When we were growing up
there was a derogatory term.

To be referred to as a Tull,
had a negative connotation.

Tull, Jethro |tʌl|
(1674–1741), English agriculturalist. In 1701 he invented the seed drill, a machine which could sow seeds in accurately spaced rows at a controlled rate, reducing the need for farm labourers.

Jethro Tull, the rock group were
called after this man. As yet, I
have not ascertained, what growing
wheat for bread has to do with being
a nasty piece of work, I.E. a Tull?

I.
Identity?
For so long, I've felt like I had none.
I am a piece of college-ruled paper
ripped, torn, taped to a back alley wall
with names and dates and places
all written in a rainbow of Sharpies
by people with faces I cannot remember;
my handwriting with the cursive "f"s
nowhere to be seen,
words I'd written so long ago
buried beneath the influence of everyone else.

Who are you, when you're no one
except everyone?

II.
I'm sick.
I am years of not getting out of bed.
I am missed school days, late-passes,
a truant.
I am doctor's notes.
I am a pile of handwritten prescriptions.
I am one white
two orange
one pink
and two multi-vitamins.
Misdiagnoses,
tests,
exams.

My feet melt into the blue and grey carpeting,
my arms turn brown like the worn-down stain of the armrests,
the receptionist knew me by name
until "next week's appointment" slipped off the calendar.

I am episodes of crying in crowds
or crying alone.
I'm haunted by mistakes remembered only by me.
I am up or I'm down
without knowing what's between.
My brain leaves my body and I can't feel my hands
so the bottle of Advil moves up one more shelf.

I am told to lie on my medical forms
so I won't be held at arms length,
or treated like someone who's different or strange;
but that's just how I'm treated at home.

III.
I am nothing more
than the result of years of torture.
Two bra sizes too small.
Four dress sizes too big.

I am nothing more than a waistline,
which would be fine
if I had one.

I am not pretty enough.
I am not beautiful enough.
I am not good enough.

And I will not be joining you for dinner.

IV.
I push people away
but long for them to come closer.
I run, keep my distance
but, when you're not looking, lean in a bit closer.

I text boys 300 miles away
but pretend he's right there beside me.

I'm gullible, I'm weak.
I fall for anything, I fall for everything.
I forgive too quickly and I love too much,
I set myself up for the fall.

V.
I'm a disappointment.
I'm wrong.
I'm wrong.
I'm wrong.

I forget my chores.
I forget responsibilities.
I forget rules, I forget deadlines, I forget lines in the play.

I forget numbers and facts and formulas.
And when the grades come back
I remember
what a parents' giving up looks like.

VI.
I'm difficult.
I'm needy.
I can't drive,
can't make my own appointments.
Can't sign my own papers, can't run my own errands,
can't buy my own dinner,
can't call my own shots.
I'm difficult.
I hear myself say that I don't have a choice
But the sigh in reply says,
I'm difficult.

VII.
I love the wrong gender.
I swing the wrong way.
"I always imagined my daughter walking down the aisle
with a man who reminded her of her father," he says.
"I'm just disappointed," he says.
So I bring home a boy
and Mom says,
"Thank you -
I promise, it's easier this way."

Some girls tell their families when they find their first love,
but mine will stay hidden
in the box with the K
filled with letters and gifts and "thinking of you"'s
collecting dust between the wall and my bed.

VIII.
I am numbers, and numbers, and numbers.
Weights, heights, exes, mistakes -
too high.
Grades, standardized tests, word counts and successes -
too low.

IX.
I'm deluded.
Always telling myself that if Mom really loved me
she'd put me before the glass of wine.
Convincing myself that it's my fault
and that I'm selfish, petty, judgmental.
I'm hurt.

I'm hopeful.
Waking up to the overhead light in my room at 10
when Dad comes home from work -
asking me how my day went
and closing the door before I can reply.
I'm silent.

I'm lonely.
Clinging to the siblings of friends and partners
desperately wanting a family.
Constantly jumping from partner to partner
desperately needing a hug.
I'm alone.

X.
With all my shortcomings
with all I do wrong
it's hard for me to find when I do something right.

But of all the things I'll never know,
I know how to feel, I know how to care.

I'll show you passion like you've never seen passion before.
I've seen gods in mortals and mortals in gods,
I've felt fire inside me when it's icy around me,
I've painted the Sistine Chapel with the notes of F. Doppler,
I've sculpted the moon and the stars and the sun with my heart,
I've loved with the urgency of the wind of a hurricane
and I've forgiven like the sand did the Atlantic high tide.

XI.
I forget so much,
but there's so much more to remember.

I'll remember your dreams, your hopes, your ambitions,
I'll remember your tears on the sleeve of my shirt.
I'll remember the days of the sweet uncertainties,
bus rides and text messages and scarves and "good morning"s.
I'll remember the day my heart fell for yours
(ticking, ticking, like the bomb in the birdcage).

I'll remember the album with the songs named after planets,
and I'll remember when you couldn't meet my eyes to the lyrics.
I'll remember the confessions from the football field bleachers,
even next year, when there's an empty chair in the orchestra.

I'll forget all our fights, even the ones you never will,
and I might lose some of our laughs,
but I'll never forget passion at 4 in the morning,
or slow-dancing like middle schoolers at high-school dances,
or your body against mine to old SNL re-runs.
I'll always remember the times you let me in
and I'll be here in silence for the times you still can't.

I'll remember our promises
of dreams and forever -
plantations in Greece, Italy, Spain.
Love letters and presents hidden around our camp cabins,
four years of love, friendship, promises
dissolved in a haze of disdain.

I may not remember the quadratic formula,
I may not remember Newton's third law,
but I'll never forget how you make my heart hammer,
even when you forget me.

XII.
I am
forgettable, only wishing to be remembered by someone, someday,
sad, looking for joy in things big and small.
A hypocrite, begging for proximity then crawling far, far away.
I am miserable, but passionate.
I am identical, but a glaring mistake.
I am what-if's, maybe's, and might-have-been's.
I am quoting Jethro Tull songs in my confessions.
I am words in my head that will never escape my lips,
I am words on my lips that should never have escaped my head.
I am things I'll never say and stories I'll never write,
I am singing in the shower, dancing in the halls,
I am running across busy streets in April
and sleeping in screened-in porches in June.

XIII.
And every time I wake up alone,
I'll stand in the yard, look up to the sky
and remind myself that the sun, too, is alone
but can still warm the earth with its love.

Jethro Tull once wrote a song "Nothing is easy"
Aint that the truth
why can't we just go to work
come home ,eat our fill,nap in our recliners
no struggle and strife
just be happy

guess that's easy

and as "Tull" said Nothing is easy

They say that I came up screaming when
I surfaced, near the boat,
Distraught, they said, eyes gleaming
Thrashing around, could barely float,
They pulled me in with a boat hook, thought
I might be down with the bends,
Then decompressed in a chamber, that
Was where this story ends.

The start was out on a dive boat near
The Isle of Tora Lee,
One of a cluster of smaller isles
Down in the southern sea,
It lay out wide on the outer edge
Of the continental shelf,
‘It’s one of the greatest dives,’ they said,
‘But check it out for yourself.’

It fell away on the eastern side
A thousand fathoms or more,
Nobody knew how deep it was -
And who was keeping score?
The first three did their shallow dives,
No more than 100 feet,
While I stayed back in the boat to wait,
I had to be more discreet.

The record dive was a thousand feet
With our scuba type of gear,
I knew they wouldn’t be happy if
I tried the record here,
I cooked a fish on the after deck
While the rest were down below,
And ate it while I was waiting there
For their heads to finally show.

I checked the depth as I went on down
At a slow and measured pace,
I had to adjust to the pressure as
The fish swam past my face,
I checked the gauge, 600 feet
And I kept on going down,
Til I came to the inlet of a cave
That brought me up with a frown.

For jammed in the entrance to the cave
The remains of a sailing ship,
Just the prow and the forward deck
With the mast collapsed on it,
The stern had broken away and gone
To the seabed down below,
But up at the front, the ‘Black Revenge’
Was painted along the prow.

I swam on into the cave, and lit
My way in through the dark,
Hoping to hell I wouldn’t swim
In the path of a roving shark,
But fifty metres inside the cave
Was a tiny glow of light,
Flickering up above me like
The stars on a pitch black night.

Then suddenly I had surfaced,
There was air inside the cave,
Pulled myself on the ledge and found
I stood by an open grave,
A line of skeletons in a row
That had once been fifteen men,
They must have known they would never roam
Or take to the seas again.

I sensed in the corner of my eye
A movement in the dark,
Then spun around and I saw her there
A woman, standing, stark,
She wore the rag of a printed dress
And she crossed herself, and hissed,
‘Would the good Lord please preserve me!
Be you man, or be you fish?’

I must have looked quite a sight to her
In my rubber scuba gear,
I took off my mask to calm her down
As she backed away in fear,
‘How long have you lived down in this cave,
And how did you arrive?’
‘I eat of the good Lord’s fish down here
And they’ve helped me to survive.’

She said she’d come on the ‘Black Revenge’
As the moll of Captain Tull,
He’d kidnapped her from the ‘Bell and Bar’
And had locked her in the hull,
She’d sailed the seven seas with him
Til the storm that set her free,
Swept her into this cave with him
In seventeen sixty-three.

‘His bones lie there at the head of the line,
I cut his scurvy throat,
Just as he crawled up on the ledge
When he said he couldn’t float.
My name is Mary Parkinson
And I’ve hoped, and dreamed and cried.
To see my own dear home again,
Before my mother died.’

I didn’t tell her the year it was
It would be too cruel to say,
Two hundred and fifty years had gone
But to her, a year and a day,
I told her I’d fetch some scuba gear
And I’d be back down, and soon,
And that was the day I lost my way
On that autumn afternoon.

They said I shouldn’t have eaten it,
That fish with the broad green stripe,
The fish had made me hallucinate,
I said that it wasn’t right!
‘I’ve seen the woman, deep in the cave,’
They patted my hand, and that,
But I’m fretting that Mary Parkinson
Still waits for me to come back.

David Lewis Paget

There was a street of crocodiles
Somewhere far away
The floor was made of dark blue tiles
And everyone ate curd of whey

The plastic palm trees and electric sun
Made everything seem fake
Like in a second rate movie set
Where props would always break

The crocodiles cried a lot
They sold their tears in jars
Their tears were put in copper pots
And used as fueling for the cars

The crocodiles were all peace and love
They wore velvet on their legs
Spending the days singing Jethro Tull
Eating organic cage-free eggs

Miraculously in a day
They smoked ten pounds of ****
And soon enough they were pretty broke
Living on the street

This was the street of crocodiles
Somewhere far away
The floor was made of dark blue tiles
And everyone ate curd of whey

The plastic palm trees and electric sun
Made everything seem Fake
Like in a second rate movie set
Where props would always break

The crocodiles cried a lot
They sold their tears in jars
Their tears were put in copper pots
And used as fueling for the cars

When we talked the other day at lunch
we were standing in the hallway
you holding my hands tightly
between yours
and a piece of paper crumpled in the
sweaty palms of mine
told me that your identity was
hope.

And I've been thinking about identity a lot lately.
How, for so long, I've felt like I had none.
I was a piece of college-ruled paper
ripped, torn, taped to a back alley wall
with names and dates and places
all written in a rainbow of Sharpies
from people who's faces will never escape my memory
my handwriting with the cursive "f"s
nowhere to be seen
words I'd written so long ago
buried beneath the influence of everyone else.

I believed that, if I had a word at all
my word would be something like
smothered, suffocated
lost, broken.
And, in a way, I guess it is.
But I think it's more than that, too.

I think that my word isn't just
right here,
right now.
It's the past, it's the future
it's what I have, and what I'll never possess
it's what I need, and what I crave
it's what makes me feel so much, yet feel nothing at all
it's what I'd do anything for, yet what I fear the most
it's safe, and it's dangerous
it's beautiful, and it's ugly
it's small, but so magnificent.

It's how I feel when my daddy holds me tight after a long day.
It's when my mom says she doesn't want to see me hurt.
It's why I always hold on a little too long when you wrap your arms around me.
It's an excuse for hurting myself in an effort to protect those around me.
It's what I say when there are no other words.

It's why I push people away
but long for them to come closer.
It's why I run away, keep my distance
but, when you're not looking, lean in a little further.
It's why I text girls 300 miles away
but feel like she's right there beside me.
It's why I kiss boys in the rain at their parent's house
but, somehow, still doubt myself.
It's why I make promises I can't keep
but wish you wouldn't do the same.

It's why I laugh with you and cry without
It's why I hold your hand with my left and take pills with my right
It's why I read stupid books and write ****** poetry
It's why I believe in nothing but wish for something.

It's me, telling myself that if Mom really loved me
she'd put me before the glass of wine.
And it's me, convincing myself that it's my fault
and that I'm not that important, anyway.

It's me, telling myself that if I had friends
they wouldn't leave me alone on a Friday night.
And it's me, telling myself that no one
would want to hang out with me, anyway.

It's stupid things
it's serious things.
It's stupid things taken too seriously
and serious things mistaken for stupidity.

It's the past
it's the present
it's the future.

It's what I want
what I need
what you give me.

It is lost
it is suffocating
it's shattered into a million pieces.
But it's also found
it's alive
it's messily put back together with a 6'3'' hot glue gun.

My word is perpetual
eternal
infinite
but so fleeting.

It's me
because I am
forgettable, only wishing to be remembered by someone, someday
sad, looking for joy in things big and small
a hypocrite, begging for proximity then crawling far, far away.
I am miserable, but so happy
I am identical, but somehow completely different
I am what-ifs, maybes, and might-have-beens.
I am quoting Jethro Tull songs in my confessions.
I am words in my head that will never escape my lips
I am words on my lips that should never have escaped my head
I am things I'll never say and stories I'll never write
I am singing in the shower, dancing in the halls
I am running across busy streets and standing on freshly painted front porches.

And so is my word.

It's me
but it's not
but it is.

I was convinced
that the English language
was too small
lacking
missing something.
But then I realized
it wasn't.

You told me who you were
and one day, it'll be my turn.
I am
love.

You were my cross eyed Mary
I was over on the end
We used to meet clandestinely
Anywhere we can

You fingers froze antifreeze
Always a cold shock to me
My hot hand poured
Out in ecstacy
You Said ,"Set my liberty free"

Your smoke swirled around your aura
You blew into the breeze
I blew a shotgun into you
You coughed and then you sneezed

You were my cross eyed Mary
"But Mary's not my name"
As you slid in frozen fingers
I heard you drop your ring

references :
"Cross Eyed Mary" is a song by Jethro Tull from their legendary Aqualung record/cd

Ecstacy is a drug

Shotgun is to reverse a joint and inhale and then exhale blowing the smoke into someone's else's lungs

sneeze is anything snorted up one's nose

ring is a form of birth control where a plastic ring is inserted over the cervex

She sings, unites beautiful melody with a naturally melodious language
The end result being how I don't have a clue what she's saying
chanting the mantra given to her
by the bearded sage in the terry cloth bathrobe
who told her "your mind is a vast field where elephants gather to play"
before conferring the mantra

She lets the Sanskrit words roll over her tongue
a vernacular of formidable power
effecting even those who don't speak a word
such was I, Sanskrit illiterate, but the repetition
opened the lotus flower of my heart
the baby blue visage of Sri Krishna materialized
from the words she was singing

I took away his flute and blew a line from an old Jethro Tull song
she thought it enchanting
but Krishna was not happy to see his vaunted woodwind in the hands of a mere mortal
he stepped up to me, polite as can be
he says "if you don't give me my instrument I will be forced to cut off your hands, and then what do you think will happen to this poem?"

I stood my ground, possession being two thirds of the law
I blew the flute solo from Genesis' "The Musical Box" (having known it by heart)
the blue boy asked several times for me to
give him that almighty flute
each time I told him "No! You'll have it soon enough"
apparently not soon enough

(For he felt a pair of garden shears slice firmly through his right hand
the same set of shears severed his left
he dropped his stylus and papyrus to the ground
toppled over, landing smashly with a great crash
within a matter of time he bled out from the stumps where his hands had once been attached

Krishna picked up his flute and said
"what a pity"
and vanished into thin air
it all ended quickly as it had begun
and the sweet lady never stopped chanting her mantra
in fact her back had been turned before Krishna even showed up
it was a great shock to find her gentleman friend's lifeless and handless body on the ground

She shed a tear
I was no less miserable and sad
wished above all else
that I had been a real poet
so I could have finished the man's life work)

it started with the alarm
which I forgot to turn off
because everyday
it's how it usually starts
but not today
I sacrificed some hard earned
hours, for a day, just for me
but forgot the alarm
sigh
So I arise
Turned on my phone
read some poetry
appreciated

every.

single.

response.

to me and my ramblings

Facebooked each piece
of my heart that poked me
while being grateful
they tickle with a finger
and not attack me
at my backbone
with  a serrated knife

thats not nice

Cooked an early dinner
for my family
Because usually dinner time
clashes unusually with drinking time

and quite frankly
today, I just want them to eat heartily
and leave me be...

but one tiptoed through my sadness
because, he seems to be able
to climb any barbed wire fence,
negotiate the most hormonal minefield
see inside my ***** laundry basket
and kiss the hurts I feel

So I'm sitting here wallowing
in just another day
and I hear music from inside
I put my book down and sway

99 Luft Balloons
(in German, not English)
He hates that song with a passion
but he knows I love it.

Lucky Number...
Kate Bush
Fischer Z

Then my most favourite song!

See chameleon
Lying there in the sun
All things to everyone

Run run away

and my heart bursts apart!

It's not just another day
he's trying to make it special
with things to make me smile
bringing music into my life

no, it's not just another day,
it's my birthday
Raising my glass
to Iron Maiden
and Flogging Molly
Metallica and
and Jethro Tull
(the band, not the man)
I'm singing like no ones
listening
I'm dancing like no ones
looking
and I don't care!

It's my birthday
all are welcome
to feel my pleasure
and share!

Jan 28th 2014

I like the word Cnut. It'a obviously related to ****, which is nice. Freud would maintain an existential connection, no? Kristeva a maternal one. Derrida a...blah de blah

Matthew Conrad* Cnut is an actual name of a Danish king that ruled England... it's not related to **** in the least. it's authenticity speaks for itself, 990 a.d., variations include Canute.

Matthew Conrad crapper - its - ugh and the whole shitload of
missing diacritical marks in English, excessive when said:
hyphenation when quasi-German-compounding,
and the one-armed bandit of ditto when a possessive article is expressed, notably missing, a notable circus frenzy or:
that thing to mind on the tourist trail: short-hand it's:
it is, and its, such a short word will always do
stealth undermining when quickened to be expressed:
unlike a stripper's corset might, or a cat's invisible leash
given it's behavioural quasi, or in falsetto dittoing i.e.
passing down the torch, id est: more ambiguity than anything
so the dichotomy of hmm... quasi- or pseudo-?
almost or sort of?
even more atomic, linguists are mathematicians
of letters? sure, hence the complexity variance
of 10 ( 0 - 9 ) v. 26 ( a - z ),
mathematics is difficult, due to e.g. ∋,
which translates as t.q. (talis quod) -
is encoded....
where was i?
x and .
both denote a convergence - only that
the western multiple variation has
divergent off-shoots, while the eastern method
hones on a x, y, z, or (0, 0, 0) -
and hence the multiple, hence the full-stop
that's never a full-stop, given so many books are
written including bypassing the semi-colon
and hyphen and colon and all the other remainders... dare i say, reminders?
but still, mathematics overpowers
linguistics (the equivalent science) with the many
more punctuation marks...
≈ v. ~
mathematical punctuation in
language is sometimes akin to stiffened Latin
prefixes, like quasi and pseudo,
in mathematics quasi (≈) and pseudo (~);
the hyphen (-) is translated as +...
quasi = approx.
and pseudo = similarity.
there is so much refinement
going on when mathematical punctuation
mingles with literary Oliver Twist -
i mean, literature is a pauper when it
comes to punctuation -
ctrl c & v this ****...
only upon replying you can
i honestly spin the cobweb, thanks...
the Minotaur wakes up sorta thing...
i've decided you did this on purpose,
i guess i'm glad...
after all... it only takes
a very minor incision to dissect a whole body:
pulling the brain from the nostrils
within the framework of mummification
sort of thing...
but my luck is as good as yours:
if you don't prosper from this little hushed up explosion,
then at least i'll peacock strut into another blank being filled,
or the sort of thing you say on a Monday:
how was your Sunday roast, with the family... or...
whoever you ate with the previous day, in the afternoon?
Freud, yes, Derrida, yes... Kristeva?
feed me something essential,
never heard of what's already a pronoun enigmatic word
given the current transgender upheaval of he she you me
it we blah blah.
oh right! a woman! d'uh... i'm still stuck on Plath
and, ah ****, what's her name... Imogen Siberians-Need-
                  Sun-Cream-Akhmatova -
dunno... i was just reading this article about
    this *****-donor app that spirals female fantasies
out of control akin to the Tinder-swipe and i got
thinking about the futility of men in professions outside
of construction and whatever the **** there is to do
that's macho -
                          and rather than gender affirming,
more or less life-affirming -
                                        to the specified method-statement
of *** -
                             not that i'm undermined,
          or threatened -
just ****** bewildered by the whole um-hum hmm?
                     ****... (after a long pause);
i should really check this groovy someone-something out,
should i?
                   what medium was she using?
        i was digesting bob dylan winning the Swedish prize
for the best lingonberry jam (vocabulary) or
the marley: we're jamming in the wind -
                         don't know where such crass gin jokes
came from, but i'm sure they came from somewhere,
where?                           oh sure,
              a million poets said with jealousy:
   but i don't recite my poems while playing the ******* flute!
****** puritans: learn the ******* harmonica before
charging into the scene wanting to recite Jethro Tull's my god!

i hate technology, its automated typo system, i write one thing and then it starts playing hide & seek with me... i rarely make mistakes, but this a.i. automated typo system makes me look stupid, or neurotic in the least, i hate this automatic typo signification as if i am teaching someone!*

i love that drinking wins over writing sometimes,
like this strange neo-left asking me to top it all off
with my communist grandfather living under stalin
completely in agreement with them girlies weeping
when he stank the dog off the grave in terms of bio-tech
completion; he wouldn't be dear to the left epitaph,
he'd be like voltaire & the priest: given the devil
in the sickbed there was not time to choose enemies...
he'd be branded a ****... worded... the worst kind...
a pseudo pacifist of some sort... couple economy
and atheism and you get a darwinian exclusion
where the ants aren't oblivious to lions but exclude them
for their species so well organised, god can take
the hangover route and make the "self" less sellable;...
(economy of a species and darwinism
demands communism - exclusive economisation;
not inclusive economisation...
that's some sort of theological branch
of personification where man minds spider above
another man, etc.)...
there's no self included, esp. a (")self(") worth selling...
which means exactly that (the opposite of now)...
NO TOURISM INTO THE REALM
OF CELEBRITY LITERATURE...
WHICH IS ONLY BIOGRAPHIES....
GET YER **** OUT GIRLS!
YOU'LL WRITE A BOOK SOMETIME!
god this culture is barren, and to think i dressed up
in uniform for school listening to jethro tull once...
this ain't the same country...
it sold out to the arabs... charles iii
is a ******* traitor!
traitor!
charless the iii is john ii... character assasination
you like you did with diana...
diana's revenge... yeah i believe you
were wearing silk straps of safety and the
driver survived and the parapazzi blinded the driver:
one thing about jealousy... it has dwarf legs.
they pass into the political realm they do....
easier come easier to take on in politics...
economic migrants (we'll see about that,
your philanthrophy just took to faking flight
via an invisible magic carpet flapping its trims)...
i told you once that democracy is like inverse voyeurism...
mark the x on paper, ***** an ****** into jugs for
pale ale... excess carbonation... it turns all fizzy...
the geese marched into winter...
the swans marched right into a royal edict...
the neo carta was never crafted...
but i got the hang of the diacritic marks...
i was walking drinking a belgian cider...
C DER.... in belgian french there's an accent,
stress the c, makes the vowel missing...
cídre - not really acute i, but an acute c...
c         dr. dre, i.e. dre, c dre...
it's the acute stressor of c that makes the vowel
disappear... not that a vowel can actually
become acute... vowels like women wear
mascarra to look pretty, the consonants are
serviced for a complexity... via hebrew original...
c                        dre
not
               si                        ahem...               dre.
in passes on the pompom for expected pomp -
i can't believe it took a bottle of belgian cider
to get that across.
oh sure they can hang me... by the snout...
for i won't be able to march into a field of truffles...
but hey... big snout worthy... never mind
trying to wear leather shoes given the hannibal
treatment for tacky snakeshoe leather.
most say that difficult literature is literature unread...
there's no other difficulty in literature...
difficult literature is simply unread, that's why
it's difficult... simple literature trickles down as easy as water...
and that's why it's easily managed by what
the chinese done already, having no hollywood and
damning india's bollywood... their phoneticism
is lodged in ideograms... pictograms...
european phoneticism is lodged in a skin to number,
B akin to 8, e.g., we get rich owning ovens
televisisions and satellites... but we also own
watiers and cooks who are mechanised...
and have no richness of thought...
who cares if beijing is clouded in smog?
we have 15 more years of carbon emission to wait for
before our idealism is profitable!
ah but the arab girls will migrate to london every year
between may and august... i should be so lucky lucky
australian girl pop lucky with them shopping
in only one hot spot, a grieving egyptian's legoland
of tacky known as harrods!

My hands were sweaty and my stomach practiced summersaults
I wished for my body to fall into a black hole of space and time;
until this was all just a memory. I longed to be flooded with relief
I don't remember how we said hello, or if she asked how I was
Her lips were ruby red.
She once told me Sunday's were for band t-shirts and your boyfriend's sweats
I used to provide the latter
Now I don't focus on who does
She spoke a lot, I smoked a lot
She hasn't grown up much between our years of separation
Did I expect her to? Do I really mind that she hasn't?
She's still the same, she'll always be mine
In a parallel universe I'm waking up next to her
Butterflies bursting from my stomach as she pulls a Fleetwood Mac t-shirt over her head.
As I said goodbye all I was thinking was 'who the **** listens to Jethro Tull anymore?'

Sapphic poems call upon mathematic
skills, as meter meted out over three lines,
groups of two feet followed by three, again two,
                              ending with five beats.

Even this old formalist, prehistoric
in his method, limps along through elevens,
just like playing Jethro Tull, Lynyrd Skynyrd;
                              seven-four, five-four.

Hear the roar of dinosaurs in the tar pits,
stuck in sonnets, villanelles, rhymes and rhythms,
sinking slowly, praying for preservation;
                              creative fossils.

i find looking at my library that reaches the ceiling
more entertaining that watching television,
to be honest i prefer watching inanimate things
more than those caught up in animation,
my memory becomes the film's director,
and my imagination the producer,
while many personae come on stage with my thought.*

woke up lazy, usual me, unusual me
when i think about it,
going to a catholic school we had to adorn
catholic school uniform,
blazer, tie, polished shoes, trousers,
white shirt...
i liked it back then: i have one specific sunrise
in winter to remember, having just
discovered jethro tull's aqualung album
when the mojo music magazine was still
in print and they listed the top 50 prog rock albums,
obviously the no. 1 spot was reserved for
pink floyd's dark side of the moon,
don't know why king crimson didn't win,
i guess the complexity of the matter didn't have the appeal,
but it was good, wearing school uniform,
having two / three days of your own clothes days
once you coughed up a quid or two for charity,
the point being... you can't tell rich from poor
if there's a specified attire... plus there's less clingy
exceptions to be made, less imagination involved,
less care for having to pick your next attire the previous
day to impress someone, less discrimination altogether,
as those non-uniform days proved:
a maths teacher said i looked like a lumberjack once,
mr. crickmore, ex-trader on the f.t.s.e. floor,
turned maths teacher, supporter of manchester city,
so i was wearing a three coloured chequered shirt
(blue, red and white), jeans (obviously blue)
and red converse... lumberjack he said... fair enough,
but the dim truth of it all is that reality is dull
off the catwalk, less creativity of cloth, it's more about
comfort, as i found when i decided to do a fox fur trick:
become like those inanimate things just a little,
be more peculiar and attentive when something changes,
starting from the digit 1, and then expanding into
a sequence we call phenomena - so i liked wearing
school uniform, i was, after all, enlisted into an army of
jesuit youth... although i rebelled having read a book
about heresy (mainly the gnostics) and didn't want to be
confirmed, and wasn't; but there's less discriminatory
behaviour if everyone wears the same all year round
and there's no peacock days involved -
and subsequently the days of my prime schooling
are remembered with less regret, and less adults
exploiting a semi-fact of how **** it was and moaning
and moaning about it just in order to sell it to gullible youth.
but today?
woke up, lazy as hell, the c.d. i put on to fall asleep to
was obviously finished, turned the radio on,
classic f.m., had to hear something breezy and airy
without larynx that the violins are, not to mention
the woodwinds, and the news, had to hear that,
the toilet was too far away (not really),
two bottles of coca cola, one almost empty,
urinated into it, ******* the cap, fell back to bed,
lay there for about half an hour, news came, heard it,
got up... made cinnamon coffee smoked a few in between
my "tuberculosis" coughs (it's minus 4 degrees in the nights,
i drink a few bottle of beer on the trot, hence the coughing),
had about 3/4 of a bottle of whiskey left,
went back and turned on a few compact disks (
i know, i was born too late to collect black vinyl 12", oh well,
80s silver craze), poured 1/4 of the whiskey over ice,
and instead of pouring the other coca cola's bottle content,
i didn't realise i was pouring something in
that, upon opening didn't fizz... AH ****!
yep, mixed 1/4 of whiskey with my own ****...
had to pour it away... but what a waste!
after that it was all downhill... made a tikka masala curry,
adding sweet mango chutney to a list of ingredients
too long to remember...
and upon my usual walk for ***** a strange thing
happened in the supermarket...
a gorgeous late 40s woman cashier inquired about my hands,
the longbow man's V to the french bandaged,
and whether my hands were cold... something
about buying muttons...
you see, i once wrote that the most ****** part of a woman's
body are her hands... ... ...
she was ****** flirting with me!
in my head a few minutes after it sounded like:
put your cold cold hands onto the warmest parts of my body...
as i said also, once: when a woman becomes erotically
pulverised the temp. in her mouth drops,
and the temp. in her... ahem... increases; juices flowing.

eating breakfast in a long time,
half a teaspoon of sugar,
coffee black, three marzipan
nuggets coated in chocolate,
two cigarettes...

and wondering where did the time
go since silverchair
released their debut frogstomp (1995),
or what happened to the offspring
after americana (the song *pay the
man still wasn't a commercial song),
or the sudden thrill of red hot chilli
pepper's reunion with john and
californication, deftone's white pony,
or when buying the mortal kombat
soundtrack, and someone nice enough
at our price putting a different c.d.,
not the score, but the soundtrack
with actual songs: type o negative
(subsequently ****** kisses),
monster magnet, k.m.f.d.m., and beside,
days with cassettes (m.o.d.'s mr. oofus
ha ha) - and gigs, tool in glasgow
with that awesome german girl
who i gave water to in exchange for a kiss,
wolfmother in edinburgh, a few gigs
in london (papa roach, disturbed,
type o negative, iron maiden, the offspring,
american head charge, rammstein,
slipknot, korn, red hot chilli peppers -
when that arena at canary wharf was still open)...
but then there was verdi's  la traviata in st. petersburg,
and aerosmith in hyde park, and boy
did depeche mode rock hyde park too...
i mean, most these influences came from
my uncle, but i can't give him credit
for king crimson, jethro tull and other
prog bands (early genesis, for example)...
or the jazz...
but it's just annoying to not have seen
the holy wood tour by m.m.,
or not seeing slayer when jeff hanneman
was still alive - after all i pledged the
tribulation of growing long hair in school
to him, one day, looking at the band's poster,
i was 15 then and became known as chewbacca
for a while.

I breathe deeply, moonshine sweetly dripping from my tongue,
the time has come to move away and
so I move my still into today,
This still and I go back some time,to when the wine we drank was blood red,good red,full,
the time of Tull and martyrs,Khan and Tartars,when men were men but then came industrialisation,the undoing of a once great Nation and you may mock but I say,'put a sock in it' we hit upon what we thought good which turned our forests into firewood,burnt in factories belching smoke,smoking's bad,is that a joke?
We built the century into a city with no thought and certainly not an ounce of pity for those whose clothes hung like rags on a nail,set sail for war to steal some more,oh we were good but now we lack the firewood to build a fire in the grate,
this state ruled over by the Queen has seen much better days,so it's better I remain, bound in the mill beside the still with moonshine sweetly dripping off my tongue.
I see what's done and is being done and when we go to Kingdom come we'll go with cap in hand,
a beggars band,a beggars land
an 'Ozymandias'
in the sand.

I'm sitting on a wooden bench, atop a hill, facing acres of nature's finest. A hundred metres to my left is a paved road, and other signs of human interruption are scattered around in my field of view.

Despite this however, despite the destruction I know tarmac and paths and civilisation to cause, the scape was dominated by sky and trees and fields; the blue of air, the green of pine, and yellow of rapeseed.

Found litter in hand, and songs from the wood in my ear (both literally the Jethro Tull album and figuratively the birds through the creaking of trees), I realise that here at least there is balance. We as a species believe that we wield so much power over the rest of the earth, and count as evidence the cities we've built that flatten anything that lived their previously. But we are nothing new, when landslides and hurricanes, floods and earthquakes do just the same. We may be a natural disaster in many places but we are still natural.

And nature does not break, it only bends. Everything is assimilated; growing up around the fences are new walls of sweet-smelling gorse and pine. Ivy twists up towers and cement cracks to make way for persistent weeds that conquer through tenacity mankind's best attempts at order.

We have never sat on the throne of Earth, this is not our kingdom, but a niche into which we have been able to nestle ourselves, between the plants and animals which tolerate us as a nuisance but not one that is ultimately devastating.

A thousand years from now the tall turbines in the distance and the marking paint in the forest beside me will be gone, but the wind and the trees on which they rely will be unchanged. There lies the true power on Earth.

i imagine heaven, as seeing copernicus balancing himself, while riding a bicycle for the first time, seeing how he theorised the imbalance of the geocentric model... mind you: the heliocentric model for writing history... kinda ******, isn't it? not much to go around, landing on the moon, probes to saturn, lovely pictures... to me? we're still living in a geocentric world, since most of history happens in the geocentric model, rather than the heliocentric model of: dwarfing man... plus, readings maps doesn't really help even if you know that the earth isn't flat... o.k. smart ***, you navigate a car across europe, from england to a remote city in eastern poland!

memory is such a fickle faculty of the mind,
made twice as fickle (some for of "natural"
selection) - most assuredly an ontological
anomaly - but i remember this one particular
morning, where i had to take a photograph
of the vanilla / raspberry / rose hue clouds,
while pumping myself for the day ahead
at 7a.m., listening to *jethro tull's
my god - ah, the flute man, i sometimes
imitate it, puffing out clouds of biblical
verse citing: the fire ahead, and the smoke
behind, will guard your path upon
the woken ask for: an exodus out egypt.
after all, i'm all for free speech,
but when a freedom is lacking,
and an insidiousness overcomes a first
comment of a site like you-tube...
       debating bands, "trying" to broaden
the young minds:
   i actually was introduced to king crimson
when i was circa 10 / 11...
      hell, depends who your father was...
people abused by trolls forget one major
point... the adrenaline rush you get
when being slighted...
      you know the effect of adrenaline in
this loser microcosmos?
  you know how powerful it can be?
you have to learn english a second time
even if you already speak it as an american,
or an australian...
              you have to pick out the best
bits: on the continent there's no such thing
as english humour, there's only
the macabre humour, or... dark humour...
prime ingredient?
oh don't be silly, it's not turmeric
(the poor man's saffron) - although that
could 'elp...
   it's? sar-casm!
     the english are renowned for it...
by the way, i once mentioned "chiromancy"
and i.q., i.e. how you hold a pen
or a fork / knife, or how you type without
ever glancing at the keyboard...
better add chop-sticks to the affair...
i prefer to call them pinch-sticks -
since you're most likely pinching your
food, rather than forking it...
and that: they're not exactly drum sticks
either...
            i wonder why high i.q. correlates
to culinary equipment...
        i fiddle with my beard,
scratch my head and state: no idea!
but... have you ever wondered why
thai curries are so much fresh than indian
or bengali? the indians use the base
of onion ginger and garlic,
and very few greens...
                 they're heavy on the stomach too,
but thai curries?
        so easy to digress on,
sorry, digest...
                   and these pinch-stick antics?
bewildering...
    i can't remember the last time i used
them,
but it's always the same cliche:
once you've learned how to ride a bike,
once you've learned how to swim,
once you've learned how to use chopsticks,
you can't forget how to,
even with a ridiculous amount of hiatus.
odd, isn't it?
   well, i find it odd...
see, when you come across a youtube troll
in the comments section,
be sure to turn a reply into a sarcastic snigger -
the english humour type,
recognise the adrenaline rush,
mention a small weener,
i know it's not exactly bungee jumping,
just recognise the adrenaline...
  and **** me it's there, esp. (like me) you've
had a few drinks "too many"...
it's easy prey... you can turn into
the most obnoxious antithesis of a troll
that a troll begins to cower...
   i'm not for safe spaces or curbing a freedom
of speech, but, come one:
you mention a few bands that are the neo-alt.
from the 1970s in the prog rock movement,
why settle on citing a want for kids reading
to led zeppelin... or black sabbath...
no one mentioned deep purple either...
guess what ****** of guitar store workers more:
deep purple's smoke on the water,
or led zeppelin's stairway to heaven?
  oddly enough? the latter.
i just hate hearing the news of teenagers being
"sold" suicide after being abused online -
esp. girls...
        come on, if you're being trolled,
turn into an englishman, become sarcastic,
watch some fawlty towers, some monty python,
and then spin it with things like:
i'm getting a hard-on, or: my ****'s getting wet...
pick 'n' mix...
          the only way to effectively disperse these
"saints" of free speech is to become
a bigger troll than they are...
  and how does one overcome a troll?
one becomes an orc.

gone with the record collection just
fly beeeeeitch!
I had ten years at least
of changing my name and ordering
13 free LP's on Columbia House
and RCA invested in that
a penny like twenty times
had some of the best Tull
and America vinyl
Eagles and Uriah Heep
and you had me thrown out
on my *** like I was yesterday
by the Beatles
the cops came said go
I did
but I expected my record collection
and my Bose 901 speakers
that mustang all in parts in our shed and parked
without fenders or tires  on our carport
and I came back to get them
and you had gone
with all of it
so just go
I don't think Columbia House
is in bizness ******
anymore-
what can I do?

B-side

things have changed since the days of progressive rock,
the whole idea of the concept album...
i once owned this copy of a music magazine: MOJO...
when magazines were still in print...
that's the thing with me -

three passions in my life, three great loves in my life...
cycling, music and philosophy:
if i said that i loved poetry i'd be lying...
since i imagine myself as writing it -
with this little beast there's a love-hate relationship -
it's hardly a love: it's a medium where my three loves come together...

but a lot has changed since the progressive rock days of the concept album...
what album topped the MOJO top 50 albums from
the progressive rock genre?
Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon...
who was second? ah...
YES' close to the edge:
personally i preferred the yes album...
Jethro Tull's Aqualung was way down the list...
Radiohead's OK computer wasn't unsurprisingly high...

but i would have topped the list with
King Crimson's in the court of the crimson king...
never mind...
i'd love to start a petition for all
the Red Hot Chilli Pepper albums to be released...
only upon hearing some of the B-sides from By the Way...

then moving to the B-sides of Blood, Sugar, ***, Magik...
i'm not sieving through the B-sides of Californication...
i'd want to start a petition for
all the Red Hot Chilli Pepper albums to be released
like Stadium Arcadium was released...
as a double-album... ****'s sake...
the artistry of this band is inexhaustible!

ALL RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS' ALBUMS SHOULD BE RELEASED AS DOUBLE-ALBUMS...
that would be ****** innovative:
a natural progression from progressive rock...
all other mentions of progression the spheres of politics and

sociology blah blah ought to begin with... this...
i'm just surprised "they" only figured it out with Stadium Arcadium...

i mean: this B-side of the band is like:
i remember the days when bands would have
INSTRUMENTAL tracks, most notably Iron Maiden and
Metallica... take for example the Teatro Jam...

vocals brought to a bare minimum or nothing at all...
yes... i feel privileged to get a sneak peek into
the potential for the "concept" of the double album...
oh... sly technicalities...

i'm seriously not the type of a Matthew Arnold type...
crying myself to sleep after seeing Liszt play and swoon
the ladies...

i stopped caring about the "lady department" of my life...
that's how the story goes...
Matthew Arnold went to a Liszt concert
and he went back home and cried about how Liszt:
the virtuoso managed to swoon the ladies...
it helped that i was working those two gigs
and i wasn't just a fan...
because watching the women watching
these guys on stage helped with
the required attire of the security services...

perhaps i wasn't jumping up and down...
but i was "secretly" tapping my feet...
i chose the wrong instrument:
like any boy does when he has no band mates...
tried my chances on the guitar...
i should have been a drummer...
envy of the world could not topple what i'm interested
in / with anyway...

my solitary existence is enough
for whatever is not enough for others...
beside the double-album fixation,
i have a more potent "fixation": it's an analogy...
the Matthew Arnold vs.
                 Matthew Conrad (that's me) analogy...

poor M. Arnold went home weeping
at his inadequacies, poets are never favoured by women...
poor sod... how could he cushion himself against
the onslaught of Liszt? he couldn't...
back in the day you went to see a composer play...
you just bought a ticket... even today...
you go to an opera... what can you scavenge?
merely the ******* programme... but moi?
i was working... sure...
but i was probably the only person working
that double shift who ended his shift buying
a T-shirt of the band... that's a nice cushion to have...

it sort of distanced me from envy...
from utter despair... i didn't want to be on the stage...
i didn't want to be those guys...
i was just happy buying the band's T-shirt...
i switched off in that moment...
moments prior i was worried about crowd
safety intrusions into my psyche...
the next... after all was said and sang...
i emerged like i just went and saw my
"new" favorite band for "free": well...
i got paid to see them... that's also crucial...
i was paid to see them overseeing the crowd seeing them...

maybe that's why... my focus was split...
splintered in half...
i was of a conscious akin
to a lightning bolt splitting a tree in half...
i forgot despair... i thought about seeing
them live back in circa 2004 when
the London Arena in the Docklands was still viable...
with Chad Smith pre-warming before the gig...
walking in the crowd seemingly unnoticed
in a cowboy hat... hell...
i was almost an optometrist
when Frank Bruno brushed shoulders
with me coming back from ring-side
at that Tyson fury match-up... patient little me...

i've landed the perfect job...
i remember the days when my former school-friends
would joke about me not having a job...
being misdiagnosed as a "schizophrenic"...
what the **** did they do? oh... right...
one worked in a pub... another worked in Homebase...
this general DIY wholesaler...
i was cycling past where he worked...
it's getting torn down...
i only laugh at things that other people
don't find funny: most notably my own thoughts:
or thereby a lack of them... and to think...

all it took: to be in the position
i'm in now was being "nice" to my next-door neighbour...
the same "******" story: it's not what you know...
it's who you know... no...
i couldn't possibly be the next Matthew Arnold
bemoaning whatever successes Liszt had with women...
i got a Red Hot Chilli Pepper T-shirt...

there is healthy consumerism and
there's unhealthy consumerism...
the healthy type of consumerism is akin to:
             buying a memento...
some sort of memorabilia...
i love that sort of consumerism...
since i was working i couldn't take pictures of the events...
but it has become apparent...
the T-shirt saved me from the agony
akin to Matthew Arnold's agony...
i rather think i know what i'm doing...
it's not exactly ontologically based with a bias...
it's what i've acquired...
of course i'm seeking fame...
but it's not fame associated with being alive...
it's more a fame centered with: when i am gone...

when i satiate all that's mortal about me...
that's why i reject the motives for employing
the tactics of: fake it until you make it i.e. CREDIT...
i work on a debit allowance...
i spend what i earn rather than borrow in order to spend...
sure... i'll miss out on... wait... wait...
what am i going to be missing out on?
i love the company of my coworkers...
sure... i'm not a brain surgeon...
my mother is currently watching this ****** show:

the good doctor... no! that's why doctors are not walking encyclopedias...

that's why they specialize...
no chance in hell is there a "god" in the medical profession... PLATE OF BROWN... sweet instrumental...
progressive instrumental...
bourbon is the sweeter version of whiskey...
probably the greatest "thing" to come out of H'america...
prior to the blues and jazz...
and i get told: white man bad... slavery bad...
sure...

until the original slavery emerged as introducing
the black man to musical instruments that gave
the poor white boy prune an escape from classical music...
i don't see what the "*******" problem is...
talentless people drowning gripping to razor blades...
sure... i'm sort of jealous... but i'm not envious...
i allocated myself a company of Ovid and Horace...
Milton is not going to be replicated...
i want to write something:
i will write something that's properly
resembling the sort of life worth living
at the turn of the 21st century... oh ****...
i forgot to mention my 4th love...

drinking... i mean...
whether it's bourbon or whether it's whiskey...
you can't really love something unless you bring it
to the altar of excesses... and i do just that...
perhaps i have room for a fifth... but?
seeing how my father behaves around my mother?
i hardly "think" that's a viable choice for me... ergo...
i can spare myself the unnecessary details
and go straight after the prostitutes:
i don't mind sharing... after all...
i'm not sharing alimony guilt / no guilt...
i figured out a way to avoid making "profile-contact":
eye-contact i can stomach...
but all this a priori modulations of man...
no wonder dates are so boring: dating...

i don't want to know anything about
another person: PRIOR...
i want to find out... gain knowledge...
but if i'm about to be served something on a:
precursor basis? that's... ******* boring...
no wonder i'm not interested... and never will be...
it like... you either get given a fish...
or you're given a fishing rod... and some maggots...
people have their fiddly bits...
but if people expose their fiddly bits...
the stereotype is that man is the "hunter"...
what the **** am i hunting?

i don't like hunting: i like scouting...
that's the entire problem
with Darwinism mingling with "humanism":
too much is borrowed from the natural world....
and when that happens?
imposing the natural world
on the technical world of man rarely helps anyone...

          by proxy or default... or perhaps by simply
the spiral in control of ad hoc...
i write... after all writing is an extension of thinking...
it's not an invitation to speak...
people complain about their internet access...
leverages of the comment section...
maybe i just figured a way to bypass unwarranted
"attention".... writing that's not to be sung...
lyricism: as much as i love it
i abhor it...
           because i'm not even close to singing it...
i'm also not even close to speaking
it... best left in the vaults of thought...
after all: i'm measuring my steps for a posthumous
fame...

           i couldn't rob an entertainer from his
today: our daily bread...
and there's always one member in the band
that's going to be grounded in:
a focus of creativiy:
grounded in not allowing all the caveats of fame
that come with it (fame):
the crab bucket principle...
me? i was lucky to watch both of their shows
in London...
                  while actually watching the crowd...
Matthew Arnold would have felt so much
better if he managed to get a Liszt T-shirt...
a consumer statement akin to:
i was there...
       i saw them live... look how happy i am
to be alive... i got the mother-******* T-shirt...
who gives a rat's *** about their private lives...
i too have a private life... i write scribbles that do not rhyme
and i'm juggling the idea of counter to
Nietzsche and poet-philosopher... philosophy is in
the background... but it's more a case of poet-journalist...
and i like the forest in the winter at night...
and i adore aloneness... which is a quality of being
that's un-reflective / restrictive of the expressions:
being alone or being lonely...
it's dissociative... not associative...

and i adore writing as a way to create constrains...
constraints...
                           because if i were to jump the fame
bandwagon of: "fame ruined my mortality"...
i'd be making videos... exposing myself to the world
of bad people with even more bad ideas...
**** me: filter in place...
all are welcome who seek to be served...
the rest can snuggle in a crab-bucket elsewhere...
by just consolation:
"being there" will pass me by...
i will have no concern for the world...
instead: the world will have concern for me
having past through it... that's how Heidegger's
idea is inverted:
   i have no concern for the world... for "being there":
i'm already "here"...
           for me the world is: there's being...
i can't pnpoint a "there" and couple it to "being"
to create Heidegger's bad grammar...
there's being: der welt... the world...
but there's also the self-being: selbst-sein...
                as much as there's the selbst-sein-im-der-welt...
there's also the selbst-sein-im-die-sein...
contrast: selbst-sein-im-die-selbst...

ha ha... me and a "girlfriend"? captain complications
"autistic"? no wonder i spend most of my time
around animals... this one time in the supermarket
a boy in a buggy started pointing at me...
see! that's the problem! the creatures that least understand
the complications of language: man can arrive at...
understand me best... we communicate on the focus
of onomatopoeias... syllables... vowels-alone...
finger-pointing: ooh! ooh! beard! tall man! beard!      

mein gott!
the idea of me being married is a bit like thinking
either Nietzsche or Kierkegaard being married...
or for that matter Kant...
i just kept focusing on the voyeurism presented
by pigeons... how many times they get rejected:
Darwinism is a fake:
it's not about the survival of the fittest...
it's about the survival of those who are subdue
about making the most mistakes...
i opted out... i like my comforts...
i'm not a social animal... i'm not a political animal...
ego: non animal-sociale...
   non animal-politica...
       ego-ergo: creatura-ex-solatium!
i'm a creature of comfort...
          
         i don't need complications
of womens' exfoliations...
"expectastions"...
                       bye bye... wave goodbye
the would be sinking Titanic...
       ice is a new hello!
         "women and children first"...
sink the ship... count the *****...
no... because this "****" doesn't end... unless it ends
with the DRILL FABRIC OF A MARCH...

not since it was so easy for the Islamic
Conquistadors to be made so easy
and for us "remainers" to have it made to "hard"...
then again... eh?! keep what?!
leap over what burp of a frog?!
            i'm pretty sure the Slavic world
imploded when they heard about the antics
of the "west"... i'm pretty sure the Russians were
like: before... we reach that summit of insanity...
i... a Russian... will sooner ****-fiddle an Ukrainian
with war... before the cancer spreads...
and so it happened...
                         west: my ungovernable wet ***!
"west"...
                       i might speak the language:
but churning through the outliers i'm ANTI...

  any deficiency in the orthodoxy use of language is:
HERESY...
           i have LIMITS...
**** it... i'm siding with the Russians...
i don't care...
              **** Ukraine: for Chernobyl!
we might as well find our nearest sacrifice...

BUT I KNOW THAT I'M ALREADY DEAD!
i'm just waiting for the "PAUSE" buttonz...

yeah... like that joke...
an Olaf... a Lothar and a Conrad walk into
a bar...
    only Conrad walks out...
why? because he didn't make any Hebrew jokes...
and he drank more whiskey than both
Olaf and Lothar...
i know i'm not funny...
i'm not supposed to be: ******* funny!
i'm supposed to be imitation-cannibal!

A-side

i'm truly lucky to be alive...
at least in my generation...
i was 13 when Californication came out,
i spent one afternoon
with my now estranged uncle
listening to the record while
he was working on his Porsche
eating take-away Kentucky fried
chicken...
                     talking about music and life
and *** and what not...
mostly girls...
            
my sympathy for Ukraine? none...
maybe Ukraine was part of the Soviet
Union maybe not (obviously)
but: yeah... thanks for Chernobyl...
my mother's premature chronic pain...
i might be the last drinker in the family
lineage who takes drinking
seriously: as a way to progress intellectually
but my mother's on opiates...
i was born with a "mark of Cain"...
whatever the hell it was...

it was a ******* nuclear REACTOR...
it wasn't a nuclear BOMB...
a bomb EXPLODES... a reactor IMPLODES...
who know what the ****** difference
is... but give it enough time
and you'll find out...

well... it must be bad... since how many *******
tests did the Americans the Russians
and the French carry out with bombs?
Godzilla blah blah...
       but it only took ONE bad reactor to make
people look all-crazy-at-each-other...
******* KARMA... oh yeah...
it wasn't enough to do both Hiroshima
and Nagasaki... more tests required!

and all those cases of freakish premature
cancers in eastern Europe... hell... elsewhere too...
last time i heard an imploding nuclear
reactor is like detonating 400 Hiroshima type
bombs...
and the effects were immediately apparent
in the botanical kingdom...
effects which even reached the region
where i was born...
   it was a case of Spring-Autumn...
     oh yeah... you had streaks of trees that
were autumn like: perhaps even past autumn...
sort of dead-ish... and streaks of trees
that were: spring-esque...

by then, no one knew...
                             the crescendo of the collapse
of the Soviet union...
a bit like the crescendo of the end of the second
world war and the all great h'american hard-on:

but let's face it... no other culture was so
good as the late 20th century American culture...
the Beatniks,
Charles Olson - the only post-modernist i have
any respect for... if i can call him that...
then again... i'm jumping hoops and conclusions
that that non-verbatim...

and you have to admit...
    no no... it wasn't because i was working both
the shifts for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers gig at
the London stadium: but let me tell you what...
i would have been completely ****** (OFF)
if i didn't buy tickets for both days...

day 1: opened with CAN'T STOP
day 2: opened with ALL AROUND THE WORLD
day 1: played UNDER THE BRIDGE for the encore
day 2: didn't play UNDER THE BRIDGE for the encore...

proper old-school...
that other shift i did where Weezer, Fall Out Boy
and Green Day played...
even the guys i was working with were like:
they (i.e. Green Day) 'these guys don't know when to
shut up'... i was like... oh... right, this song?
they'll finish on that one:
   it's one of those sentimental closure songs...
one of the girls sang that song
in an assembly when we were leaving school:
(have the) time of your life...

i was sure of it... oops... a ******* Dawid Bovie cover!
sure... people are at a gig... we're too,
but we also want to: ******* go home...
and we can't until all these ******* leave first!
ugh!

- thank god (casually expressed, eat dog doog...
yes - intentional, FELA'S **** is the *******
groove party - food)
i'm not one of those people forming a cliche
opinion about whether i'm a fan of the Beatles
or whether the Rolling Stones...
ask me again... James Brown yes...
and Red Hot Chilli Peppers' A-sides
or Red Hot Chilli Peppers' B-sides...

now... that's a tough one...

mind you: what gave birth to the Communist project?
pan-Slavism...
there were plenty of Hebrews living in Russia
and in Poland... i guess those people were
like... sure... let's try...
if we **** up: we'll **** up SPECTACULARILY...
and "we" did... but... the current reiteration
of "communism" in the VEST?
hmm... all this post-grammatical-mystique...
oh look! adjective, verbs, nouns,
the indefinite article and a definite article
are being neglected by the hyper-focus on pronouns...

it's like a second imaginary Chernobyl imploded
and fried people's intellectual capacity
for formal / casual conversation talking
about the weather and buses being late...

i'm only saying that Red Hot Chilli Peppers is
a band of / for my generation because...
i've already come across younglings
that haven't heard of them...
YES!                             and the band too...
but finally! i've reached the cut-off point
where i'm part of a zeitgeist that is reaching its
zenith-nadir...
                       the equilibrium akin to the Olympic
passing of the torch... although:
there's not much of a fire left...
       just an unlit torch... instead of fire: ambers
of a once fire...

but that's what happens... i understand the paranoid
Russians all too well...
back in 2007 they were such welcoming people:
i still don't understand why the western media
narrative about McDonald's being shut down
in Russia suddenly turned into a new fast food
chain under a different name serving the same food...
when i was in Russia: i swear to god...
i didn't see a single McDonald's... so... twinkle toes...
hum hum hmm...

were "my" people paid reparations
for the **** invasions? i know the Hebrews were...
oh yeah: we had that glorious task of being
invaded and then told to stack 'em bricks
for the crematorium CHIMNEYS...
well... it could have been worse...
we could have been told to ***** the NECROPHILIC
architecture of ancient Egypt in the guise
of the pyramids...

and because being under the Soviet yoke
of influence... and then... oh god! they gave "us" a
******* first non-Italian POPE!
one hand washes the other
but neither hand knows what the other hand
is doing... from ultra-atheism to ultra-catholic
conservatism...
"our" capital shouldn't be called Warsaw...
(no jokes about that, unlike Bangkok)
                                it should be called Seesaw...

backwards and forwards... as Norman Davis pointed
out: god's playground...
which it is... mind you: i'm sort of bad tempered
when it comes to being a Siamese-twin with
my Deutsche neighbours...
lucky that some of those Schwabs or Saxons
migrated... settled on some ****** weather island
and mingled with the Velsh and the Picts and
whatever other Celtic remains were left
in Europe...

oh but yesterday... that old man made me lose my
cool... i was already sweating it out for over
an hour and he exclaims in the street like
those manic street Apocalypse preachers:
where are you lights!
if i stopped i would have properly explained
than merely pointing at my rear-light glowing
red and telling to *******...
BUT YOU WOULDN'T SAY JUST AS MUCH
IF IT WAS ONE OF THOSE INDIAN
DELIVEROO ELECTRIC BICYCLE GUYS?!
would you, old man?
mind you: old man... you give a rat's *******
about one cyclist... then tell me...
who does your council employ... shouldn't
the street lights already be switched on?!
    hmm.. already be...
shouldn't the street lights be already switched on?
that sounds... eerie...

shouldn't the street lights already be switched on
shouldn't the street lights be already switched on...
i honestly can't decide upon the correct
grammar... let's be trans-grammatical about that one...
after all... it's all trans-biology anyway...
a bit like Plato telling Sisyphus that the gods
forgot about him and that he can stop his pointless
toiling... or what Plato mentioned about
being punished and being reincarnated
as a woman if one begins as a man...
well: to hell with reincarnation: time's up for
theology now that science speeds things up...

scary world... even scarier people...
THIS DOOR NEEDS HINGES!
bring in the unhinged experts in not-doors!
yesss... we need a house with enough of
BREEZE!
me? i'm just complementing their insanity with
my own special strain that prostitutes call:
GOOD-CRAZY.

testing! testing! hello! testing!

dipping my nugget in the bbq sauce
has begun,
i love it!
i've never had such an adrenaline
rush antidote, since watching ****
online, but, **** me,
i can hardly miss the opportunity,
and a lost expectation.

so i make a trolltube account -
just to leave a comment on a video
FBE, a video that puts children
against the oldies in the music scene,
i make prog rock recommendations,
implying: could at least
bridge a gap between classical music,
not that the kids have
to identify the bands,
but whether they *like the music....

and hey presto! out pops a troll!
and it went like this:

me - king crimson, jethro tull, tool, slayer,
tom petty & the heartbreakers,
rage against the machine, pearl jam,
prince: prog rock for exploring classical
bridges in labyrinth making in these cranium
sponges... last time i heard, no marylin manson
music video can't match up to freaking
out people as much as listening to gong's
the flying teapot album.

troll no. 1 -
ur creating posers and u word it like an edgy
hipster ****.

well, **** me! isn't it christmas!

me (replying) - perhaps, but the litre of whiskey
i've just drank doesn't help either, nonetheless
i've been well informed that youtube is rife with trolls,
and i was begging myself to find a platform to craft
an antidote to my apathy; much obliged for proving
my insiders' as being right, i might actually
take to these adrenaline instalments as the alt.
to what will become the new-****; **** man,
you're giving me a hard-on! well done!

no wonder i don't post on you-tube,
i.e. troll-tube...
     i can't even argue the point of current
youtube stars being demonetized...
  i have no sympathy,
talk about a psychopathic / sociopathic
knack at making "friends"...
    by the way, this was my first comment
on the platform,
i like watching children react to music
i grew up with, just as much as i like:
kids covering tool's song 46 & 2...
  it almost feels paternal,
  patriarchal in the extreme:
but to the point: a learning canvas.
      
i hope you find a more accommodating
platform, where people are sincere,
and not ready to cognitively gut you...
it's so sad, it's a sadness that deserves the
weird happiness, of youtube videos being
demonetized... oddly enough...
if you simply can't ensure a freedom
is a cordiality, if you can't ensure you
retain the freedom, with a promise of
tact, & manners, why have it?

i just made one footnote in the history
of youtube, and already i'm getting
an adrenaline rush of pity mingling with
the wrath of adrenaline,
sad, isn't it, so why expect anything more,
or less?
  
   i wish pity upon these internet anonymous
boogers, but i hardly can contain my
contempt boiling over...
      it's just sad, how people forgot how
to spell, for starters,
and then it dawns upon me:
  a language that neglects its existence:
is a language worthy of foreigners to
speak it, with the natives:
fryin' buns & baycon fry ups -
  glut shoot their turds into the depths
of the brown sea of ceramic shorelines -
the more i see of this,
the less i feel obliged to care -
  naturally occurring patterns of "expertease",
with that sort of first encounter:
i too, feel obliged: to **** on the natives
like a psychotic seagull with diarrhoea.

the idea of being a father,
is as much deserving the distraught
or / what if?!
as of the thought of attaining fatherhood
watching these gremlins
listen to the music i grew up with,
and nevering attaining the role
of father;
then again i basque in the endless loss
of responsibility;
which is always a non-celebratory
"analogy"
of having served the god of continuum,
which never made it to posit of the god:
(of) stand-still;

nonetheless, it's nice to have experienced
the shittiness of youtube,
and not have moaned about the censorship
of what videos are on offer:
pretty much a load of *******...
    1st comment 1st answer and you
get shrek...
     shows you a lot about, this "freedom"
of speech that shtinks...
      oops... looks like this freedom,
is a freedom's worth of hell.

The Cars, Jethro Tull, ELO, Stones, Sabbath, Blondie.....yeah you might of heard of them but I had these artists on 8-track.

8 years old sitting in the boat of a brown and green station wagon.... Saudade

By the time I got to Woodstock, I was pushing Sixty-five.
I was qualified for Medicare when I finally arrived.
All the famous bands that played there, by and large, they are no more.
You can hear them still on vinyl; just not at the record store.
It was mud and drunken nakedness in the summer of sixty-nine.
There were ******-active drugs too if you were so inclined.
All the gorgeous girls who made that scene back in Love’s own summer,
Now use Clairol to hide the gray and are somebody’s Grandmother.
And what about the tall lean dudes who lusted for them then?
They now rely on small blue pills to get it up again.
Imagine standing on that stage staring out at the tie-dyed throng
as Janice Joplin poured her heart and soul out in a song.
I hear Hendrix was electric even as the skies did pour.
And Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were up for an encore.
Lennon couldn’t make it and Jethro Tull declined.
Joan Baez was magical; Joni Mitchell would have cried.
They are but ghostly echoes now, playing to an empty field.
We were all once young and beautiful, and Love was true and real.
Still, Time is a heartless arrow, relentless now as then.
I only fooled myself to think I could go back again.

Loving you’s a battlefield
Mines scattered beneath the surface
Minds rattled—can’t you tell?
Better mind my own business

You were right: It’ll never go away
I’ll forever be lost within my dreadful haze
If there’s a beyond, please show the way
I’ve no vision within this melancholic maze

I’ve tasted without my tongue
Remember those flavourful fantasies?
All the songs that I’ve sung?
Untethered, unto little tull from my knees

only a ******* Paddy McCormic
could make my use of English
be deemed incohrent, not having read
any James Joyce or Beckett...
so what's the point
of asking for the German
behemoths...
while he's still stuck
playing computer games,
unable to confront his father...
and luckily she's thai,
and not a thai-boy
with liquorice rather than silicon
bulging fake cow sacks...
sure... he'll play the ace,
live till his eighty...
meanwhile i'll thank for my
cameo appearance,
rob my mother
to pay for Swiss euthanasia...
after I cremate her...
blink once more with
a dream of van Gogh...
pretend "it" never happened...
and then start twisting
swan necks,
while gladly *******
the Puerto Ricans ******
in Amsterdam...
heart as a rock,
only an avalanche woke
this... hardly a saint,
far-fetched for a nun,
and certainly
   not a priestly ******...
erroneous gang ****
sheep herding...
once or twice, a flute up
my ***... listening to jethro tull...
a.k.a. Jeffrey the Hillbilly;
if a ******* Israeli
can be trigger-happy...
i'll be pagan-tongued...
  **** it, play your little acronym
game of the urban well informed...
and then your...
kindergarten auf...
               dei N-und-F "bösewörter."
why do i hate the celt with
an anglo-saxon equivalent passion?
guess some of this
anglophone zungebenutzen
rubbed off on me...
                   hybrid tattoo..
mongrel soul...
            hence my retreat into
a skyline of zeppelins.

ugh... it was shaping to be such a good day,
waiting for tomorrow's thunderstorms...
supposedly: coming along to these isles...

   and it was, for some time,
   lying on the bathroom floor -
      **** naked on the cold ceramic tiles...

having just discovered the band OMNIA...
but believe me...
some bands are like that...
     they only work... live...
         nothing prescribed -
                 not some  cheesy greenpeace-esque
video about earth "warrior"...
but live on earth?
   that performance?
                    
come on... if you listen to songs
like fee ra huri,
   saltatio vita,
             the sheenearlahi set,
    morrigan...
   ****... the compact is pricey...
at 15 quid...
     i'm still going to buy it...

rarely can a live album do more
for a band, than a studio album...
   it really makes jethro tull
      piede piper look pale by comparison...
and there's a harp in it!
   and didgeridoo!
        the only time i've seen the point
of having a guitar seem almost
obsolete - no heavy metal solos
                     like *******...

and then...
   see... this is what sort of neighbour
i live next to...
    the man has to send his wife
to mediate a conversation with me...
the first... we ever had...
     in... oh... about 10 years...
           if not more...
and it had to begin on a war footing...
at first she was stunned that
i spoke immaculate english...
everything i said, and i said in english...
she... somehow didn't register
the meaning -
   complaining about my smoking out
of my window,
  telling me i was smoking into
her window, where her sick baby sleeps...
or rather cries most of the time...
   some things i didn't mention
as to why that might be the case...
40+?
      i tried to explain to her property
rights...
   she didn't get it...
i tried to explain to her: but i'm exhaling
in the opposite direction...
she didn't get it...
   i'm not some supernatural entity
that can control the whims of Eloïse
   (deity of the wind)...
she didn't understand that either...
until a second woman had
to step in and make be concede
to a compromise...
       i said to her: o.k. we'll compromise,
you'll see...
- is that a threat?! she replied.
- no!
    off she went sobbing like any woman
might when confronting a man...
****... me...
    but... perhaps she can attach more
emotion to her child that way...
talk to it, make it giggle...
the little ****** has been alive for a year...
and not once... had i heard a genuine
giggle...
    no pain, no pain is perpetual,
no pain is every a barrage,
                  not even a wisdom tooth ache -
at first... when it came:
        i thought it was an ear infection...
but such is the man she had a baby with...
***** can't even talk to me directly,
he has to send his woman
    to implore and cry her crocodile tears...

anyways, as the woman who mediated
the confrontational exchange later
    said -
       so? the sheep is whole, and the wolf
                    is full, no?
i guess so...
         aber, ich bin nicht
                           geben auf die nacht.
there are certain rules: to compromises -
    i am not giving up the night.