My Second Letter to Allen Ginsberg
Dear Allen,
Almost five years ago, I wrote you a letter, and in
That letter, I purged my drunkenly woeful cries
That seem so first-world now and naïve –
The things I grimed over with luxuries I didn’t
Realize that rubbed against my plump limbs
Like millions of felines poised at the
Tombs of pharaohs.

Oh, Allen, I’m so tired –
These politics, and poly ticks, so many ticks that
Annoy my tics. Allen! I smear your name so liberally
Against this paper like primer because the easiest way
To coerce someone into listening to you like
A mother
or predator
tugging or nibbling on your ear –
Swatches of velvet scalped from a ****’s coat
Are you and I talking to ourselves again?
Candid insanity : Smoky hesitance.

Dear Allen, I’m so tired –
Yes, I love wearing my ovaries on the outside like
Some Amazonian soapbox gem glistening from beneath
The iron boots of what the newspapers tell me while
I cough at them with the hurdled delicacies of alphabet soup.
Give vegetables a gender and call them onions, Allen.
Sullied scratch-hicks pinioned feet from slapping
Society’s last rung on the ladder.
Ignore the swerve of small-town eyes.
Scapulas, stirrups, pap smears, and cervical mucus – now do you know who we are?

That fingernail clipped too short, Allen. We’ve all got AIDs
And AIDs babies, haven’t you heard? Hemorrhaging from the political
****** and out – they haven’t reached the heart.  
Since when have old white men given a **** about some
13 year old’s birth control? I’m riding on the waves of the
Parachute game and I swear this abortion-issue is just a veil outside Tuskegee University
Being further shove over plaintive eyes, swollen and black.
Pay up and
shut up.

I still remember my first broken *****, Allen.
Can you tell me all about your first time?
The vasodilatation that made veins rub against skin,
Delirious brilliance : unfathomable electricity.
I made love during an LSD experience, Allen,
And I am not sorry. I see cosmic visions and
Manifest universal vibrations as if this entire world is
A dish reverberating with textiles and marbles, and
All are plundering the depths of the finished wine
Bottle roasting in the sink like Thanksgiving Turkey.
The patience is in the living. Time opens out to you.
The opening, between you and you, occupied,
zoned for an encounter,
given the histories of you and you—
And always, who is this you?
The start of you, each day,
a presence already—
Hey, you!

Ah, Allen, if you are not safe, then I am not safe.
And where is the safest place when that place
Must be someplace other than in the body?
Am I talking to myself again?
You are not sick, you are injured—
you ache for the rest of life.

Why is it that I have to explain to my students that
sometimes what I'm spouting is prescribed by a pedagogical pharmacy --
but all they want to know is "what do the symbols on the television mean?"
I am completely aghast against the ghosts of future goners --
I am legitimately licensed to speak, write, listen like some mothers --
I am constantly cajoling the complex creations blamed on burned-out educators --
I am following the flagrant, fired-up "*******"s tagging lockers --
Pay up and
shut up.

Yes, and it’s Hopeless. Allen.
Where did we get off leaping and bounding into
The dogpile for chump change jurisdiction, policing
The right and the left for inherent hypocrisies when
Poets are so frightful to turn that introspective judgment
Upon ourselves?
We didn’t see it coming and I heard the flies, Allen.
Mean crocodile tears. Flamingo mascara tracks
Up and down : up and down: bow – bow – bow – bow
Buoyant amongst the misguided ******* floating around
In the swirlpool of lackadaisical introspection.
What good is vague vocab within poetry?
Absolutely none.
Would you leave the porchlight on tonight?
Absolutely, baby.

Dear Allen, would you grow amongst the roots and dirt
At the knuckles of a slackjawed brush of Ever-Pondering Questions
Only to ask them time-and-time-and-time-and-time-again.
Or pinch your forehead with burrowed, furrowed concentration upon those
Feeble branches of progression towards something that recedes further
And further with as much promise as the loving hand
Attempts to guide a lover to the bed?

Allen, I wish to see this world feelingly through the vibrations of billions of bodies, rocking and sobbing, plotting and gnashing like the movement of a million snakes, like the curves collecting and riding the parachute-veil.

Ah, Allen! Say it ain’t so! Sanctified swerve town eyes.
And everything is melting while poets take the weather
Too personally
And all the Holden Caulfields of the world read all the
*******’s written on the walls and all the Invisible Men
Eat Yams and all the Zampanos are blind and blind
And blind and blind and blind and blind
Yet see as much as Gloucester, as much as Homer,
As much as Oedipus.

Oh, Allen, do you see this world feelingly
and wander around the desert?
Colored marbles vibrating on the curtailed parachute paradox.
Lamentation of a small town’s onion. Little do we know, Allen,
That what you cannot see, we cannot see, and we are bubbling
Over in the animal soup of the proud yet weary. I can see,
However, how the peeled back skulls of a million
Workboots and paystubs may never sully the burden
Of an existential angst in miniscule amounts.
Pay up and
shut up.  

My dearest Allen, there is always a question of how
The cigarettes became besmirched with wax to complement
What was once grass, and
What was once a garish night drenching doorknobs.
The night's yawn absorbs you as you lie down at the wrong angle
To the sun ready already to let go of your hand
As you stepped, quivering, on to
The shores of Lethe.

why did i ever go out on a friday night?
drinks with "friends" and hitting the essex
club "scene" -
well - no much of a scene -
there was never the music you'd want to listen
to: come friday or saturday -
even mid-week when all the rock kids
were "hanging out" -
what would be chances of being your own d.j. -
catching something really new...
POIZON - church is poizon -
cool mom - something between a crossbreed
of cage the elephants and nirvana on blew -
3rd view - moi -
but i used to: and i remember that gehenna of
a sobering walk - alone after a night out -
like some furious son of sam -
when youth still had the adrenaline with it
and a sense of anger ******* around with
disillusionment -

those were the friday nights: bon jovi highlights
and long hair and milking a somewhat androgynous
look - sometimes the mascara would come out...
those were the days of having milk skin
and a proper shave -
the long hair and the waistcoast and cravat: semi-,

the lonesome story before i met my beard:
fwyday mordaithceirch -
i actually have a name for it...
i forgot what's already the designated
whittle pecker mr. pritchard of the down down:
below...

oh, oh so what...
rough friday nights in my youth -
on the clubbing "scene" -
and always that moral hangover when it came
to drinking with others -
ever since i started drinking by myself:
i forgot the mirror and that bucket
of warm water beside my bed to put my hand
in before going to sleep...
once or twice the company was worth the drink -
but most of the time you only kept
such company: because you were drinking -
drinking was never an afterthought -

now... i like drinking alone -
at least i can keep fact-checking the company
and the odd vocab peacock taking to the catwalk
of a ruminating free-fall tongue waggle
and rummage - the needle in the haystack
adventure - or... the ******* bucket
of deshelled oysters...

there have been some awful friday nights -
but: seeing how i started to give my beard
a welsh name borrowed from a willem dafoe
novel - and how it simply became pointless
to wake the dead with the angry tantrums
of youth: and how i seem to have
forgotten where my 20s "went" -
somehow rooted in: da-sein and how
i "wasted" 2 years on one book by kant -
2 years on one book by heidegger -
and: how i didn't have the time to "catch-up"
on the greek classics -

oh these island dwelling people -
i try to imagine them not being a seafaring:
and their messiah / superiority complex -
with their breakfast that could hardly
be digested come the hour of noon -
or no messiah / superiority complex -
the traffic: indeed - works like clockword...
from left to right...
sidenote: what of fahrenheit and
the feet and inches - stones and pounds?
ounces?
the metric of: baseline 0 here,
baseline 00 over there...

no... Michele Campanella piano solo take
on wagner's das rheingelt: entry of the gods into
valhalla - it's hardly anemic -
it's... the last leaf of autumn falling -
because the crescendo has already happened...
a befitting closure...

the superior island folk and their...
hyphens and germanic loan words -
how almost all names in chemistry are still
in their germanic: intact form of: no hyphen:
broken leg or broken arm...

woodwinds... perhaps... the violins providing
the humming of birds:
chirp chirp: no chirping -
and of course the horn - but the horns never
as prominent as those drank from...

something has happened today -
but i am... left without having any english
sensibility / egalitarianism -
somehow i always equate egalitarianism with
the english - the islanders -
a firework went off in the background -
mr. sloth awoke mrs. slouch after 3 years
for a firecracker celebration...

because who would want to be ruled
over by unelected: chocolatiers...
esp. after their trial run in the Congo -
but i have certainly had worse friday nights...

it can't exactly get much worse than...
say... listening to the siegfried idyll...
multitasking: drinking a cider, smoking a cigarette,
balancing act of folded leg sat on
perched on a windowsill solving a no. 11,289
sudoku from the 27th jan. 2020...
otherwise prior to:
imagine my disbelief at the pleasure -

with numbers to somehow escape thinking in words:
no grand arithmetic linear gymnastics -
of the end result -
certainly no logical statements -
just a whirlwind of numbers complimenting
these few words...
and what a fine friday night it has become:

the pizza was made - god save me from the perfume
of yeast... or checking on the rising dough
from time to time -
the leftover yeast gave me the opportunity
to bake an imitation sourdough crust pretty-as-a-picture
loaf that: would make any mushroom blush
and shy away from unfolding into an umbrella pose...
or a Y... curling outward-inward into an upsilon Υ...

because how could i forget the pleasure of
sifting through numbers?
by the time i attempted puzzle no. 11,290
i had to write a "map"

           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
2)   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x

come to think of it... where's a subscript?
if i'm going to use 1, 2, 3...
to tier the allocation of squares...
tennis and sudoku...
tennis: a game of 7 rectangles -
and how many judges and ball boys / girls?
sudoku - a puzzle of 10 squares - perhaps...
if i'll use tiers 1, 2, 3: a1, b2, c3...
what if... sudoku invoked letters rather than
numbers?

much later... oh believe me...
this is the antithesis of knausgård
writing about using googlemaps...
        
           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   3   x   x   6   x   4
      x   x   x   2   x   4   x   8   9
      x   1   9   x   4   x   x   6   2
2)   x   x   x   7   x   x   x   5   x
      x   x   2   x   x   8   x   4   x
      x   2   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   6   1   9   5   x   x   3
      x   3   8   4   x   x   x   7   x

it's still a schematic - the narrative is yet
to begin... otherwise...
there's nothing smart about this...
i have tired eyes sometimes:
i succumb and have to allow myself
to no acid-bath these eyes in words...

esp. since i speak so rarely -
imagine... in england and i spear
the bare minimum of english -
i can: i have to: i will - when being prompted -
but i can't remember the last time
i had an honest: informal exchange
of letters... lapped up by the glutton
tongue... i looked and looked
and with my silence i can attest:
there's a speech-impediment -
a stutter that's not born from nervousness...
but... an allusion to a "stoic" through
my lack of conversation...

at least on paper i can exfoliate -
enough cider and enoug whiskey and i'm all
sparrow McDermott!
ugh... the devolved scots and the likewise
welsh... devolved nations...
only this aspect of Brexit is... well...
imagine the "evolved" status of post-Yugoslavia...
Kosovo...
this is the only aspect of an otherwise:
fair enough that's... well...
if you lived for 3 years among the scots...
you'd get to appreciate them...
this is the only aspect of this whole affair
i will ever appreciate...
i would pour blood and **** into
the Welsh continuing their...
preservation of the iaith...
forever and the more - i would love to see
scotland start to dig trenches and
forget trainspotting gaelic -
parading like ponces and humpty dumpteys
with "harkccents"... glasgewian bull-runnings...
cousins aye and wee -

a thing of beauty: a thing of union...
but this... they were bullied in brussels...
they came back and started to bully the scots...
if you have lived -
the betas of cardiff - but they tongue: remains!
look far back and wales would encompass
cornwall -
ignorant i of a 26 year "servitude" on these isles...
quiz me on outside of London:
no point...
perhaps i too would wish for the lost
theta in Dublin - towing: to t'ink...
as any sanskrit H-surd does matter...

           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   3   x   x   6   x   4
      x   x   x   2   x   4   x   8   9
      x   1   9   x   4   x   x   6   2
2)   x   x   x   7   x   x   x   5   x
      x   x   2   x   x   8   x   4   x
      x   2   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   6   1   9   5   x   x   3
      x   3   8   4   x   x   x   7   x

but if i will replace... the side tiers of numbers...
the numbers in the puzzle will have to become
letters - greek... probably iota, epsilon and upper-case
gamma...

the bullied have returned from the palance
of the chocalatiers and: back to their old ways
of bullying the rest of these island folk...
because: it's infantile for me imagine
a resurrection of the crown (poland)
and the grand duchy of lithuania -
the commonwealth -
but somehow the united kingdom is not
fated to become the next yugoslavia -

i can confirm - up in edinburgh i was
confirmed by having the hat of Knox having
scalped me -
never is always metaphor: vaguely -
as in literally - in these quasi-paragraphs...
so it's not... infantile to even "think" that
the british empire can be revived?
zee window-licker spezials of
cross-breed h'americana postcards sent?
i nibble to attempt a joke...

oh i can bulldozer this whole narrative...
turn into a berserker -
i've saved enough money to deal
with the label loser...
all it will take is me having drunk enough -
sightseeing the slums of london's east end
and then hitting the brothel:
like an iron-head... to the pillow
and the ***** of a *******...

because i have had worse friday nights...
terrible company...
if i were not a michel de montaigne or a knausgård:
me me me, me me, me me me me,
write enough of that and:
to meme to grafitti... or to...
why are there no diacritical markers in
the english language worthy of recognition?
why would i...
rhoi fy **** y Cymraeg enw?
give my beard a welsh name?
and why is that not a cedilla C but a ******* K?
why not... Çumraeg?

on foreign shores i have made it adamant that...
this sense of foreigness does not
peppermint my presence with hopes to:
add to - an integration -
just borrow what the local have made: left-overs...
and work with that...

(insert snigger) - the neu-vikings of
northumberland...

           a             b             c
      x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x   x  
1)   x   x   x   3   x   x   6   x   4
      x   x   x   2   x   4   x   8   9
      x   1   9   x   4   x   x   6   2
2)   x   x   x   7   x   x   x   5   x
      x   x   2   x   x   8   x   4   x
      x   2   x   x   x   x   x   x   x
3)   x   x   6   1   9   5   x   x   3
      x   3   8   4   x   x   x   7   x

this really does have a linear narrative...
here goes...
3(c1), 9(c3), 1(c1), 2(c3), 2(c1), 2(a1), 9(a3), 8(c3),
4(c3), 8(c2), 8(a2), 5(b2), 7(c2), 3(b2), 3(b3), 8(b3),
7(c1), 5(c1), 7(b3), 5(c3), 1(c3), 6(c3), 1(c2), 3(c2),
9(c2), 9(b2), 6(b1), 6(b2), 6(b3), 2(b3), 2(b2), 1(b2),
1(b1), 9(b1), 9(a1), 8(b1), 8(a1), 5(b1), 7(b1), 7(a1)...

and then a "gamble" in the narrative...
the (7a2 and the 5a2 - interchange)....
it's a pleasure - not a chore -
5  9  4
2  8  7
3  6  1
8  1  9
6  4  3
7  5  2 - this line... what if it was 5  7  2?
1  2  5
4  7  6
9  3  8
if i want to solve this puzzle - i will solve it
and not read a tabloid article /
whatever the hell has become of youtube...
my diamond jukebox...

otherwise the "narrative" continued from
7a2 and the 5a2 interchange:
7(3a), 4(a3), 4(a2), 6(a1), 4(a1), 5(a1), 5(a3),
1(a3), 1(a1), 3(a1), 3(a2), 6(a2)... end result?

           a             b             c
      5   9   4   6   8   1   2   3   7  
1)   2   8   7   3   5   9   6   1   4
      3   6   1   2   7   4   5   8   9
      8   1   9   5   4   3   7   6   2
2)   6   4   3   7   1   2   9   5   8
      7   5   2   9   6   8   3   4   1
      1   2   5   8   3   7   4   9   6
3)   4   7   6   1   9   5   8   2   3
      9   3   8   4   2   6   1   7   5

because i can imagine this not being:
the most difficult Finnish sudoku...
i can almost imagine this puzzle
to be in greek...
where: 1ι, 2ζ, 3ε, 4χ, 5Σ, 6δ, 7Γ, 8β, 9ρ...

in the background all i hear is:
corvus corax' la i mbealtaine...
the greek version of the japanese puzzle...

           a             b             c
      Σ   9   χ   6   8   ι   ζ   ε   7  
1)   ζ   8   7   ε   Σ   9   6   ι   χ
      ε   6   ι   ζ   7   χ   Σ   8   9
      8   ι   9   Σ   χ   ε   7   6   ζ
2)   6   χ   ε   7   ι   ζ   9   Σ   8
      7   Σ   ζ   9   6   8   ε   χ   ι
      ι   ζ   Σ   8   ε   7   χ   9   6
3)   χ   7   6   ι   9   Σ   8   ζ   ε
      9   ε   8   χ   ζ   6   ι   7   Σ

half-way... i just wanted to "selfie" what
will become of this... i no longer write: i paint...

            a             b             c
      Σ   9   χ   δ   8   ι   ζ   ε   Γ  
1)   ζ   8   Γ   ε   Σ   9   δ   ι   χ
      ε   δ   ι   ζ   Γ   χ   Σ   8   9
      8   ι   9   Σ   χ   ε   Γ   δ   ζ
2)   δ   χ   ε   Γ   ι   ζ   9   Σ   8
      Γ   Σ   ζ   9   δ   8   ε   χ   ι
      ι   ζ   Σ   8   ε   Γ   χ   9   δ
3)   χ   Γ   δ   ι   9   Σ   8   ζ   ε
      9   ε   8   χ   ζ   δ   ι   Γ   Σ

going... going... gone...

            a             b             c
      Σ   ρ   χ   δ   β   ι   ζ   ε   Γ  
1)   ζ   β   Γ   ε   Σ   ρ   δ   ι   χ
      ε   δ   ι   ζ   Γ   χ   Σ   β   ρ
      β   ι   ρ   Σ   χ   ε   Γ   δ   ζ
2)   δ   χ   ε   Γ   ι   ζ   ρ   Σ   β
      Γ   Σ   ζ   ρ   δ   β   ε   χ   ι
      ι   ζ   Σ   β   ε   Γ   χ   ρ   δ
3)   χ   Γ   δ   ι   ρ   Σ   β   ζ   ε
      ρ   ε   β   χ   ζ   δ   ι   Γ   Σ

i don't mind a people being right...
but the overt-gloating...
without having to work around the sort
of paranoia associated with:
how the russians are not allowed to glutton
themselves on gloating -
because they are always made
to feel suspcious - the russians can't gloat
like most of the anglo- speaking world...
always suspect: russophobia evil genuises...
tip-toeing goliaths - less the blundering
fudge-packers of "global ****"...
and i kissed a boy and i liked it...
my genitals started shrinking
and my *** started to exfoliate with:
welcome all! welcome all hard and on!
and that tongue in my mouth always helps...
but imagine my surprise when
i started to navigate my hands
but the reply came:
timbuktu and mt. kilimanjaro will not be found
attached to this sort of torso...
wrong dog, wrong tree...

some things really do require numbers...
i once had a mathematics teacher in high school
bemoan the origin of modern numbers
and how we once: upon a time used these letters...
but did our arithmetic with visual aids
akin to the abacus... because...
you'd have to "read braille" when counting...
to differentiate the already: lettered numbers
and the letters being letters -
and all arithmetic functions
were "spoken of" but never depicted...
i.e. there was no VII + III = X...
there was no XV - XI = IV...
eh?! arithmetic was cat-intuitive...
not spoken of - done by either the visual
aid of fingers when haggling
in a market place -
or by the abacus aid in a bureucratic office!

i said this was the most perfect friday night...
what did i have to offer?
no clickbait title - some gems of wording
in between?
the patient reader - as ever - most rewarded -

but... oh my god... the sensation of
changing the bed sheets...
it's friday night and you're... changing your bed sheets...
and they are more crisp and clean
than any political event that the journalist leeches
are milking -
and you do it with a saving private ryan precision -
you will sleep in this bed: well into
11am of a today to come...
believe me: that you will...

- in that i am still walking among the germanic people -
if the germans will sing a: bretonisher marsch...
then the two peoples are alligned by
their sentiment for the crow as their godhead:
alles menschen totem...
what could possibly make me feel welcome?
french grammar is polish grammar...
matin de printemps - poranek wiosny -
spring morning in reverse in germanic...
how many more examples would i ever wish
to give?

there was a moment in my life where...
i realised my faults... i should have read
the Pickwick Papers... anything by C. Dickens to be sure...
instead came Stendhal, Voltaire, Balzac...
because if you said to me...
BBC radio 4... the archers...
and... thomas hardy: madding crowd?
you'd accuse me of being ignorant of:
London is a bustling cosmopolitan in-waiting
from the busy-body industrial proto-Beijing
it was of 100 years ago?    
the French had cosmopolitan intellectualism
100 years prior to the english...
100 years later and it's still not much...
is anyone about to cite me william hazlitt?!

the trouble with the english is that they hold dear
to that one old 19th century idea -
this waiting for: awaiting a revival of darwinism...
the "blatantly" obvious needs a resurgence!
because a michael faraday must most surely
be forgotten!
how many times will this already painful reality
need to be emphasised once more:
intellectually - via a darwinism?
no one stresses the copernican "upside-down"...
or what is copernican "west" up in space?
how does acknowledging the sphere
of the earth - ease you reading a flat map -
moving from point A to point B?

earlier this week - for once in my life i was
ashamed of what i wrote -
so i wrote for scribli per se: scribbles for
scribbles themselves -
the darwinian germanic folk who say:
alles von afrika...
how the hebrews debased themselves
in both aushwitz and breaking their bones
on the emoji hieroglyphs -
alles von afrika: ja... so sicher... so wahr!

ask any slavic person among the germanic
peoples...
where from? wir (ar) sind lesen und schreiben
"afrika": i.e. Indu...
if the african challenged the hebrews
with... "the best they had": egyptian emojis...
why would i not stress my birth
with pseudo cedilla Ş / इ... ☦ -
this indo-european is not... at home with
these african-germanoids...
pseudos and quasi -
these chocolate frenzied busy-buddies!

from the caucasian and further still from
that whittle sub-corinthian quote: continent...
somehow, "somehow" this part of this story
is read: south to north... always a grand
marker missing when the people went
east, squinted... learned skeleton existence,
atoms... and the frenzy of letters:
owls and ******* **** flinging beetles
back in the north eastern tip of
africa: in that egyptian haemorrhage of "idea"...

i assure myself... perhaps the form came from
africa... but sure as **** the tongue only arrived
in the lap of the Dalai Lama...
as did the "thinking" and the music
across prior to the Mongol's curiosity
over the tundra of Siberia...
something had to be placed on a loan...
and coming back to the cradle and the crux
had to happen like so...
not this current: ergo: so...
quickened and: what news from Damascus?!

first impressions count...
i made my bed... it's newly washed...
as crisp as falling onto a bed a prawn crackers...
without the crumbs' itch...
like listening to some german:
juggernaut... this will do... i can fall asleep
with this: grab hören zu der winderhall...
mehr flöte - weniger violinekratzen!
schlechtdeutsche? alle deutsche ist gut deutsche...
erwarten etwas isländisch zu sein
gesprochen insel von insel: auf diese inseln?!

to make a crisp bed of freshly washed sheets...
to sleep in them alone...
given the grammar is not that far removed...
are the french even remotely translated
as a germanic "sort of" people?
"they" or "we" share the same grammar...
and there are celtic freedoms that would
never be allowed to exfoliate under
strict anglo-ßaß obligations...

oh sure! great people! steam engine: choo-choo!
newton et al...
shakespeare: when they taught us shakespeare
they should have taught us bernard shaw...
when they forced jane eyre down our throats
we should have been reading
the pickwick papers...
the music will remain german -
because as much as vaughan williams...
holst and händel were "were" english...
esp. latter with his umlaut that spread over
toward i-and-j...

why wouldn't you **** at the pillar of the empire:
a past most assured - dust, books and moths...
like hell will i come to correct my ways
to state the: pish-poor Elgar... this poo'em too...
himmel... sky...
leerenhimmel - empty sky -
nein sonne während der tag:
das englischnebel: bedeckthimmel...
nein mond während der nacht...
nur so...

i of the lesser men of this world duly bow
my presence before the altar of the higher men
of these isles...
and hope and pray that their wisdom
will not bestow upon them any major calamity...
with not irony or ridicule i wish upon
these peoples... the right sort of oars
to turn this rooted island
into the people's imagined langboot...

there are only one british people a people
who will pursue to gloat having been
conquered by the romans...
being raided by the vikings...
integrating the anglo-ßaß...
a second viking coming via the Normans...
the push-over remains of the celts...
that somehow translated itself into
the: empire...
ideal: to compensate...
the islamic fervor for the... resurrected
caliphate...
jokes about the dritte ***** and the vierte *****...
that's pretty much the precursor jokes
surrounding: ein zweite ***** -
auf welche die sonne nimmer setzt -
ever wonder how that translates with the increased
cases of insomnia?!

again: bad german is better than
no german.

thankfully my nostalgia concerning the late
20the century, coincides with my youth,
i mean youth, and that i also mean
****** idealism, when women were phantoms
and could never be girlfriends or
widows, or tears shed at the grave,
or nothing needy, nothing clinging,
nothing resembling mussels...
         i have to admit, i got ***** the moment
i detached myself from thinking about god...
the third partisan of the a priori
implant dictated by time & space...
            i didn't only shove my genitals into
her genitals, i shoved my ego into her
concept of god... and i subsequently became
a dimmed version of st. augustine...
              because that part of me didn't exactly
make confetti from her reasoning....
shoom!
          scalped me and dragged about 1000
tumbleweeds in its travels...
             the grand point? i didn't see
   a hairdresser, for the next never ever...
unless they do trim ***** to coincide with
      funny tattoos...
                     i don't know... maybe i was really
ultra-idealistic about women before i lost
my virginity, that after i lost it, after i lost
the foremost grace, i didn't learn the gorilla
impetus to keep one... let alone a harem...
   women really were fun and beautiful and
mysterious when i had them in my head...
      after the fact that i learned too late that they
also took a ****, i couldn't believe it!
        me, adapting to this? this fog-smeared
creature? yes, i can see my nihilism,
                    i''ve been burning that amber light
of a litre of whiskey per night for quiet some time,
drop by Collier Row's Tesco and look at the c.c.t.v.,
but then i put on some creedance clearwater revival
(not cool, aha, used the whole name, right?
cooler me saying c.c.r.? bukowski, lebowski...
same ****, different cover) -
   but i really did experience love... i know... huh ha...
did i recover from it? i'd probably have
recovered from 20 ****** over-doses...
        she got married, obviously...
  because women, don't idealise men...
  unless they meet the criteria of what men are supposed
to own... man idealising woman is a woman per se...
woman idealising man is a man contra per se...
                     after all, a man idealises
thinking about a temp. storage space for his
*******...
              which later turns into offspring...
   any woman could agree to being part of that phlegm
and being content at housing those "lucky" offshoots
in her kangaroo rucksack...
           it's as ugly as European thinking is going
to get, it can't get more scientific than this...
   i really do need a square on a rectangular canvas
to prompt a generous conversation about redifing
the point: we're not going back to the Milan school of
oil on canvas... or Rembrandt...
      it's not happening.
so creedance clearwater revival and graveyard train...
how we have bass guitar, and it's nibbling,
just nibbling... just grooving...
                  more like stalking but keep in mind
nibbling... and the there's no rhythm guitar,
because the guitar is just making accents,
the guitar is just twitching... i can't believe how
un-jazz comprehensive modern music is...
                   rhythm doesn't belong to the guitar,
there shouldn't be a rhythm guitar...
rhythm is all bass and drums...
          and i say that: because i hate metallica and how
i can never hear the bass guitar when i listen to them...
no wonder the original bassist got scribbled off...
   i love bass, don't you love bass?
something has to overpower the strength of drums
in modern music, something has to restrain
drums... needs to set the soothing rhythm,
rhythm guitar can't do that, you need the bass
guitar... bass guitar is, quiet frankly,
the most underrated instrument in modern composition...
techno techno! bongo bongo parties of
               berlusconi... bongo bongo... hatchet plus!
yes... silvio... we have the guillotine around here
too... choppy waters... plenty of sharks...
   enough to take a bite, though.
   and i thought naked lunch was bad...
well, i didn't, i didn't even want to plagiarise the Tristian
Tzara bound to it, reminiscent of cabaret voltaire.
huh?   ah yes... creedence clearwater revival,
and the bass on graveyard train, like water coming
down from a leaking tap...
  tum dum doom ta dollop... and it sounds nothing
like that... but something to allow the guitar what
it does best, sure, it joins in the rhythm section at
the beginning of the track... but then the guitar
sets up a momentum of creating accents,
  no rhythm = no solo... accents...
   little licks of being there... very ******* jazzy...
my my, so jazzy... and that's the safe ground to have
in music, retaining the jazz...
             otherwise you get into territory akin to
classical music's anithesis... the opposite of classical
music is... earthquakes... techno techno... drum drum...
drum drum... drum, drum... drum drum drum...
classical music was all about breathing...
  césar franck's les éolides (the breezes) -
and the antithesis? techno techno... muffed up techno:
ambient music... refrigerator sounds...
muffer up drums...
               don't get me wrong, i do listen to
e.g. man with no name...
         but it's rare to hear the jazzy side of things...
  it's just such a waste to see the bass guitar
not used as it should be, i.e. being over-powered
by drums... and using so much rhythm with
a guitar... having the rhythm and the solo...
  like squeezing a pair of testicles of a celibate monk...
god, that hush hush: tone down, tone, tone down,
tone, down... down... down...
             pst... kaput....
                                      i really did start talking
about something else, didn't i?
                this is new... digression as a column of
rhetorical perfection... fair enough having the rhetorical
skills, talking persuasively (well, just lying)
    about the same topic... but find me the rhetorician
than utilises digression, and forgets his talking
because he's changing subjects without really
    categorising them as being different....
    it's a trance state akin to eastern meditative practices...
digression as the most pleasing form of rhetoric,
teachers' oratory technique... not politicians' oratory...
   i never understood why digression was
not the foremost element of rhetoric...
                    political rhetoric is always about
ensuring people remember something,
they never do...
                        politicians drill in the points...
   and for some reason, they never talk to rhetorical
perfection, i.e. being able to digress...
                the most persuasive rhetoric is the rhetoric
with digression at its core...
                       or at least that's how i learned
english from a scotsman...
                                just blah blah blah blah
and at some point, there always will come an aha!
which is the next best thing to an eureka.

Into a Dollar General I brave
scalp and pillage
looking for a new hatchet, a new pair of mocassins,
a cheap gift for Pocahontas!
Only went to the General,
because my horse was tired and overfilled,
with Thanksgiving oats and felt weird in the pilgrim hat I had on his head.
was too far to go all the way to Wal-Mart.

winter lips
press into her memory
bones aching with the fever of remembrance
quiet words raise half lipped appeasement
mostly scarring scars scar her mind but occasionally words stir up like rosebuds of alphabet soup
spelling out novels of repeated notes
picture picture picture
click click click
half lipped winds
greased strands flap loose flap in the loose whipped winds
white comforter white blanket white snow white southern comfort white south
corporate and government city lights counting monies
greased oil slicked back hair scalps scalped dentists appropriating native american hunting tools
scalped girl appropriating brown skin
winter lips kiss kiss kiss
from root to tip toe down the hallway to scar thighs
thigh highs soft like southern comfort white south and the blood is red
but red blood cells are combatants of white blood cells like
winter lips are combatants of
her thoughts

i was directed to this place by Marty Feldman, and he said i should say this password to gain entry: float like a chapati, sting like a vindaloo.

i' not good at making passes at someone's death,
just yesterday i was thinking
while a quiz show took place with haiku clues
regarding famous people, so i wondered
aloud: would it still be the correct answer if
you said: cassius clay? what a cool name,
colossus of clay - what the hell does Muhammad
and Ali have to do with african rooting
when you hardly speak Swahili? a bit pointless,
but a name like cassius clay... unstoppable -
already mythological, rather than a family
feud between Ali and the Caliphs after Muhammad's
death - maybe he should have confirmed his
baptism as Muhammad Ali with a confirmation
akin to catholic practice and added a surname, like
Khadijah, well... if Mozart is turning in his coffin
for his music being turned into a muzak
or a Porcupine Tree tree song, then the first wife of
Muhammad is turning in hers... a wise women
of sound economic acumen could be compared
by secular standards to Gabriel's voice, women tell lies,
just today i saw plain Jane turn into a stunner,
she was gagging to go on a date with a guy of her dreams,
by media standards a subsequent loser in Morocco,
at a photo shoot of practising flirtation a half-and-half
love affair between the Gothic island of the Caribbean
that's England and the Bahamas flirted with olive skin,
blue eyes and pecks, and an ego shaped like a woodpecker...
or an u.z.i., poor guy, got to make a show,
but the ***** is out! she noticed her eyes!
what further shahada of scheherazade?
just one more night, just one more night, one more, night.
demigods and men, traces of narcissus in man resides
in his eyes, nowhere else, man and woman fall in love
with their eyes, rather than narcissus and the complete
visage, but as i once said: imagine narcissus looking
into the sea - he might as well have fallen in love with
the stillness of the lake rather than the image represented
by it - across the seven seas he roamed, across the seven
zeniths, until he came across the Lake of Echo,
and heard the echo of footsteps beside him, to have seen
the natural mirror by moonlight, and settled to lie,
disguising himself as a flower worth recycling:
each god in polytheism his own individual, reigning ideal
in the pantheon of gods: solipsism - with man's intervention
a notably study of, himself.
although i'd love to chat thoroughly about this,
i'm not so sure i want to - hear the words:
you're a good man... you're a good man in a brothel?
you think a ******* would forget saying that
and continue? *persona incognito grata -
a golden crown on her tooth that i peered into with her
Ukrainian accent speaking polish, i lost my virginity
to a French girl without any connection - proceeding
from the way she decided a child learning a new language
aged 8 could not be considered a native speaker
for a psychology experiment - i gave her a silent lesson
in history concerning Napoleon and the last heroic act
of warfare, after that, civilians were utilised like bombs
or rifles, the many guilts after all the killing seized.
anyway, today i decided to cook two knock-outs...
the first was intended as a kolhapuri chicken curry,
the latter was chicken do'h pyaaza, with the later
the title, indeed the fenugreek incident, fenugreek
being a concentrated version of kasoori methi,
if the Turks invented hot & sour with a pickled chilli,
the blue Indians invented a whole palette of sour and hot
with this dish, and the crucial ingredient that's
fenugreek - although the crystalline form of this spice
is more potent - the recipe asked for one tablespoon
of the raw products, the leaves (kasoori methi) -
i added a teaspoon of the concentrated stuff -
what a disaster! i asked for two tasters to tell me that i
wasn't tasting bitterness in the gravy as if i added some
English ale revenge against continental beers...
because the excess of the component of intended sourness
of the fenugreek turned into an ale-like bitterness -
hence the notion that sour isn't an antonym of sweet,
but bitter is - hence sweet & sour rather than
sweet & bitter - you can have a turkish pickled chilli
and still have a compliment on the palette of hot & sour,
but imagine tasting bitterness - excess of concentrated
kasoori methi does the trick - and since Faust doesn't
have an Igor like Dr. Frankenstein, he turned himself
into a hunchback, and started picking out most of the
fenugreek crystals from the gravy, one by one, ony by one,
hunched over the sauces - until the bitterness disappeared
and the intended sourness came through -
it took a while, but Faust as his own assistant kept on
saying: stop lying, stop lying! i want to eat this sauce too!
that's the thing with chemistry and cooking,
i received a present not too long ago, an arsenal
of spices, which means i can punch-bag you a Peshwari
naan with raisin and almond stuffing (a bit of sugar too),
and i can add the raw ingredients - i'm richer with
spices than with drugs or gold: turmeric is also known
as saffron - although saffron is more potent,
turmeric does the same job... coriander powder, cumin
power (also seeds), mint the prime garnish for
do'h pyazza curry... garam masala made from scratch,
meaning i have: cardamom pods, cloves, black cardamom,
mace... and i can make you a kohlapur masala...
honestly... in this great culinary babylon of english society,
from pizzas to chinese to Kentucky to New York
street vendors... i'd give up the cuisine i was born in
and convert to India's palette... i don't need to convert
anything else... religion can remain with those who
barely read, or who read and cite only one book...
let them have it... i don't care...
i already converted to a non-religious fascination with
mystical Judaism (sorry Allah, couldn't do anything
with your name, it didn't fit the Latin revision of thinking
about it), and as such, converted to a dreamy everyday
of India's culinary prowess - Kama Sutra is nothing
compared to the recipes from Kashmir or anywhere
where the blue bloods fascinated the merchants rather than
scalped them in berserker rage among the puritan
envoys.

for all its worth, ad inviduum matters,
as any stress imposed
to, "break away from the herd"...
the ever becoming need for
flamboyance and bombast
to not be: the drowning man
in a sea of corpses in the inevitable
inferno...
      as much as the saying goes
about vanity projects,
   hair make-up, or rather:
less extravagence and more on
the lines of: you can walk in *****
and torn clothes...
       but at least you've taken a shower
prior...
             yet there still remains
a stressor on individualism...
    in that...
            as long as individualism
is accepted by a herd of "individuals"...
i remember that outside of school
i knew one black guy,
as the black joke goes: he was a drug
dealer, and a single father...
what the white boy knows a black guy
joke doesn't follow up is that
he was ostricized... a fellow *****...
because they really tell you
about the Bangladeshi workers
    dead beneath the burn khalifa...
even individualism has limits,
with the motto:
   as long as it doesn't mingle with
eccentricity,
    as long as individualism doesn't
mingle with eccentricity...
   because in the latter sense?
that's the individualistic norm shattered...
everyone gets to over-hit the mark...
which shows the cracks in
the so-called notion of individualism...
notably in the west:
        cogitans est cassus primo
                    gratia rideo...
      logos incognito.
                     as such, individualism
as spare, auxiliary / collateral change...
trend setters,
    if famous for 15 minutes,
   pack leaders for 15 seconds,
and then back to the frivolous intrigues
of peacocks on a catwalk...
by individual, i think of the:
                 hersch...
                      a dangerous line between
setting a vogue and a minor
sentiment for the vanguard...
and becoming ostricized as a *****,
humouresly being attached
the term: eccentric...
     or just plain weird in the harsh
tongue of the children's blunt...
phraseology...
                             the world comes
to the boundaries of a small town
exactly 1.5 days later,
  give or take the algorithm
via prior searches...
                                   perhaps how i
understand individualism is
how Narcissus might understand
the vampirism of his brother
     Solipssus...
                  a kind of people who
behave as if without a body,
a type of people who, like vampires,
can't see their reflections...
not that they can't in a literal sense...
      as everything small begs
a curiosity,
   as everything large astounds
with awe...
             paradoxical thus,
the content of a church,
                 and the church itself...
        after all...
     the legionnaires did soak
a sponge with wine and offered it to him
on the end of a spear... which he refused...
   a pale comparison
as blueprint, to what subsequently
came to pass...
              well...
it is pale... considering you'll
never actually know, upon giving
himself up so freely...
  that there wasn't anything,
remotely comparative
with the infamous example
of Albert Fish:
              self-embedded needles
lodged in his pelvis and perineum...
just as the other case in point:
marquis de sade seems more like
a scapegoat than the sadist
his imagination and only his imagination
allowed him to be...
because what,  screaming from
the window of the Bastille, or locked
in an asylum, he could really
compete with the power of the clergy
in the form of his uncle,
the abbé de sade...
                       how can it not be
a fiction, when the power of fiction itself
has become slowly obliterated
wriggling in a cul de sac?
     how could I ever write a work
of fiction, when what was deemed
as truth, credo, is facing up to
non-mainstream footnote reading
and the 1945 archeological findings
that match up to the 2000 or so years
of heretical speculation?
riht now, he can be brown olive
tanned mulatto or whatever Dalton
hue of orange...
              if white is ivory if it is
a scalped cranium a pharmacological
soup woth of brain...
             if white is white and even amrican
south: h'white...
        clingy *******
to the feet of the Urals...
    pardonable warm *****,
only Sveedish, and only at 25ml a pop...
talking to two old people
half-awake, half-asleep...
      buddha-eyed sleepwalking almost...
as i came in contact with
the dark chapter of medicine,
not even past the 1950s America...
                 the infamous tactic
of regression: also known as
    false memory implants...
                    two old people trying
to fall asleep,
   a bottle of *****,
       shy drinking, 10 years of celibacy...
with the odd purely physical encounter
like a rag and a hand and a ***** sink...
my grandfather bemoans that
he never had a chance to say: father...
i could bemoan not having said:
i love you...
                ascribed her an endearing
nick'...
                it seems this world
hides higher pleasures bound
to a rigour so few make eruditions of.

At school
Moorcraft said
about joining
the boy scouts with him

(the only scouts
you were interested in
were those who rode
ahead of the cavalry

in western films
and who got themselves
scalped by Injuns)
but he went on

about how they taught you
to tie knots
and light fires
with two sticks

of wood
and how to sing songs
around a camp fire
and be a good kid

and do Bob a Job
for old ladies
and he went on about it
quite a bit

and so you said
ok pick me up later
and so after teatime
of bread and jam

and a mug of tea
and biscuit
you went with Moorcraft
to the church hall

where the scouts met
and this tall scouts master
in short trousers
and hairy legs

and glasses
took you off
to join the rest
and introduced you both

and some kid
showed you how
to tie these knots
and climb ropes

and how to set up
a tent and make camp
and so on
until some kid

pushed you off
the ropes
and you pushed him back
and he punched you

on the shoulder
and you hit him
on the jaw
and then you were both

on the floor
and the good kids
were saying oh and gosh
and crowding round

until the scout master came
and asked what
was going on
and that good scouts

didn’t fight
and threw you out
of the hall
leaving Moorcraft behind

tying knots
and climbing ropes
but you didn’t  
give a fig at all

and Moorcraft still in there
not knowing why
and you walked home alone
under an evening sky.

Shafts of courage depicted on the
      parchment of hope
Running into beamlight of victory
Leaning towards trunk of optimism
You speak courage
You emit courage
Protruding ribs of scalped stood
      on wingspans of surgery
At the hours of the night.

Spring of courage flown into the
      feeders of victory.
Spirit of courage locked-up
      scroll of fear.
Sun of courage dried up the
      stagnant sea of fear.

An entanglement of two wars
     fought with two divine axes
      of courage.
But you conquered fear.
Sneezing out the mucus of death
      from the nostrils of conquest,
Zooming like an eagle soaring into
      the waiting arms of the theatre.

Clipping the fangs of scalped with
      hope.
Withstanding the chilled cold of the
      night.
Resisting assault from the proboscis
      of mosquitoes.

Waiting for days in hours.
Tarried for result outside the fragile
      womb of life and hope
Tarried for positivity in anxiety
Pendulum of anxiety thickened the
      darkness of fear
But you whizzed back like a matador
      from the ordeal of a long journey
      of life.

A second Lazarus revoked the decree
      of death.

A little slice of the pie
I try to consume but I
throw it up every time.

Bulimic the scenic
route I take.
No mistake I meant to regurgitate.
Choking down lies, smiling like it taste great.
Get another helping of the American pie plate.

Washed down
with whiskey, strong and brown
like the strong and brown brothers
that scalped heads and used skins for covers.

Good morning, America!
Ignore the hysteria.
Pay attention to the sensations
on the surface area

Cap'n crunch
is more important Captains getting crunched
in a 13 year war we started off a hunch.

If you pay attention to the news
notice they ignore the trues

like the flammable water coming from your hose
or the fact you can't afford your children's clothes

We're buying apps and devices for $1200,maybe,
instead of $20 to buy a real ukelele

You see, we pay companies
to do things
because we're conditioned to be
to lazy when DIY was the real American dream.

Cadaverous crotchety gouged out eyes.
Scalped trite and malnourished minds.
Where am I? What has this land become?
My vessel is gutted galled and splayed out upon the enflamed remains of our democracy.
I try to embody the equanimity peaceful   qualities of the lulling Gandhi characters before me...
But ****, I am angry, jolted and saturated in shock in fear.
Being an advocate for the people so dismissively marginalized, is what brings substance to my life.
I look into the eyes of my mirthful clients and future students, my heart winces.
How did I allow this to happen to you?  
A man who so boastfully incinerates and debased the citizens of our land with his farcical vitriol, is no man at all but merely an unsightly shrew, cozily cosseted in his world of soot and pooh.
The bosky gorgeous land we inhabit sobs in noxious fright.
To be despoiled and berated as some "natural right" splintered and tainted to allow the green cash river flow into the dubious maw of the man with no dignity to show.
A man who preens such a degenerated mindset is only aptest to a society in shambles.
Our global haimish home yearns for the equilibrium from which it was born.
In such a seeded tumultuous time my heart is seeped in reverberating sorrow.
Let your love and purity coat your vessel, do not let this barbaric man permeate your soul.
Hold steadfast to the testament of our land
True revolution is budded from a web of genuine connection, not devise brandished weapons.
Don't shroud yourself in misery, break free and be prepared to encite love with your authenticity.

Dead End
sharp claws
dark skin
red eyes
razor teeth
blood dripping
flesh eating
demon spawned
loud roars
heads scalped
people dying
wanting more
can't control
virus infected
zombies attacking
vampires *******
werewolves eating
thunder rolling
lightning crashing
rain pouring
earth flooding
wind howling
hell's frozen
pigs flying
we're dead
the end

“Sanity is not statistical.”- George Orwell

The tour guide elucidates black and white scenery.
Unamused clients grow weary of following blindly…

Beyond the barren trees lies a horizon of dirt.
The patrons’ eyes assume a bedraggled trail
Ostentatiously drawing them into its depths.
Unable to sense the malignity; compliance is inevitable.

The seemingly infinite nave reveals a peculiar door,
Hexagonal in shape, displaying no visible ****.
“This heavily armored door hath been open since
the dawn of pandemonium. Enter if you dare,

my humble insanitorium.”

Their dreams have intruders,
Infiltrated by an obscure entrance
Remote in the fact that even they
Are ignorant to its location.

The intruder takes hold of,
their brains, hearts and blood.
Drives them to brink of insanity
Then leads them back home.

Metamorphosis: their messiahs
Were once smiles and gold
Now they are maggots, cole
And decayed linen for skin.

They are the peaceful violence
That occurs among the leaves
Existing for a short time in beauty.
Than drying up and withering away.

Obscurity is a terrifyingly beautiful renaissance
A peculiarity that rock them to the core.
The ghosts that occupy their souls,
And the cavern that’s missing from them
Experience is theirs to have or to lack. For they
haven’t much time before the dirt takes them back.

An elegant yet dismantled courtyard comes into view.

They.
Know not of the geometrics that seem
To have replaced the techni-colour trees.
Once overgrown in the tainted court-yard
Roots overharvested and interconnected,
A corn stock maze burnt to the ground.

She.
Used the finest twine, sharp and strong.
To tie her soul to the cage that houses her heart.
“Two mad rabbits were dancing by a tree.
Before one vanished down the hole,
I swear he looked right into me.”

They.
Watch in dismay as her chest is scalped.
The unsound artist tugs (she does not protest)
Bones shatter and he eats the remains.
Soft fingers caress the pulsating red ball.
All the women cry as he claws at her soul.

An aghast audience enters the house in
Hopes of a less unsettling spectacle.
A tiny jar sits on a wooden table, curiosity
Causes a member to remove the lid.

“To exist in the subconscious is more terrifying.
The flame’s lick the nimbus and I am calm.
An angry cockroach lodged in my trachea.
The soil is more sinister than it was yesterday.

An abstract design, the lines infinitely overlap.
The drawing continues and I try to unravel,
the circles and squares but I simply cannot.
They are now in my blood, a pentagonal paradise.

It would be lovely to hold my heart in my fist.
Squeeze it until the blood becomes a fourth
Of July spectacular. The circles and squares would
Be emancipated from the charred remains of the jar.”

Prying is never rewarded. The jar goes up in flames.
The great herd is lead to a theatre-like abode.

The tourists snap pictures as they assume their seats,
The Insanitorium’s owner makes a gut-wrenching speech.

“I’m wandering aimlessly through the in-between.
The face-painted crowd watches with open mouths.
As I search for and seek out self-fulfillment.
On the edge of their seats, waiting impatiently,
For my humble home to self destruct.

They gnaw on my self-worth, ripping and tearing
My well-though out decisions into tiny,
Unmanageable quadrants that I cannot repair.
The herd is well aware of what lies along the line.
But I strayed long ago and am of a different time.”

The applause drowns out the sound of the speaker’s screams.

The patrons are lead through a dimly lit hallway,
Another peculiar door materializes, triangular in shape.
The room is a vessel for conscious and unconscious ramblings
Of minds left to rot and decay like rabid corpses.

“Enter respected patrons and feast your eyes upon the truth.”

The first trembling hand finds its way to the door.
A striking man is seated, muttering cloud-cuckoos.
His hands and feet bound to the ancient wooden chair.
The blade hovers above his hard skull threatening to fall.

His brain is dissected; life-long deception is evident
The black cats in his mind are visible to probing eyes.
Sinister felines stretch their brittle bones; it is not
Long before they’re biting and scratching his insides.

Like all apparitions, the vision returns to the dust from which
It was created. It’s true home among the asteroids and
The planets that contain the same star dust that once
Composed flesh and bone. Not Reduced, but reused and recycled.

Before the disappearance is final, he chokes on his last words…

“A pearl that is flung,
From the stars overhung
Will dislocate like a plastic doll.

Alas…

One pearl turns to millions
And a million turns to dust.
The doll’s expression ,
remains stagnant.”

The tourists are angry and appalled at what they have witnessed.

They have not come to the harsh realization,
That in order for a man to see, his eyes
Must be pried open. Stunned into epiphany.
Become aware of the demon residing behind them.

“You are not sane devil woman,
For your tour reveals horrors of many kinds.”

The woman’s mouth contorts and her eyes darken.

“All entities, dear guests, hath been drawn
from your own mad minds.”

Demand the climate obeys orders.
seek vengeance on the scientists if it declines.
turn over the redwoods to the firing squad
     for taking a stand.
shake a fist at the sky till it blushes.
request the clams to clam up till you're done talking.
hide the fish in the sea
     because everyone needs one.

Expect the mule to make up its mind.
tempt the desert with some water.
torture the water with some desert.
attack the salt flats for being too dry.
file a complaint against the rattlesnakes
     for causing such a ruckus.
question the cactus till they give up their values.

Force the leaves to show their true colors.
slaughter the weeds 'cause they don't belong here.
silence the wind till it agrees to stop singing.
moon the moon for serving moonshine.
sentence squirrels to a life without acorns.
terrorize the trees to do your ***** work.

Infringe on the kumquat's rights.
bury the berries, uproot the roots,
     ravage the cabbage, spoil the soil.
arrange the oranges to reflect the sun.
lecture the watermelons on how
     you scalped more natives than anyone.
declare war on the avocados to prove your point.

Nag the children to bear the weight on their shoulders.
rifle through the planets to find what you want.
crack open a book and read a poem
     that defines this all as the

End.

i scalped a false ursine prophet, all golden
and colorless, to pour honey
into your wounds, dripping with cold sweat
and natural monosaccharides of glucose. entertain
sweet thoughts in your head (my own were a sickly
yellow). if it doesn't dry, honey won't be too sticky
and your skull's hinges will be quiet.
rust might have been better.

By glance upon the emerald dale
a laird rides 'pon the crest
Grasping in his calloused hand
a Faerie Maiden's tress.

One tress for infinity,
two cut for grace divine.
Three tresses for the Trinity,
and four for wealth of time.
Five beats of a Sparrow's wing,
Gets six maidens pon your perch.
Seven for good luck in life,
Eight for endless mirth.

The pompous laird rode proudly on,
Unwary of a Siren's song.
She led him to the river's edge,
And scalped him come the breaking dawn.

castaway

we use words to stay on the surface

beneath  each word
we find the emptiness of the sea, comforting
when we reach the Mundus point, at will
the blood flows like a waterfall as if has no past and no future,
then maybe
maybe
in a wildly literary language confronted/confused with a word
or two:  gentlemen, how do you feel about being scalped?
- thank you, we feel extremely well, gentlemen,  as you know
at the tip of the tongue, we find everything we are looking for (the needle,... the cannon...)
and
a samurai's sword is nothing but his soul, - baked dough  în empty eggs,
a clot in the veins,
vessels of..., vessels for...

shipwrecked

we use words to stay on the surface like a healing bruise
healing by itself

The way the black sky caresses the moon
It cradles it’s body, so easily swoon

The way the black sky , caresses the moon
A faint shallow fit, is what it projects
It cradles its body, so easily swoon

For love has been lost, like autumn steals June
As though communication had been scalped, like poor dialect
The was the black sky caresses the moon

Oh father, please tell me, is your mind truly *****?
Or does the moons docile appearance simply follow architect?
It cradles its body, so easily swoon

The stars with their twinkle, shimmer and ruin
All for an audience; simply fooling
The way the black sky caresses the moon

Solitude, heartache, or a farewell tune
Either, or both, fall flat with gold flecks
It cradles its body, so easily swoon

And so it’s been said, that the tide may rise noon
For the Earth holds the key to the stars, which reflect
The way the black sky caresses the moon
It cradles its body, so easily swoon

look how i was fed guilt - look at how no one
screamed a care for the candle going out,
that roaming stars were born -
trail blazers i and they - i was fed guilt and
subsequently they were fed hopelessness -
they can joke all they want...
i'll be the one laughing over their graves,
people fear reading poetry because they fear
the hemlock - poetry is a hemlock...
they fear the personal, they really do -
you can write whatever you want when
humanity is lazy, and with times such as these
humanity is really lazy - they had to
create a secondary celebrity, not one built
on merit, but one built on per se -
becoming famous is like getting a free lunch
these days - that backlog of Darwinism has
finally spawned, draw back irrational history to
a dozen men as examples, call them Charlemagne,
Philip Augustus, Cnut (not variant of knot with
u but Ka-Noot), Genghis Kitty Chuckles,
Alexandria and the 5th Harem of Macedonia
named after her - Comrade Mao and chow mein -
Adolf and Hinduism... Erik zee Beetroot und Ashland -
we're criminal - we left the tribunal of heaven's sake
for a while to keep the black'e a sack of potatoes
worthy of a boxing match - and every ******* time
people wanted us to revise our vocabulary - every single
time... ooh racist... ooh anti-feminist... well thank
you Brother Orwell... i'll oysters with that observation...
see you in 20; you know what i dream of?
the wild west... yawning quickly like an Apache
making a war-cry - hand in smoke signals,
pop pop cherry, pop pop cherry drop, pop pop
another whitey gets scalped.
send me to the butchers! seriously, i want to go to
the butchers and the slaughterhouse... they really should
send children to slaughterhouses than to see Mike the Mouse,
otherwise know as Mickey - see the butchering -
i'm in one of those moods where i write because
i have a chance in hell to get a prize,
or that i don't wish to have one in the first place...
or because i'm ******* that this woman once wrote
of ****** liberation in the 1960s, and now she's writing
about glorifying arrange marriages, a jewel franchise -
i could be asking: what do women want?!
but that's still feminism with a ******, the real thing
is all about bogs and frogs and privacy,
knights and slap-stick humour -
                                                         thank you, minus the wife.
20 years on i'll be the one who's supposed to be jealous
that you own a Porsche - and i'll be asking about
the M.O.T. - like the two mattered for my care to ****.
i pay zero tax... you pay how much?! ooh, too-shay
and tooth decay, i swear i told you a pea-sized dollop
of fluoride and job done under 20 seconds...
you doing peppermint ******* with that mouth while
reciting a goodnight story to a child?
you know, before the haemorrhage i was such a decent
person... i know, one of the many boring facts i
claim to be a second birth... a Kentucky fried chicken
gets more sympathy at a vegetarians' conventions than i do...
i'm the criminal worth a spank and a nod of disapproval
with a tut-tut-naughty-naughty wandering of the index finger -
the French ******, the English were playing
rosy-cheek-chequers reminiscent of the Victorian black attire
while the Suez swelled in what became know as
the ****** Monsoon in a f.g.m. ****.
well, if my vocabulary be criminal... i should have been
taught to be illiterate, or at least be taught sign language...
if you don't like it... *******!

At the back
of the brick bomb shelter
out of window view
on Saturday morning

before the matinée
Fay pulled up the hem
of her yellow dress
to show Baruch

the bruises
and red marks
her father had made
and all because

she didn't know
the Credo in Latin
all the way through
Baruch stared quickly

then she let down the hem
and said
don't tell no one
else I'll be for it

I won't say a word
he said
what the heck
is the Credo?

she looked at him frowning
you don't know?
no idea
he said

it's the I Believe prayer
and we Catholics
are supposed to know it
all through

but my father
wanted me to know it
all in Latin
but I couldn't get it all

and he got mad
and punished me
she said
I believe what?

he asked
I believe in God
the Father and so on
she said

I'm Jewish
Baruch said
we have our own prayers
not that I can recall

any of them
I do
she said
but Latin is hard

and the nuns say it
all the time in their prayers
and one nun hit me
with a ruler for mistakes

and said I was lazy
Baruch shrugged his shoulders
glad I aren't Catholic then
he said

now what about
the cinema matinée?
you coming?
my father said

I was to stay in
all weekend and practice
but my mother said
go and enjoy

so you are coming?
he asked
Fay nodded
yes guess I will

what about your old man?
he's away for the day
in Liverpool
and Mum said

she'd cover for me
good for her
he said
she pulled her dress tidy

and he pushed his fingers
through his dark brown hair
and they climbed over
the metal fence

surrounding the grass
and bomb shelter
and walked under
the railway bridge

and up the narrow road
behind the cinema
Baruch in his jeans
and red cowboy shirt

his silver looking
six shooter
tucked in his belt
walking beside her

looking out for bad guy
or Injuns
making sure
none scalped him or her

with their tomahawks
riding their invisible horses
across the bomb site
but none came

so he could relax
knowing she
and he
would be all right.

The lone rider
left the station at high noon that day.
Sadly, it was something he had to do.
He knew he might not come back,
there had been an attack
a few weeks earlier,
all had been scalped,
with no survivors.

His ample-provisions
of salted jerky & biscuits
were stowed away
in his leather saddle bag.
He carried a .44 along
with his trusted notched-rifle.
Snugly on his head,
he wore a black drovers-hat,
a faded red bandana
was wrapped loosely
around his neck.

It was going to be a long ride,
but he hoped to make it to Laramie
before the next sunrise.
His keen-eyes scanned
the desert horizon,
you could tell he was pondering.
He seemed a bit worried,
but did not give any inkling away.

His girl hugged him goodbye,
kissed him on his grizzled-cheek,
then turned with tears in her own eyes.
She did not cry for she knew
he would have been upset.

Then like lightning,
he was up on Ranger,
his spurs jingled,
thundered off in a flash.
He rode headlong,
leaving a burnt sienna dust-cloud
swirling behind.

She watched him disappear,
stood there all day long,
until the sun
began to set,
to sink low
in the western sky.

Reds, oranges, yellows and pinks
shot, splintered the skies,
then faded to pitch,
there was no moon.
As the stars began to emerge,
she smiled,
thinking twinkling beacons
for her cowboy lover.

She closed her teary-eyes,
held her hands in prayer
& made a wish,
but somehow she knew,
she had a strange gut-feeling,
they would not return.

And they never did.
That day was the last time
anyone would ever
see the lone rider & Ranger,
again.

There is a man in my dreams, always. He is neither foreign nor familiar. He never speaks but on the occasion that he does he is not boastful;
His lip never trembles or bleeds.
"All my days are the same, except some" he whispers.
" I should've been a woman, I should've been a man. I should've been anything but solitary knee caps & jail cells. I've lived in nothing but crowded apartments, fed on the flooded chatter of open windows!
Those moments where your heart is a hummingbird & the girl you love keeps skinning her ******* knee & for that there are heads being scalped."
I never reply to these confessions. He could be a lawman or a taxi repairman & it wouldn't make a difference because his missing teeth that he covers with dentures & the eyes that never fully close tell me I don't have to. This is not my show, not his airtime on the television. There's never a punchline, you see. His sins are never absolved & the only redemption he gets is that there's never dirt under his fingernails.
"I have lived enough" he continues
"To know that the samurai sword you try so hard to use for defense is only a swollen reminder that you've always been background noise at dinner parties, you don't know where to go without bumping into someone; the time is not over yet.
"There is no romance in finding your war and conquering it. My mother used to kiss me on the lips & my father used to beat me with a stick. You'd think these calluses would turn into poetry people would never be ashamed to read but my hands never stopped touching dirt."
He believes I'm listening, believes I understand. Looks at me & doesn't see a child; doesn't untangle the confusion inside the pockets of my dress. This, is the only time honesty counts.
"Somewhere between the hangovers & choking on all the keys I saved in coat pockets I couldn't figure out whether this was worth remembering, worth regurgitating to my children or women on bus stops
"I used to beat my wives & pretended that god enjoyed these charades; that my knuckles wouldn't feel so delicate, wouldn't be this tough if I wasn't designed to be. I looked at their cherub faces & all I could smell was gun powder, for this I never held a gun."
I looked at this man, cloudy-eyed. This man who belonged to no one; who never blew the dust off my hair but instead flicked ash onto my shoelace. This man with no name who forced me to hate him and yet when I closed my eyes there was only tenderness.
I wanted nothing more than for him to tell me something that made me comfortable in my own bed again.
"You see girl, you soon come to expect rooms without windows, people like burial grounds, that the shimmer doesn't last forever.
One day it's 9 p.m. on a ******* Friday night and you feel like a hospital rug, like a ****** motel carpet, like all the floorboards where your wife said the money you have to offer is not worth to die for and then what do you got?"
I wake up alone.

There is a Puppet Master,
  Who strings her spirit,
Silences her melody;
  Taketh her merit.

There is a Puppet Master,
   Of the ethereal plane;
A Soul of Thieving Spirit,
   Dead for their mortal Dame;

There is a Puppet Master,
    Closing his show -
For just one Spirit,
    Scalped by a Damsel aglow.

CURRICULUM

Blood seeps
It curtains their eyes
Rendering them
Temporarily blind
Semi-scalped
Skin folded back
Exposing of skull
Ready to crack

Holes drilled
An access to the mind
Pumped with liquid knowledge
Which then solidifies
Conventional learning
Soft subjects barred entry
Too fluid to be controlled
Deep fear of creativity

Kicked into touch
With confined education
Sent into life
Into great expectations
3R certificates
Irrelevant to some
Force fed on dictates
From the seed to the crumb

For some who think outside the box
Of the language of academia
Why have knowledge forced upon
When it’s free on Wikipedia?
Stifling ideas
Kettling free thinking
Those and more values
Lined up for the shrinking

You will think in the ways
That we want you to think
You’ll sink into rules
And you’ll fall into sync
You will follow the norm
You’ll adhere to the rules
Of stagnated teachings
In stagnated schools

Copyright Marc Hawkins 2017

first the bench where someone left a good pair
of shoes under the bench: mountaineering shoes,
bulging tricep in lycra types... i waited as a few people
passed, some on foot some in cars, drinking a beer,
wondering if they'd spot casper the friendly ghost...
then it was this cow-patch-work
of a cat, one eyed, started playing with
me, started off while we stood still
in the middle of the street
and i kneeled... then i boxed him
down with cuddles and strokes,
exposed his weakness, so he bit me gently,
i thought of women and the way
they behave like cats... then i thought
of men and myself: ah ****, dogs...
i don't want to wear a leash - i'll walk
my own random route thank you...
when i get drunk ezra's experimentation
with the personae comes out in me,
it's me talking, with a twist of lemon zest...
so she's the one who puts a ring on the
ring-finger and a leash around the neck?
ah crap... you wouldn't believe it...
buck bukowski made an entrance in
season 6 of that television series my family,
although as a self-help guru...
god the oddities - quantum physics as
particular energy content of particular things...
which is hardly a stance to take
with universal energy of a questionably universal thing...
given that there's only one... the universe,
and in it - so many particularness s s s (solipsisms)...
in between i opened a bottle of sant miguel
with the jailed archimedes with a cigarette lighter,
sant miguel bottles are the best...
if i carried an actual bottle opener in my back
pocket i wouldn't have made the same impact
of a girl getting out of her car with cabbage and broccoli luggage,
i took a firm grip... thomp / pop...
then the shriek... she got a fright...
the executioner just scalped the bottle like a red indian,
don't worry, charles 1st is still talking to the parliamentarians,
although with a weird haircut of bleeding scalp...
so as i said, the joke...
use a cigarette lighter to open a bottle and get the pop...
open it with a bottle opener you get a tss...
so pop thomp v. tss... now i'm going to buy a drum-kit
for the joke...
she semi-detached would be her pinnacle and life-ordeal
if not simply life's ambition, i agree...
middle-class queen turned *****...
i get it... it's what makes me tick tock... tick tock...
life's too perfect to imitate your mother and marry
a dentist, have to get that teenage pregnancy out
of the way... like they say: it's downhill after that...
or up the hill with a horse climbing the hill backwards
to ease the threat of sweat and exhaustion...
so as i said... a cigarette lighter opening a beer bottle
clean with the kapsel remaining flat (
just so you could technically pour some water into
the bottle, put the cap back on and sell it as beer)
will never give you the bottle opening dent on the cap;
magic.

“Our characteristics smear through us,
Like colours in a stick of rock.”
He says to the audience of ties and blazers.
“If I cut you open, what shades
Would I find in your cross-sections?”
“If you cut me open,
There’d be a fair amount of red,
I should think.”
I say behind my sharpened teeth.
“And my parents wouldn’t be very pleased.”
Oh how witty I am
With my quick fire of sarcasm,
And petulant spasms of acrimony.
Eight miles away,
Our house is full of September;
Raincoats and Crane flies,
And I water my Guinea Pig’s tumour
With tears I owe elsewhere.
A teacher at my school
Committed suicide, people say,
While we skipped waves
And created poetry from the leaf-light.
They can’t tell us the details,
Of course not – sensitivity is key –
But that tells us all we thirst for.
School clockworks forwards
With a hole in the Geography office
And I forget about remembrance.
He drove a BMW and laughed
Small laughs that coughed with nervousness.
I sit in History, pen-chewing,
Thinking of all these more important deaths.
The school bells don’t hold silences
The year sevens don’t stand
Or bow their heads in room 180
We try making futures for ourselves
And apply ourselves to those things
That still have chances tied to them
Like clover leaves and birthday candles.
We turn on lights in the evenings
And I wake myself from darkness to darkness.
My life consists of the cooling,
Cotton-throated early mornings
And the bike that my brother bought new
Six years ago.
And the drag of my newspaper bag
That claws backwards from my peddling.
The world is blue and grey with rime,
I rip my fingers on letterboxes.
My shoes fall apart from the heels
My ballet shoes fall apart from the toes
My life enjoys unravelling itself
From wherever I’ve chosen to stitch it
And I fray and crimp at the corners.
I prefer to go barefoot
Across the rinsed, diluted garden
That smells of rotting apples.
Ballet tights rolled up my legs
So that my bruised toes get kissed
With grass slobber and the faded zeal of autumn.
Slugs crisscross pavements like surgical tape
Then get stuck and frazzled there
While the sun toasts them.
“Maybe I’d find hopes, dreams,” he says.
“Maybe you’d find organs.”
You’d find me weeping over pirouettes
And geometric lines and extensions.
You’d find a twice-broken arm
And an array of internal fractures.
There’d be shards lodged between each rib.
My parachute lungs, pumping filth,
Would continue to tear and furl
Until they wouldn’t resemble
The things we scalped in biology.
I re-write lists of ‘Things To Do’
In the hope that they’ll seem shorter
But I add all my flaws to them
For amendments and for procrastination.
For some reason people still expect things
From this emptying girl
Who actually thinks
That the one who cut into her
Would be in danger of finding
Nothing but a brittled, bitter hollow.
I highlight my essays
And highlight the cracks
I’m carving in my personality.
I paste impressions of myself
All over my exterior shell
Alongside character traits.
Who knows what lies beneath
The papier-mâché of well-played parts?
My fingers play music on the computer keyboard
More than they practice the piano.
But the songs they make are far from sweet
And rarely beautiful.
My parents think I’m working
On Hume, Bentham and Kant
But really, I write jaded poetry
Which forms its own philosophies.
“Your experiences would be evident,
Spread through your character.”
My brother ate away at his life
Until he starved.
They set him down in a mental unit
For the ‘Screwy’, ‘Freakish’ and ‘Insane.’
So I buried my childhood
In the side ward mazes
Of hand sanitizer and tubes and tombs.
“I’d find what makes you unique –
Your religion, perhaps.”
I laugh away the suggestion
That is actually the truth of how
My Sunday mornings fall under ‘Church’
And the afternoons are ‘Top Forty’ –
I don’t even like chart music.
How can I be ashamed of the faith
I try fervently not to doubt?
The sun drips from the evening sky
Like a squeezed lemon
And Monday cycles round again
I live in a little world of spirals;
Eternally coming back to the same place
Just worn a little further down.
I waste my life on the vanity
Of mirrors and self-deprecation.
Sometimes I think I must be arrogant
To make the pretty little assumption
That I don’t have to wear make-up.
It’s funny that I lay my skin bare –
Always –
But can’t manage to strip myself down
To the crudest, rawest truth.
I can only write for people I don’t know;
I let my parents believe blindly
That I’m a creative prodigy
Instead of human
By refusing them the blessing
Of honest words from ink and paper.
But the truth is;
I am not the faded mystery
That I pose as in my writing,
I’m just someone who sits in school assembly
And tries to make self-portraits from words,
And tries to forge intelligence,
And tries to never grow old,
And tries to be something,
And tries nothing,
And tries –
“But what I’d really want to see
Is compassion,” He says.
I turn my face down to my knee bones
And permit myself to agree.
Compassion, I tell myself
And, just for a minute,
I feel a little less
Superficial.

i just want to stay up to midnight and watch the footie...
see, already, it's there, he wannabe blind man
turning phonetics upside down
using optical symbols to sing with his eyes closed
and acting out a sloth piece of a stage's curtain call for encore,
footie can be american slang  for football: or ensure a bag of
flour explodes while i get scalped;
otherwise footie means football:
you know it's round enough to be kicked
rather than thrown for a touchdown...
never got the hang of it... n.f.l. means
as much to me as does excess of hair
on a cranium crop of expected hair with no beard,
and vice versa, loss of hair and a donned
beard for the plucked sucker of the 2nd ball drop...
baldy over here met elvis and in levis took
to a cattle stampede with aria: la la la lee lo lo he he
(mike jackson slam dunks a quack for the moon pond,
like it was n.b.a. anyway: walking on ice
the musical... now the encore... signature the
sound of applause);
so this married man is rebelling...watches football
till midnight, rebel...
watches the footie...
a. foot, i.e.
b. foot, e
c. foot eeh
d. footy
e. foo' tea
f. foo' tee
                                 now you guess the accent...
cumbrian? glaswegian?
north london or brick lane?                  which?
a, b, c d or e or f?^
           see what happens being judgemental and sober?
you get drunks doing picassos! and that's not good
not good one bit for the worth of investment in plagiarisms.
the stressor marks / diacritical marks missing in english
obviously gave us scot spelling and a welsh 1 + 1 of
a ******* longbow stylistic for the v long
before churchill... i wanted gaelic i got trainspotting spelling...
about as relevant as catcher in the rye relevant by now...
so... don't teach accent rubrics... and you'll get a heartfelt
superiority in the former colonies, while the pigeons coo:
or simply curl the famished tongues
that were silenced for man to speak in spasms
of an electrician checking the sockets for an electric depth
of the pigeons' coo into an aqualine echo of a sneeze,
if not snorkel or a gesundheit.
^*i hate how syllable splitting into compounds
show diacritical marks all too relevant, missing.

Let the snow fall
I will brave it because I am a brave.
And braves don’t cower in the face of ominous storms.
They watch their roommates, gathering wine from the food lion
and freezing shrimp next to the egos
Ripe for binge drinking when the power goes out.
Sprawled out on the bedroom floor, boredom closing in.
Braves welcome the piercing silence and nausea
and decide that the kitchen sink is a good place to *****
I counted coup on that barefoot merlot
and scalped the floor with the shattered pieces of glass
from when the boredom was so intense
I had to make music.


Wednesday Night:

I open my eyes to 7 o'clock
and the buzz had worn off
and the egos are all gone
but she’s still present, haunting me
leaving cuts on my feet from where I threw down the bottle
the silence crept forth in my sleep
all encompassing
So music must be made.
with creaking steps to the medicine cabinet
for concoctions that make my brain swell.
There is a full moon this night.
I will howl because I am a wolf.
And wolves disturb the piece of the roommates
Because this is my nyquil
dayquil
magicpill
and your merlot gave me a headache
Wolves aren’t afraid of a little snow.
Tell your girl friend happy valentine’s day, that merlot really got the job done.