I started puking birds-
I watched them fly south for the winter,
toward warmer pavement and fuller trees.

I started stuttering butterflies-
I watched them take giant sips from birdbaths,
We both know my mouth is so, so dry.

The thing about wings
the thing about things
the thing about trying to focus
and listen and nod while
My mouth is sticky and
my brain feels clogged, like a real
mess worth of paper towels
bunched and flushed in a panic
all the way down my throat

The electricity in this room is so loud
You keep talking, I look for outlets
You get annoyed, I turn off the lamp
You say stand still, I say I’m still listening
You say this is what I mean
I say I’m listening
I repeat what you said before you got annoyed
You say that’s not the point
I switch off the surge protector
I say it’s still there
you say that’s not the point
I say I hate this sound
You say it doesn’t bother me
You say if it ever does I put on the lofi-hip-hop-headphone-girl channel
You say think about it
I think about birds in trees instead
and if power lines are so so loud
or if it’s okay because they can drink from birdbaths
and fly south when they want to,
not just in winter. not just when the pavement is warm.


I say sometimes listening to you is like
watching a show with subtitles;
sometimes you are the audio and the electricity
is the subtitles, sometimes the
electricity is the audio and you are the subtitles,
and other times you are the electricity as well as
the subtitles and maybe there’s no audio at all,
and maybe the video is a few frames behind the audio
and maybe the subtitles are projected in reverse
like when you take a picture of a mirror
and maybe another electric note harmonizes with the first
and also maybe you’re having a stroke or at least
you’re really thirsty and you can’t unclench your knuckles.

You say now what, I say nothing
I’m on my knees, crawling the carpet,
feeling for outlets, scratching my rug burn,
unplugging sockets.

You say nothing for a moment
I listen for any quiet electricity still playing
you sit down next to me, I lift my legs up and over yours
I look at you, you look at my knees
you say I’m not annoyed, I say that’s not the point
you say listen
you say have you thought about microdosing
I should hear a punchline cymbal

I hear nothing, I don’t feel warm
I start to laugh then stop
I start to stutter then stop
I puke.

Yesterday
Was in the ecstasy
Of realizing that
We were
Those two
On earth
Who liked bitter gourd curry
Cooked with coconut milk ….

Remember?
Think it was
In the sixth life.
We were
Two nascent bitter guards
On the pandal
Spread in the northern corner
Of the farmland
Belonging to a grandmother
In a village in Mississippi
Who used to attend to the orchards
Sitting in a wheelchair.

We had
Watched earth
And peeked
At the sky
Hanging from the same stalk
The scar left
From your tight clasp on my thigh
Scared
After spotting a double tailed pest
Is still there.

The pleasure of that pain
Makes me tearful now.

I am like the faces
In the house of deceased
Sobbing
At times  
Bursting into tears
The next moment
Holding back
After a while.

Sometimes
I am all the faces
In the house of the dead
Tears have
Nothing to do with them.

Sometimes
The wedding house
Will laugh and laugh
Till its cheeks hurt.

Just like you.

My dear bitter guard,
When will we
Go back to that
Pandal in Mississippi
Where we had pulsated
From a single stalk?

Aren’t we the ones
To offer obsequies
To that grandmother
Who looked after us
With pots
Of wholehearted love?



Translator - Shyma P


Shyma P : Works in Payyanur College, Payyanur. Translator and film critic. Has translated poems and articles in Malayalam Literary Survey, The Oxford India Anthology of Malayalam Dalit Literature, online magazines like Gulmohar, Readleaf Poetry as well as scripts and subtitles for short films.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   sober up come 10:30am?
              well... i won't be goose-marching...
that's for sure...
      i'll put on my Thespian mask
and just pretend that i haven't drunk 70cl of
whiskey the night before...
i'll sit in the sunshine and bake... sour...
cabbage-head-reach for sanity...
pretend to: juggle earth, the sun and moon.

NEVER MIND WHAT THE ****** SHEEP ARE SAYING!

First sheep to second sheep:
"Maaaa!"

which with
subtitles on

comes out as
"He just hasn't got his grandfather's legs!"

Second sheep to first sheep:
"Baaaa!"

Thank God for subtitles
"No...nor the Sheedy stamina!"

And indeed I have
inherited none of these famous attributes.

I, a shortsighted
puny bookworm

not taking to
this cross-country running lark.

The famous runner doesn't run
in my side of the family.

Early morning spiderwebs
bejewel the furze bushes.

A cuckoo calls.
Sheep bleat.

I recite poetry
to the yellow furze

passing slowly by me
I madly in love with Hopkins' words.

"I caught this morning(puff pantpANT!)
morning's(aghhhhh!)glory...!"

"Oh jaysus...he's off on the poetry again!"
first sheep moans to second sheep.

"Poetry at his age..I just don't get it!"
Second sheep bemoans the fact.

I pay no attention to this
sheep commentary.

Hurl Hopkins
at the world.

Slog through the pain
and mud.

"Nothing is so
(gaspgASP!)beautiful as Spring -" I yell!

I become a dot in the distance
of this misty Curragh morning.

Run on into the blue
of these my teenage times.

"The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush          
With richness;"


"Bè bè" first sheep
to second sheep in Dutch.

"Meh meh!" second sheep
to first in Japanese.

So the sheep I see
are studying foreign languages.

But I don't hear them
and anyway

someone's turned
the subtitles off.

and there is some beauty
in listening to mouths
speak a language
that you may not understand
but at the bottom of the screen
stream the words
that leave the lips

you begin to realize
all you've got to do is read
and that you haven't
forgotten how to
take it all in

and as boys fall in love
with girls in cafes
and ride around on mopeds
and ******* their bodies
to men who needn't the money,
but the ***
because they haven't touched
their wives since
they gave birth
to their second child

you begin to realize
how beautiful
french truly is
and that you haven't forgotten
what montmartre's graves
look like in the evening's fleeting light

and as a girl falls in love
with two men at once
and they discover
how sordid lovers can be
while painting their
stories for all artistic
eyes to drink in slowly
and they lay on their
brand new queen,
because there just isn't
room for three
on a twin

you begin to
remember that spanish
is full of passion
and that you haven't forgotten
everything you learned in tenth grade

words may be formed
with different movement
of our tongues
and you may not have the
slightest idea what i'm saying
as i scrawl down these lines,
but i'm certain
that we've all found beauty
in listening to someone
pour their heart out
on the page

Tell me have you ever opened your eyes...
Seen the hit coming...?
Where are you now? Where did you hide?
Are you still running?
Running away from me?
Telling yourself "you need to go".
Your heart still beats for me
But your mind is letting go.
It's in the air
The feeling of us
Both trying to move on but we can't adjust
You lie in bed and close your eyes
You still feel the emotion just give it time
As we watch the clock tic on you and I
Think the seconds turned to minutes but I realized
That I've been working so hard, putting in overtime
But does that mean I'll be having you over time?
Maybe I'm being naive, controlled, silly and enslaved
You opened up my soul but left my chances in the cage
You told me it was all perfect, now this was all a mistake?
Her confused mind leads to uncertainty, forcing herself to leave converts possibilities to a sure heartbreak.

Now I'm sitting here thinking all day long
The topic of conversation and it feels so wrong
Because you ain't doing the same and are so far gone
So afraid of the past that our future is done.
We all know the grass ain't greener on the other side
Thinking another man is holding what should be mine...(echoes out)

(alarm clock)

****... This all wasn't a dream
It still doesn't make sense...
Why'd this have to happen to me?
Why didn't I look...before making that turn?
You know what they say in life?
You're greatest mistakes is what helps you learn
Never regret what made you smile
Never live with regret...
Life is a feeling process...
And I feel the becoming of my best.

i can clearly hear how english mutates...
a book review by a channel... better than food...
the book he's reviewing is goETHE's captain faust:
and the non-avengers...
but no...

i don't hear: stick an umlaut anywhere you please...
i, "for some reason"... do not hear
a: Θ... a göethe... or a goëthe (ladin alphabet -
the germans know about this)...
there is this... goe-ether association...
it's sometimes a riddle of goë, göe...
or quiet simply...
the remains of the ancient latin grapheme (œ)?

educated people make this distinction -
and they'll catch "you" out on it...
since... they represent the Hyacinth Bucket brigade...
gynocentrism doing a snail-trail:
one step forward... two steps back...
it's beside what the linguist "says":
a bucket is a bucket a ***** is a *****...
otherwise? glorifying such a harsh reality
of a surname like: bucket... but not beckett?
no... "samuel"? well then...
it's not a bucket if it's somehow
translated via chernobyll as: bouquet...
is it?! is it?
because even in french: they self-cannibalise...
i.e. they "eat" some letters...
they write one language: but speak another...
what isn't bucket what is nonetheless
bouquet? well... isn't it: bouque-?
it's not even that... boo-k for the ones that
still hear... and can write grafitti schlang...
in some variation of a german...

becuase educated people can get away
with treating GOETHE...
as?  '/ˈɡɜːrtə, ˈɡeɪtə'...
or in simple-me-and-you being bilingual...
fiddling around we arrive at:
Göerte... which is "said"...
but this "lunatic asylum" exception has
to be written: with a clarity of a *******
Greek THETA... a fin! the end!
which always makes lying easier...
when you can: say (a)... but... but...
imply (b)... like some "metaphor"...
some forever useful tool of nuance...
some "spectacle"...
it's easier to lie when... you say (a)
but are "implying" (b)...
then you can blame it on...
not allow the literacy of the masses:
quite as much... you require... exceptions
to the rule... to **** out the lesser educated
"people"...

don't get me started...
born? Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski...
perhaps i should have never left...
3 years in Edinburgh...
over a month in St. Petersburg...
somewhere in Paris, Stochholm, Venice...
Athens... Belgrade from a distance...
Amsterdam... two weeks in Kenya...
and a nonchalant attitude surrounding
London... a strong distaste for Warsaw...
a myth of Cracow...

and no, i haven't been everywhere...
but... after a while... does it really matter
where you go, if you're bringing
expectations with you?
expectations and postcards?
clichés? clichés expectations and postcards?
and... a whole lot of strangers
you haven't met?
tourism and: feeding the ghost town
mentality... perhaps a ghost town would be
something to behold... instead of this...
atypical metropolitan casualness of avoiding
each other... busier busier: and no more
busy than once pronounced dead...
but wait for it: you're at least given a "scene"...

but no... i know one language that
makes pedantic orthographical observations...
but i also know a language that...
write one way... speaks another...
whichever way, best, to suit it...

and you "know" it would only be Fa-Ber'g -
no... borrow the j- from je suis...
if that last E was not an acute É...
but an grave È (grave... or? gráve...
grrrr'av... not a hey hey grave...
GRA-Vity)...

hence? my point exactly..
if the diacritical markers are respected
in fwench... with an acute É and a grave È...
why do "we" need... I(i) and J(j)?
why not... I(ı) and J(ȷ)?

besides... ever imagine writing an autobiography
like a Knausgård... defender of the runes
for a sentence in volume 1...
major google-maps ****** *** volume 2...
i write that with a "glee"...
i mean... you can be immediately be put off
writing an autobiography...
just to avoid the mediocre descriptive elements
of using something more complicated
than a hammer...
for an otherwise... less than a hammer's worth
of banality: evaluation of modern banality /
procrastination...
no one we have been given these complicated
tools... and to the best of our abilities we
best procrastinate, using them...
i hardly think a hammer would be used
to... pretend to play the drums...
but yes: Knausgård... the defender of runes...
irony... but the mr. google-earth guy to turn to...

yes... and before i discovered a past...
there were the runes... and there was
forever this latin morph of the barbarians
"thieving"... but there was also the glagolitic script...
apparently! and before that there was the greek!
and... somehow... i did arrive at having
to master some vague understanding of
mother cyrillic!

- but prior to... did you know what
slavs love cabbage? all the pakistani point this
out: slav love cabbage!
today? i watched the film Layer Cake
and made some cabbage soup...
Layer Cake being? the pre-to-a-bond-film
taster for the actor Daniel Craig...
it was hardly a Guy ******* Ritchie film...
woz itz? but... a decent actor advert...
with "hindsight"...
if i watched the film then...
or as i whatched the now...
and all the known actors jumped the train...
well... cabbage soup... base?
a decent polish / jewish chicken broth...
most of the chicken goes into a ***...
except the *******: you make a *******
roulade with that...
and proper potato bakes...
potato bakes like Heston Blumethal
boils a soft egg...
tatties in cold water... until they start boiling...
then you hunch over them...
boil them for a decent fiver...
turn off the heat...
again... hunch over them...
like an inquistive condor waitig for
the water to stop bubbling...
asking the question: are we all ready...
for the oven? yes, my toy soldiers,
are we, ready?

apparently they taste like christmas
tatties in waistcoats!
my my... what a lovely affair!
cabbage soup? you really need a complete
lack of imagination and a work-around
using root veg...
the european way...
but what is preferred is ensuring
you make a cabbage soup like...
a slav treats a cabbage like a frenchman treats
an onion: you suffocate it...
an hour minimum...
until the crass ******* boils out...
and you're left with...
a sweetness... and softness...
bay leaf all-spice (english spice) included...
some kiełbasa (etymology?
root... kieł- derived from the plural?
kły... canines... suffix -basa?
baza - base... canine-base...
something that requires an understanding
that elevates the dog, "debases" the man...
no quran reader will understand this:
for lack of a better word: shaming food...

where would pakistani cuisine be...
without the pantheon of hindu spices?!
i'll eat like a dog and in so doing:
live a tier above a king...
i still find it highly unimaginative...
to call one fruit "forbidden"
and one meat: "impure"...
whatever Gabriel spoke to Muhammad...
never really explained crab meat...
crab meat crab meat...
the Maldive muslims eat crab meat...
what's crab meat again:
when it concentrates a comparison
with ol' porky porky? scavenger of the seas...
what's with the muslim beef on pork?
and god was critical...
of his perfected animal worthy of
consumption... looks pretty silly from
Beijing... so Beijing is ensuring that Muslims
"look silly"... well... "live"... silly...
so god was so... this that and the other...
then he lent his "all knowing wisdom" and said...
no... this one animal... which you can...
butcher and make use of...
all that's missing is the oink and the hoofs!
or whatever it was: i can't eat the oink,
the grunt remain's the bacon's owner...
and perhaps the "hoofs"...
but such a pristine animal...
tapeworms come... much larger in size...
from aquatic flesh... so...
tic-toc... tic-toc... pull a sly porky on me or...
Gabriel my ***...

the Pwophet sez!
much easier these days: to, "get away" with "it"...
camel jockeys turned oil barons...
yachts... whizzed-up-*******-white-****-****...
and never... the odd-ball from
that long extended lineage of the family
living with a cuddles *****, soft toys...
east of Beirut...
that pencil girth's woe explosion in the sky...
"built" by people...
who employ slave Bangladeshis for
a sunday's worth of sabbath cricket in the desert...
i thought that deserts were only good
for waiting for qurans and dinosaur blood
and myopia and... the odd dehydration
hallucinations?!

i'll eat some sushi to sober up before
i accompany my mother: circa 60 getting
a hip replacement surgery done on her...
i'll sober up: but first things first:
spew...

mind you... below you will find some
ancients inscriptions...
i had to wonder: if the precursor text
of the anglo-sphere people...
the germans and "celts" of the british isles...
the welsh... the scandinavians...
was bound to runes...
before the latin men came...
what did "we", the slavs, use?

before the greeks allowed us entry into
the realm of mediating the otherwise:
quasi-fathomable?
cyrillic is what came: AFTER...
but there was a prior...
i'm no longer interested in the prior...
no more than i am interested in greek...
i once slurred russian cyrillic
for not having any diacritical markers...
i knew they had them...
but that they were... crude...
for lack of a better word...

how does that theory sound?
the: ex Africae omnis est Africanus...
sorry... what?!
giving my scrutiny of phonetic encoding...
am i closer to speak...
or thinking, and if not thinking,
then, reading?!
by the looks of it...
i devolved from encoding in
chinese... perhaps not so much:
sanskrit... but i most certainly suffered
moving across Siberia: obviously: not "i"...

mind you: i've looked at "it" and thought...
me, reproduce? add a stranger to the equation
of my family? i'm just happy to end
the libeage... thank god i don't have
some inheritence complex abounding...
no expectation, no "legacy" akin
to a surname like Rhodes (circa NY)...
i was born with one ****** surname,
which changed... i'll die with another ******
surname: that never made it to a status
of Eshlert... nonetheless! i'll leave...
like a ******* Einstein of an acronym:
E = MC... good for me! bravo ty! bravo ja!

beside the egyptian hieroglyphs...
i'm yet to read something...
from... Congo... perhaps i'm just too ignorant...
or the -igger shade was just too much
that it... grabbed my attention and
i forgot that the victim olympics didn't
happen every 4 years...
but every... whimsical time-span of...
a quarter of the length of a fortnite...

whatever: all out of africa implies...
i'm writing in a devolved chinese...
frozen bits across the siberian fickle desert...
next stopover? Novosibirsk!
no need for pyramids in Novosibirsk...
no "awe" to be found...
when you're toe-dead numb from
frost bite.... is there?!

my letters are a sieve... they allow meaning
through like hands praying to cusp water!
it's, the, reality...
you have ****-wit socialists on one side...
and then... this hyper-inflated
darwinism is all historism on the other...
middle ground, people!
"democracy"! i stand stand both the marxism...
or the darwinism... but arguments failed...
or? we can have the extreme of both ends
of the argument! enough of reading
Pasternak will teach you...
hey... shhh shhh... the collective can
congregate any minute now...
they don't need that many intelligent people
to rally them...
what your, "your" side needs, though?
if enough brass people: stupid enough
to entertain, to lulluby...
em... that's now much to "go on"... is it?
the intelligent with pour gasoline
on a fire...
the entertainers will simply pour
cold milk into a saucepan that contains
milk you're warming to...
melt some butter some honey and an egg yolk
to self-remedy: devoid of big pharma influences...
a witches' brew for a cold and soar throat...

side note: do i "worry" about not having children?
if i lived on the Faroe islands,
Greeland, Iceland, Norway -
i most probably would probably mind...
small town mentality: enlarged...
then again: my family, "my" and "family"
is not exactly accomodating...
why am i not spending time with my grandparents?
at least one side... the "patriarchal" side
drops off: accomodating the madonna anyways...
a sister (my mother) and a brother (my uncle)
are waging a war...
this... "eastender" soap opera is...
i don't have the finances to grativate away
from it...
enter children? and they'd be more ******
up than i already am with my libido
and no outlet... i've stopped seeing prostitutes:
no because i felt "bad":
that one time we only pretended to be
leeching / kissing oysters just because
i forgot to trim my ***** hair:
like some western feminist argument
about the exploitation of romanian women "matters"...
when... the labourer drones of men
of building sites... coming in to work...
hangover... might perhaps... stop...
fuelling the english lush economy...
i didn't want to have children because:
family-wise? things, "things" are messy...
and there's no magic carpet to get me out
of here... not when the last surviving remnant
of a past... i.e. my grandmother,
talks to my dementia riddled grandfather
with the words...
and he stresses them: you no good...
skurwysyn!
elaborate? sure! z-kurwy-syn...
from-a-*****-son..
my grandfather's mother...
well... let's put it in facts...
my grandfather is an illegitimate (
oh **** me, i spelled that right, drunk)
son... his mamma then married...
the father of this illegitimate child...
was a polyglot... spoke 7 languages...
emigrated to the U.S. of A...
remarried, fostered some shards of glass...
and sent his last postcard...
from Niagara Falls... before jumping
into the kamikazee sun...
oh my family is perfect...
then this mother of his...
had two children with a man...
who would beat my grandfather...
which is why he became a "pioneer"
coal-miner aged 15 or 14 or 16...
then this one kid ended up being
fostered... then this "watermelon" of a kid
(nickname) came out...
from a love affair... and when the "*****" died...
his quasi-foster father lived with him...
and in this custard: he...
the father semi-god-know's what...
abused the old man for putting up with
him as a love-child: in wedlock...
and... well thank god there was
no epitaph to begin an end with...

me and children? i am gracious,
i am kind... i don't want them to inherit this
history... which is worse than
a history of germany... at least those *******
had the nazis... which is worthwhile
in terms of exploiting them via video games
as those: evilz badz guyz!

i always think: the sooner i'm dead -
the more chances i have
to either dream... or breathe...
currently i quasi the former and accept
the reality of the latter...
but me and children? my, own, brood?
em... for some capitalistic driven darwinism
pressure ploy of narrative?
taxes and retirement plans for
the western: placebo: aged?
grand'm'ah and gwand'p'ah not fit under
the same roof... set them on the butcher's
path toward the "shop" of wrinkle
and: pristine effortless economic
endeavor... the pig's the lot...
economic meat and... about as barren as a dinner
plate scooped up for examination
once a pauper sat before it to supper...
ingenious! if only, if only we were all born
into a Charlie ******* Dickens' lot of life!
then, only then, we could, we could
perhaps, perhaps: write about it!

i have seen how people have lived their lives...
how... they had wish to write about it...
which always involved a lot of other people -
movie scripts written by directors
and not... actual manuscripts of scripters...
they would write... but then:
started to gag from **** at the mere of thought
of being: brutal, honest, honing...

people either write an honest autobiography,
they ghost it: have someone write a biography,
they write an autobiography that's
designated as: tabloid...
but most importantly... they forget...
a "Moscow"...
when i was in Moscow... i felt like i was
in London for the very first time...
a last time...

i did mention that i didn't envy the russian
diacritical approach...
the odd: miss and "there"...
but no... i didn't envy them...
to me there was no russian orthography...
there is an orthography: which you mind
above any metaphysical discussion...
when, and only when... aesthetics comes
into play...
i.e. rz = ż and ó = u and ch (cerp i ha) = h (samo ha)
this is how orthography is born...
sorry... i'm too "busy" dealing with
orthographic ******* to even mind
your "metaphysics" or a death of (it): interim...

as i stood at the feet of the tower of babel...
i started to su doku the pieces that
pleased my eyes... and the pieces...
left in leftover arabic squiggles of
the remnants of the 20th century...
and the new emergence of environmental
beijing free-of-syndromes to spawn
the 21st... or...
the child of a one-child-state-policy
without a Beijing... only a gradual evaluation
of... concerns for...
not giving birth to yet another ****-wit
of the world's counter to: another
****** of a gullible persuasion...
given that law is blind...
he must have been born: deaf!

- you didn't see me coming;
i didn't even see you leave... -

since the greek letters i tend to most "forget"
are:
- gamma lower-case (γ) because
of the upper-case upsilon (Υ)
- lower-case zeta (ζ) becaue
of the lower-case "11" (ξ)
- eta, lower-case (η) is no real grief
with lower-case EPSILON (ε)
until... you enter the cyrillic
"debate" of е and э...
- lower-case NU (ν) and lower-case
UPSILON (υ)
- Ξ (Θ, Φ) i.e.: XI, PSI, CHI, PHI...
return: that first 'un' is an ale'ks...
alex... but it's not an X in the way that
CHI expresses itself in CHurCH...
lay-teΞ...
- then again... greek orthography begins
in SIGMA... those... quasi-germans...
those remnants of the northern / teutonic
crusade... those Pruσσianς...
or... Prußianς...
the greek F and the greek "F"...
key into a keyhole: Φ...
key turning in a keyhole: Θ...
the iota of four uses... Θ, Φ, Ξ... Ψ...

but that's only the greek... i will not touch
on the glagolitic... until, barely skimming
the draft months earlier...
until i come with my own diacritical markers
and show you: how i was wrong...
yes... the russians do use these markers...
but they, mostly... do not "accent" them...

because i'm no Ezra Pound i didn't have
to imagine going as far back
as the Taoist ideogram...
because i remained bound to the anchor
of europe and...
i really didn't find anything of worth
in africa encoding: silence into their
verbiage with anything:
beside the odd spell of hieroglyphs...
so? i am not an Idaho man...
or whatever mid-western miss-western
******* the genius came from...

i don't have an ideogram:
i have a synonym... the sound is exactly
the same... but Charon 'ave their eyes!
mind you...
ądam and ęwa are off limits...
as is: ł... then again: given that i write in english...
em... "yes, and no"...

but here's my rubric... a rubric implies:
i will not narrate this crap:

don't get me started on the russian variations
of Y... i once said... because the greeks had
names for their letters... and the romans didn't...
well... in western slavic: Y "why, I" has a name:
e'GREK... iGrek... e and i are interchanged
between the western slavs and the islanders...
but the russians?
let me Shakespeare that for you:
pre-scriptum - don't ask me...
how oh how a german umlaut infiltrated
the alphabet: i blame catherine the great...
you have...

е (ye)
ё (yo)
й (-y-) - which acts like a "ȷUDAS"
ы (ý) - alt. to? ıGREK
ю (yu)
я (ya)

all that's missing is a: иы variation?!
let me check my pentagram of vowels...
e, o... u, a... oh right... IO-T'AH-T'AH-T'AH...
sinking the ******* POTEMPKIN!

it's for the best: i'm entrenched in two languages...
which makes me "schizophrenic" /
bilingual... ergo? i have to write in at least:
four... pepper in some latin etc.....
and modern slang? i need that...
and some german... and perhaps a dash
of Gaelic... and some scandi-navigational
pseudo-romancing the rosetta stone...

the rest is quiet "simple"...
a french-atypical acute... because there's no gr'ah-v'eh!
grave ole...
and a dot... like the dot used for no real purpose
in english...

i.e. ь involves the acute...
while the ъ involes the "horde" symbol...
either the dot above the Z in ż or the caron
above the R: ř...
alternative interpretations invoke
even more: 'hide and seek" mechanisms
of the russian Y...
  объект: interJEct with an obJEct...
thus? there just seem to be gradations
of hiding a why (y) with its added vowel...
and its mutant й... crescent mongol moon...
and all the rest of "it"...
since when you "borrow": yew borrow...
you get something along the lines
of: e.g.:

ć.        ць: c.f. surnames ending with -CKI
ń.       нь
ó.      "u" or? Loonin...
ś.        cь
ź.        зь
dz.     ž (dzik - boar - the wild adjective is a tautology)    
ż.      ř       rz   (зъ) or? ж...
ł.       woad... łagodny (he - gentle)
                        łagodna (she - gentle)
š.      sz.      ш             (sh)
č.      cz.      ч               (ch... you're not foreign
to graphemes... mr. Æ ms. Œ...
you simply haven't seen it applied
to consonants... only vowels!)
щ     šč     (szczypta - pinch -
a germanic, saxon "ch" is a cz...
or a caron above the C...
ch' ch'.... akin to the caron above the S...
sh' sh'... so far away from "god": YHWH...
yet so close, so, close!)
ha ha... a "dangling bit"...
and i thought the russians weren't
good at hiding "things"... from ш to щ
you have hidden: a caron a "c"...
a ****'s CHeap... in a dangling "left-over"...
of an otherwise caron S... heap of SH SH ****...

in terms of the cerp and ha and samo ha?
the greek χ (chi) comes into play...
but not like a cheeze...
more like a vowel-catcher breath...
eerie as ****... a HA HA with...
cHA cHA! i.e. like the surds you allow
hindu words access to: gnostic -
'nostic... or... knife... i.e. 'nife...

it's no surprise for me, now...
out of all the black caribbean kids,
the indian and pakistani,
the africans... i was one of the first
to: come out swinging from under
the iron curtain:
distrust levels? high... near almighty...
not enough "japanese" in me
to squander a late debt from
Hiroshima or some other etc.

in some remote original draft...

as ever, i drink, and am a nobody, but then i find myself inclined to look upon the god of gods: whatever remains of worth for the phonetic encoding... whether latin, greek, rune, cyrillic, or ⰒⰑⰃⰀⰐ ⰒⰉⰔⰏ (another googlewhack)... the glagolitic phonetic encoding... sure, first they'll ban the runes in sweden, before realißing that... there's another alphabet... the glagolith...
                  Ⱉ = Ω, given Ѡ = ω...
         this alphabet has been suppressed, long enough!
to be honest? i've never seen a more beautiful letter,
anywhere, other than in the glatolith...
     Ⰿ = M = ᛗ...
                      maybe that's why i like my given names
so much...
                            ⰏⰀⰕⰅⰖⰞ
                 i too! i too have a past!
             i don't need to peer into pseudo-arab ***
the quran religiosity of hieroglyphs
of the northern africans, camel jockeys!
                             there's, oh there's so much
more at stake than the runes...
                what of the Kiev Rus vikings?
this, this is their language:
                ⰕⰑ          "ⰏⰑⰆⰅ"          (może = maybe)    
(to = this)
                                                   (ⰜⰀ = trzeba, trza /
                                                            tsa)­
            ⰕⰔⰑ (tsa)           ⰃⰀ (ga)     ⰂⰀⰓⰉ (vari)
               (gadać = converse... gavari)

    Ⰴ (d)                ⰆⰫⰕ (żyt = fathoming life)

                             ⰆⰫⰕ (worthwile noting:
this is out lot of, a, life)...

      ⰛⰫⰛⰍⰀ (szyszka = cone, of the ᚦᛁᚱ /
                                     ⰡⰑⰄⰟⰀ - fir /
                              jodła tree)

see, i can't solve crossword puzzles...
      i don't know where i would begin,
fathoming this sort of "plaything" thesaurus...
i can play a solitaire mahjong,
i can solve you a su doku puzzle
without wanting to compensate myself
by competing...
                  
   but i do know...
                    what conjured the atom,
the letter?
  what conjured the atom, the letter,
and subsequently, the alphabet?
        noun...
                  the cipher conceptualißation
of making a name, smaller,
so small, in fact...
that letter emerged, and names were
no longer indicative...
of a meaning...
  so much so, that units were
formed, fathomed...
and when merely giving names
to these units, akin to the greeks,
alpha...
        which had to become a-lpha...
and beta had to become b-eta...
          well... only thanks to the latin men...
they became songs...
sing-alongs...
   very much thanks for the H vowel
catcher of the hebrew god...
ah... said the castrato...
  b'eeh sang the castrato...
           em...
  obviously the devil managed to keep
some of the letters...
z'ed...
                 it's still bewildering...
how the latin men "reinterpreted"
the northern runes...
   as the greek men "reinterpreted"
the north eastern glagolitic script...
and to think! to think!
    Ⱃ = R = ρ = rho...
         but what happened, "elsewhere"?
ᚱ = R... but... but... where's the trill?
R, as a letter, looks like it's about
to hide a leg... and start rolling...
ripping apart all other onomatopeias
associated with the rattle of a rattlesnake,
or the sound it could make,
to associate itself with the sound
of water boiling... where did that "go"?
with the french hark "innovation",
and the english tongue...
being bitten and left numb by
a tarantula?!
                      
  point being... i never imagined myself
much of an archeologist...
i always found:
  if you state your "necessary" freedom
to speak?
you're a tongue inside one cranium,
at a particular time, in a universal space...
but, like kierkegaard,
you care more about a freedom to think?
i'm "here", i'm "there", i'm "i'm"
like heidegger might state...
                  using this very modern
language that's english...
          but then sliding back into...
an obscure region of history...
      in two places at once...
        at a universal moment in time,
in a particular space...
                   talking exhausts me,
whenever i start speaking for more than
ten minutes,
there is a cotton mouth infestation,
my tongue turns into a serpent about
to shed a layer of its skin,
and, if i'm lucky,
i will not swollow the tongue...

                    and why wouldn't the runes
be more protected, but currently under
siege -
             both the latin text and the greek
text (respectively),
had the ambition of performing an
x-ray on the runes and the glagolitic texts,
treating them as pseudo-hieroglyphics...

but they found similarities,
   which made this foreign phonetic
encoding systems relateable...

ᚠ = F
                ᚢ = U         (copernican "up-side-down")
ᚨ = A (strange sort of arithmetic, / \
                                              )
               ­ ᚱ = R (d'uh)
   ᚺ = H...
           ᛁ = I
               ᛋ = s
                ᛏ = t (what's with the "bending knee",
so much for the supposed: "arrow"),
               ᛒ = B...
           ᛖ = Σ = E...
                   ᛗ = M...
                   ᛚ = L...
                  ᛟ = o - crude version of circle...

so? the latin men had an easier way to
fathom the runes, and ingest them
into the x-ray vision of post-latin...
   the greeks with the glagolitic script?
much harder...

         Ⱂ = Π = P = ρ (rho)
                 Ⰰ = A = ᛉ = Z...
             Ⱇ = φ = ᚦ = θ...
                             Ѡ = ω...
                Ⱑ = A...
                          Ⱔ = ε....
                                            Ⱚ = θ...

but i agree... you couldn't get "our"
peoples to where we are now,
with these pseudo-hieroglyphics...
   after all: Ⰿ (M) is a beautiful letter...
in glagolitic terms...
          but... it's too complicated for us,
at this moment in time...
it might have had all the necessary
practicality in its necessary time...
that it was allocated to...
but... given people these days
are looking at X-|ɔ\
                              / \ /_ / ?
                            how ******* hard must
it have been, when,
the phonetic encoding,
was as hard as it, to now, us,
it seems?!
                   so... whatever is happening
in sweden, right now?
       i'm not bemaoning it,
   i have a tattoo... it reads: Sienkiewicz...
the swedish deluge of 1626–29... a.d.,
          **** it, ban the runes...
i've "just" discovered the gagolitic phonetic
encoding, the sort of **** that
st. cyril and methodius had to work with,
and it wasn't as easy as translating /
incorporating the runes...

                     oh sure, i'm waiting...
                 first they ban the runes...
   then they'll have to learn something akin
to the glagolitic script...
             returning back to their x-ray
latin lettering...
                       i still can't believe that
james joyce got away with writing finnegans
wake... without ever employing a single
diacritical marker...
spewing out... what became the modern
english grafitti spreschen...
   e.g.: lolz...
                              und: L8ER...
it's like: the worst of the worst of what
already is the worst in the form
of the h'american demands for acronyms.          

after watching an old couple walk
past me into the supermarket:
    or unlike the men climbing
           the matterhorn:
   which from postcards seems so
much more majestic in its formidable
shape than the goliath everest
    (from postcards) -
                 5 miles, a dark forest,
  and i can show you where english
druids chant: satanus in excelsior!
   and i thought i spoke bad english:
it's: in excelsis satanus...
       i would have approached them,
but then i was alone,
      and there was one idiot shouting
and about a crowd of twenty disciples:
you could hear the murmur
   adhering to the chant from a distance
of about 300 metres...
                    i only had beer on me,
no goat blood, no woad pigment...
                crash a party when they
were having a party in complete
darkness?
                     it's a good thing there was
a song change on my headphones
               and for a minute i picked it up...
wait a minute: i thought i owned
these woods, walking at night?
               ragnarök blood of Hvalba:
unfortunately the norse founded
kiev,
           so if they founded kiev,
                they must have past where
i made mark as: the land immune to
                                       the black death...
if i were an academic with a stipend,
   i'd write another boorish book on the matter
to attract moths...
          but the old couple, hand in hand,
shrinking but not exactly disappearing...
     in me the inherent conceptualisation
of a twin, like a limb missing,
  but with all my limbs intact...
              yet still a twin gleaming in my mind,
as the story i was told in my childhood
no echoes like a behemoth ghouling:
    they said to me:
   did you know that in this world there exists
a person that looks exactly like you?
         what? so i started looking,
      not leonardo, not brad,
                    can't compete -
            if i really am the stronger twin
                 who sent my twin to the plough
and the hearth... am i not to suddenly
    lick ash?
                  but the old couple:
   what a rarity to see, dwarfs,
                                  of former majestic
forms... elsewhere the single mother with
a baby in a buggy at 10 minutes to 11 during
the week, bewildered by reading
frozen foods labels...
           oh... about the supermarket...
grr... mein gott!
                    Surabhis! Surabhis everywhere!
the joy of walking into a supermarket
last, aisles as spacious as any king's
    lonely castle...
        but in the hours 12 in the afternoon
till about 5 in the afternoon?
        traffic jams!
                   zombified shoppers, women,
of course, children to boot...
                           how many times i might
have bumped into them...
      gaze lost, hazy eyed...
                 sometimes i had to walk down one
aisle, emerge from another, just to pass
  a woman standing fiddling with her
hair...
           the new meeting place, apparently,
but that's beside the point,
   the more i listen to radio,
  the more i learned that i'm far from
a music snob...
            take for example:
       free deejays's song
                            el amor es un party...
what? cuba not pretty any more?
              but there's a worthwhile observation
in there:
        only rich men have the chance
        to play a woman's game of "the chase"...
        only rich men get to "chase" women...
        the poor schmucks?
                          ****! have to live with them.  
****... i need to find that
    one exchange in ingmar bergman's
film wild strawberries:
            when the old man wakes from
a dream-memory in which he is
the ****** of a **** scene...
        where a woman is teasing a man
to the point, until he transcendes
                   a teasing woman,
                       and finds a Jezebel...
so upon waking...
                the "children" are picking
flowers in the rain...
                          and there's talk of
abortion...
       at this point it's gone beyond
castration...
                      the conversation invokes
the death-mask of man,
    or man as tomb, and woman as
the robber -
                         apparently once impregnated
man cannot ask for his ***** back,
and in some twisted way:
           and as much as i'd like to "cheat"
having found the screenplay online,
   i have the misfortune of owning the ****
movie...
        and how i like returning
to silent cinema, black & white, foreign,
with subtitles...
                     at this point,
because didn't place the subtitles: on top
of the screen, but at the bottom...
   well, **** me: am i looking for
Cindarella, because focusing back
on those faces means i seem them without
lips and merely eyes and noses,
   and perhaps a chance to spot
   a wriggling, morphed into an insect
st. peter's, if not van gogh's ear!
              or the lost "art" of handwriting...
Cinderella? my focus is so low from
      the action, that i might as well be
  watching, either a ballet, or a *******
riverdance!
             dr. isak borg (a)
marianne borg (b)
        dr. evald borg (d)

such a weird and heart-numbing thinking
went into writing this...
i have a history, a past:
regardless of having children and with
their existence: some sort of guarantee
for a future...
that i have a past, a history,
and it exists... outside of its current
written format,
that i can escape with or without having
children: that i would have probably
later ***** mentally...
having ingested all this third party
quasi-history propaganda
for the only history that's being
salvaged: the insect prone libido
of a status quo... well then...
let my "failure" be the patent for all future
success.

I talk in commas and periods,
you talk in italic subtitles.

The theater's empty and I can't seem to figure why,
The ground feels like a sticky, but hard lie,
It's plain with drapes to a darkened heaven,
With movie posters that make me nostalgic for when I was 7,
Or was it 11?
The projector starts to warm up,
And the ghosts in the machine show who they wanted to be,
This popcorn reminds me of a love that was wearing her favorite leather jacket,
*******, how did I get popcorn?
The screen shows ads for ****** ****,
But its in Spanish with Czech subtitles ,
And a weird sense of accomplishment,
Seems to give way with the images, now gone,
Apparently I have a soda that I have never noticed nor engaged or enraged,
Blue stills of ****** knees and beaches unbeknownst to any future,
With the credits rolling of names I'll remember, forget and lie remembering
A calming anxiety seems to fill in where the smoke creeping oot the vents does not,
The teleporting popcorn comes with me,
And choose to leave, with the seat,
I seem to forget to ask myself,
meow so clear,
How did I get here?

I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud
Two of us, alone, as one
Rapt in the spread of wings.

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always
Known you.

Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin
Your slender legs, columns that taught  
The Greeks in Helens age, touched the water  
And the sky. I saw the milky way that night.

Síneánn, I am your Pablo
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone you are the hinge  
To my casement world.  Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes  
I hold your skin, my Selkie
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week.

It is warm in the distance
In the country of the sun
We end at the house in Umbria
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

Ending with you, I’ll hit the breaks. The same old movie plays over and over, again with the subtitles. But, this time subtitles that count. We aim to show no emotions, even though we are always asked, “What’s the matter”.  In two, the weakly sleep ever so silent. Almost in that category, the restless have become tired. They are just good like that, even if they cannot see straight. As the night grows, they realize it’s not the same and won’t be for a longtime.

Come near and share your joy
Come near and share your passions
Come near here, my house
Horsing around the house
I know you like to be a little wild
So this is the place for you
This is the place for me too
Oh darling, look at what your doing
Oh girl looking backwards and feeling weird afterwards, just know I'll help you
Come near and share your joy
Come near and share your passions
Come here and play some games
It's a shame you've never did this before
Don't be like the others, don't ignore
Explore your thoughts to see the night through like never before
I don't wanna force anything on you
But wear it like an uniform
Transform your performance on the floor
Look forward to seeing you in the fourth fort
Come near and share your joy
Come near and share your passions
Come near here, my fort
Horsing around the fort
I know you like to be a little wild
So this is the place for you
This is the place for me too
We can sort this out in our minds
Compromise

I'm watching an old Soviet movie
one without English subtitles
the whole day it hasn't stopped raining
the opening shots are of a foggy

seafront, a lone figure walking
a guy on a bicycle holding a puppy
riding past someone leaning on the corner
of a house in which the light

suddenly comes on & a couple appear
later on, a budding romance
between two holidaymakers in this, the Crimea
slow-paced, this movie reminds

me of an Aki Kaurismaki
& I want to share it with the world
& muse on how the Crimea
saw Pushkin, Chekhov, Mayakovsky

amongst others visiting it's shores
the whole day it hasn't stopped raining
& I don't know if I feel even more English
now or Russian or whether it's all just a trick

A Woman of Many Words

I am a Woman of Many Words
I am drawn to all those places
        That words congregate:
                 Libraries and bookstores
                       Road signs and billboards
                             Ticket stubs and subtitles
                                    Nametags and license plates
Each one a journey driving inside me
I am a Woman of Many Words
I love the way the shapes feel in my mouth
The skittle taste of syllables
I am drawn to especially long words
With their phonetic entities stretching out like tentacles to reach new corners of pronunciation
Words like
              Bibliophile and flippant-irreverence
                      Evanescent and Insouciance
      Mellifluous and Effervescent
                                       Mondegreen and Labyrinthine
Words like
Onomatopoeia and Tintinnabulation
I appreciate their weight on my tongue
The way my hands appreciate the thickness that is a fat book
I am a Woman of Many Words
I am attracted to their multitude
The space their figures take up on a page
The calligraphic punches
Typed up by keys
The carefully constructed
Brush strokes
Spouting
What is sure to be, nonsense
But I do enjoy the sound of nonsense in the morning
I am a Woman of Many Words
I cling to the lettered skyscrapers wherever I can find them
Because the familiar scent of scribbles across parchment is comfort food for me
I find them
On the backs of cereal boxes
And in Popsicle riddles
In fortune cookies
And alphabet soup
From magnets on my fridge
To junk food logos
And I hold on to them for dear life
For fear that silence should find me
And leave me empty
For fear it will take away the music of maracas
Made by words
Dancing the salsa inside me

I am a Woman of Many Words
because Words
Answer my Questions,
Soothe my fears,
and Humor my Whims
They are not always Right
But they are always Constant
They are not always Honest, in fact,
Mostly
They Lie
But ever so often
They tell such a Beautiful Lie
That you wish it were true
They sing from the rocks
offering Escape from
Terrifying,
Suffocating,
Mind numbing Silence
that echoes off my skeleton
I am afraid that silence will hollow out my insides
and leave me abandoned
with nothing between my Bow and Stern
my Forecastle all torn up
I am afraid of the skeleton inside me
So I am a Woman of Many of Words
For fear of silence
And contempt for truth
Because my words are sirens
And my shipwreck is home here

“We are all actors in an idiots play A tale of sound and fury,
meaning naught. Yet who would care to be a wise man's pawn
Where every twist of fate is well deserved And where a single flaw
could ruin lives? Far better to be in a madman's mind At least for
those (and are we all not so?) Whom fate has smiled on more than
we deserve If life were fair, earth would be hell indeed.”

“Macbeth” William Shakespeare.


From out of the darkness I can see an ever increasing
glow. Intensifying with luminosity as it gets closer and closer.
The blinding eye of fate is upon me. I am thrown with
tremendous vigour. Into where? I have no idea! Surrounded now,
by the blackest of blacks. I can only liken it to a bubble in a pool
of crude that flows wherever the black tide takes me. All I have is
the familiar company of my own voice. A continual narration that
one could expect from a television documentary. The life and
death situ of Michael Simon Jones, filmed in black surround
vision. It reminds me of oh so many nights, when all I wanted to
do is sleep. My mind just wants to stay awake, spouting that
continuous torturous soundtrack into the early hours of the
morning.

Through the darkness a piercing light, coming to me and
then gone, to me then gone. Do I dream? Perhaps of the high
seas. I picture a large tower, It protrudes out of a vast nothing.
The only safe path to steer by is a beam of light, cast down upon
me, from up high. Its beam Revolves continually around, a never
sleeping sun. A light that prevents many flimsy craft, from
grounding onto the craggy rocks that are hidden in the darkness
of the stormy oceanic swells, that roar below.

Again the quiet is shattered, am I not to be allowed to
sleep.
It can only be a dream, for through my bleary eyes I see a figure
of a man, sporting a bright yellow helmet. He seems to be
holding a huge lobsters claw, it is chewing its way through shards
of steel that seem to imprison me. His mouth moving, but I hear
nothing. I half expect to see subtitles appear below him, like an
old Buster Keaton movie. Then he is gone and once more I drift
into that blackened void.

Now a shadowy figure appears. Bending over me his hands
are holding something over my face. I think I can feel myself
struggling against his advances. He is too strong, I can’t breathe,
is he is killing me?

What sort of nightmare is this? Flat on my back in the
darkness, I am gliding speedily along the ground. Intermittent
lights flash past my closed eyes. I recall the deep red on-off glow
of the light, diffused by the blood that rushes through my closed
lids. Can somebody turn the ******* light off, I’m trying to sleep.

Gaaaaa………… I am blinded by the worlds brightest
light! Where am I? The light subsides and I can see, but nothing
is clear. It is like looking through a frosty glass window. There is
movement below me and the bleeding blurs of colours finally
evolve into recognition. What is this? What’s going on down
there?

Rather, what the hell is going on up here? How did I get up here?
I am suspended in mid air. Look I can move my legs. Holy Mary
mother of God, I’m naked! Naked and floating around what looks
to be a hospital operating theatre. Hovering above several
gowned professionals in the toil of their labour.

A naked satellite orbiting above the planet NHS.

Now tell me if there is something wrong with this scenario, but
this is totally not normal is it? I just hope I don’t need to have a
****. I believe that there can only be two possible answers for my
predicament. First is that I am in fact having one totally out of
my head dream.

Second, that I am experiencing some sort of out of body
experience. If that is so, then I can only assume, that the person
lying on that operating table, somewhere under the mass of green
hat and gowns spread eagled on that table below, is me! If only
that fat doctor would move his head out of the way.
Bah! Only so another head can immediately take its place. I think
I now know how a ****** feels when he cant get a clear shot. Oh!
Hang on a second, the assassination can go ahead. I can see!
No that don’t help, I can’t tell who the guy is, he has a mask
covering most of his face and more tubes coming out of him than
a Scottish pipe band. Oh my God! Who else do you know with
that tattoo? I should of known that an indelible red cartoon of the
devil would not be the luckiest thing to have etched into my skin.
I wish now that I’d gone for the Sacred Heart. That might have
been the healthier option and may just of tipped the scales in my
favour. I can’t really see Saint Peter letting me through those
pearly gates with a picture of Beelzebub brandished for all and
sundry to see. Oh ****! That’s me okay, and from this position I
don’t look at all in a healthy state. Can a spirit or whatever I am,
throw up?

But how did I get here? I can’t remember anything that could of
led to this. I do remember going to bed last night, I had an early
night, don’t know why though cause I never get to sleep before
4am. Its a bit laughable I suppose, an Insomniac reading a book
called Insomnia. Perhaps a novel called sleeping tablet would be
more apt?

Unless of course…………… If I can’t remember anything since I
went to sleep then perhaps it’s because I’m still asleep and that
this is merely a dream. That makes more sense, doesn’t it? What’s
happening down there? Something doesn’t look right, things
seem very intense. If only I could make out what they were
saying, everything is silent.

“Hello! What is happening down there? Hello! Hello! Can you
hear me?”

They can’t hear me, no, of course they can’t but why can’t I hear
them? What if this is no dream? What if I am really dying on that
table down there? I can’t make out what they are doing to me but
it doesn’t look good.

There’s a lot of blood.

I wish I had taken more notice when ER was being aired on
television. The only thing I know for sure is, that is a scalpel the
surgeon is holding. The guy at the head of the table should be the
anaesthetist? the woman to the left whom looks like a nurse and
is passing the instruments, is a nurse. But the others I don’t have
a clue.

If only I could hear what they were saying. ****. This is a
nightmare, I can’t believe this. I can see them, why can’t they see
me? Oh please God let them hear me.

“I’m up here, listen to me you death ******* I’m up here.”

So close yet so far away. This can’t be real, this can’t be
happening, not to me. I’ve, never done anyone harm, I've worked
hard all my life. Always been a popular guy, never had a problem
mixing with people. What’s that the nurse is pushing around on
the trolley. I think its one of those crash box things. That’s it, a
defibrillator! *******! I don't think I'm breathing. Look at the
screen, I’ve seen enough movies to know that the green line
should not be one continuous solid.

Oh no, I’ve flat lined! I’m dead! Oh God no, not like this. Looks
like they are going to try and defib me. Here they go.

BAM!

Oh no, the line is still flat. They’re going at it again.

BAM!

****! Still nothing. What they doing now? No don’t stop!
What are they talking about? What have you got to discuss? Just
get on with it, this isn’t a ******* seminar. I’m dying down there.
Just crank that hunk of scrap iron up and send some volts through
me. God, I sound like ******* “Frankenstein,”

That’s it, he’s greasing up the connectors, here we go, here we
go.

_When I came back to the real world I had been in the land
of Coma-City for almost three months and for all of that time it
had been touch and go. It was later explained to me that I had
been involved in a RTA.

It had been surmised that due to my sleeping disorder I had fallen
asleep at the wheel of my car (A classic American 1950’s plated
Cadillac) and had veered into the oncoming traffic. Hitting at
least one vehicle and careering off road and down an
embankment. Finally coming to rest three parts of the way
through a brick built structure, this in turn supported a steel
constructed dome. Used as a point for ramblers trekking high
above Sheermont Cove and offering excellent views across the
horizon and out to sea. An ideal location in particular for budding
photographers to shoot the best possible images of Sheermont
Bay Lighthouse. The Caddie precariously balanced with its long
bonnet hanging over the edge of the cliff top.

In fact I believe that it was the domes heavy steel frame that
secured my fate. The brick walls now demolished beyond
recognition caused the now unsuspended dome to fall onto the
roof of my vehicle. Pinning it solidly to the spot, it crushed the
roof in on top of me, also saving me from plunging to the depths
below and almost certain death. I was trapped under the structure
for almost six hours. I remember very little of the ordeal as I
tripped in and out of consciousness. My rescuers had to cut me
out of the vehicle, with a tool commonly referred to as the Jaws
of Life and I was flown to hospital by air ambulance.

And here I am to tell the tale. But!

Did this metallic redeemer smile on me that fateful night? Saving
me from that almost certain death, on the rocks below Sheermont
Cove?

I think not.

The Dome. It saved my life I know this but the price I would
have to pay was far to high a toll. As I spend the rest of my days
drinking my food through the proverbial straw with only my own
mindful narration forever keeping me company.

I pray to die.

Teach me to swing dance
I'll teach you how to be responsible
You can teach me another language
And I'll show you how to be so comfortable
Because sometimes we're self destructive and unaware of all the damages we've done
Sometimes we have to lighten up and learn a different way to overcome
You can teach me science
And I will show you truth
You can learn about stand up
And you can force me to watch the news
I will bake you cupcakes
You can make fondue
We'll get you high on caffeine
You can show me the right way to stir a rue
Because sometimes our subtitles can be our biggest strengths
And sometimes our past times are the inspirations we create

I.
No one writes poetry about you. You are
an enigma, you are an enigma of unreality and
displeasing angles, too many
bones inside a shell covered with marks you
put there yourself on the best of days on the
worst of days the days you
can't remember.

II.
You watched a Swedish film once called
"Boys" and you think about it often because when
they said the word "homosexual" it was subtitled as
"******", and when they said the word "transgender", the subtitles
said "******".  You are like those subtitles
in your own head, over and
over.

III.
You'll make a film someday and you will
yell the word ****** from an overpass, and you preface it
with "I am a", and you will make it
poetry.

I hear you on the radio,
driving to work.
I swear, I almost get sick in the car
at the rush of memory
sometimes.
I remember firelight flickering
across your face,
a dark corner of a bar you wanted
to get away to
after you played a show,
when everyone wanted a piece
of beautiful you
except me, blushing.

Passion Pit was blaring overhead.
I told you about my family,
we're beekeepers from Ohio.
You watched me as
friends of friends approached me,
flirted, I was sultry.
You asked me
if I was warmed by the beers.
Made eyes
like you wanted
to get the hell out of there.

A customer from work, some
rich investor shmuck,
texts me today.
"What are you wearing?"
I'll tell you.
How many ways can I say "remorse"
before it sounds ****?
It does nothing for me anymore.

But no jokes come to mind,
no evasive, coy replies.
Just a flashing cursor on my
telephone
as I remember summer *******
and someone I left behind.

Make outs in a photobooth
that lasted all night
as they swept the floor to
close up shop.
Only our shoes peeked out
under the curtain
threatening to blow our cover.
You wouldn't be thinking about
our cover.
You'd be thinking about what
I was wearing.

You remember
the color of my tights.
You've told me.
The way my sweater fell off my shoulders.
Saltwater-sealed
sandcastle collarbones.
The more you were obsessed
with me,
the more I didn't need you.

You placed my
hand over your heart
that night in the photobooth,
so I could feel the butterflies
surging through your chest.
They ruptured in rhythm
with each flashbulb
of light
at the magic, calculated touch
of a girl who had learned
to trust no one.

I didn't want any
attachments.
Doesn't everyone always leave?
No, recording in Richmond,
touring across the country,
passing through Brooklyn,
sleeping on a friend's
floor in Denver,
You still asked me what I was
wearing.

A sly grin watching you, breathy and
raw, finish yourself in front
of the camera
late nights when you were away,
listening to you beg for me.
Just the way you'd say my name
And all the words when
we wouldn't speak.
You brought me back honey
from Honduras.
Told me about beekeepers there
and scuba shops on little islands.

I was afraid to start my life
again with someone.
Too young to plan to
run away with you.
The unspeakable distance
I never told you:
I was sleeping with a man I had
loved once
the week before I met you.
He had stopped loving me
long before.

I left you before you could leave me.

It was some cheap hotel off I-75.
A Korean movie with subtitles
was playing in the dark
and we were slushing wine
and sliding bodies
Your sweat was like nectar
and you gasped as you entered me.

I didn't know when I met you
there was nothing left
of me to offer.
Isn't timing half the battle in life?
I never explained it.
Couldn't bring myself
to drive your nice car like you wanted
while you were away.
Drink your honey in my tea
without grimacing at
the bitter taste of grief to it.

I got tired acting confident.
I got bored telling you what I was wearing.
I got angry that you had never been hurt
by someone
not wearing anything.
You were
empty
and easy and
looking for something I couldn't give.

You brought me with you.
I don't know how,
VIP passes and interviews,
always on the road.
We stopped talking,
but you reinvented me
so many times over
different in your mind.

Maybe it was my aire
of not needing you like
the other girls.
Not remarking on
the contour of your jawline,
Your firm muscles,
clenching
and pulsing for me, leaving you
crawling, still
now,
remembering
what I was wearing.

i'm sorry you find it necessary
to put other people's body parts
inside your mouth
like you're some teething mental infant,
or maybe you're trying to take the place
of the baby we're pretending never happened…
…****.  i need a moment. .. …. …


ok.
anyway,
******* got you into this
so you think ******* will get you out?
it's ******* funny i have to flee the ******* country
to get free from your fingers' guilty grip
on a sad mind that can't ******* forgive himself,
on a mind muddied with so many mistakes
i get light-headed every ******* morning trying to decide
which regret to let ruin my day today,
but thank god you've always been there to remind me.
i thank that great guy in the sky
that you're always there
willing & ready
to rub it in.
maybe i just loved you too much,
i guess,
& you loved me just enough
so i'd still do favors for you
& god isn't that what Shakespeare was talking about?
we were rarely a well-written romance
but we ******* NAILED tragedy.
& i told you that first night
as we talked over
some movie i didn't care about
in some language i'll never learn,
that i ******* hated musicals….well
you must've read my subtitles
because you still sing inside my head sometimes.

I am alone with you. 
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces 
As before in the empty cinema, 
Where we arrived, at some beginning, 
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes, 
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air 
And the moony screen, 
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings. 

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd, 
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals. 
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean 
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always 
Known you. 

Across the border on the far island, 
You stepped into the waters with me 
And when you disrobed you lit the stars 
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin, 
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night. 

Síneánn, I am your Pablo, 
We are two white birds sailing 
Over the foam of the sea. 
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world.  Rain petal 
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman, 
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week. 

It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word 
Siberia, my light Rosaleen. 
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning,
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings.

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd,
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always
Known you.

Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin,
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night.

Síneánn, I am your Pablo,
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world.  Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week.

It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

.and very much so:
the royal albert hall... is not where you'd go
to watch ballet...
      unless you were going to watch...
an enlarged centipede pretend to stampede
on a treadmill...

high-brow my ***...
         because iron maiden's phantom
of the opera... did... does... predate...
andrew webber's stab...
                 hard rock 'ammer...
       as in... a paul di'anno bitchboy
                 scant-gimpwhore fan... etc.
the castrato operatics... later...
n'ah...               but that's oh so much
an origins story...
                    and hardly the evolution...

- that the phantom of the opera stands on
a skeleton of three songs...
revised...                morphing...

perhaps not, not that they are songs...
i'd have to sharpen my scalpel for
attempting the smithy deeds on words...

a skeleton of three themes...
       thus noted:

               "angel of music"
            "phantom of the opera"
    and... last but not least:
                     "masquerade"...

what a day... or what wasn't expected...
no one ever told me that:
a musical per se... differs so much from
a musical: for the stage...

by musical...
                 i'd be shaking to conjure up...
the screen musicals of a west side story...
etc. -

            and one can easily so tire of
this trap...

  and what of the internal jokes?
jokes at the expense of the opera...
              - poor fool, he makes me laugh
       - hannibal...
quite the jokes...
   having to draw the blood from
the mundane talk elevated to an operatic
context of song...

that a musical is... somehow...
when opera can be reduced to talk...
and can be thus reduced to:
the joker in a hand of poker...
   a whimsical little card...

the 25th anniversery of the phantom
at the royal opera house...
one can somehow forgive the electronic
attaches of the overture...
whether the electric guitar of the drum
machine...

   like one can forgive:
                 nirvana's unplugged...
at the end though...
   even andrew webber looks perplexed /
nervous... how did we get away with this?
i don't know:
the only style of genre that...
actually requires a stage and props...
and ample volume of space!
a theatre: since otherwise...
opera: pure technique...
                and prop minimalism...

and...

because can a musical: not require a stage?
does it indeed feed too many images
that need to be attired with quacks...
with feathers... with leather boots and chandeliers?!

now i'll toast! i'll toast to a new reason
to go down the alleys of ah bit tipsy:
itsy bitsy sniffing a bottle neck...
bloated from a champagne cork pop!

truly... if only the stage...
   that allowance to perform a performance
a need to perfect: always never:
the editor in charge...
   all those out-takes left to what life is
left behind the curtain...

     the musical of the movies of h'america...
whatever they might be...
to name but a few would be best...
           and if i didn't first see the phatom
on a television screen...
but in its natural environment:
with the volume of required air...
     i wouldn't have been able to choke
my tears...

and i have seen the theatre
and i have seen the opera
and the ballet...
                            i sometimes...
"sometimes": wearisome...
try to forget the maggot pit of phelgm,
sweat and ***** of a rock concert...
        of all the mediums...
         this jumbled up swedish table platter...
what a cocktail of a rollercoaster!

i could forever take off my garments
of jealousy: of which there's that pitiable
affair of a beard-envy...
                well...
                           well well...

how pristine: they even had a music-box!
in that crude relief of finding
"revisions" and alt. interpretations
of... perhaps it's only a matter of
two themes and that overture?

             and if it's song and dance...
       it's not a candy-smiles and tap-dancing buffet...
it's opera and ballet...
because... it's opera:
                 ha! empty these cupboards!
no one needs to attend an opera
like a foreign language movie:
with subtitles running on a FTSE100
reel above the stage...

                      the musical: is the reinvention
of the opera... a musical is an opera...
with mild added animation of theatre...
and there's a pinch of ballet!

          this will most certainly not translate
into me liking cats... or les misérables...
       this will do...
                   sing-along / sing-through?
and everyone is, suddenly... equipped with
a deciphering ear to translate the over-infuated
vowels of an operatic breath?!

- and very much so:
the royal albert hall... is not where you'd go
to watch ballet...
      unless you were going to watch...
an enlarged centipede pretend to stampede
on a treadmill...

- but if someone would tell you...
a musical... west side story? yes?
     i'm pretty sure it would be all about:
singin' in the rain... fair enough...
             but all for that popcorn entertainment...
and the tap-dancing...
and chewing-gum advert smiles...
and all that technicolour dabbling...
and all those heavily bothersome editing
processes... like... the plumbers
most associated with veins and arteries?
sorry: the romanians are picking the fruit
and veg for the next: x-factor star...
the next youtube vlogger breakthrough chart
topper...

blunt and ******* obvious...
      and how has english changed since Dickens?
i made a note of...
because i will not make notes
of what's already passed...
a direct etymological association with a loan,
word...
  not from dutch, german or french...

       SA-LU-BRI-OUS
            (healthy...)

                   PER-EM-PTO-RILY...
         (not being permitted a denial)

that 19th century victorian english that...
just had to loan words directly from
latin... this much of reading Dickens remains
in me... after having just experienced
a blitzkrieg of a musical: proper...

there are still the same old nooks 'n' crannies
for me to find shadows and moths
in...

    because: i am most certainly the one
about to cite: they took away my circuses!
and m'ah bread!
there's no football! well... no football?
goodness me! what are, what are...
the alternatives?!

         opera you can... disregard...
theatre if... movies are your...
ahem... sartre's curiosity with the keyhole...
voyeurism: to exist is to be seen...
but only through a keyhole...
                     which movies aren't, of course!
the editor comes in...
even in the golden age of cinema...
the panoramic view... resembled a stage...
and in the old movies you could
time... the editor taking charge...
and how long it would take for
the actors to forget their lines...

            not that that matters... given...
there's no stage... but the red carpet
of postures and toothpaste adverts...
and paparazzi *** epilepsy from the strobe
glitter ball of the leeches congregating!
not even vultures make such a spectacle!
i saw the same...
then the concrete was layered with enough
frost at night...
the crevices would become impregnated
with diamonds of ice...
every twist of the head would
agitate these sparkles toward imitation
of a flash!

there's a "musical": in the advent of the h'american
sense... and there's: a musical...

- and if you happen to hear a subtle joke
by evelyn waugh in the meantime:
at the better for you...
              what is an encyclopedic "ogling"
within the confines of scrutiny:
that man may forever be attired...
and the genitals just dangling like
champagne flutes without any,
any sort of, scrutiny of...
not having to play the Oedipus!

               here's a fork... here's a donkey...
here's a spoon... here's the Schleswig-Holstein
and its siege of Westerplatte!
here!
   the Schleswig-Holstein tenor of
                           the opera: Westerplatte...
oh joy: a "my" in a "history"...
and none of it an affair that might...
disturb the peaceful lives
of those lived: under the splendour
of a charles II and a handel firework's music
to have to somehow: "put out"!

clearly: i'll be dying from the ******
of all the collective forces of the universe
and gambling and... oopsies...
i am here... and it's not that sort of grey...
pistons assured!
- had i the face of beauty...
beside starring as a tadpole of potential...
a voice with a stage to make outlet with...

- what could ever become of this...
jigsaw puzzling overdue do...
                         the narrative in the classical sense:
hardly what, and what not:
this vector and the in-between
from some mythical (a) toward a journalism,
and weekend opinion pieces...
and all that insomnia riddled "journalism"
of the current year of crux denoted with
a (b)...

               all true: from darwin and the "big bang"...
and of course... time shrinking...
in between... beside carbon dating...
and let us not hear of things speak
for themselves: but ourselves!
untrue! hercules!
untrue! prometheus!
untrue untrue untrue!
but darwin and the ape: nod! gentlemen!
we have proof!
myth or no myth: but a journalistic integrity!
that's enough proof! for today and tomorrow!
and... what's not the fiction that's already
memory?

and what is... this imagination that's...
not a single street witnessed of Paris
in the circa of the year that was... 2004...
or 2006 or 2007...
                      
for the art... and this detail of science that
once upon a time shocked...
now... only comes... burdensome...
a ballet on ice... a shaking of hands with
a shadow... something beside this:
base revision of culture and civilization:
this bogus lopsided quest for:
re-inventing... nothing more... than a zoo!

so little must have happened in the case
of english history...
this hannibal and the mountains...
but what curtain: the great wall of china:
built among the mountains...
ingenious: doubling-up?
  xerxes whipping the waves of the aegean...
the great wall of *****-chewing-wall'ah...
i dare become the new albino...
i dare... and i the next japanese porcelain
frailty...
               many thanks: for the <caugh caugh>...
hooray!

              oh my mother:
the cindarella of nations of europe...
         i seriously can't do much worse than
that cocktail and carboot sale of tchaikovsky's
1812 overture...
   it's an overture!
              
really? the phantom of the opera is because...
of the overture?
last time i heard... prokofiev's lieutenant kijé
(kij - stick... kije... sticks)...
romance... was all a rave! "rave"...
              a nibbling at a crescendo...
    but hardly: then again: a nomad chorus...
a reminiscence... a memory lost: yet foretold...

and if... the anonymous provider...
of the full extent of the carmina burana...
      what if?
        i play... this cliche... this... my most
democratic oath: for the bettering of the voice
that could allow the congregation of
the many! my democratic oath: my quasi:
civic duty... me joining the club of the most
sober bottom's-up! pick'ld-week!

                 such are the affairs... hardly a worthiness
of a frenchman of pander...
or of being so blessed by an island...
when being neighbour of europe...
and easily bound to be found because:
france never too interest in the robot antics
of the scandinavians or what
was ever to be assured by iceland!

thus came the crude: skeleton waiting
to be refined... a peter schteele interlude of:
fancying a giant to a tumble...
i will not satisfy myself with a biography
outside of the realm of immediacy...
how do people write a biography without
the peacock of whim and of what's readily
available? a biography with a past...
automated: futurism... n'est ce pas?

         - i escape for the transcendental relief in
beauty... my own lack...
therefore better neglected: rather than denied...
it's my own that Belzeebub should
****** with maggots and acne synonyms onto
my face...

          i escape for beauty... not... sorry...
pardon my fwench: a ******* conversation
of the paupering sociopathic sort of
a job trotter sordid kin'!
                  if only crocodiles could cry...
they'd be warm-blooded...
and i would be year after year
an oscar nominee for a toast
of best actor at the oscars!

          pity... pity and the subsequent
dumbdrum!
                no! i do not want to guillotine this
affair with the autobiographic as long
as i am drinking and not any champagne
in sight... or... schnapps...
              
i best be off... this is enough frivolity
of the heart for a day's worth!

Coagulation in the limbic system
The pineal gland commence emission
Insemination within the vision
Clouded by foreign dubbed derision
Fray the edges, fringe incision
Behold the schism, parabolic business
Subtitles for the learning minions
And it is booming like v twin pistons

Streamline slithering tunnel vision
Between the rock and hard resistance
Living the lie, we're deathly hidden
Not just fire but the end decision
Resulting is the pouring human
A sudden break elastic intrusion
The hour spawned upon confusion
Forever running through illusion

I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning,
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings.

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd,
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always
Known you.

Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin,
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night.

Síneánn, I am your Pablo,
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world.  Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week.

It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

hitting save on another task as my spotify playlist sways in the background. my yawn reaches my stomach. my dark circles bring a great contrast to my greyish-bluish eyes. i'm learning french again. maybe because it's supposed to be the language of love and maybe because i want to watch Plein Soleil without subtitles.

it's june still. my ex who said she was still my friend went to a pride parade without me. it's fine, maybe i'll get to wear my colors on my sleeves next june. maybe i'll meet some queers in college. if i ever finish my housing application.

california state university northridge. blissfully away from home, but achingly not far enough. beautiful to it's core and yet i can't shake this churning anxiety in my fingers, in my brain, in my heart. i wish everything wasn't online so maybe this yellow brick road winding me to my future would feel more real.

this town is so ugly. it's not big, not small. it isn't even pretty if you genuinely enjoy the look of washed out suburbs. all the colors are dulled by the sun, and not in the soft pastel way. it's like the skies rained gallons of bleach, if it ever once rained here. this place is full of skeletons hanging on to purgatory.

but i'd suffer damnation if i said i wasn't scared out of my mind about leaving it.

LIFE IS SHORT
AND WE'RE A LONG TIME DEAD
Whether we are riding a unicorn
Across a rainbow
While the wind blows majestically
Our lustrous eye haloed by seagulls
We may act and act
Like we are tall
And our finger nails have
A big heart of their own
We may play kittens or puppies
And get excited about plastic bones
We may get lost in the grammar constructions and commas of sunset
In and out of our comfort zone
We may want to belong to two life clubs
And finish a movie every seven ten days
Always up for subtitles
Be it old sci fi 30's 40's 50's 60's noir war
We may try with a pair of scissors or a broom
To put death sleeping in socks  and plan ahead endless possibilities of karma
If we're wildly in love with life
And understand that life isn't a pie
That being in life isn't a sport
And that faith on life is a little like a full time job
But that death is like a hook living just around the corner whom we share
With the same post code.
Life is short, life is petite
Life is a ******, a dwarf, a suckling
Life is fast as a snap of our fingers
Life is a bait, a worm
Life is sparks
And we're a long time dead
So let's fish capers and mangoes
In and out the apparences
In and out the distance
While the harvest season is booming
Up there in the blooming volcanoes of sunset.

Winters here are unpredictable.
There are days when the fire stays in, when I watch the log pile shrink by the hour.
Other days, a weak sun raises the temperature by degrees, as well as the spirits.

Today, there's a chill in the air, so I call my friend to meet at the local bar -
that means I won't have to burn any logs.

She works here in the village, turning pots, then decorates them with the traditional blue designs
for tourists to buy – if she's lucky.

At the bar, she tells me about her new project. She knows exactly what she wants.
Ideas spin in her head like the pots on her wheel.
This time, she says, she's determined.

Her enthusiasm doesn't last for long.
She drifts away, staring into the middle distance, lost in private thoughts.

I study her hands- always tense, never still. Her slim fingers engrained with the red earth that she shapes.
Her wedding ring hangs from a chain around her neck, leaving her hands free from obstructions while she kneads the clay.

In the background, beer glasses crash about and a dog is barking somewhere outside.

Her eyes flick towards the T.V. High on the wall.
Sometimes, when an important match is on, there's football, but more often than not, like today,
there's a violent American film with subtitles in her own language.
She shivers, then comes back to me, pulling her scarf closer around her shoulders.
She tells me she's seen the film before and knows the plot well.
It's the one where the husband gets drunk and tries to **** his wife, but no one will believe her.

She looks tired.
She says she's been up all night trying to fix a faulty thermostat - that the heat of the kiln was too high and broke all her pots. Then the main fuse burned out and that she'd have to get an engineer in to fix it.

After a while, we embrace and part.
Walking home, I think of my friend and how she could never bear the space between her hands and her precious creations.

The air feels chillier now and an icy wind has started to blow.
I expect by the end of the day there'll be snow on the ground.
But there again, it might just rain.

copyright © Caroline Grace 2013

I wish you came with an instruction manual, because loving you makes no sense.

I take that back because even if you did it would probably be written in German.

I try to put together pieces and all I see is handle with care but when I reach out, your body language says "don't touch me there." Not physically, not emotionally, and when I try mentally you yell "get out of my brain." Even in the same atmosphere our breathing is not the same.

I cling to your exhale and forget that I need to inhale. I pray that you're alive not worried about my imminent death, because once again, loving you just doesn't make sense.

Maybe if you had come with subtitles, I could love you better. So that I could read what you say instead of hear it, since the two never seem to be the same.

You make me feel deaf. And that would be okay if only American Sign Language was enough to make you stay. Why can't you just say how you feel so I can feel what you say?

You drown me with complacency and get mad when I can't stay afloat.  You're screaming you can't handle this yet ask me why I'm walking towards the door.

We were supposed to be two beats, and one heart. I was supposed to love you right, but I don't know how..

You came with no instruction manual.

Loving you just doesn't make sense.

pick and choose and prioritize
you have one hundred different kinds of days to live
about 30,000 chances to repeat them
where does your heart live
in the depths?
or in the stars?

he said:

"you gotta hit it hard in the guts, blood and thunder and all like"

life is fraught with peril
like a foreign film without subtitles
you choose how it ends
the subtleties
the inconsistencies
the balance of here and there
the cliche duality of life
good and evil
god and devil
now or never

      he rolled 13 cigarettes
      took one glass of whisky
      stepped 3 times down the stairs
      walked 3 miles down the street
      and fell 6 million times in the dark

i was born like a tree
arms raised like branches
growing through my chest
leaves falling all around me
naked in the winter
clothed in the summer
roots go deep
no time to sleep
come here and flow up my xylem
lay in my phloem
my chlorophyl will fill you up
my sap is like wine
stay drunk all the time

I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning,
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,  
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings.

Later, alone we dine in the Café  
Campagne. Our conversation  
Deafens a burgeoning crowd,
Coffee was nectar, our words  
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest  
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed  
By your tears.  I have always
Known you.

Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin,
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night.

Síneánn, I am your Pablo,
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world.  Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived  
One hundred years this week.

It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.  
At the great table we feast  
With family and friends  
And I am not alone with you.

happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday...
happy birthday...
happy birthday, to...*

Today I felt like I was born as a much saddder person
I feel sadness because I feel lost
the country I lived in all my life decided it was somewhere else
and the people I called countrymen and friends decided to go with it

nothing looks like it used to
nothing feels like it's supposed to
and even nothing has changed
to become this everything.

the sound of laughter escaping lips
needs subtitles
and the messages from my best friend's eyes need decrypting
a knowing look no longer knowing

where my parents house is
where the giant tree, with kites stuck and tire swings
is planted where I spent my years growing
my old toys lie in attic space  

I do not know what happened
I don't know what went wrong
but I just want to hear again the tune of that familiar birthday song

happy...bir....ay
ha...pybur...

now, how did all that go?

detail & light would be lost
without the dichotomy around grey

the way ‘&’ illuminates value
on both sides, conjoining the two into one

spectrum blends the extremes
into a clear image—light
highlights the subtitles
—the deaf are not the only ones
who cannot hear the absurdity
of absolute separation

black & white turns back
time into intervals of past
in a world of color
the absence strips away the present

caricature is transparent without color
in the lawless old western plains
good is easily found through
the black mask and white hat
bad is easily found through
white face-paint and black hair

even though ‘and’ does not
hold accountable, as one,
what it surrounds itself by
but rather as two distinct values

separation by ‘and’ becomes absurd
when the color has been stripped
down to the bare where ‘&’ allows
grey to highlight the similarities

Darling
Do you mind if my hands clutch your curvaceous margins?

Baby
Do you care if I get a slight taste of your gravy?

Honey
Would you allow me to put a little work into your comb? The deeper; the more you moan

I have a thing for your eyes
I'm attracted to your smile
I have a crush on your thighs
I like your hair
I'm attached to your laugh
I love when you are bare

Inside of your parenthesis says (ooh) (ahhh) (uh huh) and (grunts)
The subtitles of us making love
The rehearsal (foreplay) and role play
Kissing from bottom to top
Positioning from prop to prop
As I come down stage
I forgot my lines
So I improvise
Lick it from behind

This is graphic but I wouldn't label it ****
Because this is to adore
Our character's chemistry is
Action packed
Comedy
Dramatic
Romantic
Musical, for whoever in the other room
Touching, for whoever witness our groove
Inspiring, to the audience as we continue to perform while being tired

As we call for the last scene
Soon as you pass out
The buckling of my knees
The stage grow silent
The house applaud
We bow
The curtains fall

Everyone leaves
Then we work on the deleted scenes