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Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
i generally feel constipated... that's probably
the best word to use... constipated...
   i was sitting in Warsaw's modlin
airport, and it felt, very much like
a scene from james tissot's painting:
  the ruins (inner voices).
i just kept admiring this guys
     beard,
  in western lingo he'd be classified
as hipter...
             **** me! so much ***** hair!
resurgence of my beard-envy...
  my my, if i only donned such a bush,
i'd be the first one on the dancefloor
peacocking a ******* of sweat and leather
grit...
    alas! not to be.
       a thought concerning a cottage
and a return to the countryside did shine
for a bit... how i remembered having
a russian girlfriend and how i couldn't
see a larionov, or a tatlin, or a goncharova...
  or a mashkov...
           a kuprin... a konchalovsky...
    shukhatev ****** grigoriev...
i also call that: predating the selfie,
  via ilya repin...
           see?! constipation...
      i'm literally bound to heave this tomb of
past lives, expected to recount some chess-prodigy
or some other, chess-komtur.
                     for the help of god i can't ease out
a **** into the toilet that's supposed to be
human history, for the love or antagonism of:
the abstract deity...
     back when it meant concrete things:
hades the shadow-******, zeus the lightning bolt
  and incarnate libido-starved swan,
poseidon and juiced up knicker-oysters
    of a woman's genitals... so they came:
with their floral pattern analogies!
                        my, and what a worldly invitation
that came to be... niqab bound, or by western standard:
  a little more than the pauper's veil...
     enough dough to cage the poor women
and keep them motivated to live, that dull
         caricature everyone else knows to be life...
    i should have stood up and gave my
investment into jealousy, right there and then...
it's unfair that you have more ***** hairs
on your neck, cheeks and chin than i!
             oi! give me the same fertility gimmick!
that's me, and there's people doing cossack
adventures into outer-space...
                       it's like i want to laugh...
but i can't, because i'm suffocating on paper mâché...
yes, i feel constipated,
     if i'm to be called a civilised person,
and not a barbarian...
     i somehow, have to, ingest,
this backlog of human art,
     i have to know certain names
i might recall for a baby-shower congregation...
   and aphrodite gave us aphorisms...
               ****'s sake: anecdotes!
  that's me being a civilised creature...
  but still that ****** constipation...
   there's never enough: because there's too much of it!
and if you cite this painter, outside of Poland:
  matejko...
                                 you'll probably have
a saint's'-feast day named after you...
i really feel bloated...
           i have too much human history to account for,
it's always a case of juggling some grieving
priority...
      as is the loss of experiencing the everyday
pH 7 body temp. 36.6°C...
             i am literally forced into taking up
the role of censor...
     to look cool and not admire the statue of david,
or make a pilgrimage to the Louvre to see Mona Lisa...
a peacock's tail on a flamingo strutting toward
a ****** drama of *******...
               once more, this constipation,
  and this fake, as if: i'm supposed to be thankful for
the ****** inheritance... i ain't!
     take those masterpieces to the grave,
                 while i try to re-apply myself to
creating a thing of beauty from playdough...
                most people never get the idea
of rust, let alone dust...
          thankfully the two words rhyme,
and thus the easier singalong congregation:
   of the ores... sunset hue man,
              extracted brown and burgundy from
polished grey metal...
                and himself laid rest:
              among the sneezing myopic worms
to never be clarified by moth or butter-winged;
so persistent is this cultural constipation
               that it's hard making a footprint
on uncharted land, worth the cool...
           and of those places where culture stomped
as a fascist brute...
                                so much for culture,
that there's this backlog of people expressing
culture, with so many people willing to forget it...
     without a genetic preordinance:
try telling your mechanic father, or plumber
that you're an artist...
                ah **** it... let's end this poem like
a scene from a gang-****...
                               ugly... ugly...
egalitarian... but nonetheless ugly....
                                    i have a museum's worth of
****... and that really is: the prognosis
                              for the next 100 years,
or what's called: undistrubed peace,
   or a piecing together of organising the next
propaganda umbrella, worthy of the noun: zeitgeist.
Shivani Lalan Apr 2019
at first,
i assumed that the universe
is like a table at one of them fancy conferences -
where the screens are shiny
and the water is packaged for no reason.
i thought i'd have a place card,
one shade darker
than the cream-coloured tablecloth
it rests on.
i thought that everyone at my table
had their own too,
placed as if by magical premonition,
or something even more abstract
like cosmic preordinance,
or something even weirder,
like fate.

and then i grew up,
and someone told me
that places and spaces
are found, not given,
and that i could make my own
from whatever i found.
i had no help from fate,
or cosmic preordinance,
or even magical premonitions.

you see,
i found so many places
and so many spaces
that all seemed like home.
you see,
it's not all pretty cafés
and painted nails,
it's also smiles and laughter
of the people you love;
it's also rain and hail
and a grey sky above;
it's also wide eyes
and open arms;
it's your love that lies
in lucky charms.

places and spaces
are everything that you want them to be-
the universe can always, always
make room for more.

— The End —