Is such a big and impossible to miss step for a scribbler
of poetry free poems to trip over.
A step that cannot be ignored, except consciously and conscientiously.
Such a person as a scribbler of poetry less poems would be a person who cannot tell the difference between truth and truthfulness.
A person whose sole raison d,etre in pretending to be a poet is their lifelong angst in being unable to escape from being under the control of  their mind and its operating system --the Conditioned Identity.
The Conditioned Identity,which is the facetious and morally dishonest "I am a poet" mask that is the consciously adopted Conditioned Identity--the operating system for the Mind.
In the great scheme of things becoming just another member of the human GroupMind--one who doesn't count--not even on the fingers of one hand-.
One,who,in the grand scheme of things,never has counted and never will count-call them countless.
Shadows that flicker and dim on the walls of the Prison of political, racial,national,familial and religious conformity
And these worthless scribblers of poetry less poems do have an all consuming conditioned habit  of consciously ignoring truthfulness and integrity and substituting pathetic sub-teen lower middle class emo whinging "truth"--about their "art" and "insight"and "vision"and their "truth"--always their worthless "truth".
Sitting and mourning the fulfilling love that always evades them and always will evade them--unless they let go of the conditioned identity and the Mind--consigning them to the dustbin of history--where they rightfully belong.
Angst ridden whingers all--in love with their image in the mirror of Minds oh so believable deception.
Scribbling about a conditional possessive love that would have been a valueless truth but never can be the essence of truthfulness.
A conditional possessive love that never was and never will be unconditional and non-possessive.
Whinging about nothing more than conditional love and a truthfulness that never can be for them--- as we see openly here and there and everywhere there are scribblers of poetry less "poetry" who use sites such as this to scribble their pretentious infantile nonsense.
Poverty of values and integrity,orphaned from the Isness of the Universe, children of worthless technological consumerism and followers of false oligarchic hopes.
With their greedy gobs open for any crumbs falling from the rich peoples tables,like baby chicks in the nest--feed me feed me they screech.
Colluding with like minded betrayers of truthfulness,groupminds of
limp wristed bombastic poseurs.
Deluding themselves by babbling media made inane celebrities
empty insights and twisted conclusions--purveyors of puerile pettiness.
Oligarchic media celebrities noted only for the illusions between their ears,and the beguiling way they collude with each other to delude themselves.
Ludare!
Oh how they love to play mind games
Lives spent colluding with these babbling worthless celebrities who know the price of everything and the value of nothing,
Pompous posturing pretentious pissants of aesthetic poverty.
Bound together into a worldwide consumers Groupmind,
persuaded by perverts of PR into believing in the Illusion of Wealth and Demockery that the Oligarchy sells.
To step over the truthfulness threshold is,indeed, to  leave behind their
security blankets of "truth and beauty and revealed knowledge"
and the concomitment meaningless verbiage about "veracity" and "existence".
Shallow and unrequited attempts to own another that the weak and unwanted call "love".
Stomping through the quagmire of conditional love
up to their necks in the **** of consumer garbage.
The Conditional love of possessing another and grasping at thin air
as they submerge slowly in the seas of righteous stupidity .
poets cling to their misconceptions religiously,
poets cling to their ignorance avidly,
poets cling to their proto-fascist politics squeamishly,
with each word and stanza that they write.
Pouring out such pleasant and elegant and flowery and "deep"
words and verses(rhyming or not) that,at their core,
have only one meaning and aim.
Which is!.
To divert and confuse their readers with the"shallow beauty"
of endless strings of meaningless associated but fine sounding words .
To create a groupmind for their poetry business products.
Admire me--buy my product--join my groupmind--eulogise me,
let me rip off your energy--I need your praise,I need your lifes energy
gimme your money honey!.
The Publishing Oligarchy will bestow rewards and honours,
medals and diplomas--critiques fit only to wipe your **** on.
Book sales and the summer Poetry festival circuit--reciting and signing scribbles of narcissism--casting lecherous eyes over dripping **** or stiff wobbling **** in the adoring crowd of sycophants.
The  Media will fawn and adulate and cast its sly net
to entangle your desires in ---infamy awaits.
Come admire me and my use of other poets stolen words,
my criminality in even daring to think the word "poet" has any value.
These are my words about my inexperience and unknowingness they scream possessively in jaundiced teeny remembrance.
Remembrance of mediocre middle class homes and attitudes
of ingrained ignorance and wilful imagined self victimisation.
Eating societies poisoned dishes--.
Serve me up a burger of roasted babies on toast
from Vietnam--live on Channel Whatever.
Or chargrilled peasants from Afghanistan
with breathless commentary from
our "reporter on the spot".
Or homeless mental wrecks from the streets
of any Amerikan or World city big or small,
trailing acerbic criticism from the immoral majority.
Or dead celebrity  consumer junkies in 5 star hotels
complete with PR handouts and **** licking "friends"
positioning themselves for increased sales.
Or the children of the Oligarchs with their "I" newspapers
and inbuilt fascist attitudes.
Who spend their shallow lives hoping for the kind
of meaningless and worthless Honours and Validation
from those that do not have honour or validity..
Or the not just lame but crippled duck presidents with their finely crafted speeches that say nothing but I am a beard wearing  failure,
looking forward to penning lies and calling it a frank memoir
while holding out my hands  for the Oligarchies pennies.
Can anyone tell me where to get a bucket of truthfulness?.
A glass of honesty?.
A tumbler full of veracity?.
A beaker of back breaking honest labour?.
Can anyone tell me where I can find
a peaceful man or woman,of any of the 5 colours.
Not those merely observing a Cease-Fire
while they rearm their weapons of the lies of beauty and truth.
Oligarchy allowed social commentary.
Is there just one decent truthful man or woman out there?.
Judging by the world Id say not.
No Id say not.
Not.
There Ive said it.

www.thefournobletruthsrevised.co.uk

Woman is a title that comes with too many consequences shoved into the spaces between each letter. I have worn it proudly, not fully understanding the heaviness it carries, or exactly what it means. I still don’t.

Summer camp teaches me how to shave my legs when my mother neglects to. I am eleven, with hair on my skin barely long enough to pull out when my bunkmates coach me on how to erase it. "Boys don't like girls with prickly bodies," my counselor tells me confidently. I soon understand that to be woman means to be bare, stripped, and clean, always. Being woman means catching the changes of your morphing body before anyone else can point them out.

I am raised to keep secrets. We call the parts of ourselves that we aren't supposed to talk about private. I learn to be silent in more ways than one.


Haley is my best friend. Together we uncover the mystery of womanhood untold. She loves a boy two years older than us and gives herself to him in his parked car outside her house during one of our many sleepovers. I listen as she confesses the details to my eager ears. We learn more about *** from each other than we do health class.  The information given out is too much and not enough at the same time. We are taught enough to do it, but not enough to ease our unknowingness.

Condoms are given out for free. Tampons are not.

Virginity was a concept we were told to maintain from early on. At 14 I want to get losing it over with so I do, with a boy two years older, in between his childhood sheets. I am high enough to blur the details, but not high enough to forget it happens.

I learn how to cauterize undesirable memory with substance, the way too many women do.

When a sophomore girl comes to school with a broken face, everyone is quiet. We all know about the fight, the pushing down the stairs, the bruising that swelled violently like her love for him. "I think he's even hotter now," I overhear someone say.

The first boy I ever love treats me like ****. I let him because that's how it works in the movies.

I love a straight girl with curly brown hair and a smile too much like summer. She kisses me and then tells me about whatever boy she is pursuing that week. It confuses me to no end.

Mia meets her first love when we are 17 and gives him all of her too soon. When he dumps her, I come over ready with a box of popsicles in hand.

We play with Polly Pockets well into our teenage years. The dolls live out dreams impossible for us to reach.

I realize vulnerability is not an option, but something we are born wearing.

A friend shows me how to keep my keys peeking through my knuckles at night. I hold them through scared fingers as I navigate the side streets necessary to get home.

Mom buys me glitter covered pepper spray, "because it's cute." I know her unsaid words and what she really means. "There are too many bad people in the world to not be cautious, you can never be too careful."

When a girl I don't know well is attacked in a back alley by strangers, we sit nervously the couch and talk about the terrifying reality, how bad we feel for her, and how awful it must be to go through something like that.

I call my best guy friend immediately after someone I know takes my body without permission. I explain the details to him of what happened, still shaking from the shock of it. I wait for his response, hoping for open arms ready to hold while I shatter. He sighs and says, "you should have been more careful." I don't counter. I shower three times in a row, tuck myself into the same bed where it happened, and pick up the cracked pieces of myself in the morning. I tell no one else after that.

**** is the punch line to too many jokes.
I don’t laugh.

In an anonymous thread, I read as people discuss the topic of ****** assault. My eyes lose count of how many times strangers say, "just because you regret it, doesn't mean it is ****." I have seen doubt ******* too many faces hearing the stories of survivors with dull eyes from telling theirs over and over again to people who will never believe them. Their truth is taken with a shot of uncertainty.
They ask, "Why survivor? Why not victim?"
They say, “It doesn’t **** you, you’re not a survivor.”
I want to answer that survival is a choice made in the aftermath of destruction, that we either chew our way through the broken glass or swallow it whole, letting it break us from the inside out. I want to say survival is not as simple as we didn’t die. Survival is consciously refusing not to.
Instead I say nothing.

I know girls with too many piercings and tattoos because they had run out of room on their small bodies to let out any more anger. I watch darkness fill their skin with its reminder, young girls who know pain all too well.

A man on the street calls out to me. I shake my head quietly because I'm afraid of the bomb my response could set off. I have seen too many ticking men explode for me to want to fight back.

I learn about abortion when I am too young to understand it, too self-centered at the time to try to imagine the fear of unwanted growing inside of her. I have grown to understand the importance of choice.

A guy tells me that if a woman has *** with more than five guys in her lifetime, she's a *****.

Someone I hook up with shares with me about how his friends audio record their girlfriends during ***. He laughs, I shudder.

"Guys don’t like it when.."  is a tip I hear almost daily.  

School dress codes mark my shoulders unholy, my shorts too miniscule. I am sent to the principal's office in 10th grade when I refuse to change into a top that doesn't show my lower back. I ask what my body did to have to learn this kind of shame. I am suspended for the rest of the day.

Beauty pageants teach me that perfect woman is exactly what I am not.

My ex boyfriend calls me a ****.

My other ex boyfriend calls me crazy. I’ve learned that crazy is synonymous with “she had an opinion that did not align with mine.”

In my college lecture we talk about the origins of hysteria, remembering how women in history had their voices twisted into insanity. I think about how often “calm down” is used as a modern-day-tranquilizer.

Us weekly tells me every week, in one too many advertisements, how to lose weight.

My campus paper posts an ad for breast augmentation deals. "Get spring break ready."

The size of my chest is too much a reflection of my brain’s capacity.

Being woman means too much in a language I do not fully understand. It is skin and bones, it is raw and blood, it is a mouth filled with words unsaid, it is fear and worry, it is an unspoken connection between us all, it is 75 cents to a dollar, less for those of color, it is censored body, it is *******, it is being too much to handle, it is being equated with less, it is we are the same but we are not treated so, it is we are human in a world we call man’s, it is we have been struggling under the waves for centuries, it is not drowning, it is still swimming, always

There is science to a broken heart

When the heart strings that connect the valves of your soul collapse
When the veins are full and heavy with the weight of let downs and false promises
When your bones ache the same as a near fatal injury
Know that it is not a phantom pain
Not an empty longing
For a temporary someone
You mistook as permanence
The ghosts of their skin forever
haunting with their former touch

The pain of a ruptured spirit
Is equal to that of being hit by a truck
Going full speed down the highway
Lights off
No warning signs
Is equal to the pain associated with The inability to forget
You place a do not enter sign around your heart
Next to the caution tape
Marked on your skin

The science to a broken heart
Can not be found
In an anatomical enclyopedia
But it's existence
Is not to be questioned
Heartbreak has been researched
Enscribed by historys greatest
For fitzgerald felt the blows to his being
From love that thrashed with winds and currents
A hurricane

Often the subject of their own experiments,
Writers are the scientists who study broken hearts
Words used as algorythms
Attempting to respond to
Questions we might never get an answer to
We're often left wondering
And often time its suffice

Because if we were to know why
Why the sun aches for the moon When the moon only has love for the stars
Why the theory of newton and gravity
Will never account for humans falling
Why storms are named after people

If we knew
We might not expose ourself to said research
We like the unknowingness
That science has yet to offer a conclusion to
The unknowingness that is often synonymous
With love.

I belong to the wilderness
and the highest peaks
to the depths of the ocean
the same language we speak

To the blossoms of spring
and the summers’ breeze
I belong to a single blade of grass
and every rustling of leaves

To endless starlit nights
and the hope rising with dawn
With every bird taking flight
I belong to their song

I belong to the love
of a soulmates heart
and to the bitter anguish
that tore us apart

To the carefree laughter
of children at play
I belong to the fear they conceal
and their hope for a better day

I belong to the infinite yearning
of my place on this Earth
and to the unknowingness
and complexity of my timely birth

To my physical features
and the boldness of my eyes
I belong to this body
and why it keeps me alive

I belong not to my emotions
nor heartache or bliss
I belong to the intricacies of wisdom
and forever trust in its abyss

The news that Jonathan Anderson — a.k.a. J. W. Anderson — would live-stream his fall men’s show exclusively on Grindr, the gay social-networking app, has been the whispered, and then not-so-whispered, talk of the first days of men’s fashion week here. “Now there’s a show that would’ve looked good on Grindr,” one showgoer cracked to another about a collection that featured men in cutout trousers and one very visible pair of thong underwear.

On Sunday, just after 10 a.m., Mr. Anderson’s collection hit the runway and the Internet. Those unsuspecting souls surfing Grindr for lust or companionship were offered the chance to see his show unfold: its polka-dot furs and knitted trousers, appliquéd snails and boxing-boot shoes.

Whether it was what the virtually gathered crowd came to the app for or not, Grindr personnel were sanguine. “You know as well as I do, there are the fashion gays,” Landis Smithers, the company’s vice president of marketing, said in an interview last week. “They love them a show and an exclusive.”

Not everyone was as eager. In the immediate aftermath of the announcement, rumors circulated that model agencies were leery of sending their charges, many of them underage, to participate in the show. (To be live-streamed via Grindr is not the same as to use Grindr, though the company’s terms of service restrict use to those who are at least 18, and in some places, 21.)

But if there were holdouts among the models, it wasn’t immediately evident from the runway, and Mr. Anderson said that he had experienced pushback from potential collaborators only at the outset.

“I think at the beginning there was a bit of unknowingness, which was stressful,” he said. “But I believe in this project. I think it’s very important that brands explore media; I think it’s the only way forward. I don’t see any differentiation between Grindr and Tinder or any sort of dating app, or Instagram. I feel like people now can use any sort of social device to meet people.”The show’s final casting, he added, was “exactly the way it should be.”Among those who saw the show live, without having to resort to the app, the idea was largely popular.The rapper ASAP Rocky, waiting a turn to congratulate Mr. Anderson, expressed an appreciation for the silk pieces in the collection and the good vibes of the Grindr partnership. “I heard about that last minute,” he said. “Gay people supporting gays. That’s what it’s all about: support. I support everybody.”Some wariness persisted. “It is what it is, you know?” said one young model from the show when asked how he felt about appearing on Grindr, before reversing himself and declaring that he was uncomfortable answering the question. He declined to give his name.

“Some people don’t get it,” shrugged Michel Gaubert, the in-demand D.J. who provided the show’s thumping score, “But it’s the gay Facebook.” He called the idea to live-stream the show on the platform “fantastic.”

Certainly the possibilities are large on a platform that engages millions.“Every single person I know is on Grindr,” said Bryan Grey Yambao, better known as the blogger Bryanboy, after the show. (Even assuming some mild hyperbole on Mr. Yambao’s part, the numbers are formidable: seven million users by Grindr’s own estimate, as many as a million or more users are on the platform at any given moment.)He added: “I think it’s a great audience to tap into.”He said that he had downloaded the app that morning but had already deleted it.Whether that suggests less overlap between fashion obsessives and would-be couplers than Grindr might like remains to be seen. But according to Mr. Smithers, by Monday morning (an edited version of the video remained accessible via Grindr for 24 hours following its live debut), Mr. Anderson’s show had been streamed about 100,000 times, about a third of them during the event.

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-adelaide

River rushing from left to right
with all its unstoppable might
The only stellar source for sustaining life
plants and photosynthisis
the way this life really is

The sound of water
and the link between
mother and father
The rise and fall of the moonlit tides
by the light of night the pedals shine

Digital noises penatrate the morning stillness
as the bacon and eggs sizzle behind us
Coffee and camping to connect the sexs again
back to basics and simplicity
avoid the tempation
to loose yourself in the city

Rivers loose their natural flow
****** and restricted
divided by fear and dought
The wanting of
more and better
to keep us going

We should be sitting quietly
with an innocent unknowingness
the tree sap drizzles
as the wind whistles

< So how far back can you go then ?
How far down the Rope of Songs can you go ?
You were a Rocker weren't you, you liked Rock n' Roll
In the 80's you had a Walkman, you'd be listening to tapes and songs on the radio
You also wanted to be a drummer once, you loved the power and energy there
But what about the early days though, I'm interested particularly in the early days
How far back can you go I wonder
Yea! How far back and what memories do they bring up ? >

Back in the 70's watching Top of the Pops every Thursday evening on the BBC, essential viewing
With its exciting Whole Lotta Love intro
It was something exciting, thrilling
Waiting to see your favourite Band
And to see the Charts, how they were doing
In the Seventies there was Glam Rock, my eldest brother and me we were always arguing and fighting with one another, sibling rivalry I suppose
If he supported United then I'd have to support City...silly stuff
He liked the band Slade whereas I liked...I supported Marc Bolan and T-Rex
Solid Gold East Action I really liked that song
It was very fast, he rarely did fast songs Marc
Telegram Sam..."you're my main man"
Metal Guru..."is it true"
Twentieth Century Boy..."I wanna be your toy"
The hair on your neck would stand up when he'd come on...
Slade were good though, secretly I liked Slade too, they had great songs
*** on feel the Noise/ Girls grab the boys..
Coz I luv you...Mama we'er all crazy now...
Skweeze me Pleeze me "You know how to squeeze me..."
But there were lots of other good bands and so many great songs
We used to play cards for small money...pennies, a series of different card games, and we'd put on records while we played
We even learned to play Chess and we started a Chess League between us,
We'd always listen to the music as we played.

The Sweet's "Blockbuster" with its intro of police sirens, it spent about 5 weeks at No.1 in the UK Charts...
It reminds me of...of Fish that song...Fish on Fridays, we used to have fish every Friday, I didn't like fish there was bones in it
I wouldn't eat it then Mam would get angry
One time she took a mouthful of my fish trying to prove there were no bones in it
Then suddenly she started to cough and splutter and choke
A Bone had actually got caught in her throat
I thought it was my fault, I thought I'd killed her
She had to go to hospital to get it out
I was going to tell her "I told you the fish was dangerous"
That memory just came back to me when I thought of that song and that time

Yea! I liked Marc Bolan and T-Rex, songs like Metal Guru, Twentieth Century Boy
I remember I didn't like the lyric "Twentieth Century Boy/ I wanna be your toy"
It sounded silly to me that lyric, I suppose I wanted things to make sense
And when he did that song "New York City" with the lyric
"Did you ever see a woman coming out of New York City with a frog in her hand"
I thought then he was maybe losing it a bit
< You...you were a very serious child then weren't you ? >
I suppose I was...like a lot of children are...maybe I just wanted things to make sense.

< I'm interested in the early days, even the very early days and the memories you have
How far back can you go ? What about the funny novelty songs ? >
Chuck Berry had a No. 1 with "My Ding a Ling" playing with his Ding a Ling, we all thought it was very funny
Stayed at No. 1 for several weeks
"Gimme that thing, gimme gimme that thing (or Ding)" was another funny song
"Mouldy Old Dough" by Lieutenant Pigeon a keyboard song with the constant refrain of just "Mouldy Old Dough"
Cat Stevens had a song "I can't keep it in/ I gotta let it out/ gotta show the world..."
Novelty songs were important, they'd interest even your parents
They'd pass a comment "Ha! Ha! That's a funny song"
< And there were sad songs too, weren't there, really sad songs ? >
"Billy don't be a hero don't be a fool with your life" by Paper Lace about a young bride trying to talk her young fiancee out of going off to war, he doesn't listen and never comes back, he gets killed
The Government sends her a letter, she throws it away...
"Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks, 'Goodbye Michelle my little one/
We've known each other since we were nine or ten/ We climbed hills and trees skinned our knees...ABC's / O! Michelle it's hard to die when all the birds are singing in the sky..."
You'd nearly be in tears listening to it.
We used to buy Top of the Pops compilation records with lots of hits on them
Sometimes Mom would like a song, 'Stay with me' by the band Blue Mink
"Stay with me, lay with me/ Love me for longer..."
Always reminds me of my Mom that song
'Killing me softly with your song' Roberta Flack was another
'Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree..."
At school every Friday the teacher would have a spelling test, I used win it a lot, I was good at spelling
The teacher used to give some sweets as a prize, I used bring them home to my Mum.

The Eurovision Song contest (all the European countries would put forward a song), I remember being let stay up to watch Abba win in 1974 with 'Waterloo'
In their fabulous outfits...they looked like Stars, Giants to us, Norse legends from Sweden.  They were amazing!
And what about our own Dana, the young Irish girl from Derry who won the Eurovision for Ireland for the first time with 'All kinds of everything...remind me of you"
I was too young to be allowed to stay up to watch that one
But you could probably hear the adults shouting for Joy from the room below
Happy Nay amazed to see one of our own having done so well, being recognised, flying the flag for Ireland
And then there was seeing Thin Lizzy playing 'Whiskey in the Jar' on Top of the Pops, the first Irish Rock band ever to appear on the show
It was so exciting watching them on our old Black and white TV...an Irish Band one of your very own up there on the World stage
And what about Gilbert O'Sullivan from Waterford I think reaching No. 1 in the Charts with his lovely song 'Clair'
We thought it was a love song but at the end it was revealed it was in fact about a little girl he used babysit for...so sweet.
We used to get comics and magazines secondhand, bought at jumble sales (remember jumble sales)
There was a music magazine for young kids, mainly for girls I think
It was called 'Jackie', there'd be a few in our bundle
They'd have big pictures of all the current hearthrobs
Donny Osmond, David Cassidy, the Bay City Rollers
The young fans would go crazy for their idols
I remember Donny Osmond singing Puppy Love and his version of The Twelfth of Never...
"I'll love you till the bluebells forget to bloom
I'll love you till the clover has lost its perfume
I'll love you till the poets run out of rhyme
Until the Twelfth of Never/ And that's a long long time"...
They were beautiful words about loving, a forever love
And Baby I love you by The Ronettes "Baby I love you/ I love everything about you...
All singing about this wonderful mysterious thing called...called Love.

<Can you go back further than that?>
When we'd go up the village where the amusement arcade was
There'd be songs playing, there were dreamy songs
Albatross by Fleetwood Mac, A whiter shade of Pale by Procol Harum
There was an instrumental I remember called "Sylvia" by the Dutch band Focus
There was a lovely leggy blonde girl named Sylvia in my class at school
And yes! I think she was actually from Holland
(We had a few foreign girls in our class)
Y'know I think she fancied me...did Sylvia
She used to smile at me a lot.
I have a memory of being at the fairground in the Summer with its swing boats and bumper cars
It's roundabouts with the horses and swings, the shooting gallery, the stall for throwing rings over things and taking a prize home
I remember candy floss and ice cream cones
I remember playing the penny slot machines in the amusement arcade, all the different machines
I remember a song "California Man" by The Move... wonderful Summer days.

In the Sixties an Elvis or a Beatles film was a big deal
I remember A Hard Days Night in brilliant black and white
And then "Help" in wonderful colour
Trying to get a fabulous Ring off Ringo the drummer's finger... great songs
Watching The Banana Splits "One Banana Two Banana Three Banana Four/All Bananas going right through the door...
Remember The Monkees"Hey!Hey! We're The Monkees/You never know where we'll be found... We're the young generation and we got something to say"
Last Train to Clarksville, I'm a Believer... great songs too
Remember The Age of Aquarius "This is the age of Aquarius..."
The Sixties yeah!

<Did your Mom and Dad have a Singles collection, the old 45's. Do you remember?>
On our old Dansette record player Roy Orbison singing In Dreams and its B side Sharadoba a magical Egyptian sounding song
And also It's Over about a love affair breaking up
And its wonderful B side Indian Wedding, that was my favorite song among the 45's
It told the story of Yellow Hand and White Feather two Indians getting married
But then going off into the swirling snow never to return
Gone to the Land of the Rising Sun...
You'd listen to them over and over again those songs and that wonderful haunting voice.
<And what were you thinking about, what would be running through your mind when you'd be listening to those songs?>
I remember I wanted to be special that I'd have some special powers and be able to do great things
Something that would make me stand out and that people would be amazed
Maybe some of the girls too, would be very impressed.
My Dad he liked Jim Reeves, he had a lovely velvety smooth voice
He sang Billy Bayou 'Billy Billy Bayou watch where you go/ You're walking on quicksand/ Walk slow/ Billy Billy Bayou watch what you say/ A pretty girl is gonna get you one of these days...
He sang a lot of slow love songs "Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone and let believe that we're together all alone...
Anna Marie... Anna Marie
Four Walls to know me...

<Tell me about Christmas, the Christmas songs?>
Christmas was a magical time in our house, we'd have the Christmas tree with all the decorations and coloured lights on it
We'd have long concertina like decorations going from wall to wall, so colourful
And lots of glittery things
The songs... Slade singing 'Happy Christmas Everybody', Wizard singing 'I wish it could be Christmas everyday', Mud singing 'It'll be lonely this Christmas (without you to hold)' sounded like Elvis
Johnny Mathis singing 'When a child is born',
'Little Drummer Boy'...
In those days because of school and family you had a strong sense of belonging, having friends, attending birthdays and sports and community events and church
I remember the Christmas party in Primary school (Kindergarten), you had to bring your own treats
I'd only have some biscuits and diluted orange juice
Most people were relatively poor in those days
I was a bit embarrassed having so little
There was one boy and all he had was a bottle of milk to bring
Some used make fun of him, kids could be cruel sometimes.

I remember the teacher brought in a tape recorder once and taped every boy and girl's voice and then he'd play them back
I used dread when my voice would come up
'Cos suddenly the whole class would erupt in laughter
For some reason my voice sounded funny when taped
Even the teacher used smile
I felt so humiliated nay destroyed with them all laughing at me...
I remember... I remember singing the Christmas Carol 'Angels we have heard on high' with its chorus
"Glo..ooria, Gloria in Excelsis Deo"
It was Latin I think but I didn't know this
I thought we were singing "Gloria in a Chelsea stable"
I thought to myself "Jesus must be a supporter of Chelsea football/soccer club" heh!
We had Perry Como's Christmas album with the story of 'Frosty the Snowman' and 'The Christmas Song' ...
"chestnuts roasting on an open fire/ Jack Frost nipping at your nose/ Yuletide carols being sung by a choir/ And folks dressed up like Eskimos..."
And Bing Crosby of course, singing White Christmas
I think we all dreamed of a White Christmas
At school we'd sing 'Away in a Manger' and 'The First Nowell'
Y'know if I sing those songs even now to myself, I can... I can almost remember...

<What about the other songs you learned at school, funny songs, sad songs and the memories they bring up? >
There was a song 'Those were the days (my friend we thought they'd never end)' it was in the Charts
I think the teacher taught us it
The people in the song would be having a great time laughing and drinking and dancing in the taverns
But as they'd grow older their lives would change and they'd get lonelier and sadder...
'Puff the Magic Dragon' I remember there was a very sad bit in this song
Puff and his childhood friend would have so many great adventures together
But then one day, his friend he came no more (he'd found other toys to play with)
Poor Puff was left bereft, he slowly slunk back into his cave... this used to make me sad...
We did patriotic songs 'Roddy McCorley' (goes to die on the Bridge of Toom today)
We had a songbook at school, I still have it
It had lots of old folk songs
Oh! Susanna, Skip to my Lou, The Camptown Races
"Michael Finnegan beginagin/ He had hairs on his chinagin/ Poor old Michael Finnegan"
We used laugh at that song
"What are we going to do with the drunken sailor... early in the morning "
'Marching through Georgia' "Hurra! Hurra! We bring the Jubilee/ Hurra! Hurra! The flag that sets us free...a rousing song
The teacher would play a musical instrument, a melodica I think it was called
She'd blow into it and it had keys on top that'd she'd finger to create the notes
She divided the class into those who could sing and the others, the Crows she called us who couldn't
I was among the Crows
It made me feel bad being called a Crow.
In Primary school we used to play soccer during the breaks
It was usually the Boys from the Housing Estate versus the rest of us from the Village
There was never any tactics, the whole team en masse would just run after the ball LoL
I remember I used to get angry sometimes probably because of something someone had said to me
When I was angry I'd become like The Incredible Hulk
I'd go through the whole lot of them, beat them all
I was Unstoppable
I was the first boy in my class to ever score a goal using my head
The school would also have soccer leagues and we'd get put onto teams
But we were so small compared to the bigger older boys we'd hardly ever get a touch of the ball
But I... I managed to get a goal once which was unheard of from someone in our year
I was so happy.... delighted! My teacher even announced it to the whole class
That I'd scored... I was so chuffed
When I went home and told my parents though they didn't seem to think it was anything special....
My Dad he liked accordion music, he liked The Alexander Brothers from Scotland
They had a song 'Nobody's Child'
"I'm Nobody's Child, no one to love me/ No mother's kisses no mother's smiles/ I'm like a flower just growing wild..."

I used to sleep alone in my room
You'd be afraid there in the Dark on your own
There'd be a nightlight on the wall all lit up
A religious picture, the ****** Mary holding the child Jesus
I'd get Mom to leave the door open so I could faintly hear the voices downstairs
Sometimes I couldn't hear anything and I'd be afraid everybody had gone and left me
So I'd get up and sit on the landing listening
There was a few times when I'd actually go down the stairs
I'd be so relieved to see them all still there
I used sing songs in the dark to keep the fear away, songs we learned at school
"We're going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo/ How about You You You/ You can come too too too..."
Old MacDonald had a farm E-I-E-I O! and on that farm he had some...
"10 green bottles standing on a wall/ And if one green bottle should accidentally fall/ There'd be nine green bottles standing on the wall...
Sometimes I used recite poems we'd learned
"Two little blackbirds singing in the sun/ One flew away and then there was one... One little brick wall lonely in the sun/ Waiting for the blackbirds to come and sing again "
I also remember trying to recite to myself the multiplication tables...

<There were funny rhymes and nursery rhymes wasn't there? >
Christmas is coming/ The Goose is getting fat/ Please put a penny in the old Man's hat/ If you haven't got a penny a halfpenny will do/ If you haven't got a halfpenny God bless you...
Hickory Dickery dock/ The mouse ran up the clock...
They could be strangely violent sounding
Jack and Jill went up the hill/To fetch a pail of water/ Jack fell down and broke his crown/ And Jill came tumbling after...
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall/ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...
Three blind mice/ See how they run/ They all run after the farmer's wife/ She cuts off their tails with a carving knife...
Girls are made of all things nice... sugar and spice/What are little boys made of/ Frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails...
Adam and Eve went up my sleeve and never came down till Christmas Eve...
I remember the early games we played, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, Tiddlywinks trying to flick little plastic counters into a tiny plastic bucket, also playing draughts and marbles...

<Can you go back any further ? >
My Mom singing in the kitchen doing her daily chores singing some song off the radio
Dickie Rock an Irish showband singer singing
"Come back to stay/ And promise me you'll never stray/ I promise that I'll be true...
Sean Dunphy another Irish singer singing "If I could choose" (came second in the Eurovision Song contest)
Tom Jones 'The Green green grass of Home '
There was a lot of easy listening type songs on the radio Burt Bacharach type songs
Andy Williams, Englebert Huberdinck (Please release me let me go/ I don't love you anymore), Doris Day maybe
There's a lot I can't remember now
Val Doonican another Irish singer who'd made it big in the UK
(Had his own TV program for many years on the BBC)
He had a big hit with the song "Walk Tall"
"Walk tall and look the world right in the eye/That's what my mother told me when I was about knee high...
I remember one magical Christmas we got a present of a plastic projector
It came with several slides, they had wonderfully colourful cartoony pictures on them that told a story
We'd turn off all the lights and project it onto the wall
I remember it was like magic, the colours they were so vivid, they were like the colors off stained Glass windows...
The colour of things was very important when you were a kid, they'd almost create feelings inside of you
Colours came first... before words ever did
We often didn't understand the grown ups with their big words...
I remember getting collections of different kinds of toy soldiers and then staging battles
I remember collecting little toy Dinky cars they were called, that was their brand
And Matchbox cars (another brand) ... even today when I see certain colours of cars I am reminded of those old toy cars I used to play with... strange

<What are your earliest memories then? >
There was a question I always wanted to ask the adults but I never did, I thought it kind of funny and didn't want them to laugh at me
The question was "Why does Life always show me ?" An existentialist question even then.

We lived by the sea so you'd be lulled to sleep every night by the flowing up and flowing back of the sea... the tide... its gentle swaying back and forth motion
We had a black cloth picture/painting on the wall, a night scene with swans on a lake and an exotic house in the background with the Moon shining
It was so quiet and peaceful to look at...
My bedroom wallpaper had lovely red or pinkish roses
There was a colourful flower design sewn onto my pillowcase
It used to be lovely getting into bed with fresh linen...
I remember I used to get funny dreams even then, sometimes scary dreams
But I remember you were always safe 'cos in the dream you had a special ring you could put on and then the scary dream would go away (I've often wondered after was that maybe where Tolkien got his inspiration for The Lord of the Rings and Wagner the music composer for his music opera "The Ring")

<Can you go back...any further ? >
Going back further, you're almost falling off the edge of the world there
To a time... to a time when there were no words
When a child comes into the world they have no words
There's only... only The Silence... The Great Silence,
Silence is a strange thing, you can hear Silence
The fact that you can hear it means it must be changing from moment to moment
It too is just like a music, it's probably the first music
Without it there could be no other
The Music of the Spheres someone once called it
It just stays there in the background... glistening... your constant companion
Probably the first sound you ever heard, and probably the last you'll ever hear
It can grow very loud
It wasn't threatening, there were no monsters in it
Not until you went to school and learned words and heard scary stories
Did the monsters come
Words they can cast shadows... sometimes very long shadows...
There was a cot with wooden bars, I remember having a blanket with lovely warm colors on it, soft light blues and yellows, wooly sheep, Bo Peep or Bears or something
We had a golden coloured curtain with lots of designs on it in the bedroom
I remember if you looked hard enough you'd start to see faces in the curtain
Sometimes they would frighten me, they'd look very sharp and angry looking or maybe very sad unhappy looking...
I suppose today I still see faces, in my mind, in the great curtain of all my memories, all those I ever met and knew...

I remember looking at my Mom's face and not knowing what she was
Babies their a complete clean slate, have no words, they know nothing of this world
Gradually they warm to their Mom's affections and come to trust her and bond with her.
Because you had no words when very young there'd be huge gaps in your consciousness
When your consciousness would be completely clear and still
The silence and stillness would envelop you
... and there was something else... something else there... something deep in the silence
Out of it would come something very strange and quite wonderful
It'd come upon you suddenly...it was like your consciousness was changing, opening up
It was like you were descending into some great... some great complex
Your eyes would be closed but still you could see it and feel it... you were part of it
And it was so natural and so familiar...it was where you came from...it was Home
There was a first part that would lead into another part... and then another, all different
Yea, it had several stages and you'd pass through each stage from the outside going inward right to the very last stage... the very Source of Life itself
And you'd be completely at ease with yourself, you'd be completely at Home there
It'd come every night... that Special thing.,. that Special Place
Y'know sometimes when I see a little baby asleep in its pram, I know... I know where they are
Their away now, away in that Special Place
Far faraway from this world of care, so peaceful and so quiet there
Guarded by unknowingness and the Great Silence
With no fear or confusion there to bedevil it
Knowing only a relaxation so deep and a great Stillness within...

But me! I was the youngest in my house, I was always fighting with my brothers
And I was a terrible worrier just like my Mother
I'd be worried about school and the teachers, and trying to understand my (school) lessons
And there'd always be problems, arguments, confusions... humiliations and cruel harsh words spoken
At night I remember I used shake my head vigorously as if trying to rid my mind
Of words that had been spoken, words that hurt or stung...or confused me
I used bump my head gently against the wall
But no! I couldn't escape them... my peace it was broken now...it was gone
And that Special Place just like in the song Puff the Magic Dragon
It came no more...it was lost to me.

I suppose this is all I can remember, all I can recall
I guess this is where I must have come in
I suppose I must have reached the end... the End of my Rope here.

Love is confusing these days
Some say it never stays
The others claim
It only comes after some time,
When you and your partner
Left the infatuation behind.

Some say Love is spiritual,
It is the truth, the energy,
that holds the universe in an embrace...
It was always here
and in our hearts it remains.

Each verse shows me
Whatever love means
or is meant to be -
I know less and less
But at least I confess
My pure unknowingness

Doubt.
Disco.
Dreams.
Life.
Liberty.
The Pursuit Of Happiness.
Pepsi.
Gangsters.
God.
Rare.
Archaic.
Words.
Shadows.
Red.
Light.
Unknowingness.
Tears.
Pain.
Undercover.
Beauty Queens.
Degenerates.
Open Eyes.

It was back in those days, the elementary school days,
when we were all friends, characters to one anothers plays of nonsense.
When we reigned over puddles with galoshes or brightly coloured gumboots.
When we wore capes and knew all the sing along songs.
And yes, I do recall, fondly so, that big park.
We were all there, whether in soul or in spirit,we explored the butterfly gardens, our parents and teachers were there too,
a school trip of sorts?
Just a vivid  but fotgotten dream?
Who may answer these questions but ourselves by eventually succumbing to the universes natural way and forgetting the questions and finding and accepting the universes other answers.
The flowers of the light May day were in full bloom and that glass greenhouse, the one that intrigued me so, stood just like a castle.
After lunch, when the children were running throuhg green grass or wiping sticky hands from oranges upon the damper grass of the shade and while our parents and teachers sat on their coats dilly dallying, I stopped.
Stopped from my playing like a bunny caught in someones eyes. Was it a hand that grabbed mine or mine that reached out? Lead to a rivers edge, a little stream or pond. Ducking under willow and stepping over bushes and creeping through imagined dens of foxes or coyotes. My companion, my little friend, the face on the memory is blank, perhaps we had even more company.
We held hands.
We held hands like friends in our childhood innocence, before the concept of cooties, before the playground held terror. We sat hunched up by the pond poking sticks and reeds into the stream. Poking at the river flies and mud. Lost in a mystic realm of childhood unknowingness.
And then it caught me. A glimpse that magnified. The little water spider, gliding on the surface as though the surface were glass.
Oh water bug, from my bright eyes  and blurred warm memeory you stood out to me. Majestically skating in the reflection of my face. As though you were that man mentioned in grandfathers stories from the book he said he beleived in, that man himself, walking on water. Such grace and beauty in you're perfectly casual stride, a quality I later noticed and looked for in people. Oh water bug, slipping your little bug fingers through glassy streams like a figure skater on an ice pond.
Do you remember me little bug? I was the one, the one with the little hands reaching out. I tried to hold your magic in my hands.
I was the one that in awe
reached out
But like a snap dragon,
in a blink, you were gone.

Dreamily the stardust gathers
Deep inside black
Soulful vibrations exploding like candy
The clouds shades colors of light
Erasing the burnt toast

Upside-down I am
I have lost part of me
Inside the ocean

Down the hole
Into unknowingness
A place shied away from
A pool closed for winter
Guarded by walls of swords
Cut my sides open
Fall into a blueness

The future in a fog coat
Can't remember even being here
I've lost the time of day
And the sun and moon
Mysteriously disappear
And appear again

A want of the flutter of wings
A loss of gravity
Landing on the floor
To see the white shine
And glowing stardust
To dive into a place
Of youthful adventure
Of roaring fires
Of heightened senses
Of quiet glances

The words twisting my spine
The thoughts racing mind
Can't describe
Lost in a place
A dance in slow motion
A blender blending
Our souls into smoothies

And I know I'm alone here
Swallowed in my own fear
The glass breaks and falls
Only those claws
Scratch a bone within
Begging to let you in.

Philosophy involves feeling
like an unknowing child
most of the time, brief
revelation and then
unknowingness
returns again.

Let us go then
So many good times
I feel bad times
I think I'm feeling wrong
You are such a good friend
I'm moving out
And I'm worried about what will happen then
I'm not sure why you exactly spend so much time in my room
Everything is turning into that vague unknowingness
the one that drives me crazy
because nothing is ever definite
welcome to the haze
a heavy wet fog
drives me crazy
every time

The moon reaches down on the utopia,
An ablaze morass sits down on the streets;
With its clement, walks through
A crowd of ignorant bliss.

The life is adamant on the visionary city,
A sigh of relief nestles on the back of the throats.
An imminence punches out the onus
That satiated the courageous float.

When the mud of unknowingness gropes the ankles
Of haltingly walking hesitation,
Among the heads full of buoyancy,
It glitters for the heinous castigation.

Do not doubt(!)
For you are smothered
In between the hands of the mud
That melts out from the heads full of
Buoyant and ignorant bliss.
Do not ever bellow!
Swallow the defiance
Down on a singeing insight,
The unknowing city never
Stumps on the muddy and deafening ground.
Do not ever hear(!)
The knell that screeches out from the heights,
The sigh of death disguised over the steps of the foolish crowd..

Smoke fills my lungs as I walk down this lonely path,
where I was going… no one knows,

“Oh fur so white, so bright, so bright,”
“What?”
I would simply say and walk away into the unknowingness left of yesterday.

“Oh eyes so light, so white, so white,”
“What?”

I scrambled to catch my breath, not pausing to see what was left.
But down this uncharted path, unbeknown to the lost sheep,
was the wrath of the eyes lurking throughout wilderness,
longing to covet her wool all to themselves….

Waiting for one misstep into the cool morning light to trample upon the lost sheep at last.

The black cat sat on the road of the sideways door and asked me to ask a question unanswered by the universe, for it seemed a little trepidation to ask such a stranger as me whose permanence like the door has gone beneath the waves of light and into darkness below the sun and stars, deeper than the night-cat’s fur. Yet I knew the answer and asked the question, and the stars gleamed brighter that rust, and the galaxies I saw were within the slitted eyes before my face, though I did not fall to my forgottenness in that galaxy, but lived in my ghostly form, unanswering questions of old and trying not to remember my thoughts. The cat was unknown to me after that, the tail like a feather duster leaping among the moons of my world, crowing down at me from branches and constellations. I wonder how the universe would think of such a black cat, one who does not mind the coldness of ghosts or stars, or the unknowingness of such things, and who asks for askers and questions them until the dust settles and transforms around it.

Out of this world I suppose
The thing I wanted
The thing I craved
Is nothing beneath the surface

Should I really be here?
People whispering
People gathering
People hardworking
Just to achieve something they...
Thought they need

Are we really in this world just to play along?
When I was a kid, all I thought was
Everything we step on
The grass, the ground, even the mud outside
Was all part of a big playground
Where we are tested
Looked upon, and judged

Others always ask,
"How can I be truly happy?"
Which is I second the motion
Things, foods, places
People always find the way to achieve that kind of feeling
Even when it takes to let themselves be lost

Can I ask,
How can we truly end this?
All this suffering, sadness, unknowingness
Without getting depressed on how will we do it?

The solution?
Out of this world, I suppose

There’s a knowing kind of unknowingness
when you count on the sun to rise
or feel the moonlight dance behind the clouds
and fear not your own demise.

There’s a peaceful sort of slumber
between this world and the next
where truth and beauty forever dwell
and people are never vexed.

It is a world invisible
to eyes that only see
the ****** deeds and manmade things
of our society.

For in the world of love what counts
beyond the temporal you or me,
is all of us within one Heart
embracing the world eternally.

Unknowingness, turmoil.
Conundrum around.
Wrapped up in dilemmas.
Sinking. into mess all over.

Urge to know all happenings
Struggle to unwind each loop.
Choosing and then falling,
into pit. one at a time.

Tiring yourself. Again.
And again. And again.
With futile efforts dear.
Fruitlessly, knocking doors.

All these are not important...

It's okay to not know.
You're not here.
To know each **** thing.
Let the things happen.
Let the stones be unturned.
It's good to taste,
the dilemmas. sometimes.

The pure power of his name
the worlds shroud of shame
The illness that riddles all bone and breath , the choke of stress
Oh suffocating tresses, tresses of the tongues poison, the sting, sly sting of the fables caught under my skin.
Aggression, aggression  the furrowing grandeur of my pain. Oh hatred, the hatred out of petty presses and knotty messes. Slain
Slain in the name greater that pain.
Reason, purpose, path, passion, love
Over pouring, transforming
No longer a grudge
Power, strength, stature and rebellion. Rebellion against the pain and hatred inverse aggression, passion
Passion in objecting the twigs and tears of such a whirl.
Not a passive glance at possibility and theoretical action.
But a planting of peace in what harrows
Turn from the noose, the water, the fruit.
Reason is woven into your roots.
An everlasting water growing my bones  though tested by the dagger and the rope
hearty marrow will no longer wield my ruin.
Second hand torture.
Unknowingness in bystander
The slap of selfishness and the wishes for the best.
Despite reason convoluted and lacking in the trust of above. Complaint, complaint dear ease your paints. No coverage less coverage over protecting your taint. Pour, love pour love even in your tears. The nakedness of your heart is true honesty and cure. Lack fear, no fear, it’s a fight not a flurry. Much is ahead my dear
Know He is there because you are still here.

Your fingers hum the introduction of regret,
Your tongue sings the refrain of apology,
And your eyes, when I can see them, vibrate the silent sound of unknowingness.

Your song is one I do not recognize, or know,
But still, I wish I could sing it with you.

I forgive you.

Today I am fragments of a person
And not part of a whole
Shards of broken glass with faces
And a melancholy in unknowingness

Today I am deeply paranoid
Conducting the goings-on in pain
And there seems to be no border
Between the mental and physical

Today I am a rabbit, hunted
Always on the run, with nimble steps
And an overwhelming sense of dread
It is a unique experience to face doom

Today I am Meursault in spirit
Not because of the general indifference
But because of the lack of exit
And considerations of ****** or suicide

Today I am a Caravaggio painting
The deep darkness envelops everything
And seeps into the soul in secrecy
To consume that which is untainted

Today I am the notes of Cecil Taylor's piano
What more is there than disorder
And clusters of blinding angelic light
Which seem to ease these shackles for a time

Today I am in a Lynch film
For a sense of reality to that which is unreal
For moments of understanding shattered
For calm in shock and anxiety in stillness

Today I am asleep in the world, awake in the dream
Memories fly away from me
All that remains after a long day is a shell
An automaton stripped of its autonomy

Today... what happened today?
I cannot for the life of me recall, but it was unpleasant

Today? Today... I am the prisoner

Sublime is the gap between the ticking of the clock
Omininity of “otherness” breeds, well, word invention
Which joins the lists of hobbies which have now replaced the news.
Fifties roads and empty skies, no weekends, just sameness
It don’t mean a thing if it aint got swing

Unknowingness breeds ennui. Not boredom, not quite
But after six weeks of sunshine and barbies every day
Even the house thinks: why are they always here?
I know of no-one infected; Hardship is to queue
Down at B&Q – is this Russia?

The largest collective act of mankind
Virtue signalling: verisimilitude of pain?
We’re not in Syria, we’re not in Iran and it’s really not too bad
What did you do in the…no, don’t mention the war
Not even a phony war

I shaved my head, I grew my beard, variety being the spice
Of… new normal? No; the soundtrack of a life now changed
Irrevocably. Unless, of course, you’ve gone before your time.
Lost thousands in pay, lost a planned holiday, but also
One of my years’ remaining

A token of humanity wrapped in innocence
An idea of morality that exists in only openness
A broken idea of warped unknowingness

A faith of unapparent that lurks below
A naivety broken in harshness
An unspoken vigilance
A film protecting light from dark

A cellophane heart

I see you appear
As unconsciously as the tide
You conjure in my head
Like the poltergeist of my psyche
Your voice rattles the wall of the castle my mind calls home
Books fly off of shelves of knowledge into the array of ambiguity
A certain fear of uncertainty builds into a tower of the unknown
The novels telling histories of us
A history of war and **** that exists in grisly repetition

A fear I can place
One that belongs in the deeps of the ocean
Next to a jetty lies the remains of my innocence
The despair of recurrence in a daily scene
Only recognizable by whom it passes through

An image of the possibility of the future that man holds
The woman you pass on her way to work
The boy riding his bike around the culdesac
The little girl you see holding her mother’s hand

the recurring possibility of the purge of innocence
It lies beneath the skin of each body
Creeping in the crevice in the sidewalk
Looking up the skirt of humanity
Waiting for the opportunity to strike
A slithering creature lying in wake
A creature that is man

And I am ashamed to be seen as one of them

Andrew W.
10-20-20