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judy smith May 2016
Don’t take them at face value. Several leading actresses in Mollywood have shown themselves to be keen businesswomen too. So, if Poornima Indrajith, a fashionista in her own right and designer-in-chief of fashion store Pranaah, was the lone name in the list till recently, Kavya Madhavan, Lena, Kaniha, Shwetha Menon, Rima Kallingal and the like too have joined the fray to establish their credentials as entrepreneurs.

While Kavya owns Laksyah, an online fashion store, Rima runs Mamangam, a dance school in Kochi. Lena is busy with Aakruti, her weight-loss centre. Kaniha’s focus is on health care, as a franchise partner of Medall Diagnostics in Chennai. Shwetha, meanwhile, has opened a restaurant, Shwe’s Delight, in Dubai. Mallika Sukumaran owns Spice Boat, a restaurant in Doha, Qatar… The actresses talk at length to MetroPlus about why and how they went about it, the lessons they learnt and what lies ahead.

For Kavya it was the realisation of a long-cherished dream; of starting a business venture while she is at the peak of her career. “I zeroed in on a fashion boutique from several other options, such as dance school, beauty parlour, restaurant…,” says Kavya. “It was the safest and best choice because my father had been in the textile business back home in Neeleeswaram for nearly four decades. My brother, Midhun is a graduate in fashion technology and my mother and my sister-in-law too share the same passion. Laksyah is really a family-run enterprise,” she adds. Laksyah, which sells a range of one-off designer saris and daily wear and based out of Kochi, will be celebrating its first anniversary next month.

It was a photoshoot that lead Lena to open Aakruti. She had to lose a few kilos to get in shape for the shoot and her childhood friend, Louisa David, a physiotherapist, helped her achieve that goal. “I was happy with my weight loss and so we decided to launch a physiotherapy-based slimming centre. Louisa has been running her centre at Thrissur for five years and she helped me start Aakruti, in Chevayur, Kozhikode, in September last year,” Lena says.

Kaniha, always a multi-tasker, has a solid reason for taking the health care route too. It was the closest she could get to her childhood ambition to pursue medicine! “After coming back to India from the United States, my husband, Shyam Radhakrishnan and I wanted to start something. Since I couldn’t fulfil my dream of becoming a doctor and had to study engineering instead, I thought I should do something related to healthcare and that’s how Medall happened,” says the actress.

In Shwetha’s case, her restaurant was a venture waiting to happen. “In fact, those who know me for long are not surprised with my decision to open a restaurant. I am an absolute foodie. I am so very careful about what I eat that my cook always travels with me on my shoots. I also love hosting family and friends and often hold pyjama parties at home. That’s why a restaurant was the obvious choice when I thought about starting a venture,” says Shwetha. Shwe’s Delight [“I was called Shwe by my friends in modelling circuit”], which opened its doors last month, is a North Indian fine dining restaurant. “I wanted to give expatriate Malayalis in Dubai a different taste from the usual fare. We dish up a bit of Chinese food too,” she adds.

Being a celebrity helps, most of the time, especially to get publicity, say the leading ladies. For instance, Kaniha says she could bank upon her celebrity status to get corporate tie-ups. They also talk of brand value going up when a known face opens a venture. “There is a certain level of trust with potential customers because you are a known face,” explain Shwetha and Lena. “On the flipside, you are always under scrutiny. At times, I feel acting is much easier,” adds Shwetha. Kavya says it is not easy being the face of Laksyah. “I can’t go wrong with what I wear!” she adds, with a laugh.

Celeb status and a pretty face, though, is no guarantee for a successful business. All the actresses say that they put in a lot of hard work to get their businesses up and running. “The execution part was not easy, be it finding the right location, getting the interiors done, purchasing the machinery, appointing qualified staff, training them and even finalising the colour of the uniform. But I have become more confident now that we are opening a new branch in Kochi,” explains Lena. Kaniha, meanwhile, admits that she has learnt to be “more patient and be diplomatic.” Well played.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/cheap-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/****-formal-dresses
Hannah Thomas May 2014
You are
the sky to me
clear and bright and endless

You are
laughter to me
loud and happy and peeling

You are
sugar to me
sweet and small and fine

You are
the computers software to me
the Indiana Jones adventure to me
the pyjama-wearing Sunday to me

Comforting, Comforting

Stop hugging me, it’s annoying you said
In the style of Grace Nichols' "Praise Song for My Mother"
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2021
i thought it was ****** obvious what i was doing there,
i walked in with my Slayer band t-shirt off
wiping off the sweat from my face...
ah... a cheap bottle of wine... £3.50... a Chilean Merlot...
nothing like cheap wine for some kalimotxo...
and if that wine doesn't do the trick for a nightcap...
the cheapest whiskey available... no more than
35cl: but i promised myself not to drink both completely...
obviously the wine doesn't have an electronic tag
that needs to be taken off at the cashiers'...
but the whiskey does...
come midnight it's this long centipede winding through
the self-checkout aisles...
two... of the finest quality Hijab mystique organising
the flow of people...
oh... the finest...
                     first you scan the items...
then you're asked to wait for the confirmation of your
age... so someone has to some with
a ticket (so little about all of this is about
self-checking-out)... and then... you have to walk
to the end of the aisle to get the electronic tag off...
with your receipt...
so i went to the end... where the bit that takes
the electronic tags off is placed in a drawer...
along with... this night in particular...
a raw white onion... and some baby clothes that
were returned all piled up in a shopping trolley...
apparently i was blocking something important...
that's when i was asked this profound
existential question:
                           what are you doing here?
oh **** me... it hit me like a rock...
i sometimes wish for three things... a slightly bigger
phallus... a much more bushier beard...
and... a talent for wit... for waspish wit...
for playful wit...
   some whiplash wit...
                 something that i might: snap out of something
instead of... what just came out?
a what... sorry... didn't hear that...
'what are you doing here?!'
     exactly those exclamation marks with purpose
of interrogation...
- am i... just growing from the roots up?
- am i... is Goodmayes a no-go zone for white
boys after a 10pm curfew or something?
i grew up around these parts...
i went to school around these parts...
a predominantly Irish neighbourhood...
is this a no-go zone?

i mean... i don't expect pleasantries from
cashiers at... midnight... but it's not like i was
the only person there...
was i holding a cloud of balloons and
wearing a clown suit with full-make up?
did i have an pink elephants on a string
or a golden fly on a chain?

'what are you doing here?!'
what a snap of juicy vindictiveness in that
tiny Hijab specimen of beauty...
i somehow must have invaded her space
or some *******...
but... i was there to get the electronic
tag off the neck of my whiskey bottle...
i don't think i was there to later come
home and write this nonsense:
if she asked me that same question:
on the top of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh
at 5am...
but then again: no one asks those questions
at 5am on the longest day in the year
on Arthur's Seat... a good morning:
chirpy one... isn't it? suffices...

    being asked a profound existential question
in a supermarket: at midnight of
a Monday is...

   aha... now it's sort of obvious...
            if i decided to go elsewhere with my wine...
say... to the brothel...
and i came across Khadaya... Khadija...
            Khada... all aspects of nakedness...
so this is what my face looks like
to women... after i lost... 20kg in mass?
  i'm attractive once more...
              honest anchoring... she's about to receive
£2.00 per minute for an hour...
and she likes my face... and i like her face...
eh... *** like a Lamborghini and a body that looks
but more importantly feels as comfortable
to touch as... one might hope to find oneself
sitting in a well worn leather armchair...

always objectification within the need for metaphor...
allusions to...
but a bit different when it can't be so obvious...
she's this Hijab donning princess Jasmine
working in the supermarket
and i'm just a cyclist wearing a Slayer t-shirt
who dropped in for a nightcap of cheap
wine and cheap whiskey...
or perhaps to her... i'm...
   some myth of a northern barbarian who...
arrived in Jerusalem with Barbarossa pickled
in a barrel... hmm?
         well... i'm not exactly a werewolf...
   not just yet...

again: was i there to solve a Su Doku puzzle or change
a light-bulb via mime?!
flow of people... i was placing myself
in the least obstructive way possible:
now... i'm overthinking the punch line...
it's coming off as if i'm somehow autistic or something...
who wouldn't...

in the most un-spec-ta-cu-lar of circumstance
you get such an open question...
before having my wisdom teeth pulled out
i asked the anaesthetic man:
quo vadis?

               seems more correct to ask:
such a generality... but not in such a defensive...
almost scolding manner...
i did mention she was a Hijab gem...
a petite little thing who forgot to objectify me
as human traffic of buyer...
with a purse's worth of whiskey
that had an electronic tag attached to the neck
that needed to be "dismantled"...

after skim-watching a few episodes
of the Sopranos... Tony Soprano is deemed an
attractive man by his psychiatrist...
so... what am i? a ******* ageing Adonis
or something?
now it feels bothersome to have lost
those 20kg in mass...
100 push ups a day... 100 stomach crunches...
cycling...
i knew this would land me in a spot of
bother... no more prostitutes joking
(kindly) that i have bigger **** than they have...

thank god the omission of a sudden limp
**** because: she shouldn't be in the profession
and i'm in no mood to ****
a tender, shy, deer...
               because it works when it's required
to work and i'll go through 5 before
it becomes resolute: that lilac / blue pill
will not make me prove a point on just 1...

dinner? cinema?
if she offers up the full platter of ******* oysters
and her body becomes the whole
complexity of cinema...
but not being corned by two Hijab beauties
at the self-checkout aisle
coordinating human traffic...

again: forever in the reiteration pause...
'what are you doing here?!'
am i supposed to be somewhere else?
the question asks itself:
why would a girl of your "sort" ask a whitey
that sort of question?
is this a no-go zone area akin to Malmo
in Sweden... am i expected to don
a ******* Pakistani pyjama to walk safe...
don a bushier beard than the one
i adorn trimmed by an Ottoman?

clearly i'm fuckable and clearly i also ****...
if she was allowed a different scenario
where she wasn't a self-checkout coordinator
and i wasn't speedily trying to get out
from the concept of a queue she might:
ask a less abrupt a question...

**** anything that moves...
       one motto worth keeping in mind when
reading Kant's labyrinth...
i promise this to anyone who undertakes
the "mission"... the part of the critique of pure reason
that comes last in the second volume
that's: a consolidation piece...
that's title: the transcendental methodology...
oh god... it's like this (almost) revelation:
but it's most certainly a joy a cascade to read...
that's when Kant relaxes and doesn't bother
to stress his... systematic approach to...
not language: to the idea...
what the idea is? that's my own to digest...
even these years later...

if she was older than me...
if she wasn't sizing me up... seeing how...
my shadow is probably larger than her body
come noon...
how she might just be...
constipated / claustrophobic through all her...
restrictions in attire...
how she was paired up with another girl
and there was no forbidding authority
of same-faith colleagues looking over them...
she asked me the most profound
question no one is expected to hear
in a supermarket...

           hence these words as spiral...
it's not the first time i've seen these two Hijab beauties...
i can't imagine...
having the audacity to write an autobiography
post... in vivo mortem!
i can't imagine writing... succumbing to write...
after... having lived... a most...
exploitative life...
i shudder at the prospect of reading...
Seven Years in Tibet...
i have the original copy...
it's enough that i read:
Harold Norse's: Memoirs of a ******* Angel...
that's enough for me...

             in writing there's only the fiction:
the fantasy... or the absolutely terrible mundane:
grit...
lives loved by the gods so that they might
be shared with as many as possible
do not belong in the realm of words...
however terrible it might sound...
all the ancient Roman poets wrote prosaic:
if not maxims then anecdotal evidence of...
taking leave: taking leisure in scrutiny..
too much of what's supposedly life
and how language is employed in "said" life
is limited to... bureaucratic fudge-packaging...
try escape that cycle of: abuse of informal language...
when you're expected to begin with:
dear sir /  madam...
   and end with: kind regards /
the distinction between yours faithfully vs. yours
sincerely...

she took a fancy after i already took her fancy...
perhaps it's a shame...
of the hierarchies of man...
and the stresses brought on by time...
all this... graveyard of space.
Clemence Huet Apr 2012
I'd been trying to write a poem
Just one ******* poem
But he said
Just **** around
Swallow down a bowl full of squares
Let’s play games with each other’s minds
Spend a night lost in a house of cards
Where the joker cackles despite your begging
A reminder of what I could do without
Shouting at the world from the white pavilion
You suckers!
With your skirts hitched up and tongues hanging out
Gagging on a lover’s loneliness
All I see is your undergarments crying for attention
With a liquor solace barely down your throat

Eighteen silver blades
Smile at me with their perfect teeth
One to mark each year that past
A nineteenth will not be necessary
Ready to drag
Like the man trailing his head on a string
Across the surgeon’s winking knife
Tapping their toes on the bathroom counter
Anxious to mingle with my flesh
I’ve already scrubbed in
The survival rate looks dismal
The cotton reel loosens and my halo slips
Down - the noose around my neck

He sat across the room in plaid
Remarked upon the crosshatch of red
That drew the crooked red grin on the white of my thigh
Like loops of raspberry liquorice
Seeping out sticky tears
He misses handling the vegetables
Who ordered cocktails in lurid colours
Well, I’ve a mélange of my own
A collection of prescriptions from the doctor’s office
Stored in a heart shaped box
To swallow down like jelly beans
I’m waiting for that deadly sugar rush

Death’s been dancing on my doorstep
Absent minded as I sit at the dinner table
Head in hand, foot in grave
There’ll be no morning migraine
Perhaps a little mourning in the peripheral vision
Swept up from beneath the climbing frame
Under a soil blanket with a tomb stone mattress
Coughing up the sand in my throat
That I emptied from the egg-timer
Those darling quadrilateral crystals
Blissful in their ignorance  
Disturbing my quiet complacency
Drowned in a glass of tomato juice
That I poured from my skull
Death holds my hand in the dark
And I whisper to pass on the message
Bury me with pyjama’s and a pillow
judy smith Aug 2016
Aneeth Arora refers to herself as a ‘textile and dress maker’ rather than a fashion designer. That’s because she makes her own fabrics, a process she enjoys, and says that if it’s only designing, then there is not much left to it other than giving shape to the fabric. Aneeth will be showcasing her collection in the city at an exhibition titled Nayaab, which features creations by 12 handpicked designers, who work with craftsmen to produce intricate garments.

Aneeth’s collection is entirely in off-white with gold and silver details. She’s transformed luxurious brocade and wispy Chanderis into shimmery jackets, summer dresses, flowy maxis and tunics, smart scarves, skirts of varying lengths and long kurtis. Adding a dash of colour to the display is the capsule featuring clothes with hand embroidery and beads. Her trademark anti-fits find their place here. The collection is laidback, with a few elements of androgyny and some downright girly.

A part of what’s on display here was showcased at the Amazon India Fashion Week Spring Summer 2016, where she put together the famous pyjama party with sleeping bags and models in comfortably trendy shorts and dresses.

For Nayaab, she’s also specially created a few outfits that are not available at the stores.

Pero, which started in 2009 with one tailor and one runner out of Aneeth’s house in Delhi, now has 80 people working out of a bigger space. “If you count the weavers I work with, the number is far more,” she says.

Right from the beginning, the 32-year-old has worked with handlooms from all over India. For example, the block prints are done with weavers in Gujarat and Rajasthan, ikat is done in the South and the woollens are from Himachal… “We are inclined to anything that’s handmade,” she says. This includes Mexican braids, lace from Europe and crochet from Afghanistan.

The last decade has seen a revival in handloom, with more designers incorporating them in their designs. This has, in turn, brought about a change in the buying pattern of clients.

“There was a point when weavers didn’t see a future in what they were doing and sent their children to work with construction companies. Now, they know there is a market for weaves and they are confident. Their families are getting involved in it again. It’s all going uphill from here,” says Aneeth, contented.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/purple-formal-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses
martha Aug 2017
Friendship
What is the first thing to enter your head when I say this word?
It could be rainbows
or braided bracelets
or that infamous song from spongebob

For me, it is that first time I hadn't seen you in a while.
summer had pulled us apart to follow in our own ways the paths our parents set out for us to follow
and your arms opened wide and your legs took the form of a film reel long finished as soon as I came into view
and I followed your lead
as if running towards the softest
warmest
most loving embrace I would ever receive
from the worlds most adorable teddy bear.

It is the time you cared enough to ask how I was with a stern face
and tried to trick me into being alone with you so you could talk some sense into me
after giving you a heart attack the night before in the form of Helvetica text font filled text messages dotted with guilt and crossed with "I'm sorry"'s.

It is the countless sleepovers that seem to have all blended into one neverending night
full of dreary eyes and cheeks worn from the pushing of grins
smiling at the most simple things became customary
and laughing morphed into tears around 3am or so
and I held your hand as sharp words flew from your mouth and rolled down your cheeks as you spoke about a demon long since diminished.

It is the way we arrived back late after a 4 hour drive in the middle of the night and our dreams took place under a duvet in a double bed shared between 3
our ears were still ringing from the sound of overplayed static and our feet were sick of standing but we managed to fit anyway,
I sleep so well surrounded by the bodies of the two people I admire the most with every fibre of my living being,
just close enough for the comfort of 3 in a single bed after too many cans on your 18th birthday.

It is the time I couldn't walk straight after only 3 pathetic glasses of gallery wine
you had to leave
but all I wanted was for you to come back so I could spill secrets I couldn't tell the others yet with ease
because your ears always seemed the softest to rest my worries on
and you are so skilled in the art of dissolving them afterwards
that I only hope I can always do the same for you.

It is the slow walk up the driveway each morning to the desolate institute filled with others draped in the same navy fog that comes with waking up
which became so much lighter when I would remember that you were inside its walls
waiting for me with a warm smile and a laugh that could move mountains and shakes my very soul
something it still does so well even after weeks of missing you
and the way your radiating joy infects me so easily every time
no matter what kind of walkway brings us together.

it's the time you came over equipped with glass bottles and liquid happiness
and I never felt more at home than I did after seeing the sky stretched out above us and the nights cold breath causing goosebumps to erupt beneath our pyjama-clad frames
and we were all that existed in our cocoon of comfort,
how when we sat down to contemplate the reality of our existence
I was suddenly okay with the idea of physical affection
and I still am.

it is the time I was choking on everything I felt I could never get far enough to move past my lips
but you sat there
smiling
held my hand in yours
and helped me to dilute all the poison that had seeped into my blood because of him for 2 years too long
while you justified the importance of me to myself
and your eyes were the most reassuring thing my own had ever had the comfort of witnessing.

it's the way you embody everything beautiful I've ever admired the human race for
and how, no matter the weather,
I know getting coffee, tea,
or chocolate soya milk
and talking about your new favourite song
how you found this great new band
the impossibility of the ethereal beauty of girls
and even boys sometimes
or how this one character in that tv show you told me about makes me feel things I can't describe,
will always eliminate the clouds my shoulders find too heavy to hold on a sunday morning.

I will never be capable of expressing how grateful I am with the words 'thank you'
because those two syllables barely scratch the surface of the immensity of hope and happiness you bring into my life unlike any other I could begin to try and imagine

I am blessed with the most beautiful souls who have shaped my own in ways I will never forget
and I will never forget the way your hand gestures tell your stories
or the way your eyes illuminate electric blue when you talk about that band you love so much
or the way your whole body laughs uncontrollably at the most ridiculous of things with me
or the way your smile makes me feel like everything is going to be okay in the end
or how the reassurance of your small hands and eternal hugs is a constant reminder that I am, in fact, loved.

I don't know how long you will stay in my life.
if we will be stretched to the edge of our reasoning
pulled apart by distance
or unmissable opportunities
kept barely intact by group chats or late night phone calls that aren't the same as the times each others faces were the only sources of light at the end of too many long and tired days.

but for now
I thank you
and I love you.
TheExpat Jun 2014
Pyjama top, buttons just two.
Old dressing gown, elbows worn through.
Slippers frayed with holes worn at heel.
Is this how old age soon will feel?

Eyes blurred and spots a float in front
Joints ache as you kneel with a grunt.
My glasses, they’re, not in their place.
Memory is losing the race.
.....to be continued (if I remember :-P )
Olivia Kent Jan 2015
In Auschwitz the air hung still.
The dragons are imaginary.
Once they had their fill.
The only gold fell from the fingers of those now perished chosen ones.
The birds crying relinquished flowers.
Lilies all dressed for death.
The classless funeral attire of the blue stripey pyjama death.
Now the camps be emptied.
Those passed inside be free.
Camp be closed.
All souls released, but still the sky hangs heavily.
May God please bless the free.
(C) Livvi
Joe Bradley Apr 2015
Turn on

I
This is the BBC news at 1 o'clock.
A rambling diatribe,
lost boys, a lost war.
The falling cost of stamps.
'What do you think of the deficit,
Graham from Newquay?'


II
Some bald man
holds a cadaverous gaze.
'She don't want me no more Pauline.'
The ware and tear
of Albert Square
immortalised
in one ***** stare.

III
Ella looked into the eyes of
the African children with bloated
stomachs, scooping up brown water
she wouldn't even dip her toe in.
For a moment, they were face to face.

VI
Margret! Margret!

Look what they're...

Check the cupboard,
have we still got...

uh...

tinned peaches and caster sugar.


V
Our hands, in every listless waft,
wander through an electric soup,
thick as frog-spawn.
Spermatozoa of information.
A gentle fuzz of creation,
our atmosphere is
pregnant with
separate universes that
embed themselves
inside our own.
We broadcast
our noisy planet
to the skies.

VI
'I've seen what's going on,
you don't have to tell me!
I know what they're doing.'

The walls are closing in,
as each breath from her
dusting lungs is getting tighter.
'Besides, my eyes won't let me, or
my knees these days, It's all i'm
good for'
  
She wheezes.
'I can see all I need from here.'

VII
Click
I swear 400
*******
channels
And there's nothing on

VIII
As I approach the blue glare
of the living room, I know
she's in there. Not even
watching,
she's on her
iPad. We don't talk.
We went to the
Maldives
once,
after the wedding.
she couldn't keep her eyes off me.

IX
Dead square.
Silent pixels.
Nothings watching.

X
We crept down in the morning - my sister
and me, before anyone else was up and squabbled
what loud cartoon violence would take our attention.
Nightie, pyjama cotton siblings, sewn in to the 7 to 9 o'clock schedule,
we were as vital to each other as sleeping bags and cereal.
Our building blocks stood in a castle,
we were unaware that one day,
they would be strewn across the floor
as we grew up.

XI
We're not going out tonight.
I just want to slip my hands down your
pants and touch you while
we watch game of thrones...
Deal?

XII
Smoke rises behind the mosque
in an arabesque twirl.
The blinding sunlight behind the minaret
crashes on the lens, like a flash bang.

The call to prayer is empty bodies, iconographic art,
cars hollowed, alien tongues, history, a melting *** culture,
cockroach romances, squalid graves, body hewn tunnels, little cuts on
trigger fingers, trained monkeys, orphans, marble carvings,
the stench of petrol, jobless drug habits, brickwork, wiring,
forbidden love, lust, teenagers, plastic explosive, god, work,
prayer, tears, life and death
    

and briefly the box is the world in our homes.
We must see who's behind it.
Ramonez Ramirez Feb 2011
They come for her in red and blue
ambulance lights disco dancing fragmented beats,
purple intent drumming against flaking graffiti art on the garage door;
aerosol skeletal rose garden shadows cower
under twist-rust razor wire
fencing
in the flowerbed graveyard strewn with dogs’ delights—
there is neither bark nor howl,
those sounds echo deep within the basement walls;
lumps of meat a’thudder,
twisted growls
for the boy, Timothy,
which both Rottweilers had been fond of as well.
Until the very end.

Neighbourhood eyes scowl,
wide-eyed middle-aged pyjama-children
fresh from midnight escapades;
arms folded tight,
everyone glares at her night-stained blood dress,
and the dogs’ heads held high above her pretty head,
revenge-trophies served lukewarm
on a school night against the backdrop of suburbia
crying
under ambulance sirens’
apocalyptic announcement regarding Amy:
had she not answered that phone call and left little Timmy unattended,
she might still have been able to hold him in her arms.
Until the very end.
XIII Apr 2016
A pyjama worn
you come along
together with my yawn.
i said it were a lovely day, i did not mean the weather.

i talk about the feeling, the mood that did not change, all day,

little tasks that please. planting chives in treacle tins, ironing pyjama pants,

and cotton handkerchiefs.

he warned me the rain would come, and when it did

heavy, we tucked in tight here, enyoyed the darker

green.

then, the rain will stop.

sbm.
Alone at home
The house is a symphony of day-sounds,
And wants me gone.
Scattered toys express sullen resentment at my pyjama'd presence,
The cats just stare.
I force my working self upon this world,
With keyboard clacks,
The kettle,
And boiling pasta.
I try a hum, then Spotify,
But it all feels alien, too forced.
The house wants the others;
Shrieking, laughing, conversation,
Clashing plates,
A Disney movie
The warmth of family.
This house
wants to be a home.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2015
me and collie took the town by storm,
black man and white man
drinking buddies? what a rarity.
uncle didn’t join us the old ghanian,
we had drunk sentimentalities, of course,
but when russel the schizoid rudolf came
up and told us the tottenham man city score
i went into the alley and almost ****** myself
prior shouting h and a into an ivory rattle of teeth.
but what a night, collie’s girlfriend i also met,
i remember kissing her dry brown skin
on the bone of finger, before being chauffeured home;
but of course, before all that, staring into
the gape of being centralised by the passerby’s eyes,
a lot of english pyjama beauties walked the talk
getting their score of **** -
if not more.
but as i pointed out to the white colt - the jeans below the knees
with... calvin kleine - ‘mate, you need flashy underwear to
walk with your **** exposed - primani ain’t gonna cut it for the hoes.’
n stiles carmona Apr 2022
SCENE I: A CHIAROSCURO OF IDYLLS AND TAINTED ZONES. Curse the newsagents and bless the chain-store coffee shops; forgo zero-cal drinks for chai lattes. Time might heal the hospital's harm, but the sand in the hourglass promises nothing. Back from Uncanny Valley, she's here for one day only: please welcome...

UNDERSTUDY
[warming up for the performance of her second-rate lifetime; faults and failings all dolled up in costume jewellery, consoled by every artifice except the Self:]
They brought me back button-eyed.
I'm by the bus shelter in last Body's clothes,
recalling our trips here one Body ago:

[an ILOVEYOU loiters on the corner of this street —
it tips its chin and stares a greeting.]

UNDERSTUDY
I lower my gaze
in routine
fashion.

SCENE II: A GUIDED TOUR.
ILOVEYOU stalks a metre behind.

ILOVEYOU
[bellowing intermittently:]
Charity-shop libraries (plural) wherein mundane spectacles
were made of ourselves; hushed confrontations cause
scenes behind stage curtains. Shopfronts that site
your effigy in my mother's eyes. Kisses, tears, the
tying of scarves, Starbucks, ducks, parks, book-cover
inscriptions, living a love story while not lucid
enough to document it—

UNDERSTUDY
[syncopated; mumbled into crescendo:]
—five-lap treks, pyjama-clad, year-round shivers through phantom autumn gales. Empty quests amid off-licence shelves; chip-shop smells, taunting; slo-mo supermarket crawls, clearance sections, the listless skimming of labels; sleepy insomniac; brick walls upon which I sat hunched and feasting like some rabid feral dog, 'consumed' in passive voice and 'wasting away' in active, walk it off WALK IT OFF—

ILOVEYOU/UNDERSTUDY
One meeting without warrant for apology. No words to shepherd back into the ribcage they'd tunnelled out of.

ILOVEYOU
I swore no-one would touch me and then melted in your palms—dread being seen at all, but devour your "you look good". No personal growth, but raised by stilts; no less virulent, but restrained behind masks. The sickness takes a different shape. I fear you'll discern the difference. I also fear that you won't.

UNDERSTUDY
A half-finished narrative or a blackout poem? You've gone from 'knowing too much' to having only the chapters we co-write: "Better this way," I say, and stand by it. I can starve and starve and still never master how not to Want; how to tell my heart these Wants aren't Needs; how to stop them escaping through the craters between bones.

ILOVEYOU
I feel larger than life but I'd cast off my limbs to fit inside your pocket. My friendship must taste like eagerness to please; still, you'll eat from my spoon and I'll open wider than required for yours...

ILOVEYOU/UNDERSTUDY
...yes, we'll name it 'nourishment'.
guess who's back with their old gimmicks!!! so, uh... '21/early '22 sure did occur. i dare myself to let streetcar die and not reach for a reference at the first opportunity. if this *****, it's a warmup exercise; if not, it's a poem :)
Katie Ruby Apr 2010
I remember the day we met,
What feels like centuries ago,
Gone in the blink of an eye,
Pink Pyjama's and dad's old slippers,
Only a child, you repeated to me
The glimmer in your eye
still remains today,

The years passed,
Me - Growing older every hour,
You - Never aging, withering,
Promises still growing strong,
Your presence becomes my life,
Clinging onto childhood, By
Clinging onto you,

I hold your hand, Both
desperate to stay in the imaginary,
Without slipping into reality,
Each day, a new adventure,
Yet you have to fade so quickly,
I rest, we talk for hours,
When I awaken you're never by my side,

As the years go by,
I fear you'll disappear completely,
My mind is weakening,
It's only a matter of time,
Until I forget.

My daydream, hope, fantasy,
You finally escape from my mind,
And now I have to face reality.
Joe Wilson Apr 2014
He sat there, always looking out of a small round window
That could easily be a reflection of his tragic mind
Since the day he knew he’d been left on his own
It seemed like there was nothing in there left to find.

Every day from half-past eight and all day till five-past five
He sat immobile staring out, a sad look on his face
He’d never notice anyone, nor speak a single word
He’d sit there never stirring from his lonely lonely place.

He may have wondered where they’d gone, for they looked after him
But his parents, both of them now dead, had done their very best
Now here he was at fifty-three, an only child yet still
Just left to stare through windows, in old pyjama bottoms and vest.

He’ll be swallowed up by the system, and churned back out to the street
He’ll wander about in his own little world, and we won’t understand
He’ll be doing his best with what he knows and what he tries to follow
But our complex welfare system just won’t deal with his demands.



©Joe Wilson – An Inadequate System 2014
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
i was serious about the Anglo Renaissance -
                     it has peaked -
            it's forever in a state of groundhog
day repeat... which isn't a necessarily bad thing...
              the internet has changed
   or rather restricted how we get fed culture,
an odd statement... but the internet doesn't
actually prescribe you cultural dietitians -
          i'm talking about people, getting paid
to sift through music, or other works of art:
not the critics, but the cultural dietitians...
     John Peel owned the radio back when
it was still prog rock and punk and what
became punk: grunge, and what became grunge:
indie...
                     oddly enough there is still one
cultural dietitian out there: Jools Holland...
                   cultural critics are dialectical shrapnel,
or should i say: agitators
                            that rarely enter dialogue -
           but Jools is the kind of cultural entity that
showcases new acts you might otherwise omit -
and probably will, given that it's sometimes to
forage the algorithmic trends and berry bushes of
search engines...
                                to me that's the worthwhile
side of television...
                                      but you have to sacrifice
a Friday night and watch the program...
                  my latest discovery?
                   Declan McKenna and a decent song:
Brazil...
                       obviously the band Slaves are
not knew to me: what is new to me is the fact
that the drummer is using a stand-up minimalist
drum kit (never seen them live) -
                i still lament that fact that the music
magazine Mojo disappeared from shop shelves...
      it didn't adapt as an electronic magazine -
                  but people need this sort of outlet,
where someone is professional adapted to having
enough dosh to spend his celibacy in music shops...
             and to later showcase it
for your eager palette to lick up a fancy of a band
or two...
                     but boy oh boy: to be constantly plugged
in like that?
                                  so many people have so many
interesting things to say multiplied by the variation
of presenting those said things -
                           no wonder menial tasks seem
debilitating, everyone dreams about never using
a hammer...
                        at least in political systems akin
to authoritarian communist states: only one person
is allowed to say anything remotely interesting...
             and that never distracts you to dream -
in all sincerity, the western motto is: be polite...
         because there are so many sad examples
of how people should have been taught to be content
with very little...
                                  to be the shadows of society
that are better protected from what i find to
be despotic in democracy: art.
                                             simply because it has
to be there... not physical health... art...
                art governs everything in democracy,
many people dream, too many...
                                   if i didn't have that ******
brain haemorrhage i'd be content as my father is,
day-to-day: on the roof, simple task
        perfected over time till it's like spreading
butter on hot toast than tar on concrete...
                        with the motto - zrdowie na budowie
                 (health on a building site) -
  of that i am jealous as ****-knows-what -
                    i wasn't born an entertainer - so these
poems are not intended to be performed,
   hence shying away from poetical conventions -
                 i always wanted to be in the mass of
social shadows, the people behind the curtains doing
the necessary things to oil up society...
                                this is a practical joke given my
background in chemistry...
                                           next best thing?
the Faustian myth.
                                               but still: the ivory tower.
            but we are in dire need of cultural
dietitians: the people who prescribe us art...
  oh forget the radio... the radio is not the radio
of the 1970s...   video killed the radio star...
   (famous song)... but this one slot on television
with Jools is what every aspiring contestant
  for the X-factor should watch... to simply sober up...
otherwise my prediction about how Axis powers
   allowed post World War II celebrations to
take place over 5 decades... but have started to wane
and karaoke is the standard norm -
if ever someone could have said: only Japan,
i'd gladly like to listen to Celtic folk in pups -
but no... autocue...
                                   so i guess i'm right with that respect,
           we don't have the necessary cultural
dietitians in the major forms of art...
                         the needle drop guy doesn't
compare to Jools Holland... not the same league...
            not enough music... and this is the reason
why certain aspects of the internet will not catch on:
needless to say: the internet has become a fixation
for cat videos and poems...
                                                static - static - static -
  we need cultural dietitians more than
people telling us to loose 4lb and take more vitamin B12...
                    in literary terms
television is crap...
                                             but in terms of music
the internet is just as crap...
                                the radio is just another excuse
for billboards and advertisement posters...
                    i'm telling you... Friday night,
BBC1, later... with Jools Holland...
                                        did anyone notice how ****
Norah Jones has become? a full bodied woman,
a ripe peach and pear and all the things that
woman are: fruits...                     the skinny girls
       deluded by flowers...
                           but the real fleshy girls
        by fruits. bombshell, that Ms. Jones.
1st of october... and i'm thinking whether i should
stop going to the shops at night wearing only a
t-shirt and pyjama bottoms (like your typical
English girl) -                        
                                             but then this exquisite
numbing of not thinking, slightly cryogenic in a sense
of massaging nerves and veins...
                         i'll give it a week's worth of
debate in my head, before i'll put on a hoodie.
Zywa Sep 2020
Pyjama days of being ill
with closed curtains
thinking of being free
with closed curtains
enjoying each other

Being ill is an ardent desire
for sparkling energy
sunlit rooms
never sleep again
sing, laugh, feed

one another tirelessly
and suffer at the most
from the desire
to be immortal
with friends
Collection “Mosaic virus”
Violet Jul 2014
it's never you he will remember it was her
he was a car crash
and you were an unreturned library book
he caused thousands in damage
you; a late fee
she was EMT's and flashing lights
and bandages and scar kisses
she was storm clouds and
lightening strikes and screaming between sheets
and you were condensation
on shower ceilings and crackling
speakers in beaten up cars with roll up windows
you were floral patterns and pastel shades
and grey socks and tidy bedrooms
you were studying hard and drinking with friends
you were beach trips and family photo's
and B grades
you were wavy hair, no make up pyjama sundays
she was studs and torn denim and
laddered stockings and lace up boots
she was binge drinking and pill taking all alone
she was road trips and  broken frames
and "I didn't finish College" grades
she was last nights make up and strangers clothes sundays
she was hushed whispers and angry words
and 100 things you did wrong today
you are child hood friends and same class time to graduate
she is loud and grubby and free
you are shy and calm and soft
you are memories and happy dreams
she is crying in the middle of the night and aching touches
she is broken fingers and hearts
you are bashful smiles and spring clouds
you are april showers and she is winter downpours
your touch is sacred
her touch is a fabrication of a half-dream
just chemicals and adolescent love
you were 2 kids, suburban homes
you were safe
she was fear
you were alive
she was living
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2019
me? every time i'm reminded by
my body that i have
hidden, waiting,
unhinged
     rhythm sections of a body,
hand, fingers, tapping
on a folded knee,
a dragging leg doing
the basis heavy bass
of a drum-kit...
               these ******* are from
the all-spice of the iberian
reconquista
...
         sign me up...
                back on the old continent
these are not mayan hybrids...
no covert-slang
of an ethnic group...
i'm pretty sure the Spaniards
are still Spaniards...
   ****, i had to return
to an alternative to
the tetragrammaton,
and a Jewish influence
after netanyahu
did he best to remember
his ancestors
   seeking refuge under
the umbrella
of mieszko...
yes, thank you...
now wipe your feet
clean before leaving...
you want a ****
you'll get your
**** and your yom kippur
to boot...
  (oh, such a nice, looking
"boy next door" jewish
****-it...
           cow-lick
of a Hitlerite comb-over) -
(here, seeing fame,
or an ongoing comment
section...  n'ah...
   i'm good with the jack,
              chill)
big mouth,
ordained with a:
appear taller than
you already gifted 6ft+...
   scare yourself with
a shadow
that in your possession
like spare change...
     sure...
is little Judy bringing
her Ethopian friend along?
    - because:
i just haven't been mind-******
enough sieving through
all the post-colonial society
crap of... once great...
now just east anglia,
northumbria...
          and a bit described
as welsh-land...
                and devon...
rap sounds better (in) Hispanic...
  la poloné
                      of Haiti...
take me back 150 years
and claiming: a Gnat on Leon's
collar was only a good man...
yeah... but that moustache...
being short wasn't as bad
as donning that comic tash...
  and that ugly: mustard brown
of khaki... ugh...
    lagerfeld would have
had an opinion about that...
sure... SS-schwarz...
       on a mission statement
from the fashion industry...
   the nazis just knew how to dress
their pawns...
  except for the leader,
stuck in a nostalgia of khaki...
or as IS used to say:
send your troops
attired in loose clothing...
         schwarz pyjama(s)...
airy, fairy, ******* breeze
*** the Iraqi plains wind...
                   o.k. i found no
path in h'eh'zeus...
       perdón mi virgen novia...
guess we're going
to the opposite sight of a harem...
3 to 2 ratio of available holes...
            plenty of *******
             fudge to boot...
oh i like my foul mouth...
which is what happens
performing oral *** on
a *******...
no protection for the tongue...
good to know i'll ingest
whatever is "necessary"
and fry it on some
      hydrochloric bath-time...
seems like i rap...
   albeit in Spanish...
    perhaps they're bragging...
       perhaps they're doing
anything what a cotton-afro-head
would otherwise do
with a tongue...
       i'm pretty ******* sure
there's little oral to genitals
action in the department of:
a man sat on a chair...
a fifth leg appeared...
  ancient jokes from ancient
greece
about the size of the phallus
and the status of whether
barbarian or the civilized man...
me... neurotic about...
that extension?
        oh sure...
                the minute i think about
owning the responsibility
of a woman
i start thinking of the rare
instances of...
girlfriends armed
            with hammers...
i had to relax on some judaic
influences...
        but then i discovered
a "counter-culture" to religion...
i figured...
before i fall in the abyss
of an animalistic
       genesis...
beginning to explain
and ending with an explanation
via the chimp...
         i'll let religion go...
        it's only by coincidence
that the tetragrammaton
encompasses
both the strength to laugh...

     and to sigh,
        āH...
   vowel-catcher and a vowel-crutch...
    laughter-skeleton...
a British sense of humor
can become so exhausting,
so nuanced...
           that... the obvious byproduct
would always become
               sit-coms with canned
laughter...
   since... when is it a joke...
when you (also) have to explain it?

yes... Y the inverted implosion
of gUD γΥΔ:
                     three-dimensional
space (0, 0) corodinate...
  and the wave of W...
              for the cosine graph)

huh?
delta (letter)
from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Δ is life, i live for Δ. did you
know Δ is the key to life? i did. Δ.

this page was last edited on 20
        February 2019, at 00:50 (UTC);

well there was that fetish of
mine for both hebrew theology,
german and...
the question: why did the jews
find safety in poland,
but...
             only crafted yiddish
from german?
                
now i know there's a safety
net...
        juggling...
3+ languages standing
on the ledge,
and before me...
flight...
   and all the etymology i will
ever want to cipher through
and have no assurance
in being given the stage
to apply to today's
everyday usage...

        beside the borrowed
prefixes from latin: dis-
or greek suffixes of some variant...

fashion statement:
clothes worn like
     an animal would wear fur(r)...
i also tend to forget changing
my clothes on the whim,
on the hour, for the occassion...
fashion statement:
to wear clothes like an animal
dons fur.

learn from the best:
                               **** the rest...
Luce Apr 2014
do you ever wonder how you ended up in a car with this boy, that a year ago you didn't even know?

a year ago you didn't know his name,
you didn't whisper it in your sleep or feel it in your skin

you didn't see reflections of his eyes in the stars or stars in the freckles on his cheeks

a year ago, you didn't think you'd make it to the summer
a year ago, you could never even imagine the possibility of loving someone else

do you ever wonder why you've gone halfway across the country for him and now we're going down these country lanes at 80mph with the full beams on

80mph with the full beams on and I trust you endlessly
80mph and you have classical music on and instead of being scared of the speed, I'm comfortable and tired
80mph in your tshirt, jumper and my pyjama shorts
80mph and I can't see the road ahead of us
but speed up, baby

I'm fallin' for you at 80mph
Violet Oct 2014
and i am still waking up at 3 am as if i can still hear you breathing
next to me
but you're not there and the bed is cold on the side where you slept
only when it is dark and the house is still to i let myself
be surrounded by things that remind me of you
your ***** pyjama top and that stupid ******* sweater
my pillow still smells off you so i singed the edges when i was drunk
and it's just another thing to add to the list of things i regret
5 days // please don't have somebody else waiting on you
mikey preston Sep 19
that's just the way the body goes i guess
wanna mould my hands around his shoulders
through t-shirt and pyjama pants
wonder what the mirror shows him

that perfect mouth is smiling
do i wanna be him or ingest him
i wish that i could memorise it
wanna put my mouth around the reflection

kiss him everywhere until he sees red
hold his perfect imperfect face and
taste myself on his breath
take his arms or be held in them
i wanna feel and i wanna know
i guess that's just the way the body goes
everyone knows the waist / is just the way the body goes - mccaferty
Megan Dec 2015
Almost two years ago, the place I once called home began crashing down beside me while I was surrounded by flames. Who knew that with my suicidal ideologies I would clench on to my life as my lungs began to fill with smoke. When I was standing outside in a blizzard with a t-shirt, pyjama pants and no shoes on screaming while on the phone with 911, I watched all my childhood memories, home, and everything I've ever owned burn in front of me. The firefighters, the media, the company who salvaged anything they could and the town couldn't stop saying how lucky my step dad and I are to be alive; that we should not be here today, but we have an angel watching over us. The girl who who was hospitalized for attempted suicide and depression four months before this incident was begging for her life and is so thankful to be here today. I have learned that I am meant to be here, that I have a purpose. Who knew that being so close to death because of something I had no control over would make me love life, and everything about it. It was the fire that took everything, but gave me everything all at the same time.
Julie Grenness Oct 2019
I was asked to create a holiday,
What about a pyjama day?
We would not get dressed at all,
Stay in bed, hide and stall,
Sit around in flannelette,
Stay in PJ's, don't get dressed,
In fact, don't wash or cook,
Do mental slumming with ****** books!
Feedback welcome.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2017
see...
   (sniffing sound) -
the problem with tiki torches
when compared to flares?
  you haven't experienced
football hooliganism...
one has the assumption
of being menacing,
the other? an assertion
of being menacing...
     oh i know a football chant...
ooh ah! cantona!
and ł.k.s.! jebał pies! -
        even though i originate from
an insignificantly small town,
we still managed to play
with the "titans"...
               hooliganism...
hmm... a type of mafia, right?
a group effort not riddled
by bloated ego?
              which is the exact point
why tiki torches are funny...
  and a crimson flare so menacing
in comparison...
you can't nuance conviction...
appearance is politics...
             Louis XIV knew that all too well...
foolery, double standards,
and the must of every earthly court
to boot: a jester to serve
compliments of ridicule...
          the sort of punching bag
that punches some sense back
into the lead head...
given: heavy "hangs" the crown.
i can't believe that i lived
in england for over 20 years
and spent most of those years
rummaging between the irish
and the scots...
                  the only english person
i've had "intimate" time with,
is probably mummified
by a t.v. screen...
              i'm actually jokingly
convinced that the english
are not even existentially valid,
in the sense of: lurking in shadows;
it has also become a "game" of:
and who the **** would want
to **** this pyjama party of
              walking Madonnas with
their exuberance into faking the fashion
of 15 minutes later:
          trash in hand, donning
    cling hair rollers
(10 minutes trying to find the correct
term... how autistic of me)
  buying a bottle of *****...
yeah, really,
              no wonder i drink
to define excess...
              about as desirable as a
penny on a pavement...
mate with what? that?!
               make it short,
        i'm done with dramatics that
have no memorable quote.
flares still feel more authentic than
tiki torches...
                   then again,
american football is so stupid
                that cricket makes
sense, and
there's no need for a hooligan
making a stance.
seriously... american football
is the most idiotic game in encompassing
the need for a coliseum!
               i'm authentic
in my bewilderment at the complexity
of cricket, that, i get,
  american football makes
   about as much sense as
american foreign policy outside
of the poker face of f. d. Roosevelt;
i must be ******* or something,
   or, something else, i just don't know.
Just as Matthew Broderick kisses Mia Sara
I inadvertently spill a blob of wine #2
on the sheets, the alley between
my pyjama-d arm and your **** leg
and it is then I decide I will not go
into work tomorrow, stay home with you
and continue decorating the spare room.
I know it's not relevant now but I ask if
you prefer Nordic Sky or Enchanted Eden;
the former, you say, quizzical.
I nod, smile just a touch, return to the film;
Ferris's dad almost spots him, but not quite.
You don't notice the tiny stain;
I have the best night's sleep in months.
Written: April 2021.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time. Feedback welcome. The paint colours are real and the movie the fictional duo are watching is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. A link to my Facebook writing page can be found on my HP home page.

— The End —