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K Balachandran Jan 2015
A blue black cloud, all over me is written JOY
in the script of vapor, dense, moist and meaningful,
I am light, like a feather, the breeze is in love with me for that,
I love his gentle persuasion to waft, move about, explore..
and then--ravaged by wind my love changes direction.

I love freedom more than anything, but forgot limits, hover
now, I am no more attached to the green hills, they are jealous,
far above them am I, untouched by their vainglorious pride,
I am not hard-hearted, parched fields send shivers of lightning
break me in to thousand  smaller pieces, scatter around.

My love for this earth is kindled by the sights unfurling below
all the egrets, cormorants, storks and herons of great magnificence,
those kind hearted friends that fly with me often are in pain
like the farmers, there isn't enough water for anything.

A cloud is a thought, inspired by the love for mother earth
by the ocean I am gifted to the breeze, to tour around,
on many lands fell my shade, found life in all varieties,
now is the time to be kind at heart, melt, fall in torrents.
A cloud when you analyze is a thought full of love for earth,humanbeings
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound
except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember
whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve
nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky
that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in
the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays
resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her
son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland,
though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we
waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they
would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and
moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their
eyes. The wise cats never appeared.

We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows - eternal, ever
since Wednesday - that we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or,
if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar
cat. But soon the voice grew louder.
"Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.

And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring
out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier
in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the
house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.

Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a
newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and
smacking at the smoke with a slipper.

"Call the fire brigade," cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong.
"There won't be there," said Mr. Prothero, "it's Christmas."
There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his
slipper as though he were conducting.
"Do something," he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke - I think we missed Mr. Prothero - and
ran out of the house to the telephone box.
"Let's call the police as well," Jim said. "And the ambulance." "And Ernie Jenkins, he likes fires."

But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose
into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier
Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt,
Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would
say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets,
standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel
petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt
like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the
English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the
daft and happy hills *******, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I
made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it
came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow
grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and
settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

"Were there postmen then, too?"
"With sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread, frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and
mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was a ringing of bells."
"You mean that the postman went rat-a-tat-tat and the doors rang?"
"I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them."
"I only hear thunder sometimes, never bells."
"There were church bells, too."
"Inside them?"
"No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings
over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It
seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our
fence."

"Get back to the postmen"
"They were just ordinary postmen, found of walking and dogs and Christmas and the snow. They knocked on the
doors with blue knuckles ...."
"Ours has got a black knocker...."
"And then they stood on the white Welcome mat in the little, drifted porches and huffed and puffed, making
ghosts with their breath, and jogged from foot to foot like small boys wanting to go out."
"And then the presents?"
"And then the Presents, after the Christmas box. And the cold postman, with a rose on his button-nose, tingled
down the tea-tray-slithered run of the chilly glinting hill. He went in his ice-bound boots like a man on
fishmonger's slabs.
"He wagged his bag like a frozen camel's ****, dizzily turned the corner on one foot, and, by God, he was
gone."

"Get back to the Presents."
"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths;
zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-
shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking
tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you
wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now,
alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not
to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp,
except why."

"Go on the Useless Presents."
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and
a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a
little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that
an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the
trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the
red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches,
cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who,
if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for
Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to
wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall.
And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited
for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And
then it was breakfast under the balloons."

"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle
and sugar ****, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird
by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and
women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles
their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all
the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in
their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling
pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying
their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms' length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then
holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the
kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to
break, like faded cups and saucers."

Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this
time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he
would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing,
no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite,
to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling
smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the
dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a
snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of
a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself.

I hated him on sight and sound, and would be about to put my dog whistle to my lips and blow him off the face
of Christmas when suddenly he, with a violet wink, put his whistle to his lips and blew so stridently, so high,
so exquisitely loud, that gobbling faces, their cheeks bulged with goose, would press against their tinsled
windows, the whole length of the white echoing street. For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after
dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch
chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie
Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-work mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some
elderberry wine. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port,
stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush. I would blow up balloons to
see how big they would blow up to; and, when they burst, which they all did, the Uncles jumped and rumbled. In
the rich and heavy afternoon, the Uncles breathing like dolphins and the snow descending, I would sit among
festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o'-war, following the Instructions
for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tramcar.

Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim
and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge footprints on the hidden pavements.
"I bet people will think there's been hippos."
"What would you do if you saw a hippo coming down our street?"
"I'd go like this, bang! I'd throw him over the railings and roll him down the hill and then I'd tickle him
under the ear and he'd wag his tail."
"What would you do if you saw two hippos?"

Iron-flanked and bellowing he-hippos clanked and battered through the scudding snow toward us as we passed Mr.
Daniel's house.
"Let's post Mr. Daniel a snow-ball through his letter box."
"Let's write things in the snow."
"Let's write, 'Mr. Daniel looks like a spaniel' all over his lawn."
Or we walked on the white shore. "Can the fishes see it's snowing?"

The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills,
and vast dewlapped dogs, with flasks round their necks, ambled and shambled up to us, baying "Excelsior." We
returned home through the poor streets where only a few children fumbled with bare red fingers in the wheel-
rutted snow and cat-called after us, their voices fading away, as we trudged uphill, into the cries of the dock
birds and the hooting of ships out in the whirling bay. And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly;
and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave. Auntie Hannah laced her tea with ***,
because it was only once a year.

Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like
owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the
stairs and the gas meter ticked. And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving
of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we
stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night, each one of us afraid, each one holding a stone in his hand
in case, and all of us too brave to say a word. The wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant
and maybe webfooted men wheezing in caves. We reached the black bulk of the house. "What shall we give them?
Hark the Herald?"
"No," Jack said, "Good King Wencelas. I'll count three." One, two three, and we began to sing, our voices high
and seemingly distant in the snow-felted darkness round the house that was occupied by nobody we knew. We stood
close together, near the dark door. Good King Wencelas looked out On the Feast of Stephen ... And then a small,
dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time, joined our singing: a small, dry,
eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole. And when we stopped
running we were outside our house; the front room was lovely; balloons floated under the hot-water-bottle-
gulping gas; everything was good again and shone over the town.
"Perhaps it was a ghost," Jim said.
"Perhaps it was trolls," Dan said, who was always reading.
"Let's go in and see if there's any jelly left," Jack said. And we did that.

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another
uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip
wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a
Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out
into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other
houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas
down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.
K Balachandran Dec 2011
white storks, fly up in unison,
from the green paddy
like musical notes,
rising up, up and fading away.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2018
the second phase of marxism is:
why do people enforce Hegel
to commad, when neglecting
Kant?
              i find Kant to be neglected...
of all schwabe...
     bewildering: like admiring
a yoyo sling...
             if there ever was
a dialectical materialism,
  capitalism is profound,
in that it killed communism when
communism was a premature
death -
            too young to
match up to the relieved serfdom -
yet communism will continue
to subvert,
           it will sentence
the subconscious with a tease -
said poet - said terse -
       otherwise the scaffold!
dialectical materialism has
morphed into
dialectical historiology -
        could it be an exclusion
of space? by comparison
the 20th century is absolute
in these times, its not relative,
yet relativism pervades
the narrative...
            we always and always
have lived in absolute times,
the allude to relativism
in a framework of temporal
affairs will never achieve
spatial democracy,
   untied from the spaghetti past...
love it or loath it,
         the 2nd phase of
the: ignoring Kant while
fervently adamant concerning
Hegel trusts what is
already apparent:
journalism is a trans-categorical,
szubrajce!
                journalism's primo
concern is the loser white
living with his parents,
little do they know of the investment
paid by the man who
entertains being patient...
journalists,
the ones who send their grandparents
to homes for the elderly,
quack out a Bulgarian **** joke
by now...
   a baby is far from an Alzheimer -
rotten memory,
   rekindle imagery of
lost years...
ensure that memory is
a citadel, and not some
     meagre fancy worth the pillage;
of those who find thought
least entertaining,
find morality the hardest
the fathom -
for the said concern,
lacking a mediating ought -
principle theta;
buckle on the P -
boss around a cleavage,
       pardon, rho alt romeo,
ultimatum grzechotnik...
   rattler... god i hate crosswords.
- because of journalism
history has become irrelevant...
   i hate journalists,
journalists are to me
the grand inhibitors of
what's necessary: inhibitions...
the journalist is the new Jew
to me...
         a leech, a parasite,
akin to the parody of a kiss
under a mistletoe...
  ever set foot on Slavic lands?
ever see a tree, plagued by
a mistletoe?
  mistletoe is a parasite...
yet you kiss beneath it,
cranium above myrhh's worth
of crown...
         jemioła,
ever see a tree riddle with this
parasite?
  as i once said:
the cancerous man better
invite the sight of the botanical
cancer akin to the mistletoe...
  only in Slavic lands,
akin to mole mounds
   (maulwurfhügel -
germanem, faust, chem -
czyli chmiel; zdrowo)...
and yet the social norm is
to kiss beneath this botanical
scurvy...
             easier seen
on a botanical body
than on a heaving gloat -
          yet have you ever seen
mole mounds, or mistletoe
on a tree in its wintry skeletal
form?
          what a sad sight...
but a sight kept, as reminder...
western lands do not
allow such trivialities -
quasi-germanic Gaels -
               akin to the labours
of the mistletoe -
sometime mistaken for
abandoned nests of migrating
birds -
   man lost,
in the advent, atomising
the percularity of swan
and stork nobility -
namely monogamy...
             feeble man knows not
the sixth sense bypassing
sight of ghosts:
   fickleness -
     and chance of adequate
temperament stagnate-:
for the exploration of
the civilised caste.
         mistletoe is a botanical
parasite...
              in the wild i've
seen it green on branches
of birches and oaks -
while the host hibernated
the parasite grew...
    yet this kiss-me-lovely
parasite never managed
to bind itself
to the acidity of the pine,
the evergreen, the prickly
needlework of insomniac
tree...
              and they
make amends with a kiss,
under a parasite...
     how horrid wild
mistletoe is,
        perverse,
nonetheless,
  what else to comfort a cancern
patient with,
  if not a tree labouring
with a likened strain
of excessive bulge?
o, right...
  dialectical materialism has
been replaced by
dialectical historiology...
        at least the 1st tier
achieved something akin
to competition...
the second tier of communism
is merely confusion...
   economical model intact...
yet talk of ****; thoroughly.
~~
The soft chill winds
a cloudy day
ah! what a feeling!
drifting with the streams
how the life instills!

Waves of song coming from the distant
white Storks flying as the fall guy  
how the dreams come and go
between you and me
between the land and sea

In the sky rafts of white clouds
crafts the arrival of autumn
assuming the flame of Love
what a beautiful play!
what a fairs of tune!
~~
###
An Autumn Song
##
When the morning was waking over the war
He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died,
The locks yawned loose and a blast blew them wide,
He dropped where he loved on the burst pavement stone
And the funeral grains of the slaughtered floor.
Tell his street on its back he stopped a sun
And the craters of his eyes grew springshots and fire
When all the keys shot from the locks, and rang.
Dig no more for the chains of his grey-haired heart.
The heavenly ambulance drawn by a wound
Assembling waits for the *****'s ring on the cage.
O keep his bones away from the common cart,
The morning is flying on the wings of his age
And a hundred storks perch on the sun's right hand.
King and Queen of the Pelicans we;
No other Birds so grand we see!
None but we have feet like fins!
With lovely leathery throats and chins!
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!

We live on the Nile. The Nile we love.
By night we sleep on the cliffs above;
By day we fish, and at eve we stand
On long bare islands of yellow sand.
And when the sun sinks slowly down
And the great rock walls grow dark and brown,
Where the purple river rolls fast and dim
And the Ivory Ibis starlike skim,
Wing to wing we dance around,--
Stamping our feet with a flumpy sound,--
Opening our mouths as Pelicans ought,
And this is the song we nighly snort;--
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!

Last year came out our daughter, Dell;
And all the Birds received her well.
To do her honour, a feast we made
For every bird that can swim or wade.
Herons and Gulls, and Cormorants black,
Cranes, and flamingoes with scarlet back,
Plovers and Storks, and Geese in clouds,
Swans and Dilberry Ducks in crowds.
Thousands of Birds in wondrous flight!
They ate and drank and danced all night,
And echoing back from the rocks you heard
Multitude-echoes from Bird to bird,--
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!

Yes, they came; and among the rest,
The King of the Cranes all grandly dressed.
Such a lovely tail! Its feathers float
between the ends of his blue dress-coat;
With pea-green trowsers all so neat,
And a delicate frill to hide his feet,--
(For though no one speaks of it, every one knows,
He has got no webs between his toes!)

As soon as he saw our Daughter Dell,
In violent love that Crane King fell,--
On seeing her waddling form so fair,
With a wreath of shrimps in her short white hair.
And before the end of the next long day,
Our Dell had given her heart away;
For the King of the Cranes had won that heart,
With a Crocodile's egg and a large fish-****.
She vowed to marry the King of the Cranes,
Leaving the Nile for stranges plains;
And away they flew in a gathering crowd
Of endless birds in a lengthening cloud.
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!

And far away in the twilight sky,
We heard them singing a lessening cry,--
Farther and farther till out of sight,
And we stood alone in thesilent night!
Often since, in the nights of June,
We sit on the sand and watch the moon;--
She has gone to the great Gromboolian plain,
And we probably never shall meet again!
Oft, in the long still nights of June,
We sit on the rocks and watch the moon;--
----She dwells by the streams of the Chankly Bore,
And we probably never shall see her more.
    Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
    We think no Birds so happy as we!
    Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
    We think so then, and we thought so still!
wandabitch Apr 2014
Anthropogenic climate change
Nuclear fallout Chernobyl  
Raptors flourish
And wolves
Dwell
Sleeping.

Catfish swimming
In a cooling eye
Grown old and untouchable
By mans wills.

Rusty ships
Wetlands
Roam free.

Storks in their nests
1875
The cheval de prjevalski
Dye without mercy

The fallout from time
A call to restore
A broken land.

The wolves cry
The wolves cry
I
duchess in labor;
trusted royal storks on call;
where is the baby..?

II
duchess delivers,
trusted royal storks receive;
a charmed boy or girl...?

III
duchess is relieved,
royal baby is conceived;
it's a burly boy!
~ P (Pablo)
K Balachandran Oct 2018
In arrow form storks,
Wing towards the mountain at dawn;
It’s one at the tip!
Zywa Mar 2022
With wet feet, the storks

easily potter about --


amidst lots of food.
Collection "The drama"
He had to come back.

On a December afternoon
when the sun was more to west,
he landed on the most favorite place of his house,
the roof.

Just as he had imagined
the still winter air was abuzz with life.

Doves were pairing for a home
Green bee-eaters swooped on insects
Two herons kept following the grazing cow
Crows were busy with twigs and wires
High up beyond where paper kites could soar
Storks slow sunned their wings wet from the jhil
The cats warmed their furs before the cold night
The stray puppy gamboled with its mother.

Each piece had perfectly fitted the other
including the silently sleeping house.

He was tempted to walk down once
has she changed any little way?

He smiled to himself
then breezed away from the roof.
solitary soul in the sea
slovenly storks slide
      (against a grey sky)
seeking satisfactory sensations
             solidifying
    soul searching solutions
© jeannine davidoff 2010
Katie Hill Oct 2010
Birds in cages are immortalized in poetry,
in wordy melancholy and round top cages beside
windows tauntingly open to the mountains, the
earthy smell of wheat and the breezy ocean air.
Hundreds of perturbed human eyes press close against brass,
mooning with open mouths and dry lips
cooing baby-talk bird-calls in hope of a
crying return, like a blessing,
or a soft forgiveness.

Outside,
Lovebirds are doves and songbirds.
They commune with owls and storks
and perch on branches, all the better to coo
and cry to the loving, glowing moon.

Anger, jealousy, and fright are all stones. They are heavy
and they have no place in the bellies of skybirds.
Caged birds have jealousy and clipped wings,
brass bars bent into tiny atmospheres, but canaries
carry bile in their beaks, beady black eyes watching
changing seasons with singing spite.

I am and have always been a swallow,
all creamy white belly and a thousand
creeping kinds of brown.
I wish to stay up, up for a thousand hours
in the realm of thought. In your thoughts,
I wish to be the voice whispering stories to you
from inside your precious head, curved
lovingly above me like an unending sky.
I am wings and feathers and I am full of things
that I desire much much more than air.
AJ Claus Oct 2013
Everything is so big.
The people, the places, the things.
Even the words.
What does "discipline" mean?
Ow!
Why did you hit me?
Did I do something wrong?
Oh, I'm not allowed to draw on the walls?
But I want to color...
I want to draw the green lollipops,
The ones with brown stems.
What did mommy call them?
Trees?
So big!
They tower over me like the sky over the earth.
I go outside to play under the skyscraper trees.
Birdies soar from branch to branch,
Just out of reach,
Like my toy airplane flies over my imaginary village
Where I am the president.
Oh look, little eggs!
Baby birdies not yet torn free from their shell cells.
Mommy said I was in an egg once.
I wonder where storks live,
And how they carry such a giant egg!
Wait, does that make the stork my mommy?
Mommy says it's time for a nap.
But I want to play!
All day, every day!
There's no other way;
I'm a kid, I must play.
But mommy's in charge,
And she says it's not okay,
So instead I lay
In bed for an hour,
Though it feels like all day.
I awake to bright light,
My eyes wide, like a child's always are.
Mommy says we're going on an adventure,
Taking a trip to a magic man
Who heals people with his own two hands.
I ride in the back in my special seat
Of mommy's giant, wheeled robot.
I'm still waiting for it to transform.
She puts on my favorite music.
It makes me want to
Row
Row
Row
My own boat down a stream.
We finally get to the magician
And I'm still humming to my songs.
I walk in
And see fishies in a big box filled with water.
Mommy calls it their house,
Where the fish families live and grow up together.
I hear my name, called out by a stranger.
I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.
I don't move,
But mommy pushes me towards the man
And through a big door.
I squeeze my mouth shut and look at my feet.
I must not speak to this stranger.
I'm wondering if I can trust him
When he brings me into a room
With duckies on the pale blue walls.
There is a table in the middle of the room.
The stranger tells me to sit on it.
I don't move.
Mommy repeats the request,
And with the pain in my bottom
Still alive and tingling,
I sit, cringing.
The stranger leaves (thank goodness)
And the magician in a white mask
(To hide his identity I bet)
Comes into the room.
He asks mommy some questions,
And then I feel cold hands
On my back, face, tummy,
And I wonder
What magic powers he is using on me.
He turns around and I smile at mommy,
But it changes into a frown and wider eyes
When he turns back with a
Long,
Pointy,
Shiny,
Metal
Stick.
Maybe it's a knife.
Mommy says I should stay away from knives
And other pointy things.
But then this magician makes his wand disappear.
Into my arm.
With the pain searing through me,
I scream.
Not a magician or a healer,
A threat, trying to hurt me.
Mommy tries to calm me down,
Tell me it's okay.
But it's not okay, and I scream on.
More strangers in white file in and hold me down.
I think they're going to take me away,
Or **** me with their daggers.
After what feels like forever, it stops.
They let me go,
And I exchange my screams for tears.
We leave the room.
I stagger out, exhausted.
Back at the fish house,
A stranger gives me a lollipop.
I throw it on the ground.
I do not trust strangers.
Not at all,
Not anymore.
Mommy picks it up and tries to hand it to me.
I won't take it.
I turn to leave and she catches up to me.
She hands me another lollipop.
I hesitate, but take it.
I do love sweets.
What kid doesn't?
I get back in the car,
******* on my sucker,
And fall asleep in my special seat.
The transformer stops, at some point.
Mommy brings me inside and tucks me in,
And I lose consciousness completely.
After a day like today,
I guess naps aren't so bad after all.
Fah Jul 2013
Sweet lips encrusted in sugar from the hot doughnuts at the steam fair.
Baked in the dusty sunshine of an August afternoon in North London.
I would roam these streets from childhood into adulthood,
Drinking £2,50 wine at bus stops only to get thrown out of the pub for illusionary bathroom shots
Our real crime? Being too young.

Since then, i have drunk Spanish manzanilla in an old tobacco store room
Transformed into a house where wafts of old book smell mingling with the scent of baked terra cotta and lemon trees sweeps down dark corridors revealing hidden gems of traveled souls.
Where there are streets that belong to Phoenician women , Arab traders , Christian crusaders and now the Spanish folk
All these names we go by , yet still human we stand

Up on roof tops, smoking sneaky roll ups to the elegance of storks
Building nests on church domes and castle walls
Monuments to remind the future
Graffiti on the natural landscape , the ruins read " we waz ere"

From shores of the Atlantic to shores of the Atlantic
Brooklyn rises
The night bus to eat pizza alarmed me
How were the buses so different ?
London's told you where you were
New York's Made you suss it out for yourself
In the company of a Father i hardly knew and the Mother of my new sibling
Child ,
Who will you become ?
Shaped by the contrast of your parents skin , your curled hair yet to emerge from fresh formed follicles
Rest easy ,
This world Ain't so harsh

I found God at the bottom of a bowl of noodles
Simply sitting there , lazing about as i licked my lips of the residual chillies and sugar
I deal in the order of paradoxes
Born by the sea only to grow up in the 'so called' luxury of the cities jungle
Although, resting now in the moon soaked mountain air ,
no city can compare, to the fragrance of flowers that bloom and scent only for those who brave the night

I used to be afraid of the dark ,
Now i make love with it.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2016
or how to make the eclectic concentrated,
how to make a zemstwa potion (revenge
potion) - long are the days of educated
Germans citing Grecian words -
my bilingualism gives me a patriotism
to use a language foreign to me,
and still embrace importing Church Slavonic:
                 but what a simple word
zemstwa is: less revenge and more retribution.

karakan: a ****** / dwarf -
but in an inoffensive sentence.
    people in the anglo realm always say
the phrases: where're are you from, originally?
and... how do you say it, properly?
        you first employ a knowledge of
syllable butchery: prophets of the surgical
procedure -
                 macron and umlaut both
akin in arithmetics -
                                  for what's later a comma.
Sartre plagiarised Joyce with *iron in the soul
,
     left out all forms of punctuation,
akin to the English language leaving out all
forms of syllable punctuation in reverse -
      which goes against Socrates doing the
Kabbalistic methodology of sounds as atoms,
cut up?      so-  -crat- -es.
                                 Dr. Satan said: it's so.
        i already said that language is the most volatile
substance known to man...
             and that the only people who get to write
books in the west: are people who are asked to write
books in the first place.
      there's me, in a darkened corner:
a coroner's phrase -
                i would be a true idle drunk had i no
tenacity to write and drink...
   by now i'm halfway through a bottle of *** -
Bacardi - or Bacardí - acute iota to get a stress /
prolonging into an ee         - because
you rarely hear someone say Afrikaan: or
   Afrikān - they taught you punctuation of words /
compounds - but they didn't teach you
how diacritical marks are also incisors
    stating that there are two hydrogen atoms and
an oxygen bound to in a reaction with potassium -
or such guises lost or forgotten.
                    it's aesthetic in the informal sense,
in the formal sense: power.
                 no one wants a flower-power hippy cuddle
moment these days, it's true:
                   they want fierce knowing -
people want glasses -
                to possess the Galilean power struggle
stated with cyclops Jupiter being noticed
and saintly Saturn -
                      a different spirit rummages through me
and hence the differential vibration of
the hushed lynx: named Larry.
                     in flames: metaphor -
well, you know, you begin the night with
a change of tone: former barley murky gods' ****
                    amber - to Caribbean clarity -
you're bound to find a difference in shaky "the shadow"
stevens of your hands - i'm way past
the absinthe romanticism - sugar cubes alight
are like latex gimp masks: you start yearning for
the countryside hiatus of forever:
    David Attenborough-esque narrated *** scenes,
birds and the bees, and storks.
                       as sure as Moonday in a
monocle i say: the world events shouldn't drag you
into their narrative - avoid them - avoid them at all
costs: you're not a power broker in their final
summit - you can't change them, turn your attention
elsewhere, into niche topography of interest:
with a very minor demographic of shared coagulation
to express it... back when fame was less of a harrowing:
back when there was no personality cult activation:
a banker said to me once, randomly on a walk:
Newton, what a load of *******!
        and hence the ballistic missiles and that thing
about global warming: for every action there's an
equal and opposite reaction (3rd law) -
     Descartes thought would be part of the
conspiracy theorist columnal dogma reiteration -
doubt is wrong (albeit good faith)
         and negation is right (albeit bad faith,
as Sartre already said) -
     so in turn the tongue: the doubters turn the tongue
into the four limbs with boxing gloves included -
  waggle all you want, the pessimism is already
there - the deniers? they had clothes for their tongue
to make the most spectacular claims about
being naked, when actually dressed at Harrods
in that cheap **** that says: all pharaoh cool, cool.
i'll find more pearls in the reflection of the moon
upon an ocean than i'll ever see donned by pearl
necklace ladies at a fashion week goose-step stomping
anorexics show in London - and that's the truth.
     i'm not a biblical literalist - but **** me!
we were given a poisoned fruit, and told we would
be able to tell apart good & evil, but never from
the two divergent stances, hence the bundled up salad
of like for like -
                     this is Moses as poet, rather than
a general - before telling me he didn't exist
and was mere fiction: tell me he was a cunning poet
before being a cunnin general -
                  in a hundred years' time: you too will
be a myth, that's logically applied history after
being ignored for too long it cannot attract
september the 1st, 1939 - because mythology is
a form of history that detests exactness of dating
and hindsight - it happened: people didn't
really give a **** when it did, done!
     we really do not have a capacity to censor
*******...  not in life, on the street, on t.v., or in a courtroom,
           we don't!
                                   i treat it as a puzzle
rather than a fruit though, otherwise, to be stark-naked
honest: we'd be ****** gorilla boring and that would
be the end of our self-projection as questioning
the void we're in: it would have been blindly
nodded to - and ours': such a pivotal and yet also
pathetic rebellion -
                                 yet again, the world is going
into the shredder - looks elsewhere:
i'm looking at a poem by jack spicer -
he's not a great poet, meaning? he has a decency to
be one... which means he's not oratory
therefore he's implosive, therefore he's part of
the magnetic-enzyme strand of writing:
he attracts people to write -
                    he's not a Bukowski or a Ginsberg -
god no...
                  the seemingly mediocre is there
because of the paparazzi sentiment toe-ward
the greats (on purpose) -
                    you end up feeling:
i need to say something - instead of feeling:
a heckler! shut, the, ****, up!
      that's being perceived as mediocre goes:
it's a fatality of what not to adopt and improve;
like that line about the doubter's tongue being
dressed in fists and knees -
   and the denier's tongue being dressed in Gucci
and Dolce to look the part and
         hardly spread a cup of sweated over panic.
      pro-me-thee-us
      pro-me-thee-us
      five years
      the song singing from its black throat (Jack)
  sure... but it's pro-me-fee-oose - right?
this goes back to not having "punctuation"
flint sharpenings on atoms of lingua -
                 sure, have them between compounds,
but never ascribe them to letters?
  bound to be trouble....
             d'eh very point of fought over is to be
count, unawares: thinking.
then i picked up a very ancient text,
ibn sina / abū alī al-husayn ibn sīnā:
variation, properly?
i'd put a macron over y in al-husaȳn -
     otherwise it's almost like a question of
practising punctuation: which is a variation of
constructing from syllables, rather than
alphabetical beginnings - now let's look
at the variation "how do you pronounce it?"
         e-bin   c-n'ah       ah-boo       a'h-lee
              who-sane         e-bin         see-n'ah

this is how English looks like when undressed
from its lack of applying diacritical marks -
god it's ugly,
               get that Texan gunslinger drawl with
it too: like i'll ever be a cowboy: pff!
yes, there are people out there who enjoy
t.v. shows and look at them fish-eyed glassy -
then there are those that like football games -
but then the few of us look at something like the
following as means for transcendental mind-games
above crosswording:
(Kantian 0 = negation,                1 must therefore
                    mean affirmation, and 2 doubt:
as in: being of two minds)
   ibn Sana (tome of wisdom) -

            R  H
A  0  0  0  0  0  0  B
C  0  0  0  0  0  0  D­
            T  G
                                     this diagram is so idiosyncratic
it would well be a diaphragm -
                                   it's a scematic:
but it's certainly not a need to make language
trivia, in a sense trivial:
             it is a metaphysical translation of a pearl -
the same triviality can be applied to it
as our bewilderment ascribed toward the
analogous translation of it via avaricious people
and precious gems -
             it's not even a Xeno's paradox type of
looky-looky -
                 it's a sort of complete human being type
of scenario: an X marks the spot where you
     grow dumb with: does it matter?
      well: logic that's not restrained (on holiday)
produces such things -
                 such schematics:
   they are artefacts of a way to forget the daily
function of language between people:
as way to suggest: there is a way to get things done
by not getting them done.
                   i could have replaced the original
with a higher tier abstract, namely using less meaningful
encoding symbols, given that 0 - 9 are incompetent
of the 26 variabilities, and the why & i
            yumper and jumper,
   cat and kilogram                    cue, q, kappa -
skewers -     which makes it less than 26,
or the said: ∞      and a - z variation limit from
aardvark                    and   zyzzogeton -
zoo... in between.
                            i don't know what ibn is
trivialising / doing an original antidote to a crossword,
but i can say, given that i found the punctuation
scalpel in non-applied punctuation within letters
in the End-leash language - what i found stark
naked: by the way - the reason that philosophers
never applied grammatically categorising words
in their systems, is why we have that sort of
momentum of applicability in the field of robotics:
to categorise words by their noun or verb
is a reason why philosophy books never applied
such words in their reasoning - therefore the need
to write a book with such words being relevant
as translated into their precise irrelevance
and the relevance of the field of robotics.
never mind, i could have written
          
                     <  ≥
£           .   .   .   .   .   .  ≠ (÷)
= (x)     .   .   .   .   .   .  $
                     ≤  >                        thus the denial
of all plausible conversation on the matter:
and Herr Grinch and the rags to riches
fairytale - and the lottery, and the otherwise
grim simga of the yawning grey plateau;
did i get something wrong?
                 this is an example of an alter-crossword,
and the reason that mathematicians aren't
good at mental arithmetic is because
they have to learn mathematical shorthand
for their arguments, they become kindred spirits
of courtroom stenographers.
Simon Clark Aug 2012
Owl Of Night

Hoot cracks the night air,
Rustling rodents stands frozen,
Shock, swoop, attack prey.

2. Bat Of Night

Clear sight of blindness,
Sonar sounds rebound; its wings
cut fog; vampire.

3. To The Eagle

Giant golden flight,
Endless grace and smoothly glides,
Strong; its nation falls.

4. To The Graceful Swan

Elegant swimmer,
Pure white like virginal snow,
Paired to bitter end.

5. The Butterfly

Multicoloured gift,
Taken by the gusts to blend
like petal to plant.

6. The Butterfly Effect

Toxic explosion,
Hong Kong is destroyed; travels,
Condemns London air.

7. King Of The Jungle

Magnificent beast,
Ruler of his skilful pride,
Stalks African plains.

8. Roar Of A Tiger

Powerful calling,
Echoes ‘cross the heated land,
Mighty animal.

9. A Proud Cat

Sits in the garden,
Ears pricked, curled tail, statuesque,
Pride clear in her purr.

10. A Dog

…is a mans best friend,
…brightens the darkest of days,
…guarantees friendship.

11. The Wolf

A midnight howler,
Ghostly happenings occur,
Silhouetted; still.

12. The Polar Bear

Camouflaged in white,
Against the snow he hides out,
Tough, sturdy and pure.

13. God and the Devil

One high in the clouds,
Symbol of goodness; he’s blessed,
One below the ground.

14. To The Heavens

Are you really there?
Floating land of peaceful rest,
Will I be let in?

15. To Hell

Overwhelming flames,
Dead with red burns, smoke filled lungs,
Worse than hell on Earth.

16. To Mother

You granted me life,
Cared, and still do, for my health,
Made happiness real.

17. To Father

Encouraged and led,
Guided me with your being,
Created this man.

18. To My Siblings

Sister and brother,
On my shoulder no my back,
Love, care, lend and steer.

19. To A Child

Tiny newborn boy,
Asleep in his mothers arms,
The storks’ joyful gift.

20. To A Friend

A supporting hand,
To turn to, cry with and trust,
To laugh with and love.
written in 2010
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
oh hell, every time i write some embarrassing a day prior, i turn into honour killing from Pakistan enveloped by shame... 'what the hell did i write last night? i can't remember, but i know for sure that i didn't roll down the stairs or **** in a phonebox'. well, i could sit here romanticising like Marcel Schwob, or just dig into like Marquis the Sade... honestly and oddly enough the latter did give me an *******, and he was half-the-pervert that everyone deemed him to be, flashing his buttocks from the Bastille... his uncle abbé de Sadé (i love to put that accent in on purpose - sounds better to me, less boorish) - and yes, Creedence Clearwater Revival does more justice to the harmonica on graveyard train than Bob Dylan and **** Jagger put together... it's just there, and it ain't it's because it's there that makes it... ha ha... groovy - maybe that's why they spared him from the guillotine, in that he wrote more of his exploits as wished to be done, and of the actual exploits too many were hidden in his blabbering prose undone; ****** is by far his greatest work.

i told you the black and red Oranjeboom is a trip, they used to sell it at 8.5%, now they dropped it to 7.5... that beer can get you crazy in nanoseconds, quicker than a formula 1 crown jewel of a Mercedes-Benz, i'm serious, the ****'s lethal - you drink with me you'll be talking l.s.d., you'll end up a Mongol somewhere in Siberia, stark naked in minus forty saying the words: 'where's my umbrella? where's my umbrella?', indeed on repeat... 'and that yak? i was riding a yak... where's the yak?' we have European bisons to await you colonel... 'about time, i was waiting for a bison... isn't that the place where storks migrate to to make butter over the summer? and the Jews hid when the Black Plague was sweeping across Europe leaving them immune in the vicinity of Cracow?' yes it was, Herr Mascherschtic-Messerschmitt -
'who's on the oboe? and the soloist violinist?' we don't know, working it out, 'you better, because i don't really long for a drum-beat of knocking two stones together to spark anything but fire, rather, a conversation; 40 days in the desert with Jesus trying to relocate the Jews to Goa worked out so splendid that they moved North, started speaking riddle Hebrew that's Yiddish and followed suit with ****** being gassed, but instead of trenches, death chambers - people tend to forget he was himself gassed and dated Eva a Jewess... no far right assimilation, i spoke with a grandpa that asked for sweets from an SS-man and a great-grandmother who fed her daughter opiates to hush her on the eastern front so she wouldn't cry - sometimes stating a self-consciousness detached from thinking (the inhibitor of existence) is as random as a lottery - because it's just that, thought is an inhibitor of existence, being is an exhibitor of the (sic) stated - oh please don't read me if you're into ******, i'm with the bookworms and freaks, premature ejaculators and whatnot, go eat a ******* macaroon in Morocco or something - of all the admirable circumstances worthy a stage thinking isn't really allowed, it's not exactly glorified, in two sentences:
- *i thought about it
             (how two pronouns
                                               interact without Freud,
                                               or meet, or are the proton i
                                               neutrons thought about
                                               and the electrons it)...
it's a permanent duality of expressing something and anything,
we need the first person, the eyes give it away,
but in the end we're either touching an axe to chop
down a tree or attaching ourselves to a detachment of
chopping the tree down for the Freudian third it -
it's no longer a game of 'you're it!' tagging of
the kindergarten game but a work of fiction, transitions
like that must be painful - third person narratives are
generally conceived from being lazy in the first person,
how many people do you actually need to **** the poet off?
film credits: and it's a long list, mind you.
oh yeah, that word: dzwiękać - it's about making 0.1% of
a Mozart symphony with two stones smacked against
each other for what the feet used to do, a drumbeat,
it's not exactly an act of Prometheus' Odyssey into
the first glimpses of chemistry -
alternatively?
- i am it / or some alternative to something even more alternative,
  in the French school of thought dubbed deconstructionism
  that's also a blah blah reduction,
  Bruce Springsteen and Frank Sinclair, a slum-dunk
  by the Lakers - it's still supposed to mean that i intended
  the phonetic encryption, i visualised nothing for
  you to follow-up on, sounds, poetry isn't cartoon,
  the harsh reality of having to read the Mandala of
  mouth expressions without, eye, eyebrows or cheeks
  or chin - ends up being dentistry when you want to
  say a but end up adding a            h     while
  the dentist inserts a blunt object into your mouth for
  an ah (be my guest, macron or umlaut depending
  on the volume of your lungs added to the a for reasons
  of reality's prolonging the seance of rotten teeth).
what i meant was the notion that thought is a different
type of being, or expression of out of every instance -
thinking too much won't grant you access to
people who say: 'are bored with their *** life. especially
gay men, who 'see *** as something you have to do
while on drugs'. so once **** no reassurance with
forever ****? **** it! could have given it a one-over
back when i didn't have a monkish demur.
well i can admit i'm jealous, but i just remember *******
before puberty and feeling the muscle sensation and
seeing no *****, aged 8 - the ******* help, and incubator
for all that raging monotheistic operatic harem wanton -
it's still a balancing act writing a sentence,
you are basically juggling two words, both are pronouns -
you throw a boomerang, you throw it as yourself
and expect it to come back as yourself,
pristine, juvenile, ******, intact with a pride of being
a person not influenced by others... the origin of
Columbus... it doesn't work like that,
the boomerang ends up like a windscreen with
several bugs attacked to it, bugs like Kant, like Heidegger,
whoever... whatever, free-love **** *** is overrated for me,
the ******* build-up and the flashing lights and whatnot,
i approach *** like a lumberjack a tree,
axe, tree, chop chop, tree falls... i'm out after an
hour having paid £110 for the pleasure... so you can take
your little feminism into the annals for these free-love
festivals (burning man in Nevada, killing kittens
in the hamptons etc.), preach there, leave me and my loser
****** high libido crew in the shadow of the crucifix -
judgemental ******* - i never expected so much stigma for
giving an ****** that i paid for to give, it's like an
Albert Camus novel, or worse, his life,
paid for a train ticket but decided to travel to the desired
destination by car, dead in a car-wreck - Irony with an ism.
Glen Brunson Aug 2013
two summers ago,
I found myself under a cabbage leaf
curled beneath the sun.
circled in slumber,
like there was never an end to anything.
then, I grew wings
and left my warmth for speed
sacrificing my calm breeze for cold storms
and windy nights.

on my flight home,
I sit through red lights and
look for tear tracks on the
faces of strangers
kissing their cheeks with my eyes
and pretending I can see the salt.
because there is hope left in
loss, my friends.
sometimes, you just have to let
the best things fall.

(how do you think storks still fly?)

so, I spend rush hour
untying the cloth diapers from my ankles
and when the highway pulls
my hills away from me,
I send them flying out the window
like dead birds
knowing
I will never see the seeds
fertilized through their bones
praying God thinks this
is a gesture of my good will.

let us all pray that God notices
our empty hands when we give up
the deepest now for an uncertain future.

Personally, I am praying for a cardboard-box
collection of home movies documenting
the growth of all the people I left,
of all the places thrown behind me
like stale cigarette smoke,
the homes I have broken with
my ever moving feet, my restless
guilty wings.

I will project the shaky film
all over my internals until my
gut is soaked with light
and the last shocked thought
of my quickly fading mind
will be of the things I could have seen,
the memories I would have made
if I had not gone away so much.

If I had just stayed.

but the wind is a vicious thing,
especially the updrafts
especially the hot breath under wings
which gradually convinced me
that my home was a cold dead thing
that there was no life left in my town
that the only world worth seeing was
far far away.

I have burned the eyes
of bluegrass Beethovens dying
slowly on a stage just to prove
that I never needed a quiet place.
that I was above all the country songs
and overalls and camouflage,
but we all need to hide sometimes.
even from ourselves.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2015
and you shall be content with stirring up the sentimentalities of the old,
rather than be content in capturing the imagination of the young.*

i only write in my mother tongue when i feel too much
oppression, when it’s not worth being reminiscent
of the years 1772 through to 1939, only then do i use it,
and using it weep. i know of the post-colonial stress disorder in
western societies, it’s effective use in psychiatry
of these societies to curb any ambition of historical reminiscene,
i know of the oppression where man integrating
into these societies is told to relinquish his mother tongue,
i know of these oppressions: and of eastern european "exotica" -
you wouldn’t be fooled to expect tigers and polar bears,
palms date trees and icebergs to be so close to england!
murzynek bambo wita! kopciuszek magda wita!
                                          hanzel und gretyl / bambo i magda!
but did you know poland is the host nation of the european
bison, and the no. 1 tourist destination of storks?
                                                                      oh... polar bears it is.
Prabhu Iyer Aug 2012
This is the time I cannot bear: this silent evening hour
As I shut windows and the balcony to prying nightsong:
In the trance of dim lights, I ride the incense plume
Across whispers and half-thoughts, slicing through
The canvasses of time: that unforgettable house of love
Perched by the lakes, circled by the stream and canal
Where worlds and time stopped to catch a glimpse
Many shades of grey silhouetted against stormy skies
Of swans gliding past fresh ripples across reeds
Drenched in a hundred hues of ethereal moonlight,
Hum of the wind surfing on the waters, drunken voices
Of assorted lovelorn: thrushes, finches, hidden warblers
Majestic storks and herons guarded the secret doors
To eternity, pitched right in the middle of the great city
By the home that housed love in precious embrace
O the cold of the winter that screened for damp corners
In our souls, through meditative shades lining the view,
The home that I squandered, I who love ruins and rubble
K Balachandran Mar 2014
On the blue black paper, western sky spreads,
mirthful white storks in a formation write-
a poem that steals every heart in an instance.
When the colors of dusk infuse meaning, it gleams,
cumulus clouds above are flush with goosebumps,
below, the green trees  start a spirited samba dance,
evening breeze translates it, in to a jaunty song.
Oh! celestial poet, thy immortal verse, comes alive
rings aloud, without words and none reciting it.
K Balachandran Oct 2013
Black
is dripping from
the clouds.
White,
storks are
painted black.
Red
rain lashes
raising alarm.
Green
fields are turning grey
before our naked eyes.
Blue
skies are
beyond eyeshot
always.
Yellow
leaves
fall all through
the year.
The globe
acquires a
new wardrobe
beware!
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2019
ask me: i'm a sucker for pop music and medieval hymns, whether folk or of a gratitude toward a community akin to Taizé... while society suffocates me with jester's pounces to satiate a coming bride.. i'm more inclined to satiated myself with monkish escapades... i am aware of the "existential" absolute negotiation: to preserve the upright specimen... i'm pretty sure the chinese, the african and the indian sub-continent have it covered, i'm happy to be part of the dodo project... clearly i don't want to be part of it... i should have been allowed to be a monk, with each day passing i'm hardly thinking of the petty conquests of a bedroom with a... come on... even i thought this brief relationship could resemble a brothel's "one hour spare"... Tamara... spanish girl, worked in a barber shop... lived with three homosexual hunks... i tried having a hard-on, even when she told me to have a bath with her and talk... i couldn't get it up, i was put off when she wanted a kleenex moment, ***, incubated, under the bedsheets... in a brothel you **** under dimmed lights but not in a womb of cotton! you shower first, sometimes even washing each other, there's this whole unwritten ritual! she puts on a ****** while she ***** you off... come on... aaesthetic, cordiality... prostitutes have been the most respectful women i've ever ******, it's like joining an army of marching ******... in a pink floyd revision of marching hammers... imagine... the neo-communist flag: ***** replaces the hammer... the sickle? scissors, i guess, borrowing from scissor sisters? ***** & scissors? great! we have ourselves the new soviet, ahem, soviet union... and a flag to boot! oh Tamara Tamara... sure, no hard-on... drunk one-night stand cameo... i tried and tried, but i kept suffocating under the bed-sheets cocoon ***... she broke with me after 3 days because the hard-on wasn't coming... god, i too wish i could be the perfect ***** with a heart, kidneys, liver stomach and brain to match: ON / OFF... isn't a male ******* akin to a slobbering oyster of a woman's *****? **** impressions... kama sutra speaks about elephant phallus and a rabbit's ****** (depth)... i can't just switch it on, & off... it's not a ******* ****-pumping-piston worthy of ******* web-cam incel ******* worth of video, is it?! never mind... i was having coffee in the morning between her inquiring gay-minders (she suddenly left of Ibiza to find love)... i was saved by a presence of a robin... and you know what a fictional Napoleon would have said: a robin is worth twice the sparrow's worth... timid foot, tender foot... shy organge loiter... who... for some strange reason, migrastes to eastern europe for winter, then migrates to england during the summer... i guess: continental europe provides the sort of winters that are summers, while england provides the sort of summers that are winters... the mythology of Poland... storks and bisons... on a whiff... teenage gamer... but the storyline still grips me: soul reaver:
   protagonist: Raziel...
the brothers:
              Melchiah, Zephon, Rahab and Dumah...
games what worked as book-alt.,
                  i'm almost itching to add diacritical
marks to those names to "x-ray" into syllables
and hyphens...
    mind you, what has remained of the old
anglo-ßaß?
        names in chemistry... already, mentioned,
somewhere...
  sure... gaming is fun these days,
given the in-game cash-in handicap...
from Kazakh, Ukraine, China of the rich...
etc.,
                    these internet-based non-NPC games...
they're great for non NPC non-a.i. characters,
i.e. the old games had... not so much NPC...
but s.i.: synthetic intelligence...
   it wasn't artificial as it wasn't analytical
intelligence, it was a fixed intelligence
of the "opponent" / i.e. narrative...
             modern gaming can only be spectated...
on the evolutionary "debate"
when you: only purchased a PS1 and didn't
buy any console after...
as if "waiting" for the internet to catch up
to the grid... where you could play games live...
imagine a game...
     like the old narrative games...
but where the "opponent", i.e. the narrative
learns from your first encounter...
   long gone would be the encounters
with NPC in the old school standard of
synthetic intelligence, synthetic implying:
repetition, nothing being new...
   if the NPS characters could be given
analytical intelligence parameters...
     you could reinvent the old model of games...
away from the internet FREE...
  but, really: you're playing with a handicap
against people who have made in-game
purchases... hell... once a game cost 20 quid...
and it might last you three weeks' solid
of weekend gameplay in the early morning
on a saturday... in bed...
           i'm not really a gamer...
well if i'm the *******, the throne of thrones
i'm a gamer: just like some people
are thinkers on the ******* reading books...
but the old "solipsist" gamer is long gone...
the one who played to construct
a complex cognitive narrative...
i'll repeat the mention...
i once told a "friend" about playing sims...
he was so engaged in the game,
built this, built that...
i told him i freaked out when i moved
my sim to play a game on the computer...
hence finding the illuminating
wormhole of the Droste Effect...
  i stopped playing...
  final fantasy VII?
   only with a walkthrough...
homework and ****...
           going to the mall on saturday
with the misfits...
running up tier carparks and then aiming
with saliva on people walking in...
    talking to hare krishna converts...
about Dave Lombardo's insane drumming...
ilford: early 21st century...

cut off... a second poem:

.poland played israel in a soccer match today, the hymns began, first came the israeli hymn... boos and whistling, at first... but then i heard casimir III hush the crowd.... lucky for me not being in warsaw... the crowd silenced their illogical anti-semitism, the choir sang, libera me domine... i cannot fathom the russian purges, or the germanic dislike of these people.... casimir III's hush... i look at the cat sitting on my bed, glum, yet proud... how soon the whistling and engaging with mob sounds was hushed when the israeli anthem was sung... i'm happy for these people, even if i am one of them, but at such a distance: i don't feel i am part of them... so much for the glorification of western objectivity standards in argument... but i am a ******, on the british isles... what sort of objectivity am i i to expect? the objective counter-subjectivity of born in Poland, but bred in England?! is that it?! walking abortion... i am proud that the crazed mob was hushed when the israeli anthem continued... after all... SS-obersturmbannführer rudolf höss did cite casimir III allowing jews to settle in these eastern european lands... nes c'est pas? né(s) ç'é(st) pā(s)?! how else to write something akin to this, without finding oneself gritting one's teeth, grinding them into a toothpaste sensation of fluoride sandpits?!

fan-boy literature: stendhal, dante,  
         dumas             (vs)
   young-adult novels,
              which, i will never read...

            just enough whiskey
to count the rounds
of the crucuible
of the current escapade...

i'm ageing,
but i still like bands
like i might be a teenager...
          
came the: grand sorrow
taste, for all that's worth,
in encompassing a tomorrow.
K Balachandran Apr 2017
this flowered grove looks,
a grand bouquet from above
storks, quiet , dozing
JDK Apr 2015
My mom likes to feed the ducks and storks that frequent our lake.
We often refer to her as the "Bird Lady."
They congregate in our backyard, waiting to be fed.
She throws them cereal and dried up old bread.
She's given most of them names.
Whenever one becomes a mother,
she keeps track of the ducklings.
Most of them don't make it.
They fall prey to hawks and cranes.
I can always count on her for an unwarranted update.
"Juliet lost another baby today."
"I don't care."
If they lose them all,
she likes to call them Bad Mothers,
which I find ironic.

This morning, I saw three pelicans in our lake.
I guess there's a first time for everything.
They were white with black-tipped wings.
They were feeding with a sort of unexpected grace.
They'd dunk their heads then come back up with something in their long orange beaks.
The bottom of which would shake. All loose and leathery.
After they had their fill, they flew off in unison.
One after the other,
like one, two, three.
And afterwards I thought,
"**** swans."
Only in Florida.
lua Nov 2023
I don't look like either side of my family
an outlier in plain sight
soap-bleached, dry hair in puffs of smoke
and rolls of skin
undesirable on either side
and i feel the heat

could i have been born well?
untangled as i felt the first few rays of light
maybe meant for a different mother
the storks dropped their package
on the wrong address

my mother, could you dry my eyes?
just for the night
before you empty your wallets
at the big house
before you ruin your liver
and fill the gaps with
*****

maybe i was meant for a different light
a different face, a different body
a different name, a different brain
a different person in my mirror everyday
i sing songs of wanting to escape
as i rattle the metal bars on my windows
i am not mistreated,
rather not treated at all
walking in silence as my sister
freely wails her sorrows into her pillow at night
tiptoeing to not be heard
my brother cackles and screams slurs
at the top of his lungs

they were made for them
perfect children of god
carbon copies of my mother's face and demeanor
i
only through my eyes

only through my eyes.
Jeremy Mackey Feb 2012
A ****** of Crows delights in death.
Now they can come out, in novels and
poems and such, ominous and black.

For a moment, or many, a Crow is the center
of the universe. Perched on its pole, an eye
sees and its pupil becomes more.

Telephone-pole cities sprout from the earth,
each Murderous populous digs with hollow
claws, making their wooden crosses bleed.

Woodpeckers poke holes while Cardinals
warble nervously, the network is failing.
Communication begins to falter and cede.

Rotted from within, cables splice and
beams splinter. Crows, whose claws were
too embedded, struggle to break away.

When the last of the Crows have flown
away, gone, the earth flat is barren.
Tiny antennae peek out between the dirt.

A muster of Storks delights in birth, bearing
little yellow Finches to their new home;
easily foreseeable babes born to grow black.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
d'harga'h! urn! and sung clemency with the sign of the cross - Mr. Longinus - a baptism awaits...

in the Turkish shop buying my beers -
politics talk, gone Razza - Tahir -
talk of politics - deciphered a word:
Erdoğan (Erdoghan, Edrogrzan,
what was it - macabre radish to taste -
niechmaj sto Vlad'a reka na tle kiwnieniem  raz!
i krok poza 'sztem! bogiem byka wybryk
szto?! - the crowds descended, and the kestrels
and the pigeons, and the swans,
and the migratory storks, and the seagulls -
for the Winged-Hussar Polonaise.
fluff of the wings -
                                   the Mongol stench
reinterpreted - i rather be picking
ethnic mushrooms - kropki polka -
and koniewki - łopieniek & canary -
grünling in German, gąska zielonka - Pan Kleks -
or Chanterelle Mushroom - pepper shakerz -
kurki, tzn. te słynne grzyby.
the deviating *kurka
- or chickpea foetal
variant of fungus - or alias chick.
each time they pithy my assertion to claim the
ethnic brothel of Europe that Poland is for
the noble families - each time they undermine
the worker testifying the ****-worthy ****
prior sleep - pride settles in -
and a long forgotten assertive builds up
to architectural proportions -
it just ends up being a game of throwing
copper coins into Scotland, potatoes into Ireland...
and dinosaur bones into Wales...
and post-colonial subjects into England, lazily
packed with the labels **** and Hindu;
Karzimierz Dębski could have said: it was never
supposed to come to this; shame that it did;
the safety option was exacted.
topaz oreilly Jul 2013
The dawning oasis
with vin d'une nuit  drenching the sand
sees the good driven out
The long haired suitors
are voided by decree.
Storks bask  in the sun,
as Saint  Nicola's Paris jolt
ends before the carnival begins,
the fools largely spent.
Terry O'Leary May 2016
The flames of the furnace (well-travelled by wind
slowly glazing the rags of gray women chagrined
at the sight of a hair fleeing tresses now thinned)
sometimes billow like waves flooding naves through the night,
when the lightning peeks in where the tension hangs tight
while the lanterns, alarmed, appear fulgent with fright.

Having lost both his hands, and now dancing for dimes,
Captain Hook haunts the alleyway's rivers of rhymes,
sometimes singing or prancing to mimic the mimes
with white faces contorted to pillars of pain,
as the ringmaster murmurs “we're all the insane”
and the inmates dunk donuts in droplets of rain.

With their hammers in hand, in their plum pinafores,
Satan's soldiers of fortune wield powers of Thor's
leaving blood on bent bodies, the tombstones of wars
lining highways and byways  with manna and gold
for the mastermind movers, survivors consoled
with some pie in Valhalla (or so they've been told).

Above boulevards, battered with batches of bricks,
flys the Duchess of Dawdle on waxed candlesticks;
while she watches, debauches, her ****** tricks
as he talks (on their walks in the summer-day parks
where a parrot kneels praying, a parakeet barks)
’bout the buffed brazen beaks of the latter-day larks.

Hoary goblins glow gruesome, they leap from the loft
to the hard-hearted rues, shedding tears that they've quaffed
through the night of the dead as the clarinets coughed
and the keepers kept watch so that no one escaped
dingy dungeons where priests and their puppets hide caped
behind walls lined with tulips and justice hung draped.

In the Garden of Eaten, where apples once grew,
lie the bones, somewhat blanched, from the last barbecue
and the snakes strut like storks down a lost avenue
along tracks  like the cracks on the mask of the moon
all alight with the shadows that seep down a dune
as the firefly crawls from a crimson cocoon.

Phantom trains travel tunnels (dispatched in all haste),
voiding tickets to nowhere, it seems such a waste
to see roadblocks with red lights at dead ends misplaced
at the base of the bowels of the bottomless pit
where reflections of life seem so ****** counterfeit
from the back of the eyes of the blind hypocrite.

Lady cockroaches, camped in the Countesses' beds,
are commanding crusaders to fit arrowheads
to the ends of burnt bridges suspended by threads
from frayed thongs of diminutive bald balladeers
taunting Cerby, the three-headed dog, serving beers
to the pagan disciples of bold puppeteers.

The oceans lay barren, the garbage dumps filling
with fracking and cracking and lead water spilling,
for milling and drilling are thrilling but killing
the birds and the beasts and the tea leaves, soon falling,
yet gurus roast chestnuts but can't heed their calling
while mauling and crawling on knees while they're brawling.

Unshorn sheep in the meadow are led to the bay
to be brainwashed and fleeced, trusting donkeys that bray
of the virtues of demons that haunt yesterday,
while the vultures deflower the turtle dove lanes
where the blood trickles up and the cruel crimson stains
Easter eggshells and feathers – that’s all that remains.

One eyed bees pilot lines through electrical storms
and blind hornets hum hymns when they're swirling in swarms
while the rest are repressed as the blue marble warms
(regent Queens losing sight that the end has begun)
and for eyes of the ewes, veils of wool have been spun  
and the wasps fly their flags from the **** of a gun.

Seven trumpets (attempting to echo the horns
of the Siamese goats and the three Unicorns
giving birth to the mirth in the temple of thorns)
sound the bugles of sorrow inside of the sea
of crazed lies of the wormwood afloat like a pea
in a pod of dark dolphins that can't disagree.

Often bellowed by barkers, to crowds with no faces,
are words (in their aftermath, leaving no traces)
of picnics and parties in limbo-like places
on paths to perdition where pundits are preaching
and sirens belch bullets while pirates prowl, breaching
the shadow's barbed branches, with whistles blown, screeching.

They're dissecting dissenters that dare to annoy
and then trample with jackboots sent in to destroy,
until taming the toes of the last Gypsy boy
who gets caught in the craw of their cold catacomb
with no rescue by running nor staying at home,
and no freedom to breathe, only rough roads to roam.
The water babies chuckle to themselves
knowing the floods will soon come
the still ponds they float now upon
will disappear as their domain explodes

They grab their tiny swords they have hidden
tied to water lily storks surrounded by broad leaves
jumping out of their watery homes
they grab a frog or two and start cooking them

Yet these frogs are not for eating
oh no it's just the poison they want
when they start to bubble and squeak
they will dip their swords in it's poisonous goo

These nasty little creatures
start singing to Neptune
bring your waters fast
come and flood the world

Never trust water babies


By Christos Andreaas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
The Drummer Brothers of Ikku Ukku
Heard from the bathers that-
The Princess had been abducted
By the Dark Beast.
A bounty of thousand gold coins was announced
If you brought her back alive and the beast dead
And Death if you brought the beast alive and the Princess dead.

The Drummer Brothers of Ikku Ukku
Hung their drums around their necks
And drummed their way
Through the Forest Dark

When  the Elder Brother drummed the sleep-inducing roll,
The storks that roosted in the trees
Dropped as if they were one big bunch.
He picked them up one by one
While the younger one,
Elated,
Shouted 'Pelicans!' and drummed the defeathering roll
Upon which the plumage came off
The Elder Brother drummed the roasting roll
And the birdflesh caught fire.

On the second day a leopard that looked-
More like a boulder in leopard's clothing
Lurched at the brothers.
The Elder Brother drummed the age-reversing roll
And the poor old leopard grew younger and younger
Until it became a watery foetus which-
The Drummer Brothers ate,
Dabbing crushed chillies, and sprinkling salt.

On the third day a bear of grisly proportions
Ambled, roaring, into their sight
The Younger Brother drummed an *****-enlarging roll that-
Stretched the bear's mammaries far too long-
They dragged on the ground like two pythons.
The Elder Brother drummed the light-the- candle roll
And the oily **** caught fire like wicks.

Having vanquished the two deadly beasts
The Drummer Brothers of Ikku Ukku met,
On the fourth day of their journey,
The Dark Beast.
The Dark Beast, as it turned out,
Was no beast as such
But an Outcast once expelled
Into the heart of darkness
Who wrapped himself
In the dark of the Dawn
And became one with All the Beasts
And rumbled.

The Princess' pygmy horse was impaled
With the stake coming out of its mouth
Grossly gory, its hindlegs missing
And the blood, coagulated, hanging like icicles.
Near it was the Princess herself,
Naked, except for the gold waist chain
And the anklets.

The Drummer Brothers of Ikku Ukku
Drummed a very ordinary roll,
Steady and throbbing.
The Dark Beast who listened to it
Was transported into his past,
His memory of listening
To the old drummers of Ikku Ukku.
Excited,
He spun on his heels and stretched out his arms
He gyrated and pirouetted-
And on reaching the peak of his frenzy
Exploded, like a watermelon
The pieces flew in all directions.
The Drummer Brothers picked them up
And licked
While the Princess, shaken out of her languor,
Rose and sauntered towards them.
Holding out her honey hands
She said, "Now I belong to both of you."

The Younger Brother came up with a plan:
The elder one would have her from the waist up
While he would have her from the waist down.
The Elder Brother approved.
Vain and coquettish,
The Princess rammed her fists into either drum
And said: "I loathe their sound- too unrefined."

On the fifth day,
The Drummer Brother  drummed a jazzed up roll
On their new drumhead
Made of the Princess' hide.
Nigel Morgan Nov 2012
I walked in the park
To put myself right with the world.
I thought, ‘I’ve worked all day
I owe myself this time.’
Mid August and the late afternoon sun
Was already peering through the trees.
Was already forming lengthy shadows,
I thought, ‘Summer is on the wane
And there’s been so little of it.’
 
Away across the valley
The city is winding itself up up
For a Saturday night.
Lights twinkle and boom boom
Of the bass bins in the boots
Of the chavs’ motors boom boom.
Then the sirens start and the girls shriek.
 
Over the hill, past the lake,
And into the Rose Garden
Empty but for an elderly couple
Strolling strolling under the canopies of roses
The shade gloriously dark green
The shade so inviting to sit and watch
The geese launch into their evening flight
To scatter over the chestnut trees and away.
 
I sit where I’ve sat these many years
Usually alone, and at this hour,
And in this season resting in the perfume
Of Meg Merrilies and Harrison’s Yellow.
And now you’re here! I see you
Walking through the Gate of Two Storks,
Past the glasshouse with its cacti and vines,
To sit beside me with your brightest brightest smile.
 
I am so full of happiness in this day-time dream.
I am so full of happiness you are sitting here.
Your voice is a real as the rustle of your dress.
You rest your left hand on my right arm
And gently so gently stroke the golden hairs
Towards my fingers oh so gradually.
I hear the sweet breath of you,
I smell the sweet scent of you,
You are my dearest dream
My heart’s companion, my gentle lover,
My dearest dearest friend.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2017
there's just too much coming in,
you can own about 100 books and
never keep up;
a bit like alan harper's frustration,
or quiet simply meltdown in
the bookstore... "i just want to
read melville!"
    too bad, i want a nobel prize for
something or other... but i did manage
to fetch a memory of the summer
i spent reading bertrand russell's
history of western philosophy,
lying down on the balcony in my
grandparent's flat... in a building,
that if translated into western standards
of housing (or apparently none
these days) would be deemed a housing
project, or an estate...
     but then this is post-communism,
and it gave rise to an exponential reply
to the losses incurred in the second world war.
i hate to call my methods "natural selection"
but there goes the tool of metaphor...
  gone, done, gone gone... gone.
        do i need this tool, as in (doubled-up
ambiguity): the way i might need
the distinction between verb and noun?
                 enter the nerd, with a baggage
of tricks and quirps...
                    no... but i just stopped reading
books by my contemporaries...
      might be that there is some sort of
ageism roaming the planet...
                      being younger i could relate
to older people... now i can't seem to find
   a position to take with them...
                     or maybe i do...
then again once you read enough books and
say to yourself: enough! you get to
read book reviews, so a bit like an orawellian
double-think concept:
        there's a c.c.t.v. camera over there...
should i be bothered, or shouldn't i be bothered?
        and then the cascade of happenings
enter and you lead into sitting on a park
bench, where there's the alternative to c.c.t.v.:
a crow perched on a branch...
      then again, i always thought that crows
are bowing (boeing)... bow-wow...
     out of all the birds i've seen, crows actually
look humble, as if bowing, hunched...
try spotting a crow at night...
           an insomniac crow is very hard to spot...
i know that crows are capable
    of attacking storks... seen that happen with
my naked eye...
                and sure enough: a kestrel once
visited me, perched on my garden fence...
if it sat any closer i'd go all underwater cross-eyed.
          i have literally lost the capacity to *******
people... it's too consuming in terms of time
and it really ***** up your memory...
   trying to remember all the lies... beginning
with the first one? takes about 10 years off your life.
  so as book reviews go, you enter a world
of double-think... and as this book review clearly
proves, a doubling of standards to understand something...
christopher knight, the north pond hermit...
            27 years, living alone...
                                cites his favourite book that's
1,200 pages long (william shirer's the rise and fall
of the third *****)...
                         and then he cites freud:
"there is no such thing as a joke... it's only veiled
hostility."
                 rings true... but you really have to
spend 27 years alone to read a book, that, if thrown
could **** someone (in hardback edition)?
                i guess you do.
           we can't read them all...
but we'd love to just write all of them.
James M Vines Apr 2016
There was a frog who was slimy and green. He sat on a dead log and loved to sing. Then one day a stork came by and the frog became very quiet. Hoping the stork would soon go away, the stork looked at the log and said I am not interested in you today. Though he couldn't see the frog, he waded around then in glee the frog made a sound. The stork scooped him up and left well fed. In the storks belly the frog said, I thought you weren't interested in me. The stork said oh I didn't see you I was talking to the log.

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