Death awaits
Beyond the gates,
Of the mortal walls that we call life.
The man that's there,
Gives an empty stare
And carries a heavy scythe.

An abstruse hand he lends
As he tends,
To be generous in this fateful gest.
The lost soul reaver,
The great bereaver
Who delivers your eternal rest.

war took mine, i was sold  playing tenchu
on level 6... just before i was to
assassinate this ***, and he practised all
his bow skill in private, then it was made public
by a ninja... i only completed final
fantasy 7 with a walk-through...
i hate the fact that i stuck to
the schooling narrative...
  but hose were the PS1 days,
those days are gone, gone gone gone,
bye bye gone...
                 the **** was that?!
an oscar for best actor at the gladiator premier?!
why isn't more gaming mentioned in poetry?
where is raziel, and the the legacy of cain:
soul reaver, and the story about how he
squashed his brothers:
dumah, melchiah, rahab, and zephon?
oh look: the geek in me!
                 100 years from a youtube video...
i'm bound to do the bristol d'uh and say:
i've never been to south america...
nor ever...
                        me go sort out this avalanche
if that's o.k. with you, hmm?
this is the thrill you get when seeing peoiple
play a reincarnation of gameboy,
i.e. candy-crush saga... if you moved beyond
the PS1 universe you won't get it...
if you remember PS1 games, you'll probably
remember SEGA and sonic,
and age of empires 2, and sim city 3000...
**** me! but you won't probably remember the
weathergirl... who was becky mantin
when this was written...
           odd, that little gray box of saturdays
and sometimes sundays, but definitely
saturday mornings...
                    it gone... and i don't feel like owning
an update of it, because games have become
overtly narrative prone, they only allow thise gameplay
that's too narrated... i switch on the console
and i want mario bros. calculator type of dynamism...
instead i get this really complex story
when i should be reading a book...
   no, really, when did gaming become so
****** engrossing that i try to become distracted by
brick walls?
           when did i or when didn't i take to playing
chess? well... when i started playing dominos
with 6 cigarette stumps and a black hardcover
philosophy book... maybe around then.
books i great, believe me...
but this nook of counter-arcade games?
i woke up at 9am as if about to go to school
and played that japanese fetish for hours...
so much if our culture in nearing the post-20th
century culture was axis... it was almost all japanese...
you can't take that fact out and replace it
concerning: god intervened at Giza and yawned
at chichén itzá...
because you would... still, i thankfully retired
from the gaming experience (when did PS2 come out?
i wanted it for about 2 years and still didn't
get it)...
    1998? 1997?
                      thankfully i get to mention computer
games like novels... SEGA mega drive?
yep, owned that.
                   and yes, i can cite an ATARI,
and ****, **** **** me!
   that original NINTENDO?!
              and that shooting mallard simulation
against a screen of televisions that could
still issue you with van der graaf static
   of "levitating" hair?
(when televisions were still 3D and played
you remnants of the big bang
       in televised black and white khrrr sound,
all dicta fidgety, like looking through the eyes
of a bluebottle fly)... or
    the original prince of persia?
     those two dimensional ferns rotating round and
round when approached in the original tomb raider?
oh forget the cone-****-madonna...
shaid the ish cream van man to shaun shoonery...
cheap ****: said the dead with charlie
at the head of their horde of entertainment's flops.
i retired from the gaming world though,
left it when PS1 expired...
and morphed into PS2...
           i'm half sad and half saying: i can understand
candy crush, because i can understand
the origin: TETRIS.
like i can understand why i can't do crosswords,
my father just said: even i can't do them,
the clues are all a bit of a wanking to comprehend...
it's as if they only based them on the thesaurus...
   we're good on sudoku though, that can be solved
without problems...
        i miss those games though,
i finished final fantasy 7 with a walkthrough
though... tenchu was also fun to complete,
crash bandicoot? anyone remember him?
           now for not faking it...
                                     i'm glad that's over,
i'd hate the gaming experience as i hate interactive
t.v. thesedays... all this pause and rewind?
  thanks to it i sometimes press the STOP
button when listening to the radio and wonder
why it just keeps running... oh right: this isn't
a c.d. transmission... funny though, the gaming experience
translated into t.v. really has made advertising
ultra competative or utterly useless....
   you just end up pausing before a break, and then
scrolling past the advertisers' airtime...
next thing i'll be buying is when they make
an advert for shoepaste.

ask me: i'm a sucker for pop music and medieval hymns, whether folk or of a gratitude toward a community akin to Taizé... while society suffocates me with jester's pounces to satiate a coming bride.. i'm more inclined to satiated myself with monkish escapades... i am aware of the "existential" absolute negotiation: to preserve the upright specimen... i'm pretty sure the chinese, the african and the indian sub-continent have it covered, i'm happy to be part of the dodo project... clearly i don't want to be part of it... i should have been allowed to be a monk, with each day passing i'm hardly thinking of the petty conquests of a bedroom with a... come on... even i thought this brief relationship could resemble a brothel's "one hour spare"... Tamara... spanish girl, worked in a barber shop... lived with three homosexual hunks... i tried having a hard-on, even when she told me to have a bath with her and talk... i couldn't get it up, i was put off when she wanted a kleenex moment, ***, incubated, under the bedsheets... in a brothel you **** under dimmed lights but not in a womb of cotton! you shower first, sometimes even washing each other, there's this whole unwritten ritual! she puts on a ****** while she ***** you off... come on... aaesthetic, cordiality... prostitutes have been the most respectful women i've ever ******, it's like joining an army of marching ******... in a pink floyd revision of marching hammers... imagine... the neo-communist flag: ***** replaces the hammer... the sickle? scissors, i guess, borrowing from scissor sisters? ***** & scissors? great! we have ourselves the new soviet, ahem, soviet union... and a flag to boot! oh Tamara Tamara... sure, no hard-on... drunk one-night stand cameo... i tried and tried, but i kept suffocating under the bed-sheets cocoon ***... she broke with me after 3 days because the hard-on wasn't coming... god, i too wish i could be the perfect ***** with a heart, kidneys, liver stomach and brain to match: ON / OFF... isn't a male ******* akin to a slobbering oyster of a woman's *****? **** impressions... kama sutra speaks about elephant phallus and a rabbit's ****** (depth)... i can't just switch it on, & off... it's not a ******* ****-pumping-piston worthy of ******* web-cam incel ******* worth of video, is it?! never mind... i was having coffee in the morning between her inquiring gay-minders (she suddenly left of Ibiza to find love)... i was saved by a presence of a robin... and you know what a fictional Napoleon would have said: a robin is worth twice the sparrow's worth... timid foot, tender foot... shy organge loiter... who... for some strange reason, migrastes to eastern europe for winter, then migrates to england during the summer... i guess: continental europe provides the sort of winters that are summers, while england provides the sort of summers that are winters... the mythology of Poland... storks and bisons... on a whiff... teenage gamer... but the storyline still grips me: soul reaver:
   protagonist: Raziel...
the brothers:
              Melchiah, Zephon, Rahab and Dumah...
games what worked as book-alt.,
                  i'm almost itching to add diacritical
marks to those names to "x-ray" into syllables
and hyphens...
    mind you, what has remained of the old
anglo-ßaß?
        names in chemistry... already, mentioned,
somewhere...
  sure... gaming is fun these days,
given the in-game cash-in handicap...
from Kazakh, Ukraine, China of the rich...
etc.,
                    these internet-based non-NPC games...
they're great for non NPC non-a.i. characters,
i.e. the old games had... not so much NPC...
but s.i.: synthetic intelligence...
   it wasn't artificial as it wasn't analytical
intelligence, it was a fixed intelligence
of the "opponent" / i.e. narrative...
             modern gaming can only be spectated...
on the evolutionary "debate"
when you: only purchased a PS1 and didn't
buy any console after...
as if "waiting" for the internet to catch up
to the grid... where you could play games live...
imagine a game...
     like the old narrative games...
but where the "opponent", i.e. the narrative
learns from your first encounter...
   long gone would be the encounters
with NPC in the old school standard of
synthetic intelligence, synthetic implying:
repetition, nothing being new...
   if the NPS characters could be given
analytical intelligence parameters...
     you could reinvent the old model of games...
away from the internet FREE...
  but, really: you're playing with a handicap
against people who have made in-game
purchases... hell... once a game cost 20 quid...
and it might last you three weeks' solid
of weekend gameplay in the early morning
on a saturday... in bed...
           i'm not really a gamer...
well if i'm the *******, the throne of thrones
i'm a gamer: just like some people
are thinkers on the ******* reading books...
but the old "solipsist" gamer is long gone...
the one who played to construct
a complex cognitive narrative...
i'll repeat the mention...
i once told a "friend" about playing sims...
he was so engaged in the game,
built this, built that...
i told him i freaked out when i moved
my sim to play a game on the computer...
hence finding the illuminating
wormhole of the Droste Effect...
  i stopped playing...
  final fantasy VII?
   only with a walkthrough...
homework and ****...
           going to the mall on saturday
with the misfits...
running up tier carparks and then aiming
with saliva on people walking in...
    talking to hare krishna converts...
about Dave Lombardo's insane drumming...
ilford: early 21st century...

cut off... a second poem:

.poland played israel in a soccer match today, the hymns began, first came the israeli hymn... boos and whistling, at first... but then i heard casimir III hush the crowd.... lucky for me not being in warsaw... the crowd silenced their illogical anti-semitism, the choir sang, libera me domine... i cannot fathom the russian purges, or the germanic dislike of these people.... casimir III's hush... i look at the cat sitting on my bed, glum, yet proud... how soon the whistling and engaging with mob sounds was hushed when the israeli anthem was sung... i'm happy for these people, even if i am one of them, but at such a distance: i don't feel i am part of them... so much for the glorification of western objectivity standards in argument... but i am a ******, on the british isles... what sort of objectivity am i i to expect? the objective counter-subjectivity of born in Poland, but bred in England?! is that it?! walking abortion... i am proud that the crazed mob was hushed when the israeli anthem continued... after all... SS-obersturmbannführer rudolf höss did cite casimir III allowing jews to settle in these eastern european lands... nes c'est pas? né(s) ç'é(st) pā(s)?! how else to write something akin to this, without finding oneself gritting one's teeth, grinding them into a toothpaste sensation of fluoride sandpits?!

fan-boy literature: stendhal, dante,  
         dumas             (vs)
   young-adult novels,
              which, i will never read...

            just enough whiskey
to count the rounds
of the crucuible
of the current escapade...

i'm ageing,
but i still like bands
like i might be a teenager...
          
came the: grand sorrow
taste, for all that's worth,
in encompassing a tomorrow.

Escrevo num velho caderno
Velhas ideias
Velhos sentimentos
Que outrora estiveram cá dentro.

Quero sentir o que já senti.
Quero pensar o que já pensei.
Não quero ser, porém, o que já fui.
Mas como farei isso, de tal forma, eu?

Como poderei eu ponderar tais feitos
Sem mudar quem sou?
Pois a pessoa que era antes era a pessoa
Que sentiu e pensou aquilo
Que no seu coração e mente passou.

Se já não sou quem era, não posso reaver o que perdi
Sentimentos que cá estiveram no meu antigo eu.
Posso aspirar, desejar, pretender, querer, tencionar
Mas se não quero quem eu era, porque é que quero o que quero?

É uma inquietação constante,
Uma busca estonteante,
Um desejo extenuante.
Penso eu, num pensamento abundante.

Quero ser eu mas não ser eu.
Quero sentir mas não sentir o novo.
Quero pensar mas não pensar.
Quero o que quero sem querer o que não quero.

Não poder ter tudo mas não querer tudo.
Que infelicidade do consciente.

When I am falling
I see the house fall too

What if the house falls?
I built it with my heart
But a question lingers
is the house and me, therefore,
false?
Is it a honey trap I am building
is it made of stars?
Will I go back into my hole, my room
and never get out my mind
(never knowing who I am)?
Will I get stuck in my ways
and be a weird -always beautiful-
flower in a crystal bubble?
Like a bonsai, so stunted

All the joy - I meant it
All the tears - I did
But a shadow of doubt
Pushing me to the comfiness of the coffin
To warm freeze, no hands in your underwear,
no fears at all, for nothing happens here
what if it's better to take again the way
of the wire, the ghosts and the stump life

...
it is whispering what if?
What if this is death too,
what if I am a moth flying to the light,
what if I am desperately on the try?
What if it ain't worth no fight?

The house won't fall so far
This path is true: unsafe but so alive
The house is on reliable rock ground
Only reaver, tortuous land, my heart
The house leads somewhere - where, I do not know

Berserker
=========

I'm a deviant heathen leaving villagers grieving.
Dilligently pillaging, killing and reaving.
Something wicked this way comes.
I herald the battle with the sound of pounding drums.
Deep tones. Hit with thigh bones ripped from foes.
Limbless, skinless. Endless woes.
Death throes of those who rose to me throne.
Now exquisite corpses frozen in repose.
I'm insane. Mansbane.
Scarlet rain. Too late you found..
..there's more to the story. I'm bound in gore and glory.
Visceral imagery, belligerent allegories.
Demon of death.
Diabolical deeds, ***** streamin', hard and wet.
Wargasm. I shudder and fall.
Into the chasm of chaos and now I'm ******' for all.
All hail the ever prevalent assailant
I wassail and tell tall tales of the violence.
Raucous ribaldry amid the misery.
Me axe cracks backs, hack it out. Now you're spineless.

Chorus 1
------
Ber-ser-ker ! A terror on the battlefield.
Come see.
Ber-ser-ker ! A maniac in the killing fields.
You don't wanna battle me.
Ber-ser-ker ! A terror on the battlefield.
That's me.
I'm a Ber-ser-ker ! A maniac in the killing fields.
Pray you don't meet me.

I've been swathed in every form of armour made,
from rags and ragtag leather-to Mail and Plate,
My Bearskin Cloak always warms my back,
til my blades unsheathe-then even Kin Stay back...
Skilled in every Weapon from Claimh Mor to Cleaver
Been called a Chief, a Thief-and a Reaver,
Fought to the top of a slippery *****,
Steamin' with Blood and intestinal rope,
Madness infectious wraps me like Mist,
me giggle tickles and Trickles through skulls til britches get ******
don't Run Son-you'll only Die Tired,
Sun-Day comes I light a Church on fire,
Step back enjoy the Pyre-eyes Dreamin,
Souls pour from Holy Spires Screamin',
Drink 'em in Flesh burning is my Oxygen,
Bathed in Blasphemy-Scars Criss Cross my Skin,
til even my Tattoo's Writhe in silent pain,
Morose til the Battle gets Close-then erase the Stain
Of a Former life-Former Son and Wife,
Hack their Names in your Skin with me Butcher Knife

Chorus 2

Ber-Ser-Ker burnin' Monks out of Round Towers,
til the Stones Bleed Gold
Ber-Ser-ker-throw the Cash to the paymaster,
I'm paid Souls,
Ber-Ser-Ker Breast fed by the Morrigan,
Lap the Blood from your Chest,
I'm a Ber-Ser-ker-the Terror of your Campfire
Born(e) on a Shield on the Field of Death!

there are variants... of the word...
when you're sitting on a windowsill,
and everyone is asleep...
in the middle of the night...
there are variants...
  pride...
but the Slavic variant?
almost sounds like a mythological
name of a god...
ah... the game soul reaver...
a name, of a brother...
of Raziel...
     Dumah... the rhino...
        you can have
the variant...
       Dúmāh...
   no Hebrew interference...
leave this among the gentiles...
DUMA!
  DUMA?! it means! PRIDE!
alternatively it implies
(he's) pondering...
something obscure...
keep me posted,
when you have this sorted out..
i, am | | this close...
to shouting out the written word
into the night...
or should i call the police...
having heard
my female neighbor...
being shouted at by her
husband... oh wait...
she called the police,
before checking on me...
lucky ***** begets an abusive husband...
lucky me...
lucky schadenfreude me...
and i hate that sort of "me"...
     i was this close to echoing that name
into the oblivious universe...
pride...
                  duma...
which also implies pondering...
but it primarily invokes the understanding
of: pride...
now...
tell me why i listened to
the winged hussar death song...
full volume, in classical form?
retards 'r' us?!
                   what?!
head too small, nose too big?
       you have me rattled up to the point
of: let's have the next London bomb,
so i can have my next self-righteous point!
i'm not going to call the police
on her abusive husband,
she chose, she begets the regrets...
there are always two stories...
one... the ****** gets crucified...
two... some ****** plays the bureaucrat
gimmick...
i'm this close to exfoliating
in shouting the naame D'umah!
but... considering how this, *****...
called the police on me,
in my hour of peril...
and now she has an abusive husband,
and a baby...
do i look like someone who
gives a ****?!
do i do?!
            suffer *****... suffer!
oh... you think that sadists
are...
     what's that psychological word...
that sadists are...
regretting?
  no.... that's not it...
  sadists...
    they're...
                sad... amplified sad...
what's amplified sad?
****...
                     regretting? no...
        digressive?!
no...
    sad,, lonely...
   no...
               DISGRUNTLED!
yep!
but it's a synonym;
****...
      
                what was the word the people
used...
   dis-                    something...
think: lasting impressions...
   ah...

                 d'uh...
                                    "feeling"...
   bitter...
   could have stated: Lemon... for ****'s sake!

mornings wasted
spit upon blank pages
stop watch for a man who never shows up
every dream is a hopeful chance
to **** him in your sleep

pull a gun in this sleep
if not, then wait for cancer
a colt 44 is a cold kind of dancer

stolen graveyard flowers
life sentence hours
rabid dogs circling high towers

there's a movie inside
an unfixable life
a demon you thought
was just some pretty thing
something young
coming down the elevator
coming like communists made in china

ugly laughter made in china
something young like laughter laughing
a demon you thought
was just some pretty thing
ugly laugher made in china

something young
an unfixable life
hungry as a reaver
disarm for harm
stockpiles piling

buy your cancer,
cheap, chinese, and made of plastic,
made of slave and
made of master
made in china
buy your cancer
like a demon you thought
was just some pretty thing

hungry as a reaver
a seat at a ***** table
150 square feet
one burner hot plate
made of cheat, made of china
made to confiscate and made of hate

mornings wasted
spit upon blank pages

Oh, God!
Came to you so hard.
But I'm stepping on reaver land.
I better calm down.

What am I becoming?
My life is toiling under pleasure.
We cracked under the pressure.
These ******* are fine, (else I'd lie)
But they have a bitter taste deep inside.
Dopamine keeps me alive - but it has a price
I'm losing my mind.

*****, it's not enough! Your love, it was not enough,
back then! But every shadow of you makes me shake...
I bring you back in every ****. Or did you bring me back to God?

I'm cracking since you fled.
Can you fix the damage done?
And I am blooming in new ways,
but really I know I am withering away.
I was a strange wild flower, now I'm in the sewer.
This time it won't work, I am too broken.

Who told me I'd become an addict
to the earthquake below?
While I'm hungry on your love - no longer
just a dead beat in my guts
a hope some hours - destroyed many more
Ditch the **** - find your own
find your soul
if you are not already lost!

Why do I go to see girls ******* on men like you?
Why all my joy, fantasy of life is through?
My dear, I shipwreck without you

Am I going for a deeper ride?
Drown my hands in the shaky sand
So much fear, cemented in years
I want to scream for help
But no one's there, not even my tears.

Oh love! Elusive force
without it we rot
Impulses separated - love from lust
Don't be fooled - they are not truly apart
How come we are? How blind?
Why pain feels so fresh?
Solo ***, does it save?
I guess it does, but I miss your caress

Since we fell in love,
fear was flying around.
Fear that I might lose it,
and weird thoughts.

I fear losing my ***,
more than anything else!
All these videos we recorded.
Now I am on the other end.

So much to dig out,
expect me, I'll be back.
But you won't. And then I'll hold tight
to **** Hub.
(You'll do the same, but you are not as broken)
Oh God!! Spare me this!!

If you can't do anything else
You could taste a minor victory over pain
You could take a ride and write a guide on hell
You could get diamonds from the dry reaver lands
You could make jewelry that ironically hurted your hands
You could document horror with Polaroids
You could win a prize that almost makes you die

In case of emergency - let it out
But not to drown
But to gain control
In case of emergency - ring the alarm

If you can't do anything else
You could try till death
If you can't do anything else,
You could try to survive the terrible fire
And laugh the day it ends.