Rumours

Rumours are clouds, so full of rains

from heavens above they fertilise plains.

Rumours are made in river water mills

each turn of the wheel and another one spills.

Rumours grow wings and then they take flight

nocturnal as well so they don't not need no light.

Rumours are echoes that wail in the halls

some say graffiti that are scribbled on walls.

Rumours are goods trains brimming with thought

but sometimes bad news can often be brought.

Rat a tat rumours speak to the sleepers

and when they wake they tell the grim reapers.

Some rumours are known not to be true

oh how we’d act different if only we knew.

Rumours have echoes bouncing like *****

but rarely those juggled eventually falls.

RumuR like this is a spelt palindrome

goes out and comes back but never at home.

Rumours increase and then multiply

but by no calculation could one verify.

Rumours are whispers, Chinese on the vine

though not for 3 monkeys who never drink wine.

Rumours are fables that begin with no end

it’s rare that one hears one which doesn’t offend.

Rumours are stories by authors all gone

when asked of the source they’re always anon.

Rumours are secrets that didn’t survive

they always need someone with which to connive.

Rumours when lost can always be found

a nod and a wink and one ear to the ground.

Priests they hear rumours, often confessed

just say 3 Hail Mary’s and then you are blessed.

A rumour’s a tumour once started it grows

delivered by storks and it reared by the crows.

Rumours have beaks that look like a nose

they start out as sonnets and end up in prose.

A rumour can rhyme and can live in a phone

in a Limerick or haiku it’s never alone.

A rumour can mutter can stammer or stutter

but just like a bread slice it’s nought without butter.

I heard a rumour that my sister was dead

by then she was buried but no family said.

I heard a rumour I was barred from the grave

and security told, that I was a knave.

A rumour that “Plutus” the god of great wealth

from her will, removed me, but I’d prefer health.

But these stories are gossip and some even rumour

and sure what does it matter, I’ve still got my humour.

We had wanted to leave our homes before six in the morning
but left late and lazy at ten or ten-thirty with hurried smirks
and heads turned to the road, West
driving out against the noonward horizon
and visions before us of the great up-and-over

and tired we were already of stiff-armed driving neurotics in Montreal
and monstrous foreheaded yellow bus drivers
ugly children with long middle fingers
and tired we were of breaking and being yelled at by beardless bums
but thought about the beards at home we loved
and gave a smile and a wave nonetheless

Who were sick and tired of driving by nine
but then had four more hours still
with half a tank
then a third of a tank
then a quarter of a tank
then no tank at all
except for the great artillery halt and discovery
of our tyre having only three quarters of its bolts

Saved by the local sobriety
and the mystic conscious kindness of the wise and the elderly
and the strangers: Autoshop Gale with her discount familiar kindness;
Hilda making ready supper and Ray like I’ve known you for years
that offered me tools whose functions I’ve never known
and a handshake goodbye

     and "yes we will say hello to your son in Alberta"
     and "yes we will continue safely"
     and "no you won’t see us in tomorrow’s paper"
     and tired I was of hearing about us in tomorrow’s paper

Who ended up on a road laughing deliverance
in Ralphton, a small town hunting lodge
full of flapjacks and a choir of chainsaws
with cheap tomato juice and eggs
but the four of us ended up paying for eight anyway

and these wooden alley cats were nothing but hounds
and the backwoods is where you’d find a cheap child's banjo
and cheap leather shoes and bear traps and rat traps
and the kinds of things you’d fall into face first

Who sauntered into a cafe in Massey
that just opened up two weeks previous
where the food was warm and made from home
and the owner who swore to high heaven
and piled her Sci-Fi collection to the ceiling
in forms of books and VHS

but Massey herself was drowned in a small town
where there was little history and heavy mist
and the museum was closed for renovations
and the stores were run by diplomats
or sleezebag no-cats
and there was one man who wouldn’t show us a room
because his baby sitter hadn’t come yet
but the babysitter showed up through the backdoor within seconds
though I hadn't seen another face

        and the room was a landfill
        and smelled of stale cat **** anyhow
        and the lobby stacked to the ceiling with empty beer box cans bottles
        and the taps ran cold yellow and hot black through spigots

but we would be staying down the street
at the inn of an East-Indian couple

who’s eyes were not dilated 
and the room smelled
lemon-scented

and kept on driving lovingly without a care in the world
but only one of us had his arms around a girl
and how lonely I felt driving with Jacob
in the fog of the Agawa pass;

following twin red eyes down a steep void mass
where the birch trees have no heads
and the marshes pool under the jagged foothills
that climb from the water above their necks

that form great behemoths
with great voices bellowing and faces chiselled hard looking down
and my own face turned upward toward the rain

Wheels turning on a black asphalt river running uphill around great Superior
that is the ocean that isn’t the ocean but is as big as the sea
and the cloud banks dig deep and terrible walls

and the sky ends five times before night truly falls
and the sun sets slower here than anywhere
but the sky was only two miles high and ten long anyway

The empty train tracks that seldom run
and some rails have been lifted out
with a handful of spikes that now lay dormant

and the hill sides start to resemble *******
or faces or the slow curving back of some great whale

-and those, who were finally stranded at four pumps
with none but the professional Jacob reading great biblical instructions at the nozzle
nowhere at midnight in a town surrounded

by moose roads
                             moose lanes
                                                     moose rivers
and everything mooses

ending up sleeping in the maw of a great white wolf inn
run by Julf or Wolf or John but was German nonetheless

and woke up with radios armed
and arms full
and coffee up to the teeth
with teeth chattering
and I swear to God I saw snowy peaks
but those came to me in waking dream:

"Mountains dressed in white canvas
gowns and me who placed
my hands upon their *******
that filled the sky"

Passing through a buffet of inns and motels
and spending our time unpacking and repacking
and talking about drinking and cheap sandwiches
but me not having a drink in eight days

and in one professional inn we received a professional scamming
and no we would not be staying here again
and what would a trip across the country be like
if there wasn’t one final royal scamming to be had

and dreams start to return to me from years of dreamless sleep:

and I dream of hers back home
and ribbons in a raven black lattice of hair
and Cassadaic exploits with soft but honest words

and being on time with the trains across the plains  
and the moon with a shower of prairie blonde
and one of my father with kind words
and my mother on a bicycle reassuring my every decision

Passing eventually through great plains of vast nothingness
but was disappointed in seeing that I could see
and that the rumours were false
and that nothingness really had a population
and that the great flat land has bumps and curves and etchings and textures too

beautiful bright golden yellow like sprawling fingers
white knuckled ablaze reaching up toward the sun
that in this world had only one sky that lasted a thousand years

and prairie driving lasts no more than a mountain peak
and points of ember that softly sigh with the one breath
of our cars windows that rushes by with gratitude for your smile

And who was caught up with the madness in the air
with big foaming cigarettes in mouths
who dragged and stuffed down those rolling fumes endlessly
while St. Jacob sang at the way stations and billboards and the radio
which was turned off

and me myself and I running our mouth like the coughing engine
chasing a highway babe known as the Lady Valkyrie out from Winnipeg
all the way to Saskatoon driving all day without ever slowing down
and eating up all our gas like pez and finally catching her;

      Valkyrie who taught me to drive fast
      and hovering 175 in slipstreams
      and flowing behind her like a great ghost Cassady ******* in dreamland Nebraska
      only 10 highway crossings counted from home.

Lady Valkyrie who took me West.
Lady Valkyrie who burst my wings into flame as I drew a close with the sun.
Lady Valkyrie who had me howl at slender moon;

     who formed as a snowflake
     in the light on the street
     and was gone by morning
     before I asked her name

and how are we?
and how many?

Even with old Tom devil singing stereo
and riding shotgun the entire trip from day one
singing about his pony, and his own personal flophouse circus,
and what was he building in there?

There is a fair amount of us here in these cars.
Finally at light’s end finding acquiescence in all things
and meeting with her eye one last time; flashed her a wink and there I was, gone.
Down the final highway crossing blowing wind and fancy and mouth puttering off
roaring laughter into the distance like some tremendous Phoenix.

Goodnight Lady Valkyrie.

The evening descends and turns into a sandwich hysteria
as we find ourselves riding between cities of transports
and that one mad man that passed us speeding crazy
and almost hit head-on with Him flowing East

and passed more and more until he was head of the line
but me driving mad lunacy followed his tail to the bumper
passing fifteen trucks total to find our other car
and felt the great turbine pull of acceleration that was not mine

mad-stacked behind two great beasts
and everyone thought us moon-crazy; Biblical Jake
and Mad Hair Me driving a thousand
eschewing great gusts of wind speed flying

Smashing into the great ephedrine sunset haze of Saskatoon
and hungry for food stuffed with the thoughts of bedsheets
off the highway immediately into the rotting liver of dark downtown
but was greeted by an open Hertz garage
with a five-piece fanfare brass barrage
William Tell and a Debussy Reverie
and found our way to bedsheets most comfortably

Driving out of Saskatoon feeling distance behind me.
Finding nothing but the dead and hollow corpses of roadside ventures;

more carcasses than cars
and one as big as a moose
and one as big as a bear
and no hairier

and driving out of sunshine plain reading comic book strip billboards
and trees start to build up momentum
and remembering our secret fungi in the glove compartment
that we drove three thousand kilometres without remembering

and we had a "Jesus Jacob, put it away brother"
and went screaming blinded by smoke and paranoia
and three swerves got us right
and we hugged the holy white line until twilight

And driving until the night again takes me foremast
and knows my secret fear in her *****
as the road turns into a lucid *** black and makes me dizzy
and every shadow is a moose and a wildcat and a billy goat
and some other car

and I find myself driving faster up this great slanderous waterfall until I meet eye
with another at a thousand feet horizontal

then two eyes

then a thousand wide-eyed peaks stretching faces upturned to the celestial black
with clouds laid flat as if some angel were sleeping ******* on a smokestack
and the mountains make themselves clear to me after waiting a lifetime for a glimpse
then they shy away behind some old lamppost and I don’t see them until tomorrow

and even tomorrow brings a greater distance with the sunlight dividing stone like 'The Ancient of Days'
and moving forward puts all into perspective

while false cabins give way
and the gas stations give way
and the last lamppost gives way
and its only distance now that will make you true
and make your peaks come alive

Like a bullrush, great grey slopes leap forth as if branded by fire
then the first peaks take me by surprise
and I’m told that these are nothing but children to their parents
and the roads curve into a gentle valley
and we’re in the feeding zone

behind the gates of some great geological zoo
watching these lumbering beasts
finishing up some great tribal *******
because tomorrow they will be shrunk
and tomorrow ever-after smaller

Nonetheless, breathless in turn I became
it began snowing and the pines took on a different shape
and the mountains became covered white
and great glaciers could be seen creeping
and tourists seen gawking at waterfalls and waterfowls
and fowl play between two stones a thousand miles high

climbing these Jasper slopes flying against wind and stone
and every creak lets out its gentle tone and soft moans
as these tyres rub flat against your back
your ancient skin your rock-hard bones

and this peak is that peak and it’s this one too
and that’s Temple, and that’s Whistler
and that’s Glasgow and that’s Whistler again
and those are the Three Sisters with ******* ablaze

and soft glowing haze your sun sets again among your peaks
and we wonder how all these caves formed
and marvelled at what the flood brought to your feet
as roads lay wasted by the roadside

in the epiphany of 3:00am realizing
that great Alta's straights and highway crossings
are formed in torturous mess from mines of 'Mt. Bleed'
and broken ribs and liver of crushed mountain passes
and the grey stones taxidermied and peeled off
and laid flat painted black and yellow;
the highways built from the insides
of the mountain shells

Who gave a “What now. New-Brunswick?”

and a “What now, Quebec, and Ontario, and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan";
**** fools clumsily dancing in the valleys; then the rolling hills; then the sea that was a lake
then the prairies and not yet the mountains;

running naked in formation with me at the lead
and running naked giving the finger to the moon
and the contrails, and every passing blur on the highway
dodging rocks, and sandbars
and the watchful eye of Mr. and Mrs. Law
and holes dug-up by prairie dogs
and watching with no music
as the family caravans drove on by

but drove off laughing every time until two got anxious for bed and slowed behind
while the rambling Jacob and I had to wait in the half-moon spectacle
of a black-tongue asphalt side-road hacking darts and watching for grizzlies
for the other two to finish up with their birthday *** exploits
though it was nobodies birthday

and then a timezone was between us
 and they were in the distant future
and nobodies birthday was in an hour from now

then everything was good
and everyone was satiated
then everything was a different time again
and I was running on no sleep or a lot of it
leaping backward in time every so often
like gaining a new day but losing space on the surface of your eye

but I stared up through curtains of starlight to mother moon
and wondered if you also stared
and was dumbfounded by the majesty of it all

and only one Caribou was seen the entire trip
and only one live animal, and some forsaken deer
and only a snake or a lonesome caterpillar could be seen crossing such highway straights
but the water more refreshing and brighter than steel
and glittered as if it were hiding some celestial gem
and great ravines and valleys flowed between everything
and I saw in my own eye prehistoric beasts roaming catastrophe upon these plains
but the peaks grew ever higher and I left the ground behind

I burdened you, did I not?
Told you things I thought you'd hear,
In the wind, in whispers from the woods
Nobody told you, but I did.
Vaguely I burdened you.

And you were lonely, I tell you so much,
In ways I don't fathom, shallow diving me.
Weird fishes nibble bones, weird stories take your love for me,
Rumours, rumours, grow like weeds,
Weeds, weeds grow as bushes between us.

So we sit on lawns of cut relationships,
Each blade a sharp reminder,
Of friends we never made,
We grew, didn't we? Like stalks of flowers that never dreamt of being trees,
But sometimes,
I see the yellow of your kiss across the garden hedge.
We never bore such fruit apart.

So sitting, so kneeling,
So waiting till time makes us desperate enough to try again,
I move pragmatic pieces, and play games that think of you
I spell your name, in footsteps I take in the wrong direction,
But it's only wrong to you,
We're only wrong for each other,
Why should that mean we can't love?
Why does that mean we don't talk?

Not through rumours.

There was a moment when he knew he had to make a decision.

He had left London that February evening on the ****** Velo Train to the South West. As the two hour journey got underway darkness had descended quickly; it was soon only his reflected face he could see in the window. He’d been rehearsing most of the afternoon so it was only now he could take out the manuscript book, its pages full of working notes on the piece he was to play the following afternoon. His I-Mind implant could have stored these but he chose to circumvent this thought-transcribing technology; there was still the physical trace on the cream-coloured paper with his mother’s propelling pencil that forever conjured up his journey from the teenage composer to the jazz musician he now was. This thought surrounded him with a certain warmth on this Friday evening train full of those returning to their country homes and distant families.

It was a difficulty he had sensed from the moment he perceived a distant gap in the flow of information streaming onto the mind page

At the outset the Mind Notation project had seemed harmless, playful in fact. He allowed himself to enter into the early experiments because he knew and trusted the research team. He got paid handsomely for his time, and later for his performance work.  It was a valuable complement to his ill-paid day-to-day work as a jazz pianist constantly touring the clubs, making occasional festival appearances with is quintet, hawking his recordings around small labels, and always ‘being available’. Mind Notation was something quite outside that traditional scene. In short periods it would have a relentless intensity about it, but it was hard to dismiss because he soon realised he had been hard-wired to different persona. Over a period of several years he was now dealing with four separate I-Mind folders, four distinct musical identities.

Tomorrow he would pull out the latest manifestation of a composer whose creative mind he had known for 10 years, playing the experimental edge of his music whilst still at college. There had been others since, but J was different, and so consistent. J never interfered; there were never decisive interventions, only an explicit confidence in his ability to interpret J’s music. There had been occasional discussion, but always loose; over coffee, a walk to a restaurant; never in the lab or at rehearsals.

In performance (and particularly when J was present) J’s own mind-thought was so rich, so wide-ranging it could have been drug-induced. Every musical inference was surrounded by such intensity and power he had had to learn to ride on it as he imagined a surfer would ride on a powerful wave. She was always there - embedded in everything J seemed to think about, everything J projected. He wondered how J could live with what seemed to him to be an obsession. Perhaps this was love, and so what he played was love like a wilderness river flowing endlessly across the mind-page.

J seemed careful when he was with her. J tried hard not to let his attentiveness, this gaze of love, allow others to enter the public folders of his I-Mind space (so full of images of her and the sounds of her light, entrancing voice). But he knew, he knew when he glanced at them together in darkened concert halls, her hand on J’s left arm stroking, gently stroking, that J’s most brilliant and affecting music flowed from this source.

He could feel the pattern of his breathing change, he shifted himself in his chair, the keyboard swam under his gaze, he was playing fast and light, playing arpeggios like falling water, a waterfall of notes, cascades of extended tonalities falling into the darkness beyond his left hand, but there it was, in twenty seconds he would have to*

It had begun quite accidentally with a lab experiment. J had for some years been researching the telematics of composing and performing by encapsulating the physical musical score onto a computer screen. The ‘moist media’ of telematics offered the performer different views of a composition, and not just the end result but the journey taken to obtain that result. From there to an interest in neuroscience had been a small step. J persuaded him to visit the lab to experience playing a duet with his own brain waves.

Wearing a sensor cap he had allowed his brainwaves to be transmitted through a BCMI to a synthesiser – as he played the piano. After a few hours he realised he could control the resultant sounds. In fact, he could control them very well. He had played with computer interaction before, but there was always a preparatory stage, hours of designing and programming, then the inevitable critical feedback of the recording or glitch in performance. He soon realised he had no patience for it and so relied on a programmer, a sonic artist as assistant, as collaborator when circumstances required it.

When J’s colleagues developed an ‘app’ for the I-Mind it meant he could receive J’s instant thoughts, but thoughts translated into virtual ‘active’ music notation, a notation that flowed across the screen of his inner eye. It was astonishing; more astonishing because J didn’t have to be physically there for it to happen: he could record I-Mind files of his thought compositions.

The reference pre-score at the top of the mind page was gradually enlarging to a point where pitches were just visible and this gap, a gap with no stave, a gap of silence, a gap with no action, a gap with repeat signs was probably 30 seconds away

In the early days (was it really just 10 years ago?) the music was delivered to him embedded in a network of experiences, locations, spiritual and philosophical ideas. J had found ways to extend the idea of the notated score to allow the performer to explore the very thoughts and techniques that made each piece – usually complete hidden from the performer. He would assemble groups of miniatures lasting no more than a couple of minutes each, each miniature carrying, as J had once told him, ‘one thought and one thought only’.  But this description only referred to the musical material because each piece was loaded with a web of associations. From the outset the music employed scales and tonalities so far away from the conventions of jazz that when he played and then extended the pieces it seemed like he was visiting a different universe; though surprisingly he had little trouble working these new and different patterns of pitches into his fingers. It was uncanny the ‘fit’.

Along with the music there was always rich, often startling images she conjured up for J’s compositions. At the beginning of their association J initiated these. He had been long been seeking ways to integrate the visual image with musical discourse. After toying with the idea of devising his own images for music he conceived the notion of computer animation of textile layers. J had discovered and then encouraged the work and vision of a young woman on the brink of what was to become recognised as a major talent. When he could he supported her artistically, revelling in the keenness of her observation of the natural world and her ability to complement what J conceived. He became her lover and she his muse; he remodelled his life and his work around her, her life and her work.

When performing the most complex of music it always seemed to him that the relative time of music and the clock time of reality met in strange conjunctions of stasis. Quite suddenly clock time became suspended and musical time enveloped reality. He found he could be thinking something quite differently from what he was playing.

Further projects followed, and as they did he realised a change had begun to occur in J’s creative rationale. He seemed to adopt different personae. Outwardly he was J. Inside his musical thought he began to invent other composers, musical avatars, complete minds with different musical and personal histories that he imagined making new work.

J had manipulated him into working on a new project that had appeared to be by a composer completely unknown to him. L was Canadian, a composer who had conceived a score that adhered to the DOGME movie production manifesto, but translated into music. The composition, the visuals, the text, the technological environment and the performance had to be conceived in realtime and in one location. A live performance meant a live ‘making’, and this meant he became involved in all aspects of the production. It became a popular and celebrated festival event with each production captured in its entirety and presented in multi-dimensional strands on the web. The viewer / listener became an editor able to move between the simultaneous creative activity, weaving his or her own ‘cut’ like some art house computer game. L never appeared in person at these ‘remakings’, but via a computer link. It was only after half a dozen performances that the thought entered his mind that L was possibly not a 24-year-old woman from Toronto complete with a lively Facebook persona.

Then, with the I-Mind, he woke up to the fact that J had already prepared musical scenarios that could take immediate advantage of this technology. A BBC Promenade Concert commission for a work for piano and orchestra provided an opportunity. J somehow persuaded Tom Service the Proms supremo to programme this new work as a collaborative composition by a team created specially for the premiere. J hid inside this team and devised a fresh persona. He also hid his new I-Mind technology from public view. The orchestra was to be self-directed but featured section leaders who, as established colleagues of J’s had already experienced his work and, sworn to secrecy, agreed to the I-Mind implant.

After the premiere there were rumours about how the extraordinary synchronicities in the play of musical sections had been achieved and there was much critical debate. J immediately withdrew the score to the BBC’s consternation. A minion in the contracts department had a most uncomfortable meeting with Mr Service and the Controller of Radio 3.

With the end of this phrase he would hit the gap  . . . what was he to do? Simply lift his hands from the keyboard? Wait for some sign from the I-Mind system to intervene? His audience might applaud thinking the piece finished? Would the immersive visuals with its  18.1 Surround Sound continue on the five screens or simply disappear?

His hands left the keyboard. The screens went white except for the two repeats signs in red facing one another. Then in the blank bar letter-by-letter this short text appeared . . .


Here Silence gathers
thoughts of you

Letters shall never
spell your grace

No melody could
describe your face

No rhythm dance
the way you move

Only Silence can
express my love

ever yours ever
yours ever yours


He then realised what the date was . . . and slowly let his hands fall to his lap.

NOTE TO THE READER – Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically this febrile fable...

Some pearls may be found wanting – unwanted or unwonted – piled or hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy...

The threads of this untethered tissue may be fastened, or be forgotten, or else be stranded by the readers and left unravelling in the knotted corners of their minds...

'twill be perchance that some may  laugh or loll in loopy stitches, else be torn or ripped apart, while others might just simply say “ ’tis made of hole cloth”, “sew what” or “cant seam to get the needle point”...,

yes, a proper disentanglement may take you for a spin on twisted twines of any strings you feel might need attaching or detaching…

picking knits, some may think that
       such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land’,
       such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land’’,
       such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land’’…

and this may all be true, if credence be dis-carded…

such is that gooey gossamer which vails the human mind...

and thus was born the teasing title of this fabricated Fantasy...

                                NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
with feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre’s sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he’s flown and perched upon a mast
atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
and all the while with bitter smile he’s watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday’s celebs,
we scrape and *****, we seldom hope - he watches while we ebb:

The ***** grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
he quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
“You’ve tried and toyed, but can’t avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
it’s sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons”.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
and Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
and gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid *** shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
a painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy)’s on her way
to tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
and indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
to any guy who’s passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
with flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a ****** titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.

The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A *** called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with ****.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbrue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.

The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.

Old Dan, he’s drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain and flailing in the flood
and no god’s there inclined to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.

Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
she casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
then stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
the stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

So Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood cling, splattered on the spire;
though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
with child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
in limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
and all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
but Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire,
but near the nave or gravelled grave, there is no Rectifier.”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
of ****** tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
while poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.

A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.

A beggar clump beside a dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.

Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With no excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eyes despair behind the stare, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how the world will end -
to die alone on empty throne and other Fates impend.

And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and ****** features drawn,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
- like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon -
with twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.

A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.

A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.
His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,
he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,
the sheriff and his squad at hand are laughing in the yard.

Now Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
the boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams abound with screams. Bob knows he needs to hurry.
It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry;
he chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.

Per protocols near ivied walls arrayed in sage festoons,
the Countess quips, while giving tips, to crimson caped buffoons:
“To rise from mass to upper class, like twirly bird tycoons,
you stretch the treat you always eat, with tiny tablespoons”

A learned leach begins to teach (with songs upon a liar):
“Within the thrall of Satan’s call to yield to dim desire
lie wicked lies that tantalize the flesh and blood Vampire;
abiding souls with self-control in everyday Hellfire
will rest assured, when once interred, in afterlife’s Empire”.
These words reweave the make believe, while slugs in salt expire,
baptised in tears and rampant fears, all mirrored in the mire.

It’s getting hot on private yachts, though far from desert plains -
“Well, come to think, we’ll have a drink”, Sir Captain Hook ordains.
Beyond the blame and pit of shame, outside the Walled domains,
they pet their pups and raise their cups, take sips of pale champagnes
to touch the tips of languid lips with pearls of purple rains.

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’)”

Arrayed in shawls with crystal *****, and gazing at the moons,
wiled women tease with melodies and spooky loony tunes
while making toasts to holey ghosts on rainy day lagoons:
“Well, here’s to you and others too, embedded in the dunes,
avoid the stares, avoid the snares, avoid the veiled typhoons
and fend your way as every day, ’gainst heavy heeled dragoons.”

The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.

While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”

With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.

The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches after while”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.

The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
(“the last are first, the rich are cursed” - the leached remain the least)
with crossing signs and ****** wines and consecrated yeast.
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and, bored, he nods to Eden East
but doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.

The sinking sun’s at last undone, the sky glows faintly red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites on foggy nights and days like crystalline.
A migrant feeds on gnats and weeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

The circus gongs excite the throngs in nighttime Never Land –
they swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
while Acrobats step pitapat across the shifting sands
and Lady Fat adores her cat and oozes charm unplanned.
The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the band,
ask crimson Clowns with painted frowns, to lend a mutant hand,
while Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
lure minds entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
White Elephants in big-top tents sell black tusk contraband
to Sycophants in regiments who overflow the stands,
but No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonely Crowd disbands,
down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their threadbare rags in strands,
and Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.

The Monk of Mock has fled the flock caught knocking up a tween.
(She brought to light the special rite he sought to leave unseen.)
With profaned eyes they agonise, their souls no more serene
and at the shrine the flutes of wine are filled with kerosene
by men unkempt who once had dreamt but now can dream no more
except when bellowed bellies belch an ever growing roar,
which churns the seas and whips a breeze that mercy can’t ignore,
and in the night, though filled with fright, they try to end the War.

The slow and quick are hurling bricks and fight with clubs of rage
to break the chains and cleanse the stains of life within a cage,
but yield to stings of armoured things that crush in every age.

At crack of dawn, a broken pawn, in pools of blood and fire,
attends the wounds, in blood festooned (the waves flow nigh and nigher),
while ghetto towns are burning down (the flames grow high and higher);
and in their wake, a golden snake is rising from the pyre.
Her knees are bare, consumed in prayer, applauded by the Friar,
and soon it’s clear the end is near - while magpie birds conspire,
the lowly worm is made to squirm while dangling from a wire.

The line was crossed, the battle lost, the losers can’t deny,
the residues are far and few, though smoke pervades the sky.
The cool wind’s cruel, a cutting tool, the vanquished ask it “Why?”,
and bittersweet, from  Easy Street, the Pashas’ puffed reply:
“The rules are set, so don’t forget, the rabble will comply;
the grapes of wrath may make you laugh, the day you are to die.”

The down and out, they knock about beneath the barren skies
where homeward bound, without a sound, a ravaged raven flies.
Beyond the Walls, the morning calls the newborn sun to rise,
and Peter Pan, a broken man, inclines his head and cries...

A small silver moon
Glimpses and flickers through the swaying treetops
Shadows take me to one side
And whisper rumours in my ear
Thorns rip the skin
And draw blood
For the rumours are about me
Again

                    By Phil Roberts

Snake tounges rattled and hissed words of poison mechanically,
With green-eyed monsters lurking beneath their skin,
Circling the rumours of suspicion onto those of white blood,
Like a frightened rabbit in deaths doorway to car headlights fell.
The slithering tale encapsulating innocent yet friendly ears,
Smearing their venom amongst those of lowered fighters hands,
Trickling down the innocent white hart's hands,
As though regarding herself as this murderess.

Flight of fear, fighting the dark, losing, chocking, drowning,
Yet tales of talk were not in vain, but yet they failed once again,
Smearing that of lies over white walls, black onto red,
Trapping the rabbit in the snare, as though to **** it in the shell.
My friend, would you tell the old lie? To children so high,
To fall so low, by that of snakes and their hungry green-eyes.

Ironic it was for such Hero's Song
To be played on a Mattress we call the Sea
Just when your Daughter cried for your Belong
We need to Sing again; Then Pray haply
For the many Noble Deeds you left behind
Despite this Age of the Pork Barrel's Tune
Such Rumours unfound; And Profile a Lie
Which most in our Office hoarded our Boon
Live well Beyond, Great Sir! I take to Vow
Your Aubourn Treatment to our Country's Hope
Guide your Duty's Heirs; And Family enow
And bring this Rosary blessed by your Pope.
The Song is Sung, even on Deaf Concerns
I guess it's quite Young for People to Learn.

I don't **** with no rumours
I know your the truth
Trusted everything you told me
Believe it all to be true
I ain't me without you
And that **** ain't nothing new
So i don't **** with know rumours
Won't believe what they say about you

There's a candle burning nightly
In the window, on the right
The house has long been empty
But, the candle's there each night
The house in old and ancient
I'm sure it has tales it needs to tell
Like, why the candle's burning
And why the house won't sell

The candle shows up daily
As soon as dusk begins to fall
The drapes are drawn so closely
In each room along the hall
But, in that lonely window
Burns a candle all can see
It's been burning there each evening
Since nineteen forty three

They say the house is haunted
After all, the candle is a clue
Someone lights it nightly
The question asked is who?
The house has been abandoned
No one lives there any more
They say the last survivor
Left in nineteen forty four

The story is as follows
If I get my rumours straight
The house was built around
The year eighteen eighty eight
The family that did own it
When the candle came to light
Were wealthy, and reclusive
And they all kept out of sight

The story goes, their oldest son
Signed up and went to war
He was a pilot in the air force
He shot down 15 planes or more
He was shot down on a mission
But  his plane was never found
They never found the wreckage
Where it crashed into the ground

The candle started burning
The day the message came
It's always burning in the window
It's always lit, it's all the same
The candle shows when it is dusk
It goes out just past three
No one knows who lights it
There's no one there to see

Is the candle lit by spirits
Waiting for a missing son
Is it lit to help pass over
To make his journey done
No one knows the exact story
If the plane crashed and he died
But, even in the daylight
People don't pass by on this side

The house is an enigma
Is a ghost there waiting for
A son to come home to them
Marching through the old front door
All I know is that the candle
Has been lit for 60 years
And there's a ghost up there just waiting
Crying quiet , ghostly tears

You’re a poisoned rose in a wedding band,
A glad eye with a stabbing hand,
A tumour ,vicious rumour surrounds you,
BP Exxon -death abounds you,
I first found you amusing and witty,
cutting remarks a stick with both ends ******-

Gutter scumbag with a glaze of charm,
Only interested in doing harm,
A sociopath with a crocodile smile,
always had the last laugh,- real fight? Run a mile,
Backstabber Judas priest,but **** was I deceived,
Each Lie you sold I truly believed.

I stood by you ,defended you til the bitter end,
Bitter irony I know,with you as a friend,
Who the **** needs enemies, its all a front,
An affront to my instincts,get out of my life you ****.

chorus

"My toxic friend this is the end get out of my life for good,
Every time you smile a child dies you’re up to no good,
Don’t call me-text me unfriend me before you end me,
You’re the epitome of the new word-Frenemy."

Now I hear you’re spreading rumours behind my back,
Bad move,wrong play better stand back,
Your malicious manouevery no longer stands,
I’m two steps ahead your end is planned.

You better watch your back,you’ve got no back up and no spine,
Juggling hedgehog maze lies through a field of land mines,
I’ve got my eye on you ex pal,don’t worry your time’s come,
we’ll see who can outrun the .45 from a gun,
That you’ve been begging for for years no tears at your end,
You’re a poxy oxymoron my toxic friend.

So come out to play my way and see who draws first,
I guarantee you a surprise not my blood burst,
Flying in the air like a hose god only knows,
You’re a fly in my eye a burr under my skin so out she goes,
The left that hits your jaw will saw your head from your neck
You talk a good fight,good night,I’ll leave ya wrecked.

chorus

"My toxic friend this is the end get out of my life for good,
Every time you smile an angel loses wings you’re no good,
Don’t call me-text me unfriend me before you end me,
You’re the epitome of the new word-Frenemy."

A small silver moon
Glimpses and flickers through the swaying treetops
Shadows take me to one side
And whisper rumours in my ear
Thorns rip the skin
And draw blood
For the rumours are about me
Again

                    By Phil Roberts

The rumours,
Consume my confidence,
And my faith,
Collapses,
Along with my reasons,
To live

Allah was his ears
As sounds unlawful, unethical it never heard.
Secrets, gossips and rumours were also barred.
It buzzed with words of Quran day and night
Always Open to sounds just and upright.

Allah was his eyes
As it looked parents, orphans and needy with love
Brimmed with tears thinking of Almighty above
It never despised his brother and from lust it was freed.
Gold and silver had no worth and had no signs of greed.

Allah was his hands
As it stopped things reprehensible with force
In Allah's cause spent abundantly his resource
It caressed the head of an orphan in affection.
Time and again meekly raised it in supplication.

Allah was his feet
As it never moved towards things which Allah hate
Avoided walking arrogantly with a strutting gait
It always ran to help downtrodden, oppressed.
For knowledge for light it was on constant quest.

He had mountains of obligatory good deeds
He had mountains of non-obligatory good deeds
His protector was Allah The Almighty
His enemy was enemy of Allah The Almighty
He was beloved of Allah
He was friend of Allah
He was Wali of Allah
He was Waliullah.

Could someone point the way
to salvation please or even
just a full night's sleep,
without being bone-tired?
Kind people, could you
please tell me
a way to feel again?
If not, could you just
tell me how to trust again?

You see, as of now,
I'm in this ugly space where nothing is
non-existent and something is just a warning
that I am going to be doing something
irredeemably dumb.

Did you hear, kind madam, that yesterday
a girl, barely four months old,
was killed because she was lesser?
Did you know that her older brother
burnt her hand intentionally, and her
father only laughed? Her mother
killed herself, you know.

Rumours say, her mother-in-law hated her
and after the girl was born, she only hated
the woman more. The father, as rumours go,
made her sleep on the floor in the kitchen,
after she birthed a female. The mother hated
the girl so much, but she knew the greatest
punishment would be to make the little girl
live out her life with her father and brother.

The mother couldn't tolerate looking after the
little girl any more, they whisper, let alone,
look at her every day to see a sign of her failure

The police verified the woman died due to rat poison.
Whether she drank freely or due to someone else's
Persuasion and other such insignificant details have
been carefully lost and burnt. The little girl, with no
One to look after her, died. Markings that suspiciously
looked like hands were found around her neck.  
They covered it with a dear little scarf and ignored it.

.with rob zombie's: ***** liquor in the background,
a man perched on windowsill,
              one foot tapping along,
                                 the other foot folded
and sat on...

    come to think of it,
                 why am i not bothered,
   not bothered by the neighbours?
well, one ****** tried it,
complained about me smoking out
of my window,
   and that one time i was making a b.b.q.
and he said: 'you should have warned
us!'               the ****?
            all beause he had been doing
his washing and was drying his clothes
on a washing line, 20 metres from my b.b.q.,
and now they're moving house.

the english,
     they always want a house with a garden...
in the vicinity?
    you know how many times i've
seen the english use their gardens?
              roughly 5 times per year...
they rarely even attempt to switch
the garden to a ******* venture when
the one toilet is occupied by someone
taking a shower...
                      for all the wants of a garden,
i haven't seen anyone around here
take to planting a cherry tree,
            or burrying their cremated cat...
i guess i must be the odd one out...
            i mean: i'll integrate up to a point,
but then... well there's just me,
               rumours...
rumours...
      apparently donald tusk got
the job as the president of the european
council, because he mingled
   with frau kanzler
   over the position...
                     **** me...
        27 prime ministers,
    but only 1 chancellor...
                  who said the stereotype
of jews being good with money,
never made it to the stereotype of germans?
   the rumour is...
   he got the job...
       only because his father was
in the wehrmacht...
             after all, he did write
a bestseller book about the city of Danzig...
no surprise there,
  given that Danzig was reminiscent
of a city-state akin to Athens or Sparta...
mind you, better than any movie
on a friday night,
   tuning in on the 66th minute
of Liverpool vs. Southampton...
                waiting for the 1 - 1 draw...
but the genius of jürgen jürgen (klopp)
came through...
                     funny that,
people with funny surnames...
             dialect distinctions...
      klop in western slavic implies
the ******* - ide na klopa -
      i'm going to sit on a toilet...
            ****** must have been a funny surname
before its notorious prominence...
but rarely do you get to see 28 minutes
of a football match of this sort of quality...
    wolverhampton wanderers...
they're playing a very interesting piece
of football this season...
very portugese barzilian-esque...
      everybody knows that
        italian football is boring
  (too many passes),
   and german football is just too predictable...
but how the hell did Liverpool
come up with 2 goals in a period of 28 minutes...
mind-boggling...
       i'm always there for the sport per se,
i don't really feel inclined
to have a vested interest in the sport
as to pick a side,
               what once was
          religion, now becomes infused
in sports... seriously...
  count me out of this secular take
on religiosity...
            i'll pay my dues: were deserved
dues are due...
                   that's probably i much
prefer the olympics to this coming farce
of a world cup...
   how many footballers are going
to drop dead, from heat exhaustion?
we must thank our camel cockey bwovers
for cracking up the heat
          in air-conditioned stadiums...
once upon a time, the arabs had,
enviable traits...
   now? with all that wealth?
                                         take a guess;
if muhammad was raised from
the dead?
                     you'd see a forest
of pikes, on top would sit, decapitated heads
of his own people...
         but that's a wild idea,
perhaps even he, couldn't avoid
the temptation;
nonetheless, is it wrong to say that some
sports are over-represented?
   well, d'uh!
                 olympics comes,
and i always look forward to classical
wrestling matches,
    archery,
                             ha ha... ping-pong...
sure... none of the tennis allure...
  but it's a welcome break from
mainstream sports...
                                 and this whole
team religiosity influence...
                  that **** bores me to death...
clearly religion didn't die,
it just morphed...
                oh, really? it's that time of year?
the one time of the year
where i become a gambler?
   what? it's the quiche thing to do
in england, a bit like sipping
                 pimm's and eating eaton mess
at wimbledon...
       the grand national...
   betting on a horse...
                     and just to prove i'm no
gambler - why would i dream about
going to las vegas?
                   that shitshow of a town?
all the best strip-clubs in the world:
but no brothel.
      eh?!
                 tiger roll (7 to 2)
is attempting to make history,
     by clinging to: two years in a row...
i only have 4 quid to spend on the bet...
   so 2 horses...
               2 quid each...
                         hmm...
                      'further rain would help
him to step forward'
             i checked the weather forecast
(the grand national happens somewhere
south of liverpool, i think)
                     rainy...
overcast...     step back (25 to 1)...
                         now a compensation
horse...
                          i'll need a few more whiskies
before i make this blind bet lucky hope...

i'm not betting on tiger roll (7 to 2) -
the odds are not wildcard enough...

mind you, not being a gambling *****:
i do know that rolling tobacco
needs to be fresh,
   slightly moist, in order to roll it,
you can still roll the dry tobacco,
but then you'd also require
obc cigarette tubes,
         and one of those "gizmos" /
machines, to pull off
             a perfect match...
no in a millions years will you get
out a perfect rollie
with dry, pall mall tobacco...
when no golden virginia is available...
point: but you're also
not going to **** dry the filter
with dry tobacco...
harder to roll,
               but an easier smoke...

anyway...
   back to the grand national...
look, i'm no dustin hoffman
rainman hack...
         i felt like ******* away
4 quid's worth on an event, sue me...

   1             up for review (25 - 1)
         'could relish this test;
      must be a contender'

2a            folsom blue  (50 - 1)
          'mud-lover; stays well
   but at veteran stage'

2b           general principle (40 - 1)
     'best not ignore this irish
national winner'

3            ramses de telilee   (25 - 1)
             'welsh national second;
               stays well and improving'

4   ballyoptic    (28 - 1)
   'scottish national second;
                   cannot rule out'

  5a       mala beach (50 - 1)
               'fresh; could suit;
              a lively outsider'

    5b go conquer      (33 - 1)
         'bids to give his trainer
a third national'

      5c     lake view lad      (14 - 1)
             'improving steadily and
this trip should suit'

   5d jury duty    (16 - 1)
     'should relish this trip.
         could get a positive verdict'

6 vieux lion rouge             (33 - 1)
     'has tried three times in
this; fourth time lucky?'

   7       bless the wings                (66 - 1)
              'would be the oldest winner
       since 1853'

so...
      gambling, fascinating,
   how there's no objectivity argument,
and all the sort of superstitions associated
with it... a truly, magnanimous,
secular age...
   football as a religion,
   gambling on horses as the trials
of fate / luck / whatever belief...

       truly... gratifying...
   and i don't imply that in any pompous
sense, i'm about to invest 4 quid
in the whole affair!

   my pick?
              step back 25 to 1 odds
first choice...
   so it's either between
the mud-lover folsom blue... 50 to 1 odds,
ah... i'll need more wizard like
uncertainty when it comes
to gambling,
repeating to myself:
   there's no such thing as luck,
there's no such thing as luck,
gambling is only subjective,
gambling is the reiteration
of a religious experience,
        it's the sensible option,
it's the sensible option, ****...
i'll just split the 4 quid over 4 horses
rather than bet 2 quid on 2...

per quid:
                      step back
                      jury duty
                      up for review
                      go conquer / folsom blue

****...
                   no wonder i never got
into gambling...
         i never fathomed the aspect
of winning
as much as i never fathomed
the aspect of losing,
   or how they're paired up
     and consecrated on the same
altar of, "thrill"...

    that cut               /
betweeen
       go conquer  and folsom blue...

horses have the oddest names...
          dogs?
                 probably the shittest names
in the whole of the kingdom...
oscar darshan...
                            quorus...
these being cat names...
                                           go figure.

She was just another schoolgirl

Dreams of marriage and of kids

She had devoted parents

They loved everything she did

Nothing could deter her

from the choice that she had made

Turning seventeen, she left her home

in Forest Glade

Moving north to Epsilon

She chose another route

She would be a dancer

Taking money from the suits

She started slow in Epsilon

A club girl from the start

She had a phony i.d

But she sure could play the part

Was she a dancer or an actress

Seems she was one and the same

She chose to go as Crystal

Though that wasn't her real name

She danced a bit and moved around

The lifestyle she liked

She was dancing up in Buffalo

When she met a guy named Mike

They dated and got married

Soon a kid was on the way

When he found out she was pregnant

He packed up and moved away

She was nineteen and without a chance

To get a better life

Who would want a dancer

With a kid to be his wife?

Nobody that she knew

That would be for sure

And just like the little girl she was

She always wanted more

She had her son, named Ferguson

She then enrolled in school

She was gonna be a big thing

She would not be no ones fool

She chose to keep on dancing

Working late nights, dancing hard

Saving up her money

So she'd get her son a yard

She was still a little girl deep down

She still had real big dreams

She didn't want the normal life

She wanted the extremes

She was a dancer, mother, daughter and

A sutdent every day

She had to keep them separate

Had to keep her lives at bay

She'd many personalities

Depending on her place

She handled each role expertly

With poise and with such grace

By day she was a mother

And a student on the side

She did both of them expertly

And she showed off both with pride

At night she was a dancer

Schoolgirl, teacher, and much more

She would be a patrons fantasy

But she hid down in her core

The little girl she really was

Stayed deep and far from them

She was also now an actress

Dancing, doing things for men

At night when she was finished

She would go home to her boy

She would bend and kiss him as he slept

For he was her pride and joy

She'd then go hit the shower

Washing all their dreams away

She would wash away their kisses

She would make herself okay

Each night she'd play another role

To keep the men entranced

She would change her look up daily

As on the stage she pranced

They'd pay her for her company

And they'd worship all she did

But, all she ever thought about

Was something better for her kid

She finished school in record time

A manager she'd be

She took a four year course

And she finsihed it in three

She didn't have the money

To quite make her dreams come true

But, she now had a diploma

And inside, her pride just grew

She was now a feature dancer

She was the top of mens desires

But the job was getting weary

In fact, our girl was tired

She had her different roles to play

Still mother, daughter, and

At night a dancer actress

In an pornographic land

She'd go home every night and see

Her son there in his bed

She'd go and have her shower

And she'd kiss him on his head

She'd wash away the garbage

Wash away her hidden life

Once again she thought of

Being a mother and a wife

Normalcy, would not be hers

She'd have to move along

She'd done well for her young boy

She had not done too much wrong

A new life far from Buffalo

Would be the thing to do

She's now a mother and a daughter

And she might live next to you

She broke the chains that bound her

Used her dancing to improve

Made herself much stronger

And she then did up and move

Now she doesn't go home late at night

To wash away the grime

She can go home and go out to play

To give her son some time

The sad fact is there's lots of girls

But not as strong as her

They do not escape the dancing

When they end up, no one's sure

But Crystal, she's a hero

For she made herself move on

She's a mother, actress, daughter

with a super cool young son

Where she went I don't know where

But, she ended up on top

Ther rumours were she married

In fact they said that he's a cop

they say that she's still out working

In the clubs, out with the girls

But she's no longer a dancer

She's out showing them the world

She's helping them get into school

They confess to her their sins

She knows of what they talk about

For she's been just where they've been

She doesn't go by Crystal

She now goes by her real name

But, she might just live next door to you

And to tell would be a shame.

Antimatter mirroring our existance on the pathway of a reverse world
Imagine it, time stands still, halts without a will to  continue its flow if it were to possess one to begin with, and everything is but fragile,
Illusionary moon, shine on in this distorted realm in which not even gravity is reliable or even trustworthy at this point, up is down here,
An imperishable night caught under a spell of eternity, uninterrupted
Everlasting, permanently shining, the fake moons appearance is clear,
Unremitting, sweetly told as a if it was a lie, the rumours of this world spread more likely like a disease through the ancient, young earth,
A line parallel drawn to ours, a dimension coexisting without sense,
It appears to be fragile, like a newborn child, the smallest disturbance would mostlikely ruin it's balance, bring tremor upon it wretchedly,
But where that life sparkles as then fades, two dimensions surely would overlap, of course, maybe it will be the world you inhabit, no?
In the realm of the dead, a loitering, lingering darkness thins the borders of reality and illusion, causing them to exist as one, now with the same heart and soul, a fantasy heaven which became reality,
After all, that place is only temporary,one surely could even call it a;
Short living eternity,

~ Umi

Rumours cause fires

He said she said this and that
I say nothing I'm no scardy cat
Words from fools jealousy disease
While pretty birds sing high up in the trees
People are stupid must wear proper clothes
Animals behave better never predmeditate crimes to cause woes
I worked hard now nothing left not even one dollar
All I had been stolen so some ******* can enjoy what I bought as I get hot under the collar
Maybe I will catch on fire
Funny how people love to be liars

A delicious little bakery
is only down our street
the smell of baking bread
well.. it really is a treat

It is run by Mrs ******
she is just so very charming
but she is a little clumsy
it's really quite alarming

You see,
she does her best to make the cakes
and bake such tasty bread
but the currants just go everywhere
and in the pies instead

And in the Cornish pasties
there is very often nuts
and in the fruit pie filling
bacon and beef cuts

But she seems to be quite fancy
well there has been many rumours
of her and the deliveryman
well... she flashes him her bloomers

But she really is so charming
poor soul.. she has the worst mishaps
like when she inadvertently
displayed her finest baps

And no one will forget
when in came a group of nuns
all asking some tea cakes
but out popped her Chelsea buns

But she really is a riot
you can't help but love her so
she give you all you ask for
in a bargain box 'to go'

And she takes care of her customers
and gives out treats to sample
you'll never go home hungry
you'll end up with quite a armful

So if you get a moment
take a stroll just down our street
to Mrs ******'s bakery
she really is a treat.

Its the perfect costume for a superhero goddess, and it makes her feel invincible; fishnet stockings, blazing red bra, heroine hotpants and the clincher; kitten heels.

Bunny can take on the world, now, appropriately dressed. She's got superpowers, alright, the doom-dogs seem to think so, and they're running scared.

Those rumours, that they trade and use and barter, of baby bunny's beautiful mouth, sloe doe eyes, and inexhaustible tongue. It's been said that she can bring an evil tyrant to his knees as she sinks down to her own, it's been said, she's good and bad, so very bad, so very, very good...

But, listen!

*** bunny's been given a new mission; There's a new and timely terror, and the doom-dogs are, of course, the evil source; find and *******, *** bunny, the formidable phallus of doom.

Only you, ***** tawny Queen of Dawn are up to the task. Don your whiskered mask, wriggle your nose once, twice, yummy bunny, and fly, fly! Find the phallus, save the world.

It's your destiny.
You were born to blow the horn for cosmic ****.

Mading relieves Manute from guard duty.
They share a meagre meal of millet porridge before
Manute returns to the refugee nation of southern Sudan.
The noon sun is a harsh sentence for a parched tongue but
they talk not of coffee or juice-laden fruit and
rice and lentils are mountain memories their stomachs can ill afford.
Instead they curse the clear skies that rain only strafing jets and
pray for their dry-breasted wives on pilgrimage to the aid station
carrying children swollen with the promise of death.
They snarl rumours about al-Bashir’s lapdogs
in Khartoum growing fat on food intended for them.

Jason waits, informed by cell phone of Laurie's imminent arrival.
He orders a wheat beer, its earth tone inviting on a silver tray and
its musky sweetness washing away a morning of phone business.
The noon sun is a warm blessing through the picture window but
they talk not of haloed hills or the light-laden river and
recession and retrenchment are market memories their ulcers can ill afford.
Instead they debate '63 cabernet versus '74 chablis and
moan about their reconstructed wives driving halfway across town
carrying children swollen with the promise of private schooling.
They snarl rumours about Key's cabinet
in Wellington while wolfing crayfish and Steak Diane.

Near in the distance stood an ant on a chair.
Smooth but spiky skin with a flock of golden hair.
The ants name was Brian and his mum was the queen.
She drank lots of ***** in the largest nest ever seen.
Brian bucked the trend and turned to magic on the street.
Slight of hand his favourite or should I say 6 feet?
back to the story,
Brian was on a chair
Just about to remove it and levitate in the air!
The trick of a all tricks He hoped to be a star.
Make lots of money and travel wide and far!
The chair was removed and Brian floated high. No strings attached going upwards to the sky!!
Not a place for ants and this trick he did not tweak for Brian was last seen in a big birds beak.
The rumours quickly spread when attached to a tree twig was Brian's golden wig.

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

      Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep--the men I loved. I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made,--
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more--but let what will be, be,
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm
That without help I cannot last till morn.
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm
Rose up from out the ***** of the lake,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
Holding the sword--and how I row'd across
And took it, and have worn it, like a king:
And, wheresoever I am sung or told
In aftertime, this also shall be known:
But now delay not: take Excalibur,
And fling him far into the middle mere:
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word."

      To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:
"It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm.
A little thing may harm a wounded man.
Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word."

      So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake.

      There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon,
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth work
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood,
This way and that dividing the swift mind,
In act to throw: but at the last it seem'd
Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd
There in the many-knotted water-flags,
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.
So strode he back slow to the wounded King.

      Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?"

      And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag."

      To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:
"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name,
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight:
For surer sign had follow'd, either hand,
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.
This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word."

      Then went Sir Bedivere the second time
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,
Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought;
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote
His palms together, and he cried aloud,

      "And if indeed I cast the brand away,
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,
Should thus be lost forever from the earth,
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.
What good should follow this, if this were done?
What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey,
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand
An act unprofitable, against himself?
The King is sick, and knows not what he does.
What record, or what relic of my lord
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath
And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept,
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,
Some one might show it at a joust of arms,
Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake;
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.'
So might some old man speak in the aftertime
To all the people, winning reverence.
But now much honour and much fame were lost."

      So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,
And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded King.

      Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:
"What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?"

      And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"I heard the water lapping on the crag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds."

      To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:
"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye
That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art,
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,
In whom should meet the offices of all,
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence:
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,
I will arise and slay thee with my hands."

      Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword,
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the northern sea.
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur:
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.
And lightly went the other to the King.

      Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:
"Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?"

      And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men,
So great a miracle as yonder hilt.
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;
But when I look'd again, behold an arm,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere."

      And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:
"My end draws nigh; 't is time that I were gone.
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die."

      So saying, from the pavement he half rose,
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears,
And would have spoken, but he found not words,
Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs.

      But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard,
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, "Quick, quick!
I fear it is too late, and I shall die."
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd
Larger than human on the frozen hills.
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad.
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves
And barren chasms, and all to left and right
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels--
And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon.

      Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
Beneath them; and descending they were ware
That all the decks were dense with stately forms
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream--by these
Three Queens with crowns of gold--and from them rose
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars,
And, as it were one voice, an agony
Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
Or hath come, since the making of the world.

      Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge,"
And to the barge they came. There those three Queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
But she that rose the tallest of them all
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands,
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud
And dropping bitter tears against his brow
Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white
And colourless, and like the wither'd moon
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls--
That made his forehead like a rising sun
High from the dais-throne--were parch'd with dust;
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
So like a shatter'd column lay the King;
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

      Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:
"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight.
Such times have been not since the light that led
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.
But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world;
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."

      And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge:
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest--if indeed I go--
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."

      So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.

I didn't write this one. Its actually part of spoken poetry lyrics .. im sharing it because I feel like start to finish I can relate to every word, every feeling.  I consider myself the girl behind the mask



The girl behind the mask doesnt understand the beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and it doesnt matter how many times I have told her she still relies on the opinions of people of who dont realize that what they see as shy is in fact the feeling of lonley,
The feeling of whatever she does Is not quite good enough, the feeling of constantly disappointing the people closest who only want to see her happy,
But instead they have to watch the detoeratation and can do nothing.  They hope and pray that one day the girl behind the mask will finally say with content and honesty to herself "IM HAPPY "
I can put these feelings of no self worth on the shelf and live on, build up my life and repair myself from the past, 
And can finally say to myself that at last " IVE DONE IT"

I've beat the demons inside my soul, the demons that made my thoughts and life cold,
The ones that made me contemplate my life, my confidence,  my existence and my future,  made me feel hurt that cant be fixed with a suture,

The girl behind the mask doesnt see that her strength shines so much brighter, you see the girl behind the mask doesnt know what she is capable of, it's as if how blind to how happy she makes everyone, she puts a smile on a face of the person feeling down, shes blind to the fact that she can turn a sad day around, and make people smile from ear to ear,
But when she takes off the mask she's filled with nothing but fear,  fear of what the next day brings her, as if she's waiting for her sentence and there's nothing but rumours being spread around about her.

The girl behind the masks is the definition of beauty , the meaning of strength, she needs to know thats its the duty, of everyone who cares to help in the fight, to make her realize that her life is her life, to understand that there is nothing to be afraid of, she has family and friends that will show  depression what they are made of,


The girl behind the mask needs to lift her head up and open her eyes and realize  that she'll never be alone and as much as she may feel it, the pain she is feeling now.... happiness will heal it


So be strong and proud of the person you are because with strength and power the end of these feeling isn't far, and you can smile,dance, and sing  live thr life that u were deprived from, the life you have not yet felt..  the life u lived contemplating overdose or the rope. The feeling of eating was hell, the life u lived where everything goes wrong you will be free from all the anxiety and pain

Look at yourself in the mirror and  say these words to your self, "why  am I letting this control me, look at your beauty. As hard as it seems you need to smile.  Its your duty,  then see your pain as a emotional journey, 

Remember certainly there is a destination waiting for u to be happy at last..  but please be strong stay strong the girl behind the mask