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A pigeon sings in Trafalgar Square
It has graceful charm
And bears no harm
As it sings in Trafalgar Square

A pigeon sings in Trafalgar Square
The joy it brings
When it lifts its wings
As it sings in Trafalgar Square

A pigeon sings in Trafalgar Square
Whilst watching migration
From across the nation
As it sings in Trafalgar Square

A pigeon sings in Trafalgar Square
And the world flows by
Like a lullaby
As it sings in Trafalgar Square

A pigeon sings in Trafalgar Square
Not a single care
For people who stare
As it sings in Trafalgar Square

A pigeon sings in Trafalgar Square
Then it flys up high
Without a goodbye
As it sings in Trafalgar Square
Theodore Bird Mar 2015
Trafalgar in springtime;
     more people than you're used to.
Trafalgar in flickering sunlight;
     more warmth than you're used to.
Trafalgar in the afternoon;
     heavy clouds and weightless pigeon wings.
Dusty hands and feet;
     torn-open knees and holey socks.
Rumpled collar and hair;
     torn to pieces in a mess of watercoloured pages.
Trafalgar in springtime;
     forget the winter, leave it in the ground.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2019
.you can never really write any poetry by not covering the "heartbreak" the loss of your own "printed" words: how much different is the internet, from "real" life? just asking... since: internet banking & internet shopping... to lose a poem / pre-scriptum is not exactly the same as losing a person to mind: father's day... i cooked the dinner, i took out the trash, i wrote an invoice... i guess that's much better than leaving a card of greetings... and, come to think of it? why are we the sort of people subjugated to nostalgia, with but also "without" a history? aren't we subjugated to nostalgia and a history as a "fiction"? the beginning of the 21st century, the end of the 20th century... the 19th century germans associated themselves with a nostalgia for ancient greece, we're the only people who have an inbuilt nostalgia "safety-mechanism"... the only people in time who are nostalgic about the life surrounding their own existence slot, which doesn't have a trans-temporal dynamic... i remember times when we would be teenagers... spitting on people from car-parks on imaginary tonsures, buying *****-magazines from indian cornershops, or belgian freebies of non-insinuations, white lightning cider while sleeping over at youth centers playing snooker throughout the night... even at school: attending a catholic school with the irish east enders... uniforms, sure... a chequered shirt: blue, red, white... tag? made in canada... and if only capitalism worked as it once did, made in canada? lifetime of a shirt? 20 years... now? made in china... not exactly real cotton, is it? 2 years... before ironing the shirt *****... once upon in gants hill, st. valentine's park, and the pub, recently closed, decent karaoke... in the park? golf, basketball, rowing boats in the large ponds... when the jews were there... gants hill roundabout... the hanukkah torches... jews scuttling wearing trainers come rosh hashanah: jews can't wear leather on rosh hashanah (judgement day)... shy like rats... when the jews were there (gants hill, ilford)... the park looked great... tennis courts... now, when neo-Bangladesh moved in? ****** place. what else do i remember from my original pre-scriptum that i lost? oh, that once time in gants hill... walking into a kosher bakery with ****** knuckles, having tested them on a canvas of a brick wall, buying some dough-fused-sweets? with the girl selling the sweets bewildered by fear? i like the look of fear in people when tested by uncertainty, and bleeding knuckles? later? climbing over the park fence, taking a **** while squatting in the darkened palace of the park, walking into a brothel, having my wallet stolen, not reacting in what would have been justified... high school... we wore uniforms... so no high school h'american culture trap / culture... school uniforms are the best idea, there's no chance to "shine" in telling apart the rich kids from the poor kids... there's only the standard... walking to a supermarket, past a thai surprise... sports bra, short hair... walking back... she's still there pretending to talk on her mobile to someone... you take her home with a few beers... play her some jazz... take her into the garden, the moon is a beauty... you **** her... hand in her underwear and you're still gambling... before the emergence of the nag hammadi library and the whole androgynous vogue, the thai were already readied with the lady-boys... when i reached in and found nothing but oyster... would i have stopped finding a wink-wink slouching worm? slap a trans in the face? no, not really... a thai surprise is, a thai surprise... i would have considered doing my first ****... "lucky" for me she was a she... a girl... ****** her in the garden under the moonlight... gave her my hoodie, which she drowned in... finally... the level of interaction where the female is not a mantis, i.e. a female larger than the male... she drowned into my hoodie as i walked her home... i like the familiarity with the mammalian, not resorting to insect superiority of females... these days... i find that males are strictly mammalian... while females? they are borrowing insect-esque ontologies... well, darwinism allowed the time-frame... males are mammals... females are insects, behaviour-wise... two time frame i do not appreciate the english for... darwinism is prime.... cultural-marxism my ***... what about cultural-darwinism?! no?! that doesn't exist?! cultural-darwinism is as real as cultural-marxism, and, in the former sense? it really does belong to the conservative right-wing politico spectrum! might i add? isn't psychology merely pop philosophy? i find psychology riddled with rubric cohesion, it's all oh so "self"-evident! i abhor psychologists... these gypsy philosophers... medicine-men with no pharmacological shadow of power... to prescribe drugs... arguments, persuasions, but no dialectics... psychology will forever be, for me, a philosophy primer, short-cut... pop philosophy... psychologists can treat people who have never read a philosophy book... r. d. laing... i remember this one instace... me and a fwend of mine travelled into central london, went into a bookshop shy of trafalgar sq., i spotted an edition of: the scarlet and the black by stendhal... i told him: i will trade you linkin park's debut album, if you buy me this... the transaction was made... the one book i read after seeing a film adaptation starring rachel (rakhel) weisz and ewan mcgregor... ra-kh-el: not ray-chel... we used to be humans once... at high school getting bullied back... putting pins on chairs once we got up, sitting on them... playing bulldog in primary school, slap-ball, tag, playing cards at lunchtime... 16 fatty boy... one summer in poland, comes back aged 17... the irish girls take an interest while eating a pomegranate... what was the success of your diet? don't go to the gym... excess skin, an aesthetic surgeon is not what you need... there are only two ways to lose weight... either via swimming or by cycling... cycling is the best... lose weight by also toning your body... gym is a bad idea... by going to the gym you are straining exclusive parts of your body, either the torso, your hands, etc., jogging? unless on soft ground, bad idea on concrete, arthritis... cycling or swimming... lose weight... tone at the same time, the skin is allowed the required time to adapt to shrink, and forget what propped it up in plump form with all that excess flab... ugh... i hated being attractive to the opposite ***, i never used it to my advantage! imagine... an irish lad comes up to me, on behalf of some girl while i'm donning a french braid: you look just like johnny depp in blow, impersonating george jung... 14 year old girls walk up to you asking what shampoo you're using... herbal essences... i never used my looks... *******... now i'm a heavy drinker... so much for looks... first girlfriend? a fwend had to call me telling me she called him that she felt butterflies when i dropped her at the train platform after a day's worth of dating: tate modern, edward hopper exhibitions, cinema: troy, starring rose byrne (briseis) - honestly, a man can go crazy over curly hair... and then a restaurant date... that **** just flew over my head... i wouldn't have noticed... honestly though... i missed the whole h'american cultural excavation genesis in high school... catholic... uniforms... jesuit army-esque formation... now, i'm ageing... i'm starting to find the company of cats to be: clingy... my shadow included... i once thought that dogs were needy... i'm starting to think that cats are worse, esp. the maine **** breed... "lonely" or "loneliness" doesn't really resonate with me, esp. when thinking something "feels" like a variation of claustrophobia: hence i write... without a dialectic in place, ever since plato wrote his dialogues... what is philosophy, primarily? isn't it an off-shoot of "claustrophobia"? we write because we are seeking escape from congested thinking, a variation of "claustrophobia"... now imagine a schizoid character... having to focus on an imaginary dialectic, actually... having dialectics enforced on him, with no clarifying exodus to posit a gensis with! now, a clingy dog i could understand, given the overpowering status of the leash... but a clingy cat, when there's no leash involved?! shoom! right over my head... gone, somewhere into the distance!

what, this is the part...
were i cite...
   the weimar ******
critical condition...
       a daft punk troop
of a song,
  end of line....
blow-up a hot air balloon...
worth of blaire whire...
play the tambourine
like a ******* video...
there are,
quiet, simply,
no nazis coming...
fashionista faux pas
examples...
i'm alive,
but i'm dead,
i just forget to don
a strap-on...
  "oops"?
   that **** go down well
with
the "in"-crowd...
usual... metropolitan...
verbiage surge of answers....
   many a fetish after...
we arrive at the sensible
aspect,
"toxic masculinity"...
when guns n roses wasn't,
and nirvana was just plain
gay...
              and then...
whatever that happened,
happened..
                 and people were like:
come to the "new" tomorrow,
there's always a yesterday,
in a dream,
in some phil collins
wannabe
studio...
or... some other random ****
that
excluded peter gabriel.

                 i died:
and just about right:
my harvest had come.

great book reviews...
"toxic masculinity"...
so all masculinity is
about a clockwork orange?
   if it is?
can i be pro abortion
anti mongolian horde?
yes? no?
  which is it?!
neither...
   **** me... that's just bad
luck...

                               sundbeds,
sunflowers,
tulips,
sunglasses,
    plenty of staged
eager nights...
boring political affairs...
and...
         when gaming was
more about the narrative...
and never,
ever, about the microtransactions...

point being...
it's a game within a game...
time, is the prime concern...
you play a game,
by waiting...
you wait: by playing a game...

  microtransactions
are...
you ever move a sim3 avatar
to a computer,
and make it play a computer game?
what's on the macrocosmos spectrum?
you....

               "back in the day"...
you'd spend a saturday morning
engrossed in a gaming narrative...
metal gear solid,
tenchu, final fantasy solid...
20 quid...
and you played the narrative...
and a game became equivalent
to the worth of a book,
resident evil,

            you paid for a month's worth
of gaming,
you exchanged tips,
you sometimes bought a cheat book
because of the homework,
and that was your saturday morning
before hitting the shopping mall
or, whatever...

the current dynamic of
microtransactions in gaming?
i never, ever, do...
i'm an old gamer type...
i see the potential of extending
the life-expectancy
of a game...

   as long as you don't buy into
the microtransactions gambling habit?
as long as you play the "game"
within the game?
the game is an assured classic,
akin to chess...

              you have to play
the waiting "game"...
             time...
                           that's all it is...
whether war robots,
    or dawn of titans...
        comparison...
  you know that the best fruit,
is fruit, allocated
to the geography of it being sourced
seasonally...
you can't actually get better
strawberries,
than english strawberries...
from england, come june / july...
no ******* point sourcing them
from spain in late march / april....

    same thing with gaming...
the modern games haven't made any
elaboration...
apart from dislodging the player
from the concept of narrative...
**** me... that's almost an improvement...
given that now: time is the counter
measure, and the gamer...
   is having to invest,
in a narrative, outside of the confines
of the game,
once upon a time,
games had time-narrative
constraints...
     now: there's time,
and there are gamer narratives,
excluding them from time-narratives,
of a game...
         it's almost a faux pas...
more like a wet-*****...
****** pinky lodged into an ear,
an april fools' day scant...

        if you hacked passed
the microtransactions hype...
and didn't?
and instead took to patience?
it's free...
   where once,
a game would cost you 20 quid,
and a month's worth
of narrative,
back then, when games
resembled books,
when the gaming industry
was heavily influenced
by literature...
and now?
   the game's free...
sure...
it's "unfair", it's biased...
when you don't engage
in imported gambling
of succumbing to what, this is the part...
were i cite...
   the weimar ******
critical condition...
       a daft punk troop
of a song,
  end of line....
blow-up a hot air balloon...
worth of blaire whire...
play the tambourine
like a ******* video...
there are,
quiet, simply,
no nazis coming...
fashionista faux pas
examples...
i'm alive,
but i'm dead,
i just forget to don
a strap-on...
  "oops"?
   that **** go down well
with
the "in"-crowd...
usual... metropolitan...
verbiage surge of answers....
   many a fetish after...
we arrive at the sensible
aspect,
"toxic masculinity"...
when guns n roses wasn't,
and nirvana was just plain
gay...
              and then...
whatever that happened,
happened..
                 and people were like:
come to the "new" tomorrow,
there's always a yesterday,
in a dream,
in some phil collins
wannabe
studio...
or... some other random ****
that
excluded peter gabriel.

                 i died:
and just about right:
my harvest had come.

great book reviews...
"toxic masculinity"...
so all masculinity is
about a clockwork orange?
   if it is?
can i be pro abortion
anti mongolian horde?
yes? no?
  which is it?!
neither...
   **** me... that's just bad
luck...

                               sundbeds,
sunflowers,
tulips,
sunglasses,
    plenty of staged
eager nights...
boring political affairs...
and...
         when gaming was
more about the narrative...
and never,
ever, about the microtransactions...

point being...
it's a game within a game...
time, is the prime concern...
you play a game,
by waiting...
you wait: by playing a game...

  microtransactions
are...
you ever move a sim3 avatar
to a computer,
and make it play a computer game?
what's on the macrocosmos spectrum?
you....

               "back in the day"...
you'd spend a saturday morning
engrossed in a gaming narrative...
metal gear solid,
tenchu, final fantasy solid...
20 quid...
and you played the narrative...
and a game became equivalent
to the worth of a book,
resident evil,

            you paid for a month's worth
of gaming,
you exchanged tips,
you sometimes bought a cheat book
because of the homework,
and that was your saturday morning
before hitting the shopping mall
or, whatever...

the current dynamic of
microtransactions in gaming?
i never, ever, do...
i'm an old gamer type...
i see the potential of extending
the life-expectancy
of a game...

   as long as you don't buy into
the microtransactions gambling habit?
as long as you play the "game"
within the game?
the game is an assured classic,
akin to chess...

              you have to play
the waiting "game"...
             time...
                           that's all it is...
whether war robots,
    or dawn of titans...
        comparison...
  you know that the best fruit,
is fruit, allocated
to the geography of it being sourced
seasonally...
you can't actually get better
strawberries,
than english strawberries...
from england, come june / july...
no ******* point sourcing them
from spain in late march / april....

    same thing with gaming...
the modern games haven't made any
elaboration...
apart from dislodging the player
from the concept of narrative...
**** me... that's almost an improvement...
given that now: time is the counter
measure, and the gamer...
   is having to invest,
in a narrative, outside of the confines
of the game,
once upon a time,
games had time-narrative
constraints...
     now: there's time,
and there are gamer narratives,
excluding them from time-narratives,
of a game...
         it's almost a faux pas...
more like a wet-*****...
****** pinky lodged into an ear,
an april fools' day scant...

        if you hacked passed
the microtransactions...
       and didn't have the chance...
microtransactions are like
the old school cheat hacks...
but not quiet, but somehow quasi-,
       a modern microtransactions,
would be a cheat magazine
thorough-through
a game like final fantasy VII...
you have homework,
but you still want to complete the game...
modern games...
modern games...
there's an "end gole"?
  what modern game is worth
"completing"?
    
   again: tron, ready player one,
back to the future...
star wars just became dead
to me...
   sick people will plague hard-working
people, with a quasi-gambling
addiction,
needing to make microtransactions...
and they will,
my father was plagued by
an impostor, claiming to be a
tax office official:
and what if, that person had
an authentic position at the tax office?!

when gaming was for gamers,
the games were bought...
there was a narrative...
but now... now games don't have a narrative...
why would they?!
   who the hell plays games for
the narrative these days?
i know that on the crapper,
i need a game that allows me
to experience live-stream
interaction with non-bots...

       and these old gamers,
who still invest their money
in literature-esque-games?
so i was the sad one,
investing in vinyl?
   aren't the classic ******* gamers
just as bad,
investing in prepackaged
narrative gaming
experiences?
             a game with a narrative...
yeah... me buying vinyl
is: b'ah b'ah bad...
       what sort of game is alive and well...
when there isn't a crowd pushback
for the currency of microtransaction?

the narrative is time,
   the longer you endure the inadequacy...
the more you realise:
you're basically playing
the same game,
but in your scenario:
it's free...
   in some other ******'s scenario:
it cost him 70 hundred quid...

personally?
   i love this microtransaction dynamic...
concerning the people who
do not engage with it...
it's the perfect antithesis
   of what ruined the music industry
with genesis: napster...

you really are, playing the ultimate
game,
time...
         the one sort of commodity
that games,
without a clear narrative construct,
"forgot" to mention in terms
of them being exploited...
to their full capacity
of the one "commodity"
they "forgot", or rather,
couldn't "sell"...

              a tenchu PS1 game could
have lasted me a month...
now? a free game,
like war robots...
with absolutely no NPC?
hell... i'll be 90 and still be playing it;

what else? applause!
Ashtereth Jul 2021
Streetlights glow softly tonight, oh such a simple delight,
Fleeting through the blurred streets, how quick my heartbeats,
Footsteps in snow; paired with faces aglow,
Pitter-pat they go,
Down in Trafalgar Square

A Nordic pine so fine, a true one of a kind,
Upon which one could not scribe such beauty in mere rhyme,
And you'll know it's the right time
When ears hear tunes of glee, eyes see sights carefree,
For it is the season of joy and celebration,
Down in Trafalgar Square
Maggie Emmett Jul 2015
PROLOGUE
               Hyde Park weekend of politics and pop,
Geldof’s gang of divas and mad hatters;
Sergeant Pepper only one heart beating,
resurrected by a once dead Beatle.
The ******, Queen and Irish juggernauts;
The Entertainer and dead bands
re-jigged for the sake of humanity.
   The almighty single named entities
all out for Africa and people power.
Olympics in the bag, a Waterloo
of celebrations in the street that night
Leaping and whooping in sheer delight
Nelson rocking in Trafalgar Square
The promised computer wonderlands
rising from the poisoned dead heart wasteland;
derelict, deserted, still festering.
The Brave Tomorrow in a world of hate.
The flame will be lit, magic rings aloft
and harmony will be our middle name.

On the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl;
the ‘war on terror’ just a tattered trope
drained and exhausted and put out of sight
in a dark corner of a darker shelf.
A power surge the first lie of the day.
Savagely woken from our pleasant dream
al Qa’ida opens up a new franchise
and a new frontier for terror to prowl.

               Howling sirens shatter morning’s progress
Hysterical screech of ambulances
and police cars trying to grip the road.
The oppressive drone of helicopters
gathering like the Furies in the sky;
Blair’s hubris is acknowledged by the gods.
Without warning the deadly game begins.

The Leviathan state machinery,
certain of its strength and authority,
with sheer balletic co-ordination,
steadies itself for a fine performance.
The new citizen army in ‘day glow’
take up their ‘Support Official’ roles,
like air raid wardens in the last big show;
feisty  yet firm, delivering every line
deep voiced and clearly to the whole theatre.
On cue, the Police fan out through Bloomsbury
clearing every emergency exit,
arresting and handcuffing surly streets,
locking down this ancient river city.
Fetching in fluorescent green costuming,
the old Bill nimbly Tangos and Foxtrots
the airways, Oscar, Charlie and Yankee
quickly reply with grid reference Echo;
Whiskey, Sierra, Quebec, November,
beam out from New Scotland Yard,
staccato, nearly lost in static space.
      
              LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
8.51 a.m. Circle Line

Shehezad Tanweer was born in England.
A migrant’s child of hope and better life,
dreaming of his future from his birth.
Only twenty two short years on this earth.
In a madrassah, Lahore, Pakistan,
he spent twelve weeks reading and rote learning
verses chosen from the sacred text.
Chanting the syllables, hour after hour,
swaying back and forth with the word rhythm,
like an underground train rocking the rails,
as it weaves its way beneath the world,
in turning tunnels in the dead of night.

Teve Talevski had a meeting
across the river, he knew he’d be late.
**** trains they do it to you every time.
But something odd happened while he waited
A taut-limbed young woman sashayed past him
in a forget-me-not blue dress of silk.
She rustled on the platform as she turned.
She turned to him and smiled, and he smiled back.
Stale tunnel air pushed along in the rush
of the train arriving in the station.
He found a seat and watched her from afar.
Opened his paper for distraction’s sake
Olympic win exciting like the smile.

Train heading southwest under Whitechapel.
Deafening blast, rushing sound blast, bright flash
of golden light, flying glass and debris
Twisted people thrown to ground, darkness;
the dreadful silent second in blackness.
The stench of human flesh and gunpowder,
burning rubber and fiery acrid smoke.
Screaming bone bare pain, blood-drenched tearing pain.
Pitiful weeping, begging for a god
to come, someone to come, and help them out.

Teve pushes off a dead weighted man.
He stands unsteady trying to balance.
Railway staff with torches, moving spotlights
**** and jolt, catching still life scenery,
lighting the exit in gloomy dimness.
They file down the track to Aldgate Station,
Teve passes the sardine can carriage
torn apart by a fierce hungry giant.
Through the dust, four lifeless bodies take shape
and disappear again in drifting smoke.
It’s only later, when safe above ground,
Teve looks around and starts to wonder
where his blue epiphany girl has gone.

                 KINGS CROSS STATION
8.56 a.m. Piccadilly Line

Many named Lyndsey Germaine, Jamaican,
living with his wife and child in Aylesbury,
laying low, never visited the Mosque.   
                Buckinghamshire bomber known as Jamal,
clean shaven, wearing normal western clothes,
annoyed his neighbours with loud music.
Samantha-wife converted and renamed,
Sherafiyah and took to wearing black.
Devout in that jet black shalmar kameez.
Loving father cradled close his daughter
Caressed her cheek and held her tiny hand
He wondered what the future held for her.

Station of the lost and homeless people,
where you can buy anything at a price.
A place where a face can be lost forever;
where the future’s as real as faded dreams.
Below the mainline trains, deep underground
Piccadilly lines cross the River Thames
Cram-packed, shoulder to shoulder and standing,
the train heading southward for Russell Square,
barely pulls away from Kings Cross Station,
when Arash Kazerouni hears the bang,
‘Almighty bang’ before everything stopped.
Twenty six hearts stopped beating that moment.
But glass flew apart in a shattering wave,
followed by a  huge whoosh of smoky soot.
Panic raced down the line with ice fingers
touching and tagging the living with fear.
Spine chiller blanching faces white with shock.

Gracia Hormigos, a housekeeper,
thought, I am being electrocuted.
Her body was shaking, it seemed her mind
was in free fall, no safety cord to pull,
just disconnected, so she looked around,
saw the man next to her had no right leg,
a shattered shard of bone and gouts of  blood,
Where was the rest of his leg and his foot ?

Level headed ones with serious voices
spoke over the screaming and the sobbing;
Titanic lifeboat voices giving orders;
Iceberg cool voices of reassurance;
We’re stoical British bulldog voices
that organize the mayhem and chaos
into meaty chunks of jobs to be done.
Clear air required - break the windows now;
Lines could be live - so we stay where we are;
Help will be here shortly - try to stay calm.

John, Mark and Emma introduce themselves
They never usually speak underground,
averting your gaze, tube train etiquette.
Disaster has its opportunities;
Try the new mobile, take a photograph;
Ring your Mum and Dad, ****** battery’s flat;
My network’s down; my phone light’s still working
Useful to see the way, step carefully.

   Fiona asks, ‘Am I dreaming all this?’
A shrieking man answers her, “I’m dying!”
Hammered glass finally breaks, fresher air;
too late for the man in the front carriage.
London Transport staff in yellow jackets
start an orderly evacuation
The mobile phones held up to light the way.
Only nineteen minutes in a lifetime.
  
EDGEWARE ROAD STATION
9.17 a.m. Circle Line

               Mohammed Sadique Khan, the oldest one.
Perhaps the leader, at least a mentor.
Yorkshire man born, married with a daughter
Gently spoken man, endlessly patient,
worked in the Hamara, Lodge Lane, Leeds,
Council-funded, multi-faith youth Centre;
and the local Primary school, in Beeston.
No-one could believe this of  Mr Khan;
well educated, caring and very kind
Where did he hide his secret other life  ?

Wise enough to wait for the second train.
Two for the price of one, a real bargain.
Westbound second carriage is blown away,
a commuter blasted from the platform,
hurled under the wheels of the east bound train.
Moon Crater holes, the walls pitted and pocked;
a sparse dark-side landscape with black, black air.
The ripped and shredded metal bursts free
like a surprising party popper;
Steel curlicues corkscrew through wood and glass.
Mass is made atomic in the closed space.
Roasting meat and Auschwitzed cremation stench
saturates the already murky air.              
Our human kindling feeds the greedy fire;
Heads alight like medieval torches;
Fiery liquid skin drops from the faceless;
Punk afro hair is cauterised and singed.  
Heat intensity, like a wayward iron,
scorches clothes, fuses fibres together.
Seven people escape this inferno;
many die in later days, badly burned,
and everyone there will live a scarred life.

               TAVISTOCK ROAD
9.47 a.m. Number 30 Bus  

Hasib Hussain migrant son, English born
barely an adult, loved by his mother;
reported him missing later that night.
Police typed his description in the file
and matched his clothes to fragments from the scene.
A hapless victim or vicious bomber ?
Child of the ‘Ummah’ waging deadly war.
Seventy two black eyed virgins waiting
in jihadist paradise just for you.

Red double-decker bus, number thirty,
going from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch;
stuck in traffic, diversions everywhere.
Driver pulls up next to a tree lined square;
the Parking Inspector, Ade Soji,
tells the driver he’s in Tavistock Road,
British Museum nearby and the Square.
A place of peace and quiet reflection;
the sad history of war is remembered;
symbols to make us never forget death;
Cherry Tree from Hiroshima, Japan;
Holocaust Memorial for Jewish dead;
sturdy statue of  Mahatma Gandhi.
Peaceful resistance that drove the Lion out.
Freedom for India but death for him.

Sudden sonic boom, bus roof tears apart,
seats erupt with volcanic force upward,
hot larva of blood and tissue rains down.
Bloodied road becomes a charnel-house scene;
disembodied limbs among the wreckage,
headless corpses; sinews, muscles and bone.
Buildings spattered and smeared with human paint
Impressionist daubs, blood red like the bus.

Jasmine Gardiner, running late for work;
all trains were cancelled from Euston Station;  
she headed for the square, to catch the bus.
It drove straight past her standing at the stop;
before she could curse aloud - Kaboom !
Instinctively she ran, ran for her life.
Umbrella shield from the shower of gore.

On the lower deck, two Aussies squeezed in;
Catherine Klestov was standing in the aisle,
floored by the bomb, suffered cuts and bruises
She limped to Islington two days later.
Louise Barry was reading the paper,
she was ‘****-scared’ by the explosion;
she crawled out of the remnants of the bus,
broken and burned, she lay flat on the road,
the world of sound had gone, ear drums had burst;
she lay there drowsy, quiet, looking up
and amazingly the sky was still there.

Sam Ly, Vietnamese Australian,
One of the boat people once welcomed here.
A refugee, held in his mother’s arms,
she died of cancer, before he was three.
Hi Ly struggled to raise his son alone;
a tough life, inner city high rise flats.
Education the smart migrant’s revenge,
Monash Uni and an IT degree.
Lucky Sam, perfect job of a lifetime;
in London, with his one love, Mandy Ha,
Life going great until that fateful day;
on the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl.

Three other Aussies on that ****** bus;
no serious physical injuries,
Sam’s luck ran out, in choosing where to sit.
His neck was broken, could not breath alone;
his head smashed and crushed, fractured bones and burns
Wrapped in a cocoon of coma safe
This broken figure lying on white sheets
in an English Intensive Care Unit
did not seem like Hi Ly’s beloved son;
but he sat by Sam’s bed in disbelief,
seven days and seven nights of struggle,
until the final hour, when it was done.

In the pit of our stomach we all knew,
but we kept on deep breathing and hoping
this nauseous reality would pass.
The weary inevitability
of horrific disasters such as these.
Strangely familiar like an old newsreel
Black and white, it happened long ago.
But its happening now right before our eyes
satellite pictures beam and bounce the globe.
Twelve thousand miles we watch the story
Plot unfolds rapidly, chapters emerge
We know the places names of this narrative.
  
It is all subterranean, hidden
from the curious, voyeuristic gaze,
Until the icon bus, we are hopeful
This public spectacle is above ground
We can see the force that mangled the bus,
fury that tore people apart limb by limb
Now we can imagine a bomb below,
far below, people trapped, fiery hell;
fighting to breathe each breath in tunnelled tombs.

Herded from the blast they are strangely calm,
obedient, shuffling this way and that.
Blood-streaked, sooty and dishevelled they come.
Out from the choking darkness far below
Dazzled by the brightness of the morning
of a day they feared might be their last.
They have breathed deeply of Kurtz’s horror.
Sights and sounds unimaginable before
will haunt their waking hours for many years;
a lifetime of nightmares in the making.
They trudge like weary soldiers from the Somme
already see the world with older eyes.

On the surface, they find a world where life
simply goes on as before, unmindful.
Cyclist couriers still defy road laws,
sprint racing again in Le Tour de France;
beer-gutted, real men are loading lorries;
lunch time sandwiches are made as usual,
sold and eaten at desks and in the street.
Roadside cafes sell lots of hot sweet tea.
The Umbrella stand soon does brisk business.
Sign writers' hands, still steady, paint the sign.
The summer blooms are watered in the park.
A ***** stretches on the bench and wakes up,
he folds and stows his newspaper blankets;
mouth dry,  he sips water at the fountain.
A lady scoops up her black poodle’s ****.
A young couple argues over nothing.
Betting shops are full of people losing
money and dreaming of a trifecta.
Martin’s still smoking despite the patches.
There’s a rush on Brandy in nearby pubs
Retired gardener dead heads his flowers
and picks a lettuce for the evening meal

Fifty six minutes from start to finish.
Perfectly orchestrated performance.
Rush hour co-ordination excellent.
Maximum devastation was ensured.
Cruel, merciless killing so coldly done.
Fine detail in the maiming and damage.

A REVIEW

Well activated practical response.
Rehearsals really paid off on the day.
Brilliant touch with bus transport for victims;
Space blankets well deployed for shock effect;
Dramatic improv by Paramedics;
Nurses, medicos and casualty staff
showed great technical E.R. Skills - Bravo !
Plenty of pizzazz and dash as always
from the nifty, London Ambo drivers;
Old fashioned know-how from the Fire fighters
in hosing down the fireworks underground.
Dangerous rescues were undertaken,
accomplished with buckets of common sense.
And what can one say about those Bobbies,
jolly good show, the lips unquivering
and universally stiff, no mean feat
in this Premiere season tear-jerker.
Nail-bitingly brittle, but a smash-hit
Poignant misery and stoic suffering,
fortitude, forbearance and lots of grit
Altogether was quite tickety boo.



NOTES ON THE POEM

Liverpool Street Station

A Circle Line train from Moorgate with six carriages and a capacity of 1272 passengers [ 192 seated; 1080 standing]. 7 dead on the first day.

Southbound, destination Aldgate. Explosion occurs midway between Liverpool Street and Aldgate.

Shehezad Tanweer was reported to have ‘never been political’ by a friend who played cricket with him 10 days before the bombing

Teve Talevski is a real person and I have elaborated a little on reports in the press. He runs a coffee shop in North London.

At the time of writing the fate of the blue dress lady is not known

Kings Cross Station

A Piccadilly Line train with six carriages and a capacity of 1238 passengers [272 seated; 966 standing]. 21 dead on first day.

Southbound, destination Russell Square. Explosion occurs mi
This poem is part of a longer poem called Seasons of Terror. This poem was performed at the University of Adelaide, Bonython Hall as a community event. The poem was read by local poets, broadcasters, personalities and politicians from the South Australia Parliament and a Federal MP & Senator. The State Premier was represented by the Hon. Michael Atkinson, who spoke about the role of the Emergency services in our society. The Chiefs of Police, Fire and Ambulence; all religious and community organisations' senior reprasentatives; the First Secretary of the British High Commission and the general public were present. It was recorded by Radio Adelaide and broadcast live as well as coverage from Channel 7 TV News. The Queen,Tony Blair, Australian Governor General and many other public dignitaries sent messages of support for the work being read. A string quartet and a solo flautist also played at this event.
CK Baker Jan 2017
So I'll have mine
and you'll have yours?
who could ask
for anything more!
grey beards march
the union jack
build a wall
and send them back!  

Grudge, sludge
a sanguine view
****** off
and take the cue
hide, plunge
aristocrat
run the field
like an old tom cat

Narrow pass
and capital flow
falling crude
and currency woe
deep depression,
mutineers
the mastermind
of project fear!

Silver spoon
at Hampton court
madness waits
in Davenport
divisible
and off the grid
**** it up
100 quid

Helen’s horsemen
unified
the springbok club
will never hide
plebiscite
in deep despair
an open scroll
Trafalgar square  

Grapple, grovel
sentry shame
along the shore
of river Thames
king of wankers
lord of beat
break the rule
of old elite!

Stone the posse
bullets bare
load the chambers
fists in air
voices, faces
haunted souls…
should i stay
or should i go?
Terry Collett Jun 2013
Benedict met Julie
(the druggie
and whatever
else she was)
circa 1967
at the foot
of Nelson's Column
in Trafalgar Square.

She was dressed
in a mini skirt,
tight top, her hair up.

He dressed in his red shirt,
pink slacks, black shoes,
smiled as he approached.

Never guess how many times
I've been chatted up
as a *****, she said,
since I've been
standing here.

Guess you
put them right,
he said.

Do I look
like a *****?
she asked.

No, of course not,
he said, taking in
her mini skirt,
the tight top,
the pressing out ****.

She sighed.
Anyway you're here,
where now? She asked.

The gallery? He said,
indicating the National
Portrait Gallery behind.

I need a drink, she said.
Are you allowed
with the medication
you're on?
Since when
did you become
my father? She said.

He looked at the people
round about, the pigeon feeders,
the meeting of lovers,
visitors from some
foreign shores,
middle class,  
up your *** bores.

Ok, he said, let's go
have that drink,
then take in a gallery
or cinema.

I feel a need
to make a hit,
she said.

They only let you
out of the hospital
because they think
you can be trusted,
he said.

Then they shouldn't
trust me should they,
she said.

But they do.
It's up to you,
but I'm not
sticking around
if you go back
down that alley,
he said. I said
I felt a need,
didn't say
I was going to,
she muttered.

She moved away
from the Column;
he followed, through
the Square, pass
the people and pigeons,
the kids and parents.

He gazed at her ***
as she moved ahead,
the sway of it,
the thighs, sans
stockings, her feet  
with sandals,
treading the ground.

She stopped at the edge
of the road; he stood
beside her, took her hand,
felt her warmth.

They found a bar
in Leicester Square.
Ordered drinks, sat down,
lit cigarettes, smoked.

Guess who I met
the other week?
He asked.

Who? she asked.
Charles Lloyd,
he said.

Who's he? she asked.
Jazz sax-player.
Met him outside
Dobell’s' record shop
in Charing Cross Road.

Is he famous? She asked.
Sure he is. I got him
to autograph my copy
of his latest LP,
Benedict said.

What did he say?
She asked.
Sure man he said
and scribbled on
the back cover.

She looked out
of the window;
took a long drag
of her cigarette.

He watched her profile,
the lips holding
the cigarette,
the puffing out
of smoke.
Thinking of her
in the hospital ward,
the white dressing gown,
the skippered feet,
that time they made love
in that small room
off the ward.

Another drink?
She said.
Sure, he said,
and ordered two more.

Some place inside her head
a wild wave of need
swept up the empty shore.
Terry Collett Nov 2012
Julie sat on one
of the fountain walls
in Trafalgar Square
and lit a cigarette

she looked about her
as if she were onto
something harder
as if she had some one

looking at her
from some secret place
you gazed at her
unused to seeing her

not in her hospital
dressing gown
and slippered feet
her hair had been brushed neat

and makeup applied
and she said
I was picked up here
some months back

by some guy
who wanted ***
he thought
I was a pro

and the things
he asked for
god that was the worse
and with that

she paused
and stared at the Square
at the people
and the pigeons

and she inhaled deep
and then exhaled
blowing the smoke
out of the corner

of her mouth
like you’d seen done
in the movies
what did you say

to the guy
who picked you up
and what did he want
you to do?

she looked at you
her eyes scanning
your features
and then leaning closer

she said
I told him I wasn’t
a ***** and to go off
some place else

you watched her fingers
holding the cigarette
the way she held it
between her fingers

as if it was some
precious item she’d found
what did he want you to do?
you asked

he wanted ***
in all my orifices
she whispered
before inhaling again

the cigarette was clamped
between her lips
and she rubbed
her fingers

on her jeans
she ******* up her eyes
against the smoke
my grandfather said

if it wasn’t for ******
more women
would be *****
and attacked

you said
that guy was a creep
he smelt of strong aftershave
and body odour

she said
what a combination
you said
she stumped

the cigarette ****
onto the wall
and flicked it
across the Square

let’s go and view the art
in the Gallery behind us
she said
and you followed her

to the Portrait Gallery
her buttocks swaying
like some ship at sea
the jeans tight

and clinging
and across the Square
church bells were pulled
and were ringing.
A BOY AND GIRL IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE IN 1967
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2020
belgravia on itv... and the world is filled with...
odes to charlemagne -
or rather: the emperor has risen...
in the form of a bonaparte...

       i lost my virginity to a french girl
from Grenoble - a one ms. psychologist
Isa-bel-l'ah...

              and i had three pictures hanging
in my student accomodation overlooking
the salisbury crags...
           one i put my amp on the windowsill
and did a rendition of...
                            something from the movie
crow / last days...

there was plato... there was the marquis de sade...
and then there was napoleon...

i was immediately reminded...
but napoleon did x y and z...
       i could swear the zeitgeist for us begins
with the end of the 2nd world war?
well: i lost my virginity... didn't i?
          
             and come to think of...
there is the trafalgar sq. in London...
      and there's the monument when it came
to Austerlitz victory...

           napoleon and that old bias...
for all those that encompassed in the duchy of warsaw...
or from under the partition
shared between the prussian the russian
and the austro-hungarian empire...

a short-lived affair... but...
        she minded napoleon but not marquis de sade...
come forward 200 years...
what are the monuments of the 2nd world war?
what are the... ******* monuments of the 1st world
war?
the cemeteries at Ypres for western europe...
the death camp memorials
   and the little ghetto lockets of memory and:
gypsy good fortune in the east?

a picture of the mushroom eating
and clinging onto the flesh of men and animals
in a symbiosis and mind-control dynamics
of the fungus keeping the host alive...
unlike a virus?

   where are the monuments for all that was
achieved in the two wars?
where's the trafalgar sq. where's the arc de triomphe?
between 1803–1815
   or between 1939–1945... well...
              12 years is not 6...
                  i guess you can't achieve much of any
sort of "meaningful" war if...
there's not a decade included in the mix...

oh i'm sure it's going to be hard to imagine
the führer as the kaiser...
     because: dressed in khaki like a whittle
hanzel schoolboy when all the big boys
started to wear schwarzgekleidet of zee SS...

from a perspective of history...
                             i am unsure as to why...
this ms. psychology major would grieve
the affairs of napoleon...
                             perhaps if he was a bit taller...
she might have a fancy for him...
then again... as kaiser... as emperor...
come to think of it...
the notation: Frank would included
the swiss... the belgians the dutch...
luxembourg...
       but not those rascals...
in the rhineland-palatinate...
            or north-rhine-westphalia...

schubert symphony no. 4 in c-minor, D. 417...
i always thought that schubert...
was the pianist competing with violins
to tackle shumann... never mind...

     then again: illuminating life of those
that still have a toe in the remaining posit
of life... yet 3/4 of what life is willing to offer
has both feet in the coffin and a last nail
to beg for the closure and funeral procession
of that chapter of human details
to be: ascribed to the realms of solely learning...
about it... there's no great-grandma with
her wheelbarrow of memories to grant
you "perspectives"...

he was a führer... but not the kaiser...
come to think of it...
the rise and fall... from the confines of being
rejected from an art-college...

today one of my cats (i only have two)
accidently burned the hairs of her tail
when she signatured it (the tail) across
a burning candle... and... you wouldn't believe it...
the smell of burnt cat furr...
i can imagine escaping my episodes of
solipsism when venturing into sniffing
someone else's farts to be more appealing...
than the smell of... the burning of cat furr...

i did remark... i don't think it was all that
pleasant working as butchers in those concentration
camps... if the burning of cat furr smells so bad...
if the burning of skin, nails...
bones... i'm starting to think it was a hell-hole
for both the camp "workers" and....
those about to be forced on the altar
of the belly of Moloch...

                          and when the hebrew god
conquered the gods of the philistines
and the caanites...
      did he "fall asleep"...
    thinking they wouldn't somehow use
people that wouldn't otherwise pay direct
homage to them... for their devilish enterprises?

where are the monumets from world
war I or world II that aren't cemeteries
or memorials or the death camps themselves?
there's not point merely seeing...
imagine going to Handel's messiah
at the royal albert hall...
           and only seeing an orchestra play...
most associated with seeing are:
the quality of either inanimate objects
or moving objects...
but there isn't a mention of the sounds locked
in brimfuls in these things...
but most importantly... i can't smell that
death circus...
well... no matter... i don't need to visit those
death camps and pay some spezial ode to
memory: it will just take a cat accidently burn
its tail furr brushing it over a candle...
that's enough... thank you...

           i don't need to see those camps...
not out of denial outright...
but... without the scent of burning hair
and flesh... the infamous cracow's winter
snow of cremations...

but the smell is missing...
i don't need to visit these places
for a picture of unused hammers and nails...
in their pristine gothica of still slippery when
kept in a mummified state of being
oiled for use... i don't like to rumminate in
echoes of: what this oven was used for...
the scent has subsided like a tide
and all that's exposed is never the living
proof... i have archeological proof...
that it is so sudden... doesn't matter...
i don't have the "perfume" to riddle me
with an immediacy of a recoil!
for that? i just need a cat to accidently burn
a few hairs of its tail over a candle...

it's one of those needle injections straight
into the nostrils...
seeing the oven will do very little to give
an expanse of my: sisyphean weight to tow
along...

faster than the speed of light:
or the digestion imprint of a photograph...
faster than the speed of sound...

    ssssssssssssssssssssscent...
          i don't need to see what other people decided
to want and see...
the burning of flesh and most notably unwashed
hair and furr...
       that's plenty...
i don't want to discourage myself from
cooking anything else in the future...

sometimes my room becomes a hotel for
either moths or flies...
i currently have an early waker...
she must be nearing being a year old...
you can tell... her flight is more methodological...
it isn't that usual flurry and all
that excited presence of itself: unique
in a bounty of life...
i will not bother this fly...
        if she was a mosquito... perhaps i would...

i am longing to see the spawn "maggots"
of moths eat and curl up in cotton...

where are the monuments to call it:
the end of world war I and world war II...
it's as if... it has to be shamed...
this whole genesis story from half-way
between the past century...
and into this... swamp-en-masse...

          last time i checked... that "something"
between the serbians and the croats
and the muslims of yugoslavia...
                    the 13th waffen mountain division...
or head east... the ukranian infamous
insurgent army...
        only recently i heard some major
****-wits decided to drill holes into the tires
of ambulances... near bristol...

as a perfectly just cold blooded heart...
is the crucifixion the epitome of a demigod's death?
what about... being spiked?
being forced onto a pike via
the architecture of where the intestines
meet the coccyx... the *******...
the ****... and the pelvis?
with hands tied?
what about hanging off a meat-hook...
with the meat-hook making the incission under the jaw?
hands and legs tied?

the crucifixion is just an out-dated symbol
of sacrifice... no wonder all that came after
had to become so... more... adventurous...
wouldn't we be foolish when it came to slacking
on the chapter of torture?

but at least one aspect of life can be still felt
to be pure, "aryan"... un-disturbed...
pain... is so un-interrupted by competing
subjectivities... that... well...
it's almost akin to cross paths with god...
pain is pure in that it is true...
forever: there's that other great democratic force
at work than mere death...
by the time we're through death is but
a bureucratic notation of a statistic:
a near miss of anonymity...

                there's that great leveller of pain...
from a simple toothache...
it's as if an ****** that comes on the wings of
being... a sedative of consciousness...
pain as that...
   pain is an inoculate agent against reality...
against consciousness...
all for that ****** of dreams...
lucky for me... i don't dream so well...
i forrest gump the whole affair...

some would think pain as a defining moment
an event horizon for their numb-skulled
crossword puzzle zeniths of "life"...
     i see pain more in favour of...
      i want to be cured from having to curate
so many mediocrities of this life:
as served and as service for others...
so dilligent at being busy-bodies in the shelter
of hierarchies and the shadows of:
the impossible perfection of mountain
replicas of Giza...

pain is illumination...
    beginning with a toothache...
once this temp. filling is ready to be scrubbed out...
and a root canal is to be fitted...
i think i'll begin with an oyster-esque "typo"
readying myself for an ******
when asked 'would you like an anaesthetic'
and the reply will be... 'no'...
                 clearly i don't have as many
avenues as are readily available
when it comes to a holy trinity of mouth,
******... *******...

      self-serving pleasures of the extensions
of pinching... by either crap pincers
or the cold of virus simulation of crowns
when having an ice-cube placed into my palm...

in that i am wholly sympathetic to pain...
well... what good did reading walter benjamin's
illumination(s) essay do to me...
beside what i already know about...
the difference between collecting books...
and collecting books and reading them...

              my personal library would shrink somewhat...
given that i own pretty much an assortment
of what has already been read:
i'm not my grandmother:
unlike watching a film... i can't re-read a book...
give me 2 years reading one...
but i will not re-read it!

this extension of a mollusk's zenith via
a ******... of all that's the sensation that rhymes
heart with brain...

         tow the bones...
       tow the bones...
                   come to the horizon where
the soft tissue blitzkriegs past the bone to the marrow...

arable lure of the prosthetic ghost, limb...
and limp...
       soft zenith pleasure...
while at the same time...
entertaining "things" that only secular
sensibility measures can instill...
do not cross paths with mythology:
goodness! you might forget being
snarky and insensible come tomorrow's year
monday when journalism catches
up from... "somehow" being detached
from her de facto and carpe diem
mantras of modus operandi!

i might call it: the moth's seal of the lips...
enough to lick a postage stamp...
hardly enough to actually kiss...

sold: christianity: metaphorical cannibalism...
i would rather taste the real thing...
if ever such an opportunity should
give sway...

       a führer is not a kaiser... back in the day...
there was respect in post-napoleonic war London...
in belgravia...
how did the h'american white house originate...
the Belveder of Warsaw...
vermin, peoples of the world: nibble...

                   i'm here to claim my future:
my anonymity... i'm here to scatter with the dues
of the frail... waiting for no clarity of
locked: stature worded in baron...
no stature worded in kaiser... führer...
      i am on the sole minding of... the gnostics...
the heretics...

i want to burn blue when all other dogmatic
breaths burn yellow...
           that i drink is of no solace...
bribe the reader! inner vacuum otherwise
a handshake with my shadow... by candlelight...
which is a bribe for an audience of death:
that personification on a theme of romance...
thanatos... chilling the spine...
and the serpentine...

                    i want to see the gallows...
and allure of seeing ***** and rot come oozing
from their baptised fleshy bits...
i want to be curator of the last abolished screech
of existence... i wand to hush them...
by sharpening a knife...
i want to find the idle fork...
i want to find the crown of ferns...
and kick and stab... the house of already dead
roman emperors... sitting... nay...
loitering... the anger of pride on their
laurels...

             napoleon... even with a name like that...
you can stomach the usual: steak becoming
a lump of minced beef...
but when it's ****** or stalin...
czopek or elert...
                    you'd wish for a horsehoof
to be dubbed: smith...
                     -smithy...
or some other... lucky you: frauman...
                      fregel...            made it up as
we went along...

yep... yep... i get it... drinks a whiskey...
****** out a lemonade...
and for whatever "genius": genius...
that third tier of being... not spawned by the gods...
but by man... in between angels and demons...
the geniuses...
that autistic master-class of...
****'s itching kinda eerie!

   i'm drunk: most of the people are sober...
i'm not going to have to
give an apologetics lecture on the sober
sods... am i?
romance period... a bit like being
a modern brit and all that wham!
sputnik dazzle of the: grit brighton!

jokes aside... the winged hussar...
                   also mongol...
******* that clad themselves in dog ****
to imitate... what would later become...
the 365 harem of an alexander...
          
   would it be any good reading
the greeks?
     can you really want to "catch-up" on so
much... when in fact you should be
reading the people who have re(a)d...
the ancient greeks?

here's me taking heidegger's advice...
spend 12 years reading aristotle...
          martin... oi oi... that leaves
me doing more work than the already
work required in pretending to be catholic...
and doing a spin-off sunday...
how about me just reads up on yous...
how's that?
2 years worth of you... is about...
       whatever it took you to "master"
aristoteles: ah-chew: chow-mein sucker...

     life is or at least has become or will
become... too impertinent...
  then again... lassitudes of being kept
in the confines of one's own allowances...
i can't expect... in the same way...
i can't become expectent...
it's a two-way-swoe-order in the guise
of a phoenix... (missing phenotypes)...

             the best held advent of:
if you weren't a part of pappa's genocide of
a clarifying sputnik's *****-out
into frog's dream-alike all mammalian
when you're already on your way out
with the moloch altar sacrifice of
no foetus would be born...

call it a... champagne bottle uncorking
ritual when it comes to...
and all that other drifting ritual
of "entropy" whenever a sobering / ***
note would awake a hannibal lecturer
for and what more...
that was necessary...

           stipends of: gotcha...
eagles - witchy woman...
ol' cliff does a little number:
like no intro for a jazz megahit
quintet when the bass comes along...
devil woman...
or the totally camp...
  dale winton...
because turning totally gay only
arrived in full bloom and daffodils
in the trenches...
when true gay arrived...
well... any other hole to fill...

              this hole's better than
any ****** eye's...
who's that backdoor man of
assorted gifts, to begin with?

          rhyme rhymes rhyme rhymes...
easily to make a happy than no
alcoholic into a: no thank you...
  
                                   discretely...
suburban... those desperado... casa-esposa...
the pride of the son: a mother...
that's usually enforced...

las orgullo de hijo: una madre...
           bad spanish... bad german...
mongrel of the either and some anglican
and some ****** catholic...

                                        if there was still something
of a worthwhile partition of time...
****** was never going to become
the next napoleon...
even though... invading russia was
a plagiarism... and the retrdo-event of all
that waste of time... 200 years
and the waste of time with the air onslought
for the battle of britain...
the u-boats...

     no mention of waiting a while...
     in that "what if" universe of revising...
one two three four... with:
einz zwei drei vier...

or... the eager panzermensch...
and that tunnel under the sea...
         it can be noted that a 100 year war
did exist... between the english and the french...

if the napoleonic wars have the monuments...
for what sort of reasons were
the 20th century "ende von alles kriege ende"...
******* proxies of the yugoslav conflict...
vietnam...
        
the monuments of the greatest wars of man...
monumets? cemeteries... or the death camps...
was this the turning point where...
death by war was to be... lessened by
omittance: "keep calm and carry on" *******?
the celebrated en masse of one single
male *******?

how isn't citing german...
an exfoliation from speaking mere peasant
english?
der zunge ist berufung die gegenwart:
ein vater: ein vaterzunge!

scheisse und höllegrube mit es!
                der "vaterland": fathers of daughters
of would be mothers... mothers of sons
of would be fathers... motherland... fatherland...
mothertongue... a ******* great big itch
of grammatical concerns! blah!

where are these monuments akin to trafalgar sq.?!
what's to be so... gloated... about defeating the nazis?
where is the gloat in mere words...
but sorely missed when it comes to sacrificing
bone and marrow and muscle
to focus on making escapades of marble?!
where... are... these... monuments?!

      my own shadow overshadows the testimonies
of... two... very... minor... wars...
perhaps world war I had covered one or two
hurt prides... hurt egos...
but... after all... a khaki attired boyscout...
when all the bad boys
were later... morphed by hugo boss
into schwarzgekleidet steinherzimmobilien...

ein führer ist nein (ein) kaiser...
not like the title napoleon acquired...
napoleon was cited as: emperor...
        a reicarnation of charlemagne...
   too bad for whoever barbarossa was...
  rutger hauer?! yes... but rutger was, dutch...
for ****'s sake!

napoleon was crowned emperor
in a church...
****** walked into an opera house...
heard some wagner...
some wagner not in that anemic proposal
of the walhall from das rheingold
via michele campanella...

              all that becomes the litany...
prior to the peeling to the basic grammar...
and then an attack on pronouns...
as if all languages had...
gender-neutral nouns of the anglican-sphere
of "talk"...

strip me down the the Diogenes' basics of
sodden cloth and dogs' **** to attire...
perhaps i'll show you Cleopatra smile...
or Mona Lisa frown...
             whatever might be the eventuality...
this is not it; nor could it ever be... "it";
the "it" of what you seek.
Terry Collett May 2015
Ingrid finds the crowds of people overwhelming the West End of London is busier than she thought it would be theyve just got off the bus at Trafalgar Square quite near from here the National Portrait Gallery he says as they walks through Trafalgar Square past by Nelsons Column its a 170 feet high he says looking up Ingrid looks up too I bet he can see for miles up there she says its been there since 1843 he says walking on howd you know? she asks Mr Finn told us in history the other month Benny says I never heard him say that Ingrid says following behind Benny you were probably asleep Benny says smiling no I wasnt she replies just dont like history I find it bores me they climb the steps into the National Portrait Gallery and spend an hour or so looking around at the various portraits afterwards they come out and Benny says what about a glass of milk and cake in Leicester Square? is it far? she asks no just around the corner he says so they walk around and into Leicester Square my old man brings me here sometimes Benny says usually Sundays and we have a look around then we have a drink some place and have a go on the machines in the pinball alleys  my dad doesnt take me anywhere Ingrid says taking in the bright neon lights and the crowds of people passing them by I came with Mum once when she did evening cleaning at one of the offices up here Ingrid says remembering my mum works up here too cleaning some evenings Benny says they go into a milk bar and sit down at a table a waitress comes over to them and asks them what they wanted to drink or eat Benny tells her and she walks away he looks at Ingrid sitting in the chair he noticed she winced when she sat down whats up? your old man been hitting you again? he asks her why how did you know? she says looking at him blushing slightly saw how you sat and winced he replies he was in a bad mood and said I was too noisy and now that my brother and sister have left home he finds it easier to pick on me and Mum too Ingrid says you should tell someone Benny says Ingrid shakes her head Mum says Ill be taken away and wont see her anymore and I dont want to go in a home away from her so I say nothing and you mustnt either she  says eyeing Benny anxiously whod believe me he says looking at her wishing he could save her from the beatings she gets but he knows no one would believe him the waitress beings their milks and two biscuits and goes off after putting them on the table I saw your mum had a back eye the other week and my mum said she told her she walked into a door some ****** door that must be Benny says she must walk into that door on a regular basis Ingrid begins to sip the milk through a straw the waitress had provided she says nothing but looks at the glass and the sound of other people talking and laughing Benny sips his milk also thinking of the last time hed seen Ingrids old man passed him on the stairs and her old man eyed him coldly but said nothing after he had gone downstairs Benny gave him the ******* gesture Ingrid is glad to be out of the flat and the Square but shes anxious about his return that night after work and what he will ask her and she finds it hard to lie to him and if she says shes been to art gallery and the West End hell whack her for going and for going with Benny and Mumll say nothing then hell thump her for letting me go off and Ill feel guilty for getting Mum into trouble you let a nine year old girl out into the West End with that Benny kid? thump thump Ingrid can see it all now as she sips her milk Benny sips his milk eyeing Ingrid opposite looking anxious her mind on something else her eyes through her glasses enlarged what are you thinking about? he asks she looks at him nothing she replies its impossible for the human brain not to  think about something unless its died of course and I assume your brain hasnt died he says smiling Daddy says Im brain-dead sometimes she says but I wasnt thinking of anything in particular she lies looking at Bennys hair and the quiff and his hazel eyes and that way he has of studying her you dont lie too good he says lying about what? she says trying not to look too guilty Im not lying what were you really thinking about then? he asks she looks away from him and sips more of the milk I bet youre worrying about your old man finding out about us going up West and you know you cant lie to save your life Benny says I wish I could lie but I just blush or my eyes give me away Daddy always looks at my eyes he says they give me away before my mouth does then Im for it and he knows it and Mum gets it also then whether she knows about me or not its a matter of creative truth telling Benny says she looks at him and she frowns whats that? she says well keep in mind something who have said or done and put it in place of something you have done or said which you know you shouldnt have done he says but we have been here she says how can I put anything in its place? we will Benny says where? she asks well go to the church on the way home and you can go in there on your own and pray or something look at the coloured glass windows and flowers and then tell your old man that if he asks where youve been and done they finish their drinks and biscuits and go back to Trafalgar Square and get a bus back to the Elephant and Castle and Benny and Ingrid go to the church at the top of Meadow Row right now you go in on your own and sit and pray and have good look at the things inside like the coloured glass windows and the altar and then if your old man asks you can tell him the truth Benny says Ingrid goes in the church and Benny waits outside and as he does so he spots Ingrids old man go by on the other side of Meadow Row but he doesnt see Benny he just walks down the Row his features grim and Benny thinks of tiny demons following him.
A BOY AND GIRL IN LONDON IN 1958.
Hal Loyd Denton May 2013
They tell and show us about space debris this matter that freely floats in the vastness of space
There is a comparison to the inward being many emotional breezes come unannounced they
Live in these treasured sightings the wind undulating across the prairie grass it first is caught by
The eye then it is drawn down deep into the soul how much bigger and newer life it gets when
The great magnate of all life receives it invests in it truth value the outward being can never
Know take the common fire from a campfire the mystery rises from the crackle and the leaping
Flames no longer is it just chatter but it is soul talk produced in depths of wonder that emerge
At the surface level bestowing gold from common folds of life or the majestic views of
Mountain grandeur Vaulted sky
Shaded canyon breathtaking heights does the angry wind speak if so in a whisper the granite peaks austere and bleak seem to frown on the trees and lowly grass lands with their fertility and ease of growth. While he the monarch bristling with his cold barren armor of granite invites the stares the awe inspired gratitude of nature and mortal man he knows there dreams and thoughts how many have stood at the edge of wonder on his brow with fainted hearts. Their thoughts drift out and away ever upward reaching the clouds filled and clothed with mountain air brightly they are displayed in these untamable rays. Voices of the ancient ones still echo their wisdom still resounds in the summer thunder they visited and released many a tortured soul. Before Blind they stood before the closed door of their minds knowing there is a path but where can it be found. Riches unbound await the searcher who will go to any and all lengths to conquer unbelief freedom his guiding star he walks in great shadows. Mountainous men Jefferson Lincoln his stalwart companions stand with grandest stature takes from the mountain those teachings not found in musty universities. Thoughts born on creations morn formed and laid on this rocky foundation now for centuries they have bore the weight this colossus purified they are words more noble than gold. Share them invest them in the borderless world of human kind that circle the globe. Moses was familiar and consorted with mountains the angel made one his sepulcher. Waste not the golden hours they are the thread that sows life’s most exquisite moments together making a life. Turn aside seek the heights they will give you respect and honor words will flow that are uncommon they will fit any and all circumstances filling the empty void where hearts bleed without ceasing. Your voice will be like the cool mountain breeze soothing filled with substance and comfort
Is it molecular it is and so much more they tell us of the drive by shootings a wonderful place to
Draw this contrast is Los Angeles called the city of angels but the most beautiful is
Its Spanish interoperation Low hovering angels this loses if we say it but let a Mexican say it his
Inflection most perfect if he is saying it from love. Is there a seriousness here our blessing is not be in That crucible even New York is called the big apple but those in the know call it the volcano with all its Eruptions and pressures so does L A fall into this category in fact if you live on Pico Ave it’s a category Five tornado this is one of the most fought out streets in the turf war for space to sell the Bain to all Society drugs see the flame it consumes the guilty and the innocent view this common occurrence way To common how many small neighborhood chapels were filling with caskets instead of wedding Ceremonies look and listen a Mac Ten pistol grease gun thirty round capacity it has just started its Deadly chatter laying down a withering fire this isn’t battle ground conditions this is a neighborhood Strafing a car the widow’s blow out the shooter keeps the fire steady it starts plinking metal as it moves
To the front of the car off the car into a white small picked fence wood matching the spray of bullets as It Flies in all directions Chicago revisited instead of the Tommy gun chopper of probation you got a Crazed dope fiend punk without emotions the sight of fourteen year old Maria standing on the sidewalk Never registered or didn’t matter three red dots appeared on her bright blouse across her back the Center spot stopped her heart forever now these precious Spanish eyes closed never to  see her rightful Future instead of one day walking the Church isle in a wedding gown now she would lie in repose in White with the flowers not in a bouquet but neatly fixed in  her hair So robbed of youth and life her Budding life so filled with promise where angels hover yes this is the blackness the soul knows perpetrated by the evil one but
There exists a counter part to this evil the good gifts divinely wrought the walk by how many
Hearts have fallen to love by just the chance encounter of her loveliness just walking by you the
Hair flowing and glowing the face created in the throes of love and romantic overload
Spellbound was the creator what chance do you have a mere mortal we are not in casual
Observation the soul is processing this at deepest of levels magic is taken from theatrical
Surroundings to the open places of the heart and being of living two other places for instance
The sea shore a new vastness that overwhelms with delightful pleasure and promise

SeaThoughts

Oh stand thy great waters contained in thee is mirth and terror some you have beguiled and then
Have taken them to your depths of destruction but by your benevolence the sea breeze blows
Inland from this moisture rain is called from its dwelling place the earth is refreshed the tides
Have cosmic ties by gravity the lone solitary moon is entreated and responds one speaks if only
There was a love potion that I could give my beloved so she would respond to me favorably it
Can never be created it already exists go out into the mysterious night stand under a great tree its
Dark silhouette will be more bewitching than the days shade speak your heart as you do take her
Hand and stroll out into the moon beams that drew magic from the great waters as it passed over
Does not wonder advance in this light softer exquisite the hardness of life bows and retreats to
Wait the daylight hours where harshness has its intrepid way so it leaves you with the volumes’
Darkness of night every person desires excursions into intrigue shadows will touch your faces
As tender as the willow then the soft glare of the moons love the mind and heart as its signature
Equation that old crazy moon has moves that are centuries old that birth love every time romance
And her broadest throne follow and are attended by moon light to develop a relationship
Correctly don’t go to the artificial neon lights that are futile and tinged with wickedness but
Sea side strolls are the ultimate inducement a pure stimulus that thwarts the too often knotted
World that keeps everyone at odds with one another everyone knows a great deal of love and
Romance when they are younger to revisit those cherished memorable times that started your
Life of promise with your beloved is invaluable mature love needs to feel the saturation of sea
Breezes the moons ghostly sights will fill in deep shadows where hurts have collected they need
To be free so they can go back to the darkness that gave them life your lives shouldn’t be defined
by them But the deep calleth to the deep set sail for Trafalgar not to war with enemy ships but to
sign With tender’s hand a peace accord to stitch the soft fabric of love that life’s mean elements
can rend in this you will find the sea’s glory and the moons positive glow has become a true part
of your life it is time the spring of renewal is in the offing and it sways to love’s song this speaks
Of man and women’s love this speaks of God’s love they saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep

Where God passes
The edge of forever where raw power is displayed
Walk the seascapes enter the story told in timelessness except for outer space it is the only place where man finds his mind freed so steep is the unending awe that without question he finally is able to present his self as the tiny speck lost is all ego all self importance he is open to the quest for ultimate truth. You perfect you’re thinking at the sea shore it is a storehouse that lends itself to grand thoughts no limitations hamper your endeavors aliveness engulfs you totally. Subdued moods excavate every shallow you start a down ward decent the deep cries out to your soul the part that never can be accessed on shore. The ground a foundation for raising up temporal structures your needs are served in waters that open as a mysterious gate the deeper the fathoms the more understanding is released. To abide in calm surface features of the sea what a waste take off the restraints become a voyager drift with churning twisting pressures they will give great reward for accosting your accustomed staid and uneventful living. Go deeper the mundane the so called important will be forced through your very pores as you continue calling the unknown manifest itself with great scrolls hidden beyond reach to those that plod along the sunny quiet banks. Life test all men you can face them unafraid armed with years not minutes of preparedness found alone in the struggle only found at sea. Pondered Plumbed in inexorable conditions that stretches changes a person’s character his stature tempered fired as steel in the caldron. We need leaders vibrant thinkers people who can and will accost hell in the very near future and come away victorious. They will have found their way through the untold deadly entanglements figuratively and real they’re not accustomed to ease and know perils at close quarters they learned them in great waters not in pools that have not the ability to stir you to your core you’re going to pour out your life in one form or another do it with sand and grit leave a scarred an effectual trail for others to follow not the light untraceable light footsteps of one who has never lived this just barely scratches the surface of the breezeless that tug and press the center and being of us all I wrote this to be another of the blessings that touch your soul

If there are any mistakes I will have to fix them in a bit I can only work at the computer for so long and I want to get this out
Eleni Jul 2017
'Are you pleasing those Lions?'

She thinks to herself under Nelson's Column.

'I am no hero of the Nile, nor of Trafalgar. I am an empty vessel.'

City of Angels, yet full of devils. Will she find the exit from Oblivion, in those molten, vermillion revels?

'And will you climb that stairway to heaven? Is it true that what glitters is gold?'

That golden dust, which lies on her beside table, sedative for her sorrows.

'Oh he was a foul coxcomb. England expects every heart will follow its duty!'

She is followed, by those feral eyes;
Those on the underground, those in the streets

And those who she will wish
her eyes will never meet.
This short poem was partially inspired by one of my favourite songs from The Doors called 'Hyacinth House' whereby Jim Morrison expresses loneliness and the nature of being judged by others based on careers, personalities and relationships. I combined this with the strong presence of the lions in Trafalgar Square in London, which have a intimidating appearance and represent the strength of the British Empire. These eyes of judgement seem to pierce through the speaker in this poem who is being criticised by the personified statues for being unworthy of recognition.
Peter Balkus Sep 2017
Life is fair,
when the day is dying,
and I can see pigs flying
over Trafalgar Square.

The fountain is singing,
the drunkard is drinking,
the homeless sparechanging
the night.

Sir Nelson is chilling.
The busker is screaming
and blind men are dreaming
about light.

The moon is starwatching.
The buskers Beatlesing.

Im trafalgarsquare'ing
my rounded dreams
Nothing is as real as it seems.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
.the fireworks are still going off, Guy Fawkes 2.0, and sitting there thinking... big bang... so there was a sound in vacuum? i see a firework go off, the bright explosive light, and then the thunderous balloon burst! boom! i tap my finger... i'm guessing a 1.2 second delay from seeing the light from the firework, and hearing the BOOM! so... in light of all this... are we 1.2 seconds ahead of the big bang, or 1.2 seconds behind it, actually having happened, as in: still happening... i mean... it's not like sound precursors light... and we are not exactly illuminating creatures for most part, but sure as ****, we're loud.

well...
   i might have been looking for
a needle in a haystack,
or whatever it was i was looking
for,
  but i have spoken to a few homeless
people...
i remember about four congregated
around me in Trafalgar Sq.
one sunny afternoon,
    and that was the point where i knew
i was losing it, detaching myself
from the conventionality of "reality":
having meaningless conversations
with people wearing NPC-masks...
the voice inside my head started
thin out... until it fizzled out and i turned
into a writing machine...
if i had the same internal-monologue
with myself, i wouldn't be writing this,
a gaping abyss agitated by whatever
interacts with it,
and subsequently prompts such writing...
i put my hand around one of
the homeless men,
he didn't like it, i comforted him,
we'll just talk...
   then he started explaining to me about
his spot in the Sq.,
  he stood up, and indexed the spot,
the spot where i sat next to him,
another came and sat akimbo
like a child, listening to me intently,
two teenage girls passed
and he asked them:
      what do you see in his (my) eyes?
they replied nothing...
still somehow mesmerized like a child
in a primary school, listening intently...
red as a beetroot from all the *****...
i ended up giving him a book
i just bought in an indie bookshop...
christopher marlowes Dr. Faustus...
i stood up and abstracted a square,
drew both my index fingers
   around a slab of pavement
asking the stupid question:
                     do you think it's there?
or inside your mind?
                  then the homeless man
sitting in akimbo introduced me
to a northern irish veteran with PTSD...
drunk like a skunk...
         and then we walked into
the homeless shelter together,
   they didn't let me in,
because i didn't remember my national
insurance number, or had the card
for that matter...
          weeks pass...
   imagine the chances of this happening,
in central London...
i bump into the same man who sat in
akimbo in Trafalgar Sq. on the streets
of Soho... the chances... or meeting someone,
randomly, a second time, in London?
******* slim... slimmer than size 0
catwalk models... more like size -1...
and he told me that a spider crawled
      into his ear...
    he said that he was going deaf...
                   so i walked into a shop
bought a few beers and we sat in
a church courtyard talking with his friend
who showed off his buddha tattoo
and said: i'm going to walk to India...
subsequently we were ushered out...
because we were breaking the law...
and i thought: but you serve wine in
the church, don't you?
    there was no argument...
then there was the instance in Leytonstone
with the homeless talking about
pneumonia of some woman they
were friends with...
               many pleasantries hugging
what not...
   but...
          the most profound instance i had
was just outside Romford train station...
the same man i would later sit down with
and offer a cigarette to in Seven Kings,
just outside the O'Grady's Irish pub...
       i've seen how people interact with
homeless people... that snarky attitude...
they stand and bend over while talking
to someone sitting on the pavement on cardboard...
a toned down version of paddy bateman...
this ridiculing with intimidation...
ugliest crap imaginable...
   so i sat with this man...
     gave him my spare fiver...
       rolled up a joint...
   we went around the corner to smoke it...
some kid with a football ran up to us,
we passed... and then we asked each other questions...
the kid said he wanted to become a footballer,
me and the homeless man encouraged
him to take his dream seriously...
quickly the marijuana high smirk
left his face...
    apparently i had a diamond on my forehead,
claimed the homeless man...
but then i asked the very touchy question...
so... what made you homeless...
  i'll never forget what he retorted with...
my mother told me to never tell a lie.
what?!
  so the only reason he was homeless was
because he was an honest man, prior?
   oh... so this is what makes men homeless...
honesty, for one,
   and along with honesty,
   other traits that elevate valor,
    alongside the many other virtues...
well... "who would have thought"?
               like that wasn't painfully obvious
to begin with... namely...
how the rats, the skivvy, the immoral,
the sadomasochistic overlords of
institutions become rewarded exponentially...
while the man who replies
to the homeless question with:
    my mother told me to never tell a lie.
Set in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?

The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war,
The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires which are
The torches of the lords of Night.

The yellow leopards, strained and lean,
The treacherous Russian knows so well,
With gaping blackened jaws are seen
Leap through the hail of screaming shell.

The strong sea-lion of England’s wars
Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,
To battle with the storm that mars
The stars of England’s chivalry.

The brazen-throated clarion blows
Across the Pathan’s reedy fen,
And the high steeps of Indian snows
Shake to the tread of armed men.

And many an Afghan chief, who lies
Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees,
Clutches his sword in fierce surmise
When on the mountain-side he sees

The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes
To tell how he hath heard afar
The measured roll of English drums
Beat at the gates of Kandahar.

For southern wind and east wind meet
Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire,
England with bare and ****** feet
Climbs the steep road of wide empire.

O lonely Himalayan height,
Grey pillar of the Indian sky,
Where saw’st thou last in clanging flight
Our winged dogs of Victory?

The almond-groves of Samarcand,
Bokhara, where red lilies blow,
And Oxus, by whose yellow sand
The grave white-turbaned merchants go:

And on from thence to Ispahan,
The gilded garden of the sun,
Whence the long dusty caravan
Brings cedar wood and vermilion;

And that dread city of Cabool
Set at the mountain’s scarped feet,
Whose marble tanks are ever full
With water for the noonday heat:

Where through the narrow straight Bazaar
A little maid Circassian
Is led, a present from the Czar
Unto some old and bearded khan,—

Here have our wild war-eagles flown,
And flapped wide wings in fiery fight;
But the sad dove, that sits alone
In England—she hath no delight.

In vain the laughing girl will lean
To greet her love with love-lit eyes:
Down in some treacherous black ravine,
Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.

And many a moon and sun will see
The lingering wistful children wait
To climb upon their father’s knee;
And in each house made desolate

Pale women who have lost their lord
Will kiss the relics of the slain—
Some tarnished epaulette—some sword—
Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.

For not in quiet English fields
Are these, our brothers, lain to rest,
Where we might deck their broken shields
With all the flowers the dead love best.

For some are by the Delhi walls,
And many in the Afghan land,
And many where the Ganges falls
Through seven mouths of shifting sand.

And some in Russian waters lie,
And others in the seas which are
The portals to the East, or by
The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.

O wandering graves!  O restless sleep!
O silence of the sunless day!
O still ravine!  O stormy deep!
Give up your prey!  Give up your prey!

And thou whose wounds are never healed,
Whose weary race is never won,
O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield
For every inch of ground a son?

Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head,
Change thy glad song to song of pain;
Wind and wild wave have got thy dead,
And will not yield them back again.

Wave and wild wind and foreign shore
Possess the flower of English land—
Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more,
Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.

What profit now that we have bound
The whole round world with nets of gold,
If hidden in our heart is found
The care that groweth never old?

What profit that our galleys ride,
Pine-forest-like, on every main?
Ruin and wreck are at our side,
Grim warders of the House of Pain.

Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet?
Where is our English chivalry?
Wild grasses are their burial-sheet,
And sobbing waves their threnody.

O loved ones lying far away,
What word of love can dead lips send!
O wasted dust!  O senseless clay!
Is this the end! is this the end!

Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead
To vex their solemn slumber so;
Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head,
Up the steep road must England go,

Yet when this fiery web is spun,
Her watchmen shall descry from far
The young Republic like a sun
Rise from these crimson seas of war.
A Mareship Sep 2013
(Not a home, I said.
An address.
The badges and the blossoms
Bragged ‘excess’.

Etched into every tree

The word:

S U C C E S S)

I am London
And he is me,
Not ever knowing which London to be,
A button eyed orphan,
A one man band,
A Dickensian madman
Whey-faced and untanned.

I was a Ruby Infant,
(Montpelier)
Via turreted school
(Machiavellian lair)
My conspiracy of ravens
The guardians of lore,
Falling in feathers
To a barbershop floor.

My mind is confetti -
From each Westminster wedding,
Each pill, each stumble,
A little be-heading.
I first kissed a girl in Trafalgar Square
And the memory of her is still there in the air,
In the backdrops of photographs snapped up by tourists,
In the lost eyes of pigeons,
(I know it, I’m sure of it -
because I know London
And he knows me -
We flow into each other
Like the Thames, to the sea).

Gobstopper ******* in Whitechapel lanes,
Knee-deep in the streets, leaving opal-ghost stains,
The bleeding graffiti of Mary Jane Kelly,
Our deaths, our murders,
So many, so many...

Bells,
Chiming,

Dark
Oubliettes,

Cradle me, London,
My bowed silhouette,
Settle me down
in your newspaper bed,
Love me,
Watch over me,
And when I am dead,
Make me a martyr,
Smooth out my head
Swallow me up in your gum studded streets,
Somewhere busy where I can feel millions of feet
Treading into me,
Over and
Over again,
And every so often, now and then,
Play out your bells for my syllables four,
Ding **** ding *****
Four and no more,
To remind yourself, London,
Of silly old me,
Who like you,
Never knew,
Which London to be.
um - unfinished and work in progress
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2015
i live in a ******* so boring tractors roam the streets in the usual
traffic,
but i found that you can wizen up to a title of wizard
by finding inanimate things entertaining and thought provoking,
because the internet will not become
the next scapegoat of goldfish memory - not the next
box of entertainment - it will be what god’s green earth indented.
out here, where you’re far from trafalgar sq. you
get crows circling back to the origin of the woods with odin on the lyre
venting out against too much pigeon **** coo coo of the attired men and women marking karma with the no. 13 and being ******* on from on high,
you get seagulls, even, seagulls so far into dry land... imagine!
and you get the autistic zoning in of the cat’s eye,
those cats are very autistic, their eyes tell the sad sad story
of encapsulated solipsism - snap your fingers or meow
and they look at you passing you looking at some randomised
point of entering their sleeping pattern - very autistic those cats,
they look at you almost cross-eyed when you try to snap them out of it -
out of it being: ******* at being awake.
very autistic those cats, those cats are very autistic, they look
at you looking past you, looking almost cross-eyed -
don’t blame me for the zigzag or the w!
so as i said, it’s so boring where i live you see tractors and crows,
and the only solidification of your presence is either provided for
by an addiction to television eager for the flicker -
or drinking... watching bricks, thinking bits and bobs out
for the torrent of slavic plumbers building the great ****** of london.
lo... upon the yonder... there it blooms *******!
i like places where trees tower over man's handing man brick on brick -
makes the sky a bit bigger and less asthmatic.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2017
you know what's more intimidating beside speaking of a personal detail in the life of a person you know? speaking of a universal truth; there's nothing more intimidating that giving reference to a common fact of referencing life, one limb of the triad crumbles into a suckling squid... revealing the sparring partners you get to: well, you juggle with three *****, you puppeteer two.

i could understand english humour -
sure, the black comedy "tact" -
but then the anglophone world was
overtaken with comedy -
the last tier before the final bow of
downfall - the one prior comes in
the form of a "fascination"
with culinary escapades -
   prior to the last resort of humour
comes the culinary escapade -
i once understood english humour,
more than was worth since it was
reinforced by canned laughter -
but there was something to be had...
these days? maybe english humour
imploded: and it attacked its worst
ally: ***.
   make fun of ***, you're making
fun of life...
     and how isn't english humour
not peppered with too-overtly
sexualised jokes? jokes by children
of divorcees...
  tell you what: life's short,
you're *****, see a ******* before
you see a psychiatrists...
cheaper, and you get the full
workout... after all, vietnam made
the war zone pocket sized...
            i don't understand english
humour... it's beyond political satire...
these people are pushing the absolutely
wrong buttons...
  i remember watching this
video in trafalgar sq., these two white
kids, bouncing a basketball -
      then one bounces the ball
off the head of a black guy,
and the white boy is so "jokingly"
apologetic...
                  what happens next?
the black guy smashes a glass
bottle over the white boys head...
the white boys is hit unconscious:
**** me, that was funny!
            the anglophones have
really ******* the genre of comedy...
i can call them anglophones -
  speaks not good english,
but he overshadows about 100+
anglo boys in his roofing job...
     my father...
    the english are slackers in
the industrial industry: which is why
it's filled with slavs and romanians,
but at least they do their job
and never bother going to the gym...
the english ponces?
do a ****** paper-fiddling job
and then hit the gym...
            horse-hoof lickers.
          i was once acknowledged
as speaking spaghetti english:
yes, but when my father questioned me,
he didn't mind me not having
learned the full alphabet:
what am i, a trained puppy?!
         now he lives with his father,
with his father having divorced his mother
and living with a thai ****** breeding
chickens...
        guess my loss in the "friendship"
case of "affair".
            the english have actually
exhausted the genre of comedy,
they're not funny anymore...
    they're pathetic...
         i'll joke the next time i sucker
one's head off the clock into
the unconscious minutes...
          the english overdid comedy
by a mile, they're as about funny as
a donkey-riding rider alongside the
remaining three-horsemen...
slouching toward jerusalem...
                   the fact that the english
are telling are joke: reiterating that they
are: seems rather troubling.
   i don't want to know its a joke unless
i actually laugh, a comic telling me
"it's" a joke is rather troubling...
             why have the english changed
from a culinary fetish to a joke
fetish over a decade?
         ****** food makes for a good joke...
oh yeah, me, beta-male,
  when all the best restaurant cooks
are male...
                    i still will not get an english
joke: the so-called *nuance" is
only a *nuisance
-
     there's a threshold of acceptable
nuance in comedy, after a while it's like
lying: thinking you'll get away with it...
it's called: "being" subtle...
when in fact you're a vermin nibbling
on the edges of peoples' patience...
  after all you stop excusing the self-excusing
comics who want to catch themselves
excusing themselves and retire with
a backlog of canned-laughter lax.
                   no point in comedy:
if someone laughs for me.
          what's the point of comedy if
i am not the one to spot the self-imposed
prompt for a laugh?
   what am i? a ******* windowlicker who
laughs when taking a **** holding
his pecker?!
                      you conniving little
******* wanks...
                              i have to say:
the big laugh comes prior to the creeping
weep...
              no, i forgot you being "intricate"
in "nuance" -
  nuance is gone, baby, nuance is gone,
we're dealing with subversion,
and the last word ascribed is "nuance"...
i always said the english as perfecto
two-faced actors: they lie telling the truth,
as they tell the truth, while lying.
        next time i trust them with a hamster
i'll ask just more than a vet nurse...
and i don't mind pakistanis -
i just mind the english pakis -
the anglo pakis - pakistanis are fine with me,
i event managed to grit to an invite
by one muhammad to admire his
crocodile farm in kenya -
  anglo pakis? hate them like i hate
my acne skin... i'm thirty and at the ends
of puberty, yet still: the explosion of
hormones... might as well be a down syndrome
kid: l'oreal should look into extracting
down syndrome genes to make the face cream...
******* never age:
mother's aged 80, and he's shy of 35.
            n'ah, the english did comedy once,
they did it well, they didn't have to ****
off canned laughter obstructing me from
laughing at what i found funny...
   they took the complacent communist rule of:
****** laugh when all other idiots
ought to laugh...
that black guy in trafalgar sq. smashing
a glass bottle over the white guy that bounced
the basketball off his head was funnier
to watch...
         comedy these days is not
nuanced... there is no nuance:
what you hear is what you get:
   and the english way of a dog curling up
its tail between its legs and running away
is not gonna work...
                     what you said is what you
meant: given that blah blah bi bi blee boo
was intended to translate into:
         can you get me a tonne of glue?
the origins of comedy are not based upon
excuses of nuance: comedy can only
be excused by canned laughter:
not nuance.
               politics is nuanced:
if you drag comedy into this cesspool of
nuance: you're not exactly riding
a horse fully shoed into the sunset of
laughter...
   politics is nuanced:
you can't expect comedy = politics -
    to thus express: oh, we're just misunderstood
akin to politicians: nope, we're just lying
is not going to cut it...
          the best jokes are from a people
who say jokes the least:
after all, the omnipotent psychology says:
the most nervous person at a party
tells the most jokes...
    guess western society has had
its turns...
                    first they make comedy
intelligent, then they make cooking mundane,
then they make comedy excusable,
then they make wacky dishes,
     then they make comedy "nuanced",
then they get a glass bottle smashed
over their heads...
          then they make a case for
the microwave...
           and then the once ha ha become an aah...
     that sigh of relief...
         watching this spectacle:
slayer's behind the crooked cross -
   not the jews, but the greeks invented
sado-masochism of the northerns -
the greeks painted the jews as irrational -
   even though the archeological findings
disprove the greeks' little "messianic" story...
i still find english humour naked, lacking,
you can only push nuance to a certain
sisyphus moment in time,
  before sisyphus decides to give it a rest,
and toils no more, and never allows
the stone to roll up the hill,
   and interludes with pondering...
        after all: thought is never a medium
of futility... it being: the ultra-verb,
it being the omni-limb...
                             these days we know
that the englishman is no longer funny...
because his jokes are overtly plagiarised
by "excusing" himself with giving
a nuanced explanation: rather than a punchline:
comedy has a limit: on how intelligent
is can become... children laugh at calamity
short-scripted:
    do you think adults ask for a long-scripted
"base" for giggles, when the narrative prior joke
ends up being so mundane,
to be only backed up canned laughter?
euro trash, sure, but what an island of trash
to back it up...
      i love intelligent tragedy...
the english invented "intelligent" comedy:
people laugh at this sort of crap
by a mimic format: everyone knows its not
funny: then again: by laughing at it
it's peacocking to impress...
                   there's no intelligent comedy...
people who laugh at "intelligent" comedy
are bystanders, eaten up by canned laughter.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2016
when they write about existence i just think of:
blinking out of every instance -
snapshots of life, vibrating to
a culmination of sounds
preserved in the Bermudas,
or simply the overhaul of νεως
anywhere with internet access
and twitter account...
existential arguments: each
and every insistence exaggerated
and later gagged on...
just like i think of theatre and poetry:
i think of theatre as poetry on
the menopause...
theatre is poetry on menopause,
the last remaining depth of continued life
having a chance in the Darwinian cold
of absentee hearts and economic cheese
graters with broken bows playing
out-of-tune violins...
when they write the word existence,
i can't take them seriously,
they later come up with the somehow
happy alternative of what's called life...
such sad happiness when blue in green
opens up so lazily like 5 a.m. on the
Camden High Street in winter,
when it's still Armageddon bleak black
of ghosts chasing shadows into a
revenge against the grave...
some say you never really turn 30 when you
haven't bought Miles' Trafalgar Sq.
prior, meaning you lost out on being 30 when
you turn 40, and so on and so forth
in that Zeno paradox of two steps forward,
three steps back...
yes, the Grecian augmentation of the w...
less sharpened edges...
but still a Oui oh you... then a flamingo flamenco
with the teasing all blues...
i don't know...
whenever they write existence seriously
to later want it to underpin life as such,
i take their serious offensive on creating a
membrane of cushion and powdering and repeat
their seriousness, leaving life aside to
do its method on all of us:
existence - out of every instance... based or
biased as out every instance, the pickled gherkin
perseverance, persistence (dictionary mode),
out of every instance... a slaughtered bull
for pagan sacrifice meaning: insistence;
thus ex- instant into re- instant
i.e., out of (every) instant into a repeated instant -
that which we all keep secret,
that speciality of ours we do solo to keep
the nerve, to keep the homage, like
some did toward Catalonia... but in our own
very special way... it's not such a big
foreboding word after all...
it's rather mandible when the scalpel hyphen
cuts it open... just words, such words
that allow such things to take place...
cut life open... well... you end up with strife...
and that's what it is...
but at least cutting up the word existence provides
a bed, a cushion, some covers...
perhaps because of its etymology bias...
life is hardly up there in the etymological arithmetic
times table... cut the word life open... and you
get no game of words, no play, just the end result:
strife... but i would hardly attach
too much seriousness with the word existence,
as i already said but haven't:
the Cartesian maxim is subjective... it personally
relates a man's translation of life as pleasurable
with a pleasurable experience of thought alongside it...
true to say: physical exertion didn't give him
the biblical presence of work - harder for the mind
to make a sandwich that isn't there than for
the body to make a sandwich that is there...
hence the revision of Descartes: not that he was wrong,
he fooled everyone with a subjective statement
like an artist might create a piece of work...
because aren't there people out there that
experience the joys of life, but not that of thought?
while there are also those who experience more
joy from mere thought than from life itself
that joy of probing someone into action?
there are equal numbers of each...
and so translating thought into being he revealed
to me how translating ex- into re-
we can attribute a variant (metaphysical)
interpretation of the nadir of Einstein's parabola,
since we're no longer dealing with Newton's vector...
translating ex- to therefore mean re-,
we seek to guide ourselves toward that one
instant where all passions are lost...
or to put it more bluntly... ever watch the non-thinking
side of this? no? are you sure?
to translate ex- to therefore mean re-, never seen it?
never heard of drug addicts?
as in my case... it's not the addiction per se,
it's what i do with it that's leveraging me
to continue... i could have succumbed to
william styron's darkness visible -
but you see... i write while intoxicated...
the relaxation technique works simultaneously with
a chance to stretch my legs, and do what
the devil would have said regardless:
i make word of idle hand that would have
lifted a hammer... fair enough to the devil...
the devil makes work of idle hands...
well, idle hands make the devil into a caressed cat
when the mind excuses itself from idleness
that the body assumes, to later turn into a poker match.
I was sat in a Tavern in Pompey Town,
Sipping a tipple of ***,
When I watched a Jack make an axe attack,
Chop off his finger and thumb!

I couldn’t believe the blood that flowed
From the cut of that rusty blade,
But the barmaid Flo, said ‘You’ve done it, Joe,
Now look at the mess you’ve made!’

She cleaned it up with a swill of ale,
Walked off with the finger and thumb,
‘I’ll nail these up on the balustrade
With the rest that have been as dumb.’

But Joe sang out when he’d had a drink
‘It’s better than being a tar!
I spent three years, under the lash
On His Majesty’s Man o’ War.’

‘They ‘pressed me when I was still a kid
And treated me like a dog,
I suffered scurvy and couldn’t work,
The answer to that, was flog.’

‘They flogged me around the Southern Cape,
They flogged me a-ship and ashore,
Whenever I thought that I might escape
They dragged me onboard for more.’

‘And Cap’n Foggett’s abroad tonight
With his cut-throat parcel of rogues,
Impressing the able-bodied men,
They’re lining them up in droves.’

‘For Nelson’s lying abaft the lee
With barely a half a crew,
He needs more men for the ‘Victory’,
And that means me and you!’

‘In every tavern they’re moving in,
In every alley and quay,
At first they offer the King’s shilling,
To war with the enemy.’

‘But the Frenchies rake with the carronade
That will rip the flesh from your bones,
And the decks run red from the men who bled
Impressed from their wives and homes.’

‘They say he sails on the tide tonight
So they’re doing a quick Hot Press,
Even a gen’lman walking late
Won’t meet with their gentleness.’

‘A cudgel whack on a squire’s head
Then dragged to the bilges, free,
They’ll never know ‘til they all wake up
That they’re headed on out to sea.’

‘That Nelson’s got but a single arm,
He’s got but a single eye,
If that’s not enough to be alarmed
By God, then I wonder why!’

The Press Gang came to the Tavern door
But couldn’t come on inside,
They tried to sell me a Man o’ War
But Joe had made me decide.

I took a gulp of Jamaica ***
And I steeled myself to the task,
‘The Press are waiting outside,’ I cried,
‘Just hand me that rusty axe!’

David Lewis Paget
nivek Aug 2015
Statues of stone erected in Trafalgar Square
rock, carved stone, the midst of London

"The dogs of war" Pink Floyd

Not many peace poets
write of peace and survive

No peace poets would make it
all the way atop a plinth,

In Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar square

Where birds fly for tourists
culture Vultures, feed

Stone faced lions
Africa robbed

Set in stone
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
.on a lighter note, from what you'll find included below... the Rolling Stones or the Beatles? well... as well when asking the question John Coltrane or Miles Davies, or, or... Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven... in the last case? the latter. **** me... he loved music so much that he became deaf... just like Homer became blind; god, i love these famous instances of benevolent reasoning; with its cruel culminating outcome / closure... fate, it would seem... but then the sly nudge by something akin to... well i'm unsure which i prefer: Michelangelo's creation of Adam... or Rembrandt's Belshazzar's Feast... i think (but not doubt) that i'm more fond of the latter depiction.

i seriously only have a couple
of words to make a counter-argument...
this won't take long,
this is not going to become
one of those video tirades
  (Beethoven's ode to joy
is still playing in the background,
and yes, i am moderately sober,
i had to cook up a butter chicken
curry with a coriander
    and mind chutney for the chapaties...
chap chap... bud bud...
you want a stereotypical
Apu from the Simpsons?
just watch Australia's master-chef
from this year,
and look up a guy called
Sashi Cheliah...
    buddy bud bud... you get
the picture; it's his recipe...
   curry all day, curry in the morning,
curry in the afternoon,
curry in the evening,
dreaming of curry)...
internet de-platforming...
isn't it... technically illegal?
       just curious...
because...
             my internet provider cannot
exactly switch off my access
to the internet...
like a bailiff...
   i'm not paying the electricity bills,
so they come, and switch off
my electricity supply...
   what "we're" talking about is
a case of illegality...
   to de-platform you'd require
a service provider to implement sound
justifications...
but then...
   paradox avenue:
    they're not getting the money
needed to be a service provider...
so... i'm only supposed to have
the infrastructure of buying ****
online, and banking online...
   STOP ******* UP WITH THE *******
PLAYGROUND! PUT THE SAND
BACK INTO THE SANDBOX...
PUT THE WATER BACK INTO
THE TRAFALGAR SQ. FOUNTAIN!
it's illegal...
              why aren't the hardware
companies, beating the living **** out
of these software providers?
websites are software,
they're not the computers,
the cables, the workload of Atlases...
****... this is becoming a tirade
worthy of a video...
but Beethoven's ode to joy is playing
in the background,
and i never feel like talking...
itchy fingers you see...
the devil has work for idle hands...
it's illegal...
   because it bypasses the terms
of agreement you already made with
the internet providers...
so what... you can only do so much
on the internet?
these people have paid
for their internet connection!
                 what, a, load, of, *******;
so? ensure they pay less
for their internet access...
  given that a limited internet access
is being implemented...
i'm already past being ******
off at the jukebox...
       now i'm fuming... kettle mad
just around the time when
the water starts to boil.
Hal Loyd Denton May 2013
Words found in the wind supreme telling boisterous antagonistic they form in the great ocean they
Come they challenge everything and much is changed the sea cleanses land and its tenuous hold
Everything fair and precious must find a harbor a defiant manner to endure broken trees exemplify the
Hardy the uncompromising bend you must if broken it only gives up the dead and weak branches if up
Rooted it only shows the growth of deception that presented itself as truth all trivia superficial living will
Be reveled in the wind that which is rock solid and is built on a solid foundation will only flourish the
Storm is its bestowing gift these matters deeply rotted in the emotional center of the heart heeds the
Elemental force brought to bear by the wind it stands and shows its power that is not fake or foreign
But has a lasting place that grows because it is pure and is undaunted by assailing contradictions its
Value claims a root system born of time and reason compromise and injustice has never been found in
The hidden places of the heart there is no hidden agenda friend or foe is welcome to look and see to a
Friend it speaks of deep comfort knowing that all is open and it will stand any test and afford great help
In time of trouble the enemy will find a formidable foe not all enemies are without worth in the struggle
You can acquire skill and knowledge that will give you resources that will guide you to hidden veins of
Gold that can be found in no other way a rich life compared to one of poverty is to be much desired in
The lax uncommitted world of anything goes but that is about to change our enemies have found the
Formula that no one can win against its deadly poison the nation so grandly founded will turn on its own  
People to try to survive it will survive but a different streamlined and hardened one we believe it will be
An Outcome of good as weakness and folly are thrown off and the core values in much smaller form will
Continue sadness will pervade our world because of lost glory and our guilt that brought the big
Upheaval that reduced the heritage our children should have inherited this started with the sea wind so
I will insert this earlier piece and then continue
Sea Thoughts
Oh stand thy great waters contained in thee is mirth and terror some you have beguiled and then
Have taken them to your depths of destruction but by your benevolence the sea breeze blows
Inland from this moisture rain is called from its dwelling place the earth is refreshed the tides
Have cosmic ties by gravity the lone solitary moon is entreated and responds one speaks if only
There was a love potion that I could give my beloved so she would respond to me favorably it
Can never be created it already exists go out into the mysterious night stand under a great tree its
Dark silhouette will be more bewitching than the days shade speak your heart as you do take her
Hand and stroll out into the moon beams that drew magic from the great waters as it passed over
Does not wonder advance in this light softer exquisite the hardness of life bows and retreats to
Wait the daylight hours where harshness has its intrepid way so it leaves you with the volumes’
Darkness of night every person desires excursions into intrigue shadows will touch your faces
As tender as the willow then the soft glare of the moons love the mind and heart as its signature
Equation that old crazy moon has moves that are centuries old that birth love every time romance
And her broadest throne follow and are attended by moon light to develop a relationship
Correctly don’t go to the artificial neon lights that are futile and tinged with wickedness but
Sea side strolls are the ultimate inducement a pure stimulus that thwarts the too often knotted
World that keeps everyone at odds with one another everyone knows a great deal of love and
Romance when they are younger to revisit those cherished memorable times that started your
Life of promise with your beloved is invaluable mature love needs to feel the saturation of sea
Breezes the moons ghostly sights will fill in deep shadows where hurts have collected they need
To be free so they can go back to the darkness that gave them life your lives shouldn’t be defined
by them But the deep calleth to the deep set sail for Trafalgar not to war with enemy ships but to
sign With tender’s hand a peace accord to stitch the soft fabric of love that life’s mean elements
can rend in this you will find the sea’s glory and the moons positive glow has become a true part
of your life it is time the spring of renewal is in the offing and it sways to love’s song this speaks
Of man and women’s love this speaks of God’s love they saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep.
____________
Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who live in them
I inserted this because the piece was running hard and it’s not my purpose to be negative or black
With troubling thoughts but at the sea you will find tumult and danger and at this time it echoes
Financial woes that are buffeting are precious nation there will be a resolution but not a pretty
One there are laws mathematic ones that you dare not trifle with but we have people who
Arrogantly hold office and think they can do as they please and all will magically fall into place
Because they wish it to be so it has never been true since earth began and will be no different
Now all will suffer as the same as the guilty but in extreme hope and faith possibly those seeds
Of greatness that was our true heritage will weather the storm and will re surface with pure
Power and grace that will create within each of us the true an unending love of country that will
Give us an arching back to the hearts and minds of our forefathers we will bestow a new
Beginning that Lincoln spoke of in the Gettysburg address after strife and winds that carry
Destruction there will be a new tomorrow from children who owns up to the mistakes and turns
Back to the true paths that will always assure glory and victory too many generations just like
before
Hal Loyd Denton Feb 2013
Restoration

I found myself in a desert the sun beat down relentlessly you see I was just one more fool living on the
Devil’s life plan he comes and sizes you up watches with intensity not of care but hate he doesn’t take
Long he has seen the same thing multiplied many times before he does a little razz and dazzle if you
Could have seen my face you would know how appealing it was oh that’s right you got the same
Treatment you see this desert is where he houses all of his captives it’s so wide and vast the thought is
Who’s trapped but we are like the icy ice berg but with us it’s the conscious like the tip then the
Subconscious is all that mass the true awe and power of being human I want to insert two pieces I wrote
That deals with the subconscious I believe you will benefit from them just one more person’s thoughts
On Such a grand subject
Piercing the Inner Sanctum
The trivial the less important will never even get a start into the bastion of peace and well being that is
Sacred and defended to the last breath the one irresistible caller that is never barred and who is as a
Master key is beauty to no avail can you post guards loveliness has no comparisons like spectacle in any
And all forms it governs and rules all of our hearts once seen the invitation is never with drawn like the
Vistas seen from a high mountain incomparable glory is touched sequestered in depths of appreciation
Moments of grandeur with this spell compression is ultimate the thick richness slowly sinks beyond all
Comprehension it will linger for a life time the blues are the high honor of dress befitting a person of
Rare quality to have and squander cherished gifts the emptiness can never be measured but to make
Contact with the sublime on a desert plane the one invaluable gift of solitude no pretense or frivolity
To cause error or a missed chance to speak and hear wonders undeniable voice that is attended by rare
Essences of tranquility that robes itself in splendor it beckons in pure language simplicity that astounds
Bewilderment of the highest order lodges in your soul the hush of holy beings are noticed if only by the
Assured peace that builds a walled fortress nothing can assail these attainments visited and began
By The unutterable beauty that moves with conscious and deliberate design to bestow upon you
The Perfection that once ruled in Eden

Now deeper the mind seeks to find the way where all rules are absent

Bedazzled Dreamer
Put the long boat in the deep waters of the mind the calm peaceful knowing all is glowing we glide not
Knowing where were going the subconscious will be our guide dividing the two worlds the quiet
Submersible is wild anything may be floating in these depths we have left shore far behind truly
We have entered unchartered waters there is no fixable Bering a lustiness takes over there is no helm
Just a pervading looseness not unsettling but truly uncharacteristic for the coconscious must always
Have a grip a grasp of what is where it is and every detail must be quantified now all senses are blown
A storm is brewing its far reaches unknown but there is softness that excludes fear the overriding
Thought is possibilities can be forged maximized eternalized thoughts are ghost like unknown entities
They were formally known but now remain a mystery dislodged from thought bases that are not solid
All is free association tantalizing in one sense then disconcerting in another what do I do with my mind
Surly it has jumped off the track I could be bewildered if I could get a hold on the situation free flowing
Unspoken but still distinctively saying volumes where is the slow button reams voluminous thoughts
Are spewing into nothingness being lost I can’t keep up the discernible is mixed with eons and theorems
Time and space is void of meaning the world here is elastic mass it convulses at will no parameters exist
The only thing constant is high velocity change being in one place is impossible all is jumbled who stirred
This caldron in my mind voice and pure thought are the same think it know it what burdensome lives we
Live when it is all a tattered sail on rough seas we behold nothing know nothing in the extreme
Romanticism blurts out sail for Trafalgar we are strangers in a plush gifted void try as we will there is
No simple answers but we are a simple people truly the only time were are fit is when we are
Sound Asleep well then sleep on and I will do the same dreaming is therapeutic just think how
Crazy we would be without it

So with that small insight this is more truth I signed my life away to the devil and here is the fun
Part it’s like your hardly comfortable on a computer your on this small frame here he is on a
Worldwide super computer and he is a **** like no other you are slowly crawling along he is
Miles Ahead of you try to strike order in life this answer comes back it has been high jacked its
Not even your thoughts any more it’s completely contrary to all that is decent and ideal but it
Comes as a fog it creates a state of disinformation this is how we find we are bound in half truths
In this state how far from love how desperate is our circumstances what caused and allowed
Us to be left to the dry treacherous land of being forgotten misplaced without remedy to know the dark
Embrace of loneliness we are a people of language it finds us it speaks health to our inward being it is
The gentle soothing the spell that alone provides the structure the melodious times hear the flow of
Refreshing water from hidden springs they bend at just the right place they find us where dark
Broodings Are pulling us into compromise and ruin we feel and taste the surety of joy the call of
Assuredness is known in these depths this internal dismay of mazes infernal are their crushing blows
Does it wash away the meaningful is the face of grace seen to be drowning in walled in terrain to high to
Climb to understanding that enlightening that is our very humanness our ability to connect to share
Never forgetting who and where we came from the integral foundation that builds us as a people was
This first dislodging the first steps of chaos the hardness that drives and separates to quickly we are
Adrift and at the stern is ego without measure and the seeds of discontent are what we are sowing not
The creative roots of harmony and good will burned black by the desert sun all descriptors fail to show
The unique the part that truly was wondrously made no one is looking they are only into the new
Exciting theses very words are the quiet assault that is aimed at them they need restored but they never
Will agree then a nanny kills two little ones in her charge stabs them to death with this insane step into
Yet deeper subterranean darkness the roots of life are growing but they are poisoned throughout it
Reflects on the service the body is racked twisted as a gnarled old tree that can look picture perfect in
Nature but terrible in human life in this state of waste and need of restoration I could hardly see who
Cares at that point the view is most disgusting and in this condition all hope lost the final boat has sailed
With it the last of human dignity goes under the deep black waves when this thought was strongest the
Sea was not my reality only the lifeless desert it was all there was but all of a sudden was it mind tricks a
Mirage I was seeing this beautiful bough filled with blossoms and from there it continued to grow and
Spread out before me all green grasses a profusion of glorious colored flowers of all kinds it started to
Break through the deadness of my mind a time long forgotten slowly started to emerge I couldn’t see
Anyone but I knew that a visitor had joined me tears started like a dam had broken somewhere deep
Within all I knew I was truly loved I had worth and value I could feel it being added anew where I was
An eye sore just moments before now I was a princely person I had this intense sense of whoever it was
Who joined me had known extreme suffering He got me on every level and he was repairing and
Restoring those long festering wounds they just seem to fall off and the greatest peace started to emit
From my inner being there was just a sense of well being that was mountainous and truly rivers of joy
Started to flow out and away my friends step into these words they come from the great restorer your the gift that the thief stole and now you have been reclaimed
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish ’mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and grey;
“Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?”—say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove’s planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
M V Feb 2013
Oh dear I won't worry,
At least not tonight
The fact that you love me
Will keep me alive

Instead I will smile
Reminiscing about us
Imagining all the while
How beautiful it was

Oh dear, don't you worry
You are having fun
Don't be in a hurry
I'll wait 'till you're done

Smoking a cigarette
As you walk through the door
While you search for my look
And smile once more

Laughter or tears
It's all the same
Just as long as I'm thinking
your name

Trafalagar square, 5 am
Who knew I cared for you
Already then.
ShirleyB Feb 2016
This year was different
or was it me?

same Trafalgar crowds
link-armed-laughing

pigeons
puff-chested gluttons

different air
full of afterthoughts
I could almost touch
fluttering away
like rusting leaves
on winter's breath

I waited
on our bench
dark cold
stark old
wood

lovers kissed shyly
birds squawked
she laughed
eyes wide
flushed cheeks

Valentine's heart pounding
in a fledgling chest

I wondered if she were me
willing me to remember
hugging him close

I longed
to melt inside her happiness

old words, love and burger-boxes
where do they go?
It's a sad Valentine's poem.
There is a video version of this poem on my blog at

http://videopoems.co/2016/02/05/old-words-love-and-burger-boxes/

tickled pink if you visit!
gurthbruins Aug 2015
The mark of the moon's face descending
On a plate of steel bar
Sent a shiver down my spine on the day
Of the new decline.
Sheets of water through the night cascading,
Lit by lights of green and golden glints
That yield to red of fiery brightness
At Luan's behest.
A night of magic
That marked the end of Yoag's sojourn in the west.
Then took they them up,
And left that haunt of men already dead.

*Torremolinos, 1958
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2013
Restoration

I found myself in a desert the sun beat down relentlessly you see I was just one more fool living on the
Devil’s life plan he comes and sizes you up watches with intensity not of care but hate he doesn’t take
Long he has seen the same thing multiplied many times before he does a little razz and dazzle if you
Could have seen my face you would know how appealing it was oh that’s right you got the same
Treatment you see this desert is where he houses all of his captives it’s so wide and vast the thought is
Who’s trapped but we are like the icy ice berg but with us it’s the conscious like the tip then the
Subconscious is all that mass the true awe and power of being human I want to insert two pieces I wrote
That deals with the subconscious I believe you will benefit from them just one more person’s thoughts
On Such a grand subject
Piercing the Inner Sanctum
The trivial the less important will never even get a start into the bastion of peace and well being that is
Sacred and defended to the last breath the one irresistible caller that is never barred and who is as a
Master key is beauty to no avail can you post guards loveliness has no comparisons like spectacle in any
And all forms it governs and rules all of our hearts once seen the invitation is never with drawn like the
Vistas seen from a high mountain incomparable glory is touched sequestered in depths of appreciation
Moments of grandeur with this spell compression is ultimate the thick richness slowly sinks beyond all
Comprehension it will linger for a life time the blues are the high honor of dress befitting a person of
Rare quality to have and squander cherished gifts the emptiness can never be measured but to make
Contact with the sublime on a desert plane the one invaluable gift of solitude no pretense or frivolity
To cause error or a missed chance to speak and hear wonders undeniable voice that is attended by rare
Essences of tranquility that robes itself in splendor it beckons in pure language simplicity that astounds
Bewilderment of the highest order lodges in your soul the hush of holy beings are noticed if only by the
Assured peace that builds a walled fortress nothing can assail these attainments visited and began
By The unutterable beauty that moves with conscious and deliberate design to bestow upon you
The Perfection that once ruled in Eden

Now deeper the mind seeks to find the way where all rules are absent

Bedazzled Dreamer
Put the long boat in the deep waters of the mind the calm peaceful knowing all is glowing we glide not
Knowing where were going the subconscious will be our guide dividing the two worlds the quiet
Submersible is wild anything may be floating in these depths we have left shore far behind truly
We have entered unchartered waters there is no fixable Bering a lustiness takes over there is no helm
Just a pervading looseness not unsettling but truly uncharacteristic for the coconscious must always
Have a grip a grasp of what is where it is and every detail must be quantified now all senses are blown
A storm is brewing its far reaches unknown but there is softness that excludes fear the overriding
Thought is possibilities can be forged maximized eternalized thoughts are ghost like unknown entities
They were formally known but now remain a mystery dislodged from thought bases that are not solid
All is free association tantalizing in one sense then disconcerting in another what do I do with my mind
Surly it has jumped off the track I could be bewildered if I could get a hold on the situation free flowing
Unspoken but still distinctively saying volumes where is the slow button reams voluminous thoughts
Are spewing into nothingness being lost I can’t keep up the discernible is mixed with eons and theorems
Time and space is void of meaning the world here is elastic mass it convulses at will no parameters exist
The only thing constant is high velocity change being in one place is impossible all is jumbled who stirred
This caldron in my mind voice and pure thought are the same think it know it what burdensome lives we
Live when it is all a tattered sail on rough seas we behold nothing know nothing in the extreme
Romanticism blurts out sail for Trafalgar we are strangers in a plush gifted void try as we will there is
No simple answers but we are a simple people truly the only time were are fit is when we are
Sound Asleep well then sleep on and I will do the same dreaming is therapeutic just think how
Crazy we would be without it

So with that small insight this is more truth I signed my life away to the devil and here is the fun
Part it’s like your hardly comfortable on a computer your on this small frame here he is on a
Worldwide super computer and he is a **** like no other you are slowly crawling along he is
Miles Ahead of you try to strike order in life this answer comes back it has been high jacked its
Not even your thoughts any more it’s completely contrary to all that is decent and ideal but it
Comes as a fog it creates a state of disinformation this is how we find we are bound in half truths
In this state how far from love how desperate is our circumstances what caused and allowed
Us to be left to the dry treacherous land of being forgotten misplaced without remedy to know the dark
Embrace of loneliness we are a people of language it finds us it speaks health to our inward being it is
The gentle soothing the spell that alone provides the structure the melodious times hear the flow of
Refreshing water from hidden springs they bend at just the right place they find us where dark
Broodings Are pulling us into compromise and ruin we feel and taste the surety of joy the call of
Assuredness is known in these depths this internal dismay of mazes infernal are their crushing blows
Does it wash away the meaningful is the face of grace seen to be drowning in walled in terrain to high to
Climb to understanding that enlightening that is our very humanness our ability to connect to share
Never forgetting who and where we came from the integral foundation that builds us as a people was
This first dislodging the first steps of chaos the hardness that drives and separates to quickly we are
Adrift and at the stern is ego without measure and the seeds of discontent are what we are sowing not
The creative roots of harmony and good will burned black by the desert sun all descriptors fail to show
The unique the part that truly was wondrously made no one is looking they are only into the new
Exciting theses very words are the quiet assault that is aimed at them they need restored but they never
Will agree then a nanny kills two little ones in her charge stabs them to death with this insane step into
Yet deeper subterranean darkness the roots of life are growing but they are poisoned throughout it
Reflects on the service the body is racked twisted as a gnarled old tree that can look picture perfect in
Nature but terrible in human life in this state of waste and need of restoration I could hardly see who
Cares at that point the view is most disgusting and in this condition all hope lost the final boat has sailed
With it the last of human dignity goes under the deep black waves when this thought was strongest the
Sea was not my reality only the lifeless desert it was all there was but all of a sudden was it mind tricks a
Mirage I was seeing this beautiful bough filled with blossoms and from there it continued to grow and
Spread out before me all green grasses a profusion of glorious colored flowers of all kinds it started to
Break through the deadness of my mind a time long forgotten slowly started to emerge I couldn’t see
Anyone but I knew that a visitor had joined me tears started like a dam had broken somewhere deep
Within all I knew I was truly loved I had worth and value I could feel it being added anew where I was
An eye sore just moments before now I was a princely person I had this intense sense of whoever it was
Who joined me had known extreme suffering He got me on every level and he was repairing and
Restoring those long festering wounds they just seem to fall off and the greatest peace started to emit
From my inner being there was just a sense of well being that was mountainous and truly rivers of joy
Started to flow out and away my friends step into these words they come from the great restorer your the gift that the thief stole and now you have been reclaimed
There it sits on Nelsons head
watching all and sundry in Trafalgar Square
this place of a great empire
this place I screamed when born

Even the pigeon knows and coo's
the empire will rise once again
so I make haste to prove
London will never fall

I make a journey tonight
back to my human birth place
going back to my birth place
just to feed that pigeon

There I will vow to not falter
never to yield
for my empire
only to that, do I kneel

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Hal Loyd Denton Nov 2011
Life’s Dismay
Wide River within this great confluence of time and eternity the engine of the skiff pushes it ever so gently forward the water flows to each side of the bow your way marked and bordered on each side by this unending fence line of reeds. Still waters beneath the skin of this water bound traveler come up the length of your being time rolls forward and back along the tunnel where it was set in motion oh so long ago the minutes hours soon counted by centuries to retell the story this maritime log what stories of heroism lays along the linear line. Trafalgar’s glory passes in the viewing ships of timbers and mighty sails ply broad waters the waves climb in great walls glistening and with a roar they fall the master commanded they obeyed peace be still. The ship’s captain born of daring seed no mans word will he heed only the sea his master who can resist ports so fair in mighty England the Union Jack flows with such flair or Portugal no fairer land can be found than the land of the Portuguese. Trust not yourself to the shallows the mighty deep is where glory stands in regal defiance does a cobra bow freedoms head the king a fitting name king cobra it will hold you in its stare then strikes as waves of terror through your body convulse you forgot your place now death will be read in your face. Only the wisest survive in a land shared with scorpions and bleakest dunes of sand Lawrence of Arabia showed the way his sea was the Sahara with her endless wasteland voiding every prospect of mans intrusions only the finest line of life this strung out caravan men here are mere ghost figures they faintly pass leaving no indication of their passing. The sand swallows any marks of their existence but for ever has this been the adventures holy grail test yourself against the Himalayas or here where it seems even God’s voice didn’t reach. The stitches of time that so effectively marks progress and history sewn with deftness not evidenced here. If one was ever to be dispossessed of his inheritance this fits the bill damnation’s warning can be read in all directions. They say God speaks his love in a thousand ways this has to be another valuable expression a veritable object lesson. You have here what is the natural outcome of what the devil works at without end one of his names is even a destroyer how fitting an illustration wasteland if sorrow had a birthplace this would be it the devils rightful place. He works without tiring to make your life miserable as his and the saddest thing the majority of the world walks hand in hand with him. So to keep from doing the most needed thing which is to check your own evil nature because it will cost you eternal death in a place finally even worse than an earthen desert. While all along God says my grace is sufficient for you meaning you never are expected or left to fight the battle yourself no one can beat the devil or self. Look at the contrast God’s part land mast of unequaled wonder seas that will test your metal build you up you truly will become as strong as the ships chosen timber and all the sea does is season it to a greater finer quality. There is a story of a table that was made from one of these ships who can compare it even mahogany was out classed. You could sit and observe the grain darker deeper the evidence of the many storms she endured and kept all afloat and made each trip. Here in a sitting room the glory displayed your glory one day will reside in a mansion that’s What God is trying to do in your life.
Hal Loyd Denton Oct 2012
I found myself in a desert the sun beat down relentlessly you see I was just one more fool living on the
Devil’s life plan he comes and sizes you up watches with intensity not of care but hate he doesn’t take
Long he has seen the same thing multiplied many times before he does a little razz and dazzle if you
Could have seen my face you would know how appealing it was oh that’s right you got the same
Treatment you see this desert is where he houses all of his captives it’s so wide and vast the thought is
Who’s trapped but we are like the icy ice berg but with us it’s the conscious like the tip then the
Subconscious is all that mass the true awe and power of being human I want to insert two pieces I wrote
That deals with the subconscious I believe you will benefit from them just one more person’s thoughts
On Such a grand subject
Piercing the Inner Sanctum
The trivial the less important will never even get a start into the bastion of peace and well being that is
Sacred and defended to the last breath the one irresistible caller that is never barred and who is as a
Master key is beauty to no avail can you post guards loveliness has no comparisons like spectacle in any
And all forms it governs and rules all of our hearts once seen the invitation is never with drawn like the
Vistas seen from a high mountain incomparable glory is touched sequestered in depths of appreciation
Moments of grandeur with this spell compression is ultimate the thick richness slowly sinks beyond all
Comprehension it will linger for a life time the blues are the high honor of dress befitting a person of
Rare quality to have and squander cherished gifts the emptiness can never be measured but to make
Contact with the sublime on a desert plane the one invaluable gift of solitude no pretense or frivolity
To cause error or a missed chance to speak and hear wonders undeniable voice that is attended by rare
Essences of tranquility that robes itself in splendor it beckons in pure language simplicity that astounds
Bewilderment of the highest order lodges in your soul the hush of holy beings are noticed if only by the
Assured peace that builds a walled fortress nothing can assail these attainments visited and began
By The unutterable beauty that moves with conscious and deliberate design to bestow upon you
The Perfection that once ruled in Eden

Now deeper the mind seeks to find the way where all rules are absent

Bedazzled Dreamer
Put the long boat in the deep waters of the mind the calm peaceful knowing all is glowing we glide not
Knowing where were going the subconscious will be our guide dividing the two worlds the quiet
Submersible is wild anything may be floating in these depths we have left shore far behind truly
We have entered unchartered waters there is no fixable Bering a lustiness takes over there is no helm
Just a pervading looseness not unsettling but truly uncharacteristic for the coconscious must always
Have a grip a grasp of what is where it is and every detail must be quantified now all senses are blown
A storm is brewing its far reaches unknown but there is softness that excludes fear the overriding
Thought is possibilities can be forged maximized eternalized thoughts are ghost like unknown entities
They were formally known but now remain a mystery dislodged from thought bases that are not solid
All is free association tantalizing in one sense then disconcerting in another what do I do with my mind
Surly it has jumped off the track I could be bewildered if I could get a hold on the situation free flowing
Unspoken but still distinctively saying volumes where is the slow button reams voluminous thoughts
Are spewing into nothingness being lost I can’t keep up the discernible is mixed with eons and theorems
Time and space is void of meaning the world here is elastic mass it convulses at will no parameters exist
The only thing constant is high velocity change being in one place is impossible all is jumbled who stirred
This caldron in my mind voice and pure thought are the same think it know it what burdensome lives we
Live when it is all a tattered sail on rough seas we behold nothing know nothing in the extreme
Romanticism blurts out sail for Trafalgar we are strangers in a plush gifted void try as we will there is
No simple answers but we are a simple people truly the only time were are fit is when we are
Sound Asleep well then sleep on and I will do the same dreaming is therapeutic just think how
Crazy we would be without it

So with that small insight this is more truth I signed my life away to the devil and here is the fun
Part it’s like your hardly comfortable on a computer your on this small frame here he is on a
Worldwide super computer and he is a **** like no other you are slowly crawling along he is  
Miles Ahead of you try to strike order in life this answer comes back it has been high jacked its
Not even your thoughts any more it’s completely contrary to all that is decent and ideal but it
Comes as a fog it creates a state of disinformation this is how we find we are bound in half truths  
In this state how far from love how desperate is our circumstances what caused and allowed
Us to be left to the dry treacherous land of being forgotten misplaced without remedy to know the dark
Embrace of loneliness we are a people of language it finds us it speaks health to our inward being it is
The gentle soothing the spell that alone provides the structure the melodious times hear the flow of
Refreshing water from hidden springs they bend at just the right place they find us where dark
Broodings Are pulling us into compromise and ruin we feel and taste the surety of joy the call of
Assuredness is known in these depths this internal dismay of mazes infernal are their crushing blows
Does it wash away the meaningful is the face of grace seen to be drowning in walled in terrain to high to
Climb to understanding that enlightening that is our very humanness our ability to connect to share
Never forgetting who and where we came from the integral foundation that builds us as a people was
This first dislodging the first steps of chaos the hardness that drives and separates to quickly we are
Adrift and at the stern is ego without measure and the seeds of discontent are what we are sowing not
The creative roots of harmony and good will burned black by the desert sun all descriptors fail to show
The unique the part that truly was wondrously made no one is looking they are only into the new
Exciting theses very words are the quiet assault that is aimed at them they need restored but they never
Will agree then a nanny kills two little ones in her charge stabs them to death with this insane step into
Yet deeper subterranean darkness the roots of life are growing but they are poisoned throughout it
Reflects on the service the body is racked twisted as a gnarled old tree that can look picture perfect in
Nature but terrible in human life in this state of waste and need of restoration I could hardly see who
Cares at that point the view is most disgusting and in this condition all hope lost the final boat has sailed
With it the last of human dignity goes under the deep black waves when this thought was strongest the
Sea was not my reality only the lifeless desert it was all there was but all of a sudden was it mind tricks a
Mirage I was seeing this beautiful bough filled with blossoms and from there it continued to grow and
Spread out before me all green grasses a profusion of glorious colored flowers of all kinds it started to
Break through the deadness of my mind a time long forgotten slowly started to emerge I couldn’t see
Anyone but I knew that a visitor had joined me tears started like a dam had broken somewhere deep
With in all I knew I was truly loved I had worth and value I could feel it being added anew where I was
An eye sore just moments before now I was a princely person I had this intense sense of whoever it was
Who joined me had known extreme suffering He got me on every level and he was repairing and
Restoring those long festering wounds they just seem to fall off and the greatest peace started to emit
From my inner being there was just a sense of well being that was mountainous and truly rivers of joy
Started to flow out and away my friends step into these words they come from the great restorer your the gift that the thief stole and now you have been reclaimed
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
life's dismay these Unchartered waters
Life’s Dismay
Wide River within this great confluence of time and eternity the engine of the skiff pushes it ever so gently forward the water flows to each side of the bow your way marked and bordered on each side by this unending fence line of reeds. Still waters beneath the skin of this water bound traveler come up the length of your being time rolls forward and back along the tunnel where it was set in motion oh so long ago the minutes hours soon counted by centuries to retell the story this maritime log what stories of heroism lays along the linear line. Trafalgar’s glory passes in the viewing ships of timbers and mighty sails ply broad waters the waves climb in great walls glistening and with a roar they fall the master commanded they obeyed peace be still. The ship’s captain born of daring seed no mans word will he heed only the sea his master who can resist ports so fair in mighty England the Union Jack flows with such flair or Portugal no fairer land can be found than the land of the Portuguese. Trust not yourself to the shallows the mighty deep is where glory stands in regal defiance does a cobra bow freedoms head the king a fitting name king cobra it will hold you in its stare then strikes as waves of terror through your body convulse you forgot your place now death will be read in your face. Only the wisest survive in a land shared with scorpions and bleakest dunes of sand Lawrence of Arabia showed the way his sea was the Sahara with her endless wasteland voiding every prospect of mans intrusions only the finest line of life this strung out caravan men here are mere ghost figures they faintly pass leaving no indication of their passing. The sand swallows any marks of their existence but for ever has this been the adventures holy grail test yourself against the Himalayas or here where it seems even God’s voice didn’t reach. The stitches of time that so effectively marks progress and history sewn with deftness not evidenced here. If one was ever to be dispossessed of his inheritance this fits the bill damnation’s warning can be read in all directions. They say God speaks his love in a thousand ways this has to be another valuable expression a veritable object lesson. You have here what is the natural outcome of what the devil works at without end one of his names is even a destroyer how fitting an illustration wasteland if sorrow had a birthplace this would be it the devils rightful place. He works without tiring to make your life miserable as his and the saddest thing the majority of the world walks hand in hand with him. So to keep from doing the most needed thing which is to check your own evil nature because it will cost you eternal death in a place finally even worse than an earthen desert. While all along God says my grace is sufficient for you meaning you never are expected or left to fight the battle yourself no one can beat the devil or self. Look at the contrast God’s part land mast of unequaled wonder seas that will test your metal build you up you truly will become as strong as the ships chosen timber and all the sea does is season it to a greater finer quality. There is a story of a table that was made from one of these ships who can compare it even mahogany was out classed. You could sit and observe the grain darker deeper the evidence of the many storms she endured and kept all afloat and made each trip. Here in a sitting room the glory displayed your glory one day will reside in a mansion that’s What God is trying to do in your life.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2022
Q vs. Q.

half Q:
is that: queue
or quiet (shh) or
quint... essential:
or quaint:
q: to a degree of
similarity:
as if: like:
quiet vs. quaint
and this word
in between: not quint...
KITE: Q-WHITE like...
"x"... ah!
in a small dosage:
quiet vs. quite!
cwy-yet vs. cwy't!
that's Velsh for
woe-yew-you-
woo!

she really should be throwing these empty promises during *******, this is the 2nd time she had this WILD idea when we were *******: she just comes out with it: ooh! i'm not working on this or that day: why don't we meet up?! first time round i tried to compromise by telling her: let's spend the day together, go to an art gallery, have dinner and i'll arrange a hotel room somewhere... that backfired... some excuse... this time round she said: can you come to mine for the night? it was supposed to be today, a new excuse: not enough girls are working in the brothel... i'm not even disappointed, not hung-up... how can i be? it's paradoxical for a ******* to somehow give up her earnings when you visit her... the second time she had this WILD (personally? stupid) idea she mentioned me going to her house: i broke it down to her... why suggest something like this, if you can't promise anything and: why wouldn't you be apprehensive, i would know where you live, i might be the sort of guy who'd enter a state of jealous frenzy, there are countless other possibilities, i could turn into a stalker, mind you: i'm paying to have *** with you in the brothel, but the default of you turning around and telling me that i could have it for free and for the whole night? of course i'd ******* like a Trojan cohort, all night long... but it doesn't make sense for you to devalue your position and giving it up like that... i would have to bring gifts instead of money, because outside of a brothel setting i wouldn't be paying you: i'd have to lavish you with something you yourself couldn't have the power to exchange... i just don't want to understand why she's having these wavering moments: either i'm that good in bed or she's... she's already talking to me about her perspective on life: she showed me her project back in Turkey: a 5 bedroom villa... if i could? sure... i'd probably move to Turkey... i don't think her past would interest me even then: mind you... as a single mother it would be a lot easier to foster a child given that child is a female: i have enough of an imagination having read Marquis de Sade's ****** to know that... it's best to stay away from a mother and her son... a single mother and her son... it's different with a single mother and her daughter... but i do hope she could finally make her mind up... stop fantasising... i know i have stopped being disappointed: it's just that i was ready to make plans for tonight and now my plans are shattered: no matter... i have a bottle of whiskey that i need to control my irritable bowels after yesterday's shitless day being strapped to a 12h shift... with no time to take a ****: i arrived home and only managed to squeeze out two little KAKASHKAS (little **** in Russian)... today the **** heavens opened and i was making up lost time that would have been spent on the throne of thrones... but i remember playing this game before... if it isn't with Khedra now: it was with Jemminah some other time (the girl who dried to spread rumours about me drinking on the job) - i saw her eyes initially glare up with glitter upon seeing me for the first time, then she sabotaged any prospects... but that's beside the point: she also invited me over to her house, i already knew where she was living, she invited me over, i pampered myself, decided to bring a bottle of wine of my own making for her to taste; well, if it's homemade it's going to be somewhat cloudy, i don't have industrial scale filtering machinery, so in order for to not think that she was drinking poison i brought with me a bottle of Franziskaner Weissbier with me: also cloudy... point being, she invited me... thankfully i turned my phone off (per usual) when travelling, i don't like being disturbed, i walked to her house and there she stood: surprised... apparently she sent me a text just after i left whereby she informed me about "being unwell"... like hell she was... the moment she started drinking my wine she was doing little dances and singing along to her favorite Dua Lipa songs... so i know the "game": but it's less a game and more the ontology of a woman... that wavering double-doubtful standard that women have: oh sure! they're so ****** confident initially! but when it comes to following up on her spontaneity she can't do it! i don't know if a woman needs an advocate to follow-up on her pursuits and wants... but like with Jemminah and like with Khedra i feel tired at all this wishy-washy talk of doing something and then backing out of actually doing it... how many times have i been apprehensive when thrown into the deep end of any given situation, having to overcome the initial nerves, adapting to the situation: meeting on the ***** of gradations and: sure as ****... whether walking up that ***** or walking down it... adapting with whatever comfort is allowed to muster! this game of female promises requires looking for appropriate music... DELTA KOMPLEX - darkside... never heard it before... but i'm just tired... i'll just have to distance myself from Khedra... i have some spare €90 that i will exchange and go back to the brothel and ignore Khedra... she already said it's alright that i go with some other girl when she's there... i guess i have to now, this little sadness: because i have to call it a little sadness is not some grand complex of depression... mind you: i'm already tired from a shift that truly pushed me, so it's a mixture of little sadness and exhaustion... i just don't want to be promised anything in the future...

a backlog in my writing habit... it has become very messy,
but the spontaneous occasion called for it...
ever since Thursday the 8th of September i haven't
been able to stick to my predictable habit...
anyone with a hyper-focus for habits will tell you
that breaking a certain, no, that breaking
a workaholic-alcoholic's habits is terribly lethargic:
a person like that: like me loses momentum...
becomes sloppy... boring; prosaic...
    like now: i don't know at what point i will rekindle
myself to my self-poetic... when i will i will feel
a sense of pleasure in my writing, until then i am merely
ploughing along: digging a trench...
but in order to find something spectacular (again)
i will have to write this mundane garbage
  of overt self-awareness...

Thursday 8th September 2022

she died on the dot just when we thought we would
be able to cancel the match between West Ham
and Steaua București... but the general admission doors
opened at 18:30... she died on the mark...
so it was too late... the whole shift felt surreal...

after the shift i headed to the brothel,
met an Afghan "Jamie" who gave me the best **** outside
of Amsterdam...
who did i **** that time round?
it wasn't Khedra? it was that blonde girl who didn't
want to have penetrative *** and instead
spent half an hour hyper-focused on *******...
but since the 8th i must have been at the brothel
another time... no... it was in the ante-chamber
where all the prostitutes sit like judges
rather than you as the person choosing which one
to take with you Marie's name-day birthday
(it used to happen in eastern Europe)
IMIENINY...
                          Khedra jumps up with a protest!
but it's my birthday on Saturday, i'll be 17 (again)!
o.k. i'll come on Saturday...
no! i did see her between the 8th and the 17th
at some point... i remember promising her that i would...
whichever day it was...

Wednesday 14th September 2022

a terrible shift at Charing Cross Station:
literally a ****-show...
a plan B in terms of organising crowd traffic...
so many rude people...
when she was moved from Buckingham Palace
to Westminster Hall...
the access to Charing Cross Station was
blocked at the top of Villiers St...
i was placed there... we had one jumper
over the fences... which was good...
but people were so ******* that they had
to walk the extra 500 or so metres to Adam St
and back onto Villiers St...
                        why were so many people buzzing
with that angry disorientation?
hell... 12 hours... i think that's when i saw Khedra
and promised her to come on Saturday...
it must have been: i wanted to relax by *******...

Friday 16th of September 2022

i took the Thursday, but promises being promises
i took the whole day to think about:
what will i give her? i can't give her a book...
or a music album... flowers?! eh... nah...
jewelry? Matthew: get stuffed: think! think!
it's "too early" for jewelry... it's not even "early" or
for that matter "late": it's just a simple NO...
she's a *******... i do take making "love" to her
seriously... but let's not go there...
she'll put a ring on her finger and admire it
she'll put a necklace around her neck and admire it
in a way that will make her feel like she has
dominion over me...
what else is there? something that i can benefit from?
d'uh! what did she sent you last time
you finished *** and were just talking?
a picture of herself in **** lingerie...
standing on tip-toes exposing her magnificent ****
of an ***!
well then! it's settled! you'll go and buy her lingerie...
mind you: it's not like you're stupid enough
to pay for the entire hour like you used to:
£120 is too much: those £60 half and hour sessions
are much better... because you can go more
frequently... mind you... if you went back
to those hour sessions... she would waste your time
for the second part of the hour...
or the first... however it works with them...
since then, i.e. figuring out the dynamics of the brothel:
i think i can afford to give her a lingerie piece
worth £50... and that's what i did...
i went into Ann Summers and leeched off the female
whims and fancies of the nerdy girl behind the counter...
i had to correct her when she chose a pink three piece...
she chose the most terrible shade of pink...
it was glaring almost fluorescent pink... shocking pink
i'd call it... i said i preferred the rose pink:
the toned down pink... oh... and the tights?
they have to be white... no... black would go terribly
with her Turkish complexion... they need to be white...
Khedra gave me her size... just bra size... 36B...
seeing how a bra looked on her after ***
i told the nerdy girl: she's exaggerating...
she's much smaller... more like 36A or 34B...
if that... 34A...
the nerdy girl asked how tall she was...
i eyed her up and down then took out a "measuring tape"
of comparisons and my four horsemen of the apocalypse
i.e. the index, middle, ring and pinky extended
and abstracting height to the height of Khedra
when we part and i kiss her on the forehead...
she's smaller than you... that's when she picked out
the *******...
**** it: it's a gift both of us will benefit from...
she'll feel **** and i'll be one step closer to buying
her a latex suit... or some **** like that...
it will be a feast for my eyes while she'll feel ****...
i saved up enough on going the 30minute routes
rather than the 1hour routes...

Saturday 17th September 2022

brought my gift to her... oh how she loved it...
while she was putting it on
she exclaimed: how did you! how did you
get the right size for me!
i always walk into a shop and never get the right
size lingerie!
i said nothing... i was just looking at her
looking at herself in the mirror...
she became so excited that she pulled out these
massive black stilettos and started prancing about
like a flamingo...
she took a few pictures and sent them to me...
legs crossed: legs uncrossed...
pink?! like for a girl... well: do you see any other
girl in my life, right now?
oh she loved it... i loved it too...
obviously we didn't have enough time for me
to ******... she gave me a line of *******...
i sniffed it... felt nothing...
i came too late to the party... give me coffee
and a cigarette and i'm happy:
then again... i quit caffeine...
since last time where i was doing all the work
arching over her in a *******...
thankfully this time round she wanted to be on
top: in the former instance she was biting me...
like my cats usually bite me when i purposively
**** them off... at my arteries...
this time round i was biting her...
and no: i am yet to see a pornographic flick
where the actors bite-tease... sure... ***-slapping...
mind you: when she slapped my face it wasn't
like the slap i received from Ilona when i visited
her in St. Petersburg: that slap of an "unfaithful" hello...
unfaithful with who? my ******* grandmother?!
i'm so happy i was only engaged to that witch
and she broke it off...
i like the idea of giving women the choice...
all the women in my life have always broken
off the relationship... i'm glad... it makes me feel like
the better person...
but that slap by Ilona, compared to the slap
on the face by Khedra... call the former Mt. Fuji
and the latter Mashiters Hill...
it was a slap and a cusp all at the same time...
the former: if it could be possible would have
spun my head right round...
fair *** my ***... women are cruel:
once the gateway to Darwinism became open:
it's a monkey-mantis we're dealing with...
hence? my grandfather's advice was appropriate:
keep your heart small... watch big things happen
while people remain small... as small as your heart...
that's the day she promised me:
i'll be off from the brothel on Tuesday...
during ******* she implored me to come and see
her in her house... stay for the night...
this is getting silly: my heart was somewhat sinking
into this promise but i knew she would pull out...
why? i already spelled it out for her:
but what if i turn into this stalking ****?
what if i become jealous blah blah...
how could i? i'm already sharing her with other men
it's not like i could seriously think about
keeping her: when she doesn't want to be kept
by a single man...
is it just me or is it that the more beautiful women
are like the beauties of nature?
they are selfless in how each and every man
is allowed to appreciate the beauty of nature?
i'm scratching my head thinking...
if these sort of women love ******* so much:
why refuse them that right?
and the women who are wedded and are child-rearing:
i'm sorry... but... having a ****** thought about
these women is near-almost-impossible...
i can't not because i don't want to: i simply can't...
me?! i'm a ******* Gargoyle...
i know my complexion is awry...
the best thing going for me is a full crop of hair...
a somewhat beard and a physique that
i actually worked for to attain...
i suppose my intellect: but then again i haven't
matched up with anyone on the sort of intellectual
i'd enjoy to reciprocate...
it's a beautiful world: but a daftly boring world...
there's no grand darkened poetic scheming against
the everyday language...
but she dressed up... rode me... i bit her this time round...
sure... great... i'm still tired from my Monday 19th Sept.
shift...
promises promises... no good to me this time round...

Sunday 18th Sept. 2022

i shouldn't be writing this right now,
my day started as early as 2:30am and i'm sitting here
trying to find some energy:
the three bottles of cider are sort of helping...
the extra nicotine is too: i've giving up caffeine:
i wouldn't say altogether but at least
in the coffee form... i don't think Pepsi is...
whatever it is... i went to bed at around 10pm yesterday
having come from a shift at the Romford ice-rink...
where the Raiders were thrashed by the Leeds' Knights
2 - 6...
i was so ****** nervous going into the shift...
why? i was going to be working with Emmy...
gorgeous girl: a gorgeous big girl: not fat: big...
a girl ideal for someone who's 6ft2...
all the decent postcards of what a woman ought
to be: thighs... *******...
i worked with her before at Basildon's Show Me Love
Garage festival: when i first spotted her:
ah! that classical English: Dagenham beauty...
i worked with her father: she bore no resemblance
to his ugly visage...
during the shift i asked her: so do you look like your
mother? can i see a picture, i'm just curious...
well... nope... she didn't even resemble
her mother... but i swear to god... i had to have a 330ml
can of indie ale before starting the shift... why?
my stomach was getting squeezed:
i needed to drink some alcohol in order
to puke some of it out before seeing her:
i felt like a teenager again...
she looked like the sort of English girl anyone might
want... a simple beauty:
just the right size for me... i'm guessing 5ft10...
but well rounded... probably taken...
but why i puked on the way to the shift i will never know...
i think i just built up this naturally Ancient Roman
need to regurgitate something
without having to put the index-middle tool down
my throat to agitate the throat to subsequently
agitate the oesophagus... it just comes naturally to me...
i start to crunch my stomach and torso muscles
and puke comes up... what relief...

Monday 19th September 2022

what was a Sunday...
today? Monday? i had to get up at 2:30am
to catch the N15 bus from Romford all the way
to Trafalgar Sq. for the Queen's Funeral...
i left the house around 3:10am... walked to the bus stop
and caught the most magical bus (trip) into central
London... sightseeing the whole of the East End...
from Dagenham... Barking... Upton Park...
Tower Hamlets... the bus didn't travel up to Trafalgar
Sq. because of the road closures for the occasion:
it stopped at a Thameslink interchange about 600m
beyond St. Paul's at Ludgate Circus...
the rest of the way i had to walk: about 20 minutes
to Charing Cross St. where the shift started...
again: supervising...

i must admit, i was planning a different route:
N86 then then N25...
from Romford to somewhere just after the A406
so the N86 could combine with a smooth
cross-over onto the N25... get to the vicinity
of Holborn and walk down to Charing Cross:
i never thought the N15 started off from Romford
and went all the way to Trafalgar Sq.
last minute changes: but i still had to wake up
at 2:30am to get in for a 5:30 start...
HERR GROG doesn't even summarise
what i was feeling... but thankfully it wasn't
a football match... to hell with getting up for
that sort of *******...
Wednesday the 14th taught us a lot...
this time round the crowd was better managed...
i didn't have to close off the Villiers St. entrance...
the crowd was flowing without any chance of
stampede or crushing... the two teams down the circle
route in fear of over-crowding were left:
pointless! i was supervising the entire flow into
Charing Cross underground station
and the Embankment station with the greatest
of ease: having only about 8 people "under" me...
at the debriefing the manager shook my hand first...
oh sure sure: "teacher's pet" *******:
no! it... just... ******* worked...
we were better arranged this time round...
no complaints... nothing... we had a river of
people and we didn't have to resort to PLAN B
because PLAN B was already tested on Wednesday
and "management" realised that it didn't work...
i must have robbed about 40+ people of
any consequence to work...
i too was a pawn... but they were super pawns...
unmoveable pawns... all the traffic came through
my position...
but **** me: compared to roofing? this is a ****-poor
job: sure... people's skills... you get a grumpy steward
from time to time: you talk them into comfort:
hey presto! this one Mark was giving me beef at first...
but i had enough sympathy to reel him in...
and? he reeled in...

at one point i attired myself in the clothing
of persuasion: i persuaded these two Sainsbury's
managers whether or not they had any free food
that was "just about" going out of date?
hey presto! of the 16 supervisors...
and 140+ staff... i was the only one walking around
with a Sainsbury's manager giving out
free sandwiches to the staff...
i did that once already: at Wembley...
i walked up to a burger kiosk and asked the seller:
so... these burgers... when the public stops buying them:
what do you do?
we throw them away... ooh! that's a shame...
you mind giving them out for free to my stewards?!
that's how the army works...
you know how you get compliant troops?!
you feed them: you clothe them...
those are the two sole prerequisites of
compliance... *** is too personal...
you feed them: you clothe them...
that's it...
    we did a round with the Sainsbury's managers
to all the positions and gave out free lunches...
hugs... fist-bumps... blah blah...
the manager didn't do that... i did that...
i kept everyone happy... well fed...
hmm... i try to imagine myself being in the army
sometimes... i think i could pull that KINK off...
i think i could... i have a third eye that's not about
some Hindu Shiva third eye of the mind:
i'm thinking: third eye CCTV crow...
third-person look-around...
i'm not even ego-tripping: i'm tripping on
the sort of authority that allows people to congregate
and loosen themselves onto and into the world...
hmm... this might just work...
unlike a busy-body female boss-***** supervisor
control freak... i decided to be male:
as males decide to be... hands-off approach...
an approach akin to: let's see what works and what doesn't...

she's send me photography of her face
like she's some "version" of the Greenwich Meat Time,
meridian: i always thought the Greenwich Time 0
was more important than the ******* "horizon"
of the EQUATOR... time... more than space...
is more important... ugh...
i'm willing to send her pictures of my hand
pointing at something, or the cat sleeping in my bed
with a wooden SHASHKA hanged upon my wall,
a branch of oak that looks like a sword...

o.k. fair enough: this death surprised me...
i'll only be content when i finally see Charles' visage
with a tenner i'll spend...
i'm ******* off to the brothel tomorrow...
today was a day of recovery... i'll need my usual diet
of whiskey and ****...
last time round: i tried performing a 69 position:
1. she didn't like the fact that
i "wasn't looking"... i was... but my sight was
obstructed...
she wanted to show me how **** the lingerie
looked almost tattooed onto her...
2. i blamed the *******...
it wasn't the *******...
we started going the 69er position:
i start tasting these nasty chemical:
snort a line of paracetamol...
  it's not *******... she said...
it's my anti-contraceptive pills...
i flush my nostrils... i gag at the mouth...
but lucky for me she explained...
well... if she offers to take me back home
for a nioght of ******* and then she's not willing?
i'll just take another girl! simple! no?!
Terry Collett Apr 2015
Hes gone. I heard the door go. Ingrid relaxes, her shoulders unwind, the nerves untense. Just wait; he may return. She waits, listens. He does that sometimes; returns and stands looking at me as if he cant decide about me. No sounds of him. Mum in the kitchen; pots and pans; water running, but not him. Ingrid stares behind her in case her father has sneaked in without her hearing him. No one. She bites her lower lip. That time shed thought hed gone and she turned and he was there and he walloped her one about the head saying she was looking at him evil eyed. She looks at the table; at her breakfast bowl and cereal. He would deny her even that some mornings. Been too naughty hed say and made Mum take it out and hed sit there eyeing her and if he thought she was making faces hed slap her leg. Hes gone. Relax. She begins to eat her cereal. Spoons it in slowly, just in case he comes in suddenly out of nowhere and whack and shed choke. Relax. Her mother in the kitchen washing up. Spoons in more cereal. She thinks of that time shed taken a biscuit from the jar and he said she was a thief and whacked her hard and made a big mark on her. Benny noticed. Benny knows. Her father hates Benny. Youre not to see that Benedict kid, her father said, if I see you with him youre for it. She sees him still. Were the same age, in the same class at school. Nine years old. She mouths in more cereal. Licks the spoon after. Looks at the photograph on the sideboard. Black and white. Five of them. Back then. Her father is at the back grim  as death, black suit and tie, white shirt. Mums next to him wide eyed and pale as death. That grey dress. Her big brother Tom at the front. Smiling. Gone now after that big argument with Dad last week. Sylvia my big sister sitting next to Tom. Gone last year with that Spiv. And me at the end glasses and buck teeth even then. A bang at the door. Whos that? Mumll go. Listens. Puts her spoon down. Bites her lip. Blinks. Maybe hes back forgot his keys. Blame me. Last time he did he blamed me. Said I hid them. Voices at the door. Not him then. She relaxes. Picks up the spoon. Eats a small mouthful. Nervous. Always am. Footsteps coming. Is it him? She puts down the spoon and stares at the doorway. Mum. Standing there a cigarette in her mouth; eyes ******* up against the smoke. That Benny boys here at the door. Benny? Here? Good job your fathers not here or thered be hell to pay, the mother says. What does he want? Says he wants to take you out. Ingrid looks at her bowl, fingers with the spoon. Can he come in a minute? Not good idea, what if your father returns unexpectedly? Just a few minutes while I eat my breakfast? The mother sighs. Have to be ****** quick in case your dad comes back for some reason. Then well both be for it. The mother goes out and disappears. Voices. The door closing. She hates the sound of the door closing. It usually means hes home. If hes singing or humming it means all is well, but if hes quiet and sullen then Im for it or sometimes Mum gets it first and me after. That sound. Door closing. She stares at the doorway. Benny appears smiling. His hair with the quiff; the hazel eyes. Coming out? He asks. Where are you going? He sits on the settee, looks around the room. Thought wed go to see a bit of art. Art? What paintings and that? He looks at the her. Yes, National Gallery. Costs nothing. She picks up her spoon and eats cereal, looking at him, listening for the door. How do we get there? Bus to Trafalgar Square. How much is the fare there? She asks. Not much for kids. He looks at the photograph on the sideboard. See your old man is as grim as ever. She licks the spoon for the last bits of cereal. She can hear her mother banging about in the kitchen. Will she tell Dad when he gets home? Hard to say. Well, are you coming? Benny asks, looking at the fireplace. You shouldnt have come here; my dad might have been here still. I saw the old ****** go, Benny says, watched him walk through the Square, Benny says with that grin of his. He might have come back, she says, putting down the spoon. Then what? Who knows? Benny says unconcerned. She gets up and walks towards him. He would have hurt me for you being here. He hurts you anyway. She feels uneasy. The bruise on her thigh is still there just under her dress. Ill ask Mum if I can go. He nods and smiles. If only she could smile like that. If only. Ill ask her. He looks at her go. She finds her mother sorting out washing for the copper. Can I go out with Benny? He still here? Ingrid nods. Yes. Where? See paintings. Where? National Gallery. Too far. Not far, Benny says, standing behind Ingrid at the door. Bus ride away. You shouldnt come here, the mother says. Not welcoming, Benny says. Not meant to be, the mother says. Ingrid bites her lip. Her stomach tightens. What shall I say? Will she tell? Her mother stare stares at her. On your head be it; I dont want to know. The mother turns away, sorts more washing. Got to go to toilet, Ingrid says. Ok, Benny says, Ill wait. Ingrid goes off to the toilet; locks the door. Benny stands by the door staring at the mother. Ingrid sits down. Her stomach churns. She listens for voices. Nothing. What if Dad comes back? She waits.  The bruise on her thigh is blue and black.
THE DAY BENNY CAME TO INGRID'S HOUSE IN 1950S LONDON.
Down through the ancient Strand
The spirit of October, mild and boon
And sauntering, takes his way
This golden end of afternoon,
As though the corn stood yellow in all the land,
And the ripe apples dropped to the harvest-moon.

Lo! the round sun, half-down the western *****--
Seen as along an unglazed telescope--
Lingers and lolls, loth to be done with day:
Gifting the long, lean, lanky street
And its abounding confluences of being
With aspects generous and bland;
Making a thousand harnesses to shine
As with new ore from some enchanted mine,
And every horse's coat so full of sheen
He looks new-tailored, and every 'bus feels clean,
And never a hansom but is worth the feeing;
And every jeweller within the pale
Offers a real Arabian Night for sale;
And even the roar
Of the strong streams of toil, that pause and pour
Eastward and westward, sounds suffused--
Seems as it were bemused
And blurred, and like the speech
Of lazy seas on a lotus-haunted beach--
With this enchanted lustrousness,
This mellow magic, that (as a man's caress
Brings back to some faded face, beloved before,
A heavenly shadow of the grace it wore
Ere the poor eyes were minded to beseech)
Old things transfigures, and you hail and bless
Their looks of long-lapsed loveliness once more:
Till Clement's, angular and cold and staid,
Gleams forth in glamour's very stuffs arrayed;
And Bride's, her aery, unsubstantial charm
Through flight on flight of springing, soaring stone
Grown flushed and warm,
Laughs into life full-mooded and fresh-blown;
And the high majesty of Paul's
Uplifts a voice of living light, and calls--
Calls to his millions to behold and see
How goodly this his London Town can be!

For earth and sky and air
Are golden everywhere,
And golden with a gold so suave and fine
The looking on it lifts the heart like wine.
Trafalgar Square
(The fountains volleying golden glaze)
Shines like an angel-market.  High aloft
Over his couchant Lions, in a haze
Shimmering and bland and soft,
A dust of chrysoprase,
Our Sailor takes the golden gaze
Of the saluting sun, and flames superb,
As once he flamed it on his ocean round.
The dingy dreariness of the picture-place,
Turned very nearly bright,
Takes on a luminous transiency of grace,
And shows no more a scandal to the ground.
The very blind man pottering on the kerb,
Among the posies and the ostrich feathers
And the rude voices touched with all the weathers
Of the long, varying year,
Shares in the universal alms of light.
The windows, with their fleeting, flickering fires,
The height and spread of frontage shining sheer,
The quiring signs, the rejoicing roofs and spires--
'Tis El Dorado--El Dorado plain,
The Golden City!  And when a girl goes by,
Look! as she turns her glancing head,
A call of gold is floated from her ear!
Golden, all golden!  In a golden glory,
Long-lapsing down a golden coasted sky,
The day, not dies but, seems
Dispersed in wafts and drifts of gold, and shed
Upon a past of golden song and story
And memories of gold and golden dreams.
Terry Collett May 2013
At the fountain
by Nelson’s Column
you met Julie
in mini skirt

and bright
red top
her hair hugged
into a ponytail

a copy of Sgt Pepper’s
under her arm
you in jeans
and open necked shirt

came across to her
standing there
looking into the fountain’s water
sorry I’m late

you said
missed my train
no problem
she said

bought my own Beatles' LP
and she held it out to you
friends say it's neat
and way out

she added
as you scanned
the sleeve
where we going?

you asked
drink I must have a drink
she said
how’s things

at the hospital?
usual stuff: treatment
drugs to get me
off drugs

therapy
psychiatrists
nurses
and so on

you?
she asked
I’m ok
you said

ok is crap
ok is boring
is mediocre
life either *****

or it’s exciting
and over the top
she said
the Square was crowded

people
and pigeons
and water
and sun

and sky
and mixture
of perfumes
and bus fumes

let’s get that drink
she said
and so you went off
to a bar off

Trafalgar Square
and ordered two drinks
and sat outside
in the sunshine

I think the fat nurse
on my ward suspects us
she said
suspects what?

you asked
you and me
and that small room
o that

you said
she took out
a cigarette pack
and took out

two cigarettes
and gave one
to you and lit
them both

think she’s jealous
or envious
Julie said smiling
free love

makes some women angry
Schopenhauer said
somewhere
that wives and ******

despise women
who give ***
away free
it undermines
their contracts

how’s Jamie?
you asked
still locked up
she said

they claim
he was supplying
but he wasn’t
they ******* him up

she inhaled
and searched
your eyes
you still playing

your saxophone?
yes
you said
I practice everyday

annoys
the neighbours
sometimes
but got to

keep up with it
and hone the skills
she sat legs crossed
her thighs exposed

her footwear bright
her fingers holding
the cigarette
the lips red

her eyes
like small mirrors
small **** pressed
against the red top

the memory
of that small room
off the ward
she and you

and brooms
and boxes
and such
and kisses

and ***
and on edge
for the door to open
but not overmuch.

— The End —