I like making
plans I know I won't make,
I just like they're there.  
It's sort of like how we prepare
in our cars with airbags.  
Sometimes we thank God
they're there.

I like waiting at
bottoms of skyscrapers to catch
cripples' stares on stairs.
It's living up to a dare
trying to walk with one leg, one
crutch going up, look at their
Stares on stairs.

It wasn't a hippy
in tie dye that gave me
that squabbled piece of peace.
It was a horrid beast
who claimed I was the first
to not shoot, he gave me his last
Piece of peace.

I didn't like the tone
of his voice when he said
you can't bare the bear
Even outside the lair
you'll shave his fur and run your
hands in your hair, you
can't bare the bear.

I have years of your
wind pattern because my
vane detects vain in your veins.

I INSPIRED THIS SHOW, BUT THROUGH EMAILS, CAUSE SINCE DAD DIED
I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO BURY THAT OLD KODGER, YA SEE I KNOW DAD HELPED
A LOT OF PEOPLE, BUT TREATING ME LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY, LIKE THE WAY
HE DID, WASN'T HELPING ME, I WAS TRYING TO BUILD MY LIFE, AND LIKE
NORMAL KIDS, I ARGUED WITH MY PARENTS, AND DAD, DESPITE HELPING
MY BROTHER AND MOTHER, AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY
AND FAMILY, HE REALLY NEVER HELPED ME, IN THE SAME WAY, HE SHOULD'VE
TRIED TO FIGURE OUT WHY I WAS FIGHTING HIM, I DON'T WANNA HEAR HIS
VOICE IN DEATH, SAYING, SHUT UP DUMMY, TO EVERYONE ELSE DAD HELPED THEM
TO ME, DAD LOOKED LIKE, THE OLD GRUMBLE *** FATHER, ON THE WONDER YEARS, IT LOOKED LIKE, HE WANTS TO TEASE, THERE ARE WAYS, FOR DAD
TO BREAK, HIS PRECIOUS ROUTINE, TO BE A BETTER FATHER TO ME, HEW
SEEMED TO THINK THAT I WANTED TO BE A LITTLE SHY BOY TO HIM, BACK THEN
IT FUCKEN MADE ME SCARED OF DAD, IN A WAY, AND ALL THAT TRIGGERED OFF
WHEN I TOLD THEM, YOUR NOT MY REAL PARENTS, TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH
DAD WAS A LITTLE SHY BOY, CAUSE HE SO NAIVE, THINKING I WANTED TO
BE TREATED LIKE A COOL KID, OR A MANS KID TO A FIGHT, I DID ALL THAT
TO TRY AND EXPLAIN TO DAD, THAT, I DON'T WANT TO BE A COOL KID TO HIM
DAD WAS SQUARE, VERY SQUARE, AND DESPITE ME TRYING TO UNDERSTAND
HIM, I STILL THINK DAD WAS SQUARE, NOW, I KNOW PAT ISN'T MY DADDY, BUT
HE HELPED ME MORE THAN DAD DID, LIKE SHOWING ME HOW TO BE COOL
DAD DIDN'T WANNA BE COOL, BUT I HATED DADS DISCIPLINE, RIDUAL, LIKE
TRYING TO STOP ME FROM BEING A BIG MANS KID, PLAYING SHOWS IN MY ROOM
EVERY TIME I SQUABBLED WITH DAD, I HATED HOW, HE WAS TRYING TO GET
THE L;AST FUCKEN WORD, I TRIED TO BE A COOL KID TO DAD, BY JOKING LIKE
A COOL KID DOES, BUT MAYBE DAD WAS WORRIED ABOUT THE TEASING LIKE
ALL PARENTS, YEAH, LIKE ALL KIDS, I HATED, BEING THE YMCA'S DIRECTORS SON
BUT, THIS WAS DADS LIVELIHOOD, I CAN'T STOP DAD, TRYING TO BE A GOOD FATHER, LATELY, I HEAR DADS VOICE SAYING, SHUT UP DUMMY, I AM NOT DUMB
I AM A NORMAL PERSON, WITH A SLIGHT INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY, AND DAD
TREATING ME LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY, MADE ME FEEL, LIKE A REAL LOSER, WELL
NOW DAD, HAS TO YA KNOW PROVE HIMSELF TO ME, AND BUDDHA WITH ADVICE
FROM ME, PUT DAD IN LISA CAMPBELL'S ******, AND HIS FATHER IS DAVID
CAMPBELL, TO TRY AND SHOW, ME, WHAT DAD WAS DOING, CAUSE, I REALLY
HATED, BEING TREATED LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY LIKE THE WAY DAD TREATED ME LIKE ONE, IT WAS SHOWING, THAT DAD WAS IN FAVOUR, OF THE HORRIBLE
TEASING THAT WAS HAPPENING, I THINK MY VOICES, HAVE MORE PROTECTION
THAN DAD, EVER COULD, I KNOW DAD, DROVE ME TO BASKETBALL GAMES
AND TO FRIENDS HOUSES, BUT THIS SQUABBLING WITH HIM AND MUM, GARBAGE
I REALLY HATED, I HATE BEING TREATED LIKE DAD, AROUND MY HOUSE, I HATE
BEING TREATED LIKE A COOL KID TO A TEASE, TO ANYONE, I HATE TEASING
FUCKEN LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU BIG OLD FOGIE, DAD, ALL YOU WERE DAD
IS AN OLD FOGIE, AND DESPITE ME TRYING TO REACH OUT TO YOU, YOU
STILL WANTED EVERYONE ELSE TO LIKE YOU, AND CARE ABOUT ME, I WALKED
AROUND CIVIC ALL NIGHT, CAUSE NATURALLY I WAS WORRIED ABOUT GOING
HOME AND BEING TREATED LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY, SO I HUNG AROUND THE
CIVIC, TRYING TO BE A YOUNG DUDE, I TOLD DAD TO **** A LEMON, IN THE
NOTION, DAD WILL SAY, I DON'T WANT TO TEASE, BRIAN, BUT, WHAT IS WRONG
WITH ME HAVING AN IMAGINATION, IT'S BETTER THAN DADS ****** NOTION
OF ME BEING TOO SHY FOR THE REAL WORLD, CAN'T DAD MISS THE FUCKEN
NEWS, TO TRY AND UNDERSTAND, HIS SON, AS OPPOSED TO TRYING TO SQUABBLE WITH ME, I KNOW DAD HELPED, BUT I HATED DAD DOING ALL THIS
HE WAS A REAL ******, YEAH I WAS NICER TO MY MATES, BUT DAD WAS
TO ME AN OLD GRUMBLE ***, AND I THOUGHT DAD WAS A LITTLE SHY BOY,
ALL BECAUSE, I DESTROYED HIS AURA, THIS SHOW EXPLAINS, HOW I VISIONED
DAD BEFORE ALL THIS LITTLE SHY BOY CRAP, A NICE MAN WHO HELPS HIS
KIDS HANDLE THE REAL WORLD, BUT IN THE 80S, I VISIONED DAD, AS A
STUPID OLD KODGER, WHO IS SCARED, OF HIS KIDS GETTING TEASED
TAKING MY FOOTY AWAY, CALLING ME DUMMY, TRYING TO TREAT ME LIKE AN
ADUKT, NOBODY WANTS TO BE, STOPPING ME FROM BEING A YOUNG DUDE
IN THE WRONG WAY, I KNOW DAD TRIED TO HELP, BUT, I HATED BEING TREATED
LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY LIKE THAT, I WANT TO LIVE MY LIFE LIKE IT'S ONE BIG
ADVENTURE, DAD, MOVE FUCKEN ON TO DAVID AND LISA CAMPBELL'S FAMILY
WITH ROBIN WILLIAMS, STOP SAYING SHUT UP DUMMY, LET ME BE COOL, YO ****

Seren-dip-me-pity,               (she was self-accepting failure,  bad luck wannabe, wears black and sniffles)
the ardent opposite
of Seren-dip-i-ty,       (she was an accidental discovery, no recovery needed, awe, found objects, in the     
                                                                                    moment)
they are part of the
seven sisters Seren,

wherein lies the rub
Saran-wrap, was third           (caught up on herself, clean and air tight, fresh as the day, tough like teflon)
in line, (changed the spelling of the family name - to be sooner alphabetically)
Seren-ate,                         (she sings she dances, she eats, she sings some more, she waits for applause)
does not speak or gesticulate
unless she performs in song.
Seren-ade, used to sing well           (jealous, performance orientated, sometime for love, lately for money)
as well but when the other came
along and did it better she got bitter
and moved in to retail sales        (lemonADE, pomADE, calvacADE of arcADEs, you get it,                                                                  ­                                                      everything ­became a parADE)
And as for the twins who
are always fighting Seren-ity    (lacks calmness, lacks peace, wants a piece of you, uneven temper)
Seren-e                                         (more easy to be obscene, like evening air with a heavy chill, not bright).

The seven sisters of Seren,
who were always preparing
for a fight to the right to
the next beau to knock
on the door, but soon they
all stopped calling,
they were
no longer falling,
over one another,
as the Seren-ities
were now old biddies,
no longer remained a
worth-while dowry, befitting
sitting silently as the seven
sisters of Seren squabbled
soiling the solitude of the soul.

Turn on

I
This is the BBC news at 1 o'clock.
A rambling diatribe,
lost boys, a lost war.
The falling cost of stamps.
'What do you think of the deficit,
Graham from Newquay?'

II
Some bald man
holds a cadaverous gaze.
'She don't want me no more Pauline.'
The ware and tear
of Albert Square
immortalised
in one ***** stare.

III
Ella looked into the eyes of
the African children with bloated
stomachs, scooping up brown water
she wouldn't even dip her toe in.
For a moment, they were face to face.

VI
Margret! Margret!

Look what they're...

Check the cupboard,
have we still got...

uh...

tinned peaches and caster sugar.

V
Our hands, in every listless waft,
wander through an electric soup,
thick as frog-spawn.
Spermatozoa of information.
A gentle fuzz of creation,
our atmosphere is
pregnant with
separate universes that
embed themselves
inside our own.
We broadcast
our noisy planet
to the skies.

VI
'I've seen what's going on,
you don't have to tell me!
I know what they're doing.'
The walls are closing in,
as each breath from her
dusting lungs is getting tighter.
'Besides, my eyes won't let me, or
my knees these days, It's all i'm
good for'  
She wheezes.
'I can see all I need from here.'

VII
Click
I swear 400
*******
channels
And there's nothing on

VIII
As I approach the blue glare
of the living room, I know
she's in there. Not even
watching,
she's on her
iPad. We don't talk.
We went to the
Maldives
once,
after the wedding.
she couldn't keep her eyes off me.

IX
Dead square.
Silent pixels.
Nothings watching.

X
We crept down in the morning - my sister
and me, before anyone else was up and squabbled
what loud cartoon violence would take our attention.
Nightie, pyjama cotton siblings, sewn in to the 7 to 9 o'clock schedule,
we were as vital to each other as sleeping bags and cereal.
Our building blocks stood in a castle,
we were unaware that one day,
they would be strewn across the floor
as we grew up.

XI
We're not going out tonight.
I just want to slip my hands down your
pants and touch you while
we watch game of thrones...
Deal?

XII
Smoke rises behind the mosque
in an arabesque twirl.
The blinding sunlight behind the minaret
crashes on the lens, like a flash bang.

The call to prayer is empty bodies, iconographic art,
cars hollowed, alien tongues, history, a melting *** culture,
cockroach romances, squalid graves, body hewn tunnels, little cuts on
trigger fingers, trained monkeys, orphans, marble carvings,
the stench of petrol, jobless drug habits, brickwork, wiring,
forbidden love, lust, teenagers, plastic explosive, god, work,
prayer, tears, life and death    

and briefly the box is the world in our homes.
We must see who's behind it.

One night in December,
The streets were army gray
And hurrying strangers
Rushed home for the day.
Nimble legged salesmen
Sold flowers by the street
And rhythm was the rumble
Of voices cars and feet.

The young were dressed for parties
Some sang with radios
And over-friendly women
Assumed their favorite pose.
Trashcan colored beggars
Searched gutters with their hands
While uniforms saved sinners
With sermons songs and bands.

Patrolmen sang the pop songs
From slowly cruising vans
As nighttime changes faces
Pushers change their plans.
The movie marquee lightning
Put movement to the sound
As nameless children squabbled
For pennies they had found.

Uptown they're making movies
For Hollywood L.A.
They listen to the sirens
Downtown far away.
The Civic Center phantoms
Are easy to forget.
Folks simply close their eyes
And they haven’t seen them yet.
They haven’t seen them yet.

The King nor the Queen
wanted the crown.
Too heavy to bear,
it dragged them both down.

The King wanted to drink
and party with his men.
The Queen couldn't manage
and wanted a friend.

The oldest princess
wanted love and money.
To sell the crown
and find a honey.

The youngest princess
was eratic and cold.
She hated the kingdom
but loved the control.

They bickered and squabbled
so no one did see.
The middle princess
picked it up so gingerly.

She placed it on
Her Royal, fair head.
She managed to stand
with courage and said...

'I will wear the crown
that you've all cast.
To protect our kingdom
and serve as asked.'

They all stopped talking
and quick as a gun,
turned their back on her
and continued their fun.

The King kept on drinking.
The Queen hid away.
The oldest spent her inheritance.
The youngest plotted and played.

All the while she fought there.
Defending the walls.
Fighting for their safety,
Pledging allegiance to them all.

The youngest became jealous
Of this brave new Queen.
She unleashed her rage
And beat her senselessly.

No one did anything.
The Queen looked away.
Nothing in it for the eldest.
The King stood & swayed.

Yet here she was alone,
Crying in the crown.
Unprotected and alone.
Slowly sinking down.

The eldest took her energy.
The Queen gave no hope.
The King let her down.
The youngest gave her a rope.

So she hung herself and died,
As they continued on.
Her absence went unnoticed
As their kingdom lived on.

Although I’ve tried hard to forget I’ll always remember
With all its glaring effervescence my first ever sleepover
With my friend who was afraid of the dark and as she hung the walls of the night
With lamp light that squabbled with Sleep over my No-Mans-Land eyelids.
I wondered how you could fear something that wasn’t even a something
But a lack of something. Now I read the weather forecast
In the horoscope of Orion’s belt I wonder why we were so afraid
Of a world of muted colours. Like Light was an absent parent
That returned sporadically and left an aftertaste with each visit
And blew cigarette smoke in our faces.
Like Light was a worn-out lover too painful to label as X
Around whom we’d begun to orbit and organise our lives.
I stand in the dark we’re all afraid of and wonder if perhaps
The night is not lonely or cruel but simply wants to kiss the stars.

I saw the world through different eyes today
There was no clouded judgement, fake, pretentious nature
I could laugh at anything
Be anyone
Pity anything
Yet the moon still carried on shining

And although we squabbled over art I realised
Art is nothing but a squabble

For sobriety restrains the person I can be
And the person I am
And those restraints keep me in a place I don't want to be

They lock me down in fear and in shame
For the person I can be is caged
It screams out
Opinions which deter people and denounce

And as I see you run through the streets
Ever searching for a place to fit in
My ankles become weak
They buckle
They cannot carry me

For I find no easier place to fit in
Than my very own skin
The place of an outcast
An ungrateful brat
Who drools at the thought of an empty mindless space

Where no judgement, snobbery or scoff is placed
For the idea of a flee ridden rug,
A broken kettle,
A piercing mattress,
An unread journal

It SCREAMS to me freedom

A natural scribe,
A just life
An unjustified rhyme

It calls to me
It calls on and on

But tomorrow I will be the person
The world destined me to be
An untuned symphony
Beating away with a monotone rhythm

Because doubt rears its ugly head
Churns a putrid dread
Which I carry to my empty cage of a heart

And I carry it on
And on

They discussed Prom and silly boys who talked big, but
couldn’t tear open a ******.

They squabbled over pole-position in a race that didn’t matter- And
analysed events made cinematic in re-telling.

I leafed through a magazine:

One Girl’s Plan to Meet and MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (who isn’t a creep)
~How to dress to be taken seriously
Top Career Women Tell Their Secrets
~Hot spring fashion
The TRAP of Living Together
~CK One (selling equality)

For a moment I pictured myself applying lipstick, then thought better not.

It was all *******.

I shoved the magazine back in my bag- with Tess, exam texts, and
a clean change of clothes.

The bus stopped right outside.

He made me tea, and I read bedtime stories to his kids.

After:

We drank white-wine in the garden, kissed and found peace-
Searched for stars in a sky the colour of storms.

Scorpion, scorpion, who brought the pen
The tip of its tail, the needles sharp end
Poisonous dagger, To write all your wishes
******, soiled, bundled up tissues
Issues and cashews and nuts
Insanity.
Rhinoceros, rhinoceros, have you the tusk
The one on your nose, the jungled rough musk
Broken and bleeding torn from your face
Now beautiful laced girls
Discover your pearls
Thieves.
Fathers and mothers, did you bring the child
Shattered, broken, seen with both vile
Bangs and pangs broken dishes, birds sang
That night along with the screams
Did you believe
Destruction.
Artist, artists, have you the pieces
The ones of your life, sadness, defeation
The black strokes, lonely tokes
And pills and late sat to smoke
What does it all mean, by life
Uninspired.
Dictators, dictators, did you bring your people
The hobbled and squabbled, who prayed in the steeple
Who hung from the rafters, and rang with the bells
For whom it tolls, well, no one tells
And lost citizens
Vanish.
Butterflies, butterflies, did you keep your promise
Mottled, and bottled, spread across lawn mist
To be beautiful, shiny with no varnish
Your caterpillar state should not tarnish
The wings you have now
Growth.
Children, children, did you steal the money
For xanax, tricks, and acid, your'e funny
Brain dead generation
Same dread, memorization
Of all the dead jokes
Sad.
Villagers, villagers, did you burn the witch
The bloodied open stitch
That tore the wound of the town
And they all began to drown
In truths they didn’t like
Characters.
Kitten, kitten, did you trick the boy
Into finding your, mangled, ticked, body
Squashed, splattered, with marks in your back
Circled rocks, flowers, hit and smack
The dirt down flat
Betrayal.
Conscience, conscience, did you make me feel that way
For something I thought, for something I might not say
For something I did, and something I am
Why do you threaten
Why do I listen
shiver.
Ghosts, ghosts, do you really terrify
Blankets, and behind walls spy
Sheets, and bags of treats
You saw it all, naked
Through the clear square wall, sacred
Innocence.
Creatures, creatures, you dwelled in the cave
Red, glowing eyes. Blue burning rave
You crawl out at night
To get a good sight
Of all of the people passed out drunk
loneliness.

Beware this place.

They all smoked in the garden
that night. Inhaling the chemicals,
the manic whirr in the lungs
of something toxic. Everybody there
wanted a piece. Their own segment
of you to cup in their hands,
taste whenever they pleased
as if you were red wine.
They wore woolly shirts
and stonewashed jeans. Bare feet.
Looking at you, a valuable gift
up for grabs. Voice like liquid gold.
Wishing you’d pick them
over the others, point a finger,
claim your prize. You had a hold
on their heartstrings and didn’t know it.
They said you were unattainable,
that you were hidden behind glass
and couldn’t be touched. Anger bubbled
between them, red kettle-hot.
Raised voices papercut the air.
I could understand.
You were glorious, untarnished.
A cleaner mind and cleaner arteries.
It was a rare and confusing thing
for them. Blonde hair, blue eyes
made their thoughts turn to flour.
You were sweet when all
they knew was acidic,
like a chunk of lemon
under the tongue.
As they squabbled in silence
we spoke. And still
they continued to smoke.

I’m learning a lot, dating Peter. For instance, I have a whole new awareness of how clueless older Americans, like people in their mid-twenties, are about things in the modern world.

I think Peter’s learning things too. Like the other night, I was 30 minutes late because I was gluing little, glittering rhinestones to my eyebrows. Was he mad? Yes, we had a little drama, but that’s just because he hasn’t learned to respect my lifestyle choices.

“Don’t be mawkish Peter,” I softly advised him, while fixing the caller of his shirt, “look, let's just pretend that we squabbled over this, and I won?” I suggested, helpfully. “It’ll save us time and WOW, we’re running late, OK? Seeing some small, lingering irritation, I promised, “We can still makeup later.”

The rhinestones looked spectacular, I got a LOT of compliments and in the end, I think he liked them. You know, sometimes I’ll catch him looking at me, like the moon or something, like I’m out of reach.

Guys are so.. (searching for a word).

Who knew why such ruffians
Squandered and squabbled
Dear to me their brutish good looks
Pulling out pockets' linings
Showing how no cent remained
Not a **** dime to their name
Chasing absent dreams called fame
Just deterioration
From what was once
Gleaming teeth
Combed hair
Finer threads
Now cement beds
Lay them down at night
Oh what a sight
My parlayed partners
Still jiving and hustling
Crackling and busting
*** for that quick fix
Sick, I tell you
How glory appears in their eyes
It's a story of addiction's surprise
That grab on you
How it happened to him too
Gleam!
That glisten and sheen
Then sweat
Soaked in an essence we've set
Of our inner spoiling
Tormented toiling
When we shoot that boot to get
That desperate need never met

The dawn has turned the dimmer up
Painting the watery sky grey
And the dew hangs everywhere
Like polished tears glinting
And an early sign of impending spring
As the birds begin their choral efforts
Later in the year they will sound like
A busy open air market
As the business of the day begins
And breakfasts are squabbled over

                                           By Phil Roberts

The dawn has turned the dimmer up
Painting the watery sky grey
And the dew hangs everywhere
Like polished tears glinting
And an early sign of impending spring
As the birds begin their choral efforts
Later in the year they will sound like
A busy open air market
As the business of the day begins
And breakfasts are squabbled over

                                           By Phil Roberts

I can never come back,
I will not be your ham-hock,
a bone to be squabbled over,
and buried as a trophy,
gnawed and *****.

Its the hound dog moaning,
when it loses the battle
that grinds me up the most.
The avalanches of sadness
heaped up like earth
kicked up by a dog,
who is  searching for the bone
it buried so long ago,
leaving muddy holes
all over my once pristine lawn...
that is what hurts the most.

Its better to be the dog
that loses the fight,
than it is to be the bone.

I remember when I was a teenager ya know playing sport eating junk food oh yeah
Yes it was fun being a teenager
Being as cool as they come
You see I was a very good worker and I was as fit as well
You see I was a cool teenager
Yes that sounds real cool
We went to see the raiders from Canberra oh yeah
And we waved our flags and yelled out to make sure everyone hears
We celebrated new year at the with some sugar or alcohol
Yes it was fun being a teenager
Yes I was so cool
You see I was in the basketball team and I was very fit
And I was with the bowling team
And at that stage I wasn’t very good but when I got back into it as an adult I became the best I can be
You see it was fun being a teenager you see I was wiling to learn
You see I did bushwalking and I mucked around in school
Getting detentions and ****
I squabbled with another bloke who wanted to show how cool he is but me, being a teenager
I showed him I can be cool too
Yes it was fun being a teenage boy and I had a lot of fun
I had sleepovers with my mates and boy I had a great time
We watched movies ate pizza
Without worrying about our weight and our birthdays we had parties enjoying it yeseree
But it was it was it was fun being a teenager still having fun
Loving life, yeah mate it was fun

You are awesome

You are awfully up or down

Shall we clutch?

Then it's a shy frown

And it's a shabby shame


I will wake the birds

They are barely screeching

It will be a screech indeed

Just a crazy race around the floor

Around the corner

Around the map I walk

Around the crowds

The only people those in rags

The screeching friends

A scintillation of the flesh

Yet they are rough


It's a crazy ******* picture:

The flying birds around the razor shimmer

A frisky fleece now shorn

******

The floating plumage of the sister

Everyone is rough

Altered by everybody else

Rocks and a crazy breeze around us


It's been sweet

Squabbled frowns off the floor

Singing around us

The screeching scintillating people

Singing apart

Then the false raising of a floating voice

The funny fools singing about the trash

The screech scattered around

It's faulty; it's obsolete.

It's gotten stupid


Got a burn but the gut's rubbed raw

Got stuffy but got strewn about

I got stuck but I got struck too late;

The scarlet satin about to be scattered

Got struck; got a bad character; got a bad grip


It's been strewn around us

Now the scenery is rough

Bins stinky with dismantled hearts

Swaggering in vain


Everything rubbed to a high shine

Everything to hide behind

But a stray smile but a hahaha

A bad story but a hahaha

A struggle but a stray cat

Sweet as usual

But a struggle / but stinky / but a hahaha

Array of ******* bins

Waiting collection

As birds swoop screeching

And pick at debris

And nibble on us.

I'll paint the saddest vignette, nervous
Midaccident monologue
Fumbled intentions
Words that fall like loose stones down mountainsides
Disparate selves vying for the crown
But they squabbled hard and broke the **** thing

But you couldn't wrench the light from inside because it stays,
Imbued,
The secret elixir of few.

Here to perplex myself, if I followed rules I couldn't tell you what they were.
Death is strength's advisor
There underfoot, reality's new end revealed.

What flames they were and how they fought when under a bright moon down by the river we sought to quench our thirsts.

Our youth wandered off while we squandered or squabbled our way through that time and like the last time and the time before
we swore undyingly to die lovingly in each other's embrace,

but we couldn't face that and so we parted.

i'm sitting in the bathroom at ul. Radwana 13 / 72,
i must say: a rather unusual place to start
my long awaited archaeology of the ego -
but long awaited for whom?
me or a readership...

               i have recently inherited a chrome book
with those old school protruding click click clickers
of QWERTY: protruding in that they are
easily found, almost like tickling newly sprouted
flowers from the ground...

i find myself in the form of: my and self
yet over psycholo-loco-gist...
of wording will not help:

the gents had their fun with the spirits...
they drank and drank and talked of plans for
their lives, they wasted good liquor on dressing up
on having fun:
they never took alcohol seriously...
now one of them: namely my uncle...
is a death within life, which is worse than death
itself...

i am so rigid from not trying
i am rigid from my former escapades with the allowances
of a good keyboard and a decent internet
connection...

what i am currently studying is the punctuation
of Frank Herbert...
it has been well over 4 years since i read any fiction
seriously...
bogged down in existential prose serious literature
i gave so much of my reading-time
to Knausgaard and his Mein Kampf
feigning defeat when life became as serious
that i had to find an alternative...
and yes... the new adaptations of the Dune books
put a negative indentation in my current reading
of the first book...
but lucky for me i'm picking up on certain
cinematic nuances... notably concerning Hawat
the Mentat who would roll his eyes back to
make calculations and who had a rectangular stain
on his lips from drinking the sapho juice...
cranberry stain...

what are the chances to reach the same heights
of excavation i was familiar with,
perhaps if i write long enough i can bypass the initial
struggle: because i will not waste this little gush of
***** reaching my cheeks
having to substitute a chaser of Fanta
with some orange juice (half)
and half of Polish mineral water...
unlike any other mineral water i know...
for there are three gradations of it around here...

gazowana (sparkling)
nie-gazowana (still)
lekko-gazowana (slightly sparkling)...

this fun side of the tongue, the only instance
where there is a double consonant:

LEKI (medicine)
LEKKI (light, masculine)
LEKKA (light, feminine)
   light as in not heavy, not light as in darkness...

i have traveled across eons and sleep and haven't
slept a wink in the process...
now almost strange to have a washing machine as a writing
desk in the dim light...

perhaps spacing, not even the subject matter will suffice
to somehow give me escapism...
what "should" have taken place is the idea
of an uncle retiring in his 50s...
able to somehow come closer to his mother
in her 80s and with enough dough
to party via travel for the next 10 years
and spare for invest in at least 2 or 3 properties...

now i visit him in the house of cripples...
the once known jealous vitality from ***** house
to ***** house...
this juggernaut of virility reduced to a ******* zombie like
shadow...
bit lips, crooked teeth...
vague associations and even vaguer dissociations
on the word-logic spectrum as provided by the doctors...
not so much having drank himself to
a zombie body but no early grave
his inability to invoke the body to similitude with
iron vitamin D3...
a shell of a man... once clean shaven...
now mimic of grandfather...

and all this female warfare
this daughter against mother and grandmother against
mother all this
this scaffold and crows and rotting of meat...
but diligent i somehow trying to work my way around
the fatalism...
is it so wrong of me to go out of my way
to buy the old woman a few new books
some chocolate,
to cook her pork, pork meatballs in a tomato sauce
with a special mash potatoes...
infusing the meat with caraway seeds...
yes... because that's almost the distant cousing
of cumin seeds... at least around here...
around here, "here" being: ul Radwana 13 / 72
Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski...

           i used to spend so many joyful days in these
confines, yet now i itch with a feeling of being
the Grim Grey...
reading about melange, spice, cinnamon...
i conjure up a fusion of poetry and prose and think
about Caladan and i think about earth
and i think about the white gold that is salt...
i've choked on tears and i shed some tears
but for all the talk of water in the sands
there is little talk of salt in the dunes...
perhaps those equivalent to Arabs in the Dune universe
have no notion of taste when it comes
to the ingestion of food...

i hardly imagined myself to be a fan of any work...
i tried to be a fan of the Beatniks...
grew a beard, forgot i had toenails
later forgot i had toes...
therefore re-imagined my feet as twinkle axes...
chopping step with stomp and air...
oh this air in Poland...
when was the last time i visited Poland
near the time of birth, come May...
that is spring... when the violets started to bloom...
when the continent gave up her riches
of distinguishing seasons from
that Caladan damp of England...
how many of the past suppose summers have
i spent on that dreaded island of grot grit and grey?

thus this DUMP of lettering and spacing and
whatever other, "other" technicality might
be obstructive, obtrusive, ob- ob-:
signal one signifying beacon of obstruct for
for me to follow up with the right sort of juice:
because i am the one to have squandered
the... "ridicule of the use of words"?

seems like a fear of god is never enough
when justifying the games equivalent to the chess
people play with mortality...

just one fetish freer from the nearer,
some Novalis (von Hardenberg) -
as i very much like to name street names and places
in German,
because i find the Polacks neglecting their tongue
as much as they neglected their earth:
through the tribulations of a lackluster of attachments...

perhaps those Arabs and waiting for the dino-juice
to propel the locomotive bonanza
of the Lamborghini engine...
sand-worm earthworm ego sworn mouth agape
like sitting in a Turkish akimbo poise...

the sun was never going to lose a tooth:
let alone a golden one,
but by topic of grey in water
and white in metal
and green in mahogany...
a tease out of respect for the one handed clapping
like some inevitable "cultural appropriation"
from meditating the death of Christianity
in the European soul and the invitation toward
Buddhism, extrapolation...
because this half a liter of *****
will measure just fine when this washing mashine
is silent...
while the solace of orbits of the grand orbs
like mountains cradling deserts satisfies...
like the windless lights
and what is conversation? locum?

i find little gesticulation of comfort in people
who regurgitate sayings, supposedly wise on the onset,
with sensibility of perpetuating a humanism
of their otherwise deviant comfort
of sheltering in hubbub and commotion
and click-bait not-known-to-fish conundrums...

by now the eagerness of flying into a bed
on a half whim half dream,
like a parody of a blinking universe:
each to his own sorrows and intact:
ensuring these sorrows do not multiply...
but become these self-contained mechanisations
of self-digestion: to diffuse the anger and agony
of the shared experience...
some semblance of a collectivist effort
where the individual is sacrificed and not glorified
that this democratic beacon of vector
adamant force-hood falsehood is dried up
conquered and subsequently squandered on
readily imitable minds of the youth...
so that youthful fancies may pass and by the rigors of time
and matrimony of the geology in the air
become hard pressed to usher in the only known
individuation that's the citizen and with it
a necropolis of first reference: as mortal abiding
non coup...

through some prism of the elected editorial
staff of the newly arrived freedom of the flimsy:
wind without paper...
came a torrent of freely available voiced
concerns for what could be said: could be unsaid...
what a forlorn essential craft of
symbolism to be tortured thus by crucifix
and the faceless man of Islam...
at least the distinction ingrained...

keeping a jug of water in both desert and in sea...
to drink to waste...
perhaps a jug of ***** in the forests and hybrid
tundras of sloth and cold and
what other bouquet of the thus presented
entourage of immobility of parlance of formal
is: what more expected of me?!

no more hunger no more stealth and no more
Japanese encrypted borrowing of tongues...
to ****** a MA into a マ
    subsequently: ******* palindromes...
because Japanese might allow a MA but will not
allow an AM... unless it's: TENET, RADAR...
a palindrome...
thus listed:

                 アマ
                 オト          oto... here, thus...

ama                  well... given the English tong and tie and glue of T
that would invoke Anna...
and faTTer...
                not father, though...

i think it best to understand Japanese scribbles through
palindromes...
whether that's me excavating consonants from
elaborating vowels or what not...
my... at least i have retained a memory of my old
themes and hobbies...
notably these...
because i...

palindromes... yes... that's how to best discover
consonants as free standing
as vowels are in Japanese via palindromes...
given... my stay in Hawaii was peppered with the history
of the Polynesians...
who's origins began with the wild oar brigade second
not celebrated to the vikings
from the little island of Taiwan...
across the seas without sails
across like the Mongols across Siberia
and the Russians toward Alaska...

                     palindromes...

イキ (iki)
イシ         (isi)

          leo mai honua...

                                leo nui: mai hāmau wai...    

of no talk of science fiction and i can see the equivalent
of the Fremen in the Polynesians
and see this world as that of what happens
when the once former mountain range
of Sahara now is desert and
waiting for the desert of Himalaya
because then were the known mountains of Saharans
while the seas boiled and the ice caps melted
and we were dreaming a history
somehow inherited before the insomnia
of journalism and the **** of light brought down
with strobe amnesia and suffocation of the attractive
glittering half of halves...
while the litter of the brood of peoples
squabbled over the 7th October 20224...
without much squabble equivalent to the massacre
at the Bataclan attack in Paris...

do wiosł!
    to oars!
                                 i nā ***!

let us leave these superstitious people to their
magic stones their kippahs
their niqabs and their orientation with the stars
almighty as if... as if...
this orb might be ever displaced by their potent
numb **** and over-sized ego-*****
and clipped ***** of Egypt!