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Keenon Brice Jan 2016
tap into the line of grief
-  Receiving this message. Recieving messages. Intense and deep. It running through me like a shock. A primal instinct. A knowing.

- last night i dreamt that your face fell apart
- last night i dreamt your came came apart
- in broad day light i dreamt your face fell apart
- in broad day light i dreamt your face came apart

- just when i thought there was no saving me, your mother invites me to join the family chorale of shrieks in response to a baby garter snake (on the porch)
i am unimpressed
calls me out to the porch to look at a snake
i am unimpressed
would i really be concerend?
everyone knows i'm a snake

you (momma) call me out to
you invite me to witness the 3 headed spetacle of a baby garter snake and your daughter trapping it by its tail
"someone **** it"

you invite me to the family event of killing the baby garter snake on the porch
it looks innocent to me
do you expect me to be impressed
afraid?
we all know i'm a (the) snake
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2022
I.

i sometimes sit down and wish a poem could write itself...
i've recently inspected the output of a.i. writing
systems...
    there were three examples...
                           i must say: i felt unimpressed...
                               i hardly think that computer can substitute
the careless ingenuity of man in the realm of writing:
careless? i hardly take myself seriously...
                                  i would sooner be found dead than
rewriting anything i write....
                    i've become so good at it that: even when drunk...
i make very little spelling mistakes: if any? on purpose...
as a joke... and typos are never apparent...
but i sometimes sit down and wish a poem could write itself...
i'm just too comfortable: strapped to the memory-cinema
i'm watching in my head...
   like that one movie where i was a supervisor at an Ed Sheeran
concert... had 16 stewards under me:
had a "problem" with only one...
               how i fed them free burgers and because i fed
them they managed to follow my rules: which i didn't even
have to dictate... because i was constantly vigilant of them...
constantly walking my stretch of the stadium
and peeping in... no one was on their phones...
no one... no one was out of position... no one...
                thank you grandpa Joseph for teaching me
how to be human with humans and not to allow
authority and power to go and start ego-tripping...
because: at the end of the day? as a supervisor?
                you're beneath the stewards... you need to...
keep them in check by following a humbled demeanor...
they're supposed to be in positions...
toilet breaks: don't be silly... this is not prison...
you don't ask for one: you just go...
     but... you want water? you want coffee?
sure... let me know... and i'll bring it for you...
obviously i can't go to the toilet for you...

     ever the eternal anti-****: ARBEIT MACHT FREI...
if that slogan was not scribbled as a sign before
the entrance to Auschwitz... but since it was...
                             i'm sticking to it... **** it... i'm stealing it...
says someone who was out of work /
in and out of work... but constantly writing for 10 years
dealing with psychiatrists... it's... refreshing...
i'm perhaps the most sane individual out there:
and i've come across a few crazies and oddities of man
as example and woman as example:
the neurotic types are easily spotted:
guys like me? diagnosed as having a psychotic complex:
we're harder to spot...
Polacks are like the Irish and what Freud said
about the Irish: almost impossible to psychoanalyse...
the psychiatrists i was working with:
about three at one time... and several medical
students too... gave up on me when i started
telling them: i'm arming myself with reading Kant,
Heidegger and Kierkegaard...
        and Jung and R. D. Laing...
                        what can you offer me?
             back in circa 2016 they let me out into
society... free as a bird... to... perhaps wreck havoc...

mind you... if a former supervisor worked with
some unruly girls... these unruly girls?
working with me? became subservient...
perhaps girls don't like other girls telling them what
to do... perhaps it takes a male approach...
oh sure... the unruly girls were attractive...
i almost think they fancied me too...
this one Somali plump blessing with extended
eyelashes just smiled her idiotically sweet smile
at me whenever i approached her and asked
her if she was happy...
    
she was annoyed by this other girl
  who kept criticising her for taking toilet breaks...
blah blah... in the end i asked her:
do you want to be moved?
yes... so i moved her... switched her around...
check-mate move... since moving her
coupling her with a very astute young gent
ambitious... i had management come up to me
and tell me that the two of them were
doing a great job getting people to pitch-side...

now... i find this to be mediocre writing...
i appreciate the fact that this is mediocre writing...
there's no fictional escapism...
all these words like supervisor... steward...
crowd safety... but as i once suggested:
we're trying to prevent another Manchester Arena
Bombing... aren't we?
     writing this i'm trying to stress...
some of us have to be vigilant... it's not a terribly
technical job... dealing with people: with crowds...
i think it's a joke-job... compared to roofing
or compared to landscaping... working on the aesthetics
of the garden... i treat it as a joke-job...

sure... i stole once... or twice... the most memorable theft
was... a Queens of the Stone Age c.d. from
W. H. Smiths... Songs for the Deaf...
i just took out the c.d. casually... i wanted the thrill...
i just took out the c.d. out of the case
and stashed it in a book i was then reading...
walked out... burned it... oddly enough returned
it at some other W. H. Smiths outlet
at Liverpool St.

do i think of myself as a good person?
   oh no, no no... i rather start with: i'm vile...
then work my way up...
                  i like the idea that i'm short-tempered
and that i need to keep that in check...
i might be 6ft2... but my temper is a midge-***
i let ride my shoulders coming in at 4ft1...
it's almost like... i age... but having a memory of myself
as a child... i'm dragging the me as a child
to the grave with me...
i'm only 36 now... at the zenith...
it's going to become ugly from now...

hence the memory-cinema i'm re-watching...
perhaps my life has become more interesting for any need
for movies... movies have started to bore me...
music is being stretched...
it's still my "protein"... but...
the search results are coming back blank...
i.e. i've heard this song before...

i tried to stop myself going crazy over this one
mixed-race girl... pristine... pale tinged by brown
skin... but... CURLY... CURLES of hair like
waves of an ocean of twists and turns of a river...
doe: pale brown eyes...
            young... oh... much younger than me...
again: once fed... very much content...
                                              which made my life all
the more easier...

II.

there are moments like this, they're hard to find...
but they're there...
i sometimes abhor man's pretenses for hoarding
past artifacts... but... sometimes i have to praise them...
what? the artifacts or the tactic of being so mortally
dead that one requires elements from the past
to be shoved into the immortal future?!
probably both...

an amalgamation of poem 10 from Ovid's book I
of the ****** poems... smoking... drinking...
while listening to KORTEZ's stare drzewa
   (old trees)...
                           some people have children and create
families and have beautiful moments...
as families...
  some people...
i thought about it... perhaps India is the Mecca
of cooking... with all her spices...
but... what are the pillars of the culinary endeavour?

fire...
            water...
                        ­      salt...
                                           hmm...
                                                          time..­.
yeast?! no really...
   you can make flat breads...

fire: water: salt: time: there must be something else
that's essential to cook food...
i need a refill... i'll take a 10 minute break and think
about it...

sooner than that!
   i just walked down the stairs to refill my cup with
ice-cubes... blitzkrieg!
breaking away from English looking for
a word in my mother's tongue:

tɫuszcz!  tɫuщ!   fat!
        tɫo! (canvas)

what are the culinary pillars?!
fire, water, salt, time & fat!

ogień, woda, sól, czas i tɫuszcz

doesn't it take 5 minutes to boil an egg for a soft-boil?!
you need water... to boil it... ergo... you need fire...
to boil it...
you want to fry an egg? you need fire...
and fat... to fry it in... since... you can't fry an egg
in water...
and with salt? osmosis... you want excess water
to be drawn out of foods that have no sweet juices
to be drawn out for a concentrate of taste
to be leftover... you don't put salt on fruits...
because... they are juicy...
but you put salt on vegetables because...
they are without juice...
but adding salt to them tenders their flesh...
so that they... become sweeter...
               i'm not a scientist... i was born yesterday...
i don't need arithmetically correct explanations
when i'm digging for awe...

but these are the five pillars of the art of cooking:
water, fire, salt, time & fat...

III.

and do think... the Roman equivalent of 3 (III)
is oh so similar to the Cyrillic Ш
either an "W" or a lying, lazy E....
while the shch (szcz) Щ is only a -sh-
  with an addition of a comma...
as a diacritical detail Щ = Ш + ,
   (makeshift Hebrew Yod)...
pause or interruption?!
                                 but "my" people don't say
SHA... they just utter -SH-...
               i wish i could ask St. Cyril and St. Methodius
about the "other" Щ -
the common excavated -ść
via examples like: dość (enough!)
świt: sunrise...
                    words escape me...
          in my mind:
they're escaping my mind like birds:
like sparrows in their highest flight...

     kość - bone...

hmm... there was something here i was
supposed to excavate... not this... this is but a side-note...
let me unravel my "thinking"...
this spaghetti entanglement...
ah! now i know... i need to keep it fresh
in my mind... sometimes it happens...
a poems lies dormant for centuries...
then a reader happens to read the poem while
listening to some piece of music...
and his life... coincides with the poem...
and the music gives up its double emphasis...
hey presto! a perfect storm...

what am i talking about?
poem X from Ovid's book I of the ****** poems...
mixed with KORTEZ; stare drzewa... old trees...
i will not recite the entire poem...
i don't want to...
as i'm drinking i'm not even bound
to an anchor of wallowing...
some people have these beautiful moments
having had children...
i too have "children"... moments like these...

but i'm seemingly unburdened by having any
"responsibility"...
just these artistic details to mind...
the song is playing... while i'm rereading...
you'll hardly hear anything verbatim...
just what i will ease my heart to pick and choose...

i too have my biases...
having broken the chains of love with
the simplicity on the altar of prostitution...

let's recite...

     i had all the parallels for you...
                 the cause of war...
                      i got nervous at bulls and eagles...
your profile leaves me cold...
because you keep nagging for presents...
that's what turns me off...
                 at first your were guileless...
  but now now this inner's flaw's eclipsed your looks...
neither mother nor son are military experts...
soldiers' pay: is not for unwarlike gods..
            
tonight's not the night to finish this musing
off of on some "briefly"... "some other night"...
this life is too spectacular to begin with...
     hungry-man thinks nothing else
beside thinking about food...
                         there's this cheese on toast...
and some marmite...
what am i thinking?!
          
it's being asked i detest...
                    quit wanting: and i'll give...
            close encounters...
what's supposed and what's inhibited...
these third encounters of a morally reprehensible:
nudge... some of the details of "thought"...
counter to... thought is no wedding with
nakedness.... you can't...
attire yourself with thoughts...

with the death of the governing body:
i subject myself: subdue with a wilt... the hiding
of a garden or roses...
and rosemary.. thyme...
          and all the celestial scents
so bothersome...
   to make monks arrogant...
                        i clasp my hands together:
whisper for sparrows...
and the morning sun for song...
and wait...
               for someone to speak
Deutsche...
                                    me: sooner...
                               you: the latter source...
jetzt! lassen uns tanz!
            tanz! tanz! mutterfucker!
tanz!
                     sie besser tanz: ficker...
tanz: vor ich trimmen ihre
     waffen und beine aus...
                                            von dein karosserie!
under Lex Cincia...
              
III.

oh man oh boy oh god oh perhaps woman...
how i'm trying to find yesterday:
in relation to not having finished the poem -
by "chapter" three i'm walking through an abandoned
house... my self has split into multiple selves
as squat-ers...

    i'm trying to relive that special moment in time
when i read 1.10 from Ovid's ****** poems
(book one. poem ten)
   and found a suitable song to go along with it...
KORTEZ's stare drzewa... old trees...
but the moment is gone...
         i wish i had finished and fallen asleep happily...

today i was painting the fence with obstructions
from within myself... because watching the tennis
became more important...
          
i'm trying to get back into some sort of mood...
switching between Natalie Merchant... song?
Carnival from the album Tigerlily...
                i'm mixing that with Tales under the Oak -
the Toad King...
          Dungeon Synth?! seriously?! well... only from
Germany... that must be said...

after my bicycle accident i took to the road once more...
i have to admit... i felt shaky...
a headache came back... i could feel all the once
apparent wounds not almost fully healed
re-bruise my body... but i cycled on...
i was never going to give up my first love...
i sometimes wish swimming was my first love...

but no...
cycling is my first love...
    walking my second
  and swimming my third...
   i never cared much for running: because it was usually
running for a bus or a train...
and i will never own a driving license...
never... i like buses... i don't like cars...
the best i could do is own a motorcycle...
and given my bicycle accident...
swerve: pothole... get nudged by a car...
oh man... that falling across my handlebars
must have looked impressive...
like when Walter Sickert influenced Francis Bacon...
my face scraping the tarmac...
i was slightly tipsy... though...
so... first lesson: is usually the last lesson...
never attempt to cycle tipsy...

   2nd lesson: overcome fear by cycling tipsy...
as i was today... a few beers in...
but i thought: wow... not this bicycle is truly mine...
it's truly mine because i just had an accident on it...
i own this bicycle... we're entwined...
i even left several signatures of blood on it...
but... i'll wash the off tomorrow:
i need to finish painting the fence...
the artificial grass is almost done...
the slabbing completed...
   i need to change the handlebar tape and change
the breaks... i seriously managed to erode so much
rubber that no wonder i feel the need to squeeze
harder... eh... London traffic, what do you expect?!

also? a rat infestation... because?
my new Nigerian neighbours... well... just the old guy...
thought it was a good idea to leave
bread and trimmings in the garden
for his "beloved" pigeons... ******* beloved pigeons...
no rats in Africa?!
the kitchen is a mess... but i have one...
scuttling... rats are not mice...
                they're ingenious buggers...
the cheese is gone... the mouse-trap snapped...
i hate those things... i once had a mice problem
in the attic... bad timing... the poor thing died
from a broken jaw... it bled out like...
that Ukrainian butcher of Rostov...
                                       through the a shot in the head...
it must have taken about two weeks
for him to die when he was dragged into a cell
and shot in the back of the head...
same with this mouse... death by a broken jaw...
horrible stuff...

i mean: i had a mouse problem once when in Ediniburgh,
if you could get hold of Ilona...
she would tell you... the pretty defenceless thing
hid in my wardrobe...
i created this maze... with a trap at the end...
caught it... trapped it... held it up by its tail...
Ilona was all giggly...
       i went out with it to the tenement landing...
let it loose onto the stairs...
memories of childhood...
   what memories? i once had a hamster...
took it outside... this sadistic boy encouraged me
to drop my hamster down the stairs:
saying: it would survive the fall...
so i dropped my hamster...
it fell and its nose starting bleeding...
i took it home crying...
  parachute! there was supposed to be a parachute!
right... but with this mouse?
full circle... i atoned for my naiveness...
i placed the mouse on the landing...
the mouse jumped one stair down... and then?!
a... a... *******: LEAP OF FAITH...

well... that was much easier...
i walked back into the bedroom and Ilona asked:
what did you do with the mouse?!
oh... it committed suicide...
that's revenge for that ******* who said my hamster
would survive the fall...
children should not own critters...
animals smaller than them...
dogs?! cats?! fine... but hamsters... rabbits?!
no no no...definitely not hamsters!
some ******* Jeffrey Dahmer types might just be
spawning... i remember that kid...
thick glasses... freckles...
i'd love to castrate him: right now...
curly hair... hell... forget castrating him...
i'd love to head-**** him and break his nose...
in such a way that he might lose his sense of smell...

that's when i realised... when that mouse i wanted
to let go decided to jump off...
i was atoning... i made a full circle
with a past grief... that's when i became a father
unto myself... of course i still had a father
to dictate rules to me concerning a work ethic
and ambition... but that was the moment
i became a father to the child of memory i once was...
no silly idiot was whispering in my ear
about how a hamster could survive a fall...
from the time i "purposively" dropped it...
i just let the mouse go... and it decided....
suicide was the better option: the only option...

i only feel relief from both memories...
15 years down the line...
how? i'm not going to use the standard mouse-trap
procedure... not after seeing this one
mouse i found in the attic bleeding
to death from a broken jaw...
       it broke my heart...
               and... hardly being in love...
         there's no other option: i wouldn't mind
if a cat killed it... at least there would be a hierarchy...
of consequences...
i wouldn't mind if the rat was simply nibbling
on dry lasagne sheets...
but when it comes to biting into plastic...
and cables... i don't want to replace my dishwasher
or my washing machine...
the next best option? poison... like sugar for humans...
i don't need to see another rodent dead
from crushed teeth... it's snout mutilated...
give me a clean ****...

i think Ilona sensed something was changing
in me... when i casually said: oh, it committed, suicide...
it was casual then:
but given enough time: there was nothing
casual about it...

IV.

i believe it's not patois if i insert some Cyrillic into
the Latin script of the Western Slavic zunge of
******:
              щur!       too many consonants, no?
i.e. szczur... i.e. rat?! ergo? щur!
we're still communication on an even level playing
field...
what was i listening to and what was i reading
that made me feel so... "nostalgic"?
i need to sample some snippets of Ovid...

1. because you keep nagging for presents...
2. that's what turns me off...
3. what's 3?

    i can't over-quote him... people need to forrage
themselves... i'm not going to be either lasso
or gatekeeper...
          
some "questioning" about the pocketing
of bribes...
    so "here", or "there"... or "other"...
                toward the "Arctic" one in spun
in some petty defiance...
this sinking ship of this last thought...
this one last gasp of air
before the final tombstone riddle of
a breath that drons the lungs
with salty waters..

             i will not cite any more Ovid:
i'll keep him to myself...
not as a gatekeeper... more akin to:
if you were to love him as much as i do...
you'd follow your sorry-*** to engage
with his outpourings than simply sit
idle assed: not asked: never asked!

V.

the moon started blinking through his crescent
spetacle...
i almost felt to be in love in love..
****... i can't be any longer...
burn the ribbons, the tiers....
the ribbons and the kites...
             burn all things hybrid into the fuckinng
ground;
yes... this is enough.

— The End —