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TV blaring,
Though not loud enough
to cover that persistent barking
of those who have nothing to do
but gargle on their shishas and
speak nonsense for extended
periods of time while the world
watches in an intense wait that
could only be compared to that
yearning sensation children feel
as they wait for the ice-cream
cart that never comes but is
now face down in some ditch,
with those delicious treats melting
away like the dreams of those who sit,
and do nothing more than sit in the streets
of the city that wouldn't sleep, as their wives,
also sitting, watch TV with the lights dim,
wearing those red nightgowns that once fit so nicely,
now split at the seams and properly deteriorated
from all these nights they have been worn in hopes that they would move something,
anything at all in the hearts
of their husbands, but soon
the wives realize that their
is no hope, so they linger,
dumb-faced, in front of
their living room televisions,
blaring with lies and much
nonsense equivalent to
those told by the men
who are still sitting
there clutching
those tubes with
smoke wafting out
of their clogged
up noses.
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
502 bad gateway bypass:
chuckle baron,

mishaps at 0.5 degrees
of a circle.


picked up an unfinished cigarette from a jar i have
placed on my windowsill
instead of an ashtray and smoked it...
ooh: those ***** little pleasures...
    so ash on the filter... and in general:
***** cigarette finish...
                 sipping my whiskey...
   found a new band i can't stop listening to...
SJÖBLOM: which is a surname by several
Swedish people... the album? demons...
i always found that the Swedes have an incredible
pop sensibility...
a bit like Abba... a bit like Roxette...
it's infectious music...
   i don't care whether someone calls its "emo":
it's not... there are not screeching vocals of teenage
angst... it's melodic...
it's a bit like discovering Alt-J or the XXs...
or Porcupine Tree...
           then again: it's like trying to find the antithesis
of the major bands of the 1980s...
i needed to get something from that decade
beside only listening to the Cure or Depeche Mode
or Duran Duran... since that's what my uncle was
raised on...
turns out the 1980s were probably the best
decade for music: nothing mainstream matters
when you discover post-punk, dark-wave...
and no: not that pretentious indie music from England
from the 2000s...
   even Brit-Pop is bearable compared to that
strange movement...
   i was a child when Brit-Pop was a major force
to contend with American Grunge and Metal...
      to be honest: anything from the 1980s that wasn't
mainstream is... better than anything mainstream
that came out in the 60s or 70s....
   dad rock...
                well: progressive rock was never mainstream:
King Crimson will still have a special place
in my heart: i don't think there's a better album
than: in the court of the crimson king...
    it's my youth...
        well... Roxette's Joyride... that album is pristine...

tomorrow's F.A. cup final between Liverpool and
Chelsea ought to be fun... i'm already gearing up...
how long to stay up and doodle?
what time to wake up...
    eat something prior leaving?
shine my shoes... doubly iron my trousers...
iron a shirt...
     i already asked to be placed inside rather than
outside... near the VIP section... near the Royal box...
hell... i might even brush against the future
King of England...

i sit back and remember my grandfather:
how long has it been?
   2 years since he passed?
      he was a peoples' person... he could make
people work for him...
   i'm sort of growing into this role too...
even though: we're not talking: proper work...
in a metallurgical plant...
heavy duty stuff... Die Krupps - im schatten der ringe...
i still don't think this is work...
trying to make people not drink in view of the pitch...
trying to make people not drag their mobile-shishas
in stadiums... searching bags...
general security *******...
    i guess i don't think it's much work:
but it would have been... if something like
the Manchester Arena terrorist attack took place...
maybe i'll be made a supervisor again...
last time at Wembley i was frantic...
   a Tyson Fury boxing match... trying to tend to about
20+ people under my supervision...
this one guy... mental health issues...
broke down crying... poor mother:
i'd get slapped about for saying the stuff he said
to her: and she bought him the tickets...
the amount of time it took to calm him down:
panic attacks...

while he was running backwards and forwards...
insulting my stewards...
i had to step in... thankfully this black guy helped
me... a steward under me...
it's like in those 1970s movies about mental asylums...
all the orderly seemed to be black...
i didn't want a response team involved...
i hoped the two of us would reason with him...
and we did... he stayed...
he didn't know London: had no money
and as i sat down with his mother
she told me he was being a little brat...
a 25+ year old man needed my support...
cried in front of me... while i tried to tend to him...
touch... touch... hand on his shoulder...
   etc.: no need for the details...
i just said to him: you paid to see this event!
it's not fair that i'm getting paid to "sort of" see this
event too! look! bright lights! stay!

i still bewilder myself... this isn't work:
i don't treat it as work... i've already got used to
the infrequency of toilet breaks...
sometimes i come home constipated like a turtle
that only ate sandpaper...
   and it takes me about a day later to recover...
i don't even mind standing like a ceremonial soldier
at Buckingham Palace:
i swear... 4 hours on a bicycle is less exhausting
than standing still...
what's sometimes on the news?
ceremonial soldiers dropping from exhaustion:
because they're imitating statues...
which is more exhausting than... movement...

this is a "joke" of a job compared to roofing...
whenever i tell someone i used to be a roofer
they're like: what's that?!
Romford is the capital of roofers...
oh you know, tar work, hot-melt, waterproofing
roofs? on an industrial scale...
that summer of 2004 was probably the most
glorious summer... working, sweating on
a housing project in Beckton...
   shame that in the same year: i was on site
when we heard the news about the bombings in London
my ex-girlfriend was going to catch that
bus that exploded...

i think she missed it because she was running late
or some ****...

i miss those days: because tending to people is
hardly work if you are both an introvert
and an extrovert... although: i don't really know anymore...
i've recently come across this acronym I.N.F.J.
acronym: i watched some videos...
mein gott: what ego-stroking...
sometimes: no, all the time... it's a vanity project...
this sort of categorisation of people
is laziness... psychology is lazy compared
to philosophy...

   ooh! really?! are you that special?!
the term advocate? in the ****** language?
it translates as: lawyer...
   but it's true... i've seen people with these S.I.A.
badges that are trigger happy on violence...
i'm always certain any issue can be resolved by conversation
alone, by building a positive rapour
by standing your ground...

psychology is boo-ring to me... it's predictable:
it makes people predictable: cagey... caged...
superficial... psychology used to mean something...
it used to be theoretical: almost philosophical...
now... since it's pop culture...
it's useless... you better look into the underbelly
of psychology: psychiatry... after all...
psychiatrists are psychologists *** pharmacologists...
that's the ugly side...

or see a priest, or see a *******... or read some
philosophy...
         i might have been hurt...
but it was a sort of a pain mollusks feel when:
that ex girlfriend of mine that was almost blown up
in 2004... she once told me that as a child
she would pour salt on snails...
    
         yeah... and when i was much younger
i came across these two boys that caught frogs...
smear them with lipstick and then set them alight...
go figure...
  
to lessen suffering... i always thought that was best...
perhaps that's why i don't think i will ever
have to put up posters of: LOST CAT...
on trees in my vicinity... how can you,
for ****'s sake, "lose" a cat?! you don't ever "lose" a cat!
the cat has had enough!

just a little bit of tenderness... understanding...
i'm thinking: if this isn't work: crowd control...
i should maybe start looking into work related
to metal health... it would be sort of funny:
a guy, diagnosed with a psychotic disorder
starts working in a mental hospital...
    that would be kind of funny...

on a scale of 1 to 10... how mad are you?
10: mad enough to read Kant and Heidegger in the 21st
century... i think that's mad enough...

what a ******... only two days ago
people were complaining about traffic surrounding
Romford... what happened?
a 22 starling... a boy... not yet a man...
jumped off a four storey car park...
and a pretty pancake he must have made...
between 8:52am and 9:02am he was.... GONe...
gone...

when i was having a hard time during my "breakdown"
i tried to imitate Odin... by hanging myself
from a tree...
the noose was there... i was sitting on the branch...
i dropped... ******... the branch broke...
some of us are not so lucky...
even my godmother mentioned this story once...
drunks and madmen... we have all the luck in this world...
we're talking... 7 storeys... high...
in one of those Communist style living blocks
of concrete...
the guy fell... like a... ******* sack of potatoes...
landed in a bush... about an inch from
a metal ****...
got up and simply said: o kurva!
                           oh ****...
and walked on: for another dabble with some
***** mistress...
                                
i sometimes wish this was fiction...
but drunk people fall like sacks of potatoes...
there's no defense mechanism...
they don't try to pretend to fly flapping
their hands in the air...
i remember when i tilted back and fell down
the stairs... did a Lucifer's dive...
of being born: head first...

i don't remember any bruises: any plum tattoos
on my body... that other time...
when the summer was really... really hot:
unbearable in England... 2016?
i'd wake up gasping for air... run but naked
into the garden and lie on the grass in the shade...
but this other time i escaped my bedroom
and decided to snooze in the hallway...
i rolled from side to side... dropped about 2 metres
down onto the stairs...
like a ******* sack of potatoes...

falling to your death: it must feel like that "analogy"
in Salman Rushdie's the Satanic Verse...
one of the characters drops to earth: laconically...
is that the right word? while the other...
is hardly in a freefall...

this 22 year old darling was lucky: he died...
i would have thought it would take a much higher height
to drop dead like that...
at least he didn't survive the fall and have become
bound to a wheelchair and being fed milkshakes
of protein through a tube...
let's be absolutely frank about this fact...

but that's the luck of drunks and madmen...
i was about to start work on the Olympic Village
prior to the 2012 events...
i panicked when my father said:
you'll be drug-tested: he always ******* lies...
they do test... but not to the point of paranoia...
i was about to start the next day...
what did i do? i ****** off to Athens...
the next morning...

i've never been to Athens! i remember catching a bus
from the airport to some random hostel
in view of the Acropolis... on the mountain side:
illuminated... it truly reminded me of Edinburgh...
although... there's not much on Arthur's Seat...
by comparison... first night?

in Athens?! drinking absinthe... putting a hand over
my eyes... left? right? then spontaneously giggling,
laughing... pointing forward...
from what i later heard: it was the ******* district
of Athens... the philosophical quarter of Athens...
plenty of "bums": did i meet a Diogenes of Sinope?
nope... second day i met a few guys who i thought
were Syrians... i got into a car with them...
we drove far ******* far from where i was staying...
to a *******...

at one point: what's the policy in a *******? no touching...
i had two broads on either side of my shoulder...
mingling my lips with their collar bones...
elbows... that parts of the body men can biceps and triceps...
*******... running out of money fast...

escorted by one of the gorillas (bouncers)
to withdraw some more cash: account empty...
******* my pants... literally... i ****** myself...
over excitement or whatever...
sneaking out onto the streets of Athens:
a city i've never visited... we must have been driving
for about half an hour...
yet my drunken GPS woke up...
how i made it back to the hostel:
i will never want to know...

amnesia...

i return to this memory because i remember the coach
trip from Greece... via Macedonia...
Serbia... via Hungary... via Slovakia...
the snow of Serbia: just outside of Belgrade...
looking like a ghost when i encountered my grandparents...

it's a burning in my mind:
i was so cautious whenever i visited Paris...
when i went to Stockholm... i was always so sober...
but in Athens?! random strangers?!
*******?! **** it...

i remember this girl talking to me dropping a green
peg onto the table: insinuating:
i'd like a private audience with you...
i even remember what song was popular in Greece
back then: Rihanna's: only girl in the world...
it was playing on the bus from the airport...

but "we" freefall like a sack of potatoes...
there's no hands flapping...
that boy was lucky: thank god he didn't end up
in a wheelchair... being fed protein milkshakes
through a tube...
lucky *******...
   i sometimes wish the branch i was sitting on didn't
break and i managed to hand myself to
the eternal night of the gods...

but like drunken GPS: how it gets turned on...
don't ask me:
i must have migrating bird genes...
how do storks migrate back to central Europe?
storks... most associate with ****** mythology...
i must have a pea-sized-brain or something...
since... first time in Athens...
and... driven to a ******* minutes from
the city centre where the Parliament is...
**** my pants... and still manage to walk back
and get a good night's sleep!

it's a bit like when i first came to England aged 8...
what knowledge of the English language did i have?
maybe one... or two words... having seen them
written down...

you want to know the slang term for klawisz?
i.e. klaveesch? a button... a key...
on a keyboard... or a piano...
in Poland it usually refers to someone who's
a prison guard...
everyone: or rather, everyone ought to know
about the failure of the Stamford Prison Experiment...

i'm not a klawisz: in this "work" i'm "supposedly"
doing... i'm the mediator...
i never ask for assistance: those... sadistic little
busy bodies i could twist a wrist off if i wanted to...
talk... talk talk talk...
violence comes last: first comes metallurgy...
first comes roofing...
first comes: the art of judo...
first comes compromise...
brute strength comes last...
  but all these ******* i'm working with are:
technically: "rapists"...
i don't agree with their techniques...
talk... talk... we're civilised people... or: i hope...
i believe anything can arrive at a compromise...

i'm already working with people who have
complaints... made complaints...
like that one time against Liverpool fans
when they played the semi-final at Wembley against
Manchester City...
i had a woman from Liverpool walk up to me and kiss
me... she wanted to feel what ***** on a man's face
felt like... and when they were walking out
en masse... ugh... childish *******...
one started tapping me on my shoulder to my right:
i looked left... "no one"...
then some other started tapping me on my shoulder
to my left: i looked right: "no one" there...

i love that we can return to being children!
that's the whole point!
i know i' return to being a child by being
easily irritated!
but at the same time... this easily irritated me
understands that: it's archetypical!
i'm not serious about: whatever the hell this is...
but people can be... dealt with:
without employing: even the least amount of force...
with my own eyes i can attest that:
convo... mere convo...
if by staging this macho you create a subversive
allure of authority...
guess what... i'd rather **** than showcase a taste
of strength...
        
no no... none of this: you think you have authority therefore:
i have no authority to ****...
but i'd rather **** than showcase
a sputnik's worth of authority...
because this showcasing: this grandstanding is:
a load of *******...
it concerns people who never had
to wrestle with themselves to cycle for 4 hours...
who had to break themselves...

that's all it is...
it's just in plain ******* sight!
why didn't i get laid when i dropped round her house,
twice... when i defended her integrity on one of our
trips back:
on the way toward the shift the guys were
making ****** jokes...
i told her: i'm coming back with you: don't worry...
what did the boys talk about? ******* cereal brands...
she didn't have to posit her elbow on my knee
and relax... she didn't have to do anything:
drink my wine... laugh...
giggle... smile... sing in front of me...
she didn't have to invite me into her home...
she didn't have to make me want to drop her
Valentine's flowers in the middle of the night...

she really didn't require me to make her
feel the requirements of feeling protected...
apparently any football hooligan is immune
to the argument: imagine if i were you mother...
a different story if i just stand there and... wink...
oi oi... ups to two toe nothings, eh eh?! wink-wink...
wanna giggle?!
i know a proper rattle that even giggles me
about...
    i like to... put out cigarette buts on my knuckles...
you... want to try?!
it truly is a: transcendental experience
of "emotion"... well... more like feeling...
well.. more like...
              can i break your knee into cartilage?!

but she was so perfect! ginger 'n' all!
ah man... a ginger girl... just 4 years older than me...
a ******* bombshell!
she already mentioned that this guy wasted
20 years of his life to approach her with enough:
******* or... ego or... ****** or... unicorns...
and i was like: **** it: bungee!

   eh... no wonder... what a glorious shrimp: ginger: imp...
there's another one on the horizon...
but this one is less cougar and more: mousey...
but ginger and freckles is like...
cumin and coriander... powder... curry base!

well i get what i can get... alttürkischrabehaar:
old turkish raven hair...
i was born with a fetish for blonde haired girls...
sorry... the story twists...
gingers... Celtic gingers... time's up... the night's
most welcome.

— The End —