I woke up *****
And went to the shop,
I got corn, peas, chopped gherkins,
All canned,
I raided the reduced section like mad,
Got some cheese
And some ham
That I won't allow to go bad,
cause I'll make a ton of salad
Out of this myriad,
For breakfast, munch and evening feast,
It'll last a fortnight at the very least,
I can top it up with this
Foul smelling liquor I brought from the east,
Among the other mementos in my cellarette,
I could have a party in my ******
In my kitchenette,
My flat is so hot I could sign post it
'sauna to let',
But the swingers here don't speak a word of
English,
One time they took their ya-yas out
And called ME a delinquent,
As if I've got a funny kind of pigment
They can't live with,
I've tried to put my finger on it
But I don't want it to get stinky,
I think they simply haven't got an inkling
As to what and why they're thinking,
But never mind those pinkies,
Let us go back to my shopping
Just as it was getting *****:
Before my skimpy trolley glided to the checkout,
I got a ticket for my pfand,
Which measured fairly to my pleasure
Of having my alcoholism,
Which is confess is merely leisured,
Redeemed into a form of solid ******* treasure.
Throughout the years my drinking
Let me celebrate the fear
Of lack of meaning,
It made friends out of strangers,
Lovers out of friends,
Ex lovers out of lovers,
Clowns out of boring people,
It made a clown out of me too,
My drinking took my money
And gave me a suspicious act
To cling to,
It made me a legless athlete
In a race against the future,
It excited me with waterfalls of chaos
Bursting through cracked normality,
It pretended to bring Arcadia
Into the ruling technology,
It invaded Scandinavia  
With lawless Somalia,
It put peaks and crannies
Into the dull landscape of
Nord Rhein Westphalia,
I have a whole worthless encyclopaedia
Of what my drinking did to me,
Page after page of random numbers
Makes for a baffling read,
I don't know if I should frame it,
Burn it,
Or get some ****,
My drinking always gave me an excuse to smoke,
I puffed my hours into nothingness,
Laughter & loneliness,
A condition of no ambition
Made life itself seem like a superstition,
But I don't want the repetition anymore,
Boredom is but a bed sheet of a sore old *****,
A stifling breath of a handicapped mind;
But
Being now so temporarily poor
I find it easy to smile
As the cashier counts my pennies
Making the citizens in line
In their Jack Wolfskins and denims
Very uneasy,
Men & women of the Rhein get seriously queasy
When they see a foreigner like me
Simply taking it easy,
You know I had to break my piggybank just to get here,
I crossed a red light when it was all clear,
I have no bike lights - I just disappear,
Who knows what is it that I do inside the night?..
Could be something good,
Might be something bright..
Anyway,
I got my receipt,
Said my 'schön Tag' alright,
I should have said 'schön Abend'
But I guess I'm not polite,
Then I rode in the street,
My bags dangling left & right,
Balancing my act
Under the waning Eurodollar moon,
Some react badly
when they're given **** to spoon,
But my lack of money
In fact makes me feel immune
To superficial cravings like
iPhones, clothes, perfume,
shavings, shoes, tattoos;
I'd rather spend a fortnight
In the arms of David Hume,
Than stopping by at Rügen
On my way to Cameroon,
On a beastly ocean liner,
With pommes and Pauliner
Supplied ad infinitum!
I don't know my own mind,
I's time to take a trip down the ol' cerebrum,
While tickets are at a minimum
And the season is at a premium,
I'll tame my tantrums without ******,
I'll let my maelstroms guide me to a podium
Of perfect equilibrium,
I'll get a glimpse of wisdom
By watching my own delirium,
I'm serious about this.
I don't reminisce about the years
I dismissed by watching television series,
Dumbing down with the Big Bang Theory.
I feel so blessed to be weary
And out of breath
From the long hand of entertainment
That wants to tickle everyone to death,
It's an epidemic worse than crystal ****,
But it's not hard to shake the fever.
Only a ****** was born to be a ******,
Man was cursed to be a dubious believer.
So kiss my feet
Or chop me with a cleaver,
Nothing will stop me from becoming an achiever,
Nothing but the habit pattern of my own demeanour.

Sie sind das meer mein Rhein.
Ich mochte nun das gleiche gilt wenn man nicht die meinen.

Sie befinden sich der regen auf meine elbe.
Die strome der liebe haben mich zum Anschwellen.

Liebe und Wasser verdunsten kann.
Und alles hat ein ende
Sie moge die liebe Seine die gleiche wie sie liebte den Rhein.

Minnesang

Diaspora
From the Greek

When I heard the word I felt it
And I looked it up
In my old red dictionary

I could have used the Internet,
I suppose

But I like to run my forefinger down pages
Of words

I read the definition
And I felt it
Oh

Oh
We are diaspora.

Am I using it correctly?

We are a diaspora.

Diaspora
From the Greek

From the green valley of Ottawa
From Scotland
From Ireland on wooden boats

From the French village thirteen children
From the mines in the North
From Poland and from Germany

From the churches and
From the Blueberry patches
From the Island Manitoulin

From the dark lake Kagawong
From Kinburn and Arnprior
From Markstay and from Sudbury

From Waterloo
From Kitchener, Michener
From the Suburbs

Oh

From the Suburbs
From the red bricks, red currants
And geraniums
From green island cabins

From the desert

Oh

From the desert
From the potholes and pipes
From the salty wind
Cracked Caspian Sea
From the middle of the east of nowhere.

From the mountains

Oh

From the mountains
From the crystal water fountains
From the tram bells
On the cobblestone streets
From the torrents of the Rhein

From the white cross

Oh

From the white cross
On the green hill
From the river Laurence
From the French and from the English
Plains of Abraham

We are diaspora
We are a diaspora

Diaspora
From the Greek

How did it end up here on my tongue?

It is diaspora.
It is a diaspora
Diaspora is a diaspora

And I wonder if it misses its other pieces
The way that I miss mine

Ours

There is no
Roping us back together now

There is no
Home to go back to

There is no
Point of meeting
Of reunion

No
White steeple in our old town

No
Yellow slide in our backyard

No
Old folks on an old farm

No
Walled house on a hill

No
Luzernerring 93

No
Familiar riverwater

There is no
Ancient Greek anymore
Diaspora

Only fragments of fragments
Of roots of stems of words
In different dialects

There is no
Place for you to belong,
Diaspora

You’ve been sliced to pieces
And scattered
Into the wind

But
When people ask you
Where you are from

You say simply
From the Greek

Oh

From the Greek

And
When people ask me
Where I am from

I say simply
From the diaspora.

You left me capsized on the Caspian
The bold-wind black-oil Caspian
Suicide-tower fire-altar Caspian
Cigar-smoke car-exhaust Caspian
Oh Caspian, My Caspian
How could you just let me drown?

Pacific and Atlantic and Mediterranean
Rhein and Seine and Thames  
Huron and Kagawong and Lawrence
I see you quarrel
Over who is greater
Richer older
Better bolder
Who runs cleaner fresher sweeter
Who flows stronger faster deeper
Who gave more of themself to me
Who took more of me for themself
Who has more heart
Who stole my heart
And who will possess it in the end

I don’t know

But capsized in the Caspian
Is how I learned to swim
And to stomach salt water
And to weather storms
To enjoy the taste of raw fish
Calamari caviar crab
And to both love and hate
The forceful winds
That ******* to and fro
While capsized on the Caspian
I found my home
To be not stable, not stagnant
But undertow
An invisible current clenching pulling holding gripping
Dragging tearing teaching ripping
Delivering me to what is next

Oh plastic-bag jelly-fish Caspian
Petroleum-sand mud-volcano Caspian
Sun-blazed low-land Caspian
Capsized, yes
But also baptized
I drowned in the tangles of your dark torrents
And was born again in the summer moon-tide

Dimes times, dimes times
A little better off than Lennie's pennies
Grimes threw thymes, fines
For thin lines
Into the giving ***,

Crime slimes, crime slimes
Poorer than peeling off ***** pauper
Wines and dines, limes
For fat kinds,
Into the waiting rot

Mines mine, mines mine
Sames the games we've all been playing
Shines sharp pines, rhein
Same all the time,
Unto the wading well
.

I read his books, to cry at night,
If God is dead then show me the light,
Where is the man on the cross,  where is the shining knight ?
... that veiled specter and the streak of light ?
Is nihilism a noose too tight ?
Are we living though our final rites ?
Is this the truth or a noise just too white.

Help me God, but alas he is dead,
We killed him and bathed him blood red,
New century, and many still go unfed,
We still wage wars, are we lacking in staid ?
Amor fati ! but I remain afraid,
Has our senses met with a touch of fade ?
A distant thunder... a storm, a hale, a glade !

Gold, Oil and Drugs - GOD to spell,
... rich to richer, poor to poorer - does it ring a bell ?
Widows cry and mums wail,
Father dies and sons follow in a war to fail,
Cruise and thomahawk don't even tell half the tale,
Our inner selves are shriveled and pale,
Where is our aura ? conscience smells stale.

Markets tumble and the poor man whines,
Leaders make speech, claim things are ''just fine'',
Elephants or donkeys, red or blue - jaded bottle, old wine,
Job dwindle, banks swindle - be it wall street or the south of Tyne,
Or cities on the banks of Rhein,
Long queues, angry mob and a shout of "you swine"
... are we cowards lacking in spine ?

If recurrence is the universes' game,
Are we zombies, or just too lame,
So much we do, in an effort to maim,
What we seek is money, power and fame,
Stare into the mirror, isn't our soul the same ?
... and we all have is an ego to tame,
Love and compassion, that is all to our name.

Good and bad, with evil on right hand,
... overflowing adrenal glands,
Our moral landscape seems bland,
Driven by media which is slave to the rich brand,
It is time we take a stand,
Be the Zarathustra, not make castles in the sand,
... else our children will not find a planet too grande!

Is it the last leg for our kind,
... and smart machines are our next find,
Cometh the superman with wires fitted to his mind,
Man was an error, he is not just deaf, but also blind,
As he lacks in sight be it the fore or the hind,
There is not much to remind,
... his death is dated and signed.

we drove late afternoon
                 over the ***** Rhein,
                 the sky fake with orange,

to Bonn : to a house of cool empty rooms,
                 white with words, dark with chords,
                 to an elegant Hammerflügel ;

for my father the end of a journey,
                 but the start of the sublime

we drove late afternoon
                 over the ***** Rhein,
                 the sky fake with orange,

to Bonn, to a house of cool, emplty rooms,
                white with words, dark with chords,
                to an elegant Hammerflügel;

for my father the end of a journey,
               but the start of the sublime.

Eberwine

     I was walking a path in the woods
When I came upon a peculiar pine
It had a warning of no trespassing
Order of the Kingdom of Eberwine

Nothing else looked out of place
And I became overwhelmed with curiosity
So much so that I couldn’t control
The persuasion of my impetuosity

So I entered through the gate without a
Fence across the boundary of Eberwine
And suddenly I was whisked through
A portal to another place and time

To a world within our world where everything
Is unimaginable but so very real
My heart was racing and I had much anxiety
Beyond what I ever thought I could feel

My eyes gazed upon a huge mountain
That no human could possibly climb
As I pause to take in the beauty before me
In a near distance I hear bells begin to chime

I realize now that I may never see home
Again and I may be stuck here in Eberwine
From the mountain a water fall cascades
Into a river as mighty as the European Rhein

I’m sure out of the corner of my eye
I saw a large creature of some kind
But I’m no longer sure of my reality
Eberwine may be playing tricks on my mind

As I’m walking I notice strange wildlife
With unfamiliar and familiar traits
Like horses but they have camel humps
And one seems trapped and in dire straits

As I was heading towards him to attempt
A rescue on my shoulder I felt a poke
Startled I turned around to find a four
Winged Owl and I stopped and he spoke

He said you don’t belong here and you’re
In great danger, didn’t you read the sign
Warning the other side of trespassing
By order of the Kingdom of Eberwine

I said yes but curiosity got the best of me
And there appears to be no danger here
He said that’s the problem nothing is what
It seems and you’ve yet to see what we fear

When night falls all the gentle beast
Become evil and are fixated on the ****
There’s nothing we can do to fight it
Though it’s the opposite of our will

Our days last five times that of yours
And our nights do too so beware
This is the first day but we must find where you entered, we must get you safely there

He added there’s also the creature of
The trees who is swift with his doom
But his weakness is that he loves eating
What we call the sleepy time shroom

Even though I feel compelled to venture
Further to unravel this mystery
I must leave this strange enchanted place
I know that I must cease my inquiry

The gentle beast all know I don’t belong
Here in their place and time
So I said my goodbyes and thanked the four winged Owl, and I’ll never forget Eberwine

Written By:Charles Kean
Copyright © 01/23/2022
All rights reserved