In this chapter, the researcher reviewed the opinion of some past and recent writers on the subject and also added their own ideal under the following sub-headings:
- Conceptual frame work
- Theoretical frame work
- Empirical frame work
- Summary

2.1. CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK
CONCEPT OF ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN

The concept zoological garden is a form of ex – situ conservation, which primarily involves keeping of animals alive outside their natural environment for aesthetic educational researches and recreational purpose (Varadharajan and Pythol 2000). Nigeria is blessed with abundant wildlife species which needs to be properly managed in a sustainable basis to prevent depletion (Opara et –al 2010). Hence the need to adapt strict management of resources, repopulation of endangered species and conservation of wildlife park and zoological garden and management strategies (Ajebede et – al 2010).
Throughout history, human have given value to other species of animals as means of entertainment, education and spirituality in addition to being source of food and clothing (front 2011, 69) collecting and exhibiting and exhibiting animals originated from Ancient Egypt where private collection were reserved for the higher class population as a symbol of wealth and power (wearing and jobberns 2011, 19 – 50). In the 1900’s, zoo’s based themselves as conservation movement, with focus on scientific study of endangered species. In the beginning of the 20th century, zoo became an attraction of mass audiences (Beardworth and Bryan 2001, 88). By the late 1900’s there was a shift in the natural of zoo with public attitude and interest changing nature and conservation, with concern for ecosystem and awareness as they protect endangered species (Wearing and Jobbern 2011, 50.

ROLES OF ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN
(Mason 2011, 189) reveal that the roles of zoo are:
a. Educating people about animals.
b. Conservation of endangered species
c. Safeguarding the welfare visitors
d. To generate revenue
e. Providing visitors facilities such as catering and merchandising
f. Re – introducing captive breeding into the wild and carrying out zoological and veterinary research to improve animal welfare in the wild and in captivity.
On the other hand, zoos served as scientific research, for example, zoologist learn more about animals habit and diseases by studying them in zoos studies of animals living kin zoo, together with examination of those that have died have provide zoologist with information about the structure and function of animal bodies (Usher M.B 2000). Keeping wildlife animals in captivity bring visitors from different parts of the world for different purposes such as to provide sources of recreation in the city, to provide biological specimen to constitutes, a learning resource for secondary school, colleges, and universities. It also provide employment and game reserve, provides sources of protein revenue, esthetics recreation, education and scientific values (Presley 2001). The captive animal propagation is one way of encouraging growth of depleted wildlife species population and so properly planned program of zoo establishment and development is considered as one of effective method for conservation of wildlife (Okpiri 2005). Educational environment study and conservation of the  environment have become a subject of major importance all over the world, not only from the point of view of preventing population, but also from the point of conserving water supplies by protecting water shed, conserving soil, vegetarian and Fauna. (Comphell 2007). Comphell also stated that conservation zoos can provide an important facility for research at both pure and applied levels in both the field and laboratory in colleges and universities. Bigot (2000) emphasized that the primary function of zoo curators is to make visit a leaving experience. The attention and effort given to wildlife conservation and tourism in both state and federal levels have been noted.

CONCEPT OF TOURISM
According to UNWTO 2020 defined as the study of man away from his usual habitat. Activities of a person traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes, tourism contributes to specie conservation, communities project in developing countries like: Nigeria, environmental education, awareness and economies development (Klutzy, 2000). Filton et al (2000) reported that 20 – 40 percent of international tourism is related to wildlife. In Nigeria, tourism contributed 3.3 percent of total GDP in 2011 with forecast of a 10.8 percent increase for 2012 (WTTC 2012). Smith et al (2012) recognized the role of wildlife tourism as building breeding species management and influencing visitor’s behavior for the benefit of wild animals. Fibs (2007) underscored the value of zoo visitors and their feedbacks for the planning and designing of zoo and more importantly to decision making in zoo management by showing on – going treads. He therefore stands to reason that visitors’ preferences should be seriously considered by policy makers and management of zoo and other similar institutions. An area in which visitors’ preference is highly important for a zoo in particular is choice of animals desired. Woods (2000) observed that humans have definite preference for different species of animals. Knowledge of visitors desires in terms of animals and the features that make the animals appealing will assist zoo management in animal acquisition and also in development of education and interpretation programs listening physical features, behavioral characteristics as factors influencing animals preference (Wood 2000, Wentworth 2012). Wild tourism can be described as tourism undertaken to view and or encounter non – domesticated animals in captive, semi – captive or in their natural environment (CRC 2001, Newsome et al 2005). According to Durbary (2004), it could be non consumptive such as viewing, photographing and fishing.

CONCEPT OF ZOO AND EDUCATION
In zoo and education, a study by Patricia et al 2007 states that conservation and education are key elements in the mission statement of zoos. A survey conducted by the Association of zoo and aquarium (AZA) reveals that the general public rate conservation and education as the most important role of zoo (Frasers and Stickler 2008). Zoo primarily deals with three aspects of conservation practice i.e practice, advocacy and research. Conservation practice entails captive breeding, species rein-introduction programs, species survival plans and the use of zoo revenue for conservation programs in wild. Conservation advocacy include: public engagement, promoting awareness, advocacy, stewarding and fund raising events and schemes, a good example of which is like “Adopt animal scheme at most modern zoos”. Moreover, conservation research is conducted on wildlife biology, population dynamics, animal behavior, health and welfare and there are also publications generated by zoos animals care captivity. The preservation of animals in zoos makes it easier for more people to see them.
As well, zoos have been used to preserve various endangered species. However, zoos have become powerful educational tool for many scholars, biologists and researchers (Falk and Dierking 2000).  Individual who visit a zoo get the rare opportunity to examine the relationship between man and animal (Wagoner and Jenson 2010). Students can learn a lot about certain animals that might not be locally available. Many specimen and animals (Wagner and Jensen 2010) argue that zoo makes it possible for researchers to conduct their studies, for instance, researchers can use caged animals to make various observation about wildlife or animals. The acquired knowledge can be used to support the survival of the wild animals in their natural habitats. It is therefore agreeable that zoos have an important educational role in every society. This because, learning is ever – changing process (Falk and Dierking 2000). In the 1970’s the primary educational target for most American zoo was elementary level children. The idea was that building understanding would lead to appreciation which would eventually produce a generation that was concerned about wildlife and the environment (Wheatly 2000). Wheatly emphasized that although children are still a primary audience, zoos are extending themselves to reach many others audience that can make difference in action today. This initiative includes the membership, governance and employee of zoo.

CONCEPT OF ZOO AND CONSERVATION
In zoo and conservation, according to Max – Planck Gesell Chaft (2011), Zoology garden breeds animal from threatened populations and and thus makes greater contributions towards biodiversity conservation. According to UN (2020) on global biodiversity warned that 1 million species are at risk of extinction with decades, putting the world’s natural life support system in jeopardy. Unfortunately, loss of plants and animals habitat leads to from species extinctions and loss of diversity from ecosystem. Fortunately, not all of the extinctions occur at once. Conservation action may still be able to save threatened species (John M et al 2016). At October 2010, meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, delegates discussed a plan to reduce pressure in the planet’s biodiversity. Key targets include expanding coverage of protected areas, halving the rate of loss of natural habitats, and preventing extinction of threatened species. Species whose habitat is severely threatened, however, the outlook is so bleak that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the US Endangered Species Act and the CBD (Article a) recognize that In-Situ conservation action (ie, in the species natural habitat) will need to be combined with Ex-Situ approaches, such as captive breeding in zoos, aquariums and so on (Conde et al 2011).

THE THEORETICAL FRAME WORK
The animal welfare and management (Dakin 2001) is a state of being that can be measured, recognized that its ranges from very poor to very good, introduces the concept of coping, allow measurement separate from moral consideration and refer to feeling as well as physical and psychological health. The definition of welfare that we use also emphasizes that it relates to an individual and thus welfare can differ between different members of the same species, even when exposed to the same condition (Horsey et al 2009). In the case of zoo animals, which have often come from very heterogeneous background, individuals may vary greatly in this previous life experiences and this can influence their ability to cope with certain challenges, by using each animal as its environment and thus an individual’s welfare can be measured.
There are also some species – specific characteristics that have evolved to enable animals cope with different, environment and thus we should also consider welfare at the species level; such species level adaptation could relate to dietary needs, hearing sensitivity, thermo-regulatory needs and so on. The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin’s book “On the origin of species” in 1859, this theory states Organisms change over time as result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it to survive and have more offspring. The physical and behavioral changes that make natural selection possible happen at the level of DNA and gene, such changes are called Mutation. “Mutations are basically the raw materials on which evolution act. Pobiner said, mutation can be caused by random error in DNA replication or repair, or by chemical of radiation damage. According to Chinaka (2019) in the book concept of evolution, Charles Darwin proposed the concept of natural selection as the mechanism of evolution. The main postulates of Darwinism are:
1. Geometric increase: According to Darwinism, the populations tends to multiply geometrically and the reproductive powers of living organism (biotic potential) are much more than required to maintain their numbers.
2. Limited food and space
3. Struggle for existence
4. Variation etc
Both natural animal populations and those in captivity are subject to evolutionary forces. Evolutionary changes to captive populations may be an important, but poorly understood, factor that can affect the sustainability of these populations. The importance of maintaining the evolutionary integrity of zoo populations especially those that are used for conservation efforts including rein-introductions is critical for the conservation of biodiversity.
Greater appreciation for an evolutionary perspective may offer important insights that can enhance the reproductive success and health examples and associated strategies that highlight this approach, including minimizing domestication (ie genetic adaptation to captivity), integrating natural mating systems into captive breeding protocols, minimizing the effects of translocation on variation in photoperiods and understanding the interplay of parasites and pathogens and inflammation. Captive populations can adapt rapidly to captive environments through demonstration, in which human impose artificial selection in order to increase the prevalence of desired traits in the domesticated population.
For domestic animals, human breeders choose to breed only those individuals that thrive in the captive environments, leading to trans-generational changes that result in a population that is adapted to breed and survive in the conditions imposed by the breeders. Among captive population of animals, zoo populations are unique in that they are maintained to educate the public regarding wildlife and their habitat or to preserve critically endangered species through captive breeding and reinforcement program. Although assessment and preservation of genetic diversity is a top priority for most conservation breeding programs, fundamental to these goals is the maintenance of the genetic variation of these captive populations (Lacy 2009). Whether used to further educational or conservation goals, it is critically that these captive population are representative of the natural populations from which they are desired (Ashley et al 2003). However, maintaining captive population, such that they are reflective of the wild phenotype of the animals, can be challenging in zoos because of the mismatch the environments that the zoo population is originally from and the captive content in which they are been housed. Hendry et al 2015 carol et al 2014, for example, solitary animals with large territories that only encounter sexually mature counterparts during estrus may be housed in proximity of their mate year round, potentially leading to the behavioral issues, including ****** aggregation or ****** incompatibility. Other stressor can exist in captive environments for which animals are not adapted, including the acoustic environments, physical substrate and even availability of food (Morgan and Tromborg 2007). Minimizing the mismatch between the natural environment and the captive environment and they should limit the decline and poor performance of captive populations (Hendry et al 2011; Carrol et al 2014). Captive environments are very different from the wild and can impose different selection pressures that can lead to genetic adaptation in the captivity that affects behaviors (eg: temperaments; MC Douglas et al 2006), morphology (eg; size, skeletal morph metric O’ Regan and Kitchener 2005); and reproductive output (eg; age at ****** maturity, letter size). In particular populations of species with short generation times will adapt more rapidly to captivity than those with long generation time (Frankham 2008).
Social learning theory is the idea that children from observing. According to the learning theory, learning is based on social interaction with the environments (Nwamuo et al 2006). As children walk around the zoo, they are exposed to words and concepts. It also encourages dialogue between parents, siblings, friends and zoo guards (Jessica 2014)  visiting the zoo help the children and other visitors to understand the importance of taking care of the environments as it has a significant impact on lives and welfare of animals and importance of conservation and animal care which will never be forgotten. According to (Nwamuo et al 2006) social learning theory plays a big role in how people and especially learn. There are four elements to social learning theory including:
• Attention: Children can’t learn if they aren’t focused on the task. Students who see something unique or different are more likely to focus on it, helping to learn just as in zoo.
• Retention: people learn by internalizing information later when we can recall that information later when we respond to a situation in the same way which we saw.
• Reproduction: in the way we are able to reproduce our previously learn behavior or knowledge when it’s required. Practicing our response in our head or in action can improve the way we response.
• Motivation

Operant conditioning of behaviors theory of B.F Skinner, enclosure design and environmental enrichment strategies have all been suggested to improve the welfare of zoo animals by reducing stereotypical behavior and rein-introduction success of wildlife species. (WAZA 2015). Thus, the use of these strategies has important consequences for zoological collections. Despite the recognition and wild-scale implementation of such strategies, however, concerns around global zoo animal welfare remain and behavioral pathologies are common in many species. (Luhrs 2010) using operant conditioning, some of the barriers to delivering positive welfare experiences through holistic behavioral management strategies to zoo animals and make recommendations for institutional approaches towards improving zoo animal welfare using examples of Abnormal Repetitive Behaviors (ARBs) through targeted behavioral management.

EMPIRICAL FRAMEWORK
According to P.A Anadu (2000) on his study wildlife conservation in Nigeria: problems and strategy a case study of wildlife reserve of University of Benin, the major treats to nature conservation in Nigeria and he reviewed critically the measures adopted for the protection of wildlife. According the study, the major problem includes habitat degradation (through uncontrolled logging, agricultural projects, industrial plantations, highway and urban development’s and exploitation for fuel wood) over hunting and poaching.
He suggested that to protect wildlife include the creation of more game reserve, enactment of wildlife laws, signing of international treaties and manpower development. According to his research through interview with about 10 workers or staff of the wildlife reserve, the major treats to the area include poaching and hunting, indiscriminate feeling of forest trees, low funding, inadequate game laws and weak enforcement of the existing legal provisions.
It is suggested that the Federal Government should intervene more positively in favor of conservation by creating more national parks and assuming joint responsibility with the states for formulating wildlife laws. Furthermore, the role of nongovernmental organizations in influencing conservation policies and mobilizing public opinion will be cruial in different years ahead.
In the journal “A synopsis of wildlife conservation in Nigeria by Timothy A Afolaya  2009, this article emphasized the recent developments in the overall conservation program in Nigeria as it describes the important role which wildlife is playing in helping to feed the nation, in creating employment opportunities, in education in research, in recreation and in local medicine. Inadequately of Nigerian wildlife legislation and of the trained manpower to protect and manage the wildlife resources are among the crucial wildlife management problems identified. It is also stressed that the basic information for effective management is often lacking where Nigerian wildlife reserved are concerned. It also stressed that the main problems facing wildlife conservation in Nigeria include poaching, over exploitation, lack accurate data, bush burning that destroys wildlife habitat. There is adequate reliable database to facilitate forestry planning and development. Weak forest policy and implementation, forest policies lacks legal backing and hence its enforcement is difficult. The Nigeria forestry policy Act, 1937 is subsumed in the National Agricultural Policy of 1988. Forest tariffs are relatively low and are not revised frequently penalties under most laws are low and seldom enforced. It suggested that Nigeria forestry policy act should be reviewed or renew and encourage the government to implement the policies adequately and enforce penalties on the offenders.
Jonathan (2009) in his own study animal wildlife conservation under multiple land use system in Nigeria reveals that out of 6 selected zoological garden and game reserves in six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The situation of wildlife in Nigeria is nevertheless different. Except in the Yankari, upper Ogun and Kwiabaha, Game Reserves and the Kainji lake National park, little efforts have been made to protect the Nigerian animal wildlife resources from human pressure and wide spread extinction. To many, what remains of the wildlife animals are best seen in the few state owned zoological gardens in Nigeria?
However, because most indigenous large animal species including Elephant, Buffalo, Chimpanzee, Gorilla, Rhinoceros, Leopard and Ostrich have not been able to reproduce in the various zoological garden so far, the hope to conserve this animals are brittle.
According to his work, animal wildlife is a declining resource in Nigeria because of unplanned land use practices. For example, land uses in game reserves are often conflicting and contradictory for land uses, timber extraction, hunting; food crop production and settlement are simultaneously going on in game reserves with little or no control measures and with no management plans. The excessive demands for land these conflicting uses have greatly disturbed the ecosystems involved, thus making the survival of the wild animals uncertain. Specially, the problems of wildlife conservation in Nigeria are:
a. Poaching
b. Indiscriminate burning of the vegetations
c. Uncontrolled grazing activities in the reserves
d. Intensive logging for domestic and industrial uses
e. Users rights on the reserves enjoyed by the traditional owners of the land before reservation
f. Lack of adequate fund to manage the reserve
g. Ineffective legislation
h. Lack of trained manpower
i. Urban sprawl
j. Infrastructural development of roads, electric and telegram lines and irrigation schemes.
k. Lack of modern enclosure or caging
l. Inability of animals to breed within the captive environment.

He then emphasized that the picture for Nigerian animal wildlife depends on the nation’s ability to conserve what is left either in their natural habitat or at least, in zoological gardens. The game reserve should be reduced to manageable numbers while state governments should win public sympathy through adequate conservation publicity and the provision of sufficient vehicles and personnel to manage the game reserves. The policy of land use in game reserves should be conducted on:
a. The number and species of animals hunted per year
b. The population of animals species in the game reserves and their habitat sustainability
c. The endangered and extinct animals species and specific reasons for the decline in their population
d. Human problems peculiar to each reserve and ways of minimizing them.
e. Establishment of rein-introduction programs.

SUMMARY
The establishment of zoos in a society is premised partly on the idea of bringing man close to wild animal’s species (Yager et al 2015). This establishment has various roles to play in the ecosystem and all endeavors of life. The role of zoological garden as well as wildlife conservation is as follows:
1. Education: zoos are established for the preservation of animal to make it easier for more people to see them and learn their characteristics and habitat. Zoo animals are used for specimens both for secondary schools students and tertiary institution as well as teaching the public the benefit of wildlife. A survey conducted by the Association of Zoos and Aquarium (AZA) reveals that, the general public rate conservation and education as the most important role of zoo (Fraser and Stickler 2008).
2. Conservation: of endangered species to avoid extinction of such animal.
3. Tourism:  it serves as a centre of tourism as people from different parts of the country visit to learn about nature at their leisure.
4. Generating revenue for the government as well as provides employment opportunities individuals etc
Most problems encountered in Nigerian zoos include:
• Poaching
• In availability of breeding species
• Lack of trained personnel’s
• Lack of fund by the Government
• Lack of infrastructure and conservation facilities.

Hotel Saudade*
Sebuah cerita pendek*

“Ceritakan padaku,”
Aku yakin semua orang pernah mendengar perintah, atau permintaan itu; diikuti dengan waktu senyap dan getir setelah diminta untuk bercerita dan mencoba menata tutur sedemikian rupa. Menata tutur untuk menyanyikan, dan menuliskan (jika dalam surat,)  pengalaman, senda gurau, romansa, kehilangan,
Rindu, yang entah bagaimana caranya,
Sepi.

Beberapa mengakui bahwa setelah bercerita, mencurahkan isi hati, mereka merasa lega seolah ada beban yang terangkat. Tapi, cerita tidak hanya dapat diutarakan hanya dalam bentuk sepatah kata, sepanjang tangis, pun dalam tawa. Pada sebuah perjalananku (pertamakalinya aku berpergian sendiri, menggantikan ayahku untuk merancang dan menggambar iklan salah satu perusahaan kenalannya.) Aku bertemu seseorang yang memutarbalikkan pandanganku mengenai cerita pengalaman pribadi.
Aku tak tahu siapa dirinya,
Aku belum tahu siapa dirinya—
Namun pria ini mengaku bahwa ia tak memiliki cerita,
Cerita apapun.

Inilah cerita yang kupunya untukmu, cerita yang aneh,
Bukan aneh dalam artian mengerikan.
Malam itu kereta sampai terlalu larut, dan niatanku untuk mencari penginapan yang lebih dekat dengan pusat kota telah lenyap; aku sudah lelah. Sebenarnya aku dapat datang besok, tapi aku memilih untuk datang 2 hari lebih awal dari hari yang dijanjikan agar dapat bersantai.

Aku menjinjing tasku keluar stasiun dan membenarkan topiku, melihat kanan dan kiri dengan was-was sebelum bertanya pada orang-orang sekitar apakah ada penginapan di sekitar sini. Kau tahu betapa canggungnya aku bila bertanya ini dan itu, aku tak biasa berpergian sendiri! Namun karena keadaan mendesak, ya beginilah jadinya. Aku mendapat rujukan bahwa dengan berjalan kaki (sedikit jauh, tapi tak sejauh bila harus menjelajah malam atau menjadi angkutan untuk ke pusat kota) aku dapat sampai ke sebuah penginapan yang namanya terlalu puitis—Hujung Malam.
Apa maksudnya? Penghujung malam?
Apalah yang ada dalam sebuah nama, yang penting aku dapat tidur tenang malam ini, dan berganti penginapan keesokan harinya!

Dinginnya malam kala itu membuat mantel dan bajuku yang berlapis mejadi tidak berguna. Aku sedikit berlari melintasi trotoar yang digenangi beberapa kubangan air kecil, terlihat bak emas disinari pantulan lampu jalan. Sesekali menggosok lensa kacamata bulatku dengan sarung tangan hitam yang kukenakan. Ranting-ranting gemeretak, seolah merasakan juga dingin yang menusuk tulang. Setibanya di sana, aku tidak menyangka bahwa bangunan penginapan satu lantai ini terlihat lebih tua (tapi sangat terawat) dan lebih besar dari kelihatannya. Aku diantar ke kamarku yang terletak pada lorong yang tepat mengelilingi sebuah taman besar.

Setelah mempersilahkan keluar pegawai penginapan yang terlalu ramah bagiku, aku membuka pintu dan memperhatikan keadaan taman kala malam; didepan tiap kamar diletakkan dua buah kursi dan meja kecil. Sebuah pohon besar berdiri gagah di sudut taman, pada bagian tengahnya terdapat air mancur yang dikelilingi patung-patung pualam kecil; malaikat, anak-anak, dan bidadari tak berhati.

Aku mulai memperhatikan keadaan sekitar (yang tak biasanya kulakukan) dan barulah aku menyadari bahwa aku tidak sendirian.
Tidak, tak ada hantu.

Hanya ada sayup-sayup suara harmonika tak sumbang, yang dimainkan dengan tepat dan sedih pada pedihnya malam dingin.
Aku tahu lagu ini,
Greensleeves.
Lagu zaman Tudor itu, lagu orang-orang yang ditinggalkan.

Aku menoleh seolah digiring oleh angin yang baru saja berhembus, beberapa kamar kosong (kupikir itu kamar kosong, lampunya dindingnya tak menyala) duduk seorang pria berambut panjang, digelung rapi ke belakang, hanya mengenakan kemeja dan rompinya.

Ia ramping, namun pakaiannya tidak lebih besar dari tubuhnya dan justru terpasang pas pada tubuhnya. Rambut bagian depannya yang panjang dan tak ikut terikat rapi ke belakang berjatuhan, membingkai tulang pipinya yang terlihat jelas. Pria itu sibuk dengan alat musiknya dan memejamkan matanya tanpa menyadari kehadiranku. Aku juga sibuk, sibuk memperhatikannya bermain dan mengingat bagaimana Greensleeves selalu menyayat hatiku. Ini kali pertamanya aku mendengar lagu itu dimainkan pada harmonika.

Setelah ia menyelesaikan musiknya, aku menyapa dari kejauhan sambil memegangi gagang pintu kamarku,
“Greensleeves?”
Ia hanya menatap ke depan tanpa menoleh atau menjawab, duduk di kursi depan kamarnya dengan kaki kanan disila pada lutut kaki kirinya. Aku hanya dapat melihat hidungnya yang mancung dan matanya yang dibayangi gelap, ia terlihat cantik, dan sepi. Setelah menunggu sedikit lama dan masih tetap diabaikan, aku menghangatkan diriku di kamar. Aku akan berpindah penginapan besok siang.

Ternyata esok berkata lain.
Aku membuka pintu kamarku untuk sarapan dan mendapatinya lagi di tempatyang sama, seolah ia tidak beranjak semalam suntuk.
“Selamat pagi,” sapaku canggung.
“Kau selalu di sini?”
Ia tidak menjawab, hanya menatapku, dan saat itulah aku melihat matanya yang tidak lebih redup dari matahari senja di laut kala mendung.

Ia tidak menjawab, dan aku malah menggeret kursi dari depan salah satu kamar kosong untuk kutempatkan disebelahnya. Kami duduk bersebelahan dalam diam, hanya ditemani rintik hujan yang tak hentinya menghujat; ia mulai memainkan harmonikanya.

Aku beranjak untuk sarapan, dan memperpanjang masa sewa kamarku sampai beberapa hari ke depan.

Setelah aku kembali, ia masih tetap duduk disana, benar-benar tak berpindah dan terus memainkan harmonikanya. Aku tak dapat memperhatikannya lebih lama, aku harus beristirahat dan bersiap-siap untuk besok.

Hari berikutnya tidak banyak yang berubah, pagi masih tetap dirundung hujan dan pria itu masih duduk termenung menghadap taman. Aku bergegas untuk sarapan sebelum pergi ke kota dan menyempatkan diri untuk bertanya mengenai pria yang tak beranjak dari tempatnya. Ada yang bilang bahwa ia dulunya buronan, teman pemilik penginapan yang lalu diberi tempat tinggal disini. Yang lainnya mengatakan bahwa ia dahulu pelancong yang akhirnya memutuskan untuk tinggal dalam penginapan setelah diberi kamar oleh bapak pemilik penginapan yang terkesima olehnya.

Sepulang dari kota aku mengeringkan payungku yang basah kuyub dan mantel yang bagian depannya basah karena terkena air dari kereta kuda yang mendadak lewat didepanku. Bagian bawah gaunku penuh lumpur, dan aku tak tahu apa jadinya sepatuku ini. Aku tak ambil pusing dan kembali keluar kamar untuk sekali lagi mencari tahu tentangnya.
Entahlah, ada hal yang membuatku merasa tertarik. Mungkin karena lagu Tudor itu, mungkin karena ia sama sekali tidak berbicara dan beranjak dari kursi kecil itu. Hanya sesekali melepas ikatan rambutnya, dan membuka jam kantungnya.

Aku sekali lagi menduduki kursi yang kuletakkan di sebelahnya, dan langsung melontarkan pernyataan dan pertanyaan,
“Mereka bilang kau dulunya buronan,” ia terus memandangi jam kantungnya,
“Kenapa kau selalu duduk di kursi ini?”
Aku kira ia takkan menjawabnya, namun malah sebaliknya.
“Memangnya kau tahu kalau aku selalu di sini?”
“Karena aku selalu melihatmu di sini.”
“Itu hanya sebagian bukan keseluruhan.” Ia mengangkat bahunya. “Karena kau selalu melihatku duduk memandangi taman bukan berarti aku selalu melakukannya.”

Aku mengintip jam kantung yang di genggamannya, belum ia tutup. Jarum detiknya tak berjalan, begitu juga jarum panjang dan pendeknya. Namun derasnya hujan dan gema suaranya membuat kesan bahwa jam itu terus berjalan mengejar rindu. Ia mengutak-atik sedikit jamnya, dan jam itu mengeluarkan suara kotak musik. Tapi ini bukan jam kantung dengan kotak musik yang biasa kita lihat, jarum jamnya berputar secara terbalik.

“Boleh aku tahu siapa namamu?” aku mencoba mengajaknya berkenalan.
“Aku membuatmu teringat akan apa?”
“Apa? Entahlah.”
“Bukannya kau berlagak seolah mengenalku? Mengatakan aku selalu di sini.”
“Kau mengingatkanku pada senja di laut saat mendung.”
“Kalau begitu, namaku Laut. Aku selalu di sini seperti laut, kan? Ia tidak berpindah dari tempatnya.”

Percakapan kami terhenti di situ karena hujan makin deras dan aku harus kembali ke kamar untuk menyegerakan gambarku. Aku tidak ke kota lagi esok hari, dan menghabiskan waktu menggambar iklan itu di kursi kecil yang menghadap taman tanpa sepatah katapun, disamping orang yang mengakui dirinya sebagai Laut dan dibawah lindung hujan deras. Kami tidak berbicara pun berbincang, tapi aku menikmati kesepiannya seolah ada rindu yang belum dilunasi.
Tapi entah mengapa aku justru memulai pembicaraan,

“Ada yang bilang kau pelancong, apa kau mau bercerita sudah pergi ke mana saja?”
“Kau jarang berpergian?”
“Sangat.”
“Kau jarang berpergian, dan aku tak punya cerita.”
“Tak punya cerita?”
“Tak ada yang menarik untuk diceritakan. Tak akan ada yang merasakan sebuah cerita seperti penuturnya.”
Aku menyelesaikan gambarku, dan bersiap untuk menyetorkannya keesokan harinya.

Sore hari setelah aku kembali ke penginapan dengan keadaan yang sama, basah, terguyur hujan. Senja dalam hujan kembali ku habiskan bersamanya tanpa sepatah kata dan ia kembali memainkan nada-nada pada harmonikanya. Lagu yang sama dengan yang diputar oleh jam kantungnya. Lagu soal sunyinya malam ditengah laut, menunggu rintik dan bulan yang tak kunjung datang.

“Lagu apa itu? Sama seperti di jam yang kemarin.”
“Pesan Malam.”
“Aku belum pernah mendengarnya.”
“Aku yang membuatnya, wajar kau tidak tahu.”
“Sayang lagunya pendek, lagu yang indah.”
Ia hanya mengangguk,
“Aku akan pulang besok. Terima kasih telah menemaniku disini.”
Ia tak menjawab, dan terus memainkan harmonikanya tanpa menoleh. Seperti suara rintik hujan yang tak tentu, bingung akan apa yang ia tangisi, pria disebelahku tak memiliki cerita, tak bisa bercerita. Namun ia dapat berkisah, kisahnya tertuang pada lantunan nada dan lagu-lagu yang ia mainkan. Aku memejamkan mata, mendengarnya fasih menyihir suara menjadi sebuah fabel dan parabel, berharap dapat menyisihkan kisah-kisah yang tak diutarakan secara tersurat dan harfiah.

Aku undur diri untuk tidur lebih awal, dan menulis sebuah pesan dalam secarik kertas; lagunya mengingatkanku akan bagaimana caranya mengingat dan rindu. Aku harus pulang, tapi entah mengapa aku ingin kembali ke sini.

Dalam hening tidur malamku, ada sebuah lagu yang berulangkali dimainkan tanpa henti. Lagu di penghujung malam, lagu sunyi laut. Aku terbangun, dan dentingnya masih berputar dalam kepalaku.
Sayangnya aku harus kembali sebelum jam 12 esok hari, dan ketika terbangun, aku sayup-sayup sadar akan ketukan halus di pintu kamarku. Aku membukanya setelah memakai mantel, dan memejamkan mata pada keadaan yang sama sambil meluruskan gaun malamku. Hujan masih rintik, malam masih gelap, lampu-lampu menyala beberapa saja, dan hanyalah satu perbedaan; pria itu tak duduk pada kursi kecilnya.

Aku kembali masuk, linglung. Siapa yang tadi mengetuk pintu kamarku? Tanganku meraba gagang pintunya yang sudah menghitam dan saat itulah aku melihat sebuah jam kantung tergantung lesu pada lampu dinding didepan kamarku. Jam kantung yang selalu ia lihat, yang jarum jamnya berputar terbalik.

Tidurku tak kulanjutkan. Aku mengutak-atiknya sesperti yang ia lakukan tadi, dan menyadari bahwa bukan hanya ada satu lagu di situ, namun beberapa lagu pendek. Tiap lagu memiliki suasanya dan warna nada yang berbeda, membangkitkan berbagai macam bentuk ingatan dan kisah-kisah yang dapat kita bayangkan sendiri tanpa dipacu cerita dari siapapun. Hanya sebuah lagu, dan seuntai suasana.

Aku tak dapat terlelap lagi setelahnya. Aku membereskan barang-barangku dan beranjak untuk meninggalkan penginapan. Aku ingin berpamitan padanya dahulu, mengembalikan jam kantungnya, dan berterimakasih atas kisah-kisah yang ia ceritakan secara tersirat dalam senandung sepi. Tapi ia tak di sana, tidak pada kursi kecilnya. Tidak dengan harmonikanya, tidak menatap taman. Ia tak ada dimanapun untuk saat ini, dan aku mengitari taman serta koridor untuk mencari tanda-tanda kehadirannya untuk hasil yang nihil.

Ketika aku menuju serambi depan penginapan barulah aku melihatnya lagi, di ujung koridor, menatap kosong kearahku lalu tersenyum simpul. Senyum yang tak lama langsung sirna. Ia dibalut jas yang biasanya hanya ia selampirkan di kursi kecil dan ia mengurai rambutnya. Aku menyematkan secarik kertas kecil pada telapak tangan kiri beserta jam kantungnya, namun ia enggan menerima jam kantung yang kukembalikan.
“Simpan, dan jaga baik-baik.”
“Aku akan kembali.”
“Kembali kemana?”
“Ke tempat ini.”
“Untuk apa?”
“Bertemu denganmu. Lagi.”
“Bagaiamana kalau aku sudah pergi?”
“Aku akan tetap datang kesini.”
“Terserahmu.”
Ia meninggalkanku dalam remang-remang lorong kosong, sambil menggumam setelah melihat tulisan kecil di kertas yang kuberikan.
“Aku tidak paham puisi.”

Aku tak menoleh ke belakang saat ia berjalan melewatiku; yang kutahu, saat aku membalikkan badan untuk melihat apakah ia duduk di kursi kecil yang sama atau tidak, ia sudah tak ada, dimanapun. Bahkan tak ada suara pintu dibuka yang menandakan apabila ia memasuki kamarnya. Tidak ada lampu dinding didepan kamar yang menyala, hanya aku dan sunyi. Aku, sunyi, dan jam kantung yang putarannya terbalik mengindikasikan kisah masa lampau.
Sebagaimana ia memberi pesan di malam hari, aku mengirimkan secarik surat dalam bentuk sajak;

Untuk pesan malammu,
Yang tiap barisnya menari
Perih dalam benak,
Biarkan tanyaku dirundung rindu
Dan menjadi alasan
Untuk tertawa pada angan yang terlalu luluh
Mereka berhantu,
Dan akan kembali—
Sebagai sesayat serpih
Untuk melabuhkan kisah yang lain
Dalam seuntai surat malam

Memang tidak ada perlunya aku kembali, sayangnya lagu itu berputar-putar terus di kepalaku. Seolah nada-nadanya nyata mengirimkan pesan dan kisah yang berubah pada tiap bunyinya; fana, hanya dalam benak.

Mungkin cerita memang tidak selalu harus diutarakan secara tersurat begitu saja; akan banyak emosi yang terkikis habis, tidak tersalur secara utuh dalam penyampaiannya. Kisah yang disampaikan akan mati. Namun dalam lagu-lagu yang ia pahat abadi dalam jam itu, dan yang ia lantunkan dengan alat musiknya, ia menggiring hati yang tersesat dalam imaji untuk menguraikan kisah-kisah sendiri berdasarkan benak serta pedih. Dan tiap lembaran kisah itu,
Mereka membara,
Dalam kasih dan hidup yang belum pernah kita jalani,
Bahkan sekalipun.

Aku akan kembali, setelah membawa kidung-kidungnya pulang bersamaku. Bukan kembali pulang, namun kembali menemuinya di kemudian hari. Aku yakin, percaya, ia akan tetap disana—Menatap taman dan hujan. Entah bermimpi, entah bercerita dalam asa. Karena ia seperti laut, yang selalu disana dalam gelagap rindu, selalu ada dalam dahaga dan dan sejuknya malam. Juga seperti hujan, yang datang kala sepi dan tak kunjung pulang jua. Menemani dengan gesit suaranya, dalam tiap rintih fana.

Aku akan kembali,
Dan ia akan ada di sana.

She sent it to me as a text message, that is an image of a quote in situ, a piece of interpretation in a gallery. Saturday morning and I was driving home from a week in a remote cottage on a mountain. I had stopped to take one last look at the sea, where I usually take one last look, and the phone bleeped. A text message, but no text.  Just a photo of some words. It made me smile, the impossibility of it. Epic poems and tapestry weaving. Of course there are connections, in that for centuries the epic subject has so often been the stuff of the tapestry weaver’s art. I say this glibly, but cannot name a particular tapestry where this might be so. Those vast Arthurian pieces by William Morris to pictures by Burne-Jones have an epic quality both in scale and in subject, but, to my shame, I can’t put a name to one.

These days the tapestry can be epic once more - in size and intention - thanks to the successful, moneyed contemporary artist and those communities of weavers at West Dean and at Edinburgh’s Dovecot. Think of Grayson Perry’s The Walthamstowe Tapestry, a vast 3 x 15 metres executed by Ghentian weavers, a veritable apocalyptic vision where ‘Everyman, spat out at birth in a pool of blood, is doomed and predestined to spend his life navigating a chaotic yet banal landscape of brands and consumerism’.  Gosh! Doesn’t that sound epic!

I was at the Dovecot a little while ago, but the public gallery was closed. The weavers were too busy finishing Victoria Crowe’s Large Tree Group to cope with visitors. You see, I do know a little about this world even though my tapestry weaving is the sum total of three weekends tuition, even though I have a very large loom once owned by Marta Rogoyska. It languishes next door in the room that was going to be where I was to weave, where I was going to become someone other than I am. This is what I feel - just sometimes - when I’m at my floor loom, if only for those brief spells when life languishes sufficiently for me be slow and calm enough to pick up the shuttles and find the right coloured yarns. But I digress. In fact putting together tapestry and epic poetry is a digression from the intention of the quote on the image from that text - (it was from a letter to Janey written in Iceland). Her husband, William Morris, reckoned one could (indeed should) be able to compose an epic poem and weave a tapestry.  

This notion, this idea that such a thing as being actively poetic and throwing a pick or two should go hand in hand, and, in Morris’ words, be a required skill (or ‘he’d better shut up’), seemed (and still does a day later) an absurdity. Would such a man (must be a man I suppose) ‘never do any good at all’ because he can’t weave and compose epic poetry simultaneously?  Clearly so.  But then Morris wove his tapestries very early in the morning - often on a loom in his bedroom. Janey, I imagine, as with ladies of her day - she wasn’t one, being a stableman’s daughter, but she became one reading fluently in French and Italian and playing Beethoven on the piano- she had her own bedroom.

Do you know there are nights when I wish for my own room, even when sleeping with the one I love, as so often I wake in the night, and I lie there afraid (because I love her dearly and care for her precious rest) to disturb her sleep with reading or making notes, both of which I do when I’m alone.
Yet how very seductive is the idea of joining my loved one in her own space, amongst her fallen clothes, her books and treasures, her archives and precious things, those many letters folded into her bedside bookcase, and the little black books full of tender poems and attempts at sketches her admirer has bequeathed her when distant and apart. Equally seductive is the possibility of the knock on the bedroom / workroom door, and there she’ll be there like the woman in Michael Donaghy’s poem, a poem I find every time I search for it in his Collected Works one of the most arousing and ravishing pieces of verse I know: it makes me smile and imagine.  . .  Her personal vanishing point, she said, came when she leant against his study door all warm and wet and whispered 'Paolo’. Only she’ll say something in a barely audible voice like ‘Can I disturb you?’ and with her sparkling smile come in, and bring with her two cats and the hint of a naked breast nestling in the gap of the fold of her yellow Chinese gown she holds close to herself - so when she kneels on my single bed this gown opens and her beauty falls before her, and I am wholly, utterly lost that such loveliness is and can be so . . .

When I see a beautiful house, as I did last Thursday, far in the distance by an estuary-side, sheltering beneath wooded hills, and moor and rock-coloured mountains, with its long veranda, painted white, I imagine. I imagine our imaginary home where, when our many children are not staying in the summer months and work is impossible, we will live our ‘together yet apart’ lives. And there will be the joy of work. I will be like Ben Nicholson in that Italian villa his father-in-law bought, and have my workroom / bedroom facing a stark hillside with nothing but a carpenter’s table to lay out my scores. Whilst she, like Winifred, will work at a tidy table in her bedroom, a vase of spring flowers against the window with the estuary and the mountains beyond. Yes, her bedroom, not his, though their bed, their wonderful wooden 19C Swiss bed of oak, occupies this room and yes, in his room there is just a single affair, but robust, that he would sleep on when lunch had been late and friends had called, or they had been out calling and he wanted to give her the premise of having to go back to work – to be alone - when in fact he was going to sleep and dream, but she? She would work into the warm afternoons with the barest breeze tickling her bare feet, her body moving with the remembrance of his caresses as she woke him that morning from his deep, dark slumber. ‘Your brown eyes’, he would whisper, ‘your dear brown eyes the colour of an autumn leaf damp with dew’. And she would surround him with kisses and touch of her firm, long body and (before she cut her plaits) let her course long hair flow back and forward across his chest. And she did this because she knew he would later need the loneliness of his own space, need to put her aside, whereas she loved the scent of him in the room in which she worked, with his discarded clothes, the neck-tie on the door hanger he only reluctantly wore.

Back to epic poetry and its possibility. Even on its own, as a single, focused activity it seems to me, unadventurous poet that I am, an impossibility. But then, had I lived in the 1860s, it would probably not have seemed so difficult. There was no Radio 4 blathering on, no bleeb of arriving texts on the mobile. There were servants to see to supper, a nanny to keep the children at bay. At Kelmscott there was glorious Gloucestershire silence - only the roll and squeak of the wagon in the road and the rooks roosting. So, in the early mornings Morris could kneel at his vertical loom and, with a Burne-Jones cartoon to follow set behind the warp. With his yarns ready to hand, it would be like a modern child’s painting by numbers, his mind would be free to explore the fairy domain, the Icelandic sagas, the Welsh Mabinogion, the Kalevara from Finland, and write (in his head) an epic poem. These were often elaborations and retellings in his epic verse style of Norse and Icelandic sagas with titles like Sigurd the Volsung. Paul Thompson once said of Morris  ‘his method was to think out a poem in his head while he was busy at some other work.  He would sit at an easel, charcoal or brush in hand, working away at a design while he muttered to himself, 'bumble-beeing' as his family called it; then, when he thought he had got the lines, he would get up from the easel, prowl round the room still muttering, returning occasionally to add a touch to the design; then suddenly he would dash to the table and write out twenty or so lines.  As his pen slowed down, he would be looking around, and in a moment would be at work on another design.  Later, Morris would look at what he had written, and if he did not like it he would put it aside and try again.  But this way of working meant that he never submitted a draft to the painful evaluation which poetry requires’.

Let’s try a little of Sigurd

There was a dwelling of Kings ere the world was waxen old;
Dukes were the door-wards there, and the roofs were thatched with gold;
Earls were the wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed its doors;
Earls' wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters strewed its floors,

And the masters of its song-craft were the mightiest men that cast
The sails of the storm of battle down the bickering blast.
There dwelt men merry-hearted, and in hope exceeding great
Met the good days and the evil as they went the way of fate:
There the Gods were unforgotten, yea whiles they walked with men,

Though e'en in that world's beginning rose a murmur now and again
Of the midward time and the fading and the last of the latter days,
And the entering in of the terror, and the death of the People's Praise.

Oh dear. And to think he sustained such poetry for another 340 lines, and that’s just book 1 of 4. So what dear reader, dear sender of that text image encouraging me to weave and write, just what would epic poetry be now? Where must one go for inspiration? Somewhere in the realms of sci-fi, something after Star-Wars or Ninja Warriors. It could be post-apocalyptic, a tale of mutants and a world damaged by chemicals or economic melt-down. Maybe a rich adventure of travel on a distant planet (with Sigourney Weaver of course), featuring brave deeds and the selfless heroism of saving companions from deadly encounters with amazing animals, monsters even. Or is ‘epic’ something else, something altogether beyond the Pixar Studios or James Cameron’s imagination? Is the  ‘epic’ now the province of AI boldly generating the computer game in 4D?  

And the epic poem? People once bought and read such published romances as they now buy and engage with on-line games. This is where the epic now belongs. On the tablet, PlayStation3, the X-Box. But, but . . . Poetry is so alive and well as a performance phenomenon, and with that oh so vigorous and relentless beat. Hell, look who won the T.S.Eliot prize this year! Story-telling lives and there are tales to be told, even if they are set in housing estates and not the ice caves of the frozen planet Golp. Just think of children’s literature, so rich and often so wild. This is word invention that revisits unashamedly those myths and sagas Morris loved, but in a different guise, with different names, in worlds that still bring together the incredible geographies of mountains and deserts and wilderness places, with fortresses and walled cities, and the startling, still unknown, yet to be discovered ocean depths.

                                    And so let my tale begin . . . My epic poem.

                                                 THE SEAGASP OF ENNLI.
       A TALE IN VERSE OF EARTHQUAKE, ISLAND FASTNESS, MALEVOLENT SPIRITS,
                                                AND REDEMPTIVE LOVE.

Cerita Pendek Tentang Hantu*
Sebuah cerita pendek*

Anak-anak muda itu bilang bahwa Sundari cumalah hantu. Bagi mereka, Sundari sekedar cerita orang-orang tua zaman dahulu yang tak ingin anak lakinya pergi sampai larut malam. Parahnya lagi, mereka terkadang menganggap Sundari isapan jempol dan menggunakan namanya sebagai ejekan. Berbagai lelucon mereka buat untuk merendahkan Sundari,

Mereka pada saat tertentu menganggapnya seperti hewan kelaparan yang bersembunyi dan siap menerkam mereka,

Ketakutan sesaat.

Sayangnya, pada hari-hari berikutnya, Sundari malah terkadang lebih rendah daripada hewan.

Jika binatang buas dapat sewaktu-waktu muncul dan menyantap mereka dengan mudah, para pemuda justru berpikir bahwa mereka lebih tinggi dan mulia dibanding Sundari sehingga ia hanya akan menjadi segelibat penampakan.

Sundari cuma monster dan angan-angan, katanya, di zaman seperti ini mana ada hantu penculik jejaka. Pikiran anak muda memang berbeda dengan kebanyakan orangtuanya.

Padahal, Sundari sama seperti kita.

Sundari bukanlah siluman, hantu, atau makhluk mengerikan yang layak dijadikan lelucon semata.

Apalagi bahan cerita setan dan sarana menakut-nakuti bocah.

Dengar baik-baik, ia tidak terbang, ia tidak menghilang. Ah, Sundari bahkan tak punya kemampuan macam itu.

Sundari berjalan dengan dua kaki, melihat dengan dua mata, dan dapat memelukmu dengan dua tangan hangatnya. Yang mungkin berbeda adalah hati Sundari yang entah di mana sekarang. Inilah yang membuat ibu-ibu dengan anak lelaki begitu menakuti Sundari. Mereka yakin bahwa Sundari-lah yang akhir-akhir ini menculik buah hati mereka yang pergi malam, lalu menghilang selama satu minggu dan ditemukan gundul tanpa nyawa,

Tanpa hati,

Pada suatu sore yang hangat di padang ilalang dekat dusun.

Beberapa mengira bahwa Sundari adalah perwujudan pesugihan atau tumbal yang mengincar jawara-jawara muda, seperti andong-andong pocong yang dahulu sempat marak. Dahulu, pergantian kepala dusun di sini dilakukan dengan adu kekuatan. Para sesepuh percaya bahwa teh dari seduhan rambut pemuda dapat memperkuat diri dan meningkatkan kekebalan, ini menjadi salah satu spekulasi motif Sundari selain tumbal-tumbalan itu. Beberapa berpikir kalau Sundari menjual rambut lelaki muda di desa demi mendapatkan keuntungan baginya.

Kalau di antara gadis-gadis belia nan jelita yang bergelimang asmara, Sundari kerap digunakan sebagai sebutan untuk penyerebot kekasih orang. Terkadang huruf i di hilangkan, sehingga menjadi Sundar saja.

“Dasar, dia memang Sundari!”

“Padahal telah lama kita menjalin kasih, kenapa ia harus jatuh ke tangan Sundar macam dirinya!”

Apa Sundari begitu buruk hingga namanya lekat dengan orang serta kasih yang hilang?

Padahal dahulu Sundari hidup tenang,

Memang dahulu ia juga sumber perhatian,

Tapi ia hidup tenang dan dihujani kasih—

Yah, itu sebelum dusun ini akhirnya mengadili sendiri suaminya yang sepuluh tahun lebih muda darinya. Menurut mereka, sangat tidak masuk akal seorang wanita pintar, seperti Sundari yang bekerja sebagai pendidik, memiliki suami yang lebih muda darinya. Pemuda berambut panjang itu hidupnya mungkin berkesan asal-asalan. Dandanannya serampangan, rambutnya berantakan dan panjang; padahal di dusun ini, sangat wajar bagi lelaki untuk memiliki rambut panjang. Banyak yang bilang tubuhnya bau tengik, dan ia jarang terlihat bekerja. Pada kedua tangannya, sering terdapat guratan-guratan warna. Berbeda dengan para petani pekerja keras yang terkadang tangannya diwarnai oleh tanah, warna-warna yang ada pada tangannya merupakan warna cerah yang tak mungkin didapatkan secara alami. Namun Sundari dan suaminya tetap dapat hidup dengan layak dan nyaman menggunakan upah mereka. Pasangan itu tak pernah meminjam uang, tak pernah mencuri.

Tak di sangka, orang-orang di dusun yang memandang bahwa agar dapat hidup berkecukupan harus digandrungi serta ditempa dengan kerja keras yang dapat dilihat oleh semua orang memandang bahwa dalam rumah tangga itu, hanya Sundari yang bekerja keras melayani suaminya. Sedangkan sang lelaki, menurut mereka, ambil enaknya saja dan kesehariannya sekedar leha-leha di teras rumah kayu mereka sambil merokok sebatang dua batang.

Mereka, terutama para bujangan, mencari-cari kesalahan pasutri bahagia itu.

Mereka kembali memanggil-manggil dan menggoda Sundari yang makin merapatkan kerudung hijau yang biasanya ia selampirkan apabila berjalan ke sekolah tiap pagi dengan kebaya sederhananya. Para bujang itu dipimpin oleh  Cak Topel yang istrinya lumpuh dan selalu ia tinggal sendiri dirumah. Mereka menungguinya tiap pulang, dan menghalangi jalannya kembali kerumah. Pernah sekali suaminya mengantarnya ke gedung sekolah reot itu, dan menungguinya sampai pulang. Sedihnya, ditengah perjalanan pulang ia babak belur dihajar  pemuda-pemuda berbadan besar itu—Setelahnya, Sundari melarangnya untuk sering menampakkan dirinya di depan warga dusun.

Yang harus dikagumi di sini adalah sifat pantang menyerah mereka. Berbagai upaya telah dilakukan untuk menjungkalkan Sundari dan suaminya dalam fitnah, sampai akhirnya mereka mencium sesuatu yang janggal dari rumah senyap mereka.

Bau tengik,

Ada yang bilang, jenis pesugihan macam tuyul sebagus apapun tetap akan mengeluarkan bau tengik atau busuk.

Mereka mulai menyambungkan hal ini dengan warna pada tangan suami Sundari,

“Itu tidak mungkin didapat dari bekerja di ladang.”

“Warna-warna itu pasti ramuan dukun.”

Dari situ, dapat dipastikan bagaimana Sundari dan suaminya dapat selalu hidup berkecukupan bahkan dengan uang mereka yang pas-pasan. Bujang-bujang berbadan besar itu segera menyebarkan cerita dan tuduhan-tuduhan yang membuat telinga panas. Sundari dan suaminya makin menarik diri dari warga dusun. Sundari bahkan berhenti mengajar setelah menemui kelas-kelas yang seharusnya ia ajar seringkali kosong, dan menemukan tatapan-tatapan sinis para ibu rumah tangga mengintipnya dari depan pagar kayu sekolah yang alakadarnya itu.

Entah kita harus bersyukur atau tidak, persembunyian itu tidak berlangsung lama. Pada sebuah malam bulan purnama yang lembab dan becek, Sundari melihat bola-bola cahaya dari jendela rumahnya yang ditutupi oleh anyaman jerami. Nyala api itu berasal dari berpuluh obor warga dusun yang berteriak-teriak dan menuntut Sundari dan suaminya agar mengaku bahwa mereka menggunakan pesugihan.

Sundari keluar sembari menyelampirkan kerudung hijaunya, diikuti suaminya yang rambutnya digelung tak rapih. Belum sempat mereka mengucapkan sepatah kata, para bujang menarik suami Sundari dengan menjambaknya dan melamparkannya ke tanah becek, menendangi pertunya, lalu menghajarnya seolah ia binatang peliharaan yang tak pernah patuh pada majikannya. Sundari hanya dapat menjerit dan menariki baju sejumlah laki-laki yang menghunuskan kepalannya pada tubuh kecil dan rapuh orang yang dicintainya. Setinggi apapun ia berteriak, suaranya seolah tenggelam dalam arus deras kebencian yang tak berdasar.

Jeritan untuk orang yang dikasihi itu lambat laun berubah menjadi jeritan untuk dirinya sendiri. Istri Cak Topel yang lumpuh rupanya merayap di tanah dengan sigap seolah laba-laba berkaki seribu, dan menarik bagian belakang kebaya Sundari sampai ia terjerembab ke tanah di mana ujung matanya menangkap sang suami yang rambutnya digunduli tanpa ampun dengan alat yang tak pantas. Saat menyaksikan adegan romansa sedih tersebut, wanita-wanita dusun menjambaki rambutnya, menampari pipinya dan menghajarnya tanpa ampun sambil menghujaninya dengan ludah-ludah mereka yang menasbihkan berpuluh hujatan menyayat hati. Setelah pasutri itu terkulai lemas di tanah musim hujan, barulah warga membumihanguskan mereka berdua yang tangannya tetap bergandengan.

Nasib naas, entah harus disyukuri atau tidak, menimpa suaminya yang terbakar hangus sepenuhnya. Sedangkan Sundari, dengan tubuhnya yang telah setengah terbakar, berhasil kabur dan hilang dari peredaran untuk beberapa saat.

Untuk beberapa saat,

Sampai lelaki yang menggoda, menghajar, membawa mereka pada keterpurukkan semuanya hilang satu persatu, termasuk Cak Topel.

Mereka hilang kala malam, saat cangkruk atau ronda, dan ditemukan lebam sekujur tubuh, tak bernyawa, dan gundul tanpa sehelai rambut pun pada sore hari di tengah padang ilalang dekat dusun.

Orang-orang bilang bahwa ini Sundari yang menuntut balas. Meskipun entah di mana dirinya berada, ia masih tetap menghantui. Membayang-bayangi dengan perasaan bersalah yang menyakitkan bagi seluruh warga dusun,

Karena

Sundari dan suaminya tidak pernah melakukan pesugihan.

Dan, ah, itu cuma tipu muslihat para bujangan yang cemburu dan bersedih karena tak bisa mendapatkan Sundari dalam dekapan mereka sekeras apapun mereka berusaha. Entah sudah berapa lelaki dan lamarannya ditolaknya, ia justru jatuh hati pada pelukis bertubuh kecil yang sepuluh tahun lebih muda darinya.

Bagaimana amarah mereka tidak tersulut?

Seandainya warga dusun lebih mengenal bau cat dan minyak untuk melukis, mungkin mereka akan berpikir dua kali untuk menuduh Sundari dan suaminya terkait pesugihan.

Ah, coba mereka masuk ke rumah kayu kecil itu sebelum main hakim sendiri. Mereka tak akan sekaget itu saat menemukan gubuknya penuh dengan cat dengan bau tengiknya, tumpukan kertas dan bahan bacaan, serta lukisan-lukisan yang masih dikerjakan.

Hilangnya para bujangan lalu diikuti dengan hilangnya murid-murid sekolah menengahnya, dan lelaki muda lainnya yang sama sekali tak ada hubungannya dengan ini.

Sundari tidak berhenti.

Mereka hilang kala malam, saat cangkruk atau berjalan di pematang sawah, saat menantang diri mengaku “tidak takut dengan Sundari itu!” lalu ditemukan dengan lebam sekujur tubuh, tak bernyawa, dan gundul tanpa sehelai rambut pun pada sore hari di tengah padang ilalang dekat dusun.

Sundari menyukai kerudung hijaunya yang hilang kala malam,

Kerudung tipis indah yang digunakan untuk menutupi kondenya—Yang direnggut paksa darinya lalu hangus rata dengan tanah.

Tapi Sundari lebih menyukai kehadiran,

Kehadiran suaminya dan tangannya yang bekerja melukis diam, kehadiran kerudung hijau yang melindunginya dari tatapan tajam, kehadiran murid-murid lelakinya yang dengan polos melontarkan lelucon serta godaan-godaan untuk Ibu Guru Sundari mereka, kehadiran anak-anakmu yang sombong.

Sundari menyukai kehadiran, dan itu merupakan alasan lain mengapa ia menggundul habis lelaki yang diculiknya, lalu mengupulkan rambut mereka yang ia sambung, anyam, serta kenakan dengan nyaman bak kerudung dan mantel bulu.

Maka dari itu, orang-orang yang melihatnya terkadang bilang kalau Sundari cumalah hantu; bayang-bayangnya selalu muncul dalam bentuk segumpal rambut menjelang malam.

Sundari lebih suka kehadiran,

Keadilan.

Tapi apa membalas dendam seperti ini juga salah satu bentuk keadilan?

Entahlah, ini pilihan hidup Sundari. Sudah kubilang kalau hatinya entah di mana.

Sekali lagi, Sundari bukanlah hantu. Ia manusia yang teraniaya sama seperti kita. Manusia yang disalahi.

Kalau dipikir lagi, bukannya setan terkejam adalah manusia sendiri?

Yah, itu sih sudah berpuluh tahun lalu. Entah apa jadinya Sundari sekarang. Sekarang lelaki cenderung berambut pendek, tak seperti dulu. Bayang-bayang Sundari kemungkinan tidak se beringas waktu itu, dan telah berkurang frekuensinya. Namun wanti-wanti mengenai dirinya terus ada dan berubah seiring berjalannya waktu, bervariasi.

Itu sudah
Berpuluh tahun lalu.
Mungkin sekarang ia telah jadi hantu sungguhan, atau ada perwujudan Sundari-Sundari lainnya?

Tidak masuk akal, ya?

Aneh, omong kosong, isapan jempol.

Kalau dipikir lagi, bukannya dunia ini selalu penuh omong kosong dan tangis dalam gelak tawa?

I think that enough time has passed
  enough rain fallen
  enough memories swallowed
  enough pottery shattered and remade.

I think it is time to write again.

Hari itu hari Sabtu. Dan, aku sedang ulangtahun.

Sepi. Hanya terdengar suara tetesan air dari keran yang lupa ditutup rapat di wastafel dapur. Desiran angin yang menggesek dedaunan di halaman belakang. Bambu angin yang bersiul di teras rumah tetangga sebelah. Jalanan beraspal yang kosong. Terpaan sinar matahari. Mangkuk beling yang diketuk penjual makanan keliling. Suara jarum detik jam dinding.
Dalam diam aku menunggu. Mahesa belum juga datang. Duduk di atas sofa, perlahan kulahap sekantung keripik kentang, suara iklan di televisi kini menjadi musik latar yang mengisi siang terikku yang sepi ini. Lupakan fakta bahwa kakakku, Mas Kekar, adalah satu-satunya orang yang mengingat hari ulangtahunku. Ucapan ulangtahunnya tiba tadi pagi pukul tujuh lewat pesan suara. Kalau ada Nenek, ia pasti akan membuat kue tar dan nanti malam kami akan duduk melingkar di atas meja makan, menyantapnya bersama-sama sambil minum teh lemon. Sayangnya, sekarang rumahnya jauh; di surga.
Tiba-tiba, telepon genggamku berbunyi. Satu notifikasi baru, ada satu pesan masuk. Dari Mahesa, katanya ia akan sampai lima menit lagi. Baiklah, akan kutunggu dengan sabar. Walaupun ia bilang akan menjemput pukul setengah dua belas ― aku sudah menunggunya sejak pukul sebelas lewat, sekarang pukul satu, dan lima menit lagi ia akan datang. Menghabiskan waktu seharian bersama Mahesa selalu menjadi momen istimewa bagiku, membuat jantung jumpalitan tak karuan, dan berakhir tersenyum-senyum sendiri setiap kali sebelum memejamkan mata di atas tempat tidur pada malam hari. Singkatnya adalah orang ini selalu membuatku bahagia, sadar atau tidak sadar dirinya, ialah sumber kebahagiaanku. Bulan dan bintang bagi malamku.
OK. Kubalas pesannya, lalu kubuka pesan-pesan lain yang mungkin belum kubuka. Tidak ada pesan lain atau telepon. Belum ada telepon dari Ayah ataupun pesan singkat. Entah kapan ia akan pulang. Entah kapan ia akan menyempatkan diri membuka kalender, teringat akan sesuatu, dan mengucapkan, “Selamat ulangtahun.”.
Aku berjanji tidak pernah ingin jadi orang yang hidup tanpa memiliki waktu.
Bel berbunyi dan pintu diketuk. Spontan, aku merapikan rambut, memakai tas selempang, dan bangkit. Kusiapkan senyum terbaik untuk menyambut Mahesa. Setelah pintu kubuka, senyumku langsung sirna. Mang Ijang, tukang pos daerah kami yang malah muncul.
“Siang Mbak Maura, ada tiga surat buat Bapak,” dia menyerahkan tiga surat berbentuk persegi panjang yang sangat familiar bagiku. Sudah berpuluh, bahkan mungkin ratusan kali aku menerima surat macam ini sejak lima tahun terakhir. Kubaca nama perusahaan yang tertera di kop surat itu. Masih sama seperti biasanya; bank, perusahaan listrik, perusahaan telepon.
“Tandatangan di sini dulu, Mbak,” Mang Ijang menyerahkan pulpen dan sebuah kertas tanda terima surat. Setelah kutandatangani, ia pergi.
Kubuka surat itu satu per satu sambil duduk di kursi teras. Surat-surat tagihan, seperti biasa. Hampir dua bulan rupanya Ayah tidak membayar tagihan telepon. Aku bahkan tidak berselera lagi membaca nominalnya. Aku menghela napas dan memandangi jalanan kosong di depan rumah. Kuputuskan untuk memakai earphone, memilih playlist di aplikasi musik, menunggu Mahesa di kursi teras sambil ditemani angin semilir.
5 menit.
Everything is Embarrassing – Sky Ferreira.
10 menit.
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want – The Smiths.
15 menit.
Love Song – The Cure.
Dua puluh menit kemudian, Mahesa datang. Senyumku seketika merekah, walaupun ia terlihat begitu lelah. Kaos polo abu-abunya basah oleh keringat, dahinya dibanjiri keringat, napasnya terengah-engah dengan ritme yang tak beraturan. Aku duduk di sampingnya yang memegang kemudi dan masih bisa mencium wangi parfumnya samar-samar, meskipun tujuh puluh persennya sudah bercampur dengan semerbak peluh. Tapi, siapa peduli? Menurutku, ia tetap mengagumkan.
“Maaf lama, Ra. Tadi ada urusan penting yang mendadak,” katanya sambil memilih-milih saluran radio. 19.2, saluran radio yang khusus memutarkan musik-musik indie dan jadul. Mungkin ini salah satunya mengapa sejak awal aku tertarik dengan manusia yang satu ini dan berujung benar-benar mengaguminya, kami menyukai jenis musik yang sama. “Jadi, ke mana kita hari ini? Dan, akan mengobservasi apa?”
Kubuka catatan jadwal terakhir kami, “Hmm. Hari ini jadwal kita ke galeri seni kontemporer yang ada di sebelah balai kota dan pameran seni di hotel Metropolite. Kita bakal mengobservasi lukisan kontemporer supaya bisa membandingkan dengan jenis lukisan yang lain.”
Kamu benar, sesungguhnya ini hanyalah sekadar tugas kelompok bahasa Indonesia. Mungkin bagi Mahesa begitu, tapi bagiku bukan sama sekali. Kuanggap ini sebuah kebetulan yang ajaib. Kebetulan kami sekelompok. Kebetulan kami berdua sama-sama tidak masuk di hari ketika guru Bahasa Indonesia kami membagikan kelompok dan kami masuk ke dalam kelompok terakhir, kelompok sisa. Kebetulan kami memilih tema seni lukis dan belum ada kelompok lain yang mengambil topik itu. Kebetulan dua anggota kelompok kami yang lainnya tidak bisa diandalkan, yang satunya sakit berat dan yang satunya lagi sudah dikeluarkan dari sekolah sejak bulan lalu. Kebetulan hanya aku dan Mahesa yang tidak bermasalah. Maka, hanya kami berdua yang selalu jalan ke tempat-tempat untuk mengobservasi. Sejak saat itu, aku percaya akan keajaiban.
---
Semuanya berawal dari pertemuan singkat kami di minggu keempat kelas sebelas. Oke, ralat, bukan sebuah pertemuan lebih tepatnya, melainkan hanya aku yang memandanginya dari jauh. Namun, itu satu-satunya kejadian yang mungkin dapat memberi jawaban atas pertanyaan mengapa dan bagaimana perasaan ini bisa muncul. Bukan secara tidak sengaja dan spontan seperti yang biasa kau dapatkan di adegan jatuh cinta pada film-film romansa norak, tetapi adeganku sederhana, penuh kehati-hatian, dan perlahan.
Kelas sebelas adalah tahun yang cukup sulit bagiku. My dad was busy more than ever—well, until now dan itu tahun pertama Mas Kekar menginjakkan kaki di dunia perkuliahan. Dia diterima di salah satu universitas negeri ternama di Bandung, jadi hanya pulang ke rumah setiap akhir bulan. Aku punya waktu sendirian di rumah dengan jumlah yang berlebih.
In that year, my friends left me. Ghia pindah ke luar kota dan Kalista bergabung dengan anak-anak populer sejak mendaftar sebagai anggota baru di tim pemandu sorak. Kami hanya makan siang bersama pada beberapa hari di minggu pertama sekolah, setelah itu dia selalu dikelilingi dan menjadi bagian dari kelompok cewek-cewek pemakai lip tint merah dan seragam yang dikecilkan. Aku mengerti, barangkali dia memang menginginkan posisi itu sejak lama dan citra dirinya memang melejit pesat, membuat semua leher anak cowok melirik barang beberapa detik setiap ia berjalan di tengah koridor. Lagipula, jika ia sudah mendapatkan status sosial yang sangat hebat itu, mana mungkin dia masih mau berteman dengan orang sepertiku? Maura, the average one, yang selalu mendengarkan musik lewat earphone, yang lebih banyak menyantap bekal di dalam kelas pada jam istirahat. Aku hanya masih tidak paham bagaimana seseorang yang semula kau kenal bisa berubah menjadi orang lain secepat itu.
Tapi, hal lainnya yang cukup melegakan di tahun itu adalah aku bertemu dengan Indira. Kami berkenalan pada hari Senin di minggu kedua kelas sebelas, hari pertama dia masuk sekolah setelah seminggu penuh dirawat di rumah sakit karena DBD. Begitu melihatku duduk sendirian di baris paling belakang, dia buru-buru menghampiri sambil bertanya, “Sebelahmu kosong?”. Sejak itulah kami berteman.
Indira dan teman-temannya biasa menghabiskan makan siang di bangku koridor lantai satu yang menghadap ke lapangan, bukan di kantin. Walaupun secara harfiah aku bukan salah satu bagian dari kelompok pertemanan mereka, Indira selalu mengajakku bergabung dan orang-orang baik itu rupanya menerimaku.
Di bangku koridor itu kali pertama aku memerhatikan anak laki-laki yang bermain bola setiap jam istirahat kedua. Hanya ada dua-tiga orang kukenal, itu juga karena mereka teman sekelasku sekarang atau di kelas sepuluh, sementara selebihnya orang asing bagiku. Di antaranya ada yang berperawakan tinggi, rambut tebal, rahang yang tegas. Aku hanya belum tahu siapa namanya waktu itu.
Selanjutnya, aku bertemu dengan laki-laki itu di kantin, sedang duduk bersama beberapa cowok yang tidak kukenal, tertawa lepas. Mungkin karena aku jarang ke kantin, aku baru melihatnya di sana waktu itu. Pada acara demo ekskul, aku melihat dia lagi. Bermain bass di atas panggung. Anggota klub musik rupanya. Pemain bass. Pada hari-hari berikutnya, aku lebih sering melihatnya berjalan di koridor depan kelasku, kadang sendirian dengan earphone, kadang ada beberapa temannya. Anak kelas sebelas juga rupanya, jurusan IPS juga. Hari-hari berikutnya, selalu kutengokkan kepala ke jendela setiap kali ia lewat di depan kelasku. Aku penasaran, kenapa mataku tidak pernah melihat orang semenarik dia sebelumnya? Dan, kenapa dia hanya muncul di tempat dan saat-saat tertentu, seperti saat istirahat, masuk sekolah, dan jam pulang? Hari-hari berikutnya, berpapasan dengannya membuatku senang sekaligus semakin penasaran. Dia anggota klub fotografi juga, aktif, sering memimpin rapat anggota di kantin sepulang sekolah, dan ternyata karyanya banyak dipublikasikan di majalah sekolah. Dari situ aku tahu namanya, Mahesa.
---
“Geser ke kanan sedikit. Bukan, bukan, sedikiiit lagi. Sedikiiit, oke, pas!”
Sebagai dokumentasi, Mahesa memotret beberapa lukisan dari berbagai angle dan beberapa kali memintaku untuk berpose ala-ala tak sadar kamera. Tentu saja aku pasti bersedia, selalu bersedia. Dia juga merekam keadaan sekitar dalam bentuk video, yang katanya, bakal dia edit menjadi super artsy.
“Percaya sama gue, kita bakal jadi tim paling keren yang menghasilkan dokumentasi paling berseni, Ra,” kata Mahesa sambil tersenyum sendiri melihat hasil jepretannya.
Destinasi terakhir kami—pameran lukisan yang sedang digelar selama seminggu di hotel Metropolite—akan tutup sepuluh menit lagi, tepat pukul tujuh malam. Setelah terakhir kalinya Mahesa merekam keadaan pameran dan beberapa pengunjung yang masih melihat-lihat, baterai kameranya habis. Sebelum pulang, Mahesa bilang dia tahu tempat makan enak di sekitaran sini. Jadi, kami mampir untuk mengisi perut dengan soto ayam dan berbincang-bincang sebentar, setelah itu baru benar-benar pulang.
Di perjalanan pulang, derai hujan turun perlahan. Karena rumah kami terletak di pinggiran kota, jadi kami harus melalui jalan tol atau kalau tidak, akan lebih jauh. Mahesa memencet-mencet tombol radio, mencari saluran nomor 19.2, tapi setelah mendengar acara yang dibawakan penyiar radio, dia langsung mengganti asal saluran radio yang lain. Saluran radio yang menyiarkan lagu-lagu pop kekinian yang sedang hits.
“Sekali-kali dengerin genre lain, ya, Ra,” katanya sambil menginjak rem. Jalanan seketika padat merayap di depan kami. Mungkin karena hujan mulai deras, jalanan mulai tergenang, orang-orang mengemudi dengan lebih hati-hati.

(bersambung.)

Seorang Part I
Baru-baru ini aku merasakan yang hidup ini tidak lagi bermakna buat aku. Di mana aku rasa kosong setiap kali nak memulakan sesuatu. Bagaikan terputus tali layang-layang yang asyik ditiup angin di langit biru itu. Aku cuba dan terus mencuba untuk memahami setiap apa yang berlaku di sekeliling aku. Akhirnya aku masih di situ dan terbelenggu keseorangan tanpa sesiapa pun sedar aku di mana. Tidak ada tangan yang mahu menolong aku apatah lagi bahu untuk ku sandarkan tiap kali aku mencurahkan air mata. Aku keseorangan.

Seorang Part II
Aku masih diam di situ kaku. Sejenak aku terdetik untuk mendongak ke langit. Tika itu kelihatan malam pekat dihiasi dengan bintang-bintang berkerlipan penuh gemerlapan dan juga bulan yang terang memukau aku seketika. Waktu itu aku masih ingin menangis lagi kerana aku lupa pada Yang Maha Mendengar Yang Maha Melihat Yang Maha Mengasihi. Aku alpa kerna selama ini aku melupakan Yang Maha Berkuasa. Aku merasakan kerdil waktu itu dan pada saat itu juga aku merasakan aku dibius semangat baru.

Seorang Part III
.............................................................­..............................

Di malam bulan terpotong jadi tawa, angin membelahku jadi tiga bujursangkar. Satu untuk diriku sendiri, satu untuk bibir kemaraumu, dan yang lain, mungkin, untuk dua anjing lapar yang Tuhan pelihara dalam diriku dan dirimu.

Di situ, di rimbunan gelap yang padat dan waktu yang mengering, ingatan mempertemukan kita walau sebentar. Kau berlari membawa kotak yang di dalamnya mungkin adalah namaku, dan aku berlari di belakangmu menjauhi danau.

Sayap-sayap yang tidur, kepala yang dinaungi tali-temali, dan jejak-jejak bernafas rapat. Bagimu, dunia mungkin masih adalah tabir yang kaku.

Oh.

Burung-burung dalam kepala! Itu kekakuan yang liris membunuhku.


Malang, 3 April 2013

/my "insomnia" isn't exactly a problem, when rationalised via: a Freudian desert, namely, i sleep, but have not luxury to dream, which makes a sense of death all the more procreational for thinking's sake... insomnia like dementia... or rather... better the erosion of the thought aculty,  replaced by hallucinogenic inducement to counter the erosion of the dream mechanics... currently staged by boorish media, 24h reels of insomnia pusher outlets... so who gave ol' zuck the oyster tongue, greasy skin, and a wet, shrinking prune *****? comes a time when a boy gets to grow oop... chances are, if you're insomniac, you are not an escape artist, and you deem the escapism of bound to dreams, as yet another, sheikh dubai lamborghini promenade, riding it at an urban speed limit of 30mph... revving for the "fear factor" of... dancing with gingy 'arry... risqué... insomnia erodes dreams... all the better, in that perpetuation of a mummified blink... theatre's curtain falls... what sort of Freudian banana is there to speak about, when attempting to compensate the intellect, for a *******  Eiffel... notably... an individual's insomnia comes after, the media insomnia, bite sized 30 minute intervals on repeat for 24h hours... and in between, no  in-between programmes, that might allow journalistic digestion... a lack of dialectical exercise has created journalistic indigestion... most notable and in plain sight... when applying the pedantic counter dialectic observation, in the form of diacritical marks.

doubt is a luxury in the current zeitgeist,
to unravel doubt,
when compensating love,
as a chemistry of endomorphines...
doubt, is the equivalent
of an intellectuals synonym
of love... both are gambles,
uncertainties, both are:
wavering of the heart, pendulum
swings...
   doubt is a phobia-philia...
a love of fear, less strenuously:
an apprehension regarding
the fact that Zanzibar made it
into song lyrics, and is a place
that actually exists, in situ...
without any global mention
in culture mining...
for those starved from loving...
afraid of their own shadow
and loneliness,
cogitatio ex-et-qua claustrophobia...
don mclean's starry starry night...
as big as a *******
universe and as plebian
as the lost V in a thespian
and the lost F in: definite article...
FE VACUUM PINT... sorry... POINT?  
doubt is a luxury,
equivalent to love...
doubt is a thinking man's love...
in both instances the heart
is swayed...
     how quickly did the Narcissus
economics become
the semi-autistic solipsistic pillar
that undermined the shear
exhilirence of doubt = love,
post curiosity, posit trust,
posit: disembodiment...
posit... and the siamese dream factory
(no smashing pumpkins' cliché)...
nontheless...
doubt is a luxury,
a graphite find,
with synonym-covert findings
of the gem equivalent to:
a fear of the existence of
the unum anima...
     and the precipitation of
ghosts...
    in the case for the argument
for the existence of purgatory...
     nostalgia...
because being sedated by a general
anaesthetic... is not quiet tot...
but doubt is a luxury these days,
sometimes misunderstood as
nonchalance...
but rather the ease of having
opinions, for the sake of
everyday narratives,
not dialectically challenged...
doubt, is akin to love,
in that there's the wavering,
nonetheless a teasing carrot
hanging before:
the palms that became
the Roman lynch whips...
one man rode a donkey
and suddenly four horsemen took
to a gallop...
     doubt is a luxury...
given our times...
    notably because the existentialist
replaced doubt with denial...
and denial, has no luxury
of thought as genesis,
instigator, alpha precursor...
     denial is not a luxury,
it is an accepted norm...
               perhaps the subtleness
of love in the guise of doubt
as the antithesis of erratic pulverisation
not associated with thinking,
or rather: cogitatio per se, est
supra "quaestio" moralis, id est:
     narratio moralis...
doubt is a luxury,
in times, when man looks upon
man as a chimera of
a wolf, a fox, and a sheep / goat...
doubt is a luxury,
when denial becomes the norm;
          this doesn't even have to
invigorate the comic holocaust denials...
but the sort of denials,
that allow a small town to exist
and the globalist city-state
cannibalism to also, exist...
        a "denial" for the sake
of "myopia"...
          came the pseudo-Socrates...
and the dialectical-Elijah...
              Copernicus the genius,
thesaurus handy,
also the solipsist, and also
the cider brewer's concept of
autistism...
          mind you...
the thin line...
between atheism and autism...
an atheist arguing for the nonexistence
of god, countered
with an autistic- arguing
                for the existence of a self,
without being questioned
by the other's demand for an
existence of, the self.
doubt is a luxury...
denial is the new standard,
norm.

On a bogus hill, a man stood
in self defence and shot himself,
clean through the heart of the white
flag that hung breezily around his
neck, like a neckerchief in situ

A calm reverence, self awareness,
had positioned itself, 'enough' shone
in the deaf hours before daylight begs,
dislodging sad meanings from
ungrateful dictionaries.

You bought words, they lead you,  
rocked a changed lullaby....au revoir,
checking the white flag of departure,
arrival of metal, red bled wounds,
flag swaying, stained under surrender

Homage to the late poet; Kofi Owonor


By
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)


In one Sunday Nation article, Professor Ali A Mazrui analyzed the inter-politicality of The Jaramogi Odinga family and The Kennedy family by arriving at a difference that the Odinga’s have curse of long life but the Kennedy’s have a curse of early death through violent and untimely  mode of death .Mazrui made these analogies in reference to violent death of John F. Kennedy and the subsenguent Chappaquiddick bridge tragedy.Similarly,the salient difference between a European and American or a Japanese and African writer or African artist is that most of African writers die early in the mid of their lives through violent death but in contrast American and some European writers die peacefully and comfortably in their old age. Early and violent death is the dominant bane, fate and misfortune that now and then besmirch an African writer. This position is in recognition of a fact that my child-hood American popular literature writers in the name of Mario Puzzo author of the God Father and Robert Ludlum an author of several anti soviet spy series like; Borne dentity, Borne Ultimatum and Icarus Agenda plus very many others like The Matlock Paper had just to die recently in their late eighties. The most surprising of all is Phillip Roth whom I read at the age of twelve years while in my primary four.  Now I am forty years and this year 2013 Phillip Roth is still alive and active to the American literary civilization that he has been touted by the Ladbrokes as a probable candidate for Nobel Prize in literature. But sadly enough on 22 September 2013 in Nairobi the black angel of early  death has carried ahead its  foul duty by claiming the life of Africa’s most honorable literary scholar Professor Kofi Owonor during the helter-skelter of Alshabab terrorist lynch of the upscale West Gate Mall in Nairobi.
Actually this essay is meant to be a deep felt homage to the late Kofi Owonor, Killed by Islamic terrorists in Nairobi. However, the essay also goes ahead to decry the violent and early deaths of several other African writers. The deaths which have almost turned Africa into a literary dwarf if not a continent of artistic bovarism. Kofi Owonor, who peacefully and honorably came to attend Story Moja Literary festival to be held in Nairobi, was violently shot by the Islamic fundamentalist terror group known as Al shabab. Whose gunmen lynched the Mall in which was Kofi Owonor and his son. The terrorist were sending out the Muslim catchword on which if one fails to respond then he was known not to be a non- Muslim on to which he is shot or held hostage for ransom.Fatefull enough, Kofi Owonor was not muslim.He was an elder, an Africanist, a scholar, a poet, a realist, a rationalist, a Christian, a religious non-fundamentalist and a literary liberalist. He could not respond with any tincture of religious irrationalism to the question of the terrorist. He was shot dead and his son injured. Too sad. This is actually the time when Christian positivism goes beyond rigidity of other religious affectations in its classic assertiveness that the devil kills the flesh but not the soul. And indeed it is true the devilish terrorist killed Owonor’s flesh but not his literary soul. They are such and similar situations that made Amilcar Cabral to observe in his Unity and Struggle, in a section on Homage to Kwameh Nkrumah to rationalize that the sky is too enormous to be covered by the palm of a sadist nor to be vilified by the spitting of the filthy ones; Truly, like Nkrumah, Kofi Owonor was the sky of African intellect never to be covered by the brute of the cannon from the parrel of a Muslim terrorist.
Kofi Owonor is not alone neither are we alone. You, my dear reader and I  we are not in any historical nor literary solititude. In Africa God has blessed us with the opportunity of the dead relatives in the name of the living dead. We are not the first and the last to grief. Owonor is not the first and the last to dance with fate. Even Ali A. Mazrui in his literary expositions of 1974 otherwise published as the trial of Christopher Okigbo.A  novella in which Mazrui cursed ideology as an open window into the moving vehicle that let in  a very bad political accident to Nigeria in the name of Biafra war which claimed life of  Christopher Okigbo at the Nzukka battle front. This was one other sad moment at which Africa lost its young literary talent through violent death.
Reading of African literary biographies in all perspectives will not miss to make you attest to this testimony. Both in situ and in diaspora.Admirable African American writers like Malcolm X, and Dr Luther King all died through violent death. Even if in the recent past, the Daughter of Malcolm X revealed to Sahara Reporters, Nigerian Daily, that Louis Farrakhan was behind the assassination of her father, wisdom of the time commands us to know that it was evil politics of that time that made Malcolm X to die the way international politics of today in relation to crookedness which was entertained during the formation of the state of Israel that have made the son of Africa professor Kofi Owonor to die.
An in-depth analysis into the life and times of African writers and artists will show that the number of African cultural masters who die violently is more than the number of those who died normally in their old age. Some bit of listology will show help to adduce the pertinent facts; Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, Lucky Dube, Walter Rodney, Tom Mboya, J M Kariuki, Che que Vara, Ken Saro Wiwa, Anjella Chibalonza, and Jacob Luseno all but died through violent death. Lumumba died in a plane crash along with Darg Hammarskjöld only after penning some socialism guidelines. After writing I write what I want, a manifesto for black consciousness Steve Biko was arrested and tortured in the police cells during those days of apartheid in south Africa.Biko died violently while undergoing torture in police cells. Lucky Dube was fatefully shot by a confused ****. Walter Rodney who was persuaded by his student who is now the professor Isa Shivji at Dare salaam University not to go back to his country of Guyana, desisted this voice and went back only to be assassinated in the mid of the rabbles that domineered Guyanese politics those days of 1970’s. This happened when Rodney had written only two major books. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, being one of them. Tom Mboya was shot by a hired gunman in down-town Nairobi, some one kilometer away from the West Gate Mall, at which Kofi Owonor has been shot. Mboya could have written a lot. Even more than Rudyard Kipling and Quisling. But fate or bad luck had him violently die after he had only written two books; Challenges to Nationhood as well as Freedom and After. Both of them are classically nice reads until today. He had also submitted sessional paper no. 10 to the Kenya government which was a classical thesis on Africanization of scientific socialism.
J M Kariuki, Che and Saro Wiwa are all known for how they violently died. Powers that be and terrorists that be, expedited violent death against these writers. Thus, brothers and sisters in the literary community of Africa and the world as we mourn Kofi Owonor we must also let Africa to unite in spiritual effort to rebuke away the evil spirit that often perpetrate terror of violent death which  especially  claim away lives of African writers.

References
Ali A. Mazrui; Trial of Christopher Okigbo
Amilcar Cabral; Unity and Struggle

It was on Hallowe'en when we said we'd meet;
as we thought it might be romantically spooky;
and I trotted gaily along the pathway
through the dimly-lit park
where the predator ******* maniacs roamed
hoping for a bit of backdoor action
and my excited little heart went
"YI YI YI YI YI YAAAAARRRGGGHHH!"
with eager anticipation
of a hot new nymphomaniac date.

We had been a-texting with
ever-increasing frankness
for several weeks and I was beginning
to get tired of wiping the keyboard clean
after each bout of frenzied
manual self-stimulation
which she had boldly urged me to
and the built-in camera was out of order
because of the damp ***** build-up.

I found the pictures she sent me
stimulating to say the very least
especially the one with the melon
peeping out from between her legs
and I found her blood-red eyes
rather exciting really
once I got used to them;
and I was quite looking forward
to the love bites she promised me
which was why I had washed my neck
with particular attention to the blackheads.

Promptly at the stroke of midnight
my putative mistress arrived
with a ******* great clap of thunder
and to say I was surprised by her sulphurous breath
would be putting it mildly
and the fifty-five inch waist
was a bit of a disappointment,
and I honestly and truly think
she might have mentioned
the suppurating scabs
and oozing boils
or at least hinted at them.

As I fought the ravening hell-***** off
with the hatchet I had wisely brought
in my briefcase as a safety precaution
once more I rued my innocence:
how many times have I been let down
after such high hopes from internet dating
and yet - trusting soul that I am -
I had again let my heart go astray.

Once it was all over
and I gazed down at her hideous
and mutilated corpse bleeding
and twitching on the ****** bitumen,
I lifted up her skirt
just to check the melon photo
hadn't been a fake;
and although there was no large
piece of fruit in situ at the time
I could see it had always
been a very real possibility.

love between poets: “who will be between the sheets next week
when I’m gone,” she lets sigh-escape,
as she watches the backyard paradise parading landscape
of animals before the bay, perfect day sure to come,
her new pets obeying the early morn sunrising awakening call
to rise, everyone playing~parading, before her royal summons,
no coincidence, finger-of-god, two by two

this while I’m kissing her neck,
my arm around her *******,
and the he-intent on slip sliding down
to the small of her back,
obeying his innate,
worship worshiping and giving up,
all he’s got intense intently contentedly

unfazed, unphased,
non-nonplussed,
he’s been interrogated before,
heart is pure he answers:

next weekend when you are back in situ,
thousands of miles away, airplane housed for hours,
writing poems of love from the lost and found,
recalling this exact moment,
how I worshipped your presence,
and these words:

You will be with me in every breath,
our sheets will radioactively emit
ions and molecules of our scent combined,
and present as present  your perfume can be,
elicited, elixir, you and me combinant

she turns from the bay-view,
the animals who now mutually
worship her adoration,
watching, focused on us as observers,
she lifts me up and smiles,
replying

“oh my lover you’re the cad of cads,
king of the baddest poet-lads,
the gist of what is wrong with the best of men,
her, pressing me hard to her chestnut hair chest,
she, falling down into my eyes

take me back to bed, liar,
let me add to my aroma,
to ensue, to ensure you will miss
the best love
you had partly, insufficiently, and unhinged
completely

I’m your lassie, you my lad,
my king of cads, my lover poet,
thief of my poems and my secret speech spells,
escalating senses of one’s imaginings”

and,
along came the rest
of what was freely given,
for love between poets
man and
a woman,
is a someone, somewhere,
sometime summertime
thing

I will still smell you in my
heart, and send to you ballistic missives,
words to explode your tear ducts
when you rest in sheets that met me,
when you’ll know me by my odors,
cry out loud so that you’ll scare our animals,
no matter how many tides wash away our residue,
you will never unknow and be forever unprepared
for my return,

even though we will be each, a thousand unwritten poems away...

oh but the thought of tears, and the brimming of a heart's discontentment; chokes; to reveal a strage form of actually being... content.

what i just experienced?
  was nothing more
  than an *in situ anomaly...
well, just as much
as a portishead song:
wandering stars...
  because that's what i witnessed;
**** me, no telescope,
no microscope,
             no kind of comet,
              just the naked eye,
and the noumenon;
because either newton or einstein
could never call it
the phenomenon of a halley's comet;
and by phenomenon
       i mean recurrent... replicable...
a noumenon event though?
    happens at the odd occurrence
of only once;
death doth bid, the questions away.

“We are all actors in an idiots play A tale of sound and fury,
meaning naught. Yet who would care to be a wise man's pawn
Where every twist of fate is well deserved And where a single flaw
could ruin lives? Far better to be in a madman's mind At least for
those (and are we all not so?) Whom fate has smiled on more than
we deserve If life were fair, earth would be hell indeed.”

“Macbeth” William Shakespeare.


From out of the darkness I can see an ever increasing
glow. Intensifying with luminosity as it gets closer and closer.
The blinding eye of fate is upon me. I am thrown with
tremendous vigour. Into where? I have no idea! Surrounded now,
by the blackest of blacks. I can only liken it to a bubble in a pool
of crude that flows wherever the black tide takes me. All I have is
the familiar company of my own voice. A continual narration that
one could expect from a television documentary. The life and
death situ of Michael Simon Jones, filmed in black surround
vision. It reminds me of oh so many nights, when all I wanted to
do is sleep. My mind just wants to stay awake, spouting that
continuous torturous soundtrack into the early hours of the
morning.

Through the darkness a piercing light, coming to me and
then gone, to me then gone. Do I dream? Perhaps of the high
seas. I picture a large tower, It protrudes out of a vast nothing.
The only safe path to steer by is a beam of light, cast down upon
me, from up high. Its beam Revolves continually around, a never
sleeping sun. A light that prevents many flimsy craft, from
grounding onto the craggy rocks that are hidden in the darkness
of the stormy oceanic swells, that roar below.

Again the quiet is shattered, am I not to be allowed to
sleep.
It can only be a dream, for through my bleary eyes I see a figure
of a man, sporting a bright yellow helmet. He seems to be
holding a huge lobsters claw, it is chewing its way through shards
of steel that seem to imprison me. His mouth moving, but I hear
nothing. I half expect to see subtitles appear below him, like an
old Buster Keaton movie. Then he is gone and once more I drift
into that blackened void.

Now a shadowy figure appears. Bending over me his hands
are holding something over my face. I think I can feel myself
struggling against his advances. He is too strong, I can’t breathe,
is he is killing me?

What sort of nightmare is this? Flat on my back in the
darkness, I am gliding speedily along the ground. Intermittent
lights flash past my closed eyes. I recall the deep red on-off glow
of the light, diffused by the blood that rushes through my closed
lids. Can somebody turn the ******* light off, I’m trying to sleep.

Gaaaaa………… I am blinded by the worlds brightest
light! Where am I? The light subsides and I can see, but nothing
is clear. It is like looking through a frosty glass window. There is
movement below me and the bleeding blurs of colours finally
evolve into recognition. What is this? What’s going on down
there?

Rather, what the hell is going on up here? How did I get up here?
I am suspended in mid air. Look I can move my legs. Holy Mary
mother of God, I’m naked! Naked and floating around what looks
to be a hospital operating theatre. Hovering above several
gowned professionals in the toil of their labour.

A naked satellite orbiting above the planet NHS.

Now tell me if there is something wrong with this scenario, but
this is totally not normal is it? I just hope I don’t need to have a
****. I believe that there can only be two possible answers for my
predicament. First is that I am in fact having one totally out of
my head dream.

Second, that I am experiencing some sort of out of body
experience. If that is so, then I can only assume, that the person
lying on that operating table, somewhere under the mass of green
hat and gowns spread eagled on that table below, is me! If only
that fat doctor would move his head out of the way.
Bah! Only so another head can immediately take its place. I think
I now know how a ****** feels when he cant get a clear shot. Oh!
Hang on a second, the assassination can go ahead. I can see!
No that don’t help, I can’t tell who the guy is, he has a mask
covering most of his face and more tubes coming out of him than
a Scottish pipe band. Oh my God! Who else do you know with
that tattoo? I should of known that an indelible red cartoon of the
devil would not be the luckiest thing to have etched into my skin.
I wish now that I’d gone for the Sacred Heart. That might have
been the healthier option and may just of tipped the scales in my
favour. I can’t really see Saint Peter letting me through those
pearly gates with a picture of Beelzebub brandished for all and
sundry to see. Oh ****! That’s me okay, and from this position I
don’t look at all in a healthy state. Can a spirit or whatever I am,
throw up?

But how did I get here? I can’t remember anything that could of
led to this. I do remember going to bed last night, I had an early
night, don’t know why though cause I never get to sleep before
4am. Its a bit laughable I suppose, an Insomniac reading a book
called Insomnia. Perhaps a novel called sleeping tablet would be
more apt?

Unless of course…………… If I can’t remember anything since I
went to sleep then perhaps it’s because I’m still asleep and that
this is merely a dream. That makes more sense, doesn’t it? What’s
happening down there? Something doesn’t look right, things
seem very intense. If only I could make out what they were
saying, everything is silent.

“Hello! What is happening down there? Hello! Hello! Can you
hear me?”

They can’t hear me, no, of course they can’t but why can’t I hear
them? What if this is no dream? What if I am really dying on that
table down there? I can’t make out what they are doing to me but
it doesn’t look good.

There’s a lot of blood.

I wish I had taken more notice when ER was being aired on
television. The only thing I know for sure is, that is a scalpel the
surgeon is holding. The guy at the head of the table should be the
anaesthetist? the woman to the left whom looks like a nurse and
is passing the instruments, is a nurse. But the others I don’t have
a clue.

If only I could hear what they were saying. ****. This is a
nightmare, I can’t believe this. I can see them, why can’t they see
me? Oh please God let them hear me.

“I’m up here, listen to me you death ******* I’m up here.”

So close yet so far away. This can’t be real, this can’t be
happening, not to me. I’ve, never done anyone harm, I've worked
hard all my life. Always been a popular guy, never had a problem
mixing with people. What’s that the nurse is pushing around on
the trolley. I think its one of those crash box things. That’s it, a
defibrillator! *******! I don't think I'm breathing. Look at the
screen, I’ve seen enough movies to know that the green line
should not be one continuous solid.

Oh no, I’ve flat lined! I’m dead! Oh God no, not like this. Looks
like they are going to try and defib me. Here they go.

BAM!

Oh no, the line is still flat. They’re going at it again.

BAM!

****! Still nothing. What they doing now? No don’t stop!
What are they talking about? What have you got to discuss? Just
get on with it, this isn’t a ******* seminar. I’m dying down there.
Just crank that hunk of scrap iron up and send some volts through
me. God, I sound like ******* “Frankenstein,”

That’s it, he’s greasing up the connectors, here we go, here we
go.

_When I came back to the real world I had been in the land
of Coma-City for almost three months and for all of that time it
had been touch and go. It was later explained to me that I had
been involved in a RTA.

It had been surmised that due to my sleeping disorder I had fallen
asleep at the wheel of my car (A classic American 1950’s plated
Cadillac) and had veered into the oncoming traffic. Hitting at
least one vehicle and careering off road and down an
embankment. Finally coming to rest three parts of the way
through a brick built structure, this in turn supported a steel
constructed dome. Used as a point for ramblers trekking high
above Sheermont Cove and offering excellent views across the
horizon and out to sea. An ideal location in particular for budding
photographers to shoot the best possible images of Sheermont
Bay Lighthouse. The Caddie precariously balanced with its long
bonnet hanging over the edge of the cliff top.

In fact I believe that it was the domes heavy steel frame that
secured my fate. The brick walls now demolished beyond
recognition caused the now unsuspended dome to fall onto the
roof of my vehicle. Pinning it solidly to the spot, it crushed the
roof in on top of me, also saving me from plunging to the depths
below and almost certain death. I was trapped under the structure
for almost six hours. I remember very little of the ordeal as I
tripped in and out of consciousness. My rescuers had to cut me
out of the vehicle, with a tool commonly referred to as the Jaws
of Life and I was flown to hospital by air ambulance.

And here I am to tell the tale. But!

Did this metallic redeemer smile on me that fateful night? Saving
me from that almost certain death, on the rocks below Sheermont
Cove?

I think not.

The Dome. It saved my life I know this but the price I would
have to pay was far to high a toll. As I spend the rest of my days
drinking my food through the proverbial straw with only my own
mindful narration forever keeping me company.

I pray to die.

Winter's edge flurries -
snowflakes converge,
a carpet of fox scavenged litter
re-emerging like
iced puddles of hubris.

Whilst The Christmas message is relayed
Rebecca erects a humming line
to keep away the crows and parquets
from her prized cabbage and kale.
but the threadbare sound is
reminiscent of cymbals,
carrying thoughts of a lost carnival.

She journeyed to the coast
and caught an amateur performance of the
"Seven Deadly Sins", in and out of situ.
The deserted beach, ghostly 
yet littered with wicker creels
the fisherman their whispers silenced,
better console with tomorrow's wise
in hope of an  epiphany.

What trembles besides my knees?
Do my feet hang off the bed on the right side
or
Does my face just continue to dry until
It flakes skin
Until I am nothing but dust


It's just hysterical
that this which is tearing and sowing
breaks me so so gently it bores me to death
in the first five minutes
and I wait and wait and wait
for those imprints to turn yellow and then to blue
and eventually disappear under the guise of smoke and quiet resentment
or another's palm grasping at my ankles
spilt mother's milk
cracks in the floorboards
cherry lozenge cracking under tongue


Knuckles stiffen and clumps of hair stick to the shower walls
My thighs fill with cracks angry and red running up but suddenly stopping at my most precious commodity
the price to my body's worth
it tears tags off of old mattresses
and sits in bath water too hot
runs and breathes life into a humid motel room

I receive my checks in the mail
signed with red ink and no return address

While in the midst of playing solitaire
(with losing outcome foreordained
after a couple moves), I became gripped
with combinations predicated on thirteen
ranks each of four French suits subsumed:
Clubs (♣), Diamonds (◊), Hearts (♥) And Spades (♠).

I  totalled a sum of fifty two variations.

If one of four possible draws for king available,
(which could be either Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts,
and Spades), that would automatically determine
every subsequent card diminishing in rank
topped off with an Ace.

Please feel welcome to challenge my presumption
within a dark alley late at night.

The above calculation logical since a standard deck
(not surprisingly) comprises 52 cards
(4 suits of 13).

Each suit (Clubs ♣, Diamonds ◊, Hearts ♥, Or Spades ♠)
contains an Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
Jack, Queen, And King.

There are no duplicates.

No Google search yielded results
asper this nagging question, but unexpectedly
whet an immediate appetite describing
the history of plain old vanilla playing cards.

Said legacy encompassing the four suits
i.e. collectively represent four elements
(wind, fire, water, and earth),
the seasons, and cardinal directions.

They represent struggle of opposing forces
for victory in life. Each suit on a deck of cards
represents four major pillars of economy
during middle ages: Heart represented
Church, Spades represented  military,
clubs represented agriculture, and
Diamonds represented merchant class.

King of hearts is the only king minus a mustache.

Face cards (Jacks, Queens, And Kings) so called
"face cards" because the cards
have pictures of their names.

One-eyed Royals (the Jack of spades
and Jack of Hearts often called "one-eyed Jacks"),
and King of Diamonds drawn in profile;
therefore, these cards
commonly referred to as "one-eyed".

The King of Spades ♠ ranks
as one of three immovable Fixed Cards
in the Cards of Life and resides
in the Crown Line of both Master Scripts
(Spirit and Life).

Said card, in situ, the most powerful card
in the deck.

A Jack or Knave is a playing card,
which in traditional French and English decks,
pictures a man in traditional or historic
aristocratic dress generally associated
with Europe of the 16th or 17th century.

The usual rank of a Jack, within its suit,
plays as if it were an 11
(that is, between the 10 and the Queen).

Charming, resourceful, personable and easy-going
best defines Jack of Spades.

Blessed with a creative mind,
this one-eyed Jack of the deck manifests
jais nais sais quois salient scrutiny
jest via virtue of lightness of his being.

The four card suits that we know today —
Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs
(rooted in French design) circa 15th century,
but the idea of card suits is much older.

The written history of card playing
began during 10th-century Asia,
from either China or India,
as a gambling game.

That idea found its way to ancient Muslim world
before 14th century.

The oldest known deck of Muslim playing cards,
like the playing cards of today,
had four suits: Coins, Cups, Swords, and Polo Sticks.

These decks of cards then showed up
in southern Europe, but because polo sticks
were unfamiliar to Europeans, that suit
eventually changed to Scepters, Batons,
or Cudgels (a type of club).
In France, Parisian cardmakers
settled on Spades, Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds
as the four suits.  
    
The first adaptations of German card suits
constituted Leaves, Hearts, and Hawk Bells
(Acorns rounded out German suit).

Considering cards strictly made
for French upper class, tis little surprise
cardmakers chose expensive
Diamonds over common Acorns.

The French advanced card making utilizing
flat, single-color silhouettes for suits.

These images created with simple stencils,
made manufacture easy, quick, and inexpensive.

Innovative new, cheaper cards
flooded the market in the 15th century,
became popular in England,
and then traveled to America.    

Contrary to contemporary belief four suits
meant to represent four seasons inaccurate.

Equally questionable 52 cards linkedin
to 52 weeks of the year.

Many numerological and religious
explanations asper composition  
analogous to deck of cards postulated,
but these explanations purportedly created
ex post facto, perhaps to give deck-holders
a solid argument, that role deck of cards
maintained existed other than for gambling.

.just search Polish, England, vermin... there clearly is a difference between a racial slur, and a dehumanizing slur... well... it's good that i have a soundtrack, Pearl Jam's rats from the album Vs., and Ghost's rats from the album prequelle...

i get it, the English are sometimes lazy, when speaking... but... there's a difference between a racist slur and a term that dehumanizes a people... i say ******, i say Dr. Dre, i write ****- i forget the suffix... but... you know... being deemed vermin, by ethnicity... that's not called a racial slur, that's called a dehumanizing term... vermin is not a racial slur, it's a dehumanizing precursor of radicalizing an impetus for genocide... so? ****** ****** ****** ****** ******... **** **** **** **** ****... just like greg focker in meet the parents on a plane: bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb... just look up the story, in England... when a bunch of leaflets were posted through the doors of Polak families, calling them vermin... what?! racial slurs are one thing, dehumanizing slurs are another; ******* ******* and their serf pakis.

oh i'm not in England to play
along to whittle Oreo,
whittle Choccie...
  or some uncle Tom...
         i'm about to parade my
Pontius Pilate closure...
i'm here for the cider,
for the ale,
and for ms. amber...
and... for...
   kasabians': club foot...
i can't be a friend to a fellow
European who's embroiled
with his commonwealth...
Rotherham vassal-postcriptum...
see the V?
see the V?
                          here's an I
to clarify...
      dictate your kleinscheißetirade
  (little **** tirade)
on some other continent,
bring back a curry recipe from
India, or something...
but don't expect
me to bow down to non-Europeans....
you... inselvolk
  (island people)...
            i am frothing at
the mouth, and restraining myself
from biting your ***... taub...
numb...
i can respect other cultures...
by your, "standards", of, "respect"...
but i will never be you...
this... this...
this was was the hardest aspect
of me integrating:
i will never be one of you...
Zeppelins are hanging
over the skies,
and i'm, itching for a blitzkrieg...
this, this... is what
precisely makes a man
enroll in supposition the status
of the enemy...
the commonwealth came
before the European stature...
  i've learned the language,
but i didn't relieve myself
of the mutterzunge... ergo?
i'm not fully integrated...
i'm not fully integrated?
integrate the following *****-slap
from Europe...
see how you like your
****- sauce then!
oh i'm praying for no-deal or
a hard-deal.. scenario...
i hate deserters...
and the "British"...
are, in my mind... ethnic-deserters...
punish the *******...
like that song,
a post-colonial power
attacking a post-colonial power...
circus!
applause!
   something much finer than
watching the t.v.....
billy joel... we didn't start
the fire...
lyric in particular?
Belgians in the Congo...
well...
      Brussels in the U.K.
although i speak the natives' tongue...
i should care about their
fate... because?
what?!
                 my ethnicity gets called
vermin...
   and i'm like...
hula hoop around this *******...
because the hope entrusted
to the progressive ontology of humanity
always undermines
the sarcastic undermining in
the current in situ...

   but i don't care...
next thing i'll hear is that i'll
only be "properly" integrated
if i paint my skin copper,
grow my hair into a turban's
worth bundle...
then... i'll be the protected caste.

thank god England is an island...
makes the whole boarders debate...
debate?
an island entertains
a boarders debate?
an island?
an island can have authentic,
clarifying,
serious debates about boarders?!
you're joking, right?
you want to have a, "boarders" debate...
being strapped to an island?
i "said"... are you... ******* joking?

Wakes up
texts good morning
eats last nights tempura
drinks coffee
and is empty

Tries to read
tries to think of other things
and can't quite find
comfort in old things that used
to bring some slight relief

Makes a passing remark
and is told that if one won't forgive
one will be nothing but bitter
and alone
forever

Doesn't try to explain
that one can forgive
and possibly even forget
but that doesn't mean the same
as setting oneself up
for another betrayal

Misses dad
reminisces about some good times
long past and best left alone
and is irritated for that
***** in crumbling armour

Is a bystander
in a one sided tongue lashing
over pointless frustrations
chemically based
and promptly exits the scene

Is at work
burying half formed anxieties
underneath never ending problem solving
solving all problems encountered
except for one's own

At the grocery store
staring catatonic
through rows of frozen meals
uninterested in actually eating
merely performing a chore

Back at work
typing out nonsense and noise
not really caring for response
simply needing to affirm something
anything

And then I got to talk to you

The forested breeze blew eastwards. On each swing of the wind, the birds flew and fluttered. Each of their wings swaying to find a harmonious balance. The sweet melody of ethnic hymns from the native village rose above the trees. The sequenced output with equalised acapella became an anthem that ruled the forests.The gravelled path structured it's way between the trees right to the heart of the village.

The village elder sat outside the middle hut. His hut stood out from those encircling it. Humbled in stature but yet symbolically decorated with colourful redness of the roses. The beautiful scented ambience rose to fuel the air within and around. The door of the hut was formatted with sculptured inscriptions that had a covert meaning. A story line about the long historic lineage of leaders. The entrance of the doorway was guarded by two warriors. Each of them had a shield and spear, alert and portraying courage. Their bodies were bare ready to attack the enemy, their groins fully formed and covered with *****. The sight of the hut itself was magnificent...... it's aura radiant with an embodiment of hereditary and hierarchical authority.

As the village chief watched the birds sway and whistle, he sat on his antique stool. In the openness of the nature he appeared puzzled. As he shrugged his symbolic leopard hide on his back.... it swung side to side. Still in situ, but there was something about it's presence that nagged him. He touched it and then speedily moved his hand from it. He then raised his voice. "Amita!"

His voice echoed and roared penetrating all the homesteads. By the time the volume of the echo subsided he called out again "Amita, Amita, Amita!"

Amita came running and knelt at the feet of the Chief. She replied "Yes Chief Hashi. I am here for your service Sir!"

Amita was a 21 year old girl. She was wearing a straw skirt. Her arm was tattooed with a prominent artistic representation of a snake swinging from the tree. The shades of the red snake pictured on the hues of the green tree. This symbolised that she was a servant and lived at the Chief's Quarters. Amita had sacrificed her life as her lineage did to serve the Chief and his household. A dedication of servanthood to the Chief and him alone.

Amita bowed as she knelt, her bare ***** ***** and shadowing the Chief's feet. The chief looked at Amita as if hyptonised by the touch of her *******. He glared at her beauty, the outstanding womanhood she poised. After a long pose of silence the Chief responded, " Amita, can you fix my hide ensuring that it's attachments are secure"

There was a level of vulnerability that the chief showed Amita. He appeared to be humble, a denudation of authority, that very call of submission. There was evidently a reciprocal of roles as Amita raised her eyes from the ground to face the Chief. As their eyes met the Chief hastily paused and froze as if speechless. As he gathered his senses he was firmly able to look at Amita and said, " Can you join me inside my hut please?"

Amita remained kneeling as the Chief stood up from his stool. Chief Hashi steadily walked to the doorway of his hut. Pace after pace, stroll after stroll. As he walked by the doorway the warriors raised their spears to his presence. He was proudly ushered to his exquisite residence. He then  faced the warriors and asked them to leave guard. Chief Hashi requested, "Can you come back after two hours." As the guards walked away the Chief in his freedom danced around, hysterically moving his hands multi-directionally.

Chief Hashi opened the window to his hut. This was adjacent to where Amita was kneeling. In his vulnerability he whispered, "My child Amita, get up and join me inside my hut. The door is open and ajar.... always for you my queen."

Amita stood up from the kneeling position and run her way into Chief Hashi hut.

when reading spinoza i find that:
  the mere word god is the best lubricant
to utilise when structuring language -
since god: remains in the domain
of language, and this language is
bound to thought, rather than
lunatic procrastination of prayer -
thought is not a duty: it's a leisure...
which is why i find atheists so pedantic
and pseudo-atheists even more
pedantic demand a genital sphere
of god - a word, or rather, a noun
that gives origin to all other nouns...
and if i were to truly make a "******"
distinction, after the difficulties or reading
two or three germans,
    this dutch jew is like what a woman
might think when moisturising
a baby's *** with ointments or
powder...
                  all i have is a rod -
and my child is in the crevice of a grave,
and if it ever has a womb to
insist upon, it's my mind -
the womb of man is his mind which
extends into the grave -
  and from the grave the child
answers...
which is why i have no affiliation
with living authors, none...
        reading spinoza after having
finished reading heidegger is like finding
the most unimaginable ease -
to read heidegger or kant
you have to be an atlas -
but when spinoza writes:
   it's like watching an autumnal leaf
tornado down to the ground -
spiralling in a ballerina poise -
    only when the truly difficult has
been carried, is the apparently
  "hellishly" difficult all the more
easier to be carried across the valley
of shadow, grit grime and gangrene...
   yet if we do share genitals as
what they are intended for:
  then man also possesses a womb:
the mind...
  the mind in man is the equivalent
of the womb in womb...
yet the difference is:
each of man's children is born of
death - a still born excited by
a dancing partner of your ego engaging
with it, lost, abandoned, hushed:
dusted over...
  never will these children
     feel the touch of oils upon their
buttocks, only haemorrhoids from
sitting on cold gravestone marble...
   and can you just imagine as to how:
the birth of man takes so much longer
than the biological birth of man
via woman?
                sometimes it takes a near
estimate of 2000 years to give birth of
man,
  or it takes 2000 or so years to finally
cut off the umbilical chord feeding
the *******, given archaeological findings
in egypt, and abort this ******* child...
to spare: the good man, joseph.
      yet the ease with which spinoza
nonchalantly uses the word god,
  un-found in modern atheists,
  who constantly barrage the word with
hurdles, obstructions,
   the mere mention of the word
without a suggestion of a being / non-being
ever being made convincing -
  it's simply a word that glides across all others,
obstructing the mere use of the word
suggests a belief in a being,
  rather than a fluidity of the language -
i'm actually surprised why atheists
do not consist of merely stutterers...
      a word among words does not
just happen to convince me to imagine -
yet if all casualness of the word is
curbed, and we are dealing with people who
actually use the word to imply:
   some concrete, aren't we really dealing
with atheistic hysterics?
                just a few aphorisms of
spinoza and you start to walk on water...
i think in the inverted circumstance of
not possessing a womb,
   but sharing opposite genitals to a woman,
hence i must possess the opposite
of a womb... i too must accommodate
a fetus of some sort...
    sure, it's dead, but with each dead
fetus in the womb of my mind -
  i bring about a morphing of the dead into
living, like frankenstein (mary shelley,
probably the only woman that i respect) -
i revive it, it morphs, i die, someone else
picks it up, morphs it...
   abortions are not as bad as when you
think about it masculine terms:
how people are ridiculed, defamed,
             misinterpreted -
e.g. heidegger being a ****...
        that sort of **** breeds my fancy
had i the wealth of my childhood uttering
the words: imagine impregnating a woman
with wolf *****...
   i'm pretty sure i said that...
                 or male ***** with
a chimpanzee...
                       auschwitz seems pale by
comparison...
                         but god almighty,
spinoza is dancing in my head -
   he's punching, kicking like a woman
would say when the fetus is near maturity -
obviously a man's version of the womb
does not breed in situ amphibians precursors
of mammal,
but then we're less the missed
connection of the ape, and more?
  A ******* WHALE!
                     whales are mammals...
and are we not the titans of this world?
    and does not this neurosis of using
the word god not begin with:
curbing the enthusiasm of giving oaths?
that the now apparent desert plains were
once great mountain ranges?
what, they're ******* with the big bang,
i'm ******* with geology...
   the great mountain range of Gobi -
the Saharayas (sahara,
  like the Himalayas, once upon a time) -
and so the ancient egyptians "thought":
****! mountains used to be here!
  let's build a nostalgic piece of architecture!
wa'h la'h! you got the ******* pyramids of giza!
they're were write about something,
their dreams reconstructed a very, very
ancient piece of fact:
there was no reason to build
mountain like structures in a desert,
unless they had been faxed by their ancestors
the intuitive speculation that the deserts
were once mountain ranges, eroded by:
millions and millions of years...
                         welcome to porta stella.

I mean, it felt like I was a dead fish
Or something, left to rot out there in the sun,
Left there on purpose, you know, like it was
A threat—and Charles, it stinks—you know that?—
—the stench of all those old thoughts—
Yeah, thoughts…you know,
Like guppies maybe, sturgeon, or flounder.
You laugh? Why? Fish can think, can’t they? They flounder.
Suppose as we grow old the ancient thoughts
Appear as songs a child might sing—sotto voce.
Suppose they’re like the masks the actors wore
In some Commedia dell’Arte farce,
Or like the web a spider strings across
A road, hidden, dark, all subtle tension,
The strands still wet with the coagulate air…
Too wet to breath, Charles, way too wet.

There’s more. Suppose a face inside that mask
Looks back, looks out. Suppose the rings run circles round
The eyes, for fear. Suppose it’s an old face of yours,
Charles, smiling too, with all that sullen pride
You once were so capable of…so proud.
This is not the Lone Ranger, kimosabi.
Not Zorro either. Man is least himself
When he talks in his own person. So let’s
Try on that mask, shall we?
One for you and one for me.
Masks aplenty, masks abound,
Masks askance…
There, it fits. Welcome, Charles. Welcome back.

And welcome ghost.

…a ghost to prompt you in your mask, a ghost
off stage, and hoarse from shouting, diaphanous,
just like the real thing: for curiously,

at that moment while he is in you,
in situ, as it were, I will be left
au naturel—yeah, me—king for a day.
We were all meant to crawl away from the sea,
were we not?

…and I count the collective ghosts here too,
Charles…
… atavistic, frightened, unaneled,
and openly integumentary
(thus, open to the sea, but repellant
to air)
—owls, Orion, a star-scarred sky,
too cold to breath that night,
too cold not to, eh, Charles?
Like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,
like Hamlet and Horatio,
out with the watch, in search
of ghosts and fathers…
ghosts and fathers, Charles.
You remember that?
Back then, when you used to listen to me
when I spoke. You did listen, then, Charles when
I said things, right?
All those old thoughts…
When I could sing…
Charles?

A woman's just a padded cell, in situ:
With mirrored tile reflections, of former occupants
Reveals their once desires, like long past feast
That's been viewed only partially, through a narrow hall,
And though her cushions can't stop your fall
They soak up life's effluvium; for she's an island
In the lull; most co-morbidly, antediluvian:
And as it cradles the body's living estate,
Her rocking-horse frame can't navigate
The ground swell of presumptive grace.

Let's pretend, that the dizzy motion ride
Has provided real progress forward, in spite
Of strong waves, that coupled oceans bring;
Jump saddle, on her coiled and double-jointed springs.
Bright enameled eyes might rein you inside
For your brief spate, of the near total ingress:
Waving haloed hips of plastic'd flesh; her glide
Could stay stationary, until you confess.

Only she knows well, the secret of assuring you
You'll not drown, of her swirling vicissitudes;
And if once you abhorred your childhood name;
Now can use same call sign, for your idling engines
Of a certain procreatively inspired invasion
As she whispers it; says it loud, clenching need
Of the second's singlemost long duration.

When she finally unlocks your prow from docks
Post haste, of body's self-deceptive clocks
Inside her temples, rising incense of sweat
Mingled with undertows, of past vibrations; and her smell
Itself: a briny distillate, of a pheromone tonic; forensic clue
Of a decidedly amber hue; the body's cyclonic age of man
Keeps travelling it's way, down her plundered mnemonic.

You can feel the straight jacket's razored sleeves,
Beginning to loose your constricted lungs;
And your ***** overflowing; becoming a sieve:
If you could keep on riding, you'd be quite sure
That eventually, just a small band-aid could cure
The slight, though badly malformed scar;
From the still flowing toxins; to soon immure-
Hard to believe, how far gone you were.

Forget old self; a newfound confidence;
Makes you forestall the inevitable trip
Down to the corner, second-hand store,
As now is revealed, that her paint's become chipped;
And the horse's eyes are now rolling inward,
As if looking there, for some positive proof,
From the prying, irreverent eyes of the world-
But you know it too well: she's just a padded cell.

There lived, amid the common folk
A seamstress of renown
Tucked away most smartly
In a quiet sort of town
So perfect was her needlework
And delicate her hand
That all and sundry sought her out
Her skills were in demand

To gain a moment here and there
She took a silver thread
She deftly put a stitch in time
And curled up in her bed
For she was such a busy girl
Deserving of a nap
But as she slept one evening
The stitch in time went 'snap!'

Time unravelled rapidly
From 'will be' to 'before'
And coils of causality
Were all over the floor
But fortune is a canny dame
For a needle was at hand
Still threaded up with silver
At an artisan's command

She bustled in a flurry
And rummaged through the ages
She sorted out the centuries
With diligence, by stages
While shoring up the borderlines
And patching up the wars
She darned the holes in spider silk
And trimmed the dinosaurs

She hemmed the mighty oceans
To snuggly fit the sand
Then zipped up the horizon
So the sky adjoined the land
The night was stitched in situ
In between adjacent days
And time was mended seamlessly
And better in some ways

She locked away her needle
And her strand of silver thread
Her work would wait 'til morning
And with that, she went to bed
So next time life is hectic
And leaves you in a flap
Allow yourself an hour
For a cheeky little nap

.i used to love women, i dated girls that resembled pornographic movie actresses... i used to love women... i once performed oral *** that resembled an oyster: "missing" salt & juices... once in a bath-tub on her period with a ******... 30 times in the face of a mirror within the framework of green "ivory"... 2 months of a relationship to dictate 20 years of my life... ****! much sooner to make charity of a dog's worth of a clarity of a leash... i still love women... whenever i visit my grandparents, i sit with her (my grandmother), solving crossword puzzles between 9am and 10am drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette or two... dozen or so prostitutes... does it matter?! i didn't bask in doing a glory-hole **** fest off a whim in: yes, that added "extra" F... who knew, who saw... who sowed.

and to explore the loss of reins
of a female sexuality:

i, chimp,
denigrated status
emblem,
am...

           less a chimp
in the eyes of a man,
than a man in the eyes
of a chimp,
in the eyes of: if man...

to the rights of a woman's
body: i too would have
chosen an alternative
in the "sexed up":
     handkerchief...

of a: glutton fizzed
'em up by the squirt's load of:
the materialism of
the inversion of *****:

i, man, ***** =
flush down the toilet...

i, woman, ovaries =
and the ***** that
touches them,
as much as a sneeze!

pregnant!

            mantis mama...
as man searched for much
longer in the cranium
of some: random ape...
what did woman do?
alienate the concensus
of:
          she didn't look
into the mammalian
aspect
to coincide with a motherhood...

female eroticism?
insect... reptile...

sorry...

             i am much too
a simple man to ask
for too a simple woman...
i didn't elaborate
on whether
   there was a "whether"
to exodus with
to focus on an in situ...

given:
was there any in situ
to begin with
that wasn't a Pandora's
variety of per se?

throw me a punch,
shove me into a stinking
sewer...
this is the least of
the most that i am grieving
in allowing to be:
substitute for...

                a magician's trick
of supposing a fakery
of gravity in the variety
of levitation...

i cuddle a cat to
sleep and think:
   this could,
and never will be...
a woman.

The phone call only confirmed what I already suspected, and I didn't have to be told what Cello wanted done. Odd guy that Cello was, all theatrics and shoulders in person, but smooth as the Bird* when it came to business. For all his panache though, we didn't exactly get along personally, but worked well together for some odd reason. I trusted his ability to read a situation and I guess he trusted me to keep my mouth shut. I wasn't quite sure yet why I was watching these two, the woman known by various monickers and nameless fedora guy. Oh well, I'd find out or I wouldn't, either way Cello would have his information to compare with whatever I found out that night. They crossed to the other side of the street, which was empty, so I hung back a bit. It was raining that perfect rain, just hard enough to cover footsteps but not enough to cover voices above a whisper, so I could hear them murmuring to each other. I'm the kinda person given to introspection I guess, so I wondered about them as we paced along, presumably to his apartment (I already knew where Wanda/Countess etc lived). It all seemed out of place, almost staged even, like it was for my benefit and I didn't even know it. Snatches of conversation here and there didn't help at all. Mention of politics, typical though, who wasn't talking about politics in those days? Something about a deposit box somewhere and a key held non situ. That peaked my interest but there was no context, nothing to go on. They turned a corner and out of sight, so I crossed to their side as quick as I could without making too much noise and crept up to the corner. Peaking around I saw them standing under a streetlight in front of a boarded up curry shop. I didn't understand what I was hearing at the time, and to this day dearly wish that I had lost them that night.

"...wondering why you're here is all. Things are fine. I haven't had to use the box in months, the whole thing is paying for itself. Sure there've been hickups, but nothing I couldn't handle." She must've known him, I realized, Wanda was standing too close for them to be strangers. Just one more thing I misread that night. "That's not why he's here," said Fedora. She grabbed his lapel and shook him a bit, not hard though. "Don't **** me around like that Alan! Who'd they send to eyeball me?! I'm not just some stupid little girl ******!" Fedora, Alan apparently, gently took her hands off his coat. "Nobody thinks you can't handle it, and they didn't send anybody. I told you, he's here already, wants to make sure those Rot Kappelle ******* don't start any crap with you and your people. The op is still yours, he's just keeping an eye out." Wanda had stepped back at the mention of whoever "he" was and put a hand to her mouth. "I can't believe Silas came here for me," she said, shaking her head. "Who all did he bring?" Alan looked like he just ate something nasty. "Arthur and his group of misfits, no idea why so don't ask. Can't stand those *******, but they're good to have if it gets nasty." Not a single word of this made any kind of sense to me at all, but that didn't much matter at the time. Something was going on though, this Silas guy I had heard of here and there, but never anything solid. There were so many factions and movements springing up all over the place, it was hard to keep track of them all, especially the coalition people, which these two were I guessed. As for "those Rot Kappelle *******", of course that was Cello and the rest of my bosses, whose names I didn't have any inkling of. This was freelance, contract by contract, so I worked alone except for my connection with Cello and of course my own unaffiliated contacts. Their conversation continued along the same lines for a minute or two until Wanda dropped one more choice line. "What about that crazy hippie chick that's gotten so popular? I'm losing people to her, all that crap about love and positive social change and how we can make headway by disobedience and negotiation." "Pretty sure that's another reason Silas came here in person," responded Alan, "It's a problem we need to handle before things get out of hand. Look, it's starting to rain harder and my room is bugged, so that's out. Silas told me he'd find you once he gets a feel for things here in the city, so don't go looking for him. I'll be seeing you around...." I was already gone by the time Wanda came back around the corner, Cello had to get that information as soon as possible. I was sure I'd be seeing one or the both of Moose and Squirrel again later on that night anyway.

re.: a mini-psychotic detour -
it's off the stream! it's off the stream!
it's been catalogued in: latest!
it's off the stream! i'm aiming to reach
1million words and...
it's off the stream... so the word
count will not be incorporated...

oddly enough i still know how
to use a toaster - and a kettle -
i am also fabled with having to perform
week long chemistry experiments...
why i didn't look into the basics
of

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funny that... how ever many of years
in school, then at university...
i was teased with this language...
for half a semester at university...
the rest of the time school was...
a bit like being in prison...
making sure the prison guards had
a job, were paid...
same with school...
the teachers were paid...

did they teach us basic computer language?
no... i'm pretty sure they didn't...
were we all expected to go to the coalmine
first... before being told to...

which isn't so much lazy as...
i can still remember chalk and chalkboard
at school...
and the holy trinity of (
                                    {      [
how many crescent moons - and altering
a piece of: would be paper?

oh my god... e. e. cummings wasn't even
born...
can you imagine if e. e. cummings
was born 20 years ago...
and started smashing out his:

stand-
;still)

i was honestly being technologicaly
paranoid...
about to cite archive numbers
of "missing" / "shadow-banned"
poo'ems...

e.g. 3479319, 3482972, 3485309,
3484258, 3483083, 3480751,
3480555, 3478158 etc.

but how is that even an over-hyped
reaction - when you're only scratching
the bare minimum -
of what's nonetheless, to me:
a 2 dimensional canvas...

and the point of school was to ensure
that we could fathom our naiveness even more so...
nothing of importance...
just passing the time...
it's not like they could have taught
us to code -
school is not some preface for:
all the subsequent self-taught mechanisms
you will ever encounter:
further on life...

why did i go to school?
why is the cult of school and the nostalgia
culture associated with: popular kids,
nerdy kids, bowling for columbine...
the everyday leftover kids -
i don't even remember being
taught grammar: proper...
we were told... as long as you sound
coherent...
nature came - nurture ****** off somewhere...
but nature didn't come
with <basic> or not so </end of>
with this sort of <bracket>
and this sort of (bracket)
and this sort of {bracket}
and this sort of [bracket] -

"back in the day" you'd read some heidegger
and not "bother" to code -
" " implies /misnomer
/metaphor - solo....

as: burgundy < red
     red being the base marker...
     given that rose < red (is also)...
     since burgundy > red
     since: burgundy ≈ purple...

<approx>
     cardinal < crimson
                                           </approx>

a "debate", and another debate -
in a thesaurus entry...
red - cardinal, crimson, burgundy appear
<sim>
           cardinal < burgundy
                                             </sim>

that is... cardinal ~ burgundy
   ergo cardinal > crimson...
or do we call these the prefixes: quasi~
and pseudo≈?

cerise and all that's suddenly expected to turn
into fluorescence of some underwater Florence...
from carmine and maroon -
brown starts to creep in...

     bobby vinton - blue on blue and...
spaghetti westerns -
somehow i wish to be held in the hands
of a coroner -
i should really think about
donating my body to a medical school -
and bobby has another great track:
velvet blue...
sure... he's no sam cook...
all the way riddled with h'american
suburbia psychopathy:
a smile can hide a thousand
little lies...
a smile is something anti-stoic...
because... the shine of the ivory sheen...

and all i can think of...
not even beginning sentences -
esp. not ending them -
the narrative went with the baby
and the bathwater -
the canary had a coalmine -
the budgerigar had a cage...
the sparrow were tattooed
along with swallows onto convicts
bodies in some jean-genet
minor *****-porky-teen-flick...

tender-bits from some Olaf or Oleg...
or better still an Olga...
recitations would also require:
bumblebees and petula clark!

and that one song that surfed right
above my head and started towing
a hoarding of kippahs
and a... my my... all those
abrahamic beards turned into sabbath
bound brooms for the fwench
brides of boredom...

some might say it's:
strawberry alarm clock -
incense and peppermints...

      as Herman's Hermits aged much worse
than a Donovan...
no milk today and the three kingfishers...

welcome citations...
what's more apparent? someone is clogging
up the arteries of time...
the veins are... the veins that stretch as far
back as jazz from the 1920s...
through to the wock and woll of the 50s...
don't get me started on what's the leftover
of the 90s of the 20th century...

new beginnings they will cite...
here's one... if e. e. cummings was to be born...

swing low
sweet ca

rr
y on

(pass the freedoms pappy
or uncle shylock not interested

- notes on finland the elsewhere estonia,
latvia and li... i will not give lithuania up
that easily... the once grand duchy...
married to the crown -
and all my hitorical adventures -
the sensible today...
the modern sensibility the current man!
me and my historical... what did i call them?

no... they're not idiosyncracies...
they're... detours in infantalism...
but if e. e. cummings was born circa...
and he - he would mosty certainly
succumb to code logic poetics...

bracket (a) "bracket" <b> bracket {c} bracket [d]...
!red is blue -
outright negation...
!red isn't red - the "is" is therefore questionable...
for some reason: no, it doesn't have to be:
but it's blue... blue is !red

should a mr. buckling bucktooth still
be introduced?
well: we do need to indroduce a next to nothing
worth nothing new: cipher unit...

a faux pas needs to have an addressee -
namely me - and i need to wallow in infuriated
agony of a petty detail that no life will
require to cherish!

- and that i am to be fond of tomorrow in that
the only promise that awaits me there is:
me baking a four tier cake - literally...

how terrible a faux pas becomes -
a bull so enraged by red that he becomes blinded
and no longer is able to hone onto
the originating crux -

even somehow "somewhere" with a dasein in
tow... intermitten years...
no... not without a T attached...
and even by now as by then:
that's a misnomer...

- apparently tautology is not a logical
fallacy... but something worth
a thesaurus rex and peacock's: "age of discovery"...
how we can all speak a language
of aphorisms and verb conjectures -
as ever: nouns retain their form as being
the most complete category of everyday
toils - a hammer will never become
an iron shrapnel hanging by a hook chin
off the clide edge of a nail's head...

set with time in mind - temporal thinking...
otherwise set with space in mind -
spatial thinking -
otherwise: when thinking was simply
thinking - exploring the moral architecture...
with that moral-theta of 'ought... and i:
probably not...

save me from linguo-savvy h'american
media pundits and their acronyms!
the boss, the bot the bot, the boss...
the bottom liner - the beatnik and the bolshevik
and... some other b- prefixed outlier...

- otherwise: it's pretty **** evil...
for movies to showcase the hygienic act of
washing ones teeth...
washing the teeth...
spitting out the remaining toothpaste
(oh jeez louis! why don't they simply,
swallow it?)...
and then... not rinsing their mouths?
at this point... rinsing the mouth...
after having just washed the teeth using
toothpaste... is probably as much good
as using mouthwash to begin with...
no one; no one rinses their mouths
after brushing their teeth on film?!

i've too many dreams about teeth
to know - i am actually the sole proprietor of
a memory of my great-grandfather...
and how... he would eat 20 sugar cubes
a day... smoke 40...
and have his first tooth pulled out...
aged 62...
myth, history... journalism?
i dream about teeth...
i would have clearly asked for:
and he dreamed about moths...
but then... oh Eden is still in my grasp...
i can see the next forbidden fruit
hanging...
her name is Layla... and she's...
borderline 16 years old...
i see my Eden already...
i see the forbidden fruit...
apparently i never left...
as i was never apparently Adam...

problem is: you already know what
the forbidden fruit is...
and it's bothering you that i know
what the forbidden fruit is, for me...
now comes the juggling act
of me entertaining not making my will
into a resolve... which is to not:
act upon it...
maybe the apple was too complicated...
maybe a Layla circa 16 is...
a more obvious deterrent...

i think it's also called:
the prosecutor's *****...
but... enough gob and enougn dosh...
you can be the new st. andrew of windsor...
even in the taxi driver the ****
is 0... negated...

my my... what sort of language could
even become so casual...
the burning bridges of informality...
strapped to the formal tool of
orientating one's spatial creed of:
for the exchange of goods and services...
long gone the per se
of a school and a playground...

or some do... want to find and rekindle
the brotherhood of childhood...
they'll join the army...
they'll commit themselves to crime...
some men... it's hardly the adventure riddle
first lady's history society of
rhode island's desperate housewife club...
but...
it's hardly a deviation from imagining
how fudge is packed,
or for that matter: sausages...

a major faux pas...
some e. e. cummings... and what would never
become a code(d) poo'em...
but... for what today had to offer:
and what i had to offer today;
it's enough... it's peaches and cream...
a well balanced butterfly of reciprocation...
it's a death... but a death with a promise
of returning: in situ...
although in situ is always a flexible
requirement when reincarnation is fiddled
with.

i can't understand why immigrants tear out their mother tongue and perform a ridiculous act of integration... the whole: "english, born and bred" - oh yeah, eskimos in saudi arabia, igloos made from solidified sand! i'll eat an english breakfast, i'll support west ham, i'll give into shamelessness, whatever you ask... but i wonder: wouldn't these immigrants be better integrated if they at least managed to retain their mother tongue, while speaking the language of integration? disavowing the mother tongue breeds a disavowal of the culture being immersed in... disavowal of the mother tongue breeds contempt for the culture one integrates into... the day i stop speaking western slavic, is the day you cut my tongue out, and make me eat it! i ask you: is it not better to retain your mother tongue, and imitate the culture you live in, or, is it better to disavow yourself from the mother and embrace the father, the land, while at the same time faking integration? i know i'm faking, because i am merely a: mimic in situ... but at least i have the decency to respect my origins, which translates into: not desecrating my foreign surroundings... how many of these terrorists can recite the quran, with the recitation being in: necessary arabic? i respect the culture i appropriated by respecting the most important aspect of my own origin culture: the mother tongue remains, even though i am beyond the fatherland... you lose that: you lose any sense of decency - for both cultures, even within the proximity of the shared european experience - no such conundrum for an englishman learning french, is there?*

i remember a drawing my ex-girlfriend
showed me when i was revisiting
edinburgh for the graduation
ceremony and was helping her write
an essay while she was wriggling out
a joint for me for the supposed "added
intellectual" stimulation...
  her then new b/f, high on l.s.d. walked
in, looked at me,
   with a look of a budding fear -
   as if: something was imminent or at leaat
about to take surreal dimensions of
extensions...
        i was dope eyed and to think of it:
only remember it now.
the drawing of her dream?
  her kneeling, arms outstretched -
with a sword lying on the ground...
apparently me, standing before her,
my back turned in the drawing,
holding a sword...
            my epitome of the meaning
of either judgement, or: mercy...
  rarely do people peer through a window
of someone's snapshot of the psyche -
it seems hard to imagine
  the dream-narrator as nothing more
than an automaton -
     as if: there is no choice in what we
wish to dream of...
                     but also:
we never seem to experience dreams
in the first person, that ever apparent
third party of the person sleeping.

any reading of a philosophy book, outside of university, is mapped without the sort of strategy to receive a grade, for a "correct" interpretation (rather a regurgitation) of said work (mentioned below); to say it in simpler terms: i do not ever think that understanding a concept - in concreto - is worth some sort of "passing on the genes" (memes) of one individual to another - given that a meme has become pop culture, and as the french would put it:
        ce crasse et petit irritante chiotte valeur de merde
                                                                ­                        (i.e. un cliché) -
truly written like and englishman -
   a meme is that crass and small irritant bog's worth of ****
                                                            ­                                           ( " ),
   at least that's peckham french, del boy french,
                         i was well informed about this french dialect.

- and to even "think" why there are so many blue
indians, and so few piggies; perhaps it boils down
to the fact that the blue indians believe in
   burial within fire, rather than earth,
  and they prefer to surround themselves with the living,
rather than with the dead; and piggies do,
  graveyard upon graveyard,
    and that constant "nostalgia", idol-worship
of the past, where nothing greater can come again;
for those who surround themselves with the living,
their existence rages akin to the elemental
tomb of their burial... but for those who surround
themselves with the dead,
   their existences decompases akin to the elemental
tomb of their burial, a heart-broken: nightmarish
earth. -

for some reason, i always get these
"revelations" (for lack of a better word) -
as one might receive a signature
of a thunderstorm in the form of
lightning upon the sky -
           and it usually predicated by
listening to a few pop songs -
   and then listening to the
    *cantos of templar knights -
            but then again, you sometimes
really need extremes,
     as the canadian sayings goes -
we only have two seasons,
    one's winter, the other is construction.

but this is about technicalities,
one could even cite the following as
the part of any contract, the terms & conditions
written in the smallest possible print,
   lodged in hardbacks worth over 30 quid -
not your cheap bestseller paperbacks -
   those too could be appreciated,
   but akin to pressure to keep a worth's of
expression in sanctum of a hardback?
   take the year 1996 for the cantos 1st
on toilet-paper (paperback) - but in brick?
take the year 1970...
  and where do the technicalities come in?

   - heidegger's ponderings V, aphorism 41 -
technicalities akin to the rules of
a game of cricket, or at least the pointing system.

but count it nonetheless, half an hour to scroll...
12,700+... till i got to april the 8th
  and resurrect a memory?

.  ע   ‎
יהוה ‎‎‎
א‎
                  sighs from on high...
      and laughter into the depths.

let us just say, that digital is
the new hardback edition -
    to condense my works into toilet-paper
till take more years and more pushy-pushy
tactics, to transform
     a hardback into something affordable...
but in reverse...
               what comical inversion,
   30 years will become 300 years to come
  about for someone to wipe-their-***-to-mouth
fathom of what went on at the genesis
of the birth of the internet,
   in some obscure location,
                  like a catholic school in england.

now the germanic pilot-plotline (regarding
aphorism 41, ponderings V):

    promo enigma-alchimia in vivo lingua,
             anti ipse (dixit) in lingua vitro.

(we're not in posh-boy grammar school,
the language is dead, it's become play-dough,
a malagrammaton-monœgo:
for a man's tongue is to his befitting desire
to state the terms of play).

da / ein-da / die-da          vs.                hier   vs.
                                      die-hier / ein-da

( there / a there / the there        vs.
                                                ­                 here    vs.
  the here / a there    -
                                
                               ­ atheistic scissors of
definite/indefinite articles/articulation of
    what's near, and what's far away,
     the dualistic-dichotomy of here&there,
  then&now...
           as far as i am concerned i cannot narrate
this akin to a vampire romance page-turner
bestseller... too many organic chemistry diagrams
concerning electron migration, sorry) -

   but given the "blank" slate genesis, starting
with articles... they go beyond being categorised
as definite or indefinite...
    namely... am i, or can i be assured that
      there's no X variations?
    i.e.
                da     ein da
                      X
       die hier     hier            ???????????????

               isn't ein hier merely "being"?
imagine being forced into a there -
                  without being the there,
akin to a zeitgeist, akin less!
      zeitgeist = a there (communism),
  but the there? that's what hegel
said of napoleon entering jena:
       "das ist ein weltgeist!" (capitalism).

and who are the anglophones?
  i cannot respect these "peoples" -
they constantly stutter when it comes to
  their lack of diacritical application,
they stutter... i might as well call them
the strabismus race...
    and if darwinism is to be the vector-catalyst
(hollywood was thrashing american cities
for decades, what damage could this
observation could possibly do?) -
  if darwinism is to be the prime historian,
that darwinism replaces actual history
and becomes neither in vitro, nor in vivo,
but in situ? why do scientists wonder why
universities are undermined in their
humanities, when scientific populism of
biology (i.e. darwinism) has undermined
papa historia? am i... missing something?!
     if you undermine a credible study within
the humanities with enough darwnism?
what do you get? inertia...
     you can burn crosses, but you can also
burn an image of a monkey into a man's mind,
the same result occurs!
      personally, i'd rather burn crosses,
i might end up drinking beer and joking with
a few skin-heads around an unsual campfire.

the other side just... "debates" loud-mouth
******* who haven't learned the gymnastics
of looking up those grandiose black-holes
of blah blah.... blah blah blah... blah...
     i'd like to ask them... does your **** of talk
ooze a perfume of.... strawberries?
   and the punk-fist fields... forever! ooh...
****** *******' salsa! shwing yir hips
ya bunch of conclaves (p.j.w.) - privacy
                     justice warriors).

        taoist's foregetfulness

grounded in maxim primus -
  to allow the world a breath, allow the world
to let you breathe as you deem fit,
   never too soon to be bound to genealogy,
esp. that of the genesis bound to
the new testament -
  for if the old testament begins with poetry,
and if truly metaphorically chained,
then how pitiful is the genesis of
the new testament, which begins with
  something as sorrowful as the nadir
of greek culture, the expired logos,
   a genealogy, with the greeks ransacking
the jews under roman rule,
  just like the ransacking of constantinople
by the venetians in 1204 (4th crusade)...
who'd start a "holy" book without poetry,
but a ******* geneaology?!
          no wonder poetry these days isn't
a rare appreciation...
    but cheap and as tsunami natured
   in its "production" as tabloid press,
  toothbrushes, toilet paper,
                        toothpicks, among other
                                               paraphernalia;
the new testament is such a massive turn-off...
if you don't begin with poetry,
esp. that of metaphor translated into imagery,
and instead begin with a branch of logic
that the new testament begins with, i.e.
genealogy... and then expect latter poetics
in the text to be taken literally?!
          clue the keen me into the clamours
of the poly-schismatic version of events...
    sure, christianity is a "polytheism",
                           in that it's poly-schismatic.

and of the garden, should adam have approached
first, as he would have done in asia -
         he would have talked with
the serpent sæwelō -
           perhaps that same serpent of
   caucasus - first, to have a thirst of
knowledge tamed - although never really -
  for the serpent sæwelō would have
tempted adam: eat of this tree, its fruit,
  and your thirst for knowledge will be
forever satiated!
   so said the serpent of order
   so said sæwelō (ᛋ), the sun-snake...
the serpent of illumination -
                            the golden serpent.
and so adam bit into the fruit,
   and such thirst as never before filled him,
a thirst for knowledge that hasn't
as of yet seized -
     for the fruit, which adam imagined
would be sweet - was actually filled with salt.

  and we are initiated into the myth
of how the other scenario took place with regards
to a woman approaching the serpent first,
       yes?
                and for the woman, the serpent
of chaos, known as ansuz (ᚨ) - the siamese -
who said both truth and lie simulatenously
  also known as the god who's name begins with
yod, in the roman tongue (Y),
                          and he said:
  you will know the difference between
good and evil -
    ah indeed he said so, but that said, it would
imply acts being simulatenously both,
rather than either / or -
he continued: you'll be like the æsir (gods)!
      knowing such distinctions,
                   and will know the meaning of fate,
and justice, and due recompense!

as etymological mutations occur,
   and translations into other tongues
go, let's begin with:

sieg heil - old english - sigel - hail sun!
       if ever a führer (the few, the rarer),
                        so too the sun's eclipse -
   louis xiv wouldn't have minded,
    but at least he ****** to his
         cockerel's content to praise sunrise -
but as it stands, an etymological
           "mutation" in translation: hail sun!

-------------------------- p.s. p.p.s. p.p.p.s. p.p.p.p.s.
    f(p.s.) ad infinitum: borrowing from
mathematics, i.e. f(x) - heidegger
invented the algebra of writing in a certain style
that's only worth a neurotic / autistic pedant's
worth of bother...

   let's just say, in terms of style,
                                        it's purely hellish,
   you can only go as far with a text
when the variations
  range from dasein, to da-sein
   to da-sein to da-sein (i.e. da-ßein) -
    to whatever else is enclosed in the book...
i haven't got the time to write
an expansion of these milimetres
            and a litre of *** waiting for me...

   inverse stress on being
              detached from a "there": da-ßein:

   with regard to the world and its being
   constituting beings (heidegger's style
of expression, i know, can be a muddle)...

all i wanted was an antonym:
   rather than the world and its there,
   i wanted the world and its nowhere,
or rather, a pure form of being: a here,
      being detached from beings,
   the infinite dance of "solipsism",
    mono-direct articulation /
   plural-direct articulation (a march) /
mono-indirect articulation (a thought) /
plural-indirect articulation (a commute home)...

in terms of dictionary ref. to oppose da (there):

ist da - is here
                hier - here
komm her! - come here!
           hier & da - here & there
                  auf der stelle - here & now

stelle:
       schnellen - quickly
   schwellen (ich bin) - i am swelling
schelle - bell
   bruchstelle - break

                            da-ßien = hiersien

i.e. stressor on being,
             which morphs into a reconstruction
of the original equation:

     i.e. "da"-ßien = hier-"sien" ≠ nichtsein...

    and the point being?
    the simple f(x) translation into philosophical
jargon... f(p.s.) ad infinitum...
                      this had to run into a cul de sac
at some point, given all the technicalities
and stylistic disparities between existentialists,
if any remained to live into the 21st century...
but the buggers ****** off
              let's just say the new wave
of concerning italics remains the still
unexplored territory of missing diacritical marks
in the english language...
    as much can be said about writing
            chair    as can be said about
   writing                  krzesło...
           (yes, a consonant grapheme, err-zed)...
funny, in grapheme terms...
   that the german grapheme ß
  never became a replacement of -sch-
     in english -sh- in slavic -sz-,
             seems to be more t'ss... wet snare...
          another example?
    (choo-choo) train / pociąg -
  and yes, that's not implying choo-choo,
   since it's obvious, the verb ćwiczyć:
to train.

i seem to have discovered what
drives the "average"
atheist...

   well...
     i'm not fan of either:
but the amazing atheist's
critique of jordan peterson's
book?

you pick these "nuances"
up the more you look, closely...

yes, i did go to a catholic
school,
but no, i refrained from
    being confirmed...
baptism?
   nothing i could have done
about that...

aside...

   as i of the people:
and the people just keep hanging
around the Pillars of Samson,
e.g.:
the man made "no sense":

sense as in what?
to see, to hear?
  so he made sense...
     nonsense is a different
variation of:
  what remains of
the post-pentagram
"yoga" session..

   only when an atheist
succumbs to rhetoric
do i see it...

      i thinker would sooner
succumb to etymology
and shut up...
but an atheist?
         upon listening:
do you hear it?

it's like they're craving
an ever-more necessary
expasion of their
vocabulary...

i find all atheists
to be word-starved...
they read
a thesaurus like
a bible,
like:
oh you see it when
an author reduces
himself / herself
to the use of a thesaurus:

the word looks like
a mile,
when it should looks
like a centi-
         of a -metre.

i'm not defending
either of the people
involved...

      i already gave my
cent flicked into
a fountain for luck:

rule 13: wear pajamas
to bed...

rule 12:
pet a cat when you encounter
one in the street...

yeah... about that...
(scratching of the head:
i.e. Adam implies
thought...)

imagine: Rodin's
le penseaur via a chirogram:
almost "unnatural":
with an arm
         outstretched,
then folding,
   then parts of the hand
scratching the cranium...
like: serious art,
taken to the circus...
but that would be enough
to: forget the chin,
the folded hand
in a pact of non-aggression,
a count of knuckles
like the limbs of
a sleeping spider
lodged in a spider-web...

i think: verb -
   chiro-:
              give me a minute
to sieve through
the grammatical
structures
           of the sensing...

nonetheless:
i find the majority of atheists
to be starved
          from a:
lingua anti deo...

              i haven't found
a vocal atheist to be
a case for a: silence
associated with an investigation
to amount to an etymology...

atheists, i find,
are always... "riddled"
by "feeling"
inadequate,
concerning their acquisition
of vocab.,
an atheist will always
become intrinsic to the existence
of a thesaurus...
  atheists are prone
to exfoliate their base:
of everyday spreschen
via...
    yes... the casual author
appears terrible:
  having to make use of
a thesaurus:

the ******* word
looks like a sore thumb,
or a trumpet for a worth
of an elephant's trunk
dipping in imitation:
for a flush of water...

that 12nd rule though...
eeeeeeeeh...
no...
  sorry...
someone should have told
him: cats are not that
gullible to attend to petting
from someone walking
a street at night...
drinking a beer...

      ever have a staring
contest with a fox?

           em... "oops"?!

see... not all cats can be
petted, randomly,
on a street...

      give or take: a P.U.A.'s
fraction of a gullible ****'s
worth to the
  "blessed night's" completion...

no: no random cat will
allow itself to be petted,
but find one:
sure... you'll pet it...

      but... aaah...
find a fox...
          and stand against
it with a touching distance...
now you're into
a serpentine of
at least the 15th rule,
for "life"...

             nonetheless...
atheists...
   i don't mind them...
a god, no god,
no vector,
no coordinate,
yet still the "familiar"
consequence
of "things"
being fathomed
via the medium of
in situ...

         but...
atheists have been prescribed
an ontological "quest"
that demands: of them,
     to "reiterate"...

"new" words need
to be employed...
"new" words need to be
"found"...
          
there are those words
used in a framework
of speaking "freely"
that succumb to...
  being looked up, prior...

you can see a punctuation
mark
when there's no
punctuation mark
apparent...

                    but there's a clarity
of a hunger that can only
be associated with atheism:
in that it's a...
              crafting
a necessity fabric of / for
a rubric of vocab. -
  in the least: to peacock...
in the most:
    shut-up
   and not appear as some
New Yawn-kipper...

how... ever...
why would the chin be so
incredibly important
to source it, as an artifact
for the proof of thought?

had that statue a beard:
you'd receive an imprint
of a man:
fiddling with a beard,
atuned to resemble
playing a violin...

but no statue:
of a man... in the most
worth of an chirogram attest:
i.e. scratching his head...

yes, Socrates had the questions,
he, an anomaly
of what becomes
                   of old, demented,
age process in a script's worth
of indicators...
anomaly...

and subsequent philosophers?

         as long as the narrative
survives...
as long as the narrative
becomes more and more
entrenched, intrinsic:
    then we can labor moving
forward:
on the whims of a maxim...

   but sooner or later,
a la rochefoucauld or a nietzsche
comes along...
utters his maxims
and leaves them... adrift:
on the chance of:
by precursor notices of
"said" farces: they become
resonant
pirates of wisdom...

the instruments that
are a will: to provision
a humbling...
   a...            knee to tongue
approach...

i don't mind atheists...
i just find them
vocab. starved...
   whenever i hear them
speak, i can't but begin
to orientate myself
around their "thinking":
in that,
the precursor is
always a thesaurus...
   and image becomes:
       ein waßerfall von zungen -

me? i have to unlearn
the bogus chirogram of:
in the name of the father,
and of the son,
and of the holy spirit...

i.e.
   go north / up / it goes to the head,
go crux / center / it goes to the heart,
  go left / your left hand
gets chopped off,
go right / your right hand
gets chopped off...
                    
an atheist is still
someone who seeks to
nibble on the excerpts of
politico sophistry...
not withstanding
the crux of: the short-cut...

            i can see the vanity
of atheists...
   seeking the art of rhetoric...
perfecting it...
  to me... atheists are
very much akin
              to rhetoricians...

        what couldn't
possibly be a desire to expand
on one's vocab.?
         hell...
in the age where
aesthetic is lesser known
form of knowledge,
and knowledge is
worth just as much
as: trivia...

                 petting a cat
on a street, at night?
not so easy...
                     try freezing
a fox into an exchange
of a stare
   within a framework of:
the pair of you
are made unison
for a moment...
   only a meter apart.

what was i going to write?! sometimes i have this labyrinth in my head, but then i keep forgetting that i have one to walk through...

well, at least i know that i'm not *******
pornographic actresses,
you can't be a woman and fake pleasure
with a paranoid "p.",
i have this knack of sniffing acting out...
esp. during ****** *******...

why am i still writing about ***?
call it Picasso's red / blue period before he designated
himself / rediscovered himself as
the godfather of cubism...

a Cezanne exhibition is on at the Tate Modern...
****... and there's a Lucian Freud exhibition
happening at the National Gallery...
coin flip? n'ah... i'll go to both, alone,
because it never feels like a date with a girl
when you're admiring fine art: even though:
don't ask: i hate Lucian Freud...

it's raining and it's the night veiling my scope
of vision... must seem like a weekend over
at Dubai for some women:
well... England, soggy, nighttime:
this is paradise for me...
  this is my heaven... this is my twisting
upper-lip my whirlwind my: half of halves...
i will not give up the night so easily,
not when it rains...

Mmmm: 'oses... 'ohammad...
half baked or half as mad?
                   by now, does it matter?
sure... i've bought lingerie for Khedra...
pretty girlish pink and white stockings...
unprotected ***... fine... fine...
but what if i want to "slobber"?
ugh... she gave me a line of ******* to sniff:
strange drug... it's a placebo...
i stopped drinking coffee just to prove a point:
nicotine is my go to alternative
when it comes to replacing caffeine...
but *******?
i might as well be asking a pigeon
to bite off a seagull's leg... seriously...

but something felt different...
i already ****** that girl 14 years younger than me:
i don't esp. like ******* the idea
of ******* corpses...
but no surprises...
at least i'm not ******* pornographic movie
actresses... i ought to know whether
the women are lying are not...
thank god she tried, pretended,
and got away with playing a corpse...
a mouse gives out more reciprocating onomatopoeia
messaging than this, "clever" looking "thing"
gave out...

i tried doing a 69'er with Khedra once...
ugh... it wasn't the *******...
it was the anti-contraceptive pills...
oral *** was bad...
i had pharmaceutical dust all over my tongue
and supposed nose...
like eating a double infused grapefruit
with a double infused grapefruit...
bitter as ****: and there was me remembering:
oral *** on a woman's **** leaves a man
licking his lips a day after...
i love performing oral *** on a woman...

it's not fair that she should debase herself
doing all the work prior...
i like performing oral *** on women...
i think i left my skull nearby a freshly licked ****
at one point...
indeed... i think i have...
i just pretend i'm  granddad without
any teeth but a tongue to slobber with...
my beard gets wet from all the dripping...
fair enough...

i can have unprotected *** with Khedra...
but... i can't eat out her ****...
conundrum!
with Mikaela i have to have protected ***...
but? i can became a slob
with the ****...
my nose dives in... my tongue imitates
a phallus... i'm giving her the double kissing
her mouth would otherwise require...
i love ***...
i need ***...

if both of us are giggling during it?
well... i must be doing something right...
because i know: i ******* know...
there's this pornographic veil akin to the iron curtain
struggling / suffocating "us"...
i know there is...

i bump my head on the mirror,
she bumps her head on the mirror...
but we're still laughing...
she tells me: ******* ******* her are too much
so i reduce it to the index...
next time we meet: and i hope it's tomorrow,
i don't think half an hour will be enough...
i think i'll need an hour with her...
i'll cry to the outer-limits of what's viably
in the realm of existence and utter:
this i wed, because this is what i had fun with!

69'er...
     i just want her fat *** to choke my face
into a... murk-around of crafting a Pistachio cream...
mein gott: performing oral *** on a woman
is so re-invigorating...
it's almost like being born-again!
she's clutching your hands one minute...
she's pulling your hair another...
you already ****** an actress... 14 year your junior...
you having *** with her was you
having *** with a corpse... literally... mute games...
but when you come across a coupled:
*** is fun... *** is all about having fun...
the game shifts...

she'll learn... once she has had enough terrible
partners...

but the way she indicated: upon parting i implored
to kiss her cheek... nope!
she took out her index and pointed at her forehead:
kiss me here, upon parting...
which i did... but i need a second taste of that ****!
it's like waking up with a history you haven't inherited:
or don't wish to have...

Christianity didn't give us this!
philosophy or technology or, whatever!
you want to fight words with images and metaphors?!
you want to fight blood with wine and
fight body with bread?!
you want to?
yeah? let's go!

happy are those, who come, to, my, supper!
well... back in Dickensian times...
oysters? they weren't party food...
certainly not food for the elites, certainly not
aphrodisiac nibbles...
oysters used to be the food of the poor...
ergo?

hmm...

i woke up today... i was supposed to go clubbing
in central London last night...
i was only ever going to make to the brothel...
why? i was going to perform oral *** on a *******
and hear her onomatopoeia
of gloat...
    from mute through to gloat...
i like it when a woman moans with pleasure...
it sort of reminds me of why / how a cow moos
when she's being milked...
same ****? for sure... different cover...

another shift tomorrow: at least i know one
is not on anti-contraceptive pills...
i'll eat that **** out before i perform any ******* intrusion...
i'll burry my nose and hide my heard
in that...

the best profanity of the Christian Church
yet to be envisioned...
this is my body: an oyster... the **** of *******
eaten raw... "rhetorical practice"...
this is my "blood": a bottle of wine-strength
cider, i.e. "blood": more like my... ****!
oyster-**** and cider-****!

what? you want imagery to weigh more concrete
on the demand for the worth of words
while at the same time demeaning the worth
of words with either imagery or metaphor?
best the best poets are natural opponents of
actors and journalists!

i still can't stop thinking about performing oral
*** on a woman...
it's like speaking 50+ over ******* tongues!
like i don't understand that some, think,
it's worthwhile:
to be a male and competing with women
for expressed sexuality...

well, d'uh: women in harems have more ***...
the sly ******* amongst us forgave to forget...
i **** carelessly... because i like to ****...
i like to drink too... but i also like to ****...
i have limited interests, when it comes to interests...
which makes it perfect for me
to chose the most treasured of interests to
be the most prized! even though, they're not...
not with the wrong type of woman...
esp. a woman much younger than you...

i prefer monkeys, pigeons... crows...
dogs, lions, bears, cats, tigers...
camels, horses... i prefer... dim-wits and dumb-*****...
rain's ******* fine...

what?!

i'm a ****-sucker! i love, *******, ****!
i used to love eating oyster....
this is "my" body: i.e. hers' oyster...
the **** that be her...
what blood?
you're getting my ****! you're not getting my
blood!
and my "blood" is? a bottle of cider...
that's my "blood", i.e. my ****...
and that body? that's her ****... which i slobbered
all over...
happy? you crucified, *****?!

this is what happens when words lose
their intended value...
bread is my flesh?
wine is my blood? i too can play the same game...
i already played it:
the flesh? a *****'s ****... an oyster...
no blood...
you'll be drinking my **** for the next 1000 years...
i.e. a bottle of cider!

just because your father was a *******
carpenter... and my father a roofer...
what, the, ****, does, that, make, you,
you would be ******* incarnate yoyo?!
you were a carpenter, but i was also a roofer!

i'll stop writing about *** when i stop having
*** regularly... not until then....
hmm... she reminds me of someone...
Jasmine... Black...
i'm surprised by how much allure
excess flab has on me...
there's so much "geography" to master
concerning a woman's body...
and you never quiet know if you're getting it right...
well... after ******* a 14 year old junior mute
stiff as a corpse... not willing to kiss...
i don't think i'm buying lies
with those moans and groans...

yeah: i'll stop writing about *** the moment
i stop having *** so frequently / on a regular basis...
i'm meditating in continuum
rather than in situ...
there's a clear distinction...
Diwali came only a few nights before
Guy Fawkes' Night...
there is, a clear distinction...
i.e. between meditation in continuum
and meditation in situ...

Bodohnya aku
Mendatangi rumah sakit untuk berobat
Namun hanya tawa kencang ketika aku mengatakan keluhan
Bodoh
Bodoh
Kemarin dia membawa pisau tajam
Dan menghunuskan tepat di dadaku
Mengatakan "Aku mencintai sahabatmu."
Tepat di situ aku sakit

There's a small vice on my heart
that you turned incrementally since the day we kissed
Always there was space to manoeuvre
wriggle
a gap to shift around in and say, 'That's better'
to comfortably fool myself that I was not caught.
But now, my dear....
Now the grip leaves me gasping
and that metal feels cold
and I cannot ignore it.
The trouble is
I kissed your elegant, beautiful face
and I guided your hand to that vice in my chest
and enveloped your fingers with mine
We turned those keys together.
I was so enamoured
and I wanted your love.
I told myself I could get out at any time.

Too late, my love
It was always too late
For we're kindred souls across lifestyles
and lifetimes
and my body knows yours like the taste of my tears.
I resign myself, then, to bleeding.
I resign thee to Fate and what she may decide
knowing only that never shall I be your jailor.
I refuse to allow
that wild tempest soul to be anything but free.

I am happy to be caught.
Though I writhe with this pain
and slumber eludes me in my misery.
For one thing I have realised
is the depth of my cowardice.
Although yours came out as tenored and trembling
you still had the bravery to speak the words emblazoned on your heart
the ones that threatened to fall from your lips
as my head lay perfectly in situ against your collarbone
and my heartbeat and breathing lined up with yours
in our quiet symbiosis at 3 a.m.
I danced around the words
flitted lightly, noncommittal
and said 'I think I'm falling in love with you',
which was a lie.
You are far braver than I
and to this day I've run
but you deserve far greater than that which I have meted out to you.
You deserve honesty.
You deserve the breadth and depth of what my heart aches to tell you
though I am frightened beyond words that the vice can go no tighter.

I love you.

Crystal lake sparkling.
First explosive as lightning strikes.
Now moving softly obeying moonlight’s touch.
Warm breeze.
Chased the heavy storm.
After clouds played with Thor.
Drenched.
Bones almost soaked.
Standing in the free rain.
Hair leaden with liquid moonshine…
Coat clings as limpet sponge.
Stuck in situ!

By ladylivvi1



© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

it was nothing more than
drinking a
   ⰔⰕⰀⰓⰑⰐⰓⰀⰏⰀⰐ
      beer and walking
the night without
             a suitable suit
or care for flesh...
  bone to cold:
            cold to bone...

god (casual inference
of making a sound
equivalent to stating
something: aghast)
these people are "gone"
yet they're still here...

no, i'm not thinking
about deus...

             two things on my
mind:
    making dumplings
tomorrow:
       fungus, pickled cabbage,
chicken meat and
chicken stomachs...

(well, three):
how constelations
look: almost pristine
during a cold night...

                    •
                 •
              • .
                             .
                            •
                            •

  ­                                             •
                •

while lost paparazzi
flashes of frost
cuddle the tips of
the grass' elongated
strips:

head tilt one way,
head tilt, another:
    at night in this cold:
i might as well
be walking the red carpet.
  
(well, four):  
                        imagine all
the amount of paper,
should books be wrriten
like this:

¶...........................................
.............­.................................
...............................­...............
..............................................
..­............................................
....................­..........................
......................................­........
¶...........................................
...........­...................................
.............................­.................
..............................................
­..............................................
..................­............................
....................................­..........

rather than, like this:

          ....................................
...........­...................................
.............................­.................
..............................................
­..............................................
..................­............................
....................................­..........
.......
          ....................................­
..............................................
.................­.............................
...................................­...........
..............................................
......­........................................
........................­......................
.......

countless pages!
  
(well, five):
  imagine the students of
architecture having
to rely on roman numerals
to think of
    wriggling out
something to appeal
to the pleb...
        
      countless men have
tried: but...

          a coliseum via
  IV + VII = XII

   and sure as ****
    a quantum physics
definition of reality
via 4 + 7 = 12:

"god" of the "gaps":
    4, 6, 8, 9, 0,
    A, B, Q, O, P, R,
    D...

ⰔⰕⰀⰓⰑⰐⰓⰀⰏⰀⰐ:
this writing?
about as much vitality
surrounding it as...
not since high school
have i heard someone
say: you should read
james joyce's ulysses..

(well, six):
god has nothing to do with
"it"...
   it being a precursor
of: what?

   i.e.
          religion as in what?
i can hardly kneel,
i can hardly play
the lunatic variant
of: before me i see a void
that eats, rather than
clarifies itself for the sake
of vanity...

      a cold beer, a cold night...
the existentialist fwench
philosophers:
   existence precursors
essence...
             as mind precursors
body...
  or rather:

  there's no god other than
in the gesticulated: aghast
expression of: a little
bit more than mere awe...

    i'm just...
bothered...
about no less a point
of god...
              other than:
faith has never recovered...
in that:
   man is less and less
someone who believes...
man, to satiate
the curiosity of time's
inexhausive narrative...

        what was once
faith: has become nothing
more than paranoia...

       for no god
there's only the suspicious
inclination of
a reality that's...
   in situ...

          man becoming
so self-conscious
that indeed:
   doing away with god,
he ought to do away
with: and lodge in
the zoological mingling
with the psychological
study of man as:
   "self" -
   this... etymological
curiosity:
           Babylon...
            selb...

because the modern Italian
is somehow,
unrelated to the ancient
Roman...

              the in situ
conundrum of man being,
able, to scuttle away with
the myriad of facts:
shared among the myriad
of people...
  
and to think...
people used to reason
with     ⰏⰀ as
the same as         MA...

i can't read the modern
variety of hieroglyphs
of the EMOJI...

         :) - sure,
i can read that... :(
       but anything beyond
that?
           well... it's not like
i was even given the opportunity
of finishing school
at 16 and entering
a ******* coal-mine either!

although no trinity
of Giza before me:
   all i seem to be clarified by
is the current
        endeavor of:
whatever is the collectivist
ambition of man...

           a pyramid of sighs...

Annie Chapman, the maiden Smith,
******* daughter of a soldier born,
Parents entered joy of wedlock,
When ******* girl was still a baby.

Got married herself in 1869,
Had three children sweet,
First sweet daughter Emily,
Captured by meningitis bug,
Stole their eldest gal away,
Second child was a lad named John, born tragically disabled,
A third daughter born 1884 who ran away with the circus seeking some fun, when grown.

Marriage crumbled,
Due to sorrow,
Loss of daughter,
Destroyed all tomorrows,
Son was put into institution,
So they could not go on,
Drifted apart on a tide of drink,
Only way not to think,
Separated fell apart in 1884,

Lady 'Annie', with sorrowful heart and hair of brown,
Known as 'Dark Annie'
Maybe because she wore a frown,
She was the victim blessed with civility,
Until the drink contorted her,
Bending her mind,

Early as the daylight rose,
She had found a dark haired fellow,
Wearing deerstalker,
Maybe a friend of Holmes himself,
Although it's sadly doubted,
Probably a client, looking for her wares,

Body slain, lain on the floor,
Not far from her gate,
Throat slashed, viscera scattered around,
Coating her shoulders , with blood spattered dressings,

A neckerchief in situ,
Had he maybe provided a most unpleasant gift,
No financial donation for this poor lady,
Asphyxiation for the lady, she didn't take her daily pills,

Queer perhaps,
Her murderer knew what to do,
Maybe vile ****** man was medical in origin,
Some speculation hinted,
The ****** weapon was an autopsy knife!

This is the story of the second Jack the Ripper victim.
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)