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Ashley Chapman Jun 2019
We start in Greek Street.
Not any night,
But the end,
A grand finale;
Last orders,
At the Coach & Horses,
Before the corporate boyz move in to whitewash,
Where inky Boho Jeffrey Bernard drank,
And Gary Dunnington, the actor, and his mates are on the ****.

Meanwhile, a mom runs her hands,
Though my strands.
'Tell me everything,' she enthuses,'about your hair.'
But there’s nothing to say:
I barely wash it,
Never brush it,
And only finger combe it.
But she carries on in my locks,
Then off to dinner with her bloke.

We head off to Trisha's at 57,
A lively basement heaven:
In energy, in noise, in smoke.
I chat with Mark.
Got his heart broke:
It’s hard
To sever those traumatic bonds,
Thick as pillar posts,
When love ***** up,
Goodbye, the cocktail of toxicity,
That had you on a high,
The ***, the texts, the tenderness,
And, oh, the bliss.

Kass, a boxer musician, comes
And shakes our hands.
He’s in Armani,
And says,
His eyes dark little raisins,
'I prefers a poet over a bruiser.'
And, 'I don’t fight no more,
If I did - so I don't bother -
I’d **** ‘em.

In the corner,
Two girls with dreamy eyes:
So I read ‘em love poems.

Then Jessica Appleby's head pops round the door.
We hug and then swap tales:
'I’m all messed up,' I tell her.
'What not her, the one you wrote that poem for.'
'My man,' she confides changing the subject,
'All crazy passion and wild *** for two months -
Then nothing.
Just fizzled out like it was never meant to be.'

She exits.

'You alright Gary?'
'Yeah, you?'
'Fine.'
But I don’t buy him a beer,
A bottle of Peroni is £5.
'No, it’s £3,' he says, 'if you pay cash.'
I head for the bar.
Three times I explain to the barman, it’s £3 cash.
'Who told you that?' he says slamming the bottle down.
'Gary,' I say defensively.
'Well, tell Gary, if he doesn’t shut the **** up,
He’ll be paying a fiver, too.'

A young American artist, Kirsty, starts talking to me.
She’s trying to get ahead in art,
And says, that when she was a kid,
On a blazing Tuscany night filled with stars,
She walked out onto a stone balustrade balcony,
And knew in that moment,
She was no longer her mom and dad,
But herself, Kirsty.

The boxer musician shoves a tall fellow hard against the wall,
The altercation,
Is over before it starts.

Kass gives me a wolfish smile.
Mark buys me a drink.
Kirsty goes to the toilet.
The corner girls have left.
Mark slips his stool.

Everyone is cleared from the yard,
Just Gary and I linger
With a feisty young bar lady,
Serving the Bohos of Soho.

Drinking in their pathos,
Exhaling in the shadows,
Mingling in their juices.
My ****** up heart beats
With the Bohos of Soho.
Ahhh, the Bohos of Soho keep many an hour.
The Bohos of Soho,
The Bohos of Soho,
The Bohos of Soho,
Have many lives,
The Bohos of Soho are a good seed.
You and I,
In Soho,
For last orders.
Now publiahed in Celine's Salon, Volume I, by Wordville, 2021.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2016
could you ever, with your ears, express a piece of music, as: fluffy? dark soho's piece is fluffy; and by god i was the pretentious one at the beginning of the 20th century critical of the emerging music... but i'm the one merging at the beginning of the 21st century: and it's a T.S. Elliot scenario: the overload of rhythm: industrial core due to the industry being foetal sieg heil! and so many have fallen for the nostalgia trap... it's not coming back: against the thump thump gyroid reproductive muscular we emerge from... for whatever lack of drums in the orchestra: we're paying for it with an excess of techno techno Bob the goldfish cardboard box dance sequence... or as some would suggest: filling in the gap about the joke concerning a triangle being a part of the orchestra and the person educated in it, rather than the harp.

ah, the blank, and i have to work on it: let's imagine i was just
cooking a pork stew for my father and you don't
bother to ask why someone's surname is written
Raßer - and you don't know how
to pronounce it: and you end
up with razors - which you end up saying
racer - or how about sharpening
the s into a zed - how's that?
this is surgical activity while you you're
at at the butchers: necromancy aplemty:
when god speaks, the devil whispers -
American divergence of the pronoun
y'all / you all -
                           we the safeguard
and they the paranoia -
                                    take it slow,
imagine yourself living in Alaska:
you're exposed to the elements
and Prometheus isn't handy:
  all you have is west London drool
that later translates into easter in London,
Ld: isn't even an postal code:
given Greenwich, bellybutton on the world
they're bound to abuse / feel special
                 about, it's just a John Bishop
          Scouser type of beating.
                  ya - i say i aye, you frostbite of
culture, ya yarn ball of ****!
    oh 'ere we go: the red-coats are hunting
foxes: sort of scenario -
   the sooner they ******* a killing
the better for me: 'ave that one with a grizzly:
             some say the longer the yawn
the greater the applause -
      yo! Yogi! turntable of Las Vegas
says you better gamble on hibernating in the
effing Hermitage!
  - we say a lot of y'all when we imply the
plural, don't we? terrible, ****** thuggish
'n' all, to say it.
   i have five pages worth of notes,
and even though i'm drunk,
i came across a foundation, i'll never be ask happy
at i am right now,
   i signed a copy of my book (look! i don't
have a publicist, i don't have the ******* swagger,
i have the inferno that says:
  when the writing dries up, get a proper job;
if the writing doesn't dry up?
             you're less than necessary than a
supermarket shelf-stacker...
                 there are succumbing reasons that
explain the affair later) -
      no i'm about to sell my first copy -
  i say to her: when you working this circuit next?
Friday night? i'll tell you how much i'm selling
for, well: i'll never be this happy: ever -
it really doesn't matter how much for how little:
   i'm not exactly a family animal: farmed -
i'm political: through and through -
   by the time i finish this whiskey i'll be
demanding something new...
    i don't think your able limbs do idle chores:
i just think admire that they do them
and hardly complain: i blame it on the workers'
encouraged banter - and that's called solidarity.
still, right now, it's all about
dark soho's: dark moon in stonehenge -
       or why you never take l.s.d.
   question arises with Bach...
and polyphony - again, non-linear polymers:
   back when the Germans were at it
music sliced through the air
                   - or the modernity of lost
string (quartets) and woodwinds -
          only the thing plucked rather than in slicing
stroked kept from the strings:
    it was truly a devolution via brass -
   you can have the iron age,
but this is the brass age -
                   and subsequently the evolution
or filling the void of orchestral percussion,
which began with jazz: how orchestra was stripped
of woodwinds and strings and elevated
the humble triangle and enforced drums
and the rhythmic transcendence of limb and heart
and less ear and mind -
           oh the spontaneity thus involved:
forever the enigma of the composer's ability
to say much more than *A
, when saying in A# -
oh hell: music used to be the Mongolian horde
of all things imaginable,
                  the screams, all the entrenching
embodiment of battle: soothed -
  but in our apathetic guises: music is a variant
of the once exfoliated, thus hushed:
music is expressing a war in waiting - or a war
that's not to be - once music music ascribed
wind and tornado toward its elemental composition -
these days there is less wind, and more earthquake:
we are exposed to a trembling -
           an overt percussion methodology:
that's not fire and the storyteller / poet by
the lonesome huddling of nomads by the fire
with oud and recitation of the to come Quran:
we are experiencing a complete reversal of wind:
here we have dark soho's tectonic cardiovascular:
over stating the percussion until the eventual
obliteration of breath, and subsequently
the flatline of the heart's rhythm: to reach the zenith
of a flatline: beehive musicology.
         it's all earth: and the quaking
rather than a waking into.
                  sure: to the alien ear outside the populace
of those that listen to that kind of "****":
but let me assure you:" you can intellectualise
anything beyond the guilty pleasure:
or else - care to disclose your opinions about doggy?
once we were slicing and ******* -
these days? we're hammering, Soviet committee
said: hammer hammer hammer...
            gravitational drilling against the Catholic
lessons of worldly-detachment akin to a Gagarin:
and all the world's problems morphed into
an image of moving away from earth...
    far far away...       well: we're grounded, like it
or not.
              i love that: y'all -
                          it's as if we all need to agree, ~.
and what better way to actually open a poem up
if not to say how prose is a miser and poetry
the mad spender, or compose: he had / another thought
he wished to take / but...
           originally
                    he had
                  another thought he wished to take
                 but...
saving an Amazonian tree, suggesting that: one by one.
i'll sell my first copy on Friday,
i just need to know how much money was put
into printing it -
   and it will be the happiest i'll ever be -
who cares that it's only 1... if i were selling
100,000 copies i'd be thinking of buying a Mercedes
to do away with the capital...
      oh right, the poem (six pages of notes):
the question, what does it all mean?
       i'm thankful that the all means very little,
or at least enough for physicists to take a bother
in answering:
               i'm just thankful to say that at least
bites / bytes / isolated units have more meaning
than the whole... i.e.?
do i care what the universe means, more so
than i known what the word darkened means?
                 pause for thought -
the well established organic search engine that memory
is: and never will be: an algorithm (engine) -
           still the organic variation of accessing it
reveals Rodin's statues -
                        post-Rodin (Rho-dan: ****** iota!
why so naked in the first place?!) -
            the point where it's not so much enigmatic that
you wish to replicate: but entomb, and mould
a statue worthy of the perpetuated cut-short
and mediating the idea that thought has also
the faculty of imagining and memorisation
that hardly translate into being via ergo...
       if that's the case: you're demented via the
ergo of memory... and deluded via the ergo of
imagining -
                      or Frankenstein / Disney respectively:
but never the extinguished cogito, somehow,
oddly enough:
                          and by the way - no one is going
to question my opinions because dialectics was
giving the hemlocks... my opinions
will only become passed around like Bulgarian
Versace copyright thefts, or because they
were never ideas: attachment .pdf
                   will never entertain someone else's thought,
or because they were originally always opinions
will be consecrated on the attachments of .jpeg:
ever wonder why the crucifix always
mobilises so much emotional foundation to
react and protect a torture-filled instrument
worthy of worship? me neither.
                but that's the whole beginning:
we ensured our memory is eroded by an easily
accessed algorithm - we prefer the goggles to
mensa -
                   and if i were a technophobe: e ah e ah oh...
McDonald would turn out to be McTrump:
'cos' i wouldn't be using it.
              then how to synchronise the senses:
you surely can't leave one the prime consumer of
all the things around you:
     i guess that as stated: you can't live out a life
whereby one is polarised, and the others recessively
make your thinking into potato -
   then again: not polarising one of your senses
will leave you thinking that old fantasy that
you live in a hologram "reality": which i mean by saying:
if one of your pentagram limbs isn't polarised
like a blind person, your thought will claim a sixth
sense status - and subsequently you'll experience
either a second chance of allowing one of your senses
to be stressed / polarised, or all your senses will become
overpowering your non-sense: that's thought into submitting
to a polarity / vector: kindred of
the manual worker feeling his trade take
perfect replication -
a composer polarised by "hearing" -
a painter polarised by "seeing" -
a poet polarised by "speaking" -
a chef polarised by "tasting" -
   a perfumer polarised by "scenting" -
and within the sixth sense extension:
a politician polarised by "thinking" -
  the first antonym suggestion comes within the latter's
parameter: mobilising or puppeteering:
would i care to find variations for the latter? no.

     interlude... opening of page 3 of notes on a windowsill...

and how often is soul ascribed a sensual dimension?
i guess as many a time thought isn't ascribed one:
necessarily made into nonsense.
soul? what do i mean by that? the part of you
that isn't indestructible, but, rather,
the part of you that feels that ease: the uninhibited
correlation (verbiage necessary, darling,
if you want the gist of it) -
when at ease you're not really ascribing to yourself
thinking, but a narrative -
  hence your notion of being indestructible,
or young.
      when thinking is easy we're not actually thinking,
we're narrating, hence the majority of us
are clogs in the machine, and once the machine works
we're upbeat about it, because we prefer to narrate
ourselves into life than think ourselves into it:
primarily because (even i included):
we lack a public addressal attache to make
vague concerns over our: inhibitions -
we are entrusted with inhibitory encrusting
for the sole purpose (we should be afraid of
suggesting): let's see who falls off the ferris wheel
first and we can entrust our congeniality toward
the joke: thank **** it wasn't me, later...
          but still:
if were were really intended to think
rather than narrate we'd be given global warming
solutions everyday...
   there's nothing in us that suggests an 'ought',
a moral choice to later say: thought
                      that could fish-hook us out of
kissing the narrative goodbye -
  narration is an undisturbed faking of thought -
as such the 'ought' is never thought of:
because there's a narrative going on
that's more important than anything requiring
even the most basest obligation.
       we are never obliged to be, because we are
never obliged to think: it's strange how the
two are anti-synonymous due to the ergo disparity:
as if one produces the other, or the former
the latter.
              thinking you're good never precipitates
into being good - and vice versa:
   for all i know i know fake rather than falsifiable
saintliness: the power of the scientific
  suggests that i should be Baron von Scorn
when it comes to the ignorance of testifying
         against people who abhor science
and reproduce, nonetheless, with failure to
transcend deformities: because deformities are
glorified and all forms of ability demonised:
so it looks quasi-Vatican-e.
                   preface to a Michelin star:
start with a ******: work your way down:
enjoy your meal, bygones-be-bygones:
you very happy people.
                  but i never understood why
the idea of thought has never the opinionated phrase:
me, exponentially, to no book's avail!
        p.s. as to be ever written!
    thought conscripts man to rubrics -
for example? examinational candélabre -
  some call it i.q., other's call it: for god's sake man,
****** shoot! shoot!
                        and the flying toes and digits:
thumbs away: booh booh Blitz.
                        first thought: that Jersey song:
fifth of November - that Fawkes ****
who almost.... n'ah.
                            in case you're narrative:
thought has its narrative: it's transcendental -
phenomenology comes into play with
narratives and Lady Gaga and how you're an
"individual": thought is acquired trying to transcend
atomic electron orbits that says: electron clouds -
or it's there, but it isn't there, but it's not there,
but it's there: huh?
                         narration conscripted to the rubric
of school exams at school: palpitations, sweat,
nerves... in this scenario thinking is actually
regurgitation -
                          actually we're still doing the Elvis
Costello hope: while narrating we pass from
these shackles of having to think lessons through
when in fact: we're gearing to having no need
in having to learn them primordially, period!

the paranoiac "they" are eroding our protective
membrane -
    they begin with memory -
         it's not that we care to remember certain things,
but by educating us in the Pythagorean theorem
they're not necessarily dressing us in bow ties either -
they need to implant an abstract educational
thought to replace our natural assimilation into
a narrative that we ourselves have created -
       they need to create erosion within our
memory to stop us coagulating our sense of memory
within a framework of us imagining backwards
rather than forwards:
      the cinema of the mind means memory utilises
imagination to do cartwheels backwards
rather than forwards: because forwards is always
a Disney pharmacology of the neon hyper colouring.

or how they made us escape the "Alcatraz"
of the couch of cognitive narration into an
iron maiden of thinking -
                    in this realm narrating is disparaging
from thinking: narrative is a comfort zone:
thinking is a discomfort zone -
                       but neither me nor you will
become a Newton in terms of narrating the ideas:
so why the hell would they want us to think?!
       concerning Heidegger:
the problem is not that we're not thinking -
the solution is that we're narrating and have
no urge to write books, and thank god for that!
               or man, as the pentagram of the senses,
reversed into thought as the sixth sense calamity
and reversed back as that sense missing
and the tetra exemplified...
         when learning what is the weakest point,
the audio or the optic-receptive stimulation?
                         i mean, the senses over accuse
thought's complexity as if it were a sense akin
to them, hence the suggestion nonsense;
well of course, thought is actually non-sensory -
     i just suggested that when thinking
i'm not polarising any of the penta -
         i'm suggesting that when thinking i'm
invoking the tetra - as if blind or deaf -
but that means i'm deviating from the superstition
that a sixth correlative mediatory balance exists
between the two dichotomies -
                            the senses will always treat
obscure thinking as if obscure narratives:
even though i know how much a price of bread
costs in the 21st century -
                              what i'm saying is that
the nonsense assertion is also true for the other:
not having had the chance to polarise one
of its senses to point toward the artefact use of
wh
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
eh, you wake up in the morning,
you hear the work-bell ring,
n' i march you to the table!
to see the same ol' thing.

ain' no food upon the table,
n' no... something something...
cos' you better not complain boy,
you'll get in trouble with the man...

let the midnight special,
     shine a light on me...
let the midnight special,
           shine a de Wallen red light on me -

cos Soho turned amber to all things queer,
and with queer turned all the stoppage
lights gearing you up to marriage a full
ahead go -
                              or in alt. castrated pop of
the Vatican **** charts - some sang some
other traffic coordination -

cos Soho sang of the green pristine ironed shirts
and the 9 and 5 daily tortoise and
birds - once it was the bees and the birds -
now it was all about birds and worms -
Soho my man, is all queer to mind you,
extortion on real estate and ****** -
but what if i paid with a diamond clad ****?
or cut my organic one off and used a *****,
half price?
                        i'd vote in solely for de wallen
section of Amsterdam, **** those little hubs
of quasi-hippies toking the cool off a joint...
i didn't go there for the cafes, i went for the brothel
cubicles...
                  ha                         ­     ha.

now, please understand me, i can understand a date
being a walk in a park, a promenade,
i understand the French concept of dating - coordinating,
walking and talk, an Islamic calendar month of binge eating
at sunset without recitation
from the book- but all this cinema,
this restaurant and drinks?
how about just a walk and talk session girl?
because, boy, you're so ******* outdated - i'd prefer
watching horror movies in a thunderstorm with lightning,
at least i'd be part of the Addam's family of Scottish Economy...

promenade! promenade with me! the airy bit of it all,
i'll have your oyster platter if i'm "sulking" an empty
stomach, and your words bouncing off inanimate things
while we seem to be walking parallel tangos,
but end up in the crypt of Caduceus.

i never finished the Soho song about the area being that
of privileged queers, and de Wallen known to the English
being shame alley - well... you should have heard the laugh
of that bubbly Puerto Rican girl... 'you know how
many i have had in me?'
what? tongues, i'm guessing the first.

i still don't know how to vote this out -
if i'd vote out, Soho couldn't compensate me,
if i'd vote in, at least de Wallen would -
well, given the statistics, i rather walk and talk
like some Aristotle tutorial -
rather than sit on my **** in a suburban semi-detached
before a television waiting for dementia.
1969 Hartford art school is magnet for exceedingly intelligent over-sensitive under-achievers alluring freaks congenital creeps and anyone who cannot cut it in straight world it is about loners dreamers stoners clowns cliques of posers competing to dress draw act most outrageous weird wonderful classrooms clash in diversity of needs some students get it right off while others require so much individual attention one girl constantly raises her hand calls for everything to be repeated explained creativity is treated as trouble and compliance to instruction rewarded most of faculty are of opinion kids are not capable of making original artwork teachers discourage students from dream of becoming well-known until they are older more experienced only practiced skilled artists are competent to create ‘real art’ defined by how much struggle or multiple meanings weave through the work Odysseus wants to make magic boxes without knowing or being informed of Joseph Cornell one teacher tells him you think you’re going to invent some new color the world has never seen? you’re just some rowdy brat from the midwest with a lot of crazy ideas and no evidence of authenticity another teacher warns you’re nothing more than a bricoleur! Odysseus questions what’s a bricoleur teacher informs a rogue handyman who haphazardly constructs from whatever is immediately available Odysseus questions what’s wrong with that? teacher answers it’s low-class folk junk  possessing no real intellectual value independently he reads Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium Is The Message” and “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci” he memorizes introductory remark of Leonardo’s “i must do like one who comes last to the fair and can find no other way of providing for himself than by taking all the things already seen by others and not taken by reason of their lesser value” Odysseus dreams of becoming accomplished important artist like Robert Rauschenberg Jasper Johns Andy Warhol he dreams of being in eye of hurricane New York art scene he works for university newspaper and is nicknamed crashkiss the newspaper editor is leader in student movement and folk singer who croons “45 caliber man, you’re so much more than our 22, but there’s so many more of us than you” Odysseus grows mustache wears flower printed pants vintage 1940’s leather jacket g.i. surplus clothes he makes many friends his gift for hooking up with girls is uncanny he is long haired drug-crazed hippie enjoying popularity previously unknown to him rock bands play at art openings everyone flirts dances gets ****** lots of activism on campus New York Times dubs university of Hartford “Berkeley of the east coast” holding up ******* in peace sign is subversive in 1969 symbol of rebellion youth solidarity gesture against war hawks rednecks corporate America acknowledgment of potential beyond materialistic self-righteous values of status quo sign of what could be in universe filled with incredible possibilities he moves in with  painting student one year advanced named Todd Whitman Todd has curly blond hair sturdy build wire rimmed glasses impish smile gemini superb draftsman amazing artist Todd emulates Francisco de Goya and Albrecht Durer Todd’s talent overshadows Odysseus’s Todd’s dad is accomplished professor at distinguished college in Massachusetts to celebrate Odysseus’s arrival Todd cooks all day preparing spaghetti dinner when Odysseus arrives home tripping on acid without appetite Todd is disappointed Odysseus runs down to corner store buys large bottle of wine returns to house Todd is eating spaghetti alone they get drunk together then pierce each other’s ears with needles ice wine cork pierced ears are outlaw style of bad *** bikers like Hell’s Angels Todd says you are a real original Odys and funny too Odysseus asks funny, how? Todd answers you are one crazy ******* drop acid whenever you want smoke **** then go to class this is fun tonight Odys getting drunk and piercing our ears Odysseus says yup i’m having a good time too Todd and Odysseus become best friends Odysseus turns Todd on to Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” and “Ariel” then they both read Ted Hughes “Crow” illustrated with Leonard Baskin prints Todd turns Odysseus on to German Expressionist painting art movement of garish colors emotionally violent imagery from 1905-1925 later infuriating Third ***** who deemed the work “degenerate” Odysseus dives into works of Max Beckmann Otto Dix Conrad Felixmulller Barthel Gilles George Grosz Erich Heckel Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Felix Nussbaum Karl *******Rottluff Carl Hofer August Macke Max Peckstein Elfriede Lohse-Wachtler Egon Shiele list goes on in 1969 most parents don’t have money to buy their children cars most kids living off campus either ride bikes or hitchhike to school then back home on weekends often without a penny in their pockets Odysseus and Todd randomly select a highway and hitch rides to Putney Vermont Brattleboro Boston Cape Cod New York City or D.C. in search of adventure there is always trouble to be found curious girls to assist in Georgetown Odysseus sleeps with skinny girl with webbed toes who believes he is Jesus he tries to dissuade her but she is convinced

Toby Mantis is visiting New York City artist at Hartford art school he looks like huskier handsomer version of Ringo Starr and women dig him he builds stretchers and stretches canvases for Warhol lives in huge loft in Soho on Broadway and Bleeker invites Odysseus to come down on weekends hang out Toby takes him to Max’s Kansas City Warhol’s Electric Circus they wander all night into morning there are printing companies longshoremen gays in Chelsea Italians in West Village hippies playing guitars protesting the war in Washington Square all kinds of hollering crazies passing out fliers pins in Union Square Toby is hard drinker Odysseus has trouble keeping up  he pukes his guts out number of times Odysseus is *** head not drinker he explores 42nd Street stumbles across strange exotic place named Peep Show World upstairs is large with many **** cubicles creepy dudes hanging around downstairs is astonishing there are many clusters of booths with live **** girls inside girls shout out hey boys come on now pick me come on boys there are hundreds of girls from all over the world in every conceivable size shape race he enters dark stall  puts fifty cents in coin box window screen lifts inside each cluster are 6 to 10 girls either parading or glued to a window for $1 he is allowed to caress kiss their ******* for $2 he is permitted to probe their ****** or *** for $10 girl reaches hand into darkened stall jerks him off tall slender British girl thrills him the most she says let me have another go at your dickey Odysseus spends all his money ******* 5 times departing he notices men from every walk of life passing through wall street stockbrokers executives rednecks mobsters frat boys tourists fat old bald guys smoking thick smelly cigars Toby Mantis has good-looking girlfriend named Lorraine with long brown hair Toby Lorraine and Odysseus sit around kitchen table Odysseus doodles with pencil on paper Toby spreads open Lorraine’s thighs exposing her ****** to Odysseus Lorraine blushes yet permits Toby to finger her Odysseus thinks she has the most beautiful ****** he has ever seen bulging pelvic bone brown distinctive bush symmetric lips Toby and Lorraine watch in amusement as Odysseus gazes intently Tony mischievously remarks you like looking at that ***** don’t you? Odysseus stares silently begins pencil drawing Lorraine’s ****** his eyes darting back and forth following day Lorraine seduces Odysseus while Toby is away walks out **** from shower she is few years older her body lean with high ******* she directs his hands mouth while she talks with someone on telephone it is strange yet quite exciting Odysseus is in awe of New York City every culture in the world intermingling democracy functioning in an uncontrollable managed breath millions of people in motion stories unraveling on every street 24 hour spectacle with no limits every conceivable variety of humanity ******* in same air Odysseus is bedazzled yet intimidated

Odysseus spends summer of 1970 at art colony in Cummington Massachusetts it is magical time extraordinary place many talented eccentric characters all kinds of happenings stage plays poetry readings community meals volleyball after dinner volleyball games are hilarious fun he lives alone in isolated studio amidst wild raspberries in woods shares toilet with field mouse no shower he reads Jerzy Kosinski’s “Painted Bird” then “Being There” then “Steps” attractive long haired girl named Pam visits community for weekend meets Odysseus they talk realize they were in first grade together at Harper amazing coincidence automatic ground for “we need to have *** because neither of us has seen each other since first grade” she inquires where do you sleep? Todd hitches up from Hartford to satisfy curiosity everyone sleeps around good-looking blue-eyed poet named Shannon Banks from South Boston tells Odysseus his ******* is not big enough for kind of ******* she wants but she will **** him off that’s fine with him 32 year old poet named Ellen Morrissey from Massachusetts reassures him ******* is fine Ellen is beginning to find her way out from suffocating marriage she has little daughter named Nina Ellen admires Odysseus’s free spirit sees both his possibilities and naïveté she realizes he has crippling family baggage he has no idea he is carrying thing about trauma is as it is occurring victim shrugs laughs to repel shock yet years later pain horror sink in turned-on with new ideas he returns to Hartford art school classes are fun yet confusing he strives to be best drawer most innovative competition sidetracks him Odysseus uses power drill to carve pumpkin on Halloween teachers warn him to stick to fundamentals too much creativity is suspect Todd and he are invited to holiday party Odysseus shows up with Ellen Morrissey driving in her father’s station wagon 2 exceptionally pretty girls flirt with him he is live wire they sneak upstairs he fingers both at same time while they laugh to each other one of the girls Laura invites him outside to do more he follows they walk through falling snow until they find hidden area near some trees Laura lies down lifts her skirt she spreads her legs dense ***** mound he is about to explore her there when Laura looks up sees figure with flashlight following their tracks in snow she warns it’s Bill my husband run for your life! Odysseus runs around long way back inside party grabs a beer pretending he has been there next to Ellen all night few minutes later he sees Laura and Bill return through front door Bill has dark mustache angry eyes Odysseus tells Ellen it is late maybe they should leave soon suddenly Bill walks up to him with beer in hand cracks bottle over his head glass and beer splatter Odysseus jumps up runs out to station wagon Ellen hurriedly follows snow coming down hard car is wedged among many guest vehicles he starts engine locks doors maneuvers vehicle back and forth trying to inch way out of spot Bill appears from party walks to his van disappears from out of darkness swirling snow Bill comes at them wielding large crowbar smashes car’s headlights taillights side mirrors windshield covered in broken glass Ellen ducks on floor beneath glove compartment sobs cries he’s going to **** us! we’re going to die! Odysseus steers station wagon free floors gas pedal drives on back country roads through furious snowstorm in dark of night no lights Odysseus contorts crouches forward in order to see through hole in shattered windshield Ellen sees headlights behind them coming up fast it is Bill in van Bill banging their bumper follows them all the way back to Hartford to Odysseus’s place they run inside call police Bill sits parked van outside across street as police arrive half hour later Bill pulls away next day Odysseus and Ellen drive to Boston to explain to Ellen’s dad what has happened to his station wagon Odysseus stays with Ellen in Brookline for several nights another holiday party she wants to take him along to meet her friends her social circles are older he thinks to challenge their values be outrageous paints face Ellen is horrified cries you can’t possibly do this to me these are my close friends what will they think? he defiantly answers my face is a mask who cares what i look like? man woman creature what does it matter? if your friends really want to know me they’ll need to look beyond the make-up tonight i am your sluttish girlfriend! sometimes Odysseus can be a thoughtless fool

Laura Rousseau Shane files for divorce from Bill she is exceptionally lovely models at art school she is of French descent her figure possessing exotic traits she stands like ballerina with thick pointed ******* copious ***** hair Odysseus is infatuated she frequently dances pursues him Laura says i had the opportunity to meet Bob Dylan once amazed Odysseus questions what did you do? she replies what could i possibly have in common with Bob Dylan? Laura teases Odysseus about being a preppy then lustfully gropes him grabs holds his ***** they devote many hours to ****** intimacy during ******* she routinely reaches her hand from under her buns grasps his testicles squeezing as he pumps he likes that Laura is quite eccentric fetishes over Odysseus she even thrills to pick zits on his back he is not sure if it is truly a desire of hers proof of earthiness or simply expression of mothering Laura has two daughters by Bill Odysseus is in over his head Laura tells Odysseus myth of Medea smitten with love for Jason Jason needs Medea’s help to find Golden Fleece Medea agrees with promise of marriage murders her brother arranges ****** of king who has deprived Jason his inheritance couple is forced into exile Medea bears Jason 2 sons then Jason falls in love with King Creon’s daughter deserts Medea is furious she makes shawl for King Creon’s daughter to wear at her wedding to Jason  shawl turns to flames killing bride Medea murders her own sons by Jason Odysseus goes along with story for a while but Laura wants husband Odysseus is merely scruffy boy with roving eyes Laura becomes galled by Odysseus leaves him for one of his roommates whom she marries then several years later divorces there is scene when Laura tells Odysseus she is dropping him for his roommate he is standing in living room of her house space is painted deep renaissance burgundy there are framed photographs on walls in one photo he is hugging Laura and her daughters under big oak tree in room Laura’s friend Bettina other girl he fingered first night he met Laura at party is watching with arms crossed he drops to floor curls body sobs i miss you so much Laura turns to Bettina remarks look at him men are such big babies he’s pitiful Bettina nods

following summer he works installing displays at G. Fox Department Store besides one woman gay men staff display department for as long as he can remember homosexuals have always been attracted to him this misconception is probably how he got job his tenor voice suggesting not entirely mature man instead more like tentative young boy this ambiguous manifestation sometimes also evidences gestures thoroughly misleading after sidestepping several ****** advances one of his co-workers bewilderingly remarks you really are straight manager staff are fussy chirpy catty group consequently certain he is not gay they discriminate against him stick him with break down clean up slop jobs at outdoor weekend rock concert in Constitution Plaza he meets 2 younger blond girls who consent to go back to his place mess around both girls are quite dazzling yet one is somewhat physically undeveloped they undress and model for Odysseus radio plays Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” both girls move to rhythm sing along he thinks to orchestrate direct decides instead to let them lead lies on bed while curvaceous girl rides his ******* slender girl sits on his face they switch all 3 alternate giggle laughter each girl reaches ****** on his stiffness later both assist with hands mouths his ****** is so intense it leaves him paralyzed for a moment

in fall he is cast as Claudius in production of Hamlet Odysseus rehearses diligently on nights o
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
it's this mentality of the old guard: rekindling the Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s... they're the originators of English, but the last to receive it... their frustrations against Europe are frustrations against being antiques in the anglophile world dynamics... they're Victorian antiques in a silicon valley of usurped hopes... the easiest route is to blame the Romanian than the Californian... the Empire is long gone and there's nothing to bring it all back... hence the culinary fascination and the need to obstruct morality with plastic surgery... they actually hate American accents (after being saturated with American culture) more than French or Germany variations... i know they do because i came to hating them as much as they do... "they" isn't paranoid: the English! we're getting so much American culture it's only natural that we shun the everyday American accenting of what used to be posh bargaining of Oxford in Harvard... globalisation is another word for a monochromatic adjunct.*

2 Texans looking for
de Wallen in Soho...
              London ain't no
Amsterdam:
  Russian oligarch said:
head to Dubai for answers...
    and so they built
the Zeno towers...
              how they never
reveal little mid-western
America to Europe,
the Harvard ponces are ashamed
of dialects -
     American dialect as in
non-celebratory Scoot -
                  aye            -ish
                         but never the redneck
in 'ollywood
                                   how how how -
never the true believers...
we welcome Disney every day,
we get culturally *****, every day,
you think we like Americans?
   we don't...
we're like the Vietnamese...
                    we threw the Jews out,
but the Muslims came...
              we didn't like that...
the Americans became the equivalent of
Jews...
               the English became the
two-faced concierge -
          we loved the cultural ****...
but when we heard American accents
we thought: thanks for the atom bomb
neurosis! the oh-oops message spreading
to North Korea... hey! you dropped
one first! why tell other people
to not do it?! at least the French
tested in aqua-insulators with Godzilla...
you tested the ******* thing in deserts...
oh sure... we love American cultural
exports...
                 we see a Texan in Soho
after a few drinks we're thinking:
                                                 lynch the
*******.
                          it's this disparity of
being fed a culture that represents
            the lowest ebb of pronunciation...
even the northerners in England
hate American accents more than Cockney;
are these plebs feeding us
the zeitgeist? seriously?
        they can't be serious...
                    they have enough enough
actors to be acclaimed as foreign affairs
policy makers by censoring the diversity
of the rainbow of American accents...
   even a Croat accent in English
         (famously part of a football team)
doesn't seem so annoying as a
    niche American accent spoken to
an Englishman...
            Texan for one...
                     hybrid Californian another...
Mid-Western and even though
i'm not English i'm titillated by
donning a red coat.
Aztec Warrior Aug 2015
SoHo

South of Houston,
an ethnic divide
that turned into yuppiedom
and new hipsters,
but not the Beat kind.

I miss those snaps,
the Nueyorican taps
of bullet fast words
steppin’ into the streets
with wild eyes beats
and the howling rage
at hypocracy.

Now all you find
is dead eyed
zombied out,
but starbucks energized
bunnies
and freaky fellows,
all into themselves
as though they
knew something
more than the chase for
money and ***.

And they say this
is the American Dream;
follow the greed
as humanity burns
to pay for these pleasures.

SoHo, Village groupies
who long ago
gave up their tongues
and their eyes...

Aztec Warrior 8.2.15
WHOA,  a titled poem
Edna Sweetlove Jan 2016
Night falls over Soho and, gazing into some cheap ****'s eyes
Over a candelit-chequered-food-stained tablecloth,
Beneath my belt an immense ******* lurks leakily,
The seams of my ****** soaked with bursting lust,
My groin twitching in desire for her wanton ****-flesh.

Streetlight shining through threadbare curtains
Glinting sexily over my hairy pounding buttocks;
My screamed roars of pleasure echoing
In the deepest depths of her tenth-rate mind;
Her poor brain collapsing in mighty mid-******.

Morning reveals a classy scene to chambermaid's gawp:
Spread-legged cold-as-chilled-salami ****,
Puny brainbox imploded like mashed bananas
By staggering rivulets of overpowering *******
Like a duck's entrails in an unwashed sink.
Snags in her tights,
Chipped black on her claws,
She stands against walls,
Vulnerable to the brawls.

A skirt grazing her thighs,
Too small for her liking,
She pulls at the seems,
And feeds the old men lies.

Lips that bleed,
Mascara stained cheek,
Frame too slim,
She's in the gutter, sensual and meek.

Lady of the night,
Rolls to your car,
beckons you with her finger,
hopes you won't linger.

A ten note slips,
Into her grip.
She squeezes.
It will feed her addiction.

She has money to pay,
Children to feed,
She digs her knuckles so much they bleed.

Life carries by,
As she tries to get high,
On the fumes of other men.

But the red light comes on,
Her skirt hitches up,
She cries as he whispers
good girl.

As he kisses her neck,
She thinks what the heck
Am I doing with my **** awful life,
Selling cheap love,
To father above,
In hope she gets a better price
than the tiny sum
From every business bloke that comes, beckons her into his arms.

She pulls at her pleather,
At her last tether,
Why am I in this life?

Soho's her home,
But it leaves her numb to the bone.

She has more than budget passion,
She craves style,
She fashion.

But instead the needle pierces,
And she sinks down,
Hating the body she's in,
Women walk and they frown,
But they don't understand how the girl feels deep down,
She just wants true love.

Oh heaven above?
If there is a Holy Spirit,
Let me be it,
For this withered young *******,
Belongs in your constitute,
Please, she begs, save me from the charity brutes.
Four frantic  fingers flicker
Over parallel strings
And a classical lullaby
Thrills the ears of passersby;

Chopin du jour
For the masses
Served gratis by a diminutive maestro;

A fleeting fixture for traveling eyes....

And the random audience of curious strangers
Heaves  a collective sigh,
Touched by the uncommon brush of a diminutive maestro...

Plucking parallel strings
From a busy sidewalk in Soho....

~ Pablo (#ABSIS)
1/15/14
Edna Sweetlove Aug 2015
Yes! It's another Barry Hodges "Memories" poem!"*

I shall never forget our first date together,
How we wandered through the streets of Soho,
Gazing into the **** shop windows,
Laughing at the giant vibrators on display...

And later, a romantic meal in a French bistro,
Where the rules of hygiene were not
As strictly observed as might have been hoped for,
Promising a regurgitatory treat in store...

You ignored the startled eyes of our fellow diners
And brutally shoved your tongue in my mouth;
O how fiercely I slurped on it enthusiastically
Caressing it with my own mouth sausage...

I ****** and ****** and ****** and ******
And (oh joy!) I could taste the garlicky bits
'Twixt your gorgeous unwashed choppers;
How my underwear damply stretched out of shape...

I withdrew my probing tongue and kissed your cheek
Affectionately, yet trembling with rampant desire;
And I boldly licked a firm yellow-topped spot
With its previously observed black centre...

My huge uncontrollable lust conquered
The demands of demodé bourgeois good manners
And I sunk my incisors into that zitty beauty
Relishing the ******* waiting just for me therein...

The waiting staff were deeply impressed as I chewed
In rapturous sensual joyous contemplation
And you spluttered bloodily in loving agony
Your own mighty ****** fast approaching...

Oh what a foretaste of what was to come
When we repaired to my convenient bedsit
For an immensely gratifying triple bonk
Prior to a staggering mutual diarrhoea session...

And now I lie back in sweet recollection
Of the many nights we spent in copulation
But how sad I am as, looking at the deserted bed,
I can still make out the stains of your dying turds.
Adult Humour Memories
Edna Sweetlove Nov 2014
A "Memories" Poem from the great Barry Hodges' pen*

I shall never forget our first date together,
How we wandered through the streets of Soho,
Gazing into the **** shop windows,
Laughing at the giant vibrators on display...

And later, a romantic meal in a French bistro,
Where the rules of hygiene were not
As strictly observed as might have been hoped for,
Promising a regurgitatory treat in store...

You ignored the startled eyes of our fellow diners
And brutally shoved your tongue in my mouth;
O how fiercely I slurped on it enthusiastically
Caressing it with my own mouth sausage...

I ****** and ****** and ****** and ******
And (oh joy!) I could taste the garlicky bits
'Twixt your gorgeous unwashed choppers;
How my underwear damply stretched out of shape...

I withdrew my probing tongue and kissed your cheek
Affectionately, yet trembling with rampant desire;
And I boldly licked a firm yellow-topped spot
With its previously observed black centre...

My huge uncontrollable lust conquered
The demands of demodé bourgeois good manners
And I sunk my incisors into that zitty beauty
Relishing the ******* waiting just for me therein...

The waiting staff were deeply impressed as I chewed
In rapturous sensual joyous contemplation
And you spluttered bloodily in loving agony
Your own mighty ****** fast approaching...

Oh what a foretaste of what was to come
When we repaired to my convenient bedsit
For an immensely gratifying triple bonk
Prior to a staggering mutual diarrhoea session.
B Young Feb 2015
Captive of the city.
A walk between the drawing and the camera, a drawing and a camera.
Blindness is about understanding gesture.

Stereoscope Sound Scenes Systems

Blue lines form the links between
the black cats suggesting, what we know is that we do not.

Forget me the sweet song
rising from her ashtray
be gone hearts frayed afraid.

Coma Cluster
Coma Cluster
Coma CLUSTER
COMO cluster
CLuster cOma ClUsTeR CoMa

Soma simply trying to muster
Domino Christos no longer allow my suffer

ECCE ****
IN The GARDEN of ever EARTHLY delights

Strings
Filaments
Voids
Soap

bubbles filling a sink
slide through

Pop. Pop.

I float above stronger than a rock
my blue black burning body

love
emirates
emanating

Red-Shifted

For You

though dust clouds interfere
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2020
pop culture... yeah... that yawn...
borrowed from the t.v....

   belle delphine... makes a comeback:
                                                       ­    i'm back...

       i must be a real riddle...
                                              though...­

      there i was thinking:
sorry... i was on auto-pilot...
i started to think of...

                harley quinn -
ava max - sweet but a ******...

trouble: i know what a tease
of regret looks like...
i also know what...
a make-shift...
nazgul harem of bulgarian
looks like... too...

        a tease of regret:
a former girlfriend...
striptease of a follow-up
narrative...
very nice... oh oh so nice!

but this one is clearly not beyond:
being a push-over...
belle delphine is no harley quinn:
i.e. ******* seriously sober...
**** your entranced: drunk...
******* sober overtly sober twice...

but... for the bathwater...
and... no...
i am the omega man...
on the list... of... allowed...
men... to *****...
into a genocide tissue
of... banking on genes:
without a ****-up
mother and father sort of
narrative...

         for the drunk:
the sobering whirlwind of reality...
because when rich people
like... should... i... inject...
myself... with some... broown show-gar?!

like i once asked an aesthetician:
i guess in reverse...
i was put under the scalpel and:
the selfless dictum of medicine...
he asked me: what books?
i asked him: quo vadis?

                i thereby managed
to burn the bookmark...
who was sane enough to salvage
the book i was reading?

    clued in on the: beside the brothel
antics...
   this clearly aesthetic girl...
this money making
crazy wheel this buttocks of
supra-roulette...
   when man and death...
the trough... the rhine valley
of trenches and brick-making
tactics for the ***** pederasts
on top...
those cherries those readily...
and thereby... easily...
cusps of iced cream...

                prostitutes speaking...
their gimp and limp-sidekick...
hard-on...       "procrastinations"...
to rhyme to rap...
by the way it looks like:
to rhyme is to rap:
to rap is to rhyme:
  
cookie dough oh oh *******...
and crisp-et... cookie ok: dunking...
slippery and swoon... and sweat...
   boy george fickle...
somehow browning... and none of that...
best dead before:
there was ever a best before date...

and then....
                      MA-GI-C!

playing a game of caesar's thumb:
      versed... in pollice verso?
          how do you play a game of
caesar's thumb?

oh... well... you will require a female maine ****
cat... and some... adamant moth...
the game works... like:
you proving to the beast:
you are not... toying with the moth...
the moth is a lesser creature
to both of you...

how does one play a game of caesar's thumb?
when one only has...
an agitated moth to catch once in a while...
and a maine **** cat:
to give attention to...
with a clenched fist:
with the entombed moth trying
to wriggle its way with
a fluttering of the wings...

   there's also that female
mosquito...
clenched onto by a pinch involving
one of her leg-work limbs...
and being a female...
she pulled and tugged and made
a "dialectic" of the verbs associated
with that limb extension...
a male maine **** cat would
have made a feast of her...
like he would of the cobwebs...

she escaped with 5 legs... to her original 6...
but a month...
i can't disfigure...
too quick for the lassy...
i held the moth in my clenched
fist like a rattle of fluttering
wings teasing...
not enough...
top bored from having
the impossible catch of the night...

the moth always remains: intact...
alive...
either cat catches the moth...
or leaves ones bedroom:
with a blooming gloom
of boredome....

but that's how to keep intact
a "sanity"...
a visit to the brothel...
becomes... a typo-
       for a shop only butchers are only
allowed to... inhabit...
    the sentencing of meat...
the clarity of heaving a life
of a moth in one's clenched fist:
and there's a thirst...
of the fist: to draw that lost samble
of: the begrudged familiarity
of language: and given that...
it's all in 21st century crude / rudimentary...
and rhyme...
            
       no caged beacon of the heavens...
of a lost circumvent...
caged lottery of the rhyme
of being perpetually caged...
       for the loot of **** and cockrel loitering...
like: morn is the cry to whine!

a game of caesar's thumb...
there was once a clenched fist: and a thirst for
blood...
now... a maine **** she, cat...
and a moth... fluttering...
like... an agitated petal-wing-and-rose...
too many "bored"
marihuana junkies stalking these
english streets come twilight...
one almost bumped into...

agitated by my poker facing
the already agitating grey-ish...
by the number...
by the number:
                   what-what of...
if he be not the king george:
having to give up h'america...
then he's no helen mirren...

          a game of caesar's thumb:
any and if all be owned:
that antithesis of a game of chess...
a game of both
kings and paupers...
3D dynamic: and madmen!

"revision": belle delphine...
cold... hearted... capitalist at... brain-sizzle...
but... gravitating toward
two outlets of fiction....
   belle delphine ≠ harley quinn...
a little ******... oh so hot...
hot tender me oh my ***:
posion the daisy...
poison rose should... a rose be all
the more... already... poisoned...

a visit to the brothel:
a visit to the butcher shop:
for the cho- chop and chopping assurances...
the crooked crown on an already
crooked head...
the statue of charles II
in soho sq....
        
              i most certainly paid for much
less than this ****-tenure-of-a-tease....
but then... to have an argument...
you'd need to mingle with a bunch
of thieves... murdering slob-gatherers
of phlegm...

            poisoned red-bunch of
a wholly rosed-up affairs of loiter...
and time: such a prized dead-end of
eventuality...

            the father the god:
the sacrificial lamb...
because... god forbid she was
ever to somehow burden
a deity with a: one first...
once and a daughter...

                  ****** fun-fair for
the riddled ghosts...
       blank shot shrapnel...
                     better suited...
midnight blue of the alias black...
then at least:
best... towing two gaylords
with everyone's bet on
typo and a bullseye!

   but never... the sensibly...
      hetrosexual normative...
goody twice-tied...
shoe-and-shine:
pwetty: that girl and:
you best forget to whine!
that girl and you'd wish...
            her father was a shtalin....
because...
crude and rude...
and all that's ****...
before Lucifer peeks with
a... siamese cranium...
              
      death to all...
who have made it concise...
in making life:
hardly... a... pardon....

  yes... best equipped it making it:
magic! and all the more difficult...
but never difficult enough...
difficult enough...
when... somehow... never... citing...
an... albert fish...
needle in my pelvis...
to... exfoliate... with any...
and more... addition of...
pain as an... ******...

      i guess the plead of the shawshank
sisters drops...
it always drops...
when there's a "conflation"
of evidence...
surrounding... the lower-base...
extremity: the crab genus...
       crustaceans....
    child- this-and-that...
       ****-fiddler...
             but a cannibal to boot?!
you... talk...
or simply... electrocute said:
individual...
since... your... ******* 'ed...
is already fried by the magic
of norm-frequence...
and the already: herd... estasblished...
Norman?
you with me...
sptunik jimmy...
               you with me... cream-soda joe?
you with me...
finding aliens already bigger
than flies... the widow mantis...
blessed joseph josephine?!
*******-numb-wit?!

oh yes! all conession: avowed
to you!
               because...
who isn't...
      in russia... they vowed
to keep these cain canine brood phlegm
of an *******: freely to roam...
siberia... that was the promise...

when they would **** a birth-firvolity
of a: devil and the "by chance"...
when converting man to
the stature of elevating wolf or bear...
and all the better...
rather than... caging the odd-ball
parody of... lacklustre joke and...
moth-ball-rolling...
****-wits the: future!
supposed! narrative!
******'-h'america...
              celebrated feature of culture
most involving... a horror...
      and... bull-wrapping!
               a ******* for a skinning!
c quirino May 2011
I.

my sleeping is condensed this spring
such that two or three hours
at most will suffice for one evening.

my body is awake,
yet the wandering back alleys
behind my irises are weary,
and on the cusp of gentrification.

I see faces where there should be none

II.

and I’ve seen the lines again,
though they come far less frequently
than when I had to reach up
to grasp the doorknob.

yet they are as vivid
and bursting with clarity
as the first summer I witnessed them.

they arrive unannounced
single-hair-thick,
rotating on invisible axes,
changing color and length
within equally slim fragments of time
too small to measure in our dimension.

one summer, i recorded how often they visited
but could find no logical frequency to their appearances.

no one has ever known of them but me,
and that woman just picked up a cigarette **** to light her own.

III.

they came again yesterday,
as always, in midafternoon
at 3 o’clock, when christ died.
and i thought, not of him,
but of the time, and how
twelve hours earlier is apparently the devil’s time
a time-piece-turned inverted cross.

IV.

so, I remembered,
how at devils’ time last night,
i was adrift,
sans-sails down brick alleys
thinking not of lines,
of gods or devils and their time,
but of those pan flute notes
and how i can’t wait to hear them again.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2018
/h'americans can call it a striptease, but in amsterdam, with legal self-employed prostitutes? we call it a cocktease: because you'd really visit amsterdam for the ****, these days?

isabella: the french psychology
exchange student -
    hung up on her ex-boyfriend -
really in anime movies -
      and that american i competed
with on an edinburgh pub-crawl
for freshers -
and lost my virginity to -
  
               probably the only time
i had the ontological parameters
of your atypical man -
  "hunting", competing -
   oh so, so, enthralling....
    (spot the irony mingling with
ridicule, when people "know"
how the modern man behaves,
with his caveman predecessors:
dragging a woman
by the hair type of cartoonish
depiction) -

the other fun time i've had
encounters with h'americans
was in Soho -
two colts, texan tourists asking
for directions,
or where this or that place was...
it almost warmed my heart
hearing that twang
                       of the tongue...
perhaps someone from arizona?
that has that - "mid" western
twang of the tongue
                 added to the bite...

snub the Boston high-mind
eloquence, like:
    you really really want
               to sound european...

never mind...
   people say that water is tasteless...
hmm...
    so last night i was heating
up one arm of scissors...
                 and sniffing it...
then licked the other arm of the scissor...

what's in water again?
   minerals... a subtle presence...
magnesium, potassium, iron...
you name it...
   so yeah... water is... "tasteless"...

eisenzahn that i am.
johnny solstice Jun 2019
He lived too many floors from street level for his advanced years but Ambrose grew up in a time when one did not complain over loudly in case one’s right to complain be taken away.
The last Social Worker to visit had sported an Aldermaston CND badge on his lapel and an air of indifference that Ambrose took to be a sign that now was not the time to raise the topic of his hip vis-a-vis the six flights of rickety stairs. So he would soldier on and thank heaven that there was always Sunday and Johnny.

Ambrose considered his “friendship” with Johnny the ******, and with a sigh, concluded that their relationship was akin to those between tiny birds who peck morsels from large carnivores.

Johnny was a teenage runaway who, not yet passed puberty and well short of 5ft tall, weighed in at 82lbs .The transaction was simple. On Sunday, he would cook a dinner for them both in exchange Johnny would help Ambrose into the bath and bathe him.

There had been a time when the indignity was real but now he would lay awake listening to the late night sound of Soho drift up to his rooms where red and blue neon light danced on his ceiling and imagine he could feel those young hands run over his cold loose skin. When he closed his eyes he could see the young ******, stripped to the waist, soap and sponge in his hands, at the foot of his bed …he ached for the boy’s sensitive touch. Those magical fingertips, those taut sinews, and hairless torso seemed so wonderfully innocent and pure to Ambrose but he hated the purple and yellow bruises that waxed and waned on the boy’s arms  with each successive visit.

Once he’d watched as Johnny banged at his vein demanding it rise for his spike…but as the first deep red cloud bloodied the fix Ambrose shut his eyes tight and felt the cold air of Northern France on his face…his ears flooded with screams and explosions as his brothers lay around him, their blood seeping into the brown ankle deep mud in long river-like branches.

Johnny didn’t understand why Ambrose cried but thought it must be memories or stuff that old people think about?

Some times, as the rush cascaded through his soul, he found himself crying too but didn’t know why…only that it felt warm and when it stopped he had a feeling for the old geezer that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, which would lead to him hugging the old fool and would only then break down and rage about things long locked away…then Ambrose would stroke the boy’s hair “teens are a bad time for men” he’d say while wishing he too was blessed with failing memory.

Forty-five years later someone said a simple word that flicked a light switch in a tiny garret room in Soho and Johnny got a tiny sliver of his memory back, picked up his pen lest he should ever lose his old friend again.
a secret society
collects notoriety
I collect stamps.

Men on mean streets
Frith and Dean street
or closeted on
Wardour street
you'll meet
few Greeks on
Greek Street

These are hide and seek streets
gangsta rap and beat streets
clique streets
unique streets
secrets and
society streets
underneath the covers
streets
all streets lead to

Soho.
John Mar 2013
Hi, I'm Jackie. I am 18 years old and I'm a senior at Brennan Burton High School in Frederickson, New York. Frederickson is the suburban wasteland that you've doubtlessly seen and read about in countless movies, TV shows and books concerned with life in these mind-numbingly dull pockets of land. If you can even call it "life", that is. However, I find that the aforementioned depictions of the people and happenings in towns like mine are, more often than not, completely wrong. It makes me wonder if the people writing these shows and films have ever taken the initiative to actually venture out of their modest little apartments in SoHo to see for themselves what an actual suburbia feels like. But, I digress... Sort of. The purpose of my story is to try to prove to you that what you think about suburbia is probably all wrong, or mostly wrong.
     Now, where to begin?
     OK. I live in a two-story house that was built in the wake of World War II. It was one of those houses that government built for the soldiers who were returning from the war to live happy and prosperous lives in with their smiling families. That was a long time ago though, and now it seems like most of the houses in my town are occupied by single mothers, single fathers or familial units that include a step-mother or step-father. And my family is no different, being made up of my father, Henry (everyone calls him Hank) and my little brother Huxley. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer only a few months after Huxley was born. They did everyting they could for her, but the cancer was advanced and she passed away only a few months after her initial diganosis. I loved my mother. She was a strong woman, she went to college, got a well paying job and gave birth to two kids. Sounds like a busy life, especially when you take into account that she was only 38 when she died.
     Thinking about her too much kind of shifts me into slow-mo, so I'm moving on. I love my dad, too. He's had a hard life. He grew up in a hard part of the city and had to drop out of school to start working at around 14 or 15. Not too long after he started working to help his family out, his father disappeared. Supposedly, my grandfather was involved with some sketchy people and, without a doubt, probably was involved in some sketchy dealings. Anyway, after he disappeared, my father was forced to work 18 hour days, 7 days a week. My grandmother was an alcoholic and a pill popper before my grandfather disappeared, and afterward it only got worse. One day when my father got home from work, he found his mother drowning in her own ***** on the kitchen floor. He rushed her to hospital, but it was too late. And to top it all off, when he got home, floating in the inch deep puke, he found her suicide note. That's when my father decided to pack his bags and move out of the city. Soon, he found work in an autobody shop and started saving money. Not long after that, his boss introduced him to his daughter who was around the same age. His boss's daughter turned out to be my mom.
     Sorry if all this background is annoying, but I figure if you want to read my story, you might as well know my parents' stories too. After all, if there were no them, then there would be no me. But yeah, my father. He's a good guy. Always quick to make light of any situation. You'll never catch him bringing the emotional air of a situation down. That;s just not how he operates, and now that I think about it, I can see why. If he had made a habit of that, he no doubt would've ended up like his mother. I'm very appreciative of him and everything that he does, I just wish I got around to tell him that more often.
     Then there's my brother Huxley. He's 9 years old, in the 4th grade and was named after Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, my mother's favorite book. The name is eerily fitting too, almost as if his being named after a famous author was a foreshadowing of sorts. While his best friends are playing the latest PlayStation game, Huxley is devouring a novel. Basically, if you put it in front of him, he'll ****** it up and be quoting it the next time you see him. He's a smart kid, a really smart kid and I couldn't be prouder as an older sister, especially these days, when the only ting kids read are text messages and Facebook statuses. Whenever I go to the library to finish schoolwork, I always try to pick something up for him. The last one I got him was Carrie by Stephen King, one of my favorite authors. After he finished it though, he told me he'd much rather me bring him home another Nicholas Sparks book. I can't say you would ever hear those words coming out of my mouth, but I admire the kid's openness. I picked him up The Choice a few days ago, and when I checked in on him that night his smile was never brighter. He quickly kissed my cheek and told me he only had a few chapters left so I had to leave him be. All in all, he's quiet, shy and sensitive and I love him for that.
The unfinished first chapter to a short I'm writing that very well could turn out to be my first real attempt at a television pilot. Be gentle, it is unfinished and I've yet to even read through it yet, so yeah. Raw, unedited and unfinished. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
A nice cruise from New York, I thought

From down by Pier two-one

I thought I'd head to England

For a good old spot of fun

An Ocean trip, some nice fresh air

Eleven days at sea

I thought this would perfect to

Help inspire me

I'd never been to Europe

So I did some reading first

The history's insane there

The books did quench my thirst

I couldn't wait to get there

To travel all around

And take all sorts of pictures

To show folks what I'd found

On board, I met a punter

A real hard boiled chap

He told me of  "his England"

Not the funny, tourist crap

He asked where I was going

I said "I've no idea"

He told me that he'd show me things

As long as I bought beer

I asked him what he meant by this

He said "Just wait and see"

"I'll show you things...will curl your hair"

"You watch son, follow me.'

He told me of a werewolf

Running loose in London town

He was killing folks in Soho

And they couldn't bring him down

He said "Two nights from now"

"The moon would be real nice"

"A full moon brings out werewolves son..."

"That's your first bit of advice"

I shuddered then, I wasn't sure

If "this England" would be right

But, I begged off from the table

And I settled for the night

My mind was working overtime

Nightmares and dreams came quick

And with the heaving on the water

I woke up to be sick

I went up on the deck to walk

And grab a little air

But who to my surprise was

by the railing standing there

He said " I thought you'd be here sooner

Isn't it a lovely moon?

Just a few more days to go

The werewolf walks real soon

"Let's go and get a coffee"

"I figured I won't get back to sleep"

"And my nerves are really shaky"

"I know I won't sleep deep"

He said "Don't worry laddie"

"I've lots more tales to speak"

"But their stories for the hearty"

"And you son...seem so weak"

I asked him about Whitechapel

He said ...."Oh, Jack the Ripper"

"He murders girls down that way son"

I then peed in my slippers

He goes around at night you see

And picks up girls in the night gloom

Then he takes them back and guts them

In the comfort of their room"

I thought, I wanted jolly stuff

Like palaces and such

This tour of London ****** sites

Well, it seems a little much

I said "I've heard of Harley Street"

"Can we go there for a ride?'

He said "No problem son..

"We might meet Mr. Hyde"

"Dr. Jekyll drinks this stuff

Thats turns him to a beast

The monster's name is Mr. Hyde

It's in London...to the east."

I thought, this isn't what

I signed on to go see

I didn't want the next victim

To end up being me.

I said "Is there a place that's safe at all?"

He said "I can take you by the palace"

"We can go walk up the mall"

I said "that would be perfect"

"That doesn't sound so hard"

He said "Just watch for Moriarty"

"Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard"

At this point I got up and said

"I think I'm off to bed"

"All this talk of horror"

"Caused an aching in my head"

I said " I think, I'll just move on

And travel somewhere like Albania"

He said that I must see His friend

in southern Transylvannia.

He said Mr. Van Helsing

Would take me for a tour

And with what I'd see in Europe

I'd forget the London gore"

I thanked him and I went to bed

And I then asked him his name

"Dracul" he said...but call me "Vlad"

"I'm sure we'll meet again"

I changed my plans, went to my room

And I figured "What the heck"

But I have this one last question"

Why was he staring at my neck?
.
Rebecca Gismondi Mar 2015
5 8 15 20 24 29
SoHo seems nice this time
of year; although I am terrified of going
anywhere near a city that holds you in its hands and above me, too high
to me, you are New York. but when I walk down Central Park West my shadow clings to my shins
you scrape my skin with your breath and I feel hot July air that is trapped between your buildings – these subways are too stifling
I will let you lift up my skirt like he did, but only because I know that it’ll rain heavily the Chelsea Pier after.

1 17 23 25 41 47
Churchill
I think my eyes are permanently squinted; agonizing over the shape of your eyes and how they
relate to mine – even in the light you’re missing pieces, your rocks are crumbling away, you are sand – your grains hold words –
unmentionable, special, temptress, miss, you, nothing, work, in my dreams, diffuse, instantly, affection, with, you, stuck, darling, attention, far, vivid, feather, waking, wasted, sweet dreams, worth, wish, awake
I always feel my conscious wrap her delicate hands firmly around my throat and pour salt water into my eyes when you are in front of a screen, in front of me – I think maybe I should cut pieces of me
could I mail them to New York? to SoHo? you can curl up with them in bed and try to find the grooves where you fit in, or just fry me on the grill. Ideally, you should consume me so that I may never leave. only if –

15 18 30 32 40 42
I’ve been pinching and piercing my skin to prevent me from crying more often than
I sleep. I know it’s morbid and dramatic but being slaughtered by tears is not how I want
to spend my Saturday night. I’d rather see Basquiat on a wall or short films screened while I watch you instead. I would walk until my legs gave out and
trace one single finger along your spine. And here I am, grasping my skin between my fingers and pinching, squeezing you out – I can just scrape the excess off after you’re gone
tomorrow I plan on eating as many seeds as I can to grow flowers in my throat and have them sprout past my eyes so all I see are petals. They’ve been missing for a while. The weeds still cover
my stomach. If only when I thought of you I thought of flowers. Most of the time I see a hand reaching through the thickest fog. As I reach for you, all I hear are 35 words that cover me.
Ashley Chapman Oct 2017
I come face-to-face with my Shadow
hungry
devouring
depraved.

The lupine
before a full hunter moon
bristles.
Hot saliva
falls
from hurtful pointed rows
in pearls.

This
in Goodge Street Station's
Underground
where a poster
promotes
The Hunger
a page-turner

The Clown in Soho:

3 Chocolate Martinis
4 lagers
1 gram of *******
300 press-ups
7 mile run and
1 sachet of Kamagra

… the night begins …

I howl with delight
- that’s me -
cracks open
a smile
yellow eddies swirl
in thrawl
to that shadow beast o’ mine.

This monstrous
I
can never satiated be --
a beast to straight jacket under the influence of the waning and waxing moon
and on the night of the carmine moon
release

My phone rings
(Excuse me, while I take this).
‘Hello, am I speaking to Ashley?’
‘Depends on who’s asking,’
I respond
licking my lips.
‘You Ashley Chapman?’
I like this kind o’ game.
‘Like I said,
who’s asking?’
Frustrated he repeats, ‘Confirm your name.’
I yawn and tell him as savagely as I can:
'No!'
Wolves
know 'no'
to the pack.

But as in Beauty and the Beast
(the Cocteau 1946 version, of course)
beneath that thick molting hair pelt
beasts have culture
and feelings, too
(a lion's heart?)
and mostly
(occasionally not)
given
space
food
The Den
a willing mate (or two)
we’re okay
affectionate dogs.
For when all is well with my shadow
-- no problem
   in peace
   in chains
'til the looped moon!
Kamagra is apparently a form of ******.

Disclaimer: I have to to say that some of the things alluded to in this poem, such as ******* (or Kamarga) in no way form a part of my reality. This is a poem and reflects only a meditation on the nature of BEING, not necessarily who I actually am or how I live my life, although I acknowledge being a thirsty fool!
The notes and first draft for this poem came about a while back in 2015 when I attended a course on Shamanism at the Institute of Psychic Studies in South Kensington and was asked by my teacher to pick a card from a tarot deck to explore the Shadow side of my nature. I picked the wolf -- to my horror! And was asked to write what this meant for me. On the way home I came across the poster in the Underground and a  first draft was completed.

Thanks for reading.
A Mareship Sep 2013
She wore bright glossy

Humbug tights.


Aw ****,

the way she smoked

her Marlboro Lights

was pornographic.

She flicked her smoke rings

at the traffic

and was blown to bits by

cheap hairspray.

(Considering my love of Jean Genet,

I told her ‘you make sense this way.’

She smiled and clicked

a ****** heel.

‘Holy ****! How real you feel!’

Not that I have points of reference.)

Stop confusing my ******* preference

with La-La-Lola Soho Kink.

Your lips are painted ***** pink

and you wrap them round

your glass and down

your Lambrini-Girls Pre-Party

drink.

(I want you against my kitchen sink!)

And naked -

How you overplayed it!

I think you were a bit

afraid

of both your halves,

your masquerade,

your matching scars.

(What did mermaids do to

all their sailors

struck by stars?)


You’re a crazy fusion,

Top-heavy wonder.

You’re a woman, my dear -

and you pulled me under.
as i bathed in the ashes
of a swirling monstrous din
the cries of  a woman
hysterically expunging
ghastly portions of an all
consuming horror
pierced my ears,
cuddled my heart

as i huddled in a corner
biting lacerated knees
i beheld ax wielding
firemen swagger into the
jagged dangers of a
metallic avalanche, its
voracious maw
swallowing last
acts of heroic love

as i genuflected toward
Trinity's steeple,
i was cowed by
the rushing noise
of a splintering tower
collapsing downward,
billowing outward,
a gray predation
scattering the proud
humbling the mighty
breeding terror
threshing anything
fearfully racing
through the city's
cavernous breaches

as i fled down
Wall Street
screaming adrenalin
outran bits of the city
cascading down
stalking, nipping,
gnashing at fleeting steps
chasing reeling refugees
into miraculous sanctuaries
shielding trembling confusion
in blanket's of grace

as i peered into
the mortal wound
of the South Tower
incomprehensibly wondering
what my eyes refused to
understand; a slow
astonishing epiphany
of the grisly hell unfolding
in the upper floors
was confirmed by the
intermittent slow
cascade of leapers
deciding it was
a good day to die

as i decamped
temporary refuge
i entered an unsure
midnight of a blackened
street joining a growing mass
of refugees trundling eastward,
our burning eyes yearning
to perceive a river of escape
hoping the bits of torn cloth will
shield nostrils and cover mouths
protecting tinged lungs from
emulsified ash of glass
and asbestos laden air

as i made my way
northward, enveloped
in ambivalent confusion,
shell shocked  by civic turmoil,
covered in terror dust;
amassing voyeurs
rushing downtown
incredulously asked
what we witnessed,
a Jersey Journal stringer
refused to believe
people jumped
from the upper floors,
as vendors in Chinatown
marked up bottles of water
and a barkeep of a
crowded SOHO saloon
refused me entry
to use the
bathroom fearing
contamination risk...

as i stood depleted
on Christopher Street
ATMs and wireless
phones out of service and
my PATH way home
shut down;
a Sisters of Charity
AIDS hospice
brought me in,
wiped the terror dust
from my clothes,
gave me grape juice to drink,
set me a bed for the night
and put me to work
in the kitchen
to feed God's children.

as i stood on
a late afternoon
Washington Street,
witnessing Seven WTC
plunge into another raging billow
the collapsing day ended
in a room shared with
a young man traumatized
by the days events.
We related our
halting incomprehensions
as the sound of fighter jets
circling the city filled
the void in our
disjointed narratives.
My roommate related
that he was on the plaza
as jumpers splattered around him.  
A tearful PA Cop pleaded for help
to cover the dead.  
It was the last request of this
trembling public servant
as a jumper crushed him
as he finished speaking.

as i fell off to sleep that night
my young roommate
tossed and turned
in the maelstrom of
a deeply troubled sleep.
  

Music Selection:
Philip Glass Koyaanisqatsi

9/10/13
Oakland
jbm
recollections of 9/11
there stood the queen
in her dressing gown
upon her face she wore
a very long frown

for she had lost
her diamond and ruby crown
she hoped it would be found
before sundown

she called Scotland Yard
to search every locale
as without her crown
she'd be an unadorned gal

inspector Jones arrived
in his ex-army jeep
telling the queen
that he'd catch the thieving creep

he thoroughly combed
every inch of England
he even looked under
the white Dover sands

a lady in central Manchester
gave him an address
saying that a felon in Soho
had the crown of queen Bess

high and low in the streets
of Soho he did look
to find this most
cunning and stealthiest of crooks

by a measure of luck
he found him sitting on a park bench
he was talking to
a criminal associate named Roger Dench

the inspector seized the felon
and cuffed his hands
saying pilfering won't be tolerated
in any part of England

at Scotland he grilled
him for information
about the queen's crown
which he pinch without hesitation

some three days later
he fronted an Old Bailey judge
who sentenced him
to sixteen years of jail drudge

overjoyed was the queen
to have her crown back
she could now wear it
to The Ascot Race Track

the inspector was knighted
by good queen Bess
as he was a fine man
at the detection profess
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
there's that, or the nimble skeleton of a feline
bonsai... and what they do to
   add to the already apparent roughage
they intake by grooming themselves...
luckily... i could never claim to have had such
a nimble spine, or a tail...
   but then all of darwinism is a bit like:
news flash! it happened yesterday...
   and that's really a party pooper...
               i have to chase a universe like a crap
does perpendicular tango...
        it's correct, sure thing, but having this
"awe" response summoned for your to appreciate
either human history, or theories about
the universe...
                   it just gets annoying after a while:
all the terrorists do it... skip to god as a constant
and it all begins to feel realistic...

because what the vogue is in the west
    and it's "we're gods", but then run mile-marathons
for cancer charities, doesn't really work out
to keep up our iron armour...
   people really do shut up when they hit
the gag of weakness... it'stops being a case of
alice and fairies and some wonderland...
very quickly they turn their once idealistic blah
into mute buttons...
   there is an example coming: but like *michel de montaigne

noted... was it him, was it someone else?
    call it the all-encompassing negativity
(alias list does include depression): well...
it has all the jokes... meaning there's
two type of humour...
   depression (a) lethargic depression...
            no energy... major trait includes sarcasm...
and that's mainly english...
   and depression (b) manic depression...
meaning you have all the energy,
and all the cheap chokes, akin to Wobin Williams...
  oh please, there's enough zoology within
psychiatry to last you for a year given
the array of nouns... i'm not a professional
so i tend to use psychiatric terms as
    a matryoshka doll... well: a metaphor-in-itself...
there's always something hiding in
psychiatric terms...
       very little in philosophical terms, most
add up, or claim to know the way to infinity,
or ad deus... or something like that...
why be positive? and what's merely vacant?
       negativity is the source of humour...
luckily it's a shop of curiosities that has only metal
and rope in it... no porcelain...
but it's only because i've been watching this
sweet shop analogy of my own construct...
    as you do, but can't really do with a television
watching several football matches at once...
    so what would make the perfect backdrop?
obviously tourniquet by m. m. (solve the acronym,
it's a bit obvious)...
  and that's in between watching
                         dottiejames videos
and hannah witton...
              as you do... well... first thing's first...
can anyone spot a doppelgänger in there somewhere?
     well, apart from the obvious:
    he said nice things, agitated the educated jewish
class of scribes... and the greek were bewildered
by a suspension of physical laws, and had to
paint a pretty picture, so that their philosophers could
investigate and explain the reason
    melchior, caspar and balthazar came too, curious...
how did the greek summon the need for a pretty picture?
well... that's one sure way to rob a people of a religion
and translate the old stuff as: NEW! NEW!
   but that isn't the doppelgänger i'm wondering
about... what the hell is keira knightley doing in Brighton?
  well, d'uh... if dottiejames ins't
   keira knightley then i don't know who keira is...
and such a quirk... it's great seeing
   long periods of acting, without a theatrical stage
or a Spilberg with a camera lens...
   no no, i like it, but let's go back to points d. (a) and d. (b) -
the ancients called it black bile...
     i get drunk and experience the goods in it -
lethargic type = sarcasm... let's say: blackadder goes forth...
i ain't the manic clown type having a host
of impressions bound up like a yarn ball played
with the cat-like-ego... teasing and at the same
time exhausting...
      hannah witton gets through to the point though...
it's about ******* ***...
   nothing new to me... happened back in 2007
in a St. Petersburg bathroom... a ***** Pollack
   had a russian girlfriend who was going through
a ******* cycle... and he was pleading her to
allow ***... and begging... this is way before the internet
took off... what with the hannah witton video...
now i feel like ****, because, apparently: everyone does it!
but they're just not talking about it.
     so forget being the Columbus these days...
   there's no first, unless you have a Nobel prize...
and there ain't no last, unless you are lying
beneath an epitaph...
       there's just a... plateau (that word should sound
hollow... and it really does...
             pla-toe)
                                      but it happened to me
back in 2007... three days and nights ***-starved
she finally gave... but only in the bathroom...
sure... and only with a ******... no problem...
no watch the science... apparently it eases the cramps...
   me get foolish about blood and corn-flakes?
well... i remember lying on a post-operating
table getting stitches done to my right shoulder-blade...
how old was i when i went under the scalpel
to get that Chernobyl tattoo removed?
    wait... let me count... 1997 or 1998?
    1986... either 11 or 12... a hosptial in Cieszyn am Olza...
2 weeks spent in that place... great fun
with some of the peeps (ha ha, peeps) my age...
the smell of hospitals is worse than the scent in
graveyards... even in autumn... it's green...
      it's so hostile to the nostrils....
hospitals just have that smell about them...
the sooner to go to one for surgery, say, like me,
aged 11 or 12... it's worse than frying a human leg
on the bbq... not that i have: but the hospital
imprint is just so...
        so i was lying on getting my stitches done,
and out pops a bit of flesh into the corner of my eye...
deep red or purple but certainly not anything
in the extreme of lilac... and while the stiches get done
it's just lying there: a menacing little ****...
     the body of christ... well: i wouldn't eat that:
i don't care what metaphor you could use to eat either
with delight other than the delight birds eat bread:
to stuff themselves for much longer than their
usual diet allows...
   so a phallus coming out of a less than appetising ****?
well: it isn't exactly oral ***...
   and she says: most men wouldn't do this...
well: it's not like i knew that was i did would actually
be helpfull... it's a bit like my "naiveness"
  given that i don't know how i could ever contract
h.i.v., no one told me... and thankfully: i don't need
to know that.
the fact is: upon hearing that: so many people do
it but don't talk about it: that's not exactly a solidarity
statement... i didn't need to hear that...
numbers and all quotes relating to the "objective"
reality **** me off... it's a bit like drinking diluted whiskey
after first drinking the real stuff...
   well that's great! but don't bring the whole opera
with you! or maybe that's because i'm writing about
these things and she's feeding an easy pick of the experience
that ****** me off?
           i gave you enough details...
these videos aren't that hard to find... given it's you-tube...
  so that me... with no access to the deep / dark web
******* around with the canvas... trying to
salvage something that might have once looked like Soho...
   well... for a "Soho" experience... god bless
the Dutch... you can walk into a history of
something resembling 18th and 19th century...
   just for a while... a Puerto Rican *****
  and a black kid that does errands for her, brining
her customers beer...
     what's that vogue phrase: hello?! hello! red pill! red pill!
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
.remember this youtube channel: harakiri diat...

i think this genre of music has a name: brutalism...
last night i watched 50 book recommendations
by the cosmicsceptic...
beside his oxford specific titles relating
to his philosophy and theology degree...
came the fictional books...
i presumed that i didn't read anything going
into this video...

i can be forgiven for not reading a christopher
hitchens when i've read some knausgård...
perhaps i presume to have not read anything...
because... i do quiet enjoy the act of reading...
so much so that... only scraps remain for me that
are: useful...

i can't imagine finding any use from a book
if it's not already in it...
apparently i'm not so under-read as i led myself
to believe...
but this is not about literature...
i was looking for a genre to encompass...
say... vomito *****...
the klinik...
the soft moon...
but i couldn't come to anything of worth...
not until i foraged for the more obscure...
the raw pulp...
primitive knot - ******* of brutalism...
again... the channel harakiri diat
has the music covered...
zeit und geist... i am the fire...
let's keep it clean...
i would go as far as to include
bohren & der club of gore: midnight radio
into this whole mix...

as much as i'd love to push for die krupps...
no can do... their stuff is polished goods...
vomito ***** is polished goods...
but there's still something raw about them...
once upon a time there was this "thing"
about doom metal... electric wizard... etc.,
but i can say... this new brutalism is...
by far... better than a gavin mcinnes diet
of punk... i never liked punk...
i never liked punk as i never liked rap...
hip hop yes and all that jazzmatazz fussion...
some solid grit...

after all... Romford, Essex...
probably the last bastion of the music shop...
a his-master's-voice with a vinyl section...
my idea of a tennis-court,
a cafe, a swimming-pool, a park,
a church even... because you can never really
own too many records...

and between me and you:
what's the difference between me and my neighbor?
he plays his music, mostly rap...
on the speakers... and sings along to the songs...
he finishes the day with some r'n'b and stops
singing... i take over...

headphones in, 6ft2 posture hunched in a chair
scribbling with chicken-pecking precision
some long lost "hierogylphic"...
and of course: in between some, literature...
but it was only about the music...
youtubers ruined youtube as much as
the "legacy media"... or the next will smith...
"vlogger"...

once upon a time youtube was a haven for people
like me: who only used it to find new music...
somehow the glitches started and the music video
recommendations died: youtube thesaurus algorithm
became corrupt or something...

would i ever sing-along to a song?
not if it's as raw as a stake-tartar and the dish
needs to be served with merely thinking to compliment it...
i'll repeat what i've already said:
gentlemen! the jukebox is ******!
- and i was the type to listen and then buy
a physical copy... even though i didn't have to...
i could go back and listen to the same stuff again...
out of principle...

no car = no car insurance no road tax...
no mobile phone = no... bill...
in terms of primitive knot, though?
would you rather go blind or deaf?
that's a tough one...

listening to primitive knot or watching
a latex lucy b.d.s.m. short *****-flick...
i know: it's the obvious synonym overlap...
but at the same time it isn't...
gimp suits or all those other unicorns of the bedroom...
but no... the most forbidden act i ever managed
to fathom in a brothel was a kiss...
one time i pulled out a ***** from a drawer
when she went with the money to the madame
of the parlour and coming back asked me:

do you want to use it?
*** to me is like rye bread...
it's not a ******* croissant...
toasting alone will do the trick...
language is already complicated by necessity...
of crosswords and the boredom
that most mono-lingual people feed not having
learned a crossword of bilingualism...
why would i inhibit this fact of voyeurism?
apparently there's something immoral watching
someone get pleasured...
perhaps i should find some rare footage of
a peter anthony allen hanging...
or Leroy Hall, Jr. at the Riverbend (Nashville, Tennessee)?
perhaps i should start jerking off on
a whim, from time to time...
over execution footage?

perhaps it's that sort of conundrum...
you see someone eating ice-cream and enjoying it...
you therefore? buy yourself a cone?
god almighty... but the added responsibility
of also owning the fridge and freezer
when that spontaneous whim passes...
after all... there's always that diet of...
the girls jerking off into the camera...
which is probably the least guilt-riddled form
of ******* on the planet...

hey! if she's doing it... and you sat down
on the throne of thrones to do the no. 1 and the no. 2...
let's call it no. 3 and taking a baptism later (no. 4)...
esp. if you haven't been circumcised...
at this point: i feel sorry for the circumcised men...
that do not live within the rigours of a hasidic orthodoxy:
the circumcised man: the subservient woman...
the circumcised man: the woman in a niqab...
i guess that's how it works, no?
imagine the problems...
if the man were circumcised... but the woman...
was not supposed to pay any sort
of "penalty"...

then again: one would expect to find the best
***** under the crucifix...
stigmata pin-head and all those dittos...
and heads... but i am a connoisseur... 1970s...
1980s... but it must be Italian...
no... not German... and certainly not English...
chances are: yes, French... but more or less
Italian... and it's always on a whim...
connoisseur... well there are videos where
you can find a pregnant woman parading her bump...
and squeezing her *******...
and that's about it...

i want to imagine what those 9 months
of pregnancy must feel like...
for better or for worse... the oral demands...
perhaps i haven't written about this sort of stuff
for a long enough period...

now an interlude where i smoke a cigarette
is bound to be... exquisite...

it sure as hell is the safest way to arrive
at some sort of *** that's purely plesurable:
a gradation of *** without consequences...
but is this a celebration?
a woman ******* on camera with
her toys is a celebration...
me my ******* and the phantom hand...
there's no theatre in it...
the utility of taking a ****, taking a ****...
doing "it"... then having a shower...
and then "repressing" it...
not having "repressed" it to begin with...

i did a month once...
i came to the conclusion... that i'm more impulse
prone, i was planning my next brothel
visit... after a month i was still planning it...
then i relieved myself and...
would you believe it? the impetus dissolved!
i don't know what these right-wing
europa-identitarians are coming up with...
so much attention on:
i enjoy reading as much as i enjoy taking
a ****... notably the constipated kind
but esp. more of the diarrhoea nature...
hello mr. **** hello mrs. geiser!

perhaps that's why i wouldn't ever be a fan
of ******... i enjoy taking a **** too much...
or perhaps i'm just too old fashioned...
but this began as something orientating oneself
around a music genre...
how did it come down to pornogrpahy?

jean genet: the thief's journal...
i was really hoping for something marquis de sade
-esque... there was still too much:

solo girl does her bit...
so well in fact... that... buying a *** doll
must only remain a h'american thing...
*** is already shamed when marriage comes
along in anglo-saxon societies...
notably the inflateable sheep or doll
on those normie stag parties...
*** and children and the joke is:
you can only have good ***...
if you're ******* for procreative reasons...
bypassing the ****** for the sake
of the children...

otherwise... well no ******* doesn't help...
if... there's no wife in a niqab in public...
or some kosher wifey either...

i still have mine and i will keep that...
as... almost... a security policy...
a prenup...

pauk-mumije (1982 bosnian post punk)...
perhaps brutalism is just post-punk?

i remember it quiet clearly...
i still can't fall asleep without listening to music...
as i couldn't back then...

otchim - james dean...
the bass and no guitar riffs until the chorus
comes... and... ha ha... it's in fwench!
just like i could **** her without listening
to really... atmospheric music...
by 2007 standards that was equal to:
the dandy warhols...
but that was 2007...

these days... hardly candles and
black sun dreamer - post-traumatic stress disorder...
back then it was candles
and type o negative...
the candles and... catching a mouse...
no trap... a labyrinth of obstacles
and she sitting on the bed giggling while
i played being a maine ****...
and i did catch the mouse...
held it by the tail... let it lose on the stairwell...
and then watch its traumatised body try to
find a hole... scuttle and then fall...
to a depth of a greater serenity of
a... vermin's suicide: with no monkey sing-along
of... this mouse has done the cheese...

and it was sad when i was naive and
i accidently killed my hamster in a similar
fashion... but some ***** Abel...
but at least the mouse allowed me to
circumstance a Pontius Pilate relief...
and she asked me: what did you do with the mouse?

oh... it committed suicide.

chicago research compilation... tape CRO15...
perhaps listening to the cure
or depeche mode was once a "thing"...
no... burtalism is not post-punk...
pisse - kohlrubenwinter...
red zebra - i can't live in a livingroom...

my one personal joke...
in england i started calling the livingroom...
the civilroom...
pokój cywilny - if it must stress the St. Cyril...
so it must: комната гражданский..
brutalism is not post-punk...

stiff little fingers... are punk's creamy pie...
oto - bats...
bodychoke - cruelty
       "            - red dog
       "            - the red sea
legendary divorce - age with us...

somehow more of my ****** valnetine...
and less sonic youth...

i do remember pretending to date...
at high school...
the first question was always a nervous
build-up to the question:
'what music are you into?'

weird party - acne puncture...

well would you believe it...
some of us are still after something that
finds no sort of aleviation
in the alternative that's an aydin paladin
video...

POPEiUM - papacidal coronation...
Münn - II. in defeat...
a john peel: a no john peel...
the sort of piano that makes
a debussy or a satie blush...
AMORT - die hexes...

the current standard of... the stoogers...
or stooges... and... air no concern...
the limbo artifact of ***...
formerly known as the... limbo pickling...
of the undead...
and all those that come with an eczema and
the scabs of leprosy...
and vampires: those syphilitic zombies...

susumu yokota, and all those stupid,
solipsictically assured cats, grinning...
menace of the grin!
full cheese impromptu with a display
of teeth!
a night promenade into the forest
listening to: demdike stare's tryptych...

i haven't tried... but from 1pm through to 5pm...
i could phone classic.fm and ask
for... a song to be played in my name...
perhaps i'll phone in...
if i catch the right "once upon a time"...
and find it... as i found...
christopher young's: something to think
about...

**** and music... many interludes...
perhaps some little borat-britain references...
and then: none...
per 1K there's a cult...
per 10K there's a counter-culture...
come the 918 apostles... of jonestown...
there's no leftover for no...
alternative...

the restless mind starts its exercise
in petty squabbling....
why weren't i the respected,
vatican proof for a plumber!
why wasn't i to become,
the undertaker!

i too feel: the claustrophobia
of the ensue of the paragraph...
what is primitive knot contra U2...
mainstream? sod it: knot it a blood
and a sundail!
blood dries... the mercurial mythology
dries a solidity of
something becoming more an echo...
and less a sodden-print of the foot...
which the tide will,
nonetheless relate itself as...
worthy of being erased...

the violin concerto...
the piano nocturnes...
and the symphonies...
and the operas...
later the ballet...
beside... a chopin would write a nocturne...
a debussy would write one also...
but...
debussy writes a nocturne...
satie writes a nocture...
but a schumann?! a schubert?!
they write a concerto!
none of their work could have been written
in solide with a solipsistic monologue
escapade...

perhaps i can only appreciate chopin via
his nocturnes...
otherwise i am not convinced...
the greats wrote.... symphonies...
operas... never accompany pieces
to make their instrument an oak...
a tree... and not something resdual
to later make a mahoganny piano / table
of...

pianists! you only hear of their prowess!
Liszt! Chopin! Debussy! Satie...
exclaim as if to: suprise the "audience"
with either knowledge or...
adoration?
can a violinist make the same sort
of statements?
a pianist will play... with an accompaniment...
he will never become the maestro
predisposition
of the polyphony...

a chopin only heard the piano...
a debussy only heard a piano: solo...
a beethoven or a mozart...
what violin solo? what of a violin concerto?!
is that a trick question?
old father bach...
no instrument: well...
shubert loved allowing a piano ****
a bunch of harem violins in a harem crescendo
of a concerto...

but a nocturne? the polyphony of...
the "polyphony" of...
two pianos playing side-by-side...

- the joint"laura's"1967 kk proto prog freak phych -
no, that's not it...
- and no... it's not omega - gyöngyhajú lány...
- well **** on me...
locomotiv moscow is not a band...
but an f.c.... beg your pardon...

as i do hope that i am wrong about
a minor "technicality"...
somehow classical, essential...
and nothing worth or being able to: hum...
or sing-along-to...
always serious and finding outlets
of a necessity in being: thought of...
perhaps there's this grand:

technicality of not finding oneself sighing
or crying for that matter...
vaughan williams is more required...
for the expanse of a cowboy movie
horizon...
or that technical term...
the: deconstruction of the dutch angle
in the perspective shot...

but we don't talk about *** as much
as we don't engage in it...
and we certainly don't talk about music...
the absolute brutal needs to be found...
a butterfly a lotus a kiss in a brothel...
all else is... the slaughterhouse....

this has been a...
no Friday night in Soho can match-up...
i've spent better nights in
Amsterdam...
and no... the red light district was
never going to be a cannabis cafe for me...
or some Vermont-esque quest for a better
pint of ale...
*** was on sale...
there was not real point of making
any money from it in the medium of fiction...
it was always going to be
ugly, frictive... below par of expectation...
but it was always going to
be fathomable... fathomable in a sense
of it being respected...
as a hierarchical undermining...

oh what since was, truly was concrete...
but the verbiage came along
and fiddled with the fog and the end-result
deems itself abstract...
there's the concrete of drought...
and the abstract of locust.
there's the concrete of a mountain...
and the abstract of a pyramid;
there's the concrete of death...
and the abstract of a mosileum;
after all... a grave is a coping mechanism
of someone who...
never began the inquiry... of mortality...
joking as a child might...
pretending to handshake his own shadow.

as i have found the antithesis of narcissus...
the man who fell in love with his shadow.
Now they sleep in Soho Square,people pass
but they don't care,they're off to dinner,dine and dance,
**** the homeless,they've no chance,no mercy here,lazy ******* drinking beer,see a beggar and walk on by,they disappear,easy try it once or twice,got the feeling,ain't it nice?

We're the monkey's nuts,no if's or buts and shut the beggars in the jail,they're losers one and all,watch them tumble,ninepins fall,it's just a game,why in Gods name would people choose to lose their self respect?No shame,I blame it on their family,happily my family rallies round if I should fall and hit the ground.

No pity in my heart for those who fail to even start,except to start to open one more tin.
Where'ya been?
there's no time to spend or lend a hand,let the Sally Army band come down and give them bread and soup.
We're **** a hoop we got employment,a house and car,we get enjoyment,sod the dossers and the tramps they don't pay insurance stamps,they pay no tax except on beer,we don't want that sort living here.
We don't want that sort anywhere especially not in Soho Square.
Salt Peanuts Nov 2010
The Empire State Building is a giant *******
Concrete is broken, NYPD, taxis racing, red light green light
I enter the hand of the city through it's capillaries breaking mad concrete
Warm gusts of ****, grime, and transportation swallow me
The city feeds off dreams and hope which we personally, willingly give up
We all somehow learn to accept this fate 
The passerby no longer human but broken mirror 
The hand inundates my eyes from breezes of tomorrow
The spacy apartment, and the affluent career and the acquantanceship
Of the handful of New Yorkers that run the hand: all questionable plans today
It's as if the hand's grasp, although sharp and brick, would venerate your intellect, guaranteed
If that's the case, I see wizards of wisdom everyday snoozing on concrete and cardboard and plastic
Bearded, black with dirt and skin, threads ripped by a world inferrior than the one in thier minds
Empire "*******" State  of intellect, scrapping billion dollar clouds
Sardine can subways, escalators, elevators, high on crack **** speed of sound
The cash nerve system meltsdown into golden chips to feed the pigeons
Glass and steel craft spaces for modernity to be sold like a Washington Heights *****
You can feel the growth of the hand at the end of your intestines
It's a warm, uncomfortable vibration revealed in your *******
Foreign tongues buzz through the air, through your hair for 19.95
New York needs a haircut, some profound discipline so we wake up from this bizzare life of welcomed pain
You once charmed me with hopes of culture, open minds, connections, real connections, love and laughter
Yet, Today I am hungry in Murray hill
I am cold in Chelsea
I am broken in Union Square
I ***** in SoHo
I have fallen in the East River
And I bleed on financial monoliths 
Someone have mercy on my wills
It is an intention trying to be fulfilled
But failed when it became self-aware
Robin Carretti May 2018
Vacation mission love 4 passion or to vacate is another reason six sense vision
  One season two mansions three reactions four smiles we try way too hard imperfection it takes  _ the _long way to get to perfection look at me when I am talking no communication pleasure me Tiki bar C- initial please me or only the lonely to vacate. What's all the C- rumors my stomach has tumors it's spreading my eyes like spinners. Whats love got to do with this vacation C- Clovers?What do we C in lovers fate shinning Jack Nicholson the writer redrum ******?

But time is
everything, nothing, something, everlasting never ending
God sending, C- Car fender ******, Yes we will be loved like the pretender. Now do U C?

So
terrific like a light-bulb
goes off tic tock the
chick a dee
Super honey bee
met General Lee
And we will C?

*       *        *          
Blinded by Stars

Bombastic

Becomes
Nomadic
All sacred
Vacation of two
So scared
Him from Mars
I will C--
He and she
The Alcove
Let them be
Smells of  
C-cloves
Not one familiar
place all different
loves

"Her face"
Didn't U C?
Delights the night
We will C-them
Vacation C- cave
Right over there to
be saved
Be brave nails bright

Neon march in like the
Lion
Guitar named Dion
Amazon the buying
trip perfect 2-C
What-lips
She lights the beacon

Electricity C
Presidential
C-Conventional
Abraham Lincoln
Like the Saints of
Strings
C-Clemintine
Sultry but soothing 
R- U- ready
Hold them
steady
 Plantronics
After the love
Before the Manic
or both platonic

Audio C
Reaction
C-communication

Like Robots
With no recognition
Move on stipulation
Better be smarter
to master the C
The Viking
C-conundrum
vacation

Needing a paramedic
b- negative blood type
Ripe me C cool
and collected
C-Climate vacation
I don't think so?
C-City to be charmed
Strutting her stuff
Soho so who

Out of time__ C
It ain't so Bee
Oh! No, I-C
Being alone 
With chicken
 Colonel Lee
Too vacate left with nothing
Being kind to the homeless
To vacate what is
truly fate

How did the rich people
become the best
hostess C- Caviar

With the most list
Filling her C- mug
On a snag
Oh! Christ (C)

The Dog pug
Big Bounty tug
Such a small world
country
Bigfoot little things
dainty
The tight "Bearhug
" C
Cozy
The tear diamond drop
Waiting for words @
the bus-stop lazy

World of belief the cops
went C-Crazy
I will be brief have no fear
Fire me up my Collection
got better I am feeling
save with my Fire(C)Cheif
Vacation time so sublime all in the right timing. Or things go wrong doing the time all for the wrong reasons the crime.You are still the silly goose rhymes. Let's get more serious life should be everything vacation relaxation precious enjoy the time you have. Please don't lose that feeling the love has so many meanings fun Goddess sun new world to find love begins
Let's go down to Soho square and when we're there let's take a peek at the corner house, Number one,Greek Street.
A quaint old looking place with a forward thinking modern face,outpacing homelessness I see by being an employment academy.
A setup unlike those I've known that shows a pathway to a home,a job, a feeling of and I detect, what I feel and that's self respect.
Quite cute this charitable institute and well thought of through the years,so if you're down there in the West End wend your way to Soho Square and take at look at what's happening there,it is truly
a revelation indeed for those we find that are in need and there are many that I know who've been and gone and now go on
into that brighter future.
The House of St.Barnabas, a place to which I owe an awful lot, a place where visionaries make dreams come true.check the House out on Google or the Facebook page.
judy smith Apr 2015
Getting the fashion industry excited about an event is no plum task. And yet season after season, Anna Sui does it with her thoughtful and fun runway shows. Blame it on her ability to transport her audiences deep into her world full of references that range from Pre-Raphaelites to Diaghilev to disco. (Of course, the retro soundtracks and top models don’t hurt, either.)

Lately, Sui’s been sharing her passion for fashion history with a wider audience by taking on many collabs, the latest of which is with O’Neill, in stores now. Just in time for summer, the designer crafted a selection of swimwear and cover-ups that echo the bohemian mood of her main collection but also target a new kind of customer. We caught up with Sui at her Soho store to reflect on her career, her favorite muses, and texting with Anita Pallenberg.

You’ve been doing more collaborations in general lately—why is it important to you to diversify into these arenas?

Well, there are certain limitations that we have as far as production for what we’re able to do. A great way to overcome that is to work with somebody who has the expertise in that product. So working with Frye, they make the coolest, sturdiest boot that you can imagine, and so I think this is my third time collaborating with them. They’re just dreams to work with. It takes you to another place. And also you learn so much, because we’re so limited as far as resources now that it opens up new avenues. I did the same with the Coach bags and with the luggage with Tumi and now this collection with O’Neill.

How did you get involved with O’Neill?

Our sales manager knew somebody at O’Neill, and she started thinking that it would be such a great pair-up between O’Neill and Anna Sui because O’Neill is very much our girl. They’re very print-oriented and known for their surfer style, but we wanted to incorporate our bohemian style with it. I think that we’ve blended it so well. The clothes are just so dreamy; we were all just oohing and ahhing over these lace pieces.

That perfect white lace dress is a very necessary summer item.

It’s so true. I remember one summer I was looking at Naomi [Campbell] pictures on a yacht on Daily Mail or something, and every day she had the most beautiful, little white baby-doll dress. I thought, Where did she find all those?! But she can just zero in on something, too. That’s always been my dream, to have all those gorgeous white baby-doll dresses.

You have the best references season after season—who was the beachy surfer girl that you looked to for this collab?

We wanted to capture that true bohemian feeling of the ladies of Laurel Canyon: Joni Mitchell, Michelle Phillips, all those girls you put pictures on the wall and are like, “I hope I grow up and look like this.” So what we tried to capture was that dream.

I think fashion in general is really swinging toward the Anna Sui vibe, very bohemian.

It’s exciting. It’s kind of like a new beginning again. We’ve had so much reaction from all the stores and press—it’s like when I first started. It’s got that same feeling. It’s wonderful.

How do you define who your customer is and continue to change and grow with her over the years?

I think that somewhere I never grew up, and it’s still that same dream as when I was looking at the pictures of Michelle Phillips. It’s still always that same thing, and no matter where I go with the collection, Vikings or Pre-Raphaelites, there’s still that bohemian girl there. That was always my ideal. As much as I try to veer away from it, there are always a couple of those Michelle Phillips and Joni Mitchells in the collection. Through every collection you can find them.

So what’s the secret to staying young forever then?

I think loving what you do. You can’t ask for more. This is what I wanted to do since I was 4 years old, and just the fact that I’m able to do it and do it globally—I work in Japan and I work in Europe and I work in New York—it’s kind of a dream. It’s a lot of hard work and I’m very, very dedicated to it. I do a lot of sacrificing of other things, but it’s what I’ve always wanted.

As someone who’s been in the business for so long, how do you stay inspired and not get worn out or jaded?

One of the things that I love the most is research—learning new things and exploring new things. That’s what I do when I work on a collection: I find something that sparks my interest and then I’m obsessed with and I just go into it. It’s like going into the rabbit hole. Then all of a sudden you find out all these other things because one thing leads to another. Like when I did the Ballets Russes collection [Fall 2011], I saw that beautiful Diaghilev exhibit at the V&A; and I thought, OK, now I can be inspired by those Léon Bakst drawings. I remember one of the Ormsby Gore sisters was telling me that the way they started wearing vintage was because of a sale of the Ballets Russes costumes in, like, 1968. They couldn’t afford the principal costumes, but they could afford the costumes of the Sugar Plum Fairies, all these crushed velvets. So they started wearing them on the street, and all of a sudden the Beatles and the Stones and everybody else started following what they were doing. Well, don’t you know, in the Diaghilev exhibit, there was a film of that auction. I was just like, “Oh, my God.” That’s what sparked that whole thing where everyone was looking romantic and medieval. I love finding that connection. That makes my day—that makes my season when I find that out.

Do you feel like it’s harder or easier today to communicate that to your customer? I feel like with the pressures to make Instagrammable moments, it’s become very hard to get people excited about the history of fashion.

There are so many levels in what I do. Somebody like Tim [Blanks] will get the really intricate things, but then the obvious things will be the things that people talk about the most. I always try to bring it all back, make it current, and tie it in to something that’s happening in our pop culture, like the Viking thing. It’s really true—I was watching [the History channel TV series] and I got that idea. It wasn’t an intellectual idea, but that’s really how it happened. I think that you have to put it on different levels.

Is there one specific era or muse you feel like is the most Anna Sui?

My biggest idols are Anita Pallenberg and Keith Richards. So at the end of the day, it’s always like: Is there something that Anita would wear? Is there something that Keith would wear? Is it cool enough for them? And then I usually send Anita an image and say, “This is the outfit that I did for you.”Read more here:marieaustralia.com | www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses
TiReSooOmEe3 Sep 2015
"Werewolves Of London"

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain
He was looking for the place called Lee ** ****'s
Going to get a big dish of beef chow mein
Werewolves of London

If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again
Werewolves of London

He's the hairy handed gent who ran amuck in Kent
Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair
Better stay away from him
He'll rip your lungs out, Jim
I'd like to meet his tailor
Werewolves of London

Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen
Doing the werewolves of London
I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. walking with the Queen
Doing the werewolves of London
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's
His hair was perfect
Werewolves of London again
Draw blood
Mark Jun 2020
LUCKY 13 BIG TRIP DIP
From the 12th diary entry of Stewy Lemmon's childhood adventures.

This week my whole family, Smoochy and I, all headed off by car, to the annual big city fair on Friday the 13th. Some people believe an unlucky day of the year and an unlucky number for most. It was a big trip for the whole family, which took about two hours and twenty-five minutes to get there. But, we all still looked forward to it coming around each year, despite the long drive.

I had been to the big city fair, for every year that I can remember. My parents have been going there, every year since they were my age. I thought, 'Man, they must be old now, maybe one hundred and two years old or even a lot more'.

The food stalls were packed full of snacks and different makes of cakes and all kinds of different, yummy-in-your-tummy things, for us kids to eat.

There were stalls selling: Creamy Caramel Cup-Cakes, Limited Edition Lollipop Layered Lamington's and even some, short, swirly, Shortbread Slices. Even, my mum and two, much older, identical, twin sisters, Emma and Jemma, had set up their very own food stall. They, were selling heaps of my colourful creation named, 'A Colourful Take-Away Fruit-Blast In A Bag'.

They, were even selling, clear plastic cups along with a spiral-shaped straw.

But, only for the people, who emailed me for the secret, Jiggy-Jiggy Side-Kick Creation instructions, which was in my third diary entry named, 'Water off a Ducks Back'. Only then, will you remember what the plastic cups are for and how to perform the all important, Jiggy-Jiggy.

There were so many fun rides at the annual big city fair, for all of the kids to enjoy. Like the dodgem cars, a jumping castle and the pirate ship, 'my favourite ride of all time'. I loved sitting at the very back of the pirate ship because, it made me feel really funny in the tummy.

Towards the end of the day, my dad, had bought a ticket in the, Big city annual lucky dip first prize, surprise raffle. He had never been lucky in the big city raffle, all of the previous years before. So, this time, he didn't pick his usual lucky number 7, but instead he picked number 13 and guess what? 'He won the first prize surprise'.

We all went to see what the first prize was, at this year's annual lucky dip surprise raffle. It was a family holiday to thirteen of the world's most colourful cities. The whole family screamed, with joy. But, I then slapped my face a little and said to myself, 'Is this another dream of mine'? 'Nope! this one's for real', mum told me, with glee.

The day had arrived, for the start of our colourful, lucky-dip, big 13, city trip adventure. We had, packed all our bags and I even put in my dad's trusty, fancy, far out, funny binoculars and my very, super, sporty, single-shot, stylish slingshot. Just in case, I needed them both on our exciting city adventures.

My two, much older, identical, twin sisters, Emma and Jemma, had packed their bags full of makeup, creams and a hair styling dryer. While, Lemmy, had his bag packed by our dear mum, Flo, along with her own. While, dad went to his unusually built and outrageously painted, backyard, outback, shed and gathered his tools and paint brushes for the trip.

We headed to the airport, to start our first leg of our adventure to London England. On the first day, we went to visit the queen, in her very large house named, Buckingham Palace. The palace guard's face's didn't move one bit. Even, when dad, tried to make them laugh, with a funny joke or pulling faces at them, to make them smile.

Then, off we went, to see Big Ben. It was built years ago along the river Thames. We, then went to see some old rocks called, Stonehenge. Nobody knows exactly, why they were made. Their just placed, all alone, located in the middle of a large field, gathering moss and all still on show.

We then took a ferry ride across the English Channel and hopped off in the Netherlands. We all stayed in the very colourful city of Amsterdam. Mum, loved all of the beautiful flowers and my two, much older, identical, twin sisters, Emma and Jemma, especially loved trying the, unusual sweet cakes and drinks in the many cafes all spread about town. While dad, Lemmy, Smoochy and I, really enjoyed riding the bikes along the paths, on the side of the long and winding canals.

Then, we went to the beautiful, but cold country of Norway. We stayed in the capital city of Oslo. We took a boat ride through the icy fjords and I even thought, I saw that whale that winked at me, on that adventurous day out at, Slip-Slop-Slap Bay.

We then went by bus up north to see the Aurora Lights. Wow! what a sight. It was like daytime, even at ten thirty at night.

I even thought maybe, Stefan Pettersson from North Poland the ski instructor at Shivermytimbers Ski Lodge, lived close to here.

Next city was Paris the city of lights in the country of France. We went up the Eiffel Tower and I pulled out dad's fancy homemade binoculars from my bag and had such wonderful views of the city and then took a taxi for a ride through the streets of Paris and even went under the historical Arc of Triumph. Then we all went to see the great artwork and sculptures at a place called the Louvre. We saw a serious painting of a sad lady named Moaning Lisa; at least that's what I think the tour guide said.

The next morning we boarded a small plane and landed in the very watery city of Venice in Italy. I thought we were going to land on water, just like Buck the Duck does back at the small village pond. The city is surrounded by water and everyone travels by a small boat called a gondola which weavestheir way through the water canals and under all the old bridges. Smoochy even climbed up into the top left-hand side pocket of the Italian man sailing the boat, to get a better view. The food was so colourful in Italy, like the spaghetti, pizzas and delicious and colourful gelato.

Egypt was our next adventure stop and we went to the ancient city of Cairo. The very old Pyramids were out of this world, with precision angles and stones that fitted together ever so well. A cruise on the long Nile River was very exciting to see as well. It went from one end of the country to the other, but we only travelled on it for a mile or so.

Then off to Thailand and to the capital city named Bangkok, the busiest city of them all. There were cars, taxis, two wheeled motorbikes and funny three wheeled colourful ones called

Tuk-tuks. There was traffic and people everywhere we went and a lot of confusion by the Lemmon's when trying to cross the busy streets. We even visited some very old Buddhist Temples in the countryside and had some lunch that was extremely hot stuff, which made us all, puff. They gave us bread and water to cool our mouths down afterwards. Mum said, oh what a colourful and spicy city it is, and I love there ancient culture and friendliness of their people.

Off to the big red and easy going country of Australia tomorrow. We visited a place in the middle of nowhere called Alice Springs, which was in the Northern Territory of Australia. The next day we climbed up a rock named Uluru that was a sacred area for Aboriginals, the original inhabitants of Australia. We took a trip to a beautiful area up north of the Northern Territory called Kakadu National Park. Where we saw big red kangaroos, crocodiles and even some emus. One kangaroo even to try and box dad, but dad ran away and said, ‘He would fight him, but he forgot his gloves’.

We then headed off to China and the island of Hong Kong. What a very old and colourful city it was, with so many colourful buildings to see. In the large harbour we saw painted fishing and food boats cruising around.

Brazil Rio de Janeiro was next and we even saw the famous Carnival, with people dancing to a very cool beat. All dressed up and having the best party of all time. Down on the beach people were swimming and surfing and lying about in the sun. We even went to see a football match with USA v Cameroon playing, oh so well, for the winner would get its hand on a large world cup. We also saw a very large statue of an important man perched on a mountain.

USA was the last country to visit before our adventures would come to an end. We landed in Los Angeles and went straight to the magical kingdom of Disneyland. We did a day tour of Universal Studios where they make all the great movies.

Off to Nevada we drove and stayed one night in the ever so bright Las Vegas, oh what colourful sites we saw from our seventeenth floor suite hotel window. There were so many colourful casinos stretched out as long as you could see which light up at night alright. Dad even said you could see the lights from outer space. The next day we took a flight over the Grand Canyon in a Hot Air Balloon. We saw beautiful waterfalls and even saw people on donkeys riding down far down below.

New York was our last city to visit; it was especially dad's favourite city, because his ancestors had lived there for years, before coming to live in our village of Shimmerleedimmerlee to start a family, all those years ago.

The Empire State Building was an historic tall building that even once had a gorilla on top making a movie. Statue of Liberty was so fun to climb up and see all the lights of New York from across the Hudson River.

We took a horse drawn carriage ride in Central Park and even saw a memorable garden for the ex-Beatle John Lennon.

While travelling the New York subway to get to Soho we saw some great graffiti artwork sprayed on council approved walls.

The next day we were heading back home, which is nestled amongst the trees on a hill, in a little country village, called Shimmerleedimmerlee.
© Fetchitnow
20 October 2019.
This children’s fun adventure book series, is only for children from ages, 1-100. So please enjoy.
Note: Please read these in order, from diary entry 1-12, to get the vibe of all of the characters and the colourful sense of this crazy mess.
Tommy Johnson Jul 2014
What have I done?
I've unleashed Quincy Valero into The Big Bad City, upon Greenwich Village for the first time
The 177 express, round trip
To Port Authority
To the A train to Canal

We missed our stop
Had to walk from Soho to Washington Square Park
But along the way we saw artists and galleries
Head shops and street performers
Hobos and junkies

"We made it"
"We in this *****!"
Quincy said as we walked through the arches

We saw a multitude of creatures
An artist drawing floral murals with chalk
Meditating Buddhists
A cello player playing for a meal
A drummer drumming for money to get back home
A jazz band
A clarinet player
Writers scribbling down whatever came to mind

We saw beautiful women everywhere
"Look, my ten, your two"
Quincy said nodding to a **** brunette wearing a sundress walking by

We got coffee at The Third Rail coffee shop
We met lovey dovey couples and a girl poet sipping espresso

Treading down Bleaker to Sullivan to Macdougal to Huston
*** shops, leather and studs, ****** and flavored lubes
"This **** reminds me of Saw"
Quincy said with a laugh
"Too much for your threshold aye?"
I said nudging him

We passed a guy selling vinyl on the street
"How much for the Charlie Parker record?" I asked
He took the record out and inspected it
"Five bucks" he said
"How long you gonna be here, like till what time?" I asked
"Oh I don't live by time or numbers" he answered
"Time ain't your mast huh?" I laughed
"Nope, you cant spell T-I-M-E without M-E" he said
Quincy and I looked at eachother with a grin
"I'll be back, if I'm not here before you leave good luck in your ventures" I said as we walked away
"Thanks brother enjoy the day" he said smiling and waving

We ate to Papaya Hot dogs
Best in the city
Then to the pool hall

Now folks, it is common knowledge where I'm from the Quincy Valero is the local pool shark
He can break and sink three *****
He can jump over your ball and get his in
He can shoot behind his back with one hand

Playing with him is a guaranteed loss
But I never cared, I just like playing
We talked and laughed about all the stupid nonsense back at home
And planned our next move

We went to The Blue Note, the best jazz club in the city
The Dizzy Gillespie All Star Band was playing that night
But it was too expensive for both of us so we went on to St. Mark's place

More head shops
More *** shops
And book stores, clothing stores
Punk things in Search and Destroy, record stores
All that good stuff

It was getting late
Back to Bleaker to start drinking
First stop, a little pub
The bartender was a gorgeous blonde, sweet as could be
We ordered two beers
She seemed to be having trouble with the tap
"Sorry guys it's a little foamy, next rounds on me"
We were amazed by that because back home all the bartenders couldn't care less if we got a whole mug of foam
We clinked glasses and took that first cool icy sip
So nice on such a hot day

"Ya know dude, this is it this is perfect" Quincy said
"What you mean?" I asked
"Well this is a great time, I'm on vacation right now and were here exploring and relaxing and enjoying the moment, this moment" he said with his beer hovering over his mouth

Quincy always talked about "This"
This moment
This time
This feeling
This thing

"This" is that time when you're in the moment
That moment of complete and total encumbrance
When you're wrapped up in what you'r doing because you love it and you're happy
The moment you live for
The moment you want to last forever
This moment
This right here
Not then, not before or after
But right now, this
We lived our lives trying to to make this happen every second of everyday
Living it up

Quincy took me to Artichoke Pizza
And my God, it was immaculate
A nine in wide, nine inch long and half inch thick slice of heaven
It was a mixture of crunchy, gooey, savory goodness
I highly recommend it

Then back to the bars
Wicked *****'s
Triona's
Off The Wagon
The Bitter End
GMT
The Red Lion
Cafe Wha?
1849

Beer
Wine
***
Whiskey
Scotch on the rocks
Bourbon

Smoking electronic cigarettes down cobble stone roads
Passing hipsters, college students and tweakers
Locals and tourists
"Out of my way you tourist *******" I yelled frantically pushing my way passed them with Quincy trudging behind

You can always spot a tourist because they got their cameras, their ***** packs and their head looking up saying "ooo look at the building and that one!" taking snap shots in awe

We walked to The V-club
As we walked up to the entrance a little old lady in a wheel chair called out to us, "Are you two brothers?"
We laughed and said "no, were best friends and next door neighbors"
"Oh, well you too look very similar, very young" she said
"Yeah we're both twenty one" Quincy said
"You live around here?" I asked
"Right over there" she said pointing to the building across the street
She told us about how the building was falling apart and how all the law students got booted out leaving the little old lady and one other person living in the nine floor heap
"Back in the day there were river rats in their the sized of cats, but now we only have mice" she said
"I'm being moved though, whenever the land lords and the officials decided where" she added
She had some sort old senior citizen perk that allowed her to be taken care of
She then started to spit some of her poetry from thirty years ago, perfectly from memory
It was full of truth, insight and hope
We were floored by this wheelchair bound geriatric
She was a a retired barmaid, a poet, and an ex-lounge singer
Her name was Tracy Warren

The three of us walked into the V-club
I ordered a glass of Pinot Noir
And Quincy got a draft Brooklyn Lager
While pulling out a stool a spilled my wine all over the wooden table
"****" I said as everyone in the bar watched me put my face in my palms
I got paper towels and cleaned up my mess while the bartender leaned over to Quincy and said "If you don't tip me that will be your last drink ever in here"
"Okay" Quincy said as he walked over to me laughing at my expense
"If it was Burgundy I'd be in tears" I said with a half serious frown

I went to the bartender and apologized and asked sheepishly if I could possibly get a refill

"You spilled your wine?" he asked with sarcasm
"Yeah" I said
"And you want me to give you another?" he asked
"Well, I mean I don't know if that's okay or not that's why I'm asking" I said
"We don't, it isn't okay, you have to buy another one" he said with the most insulting tone I've ever heard
"Okay" I said with disdain

"**** this guy" Quincy and I both said
I left the remaining wine dripping off the table
Quincy ****** all over the bathroom
He finished his beer and we left without tipping that bearded-high and mighty- *******
We said goodbye to Tracy and she told us to enjoy every moment and to get home safely

We went to one more bar, had one more drink and headed home
But on the way to the train we got stopped by a ***
"Hey you give me money I know you got it" he yelled at Quincy
"Na man, hes broke trust me" I said to end the oncoming confrontation
"No yous lying i know it" he said
"Na, see those shoes? I got him those shoes, fifty five bucks" I told him
"Stop putting me on" he yelled
Then some white knight hipster wearing thick rimmed glasses and a green flannel stepped in and said "What's going on here? You picking on my friend?" While putting his arm around the *** mocking him and making trouble for us
"This ******* won't give me any money for my troubles" he told the hipster
"Come on man, give 'em something" he said to Quincy
"Dude, he has no money he spent all he had today" I said to the hipster and the ***
"He's a trust fund kid, he gets it from mommy and daddy" I said winking to Quincy
"Trust fund kid?!" the hipster said
"Trust fund kid!" said the ***
"TRUST FUND KID, TRUST FUND KID" screamed the hipster, the *** and myself laughing at Quincy making a scene
Then me and Quincy just walked away throwing our heads back howling at the full moon, drunk and exhausted heading for the subway  

The subway to Port Authority
Our legs, our feet and our ***** were killing us
We just wanted to sit

We could not for the life of us find our gate
We got misdirections from officers, other public transportation patrons
Thank God for this one janitor for pointing us in the right direction out of our wild goose chase
And ***** the guy who I asked "Hey man do you know where I can find the gate for the 177 express?"
And all I got was a blank indifferent stare
"WELL **** ME RIGHT?!" I yelled in his face

Finally we got on the line for our bus
We saw some weaselly looking guy cutting the line until he got booted to the back of the line
As he passed us we both looked at his and said "Weet, get meerkatted scumbag"
He had to wait for the next bus, whenever that was

The bus ride home felt like an eternity
But we made it
We had to walk down the unpaved dirt road to our street

We did it
We took on The Village
Sailed through the bars
Walked the streets
Met cool, hip people
Made memories
And now we have stories to tell
Julie Rogers Jan 2019
My friend who isn’t one
Said being a starving artist is a new aesthetic
Like brunching at farmer’s markets
Paint drips, dropped on, white shirts
No shows, at art shows, in SoHo
Exotic meds, white dreads, still fed
Living in your bed head

My cat, she knows the truth
Napping on a pile of wet cat food



Actually, it’s
Calling your chef friend Michael again
And asking him if he knows a different way
To make ramen taste better
Because last time it still tasted
Like you forgot to pay your light bill
It shouldn't have been there where it was
not because it was unsightly which it was
it just shouldn't have been

the old lady who looked like
she came from Cricklewood
gave it a good kick
thin fabric, thick lady.

The tent and we'll call it that for convenience
was an inconvenience to everyone
and a petition was raised to have it removed,

The man that lived in the inconvenience
which we called a tent for convenience
was bent over in pain

I don't think the old lady saw anything but the
inconvenience and if she did may not have recognised
the man whose plan years earlier was to be a sailor.

it doesn't matter anyway they moved the
inconvenience conveniently enough yesterday
and now he's someone
else's problem.

I see that as a problem
inconvenient isn't it?
Robin Carretti May 2018
She
so- she
And
He_ so
Never ending
She Comma
Do-So
Shop to Soho

Electronics
Like a Saint
Satanic's
His or hers
Nic's and Pix

Never the end
If so_
Yes Sir
The math flame
Password
To end the
dating game
Hot green
tip
pistachios
Like the long sentence,
Your
Nephews

He was
Huh? ,
So compelled
to be sentenced
The time
treacherous
Was so long
At that end is
where
you
belong
Column
his
comma
She comma

Prima Donna
Oh! Donna
A love
should
be in
the
moment
Too
many

Dots?plots/whatnots

You forgot
semicolumn
The head page
Semi-sweet
column
End chair
Kingdom
Knock on wood
Getting
splinters
He used
Plastic
condoms

Braveheart Lion
Twisted sisters
I was
at the
very end
Wella
She -Comma

The money
Higher up
Society Brianna
Barcelona Cafes
Giraffe ladies
boisterous
drama

Begin now
The beginning
Never met her
  middle-section
Which breed?
She-comma
She could
make
Anyone's
bad heart
Drug fix well
The good
heart
Should be ended
Dead end
&
the
morgue

Her long tongue
All She
_ Rouge
The question mark
All parts dots here and?
What is
next!!!
You hear
the ring you jump
Off the cliff
the text
Meet me
greet him
Chances
are
never
The front
It was
a front
Fine print
you
could
see

Smitten
written deed
And
left her
money

Heavenly
bliss
This
paper
kiss
Did you
miss
Her
signature,

Never a
good gesture
She-devil
Comma,

Never good
ending
movie
Feature

Never ending
Please visit
and come back
Do I need your opinion?
.,,  ...   ??
We always love answers but do we get the right questions all small dots. Bad romances of plots. All we want is a, , this became a soap opera full of drama
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
.the fireworks are still going off, Guy Fawkes 2.0, and sitting there thinking... big bang... so there was a sound in vacuum? i see a firework go off, the bright explosive light, and then the thunderous balloon burst! boom! i tap my finger... i'm guessing a 1.2 second delay from seeing the light from the firework, and hearing the BOOM! so... in light of all this... are we 1.2 seconds ahead of the big bang, or 1.2 seconds behind it, actually having happened, as in: still happening... i mean... it's not like sound precursors light... and we are not exactly illuminating creatures for most part, but sure as ****, we're loud.

well...
   i might have been looking for
a needle in a haystack,
or whatever it was i was looking
for,
  but i have spoken to a few homeless
people...
i remember about four congregated
around me in Trafalgar Sq.
one sunny afternoon,
    and that was the point where i knew
i was losing it, detaching myself
from the conventionality of "reality":
having meaningless conversations
with people wearing NPC-masks...
the voice inside my head started
thin out... until it fizzled out and i turned
into a writing machine...
if i had the same internal-monologue
with myself, i wouldn't be writing this,
a gaping abyss agitated by whatever
interacts with it,
and subsequently prompts such writing...
i put my hand around one of
the homeless men,
he didn't like it, i comforted him,
we'll just talk...
   then he started explaining to me about
his spot in the Sq.,
  he stood up, and indexed the spot,
the spot where i sat next to him,
another came and sat akimbo
like a child, listening to me intently,
two teenage girls passed
and he asked them:
      what do you see in his (my) eyes?
they replied nothing...
still somehow mesmerized like a child
in a primary school, listening intently...
red as a beetroot from all the *****...
i ended up giving him a book
i just bought in an indie bookshop...
christopher marlowes Dr. Faustus...
i stood up and abstracted a square,
drew both my index fingers
   around a slab of pavement
asking the stupid question:
                     do you think it's there?
or inside your mind?
                  then the homeless man
sitting in akimbo introduced me
to a northern irish veteran with PTSD...
drunk like a skunk...
         and then we walked into
the homeless shelter together,
   they didn't let me in,
because i didn't remember my national
insurance number, or had the card
for that matter...
          weeks pass...
   imagine the chances of this happening,
in central London...
i bump into the same man who sat in
akimbo in Trafalgar Sq. on the streets
of Soho... the chances... or meeting someone,
randomly, a second time, in London?
******* slim... slimmer than size 0
catwalk models... more like size -1...
and he told me that a spider crawled
      into his ear...
    he said that he was going deaf...
                   so i walked into a shop
bought a few beers and we sat in
a church courtyard talking with his friend
who showed off his buddha tattoo
and said: i'm going to walk to India...
subsequently we were ushered out...
because we were breaking the law...
and i thought: but you serve wine in
the church, don't you?
    there was no argument...
then there was the instance in Leytonstone
with the homeless talking about
pneumonia of some woman they
were friends with...
               many pleasantries hugging
what not...
   but...
          the most profound instance i had
was just outside Romford train station...
the same man i would later sit down with
and offer a cigarette to in Seven Kings,
just outside the O'Grady's Irish pub...
       i've seen how people interact with
homeless people... that snarky attitude...
they stand and bend over while talking
to someone sitting on the pavement on cardboard...
a toned down version of paddy bateman...
this ridiculing with intimidation...
ugliest crap imaginable...
   so i sat with this man...
     gave him my spare fiver...
       rolled up a joint...
   we went around the corner to smoke it...
some kid with a football ran up to us,
we passed... and then we asked each other questions...
the kid said he wanted to become a footballer,
me and the homeless man encouraged
him to take his dream seriously...
quickly the marijuana high smirk
left his face...
    apparently i had a diamond on my forehead,
claimed the homeless man...
but then i asked the very touchy question...
so... what made you homeless...
  i'll never forget what he retorted with...
my mother told me to never tell a lie.
what?!
  so the only reason he was homeless was
because he was an honest man, prior?
   oh... so this is what makes men homeless...
honesty, for one,
   and along with honesty,
   other traits that elevate valor,
    alongside the many other virtues...
well... "who would have thought"?
               like that wasn't painfully obvious
to begin with... namely...
how the rats, the skivvy, the immoral,
the sadomasochistic overlords of
institutions become rewarded exponentially...
while the man who replies
to the homeless question with:
    my mother told me to never tell a lie.
London is an onion.
Not one of those big, brown juicy globes
you can buy in packs of three, from Tesco,
No, an earthy, shrivelled relic from an old geezer's allotment,
With trailing fronds and a few infestations.
If you were to take a bite, your eyes would smart and your body rebel with a cough, a shudder and a wheeze,
But moments later, a smile would be playing round your lips,
Such a sensory adventure, though not exactly pleasant, can still be savoured,
And you'll remember the taste forever.

Londoners are weevils, hiding in the layers.
Outer, inner, some of us worm our way between them all.
Me, I tend to head for the heart of the thing,
Soho, Southwark, the inner sanctums.
I sometimes venture nearer the surface, the outer edges,
But too close to the unknown, and unfamiliar air,
And I start to pine for the centre.
You can work between the layers,
But the many skins are tougher than you'd think,
Better to burrow down, find a place to sustain
The appetite of a hungry little grub.

— The End —