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Joe Cole Dec 2014
We the men of the Sussex Weald
When winters nights are long
Sit beside the deep log fire
And sing the Sussex songs
We talk of crops and fertile soil
Of rich earth turned by the plough
Of fishing boats who from harbours small
Reap a harvest from the shoals
Strong ale shared by those who care
About the Sussex weald
Yes we, we who care we will be the shield
We the men of the Southern downs
Yes we of the Sussex weald
To no man will we go on bended knee
To no man will we yield
I am a man of the Sussex weald, a man of the southern hills
Martin Narrod May 2015
Martin Narrod  just now
I started working on a comment in response to "Filling A Bottle With A Tundish"

Sadly I must admit, that even for an American with a college degree, who is a self-proclaimed non-Philistine that grew up in a suburb of Chicago, IL. Where I'm from I've been told is much like some parts of Sussex(I believe it's Sussex), my friend Lili Wilde described it to me on an occasion.

So I must say martin, that for having a voracious appetite for language, language of all sorts, from **** to sin, to cinephile to cynosure, pulchritude to tup, exsuphlocate to masticate, irate, irk, perfervid, wan ewes thwapping their tails, nearly stridulating like the cricket in the thistle. The advanced undulate troche of domesticated shadows, and the sesquipedelien dulciloquent surreptitious diction and other floccinaucinihilipilification and tomfoolery about.

martin, please do tell me what a 'Tundish" is? If you haven't yet, there is a phenomenally interesting reverse dictionary, entitled onelook.com/reversedictionary , and quite contrary as it may seem, and for all the Virginia & Leonard Woolf I enjoy reading, especially his somewhat innocuously underrated novella he wrote, I also read with extraordinary gratitude Ted Hughes's The Birthday Letters, Take of a Bride Groom, The Complete Works, Sylvia Plath's Unabridged Journals, Ariel, Johnny Panic, Ariel, and other poems by writer Richard Matthews. I am still unfamiliar with this word, Tundish. Online dictionaries don't give the best explanation.

As I was mentioning earlier. The OneLook Dictionary-Reverse, will let you for example, search: beach sand. And in response it will give you up to thousands and thousands of word which relate to those two words, together, seperately, and opposing each other. Such as: water, swell, wave, arenose, peat, dirt, seagull, Pacific Ocean, suntan, bikini, The Beach Boys, vitrify. It's very fun indeed. From one Martin to another, I hope you'll stay in touch. I'm excited about your work!

Best Regards

Martin

P.S. The text below is the original message I typed before learning that my presumptions of you being Anglican were correct. Have a great day!

Another Martin, YES! How exquisite, I've never met another one. I have so many questions I barely know where to start. I love marigolds, nose-bags with oats, and as I started feeling the essences if equus and what lurking prurient pedagogy for the didactic zoology that took me and the mind of me to wonder perhaps if though I am quite certain(though not 100%) that your native tongue is English, but using that ridiculous skill-set of immense benality I seem to someone have, am I wrong for asking dear Martin, are you from Scotland or Wales, or maybe even from a country where you learnt English as a native tongue but it's your secondary language?

As aforementioned, there are a plethora of questions that this runnel of sludge and dross that've now arisen in the turpidity of your antiquary of delightful speech. To whomever invited me to play along in the debauchery, and dance merrily with merriment, mine younger docile succubus's slendering beside me, puking up their tissue paper and vegetable soup, so that my pretty girls can fit into Size 2 TuTu's, and learnedly imprison themselves into the tatterdemalion of portentously lurid self-****** and abuse. , and the opprobrious trollop-gossip the gaggle of my skinny victim women eschewing food groups, in order to appeal to my conservative eyes, thrice the child's wild idling to absorb the rancor of their stoic and noisome sedentary lifestyle in the polluted sudatorium that I myself don't use, but that these nonparticular Philistines would serve as Surf & Turf with glazed Christmas Hams for the Hebrews to eat, and another sad storm surge on another deserted quay of sea sands, and our vessel and our deserters, worshipping the Virunga, sacrificing the ghost skeletons of the million year old ape. So I ask you. If even you're capable of expressing yourself under the maddening yet advesperating evening listening to Miles Kane and The Arctic Monkeys, followed by listening to Black Sabbath play Fairies Wear Boots while we drink our childhoods free of the rod and **** the war out of our teenage girlfriends. And in the morning when awoken by the sound of Sopwith Camels arriving on the early, frost-strewn milky, azure-banded stripes of moonlit ecstasy that make for this unquantifiable gesture of succinct believers driving in Summer get stopped for blowing a rice-white swiveling consortium of dishonest affair rivaling ****** addicts, with hummus, plastic bags, and forks in their sphincters, while they autoerotically asphyxiate themselves in a plastic knockoff Mickey Mouse hat, and a Pirates of the Carribbean bandana wrapped around the ***** eyed nightmare of having unsuccessfully sedated a 400-lb crabby, Lowland living-room Silverback Gorilla. More than a primate and a prostate exam. It's like posthumously straining to push tingling 119° Vaseline through the grey and white coffee stirrers which spilled all over the floor while I was saying goodbye to our daughter, while also explaining to you why it's so important to me you love me back enough so that everyone has enough of a grasping glint at understanding yourself, that in managing to reason the arithmetic of such a conundrum and confusing calamity, a phone call free of dial tone happens to be surrendered to an independent Christian organization of the state while myself and my wife's two sons, our sons, Thomas and James, have enough free time from complaining to hire an attorney to disclose the arraignment reiterated by both legal council, city council, and the Screenwriters Guild of counsellors struggling from methamphetamine addiction.

Peace Be With You.

Martin Narrod
martin.narrod@gmail.com
Response to Filling A Bottle With A Tundish by Martin
Joe Cole May 2014
Tall they stand,  browned by sun and wind
Heads held proudly high as they get the harvest in
Yes these are men of the Sussex Weald who proudly work the land
These are the men who plant and gather the food that feeds the land
For generations handed down the long held Wealden crafts
They still know how to coppice the hazel oak and ash
They can still use the tools their grandfather used those many years ago
The billhook and the scythe,  the hand axe and the ***
Now modern machines do the work but the old crafts will never die
Men of the Weald are a proud race until the day they die
Yes I'm a man of the Sussex Weald and know how to wield the axe
I know how to work the land but my pay wont make me fat
This was written fof a bit of fun but most of it holds true
Joe Cole Mar 2014
This poem was witten by my godfather Hilair Beloc 1870-1953

When I am living in the midlands
That are sodden and unkind
I light my lamp in the evening
My work is left behind
And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind

The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea
And its there walking in the high woods
That I could wish to be
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Walking along with me

The men that live in North England
I saw them for a day
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells
Their skies are fast and grey
From their castle walls a man may see
The mountains far away

The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong
A rolling on rough water brown
Light aspen leaves along
The have the secret of the rocks
And the oldest kind of song

But the men that live in the South Country
Are the kindest and most wise
They get their laughter from the loud surf
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our sister the spring
When over the sea she flies
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet
She blesses us with surprise

I never get between the pines
But I smell the Sussex air
Nor I never come on a belt of sand
But my home is there
And along the skyline of the Downs
So noble and so bare

A lost thing I could never find
Nor a broken thing mend
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get towards the end
Who will be there to comfort me
Or who will be my friend

I will gather and carefully make my friends
Of the men of the Sussex Weald
They watch the stars from the silent folds
They stiffly plough the fields
By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed

If ever I become a rich man
Or if ever I grow to be old
I will build a house with a deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold
And there shall the Sussex songs  be sung
And the story of Sussex told

I will hold my house in the high woods
Within a walk of the sea
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me
Joe Cole Jan 2015
We lined the ridge of Senlac hill
The shield wall stood five men deep
In the autumn chill
The came at us on horse and foot
But we were the men of the Sussex weald
Men who would not yealed
Our shields now hacked and broken
Bodies bloodied bruised and sore
But we the housecarles of the English King
Would stand and fight the war
Prince William came with his aray the English crown to take
But we the men of Sussex
Would many French bones break
Alas our shield wall has broken
Kentish men on the right have charged
They sought to cut the Norman line
And so the men of Kent did die
The French now archers did deploy
With bitter arows fired high
Harold, our king, our leige Lord
Took an arrow in his eye
We gathered round his body
We men of the Sussex Weald
Our king was dead, the battle lost
But Sussex men don't yeald
The shield wall now in disaray
Large gaps now opened up
Brave men now die before the spear
From the broadswords vicious cut
And so we died on Senlac ridge
But there were no wounds in our backs
We died for England's glory
Cut down by spear and axe
The battle of Hastings in 1066 when William of Normandy took the English crown. The battle on Senlac ridge is about an hours drive from my home and I have visited the site many times
Johnny Zhivago Jun 2013
oh the average duke of sussex
he had 2000 soldiers
he marched them up to the top of the downs then rolled them down like boulders

and when they were here they were here
and when they were there they were there
and when they hit the barbed-wire fence they were neither here nor there

and when they were up they were up (in heaven)
and when they were down they were down (in hell)
and when they were only half way up
we called that life on earth
Cedric McClester Jan 2020
By: Cedric McClester

The Duchess of Sussex
Happens to be black
So the racists in Great Britain
Don’t know how to act
Or how to deal with
That salient fact
She was born in America
Now she’s coming back

Prince Harry loves her
And you can tell
He told his royal relatives
To go to hell
But a part-time royal
Isn’t easy to sell
And the Queen hasn’t
Weighed in, as well

They’ll spend half the year
In England
And the other half here
They may lose their allowance
Which they’re well aware
But the both of them lovebirds
Couldn’t give a care
There’s enough in their reserves to share

The Duchess of Sussex
Has been rebuked
Now she’s fed up
And so is her Duke
She’s not a nigress
Nor is she a *****
Those names that they call her
Would make anyone puke



















Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2020.  All rights reserved.
Lily Audra Apr 2016
In England brown birds make dusty circles on overcast days,
The ground blankets itself in moss and cappuccino leaves.
So when the sharp lemony sun fills the breeze with warmth,
And white cotton clouds punctuate the sky and my eyelids,
It feels like home
Joe Cole Mar 2014
My south country that we call the Sussex Weald
A place of gentle landscapes of softly rolling hills.
My south country where I grew up and played as a child
Where I learned of nature as I studied life in the wild.
They stand in magestic glory between the land and the rolling sea
Those magestic hills we call the downs
we of the Sussex Weald
Yes, I'm a man of the Sussex Weald, of generations long gone bye
I'm a man of the South Country
And as a south country man I'll die
Chris Slade May 2019
The Avro Vulcan, a majestic big old iron bird, sublime,
was to do a flyby for just one memorable last time.
Maybe with a jet fighter or a Spitfire on each wing, who knew?…
Unthinkable to miss it… almost a crime.
Thousands turned up every year, always a great day out -
but this year would be special, there'd be no doubt.
The last flight of such a legendary plane made it essential…
So, after the flyers’ break for lunch, the crowd filled out.

The entry fee to occupy the field was heinous. 25 quid!
That was for adults - and a fiver for each kid.
So, many more than those that paid, sat happily outside pubs.
Others found shelter in the perimeter’s trees and... kinda hid.
Now, to see a Vulcan fly anytime, anywhere, was magic…
She was a Leviathan of the Cold War,
that held players in the planet’s power games in awe.
And this would be her last time doing the rounds on the air show circuit -
Seeing this locally was hard to ignore.

Mark (a nephew) was a window cleaner by trade.
A regular, down to earth, happy go lucky guy.
…Saturday comes and the kids all voted "McDonalds"…
“A Happy Meal!” they’d cry.
He said that was fine - they’d all go after he’d nipped over
to the airshow to watch the Vulcan fly.
No idea whatsoever, of course, that just by going to Shoreham
just 5 miles away, for half an hour or so… that he might die.

He told his fiancé he’d only be an hour or so…
be back in time to take the kids for a burger and, "NO!"...
He wouldn’t stay. He was the only one in the family
who was bothered anyway…so he wouldn’t ****** up their day.
So, in haste, because apparently Chicken Nuggets & Fries
was much better for the kids than a load of old planes,
he cranked the best out of his bike along the 27 and,
once at the lights by the Sussex Pad,
he pulled over to the kerb to watch from the bushes.
Good view? Well not bad!

Andy Hill was a flyer of many years. His weekday job,
flying for BA.Taking holiday makers, business folk, transatlantic in Seven Four Sevens...
A flight deck maestro, soaring up, just under the heavens.
He’d done Shoreham loads of times… it was exciting, exhilarating... almost sport, his game!
He was off the hook,  became an ace. It gave him that 15 minutes of fame!
Free to thrill - a hero! Standing out from the crowd with every daring step. His aim!

He wasn’t just a petrol head… this bloke had aviation fuel in his blood.
Adrenalin on tick-over. Nought to 60 in 2.7 seconds with 22,000 Horsepower under the hood.
He left Epping full of fuel, just 90 miles away, so in two ticks he was with us, fully loaded and, the weather? It was good.
First up after lunch at half past one… he streaked across the crowded field.
Over and out and up, up, up… Little did the spectators know that Andy had forgotten he was flying a Hunter…
He thought it was last year’s aborted routine in a Jet Provost… The one they'd stopped part way through being, too risky.

"He’s not gonna make it… I can’t look!" There was a hush… a nanosecond’s silence and then the rush,
the whoomph that said it all… that hush! The ground shook!
And the eleven - plus others injured - went up in Andy Hill’s very own fireball!
No, of course, Mark wasn’t the only one to die that day.
Ten other ‘innocents’ left us in pretty much the same way…
Maurice, Dylan, Tony, Matthew, Matt, Graham, Mark R, Daniele, Richard & Jacob.
Mark T, our Mark, had the distinction of having two funerals, not just the one…
More remains were discovered, analysed and found to be his!
Even after he’d…already well... ‘gone’.

The injustice that eleven spectators or just passers by should die
when the survivor, the off target driver, who sped too low from the sky, should, after a suitable pause in this ghoulish game, be exonerated and not take any blame.
Well it’s all sort of things… It's ridiculous, pathetic, obtuse, a joke… who do they think we are?

But the great and the good deliberated, scratched their heads and worked hard to make everything look ’right’…
Tolerance for the bereaved to grieve, platitudes, condescending attitudes, a memorial service.
Thanks - genuinely - to the emergency services… Not just a little buck-passing… But the public often judged them. Arsing about - to cover their corporate backside.
They can’t insult me (or us)… intelligent people have tried…

Andy Hill was judged to be not guilty of 11 counts of manslaughter by gross negligence.
But he claimed he blacked out in the air, having experienced ‘cognitive impairment’ brought on by hypoxia … possibly due to the effects of G-force…. Of course!
The 11 were either hit by the plane or roasted in a fireball caused when the jet flew too low and too slow. But if it wasn’t Andy’s fault then whose was it?

Surely this can’t be the end of this travesty of justice!!

BUT, there IS a new memorial to the dead. And, trust this...it’s a good one too…  The best that money can buy - and that anyone can do.

But there's is also a very bitter taste, still today…
that somehow... just won’t go away!
This is a bit of a saga... But I think it's worth it...On August 22nd 2015 there was a disaster at Shoreham Air Show, West Sussex... on the south coast of England and eleven people died. A loop the loop, too low and too slow. The pilot lived and recovered from his injuries and was found not guilty of eleven counts of manslaughter by gross negligence.
Edna Sweetlove Jan 2015
This is a terrifying tale as told by Ebeneezer Sweetlove, my late cousin*

I remember how I met Edwina all those years ago: and there was none of that "eyes connecting across a crowded room" crap. Well, not in a romantic sense - it was just pure lust. I suddenly realised this woman was staring at me with undisguised desire from the other side of a cocktail party at some boring conference at the five-star Grand Hotel. I was ***** as buggery as my latest girl friend had, just the previous week, committed suicide by jumping to a hideous death off scenic Beachy Head, so I returned the ****'s look with a lethally ****** stare of my own and then licked my lips as vulgarly as possible, indicating I was simply barking for a hot oral session, no holes barred.

The woman I was to know all too briefly as Edwina took the hint and came over and we talked as though we'd known each other all our lives; but even someone as suave as I was a little surprised when she groped me quite openly and shoved her tongue into my earhole, dribbling hotly down my cheek. And then she seemed to go all shy and little girl-like until I sophisticatedly suggested we go out for dinner and then back to my penthouse suite for a night of mind-blowing *******. I have to say I was embarrassed when the head waiter in the little bistro I selected complained when she took off her knickers and gave them to me for a refreshing sniff.

The *** was amazing - Edwina was like a beast on heat, screaming like a banshee while we ****** each other's brains out. Yet, in between *******, she was as gentle and charming as a little ***** cat. Six times I gave her my hot ***** that night: once in her mouth, then four times in the usual place, finishing off with one up her rear end. I was more or less totally drained of my love juices and in need of a good long kip before lunch.

But, tragedy struck: well before the dawn's early, she woke me and whispered she had to go as she had to get home before her husband got back after his night shift from down the sewers - he was apparently in charge of the entire East Sussex sewage system and liked to have an hour long shower every morning to get the stench of ***** off him.

I begged her to stay, saying I would happily pay for a divorce so I could have her with me for always. I even offered to have a contract put out on her sewer rat of a hubby, mentioning that my brother-in-law, Kosmo, was big in the Albanian mafia and owed me a favour. But she said no, I could ******* with my pleas. As dawn grew nearer I could see her becoming ever more frantic to leave and it was only then I realised the truth, having at last deciphered the real meaning of her blood-stained and scabby third ****** and the scarlet 666 tattoo on her luscious **** cheek.

Yes, Edwina was a ***-demon from deepest Hell and thus I was left with only one course of action. Ever so reluctantly, I bravely reached for the sacred wooden stake and mallet that I had carried round in my Dolce & Gabbana crocodile suitcase for so many years just in case of such an eventuality. Sadly I drove the stake into her beautiful ***** with a mighty blow and, instead of the blood which might have been reasonably expected, only a stream of warm **** poured out. Before my very eyes, her corpse disintegrated into a pile of odorous dust. Truly was Edwina a daughter of darkness.

As you may imagine, I had to give the chambermaid quite a hefty gratuity in order to get her to cleanse my room and to bin the evidence, but so grateful was she for the honorarium that she agreed to share my bed the very next night, knowing she would be likely to receive an immense tip of quite another category.
Your comments are most welcome provided they are grammatically correct.
Now we all know the story of the grinch and the who's
So listen quite closely for I have some bad news
The Grinch is back in Whoville and before you make a fuss
The blame for his existence must fall on all of us
We the the Grinch in power, we elected him you see
This time the Grinch has got a name, it's Brian Mulroney!
You're a mean one Misher Grinch
The meanest man alive
You stay up in your mansion
At 24 Sussex Drive, Mister Grinch
The Grinch called for his council to gain some ideas
He planned to discover each persons worst fears
"I've demolished their lifestyles in the time I've been King"
Then he thought to himself, "That has a nice ring!"
"I've sold out the country to whomever would buy it"
"It's such a feeling of power, I wish you could try it!"
"I've taxed all I can  I've cut low cost housing"
"It makes me feel special, in fact it's arousing"
"I'll get them this Christmas, make them regret their decision
"Of voting NO on my Constitutional Vision"
"I;ll leave them no money to celebrate the season"
"And if they speak out against me, I'll charge them with treason"
Now, out in the Provinces the people spoke out
We;ve fot to find someone to knock the Grinch out
We've not much to choose from, It'll be a tough job
We cannot depend on the broad and the slob
Audrey McLughlin, I'm sure isn't up to the test
I'm not sure what's bigger her IQ or her chest
Jean Chretien was good, but his reputation is fraying
And if you're not from Quebec, you don't know what he's saying!
The Grinch was a terror who did not like free speech
Elijah Harper learned this when he put "MEECH" on the beach
We need a strong leader to whom the torch can be past
It doesn't matter what party, we just need one fast.
Back up on the hill, the Grinch started to fume
He was feeling threatened by someone, but he wasn't sure whom,
He called in Joe Clark and they formed a long list
Of all those against him, but there was someone they'd missed!
They listed the Premiers from the West to The Rock
There was not one name among them that was made of the stock
to take on the Country and make it stand strong and free
In fact of 5 of 11 couldn't quite spell B.C.!
But deep in his soul the Grinch still felt a tingle
So he called on hils staff and fave Geroge Bush a jingle
Maybe H. Ross Perot was a citizen up here,
You know who he is, he's the one with the ears!
The Prez told the Grinch that Perot wasn no threat
But, the Grinch was still worried, there was someone else yet...
Now the people waged searches in each nook and cranny
And the leader they'd found had a beard, was named Lanny
He said "I can help you but I'll not thake the reigns"
"But, you'll find your new leader if you'll just read MACLEANS"
The people thought hard and when they broke from their huddle
They remembered a phrase from the past "Fuddle Duddle!"
The leader they sought was Pierre Elliot Trudeau!
But no one was sure if he'd return to the show
They approached the ex-leader and they spoke of their quest
They all spoke of taxes and how he was the best
To come back to The Grits and be saviour for all
He thought on it a bit and then he stood up quite tall
He said "Yes, I'll do it!", and his voice came alive
"What I buggered in twelve years, The Grinch has ******* in five!"
Now, the rest of the story is yet to be told
The winds of change are a blowing and they're blowing quite cold
Please heed what I've written and think for a while
For the Grinch is still here with his chin and his smile
This Christmas think ******* the message I've sent
Let's make it the last he get his seven per-cent
Let's make this a Christmas both Joyous and true
Let's give the Grinch what he gave us, but let's give it times two!
I will probably be writing an entirely new version later this year, once the son of Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, becomes the Liberal Party Leader and is on his way to becoming, hopefully, The Next Prime Minister of Canada. This was originally written in 1992, but with the way the Canadian Political environment is today, it still fits, so I pulled it from my handwritten archives and posted it here. If you are Canadian, you can tell, all you have to do is switch Mulroney for Stephen Harper  and you have the same grinch we had before.
A Thomas Hawkins Jul 2010
Worry not for where the steamer heads
it simply helps us run away
But before you close this door for good
please listen to what I say

I'd never keep you from your loved ones
only your pride could e'er do that
and just because we sail away
doesn't mean we won't sail back

Why content yourself with hearsay
and yet insist I give you proof
The love you feel for me is real
but for him much more aloof

I can't promise you a lifetime
any more than any man
but what we have is here right now
with him its just a sham

You ask of me some guarantee
and then provide your own
That to live with one you do not love
would be worse than if alone

My love is not a lie my love
and never could it be
it's simply a dream thats unfulfilled
a dream of you and me

But if you choose to go to Sussex
please do not take me there
For these memories will haunt you
and lead you to despair.

Instead cast memories aside
both of me and of this week
I will think of you in Sussex
each time your name I speak

For though my this dream may not come true
I'll not deny it came to pass
For I will see its memory
in every looking glass

I'll not say another word my love
the decision must be yours
We both know that truth and happiness
starts through the cabin doors
A sportin' death! My word it was!
An' taken in a sportin' way.
Mind you, I wasn't there to see;
I only tell you what they say.

They found that day at Shillinglee,
An' ran 'im down to Chillinghurst;
The fox was goin' straight an' free
For ninety minutes at a burst.

They 'ad a check at Ebernoe
An' made a cast across the Down,
Until they got a view 'ullo
An' chased i'm up to Kirdford town.

From Kirdford 'e run Bramber way,
An' took 'em over 'alf the Weald.
If you 'ave tried the Sussex clay,
You'll guess it weeded out the field.

Until at last I don't suppose
As 'arf a dozen, at the most,
Came safe to where the grassland goes
Switchbackin' southwards to the coast.

Young Captain 'Eadley, 'e was there,
And Jim the whip an' Percy Day;
The Purcells an' Sir Charles Adair,
An' this 'ere gent from London way.

For 'e 'ad gone amazin' fine,
Two 'undred pounds between 'is knees;
Eight stone he was, an' rode at nine,
As light an' limber as you please.

'E was a stranger to the 'Unt,
There weren't a person as 'e knew there;
But 'e could ride, that London gent--
'E sat 'is mare as if 'e grew there.

They seed the 'ounds upon the scent,
But found a fence across their track,
And 'ad to fly it; else it meant
A turnin' and a 'arkin' back.

'E was the foremost at the fence,
And as 'is mare just cleared the rail
He turned to them that rode be'ind,
For three was at 'is very tail.

'Ware 'oles!' says 'e, an' with the word,
Still sittin' easy on his mare,
Down, down 'e went, an' down an' down,
Into the quarry yawnin' there.

Some say it was two 'undred foot;
The bottom lay as black as ink.
I guess they 'ad some ugly dreams,
Who reined their 'orses on the brink.

'E'd only time for that one cry;
''Ware 'oles!' says 'e, an' saves all three.
There may be better deaths to die,
But that one's good enough for me.

For mind you, 'twas a sportin' end,
Upon a right good sportin' day;
They think a deal of 'im down 'ere,
That gent what came from London way.
deanena tierney Jul 2010
Where's the steamer headed, love,
To a land I do not know?
Will the faces of my loved ones be there,
I'm not sure that I should go.

You see this man in Sussex,
Is a good man so I'm told,
And I believe he'll take care of me,
When I grow gray and old.

And true I do not feel the same,
About him as I do you,
If I step into that harbor, love,
I'll lose the life I knew.

Do you think that what we feel,
Might fade ...as passion can, you know.
Or will our love last a lifetime,
Can you guarantee me it will grow?

You see, I'm not the type of girl,
Who gives into affairs of the heart.
I can not board your steamer, love,
To Sussex...I'll carry your heart.

I know once you have heard this,
Your love will seem a lie.
And it hurts me very deeply, love,
But I must say goodbye.
Safana Mar 2021
It's a destiny on
everyday to
the sunbeams
to hit the soil
and the green
to grow fresh

It's a nature, every
seeded plant to start
growing with
germinated awakening

This, is not by guess
it's just on real incidents
That had so many did
in the dreaming of the
realities yesterday and
the day before yesterday
Sussex will be the monarch  ruler of England one very day
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2015
once rastafarianism entered language ploys with wittgenstein's language games in mind it misplaced pronouns, existentialists just dittoed the signifying moral singular with the un-signifying immoral plural; like i was partly holocaust bound, ha ha (example); cherub and a scotch bonnet of my opinion tingling a contest of: chilli v. pepper v. horseradish. let's just say i'm a plasterer rather than i.q. me as a drinker. slaps in chequers on a bench to sober up momentarily.*

trust the saxon, trust the saxon to speak worse german
than the bavarian, and entrust german to the turk
above the saxon; trust the audacious saxon to leave the alphabet's
diacritic out, to spell like a roman would, from the celtic netherlands of gloom
in scotch egg on a couch, the potato of them all,
trust them with audacity and vocabulary  to conquer the world:  
relieving us norse with ****** never mind
the geese of brazil; exact roman care for all dwindles and fibrous excesses,
conquer the world what have you,
at least you have black skin and opera sunsets
while i have white skin and grey clots of 7pm in september,
or as the censors announced:
rather my vanity than the proof of god,
rather me than you in the minotaur's prison of winding zigzag vocabulary;
you're left politico correct i have three thousand
longboats waiting, you're right i have the same number
awaiting wind and sail. trust the saxons among bavarians to do the following:
but you have the caribbean and that's worth more than kenya
in a 100m sprint. you have the caribbean and i'm african,
nuance the scandinavian proust waging war with
a burnt toothpick not giving enough warmth. each me of the lost tribe walks asking:
blondish in the sea i dare you to walk and reason
the heraclitean suburbia of the river of emptied housed-in arsons worth a life.
come alaskan winters come!
trust the saxons to conquer the world without a holy implied for empires
and lost tracts in order that the romans might utilise proper a and proper o
while the saxons in **** with normans and celts said:
we'll roman-speak about the amazon girlies while our girls party out
a craft of whitened cotton for champagne ship-sailed virginity!
trust the saxons to speak worse german thank turks in order to bind by migration
an island as a ship, and sail away sail away wondering
why the roots of other european nations used the goggles to speak
as much microscope as microphone when accenting
and, in so doing accepted dialectics rather than a pompous excess of fibrous ginger plastic
known as dialects: in england dialectics is known as dialects - caged owls elsewhere
didn't coo coo but mooed with gags in nostrils sneezing when snorkelling:
we say error in sussex and say wok cumin seed sizzle in essex;
close enough to be a cockney in hackney rhymes up a mango.
Flowing by the wetlands of Arundel
Overlooked by a castle up on high
Ptolemy first called it the Trisantonis
Is the River Arun running by

Also known as the Trespasser
A Southern Celtic Brythonic interpretation of the word
An indication of its tendency to flood
For centuries, this has been observed

Part of the Arun, was rumoured to be called the Arnus
Brythonic for run, go, or flow
And that Arundel may mean Arno-Dell
Or where the Dell of the flowing river did go

Remains of Iron-Age forts
To Roman ruins, signs of its' long history
Along with Arundel Castle founded in 1067
Chalk downs rise on either side, but no mystery

At Amberley Church, by Arundels' castle walls
Ghostly sitings of a girl, with golden ringlets in her hair
Hungry Seals sometimes ventured up river
In times long past, mistakenly thinking Mermaids were there!

In the Middle-Ages, the river was known as
River of Arundel, The Arundel River, or The High Stream of Arundel, to confuse
By 1577, the first use of it's modern name was recorded
Although the other names were still often in use

The Rother, The Chilt, and Upper Arun
Tri in Roman, the three tributaries
Although Trisanto, when roughly translated
Could also mean 'one who goes across', perhaps the rivers three

Arundel for many years, served as a port
Ships docking at the Town Quay, formerly Mayors Quay
From the 13th century, coastal and cross channel trading vessels
Also passengers, Catholic priests, and soldiers, were carried across the sea

Yet by the 1840's, use of the river declined
Due to changes in coastal shipping, and the use of railway lines
By the mid 1850's, barges were replaced by coasters
And by 1886, most river traffic, was on the decline

The River Arun has seen much history
all 37 miles of it, from source to the sea
As it rises from a series of Ghylis, or Gills
All part of it'' profound majesty

It's Spring Tides, twice every Lunar month
Allowed larger vessels to venture along her waters
Some built at the Nineveh Shipyard
Such as Hoys, and Sailing Barges, becoming the Aruns' daughters

The River Arun, feeds ancient woodlands
And reedbeds, where dwell Water Voles, Kingfishers, the rare Nene Goose
Along with Bewick Swans, in the cold winter months
Where the yellow, and black, Common Club-Tailed Dragonflies, fly loose

The fast flowing Arun, second fastest in the United Kingdom
The Trespassers waters, has aided humans, and nature throughout
The Arun never crossed borders out of Sussex
And is one of the countries finest rivers, without a doubt
by Jemia
Never been to Camber
or walked along its sands
and never been to Rye
I
don't know why.

Places always places
those I haven't been
but seen them in a
thousand lights
each in a nightly dream.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
am i the only one to spot that the former holy roman empire,
shifted a little bit to the east? the Visegrad alliance -
a new holy roman empire - well - as Billy Joel sang
of Belgians in the Congo - perpetually the Germans
attacked the colonial trinity: England, France... Spain...
which is why it all feels, well: a bit weird....
mind you, i like the poly-chromatic culture:
i get to cook curry - for each tsp of garlic and ginger
i shove in a tbsp -
                         because i'm nice -
but that doesn't mean i'll get
to bang a Hindu princess -
then again, a monochromatic society
gives me nausea - listen,
being 1st generation, you'd think i wouldn't
adapt to what former colonial powers said:
be nice... oh sure... i'm the sort of European
that never left the ******* continent...
nice is second nature when it comes
to pockets of Indian and Pakistani
while feeling superior with a cuisine of
bangers and mash... that's right up my street!
or be nice because you're all being
hypocrites or be nice for the sake of being nice
as in: socially acceptable manners?
this gets a bit confusing with America
******* into reliving the 1960s...
i mean...  just a bit *******...
but in reality? wholly window-licking.
with that d'uh of phrasing:
picked up a moth... d'uh... oh d'uh...
that's the point where i say: at least the
Iowa villagers aren't hypocrites -
all these New York scam morality brokers
and faking the charm of living out
a life of: moral ambivalence.
but sure as **** the holy roman empire
has shifted east by 1 degree...
of all the established powers of Europe,
the ones least hypocritical are the
non-colonial powers...
                    spain france and england will
continue receiving terrorist mail...
this is how i invested in a new sainthood -
we didn't leave the continent, they did...
we're not being hypocrites in the sense
of accepting migrants...
                 how about saudi arabia?
oh wait... no... too busy ******* out oil
and spending money...
                     true... what about Morocco?
n'ah... we're too much alike.
                  well... aren't the former colonial
rulers a bit thick? they thought the Irish
were a bit thick... i guess the Poles are doubly
thick... and if only i was born in England
and didn't retain an inkling into roots...
well... at least they aren't hypocrites:
i.e. said too much, but did too little.
                    sure, they'll attack the colonialists -
and the colonialists will wonder:
       but we've been so nice the past
50 years!
                          and my name is
Joseph Manage-Bottom, heir to
the entitlement of the 3rd estate of Sussex
known as: Candle-Lickwood -
                    because everyone said:
it's a bargain...                   i just don't understand
the whole notion of surprise -
    just because of the Rolling Stones
and the Beatles the fermenting crimes are to be
simply forgotten?
                                 Jesus!
              and i thought i had the naive perspective on life!
later the propaganda read: journalists reveal
the MI5 and MI6's curriculum vitae seances of
gearing up for employment the few that might
                                      do a Michael Jackson trick
with bleach.
yes, Poland has a monochromatic society -
and i'd feel weird cooking up Bengali perfumes -
i feel nausea whenever i enter it...
                 but, to be honest?
multiculturalism is a failure... in the sense
that as tradition states... i can't **** an Indian girl...
even though i'd be able to cook her
a meal her mummy also could - according to Caesar:
no one wins, ergo etc.
Joe Cole Nov 2014
I walk in splendid isolation along the tops of  
My south country hills
As usual the Mollie dog at my side
The lashing rain has kept  all but the most intrepid
Sitting in the  cosy warmth of their homes
They're happy to breath warm stale air
But what I'm breathing is cold and fresh
To my right the tourist traps of  Brighton and Worthing
To my left the beautiful expance of the Sussex Weald
Would I want to be somewhere else?
NO
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
and now you're singing karaoke... so ha ha and Kyoto.

and this is the part where i tell you i love you?
it sounds like it's the part where i **** your dog off
and laugh; or maybe that's the part where
i say i'm scooch-peppery-ish!
tangy! mm hmm!
solid gold worth's an advert! aha,
Elvis just rolled up his sleeves!
while Shoon can-can the worthy,
sire nigh nigh the knighted made
speeches at a royal funeral that made 20 kings
abdicate, we all thought of Monaco
and Senna... lipstick Helsinki...
crisscross Albania and: Waterloo...
when Napoleon sniffed glue... oh Waterloo!
i too built Stockholm in a day, based on
the pop culture of Europe casually so.
but indeed Sean, the flowery basin of all
that's Essex, Sussex and Kent,
i.e. Scottish, show... i'm ashoored it'sh
Shcandinavian cartoon or at least halfwit Belgian
with the moustache, dumb-flicked *Hercules
Poirot...
authored by a nagging Agatha Christensen.
It was probably in Dubai at the Hyatt when I met her
or it may have been in Dresden at the Steigenberger,
I
can't remember,

am I just dredging up old memories trying
to keep some flame alive?

but there are lots of things I don't recall
in this season of my fall
and more things still
I left unsaid

Bedrest
so the Doctor says
what a way to end my days
and then it came to me as
these things usually do
I met her down in Sussex
just outside
Drusillas zoo.
Francie Lynch Nov 2016
Not My President.
But he is. Let him live.
He and his minions
Are like the poor;
They will always be with us.
But north of you,
We have a Queen.
#Not My Royal Family.
They're needy and expensive,
Spoiled and enfranchised.
An extended, big family
Who gets free rides at Canada's Wonderland,
Best seats at hockey games... all games
For Lieutenants-Governor,
Governors-General,
And all the wee princesses and princes.
Rideau Hall is the official residence
The White House pales beside,
Sussex Drive fades beside its oppulence.
Celebrities and histories have planted trees there.
Jack, Marilyn, Nelson, Martin and all the heavenly host
Have approached those gilded doors,
Pretending to bow and curtsy to an absent Queen.
Back to #Not My Royal Family.
I didn't get a vote.
Canada is burdened with a Royal Family a growing number of us abhor. #Not My Royal Family
deanena tierney Jul 2010
There is a man in Sussex,
To whom I will belong.
I have never even met him,
And now it feels so wrong.

And as I stand in the city square,
Searching the crowds for you,
I feel my heart may just stop beating,
For there's nothing I can do.

Promises were made and I was given,
With a nod and firm handshake.
And before I had known you, my love,
I never knew my heart could break.

Part of me wants to risk it all,
Security and even name,
But I just can't disgrace my family
And impress them with that shame.

So let's just spend a day in the park,
And secretly pretend,
That we will always be together,
And this will never end.

Let's discreetly turn the corner,
To that alley on the right,
And kiss with all the longing,
And hold each other tight.

Let me smell the scent of you,
and let me breathe you in.
So I can save that memory,
And bring you back again.

In less than just a fortnight,
My stay here will be ending,
And I will begin my new life,
My life of just pretending.
deanena tierney Jul 2010
Oh my sweet, sweet gentleman,
Who has taught me how to love.
I decided I will run away with you,
And share the stars above.

I thought so very long and hard,
Of the decision I should make.
And realized if I went to Sussex,
It would be a huge mistake.

So I waited until after dusk,
And packed a few small things.
And then I planned that I would leave,
When I heard the church bell rings.

And when they did I tiptoed,
Down the corridor and to the street.
Where there stood my trusted friend,
Who had arranged with me to meet.

We traveled East to the harbor,
The steamer was not hard to miss.
And anxiously I hurried along,
To greet you with a kiss.

Conspicuously I wandered about,
Until I found cabin two- eleven.
And then I pushed the door open a bit,
To steal a sight of heaven.

Instead I saw you lying there,
With a maiden much less fair,
I sauntered up, spit in your face,
And left your sorry *** there!
Rollie Rathburn Jun 2018
On 28 March 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones
and walked into the River Ouse,
which together with its main tributary,
the River Uck,
drain over 250 square miles of Sussex
via streams,
rivers
and various other dendritic tributaries.

While the water temperatures were surely harsh,
historical weather patterns suggest
relatively calm surface tension,
and relaxed yet steady currents,
allowing for swift submersion

Taking into account,
the chilled morning winds,
her quickened, shivering breaths
likely led to hyperventilation.

In turn delaying the breath-hold
break point, and allowing blackout to occur
without warning
due to hypocapnia.
While unconscious, water can more easily enter the lungs
to induce a wet drowning,
as it is no longer inhibited by laryngospasm
or coughing.

The Missouri River,
by contrast,
rises in western Montana,
flows east and south for 2,341 miles
before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri
taking drainage from parts of ten U.S. states
and two Canadian provinces
to form the fourth largest river
system on Earth.

At some locations throughout its course
the current surges so fiercely
that old-growth trees are felled,
steam ships are consumed beneath white caps,
and swaths have continued to go undeveloped well into the 21st century.

When lowered into water cooler than about 70 °F,
the diving reflex is triggered and protects the body
by putting it into energy saving mode
to maximize the possible time spent under water.

This reflex action is automatic
occurs in all humans,
and is likely a result of brain cooling similar
to the protective effects
of deep hypothermia.

Of those who die after submersion in freezing waters,
around 20% die within 2 minutes from cold shock.
Uncontrolled rapid breathing and gasping causing
water inhalation, panic,
massive increase in blood pressure and cardiac
strain leading to cardiac arrest.

As this occurs while submerged
rather than the hyperventilation seen in panic attacks,
crying, or shivering on land
any additional survivability that may be gained,
becomes almost immediately fatal.

In order to combat the effects of
instinctual survival mechanisms
once bare skin breaks iced surfaces
such as panicked clawing back to shore,
rescue attempts from passersby,
and even simple reconsideration,
cold water drownings,
despite representing only 2 percent of suicides,
reveal a visible trend regarding near mandatory use
of bricks,
stones,
or other weights,
in order to overcome
buoyancy,
the names of pets,
canceled brunch dates,
birthdays,
and the forced finality
of questions left unanswered
or perhaps answered too clearly.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2022
502 bad gateway bypass...
title: shattering of stone
body:
in the rubble: a mountain could
be found;
as might be suggested...
given enough time and there's plenty
of it, as there is of space...
the now known deserts of the world...
were once great mountain ranges...
the ancient Egyptians even tried
to replicate this truth by erecting pyramids...
as if implying: look! look!
there were once mountains here!
now! there's nothing but sand!
how the gods, grunted at the idea of mountains
in what is not Sahara... fickle creatures
like the creatures they created are...
who knows... perhaps there will one day
be the desert of Himalaya...


i felt it coming at me like a freight train...
i was going in for work sharp...
woke up at 6am, had a coffee and ate the prepared
bun with pickles and liver pate...
but couldn't finish it... drank a coffee and smoked
a cigarette... had a shower, pampered myself
with about 7 different pampering products...
usually i'm obviously to how i smell like...
but on the bus i could quiz myself:
who here smells like soap and who here smells
like either stale bread or a curry / eggs?
that's the 86 route for you...
it's the immigrant bus... and... funnily enough...
i'm an immigrant myself... although...
it's different when you come to foreign shores
aged 8... and thrown into the education system
rather than bypass all that jazz & enter the work
force... by immigrant status i'm a veteran of sorts...
by 7am the pains and spasms in my abdomen were
becoming excruciating... i could feel
a plug-hole of a **** building up...
      like a bear before retiring to hibernation...
i wouldn't be able to just simply, **** this plug-hole
of a **** out before or on the job...
why? because there would be more to come...
dizzying effects of focus...

i was nervous... she said she would be coming to
do a shift today... who? Jeminah...
she sent me a text telling me how anxious she was...
i figured... the best... blatant: covert question
would be... you worried the trains are not working?
oh... you can get the 86 bus... the tube might be open...
pulling a long long stick...
a lever even... something Archimedes would
use to lift a mountain off the ground...
she felt anxious... oh... because of those two storms?
Eunice - the worst for 30 years...
red weather alerts? you worried about that?
i was seriously stroking a massive bear silly...
she felt anxious for all the reasons i wanted her
to feel anxious about...
n'ah... the way to get to the venue wasn't on her mind...
neither was the weather...
she was found out... she didn't want to be in
the company of the other girls...
and because i put my foot down:
this is getting silly... i'm not going to get blamed
for your son's and her son's friendship fallout...
telling the truth...
    what a recurrent theme with me these days...
well... at least its not a soap opera style of
a multiverse of competing dramas...
there's only one... and i'm fortifying myself with
all the right answers... i need to play this out
like an opera... petty **** that can grow and grow like
that must be explored from many angles...
down the line...

she didn't show up... the other two girls involved
acted slightly funny... she must have passed on
my Pontius Pilate messages: i'm washing my hands clean
of the matter... you girls created this issue...
you sort it... those two boys are not falling out
over something their mums did...

handshakes all round... two clingers...
one ****** with a nervous tick but one guy with
cerebral palsy... well... oddly enough...
having been a recluse for almost a decade...
i have managed to surprise myself by fitting the role
of a people person... i don't know where i was storing
this confidence... self-assurance... stoic silence...
i don't feel the need to talk unless talked to...
sure... i might say an anecdote or two:
how Millwall fans at Fulham told me a joke
about a West Ham player who's fond of kicking
cats... cat lives matter...

the shift itself... West Ham are back to their usual
antics of not respecting lesser opponents...
Newcastle are on a campaign trail to survive
in the Premier League... two of their best players weren't
playing: yet they still managed to draw 1 - 1...

who do you think are going to fall?
i says: Burnley had it coming for the past two years...
yeah... Watford is a boomerang team...
one season on the Premier level...
the next on the Championship level...

seems i can have much fun with people,
whether coworkers or the actual public...
the freaks among the coworkers follow me like
dogs, while the public?

an old lady wanted me to use her camera to take
photographs with the West Ham mascots:
some bear mascot was first, then Harry the Hammer...
i had to tap Harry's shoulder when a father asked me
to call him back while he moved along the stand
so he could go back and have a photograph taken
with his kid: so heavily padded he almost didn't feel
my touch...
but he went back...
then that retired police officer that took my side
when some busy-body ***** of a: not my supervisor
kept on demanding i put on a face mask...
that infernal: secular niqqab...
the retired police officer noted: he's distraught...
**** the club: if they can think they can get away
imposing their own rules: all staff must wear ******
coverings... this busy-body even said:
i don't you not covering your nose...
so, what then? my chin is capable of breathing?!
scale of escalation... the from me to the supervisor
to the busy-body third part...
the ex-police officer used the hypothetical
argument: but i have a deaf person, friend,
sitting next to me: he needs to lip read...
how is he going to read my instructions if he can't
see my mouth...
and then... well... i wasn't bothered...
wearing these nappies always brings back
memories of my grandfather's funeral...
he was a big deal in a small-town where i was
born... a foreman in the metallurgy industry...
he knew a lot of people...
but how many showed up to his funeral?
not even the half that i'd have expected...

we kept chatting... my supervisor later came up
and asker me... so...   ?!
oh... you know, we just talked about life...
his father was a widower... living in Cornwall...
he used to get free grub from the local (pub),
but when the pandemic hit...
he lost all WILL to live...
and me says: you know how people say that
you can die from a broken heart,
i guess you can also die from being denied
WILL... we agreed... we shook hands about x3...
like a post-scriptum he asked me for my name
and i asked for his... Mark...
now living in East Sussex... but originally from
Dartford...

Mark said he had thick skin... and i told him...
your eyes are watering... i don't believe it...
looking at them feels like watching a very bountiful
aquarium... you're not going to fool me mate...
life... plus, it's not against the law to not wear
the *****... as i later said:
now you get to see who the people with OCD
and the hypochondriacs are...
yeah: it feels weird... i'm walking around without
the "*****" while my wife is still paying
servitude to outlaw rules...
but if they want to... why deny them the right...
sure sure...

but i had to use a member of the public
to infiltrate the hierarchy on the job...
he used the proper arguments... i was just thinking:
perhaps people just want to see my face...
recognise it... see ****** expressions...
after all: we've been playing a game of pretending
to be Muslim women for two years...
how about we start playing hide & seek once more?

what happened later... the curiosity of the children...
i looked at them, smiled, they smiled back...
they felt so comforted... they felt like:
well... thank god this cubist-esque freak-show is
running and hiding... little girls, little boys...

like i told Mark: but the young 'ung suffered... too...
you need to see people faces,
i might have slouched with the expression
of "****** recognition"... but expressions matter...
you sometimes have to out the tongue to the face...
you want to see someone laugh,
at ease... nowhere near the culture & the people
of Afghanistan... this might have to be the building
block of the supposed "great" restart...
seeing people's faces...
esp. when it comes to children...
they want to see faces they can trust...

but it's outright blatant...
i'm not going to make a comparison between
The Beatles "vs." The Rolling Stones...
for me it always been
Bruce Springsteen "vs." Chris Rea...
no... can't choose...
who the **** do i couple Bob Dylan with?
i'm currently sipping some whiskey while
in the company of ol' Bruce...
ah... Bob Dylan vs. Tom Waits...
        Tommy 'ol boyo...
                    live circus... going out west (live)...
Tom Petty though...

there was one expulsion... a ginger she-male...
all the fans were laughing: don't give her out...
the SIA guys were playing gorillas while
i was on my break... putting my hand on the shoulder
of the hurt party... calm... calm... you ginger ostrich...
stop pandering to the parade of:
already lost teenage hormones...
it sort of worked... i giggled... and no one
became involved... i chewed on my gum like i
like might have been found chewing on a broomstick
or a horses' mane...
i chewed so hard until my jaw hurt...

Tom Waits - going out west (live)...
now we're talking...
prior to Prince dying: you had not access to
songs like Party-man... Trust... all copyrighted
material... yeah.... but i own the best of CD...
why can't i stream it?!
oh, right... he's dead... free-for-all...
free meat for the crows...

why oh why would someone walk up to me
and ask to take a selfie with me?
yeah... this American accented dude...
i watched him through the second half...
off his nuts...
but at half time he walks up to me and asks...
can i take a selfie with you?
sure... weird...
am i famous?! or am i just ****** approachable...
all the other stewards are like bricks in
a mountain: but mountains don't have bricks...
or they're over-anxious busy bodies...
it's like people never learned their NVQ training...

safety, security, service....
the service part is the building part...
you pass off being attired in safety / security tactics...
but... service comes first...
you talk, you interact... you learn to be human...
one year of this, before i ask for being given references...
that's when i'll work toward looking toward a more
permanent employment as a chemistry
teacher... even though... scribbling this sort of *******:
i'd love to become an English teacher...
ha ha... an English teacher... even though i'm not
English...

i need the references... working with my father in
roofing... no, can, do...
they don't want familial ties in references...
one year... i'd still do these gigs on the weekend...
but one year...
you get a chance to deal with a football crowd...
you got a belt... when it might come to dealing
with a classroom of rowdy children...
like Louis XIV stated... it's the trick of the eye...
look the authoritative type...
there's nothing more to it...

then these three supporters at the front...
when they first started singing the song for the cat-lives-matter
footballer who was more into... kicking
cats than a football... how did the lyrics go?
almost Dr. Seuss...
he kicks with his right foot... he kicks with his
left foot... i pursed my lips... i tried to cover my
face with my hand... all the while trying to as
instructed: not taking sides... not showing emotions...

but their remarks came fast... i must have looked
interesting...
so where are you from?
Russia? guess again... Ukraine? nope...
Czech Republic? nope... ******! yep...
but i've been living here since the age of 8...
and i'm 35...
have a nice life: she said... one of them was
ginger... presuppositions of Irish... the beard was
pulled... oh my god, the girl looked proper, proper,
drunk...
i went on a break... i came back:
oh! he's back! you know you're the only one
without a hood on! all the other stewards...
the guy who's usually here is somewhat asleep
while prying open his phone...
where's your pancho against the rain?
oh... i gave it to a spectator... blah blah...

point being... i was actually waiting for her...
Jeminah... all the time... she didn't show up...
i've just received a text from her...
what is... drotaverini hydrochloridum?
i had to take it today...
a rubric of buzzwords...
it sells alongside suggestions akin to the morning-after
pill...

well, it will be a rubric of buzzwords...
i had to take some pills for the cramps in my stomach...
it just felt like one of those Sprintsteen,
Chris Rea, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty sort of nights:
when you feel nervous about thinking bout
a girl while simultaneously feeling nervous
about taking a ****... so you feel like taking a ****
at 7am but delay it to until 5pm... 6pm...
because the girl's easting away at your mind...
you're getting cramps in your abdomen
like you you're about to do a clown trick
with balloons turning them into theoretical poodles...
because you just love the girl:
you just love the girl...
she might be a single mother, she might think
she's a woman... but she's just a girl to you...
even though you're not her father...

oh right... the buzz... words... as someone who studied
chemistry i should know what drotaverini hydrochloridum
is... it's for the abdomen cramps...
for: i ought to have taken a ****...
but here's me stalling...
will she, will you come?
DROVATERINE....
an antispasmodic drug...
   used to enhance cervical dilation during child-birth...
i'm giving birth: to a feeling...
i think i'm in love... she's all anxious...
Bruce's: Maria's Bed... yeah... i'm on that same page
in this story...
esp. noted use in Asia and Central Europe...
i'll be lazy: i'll cite it verbatim:
it's structurally related to papaverine,
is a selective inhibitor of phosphodiesterase 4
and has no anticholinergic effects...

the way i see it... i'm giving birth to love....
i want her fat **** to sit on my face...
sorry... what?!
i'm being absolutely serious...
just looks up the article on Anticholinergics...
i don't have a womb...
but i have a heart that seems to have
sunken into the levels of the intestines...
while i get all spaghetti tangles
for brains...
i'm in love... i can't help it...
she a cougar red head... a deep red...
a mahogany red...
i can't stop thinking about her...
it's exactly impossible to live:
without having to think about her...
anxious cluck by cluck...
if she's not going to abide by failures in life
then... no... life's not worth living without her:
when she's at her pinnacle of failure...
let me pick her up...
let's pretend there's an old world
worth looking at... that there might be a world war
in the theatre... none of these proxies in
the H'American department of... up-keeping
hard-ons and kaleidoscope coyotes...
now for the text messages... why weren't you around?!

i wrote this yesterday, i went downstairs for sone grub
because i couldn't fall asleep...
my mother came down... saw me in my TOMBSTONE
mode... drunk... what? you want me to punch
myself in the face? lucky for her, lucky for me
i remained silent, because the night was silent...
she ****** off i ****** off... today i made mein vater
und mein mutter some ******
chicken broth with vermicelli...
all the usual suspects were used...
the leek, the parsley root, the carrot,
the garlic (skin on), the celery... chicken... d'uh...
although i didn't use the chicken *******...
that's going to be used for a curry...
  
and what are my other options? living alone?
paying rent to a landlord from hell?!
shame... sure... but the attic is full of clutter
and there is no basement...
plus i have a private library the deservedly might
need a proper: HEAVE! HEAVE!
50 oars...

i'm in love and not for all the right reasons...
if my youth took the route of an atypical man...
starting from 20 working my way up...
yeah... but i went mad at the age of 21...
******* invisible choir, great wind dispersing it...
psychiatry that tried to attempt its regression
tactics of implanting me with false memories...
giving me anti-psychotic drugs that fattened me up
until a nurse said:
you either loose weight... or you'll be put
on high-blood pressure tablets...
so... i bought a bicycle... lost 20kg... cycled off
into the sunset...
now... 35... years old... oh... look...
they're looking... they're actually interested...
the young girls have: "woken up"...
yeah... by now? i'm not interested...
i don't and i didn't pay much attention
to the game of genes... it's a fractional impossibility...
unless you're cloning yourself...
by the time you're a grandfather...
only a quarter of you remains...
  why bother with the argument?
        it's silly...Darwinistic unrealism has always been
a thorn in my side...
eh?                            my genes have my consciousness?
i'm... translatable to future generations?
sure... but they can't be my own...
why would i be interested in young girls...
if things worked out for me like they might have
worked out for other men...
a walking *****... and spare parts of monetary dough...
i never wanted to make money...
i took the principle left around for others to see...
between the aesthetic and the ascetic...
well... St. Francis of Assisi...
other men in my position: who have hungered and
been left out in their 20s... now in their 30s can have
their comeback...
their revenge... me? i'm trying to court
a woman 4 years older than me... with a boy
that's 11 years old...
i said: bully them into teaching your German...
you know, it's the mother tongue of English...
grammatically the two languages are very much
aligned... Fredrick... "bully" them into making
you learn Deutsche... i said BULLY i implied:
persuade... do i need to use sign language...
finally... though... a third head on the Hydra...
if i had a little Frankenstein in my possession...
i could be learning Deutsche proper with him....
a youngling like that... sponge for brains...
maybe i could teach him some of my ****** zunge...
wow... no no... that's the whole point of turning
toward art... by 35 i could have been earning
100+ £... yawn... no, truly...
playing this to-and-fro with younger girls
because i now might have status...
not much fun... to be exacting...
single mum... problems at school...
you should learn German rather than French...
he understood it splendidly...

             just you wait... i'll get him into modern German
folk music... did i buy her off with my homemade wine
and him with my own made banana loaf with hazelnuts?!
here's to me!
salute!

              - on these isles for most of my life...
35 - 8 = 27... twenty-seven ******* years!
and no chance at a pluck at the Rose...
up north she was giving it up to grooming gangs
from Pakistan... down south...
shy ******* nunnery: "all of a sudden"!
but now... ah... this... hybrid of Scotch and English
stock... i'm shuddering... i'm still getting these
cramps in my abdomen that says:
you have a womb... what?! i'm transgender?!
what the ****?!

that's why i didn't want to earn money...
well... it's not that i didn't want to...
you see what happens when you go mad aged
21... and how you figure things out...
at least now i'm not a target...
i don't have anything to offer expect for...
knowledge...
it's a blessing...
since... it's hardly what any woman wants...
women tend to want only their own advice...
they conjure this advice like witches conjure up...
perhaps the rosemary herb
goes well with lamb... but like the Turkish
broads suggested... but if you add it to beef...
oh! mein! gott! the Turkish lavash!
with that red onion & parsley roughage of
a side salad... mouth-watering stuff...
i don't really need to see the competitive hard-on
of whatever Sultan to counter the Hagia Sophia...
just that beef lavash...
and yes, you'd be wrong... English cheddar
works just as well...

but... i'm no Frank O'Hara... there's no qualm in
me about not being a painter...
why i'm not a painter translates to me as:
why am i not a painter?
i abhor colours... well... i like some more than
others... the amber and the auburn...
the greens... whiskey... autumn...
but when it comes to movies?
i prefer them to be black & white... less strain
on the eyes...
if images are moving? black & white...
sure... no one is expected to paint in black & white...
like no one is expected to write in
rainbow hieroglyphics... i can stand for an hour
beside a colour painting...
it doesn't move, i don't move...
time, the world: moves...
fair enough...
but colour-riddled movies?
a strain on the eyes...
    why am i not a painter?
                     why am i not a narrator?!
i'm clearly neither... what's the middle ground?
priest? psychiatrist? *******... poet?!
oh you have to be choking me to make me joke...
let alone laugh... but i'm not rhyming...
but there was a time and a place
when people identified this art with
a need for mathematics... measure... ticture...
rhyme... music...
like **** that's happening now: proper...

- perhaps it's not painting, i think it;s painting,
perhaps lacking in colour, perhaps lacking in contorts..
in shapes, in disguises...
what? no traffic light: goes green?
no traffic light remains red?
no middle ground for the amber?
no cyclist prepped to be the shepherd of traffic?
to leech onto a truck where he might be
visible... to orientate the roundabout congestion?
no one, ever, minded, this?!
before moi!
           oh... what shame... what utter shame...
we were supposed to help each other out...
not be these... petty demigods...
silly ******* idiots...

             i might have to reiterate my stance...
she's giving me the love-ups making me feel like a woman...
i'm getting cramps in my abdomen...
sure... i ought to have taken a **** 7 hour prior...
but i keep it in... like a bear about to hibernate:
a plug-hole ****...

- anticholinergic agent are substances that block the action of the neurotransmitter called acetylcholine (ACh) at synapses in the central and peripheral nervous system...

-  anticholinergics are divided into two categories in accordance with their specific targets in the central and peripheral nervous system and at the neuromuscular junction: antimuscarinic agents, and antinicotinic agents (ganglionic blockers, neuromuscular blockers...

she says she's anxious... i'm nervous too!
i'm getting cramps in my stomach...
i'm giving birth to love...
i want access to her son... i want to learn Deutsche
with him... is that too much to ask?
i don't have the sort of money
to access younger, fertile, girls...
i'm left with single mothers... MUFFAS...
oh... she's rounded... like the earth ought to be...

i'm still shy on one reply...

Apologies for the lateness of this message, came home and "had to", i.e. wanted to make some Silesian gnocchi with beef in a dill and a horseradish sauce... cooking for three, it takes time, then I fought up on some footie... was soaked at West Ham, but it was a good shift.... so what happened to you? Weren't you supposed to come? I found out late that the tube was working, managed to use it on the way back... so what happened? What were you anxious about? The bad weather the day before? I took a walk for a newspaper when the storms hit... it was almost fun-windy... at one point I stood rooted in one place for about 3sec being unable to move... the winds almost roared, i even stopped listening to music on my headphones as I listened to the wind whizz by and ruffle the trees... sort of like ASMR but with a loud speaker... I imagined the wind ruffling the trees like someone brushing their hair on an ASMR video... you feeling better though, yes? You doing Fulham this week?

but we're talking about a psychotic girl...
one layer of narrative against another...
she might as well conjure up
a missing 13 year old cousin
to just test you...
thar's how it works...
this reality, this ugly "thing"...
and the deviances of how much
i want to sleep with her...
there... i said it... beautiful view.
Steve Page May 2018
A change in complexion
A different choice of race
A cross of border union
A wider palate of taste

A shake-up down in Sussex
A paler skin exception
A dilution of the line
A pallid revolution
A crazy weekend in Windsor.  With a back drop of race politics.
Anais Vionet Oct 2023
If light is the fastest thing in the universe,
why is darkness already there when light arrives?

After watching Harry and Megan Sussex grub for ever more cash and attention, I’ve decided that they should start a OnlyFans site.

We’re going to a *****-free dance party.
“You don’t have to drink to have fun.” I assure myself, in the bathroom mirror, but somehow the event sounds like a high school dance.

I’ve been reading the Internet - was it really a giant squid that sank the Titanic?

...

Panpsychism Is a scientific theory postulating that consciousness is part of the fabric of the Universe.

On the theological level, why would God (or nature) create the bitter taste of espresso and vivid, azure skies slashed with rainbow sunsets if stimulating consciousness weren’t important?

“Colors, tastes and smells are no more than names,” Galileo declared 400 years ago. “(as perceptions) they reside only in consciousness.”

Does life exist, as sensors, to experience stimuli for the galactic consciousness?
Terry Collett Apr 2014
We ran
into the large
hollowed out tree
half way up

the Sussex Downs
to get out
of the downpour of rain
we were drenched

our clothes hung on us
as if plastered
to our skins
her hair flattened

to her skull
or hung down
like rat's tails
touching

her damp shoulders
I felt the wet
tee-shirt
cling to my chest

as I moved
looking out
of a hole
at the side

of the tree
into the trees around
and the grey sky
through tall branches

above
didn't expect that
I said
smelling her scent

as she moved nearby
just as well
this tree was near
or we'd be worse

than we are now
Jane said
she brushed down
her soaking

flowered dress
with her hands
her white socks
and black shoes

looked bright
in the half light
what are we going
to do now?

I asked
wait until it stops
she said
maybe it was just

a passing shower
she looked out
at the glimpse
of sky

grey and dull
we'll catch a death
in these wet clothes
I said

they'll dry on us
she said
I could feel
the water squelch

in my shoes
as I pushed
my toes down
I guess soldiers

in World War One
had this problem
in the trenches
I said

wetness and such
feeling cold
and of course
they had bombs

and rats
and shells
and bullets whizzing
by the head

I guess
one should
be stoic
she said

after all
the rain will go
and we can
at least

go home and dry
and change
into other clothes
I don't feel stoic

I said
I feel
like a drenched dog
she looked at me

and laughed
you look
like a drenched dog
she said

her dress clung
to her body
revealing
her figure

showing each aspect
of her form
she looked up
at the sky

looks like
it may be
about to stop
she said

and as she moved
nearby me
a brush of her arm
sent tingles

along my nerves
thrilling me
but causing
an odd alarm.
BOY AND GIRL IN THE COUNTRYSIDE IN 1961.
now that the duchess of Sussex
has been incorporated into the
firm
she must wear regulation tights
which will make her legs
squirm

before she wed Harry she'd show
an excessive bit of shin
skin
this is no longer possible at garden
parties inside the palace's
inn

a strict dress code was imposed
on every component of
attire
for queen Betty wants Meghan
properly decked out to
admire

we can expect more formal kit
being part of her
wardrobe
when she travels around the world
representing England's finest
lobe
Daniel J Weller Jul 2018
You weren't the poetic one, but I just read Kaddish
and thought of you;
           of 1998 beach photo, Sussex somewhere - as I
remember you, perhaps a bit younger;
           of sweet peroxide blonde, hiding brunette. I was
naive to the dye 'til I saw 'the Hepburn shot' - that 1950
something print, you in Rembrandt light,
           or the black beehive wig in family portrait—
1970ish— dicky bows and cocktail dresses - Dad, aged
seven, in a shirt and trousers;
           of youthful snapshots: Portobello Beach, Edinburgh
(4), with parents in Kent (8), your gang of girls some snowy
place (14), painting the house with Raymond in Croydon (20);
           of latter digital images, 2012, more gaunt and wrinkled,
but ever-beautiful - seemingly ageless, as you wished;

           of care and trust and overdone vegetables, thin gravy,
brussel sprout production lines - beautiful, mundane memories
at Cowfold breakfast bar or Langley Green kitchen tops;
           of seaside trips to Shoreham, Portsmouth, Brighton, dogs
homes and holding my hand past the loud ones;
           of picking roses from the garden for 'perfume' - sticky
hands, wet floors and beautiful smells;
           of early morning rude awakenings, met only with cheer
and offers of tea and toast - I still have your butter tray
(hospitable even in death);
           of my brother's wedding, taking time to jive and seem
alive whilst everyone else was dying inside, despite the fact
that it was you, and you only, who should care the most (and
thus, if you didn't, why should we have);
           and of that very temperament, infamous tempers never
shown—at least to us—just pure, kind acceptance and
forgiveness.

           You weren't the poetic one.
           You were; the ninth child of a ****** and his wife
                              the girl with the Scottish accent
                              the wife of an engineer from Mitcham
                              the mother of three, the loser of one
                              the stern face of discipline
                              the BT telephone operator, the masseuse
                              the grandmother of three boys
                              the ageless face of beauty
                              the one I remember best

           You told me you couldn't recall your siblings' names -
I've looked into it. Ada, Jack, Edie, Emmie, Mabel, Joyce,
Raymond, Terence.
Beaulieu, France, July 2018

(to my late grandmother Margaret Rose Olga Weller)

— The End —