Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
it the new year, and only into February have i finally returned to my modus operandi... which was? well... it was the pre-Christmas period in the supermarket, and 1 litre bottles of whiskey were on offer, marked down from £19 to £15^, so it was usually that, a bottle of coke, and a bottle of beer and walking home straight away... perching myself on the windowsill, watching youtube channels of uninspired people talking about being inspired... it was never going to work... i was bound to experience a writer's block... but as of today... it's back to my original "strategy"... (a) drinking expensive alcohol can be depressing, well, it actually is depressing... i don't mean drinking cocktails in some urban hot-spot... by expensive i mean something akin to Jim or Jack... that's expensive... in comparison to high commissioner, it is expensive... so having said that: it's the effect of alcohol in relation to the effect of alcohol in other people: that has to become expensive... a van gogh moment... say: writing a poem or "poem" (depending on the levels of your pedantry). (b) the modus operandi... going to a Sri Lankan offlice... buying three canned beers, a 70cl bottle of whiskey... and going for a walk with the beers... head clearing... and yes: rain or shine, winter or summer... out there... looking into suburban houses, with some people asleep, others still watching television... men at their roadworks posts... taxi drivers returning home... in general the motorway insomnia... it's good to return to my seemingly lost and forgotten ways.

^the most annoying thing about buying a computer in Poland for a mere £100 is that the keyboard isn't what it "should" be... i have no £ within shift+3... and the ditto marks are not at shift+2, but at ****+@... so yes, i have to copy+paste it from the public space of... the internet - and this is where computers become equivalent to a piano... sure, there's the black and white keys... by black i mean shift+.

it can begin with as little as,
well... it will quiete a lot to begin with...
bilingualism
       is more complex than stating
your polymath ability to learn
    7 languages... evidenly one is superior
to the other, in that bilingualism
can be regarded as something akin
to digging trenches...
     what i mean is that
psychiatric terms can be poetic,
   for example schizoid (split) phren (mind)
         is brimming with metaphors...
Brautigan, Burroughs, Bukowski...
      all of them were labelled as such...
i can't quiet understand it as anything
other than a metaphor,
     but in cases of genuine ordeal
with the symptoms, it's anything but that.
the American linguistic notation:
      [oz-moh-sis, os-]....
the British linguistic tradition:
                                 /ɒzˈməʊsɪs; ɒs-/ -
and this is my linguistic notation:
     \ o(h)-ßmo(h)-sis / -
    by the way... most denote the (h)
                        as '... i.e. o'-
   frankly... i like to laugh and sigh...
because?
                   well, it's what happens when
you originate with a language that has
diacritical marks, and inherit a language
where diacritical marks are completely absent...
   i and j do not really count...
   even though it's evident that i begins as ι...
   so it's there: foreced almost... with a diacritical
marking...
   oh yeah: i forgot to mention the word...
osmosis* -
                       hardly anyone says that word
with the first s being soft...
       hence what english did to the world
and globalised it, so unto english the world must
give an answer, and given that english
is a language written without clear,
educational distinctions, a blank canvas
in terms of diacritical markings...
   i guess we can start to see how we can write
english, once again, with a "world view"
incorporating as many deviant examples as possible...
   a bit like bird-watching, or what darwinism
is in reverse, as ****-centric and beyond this:
nothing... so that's a german example having
a say in this example...
            and it really begun simple...
   and this is how the slavs differ...
    žiž      (well, given the ι already has a mark)
        that ι already has a mark,
southern slavs differ from northen slavs
in that they couldn't mingle the too together...
  so-half a caron on the zzzz / snooze (ź)...
      or how lazily we call it sleep, or snoring...
imagine all that effort into the onomatopoeia
of a woof! or a meow! and indeed:
probably the wise choice to call it zzzzz and sleep...
and leave the snoring to the harp
   (snoring in Polish? hrapanie...
the verb? hrapać)...
              the southern slavs will not spot this,
and if that's the case that žiž could be written
by a Yugol... it wouldn't be written by a Pole...
             and given that ž = ź
it just shows you that the southern Slavs's excess
is a complete disrespect / automaton stance
            concerning i...
  the Russians are Greco-Slavs... don't know...
  if they were introduced to the Latin alphabet first
they wouldn't be a competing super-power
  with their pseudo-Grecian alphabet (Cyrillic) -
   and thank god... no good, no evil...
     it would be a bit too much...
        like th
     at question is usually asked:
why do bad things happen to good people?
well... why do good things happen to bad people?
back to ž = ź
   and there's Hegel... castrated with his i = i / i am i...
well, i can see that...
          plain and simple... no wonder Marxism came
from Hegel... dumber than a hammer...
  and the subsequent nailing in of nails into coffins...

no. 1
(evil bladder, evil bladder! hence the interludes...
but hey! it's a collage)

... and this promenade in the night and rain,
really has a kabbalistic beginning,
well... kabbalistic meaning: you've really become
ridiculous with your numerology -
numerology is the lazy way to upkeep mysticism...
  i can't see it as anything more than indolence...
i begun this meditation
with two letters...              z           &             ι
and that later gave me the variations
                         the Libra is heavier on the z side
i know, but that's for now...
i.e.
                                               ι
                                                     (i)
                              &

               z
(ž    
            ß     ź)

that's how it looks right now, it's good that
i didn't mention ż so far....
so unto the examples...
      a southern slav will write ži... (ž= ź)
but a northern slav will not...
    e.g. ziemia (earth)
         ziemniak (potato)
   ziarno (grain)
    zima (winter)...
             and only in this particular combination...
(this has to be more interesting than numerology,
i.e. not substituting letters for numbers
   i.e. 1 = a, j, s, / 2 = b, k, t / 3 = c, l, u
ergo 3,848 = hello using something called
a decimal base 10 arithmetic... i don't know)...
     as other diacritical acute insertions
    also prove to be the case, respecting
the enforced diacritical mark above the ι,
esp. when there's a squeeze...
    ściema (faking it)
                 nagość (nakedness)...
  this is language slowed down from its
supposed everyday quick usage...
               i'm looking for a word when
the squeezed snooze (ź) appears as it does...
       http://tinyurl.com/zvur8qb
well.. może = maybe (Goran)
   write morze = maybe, and you get
the orthographic nazis onto you...
                 it's an aesthetic that has transcended
aesthetic in that it has become as rigid
as a rubric, or a "universal" appreciation of
                  Michelangelo rather than a Damien Hirst
shark in a plastic aquarium...
     and given it's a diacritical mark on
the last possible alphabetical letter: how
hard if not now to find a suitable word?
       it's really hard to find a ź example
once you realise that z+i are so coupled...
   you only realise at first the alpha-
                  / beginning of conjuring an example
that doesn't really arrive...
       such is the ź example given that z+i are
so entwined...
                   i could easily write the caron z
   and the roman enforced diacritical marking over
iota easily... ži...
                           but i can't... the Pandora is
hovering above my head, and i can't think of
a word with ź in it... given that i'm only thinking
of an alpha- / beginning the word with a zi
                       that's equivalent to ź
should no i be present within such close proximity...
       zakon (monestary)
                 zagoń (round-up,
                           the pronoun is self-evident...
        contained within the word, and it's gender-neutral,
   and if the pronoun is not the bothersome bit...
then it's the latter instructions of: those sheep...
    aport! / fetch... you can say that word (zagoń)
in your sleep, and you wouldn't need to be in a place
where there are sheep, or sheep that need to be rounded-up).

interlude no. 2 - no comment.

      well...
  it's no mere accident that when i go on
this little walks with beer that i find the odd thing
lying on the pavement...
  today? a rain-soaked joanna cannon
book, the trouble with goats and sheep...
and yes, i finally found a Polish word that provides
an example of ź...
      before the enforced diacritical ι
                              the acute above the z disappears...
given zielony (green)...
              but after the enfroced diacritical mark
over i... acute symbol has a tendency to appear
like a necessitated after-tea mint...
     e.g. kraszewski's god's wrath, page 158
(ludowa swpółdzielnia widawniczna edition, 1973 a.d.)...
znaleźli - they found...
      zło - evil...
                  źli- evil ones...
                          and it is such a rarity to find!
  a bit like a narcissus flower in a field of wheat!
     or a jasmine concentrated to a perfume...
             whiffing about its airs against the tennis with
the wind...

i wish they might call this:
    against the cantos' fascination with the chinese
ideogram...
or... thanks for using emoticons...
   language had to retaliate against the :) and :(
                    hieroglymphs of the digital pyramid...

interlude no. 3 - still no comment

also known as the Libra and the pivot

                                               ι
                                                     (i)
                              Δ

               z
(ž    
            ß     ź)
  
   and yes _____________ the sea-saw...
humanism can really compete with the science,
if it get its act together...

    and since the Greeks already adopted
adding diacritical marks to their beautiful alphabet...
i wonder how θ will fare
   when i write the word thought (θought),
and subsequently write the word:
   weather....       oh **** on me! it's an acute θ!
that magically turns into a V!
   weaver...
                 and saying that: only one consonant
made it to a vowel status of a grapheme æ / œ...
first to come was ß... the grapheme of s and z...
   a bit of chemistry goes a long way... chiral
as a pair of siamese twins, those two are
(you can put on a cockney accent saying that
sentence, yes, you can, i say so)....
  well... it's complicated because you're not german
and german to you is like quasi-Zulu...
ß looks like β (beta)... but it's a grapheme...
an sz that never actually meet... or entwine
like a and e might in æ...
   which makes it very difficult to follow...
just like the grapheme i wish to invent for
       TH  
                         namely that it's akin to  PH...
φilosoφy.... θou(gh)t....
                        g(h)ost...
                 ­                                look how pretty
it looks though: the ****'s F doing here?
     this an **** or a a ******* or a happily
married couple, or what?
    Φ and Θ.... almost looks like a keyhole
with a key lodged in it, and then turned...
horizontal in... reaction of unlocking the lock
mediatory with Θ and then back out into Φ...
             i.e. Φ + I = Θ = Φ + I + ...an open door...

interlude no. 4: this Russian chic at uni really
loved the doors... we watched a movie together
about them... with val kilmer playing
the dead man key role...
  is that door enough for you honey?
                       you got the шock and ßakes?

and if i mention hekhalot rabatai?
or the talmud, or the sefer yetzirah,
                              the bahir and the zohar?
twelth century and thirteenth century rabbis...
      will i also hear of the two Adams
of Eden, the (alpeh) fffא and the (ayin) fff
                    alpeh is a tame ******, feminine,
the mystery is not in the siamese H
   of the tetragrammaton, but in the aleph and the ayin...
    clearly i can't write ayin down without
semite d'uh on the digital canvas...
           writin left to right doesn't do much
justice... unless i write ye י‎,                                                            
f­ff.
ffff   fff        ע                  י‎
...pfי‎                         ­                  י...
there... you should really look at
the behaviour of ayin in the digital form,
the ****** wont't budge! you have to tell him
of the yodh to get off his *** and
make way for a pregnant lady...
        and since this is the 21st century...
i'd like to say: i'd like to write
a pentagrammaton.... yep...
a pentragrammaton... the ayin is gay,
and alpeh is a heterosexual...
     but the pentragrammaton now concentrates
on vav - or a vw beetle... v = w = ł...
       that's the moment you realise
that western linguistic mentioned o' not as
o(h) but as ' = yod...
         bad move... it's no silent (y)...
obviously this can exist in a non-pentragrammatorn
relation...
                            עואי­
השואה גוססת...the Sho'ah is dying

©  STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
30 Sivan 5778 / 13 June 2018
revised:
1 Tammuz 5758 / 14 June 2018
2 Tammuz 5778 / 15 June 2018
3 Tammuz 5778 / 16 June 2018

I.

and cantillated poetry -- memory being
automatic editing -- may not be enough.

what was not a reality
may never be a reality,
may never be a memory. soon,
survivors will be silent, and
the concierge of film and tape
and books will whisper
in library corridors.

the villanellesque windows of
constantly chanting 'disaster' and
'master' are shattering,
an amphigouri of shadows and
mirrors...

II.

I stand on the balconies of quantum
strings: Auschwitz made my
forebears more Yehu'dit than Moshe.

No one
bears witness for the
witness.
-- Paul Celan, 1971. Speech-grille
& selected poems [trans. Joachim
Neugrosche] (E.P. Dutton), 1-255 (241)

the horizon is grey, in
Poland 2018, the ash still creating
a haze, specks on the leaves,
the shoulders, the watch face on
my wrist having no hands...

III.

how is the memory of a paternal
relative kept 'alive'? she remains like
a flickering match growing fainter
in what will be a night of
receding possibilities,
shadows be-ing alongside
my own. I have one colour 1941
photograph of her.  like salt held
on the tongue
she is carried in my mind.

she would not, a decade later in
Rosemead, speak of the
Kingdom of Night.

one of the fading blue
numbers stamped (not tattoed)
on her left forearm in 1942 was
a four.

she would stare intently into
my eyes, turn her arm over,
the four becoming a chair...
it was Garcia Lorca in 1928 who said
'verde que te quiera verde'...

she loved green, even the green stained
gargoyles she was painting in Paris...
on a sidewalk caught up in a christianist
SS roundup 16 July 1942, the Rafle du
Velodrome d'Hiver, her painting
fingers crushed. soon she was on a
rattling box car in August 1942, sent
to the East...

she was gone in 2006...but her dreams
are still in me...

IV.

teaches Reb Ya'akov Glatshteyn...

Like a tiny candle over each grave,
a cry will burn,
each one for itself.
'I am I' --
thousands of slaughtered I's
will cry in the night:
'I am dead, unrecognized'.
-- Ya'akov Glatshteyn / Yankev Glatshteyn
/ Jacob Glatstein, 1987. 'I have never
been here before', p. 111 in: Ya'akov
Glatshteyn, 1987. Selected poems
of Yankev Glatshteyn [ed./trans. R.J. Fein]
(Jewish Publication Society), 1-215
[Yiddish & English]

V.

let us compell trolls among us
to remember that, at its peak,
their grandparents' vaticanist
Auschwitz was burning 12,000
of us every 24 hours...

when it was happening
sound still reaches us in 2018.

and yet.

when it was happening,
few were listening, but now it is
bashert / inevitable my soul
hears nothing else.

the 'orderly' minds of the
trolls among us are well-tended
cemeteries without
gravestones.

the fire escapes are covered
with psilocybin spores.

long after midnight, when the
darkened carnival is awake,
there are survivors at the
seder table awaiting the
Missing One return with Her
Sefer haZohar, pick up the
empty cup.

the underside of every leaf
is fear, shadows gathering
at the foot of our beds,
transforming gristle into haze,
made real by Hebrew letters
and syllables.

TO BE CONTINUED

'When I am in the darkness,
why do you intrude?'
-- Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan', 1978

*****



STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT

IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2018
why is all spoken word poetry neither
rap or music as such,
always the exasperated tone of voice...
always with the rhyme...
   always the rhyme...
            who rhymes these days?
****... only 50cl of whiskey in me...
not feeling this...
    i need to start on the liter of
shveedish ***** to bulge up my "ego"...
**** me...
      is this even "poetry"?
   i thought not...
        it was never going to be
poetry - it would never succumb to
that dreaded metric of rhyme...
    i never understood
          the pseudo-acting of stand-up
spoken word with the bulging
emotions as if brimming on the tearful -
but i also can't imagine myself
diverging into
      prose - the sort that is
safe & tested -
             writing done by volume over
however pointless
intricacies -
             juxtapositions, might be
a better word...
                       eh... stand-up comedy...
i have forced, entangled
giggles, esp. the kind scripted -
  well...
with the exception of Eddy Gervais
or Lee Evans...
      perhaps i'm too stupid at having enjoyed
myself with the body mania
of Evans...
     but that's just how the Anglophone
culture works -
        go elsewhere: more cabaret
and less solo comedians...
  less monologue - less "solipsism" and more
an act...
                    cabaret...
                then again...
we do live in times when the spewing
of opinions isn't allowed
    a dialectical attack...
       not really...
              maybe on the sly...
  but never really really encompassing
   a moment of pondering - a brief pause -
given? you pause you're:
exposing a weakness -
             ? is no longer the probe
to come to a central ground -
   somehow converge and exchange
opinions...
                  being pulverized by
opinions is starting to bug me...
          pulverized by justifiable yet
somehow unjustifiable
         opinions that allow neither
a counter-thought, or a "conversion"
to a proposed, new, opinion...
      which makes dialectics impossible
between two arguing parties
without a ******* mediator -
a stage: so much less interesting
and reinvigorating that talking
to an old man on a park bench about
Rayleigh bicycles and his worries
about his grandson still being mute
aged 3...
                   or was it 4?
          never mind...
   oddly enough the Quran has one
curiosity in it...
           you know how the Jews refrain
from speaking the actual
name of their Hebraic god?
they always refer to ha shem:
but never utter the four geometric
(in Latin) letters with their
hidden A(dam) and E(ve) vowels?
yeah... it's like this literary
superstition...
   Voldermort ****...
          i'm surprised that there is
a Hebraic influence in the Quran...
where?
   oh... you know...
   there's talk of: the book...
  it's never by name,
  it's not the Torah, it's not the Bible...
what's that third one?
       ****... can't remember...
anyway... the Quran treats these book
names as a Hebrai might
treat tetragrammaton with the same reverence
as denoting it: ha shem (i.e. the name)...
oh look here...
   i love how the Hebrews hide their
vowels in diacritic -
    which is the elevated form of orthography
working from diacritical signs
applied to post-Roman Latin
alphabet...
     genius, absolutely genius...
  no wonder the high literacy rate...
that macron beneath He is an A...
           .   .
             .    would be an E (tzere -
then again, technically that's not a macron
but a kametz - a mini tau, T) -

conflicting sources through...
          ha-sefer: which means: the book...
hmm...
       on peh - from my sources
Aryeh Kaplan is folding something back...
    i'll never know -
but like all Hebrews -
  when it comes to language:
very secretive...

        it's still bewildering why
the homosexual Adams exist in both
diacritical form,
       as kametz,
  and in the fully formed lettering
    aleph & ayin...

   but as far as i am concerned,
the Quran refers to Hebrew and Christian
texts as a Hebrew refers
to the tetragrammaton -

   ha-shem: the book:
  
                                           הַ סֵפֶר

— The End —