1089

Myself can read the Telegrams
A Letter chief to me
The Stock’s advance and Retrograde
And what the Markets say

The Weather—how the Rains
In Counties have begun.
’Tis News as null as nothing,
But sweeter so—than none.

THE SINS of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
  
The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab.
  
And the people who sin the sins of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
  
They run to drabs and grays-and some of them sing they shall be washed whiter than snow-and some: We should worry.
  
Yes, Kalamazoo is a spot on the map
And the passenger trains stop there
And the factory smokestacks smoke
And the grocery stores are open Saturday nights
And the streets are free for citizens who vote
And inhabitants counted in the census.
Saturday night is the big night.
  Listen with your ears on a Saturday night in Kalamazoo
  And say to yourself: I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?
  
Main street there runs through the middle of the twon
And there is a ***** postoffice
And a ***** city hall
And a ***** railroad station
And the United States flag cries, cries the Stars and Stripes to the four winds on Lincoln's birthday and the Fourth of July.
  
Kalamazoo kisses a hand to something far off.
  
Kalamazoo calls to a long horizon, to a shivering silver angel, to a creeping mystic what-is-it.
  
"We're here because we're here," is the song of Kalamazoo.
  
"We don't know where we're going but we're on our way," are the words.
  
There are hound dogs of bronze on the public square, hound dogs looking far beyond the public square.
  
Sweethearts there in Kalamazoo
Go to the general delivery window of the postoffice
And speak their names and ask for letters
And ask again, "Are you sure there is nothing for me?
I wish you'd look again-there must be a letter for me."
  
And sweethearts go to the city hall
And tell their names and say,"We want a license."
And they go to an installment house and buy a bed on time and a clock
And the children grow up asking each other, "What can we do to **** time?"
They grow up and go to the railroad station and buy tickets for Texas, Pennsylvania, Alaska.
"Kalamazoo is all right," they say. "But I want to see the world."
And when they have looked the world over they come back saying it is all like Kalamazoo.
  
The trains come in from the east and hoot for the crossings,
And buzz away to the peach country and Chicago to the west
Or they come from the west and shoot on to the Battle Creek breakfast bazaars
And the speedbug heavens of Detroit.
  
"I hear America, I hear, what do I hear?"
Said a loafer lagging along on the sidewalks of Kalamazoo,
Lagging along and asking questions, reading signs.
  
Oh yes, there is a town named Kalamazoo,
A spot on the map where the trains hesitate.
I saw the sign of a five and ten cent store there
And the Standard Oil Company and the International Harvester
And a graveyard and a ball grounds
And a short order counter where a man can get a stack of wheats
And a pool hall where a rounder leered confidential like and said:
"Lookin' for a quiet game?"
  
The loafer lagged along and asked,
"Do you make guitars here?
Do you make boxes the singing wood winds ask to sleep in?
Do you rig up strings the singing wood winds sift over and sing low?"
The answer: "We manufacture musical instruments here."
  
Here I saw churches with steeples like hatpins,
Undertaking rooms with sample coffins in the show window
And signs everywhere satisfaction is guaranteed,
Shooting galleries where men **** imitation pigeons,
And there were doctors for the sick,
And lawyers for people waiting in jail,
And a dog catcher and a superintendent of streets,
And telephones, water-works, trolley cars,
And newspapers with a splatter of telegrams from sister cities of Kalamazoo the round world over.
  
And the loafer lagging along said:
Kalamazoo, you ain't in a class by yourself;
I seen you before in a lot of places.
If you are nuts America is nuts.
  And lagging along he said bitterly:
  Before I came to Kalamazoo I was silent.
  Now I am gabby, God help me, I am gabby.
  
Kalamazoo, both of us will do a fadeaway.
I will be carried out feet first
And time and the rain will chew you to dust
And the winds blow you away.
And an old, old mother will lay a green moss cover on my bones
And a green moss cover on the stones of your postoffice and city hall.
  
  Best of all
I have loved your kiddies playing run-sheep-run
And cutting their initials on the ball ground fence.
They knew every time I fooled them who was fooled and how.
  
  Best of all
I have loved the red gold smoke of your sunsets;
I have loved a moon with a ring around it
Floating over your public square;
I have loved the white dawn frost of early winter silver
And purple over your railroad tracks and lumber yards.
  
  The wishing heart of you I loved, Kalamazoo.
  I sang bye-lo, bye-lo to your dreams.
I sang bye-lo to your hopes and songs.
I wished to God there were hound dogs of bronze on your public square,
Hound dogs with bronze paws looking to a long horizon with a shivering silver angel, a creeping mystic what-is-it.

THE Government--I heard about the Government and
I went out to find it. I said I would look closely at
it when I saw it.
Then I saw a policeman dragging a drunken man to
the callaboose. It was the Government in action.
I saw a ward alderman slip into an office one morning
and talk with a judge. Later in the day the judge
dismissed a case against a pickpocket who was a
live ward worker for the alderman. Again I saw
this was the Government, doing things.
I saw militiamen level their rifles at a crowd of work-
ingmen who were trying to get other workingmen
to stay away from a shop where there was a strike
on. Government in action.

Everywhere I saw that Government is a thing made of
men, that Government has blood and bones, it is
many mouths whispering into many ears, sending
telegrams, aiming rifles, writing orders, saying
"yes" and "no."

Government dies as the men who form it die and are laid
away in their graves and the new Government that
comes after is human, made of heartbeats of blood,
ambitions, lusts, and money running through it all,
money paid and money taken, and money covered
up and spoken of with hushed voices.
A Government is just as secret and mysterious and sensi-
tive as any human sinner carrying a load of germs,
traditions and corpuscles handed down from
fathers and mothers away back.

Island telegrams randomly shuffling in the sun
Reading between the lines of tides and stones
Time and tide wait for no one unless you're a bone
Ill or hope, you're in desperate need of a bridge
Lest you end up without a savior, Samaritan who reads your island telegrams
That I can see, or at least grab onto the ropes
Carry your clothes on your camping trip, shuffling through the zenith
Wordsmith where is your inspiration, if I taking everyone for what they're looking for
Random shuffling in the sun
Rest in peace, and ****** make-believe will all be written in a message in a bottle
Dry as the dead, and floating like the oversoul; this is my last chance at ending strong
Contained by the empty vessels that navigate the seas without captains or winds
Contending the eye in the sky, projecting some prior survival
Deceased by being stranded, so it seems that I've landed
Truncheon things and turn-tables and blunt knives are in
When will sharpies come out, to write these word down
I suppose those are written in a crimson tide, tired of recognition and fertility
I love these fertile feelings, I suppose you could curb your streets for another home
I'm leaving this humble abode too soon, you might ride on the storm
Hitchhike the galaxy, sail the seas, and explore oceans; go-ahead big life
You seem to be kind enough, to help those lost and stranded
That's what you said when you read my eyes, and read my mind
You could see me beg for better ways to express the truth through island telegrams
Like the deserted island on the sky, that knows no peak
How do I come down, from this pedestal of accepting my own destiny?
When will make me the eye in your sky?
God, when will stop leaving chances to precarious bottles talking of pernicious palpitations that tell me I'm a vagrant
In someone else's stories, the island with the nicest view
Bruised and broken, starting again with a better beginning
How is that possible, that I come back from my infantile tendencies
The trepidation stays like themes and deniers, who deny my expressions and honesty

LET us go out of the fog, John, out of the filmy persistent drizzle on the streets of Stockholm, let us put down the collars of our raincoats, take off our hats and sit in the newspapers office.
  
Let us sit among the telegrams-clickety-click-the kaiser's crown goes into the gutter and the Hohenzollern throne of a thousand years falls to pieces a one-hoss shay.
  
It is a fog night out and the umbrellas are up and the collars of the raincoats-and all the steamboats up and down the Baltic sea have their lights out and the wheelsmen sober.
  
Here the telegrams come-one king goes and another-butter is costly: there is no butter to buy for our bread in Stockholm-and a little patty of butter costs more than all the crowns of Germany.
  
Let us go out in the fog, John, let us roll up our raincoat collars and go on the streets where men are sneering at the kings.

SNOW took us away from the smoke valleys into white mountains, we saw velvet blue cows eating a vermillion grass and they gave us a pink milk.
  
Snow changes our bones into fog streamers caught by the wind and spelled into many dances.
  
Six bits for a sniff of snow in the old days bought us bubbles beautiful to forget floating long arm women across sunny autumn hills.
  
Our bones cry and cry, no let-up, cry their telegrams:
More, more-a yen is on, a long yen and God only knows when it will end.
  
In the old days six bits got us snow and stopped the yen-now the government says: No, no, when our bones cry their telegrams: More, more.
  
The blue cows are dying, no more pink milk, no more floating long arm women, the hills are empty-us for the smoke valleys-sneeze and shiver and croak, you dopes-the government says: No, no.

Suppose I was more agreeable
Instead of arguing over coffee about politics, religion
All those subjects deemed taboo that neither of us truly give a **** about
Pressing my point like daggers against your ribcage
Knowing the sweet spots that make you moan
I would give in, applaud your cleverness, then leave for work

You would be left wondering if you should feel insulted.

of course you should

As usual,my filterless memoirs have become vocalized
******* them back in tight and quick is useless
Once freed, the damage is done

But. they. are . just. words.

the previous statement is ridiculous and the author should be shot

Never could I slice you deeper, **** your private mind or lay your soul bare
Then with the bitter, caustic, truthful edge of my observations
You are just as vulnerable as the rest of them
Barbed wire telegrams
Frozen emails
Ash and arsenic letters
Cut you to the quick

Delightful.
But I like it better when I can witness the damage
Basking in the upper handed afterglow of my superior ability to mortally wound
For no bit of silver that I've ever found
Was ever sharper than the razor edge of my tongue

Post Office:
Telegrams and Telephones

Tell me how the snow is where you are.

Traffic cones outside, must-be-done road works completed by no one nowhere men,
patched up walls clad in grit painted cream
shutters the same, shutting out the screams.

Graffiti bridges, restaurants on ridges-
river's rising fast, finish your entrée
let's leave.

Walk linking arms looking upon                                    
glimpses of brick, of an old home,
lived in years ago by someone unknown.

go to a brothel, you won't feel anything about what's considered the teenage atypical damning of events that make violins of us all.

now i know why i prefer bourbon to whiskey,
my usual stock went missing today
at the supermarket, i was thinking prior
recycling a plastic bottle of coca cola and a glass
bottle of whiskey... three Buds on offer for
£5 and then a bottle of Scots' Club at £11 (and
a bottle of coke): for the extra walk to buy
£5.99 Chesterfields at the Bangladeshi outlet?
hmm, that's a tough one... solved, Scots' Club
dried up, they've been watching my predictable
pattern on c.c.t.v., either that or i honed
on ant-mentality - which is far worse than
what Nietzsche described as herd mentality -
post-Nietzsche post-religion existentialism?
ants... not oxen, not sheep, not wildebeest -
simple, ants... compactness perfectó!
the antonym of deus ex machina, i.e.
the deus in machina - we all have our roles,
plumber electrician poet... cashier drill sergeant
bus driver... with me i imagine a Michelin star
kitchen... yes chef... yes chef... what is this ****?!
throw that under-cooked scallop away!
if it ain't perfect throw it away!
most would beg to cry and run out of the tense
environment - ooh look at me, bourbon makes
me rosy cheeked - the smell of it makes me summon
the gluttonous honey thickness of a prostitutes
lubricated **** - in Amsterdam with the laws
being lenient they call them sanitation workers
from Bolivia, this plump one told me her life story,
****** into bucket in front of me, told her
child minion to get beers for me, laughed
when i wanted to lick her out - opened the window
to fish the punters into her abode - true story -
i have absolutely no imagination, experience
counts - Amsterdam is fun - you should go there
some time... it's so much freer without
this Victorian-like theatre of courtship in England,
20 years in England, never ****** a swan -
she's too into her feminism away from the "naughty parts" -
darling... and what does your lover call you during
******* while you're drooling on the Ajax?
hmm? sloppy Samantha... or just ****?
***** words during arousal makes the geek take
the noble toilet paper given to them by the maidens...
(psst... they think it's a hanky)...
and with all that space, poets have a phobia with
punctuation, hence verses, hence missing colon (or alter
italics), semi-colon - maybe a full-stop along the way...
and the most annoying part, thus examples:
Prose writers speak a lot,
They draw the matchsticks by the lot - (oh hell, forget the hyphen,
that's reserved for Oxford acceptance of new words
requiring agility and optometry's rediscovery of origin:
Saxons in Istanbul running a sausage stand -
no no, ****'s Halal, we promise!)
But when they speak, they speak to the grey matter -
Never quiet the sparkler parts of the brain...
CAPITAL WITH EACH NEW LINE...
toss-up between learning punctuation and not using it -
i doesn't matter if poetry is the opposite of the claustrophobia
of prose's skeletal rigidity of a paragraph -
poets could become less tedious by using punctuation,
i'd begin with an exercise - count to one-hundred -
ensuring the space between one and ninety-nine
is uniform, i.e. a second apart - can't happen
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
| | | | | | | | | |
   11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
    |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
         22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
          |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |;
when in Edinburgh i had a mental implant, the compass,
mostly thanks to the locality, and the Firth of Forth -
i knew my west and my east, esp. looking at Prince's
Street (scoot-ish Manhattan - squares and linear
and diagonals, picture perfect) from just off the Royal
Mile - honestly, from the old city i could see America
don't below. but bourbon really does have a brothels'
perfumery feel about it - it really hits the cheeks and
warms them up... whiskey oddly enough doesn't...
that's what ****** her off... high-brow ******* -
a boy a girl a ******* - not romantic Marcel Schwob's
Monelle* - harsh realism of de Sadé (who also
wore the t-shirt with the slogan: I'M A FEMINIST!
while cursing from his cell window in the Bastille) -
the Saudi oil billionaires will run out at some point,
last days of the **** - i know, i prefer de Sadé -
adds a bit of spice - and if i'm going to be brutally
honest as his critics are, well, i'll be honest
about one of his works - ****** - crispy mint.
debates on the Man Booker prize - old guard and new
guard - that's the problem with the English...
they pretend to read on their Summer holiday...
who the hell reads in summer? they spend
their Winters in front of the television - i thought
that winter suited reading as it does writing?
the long nights, esp. the long nights -
the Russians said: our future is in your reading public -
the Americans said: our future is in the pulverise(d)
by images public - iconoclasm of words, trademark
logos (telegrams from time to time) - just recently
an advert at a bus-stop by some Asian car manufacturer -
no nuance, but definitely nuanced: GO FUN YOURSELF -
also called the state of literacy rates in England,
a girl writes her G.C.S.E. English exam paper
in text acronym (UR v. you're); so they locked up the Marquis
for obscenity, but Anaïs Nin walked free to everyone's
applause - the part where you tell me Kierkegaard
made a meal from the tree of good and evil
with his work either / or attached to Nietzsche's
beyond... muddles muddles and pumpernickel troubles;
sure, call it word salad - but i hardly think you're
a vegetarian; going to a brothel makes all this
****** warfare seem rather obsolete - esp. when it's prompt
for books and debates and serious action -
all the prostitutes of France came out in protest when
the government wanted to punish the pundits -
hey! do a Jesus! side with the "filth"!
these girls aren't going to be nuns, the feminists won't
save them, not one of them will be a star in a real-life
adaptation of pretty woman - and not, a, single, one
will buy the feminist arguments of the bourgeoisie actresses -
me? i will not ever have a girlfriend who experiments
with her child niece in a theme park imagining me in a
daddy role... or reads me a questionnaire about complimenting
differences from a Cosmopolitan magazine.

The more timid side of the maple leaves rustles along the wind



It's silvery sheen swings from side to side



Perhaps signalling to a long lost love not yet forgotten

                     From an once upon distant dream



No one knows if the ripples in the air will carry along the message

                    Till it reaches the land of forsaken things



But still

                  

          The lone tree sings



As I cross it



I stumble onto a different reflection of yearning:

        

          As I wade through the river of wild flowers,

                    and greet the leaves with thorns as wings



The catkins hop onto me



A wave of small needle sharp pain attempts to send off their well wishes with me



Not knowing that the scratches on my being



The messages they try so desperately to depart with



The telegrams of little bumps and lines on my skin



Will never leave with me



Like the ripples in the air



The ripples through the grass

          The ripples of pain that momentarily made its presence well known throughout me



Will dissipate as soon as they form

          And be forgotten by me



All efforts of remembering and wanting to be remembered seem useless in the grand scheme of things



Still, within the palpitations of life, every pedal and every blade of grass resumes

          Its dance around me



Every seed of memory still holds onto me

And still



I try to find you within these things



Like fireflies seeking companions in the night sky



Only to find more warmth within embers of a more humble height



Of course, I did not find you in them



I only found myself seeking your presence



Even though you seem to exist within every breath I breathe



Disappointed, I went away for the night





As I was about to drift off to a more slumbering dream



Hoping for better fortunes in my aimless seeking



I saw you



          I saw you within my tea



I saw you through



The starless ripples within memories oceans deep



And as it reunites with the milk and honey



The sky became complete



Every drop was an universe



And within:



Every speck was you and me.

“Everything crackles when I walk, dear,”

she said as she stood to go.

The teapot was whistling

And the TV blared loud

Because his hearing aid was turned down to ‘low.’



These splendid old bean eaters



These God loving fools

Live out their days alone.

She can barely see right

And her hands can’t much hold

The hair brush of hers

he plated with gold.



She’s hardly annoyed by the ways of this world,

She’s seen it all come and go except—

The caller ID is a plain old mystery—



What happened to telegrams?



This lovely of woman

And her lovely old man

Still live out their days as in old,

He goes to the barber and she to salon

To gussy up pretty for the drug store.



Few worries they have

But tonight without fail,

She’ll screech

“Al! What’s the Jeopardy channel?!”



“WHAT!?”

He’ll yell back as he shuffles her way

From the kitchen where

sleep closed his eyes as he waited “all day”

For that “**** coffee ***

that never made good coffee in anyway.”



Then they’ll eat stale chips

And he’ll start to snore

As she turns the TV up to its max;



Shifting thick, horn rim glasses that she’s had since high school

Untill in the blue TV lights her eyes will glow.

She can see her show is over

as the fuzzy credits roll down

She stands up and everything cracks,

Shuffle…

Shuffle…

Step.



She reaches for him

and covers his feet

with a quilt.

I pass myself off as a replica.

previous applicants need not apply?
why?

are we just fodder for cannon when needed
and when needs arise
who dies?
not them tinpot general men
it's us
and then the telegram's sent
to the family?

I suppose they just text telegrams today
it's another institution that passed slowly away

there's much to be said for the personal touch
but we don't get too much of that.

On Sunday I usually hate Sunday
which is the day before what I call
no fun day
a monday
and I want it to be Friday

I'd like it to be Friday in
nineteen sixty nine
but likes are like time mines
they blow up in your face,

that's why I pass myself off as a replica,
I never knew the real me.

They call it depression, but it's an addiction to something that's not there-
It's an expression that we wear; it's repressed need-worn mentally.

And torn entities are born, but big men scorn with forlorn identities.
Ungentle mouths sending free telegrams to stop everything stop.

Want masquerading as need.
An embedded seed we tried to prune one day, but grew instead.
Weedy tendrils that push out my head.

Bleeding temperamentally internally eventually until it grows aware:
Despite hiding it or changing it, we carry on:
Recognizing our own ambiguity in another person's stare.

I sit and watch; day after day
but still the telegrams say -
THERE IS NO CROP
STAY INSIDE STOP

I watch as the gardener comes;
the lonely girl in the gas mask, who hums
the sad tune of the seed
doomed as a ****

I wonder, how she survives without shoes
for the ground, it may ooze
poison from the air
in the ground, seeps in your hair

She's just another lonely soul
with an empty petunia bowl
and one of those masks
as she goes out to fulfill impossible tasks

I sit night by night, with nothing to do
and by every noon she's come through,
watering the toxic soil,
a source of such turmoil

How can it grow;
among poison, she must know
planting out spores
in the aftermath - of wars

The air is a haze
and I feel left in a daze
when at last one dead morn',
the apocalypse flower is born

I AM TRYING TO FIND HAPPINESS, AS I FELT I HAD TO GET PAST MY MUM AND DAD
FOR FUTURE HAPPINESS, I THINK THAT VISION OF HELL, IS TRUE, CAUSE I AM A BELIEVER IN COSMIC ENERG, AS WELL AS THE BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY OF
MENDING EVERY BLADE OF GRASS TO BE SOWN, I WANT TO BE A HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITY, BUT I HAVE TO SETTLE WITH MENTAL HEALTH, I WANT TO HAVE
MY ART DISPLAYED IN ART GALLERIES, BUT I DO IT ONLINE, EVEN FACEBOOK
I WANT TO LOOK AT MY STORIES, LIKE ME, BRINGING MY IMAGINERY TV STATIONS
INTO THE REAL WORLD, I REMEMBER DAD SAYING, SOMETIMES IN LIFE WE HAVE
TO MAKE SACRIFICES, WELL, I FELT I WAS SACRIFICES OF HIM TREATING ME
LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY TO A TEASE, I TRY AND BE A OPTOMIST, BUT IT ISN'T HARD
TO BE A PESIMIST, BECAUSE, I AM NOT AS FAMOUS, AS I WOULD LIKE TO BE
YA SEE, I FIND THIS GUY PRETTY COOL, YA KNOW, HE ISN'T AFRAID TO EXPRESS
HIS BUDDHIST BELIEFS, BUT I FELT I WAS SUFFERING WHEN I WAS BEING THE
FAMOUS PERSON FROM THE FAMILY, AND I WANT TO BE MY OWN PERSON, I LIKE
THE IDEA, OF BEING FAMOUS, EVEN IF IT WAS FOR JUST 10 YEARS, I FEEL FAMOUS
IN MY MENTAL HEALTH DRAMA GROUP, I WANT TO GET FURTHER WITH THAT ART
THERPAY, AT BELCONNEN MENTAL HEALTH, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT, I WAS
TRYING TO CALL A TRUCE WITH DAD, HE DID DO IT FOR LOVE, BUT I FELT, HE
LIKED MY BROTHER MORE, AND HE DROVE ME CRAZY, NOW, I NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT HIM, HE TRIED TO UNDERSTAND ME, BUT HE COULD'VE TRIED HARDER
CAUSE, I SUFFERED ALL MY LIFE, YOU KNOW, NOBODY WANTED TO STAY
WITH ME AT NIGHTCLUBS, OR GO WITH ME TO NIGHTCLUBS,DESPITE, ME STILL
ENJOYING MYSELF IN NIGHTCLUBS, I REALLY WANTED TO BE W2ITH COOL MATES,
NOT TOTALLY SQUARRE MATES, AND I CAN TELL YOUNG DUDES, I PARTIED IN
NIGHTCLUBS, IN MY DAY, MAN, I TRIED TO UNDERSTAND DAD, WHEN I SAT NEAR HIM
BUT HE WANTED TO TREAT ME LIKE A LITTLE SHY BOY TO LIFE, LIKE SOMEONE
WHO IS FINDING IT DIFFICULT, DAD WAS A LITTLE SHY BOY, HE HATED, THINKING
OR DREAMING FOR THE FUTURE, AS OPPOSED, TO LIVING FOR TODAY, I KNOW
I SEEMED TO DWELL IN THE PAST, BUT I NEVER DWELL, I MAKE PEACE WITH THE
PAST, I TOLD DAD THIS BEFORE HE DIED, LIKE HE PREFERS, CONTRACTOR, I PREFER ERIN BOY, JUST BECAUSE I AM IN MY 40S, DOESN'T MEAN I CAN'T BE
AN ERIN BOY, INSTEAD OF CONTRACTOR, DAD, WAS A GREAT LOVER OF FLOWERS
AND HE HATED ME EATING GRASS, BUT I HATED HIM TREATING ME LIKE A LITTLE
BABY SHY BOY, I SAW LIFE, IN A BETTER AND DIFFERENT WAY TO DAD
I LIKE PARTYING DAD LIKED BEING MATURE
I PLAY CRICKET AND NEW YEARS EVE PARTIES, TO MAKE DAD FEEL LIKE A MAN
SOME OF THE MEN WHO WENT TO CLUBS, WERE NICER TO ME MORE THAN DAD
AND OUR NEIGHBOUR, ALAN WAS OLD, BUT HE LOVED THE SYDNEY SWANS
AND I USED TO TALK ABOUT HOW GOOD THE SYDNEY SWANS ARE, HE TOLD
ME ABOUT HOW HE WENT TO THE PAPER SHOP TO GET TELEGRAMS OF THE
SWANS, YEAH, I USED TO HAVE FUN ARGUMENTS WITH ASHLEY, AUSSIE RULES
V LEAGUE, AND I FOUGHT FOR CARLTON OVER STAN NIEMICS ESSENDON
AND I REMEMBER LESLIE, WAS MUMS FRIEND, BUT HE WAS A GREAT MATE TO ME
I HAD MY SCHOOL MATES TEASING ME IN MY HEAD, HE GAVE ME HIS EAR
THAT LIFE'S DEAD, BUT I SHARED A FEW LAIGHS WITH DAD, BUT HE WELL TRIED
AS HARD AS HE COULD, LIKE GOINGT TO MY FLAT FOR XMAS PARTIES, THE ONLY WAY, BUT I TOLD DAD THINGS ABOUT TV AND SPORT, LIKE DAD TOLD ME WHEN
IT WAS A FIRE BAN OR WHEN IT WAS GOING TO RAIN, I TOLD HIM ABOUT ALF
STEWART ON HOME AND AWAY, AND HOW BAD CARLTON AND THE RAIDERS
WERE PLAYING, I WENT TO WEEKEND JAIL FOR TYING UP A BOY, BUT I LEARNT
MY LESSON STRAIGHT AWAY, DAD  NEVER UNDERSTOOD THIS, HE JUST
THOUGHT I WAS DWELLING, I SUFFERED THROUGH THIS, I CAN'T BE LIKE
THE OLD BATTILAX, DAD, I CAN'T BE THE PERSON, DAD WANTED ME TO BE
I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE HIM AND MUMMY, ESPECIALLY NOW, THAT HE IS DEAD
AND WE LAID DADS ASHES, IN COPPINS CROSSING, WITH JUST ME, MY BROTHER
AND MY MOTHER, I BROUGHT BUDDHA WITH ME, AND PUT A BIT OF DAD ON BUDDHA'S LAP, AND DID A LITTLE CEREMONY, AS I WAS TRYING TO BURY
DADS SPIRIT, SO HE CAN SOON GET REINCARNARTED AS ONE OF DAVID AND
LISA CAMPBELL'S TWINS, ROBIN WILLIAMS IS THE OTHER ONE, I DROWNED
BUDDHA, TO FINALLY BURY MY DAD, AND LET THIS FAMOUS BUSHWALKER
OF OLD TO FLOAT ON COPPINS CROSSING, I BELIEVE IN GOING TO ATHENA
UP IN THE SKY, FOR COSMIC DENTAL WORK, RATHER THAN DADS REALISTIC WAY
DENTISTS ARE QUACKS, WHO ARE AFTER YOUR CASH, PARACETAMOL AND
TOOTHPASTE AND COKE, HELPS YOUR TEETH BETTER, AND NOW DAD AS
HE FLOATS AROUND IN COPPINS CROSSING, THINKING, I MUST, HELP THE WORLD
UNDERSTAND, BRIAN, AND I HATED DAD TREATING ME LIKE THIS LITTLE SHY BOY, OR HE WANTED, IS TO SAY THE LAST FUCKEN WORD
THIS BUDDHIST ISN'T AFRAID OF GOING TO JAIL, I HATE GOING TO JAIL, I PREFER
THE PSYCH WARD, CAUSE IT'S SAFER, BUT I PREFER TO BE WELL, SO I DON'T
GO TO EITHER, I AM NO PHEADPHILR OR KIDNAPPER
\
I AM A BUDDHIST ARTIST AND WRITER AND YOUTUBE ENTERTAINER
WHO LOVES TO PARTY DOWN, OUT OF SQUARE TOWN, I AIN'T SQUARE
I AM RADICALLY AWESOME DUDE

~ for FK

He fell asleep a defunct and uncertain mortal,
but in that night of wavering visions
he dreamed of crocodiles and lilacs
each blossoming according to its own nature.
That made a sort of sense.
Telephones rang and creditors questioned.
Fishermen returned from the sea with boats full of water
which they easily traded for vast quantities of oxygen.
The crocodiles were fragrant and the lilacs smiled.
That, too, made a sort of sense.
One melancholy action flung itself upon the stars
and vanished from the satisfied earth.
He loved God and Satan simultaneously
and in their delight they reopened the Garden
feeling once more the necessity of affection
and directed him to eat his fill.
Who can argue with such divine logic?
All his ex-lovers sent telegrams expressing regret.
The gold he never had swelled his coffers.
He decided this dream was too lovely to end.
And yet, how to make sense of this gloaming cornucopia?
The answer struck him obvious as an earthquake:
forget the prisons of words; take new orders;
laugh with the crocodiles; dance with the lilacs;
become a man of action; imbibe Ambrosia for breakfast;
devour Manna  for lunch; **** astonishing flowers.
This makes perfect sense.

  - mce

Dear _,

It's been hard to write. You were always the muse.
I'm no longer Anonymous. Anonymous is no longer mine.

Once, he smashed my lamp. I heard the sparkle of cheap IKEA glass fanning out on my floor like a miniature Arctic Ocean. When I came back to my room, he had a broom in one hand and your mug in the other.

I told him he could break anything in my life, but not that mug.

I am bound, my dear _ . Not because I wish I could tell you how much _. Not because I , or that I miss when we __ , but by sterility, latex gloves, telegrams. I am bound by the distance and detachment that keeps us safe as we venture inside other humans, other hearts.

The only way to survive terminal love was to induce a coma. Sleep until fixed.  

At best I will dream of your laugh.

we stood by the doors of the train
in the sticky heat that kept
me from wanting to sit
because i hate when my thighs
hold onto the plastic seats
like it's life or death

i stared into your irises
and noticed that they weren't
what i had always thought they were
in times when we were miles apart and
i had closed my lids tight and imagined
you staring back at me

a drunk man stumbled onto the train
and as we stood stagnant for
10, 15, 30, 45 minutes
he slammed and slurred about
public transportation and the *******
that just don't know how to do their jobs

you and i stood silently laughing,
and the happiness in our eyes
was all we needed

i hold onto pieces of time
like this and it's what keeps me breathing,
knowing that one day, i'll add to the archive

perhaps that's the hardest part,
the inability to make new memories together,
because in the end that's all a relationship truly is
and that's everything a relationship truly is

pen, paper, phones, computers, smoke signals, homing pigeons, bike messengers, telegrams, postcards,
none of them are you

nothing i do will you bring back;

not the shoebox of purple hyacinths
watered by the i love you's
i still wanted to say.

not the prose poetries i wrote you
whilst caught in a mania
in the restrooms of dying gas stations.

not the caving in of the see-through walls
mixed with static humming of the payphone calls.

not the pillow telegrams that smell like
bourbon and my mother's cigarettes;
darling, my bed has become a post office
of the letters i never had the chance to write
and of the things i never
had the chance to say.

and nothing i say will bring you back —
not even this poem, and i know that now;
i just don't know
how to live with that.

still, nothing will ever bring you back
and darling, watching you fall out of love
feels like the only thing i can do right now.

Life nowadays is just instagram
Back then our ancestors had to write telegrams
The golden generation engulfed in black mist
They shoot cold heat

While I watch it all through uncertain eyes
Steve Biko with a pen
Robert Sobukwe with paper in a den
It haunts me
Great God,I'm tied in a knot
Great God,they fear not
I walk free,still fearful

I'm a refugee in my own smile
Steve Biko,Robert Sobukwe died for a cause
My generation is cursed
We are on pause
In the paws of a ruined future
As long as I still have my pen and paper
I'm a poet for a cause

words

           *telegrams
           calculable words
           words as objects
           words as mathematical
           meaning price > value

time

           days of the week, hours of the day minutes
           time is mathematical
           time is measurable
           time is a commodity
           meaning price > value.

(let's not fund the humanities they say.)

life

deaths by numbers
earthquake in Nepal -- death count over 7000
just a number in a news report, really
just a
number.
deaths are measured in numbers
not people,
people are countable
objects.
7000 people.
meaning all your friends on facebook
every person in your lecture hall
every person you have loved or kissed
all your former neighbours
everybody you have talked to on public transportation
every barista that has served you coffee
when these are faces you remember when these are your friends your family when these are *your people that is when
7000
becomes more
than a number.

but we don't want to let it
be
that
do we?

we cannot understand it
or let ourselves feel it
we cannot grieve for 7000 people swallowed by anonymity
when the death of just
one
could **** us.

the world will end by 2060 because we will have let
the oceans overflow and we will be drowing by numbers.
not people.

these are numbers. facts. statistics.

so
who
cares.

the journalists and scientists and economists
know what they know
and maybe we know what they know
but we have to experience before we change and
it will be too late.

it is up to the artists, now, to the poets and painters
and the actors directors designers to
show us what things
feel
like

before we all become
calculable objects
in oceanic waste lands.

it is up to people with the gift to make things
mean
more

than 7000
does.

Life nowadays is just instagram
Back than our parents had to write telegrams
The Golden generation engulfed in black mist
They shoot cold heat

While I watch it all through uncertain eyes
Steve Biko with a pen
Robert Sobukwe with paper in a den
It haunts me
Great God,I'm tied in a knot
Great God,they fear not
I walk free fearful

I am a refugee in my own smile
Steve Biko,Robert Sobukwe died for a cause
My generation is cursed
We are on pause
In the paws of a ruined future
As long as I still have my pen and paper
I am a poet for a cause

Trying to tap telegrams
On the back of my iphone
In a faux leather seat
In the back of my mothers car.
Anyone will tell you I have a
Knack
For the contrary
And there’s strangely no argument,
Where I got it from.
The seat belt sits uncomfortably across my throat,
Stopping my words,
A space formerly only occupied by her gaze,
Though my future career may benefit,
My current psyche does not.

Messages carried along
meandering lanes
without conscious input
by electronic impulses are
speeding across the sinews,
through the blood avenues
and down the back alleys
to our feet, on the footpath
of life
telling us
that pressing on
is the only

way

forward.

Meanwhile telegrams
travel to the very edges
of our arterial network
sending instructions
to our shoulders
and on
to our arms and hands
to move in beautiful unison
with our feet
thus
allowing us
to set out
using
our form of

propulsion.

And so we amble on
blissfully unaware
of the arduous tasks
our body will carry out
every second
of every day

for

all

of

our lives.

©Joe Wilson - The unseen journey...2015

I will see you on the day of the levee breach.
I will see you when my sinful green dreams
       break the fourth wall.
I will see you when every instance of your
       breath envelopes me like an atmosphere
       of ecstasy and poison.
I will see you when your face still hasn't  
       aged, so perfect in your mastery, and
       you'll glance back on me, seeing clearly
       my eyes of penury.

You will see me—veiled until the flood, washing over, just us two, the prophecy completed, and the realm of death finally demolished.

When will we take the time to cry for the time we've wasted, and when will we start spending the time to correct this?

Tell me if you're built on the same lithium and helium that I am, or if I've been formulating you out of my own ignorance.

Deeper now, into my depression.

You. You have the lingering qualities of a ghost, and just as well a ghost that I haven't seen you in ages.

Perhaps there will be a seance to your memory but do you hold it in Seattle? In a Kerouac, run down, for sale bed in Denver?

Don't tell me you wouldn't like the highs of a streetlamp sonata... But still you'd tell me that the good stuff is really highway jazz, and that cool songstress who gave you the first bites of LSD in your throat.

I can't wait until this America looks like rubble, and is exposed for the **** it's standing on, collapses like the Berlin Wall, and we start letting love back in.

Such a drop in communication. Such a lackluster, government barn burner, and I can't get any telegrams anymore. I used to wish you'd write me a hundred times a day, and now I see where all that greed got me.

So sad. Scared to death in your presence! Am I eulogizing you now, or are these my parting words?

Originality—who's buying?
I wish that ***** would forge Picasso or Matisse.
Give me something better to worry about.

Thinking thoughts of honorable ******,
Terrible though—
You can't **** structure,
You can't **** rhyme,
You can't **** the governor,
You can't **** Ayn Rand,
You can't **** Jackson *******...
They're all doing fine.
Vitals stable.
Restored this morning.

Mystic within Catholic depression, holy roses wrapped about a room of adultery. All I could think of was Jack Kennedy, and the irony of how I cried at his tomb.

You disrupted my balance.

You walked like Aphrodite over my fixed set of morals, into my collection of a million words, onto my bookshelf... And had no idea.

Because I was too late.
Because I did not know.
Because the world would consider this all
       immoral, but morals are bourgeoise
       constructs anyway.
Because you have an aerosol heart.
Because you have that face of diplomatic
       change, free of charge.
Because you might be God.
Because you soul walks across Atlantic City.
Because you hold a pen like Whitman.

I'm curious.

I swear I heard the dog whisper
but it frightened me
I put my fingers in my ears
I did not want to hear him
It was as if a lover was telling me a lie
I could see mysteries of life unraveling
so I shut my eyes

Deaf and blind, I stood
movement of a melodic line
between pitches
hummed in my head
Gods of old
tumbled phrases
similar to ticking of telegrams
into my subconscious

Hades told Pain and Panic
to inform him
when Fates arrived
I threw my eyes open
unplugged my ears

The dog was licking his *****
I knew my insignificance

Primes and primary numbers
Make my patterns right
Teach me how to make the connections between equations
Time and tide wait for no one
Someone, please ask them what is one
Changing or creating, adjusting to your useless feeble-self
You can still take on those hurricanes, with experience
Time and tide wait for those who are laying in desperation
Waiting to be washed ashore
Like the immigrants, clicking their feet like the opportunity
And door-knobs, ringing like hallowed bells
Telling us the door is open for those with want
Series of bottles washed over, like island telegrams
College applications for the college dropout, looking for the corpus of his master's oeuvre
It's on the top shelf. You're working for wages crossing bus-stands with city-light colleges
Crowded and make some noise, coherent with crime

“Oh! Son it´s good to have you home
c´mon in, there´s a fresh brew on the stove,
we´ve missed you and we´ve worried so
did you get all our letters sent with love?”

Your rooms just as you left it, lad
c´mon in, I´ll get a dinner on,
your Dad will be home shortly, lad
he tells everyone he´s proud of you, our son.

What´s it like, the trenches, lad
and what´s it like this place they call the Somme,
it´s been a year you´ve been away
how long´s  this madness going on.

Sorry to hear about your friend, lad
and about the way he met his end,
we keep praying for your safety, son
and for this ****** war to end.

Sit down and take your boots of son
I´ll go and bring your slippers down,
how´s your brew, is it strong enough
Oh! Lad, it´s so good to have you home.

Mrs Linton´s boy´s, John, and Dave
they won´t be coming home,
she got the telegrams this morning
must be the twentieth in this town.

You seem to be much taller, son
and your features seem much harder now,
you have the look of a man about you, lad
with those troubled lines upon your brow.

Did you get the cakes we sent, lad
and the gloves and socks we made,
do they feed you well over there, lad
come and help me get the table laid”.

“I´m only home for two weeks, Ma
then it´s back to the front for me,
it´s good to be back home again
I´ve really missed your cups of tea.

Our Regiment was two hundred strong, Ma
and now we´re down to seventy-three,
it´s hell living in the trenches, Ma
I´ve seen things young men should never see”.

Four months later, Ma received a telegram
the sixtieth in the town,
her lad is missing in action
and his remains have not been found.

“C´mon in, I´ve made a nice strong brew, Pa
it says our lad´s not coming home,
it was delivered here this morning, Pa”
and then the pair of them broke down.

Tom Balch  ©