Blanket city run along soaked in rain. Idiot Boy wastes his time visiting a passing crush at the other end of town. Slips between two houses and a metal sheet, communal refrigerator in the middle of the road filed with half-empty soy bottles.

Dead bell stop, mocking red blink of the operator. Father arrives, a mess of wiry muscles and hair.

“Hey. Is Coffin Cat here?”

“Who?” Father squints at Idiot Boy’s cap. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact.

“Um.”

Recessed in the blackness behind Father, a Figure says, “You looking for Coffin Cat?”

Idiot Boy nods.

The Recessed Figure turns. “I’ll go get her.”

Father returns to his parched body on the couch, content.

Indistinguishable forms move back and forth in the kitchen to the right. They stop their pacing and glance at Idiot Boy as he passes. Idiot Boy avoids eye contact and slips into the left-bound arterial vessel.

“So this is the heart chamber I’ve been living in,” Coffin Cat says as Idiot Boy enters her room. There is music gear. “It’s pretty comfy.”

“Oh, sick mic,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at the mic behind Coffin Cat’s head.

“I feel like a ghost,” Coffin Cat replies, falling on her bed.

Idiot Boy settles next to her. Animal distance. Intensely aware of his rain-soaked right shoe. “Same.”

Nothing comes out right, intersubjectivity a false God to mediate the impossible kernel of being, nobody can find nor express. Idiot Boy searches for connection. He glances around the heart chamber, at the music gear, but nothing grips. Four pears sit on a table by the window, their skins garish green in the harsh grey light.

Coffin Cat moves from the bed to the floor. She opens a virtual aquarium on her computer; fish eat pellets dropped from the sky to **** out coins to buy more fish to **** out coins to buy more fish. Capitalist investment and accumulation. Every few minutes a rocket-spewing robot teleports into the aquarium to attack the fish. Ruthless competition in the global marketplace.

“No! Why would you swim there, you ******* fish?” Coffin Cat yells as one if her fish is eaten by the nomadic war machine. “So dumb. ****. Why did it eat my fish?”

A knock at the door. The Recessed Figure from earlier enters the room. “Hey, mind if I join?” Their arms dangle like fine threads of hair.

“I like your music gear,” Idiot Boy says, pointing at nothing in particular.

“Idiot Boy also makes music,” Coffin Cat adds from the floor.

The Recessed Figure does not respond. They are enthralled by their phone, streak of dead pixels along a digital chessboard, minute reflection of their own gaunt face in the glass. After an extended period, they decide to move none of their pieces. A gaping coffee grinder rises out of the rubble at their feet. They begin filling it with tobacco from broken cigarettes.

“I’m surprised you’re still playing this,” Idiot Boy says to Coffin Cat. “I swear this is one of those games designed to ruin your life. Get addicted, stop going to work, become a hikik weaboo.”

“Already there, man,” Coffin Cat laughs. “Nah, this is my new job. I’m going to be a professional gamer.”

“Stream only PopCap games.”

Another knock at the door. Tired squander in an endless pacing of flesh. Strawman enters and nods at the Recessed Figure. “Hey bro.”

“Good to see you, man.” The Recessed Figure plugs the coffee grinder into the wall. “You got any ciggys?”

Idiot Boy points under the table and says “Ahh” with his mouth.

The Recessed Figure empties it into the coffee grinder. The device whirs into motion, creating a centrifugal blur, a mechanical and headless hypnotic repeat.

Idiot Boy and Coffin Cat look for horror movies to watch. The Recessed Figure empties the contents of the coffee grinder onto a metal tray. Strawman repacks it into a ****. White smoke fills the empty column, moves in slow motion like an oceanic rip a mile off coast, surface seething with quiet, impenetrable violence.

Idiot Boy refuses the first round. It’s never done him any good. Face turned to smoke and the wretched weight of a tongue that refuses to speak. Headless carry-on as time ticks through the clock face.

The door bursts open. Everybody turns as Manic Refusal or the Loud Person saunters in.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off!” the Loud Person says in exasperation. “First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

“What? What’s happened?” Strawman asks.

“Some rich ****** in Australia has bought me as his wife. I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!” the Loud Person laughs bitterly, before hitting the ****.

“Oomph, that’s rough,” Coffin Cat quips from the side.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold to off some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“But like, who is this guy?” Strawman asks, pointing.

“And he’s been reading all my profiles. He has access to all my information. I don’t even have control over my Facebook profile. Grand Larson’s logged in as me, posting for me,” the Loud Person continues. “I met him once in Australia, clubbing, and now he’s tracked and bought me.”

“That’s creepy as ****,” Idiot Boy says.

“So he’s not a complete stranger?” Strawman asks.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. First time back in five years and I’m being sold off!”

Idiot Boy decides one hit from the **** wouldn’t be so bad. He packs the cone with chop, lights and inhales. Smoke rushes through the glass channel, a swirl of white ether, more than he’d expected. He quickly passes the **** to Coffin Cat, before collapsing onto the bed, eyes closed. A suffocating sensation fills his body. He sinks into the chasm of himself, further and further into an impossible, infinite depth.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

Idiot Boy doesn’t know what’s going on. He feels sick and tries to get Coffin Cat’s attention, but cannot move his body.

“Come on. Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

A strange silence stretches like an artificial dusk, a liminal duration, the hollow click of a tape set back into place in reverse. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. They’re selling me off! First time back in New Zealand in five years and they do this to me!”

The Recessed Figure makes a noncommittal noise.

“I knew it, I knew if I came back, my parents wouldn’t let me leave again. Whole ******* thing arranged!”

Coffin Cat laughs quietly.

“No, you don’t even understand. This is the first time back, the first time back in five years, and I’m being sold off to some rich ****** who owns all the banks in Australia.”

“How about this fella? He doing okay?” Strawman asks, pointing. Everyone turns to Idiot Boy and laughs affectionately.

“Still working at . . . ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Management. Hospital. You?”

“Like, property. Motions.”

“Subcontracting? Intonements?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mmm.”

“Sell me drugs, Strawman.”

“Nah. I don’t deal drugs. I don’t deal drugs.”

Idiot Boy slowly opens his eyes and stares out the window. The same grey light as before. He moves his arm further towards Coffin Cat, but is still too weak to get her attention. The same strange silence stretches. The Recessed Figure coughs and the Loud Person whirs back into motion.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t ******* believe it. . . .”

As the conversation repeats over and again, Idiot Boy begins to think he has become psychotic, or perhaps entered into a psychotic space. He thinks of computer algorithms, input-output, loops without variables, endless regurgitations of the same result. Human machines trapped in their own stupid loop. Drug-****** neuronal networks incapable of making new connections, forever traversing old ones. Short-term memory loss, every repeat a new conversation of what has already been. The same grey light painted upon four pears by the window.

He’s not sure if Coffin Cat’s laugh is getting weaker with each repeat.

Signal-response. The exterior world oversaturated with variables: roadways, rivers, forests, wildlife — an ever changing scene to respond to — the illusion of depth. Automatic response mechanisms reorient to new stimuli. The soul rises like surfactant, objectified fractal diffusion. A becoming without end.

But within the border of this interior world, the light stays grey. No input, no change; the same dead repeat, over and over, until sundown triggers a hunger response. Lined all along the street, a black box ceremony of repeating machines, trapped in their idiot cults, walls of clay and blood.

Idiot Boy finally gets Coffin Cat’s attention. She helps him through the house’s arteries to reach rain and wet stone, overcast skies. As he shakes in shock, Coffin Cat mumbles, “It’s cold.”

Idiot Boy sits silent on the ride home. Travels through himself. Tunnel through the body or Mariana Trench. Loses his footing before a traumatic void. Leaves the car and pukes.

These "poems" I write are only meant for me
I keep them away from prying eyes,
Where no one can see.

Because why should one receive "likes"
For the metaphors constructed by their minds
In an losing battle to get a grip on reality?

These collections of words
These regurgitations of the imagination
Hardly even belong to me.

If I am not my mind,
Then who am I?
Or is that question irrelevant?

Words in themselves do not belong to anyone
But the order in which one happens to put them together
Is somehow different?

My attempts to understand anything are futile.
So for now, I will say
That these "poems" I write are only meant for me
That I will I keep them away from prying eyes,
For no one to see.

I refuse to be judged,
Valued,
By something as absurd as these peculiar markings,
Lost in this peculiar system.

I refuse to care about whether people like what I have to say. Yet for some reason, I do it anyway.

Hello Old Friend,

I just wanted you to hear me.
I think you heard every word, but I see you now fear me.
I used to get nostalgic remembering our talks under starlight
When we idly spoke of dreams, and other things, and the world felt peaceful at night.

But today I spoke of blood and smoke, and of human violence,
and watched the widening whites of your eyes within this smothering silence.
I apologize for pretending we could carry on as before.
You say you don't condemn me; they shouldn't send me off to war.

I wanted a friend's reconnection, not hollow pity.
I now recognize you can't sympathize with the dying of a moral identity.
In grief, not guilt, I sought my friend.  This was not a confession.
No vain imagining of a simple moral or life lesson.
Don't wanna' hear soulless, canned regurgitations
Of your textbooks' and professors' second-hand explanations!

You avoid my eyes, staring intensely at the floor.
We both can list my sins, but why is it only I can list yours?
Solipsism and narcissism.
You live a predatory lifestyle, ***** you're bored and wanting more.

That's it, then.  Goodbye, Old Friend.
I feel worse having spoken, and I won't speak to you of this again.

A Full dose of chemotherapy symptoms:
Hair loss, loss of appetite, and pale completion

Antibiotics, Steroids,
And intravenous fluids
I may get sick in addition to this

Cancer.

The doctor I ask
What interests you in this specialty?
“The research of a cell that believes
In the fictional concept of immortality”

Yet my mortality is in question here:

And yet here, I sleep, rest and lay down
Almost stationary to this ever moving world
That supposedly when I stop
I can then move again to rise or fall
An almost witty comparative analysis
If I even dared to displace myself
From this bed

So I continue this rigor of treatment
Despite the horrid regurgitations that follow
And I grow continually weaker when supposedly

A cell divided is a sign of being alive

Where is this immortality this doctor speaks of?

Because I am afraid
For I do not understand

Life breathing life everlasting,

A soporific effect

Matters we do not understand
Are eternally received by preserving
Ourselves in words

I have no appetite
for pronouncements, platitudes
declarations, meditations and revelations
no patience for wisdom
and cogitations and much worse
regurgitations
no stomach for moanings and
groanings
musings, and working out meanings
much less about how your groin is today
I'd just like to
(like Renoir,  if I may,
just focus and work)
not to be anything,  no attempt
to be
just what is natural and easy
play and laugh
and when it's time
just *yawn and sleep

re-enter macbeth,
                                          re-enter macduff...

let's just keep it at that,
i can't be bothered to rewrite verbatim...

as i already said:
for me shakespeare is *macbeth alone...

    i have no pity or heart
alone, to mind
having to cite the other plays
as worth settling a guise
of the conclusive genius....

i just kept myself encrusted
in macbeth, and in macbeth
alone, to steer from the pompous
regurgitations of future generations...
to keep a scorn, a fraction of
shakespeare's "lost" oeuvre,
this sort of "escapism"?
keeps the artist to be most intact...
people ought to know:
the artist is finicky, & thereby picky...
and therefore expects this
audience to be likewise:

truant of the oeuvre -
     while the fan of a certain work:
the point: within reminder of an
undertaking: atheism; better:

accursed be that tongue that tells
me so,
         for it hath cow'd my better part of man:
and be these juggling fiends no more
believ'd,
     that palter with us in a double sense;
that keep the word of promise to our ear,
    and break it in our hope.

i'll keep my word, and recite no more.

i want to cut the men out from underneath my skin
my body bucks and shakes
another place
pulls at the cords embedded in me

i am not of here
your language is not my language
and the way you move your hands is strange to me
your people peer at me
and their eyes show me to be transparent

my form careens and wavers in alternation
i cannot record or observe myself
the air here shrouds me in plagues and sensitivities
my body is a battleground

i dreamed that i vomited out of my nose
and the space behind my right eyebrow collapsed
if i am only a shell for regurgitations of my surroundings
where does my image exist in full detail?
where did i hear this?
who do i hear now?

Watch what the pedant swine does- whose gargling
fills the Scabbards. Those near men who nestle in
with peers and well heeled cogs, Laced and misshapen
by all the verdant narcotics of the Time. For all to see
they'll Stand and declaim clotted regurgitations of
promises already Framed.

Their attire in constant lave, and limbs Strung up by
the unnatural- Their throats lined thickly to the teeth,
of figments and cruor, and the fiction they spiel forever
a plush Decor.

For, you see, all but few buy what they Sell- counterfeit
talk stocked pretentiously upon shelves. And all speedily
Corked fit in viewing eyes, plugged into those who've not
the time to Reason why? Bought in bulk- a Politician plying
his delicately chosen words.

.hey, so much for jack kerourac's on the road... but i have found this most pristine tour-guide... as that h'american hobo... "7 years later" duping the tourists down in Amsterdam... h'american... what else? well it's hardly the Nepal you were looking for... or those grand sand of Arabia with a Lawrence: better suited for a... what do "we" call them? androids... david... citing: the trick is: not minding that it hurts... stoicism or some otherwise weathered down, other... point of (a) queue? and yes... red hot chilli pepper's song: warm tape... off the album... i forget... is underrated... in between the salvos of... those lyrics based around a "narrative"... but when the chorus comes in? melted butter in a thick spludge of crème fraîche.... yes... i want to love like a john frusciante... but i know i never will... i see too much economics to: "bed the pardon"... ****... "beg" the the pardon... the girls i once loved have probably forgotten me... moved on... the prostitues "in-between" were always "her" tailor of best arranged hair via - gay riddles of "the cut" via never having to mind a barber... and all those manicures! mein gott! there was a time and a place to squeeze in politics of the "fathomable" populace... and a "perhaps a chance" to raise children? dire consequences... to no avail of... the otherwise prior mentioned: straits... there were times in my life when i felt in love... that i could give give give and never ask for anything in return... lucky for me i started to age and not perform the portrait gray act of stay-young-forever-young-vampire... i clinged to love, once... it was such a beautiful spring... a spring that could last within its season a spell of over 5 years... then... reality and autumn and a need to dispell delusions... she probably still "loves me"... with someone else... cameo cinema of memory? where, am, i? love, oh love, what a burden, a hurdle, a responsibility... it's never this quickened escape ease of breath lodged into fiction... somehow always constricting, somehow always burdensome... somehow and somewhat always... never the homeless cherry picking of mutt that made it to an elevation of being under the christmas tree! why would i have children "these days"... well... there's no history i'd be allowed to teach them... and modern day-old journalism? i thought the people were only willing to fudge bulimia down the throats of their "listeners"? i still want to love like a john frusciante... perhaps that's the mosti can offer... best sentenced to a riddle escaped with at a bechance of keeping distance.

being a video-tourist with roosh v:
the sort of h'america i always wanted to see...
like... gaining another 50ml shot
of whiskey under the belt and notches...
is like... imagining *******
ava lauren in a 1970s italian ***** movie
style... when even *** in a pornographic
movie feels: sensual...
joel osteen... an iron maiden gig
looks... just the same...
when the skin becomes a sterile experience
of leather: when wearing shoes...
and a belt...
when this worn skin becomes
this most adored leather...
when the exhausted "beauty"
of prostitutes becomes: something
equivalent to... working out the mandible
artifact... akin to the chew and jaw...
the old continent seems to sigh...
i once missed Handel's Messiah for a night
at the brothel with the Bulgarian harem...
the grand-orchestra of the acronym:
U! S! A! U! S! A! seems so vague and...
bewildering... i'd love to be an atheist in
h'america... so... ridicule prone and
the high-end sort of bag-full-of-counter-virtues...
but i just can't be...
i like being a god-fearing man...
skin... ****, i need to tend to my german:
wann haut wird leder...
akin to: when **** cheney half-had
a neu-herz...
we do come most humble...
we are, oh the most pristine: wenigkreaturen...
ZAMAR-ZNIĘTY... frozen... (he)...
unless... you see that R-Z outside of deutsche...
in the fwench: je, je SUIS! form...
hard to keep those two 'uckers together
in a rz-eton... (Ż)eton casino...
orthography... who am i to preach to a people
so... so figured out with their metaphysics
that orthography, quiet simply,
doesn't, concern them?!
i'm still thinking about ava lauren and
all that 1970s italian *****-sensuoso *******...
why not to forget? pontius pilate clause
akin to louis XIV paranoia:
the power lies in how "it" is perceived...
lying... i don't mind hearing about hog-mucking...
i just mind when it's don juan
mucking up a nun: that's not a nun...
i don't like hearing about:
the goat in sheep... in the mouth of a wolf...
i can stand metaphor...
i just don't like curtains made from iron...
or burgundy tinged silk...
or some other: BLATANT lie...
the one blatant focus for puritanical "superstitions"
of: third eye blind of the other is...
this... bogus f-ck-wit of an underbelly...
there really was a time when i wanted
to see little-life everyday-sort-of h'america...
how the... whittle people lived...
then i figured... no more and no less whittle
from where i'm sitting...
maybe i should be standing?
but at least i come from a continent where...
(a) a striptease is... like the slipped ****** pill
no one wants...
(b) the ****** don't bring their cameras
and film you while you're at it...
(c) and a (d) and an (e) that i will not even
debase myself with...
perhaps we do speak the same language...
but... that's as much as
relates shoeshine to a shoe
as it relates mewwy ol' england to this...
grand posturing that's the u. s. of... a.
perhaps i need to see the sights of: Moldova...
or... Switzerland...
last time i heard being land-locked is the new
best thing... given aeroplanes...
i did want to mid-west ****-hole h'america...
from england... eh... m'eh... all i need is to go east
of Germany... if i find myself in
the West Warsaw coach station...
i'm practically in Ukraine...
everything reeks of this... sediment of roach bathed
in rust... a perfume of mud,
concrete, and lazy metal...
and of course the doom and gloom of the skies...
like 25th of december in Chernobyl...
you just want to start aiming for sparrows
with a pellet gun and break your teeth
on sifting through dirt and haemorrhoids...
and by these standards?
punk will never bother to re-invent itself...
not with pink... and "pronoun concerns"...
or whatever you these days call a f-cking mullet...
and yes... because even if i could...
the white picket fence...
the 3 brats worth of a brood...
the gene patriarchy drive...
the alcoholic / neurotic spouse...
the dog name Bono...
and... each saturday a: bonfire of concerns
for my children's schooling...
sober: but the alternative is no better...
personally? as an "atheist"?
i'm not really thankful...
i can't be thankful for all of this...
last time i checked...
some people in this world are required
to have an omni-litany ruling over their ***-lives...
they want to feel: *****...
why would i even be an atheist?
to speak out something, snarky?
to be prone to... too much ridicule?
there's only so much comedy you can invest in,
before you realise: oh ****...
i'm not a stand-up!
this monologue has no stage...
no audience... it's going to eat me up
like any other solipsism without any escape
into a soliloquy!
atheism is a "thing" in h'america: no wonder...
who said it...
they're a bunch of puritans in public...
but in private? citizen porky?
you know... pig rubber masks and spandex
and s & m and... yawn...
a striptease is so condescending...
6 weeks of celibacy...
nothing: excuse me... *******?
i'm excused with the personal-relief...
yes, the line is drawn... once given the snip
but not the kippah?
em... **** galore: up in their air...
rotating toward... Mecca...
with the prayer...
like... i have the scalp to scratch my head
and ponder...
imagine if a circumcision was akin to scalping...
personally... do we even need ears?
i could be the first to say:
but not really...
a matrimony begins with...
the snippet... which transcends the symbology
of rings... i might as well see it as...
for a woman: she is to offer her virginity...
for a man? he is to offer his *******...
problem solved! Libra rejoice!
she gives up her virginity - which she will lose...
he gives up his ******* - which he will lose...
i can almost see Aaron making these
Levi demands...
what am i thinking...
i will never get to see ****-hole mustard seed
h'america... i'll sooner see Kazan...
but i still don't see the point of making
the loss of a woman's virginity to be equivalent
to a man losing his *******...
after all... prior to the snippet...
he'll *******... a woman will *******...
but... em... what the arm will not do:
the "oyster" will quench...
an i am a gentile figuring out the proper ways
of the monotheists...
speeded up eventuality of apes watching
the descent of dragons and dinosaurs...
bound to the noble profanity of swans...
and widow and widower swans...
brid-brains! of noble emotions!
huh?! no! not us!
i can see the point of male circumcision...
when it is brought with the virginity of a woman...
being circumcised with one woman
is much more than putting on a ring...
un-lucky for me... two protruding veins
like the caduceus worn into the skin of matrimony...
it's not simply that i won't:
i... can't...
hence my infernal tongue.

__________
one can only begin with: Б and В -
and then the nuance:
whatever "nuance" there was,
to genesis an adam and eve -
apple and: pears to combine
for the image of Иосифа лестница..
                  ц - ß - צ (tsade)
                   like one might begin with
something along the greek:
P and Π - amputee R...
rolls... rolls... past the goal-posts...
            the fwench hark
the english tarantula bitten
tongue-numb do not never will trill!
never mind:
       ščypta - szczypta - a pinch of salt...
wikipedia is so ******* wrong...
   щypta... it's a siamese grapheme!
thus shown... cisza: silence...
                       ciša..
ciШa...
                       you can rewrite ščypta /
szczypta in russian...
                     avoiding the щypta...
you can write: ШЧypta...
                     but given: щ (šč / szcz)?
                                    who's to argue?
here's my "revenge" against
organic chemistry's theoretical
electron migrations of schematics...
how about diacritical migrations?
more like electron ontology:
waves one minute, clouds the next...
czyszczoh...

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&client=firefox-b-d&channel=trow&ei=vf84XaHyIMWHhbIPhtOPqA4&q=czyszczoch&oq=czyszczoch&gsl=psy-ab.3...750080.759383..760300...1.0..0.247.1771.0j9j2....­2..0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j0i67j0i131j0j0i131i67j0i30j0i13j0i1­3i30j0i13i10i30.wqdfvbgw6Ck&ved=0ahUKEwjhxKfi787jAhXFQ0EAHYbpA-UQ4dUDCAo&uact=5
(8 goodle results, nearing a -whack)...

Czyszczoń:
                     čyščoń:

                  interlude: Ђ? in cyrillic? isn't that a hindi letter?
via a mirror akin to Я ?            

czyścioch:
                 ШЧ / Щ -ypta - pinch...
      ЧyCЬKIOX...
          someone pedantic about staying clean...

                           :
  if you ever became riddle by pure
chemistry theory, and never walked into a lab:
that also employed you,
wasted years: performing electron bogus
schematics of "electron migrations"
in organic chemistry compounds...
in experiments...
          university as that extended waste
of time period: beside heavily politico
mickey mouse concerns of the dept. of
the humanities...
  sociology et al., well then?
you're right where you belong!
    
how about: the migration of diacritical markers,
orthography before naked english...
how's that?
     english the adam and ever...
all other languages attired
in the niqab worth a god...
__________

as i sit perched on my folded foot on the windowsill,
having a ms. amber cocktail with ginger ale,
smoking a cigarette, i gravitate to the empty
standing rack of shelves...
  what remains on it, as the paint dries?
a tub of wall paint: fine rosemary,
       tissues, sunglasses,
                  a game sheath: chess and backgammon
in one... a c.d. walkman,
      20 copies of my curricul vitae,
a 1:26000 ratio map of Warsaw...
                                  heidegger's ponderings VII - XI,
a thin book of poetry:
    Πoετιc Oπτoμεtρy - by some vague unknown
semi-anon. Mateusz Conrad...
          i'm hoarding about 200 copies of this work,
perhaps this lazy sod will finally get to
send this printed copy, some raw manuscript
pieces and a covering letter to
          Austin Macauley Publishers:
sounds like a good deal...
  they accept any manuscripts, with or without
an agent, published or not published,
expect a 3 week wait...
a letter dated 16 April 2019 for an appointment
at the Community Outpatient Cardilogy Clinic
  (Dagenham RM8 2EQ)
               with Anamaria Lunca...
24h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring
   (aged 33? not bad... <insert a snigger>)...
Plato's Theaetetus,
               Man-Bat: part 1 of 3, 1st. part,
DC comics, chuck dixon, flint henry,
    eduardo barreto - Feb. 96 - two $2.25...
Doctor StrangeFate, Amalgam Comics,
      #1, Ron Marz, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez,
Kevin Nowlan, April '96,
                                         $1.95...
Littlewoods F.A. Charity Shield:
Manchester United v Newcastle United
Sunday August 11 1996 Kick-off 3:00pm
Official Machday Proramme £5.00 -
venue? the old Wembley...
inside? another matchday programme...
West Ham v Manchester United
Barclays League Division One
Wednesday 22nd April 1992 kick-off 7:45pm
£1.50 for the programme...
- the mask returns: john arcudi (story),
doug mahnke (art),
      titan books, first edition October 1994...
Czeslaw Milosz - Zniewolony Umysł
     "Culture" Paris - 1953...
- Bartman: the best of the best 1st edition
January 1997...
- a few figurines...
   a porcelain tortoise: WADE - made in england,
a Kenyan shamanic totem -
a figure with a bloated belly and only one eye,
a polish clay cockerel,
           London's China town red figurine:
standing proud on coins of wealth roaring...
1986, my year, moderate wealth -
well... given this list... i had to move all
the books i own that are supposed to be on
these shelves into the hallway, some onto
the windowsill and some into the box room...
the paint has to dry...
          a boomerang...
                     a Wawel dragon figurine...
(hell, in the west the dragon is associated
with wealth... Smaug... in China the tiger
is associated with wealth... didn't know that)...
some amitriptyline 25mg tablets...
    tom waits: glitter and doom (live) -
seriously - there are only about ten albums
in this world where the live performance
outstrips the studio version,
notably? going out west...
                   a pencil and a piece of paper...
where i scribble my braille tally
to teach me how to drink sensibly
my two ciders and the banquet of whiskey:
currently standing at 4... ****...
oi! tender hands that never worked or
played the guitar, giv' us'us the braille
count to show you have no more fingers
than that tender index of yours!
                           ⠁⠃⠇⠧ ⠷ ⠿
                 it's working... 'nuf' said...
- virgil's the aeneid,
- h. p. lovercraft: against the world,
    against life - by michel houellebecq,
- NewScientist - 50th anniversary special
   (1956 - 2006)
- Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera House programme,
i won't be dropping names...
****, i will:
           karim abdullin - soloist,
        maria alexandrova - principal,
artemy belyakov - leading soloist,
yulia stepanova - soloist,
                igor tsvirko - leading soloist,
- three letters from a Magdalena
Wielgołaska -
handwritten letters and all,
a pen-pall i managed to pick up a conversation
with in Edinburgh when she was
working a b & b for the summer...
         very self-conscious about her
height... well... she did play volleyball...
- old notes from university:
history essays... all a solid 2:1 grades:
    matriculation no.: s0458467
   tutor: kirsty chatwood (canadian ****
who became pregnant, great sense of humour),
e.g. why were there so many rebellions
in Europe in the mid-seventeenth century
(word count: 1,991),
   how and why did Napoleon succeed in
establishing French power over so much
Europe? (word count: 1,956)... 2% shy of a 1st...
so... no, not even i can answer this question...
since i also own copies of...
a traffic management copy of
my organic lab schedule:
   synthesis and acetylation of ferrocene,
preparation of 7-trichloromethyl-8-bromo-Δ-p-pinene
by free radical addition of
   bromotrichloromethane to β-pinene,
the photochemical interconversion of trans-
and cis- azobenzenes,
witting synthesis and photochemical
   cyclodehydrogenation of 1-styrylnaphthalene...
silyl enol ethers: a directed aldol reaction...
i used to do this sort of "stuff"...
but the pièce de résistance while i moved
my private library from these shelves?
ahem...

                 E. O. Richter & Co.
                 Präcision
                 Kopernicus IX set...
                 das prazisions-reiszeug

i.e. the most pristine instruments for technical
drawings... the sort of technical drawings used
in metallurgy, engineering, architecture...
people would conflate a hoarder with me...
me? i'm a connoisseur...
             i respect the sort of materialism that
transcends that shallow form of materialism
that equates itself with immediate gratification
not as a per se: but as a tool to attract...
unwanted attention...
  flimsy materialism, gluttonous materialism...
a materialism that occupies space
and short-attention span gnats...
    materialism of a temporal rather than
a spatial nature? now we're talking!

   and here's to toasting this day...
tomorrow i will erase that fateful day that
coincided with me painting my room
crimson - the Bataclan Massacre...
fine rosemary pale hue will replace
these blood soaked walls that have become
my gallows...
                    a shade much less the green
of my own eyes... and perhaps...
my mind will rest with a mild lapse into
a curiosity of a serenaded mind:
         i'm not even looking for serendipity.

it really didn't occur to me with regards
to the state of h'america...
  once upon a time any european would
look toward h'america as this unified
continent of sorts...
  prime cultural export juggernaut...
now? with the cracks showing,
  with individual americans making youtube
videos?
   clearly "we" europeans were lied to,
well: "lied" to...
          i would never have thought that the states
were so divided...
that even moving from one state to another
can be deemed as supicious...
maybe that's heavily reliant on the fact
that we're talking about a federation...
          in Europe they call it nationalism
what in H'america they call patriotism...
and populism is just the glue in between...
like that whole: ex-pat is not an immigrant...
but i love the h'american approach
to us old continent boyos...
styxhexen-... about the europeans:
'like we're enlightened and ****'...
         that really sums it up....
             notably, compiling the above list?
i almost forgot what i was going to write...
-hammer666 did enlighten me...
  i would have never have thought that
h'american "soccer mums" and goody-two-shoe
ruby-slippers christian folk would ban
children from reading 'arry Potter...
     well of course i knew of the satanic panic
music, and the gaming: thing...
but i never heard of 'arry Potter books being
banned...
     enlightened and ****...
      if Nietzsche was going to brag about reading
Stendhal... did him in my teens...
nothing to brag about... after all...
i did see a movie adapation starring
ewan mcgregor as julien sorel... and rachel weisz
was in it too... the first book adaptation on
film that spurred me to read the book...
if only the lord of the rings did likewise...
alas... not to be!
      no thanks to my scottish english teacher...
sure: of the g.c.s.e. curriculum?
i'm the king of the castle was the only
book of depth...
       yes, i'll give him this:
he did introduce me to jazz music...
   ben webster's how deep is the ocean...
   no other sax player as ben webster...
but: 'we're enlightened and ****' as an american
might put it...
   same teacher... on a trip to Glasbury-on-Wye
(Powys, Wales) -
oh god, i was dying to go on that trip for ages...
we were first supposed to go aged 15...
year 11...
  but the outbreak of the madcow disease
prevented us... so a year later it was...
    great place... caving, canoeing, horse riding...
and just in general the great outdoors...
any teen's dream living in the outer
east end of London...
              anyways... so the teacher inquired...
'what are you reading',
  he walked into our dorm while
guys my age were... snorting sugar dust
through their noses...
      fizz wiz space dust... yep... down the noses
it went...
   i was reading a book looking at them
like a gorilla might look at a human...
                       'mr. bunce? what am i reading?'
so i handed him the slim copy
of Marquis de Sade's groundbreaking short-story:
******...
          now, if you ask me...
the Marquis would have been the emblem
of short-story writing, he was the best as short-stories...
all those long repetitive regurgitations are...
well... 120 days of *****...
but Insect is where he shines,
the story is succinct in a citrus fruit sense:
i.e. piquant.
   succinct and piquant: such lovely
words could only have originated from
French and have to be treated as: loan-words.
besides: i find h'american criticism of europe
a wee bit funny...
     sure: an honest critique of the states
and the union, grandiose politics cogs and
all the labyrinths' worth of bureucracy:
like anywhere - same ****, different cover...
but when it comes to social norms and their
taboos... h'america is very truly backwards
when it comes to what culture its citizens
are allowed to ingest...
       me, in europe, reading marquis de sade
aged 16...
the equivalent of me, in h'america,
being prohibited to read: 'arry potter for
****'s sake!
sorry... on the level where my opinion
might or might not matter...
             americans are backwards...
those puritanical roots do not do them much
favors... esp. with their extravagant
punk-esque tropes signifying a rebellion
that never seems to occur;
christianity truly undermines the idea
of america...
                     if not bound by shackles,
then shivering under the burden of the shadow
of the cross: which none of them wish
to carry... the mere looming shadow frightens
them... and... mind you? american neo-atheism?
boring as sunday's midday sun.

Diaphragm expanded
like the cigarette burns on the empty wood floor
from when I left the mattress there and didnt care anymore,
started laying down beside the beaten, weathered boards;
these decades in the grains of timber grew towards-
I lie inert, my bones the weeping willow's withered roots now stretched forward
to sunlight creeping in the windows through daybreak's drunken disorder.
Dehydrated, tormented, and long tortured;
regurgitations reemerged, restless, pushed shoreward-
dysphoric dreams; no rest beneath intoxicated border.

Those waving the banner of Democracy
Are those most duped
By the true shot callers
Whining about their trivial matters
Their minor inconveniences
Swallowing the lastest distractions
Shoved down their throats
By the powers that be
Regurgitations of that same old shtick
They were told to say
Like. . "Fighting for our freedom"
Or. . " If you don't vote you can't complain"
A ballot pull for an elected leader
Is as effective as thoughts and prayers
for some senseless tragedy
They wouldn't otherwise
lift a finger
to do anything about.
Both are just
Self-serving gratitudes
To stroke your delusions
One big circus circle ****
I have no interest in participating
I don't pick the clowns
I don't buy their stories
But I can still watch them dance
As the empire crumbles.

i should start off by saying that this is for you, and only you.
i write lots a pretty words and say lots of pretty things- most are regurgitations of
previous poems, thoughtless thoughts of those around me, and romanticized philosophy.

that’s not what i’m going for here.

i. i ******* love that you’re a reader. the way your eyes glow gold despite the deceptively dark brown makes me wet- when you talk about words that is. the letters leave your tongue and i taste them on mine, spicy-sweet.

i’ve always liked the adrenaline of the risky burning sensation, and still, i can’t seem to shake my sweet tooth.

so this seems like the perfect arrangement.

ii. you split my skull
and read the coffee-stained pages
better than i ever could.

iii. i don’t know how it should make me feel.
i worry about things like that though,
you know this (and i hate that you do).

i feel the pages falling from my weathered binding, from too many reads.
too many ***** fingers skimming metaphors about porcelain for skin and cracks for scars,
similes about a heart like my favorite charred marshmallows,
and onomatopoeia to resonate high frequency cries for meaning/help/love.

you hear me, though.

you don’t skim or race to ******.
you caress every soft curve, letting your fingertips trace the letters. you rewrite them into existence, as if to say, “They are here!”

and in the margins you give them new tenderness-
new
forgiveness.

iv.
you tell me to stop saying sorry
but, there’s this need for redemption
i can’t shake.

you see, i’ve never walked straight enough
or smiled bright enough
or been good enough-
to keep anything in my life.
and i know that that’s what life is about.

but something in my soul screams
to be that hiding place, for someone.
where they can write all their secrets and cliche notions, store the memories they can’t bear to lose or look at, and keep them safe.

when i’d sleep, i’d visit the museum of that hiding place.
and spend hours
looking at the polished artifacts-
and the dusty ones too.
i’d study them

so that when i’d wake up,
i could take that someone on a tour.

this time, not alone.
think of the things we’d learn.

v.

we’d revisit their history, i’d explain the relevance of each

for you,
we’d see

the skeletons of loves and lives lost, the wax figures not accurate enough to bring them back.

the coping mechanism prototypes recalled for their danger to society and the casket you tried to bury yourself in when they hurt too much.

the ancient scrolls of your past lives, written in a language i’d spend my life learning if i could speak it fluently with you.

the broken ceramic plates from the steak & shake we worked at- i was horribly clumsy, accidentally throwing things at you when you looked the other way. i never wanted to hurt you, and somehow, we always manage to laugh.

vi.
speaking of which
the way you laugh

like you don’t deserve to, but **** it you’re gonna do it anyway.

first of all, you do deserve to.

second, it’s the brightest light i’ve seen in my life. we’ve both spent too many days alone at sea, thunderclouds purpling the heavens and drowning our breath. but, somehow, you make this lighthouse laugh- and your smile splits through the storm.
i’d follow it home

and third, i’m sorry
i’m not close enough to tickle it out of you.
quite literally- i’d spend days and nights doing so, given the chance.
less literally-
i’m sorry
i’m too far and too late
to make up for the tickle days
i wasted.

vii.

i don’t know what this means
to you/for us

i don’t know lots of things. i don’t know why it drives me crazy. and
i don’t know why you do either.

viii.

i just know
i wanted to tell you.

(then and now)

At cold comfort lodge
we are careful about waste
never giving what is important away
so we carefully gather scrapes and titbits
cleverly package and dress them presentably
and when necessary feed them to the ravenous dogs
watching them gobble these up is quite an eye-opener
like knowledge is power
scrapes and titbits can be nouveau cuisine to hungry dogs
they have merrily dined on these for years
hey its keeps them fed and occupied
they are dogs for heaven sake
what do they know
they scrape barrels
and eat their regurgitations
its their nature

Oracle from Dumbarton
naysayers from the isle of Skye
where aimless clouds drift aimlessly
vapid fluffier in dense white foggy haze
forecasters eating regurgitations from the Isle of dogs
the blind leading the blind at the Union of Optical Illusions
for if wishes were horses all lepers will ride black Arabian stallions
haha  haha haha

Its all words put into mouths
its all deeds orchestrated with malice
how can I take what isn't a true reflection personal
or wounding in any way as its not perspectival or real
so go sell your quotes and regurgitations to the slow boat to China
and collect your payments in peanuts