cent in Somerset at the moment, and 5 per cent everywhere else’.

But if her west London home is all breathy shades of Farrow and Ball, Temperley’s country pile — a sublime 5.6-acre regency property called Cricket Court that was once the media magnate Lord Beaverbrook’s home — is the opposite: ‘In Somerset my sitting room is dark burgundy, we’ve got black bedrooms and an ochre-coloured library.’

To bring a little of the country back to the capital, Temperley peppers her house with beautiful bunches of wild flowers, sourced from florist Juliet Glaves, who grows her own blooms in Shropshire: ‘I always loved The Secret Garden and as a child I spent hours collecting flowers and drying rose petals on every surface. I am a hopeless romantic at heart and I love British country gardens and their flowers.’

Another great passion of Temperley’s is reading and no corner, staircase or table in the house is complete without stacks of books and fashion magazines: ‘Sally Tuffin [the British fashion designer-turned-ceramicist] has got an incredible fashion library at her home in Somerset and my dream one day is to have a room lined in books.’

As for the rest of the London house? It’s very much a work in progress, ‘especially being a working mum. It’s more collecting things and putting them together in a very relaxed way. Like in fashion design, when it comes to interiors things either work together or they don’t. I have a good eye and don’t like to be constricted to just doing clothes — I’d like to go into interiors. That’s the next chapter’.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/red-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses

He looked down at his swollen feet
His ***** bedding, his rocky pillows
His out door rest room
While the rich ate Portobello mushrooms
Simmer in brown gravy.

They pulled up alongside his box fence
  The tinted window rolled down  a hand
Reaches out  “keep the change they mumble”
The taste of a poor man‘s grave

Is a fair exchange

You weren't the poetic one, but I just read Kaddish
and thought of you;
           of 1998 beach photo, Sussex somewhere - as I
remember you, perhaps a bit younger;
           of sweet peroxide blonde, hiding brunette. I was
naive to the dye 'til I saw 'the Hepburn shot' - that 1950
something print, you in Rembrandt light,
           or the black beehive wig in family portrait—
1970ish— dicky bows and cocktail dresses - Dad, aged
seven, in a shirt and trousers;
           of youthful snapshots: Portobello Beach, Edinburgh
(4), with parents in Kent (8), your gang of girls some snowy
place (14), painting the house with Raymond in Croydon (20);
           of latter digital images, 2012, more gaunt and wrinkled,
but ever-beautiful - seemingly ageless, as you wished;

           of care and trust and overdone vegetables, thin gravy,
brussel sprout production lines - beautiful, mundane memories
at Cowfold breakfast bar or Langley Green kitchen tops;
           of seaside trips to Shoreham, Portsmouth, Brighton, dogs
homes and holding my hand past the loud ones;
           of picking roses from the garden for 'perfume' - sticky
hands, wet floors and beautiful smells;
           of early morning rude awakenings, met only with cheer
and offers of tea and toast - I still have your butter tray
(hospitable even in death);
           of my brother's wedding, taking time to jive and seem
alive whilst everyone else was dying inside, despite the fact
that it was you, and you only, who should care the most (and
thus, if you didn't, why should we have);
           and of that very temperament, infamous tempers never
shown—at least to us—just pure, kind acceptance and
forgiveness.

           You weren't the poetic one.
           You were; the ninth child of a ****** and his wife
                              the girl with the Scottish accent
                              the wife of an engineer from Mitcham
                              the mother of three, the loser of one
                              the stern face of discipline
                              the BT telephone operator, the masseuse
                              the grandmother of three boys
                              the ageless face of beauty
                              the one I remember best

           You told me you couldn't recall your siblings' names -
I've looked into it. Ada, Jack, Edie, Emmie, Mabel, Joyce,
Raymond, Terence.

rearranging a rubber- band on my right
hand for "something" that
comes close to a golf handicap...
this "something" is actually more
tangible, though...
to... make the sensation of
sinew more prominent - like an exoskeleton
variety of a visible: contradictory sinew
that does the opposite of
what's already in place: by restraint...
- i hate golf...
i also hate typing-slow....
when you can't type without having
to look down at the keyboard...
why? it's basically underappreciating
the genius of the man
behind: qwerty... christopher latham sholes...
to me? herr c. l. s.
is leagues above the person who
eroded our brains with...
the alphabet...
why wouldn't you put all the vowels
first... and the consonants later?
maybe the alphabet learning should be
rearranged toward
the sequence:
q w e r t y
or...
   q a z
      w s x
          e d c
the rearranging of the sign of the cross
done by catholics... left to right...
otherwise the orthodoxy of right to left...
but why still bother
with the standard alphabetical...
as long as you remember / use... all the letters...
you stack up 26... what's so terribly
important about x y z...
   e f g... h i j...
         k- l, m, n, o p...
let me sit here... an fester on a wound...
let me keep rancid chicken meat
in my fridge long enough...
can you ever begin to fathom the perfumery of:
how meat can give off whiffs of
rancidity?
it's so specific... it's unlike... what national
treasure... dame Judy Dench said...
in chocolate (show-lo'ca)...
ooh... your cinnamon is rancid...
it's chilly powder...
         rancid meat: esp. chicken...
it has an almost acidic whiff about it...
i can still see the doctor... crow pecking at the keyboard...
armed with only two index fingers...
while here i am... utilizing almost all of mine...
sure... the space button
to catch a reel newspaper style "paragraphing":
columns... rubrics... sudoku being done
my "tired" bones of pinky ownership...
- such that each time i take a bicycle
from havering-atte-bower...
into the grid...
of... Loon'dune...
  who's who when having asked for Lee's...
Da'Un!
           the apostrophe cipher...
an intra-verbum pause...
    otherwise? down...
at best English is written as an approximation...
Fwench is worse...
that much can be said...
they leave their letters at the altars
of Moloch before this grand **** of
infanticide... Guld'An: not Gul'Dan...
if i had eyes worth of ice...
and a heart that throbbed wit
guilt... my eyes would not be the colour
of jade to begin with...
while my heart would not be...
the project of one man...
i desire to steal st. paul's cathedral...
i will not be able
to stick a river into the Thames to turn its...
by way... a river with a tide?
where is the cut-off point
between river water and the sort of water
that makes it... undrinkable?
before the salt settles the last hurrah?
if it weren't chicken scratches that might make
a summary of the solo project of scribble with
the one hand... a handwritten river
as hard to decipher as mandarin hieroglyphs
at times...
spawning an trans-generational
itch for ulterior usage of chop-sticks:
mostly used in the pit of the abacus...
you don't have to be prescribed
the alphabet...
you unfathomable you: you don't...
i see someone, able as i am: to use the arrangement
of two hands before a keyboard...
without looking down...
as a tier above the need to arrange
an alphabet like it might imply:
historical significance?
after a while... that sooner than later
disappears...
the alphabet is lost... when having to arrange
words...
what is the point of keeping the need
for the alphabet... my hands are my eyes...
when i sit down to type...
looking at braille might seem more
important by now...
i don't need the alphabet...
well... i might need it...
but learning it is obsolete...
            unless invested in via: vowels first...
consonants later...
vowels? ** in the realm of d.n.a...
      consonants? XY... ergo?
           vowels are female...
consonants are male...
             no one bothers these days... with these
stalemate concepts of pedagogy...
what philosophy isn't... pedagogy ought to be...
and what is philosophy?
freely available inquiry for those who
want to ingest it...
pedagogy is prescribed learning...
whereas philosophy is without a curriculum...
what is pedagogy? it's primarily: curriculum!

people most close to me once, upon,
a time... hoped... that i might succumb to
becoming a teacher...
i have a Leibniz-complex...
i'd sooner be a ******* road-sweeper than
custard my brain into a role
of overt-demands of responsibility...
******* mother-goose tribunal weighing
on my shoulders... no!
but i like the idea of detailing minor...
revisions...

the alphabet "concern"? using an anecdote...
in a car, with a friend... listening to his father
scold him for not remembering the alphabet...
so not remembering the alphabet is worse
than... not remembering the spelling of: remember?
the alphabet is beside the "hands that see"
argument of qwerty...
there is no "logical" argument for it...
to lodge A first... what about...
that curiosity exclamation marked and mark
and worded: huh? with a scratch of the head...

by the way... isn't the H sometimes
"ghosted" / i.e. surded?
in cockney it 'appens all the time...
i know i'll be robbed of something...
maybe this whole: this is the body of Christ...
i'll be cannibalised for the greater good...
maybe i'll end up with a *******
temple cult of "******" methuselah ladies on
the prowl...

and if i throw another tongue into
the equation: a latin scripted zunge...
will there be a need to throw all ambitions at
the ******* Mandarin like we're the second
coming of the mongolian golden horde?

London: loon-dim... or loon-dune...
i can expand the hell i like...
language is a dog... it obeys me:
i don't obey it... it's my ******* servant:
punctuation: girth of collar
and length of my leash!

i'm almost thankful that English... as a language...
is unlike all the other inheritors of ancient Latin...
you wouldn't see cappuccino anywhere in
neque enim tu es anima tantum,
sed anima corpus circumferens: corpus autem
non potest simul pluribus inesse locis...
Erasmus...

oh don't worry... if i bother... otherwise:
you'd think they'd prescribe us learning a feather's worth
of Latin while the "tide" receded...
back to the old ******* of nation,
tongue... giraffes... glaciers and graffiti...

while we're still rearranging alphabets,
while doctors peck blind at the keyboard...
write... sow: slow... index... primo!
because? cloud of a b c d e f, g...
  why put vowels so randomly arranged
within the confines of: primarily consonants...
it's not like a *******
schematic of 1 1 1 1 1 9 1 1 1
    9 9 9 9 9 9 1 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
   vowels are... numbers are integers...
period...
    math like jurisprudence:
a ******* theausaurus game... word for word:
counter a word: hide a word... hey presto!
a "new" word...
oh, right... a vowel is an odd "number"...
a consonant: an... "even"... ahem... "number"...
since you can
cut up a S and get... E S or S (ee)
but when you cut up an A
you get... i... irrationality: "irrationality"...
diacritical markings... ą... oh that blessed
breath of things having automated odds-on ****...

breaking of bark...
timid squalor of meow...
all in disarray...
the politics of the sexes... of course:
tantamount...
there was a moon landing... haven't you heard?
this miraculous foresights of
post-subjectivity?

i scream on silent while you children
i given their hail mary / iron maiden
silent, treatment....
congested a best **** please....

i'm starting to get my "mojo" back...
perhaps my vocabulary to boot...
isn't enough... it's never enough...
the Leibniz-Complex is detailing
the afterthoughts of succumbing
to the status of: "librarian"...
or that one kind wonder of
a Portobello St. book on the broke...
hoarder of... "illicit" meteorogical oops
hey presto: there's a daisy.....

it's so much less presto when someone is
also a hey presto! who done it...
the cat takes 'ickles for its nap...
i bone, marrow and that's "fat"...

seagulls in essex?!
that the dead are reminder....
you remember me deaarest ol' ****...
i too tow a love for life....
it's no most importantly "you"... though...

poetry as some vague: pick-me-up...
      "poetry"...

there comes a time in a man's life:
say, he was young and foolish
and by foolish i implore anyone to conjure up

the self-deprecating fantasy of
a james joyce insistence on proclaiming
to the world this... miasma...
no... this myopia of ambition
in the literary realm:

to give unto the world a... "unique" perspective
on life, this... original sin of
prior to me not foot has trodden this path...
well... oh well well...

how void these ambitions of uniqueness
are...
stupor, agony, angst...
lethargy and all the thesauric affluence
of verbiage: like a bouquet of rose
tinted grimaces...

i was not allowed to cry to mourn my grandfather's
passing...
however stingy my grandmother
the mother of my mother was...
he died of impromptu neglect
by someone ripping all the stamps
from envelopes posted...
as if she wanted him to unwillingly known
that no one cared...

it only took a month for the deterioration
to unfold...
i sooner bumped my head on the radiator
in my room, bleeding from my head
sooner i bled from my head
than i uttered a cry, a wolf of agony...

because i was denied mourning...

angels of modern technology...
a seance with my grandfather's son,
my mother's brother...

3 weeks he spent in a medically induced coma...
30 minutes shy off of receiving the call...
i couldn't grimace,
i couldn't fake it...
my face contorted as best it could
to fathom some sort of sanity,
politeness, cordiality,
the socially sensual appeasing, appealing...

but then the video call was cut
and i spent a minute's worth of eternity
contemplating
our morality: "our":
whims, necessities,
money earning habits
money spending gambits,
frivolities and follies...

what was once a man, without due grace
to compare to a butterfly...
simply by sensual agitation
and reaction to light, sound, colour,
darkness...
was now... reduced to a recluse of
the mortal shell...
foggy eyed glass of seeing
murky brain... two hydroceles on the brain...

he vaguely spoke of Valhalla,
how we would feast on beetroots...
if my absence of "ambition" concerning
crossword puzzles was never more adamant
than now, then now:
talking to what was once a butterfly:
regardless of ascribing grace,
but at least virility and an imploding
mortal purpose...
now... a larva... a cocoon even
was what become of an identity
once called: Martin...

does Martin know Martin?
because: sure as **** i don't think i've been
speaking to Martin...
hell... two hydroceles are not two
imaginary horns protruding...
nor is this a gangrene of the work
of electronic tectones
of vaguely associating dreams with
sleep and sleep with death...

i peered into those eyes and tried
to make recollections...
coming to the fore the recollections
of vague, social justice poetics of
the cult of the token ethnicities
this semblance of appearing to live
alongside the Hyperboreans
this allure of desensitising the volk
of the northern cranium
like these people will allow
a language to become a gross grammatical
grotesqueness
on the grounds of a historical lineage
whereby my past is so dissociative
(as oppressor) from the victim -
this allure of the toothless animal
having a grip of the jaws so tight
that regardless of bone by mere evolutionary
ingenuity: necessity is the mother
of all innovation...
this grip of the jaws and the acidic potency
of the saliva easily able to leech
onto anything living and morph
it into protein, fat, carbohydrate,
vitamins, mineral, fibre components...
by suckling to a monstrous grone
of pleasuring-agony of the feast...

bad poetry vibes, otherwise a sensual realism
of the impeding: knock knock...
knock knock... someone's... ooh! at the door...

the world is strangely happening
while this personal crescendo unfolds
and i am wrapped and i am warped
into the minor tickle agony of world-speak
of journalistic world-speak...
weltsprechen...
                           talk about the weather,
talk about the premier league
and whether Liverpool f.c. or Arsenal
still have a chance of clinging
to the league title against
the cigar smoking Guardiola...

weltsprechen... weltspreschen...
me? i like the alt-Germanic addition of the S
because the germans tend to slip
into ich: with the Greek X or Spanish J
for ha ha...
with an addition of S to make -sch- equivalent
to Ś...  akin to Rammstein's song:
ich will...         it's actually isch will...

Ś: DAS IST DER WEISCHER SH'AH
                                                                     Š
שש
               by count 6 arms and 6 candles...
by count a protruding E
and almost a W
although wonk to one side...
an F's marriage to W...

       usher in the argh of a hark at SH'AH...
on the second H(ebrew)...

poor Edie... neglected by my turmoil...
her stay in London undermined all my attention
to create a fantasy of carousel rides...
it would be easier on my heart
to burden myself with tales of her
past with unfaithful partners...
two stones one bird
of my existential 0 at Greenwich
when she retracted her posit
on my claim: the meridian line is more
important than the equator...
at least to us... 17h30min apart
from flying to Lihue from London...
11h apart when stationary...

and she had the child-like tenacity to convince
me that God somehow invented
the equator... ha...
as i clocked in with Prometheus (the movie)
the citation: god does not build in straight lines...
besides one:
the straight line of you are born
and then you are dead...
the only conclave resisting the geometric
abnormality of god and the capacity of
straight lines:

one is born and one is dead
one exists then one doesn't...
ha... the ambiguity of the shrapnel words
of conjunction that are: then...
one is... and...
arguments allocated to:
but one is in heaven then one falls
then one is relocated to a heaven once
more? that is not the rite of the gods
to be bound to a heaven
then disgraced, then humbled...
incarnated among us mortals
to then relearn one's presence as the chosen,
the elect, reconveyining in one's
former abode?!

du haben mich... schrecklich denken...
zweitekummer: a second grief...
for worth of salt
and the yet unexplored Dune universe
that has come as a relief to all science fiction
and Star Wars
in that in latched onto the Islamic universe
and incorporated a second Lawrence of Arabia
myth...
for if Spice and Arakkas...
then Salt and Earth...

                  salt the equivalent of spice...
for us aquatic creatures
to truly belong among the rubble and mountains
we would have to be impregnated
by the tides of thirst and
of distinguishing **** from ****...
to retain the less fluid morph
of the agony of bones and nutrient loss...
to distinguish **** from **** unlike
our humble companions the pigeons...

only days ago i attempted to fall asleep
to an audiobook...
what other audiobook besides
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
would i care to listen to?
for a book so slim...
so much was invested in the curiosity of
Harry's uncle... Vernon Dursley...
such imaginative work by the people
who brought the book to life...
because? seriously?
              well....

the pure stroke of genius came with
the only visualbook that
was the Shawshank Redemption...
more than an audiobook... more more...

höhepunkt:
                      the pinnacle... a phrase of
revelation...
unlike when a lion "tames" an antler mammal
unlike when a spider stuns
and subsequently cocoons they prey
immobile...
death has no voice: only the tightness
of life...
yet... with a creature who will not be eaten
so willingly...
by fraud and self-
    earthquake and sea and fire...
by cancerous growths
those replica botanical spurs of mistletoe...
the voices of the softly weakened
limitless agonia
the mortal gives up his mental faculties
to Death... death personified...
vaguely speaking a speaking...

          this brood of the Nether Lord...
who makes an egotistical incision
to reassure the living:
of the transition period... from animate
to inanimate to animate once
more as grains of sand in the desert
upon the winding of the winds...
and the time, scaled... to imitate droplets
of water...
countless rain drop by drop
covering the entirety of the earth...
both the fertile plains and the inhospitable
distances either north or south
upon the glaciers...

       ich haben gesprochen mit Frau Tod...
the body is there... "there"...
weakened by 3 weeks in a coma,
once recognisable, a masculine threat
on my own integrity concerning the number
of ****** partners...
a prompt to bust my nuts (as it were)...
mortgage paid, money saved,
retired mid 50s...
           and now what?
obliterated plans of a future
spent living back with an 80 year old mother
drinking beer watching t.v.
listening to ****** music
       friends... friends... now like vultures...
clinging to the money...

SĘPY...          vultures...

                     and poor Edie and all of Reyla's
upheavals coming back to Kauai:
ka-wah-e
                  from London...
i did bring the fox at Greenwich
and the two ladies were introduced to London
in the grand style of a Tudor boat ride
from Greenwich pier to Westminster pier...
grimmacking scar-lock of Reyla's face
at every corner... my best estimate overwhelmed
by the sight of such urban conundrum
that it should not: ever... have a chance to exist
against her usual sight of Kawaikini
in the morning...
so much walking... walking everywhere...
walk walk everywhere: but not a seat to sit on...

who could possibly be a fan of violin music?
i asked that once...
because it was just a precursor to
all that guitar and wig lasoo ***** jerking
stage fright fuckery...
before i discovered:
Tartini's violin sonata in G minor
                            
unlike the death wish upon cremation
of the serial killer...
Camille Saint-Saëns' danse macabre?
too ******* jovial!
where the macabre "macbeth"?
the devil weeping is nowhere to be found!
but in Tartini?! oh! aplenty!

the phantom stormed out of the english national
opera... after the first act of
the die zauberflöte...
switch to a scene from Lethal Weapon 2...
Alfons... but but... you're bleak?!
black? bleak? black beak... pity...
but... das opera ist in ĘGLISCH?!

         zee vuck?!

      the phantom stormed out of the opera
and took the girl to get drunk
in the catacombs of the Embankment
in a sherry and other south European wines...
Gordon's Wine Bar... 47 Villiers St (WC2N)...
Trafalgar... the National Gallery prior...
i was on a date night...
but why was Reyla so adamant on staying
at home?
but i know...
time for Edie, mommy... to spend the time
on the town with her hubby...
crying so adamant to let mummy translate
all the *** in the hot-tub and bed
into peacocking without a bothersome "brat"...
who might have liked Camden Market
more than being taken to the up-street
market at Portobello...
by then the Japanese garden didn't matter
in Holland Park...
so stupid, world and the word so stupid...

'i known best'          without not yet...

                 but if only she could have seen that
phantom of the opera production at the king's
theatre... then watched my storming out
of the opera production
being asked by the security staff
         at the entrance / exit... 'will you be returning?'
thank god no...
   this is a complete disaster!
would the english dare to translate an Italian
opera? could the French ever dare to sing opera?!

the English's audacity to pretend to be more
than... the operatic... the musical...
English ≠ Opera...
          
     how can i salvage the 2nd most intrinsic feast
of life while also having to cram in
death...
        well... now i can truly peacock and disregard
any notion of the 37 old man with a
******* sort of worth of a 21 year girl
to ease my take for take of seriousness
maybe in the 20th century as a serious painter
but as a "poet" in the 21st century?
more like king crimson's song:
21st schizoid man...      bilingual, mind you...

but what is bilingualism in the realm
of the polyglots and polymaths?
a stern entrenchment...

this vague allure to subscribe to a life
of contentment, of happiness....
what are they, these allusions
when contending with the clenched fist
of Frau Tod and her cohort of death-speakers?
these reassuring bodies weakened torn
and half-made half-dead half-willing
half-crux foundations of the compass
markers...
if not North then south and east
to Jerusalem and Mecca?

               what of this life to be lived
with the impeding
                                 nuance... PTSD+ us all?
alle von uns?!
                             alle von uns?!

              i drank a little to sever the nerves...
now a bicycle ride for some buns...
and more whiskers for a cat already playing
with the idea of barber as a serious
profession... so no... not some Russian
gimmick of a demon disguised as a cat
(le chat noir) with a streak of professionalism
as a joueur d'échec ***** sympathiser...

e-shek?                      d'eshek?

i will shreak....       shriek!
                i will let the winds know of my breath!
is that how you utter szachy (chess) these days?
i've been playing backgammon by myself
toying with chance, perchance and i no longer
care for the difference...

enough!