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Chapter Two

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”                Marshall McLuhan  
  
I attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania because my father was incarcerated at the prison located in the same town.  My tuition subsidized to a large extent by G.I. Bill, still a significant means of financing an education for generations of emotionally wasted war veterans. “The United States Penitentiary (USP Lewisburg)” is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. My father was strictly high-security, convicted of various crimes against humanity, unindicted for sundry others. My father liked having me close by, someone on the outside he trusted, who also happened to be on his approved Visitor List. As instructed, I became his conduit for substances both illicit, like drugs, and the purely contraband, a variety of Italian cheeses, salamis, prepared baked casseroles of eggplant parmesan, cannoli, Baci chocolate from Perugia, in Tuscany, south of Florence, and numerous bottles of Italian wine, pungent aperitifs, Grappa, digestive stimulants and sweet liquors. I remained the good son until the day he died, the source of most of the mess I got myself into later on, and specifically the main caper at the heart of this story.

I must confess: my father scared the **** out of me.  Particularly during those years when he was not in jail, those years he spent at home, years coinciding roughly with my early adolescence.  These were my molding clay years, what the amateur psychologists write off with the term: “impressionable years hypothesis.” In his own twisted, grease-ball theory of child rearing, my father may have been applying the “guinea padrone hypothesis,” in his mind, nothing more certain would toughen me up for whatever he and/or Life had planned for me. Actually, his aspirations for me-given my peculiar pedigree--were non-existent as far as the family business went. He knew I’d never be either a Don or a Capo di Tutti Capi, or an Underboss or Sotto Capo.)  A Caporegime—mid-management to be sure, with as many as ten crews of soldiers reporting to him-- was also, for me, out of the question. Dad was a soldier in and of the Lucchese Family, strictly a blue-collar, knock-around kind of guy. But even soldier status—which would have meant no rise in Mafioso caste for him—was completely out of the question, never going to happen for me.

A little background: the Lucchese Family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano “Tommy” Reina, born in 1889 in Corleone, Sicily. You know the town and its environs well. Fran Coppola did an above average job cinematizing the place in his Godfather films.  Coppola: I am a strict critic when it comes to my goombah, would-be French New Wave auteur Francis Ford Coppola.  Ever since “One From the Heart, 1982”--one of the biggest Hollywood box office flops & financial disasters of all time--he’s been a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.  So, I like to zing him when I can. Actually, “One From the Heart” is worth seeing again, not just for Tom Waits soundtrack--the film’s one Academy Award nomination—but also Natasha Kinski’s ***: always Oscar-worthy in my book. My book? Interesting expression, and factually correct for once, given what you are reading right now.

Tommy Reina was the first Lucchese Capo di Tutti Capi, the first Boss of All the Bosses. By the 1930s the Luccheses pretty much controlled all criminal activity in the Bronx and East Harlem. And Reina begat Pinzolo who begat Gagliano who begat Tommy Three Finger Brown Lucchese (who I once believed, moonlighted as a knuckle ball relief pitcher for Yankees.)
Three Finger Brown gave the Lucchese Family its name. And Tommy begat Carmine Tramunti, who begat Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo. From there the succession gets a bit crazy. Tony Ducks, convicted of Rico charges, goes to prison, sentenced to life.  From behind bars he presides through a pair of candidates most deserving the title of boss: enter Vittorio Little Vic Amuso and Anthony Gaspipe Casso.  Although Little Vic becomes Boss after being nominated by Casso, it is Gaspipe really calling the shots, at least until he joins Little Vic behind bars.
Amuso-Casso begat Louis Louie Bagels Daidone, who begat the current official boss, Stephen Wonderboy Crea.  According to legend, Boss Crea got his nickname from Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, a certain part of his prodigious anatomy resembling the baseball bat hand-carved by Roy Hobbs. To me this sounds a bit too literary, given the family’s SRI Lexile/Reading Performance Scores, but who am I to mock my peoples’ lack of liberal arts education?

Begat begat Begato. (I goof on you, kind reader. Always liked the name Begato in the context of Bible-flavored genealogy. Mille grazie, King James.)

Lewisburg Penitentiary has many distinguished alumni: Whitey Bulger (1963-1965), Jimmy Hoffa (1967-1971) and John Gotti (1969-1972), for example.  And fictionally, you can add Paulie Cicero played by Paul Scorvino in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, not to be confused with Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico from the HBO TV series The Sopranos. Nor, do I refer to Paulie Gatto, the punk who ratted out Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, you know: “You won’t see Paulie no more,” according to fat Clemenza, played by the late Richard “Leave the gun, take my career” Castellano, who insisted to the end that he wasn’t bitter about his underwhelming post-Godfather film career. I know this for a fact from one of my cousins in the Gambino Family. I also know that the one thing the actor Castellano would never comment on was a rumor that he had connections to organized crime, specifically that he was a nephew to Paulie Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss who was assassinated in 1985, outside Midtown New York’s Sparks Steak House, an abrupt corporate takeover commissioned by John Teflon Don Gotti. But I’m really starting to digress here, although I am reminded of another interesting historical personage, namely Joseph Crazy Joe Gallo, who was also terminated “with extreme prejudice” while eating dinner at a restaurant.  Confused? And finally--not to be confused with Paul Muldoon, poetry gatekeeper at The New Yorker magazine, that Irish **** scumbag who consistently rejects publication of my work. About two years ago I started including the following comment in my on-line Contact Us, poetry submission:  “Hey Paulie, Eat a Bag of ****!”

This may come as a surprise, Gentle Reader, but I am a poet, not a Wise Guy.  For reasons to be explained, I never had access to the family business. I am also handicapped by the Liberal Arts education I received, infected by a deluge, a veritable Katrina ****** of classic literature.  That stuff in books rubs off after awhile, and I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t help evolving for the most part into a warm-blooded creature, unlike the reptiles and frogs I grew up with.

Again, I am a poet not a wise guy. And, first and foremost, I am a human being. Cold-blooded, I am not. I generate my own heat, which is the best definition I know for how a poet operates. But what the hell do I know? Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon doesn’t think much of my work. And he’s the ******* troll guarding the New Yorker’s poetry gate. Nevertheless, I’m a Poet, not a Wise Guy.  I repeat myself, I know, but it is important to establish this point right from the start of this narrative, because, if you don’t get that you’re never going to get my story.

Maybe the best way to explain my predicament—And I mean PREDICAMENT in the sense of George Santayana: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." (www.brainyquote.com), not to be confused with George’s son Carlos, the Mexican-American rock star: Oye Como Va, Babaloo!

www.youtube.com/watch?v...YouTube Dec 20, 2011 - Uploaded by a106kirk1, The Best of Santana. This song is owned by Santana and Columbia Records.

Maybe the best way for me to explain my predicament is with a poem, one of my early works, unpublished, of course, by Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon:

“CRAZY JOE REVISITED”  
        
by Benjamin Disraeli Sekaquaptewa-Buonaiuto

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.

To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.

“Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell
Joseph Gallo, AKA: "Joey the Blond."
He was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,

That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)

“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .

They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table--normally a serene table--
At Umberto’s Clam House.

Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umberto's Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com)
In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.

Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

(Again, Martin Scorsese getting it exactly right, This time in  . . . Casino (1995) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/Internet Movie Database Rating: 8.2/10 - ‎241,478 votes Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Greed, deception, money, power, and ****** occur between two  . . . Full Cast & Crew - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards - ‎(1995) - IMDb)

Given my lifelong, serious exposure to and interest in German philosophy, I subscribe to the same weltanschauung--pronounced: veltˌänˌSHouəNG—that governed Joey Gallo’s behavior.  My point and Mr. Gallo’s are exactly the same:  a man’s ability to make it on the street is the true measure of his worth.  This ethos was a prominent one in the Bronx where and when I grew up, where I came of age during the 1950s and 60s.  Italian organized crime was always an option, actually one of the preferred options--like playing for the Yankees or being a movie star—until, that is, reality set in.  And reality came in many forms. For 100% Italian kids it came in a moment of crystal adolescent clarity and self-evaluation:  Am I tough enough to make it on the street?  Am I ever going to be tough enough to make it on the street? Will I be eaten alive by more cunning, more violent predators on the street?

For me, the setting in of reality took an entirely different form.  I knew I had what it takes, i.e., the requisite ferocity for street life. I had it in spades, as they say. In fact, I’d been blessed with the gift of hyper-volatility—traced back to my great-grandfather, Pietro of the village of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Italia Sud. Having visited Moschiano in my early 20s and again in my late 50s, I know the place well. The village square sits “down in the holler,” like in West Virginia; the Apennine terrain, like the Appalachians, rugged and thick. Rugged and thick like the people, at least in part my people. And volatile, I am, gifted with a primitive disposition when it comes to what our good friend Abraham Maslow would call lower order needs. And please, don’t ask me to explain myself now; just keep reading, *******.  All your questions will be answered.

Great Grandfather Pietro once, at point blank range, blew a man’s head off with a lumpara, or sawed-off shotgun. It was during an argument over—get this--a penny’s worth of pumpkin seeds--one of many stories I never learned in childhood. He served 10 years in a Neapolitan penitentiary before being paroled and forced to immigrate to America.  The government of the relatively new nation--The Kingdom of Italy (1861)--came up with a unique eugenic solution for the hunger and misery down south, south of Rome, the long shin bone, ankle, foot, toes & kickball that are the remote regions of the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy: Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia & Sicilia. Northern politicians asked themselves: how do we flush these skeevy southerners, these crooks and assassins down South, how do we flush the skifosos down the toilet—the flush toilet, a Roman invention, I report proudly and accept the gratitude on behalf of my people. Immigration to America: Fidel Castro did the same thing in the 1980s, hosing out his jails and mental hospitals with that Marielista boatlift/Emma Lazarus Remix: “Give us your tired and poor, your lunatics, thieves and murderers.” But I digress. I’ll give you my entire take on the history of Italy including Berlusconi and the “Bunga Bunga” parties with 14-year old Moroccan pole dancers . . . go ahead, skip ahead.

Yes, genetically speaking, I was sufficiently ferocious to make it on the street, and it took very little spark to light my fuse. Moreover, I’ve always been good at figuring out the angles--call it street smarts--also learned early in life. Likewise, for knowing the territory: The Bronx was my habitat. I was rapacious and predacious by nature, and if there was a loose buck out there, and legs to be broken, I knew where to go.
Yet, alas, despite all my natural talents & acquired skills, I remained persona-non-grata for the Lucchese Family. To my great misfortune, I fell into a category of human being largely shunned by Italian organized crime: Mestizo-Italiano, a diluted form of full strength 100% Italian blood. It’s one of those voodoo blood-brotherhood things practiced by Southern European, Mediterranean tribal people, only in part my people.  Growing up, my predicament was always tricky, always somewhat bizarre. Simply put: I was of a totally different tribe. Blame my exotic mother, a genuine Hopi Corn Maiden from Shungopavi, high up on Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation, way out in northern Arizona. And if this is not sufficiently, ******* nuts enough for you, add to the child-rearing minestrone that she raised me Jewish in The Bronx.  I **** you not. I took my Bar Mitzvah Hebrew instruction from the infamous Rabbi Meir Kahane, that’s right, Meir “Crazy Rebbe” Kahane himself--pronounced kɑː'hɑːna--if you grok the phonetics.

In light of the previously addressed “impressionable years hypothesis,” I wrote a poem about my early years. It follows in the next chapter. It is an epic tale, a biographical magnum opus, a veritable creation myth, conceived one night several years ago while squatting in a sweat lodge, tripping on peyote. I
Xyns Nov 2014
I just want to take a moment to address a very real problem.

Racism.

I find that the most racist people are usually southern Christians.
And this I don't understand at all..

Christians read the Bible and live by what it says.
At least, they claim to.

The Bible teaches love of all men.
Everyone is made in the image of God, the Creator, the Almighty.

Since all men are made in the image of God,
Are all men not equal?

Every man is equal to every other man.
No person is superior or inferior.

Thus, racism goes against what the Bible is supposed to teach.
So a Christian's racism is against their religion and should be frowned upon.

Also, Southerners are typically the most religious.
Why then is racism such an issue in the south?

It makes no sense for Christians to be racist.
Those who are racist Christians are ignorant and obviously not true Christians.

And to anyone who chooses to use their childhood upbringings as an excuse:
That makes you even more ignorant.

You should be able to think for yourself and realize that your prejudice is idiotic.
And because you claim to have been raised into racism, you are simply blaming your parents for your idiocy and they are just as ignorant as you are.
My thoughts on the matter.
Macstoire Mar 2014
You can yank me out of Yorkshire but I still want Yorkshire pudding
You can send me south but I’ll still go bargain hunting
Even though it is that I live in the South
I still have a hint of the northern mouth
Well that’s what the southerners say
But I’m sure to you it doesn’t sound that way
Anyway regardless where I am at
I’m Yorkshire bred and that’s a fact
To present this case to you
Some traits of yours; I have a few
I chose cheese to partner fruitcake
And forever search for savings to make
I always speak what’s on my mind
Which at times southerners think unkind
Though they themselves aren’t so good
When it comes to small talk in moments stood
A stranger is a momentary friend to a northerner
Whilst the southerner stands awkwardly waiting
I know which I would rather be
Let’s just say it has its’ own tea
So I am most pleased to see
That so much of you has rubbed off on me
For you my northern family
Are in my thoughts more than you know
And without you I would not be so
For my Grandparents in Redcar, Christmas 2012
shaqila Dec 2013
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

1. Blacks got kidnapped by whites from Africa in chains and worked at picking cotton and crops, tending for masters babies while master made more babies ****** black pretty slave women who did not want to have *** with them.

2. Master beat black slaves until they were bleeding or dead until black slaves learned to speak broken english like white southerners.

3. What southerners laugh at how blacks speak but they are the ones who beat black slaves ***** until they learned to mimic how white master spoke broken english.

4. White master tip toed down to slave shacks and ***** and ***** getting black slave women pregnant making bi racial slaves. Light slave pretty ones got to live in the house and let master **** them any time he wanted. Dark slaves babies of master worked with the slaves in the field.

5. Black people can't find their roots thanks to being kidnapped from africa.

6. Some blacks hate darker skin and bleach it like Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson. Some use lye on hair to make it straight and color it blonde like Boyonce to make herself look more white.

7. Blacks were promised 40 acres and a mule for being stolen from africa but government lied to them and they keep lying to them we have a black president but people still call him a ****** and show him no respect he the president.

Repeating this here part.
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.
the air is so thick that even your thoughts melt away
in the Southern heat.  sweat starts pouring until your
clothes start clinging to you like an unwanted lover.  heat and sweat seperates the true Southerners from the wannabe's,
who don't truly love a place even when it's too **** hot.
shaqila Dec 2013
I am Blasianic(black, asian, latin mix) part 3
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

1. Blacks got kidnapped by whites from Africa in chains and worked at picking cotton and crops, tending for masters babies while master made more babies ****** black pretty slave women who did not want to have *** with them.

2. Master beat black slaves until they were bleeding or dead until black slaves learned to speak broken english like white southerners.

3. What southerners laugh at how blacks speak but they are the ones who beat black slaves ***** until they learned to mimic how white master spoke broken english.

4. White master tip toed down to slave shacks and ***** and ***** getting black slave women pregnant making bi racial slaves. Light slave pretty ones got to live in the house and let master **** them any time he wanted. Dark slaves babies of master worked with the slaves in the field.

5. Black people can't find their roots thanks to being kidnapped from africa.

6. Some blacks hate darker skin and bleach it like Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson. Some use lye on hair to make it straight and color it blonde like Boyonce to make herself look more white.

7. Blacks were promised 40 acres and a mule for being stolen from africa but government lied to them and they keep lying to them we have a black president but people still call him a ****** and show him no respect he the president.

Repeating this here part.
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.
shaqila Dec 2013
I am Blasianic(black, asian, latin mix) part 3
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

1. Blacks got kidnapped by whites from Africa in chains and worked at picking cotton and crops, tending for masters babies while master made more babies ****** black pretty slave women who did not want to have *** with them.

2. Master beat black slaves until they were bleeding or dead until black slaves learned to speak broken english like white southerners.

3. What southerners laugh at how blacks speak but they are the ones who beat black slaves ***** until they learned to mimic how white master spoke broken english.

4. White master tip toed down to slave shacks and ***** and ***** getting black slave women pregnant making bi racial slaves. Light slave pretty ones got to live in the house and let master **** them any time he wanted. Dark slaves babies of master worked with the slaves in the field.

5. Black people can't find their roots thanks to being kidnapped from africa.

6. Some blacks hate darker skin and bleach it like Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson. Some use lye on hair to make it straight and color it blonde like Boyonce to make herself look more white.

7. Blacks were promised 40 acres and a mule for being stolen from africa but government lied to them and they keep lying to them we have a black president but people still call him a ****** and show him no respect he the president.

Repeating this here part.
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.
shaqila Dec 2013
I am Blasianic(black, asian, latin mix) part 3
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.

1. Blacks got kidnapped by whites from Africa in chains and worked at picking cotton and crops, tending for masters babies while master made more babies ****** black pretty slave women who did not want to have *** with them.

2. Master beat black slaves until they were bleeding or dead until black slaves learned to speak broken english like white southerners.

3. What southerners laugh at how blacks speak but they are the ones who beat black slaves ***** until they learned to mimic how white master spoke broken english.

4. White master tip toed down to slave shacks and ***** and ***** getting black slave women pregnant making bi racial slaves. Light slave pretty ones got to live in the house and let master **** them any time he wanted. Dark slaves babies of master worked with the slaves in the field.

5. Black people can't find their roots thanks to being kidnapped from africa.

6. Some blacks hate darker skin and bleach it like Michael Jackson and Latoya Jackson. Some use lye on hair to make it straight and color it blonde like Boyonce to make herself look more white.

7. Blacks were promised 40 acres and a mule for being stolen from africa but government lied to them and they keep lying to them we have a black president but people still call him a ****** and show him no respect he the president.

Repeating this here part.
Race relations is bad all over the world worse if you live in the GD U.S of A. People here don't give a ****** about other races unless you say something bad about they own race.
the fog
is home
to me.

I close my eyes,
I am still standing in Santiago Chile.
business people are
rushing back from the lunch break.
the outside restaurants
teaming with customers.
I look up,
the Andes Mountains are head of me
a weak pink fog veils them.
my mom turns to me,
‘honey, that’s pollution’
I’m glad we have the real fog
back home

I close my eyes,
I’m flying back from Atlanta Georgia.
my fellow San Franciscans and I
waiting to see our home, I almost tear up.
our water had gone out that Atlanta summer
and I remember there wasn’t a day under 105 there.
the fog looks so tasty
like I would be fully
refreshed and rehydrated
after only one bite.

I close my eyes,
I’m living in Boston for five weeks.
a storm passes by now and again.
the east coasters complain that
the fog is ruining their city’s
sunny reputation.
the southerners complain
that summer isn’t actually there.
I just smile and smoke,
I love watching the smoke drift into the fog
mingle, then disappear.

I close my eyes
I am standing in Rome
my family- taking cover in a store overhang
there was heavy rains and over cast
, but no fog ever descended for a meet and greet
on that day.

I close my eyes ,
I am looking at the tall slender buildings in Vietnam
along side the main highway of ** Chi-Man city
it is overcast- the storm last night brought down
a tree, crushing a poor shop with a sheet metal roof.
the overcast hangs, and I am feeling
a little nostalgia for home

I open my eyes,
I am back in the sunset district.
I’m laying on my reservoir,
looking out at the Pacific Ocean.
the wind blows inland
whatever weather on the westward horizon
blows in in a couple of hours
the fog sits at the horizon gathering itself up
for it’s long strut to the beach
and I wave to my old friend
it’s good to be home.
Written for D.A. Powell
Kenn Rushworth Jul 2016
Nice right foot, Johnathan,

You’ve got the job if you want,

You can be the rabbit for the season,

The southerners need something to hunt.
title is a nickname of a guy I know not a specific reference to a town.
Del Maximo May 2010
how is it Southerners can stand the heat
it hasn't been this hot all season long
this mugginess is robbing me of sleep
dog days are early for summer's swan song
my shirt is wet in the middle of night
knew enough to get up, drink some water
my brow is sweating even as I write
sit by the fan as I think I oughter
the fan is on "breeze" lulling me to sleep
seems to work as my body is cooling
back to bed now, resort to counting sheep
closing my eyes, enough with this fooling

the TV's volume is down to a drone
my body's easing into a dream zone
© August 28, 2009
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2022
title: loop
body:
or holes or days
and oh: or months...
let's pretend years
never existed.

sometimes, it's truly weird... but i'm not English... or British... sure... for convenience's sake, when asked by officials in the NHS... put me down at white British... once was the case of the Anglo-Saxons... well... at best i'm an Anglo-Slav... but i can't allow all these racial "minorities" residing in England to label with me... "reparations"... a "colonial-past"... or... post-colonialism, or whatever the fetish is... i just belong to a people without a colonial past... sorry... that's racist... to be unable to differentiate people ethnically... it simply is... that's how H'america rots... it has no ethnicity distinction... it's either all RACE or ***... can't tell apart the Serb fascists from the Ukrainian fascists?! i can't buy into this whole: i'm white therefore i'm somehow also the inheritor of post-colonialism... i'm on side with the Russians given this argument... sorry... i'm not having it... that's ******* racist: just because i'm white is somehow indicative of me receiving the minority sadism against the British in the realm of post-colonialism... **** no... **** never...you will not put other people's history onto other people: because you're ethnically-blind... just because i'm as white as a Brit doesn't imply we share a shared history... ****-off cupper-neck... come come... milk me the golden **** of Moloch! right now... i'm loving the Russian attitude of... *******... or we'll **** with you...because it simply doesn't make sense for certain ethnicities of the white race to... capitulate to the "racial minorities" of a post-colonial argumentation of: new schematics of how society's to be orientated... nicely... just nicely... i'm seriously thinking about ******* off to Liverpool... the women seem nicer... less paranoid... less-stuck... less... ugh... yucky... itchy... whatever it is with having... over-value delusions of... obviously having bypassed the safety-net of becoming a nun...

the day started well enough... i must have drunk about half
a litre of whiskey: forgetting to take some naproxen
to ease me into sleep.. woke up with cold sweats
at: some time just past 5am...
some nightmare... Holocaust related? i don't remember...
but if you're waking up sweating and shivering
at the same time... lucky for me... i meditated on this towards
work: well... the horrifying has already happened...
i never understood the argument that 6 millions Jews
died in the Holocaust... technically... those were 6 million
Polacks... while France capitulated to **** Germany
in whatever span of time...
  it took longer for Poland to capitulate to both:
**** Germany and Soviet Russia... and we're talking:
a nation that only recently emerged after being non-existent
given the partitions... while France... a colonial power...
anyway... had two coffees... a precursor of a bad idea:
showered... applied 7 different "beautifying" products
to my hair, beard, face... armpits... collar bones and neck
and hands...
   ****** off... as ever... one hour early:
why do i mismatch my timing whenever travelling to
Wembley... if i catch the fast (Southend Victoria train)
i can get from Romford to Liverpool Street in under 20 minutes...
since... the train doesn't stop at: Chadwell Heath,
Goodmayes, Seven Kings, Ilford, Manor Park, Forest Gate...
Maryland... straight onto Stratford...
and then Liverpool Street... and then that's another
20 or so minutes on the Metropolitan Line to Wembley Park...
well... nice weather... spring is in full swing...
another two coffees from McDonald's... sitting on a bench
on the Olympic route...
eating an almond croissant... oh looky-looky...
company... starlings...
                        i was surprised: where did the pigeons *******
to? so i'm going to be sitting on this bench
by myself... drinking a 4th coffee... eating an almond
croissant... smoking a cigarette after the "feast" while
having this troop of 4 or 5 starling beg me to pinch
of my croissant... ****'s sake: the day is starting to look
beautiful... i couldn't resit...
plus... there's that added bonus of looking mythical...
eh? even mystical... since a few coworkers already spotted
you and you're not some old man in a park
throwing breadcrumbs to pigeons...
you're throwing pinches of an almond croissant to starlings...
i always said: better a soul of an old man
in a young body than... the complete ******* opposite
of... whatever leads to dementia: lax...
old men having tantrums of teenagers...
                       just looks silly... and it was sort of like
that today... with the Scousers... Scouse...
   i was expecting such a lively, lovely atmosphere...
i swear... the further north you go... the lovelier people
become... my heart poured out at the Liverpool fans...
the Manchester fans? eh... not so much...
they're sort of like Londoners... stiff-upper lip: tense...
paranoid... i don't know how to describe them:
proper... after today i'm thinking about visiting Liverpool...
******* for the weekend... maybe book a ticket
at Anfield... but just go and see the city... wander...
get lost... find myself...
        i'm tired of continental Europe... then again:
i'm also tired of the south of England...
           4th coffee in... i thought i was going to die...
a thumping in my forehead... i already have high blood pressure
issues... four coffees in... almost zero food:
calorie intake: for someone 6ft2 and 98kg... it's not 2000kcal...
for the first time on a shift
i had to do my jacket up so that my neck would
be covered... the tie was suffocating me...
with ideas of dropping dead from a heart-attack...
thrice prone to *****... the one time i did i enacted
being a cow... i swallowed it back down... crummy...
eh... flakey... sort of like when you...
bring back milk that's half digested: when it splits...
into cheese and lactose juice... acid...
on my way back home: a most glorious full moon...
cider... sweaty shirt...
and this... fiddly ******* the Metrpolitan line...
mixed-race... sort of reminded of Harley Dean...
fiddling with her blonde-tinged curly hair...
i always found curly hair... um... hmm...
too infatuating... she does her make-up...
her lips with a crayon and then some quasi-lipstick...
cute nose, cute forehead...
and she just keeps looking at me...
with the most doe-esque intimidation of:
          why don't you react to me?! why?! why?!
she's so ******* blatant: she can't hide it...
i'm sitting there with my shirt undone...
   oh right... hairy chest of a pirate... thick bulging neck...
babe... i'm tired... i've been up since 5am...
started the shift at 9m... just finished come 6:30pm...
of course i'm *****... ever time i become tired
i need to relax: since i've been keeping this hardened
**** in my ****-pocket since this morning...
i'll get back home... sit on the thrones
and do the no. 1, 2 and 3... which is **** while sitting
down... relaxing my ****... taking a ****
and subsequently jerking off...
but she was so blatant... d'uh... pretending to look
into the glass behind me for her reflection...
checking her phone without taking a selfie...
how her hair would look better arranged if she
has a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head...
truly... a pretty little number...
but i was already coming down from a high of:
Scouser women... are all the English girls so pretty
up north? like i said: i think i need to take a weekend
trip to Liverpool... or Newcastle...
i was taking aback when a married woman
approach me... started talking... gripped my hand and
then proceeded to kiss my cheek...
infatuated by the beard...
  that's nice... that's why life is worth living...
random strangers... coming up to you: infatuated
by your presence... having no reservations:
no inhibitions... needing to kiss you... touch you...
always with the northern types...
and i'd agree... southerners: the fairies...
Londoners... so ******* Victorian: reserved...
it's like playing poker 24/7...
   most of the time i find myself of keeping a trustworthy
line of conversation... i just become mute:
bored... i don't like the nitty-gritty of small talk...
what the **** do we have in common?!
absolutely nothing... beside... what?
trying to keep each other comfortable?
no... i'll use my silence to strain the fact that:
we're not friend in school playground... we're not...
but it's different with northeners...
i witnessed two grown men... cry... because they
were refused entry for being sick... puking...
grown men crying... because they couldn't be part
of the Liverpool choir of: you're never stand alone...
mind you... coworkers getting ****...
deservedly: too eager... too eager... push and shove...
can't we just talk? once you get that *******'s worth
of an SIA license you start losing the plot...
machismo... ugh... talking about people who can't
tell the difference from judo from throwing
watermelons...
oh but these northern girls... a married woman
just walk up to you... tipsy... tipsy as:
custard is most definitely pale, high noon sun
yellow... grabs your hand and kisses your cheek...
times like this: i feel... gratefully alive...
it's so very little but at the same time: so much...
i can forget the 5am wake up call...
of the nightmare that stirred me...
i couldn't possibly cry over football...
something beautiful, like Prokofiev? sure...
lucky for me we managed to seize about 10 cans of beer
from someone... who managed to bring those cans
of beer home? moi...
beer... relaxing to some Type O Negative...
i'm pretty sure there was this other woman
on the train: fixated on playing with her...
she kept stroking it... stroking it...
some other day...
like a cat with an itchy scalp... what the **** do they call them?
archetypical clues?
i heard that once... if a woman in your vicinity is
fiddling with her hair... she's into you...
i seriously want to forget these stereotypes...
i prefer the more direct approach...
she comes up to you: a complete stranger
and kisses your on your furry cheek...
it might have been sunny... it might have been warm
today... but the tenderness of those lips...
i need to book a weekend break to Liverpool...
seriously... i need to visit Liverpool...
those woman are insatiable! i need to ******* to Liverpool!
i already can't stand the claustrophobically
constipated London girls...
   it does my head in!
            what happened to: perchance: some... foon?!
on a *****-nilly... what the **** is this?
the ******* Black Dahlia... no... wait...
the Black Narcissus nunnery? the ******* hills are full
of music?! or is that... filled, with?!
this is a trajectory toward a death-cult...
o.k. whatever... i'm getting slowly more drunk
and relaxed and... not in the mood of...

whatever... i just can't face up to having to faces...
it's enough that i already juggle two tongues...
but i can't face up to having two faces;
i see people taking themselves overtly seriously
and i'm thinking about... puking:
and then swallowing the puke that doesn't leave
my mouth... like a cow's digestive schematic.
Dawn of Lighten Feb 2015
Ate with South Carolina supervisor with his wife and his parents! He is definitely a country boy, but very awesome lead tech! Thank god I been travelling around the states, while seeing the working environment as it is, and I must confess the southerners are truly nice people! I know good people lies within anywhere, but in the north (schools) it made it feel like the south was lagging in that department, and from experiences it's just media giving wrong impression also! It might be because I am only exposed to bigger cities, but thus far people in the south truly feel like a genuine people with good heart!

Aside from friends in Minnesota, which by the way were good people, it was very hard to feel in place with Minneapolis suburb area. I always had my guards up for racial tensions, and mis-treatment from officers for stupid ****, but in the south I honest don't feel like I have to prove anything to anyone! I feel at ease, and I feel job market is more equal in here! It might be because I am with fortune 500 company, and their culture is different, but in Target to Best Buy, and even the same company I work for now felt like they were always dividing people in Minnesota. So **** glad I no longer work for retail giants, while don't feel like I am getting segregated! I felt more like a human being in the southern states than I felt in the Minnesota, and mentally it was super exhausting, and emotionally depressing! While I felt discrimination in Minnesota, writing, art, and classical music was always my escape to ease abnormality I felt as a person! For the longest time I felt like the environment was choking the living life out of me, and I was suppose to be the bad guy in Minnesota! It felt like people were always judging for the wrong reason, and you couldn't hide yourself from those judging eyes, while they made alliances to back stab! If south is driven by racial overtone, then Minnesota was driven by undertones!  

I feel I belong here in the south, and meeting right people at the right places helps me feel like I'm a human being.
This is a self reflection I did in facebook today,  not a poem, but more like a journal!  While the experiences for people may differ depending on your social, racial, gender, and political views.  This is how I felt in Minnesota as an Asian American, and not simply as an American that we should be considering ourselves! In my humble opinion, Kentucky, Indiana, Tannessee, Arkansas, and now South Carolina have friendly people from my first impression!
Sarina Jun 2013
I cannot say that I write about you
because we are in love,
because you died,  or because you broke my heart;
moths unravel those possibilities like yarn.

You are picked up by fairies,
a powder, the scent discharged by dryer sheets.

To be honest,
I write about you because you did the same to me;
you had me in the crook of your arm,
a dusty novel composed by
southerners, although only read in the north.

I cannot say that I write about you
at all, these verses are not about your existence
but how you could have
opened the world as if it were a book of mine.
jeffrey conyers Jun 2013
He shock the world.
When he shook his hips.
Have various people giving an opinion of him.

He shock the world.
When he curled his lips.
Soon there was many impersonating him.
Or least inspired by him.

The poor Mississippi boy that became a star.
Who serve his country?
And truly loved his mom.
Who had a manager called Colonel?
Who wasn't one at all?

We saw southerners and others saying he was ruining our youth.
But some probably thought this about Sinatra's too.
He did a few good movies.
And a few bad ones too.
Plus, he also shook here and there in those movies too.

Now, when people reflect back they states his greatness.
Plus, he still have many trying to impersonate him.
I just know he shock the world.
When he shook his hips.
Graff1980 Nov 2017
American Nightmares
Prologue
The pale moon hangs, glowing in the blank sky, shining just enough light for the thick foliage and densely pack trees to be seen. Evening sounds silenced by the sloshing of rushing feet racing through the woods.  In the distance a beagle howls in frustration. Sniffing and wheezing as he tries to pick up a lost trail.
Deeper in the woods a lone figure races at a maddening pace, bumping into trees, scratching his flesh against their harsh bark; causing bleeding. The young man’s eyes water up from a mixture of sweat, pain, and fatigue. Fear permeates his entire being
A thin orange suit clings lazily to his sweaty bronze skin, almost mocking his emaciated frame, which is actually a couple sizes too small for the jumpsuit. The dark figure has been running for days. Hot on his heels, his pursuers persisted. He knows being caught would mean a far worse fate than what he escaped.
Another mile and his legs began to leaden. Each step becoming heavier than the last. The sharp sting of lactic acid burning his side. Breath becoming spasmodic. Eyes bulging, still he maintains a frantic pace.
Running full force until his left foot catches the edge of a dark brown rotten root rising from the earth. A cloud of dirt explodes from ground immersing him in a brown mist. Spittle and blood spew from the runner’s mouth as he coughs violently. His breath rushing away even as he tries to calm himself.
Crawling from the dirt he searches for some sort of purchase, finding none he rests his weary frame against the nearest oak. Then the waterworks really hit. The sound of moans escaped his busted and parched lips.
“I will make it home.” He repeats over and over, like a mantra.
His fingers feel the frame of the tree he is resting against. Hands begin falling and rising for some strange reason, until they settle at the base. There just inches away from his digits sits a patch of mushrooms. The forgotten pain of hunger returns, so without examining the fungus he plucks them up and swallows them whole. Then half crawling half stumbling he moves to the stream which lay a few yards from the tree.
Cupping his hands he fills his palm with water; then slurps it up, repeating the process again and again till he has drunk his fill. Next he splashes the cool liquid on his face, hair, pits, chest, and other portions of his body massaging the blood and dirt from his aching skin till he manages to cleanse the wounds all over his person. Closing his eyes, he finally succumbs to the exhaustion that has been ******* him.
A bulge of earth begins to rise pushing his limp frame away from the stream and pulls him back to the tree. Then branches and leaves coalesce around his body till he is safely hidden from plain sight.
He awakens; eyes dilated, and body shivering. While brushing away the brush he turns to the tree, stands up shakily, and then wipes away the rest of the leaves and dirt, not noticing the slowly growing dark spot on his orange jumpsuit.
Tears streaming he softly whispers “Hello tree my name is John.”






















Chapter 1

Tree, sweet Tree, I beg of you tell me. Why does America hate me? I did everything I was told to do. I went to school. I stayed away from white women, never made eye contact with white men, became a teacher, and took care of my people.
What the hell was all that for? I am going to end up another dead black man in the backwoods of some southern hick state! I got these stupid leg irons weighing me down, and hells hounds are riding my trail.
Stupid ******* animals!
Filthy ******* *******!
What is the ******* point? Huh?
My dad was a good man too. He followed the unwritten rules of the white man. Never stole anything or hurt anyone, mostly. Do you know what they did to him Tree? Well do you?
They tied him to a post, sliced chunks of flesh from his hard muscular frame while burning him alive. They burnt him alive, Tree.
My father was a strong and righteous man, a man who loved his wife and child. My mother, who was barely half his weight and a good foot shorter, she had the palest skin of any black woman I have ever met. Her hair was the perfect shade of earth with eyes a couple tints darker. Her nose was tiny and lips thin as any white woman’s. I’d imagine she was as white as any ***** could get. She had a voice that soothed my darkest pains and fears. At night when I went to bed she would sing to me.
Oh my darling
Brown skin angel
Don’t be frightened
I’ll be right here
Hold you tight and
Watch you sleep
Guard you tonight
While you sleep
Oh my darling
I’ll be here
To keep your heart
Safe my sweet dear
Everything will be alright

I remember when I came home that day. I saw my dad clutching the tiny limp frame of my mother, sobbing furiously. Her body looked paler than usual. I had never seen tears fall from my father’s face. I don’t think he even saw me come in. I just stood in the doorway. I stood there and waited for him to say something. I wanted to cry but I was so scared that I just held my breath instead.
Our neighbor came and took me to their house. Back then I did not know what had happened. It took me over seven years to find out what happened to my mother. Do you know what happened Tree?
A handful of white men came to our house and ***** my mother.
Sometimes in my nightmares, that horrible scene plays out. I hear the sound of rapping at our door; the yells of angry men echoing through the house. I see the wooden door bulge as it begins to crack under their onslaught. Then I watch as men with no faces explode into our house, sweeping my mother off her feet, ripping the clothes off her body as she scream in horror, I would wake up in a state of horror and sorrow, weeping.
I am haunted even now. I cannot begin to imagine the pain my father felt, but I do know what happened next, because I snuck out of our neighbor’s house to comfort my father. I watched as he left our home with rage and violence in his heart. In one hand he held a knife; it seemed to be a foot long, half handle half cold hard sharpened steel; in the other hand he carried a gun. I followed him from a safe distances, heard him scream for the men that had attacked my mother.
When the sheriff came to calm him down, dad was startled and turned around accidently cutting Mr. Brinkley with the blade. The sheriff and his deputies arrested my father. I was certain that everything would be okay. The sheriff was a decent man. I heard him talking calmly to my father. He told my dad that he understood what was going on.
That night white men came for my father. They hollered for justice, screaming “bring out that ******* ******.”
The sheriff tried to reason with the mob. He told them “This is between me and my prisoner.”
He tried to stop the mob with force, but there were at least fifty men. Probably more if you counted the people that kept joining up with the mob. The mob broke down the prison door, took my father from his small stone cell, all the while taunting him.  “You’re gonna fry ******.” From a distance and hidden in shadows I watched.
I saw an old lady spit on him. I watched as children raced around my father, dancing in and out of the procession, and tossed stones, from the side of the road, at my father. The mob drug him down to the town square. Tied him up, and lit a fire beneath him. The whole time my father’s head was hung in defeat. I swear he knew what was coming. It seemed that In the face of that onslaught all emotion had faded from his face. I guess he didn’t want to give them the pleasure of seeing him squirm.
As the flames started to consume his flesh, I saw the sheriff go for his gun. He raised his pistol and aimed for my father’s head, but the men in the mob wrestled the gun from his hand. Meanwhile my father had given into the horror and pain. He began to howl like an animal as the flames danced across his flesh crackling and pooping. He screamed for some sort of mercy, crying out for someone to shoot him.
I raced from the shadows, stealing a gun from some old white man. Then I shot my father in the head. Most of the men in the mob looked on dumbstruck. That gave me enough time to get away so I hightailed it out of there. I never went back for anything. I spent the rest of that night in the woods praying that what I had done was the right thing.
In the weeks and months to come I slept very little. When I did manage to fall asleep my dreams would cycle from the flaming horrors of my father’s death to the ****** of my mother.
Still, I managed to make something out of myself despite those sick atrocities. By working hard I finished school and became a teacher. A couple years after I started teaching I was arrested. They took me to jail; brought me up on some ******* charges. Part of me was certain I would end up being lynched, so when I was sentenced to a chain gang, man I was relieved.
Had I known what was gonna happen I would have preferred being lynched, at least then I would have been dead. Instead they worked me **** near to death, starving, and beating me like a slave. My brown skin has brought me nothing but grief. So tell me Tree, why does America hate me?











Interlude

“Tell me tree, why does America hate me?” John sputters.
A soft breeze caresses his skin.
“Why the hell am I talking to a tree?” He cries. “What is the point?”
The blood stain on John’s clothes still expanding, and his shivers become far worse.
“Tell me tree, what is the ******* point? America hates Negroes. I’m going to die out here. Say something.”
The air swirls around him, and a soft voice fills his head.
“Do you think you are alone in your suffering? Know now that you are not. My children suffer horrors too.  Listen carefully and I will tell you.
John turns to find the source; finding nothing he collapses, listening straining to hear the voice again.















Chapter 2

Dear John I am the spirit of the winds, mother to the natives. Do you think that yours is the only tongue to taste the bitter fruit of America’s wrath? My child let me tell you of the first people of America. Listen to the tragic tale of my children. Before the Europeans came many tribes roamed this land. They were human and as such had flaws of their own, but in many ways they were poetry in the form of flesh.
The men would hunt during the day. Anything they caught was considered a sacred gift. They would use all that they could from the body of the beast. They treated my mother’s brown dirt earth, flesh as sacred, and I loved them for that. Women held equal value and had equal say in their tribes. There were wars, of course, but mostly my children strived to live in harmony with the land.
Then white men came. My children welcomed them with open arms, helped them survive, and do you know how they were repaid that kindness? Once received and no longer needed, it was returned with treachery and violence. Bit by bit they pushed my children back. Pushing them off one parcel of land and then another, slaughtering tribes after tribe. Still my children survived.  When the white men could not **** all of my progeny, they came for the children. Some parents wept, some fought back, and some merely accepted it as inevitable.
I watched it all. I saw the men on horseback come for the children. The songs of lament tortured my heart. The tears of the children ripped at my very soul. I lashed out at the white men with all of nature’s fury, biting their flesh with my fierce and frosty winds. I sent the fiercest wind I had at my disposal. However, the children were still taken.
The children were dragged to schools far from their homes. They would cry out in their native tongues. I remember my sweet Rose. Yes, Rose was her name, John. She was as strong as the oak tree. Passion coursed through her veins faster and harder than the river’s water. She was born so tiny that the elder of the village was certain she would not make it. Yet, when she broke free of the womb coughing and sputtering, she cried with such a powerful voice that even I was taken aback. This tender babe had my attention. I swore I would watch over her.
The first seven summers of her life were spent in the loving care of her tribe. Her black hair grew almost down to her feet. Her eyes were brown, brimming with the unknown depth of her soul. She was unafraid, the pride of her father and joy of her mother, a creature to be cherished.
One fall morning as the orange sun was slowly ascending the soldiers came. Little Rose was wrenched her from her parents’ arms. Her father’s rage was stopped by a bullet that bled him dry. No one else would fight for this child, so I beat against the soldiers back. I struggled to wrench her from their arms and return her to her mother’s safe embrace.
The soldiers did not even recognize my fury. With that failure I watched Rose’s mother fell into despair. Her prayers of peace and love soon turned to prayers for vengeance and the return of her child. Many nights we wept together mourning the loss of father and daughter.
Rose’s mother could not join her child, so I tried to watch out for her. I followed the soldier to a tall white washed building that had been liberated from the southerners during the previous war. I heard the headmaster say “in order to save the child, we must **** the savage within.”
Day and night I raged against the solid white structure, slamming shutters and doors, pounding the roofs with torrential fury. Only stopping when I realized that the children were shuddering in fear of me.
At night Rose would sing the songs of her people. During the day she would stare in defiance as the teachers tried to make her speak the English tongue. She refused to yield, so they responded to her spirit with violence. The taste of soap saturated her mouth while the stinging welts marred her backside. Still my Rose remained strong. I was filled with pride. I had seen older children fall into silence and subservience.
Rose was a cut about the rest. Still, one can only fight for so long before the fire begins to wane. Each day some of her resilience would fade. I could not enter the building to comfort her, but when she was outside I would wrap her in my windy arms, cradling her spirit against mine. I would carry the whispered words of love her mother sent, and return Rose’s love to her mother. Had I known what was going on in that building maybe I could have blown harder, maybe I could have pelted the nuns and the preacher with sharp stones and hardwood.
As the glimmer of light faded even faster, I started catching the whispers of my children. Their dead bodies began to scar the sacred earth. One after another fell, faster and faster. I watch their flames die. What kind of wind was I that could not fly them away from harm?
One day while blustering away I caught the most horrid sight. I saw a sick man lay his hands on my Rose. She shivered in disgust as he groped her bare skin. He took such sick liberties. In my rage I waited and stewed, plotting and hoping he would come outside. My anger gave me more power than I had ever known. I flung him to and fro spinning him round and round, beating him down every time he tried to rise. I hurled stones and sticks at him. When I was spent, his face was dripping with blood, his lip busted and swollen. He ran like a coward.
Rose remained trapped in that house of horrors. More children died. Day after day Rose lost more of her language. Till one day she could not remember the songs of her people. I watched her sobbing while trying to recall the words as a nun slapped her in the face.
One night under the pale glow of moonlight Rose lit herself on fire. She became a burning flame to match her once radiant spirit. As she burned she screamed out for release. I tried to put out the flames with gusts of wind and heavy rain, but I was too late. Rose fell to ashes resting on the moist earth. Gathering what I could of her remains I sent her last words and ashes home to her tribe.
That night rang with lamentation of her people. Sobs of regret filled her mother’s body. As hard as tried I could not comfort Rose’s mother. She would not be consoled. On the coldest night of that year Rose’s mother walked from her abode, slipping off her clothes, she moved in silence. Every step adding to the numbness she longed
The boaters who pass by the canal
are friendly and cordial
like good Southerners
I love sitting out on the pier practicing my Japanese
suiei,
oyogu,
mizu,
and they paddle lazily by
hardly making noise
wave
smile
good evening, Miss

The wind from the ocean
shoos away the the mosquitoes
I almost feel bad
people from these parts are so sweet
I'd don't quite fit in
but they don't mind it

No one lives here
All the homes are rented
there's a silent understanding
that we are all vacationers.
Brent Kincaid Jul 2018
Southerners said “You’re white!”
They’re black, and that’s not all right,
But you’re okay because you’re white.”
But that’s not right because I’m not white.
I’m sort of a pasty pinkish beige
So, why is it the rage to say white?
And black? That is usually the wrong tack.
I know people that say they are black
And others yak about black folk
In hateful, racist jokes, but they too
Are not black. They’re color runs from
As light as a cup of milky tea
To the color of a kukui nut.

So what is this black and white crap?
It’s a trap for some who don’t know
What to call other people because
They’re trained to call other people
Some name besides just people.
It has to be what color people
Trained under school bell and steeple
To talk this way and veer away
From the point they are making,
The risk they are taking by seeing
Something else besides a human being.
Instead they focus on something unreal
And therefore manage not to feel.

It’s really so sad, and so demeaning
To zap so much meaning from someone
Who has a life, loves, joys and pain;
Let's remain aloof from giving names
And incorrectly worded colors to them.
Don't pretend that you are being kind
When you teach yourself to be blind
To the beauty and the joy of boys
And girls who are not from your race
And to replace love and opportunity
With fear, suspicion and enmity.
It is quite simply a common tragedy.
Mateuš Conrad May 2017
it begins with saint piran's flag... well, let's just
say that, there ought to be two "offending"
     but classicly marxist, separatists governing bodies
in, what's know as geo-politics...
              upper-class retards think that the people
occupying the home county known as essex
     are, complete idiots...
                        well... hello my "fellow" londoner!
nibble on some rat-****, get a pigeon **** *******
on your top-hat? ****... *******!
               the northerners can't claim, that i'm
a southern fairy... in europe there the north / south
and the east / west divide...
          the southerners seem to prosper, as do easteners...
and likewise...
          essex, and the whole "point" of the south-east...
no... cornwall wan't to be indepedent,
     like the basques in spain...
            and that flag...
     may i make a suggestion to counter the cornwallians?
revert, allow essex to have a teutonic inspired flag
in reverse to yours...
                     i.e. a black crux on a maiden's "body".
living in essex, i've started to become, irritated
by this county becoming a joke fior the whole nation...
like a bunch of indians saying goa in portuguese...
sure, i know: northern monkeys...
                                      wild antics and bits and bobs...
essex has produced snooker champions...
           the other sort of chess-players... the geometricians...
and then the serving geographic is simply quote as:
                sun-tan          orange                "quirky" accent;
and all, from a megapolis that exterminates rats,
                                             but feeds urban pigeons.
in essex? we have woodland pigeons,
   and they look like the very-most pristine theologians,
if not priests...
        and they're fat...
                     blooming... and they have the equivalent of
a dog collar... and sure as ****
      they won't have one their legs, reduced to a stump
with all the claws removed... like an urban pigeon might,
strutting... well... "strutting"... merely limping.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
vänster, samt vad är kvar / left, together with what's left (Sveedish).

i didn't tell you which hemisphere of
the brain was affected, the uncensored region
you might say - unaffected by
αφασια - a fine balancing act:

right*                              |                     ­       left
imagination                                        ­          logic
intuition                                                  langu­ge
insight                                                  reaso­ning
music                                                   arithmetic
art                                           science in general
= Σ, a holistic basin            = Σ, a rat in a maze

so no wonder - the left was pumped up studying
chemistry and not really bothered about
theological-humanism or humanism per se,
arguments came, arguments went,
some argued, some prayed, it was all a bit
like a fiery hoopla thrown in the air with
a dog jumping through it at the same time -
but what i don't understand is how,
certain aspects of knowledge encapsulating
a universal breadth of things are based upon
limitations, limitations that are, after all
the particulars - like Socrates mused,
universally we can all see the stars -
blind men and speech coupled with
imagination are a particular cut-off point,
as i guess are astronauts - star-gazing must
seem rather boring after you've seen the earth
from above like that - never mind the photographs
from up there, won't do it justice -
so let's say we have the above stated schematic of
variations in the hemispheres - why did
i get this adrenaline / steroid boost in language?
the only reason i can think of is that this language
was acquired, it's technically an inorganic part of me,
should it be organic akin to the body it would
have to be spoken to a child in some remote part
of Poland, any haemorrhage is an organic event,
it's this inorganic implant in me that's surfacing
and seems unaffected, rebellious against the body's
change... for a minute there i thought i handled
the whole debate well, now i'm not so sure -
it's this music pounding that's affecting the writing,
sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it wrong,
but the compensation is... it's on digital paper,
i'm not chopping down the Amazon or stealing
other people's toilet paper... language usage based
upon misnomer-ism, a theory that to encompass
a well-intended vocabulary given the depth of
all human vocabulary is a sheer impossibility unless
it be limited, and by being limited invokes
emotional connection to averse reaction via a censor
or without a censor - or was that the expectation
to understand left and right in a classroom with prim
instances of use of thought out immortality and
Japanese perfectionism in the garden? mortal, mistake,
mortal, mistake - and if mortality wasn't bad enough
the insistent lamentations of a would-be-heaven-to-come.
now i can write blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah
like this forever, but i just have a feeling for anymore,
it's this contradictory lamentation of what
adequate language activity is expected of anyone -
or why the qualities of the left are only partially damaged,
and the sudden exponential rush to compulsive
writing, hermit-like-existence and overall boredom
with existence (i hate that in england there's a
distinction between existence and life... existence always
has negative connotations, to me it just means life
in slow-motion- i.e. out of every instance; or?
attention to detail). but it's true, that's how it's spoken
in england - existence bad, life good - or why is it
that both self and ego are used in psychology?
they're no longer proper pronouns, so i guess they can
act as bumper stickers or boxing bags to bash
about because no one is going to write or speak a
sentence using them, well the self is still used more,
no ego-tripping as they say - but you wouldn't
exactly write, so self went to the corner-shop
and bought myself a brimful of asha (forty-five!),
one's german, the other is latin, and we're bashing
these words about with theories, structures
of necessary conviction while using a more fluid
system of pronouns, but we nonetheless kept them
for theoretical purposes, supposing we wouldn't
hurt anyone in the process... why keep both?
it's like two histories colliding - the history of barbaric
invaders from the north with their ram-like
persistence to keep talking, and the southerners who
didn't like the runes and like Greek thought.
i don't know, seems like a bordello in terms of keeping
any language tidy.

p.s. i wonder why, with the right hemisphere being
unaffected i do not experience lucid dreaming...
i guess the brain just said: dreaming is irrational
when justifying a good night's sleep.
Henri Words Feb 2016
China tongue, yes dynasty of tongue
The taste of spicy or none
Welcome you home with eyes open round
Reminder of an oxidized hole of an accient coin
Looks original but didn't live long

Such accent of southerners
Occupied many streets in so called western cities
Representing an old fashioned society not sure if ever existed
A place all Chinese visitors must go
Looking forward to a city but it is just
A seat in a city
Cult of a culture
Architech out of an architecture

Everyone appreciated the precooked food
The fish was alive a week ago
Knowing he had to live till today
They even served tea
Tears of their parents
Who got nothing to eat
After survived sixty days in a small boat
Poor memories served
When they built this
China tongue

And now
A mainlander like me
Trying to take it down prior to
New year eve of the Young

Feb 18, 2015
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
well: who would have thought that the Chemical
Brothers
       have upped their game when it comes
to creating new music...
  
              some artists just become lost if you're
exploring alternative music...
the moment the algorithm puked up a song suggestion
from NO GEOGRAPHY: got to keep on...
i knew i was in for a treat: from the whole album...

what initially drew me to go to that Walter Sickert
exhibition rather than going to an opera?
the madness of crowds for once...
i've heard too much singing: terrible singing
football stadium singing
   to want to torture myself with opera...
although i love opera...
   but... enough of one of the senses being
exploited...
      
   i've recently found this acronym for a personality
type: the Advocate...
when i was young: an Advocaat was a boy's
every Christmas dream...
        i like staring at faces... and at a football stadium
fulfilling the role of minding crowd safety:
no one can tell you to not look at them...
but these faces move...

       most of the time i'm more interested in
the crowd than in the football match...
          but like me in the London tube...
i just stare at people staring up at pointless
adverts...
i sometimes do to... my favourite tube map
is that of the District Line...
    i've love to get a poster of it...
     i live about a 20 minute's cycle ride from Hornchurch
station...
then again: i always overused the Central Line:
what... with living in Gants Hill all those years...

but i rarely go by a Critic's Choice in either the Saturday
or the Sunday edition of the newspaper:
but i have to say... waldemar januszczak
                                    янущaк (there? less consonants
for you; better?!)
                                   sometimes gets it right...
he most certainly got it right with Walter Sickert...
i was looking for something alternative to Munch...

i was looking for someone who "predated":
was the precursor of Francis Bacon...
    because i could never get into Lucian Freud
because my alternative to Lucian was always going
to be Edward Hopper...

hmm... now that i think of it: poetry of opinions...
why poetry of opinions?
         philosophy attempted dialectics...
                once upon a time...
  but these days opinions are easily spewed without
being undermined: discussed...
the firm foundations of the two camps policy of
"argument": neither side allowing either
to mould each other...
the discussion is entered and left without
anything being achieved on a Socratic level of:
persuasion... or a change of mind...

hence? my poetry of opinions...
            we've got to try... that's a banger of a track...

no... i couldn't expose my ears to my sound...
i needed something visual...
the clarity of silence of an art exhibition:
an art exhibition that you have to pay extra for...
i tried to watch the people in the exhibition,
two girls tried to get my attention...
but the minute i walked in and saw the earliest
out by Sickert i knew i was in for a treat...
the self-portraits threw me into a kaleidoscope
of: this... this reminds me of someone...

Francis Bacon! i love how art just passed down
a certain signature... a technique from
one individual to another...
because it's not like an art school technique:
the school of Florence etc.:
with those pristine paintings...
   the schools disintegrated... individuals emerged...
those pristine paintings were bound to
disappear with the emergence of photography...

they had to... no wonder painters had to make
things a litter bit more "mysterious": blurry:
almost childish like Picasso or van Gogh...
well: elevated childish...
               but none the less:
   nothing like the "photograph" quality of
Renaissance paintings...
the photograph killed off that sort of painting...
why, would anyone bother
to paint like that if you can take a photograph:
it obviously doesn't carry the same
aesthetic "quality": concern...

                     but... let's face it...
distortion worked much better than any sense
of pristine Apollonian architecture of the jawline
or hands: oculus per oculus: eye for an eye:
but more: like for like...
painting is not architecture...
   it's not engineering...

     sure... there might be some basic schematic
involve: Sickert exposed the use of a square
grid from time to time in his paintings...
Francis Bacon most certainly used geometry of some
sort to find his bearings where
otherwise would gush blood / paint / *****...
but it's not cubism... and it's not certainly
anything akin to *******...

but i needed those 40 minutes' worth of walking
around: with a grin on my face...
if i went to an opera i'd probably cry...
i felt like grinning... i wanted my eyes to eat
something... with each blink i was trying to...

obviously i bought a memorandum of the exhibition:
it cost more than the actual ticket
but... as i've found... certain works of art
look: feel... completely different in real life
than if they are replicated and copied into a book...
you can't simply scan an oil painting and get
the same results of impression the painting has...
there's always that 3D aspect of looking
at the same painting from different angles...

i have to say... whoever curated the exhibition
managed to get the lighting wrong...
light from above doesn't always work...
i had to appreciate some of the works looking at then
sideways... i was looking at the lighting...
then at the painting... then at the lighting...
then at the painting... i was almost slow dancing
around them: my feet were performing some
weird version of Tai Chi...

      one of the Camden Town ****** works initially
prompted me: as seen in the critic's choice
article...
i knew something was up... there was that initial
resemblance of giving birth to Francis Bacon...

oh hell no... i wasn't there to pick up a girl...
i was literally: authentically there for the art...
but i'm pretty sure most of the people in that exhibition
weren't there for the art...
body language: if they can't entertain solipsism
for at least 20 minutes... the art works become less
interesting... they're looking around like they're
lost the plot or regret paying the money...
you know the art is not really important...

add a grin to that... freak...

          ah... welcome thoughts...
                 those ought i's and i wills...
                      finally... some peace...
that last shift at the FA cup final among the Liverpool
fans... great people! all northerners are
great people... the southerners have a massive
stick of authority shove up their *****...
    esp. in London: this... celebrated no geography
crowd...

      but i seriously thought i was standing next
to the Big Ben gongs come noon...
my ears felt fuzzy...
      they were the consistency of vibrating static...
a bit like drilling into a concrete slab
with a pneumatic drill...
      peace... just some peace... some paintings...
once upon a time i had ambitions to become
a painter...
       writing's cheaper...
    and... well: it freer to the imagination:
it's more... mandible... jaw-like...
          it makes conversations with random strangers
more entertaining...
you need to have a specific focus to paint
what you already see...
   when i write: i haven't said anything:
most of the time i write without even having
a premeditative thought: well...
there might be something initial...
but the narrative flow-through is hardly
premeditated...
i like to be surprised...
                hell: i'm always surprised!

- but like i was saying to "someone" today...
"someone": maybe that's why mothers and sons
and sons and father and whoever is blood-related
don't get along so well, is because,
nothing ******-related friction...
nothing weird... because because just become
comfortable, boring enough to have to start
breeding a new generation...

i've found that i've become more and more
inquisitive... and if any signs of dementia kick
in... i'll be? in Amsterdam... ingesting
some magic mushrooms...
right now alcohol is hardly debilitating...
or subduing / pacifying me...
it's actually invigorating me...
it's a tonic!

          so i was saying: and i too would love to
watch more foreign language movies:
with subtitles... but for some strange: ******* reason...
this "genius" entertained the idea
that subtitles ought to be placed at the BOTTOM
of the screen!
  not even the Mandarin write from bottom
up!
   they write from up to bottom!

  the vertical line is drawn from the top down...
rather than from the bottom: up...
this "genius" must have been left-handed...
you get such a better focus on what's happening:
if you just moved the subtitles to the top of
the screen: because it's easier to look down
than to look up after reading a text of translation!

it's this little incy-wincy detail that keeps bothering
me...
      there ought to be a revision:
subtitles ought to be replaced with supra-titles...
at the moment we're watching foreign movies
in the format of chemistry, e.g.
        H₂O...

but we should be watching said movies
in the format of mathematics... e.g.
    Pythagorean... c² = a² + b²

let's call ₂ & ² script: irrespectively...
                   and the "algebra" the images before our
eyes... what would be easier?
looking up then looking down...
or... looking down and then... looking up?!

even the Mandarin barons didn't write from
bottom to top...

slow internet connection stresses me out...
well... £20 for 40 minutes' worth of an art exhibition
or... £120... for 1h (wow! the indefinite
article simply disappears... when you write
it like  that)
                     with a *******...

                             that really does depend...
what horse the modern woman is riding on...
i'm going to ride my horse to death
to eat itself...

that's why nudes of artists sort of bore me...
once you'vre ****** in front of a mirror...
nudes... artistic impressions...
bore me...
            i want to paint the mirror that
like the walls: seen more... heard more
than the average culmination of antics
might appease...

                        i want to paint clouds...
i want to paint cauliflowers as clouds...
and clouds as cauliflowers...
  i want to paint mirrors...
i want to paint glass...
                  and i also want to paint
the contortions of ***...
                  i want to paint trains:
i don't want to wait for them...
            i want to paint rain: i don't won't to
adorn an anorak...
                  i want to paint the sewage works...
but i don't want to paint
taking a ****...

   sober up come 10:30am?
              well... i won't be goose-marching...
that's for sure...
      i'll put on my Thespian mask
and just pretend that i haven't drunk 70cl of
whiskey the night before...
i'll sit in the sunshine and bake... sour...
cabbage-head-reach for sanity...
pretend to: juggle earth, the sun and moon.
Jack Staub Mar 2014
I may not be an author- or a poet,
But when I scrawl these words down on paper-
Or type stories on my cracked, 14 year old laptop,
And get up at 5:30 for the sole purpose of furthering my career,
I feel like a **** good one,
I Sip on a warm cup of coffee,
Spawn characters that shout out, “Hey Jack, that ain’t me!”
When I forget that I can’t use Samuel Chayner in a way
I could use any other of my creations,
Because they’re all different,
With many facets to make every one original,
Because in my mind, I can be the best author,
Or the best poet,
When I sail on open sea,
Taste the salt water and smell the fresh shrimp,
I can hunt for a colossal wail,
Call me Ishmael,
But as I start to dream up another world,
Where artificial intelligence was created
In the early twentieth century,
Where these barbaric southerners
Don’t know what to do with such
High-tech automatons, but to make a quick buck,
Where I can make my own family,
With their own disputes,
Of whether to go to college in 1910,
But the mother might lose her son,
Her one true friend,
Who could hold her when she was sad,
Who would simultaneously be her sweet little baby,
But she won’t accept it;
She won’t bury her decomposing son,
Because she doesn’t have the heart to bury him alive,
Or because, in my mind, they are my playthings,
I could have the mother move along,
Try for another child,
But this is my mind, and I am the author.
Robert C Ellis Jul 2016
Gin soaked parchment paper, robbed of  words
wrung red from split fingernails guiding,
sliding back and fro
to the irrhythm of distended lobes misfiring  
a useless tome, of uninteresting characters
and the sun that burns them crisp, their lips tiring
cigarettes in the candy dish
the southerners, wrenching wrists about their red clay alleys,
the tinted beer glass stashing tobacco juice  
their words playing loose with the sanctimony of animals, raccoon paws
and muskodine snaps and the rusting 1953 Crosley metal lawn chair
rocking away the synapse.
Bob B Aug 2017
Isn't English fun to learn--
Especially spelling and pronunciation?
It's hard enough for native speakers
And is the cause of a lot of frustration!

Think of female deer, does,
And then the form of "do," "does."
Consider the "a-s" found in "as"
And how it is pronounced in "was."

We have ears on our heads.
Add a "b" and you've got "bears."
There's also "e-a-r" in "earth."
And a funny "e-i" found in "heirs."

Look up and see a star.
Add an "e" and you've got "stare."
That is not so hard perhaps.
But why does "stare" rhyme with "where"?

"Say" is easy to say, all right.
But add an "s" and you've got "says."
But if you add an "s" to "hay,"
You do not pronounce it "hez"!

Back to "where," which rhymes with "air."
But look at the "e-r-e" in sphere.
"I" before "e" except after "c"…
But what about the weird word "weir"?

"Tough" and "though" are always fun.
Then there's "through" and "ought" and "drought."
Don't forget to drop the "b"
When you say both "debt" and "doubt."

Throw in apostrophes,
And English teachers really have fits
When they are used for writing plurals
Or when "it's" is used for "its."

Forget all the silent letters
In words like "write," "knot," and "pneumonia."
If you said, "I made the rules,"
I'd have to say, "I disown ya!"

It wouldn't work to try to write
All the words phonetically,
For Easterners and Southerners
Don't say all the words like me.

For many years I've been around English--
Hearing, speaking, discerning it,
Exploring its countless nuances.
I guess I'll always be learning it.

-by Bob B (8-28-17)
Poe Reimer Oct 2016
I live in the Yukon with all of my mates.
My grand folks moved north from the You Fried It States
It could be worse.  Got food?  You'll do fine,
but it gets kind of warm past the north B.C. line.
Some get the bug for Tierra del Fuego.
They pack their bags, wait for fall, and then say go.
But, far as I know, the most capable band
lost their resolve after 2 months of sand.
It could well be a several century wait
'til we paddle across the Darien Strait
and finally discover the southerners’ fate.
We probably need equatorial seas
to simmer back down to ninety degrees.
Tony Sep 2019
My forehead is raw meat

and ketchup makes my hair sticky.



Do they build hospitals

the same as refrigerators?



I will say these Southerners

are not the best waiters,



but at least they smile pearly

when they come into my room.
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
for however much i'd like to glorify the glorious wintry
months...
   and i must: glorify the winter:
for those splendours of the almost eternal nights...
as if i were living on the Faroe Islands or elsewhere
in that sort of dynamic of light...
   the biting cold: like the pinching of ***** on your skin...
or the frost, ice... one pavement at night...
tilting your head from left to right...
exposing a "red carpet" of paparazzi flashing of
the camera with ice particles lodged in the cracks...
but...
there's nothing quiet like waking up naturally
in May with the sunrise...
   even though you've set your alarm clock for 7am...
you wake up naturally with the light rising
at around 6am... almost like someone who is about
to go into the field and use a scythe to cut down
shafts of wheat...
    i find no compromise in that feeling...
i don't even mind the insects busying themselves
with a daily activity of "business": esp. if they're not bees...
even flies don't bother me ******* out their
maggot juices into steaming crops of garbage...
not when i wake up naturally with the sunrise...
i abhor alarm clocks: it's so unnatural to wake up
to their dictates: well... the dictates you yourself have set
up... besides the point...
alarm clocks should only be used during the winter
months... in the spring and summer months...
you shouldn't be sleeping with your blinds closed...
the light should wake you up:
calmly: gradually... no one want to be woken up
with a cold shower... in shock: subsequently looking
for a caffeine fix... to equilibrate... his bewildered
circumstance... best to fall asleep with the blinds open:
allowing the sunshine to creep in...
slowly ungluing your eyes...

        - and i don't mean this as some sort of
"neo-****" joke... the maxim above Auschwitz:
arbeit mach frei...
    that work sets you free...
        you must first spend your 20s locked up in
an ivory tower of creativity...
you must truly become isolated from people...
learn and relearn to have two legs to stand on:
two hands to wave and point with...
two eyes and a least one tongue to waggle...
    Bukowski famously wrote about the drudgery of work...
am i going to be the first person who will
write about work with pleasure?

even today: i don't understand why the stereotype of
northerners is so harsh by "us" southerners...
today? Sunderland vs. Wycombe Wanderers...
i was working the vomitory on the Sunderland side
of the affair...
well... there is one stereotype that rings true
about northerners... the Mancunians...
i actually don't like people from Manchester...
that demonym: borrowed from demographic...
is already unappealing...
i like the words Scouser... Geordie...
  but a Mancunian is a lying **** of a coo-nigh-ain...
i don't know why...
it's this pride-vibe relating to Mancunians
feeling themselves superior to anyone from Liverpool
or Newcastle of Sunderland...

fair enough, i was chewing my gum...
three Sunderland lads came into my vicinity...
one asked: what politeness... aye aye... you couldn't
try to get a YES... but? no chance...
aye aye...
                  great conversations...
but then one sneezed and his snot-phlegm landed
on my trousers...
i opened my mouth and started to chew
the chewing gum by also exposing my teeth...
i was sort of trying to hide the fact that...
hey! mate! why not as well ******* your *****
onto my tie while you're at it!

Bukowski wrote about the drudgery of work...
as a postman... delivering letters...
i don't expect he had to deal with old men
filing complaints about people ahead of them
in the stands standing up...
i had two neurotic old men today...
why are they standing up! blah blah, blah blah...

but these northerners... thank **** i lived among
the Scots for 3 years... i sort of know what to expect...
the loveliest sorts...
and the women? unlike southern girls...
so approachable... likeable.. curvy...
if it isn't a girl from Liverpool kissing your cheek...
then it's probably a girl from Sunderland
coming up to you: grabbing your beard...
stroking it...
      like i'm going to turn into a ******* leprechaun
and have my hear patted...
or turn into a hunchback of Notre Dame
and have my hunch stroked for good luck...
all: in good humour...

a goal is scored and the fans don't start hugging
other fans... just these "*******": traffic-cones
in high-viz. vests...
  
        i don't think this is work: to begin with...
maybe that's why i like writing about it...
maybe that's why this isn't drudgery...
    then again: the peace and quiet of delivering
letters... spam... with the email around...
                   maybe i just love people too much...
but i kept it hidden...
but why is it... that the further north you go:
the girls become prettier...
sure... they might be slightly on the chubby side...
what's that saying from high-school?
ah ha ha... ahem... ahem...
more-cushion'-for-the-pushin'...
        
after all... what was the trend back in post-medieval times?
the more blub on a girl the more attractive
she became...
    i could work around that...
ask long as her fat *** matches up to...
her fat *******...

eye-contact... hugs... getting my beard stroked...
i think that if my... "i think":
when my parents finally kick the bucket
i'll be thinking about moving up north...
Liverpool... Newcastle... i don't think i'll be able
to stomach London on my own...
i just love the people from up north...
so far: so good...

and it's almost funny... living in London for so long...
England really is a...
racial homogeneity...
                     maybe that's why i'm so relate-able...
pacifier...
             fair-enough: it's "not fair"...
                         not by the colour of the skin
but by the judgement of the character...
   honestly?
                   i find this statement morphed a little:
since it predicates that somehow white people
have a bad character...
but even the copper necks know this is a farce...
at least the ones that appreciate that
that narrative spewed by the masochistic whites
of a liberal persuasion is off the ******* planet!

like today: one Egyptian? Persian...
oh no... no a copper neck... more Aryan looking...
in the original sense of the word
asked the supervisor: can i work with him?
obviously i was assigned a chubby girl...
i still would... if she just slapped some make-up
on and did her hair in a style that didn't resemble
Shiva's head-knot... i still would...

i become tired: i become *****...
    i was walking home today... bought some lunch
for tomorrow... drank a cider... smoke a cigarette...
finally! life!
         work is not work but a hobby!
interacting with people after my dreaded hiatus!
anger management... of some truly neurotic people...
goose-fra-b'ah...
    go to bed quarter to 12am... wake up with the sunrise
come 6am... take a shower... fiddle with shoelaces...
shine those same shoes...
drink a coffee... attire myself with at least
7 different chemical substances...
turning impatient about Monday and painting
the fence... a glorious burn of auburn brown...

when my parents will pass-off... hmm...
i think i'll move up north...
the houses are cheaper up there...
    not that London bores me...
         but... there's too much of London
to even begin getting bored of it...
i feel the north of England calling me...
with each kiss on the cheek by a gal from Liverpool
by every stroke of the beard
by a gal from Sunderland...

     almost like a dog: doesn't anyone and everyone
require a feeling of being loved?
i think these northern gals are really
"conservative" in that they're not this global /
cosmic circus of poly-ethnicities coming together...
i think that's where the true England
is at... i want to explore it...

   i kind of like being showed these little showcasing
of a stranger's love for a stranger...
i didn't have to be kissed... on the cheek...
i didn't have to have m beard being adored...
with strokes... of a woman's hand...
my god... her hand felt s hot on my biceps...
by now i don't care whether or not she was
a ******* the BIG side...
        of "things": details...
            
         if i could salvage the life of a beached whale:
i would... like my grandfather taught me:
there are not ugly women in this world:
there are only abandoned women...
by abandoned women?
what did he imply?
   women who... have been underappreciated
by men...
                  even if she's a tease of chubby...
but she has milk skin...
  it's a walk-through...

i'm working but i'm not working...
   not at this rate... hugs, kisses... etc.
             half of me is watching the match... half is so disinterested
in it: since half of me has seen so much of that coliseum
*******: i want more! faces! circus! bread!

i think i'm going to relax...
sleep with my cat... i think i'll just do that...
go to bed come 12am... wake up at 6am...
sure... it would be great to have ****** prior...
i'm free throughout the rest of the week...
the brothel calls...

and here was me worried:
£1700+ savings on one account...
£900+ savings on another account...
    and do i have to worry about paying off a mortage?
last time: i heard the resounding echo of: NO...
so...
             investments in books...
in banknotes... stamps...
                              
             i'm sort of cured of caring for money...
i like earning money...
for: what i find to be: **** all...
because the money i earn goes into art galleries
or prostitutes...
while i pay off my life debts for food by doing
household DIY chores...

the basics that life allows:
hardly going fishing... hardly any fish in the matter...
all the better.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2019
youtube channels...
northern ******* monkeys...
shaun vs.
the iconoclast...
what?! i've integrated,
"you" suddenly get to tell
me that regional
differences,
   or regional
          nuances,
or regional biases,
somehow, don't matter?
i thought that integration
was inclined
to follow your "in-bred"
biases... no,
that was never on the table
with the playing deck of cards?
the **** do the english want
within the reasonable constraints
of integration,
or a fellow european,
oh, right... the lazy intervention
description of pakistani,
i.e. ****-,
            that will suffice?
good good...
      i'm back in the early 2000s,
with a song like
hold on by limp bizkit...
because i just know
that an ******* dysfunction
wouldn't work
with grooming gangs
and ******* teenage girls...
i'm not a moralist...
i tend to find legally binding
women off-putting,
******* with a bulgarian
*******? no problem.
i just hate being lectured
all the ******* time...
savvy?
          i might have been
misinformed,
but, now? no, no....
               can't have a chance
to make the appropriate
statement, "mate" / "bruv"...
i hate to inact a sense
of reacting with a remark
for inappropriate scandal
fathoming...
       so i was supposed
to integrate, but
then not integrate into intra-national
"taboos"
      of the southerners
moaning about northerners...
oh...
   integration is the prime aspect
of simply learning the language...
and the rest is just:
monkey fairy: *****-nilly?
that's how it works?
  you integrate to the point
of passing a spelling test,
but you don't integrate
into the fathomability
of intra-national biases...

   the **** do you "actually" want?
you don't know, do you?
i lick some cymru,
i spend 3 years in scotland,
and i'm still expected
to conform to the existential
"concerns" of someone
running away from Bristol
& Devon?!

         wow! just, wow!
do i compliment the audacity,
or just tame the stupidity?
you know...
in terms of a mind-****,
i'll sooner spend 2 hours
staring at a *******
      washing machine...
than listen to this current,
diatribe...
         so i "integrated"...
but now the locals are
"finding" problems associated
with the other integration
prospects...
    
         they are still prospects...
integration was not the willingness
to run 110m hurdles,
but jump the 8m high jump event...
and they never allowed
themsleves to retain
their mother-tongue...

             point of interest:
i have to be diagnosed as
a problematic individual,
i have to be deemed a schizophrenic...
it's much easier that way...
sure as **** i'm not
a grooming **** overlord...
but i need to be a problem...
**** me,
given the current climate in england,
you experience something
esque resembling "god"?
you're a problem,
     i'm used to that,
i always thought that sort
of experience would always
assure itself to be made revelled
in, in paradoxes...  
"god",
you're not off the hook,
you're more so: forever suspect...
esp.,
if there's no clarifying agenta
of sharing interests to over-state
the experience, and subsequent
markers...

i could have integrated into
an english society,
but sooner, rather than later,
i realized that...
that, that wasn't what i was
integrating into...
  i wasn't integrating into anything...
great idea,
but... no...
         from under the iron
curtain, toward the curtain of jack...
n'ah...
  power hierarchy...
   unless you want to ask
some of my "imaginary" voice
attaché subscripts...
          
   during the times when
a madman has more sanity to boot,
than some adherent
of sanity, with no madness' worth
of intent...
       i should have never smoked
marijuana those 12 years ago...
but at least the whiskey is taxed...

integrating into a foreign culture,
by simply speaking the language...
that's the base requirement...
but then...
   ah... ha ha...
     local cultural requirements...
see... this is the language
of the natives...
   but where are the tattoos
of the natives, dates,
geogrpahic nuances,
     biases...

         not 'ere...
      i'm a sponge of a person,
i succumb toward that itches
right, feeling is beyond this tier
of integration.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2022
i was rereading poem no. 11 from Ovid's
first book of ****** poems...
a bookmark? 100 rouble banknote...
hmm... i know the Slavic practises of women
who enjoy literature...
they enjoy "mummifying" flowers
in their books...
    me? i managed to mummify a spider...
the ****** crawled into the pages
to dry out...
              LAWINA LAWINA...
the chant before the opening song
of a gig by Łąki Łan... AVALANCHE...
LAWINA! LAWINA! AVALANCHE!

listen! LISTEN! to the people!
that's all you need to do... listen....
to the people!

i ******* hate the English and their
supposed: technicians of all the languages
of the world...
their... pish-poor skills at skiing
and etymology...
   SLAV... is simply short of an E?
and GERMAN? missing a MAN?
with missing S for GERMS?
what's ARAB?
                                 GRAB?!

                 i get ******* over the simplest
of "problems":
they're not problems...
but i get ******* about them...
because they're problem akin
to saying: blue is red...
and the English are prone to be megalomaniac
in their two-face-one-sidedness!

as much as i love the English:
i hate them...
because i've orientated myself
to live alongside them...
even i know that the English distinguish
the "English" among themselves...
the northerners are monkeys
and the southerners are fairies...

the Welsh are ****** and the Scots are
Scootch...
  while i'm translating myself
as an Anglo-Slav...
               hybrid cause... excuse me please...
i'm just not among my own people...
the ancient fable of the three brothers:
brothers Chex...
                (Czech)...
Lach... (Lax) and Rus...

           right... so this in-warring in the Slavic
worlds is a major ******* problem?
where was Afghanistan... Iraq...
Libya?! the best cricket season ever?!

funny "thing": **** Germany...
and... the concept of Arianism...
                   ever heard of the Sarmatians?
the Iranian tribe of people who settled
in Poland? the area of land preoccupied
by the migration of storks and European Bison?

"they're" not "my" people:
  but there's this echoing of time...
a furore...
             a condescending part-past-present...
there's this launch of the Harbinger of the Demiurge!

Nazis... fake... Aryans...
attacking actual Aryans?!
for the sowing of the sorrows of all
our deaths... may they come before
we least expect them...
i have no demands
of the Russians...
                       just some from the FSA...

some sanity... please... some sanity...
you're no longer the "USA"...
you're the FSA...
you're the Federal State of America.,.
i agree: a ****** acronym...
but... truer... than what you're used to...

your etymological malpractice
created a spontaneity in me
i wished would never be born...
****** ****** ++,
i.e. *******... seirously: *******...
or i'll eat you...

i feel what i think:
i think that... i feel like:
the sound of chainsaw...
and your bones... readily itemised!
i feel like... something being
dealt a proper "scrutiny"...
        i want to make someone
sick of thought...
           i want to reinvent glue...
hmm...
            perhaps i want the pan-Slavic
reinvention?
          of... let's... no no..
let's not re-try Communism...
                                    
current people are such ******* *******...
current people are: bo-ri-ri-ring...
then again: maybe almost everyone was...
maybe we've been entertained too much
to know the difference between between
being entertained and not ieng entertained
and having drinking water /
fire to keep warm...

music is less music
if you can replace it with the SOUND
of wind or that of water...
or that of fire....
start calling MUSIC: VIBRATION...
              
i ought to know... the Demiurge is ******!
we're not sitting pretty...
we're sitting... pretty: ******* ugly...
i'm having my last: my last: everlasting fun...
if i'm wrong? fair enough:
but i'll be dead anyway.

we! "we"! we were the "original" Aryans
of the European continent...
the place where the Samartians settled...
unlike the myth of the Russians
and the Swedes founding Kiev...
hell... the English have their Anglo-Saxon
myths... so... why can't i have mine?!

no... not: Samaritans...
SARMATIANS!
                            ARYANS...
an Iranian tribe that lived on the banks
of the Vistula...
where i'm from...
well... so much for defining yourself
as not being historically confined to
the origins in Iran by simply killing Hebrews...
ha ha...
so much for blonde hair...
and... the current currency of anti-racism
with the women entertaining BLACK-OH...
i don't care...
i'm sort of looking up for the New-Brazil...
of copper-neck skinned
beauties...
more white in her than black...
i mean... loss of thick ***...
loss of thick nose... loss of thick lips...
+++...
                      but the curly hair?
that's there...
                                    what?! problem?!
and when did a horse ask to **** a donkey...
wait...
when did a wolf ask to **** a spandex...
variation of a "would-be" labrador:
lab-rat root of what would become a...
******* Dachshund...
which would later become
a *******: break my bones! break 'em!
break em! let's create a Dobermann!

or is that, in reverse?!
time... seems... in-reversible...
  all the better... i'd abhor having to deal with
repeats of someone already having said:
ecce ****.
the durability, longevity, and tenacity of **** sapiens,
after screaming headlines report one after another atrocity.

How did the human species manage to survive
with many means
of self destruction at their disposal?

Atomic stockpiles nothing
but ticking time bombs,
and prior to advent regarding
weapons of mass destruction,
the histories of civilizations
replete with one after another
ingenious modus operandi
for opposing forces
resorting to horrendous
feats of killing each other.

I especially mention after reading
(for the second time)
This Hallowed Ground,
(which would probably
be banned by Republican party
of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a
subtle plug for aforementioned book)
written by Bruce Catton,
a prolific author
whose specialty constitutes

American Civil War era;
both antebellum and postbellum,
the latter a radically
transformed geographic area
of thee contiguous United States
begat twenty first century
disenfranchisement between
descendents of Northern European settlers
and persons of color African ancestors.

Fierce internecine warfare
(impossible mission for
yours truly to comprehend
such ****** hatred between
Northerners and Southerners)
infused each Yankee
and so called Johnny
with unimaginable vitriol.

Structural racism born
linkedin to manumission,
which institution of slavery
(the bedrock of king cotton industry)
divested plantation owners
their chattel (persons of color)
as purported property.

Hierarchical caste system
(of the down) of sorts
alive and well from sea to shining sea,
where gerrymandering disallows
representative government,
which invariably means
ways to sabotage opportunities
for people of color
and other minorities
reduced to an inescapable disadvantage.

Blatant inequality (and/or ambiguity
promising select subsets
of the original thirteen colonies
life, liberty and pursuit of happiness)
baked into original
Declaration of Independence,
and Constitution, fomenting
violent upheaval tearing society
four score and seven years

after the founding fathers
sought autonomy severely testing
nearly fracturing the fragile
then still nascent republic
experimenting with democracy
mainly for the vested gentry,
an exclusively male club,
even further limited to
land owners with sprawling plantations.

Some Anti Abolitionists (more prevalent
north of the Mason-Dixon line)
verging on the extreme as
"bleeding heart liberal"
longed to foster freedom for the oppressed
whose shrill voice expedited
impacted (my presumption)
chain of events that triggered
vis a vis expansion of human beings
with noticeably more melanin in their skin
concerning the territories
that had not yet become states general,
and salvo of first shot at Fort Sumter,
Charleston South Carolina in particular.

Quite a few generations elapsed
since the bloodiest carnage
until the first World War,
(and subsequent global mortal kombat)
wrought a death toll
exceeding 520,000 American fatalities
presaging the Civil Rights Movement,
yet even today (June 16th, 2023),
a great disparity of privilege
more or less guaranteed
to Caucasian males unless
an individual representative
(outside that arbitrary skin color)
gifted academically, artistically,
athletically, et cetera.

— The End —