THE STORY OF SARA


AYAD GHARBAWI


CHAPTER 3: BEING AN ACTIVIST

  
Gradually, we become ever more radical in our burning quest to uproot every conceivable element of the corrupting culture of the oppressors.
  We soon started to call these oppressors 'Pigs', because that is exactly what they were: overweight, bloated, filthy animals who live simply eat and consume all day, and who love to live in their own excrement.
  The Pigs had to be removed, because you cannot negotiate with a pig.
  It was so obvious to me!
  Some people did, indeed, argue that diplomacy and negotiations were the way to achieve our blessed equality-based society, but that was pure idiocy to me; because, for Heaven's sake, a pig will remain a pig and cannot become an 'enlightened' pig! These criminals, who are creating poverty, and who are killing people, because they do not allow them decent health services, must be completely eradicated, or else, ordinary people will continue to suffer.
  One day I heard Tony give a speech in front of a huge audience: "There's no point in cutting the tail of the snake. No, you must go straight for the head, and that's how you **** it!" And there ensued roars and cheers, from the mainly young crowd. "And, if someone is trying to **** you, what do you do? Negotiate? Talk to them? No, you **** them first, that's what you do! That's who the Pigs are, my friends. They are out there killing you, and so many of you tonight are simply not even remotely aware that you are dying slowly – so, you must, first of all wake up, and realize that someone, somewhere, is draining out the blood of your life, and next you must identify the cancer that is killing you. So, who's the cancer?" Tony screamed, and the by now delirious crowds immediately responded with a thunderous and hate-filled, "Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!"
  "The Pigs talk and teach us about 'morality' and 'respect' and 'decency', and other subjects like that. That's laughable now, isn't it?! I mean, the blood stained mass murderer is teaching us etiquette here?!"
  "No! No!" roared back the audience. "**** the pigs! **** the pigs!" they suddenly and somehow instantaneously started to chant. So, I must correct what many people think about Tony, and that is, he 'invented' and popularized that phrase, '**** the pigs". No, he didn't; it was the audience that night who spontaneously came up with that really exciting and vibrant phrase!
  From then on, violence became more common along with the never ending chants – if not screams – of '**** the pigs!' Every day, and all over the country, the movement had flourished, and there were the most refreshing and gloriously destructive riots in almost every major city.

  It was at this time that I first heard a speech from Omar.
We waited for the man to appear, but he seemed nowhere to be found.
  My God, I heard from so many people that he was the most radical in the deepest sense of the word!
  Apparently, he made Tony sound like a child!
  He also had a well disciplined party – unlike Tony.
  Here was a place that I can find the ‘cause of my life’!
  I could work for Omar and that would be the point of my life!
  The thought thrilled me – because I was already a convert to their ideas, but with Omar, there was a real party that was actively fighting the government, whereas Tony and other leaders like him were independent activists, but with no party behind them.
    Then, Omar suddenly appeared.
  He was of medium height, average looks - but it wasn’t long before you noticed his inexpressibly burning, fanatical eyes!
  I was about a few metres from him, and I could feel the sheer intensity of passion and rage within those eyeballs!
  This man must have absolutely the words of truth, for no Man could look like that and be a liar!
And then he gently spoke:
  "**** the pigs, I hear you say. Well, that's not good enough for me. People like that make me yawn. And, I'm bored of yawning every day. We need more. We need to move on faster. I need speed. It's not just '**** the pigs', it's '**** the cops!', because the cops defend the Pigs and attack us every day; '**** the teachers!' because every teacher does nothing except to teach us with pointless information'. And, '**** every human being' who sides or serves the establishment!”.
  Omar’s eyes were literally able to stab right through your heart and soul simply by staring at you!
  I can well imagine that my reader will not believe me and will say it was because I was a convert to Omar’s ideas that I found his eyes to be so abnormally powerful – but, what do you say to all those people who did not like him, and who met him, and yet, they, too, all said that his eyes were profoundly piercing?!
  So, you see, reader, do believe me – it’s not because I was emotionally enthralled by Omar, that I am describing him to you the way I do!
  He had beautifully framed fingers – I don’t know why I noticed that!
  He had a rather longish nose – maybe, that was one defect in his face, but you hardly noticed that, given the other attractions in this man.
  And then he possessed the deepest, most guttural, and yet so sweetly melodic voice, that I had ever heard, and when he spoke, he simply entranced me – not to mention the thousands of others.
  Omar continued, beginning to raise his ragged voice:
“And, so I order you, tonight, and tomorrow, and every day, to fanatically and ruthlessly exterminate every visible sign, agent, artist, writer, philosopher, painter, sculptor, journalist, teacher, professor, lawyer, doctor, surgeon, banker, engineer, everyone who works in the mass media like the television, every film maker, every scientist, and every single employer and employee of the Pigs."
  The audience now simply shrieked the verb, '****! ****! ****!’ while Omar went silent, amidst this wild orchestra of hate being played out.


  I noticed, that unlike Tony, Omar wouldn't gesticulate or move his hands at all.
  Actually, he just stood there, rock solid, like a statue while only eyes and mouth spoke!
  The man, I swear, looked like a 'human rock'!
  He was the absolute epitome of boundless hatred; of unrestrained defiance against the rulers ruling us!
  Yes, I do admit, and I hesitate to say so, but, yes, he almost did like completely maniacal – were it not for his self control and the beauty of his words!
  The audience relaxed.
  Omar waited until there was silence, and he continued:
  "Do you see the difference between what I am saying and what brothers like Tony say? People like Tony demand from us to uproot the pigs. But what Pigs does he, in fact, mean? Who does he mean, when he says 'Pigs'? He means the rich. That's it.”


  Now, Omar abruptly went silent.
  Tension.
  He was staring at us.
  I could feel that the audience felt nervous precisely because Omar was staring at them.
  Finally, he continued:
  “Can you imagine the limits of his intellect?! To Tony and his misguided followers, the solution facing the problem before us is simple enough: you simply wipe out the rich, and suddenly we have the beautiful society!"
  Omar was sneering, being utterly sarcastic in his voice and tone.
  "So is that it, Brother Tony? Is that all we need to do?”
  There, he stopped again, with a sarcastic, wicked smile on his face.
  The man’s body simply had no motion in it!
  I was waiting to see, if Omar would, at some point, move his body or his arms, but so far nothing!
  He continued:
“My goodness, I never knew that the gigantic problem facing us was to be solved in such a simple manner! But, no, you're being fools. Or, maybe you're fooling your selves. Either way, I don't know, and more importantly, I don't care, because, as I told you all out there listening to me,” suddenly, he began to scream with his rasping voice:
  “I'm a serious man, with a serious mission, and above all, I'm a man in a hurry!"
  Again, Omar went suddenly silent.
  I could sense, that he was deliberately teasing the audience, because they were obviously desperate for him to continue speaking, while he, would every so often stop speaking, thus adding to the tension in the atmosphere!
  The audience laughed, loving the biting sarcasm; obviously there were lots of rivalry and jealousies between the two camps, and so Omar's followers just loved to hear the buckets of insults being poured upon the followers of Tony.
  The mocking tone continued:
  "These fools are retarding our own path to victory! These followers of Brother Tony, are doing the dumbest acts that I have ever seen. I mean, what do you mean and what are you trying to achieve, when you have his followers going to restaurants and disrupting the place? I mean, is this what the definition of 'stupidity' is, or what?!"
  The crowd cheered: "Yes! Yes! Idiots!"
  "Listen here Brother Tony; I would like to say, 'it's all right, you're still young and you'll soon grow up'. But I can't say that. You know why?"
  The audience waited as Omar paused.
  He was staring at his audience.
  Suddenly, he erupted with his deafening scream:
  "I can't wait. Didn't I already tell you that? Didn't I tell you I'm a man IN A HURRY AND I'VE GOT TO DO MY WORK! DON'T YOU PEOPLE OUT THERE GET IT?"
  He roared, and the masses applauded furiously.
  "I don't have time, for children like Tony, and for his own little children, to stand in my way, and wait for them to grow up! I don't have the time, because I have an enemy out there, that needs to be completely, ruthless and fanatically exterminated, root and branch, do you now follow me?"
  "Yes! Yes! We follow!" screamed the masses.
  Silence.
  And then, Omar continued:
  "So, we know who Tony defines as the Pigs. What about myself? We must talk the talk of the brave. If you're scared, then get out of here. Why do I say this? Because this struggle requires the most ruthless behaviour on our part, and to be ruthless, you need to be brave, and to be rave means you have no fear."
  It sounded almost as if he were singing.
  Or maybe it was my imagination.


"So, who are the Pigs, you ask me? Simple. The Pig is a man, woman and child who has any Pig Attributes. What do I mean by 'Pig Attributes'? Very simple. Any human, who has in his brain, any idea, concept, believe and acceptance of any value from the rulers who rule us all. And, what are these 'values' that come from our dear rulers? They are ideas and values such as: there are the simple ones, like the belief in the right to profit, belief in the right of property, inheritance and so on. Then, there are the other beliefs, such as, belief in compassion for the rich, or cooperating with the rich or socialising with the rich. You follow?"
  The audience was silent.
  "That means, any human in our sick society, poor or not, who in any way, not only physically interacts with the rulers is a Pig himself, but also any human, poor or not, who has in his heart and mind, any empathy for the rich is a Pig himself, and so therefore, it follows – and I hope you people out there are listening to me – it means, therefore, that a poor human being who has any Pig Attributes, is a Pig himself, just like the rulers themselves. Do you understand?"
  Silence.
  And then he walked out.


  It was so sudden, because I expect a really screaming end from Omar, but to the surprise of everyone, he ended and simply walked out!
  But, I, understood what he meant.
  Basically, he was enlarging the definition of what it meant to be the 'enemy'.
  This struggle was now going to be infinitely more difficult. With Tony, the war was simple enough.
  We were 'right' while anyone belonging to the ruling class was 'evil' and that was it.
  Obviously, no member in the ruling class can deny that he's in the ruling class! They can even change their accents and their clothes, pretending to be poor, but there are computers and archives, such as birth certificates, school records, and it doesn't take long, to find out a person's origins.
  But now what Omar was proposing, that a Pig is any human being who interacts with the ruling class is evil.
  Also, anyone who has any thoughts that have any Pig Attributes (for example, being pro-ruling class), are also evil, and therefore, had to be eliminated.
  In other words, the poor can be Pigs as well.
  I loved that, because, I was never comfortable with most other left leaders, including Tony, who only focused their ire against the rich.
  To them all the poor were ‘blessed’ and ‘sinless’, and I knew, from my own background, that they simply romanticised the poor, probably because they themselves were all rich people who had never lived one day of their lives in poverty.
  With Omar, being impure, or sinful could be anyone in society – and, your background or class didn’t matter.
  That was far more logical to me!

But with joining Omar’s party, came other problems for me.
How were we supposed to ‘find’ a Pig, or an impure person?
  How can we be sure if a person has the Pig Attributes in his mind?
  It seemed ludicrous to me!
  I had doubts because as attractive an orator that Omar was, once you went home and thought about what he actually said, a lot did not make sense.
  I had so many ideas that contradicted what Omar had to say.
  For example, can’t we achieve our goals by peaceful means – rather than choosing the path of violence?
  And if we must use violence, then why don’t we attack military targets and not civilians?
  Wasn’t it wrong to target civilians and civilian places – like factories, farms, and shops?

  
  There he stood; eyes blazing as ever.
  What makes eyes 'blaze' I wondered.
  They don't actually emit any light, do they?
  So how can one man have such penetrating, piercing eyes that go right to your innermost heart?
  Omar seemed to be made of steel.
  Or, maybe it was all in my imagination, as Sanji would always be telling me.
  It was his personality and also his body language: that stern, stiff way of standing, that seemed to be the epitome of defiance against the evil in the world!
  His whole body seemed to be chiselled from the purest marble; there he stood, this heroic rock, against the tyranny of the storms and the oceans that were crashing on him; and still, there he stood, not only in supreme piety, but also, there he stood, waging a struggle against these very dark forces of evil.
  He will rid our society and our nation from evil, and one day, we shall live in a truly happy country.
  This nation and its sad people, this nation that has so many miserable, poor and unhappy people, will soon be able to live free, happy lives, without the burdens and the shackles imposed on them by the ruling elites.
  He spoke:
"They need to be utterly, and without a shred of human mercy, be exterminated, or else, it is us, who will be exterminated! It is either them or us! We need to cleanse our entire body from these cancerous cockroaches. Don't you people understand? Call it '******', call it 'exterminate', call it 'butchering them' – I do not care; what I do care and what I need in order to breathe uncontaminated, fresh air,  is to surgically and methodically and blindly eliminate the very existence of every Pigs on our land! That is why we have no choice but to fight. The criminals leave us with no choice. If they surrender their corrupting ways agai

1) I am the half-pint of hope in a plastic cup, not the full litre of utopia in the bottle of sanguinity.

2) I am the cracks in the side-walk, not the perfectly paved path for positive people.

3) I am everything the fire left behind, not the half-salvaged items saved from the burning wreck that steals oxygen.

4) I am just a cigarette you put between your lips, not the romanticised fad people say it is.

5) I am the heaving through heavy lungs, not the clear inhaling and exhaling of oxygen through untainted lungs.

6) I am the awkward silence, not the deafening silence that people love.

7) I am the heart that still imagines the ghost of your fingertips on it , not the one that is covered with love bites and dark bruises constituted of unbridled lust.

8) I am the jagged path of unsteady thoughts, not the ebb and flow of consciousness.

9) I am scattered thoughts quickly scribbled in an old moleskin notebook, not sad love droning about his eyes.

10) I am mottled blood stains on bleached floors, not those oddly beautiful blood patterns you see in ****** scenes.

11) I am the static on the television which matches the thoughts in your mind, not the always-very-strong-signalled antenna on your rooftop.

12) I am a burning building screaming for help, not the beautiful luxury homes that are fireproof.

13) I am not flawless, I am the imperfections that are difficult to embrace.

Auto-annihilation is stupid,
It breaks hearts.
And ruins lives,
I hate that I was ever self-destructive,
I rue the day I became entranced
By its shadowy charisma,

While alcohol spoiled my life:
Poor Jo-Jo was right
To warn her cherished daughter
Of its insidious malignancy.
I was one of the felicitous ones
In that it didn’t entirely destroy me,

But despite its lack of glamour,
In comparison to
other more romanticised intoxicants,
It’s among the most lethiferous of drugs
That stole from me
What remained of my gorgeous youth.

Stamped, I said; don't you dare let go of my hand.
Until the day my breath and your hair turn silver.
Holding my jugular, I let you watch me undress daily
My love for you was bulletproof, but you're the one who shot me
What you don't know, is you missed the cavity
I romanticised the cocking and pulling nightly, murdering beauty.


I ran away from home, to sleep in a manger
I ran from a man, a man I never knew
Same genes, same jeans. Denim was my choice, and yours.
Rotten, like and old pair. Chromosomes.
I lay on your thick neck
The weight of a field mouse, tiny bones, pulled, curled in the straw, invisible to everyone but you
Your shoes always faced upwards
Walking the line where the barbed wire tore your chest
Your heart was a runway, our family horse, chocks away
Twelve stitches, those same twelve stitches in my mother's neck, at twelve years old,
Twelve years on and it's taking thirteen to heal


I learnt how to pick locks at eight years old,
A lost boy in the body of a girl, skin of a thistle, no ****
Purple and armoured
A chameleon soul, belonging to no one
No compass due north, a ***** needle
She said; 'Baby, you're like cyanide, and I liked you for that.'


I believe in madness
Holding your breath for sixty seconds, because you can
Like a bird flying into a windscreen voluntarily
Throw me into it,
If i'm going, i'm going,
Pull me down harder, bind my ankles to make a tail
Hit me harder, hit me until I find it acceptable to hit back,
No halves, of the halves that halve us in half
I'm all

the greatest lesson i learned concerning life was what Ezra Pound refuted... it came from Tao - and on that 86 bus heading to school i have learned it like an arithmetic rubric - my only lesson came from Tao, all my lessons came from Tao - from a Buddhist revision... the lesson? the only way to aid the world is to let the world forget you, and you in turn forgetting the world be. for that what speaks to the entombed heart, the heart of hearts when the mountain crumbles into rubble, and you're left picking your fancy until the diamond is found among seashells, before you the sea of time gnarling with gnashing of shattered teeth - shoo shoo shoo as if tiresome of the green-bottom flies who's spawn is readied overly... the *******... i can't call them anything respectable in African sensibility... the ******* at the back of the bus and the white harlots too... me in the middle sitting reading a book... Stendhal romanticised me, but Tao taught me reality... i know it wasn't the original Tibetan slit eye, it was Japanese... the only way to help the world is for the world to forget you and you forget the world... which i relearned reading Heidegger, who suggested i should be transparent in engaging with the world through concern (being there, or dasein), even a Heidegger apologetic in me turned into Ronin - Asiatic apathy is courtesy, European apathy is simply impoliteness - the latter has too many ****** expressions - i summarise my life with the anonymous Taoist monk who said these words... anti-celebrity culture, they burn like fire in my mind - they burn like fire in my mind - they are my mind - but i had to show him the European verbiage and the ferns of European thought to prove him right, and i did. Heidegger's concern became the ***** Berufung, soon the concern fizzled and was masked by wife and children - but better a Heidegger apology than a Christian one - what meditation can a crown of myrrh provide while being crucified? none! the Rastafarians keep singing about Babylon... the tree wise men came from that region... so the fourth magician... the four horsemen of the apocalypse? Melchior, Caspar, Balthazar, Jesus  it's still a profanity of the tetragrammaton - four horsemen, four canonical gospels... and that ***** that's Gematria - the undermining of all serious study - you can keep those Rabbis in the museum with Grecian  marbles to collect dust, as i mention Tolstoy and that passage from war & peace: pierre bezukhov - the freemason friend (chapter 13) - l'empereur Napoléon  (666) - l'empereur Alexandre - la nation russe - comte Pierre Bésouhoff - sub z for s (Chiral Gemini) - + de und le - le russe bésuhof = 671 - omitting e (incorrectly) - l'Russe Bésuhof - BINGO! - the orthographic gag - most Anglo never heard of such graphic, having never made auxiliary use of it - but i stick to the lesson in Tao - the world does not recognise me as acting in its fate, and will not remember me as even the hushed - i rather not remember it in whatever guise it might provide for me - the first lesson in Tao, is the last lesson in Tao - Stendhal might have taught me romanticism of the ideal heart of woman - but that one maxim of Tao taught me how to not hunger for women, as if i were the Paraclete - perhaps what Christianity wished for was a placebo of the Paraclete - given that so many already believed the other figure being extinguished in the wake of the 20th century - but in talk of religion, such is the limited vocabulary, and such the impossible task ahead, in that grand masquerade of identifying all with one, and one with all:
as an atom:
                                       omni
                          
                  omni           mono         omni

                                       omni                                  or

(around me everything, i must concentrate on myself)

                                                        ­      nihil

                                         nihil             omni          nihil

                                            ­                  nihil  

(around me nothing, therefore i must encompass it all)

whatever the answer, i sought, and found mine,
it was in Tao, and nowhere else.*

there's never a talk of transparency
in politics - politics isn't
about transparency - it's about
the vaguest and the foggiest -
you all should know this by now -
but ado with George Orwell's double-think,
or simply doppelgläuben -
you believe to disbelieve - that's what the
doppelgläuben does - if religion be the ******
of the masses, then engaging the masses with
politics is engaging them with
hell-raisers - diluted alcohol from 40 to 15%.
no wonder they're ******-off being prescribed
status quo placebos;
politics was never about transparency, all those
near the pigsty troughs know the motto:
you scratch my back, i scratch yours.
the electorate think this applies to them
also true between their daily squabbles, but it doesn't.
doppelgläuben: you believe to disbelieve;
and of course we want objectivity, we want
cages after all... Darwinism is perfect for
an objective expression, which is why poetry
is sidelined as Loser St. -
we all want perfect abs and the opportunity to
sell yogurt rather than Mongolian Yurts
in swimwear shorts... but how long will this
Siberian talk of rationality serve the mammalian heart?
how long will objectivity given Darwinism seem
sensible to keep? are we at the butchers' or
reflecting on life? raw meat, maggoty meat, well done?
we all know that the majority of us are losers,
but drilling this in will never allow us to
speak objectively... well, it will... like in Munich,
an 18 year old lashing out from what he heard
his father being called: Scheiße Auslander -
this is the rational benefit of objectivity so keenly expressed
in argument - which is why so many people have
turned to poetry, but they don't yet see that
the ****** was worn for much too long -
and given democracy, they get lost in the whirlwind
of so many people feeling the same.
hence? Tao lesson no. 1 - aid the world by the world
forgetting you... and you in turn forgetting the world
so the world can be best aided, and you kept free
without minding the c.c.t.v.

I washed my hair for the first time in three weeks and
learned to stop walking on tiptoes
                I am the bitter taste at the back of your throat.
Some nights, I turn on every light in the house and sit awake picking skin
from my chapped lips
               I am full-circle and puncture wounds.
I wanted to be the girl to wear her heart on her sleeve but
my armband was embroidered with a *******

I was misinformed. Romanticised.
There isn't romance in 4am shudders, in skin stuck to the teal sofa or the sweat between my
shoulder blades. In yellow stained fingers nicotine or black stained lungs tar.
For protection, I tried pouring a ring of salt - and found myself
sitting cross-legged on the floor
rubbing salt into my wounds
           No ritual can protect me from myself.

Decoupled from my conscience of subjective discernment
The necessity for personal authority over impulse
Vs an instantly gratifying road to distraction
Journey of wilful blindness
Consequential destination deferred
But upon arrival lies the choices
To decouple, To adjourn
Or to confront the demons towards which my back I have turned
Self-romanticised truths to whom before I have spoken
Yet despite a colourful history our personal promises lay broken
Under the rug
Etched into the bottom of a bottle
A chasing of tails
Ignorance long forgotten
A cycle indeed
But of downward trajectory
Gratefully, the bottom of which yet to be met by me
But somehow graced by others
With stronger character than I
A slippery *****
An exponential decent
Over which I now maintain a watchful eye

I can’t remember when
I last wrote a poem with a pen
Writing once romanticised
now has been exorcised

From touching tablets or touching keys
magically
words begin
appearing on a screen

Organised as I wish
edits in an instant
easily erased
replaced or placed elsewhere on the page

A literary light show
based on binary play
then sent off to cyberspace
until another day

To me she is a name and an image,
the moral to my good intentions,
A face to a feeling of my own invention.
She's a lingering lie in the back of my mind.

Fingers and lips stand highlighted
as ghost-like etchings in my abbreviated memory.
Romanticised moments of your hip-bones tremoring
on Winter nights, alone and together in the dark.

Our long lasting days in-doors
played out like "the way things ought to be",
with the most perfect view of the movie
through faded strands of hair

These days, your girls make you up unfamiliar,
Indian ink applied over the original sketch,
the shivering girl brought down to match,
a floating feather dipped in black and
made part of a Hot Topic handbag.

And even now I wonder if the dripping wet girl
with the stiff shutter smile
ever even existed, at least,
the drunken emo kid staggering on the cobbles whispers rumours
she was mown down by telltale scripted kisses and silent exchanges.

So she remains a name and an image,
a memorial for better or worse,
an epitaph that eases the hurt,
the difficult first album of my heart

You could say i was weak for telling the truth,
Or naive for letting myself love you.
You could say i was silly to not play it cool,
Or completely pathetic for admitting my weakness was you.

But in the age where being heartless is romanticised,
I wont let my vulnerable honesty be capsized.
For it is exactly what this world needs,
Understanding that unrequited love doesnt have to bring you to your knees.

Don't become calculated like the ones who hurt you before,
For in love it will never last if you have to keep score.
Dont let heartbreak rob you of your openness,  
Here lies youre upmost innocence.

i did always say that perms don’t make good poetry; especially yours because honestly most of the time it was vaguely flat and misshapen. then again that was one of the first things you said to me; ‘in defence of the perm’.

that and a self-inflicted proclamation regarding your narcissistic disposition, so really all the signs were there; it could be compared rather dramatically to a romanticised act of self-harm.

as in, you didn’t really want to be loved or fixed but that didn’t stop me from trying; as in, part of me thought that by stitching up your wounds and healing your scars i could also fix myself.
                                           self-sabotage of the highest degree.
getting tangled up in someone else’s string is a dangerous affair, rarely do you ask permission; you throw yourself into their mess in the tangibly desperate hope that two negatives might make a positive.

that, in between all of the crying and pills and messy ******* filled nights; between the hazy afternoons wrapped up in borrowed sheets and sweat. that somewhere deep within it all there would be a flash of mutual comfort and understanding.

the kind of “let’s be a mess together and try and fix it all” thing that only actually exists in coming of age movies surrounded by cigarette smoke and electric house parties.

it’s a terrifying and debilitating thing to fall in love with the idea of what could have been; their potential. people don’t fall for the extremes and absolutes; they fall in love with the details,

           we lose ourselves and find each other in the details.

you will fall for the way he always licks his bottom lip slightly before he kisses you or the way he is so painfully cynical and innocently hopeful all at once.

it’ll be the small circles he’ll trace along the back of your hand with his thumb and the way that you’ll know you’re getting in too deep but will feel powerless in the face of it all.
so, you lie back like the pavement is sand and he is the waves that crash mercilessly down on you again and again and again.
the tide will change but the bruising will never stop,
his touch,
     his words will never be soft enough, at least not for you.

the next girl that tries; i wish you luck and i promise it’ll be worth it because maybe
perms do make alright poetry after all.

A single sober thought against a scape of memories
To simply wish for stillness upon an ever-moving sea
Silenced for the centuries as for me now to behold
Tempting not to walk away, to bide its time to come

Season only changes face twice for the human mind
Now to guess the use of being born then just to die
Elderly the woodworks, fragile beauty bitter-grown
Such it is the way of man, the seed among the sown

Savour this scarce, small moment
Deep in the wake of a weary-worn world
Silent and long forgotten
My bed underneath a shroud of snow

Cinnamon and broken toys, a songbird out of tune
Easy pride in scarlet dress romanticised to blue
Earnest words, a rarest toil to feed such cynic sight
Raising hope to see despair rewrite the dearest lines

Serenity now roams the sphere as if to call me home
Such yet little precious light, a beacon sight of old
Where the age once had a fright so readily to share
Now every night seems easier with every step to take

Savour this scarce, small moment
Deep in the wake of a weary-worn world
Silent and long forgotten
My bed underneath a shroud of snow

Come now
Enter my room
Take me back into the deep dark
The night unknown
A slave to the sunlight, kin to the moon
Within the cobweb of life all noughts become one

Savour this scarce, small moment
Deep in the wake of a weary-worn world
Silent and long forgotten
My bed underneath a shroud of snow





©2018, Adrian Betz

I look into my life.
It’s distorted,
Curved at the peripheries
‘Till I’m required to squint,
Just to make out the features
Beneath the glass.

In the snow lies dead thought.
Water stagnant,
Green-blue and faded paintwork.
How I ache for that great hand
To lift, shake and cascade me
With memories.

Rain on me my life’s memoirs.
Drown me in snow.
I sit and I wait for when
These monotone streets will
Fan and flame, burst to colour,
Burst to flavour.

My romanticised past,
I marvel at.
Recall each day as a dream,
And each night an excursion
Of wanderlust, innocence
And fair fortune.

For now, I’ll remain here.
These arching walls,
My old translucent prison.
Life in stasis, I’m stubborn
As I avoid career-paths
In my dome,

And wonder when this world
Will begin to feel like home.

You gave your love to the government.
Your liver to the greyhounds
and the squalor you live in.

The Asian district disappoints you
with its inaccessible women
to whom you are flaccid and unlovable.

The pub is full of students,
air humid with *** and youth-
all those impossible frames of reference.

You, proud emblem, are confused by it all.
The drawl of the six o'clock news:
“there is a war at your own front door.”

The Golden Age was taken for granted,
a party spoiled by strangers,
strange music, strange clothes;

the symbols you cannot understand.
Tradition fades to dementia, greyscale,
redundant colour, and jaded patriotism;

you raise the mourning flag alone.
A country died in your lifetime,
your romanticised vision of home.

Who Am I?
A question too romanticised
To have one answer;

Maybe I'm a butterfly,
Spreading my wings
And becoming a metaphor for creativity

Maybe I'm a spirit, a ghost,
Wandering and gliding around
This plane of existence for answers.

Maybe I'm a leaf,
Fallen from a tree.
I glide and glide and I am free!

Or maybe I'm just me.

I'm myself.
And sometimes I write words
And people like them.

I exist,
And sometimes I do things,
And other things happen after that.

Maybe I'm self doubtful,
Maybe I lack a certain narccism,
Maybe I'm missing my confidence.

But to be honest,
When you ask who I am,
I answer:

I am me.

It has been a while indeed.
But not much has changed
Your hair
Your style
Your walk
My feelings.

You were the same.

We walked through the streets of Amsterdam
Inhaled some culture
Exhaled stupid jokes
Reached the heavens and our lowest points.
There was silence in between.

I liked you more when we were quiet.
The amount of things that silence makes you realize
Silence can change your mind.

I thought... I do still like you.
But more in my head than in the flesh.
A week ago, I wanted us to be us;
I wanted one of our 15 hour moments again.
But it's all just a mix of unreal expectations
and highly romanticised thoughts

Snapped myself back to reality
I looked for you.
In my heart
And
you
just
weren't
there.
Emptied by silence.
In a snap of a finger.
You were the same. Everything was.
But suddenly I wasn't.

I realised we've reached the end.
Smiles and awkwardness in between
We bid our last goodbye.

I left you in Amsterdam
I left you in my memory.
On the train to France,
I cried for you one last time.

Romanticised, phantasised, moments and actions
which reality could not hold,
yet, force of desire makes manifest.

Sleepwaking in a walking dream,
as a thousand echoed universes flow by,
each alone, yet glowing in the brilliance
of a million thoughts and feints and
flowing emotions, occupying the fragile mind
from the nothingness held within.

i found that only the mono-phonetic peoples of this earth act like neanderthals did: protectively... implying i had a chance with one of their ****** counterparts... the loss of monotheism in a largely diffused area creates them, they're prone to shouting drunk slogans when watching a football march: with no foreign invasion impeding... to say the basics: that they can't intellectualise drinking is their downfall... drinking is shamanic like eating certain mushroom is: drink is liquidated fungus, it's an implication of all things thriving on the degenerative, to thrive on decomposition... even those championing the psychedelic escape route with the fungus can't see for a miles' worth of **** the potential of liquidating mushrooms / wheat and bottling it... i never expected to say profound things... and even if i did, i wouldn't get a ***** from saying them as those quasis who say profound things and leave me limp-dicked anyway.

a bottle of beer in between glugs of whiskey as they are:
the most refreshing and happy: sunshine down
my throat... and with those words unsaid
but typed: how i too can adopt a sarcasm
for all the woes that un-inebriated
people state, middle-aged and sexually frustrated
from socially-invoked inhibitors concerning image...
sarcasm is all they get back...
it's kinda sad... kinda...
all i'm doing in writing this verse
is an attempt to re-enter the haunting
house of the epic i started
writing two days ago...
    on the principle of ensō i find myself
unable to reenter than narrative,
every time i think about doing so
i think of: inauthentic...
                and it would be,
authenticity and the equivalent of
said once, therefore said properly...
but i wish to: only to erased the (pending)
in the title...
   but then i look at the script and think:
i've moved past this...
    why would i want to turn a river
of yore, into a lake of the now?
then unto man, who unable to coerce the elements
sought a fifth for elemental as too sensory
encapsulation and boundary,
   lightning being the fifth element...
candles v. light-bulbs, right?
       for too long the tetra-said-and-tetra-experienced...
or toward encapsulating man in
     water (creativity)
       and within wind (empty talk)
          as with earth (proverbs)
so too with fire (rhetoric)
                    so too with lightning (genius),
how i wish to have been able to write those
belittling notes down in industrial print
away from what would be considered
mindless sketching: that is why industrialisation
of print has created a medium of uniformity,
but also the Picasso's worth of hand-craftship
in what appeared at Belshazzar's feast in
the invention of late, western origination of graffiti:
******* rebel. can anyone else imagine
saying something like that, instead of asking
us why the flu or the tapeworm exists?
       the re-, the one true unfathomable monstrosity
apart from the logic of moving from point A to
point B... the re-, the one true unfathomable
monstrosity that burdens us all: who are rested...
the repetitive dream when we are instilled into
lying back and unconscious...
   for the blinking of the eye: and what is sight...
     for the first oyster gulped wriggling down
our oesophagus, alive,
    to the second and third, on a date with a lovely
   at Harrods... for all that re- is, without the -s,
it can only be a thing...                        as
thus said: that ancient curse of the vampiric
insatiable thirst to continue: under whatever circumstance,
repeat, replicate... oh the woe of the re-
                         as to be endured, heard, seen, felt, tasted...
with the demagogue all suicides rebel against:
master pro, master pro,
         who ***** his re *****, who ***** his re *****
in all of us: as transcendental genetics might not teach
us... bound to only escape such a formula,
staging ourselves within the groundwork of
the pre formulae; or how i can understand true will,
or the existence of will, as only a suicide might
investigate: to take death into his ***** and say:
for what will continue in me is but mere an apathy
of submission, but if i take death to the dancefloor,
i will truly find death's master: for in old age i will
not find wisdom, but merely the plagiarism of
childhood with less haste: to chase, to hide, to speak...
i find old age as not blessing with that childhood
already was... let me take death to the dancefloor,
on the seabed, in the hands of a hurricane,
         in the sunken sockets of gravity...
       please, here, in the crescendo of what i feel,
rather than in a congregation of mourners who
weep only in the thespian courtesy for others.
suicide? that is what i understand as true will -
              man, bacterium infernum: lost within
a blinking of an eye - within which all fates of things
freeze, undisturbed, as if alive and relentlessly blooming,
for within them an untrodden path and
within them a hand that never endured tilling as
a scythe... of that Edenic hope: to live among
the less mechanised things and in turn be a lessened
replica of that mecha-...           should this be seen
as an encouragement? too long has the asylum been
romanticised...
                    few have ventured to romanticise
the eventuality of Camus' culmination...
of what had to become the *sole question...
          hence the taboos... people demand to think
that certain cognitive states are akin to viral infections...
   as if all those bound to the unexplained are
pulverising leprosy to the general public...
   a common trait, among neanderthals.

here was something addictive about still pretending to be in love with you. It’s like the quotes and sad music started to become a part of me. But, after months of you leaving, I realise I’m not in love with you, I was just in love with the thought of still holding onto you.”
-I don’t know why I romanticised about you leaving me behind. 
(you-were-my-forever)

i want a love that consumes me
fills me up until i'm a punching bag of scattered thoughts
and i keep spluttering and spilling my love in wine glasses
and they're overflowing and i can't stop vomiting your name
i want love to devour me
like the leftover pizza you bought at 4am last night, drunk and lonely and alone
how sad it has become to be drunk and lonely and alone with you
i will become pieces within you because i cannot stop shedding my layers
i want a love that engulfs me
that chews me up like that second stick of bubblegum
and spits me out like mouthwash on an alcoholics tongue, acidic and burning and foreign
your mouth is a gun and my eyes are bloodshot from its metaphors
i have run out of armour
i have run out of armour
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and it is romanticised
but all i know is i want to romanticise all night long with you under my bed covers because you are beautiful
i would say i love you but how mundane
how throw-away those words have became
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and i have run out of armour
how can something that isn't meant to be beautiful look so good?
like a train wreck decorated in fresh flowers; roses and chrysanthemums
a car crash on the side of the road, nobody wants to see but everybody looks
i said i want a love that consumes me
i said i want it to devour me, engulf me whole and then spit me out
i said i'm running out of armour
and maybe if i convince myself it's what i asked for maybe then maybe it starts to look beautiful
drunk and lonely and alone
and i was atop the hill we sat at the first night you ever told me you love me (how throw-away those words have became)
you were brighter than every night light combined, i thought
"love isn't meant to be beautiful," everyone said
"but how? how is sitting here with you and seeing the silhouette of trees across a skyline, a concrete ocean dotted with street lamp stars and the last hours of a wakened society not ******* beautiful?"
drunk and lonely and alone i got it
i am pouring my thoughts into wine glasses and they're overflowing and i keep vomiting
i keep vomiting
i'm not sure if it was the pizza at 4am or you who made me sick
i am waiting for you to spit me out

Inside my little world I try to focus
long enough to look into your eyes
and keep the dearest particles of light,
captured in May,
released in June,
restored in July,
severed in August,
inside.

I cannot remember
the last time I felt
this melancholy.

/

Careless laughter
and needless fantasies
we indulged in,
of spending even more
time than we did,
more than we should,
more than we had,
more more more…
It was never enough.

We’d drown ourselves
in the romanticised idea
of youth
and a lifestyle
better suited for
invisible wanderers
than for kids from the suburbs.

We’d stay out too late
mimicking the artists
who failed to get their pain across,
imagining we understood them.
We’d be up all night
guessing each other’s thoughts
and retelling our life
down from childhood up until then.

Contemplations of jealousy
and assumptions
rooted in instability.
Long walks
through cracked pavement
and jokes to hide
our invalidated pain.

Songs sung out.
Songs screamed out.
Songs of hope.
Songs of loss.
We’d hide ourselves
in music and the arms
of whoever was
conveniently located.

/

And I wouldn’t take any of it back.

It's comforting staying awake in the dead silence of your house at midnight and it's comforting to look at the moon and realize you are not alone but are made of the galaxy and each of the stars above and the great big world of outer space makes up who you are in a romanticised eye

I like knowing that I may be the only one awake in the neighbourhood sometimes and I like daydreaming in complete darkness sometimes and thinking about my future and how life will spill out of the bag whilst all the marbles of possibilities roll everywhere on the tilting table

I like pretending sometimes when the early hours of the day begin that things are different and so are circumstances and the past never happened and it's only the present because it's comforting

Sometimes all we need is comfort.

future is vast expanse of confusing
unknown romanticised nonsense

past is like the dead
we still feel it but it's not there
it fades with clown-like indecency
mocking our misfortune at it turns
and waves goodbye

present is spent in other realms
except the rare flicker
where mind and body reunite
like old friends long missed

intangible, consistent, inconsistent
nonsense is the cruel ticking of time

there is nothing we can hold
in a moment and own
It all escapes us
like helium baloons tugging
from the tiny sticky hands of
small children
floating into the blue sky
never seen again as every moon
and sunrise
although we forget

I read a Thousand love sonnets,
Oh what grandoise thoughts I had of
You Pablo,
Somehow sitting beside an open fire,
Highly romanticised visions
Running through you in
Crystalline clarity of the human heart.
       Oh what wonderous mythic thoughts
I had until I went grocery shopping.
I see you Pablo Neruda in your
Naked truth,
A sun setting fatigue over you,
You scrawling about a list of food,
At first which I thought was the Poem.
     But this could not be the Poem,
Words cannot fluster a man like you,
     I followed for a while ,first in awe,
Then in a sad curiousity.
  What happend to this man
And the allusions of such brilliant
Women in white dresses that must
Dance through his corridors?
      He walks a tired walk,
Slowly approaching another figure.
And there was the plain truth
Of a plain man with the adventurous heart.
    " Did you get the pork chops?"
She asks him in a worn down voice.
    "Yes dear"

And in this stroke of reality
Where dreams come to swift the soul
Away into the portico on some purple
Glazed sunlit dusk,
    Or the woman seeking the warmth
From the benighted snow next to
A porcelain fire which seemingly
Births tiny star like embers that light
The eyes of the lovers,
    I realise that it is the escape that is poetry,
The words are groanings of the deepest
Nature of the person,
    And the truth is not necessary,
For the poem sets us free from what
We all seem to already know.

I heard that pain nourishes courage.
And that romanticised love is cancer.

I hope that this suffocating, consuming  love will devour enough of me.

Will make me sick enough to find the courage. The cure I need.

To fall out of love with you...

Almost entirely,
we smell like lavender
and brush our teeth with honey-baked laughter

I found two magical things this morning, even before breakfast
but this life is not just fire, it’s burning
And my romanticised campground does litter itself with children and lemon balm

With this stress, it's all pulled apart
and the bits forgotten
but it’s okay; I’ll put the pieces into your food
and make sure it’s tasty

For now it’s better to have dreams about rats in the flour
than the nightmares that we used to have

Pshhh
The sound of a beer can opening
The sound my heart has so instinctively learnt to sink to
Perpetually stuck in a loop of drinking and fighting
Romanticised by society
But what is so romantic about falling asleep next to a lover,
a lover who is so in love with the bottle
that he'll take his hands to the fridge before even thinking about touching you