upping the umami, the fifth taste

“Umami is the last-to-be discovered fifth basic taste, along with sweet, sour, bitter, and salty, and triggers a distinct class of taste receptors on the tongue. ... The most notorious (and often unjustifiably maligned) source of umami is monosodium glutamate (MSG), the sodium salt of a naturally-occurring amino acid.”

a chicken soup recipe^ says it’s time,
time to up the umami,
me-the-no-cook is sidelined and intrigued,
then taken to another place

sweet, sour, bitter and salty
are the tastes of you life,
but it’s time to up the game
release the amino acids of my fingers
into her body, the tasting menu scrapped,
go direct to the boardwalk hotel,
railroad her unto my jail,
teach and share the notorious
fifth perception of loves taste,
the elixir of our combinatory sensationalism






————-

The Best Chicken Soup with Rice, Carrots, and Kale
Saveur
Tomato paste and fish sauce add depth and umami to our best-ever chicken-and-rice soup studded with sweet carrots and silky kale.

Talk to me like rosemary and oil,
Like the sour with the sweet,
The heat of the noodle stew,
The first sip of a red wine,
The juicy steak with thyme
And shiitake
Look at me with eyes as gravy
And talk to me like honey
That drips like melting ice,
Like fennel and onions,
And biscuits with peaches
Talk to me like umami risotto,
With leeks
Like viola lemonade
And cinnamon cherry pie
With lime
Sip me like your creamy earl grey
And talk to me like toast and egg,
Like bergamot marmalade
Talk to me this way

moist folds,
pink origami,
a woman's blossom,
deflowered.

hot as hibachi,
my fingers burn,
with exquisite flavors,
tasted.

wanting more,
of what she has to give,
a veritable buffet,
sights and flavors.

salty and sweet,
tastebuds titillated,
all natural,
umami.

then bodies,
tangle and fold,
in living sculpture,
origami

This' the taste of the unknown,

Love, an emotion 'mongst the strongest

This' the sound of silent roars.

Life, a journey 'mongst the longest.

matiyaga kang pinapasan ng
mamang nangumpisal sa salamin,
umami't umako ng karnal na
pagkakamali. habang ang karamiha'y

mga miron sa silong ng tirik na araw,
namamanata sa ritwal ng pag-ulit,
pagpako't pagpapasakit sa huling
Adan na nabayubay. upang ang

kapirasong kahoy ay maging kahulugan,
upang ang kahuluga'y maging ehemplo.
templo at tiyempo ng mga himno ng
mga epokrito't espasyo ng hunghang na

pagsamba.

ang balikat ay hudyong Kristo, ang kamay ay
romano. paano kaya kung ang idolo
ng impostor ay sa silya elektrika hinatulan,
papasanin din kaya ito ng walang alinlangan?

I think divorce papers taste like the ash of a ciggratte falling from his lips when he told her the news.

Like whiskey burning firey hot as it slides down the back of your throat,

with bitter sweet tears pooling in with umami ink, the saltiness hitting the tongue like the papers to the floor, a weeping widow who does not suffer from a death but an absence.

I think divorce papers cut up throats like the edge of a chip, swallowing the news over and over again does not seem to make it go down any easier.

I think divorce papers digest like a cheap meal, the kind that you know will give you trouble, but also know is better for you in the end.

i’d love to sugar your mouth,
gumdrops a sour lipstick compared to
umami tongue flickering with laughter

your hands are like syrup around mine
and i find it fitting to drown often
infinitely into the parfait puzzle piece.

“i haven’t eaten in days” i breathe on your
face while we forget that the playstation
whines still. “me either” your eyelash falls
on my shoulder and we dine on eachother instead.

The culmination of the battle,
Between salty and sour,
Peppered to perfection.
The sweetness of caramelized onions,
The tickling aroma of browned garlic,
In a beautiful confetti of scallions.
Warm and tender meat,
Drenched in an otherworldy sauce,
Bursting with umami and flavor.
A product of love and spices,
Filling both our bellies and hearts,
It never fails to remind me of home.
But mom, you see,
In all these years, I've come to know,
Of all your versions of Adobo,
The best ones are made,
When you share it with me.

The tree is beautiful
But nothing compares
To the roots.

Melodies catch attention
But songs are empty
Without the harmonies.

Youth is sharp
But life is simple
Without the depth of age.

Teach me your roots.
Sing me your harmonies.
Let me be there to see the development
Of every crease,
Every wrinkle,
Every stupendous
Life-giving breath.

“Don’t say that,” I said,
for he gave me hope to dream
of a better life

Who am I to judge
what comes from your mind and makes
its way to the page?

Heartbroken hero,
you are worth so much to me
but I turn my head

Inevitably
rejected admiration—
Why do I bother?

I answer myself
quietly, shy, to prevent
embarrassing truths

Speaking in haiku
I am decoding language
to send a message

You are: a poet,
a lover, a dreamer, a
former(?) friend of mine

A broken wing on
the sparrows carrying the
last humility

in this broken world—
You are a fire, lit in black
ink and in tired lines

Your face, a canvas
etched with tragic beauty of
history itself

Your fingers, biceps
trembling with strength, the power
to know and create

Good and goodbyes to
encroached evils of the dark
You know there is more

than storms, depression—
more than this old soul can say
or see or even

Speak, in spite of this
epistolary chain of
senryu, tied with

the hope you once glowed
of, the old flame within you,
the torch to something,

to anything more
that still tastes life in all its
bitter and sweet and

salty and so sour
yourlipspucker with the loved
umami of life

and I am sitting
here, writing this letter to
a man who needs, like

all of us do, to
love and live and laugh and cry
and to feel skin’s warmth

once again. I have hope
for you, even if yours is
hiding under rugs,

swept away in the
midst and mist of foggy lives—
Smoke shall soon clear, and

the right words may not
be found, but these hands you hold
attached to your wrists

I am sure these hands
of yours will find the mirror
and remove the grays

of all your sorrows—
There is light, dear, waiting to
be recognized by

a humble man in
the desert, building machines,
building a new him.

Likes are good
Love is great
But Feedback is the best

Like is sweet
Love is hot and spicy
Feedback is umami
Something like tasting MSG
Be it good or bad, I still want it
I can never be full
I am always hungry

Satiate my hunger
Let me taste that
Give me what I want
Yes I want that

Dumping skip-loads of furniture through the missing wall of my three-story house. Tossing a broken pool table with its hammered slate-top. Me and Max smashed it to pieces. We shook the whole house as if it were jelly, flavoured lime green and mixed in with insipid gobstoppers that block drains. One mahogany-stained side, with rusty poorly placed nails jutting out of it, flies through the air towards the arresting vistas in a makeshift panoramic frame. It frisbees, then falls. Falling like the leaves outside Carol and Dave’s place did, in the umami-infused oxygen. I have never tasted cleaner. They are graceful autumn helicopters that scythe the strings holding the world together. Until the world can repair, we are somewhere else.

The ******, mouldy wood flew like that. But, it cut the strings differently or severed different strings all together. Rain is curling the once neutral carpet, and I sit where I can see the mustard yellow skip receive another treasure.

Somewhere something menacing is happening

Overtaking the mind cantankerous me, here inside the apartment. No longer making plans, exciting friends, hosting

anything

More than a before noon call to maintenance or planned visit from someone else’s friend- concocted thirteen months ago. What has made them so afraid to ever allow themselves to enjoy, the chance at sour or sweet, umami, or something in between vexes these feet under-beat.

Seemingly never to trammel a midnight sidewalk or sweaty cramped R&B/Soul Dance party.

some third floor walk up

4:00a.m.

stranger’s unfurnished creative space

Friday untied to Monday

Jedini Čoveče od Svemira,
Zahvaljujem Višoj Sili za to što je stvorila tebe, Čoveka, od milijardu svemirskih čestica i poslala te meni, Ženi, željnoj istraživanja misterija iz Svemira.
Zahvalna sam joj i za to što postoji Vreme, Vladar Sveta, dimenzija, nepovratno neprekidan redosled nastajanja i nestajanja i sled događaja, zbir nevremenskih trenutaka ili možda iluzija, jer je upravo Vreme doprinelo našoj veličanstvenoj fuziji.
Zahvaljujem joj i za to što mi je podarila čula; čulo vida, da vidim svaki delić tvog bića; sluh, da čujem svaku reč koju izustiš, bila to glupost ili nešto što ima smisla; čulo mirisa, da osećam tvoj miris do kraja života na Zemlji, a i onog koji sledi posle tog, čulo ukusa, da, sa na hiljade svojih mikroskopskih ćelija na jeziku, uživam u tvom umamiju i čulo dodira, da osetim tvoje prste, usne i dah na svom telu.
Takođe joj zahvaljujem i za osećanja, jer bez njih ne bi bilo ni nas; za radost, sreću, uzbuđenje, ljubomoru, požudu, strast, ljubav, brigu, strah, tugu, bes, gnev, čak i gađenje, jer sam sve to doživela i preživela sa tobom.
Verujem da su ljudi sačinjeni od zvezdane prašine, ali ti, Čoveče od Svemira, ti si Supernova.
Volim te, beskonačno i izvan toga.
////////////////
The only Man of the Universe,
I thank the Higher Power that created you, Man, of one billion cosmic particles and sent you to me, Woman, eager to explore the mysteries of the universe.
I am grateful to her for having there Time, the ruler of the world, dimension, an irreversibly uninterrupted sequence of emergence and disappearance and the sequence of events, the sum of the timeless moments or perhaps the illusions, because it is precisely Time that contributed to our magnificent fusion.
And I thank her for giving me the senses; the sense of sight, to see every part of your being; hearing, to hear every word you utter, no matter if it’s stupid or something that makes sense; sense of smell, to feel your scent till the end of life on Earth, and the one that follows after that; the sense of taste, that with thousands of microscopic cells on my tongue enjoy your umami and the sense of touch, to feel your fingers, lips and breath on his body.
Also thank her for the feelings, because without them there wouldn’t be us either; for joy, happiness, excitement, jealousy, lust, passion, love, concern, fear, sadness, anger, anger, even disgust, because I experienced it all and survived to you.
I believe that humans are made of stardust, but you, Man of the Universe, you are Supernova.
I love you, infinitely and beyond.

Grievous

I hold you as the chameleon with his spring-trigger bone
Holds his tongue
And I will catch you as a fist
I will lick the stench from your odor sacks
as a skunk

All those creepy little fragments
bugs in the system;glitched codes
they are shackled souls in a microsecond arc-length
of the universal
Prodding the dirt
and the worms
as stars

How about all the spice trees?
The many different species of food glitter
they make the buds sparkle, they are thinking of the taste
of umami, of sour, of patchwork gaze
the cooked vestibules of bone
the marrow, seeping into the stew
The pepper trees are smoked
equinoctial bonfires
You and I are yet to be cooked through


A taxi in the trader joes parking lot
Big repetitive 7's splattered across its paneling
I won't forget when i'm drunk or inebriated somehow
The tree in the center of town is lit up with LEDs
Branches curling like worms

You are Pharos, you are the great celestial beam
you are the crescent moon, thin as a sleeve
and the hot taste of batter on your breath
the way you let my Guinness cool off next to the space-heater
and give me yogurt from the local townsfolk
Everything is creamy, you said.

But i don't like to hear that
It's a steel rod into my brain, that.
I am a simple Vishnu Hare Brahma
I do not have any purpose but to be enlightened
and worshiped for my powerful odors
and a four-chambered bowel
that makes the turn easier for worms.

2

Pitiful

You are the hopeless pod
the many wildebeest, crossing their annuals
through twirling water-crocs,
Lion Prides
Leopards shifting within the brush
Bacterial infections from ***** tusks
Strange metal boxes
No 7's on this side

I want to blow the ******* skulls off of anything
that aims for you, sweet mare
45-70
Will literally send chunks of it into orbit
Lion or Turtle or window or Children
The most godly thing is a bullet
And the streams of blood that will seed a new ravine
and seep the next feed of riverrun

Will you be mine, then?

The leaves on the tree outside my window get bigger by millimeters,
And the umami delight of marmite on crumpets is comforting and luscious,
One eye shut because the sun if filling it with heat and light,
This way I can still read my book in the sun,
These joys,
These small joys,
Which you have to take note of, you must,
Are endless;
Cold beer zapping my tongue like electricity, zing zing,
Dippy eggs with toast crunchy and eggs runny , salt flecked across the top,
Coconut hand-cream rubbed between each finger and thumb meticulously,
Music pouring through rooms into the flat and lilting in and out of earshot from outside, inside, next door and my radio,
Sparrows with their endless cheep cheeping,
Steam from strong black tea, gilded with rose, warming my hands nose and stomach,
The tiny hairs on raspberries, so soft and the juice so ****,
Plans to go no where, somewhere, the pub! A river! A farm! On a train! On a boat! On a bus!
Candles which pack the room full of floral, honeyed scents,
Crunchy apples,
Flaky pastry,
Warm bread,
The tsssssssttt when you open a can of Coke,
Lemons, just lemons,
The bbzzzz bbzzzz of my phone carrying I love yous, and for ***** sakes,
You have to take note of these joys, you must,
Because when I think about 16 women dead by lovers hands,
I feel I've hollow bones,
I need the beer, eggs, hand-cream, music, sparrows, lemons and bbzzzz, tea, bread, pastry and plans to keep me upright,
And I send thoughts of dippy eggs and lemons to those without.

Under Country flag and fried steak tastes

Meaty hooks and ham hocks refined

A morsel of tender cuts fine

Menu for the carnivore splendors

Infused, sauté, marinated in wine…

Oh, the jar exults high
holding what we find to be dear
Oh, the marinaras keen zest, umami, and as I close my eyes
I hum the hunger tune.
Oh, but without the curved ridge and open space
the sauce would never grace my face
The jar! The jar,
the vehicle of delicious  
who was passed through many hands
and crafted with hot sand.
Oh, tomato, garlic, and onion so sweet
and delivered neat, for me to eat.

On my last day of solo travel
I made the split decision to take stairs down
A random, haphazard side street.
I sat down at a cocktail bar
All by myself.
The only patron in this basement.

I was greeted with a smile
Missing one tooth
In the dark room
Asked what liquors I preferred
There is no menu
I listed off what I had tried and what I wanted to
She would sip a bit of the drink
Pipette on my outstretched hand
So I could give my input
As we constructed the flavors together
Laughing, eagerly offering and accepting my
suggestions of what the drink needed
Childlike wonder, curiosity, and play.

We experimented with absinthe
And amaretto, cherry, lavender, banana, sake, gin
pickled *****, coconut *** and umami bitters
She made me my first tiramisu martini.
A total of 5 cocktails in 5 hours spent together.

Lightly
I asked her why she moved to Prague -
Darkly
She said the single word “war”
She had to leave Kyiv or risk dying there.
She said she is so broke that she buys cheaper shoes that don’t fit and pads them with paper towels but still gets blisters.
She lives in a one bedroom with her mother.
Men started groping her on the train as early as nine.
She sincerely wishes her uncle would die.
She has made no friends in this city since she moved a year ago.
She has gotten fired before for being unlikeable and standing up for herself.
She painted the cocktail bar walls sage green after hours for free because the manager could not afford hiring a painter and she genuinely likes this job.
She is a polyglot: knows French, German, Ukrainian, Russian and English.
She’s vegan but she tries the fish-based bitters and egg whites for work every night and likes their taste.
She has not been to a doctor in years because she cannot afford it.
She has overdue medical bills racking up interest she worries about.
She got fined once for having an expired train ticket - now she always checks the expiration when she rides and has a valid ticket.
She points out, in her embroidered dress and matching embroidered jacket, that there’s cigarette holes from the ash the wind blew that she doesn’t have time to mend.
She has a college degree and a virtual master’s degree.
She thinks she’s old at 31.
She doesn’t trust men anymore.
She thinks that she’ll never get married or have children, even though she really wanted to when she was a little girl.
She was eager to smoke a cigarette outside when I needed to use the restroom.
She never let my water glass get empty.
She doesn’t know how she’ll make ends meet next month.
She asserts that life is unfair but that these are the cards she’s been dealt and they’ve made her stronger.

She thanked me as I left and told me that the conversation we had made her evening better
It was the most freeing feeling she had felt in months.
Being able to share and lighten the load of what she has been carrying alone made her emotional.
She says typically tourists and locals won’t ask or listen.
She feels othered by both.

We agree with tears in our eyes that we don’t even know each other’s names:
Margarita
Maria
We laugh, our names are so similar.

Sometimes you're sweet like honey
But it can shift to savory and sometimes even nothing at all

Sometimes though you are an explosion of flavor
What the world would call Umami

Life tastes of old bread and long-opened chips.
A haggard breath hanging in the heat.
A swollen tongue lolling and sticking to the roof of your mouth
getting in the way of lazy words that seek to dash the doldrums.
Sometimes the gaze of life is piercing and sometimes (now)
it is donut holes iced over and left out overnight
and then left out overnight again.
The muted voice of an underwater murmurer muttering
into cotton-filled ears something half-hearted and uninteresting.
Life is umami for dessert after a gluttonous feast
and never have I so craved the bright citrus peal
of an orange.

In angular moment
my Habit resists
his strong effect

a Strange muon
positively trying my
ungodly K hole

Nun shall pass
save the Charmed
and evil Mr.

B gas lighting
my safe Zyklon
moment He's

no Mr Darby
come strolling down
a dusty Holocaust

lane My weak
Forces atop Space
and Witch Mountain

fluctuate between his
goofy Disney village
and Strong atomic

world It's a
small one after
all I suppose

Sunshine stains my
****** hijab with
spotless and lazy

after Thoughts like
white umami pudding
delivered free by

familial ghosts Each
birthing pack crying
parables of Pain

Each warming quantal
offering us happiness
for changing Time

Delta girls under
smooth curves find
Calculus without spin

Pressed, in leaves of vinegar and soy sauce.

Sensed, believe were me of essense.
The sense that umami came from within.

life lie on meaningless mattress
massage by greed fellow
whose notions to riches is to drain the water that flow
whatever source divine wills' it
life is meaningless
when all secrets you want to acquire end
why live on...for misery and loneliness tears your heart apart
brew of beers you seek solace at
as you dig your grave in a particular position you so desire
lying in your coffin waiting for death to pass by
techniques of greatness smiles at your mind
what is the importance of mastery your craft ?
misery torn one heart in dismay
death wish one whilst to rest his soul
life is a meaningless
journey to tread upon
umami taste of gorse pathways
lead one to unsatisfied pleasure
unhappiness devours one day
as sadness of breath circle one sun
preferring to give your body as a toy to dust

Written by
Martin Ijir

If food was simply meant to be fuel
then why are there so many flavors
so people say eat to live
these people do not enjoy life
though they probably live longer

I say live to eat
experience the tastes
salty and sweet
umami too
bitter and ****
try them all

Textures and Temperatures vary
crisp or mushy
cold or hot
stringy, or cubed
liquids or solids
or even terrines

Fruits and vegetables
grains and flowers
leaves and roots
fish, fowl, or ruminant
feet, hooves, or fins
again I say let us eat

Fresh or fermented
brewed or aged
all so different
Experience them

Eat, Drink and be Merry

******* this hint of musk. It papers my eyes in polaroids. Drags me by the hair into every dusty corner. ******* sweet from clover until I’m dried up. A clay man cracking in the oven. ******* the burning leaves. Pillow-puff wafts of smoke sneak in through cracked windows. Take my hand, lost boy. Let’s **** the umami autumn into our mouths. Come closer, let me lap it up from your lips while my fingernails tighten into your skull. ******* the summer sun. It boils my shoulders into blister-pop red. A layer of skin piling up on the nightstand after a day in the backwoods. The creek kissed the mud from my toes & exposed a leech…feeding. Later, I cried alone on the bathroom floor when I plucked it like a petal. ******* its pregnant body & everything stolen from me.

The recipe called for a bitter herb
I thought of you - one tear will do
The recipe called for a salty note
I thought of you - two tears suffice
The recipe called for a sour squeeze
I thought of you - one tear is right
The recipe called for an umami tone
I thought of you - four tears stirred in
The recipe called for a touch of sweet
I thought of you - my recipe is incomplete.

...the fewer that die: the more the chance to chirp-and-borrow... sparrows' crown... a grand avenue of image... some detail of narrative... no boarded-up thomas mann solipsism-esque: if i too had... a bedroom cork-lined... i'd post a request: in deviating from time, predictably "lost"... and keeping with a tradition of: space, less frequented - thereby not exactly harrowed with ownership... passed from one sentiment (ladder) to the next gluttonous serpent... as much as there was a "search" and a... "lost time"... missing the train... in search of that missed-timing and open spacing... a sober nuance... a drunk's circus... time regained: all that, which encompassed not reading the book - working from bribes... that narrative so compact... it would have to shame and shun an otherwise ideally eternal: stack of brick.

at a time when so few are dying in conflicts
of known iraq...
and... will this be one of those:
grandiosity statements that leaves
everyone exasperated?
yes... people seem to find their dog's tail
their tongue waggle so freely now:
when so much seems to have gone
so terribly wrong -
            compliance to: "the good of the people"...
when iraq was...
and what it was was also something
similar to libya -
           but i hardly think i need to
pepper my words with over-politicised
statements... i'd much prefer the use
of italics - if anything...
       yes... i am reading some horace i am
reading some ovid and i'm looking
for a memorable line - even a couplet
that's... d'uh... a couplet because it rhymes...
something akin to...
the basic categories of food:
sweet, sour, salty, bitter...
              umami...
                      i need some garnish...
i guess there might be: fudgy / doughy...
why dairy is not invoked?
  i hope to never know...
       i want to forget the point where
i find myself writing and not
eating -
i know i am missing a certain category -

i was in a park today... trying to walk off
a strained plantar fascia -
bench cigarette swedish cider...
a glory to the perfumes of autumn:
finally i can test my nose
on this fine fine palette...

       an old woman approached me
as i was gesticulating with my leg outstretched...
'i was almost assured to find you
being the owner of the dog
that ran across my path...
later the field... but then again: it was
a fox... i think...'
it wasn't a memorable conversation:
except for my reply...
'oh no... i wasn't the owner of this
said dog...
i have a shadow for a dog...'
and how politely she bid me farewell...

again: it's not bungee jumping...
it's this forever unspectacular everyday...
i like this unspectacular everyday
when one can exercise language
beyond mere formality / courtesy...

i have yet to crown myself with
relish with conversation -
that i always will staging an impromptu
that leaves the conversed with
either form of tornado or
butterfly -

            it's not a familiarity it's not
unlike a face that will be lost
under the random nature of memory
being too the erasure...
flaming 2 + 2 = 4 or some other
less mathematical and more
pronounced use of letters coming
to the fore: prominent...

my past time would be summed up
with looking approachable and
dwelling in the riddle of old age...
i know it will somehow catch up with me...
but not yet...
it's this sensibly non-oratory:
plagues of verbiage: how else
to fashion congesting the experiencce:
extracting the most of the essence
allowed...

                   like so... 'mein schatten
ist meine hund' -
   no evil cat ladies 'ere...
    no piquant scenting of feline ****...
i do admire the convenience
of having no purpose for
a leash or a muzzle...
                if i could pet a crow....
i wish i could...
but what good is (a) petting
of a crow: what good is a cage
or wings: for that matter?

       i have to return to a quasi-meditation:
to endear death with a personification:
even a consciousness where
i a *****: where i a foetus -
after all: mother dear...
       i will be born into a magic
act of mortality: i will cease to make
myself "relevant"...
perhaps that's how i musst see
death: come this faking of autumn drap...
autumn is probably...
no... nay... no... autumn is when
i arrive at: believably alife -
                                          livid: concern
with variation to the letter,
i leathered - worn and torn and
a *** life among bodies that
are amiable and dough-esque
and nothing of this tyranny of porcelain
beauty...
touched would: "someday"
decide upon... shattering into
a thousand little pieces...

        i like this testimony for
the marriage to the mediocre...
my little interlude on a bench
with a sore tendon... somehow has
to find graces among so much
abundance only a sniff's distance away...
i wish i invented the burning
colours of decay: i'd want
to bask in the colours of a dying light...
i'd want: to stand statue-esque
among the trees when
they start to imitate
forest vermin...
and begin their great adventure of
foraging....
                 such pristine economics
of nature such as these here presented:
i languish for a delight in summer...
the air is gushing with
  a thickness of indistinguishable allures:
most certainly the readily concerned
with footprints on a beach:
amnesia counter memory
counter all that pedagogy acid...

                 i open a can of synthetic
imitations of blackcurrant, raspberry...
it's swedish it's not...
accustomed to... an idea that...
synthetics' must! a pairing of apple
and mint... could be turned into a cider...
less a juggling act of two bold
statements of fully-bodied extracts...

well free lunch on me:
i can actually be somewhat poo-antic friendly
should drinking be invoked...
for the world to be this instilled -
i'd require... moi: imitation
araignée...
   the bench and its vicinity the web...
comfortably old passersby my
flies... out of no ill will:
dogs and the elders approach me:
i am yet to find myself having
said something formidable...
      
                but... if it isn't that...
i have to settle on creating something...
passable - pardonable - quirky to the point
of allowing the opposite party
no counter inclination:
there is no need to stipend an
obviousness / revoke-...

             i don't want to use a language
of either impetus or... categorical narratives...
oh look... shelter me from having
spent 3 years digesting... ah'ant(K)...
well... impetus or imperative...
jurisprudence is plagued / peppered
with synonym usage: through and thorough...

i'm still thinking: well... there's no colour
to this meagre body...
there is no shape for rummage among
dough of stone sorrow settled
for the eternity of rain: and rhyming...
a borrowed journalism of sort:
an extract at best... and that's what i must
settle for...

    it can't have accent of a certainty:
arrived at... it can't be a: denotation clarity:
hey! my name's a'bob!
no... but hardly a tactic to
exfoliate in pretentiousness -
i do have to stress that:
i somehow do... drift into this variant
of impromptu -
   i allow language its own ills
that are not befitting to a linear-ality of
topic...

                to think: this world so complex
would allow an individual to...
somehow not match it...
make synchronicity with it...
        that language has to borrow:
sharpened flints and all those base
equipment leverages to...
merely appease...
  it can't! it simply can't! be this...
celebration of: a language peacocked with
when thrown into the glorification
of tongue-tied of mediocracy...

    oddity... i am starting to grow fond
of... kæ tempest -
                  "europe is lost"...
                   unless looking for lithuania
unless looking for kosovo..
unless looking for poland ukraine
unless looking for moldova...
unless looking for: work ennobles...
work is the bone the drudgery...
unless looking for post-colonialism
unless having to make
******* tongue: poet the atlas...
the nugget treat of looking
through a microscope at society...
            unless you haven't...
woken up in a little ol' england
when having to settle for flee...
              
polar bears in poland? do these people
have access to sea?
the youth of england
come 1998 when i toyed with
the cheapest of cheap jokes...
but... there weren't any jokes:
just choking...
              i came here this tongue
is... i am arrival... an... arrival at...
bigger desires for
yet another picburger...
               пицбургэр
fake-burger... no not nothing-burger...
but most certainly not:
my tongue this: mine...
this will not belong to a zeitgeist...
this will not be scratched or later
sheltered with for:
a tongue that was used as shovel
to unearth the dead from:
the already sediment membrane
riddled clay o dough...
           custard blues no smart talking
from south london...
no need to shuffle to lay on
prompt...
              
to be this pulverised by word and image....
instilled in noir and summaging
whitey -
there's the same sterile prone to
state brick: beside those that crease
plumbing gifts and grit...
the in between us people that want
to itch with words and have
insomniac thinking -

          that i haven't stolen anything:
but acquired this tongue...
from no beside this little nostalgia for
an agony aunt...
      no... recantation from a hill-top
and a grave...
   i am not prone to speak an exhaustion
from a borrowed atlas pose...
  i have this little tongue o' me...
this little cravat sort of a pedantic
  detail...
                 i want to own the echo
and the footsteps...
              politicians have been saving
society with oratory-:
            at best: kept distance...
a byproduct of niche...
             a very local sort of extraction
process that hitched a ride on
the blues...
   and left the originators in a
stateless limbo-la-la-land...
               the thieves came and...
           by a vain-glory joke accumulation...
the readied smouldering
slab of pork... was left... untouched...
i beg to wonder:
         what was the intent
and the hunger...
                                it was oh so familiar
once upon a time.

such episodes do happen...
  when i write more than i read:
by that i invoke
even the wait... necessary for
the weekend edition of a newspaper
and... all the reviews come in...
of books, of t.v. shows...
imagine: people have employed
people to ingest... digest...
ingest... digest what's on offer...
while lying in bed for an hour
i had to cling to the idea
of having enough time
to listen to an hour of BBC radio 3...
call me a snob or whatever
but this is where the taxpayers'
money is being well spent...
bbc radio 3 is a flagship model
of "arrogance": well... more or less
a perfected taste...
or not that even remotely
being allowed... to pass (with)
my breath let alone off my tongue...
i'd rather employ my tongue
to trill an R or wriggle in between
chewing a decently arrived at cut
of beef - that hasn't been doubly
butchered...
although... if my memory serves me
right... the folk in england
prefer their beef done to a synch...
well-done...
doubly-butchered...
eating among the natives
i'd soon turn to a diet of
   the Jain... or thereabouts
with that plethora of spices
and lentils...
but i would go begging vegetarian
if i were served... well done beef
all the ****** time...
undeserving... rearing a colt bull
for the slaughter and not appreciating
something either bleu...
rare or medium at the rear of
rare...
a bit like contaminating
whiskey with lemonade (when bourbon
just the trick)...
or not... or when gesticulating at
something in Braille...
reading the air: or as one might
have to... tackling the Linear B...
but there are certainly not enough
hours in the day for listening to
bbc radio 3...
for a while i thought that radio 4
had the prime status...
conversation: mmm hmm:
very important...
come to think of it...
i have got used to walking without
needing the cushioning of my fatty
brainz with two pouches of
electric-current seizures... at the snap
of the fingers (etc.)
- that the wind doesn't play flute...
well i neither **** out syllables
of trombone either...
a bizarre interlude of when i actually
read less than i write...
oh i'm pretty sure it shows...
when i write more than i read...
i start to choke on my own subjectivity,
self-importance... "autism" / solipsism...
by the hand that does
imitation ****** in the no. 3 on
the throne of thrones...
sitting in an akimbo pose
at the end of the day
when what has been necessarily *******
out has ******* out
and there's only a prayer
for a tapeworm: no, no champagne
to not be... ******* out as proof
that... dieting revisionism works...
but like my fickle memory:
otherwise exposed to that almost
diabolical Pavlovian stressor testing
within the confines of pedagogy...
(k)nitty-picky what's on offer from
history... ah... the Angevin empire...
the Capetian dynasty... culminating
with Phillip II...
Henry II...
             Otto IV... not sure...
thrown into this cauldron of time...
what's on offer...
we most certainly fill this world
to the brim...
        so much so that there's no reason
or capacity to keep up...
at a time when i write more than
i read...
an exhaustion with a self
and all its abstract *******, comes to mind...
it would be so much easier
to doodle back into reading something
"important"...
but it's not like Delmore Schwarz is alive
and it suddenly dawns upon me...
apart from reading newspapers...
the odd opinion section daily...
waiting for Sunday's news review...
lately... dissatisfying...
and all the book reviews...
  well... perhaps i'm writing more than
necessary because, simply because...
well... if the substance / topic
is oh so very interesting...
the punctuation is without "umami"...
of note: the english language is
without diacritical marks
so there goes the whole idea
of meditating on intra-verbum
punctuation / syllabary...
no... i did my stint with katakana and i'm
not going back...
i need to see holes again...
to x-ray through and onto the canvas
holes in: a, b, A, B, R, O, o, P, p, g,
   d, D... q... Q...
bring me back to seeing letters
for their sounds...
after all these letters look like
they were intended for
lip-reading...
   and most of the time they are...
quirky awry ******* a lemon almost: Q...
qp
       cute: parrot... cue moi... again...

- not that i can say i eer played
the violin...
but after a morning shower...
a day spent curating the garden
so the patio looks presentable
to the "palette" of which there
is no taste to be minded (solely for the eyes)...
an uncombed beard
does feel... less than a **** garden
kept by chance (or miracle)
of its own doing...
scratching my ***** "altar" is more
rewarding...
but, come circa 12am
and the beard is finally combed...
with its full bloom
and volume restored...
well then... the chin and the entire
jaw line can retain its
mythological status of being
hidden under this *****-galore
wonder...
a full hand of this specific rustic
is what keeps me from
having any ***** envy...
although my hands are expansive
enough to be able to hold
a basketball in one...
no wonder i prize a woman's
hands as the most ****** part
of her body...
clearly exaggerated exfoliations
of the hind and **** would
drive any man bonkers...
it's almost cartoonish but at heart
primeval / prehistoric...
what might allow me to gravitate
toward identifying an mammoth
without the word mammoth...
or a squid without the colour of
a mountain drowning in a sea...

qp... i believe that       Ф (ef, fe, phi)
are its closest "abbreviations"
insinuating "marriage"...
but unlike that Siamese coupling
of ancient-doodle-this-doodle-that
of twinning vowels (æ)
qp... did emerge as F...

      i abhor being reminded
that language is volatile...
that it "evolves" that it's an algebraic
x, y, zoot...
            confiscate one of my tongues:
for the love of god...
push me into a structure
of psychology that has only
room for one zunge...
not these bi-schizoi-duo-d(wins)...
apparently each to their own...
- because it's not even that
i'm expecting the natives to scratch
a furthering of exterior possible
with a 2nd tongue...
i'm half-way: meeting...
i'm ****'s sake all the half's need
to be passably involved for
the natives to interact with:
alias - pseudo n.p.c.
graffiti giraffe etc.

qp = ϕ
if æ = a + e...
         yes... let me return to the letters
that represent sounds...
i don't care...
mother goose, alias superior...
what the mandarin hieroglyphs are thrown...
synonym them otherwise
are emoticons, ideograms. etc.
hell... throw in the Linear B...
that whole Mycanaean shabang...
i need to see what can be later heard...
not what can be "insinuated"
what is an otherwise
simple...

my boa my 堡 (ba-o)...
my f-ort...
                    but sure as chicken crazy
******* pigeon glue
that's not a mind-****** of a su-do-ku...
for the reason that i might
love english pragmatism and abhor
the "zeitgeist" / vogue of Darwinism
like it might be a Copernican revolution...

i will not learn to decipher
Chinese hieroglyphs not because i'm
lazy but because i'm of a musical
lot... a#...
                even though i'm almost tone deaf
that's an elephant stepped on
my tongue... base my reason(s)
on an ability to whistle...
i'm too agitated to want to learn
this labyrinth of squat: x-ray...

three alphabets available on the word
go...
but it's nonetheless redeeming
to caress a bush of a beard
with a mythological chin...
all the more since i can't play
the violin...
self-                         -love?
                +
stressing my own self-
                                            -worth?
no one, beside my own toils will
write such... taming...
              beside all the lost ideals of love...
lesbians!
when kissing my teenage girlfriend in
the park when i donned long hair
like a Hindu priest...
etc.
            way before the internet was
established as this gimmick of status quo /
a Sisyphusian task-load of
bogged down in baritone...
cull of toads...
  and... gurgle... and gluttony of gurgling...
and soap bubbles...
and adventure... of skim-reading
encyclopaedic entries...

come to think of it...
reading and rereading an encyclopaedia
and somehow a revision
of a day...
come the same old spring
when in the loosening of air
come the exfoliating magnolias
that steal everything necessarily
not a vanilla mono-
                       glitch of the toast of taste, & buds...

how refreshing it must all
be: tamed, with(in) the confines
of atoms, of letters...
so far removed from the constraints
of syllables...

how "poverty" riddled
the complexity
of :
       ン   ナ    ニ    ヌ    ネ    ノ
             ア     イ    ウ    エ   オ
fudge packaging...
   might i "want" to use )( brackets...
what about an apostrophe?
to hide a surd...
e.g. gnostic = 'nostic...

   i mean... all these idiosyncratic
very latin-esque junctions
of keeping up
aesthetic practices...
    it's hardly ******* Bengali...
and even if it was...
what saved the blues (indians)
was their cuisine...
that rupture that explosion
from a standard of salt, pepper...
rosemary... thyme...
how the red (indians) didn't survive
the surge... how they admired mustangs...
how they didn't spice-up...
their bread was beyond flat...
how collectively: a breeding of man...
had to allow such curators of:
what was readily available...
left to waste... that land of the frontiers...

then came a claustrophobia surrounding
the great basin of hearth...
this spec of near impossible trajectory...
having a lace
of recurrent for a spin:
spring fresh... rekindled emotion:
once more... greater tasks for god
to contest: best nothing...
while there being a blister...
a homage to purpose within limbo...

if nothing was the mind-bending, enough...
that acting was what allowed
shadow-thieving...
from no pulpit
but i find it impossible to curate
what democracy is all hot & bothered about...
i can't find the vein...
of "purpose"...
agglomerate my first come last...
suppose there's this over-arching comfort
of predictability and
this snooze buttocks for skidding
into "purpose"...

       i'm less than agitated
by this core, defining... "purpose"...
since the purpose of journey is well
established...
but that there's also
a "well done" a pat-on-the-back
a sense of accomplishment
when laced with the "claustrophobia"
of death...
an oozing through a membrane
peeking from beneath a curtain...

     sensibly being allowed to focus
on sphinxes... cats... bonsai tigers...
because as much as i love dogs
and have, loved, dogs...
ageing the leash is a non-starter...
i much prefer an intelligence
in the eyes of something petted
than the eyes that will otherwise
merely implore: scrutiny not available...

no wonder the blah-lah muslims
implore a scrutiny of letttering
of dog | god...
in english... i ask...
all?                            aaaah...
        so who's more adhan ready?

for the sake of jumbled orange
and its jelly offspring...
at some point i might have...
most probably... encountered a completion
of rho-****...
that trilling-R-monkey...
****-similis / similis est...
         but not since the replica
coliseums burst open onto the stage
of footsie fancy...

squat... scrutiny... beside the meaning
of words...
first come the sounds....
only later... whether or not
i kept vigil over having
spelled them, proper...

any "deviation" from standarised
punctuation inter-verbum
is my own...
and as my own: i keep it.

dem streets ain’t know yo name
just be out there like hunger on parade
all Mardi coup de grace, with spiked tea-
and neon giblets… all draped over hot coals
and incandescent funk. with meter maids
and pidgeons-
sweeping thunder under rugs
everybody know
ain’t your real
Hair.

dem streets be like consequences
marching with a band of thieves. tuba prodigies adagio
with oily smoke and cauliflowers marinading
in umami and soiled alters.
switchblades are like optional candy.
sharkfins in buttermilk
more like an actual
Wednesday.

dem streets be soaking bullets in Kopi Luwak
chuffing pearl dust off a subway chit
while staggering home from a dust-up
at Berkley.
we keep telling ourselves
to tell ourselves something
but forget to remember
how to forget
about it

out loud.