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The winter Months used to not be accounted for,
they were the annual time away from Time;
a time of parties, feasts, and, shall we say, celebration of survival;
celebrating the harvest and, shall we say, fertility;
that you and yours may outlast
the cold, dead Winter.

January was eventually recognized as part of time
and was named for the Roman two-faced God Janus;
a time of duplicity and duality
a time of unpredictability
a time, somewhat analogous to a gateway leading to a new cycle
though, perhaps also, a time for looking the other way, as it were:

I suspect that the expression "When in Rome..."
was derived from those Winter non-months of debauchery
where the people from out-of-town would come into Rome,
where the party was, company was plentiful, and it was warm,
and decide to partake in various aspects of pagan Roman life otherwise inaccessible to them
while distributing few, if any, regards for their new-found brumal unorthodoxy
and hence the expression: "When in Rome, do as the Romans."

That's just my theory on it, though.
Take it or leave it, or perhaps somewhere in between.

Happy Winter!
Time to drink, feast, **** and be merry!
It's only Human, apparently!
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
when i woke up: are you ******* me?! or are you trying to tell a joke pretending to be Billy Crystal?

the word censored will hardly precipitate to
be a ****** of images,
you can censor as many words as you like,
to create this neurotically psychotic society,
enough warfare exposed to the populace of
civilians and you end up with civilians
internalising war, with not actual war taking
place, skirmishes, yes, but war on a
Napoleonic scale? no. you have to attack civilians
to such an extent that they internalise what would
have been otherwise cannon by the name of Howitzer,
or a Автомат Калашникова (awtomat kalaschnikowa);
attacking civilians rather than waging smooth transitions
between two elite armies created artificial peace,
a bit like the holy grail of seeking artificial intelligence
in inorganic chemistry, rather than seeking to
bank on intelligence in organic bodies... silicone v.
carbon... all the way! if you wage war by violating
the orthodoxy of warfare with the heresy of
attacking civilians, you'll get peace for sure,
externally all will appear peaceful, but internally
you'll be creating civilian berserkers, perfectly suited
to the cut-throat dynamics of capitalism,
"selfish" gene and all, they're as good apologists
as the *allahu akbar
brigade, but instead of using
a whole ruler to smack you over the head with,
they just use a centimetre of it...
this peace we're seeing in our current times is due
to the unorthodoxy, the heresy of warfare,
you attack an unarmed civilian you will subsequently
usurp traditional fields of war, you will internalise
conflict, you will create renegades without army
or comrade or general, all against all, and eventually
culminating in a schizoid i against i...
the psychiatrist Laing was wrong to subscribe to reasons
of a post-colonial nature, he was already the *******
and self-defeating: only i'd would like to think more
of a Scot, but he's an example of a union that worked...
the Welsh were never kindred of the Scots in wanting
rebellion... no William Wallace among them...
it's this broken rule of warfare that exposed the public
to internalise it... but what were you expecting...
there we have guerilla warfare, random, chaotic free
and then we have the straight lines of regiments,
sitting turkeys firing 30 metres apart from each other...
how warfare became so idiotic the soldiers decided
it was necessary to shove war into civilians,
we have actually become impregnated without
really bothering to notice the impregnation disguised
in masquerade of what capitalism offers us:
the many distractions and chances to spend money
with even billionaires succumbing to philanthropy
given their 20 toilet to number mansions...
so if you find certain words offensive i'm asking you:
why did i build up a verbum account of a rich
vocabulary... when i see you readied to censor me
and then sit there, watching police violence
like a ******* touchdown in a football match?
well... if it ain't dementia, then it must be dyslexia.
Ideas turned ideology create
Infinite numbers of lines in the sand
Here's mine and there's yours
Serotonin deficient lives
Laying dreams on the back of others
Then shunning them for breaking

Men told to **** the marrow
Women told to **** the ****
Pigeon holed sweater wearers
Hanging the future in neat picture frames
Staring intently to help it self-materialize

Junkies pry the world limb by limb
Holding hands in *** ba ya
As they skip off windowed cliffs
Red light burning away the innocence
Of hairless brown rabbits
Hypnotized boxers fighting ideas
While onlookers are sold to slavers
Breathless New Ageisms
Creating an orthodoxy of unorthodoxy
Visions of trains in a spotless horizon
Idolizing the unreal,  a hope for hope
Destined for eternal disappointment
Damon Beckemeyer Aug 2018
Train stations of thought
Ideas all meeting at once
Concepts jumping tracks
Unorthodoxy hopping empty cars
Hitchhiking onto the edge of my philosophies

Runaway trains
Head on collisions
Hypocrisy
And contradictions
What a wreck.

And when the passengers get here
They never stop moving
New positions are always hiring
Since Neurons are always firing

Conductors conducting
Railway seminars
Ted talks a lot
But the passengers leave enlightened
Sharing ideas with other train stations
Miles and miles away

So keep the trains on schedule
Keep the trains on track
Train tracks tracking
New thoughts
Through open minds

Steam will be pouring off my every word
So keep the engines  running hot
I'll be a dragon before too long
Spitting fire

But when the philosophy gets too honest
I have to stay cold
Call it a polar express-ion of thought

All aboard!
Research when I get bored
Stay awake at 4am
Listen to the gears turn in the engine room

The whistle is blowing
Ideas chugging along with enough power
To flatten the pennies I laid there
Intellectual suicide
Of misconceptualized life

Smash your two cents
That buys the ticket
Learn to travel
Learn and travel
Travel your learning

Take the train
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2017
you know why i smashed my martin (& co.) 00015M solid mahogany vintage acoustic guitar? for one, my ex-girlfriend's father ****** her up, after i "apparently" broke her heart: i don't remember breaking any of his property - guess a sad dole daughter's worth of heartbreak turns it into a right to break private property... my, what generous excuses! but that's beside the point... i finally smashed the guitar, why? because i couldn't play the blues man, because i couldn't play the blues... it's one thing jerking off an ac/dc solo, but another to sip the blues rhythm... you ain't got the blues rhythm: you got jack-****! so off she went, to the guillotine on the pavement... i mean: standard blues riffs is one thing, but to actually master the blues? talk about black privilege.

and it was always like that:
  the beatles vs. the rolling stones "debate" -
i gave up on the blues,
i am pretty sure i had a phase where
i listened to nothing but blues -
   but then i amounted to more patience
as an admirer of jazz -
    kept the brain ticking -
      a nice unorthodoxy from classical whitey
music -
   really? can we talk about black
privilege? god, i hate myself for this
political language within the current zeitgeist
of:
     it's not about being offended -
let me clarify: there's a grand canyon's worth
of disparity being being rude &
being polite when working the "offended"
by free speech gimmick...
    being rude & being polite is plainly
dialectical: **** me, bring in thesaurus rex
and call it: courteous vs. being a polish farmer
who just moved into the city,
and doesn't comprehend the idea of
a supermarket queue -
and there is a ****** well ruling difference,
like ****** and the jurisprudent notion
of attempt / intent...
  both receive a charge in the court -
        by being rude means you were
****** in your familial antics for far too long
and you're a clean slate,
but purposive rudeness, i.e. crafting offence?
that's a problem, i'm sorry to say -
there's no dialectical approach to unraveling
this "per se" of stature -
i'm actually more bereaved by the death
of dialectics than that of god...
       there's no way you can actually invite
dialectical investigation in most of today's
arguments...
        dialectics in shorthand?
   play stupid, until the opposite party
showcases a higher tier of stupidity -
   but just this competing over the most crass
and shortened argument, being said
& subsequently being left unchallenged -
i remember at school: the gift of the gab was
synonymous with: don't let the other person
speak, or make a question...
someone ought to compensate this vocab
black hole as to what the technique actually is -
just a name would do,
     since, as i already said:
there's a stark difference between being rude
and being offensive -
     since what compensates being polite
       if rude becomes *to offend
?
seems like such a dumb question to ask -
          point being, i don't might being offended:
i get an adrenaline rush -
   i can't afford the sort of adrenaline rush
that a bungee jump could invite -
so i guess, the poor man's choice of adrenaline
is to become "offended";
i love it though: it's like a get the chance to
overpower a troll by turning into an orc -
      and a mean ******* i can become.
ah, enough of the current "trend" of topic...
so me comes along this article in a sunday
supplement of a newspaper (sunday,
given the additions, and the news review section,
probably the only day a newspaper
makes sense) -
and i come across... generation xanax...
hmm... now that's mighty interesting...
god, i hate using the words "they" use!
so first off they slagged off millennials -
loafers, stoners, parasites, loners -
     boomerangs ****-brain scums -
     i love these "journalists": they've woken up,
finally!
     there was something odd that
the post-millennial generation zzz (snore) would
or could ever be so squeaky clean!
  unimaginable!
       well, apparently, they've been - bee-zee...
busy bees these rodger steiners have been...
stay of the ***** they said,
model citizens they said:
  don't drink, don't smoke, **** is so lame-oh...
hmm... too good to be true i thought
at first... when i was 14 we used to hit the cheap
strong cider (white lightning) at our
local youth club, bought **** magazines
and felt ashamed with an apu looking at as
stoically - and then played pool...
    we used to go to the top of parking lots
and spit at strangers from the top...
   throw stones at passing trains...
             and **** in phone-boxes if not
public trash-cans, and every party we went
to? we called it frankfurt -
      otherwise known as a sausage fest...
someone of us settled, someone of us said:
i've got a load of blank pieces of paper -
i'd like to see them filled...
          for posterity;
but **** me i knew something was wrong...
so now the current generation of "rebels"
has taken a liking to anti-anxiety medication,
under the umbrella (slang, for protection)
shield of "prescriptive medication"?
   wow... totally blew my mind -
  while i was making my own anti-insomnia
cocktail of *****, 25mg of amitriptyline,
and on the somewhat rare occasion 250mg
of naproxen (which creates a longer sleeping
session); and in today's front page article?
a good night's sleep does more good than
a 50% pay-rise;
but me and *****? i guess i must have
brought with me a stone heart -
      and have subsequently ended up being
the only person within a mile:
who can still laugh out loud without
faking it... how? because the laugh emerges
from the vacuous presence of:
me... and me alone.
   i know why these younglings took to prescription
drugs...
    they never learned how to drink,
and probably, never will...
        alcohol has long been mishandled,
and esp. stronger liquor -
            it's no longer seen as a sedative -
someone people "think" alcohol is imbued
with caffeine, that it's a party drug -
    and if it is a "party" drug - no one everyone
looks plain: dumb;
and since i have no hold on barbiturates
like nietzsche, i guess i'm his answer when he
implored to be taught by dionysus -
  he so desperately wanted to change his
barbiturates habit for alcohol...
         but i'm in a sense a pseudo-"sage" -
i don't look toward the harvest of grapes -
but wheat, or potatoes -
       given the latter: as i'm currently drinking
russian standard.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS Mar 2020
POETRY AND PAINTING

I write poems the way Van Gogh painted paintings
the last two years of his life. Wild, frenzied, crazy,
incredible, unique masterpieces that only his inner
genius could appreciate. Theo tried, but with few
successes. Self-portraits after self-portraits, the
potato eaters, a chair somewhat skewed, an old
man in sorrow, madness on his palette, yellow, blue,
and aquamarine--mixed up, all together in blends
and ways only a genius could create by scores.
Or was his madness the result only of a gift no
other artist had? Maybe my words and phrases
are phases only craziness can open. Maybe Van
Gogh did not know how to be ordinary, a ferry from
the sky, a mystical message he could not hear but
only feel. Cypress trees, sunflowers galore, paint
more he said. So many cannot see, the glory of
the stars that are ours only if we are blind to the
mundane but open to unorthodoxy he alone
perceived. Van Gogh poured himself on his can-
vases that Theo could not sell, paintings by the
hundreds that now hang on walls around the world
so those who eschew society’s mores are free
and unafraid to know Van Gogh and how he
understood the universe as no one else ever will.
Poetry and painting, you see, are one in the same.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet and human-rights advocate his entire adult life. He recently finished his novel, A CHILD FOR AMARANTH.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2022
title: rama
body:
am Ra:
or what's...
Rushki
shh... shh... please.   502 bypass


when i think about myself having ***, after i just had ***...
i think about... rather... listen...
to all the possible Nine Inch Nails songs...
i don't know: no music is better to decipher my face
during *******...
i encircled the brothel a few times...
armed with 200cl of brandy and some Pepsi...
listening to the Fragile on repeat...
i was waiting for the cockroaches of the early night
to disperse... huddle into some oblivion of a corner...
it's almost 1am... i've returned from all sort of
debauchery... listening to... Nine Inch Nails'
Heresy (version)... i'm feeling pumped...
no point going to the gym...
i just ******* twice...
odd... very odd... i think i'm going to get myself
a girlfriend...
i sort of knew this was coming... coming...
i don't remember the last time i ******* my *****
into a woman... this time... felt odd...
felt like i had a filter on... it's so different when
you do it inside of her into a ******...
it sort of... accumulates...
when you ******* without a ******...
it's like... stars are born... 1 million lightyears
away from the present...
mind you... i'm not a teenager...
i gave her the look... i'm about to ******...
should i pull out? do the whole tissue project
of cheap abortions?
even she looked puzzled... you actually know
when to pull out?
so i asked... can i? ******* inside of you?
sure... it's not like i'm going to get pregnant...
later on she asked me:
you, poet, in shallah... you're going to become
a meteor... missionary, throughout...
oh she liked it... she even said that she did...
tongue waggling... *** slapping... lip biting...
tongue wriggling... tongue *******...
oysters galore...
        she showed me the bruises her ex left her...
burned her... stabbed her... whatever...
showed me pictures of her daughter...
her daughter's father... an Englishman... ******...
blah bah... if only the people i interact with knew
that i was diagnosed as psychotic...
second time i *******... well... let's put it this way...
she's just a little taller than me when i kneel
before her... we were smoking, talking...
i brought some leftover brandy... she tried to feed me
some... ****** *******... i said no...
she smudged her finger in some of the ash...
fed it to me... ugh! what's this?! pharmaceutical big
heaven?! what is this... paracetamol for... *******?!
exchanging life stories... i tell her...
i came to England aged 8... she started drawing the figure
for me current age: 35...
so i tell her... here since the age of 8...
but never been with an English woman...
why?
  the ******* nunnery...
they're all pretend nuns...
          nun?!
    rahibe... she used some bogus translator...
they pretend to be nuns...
uptight Jane Austen meets Charlotte Bronte types...
no... nothing horrifying
akin to the only female genius out there...
Shelley...
oh, ****... a woman tells you she's not going to get
pregnant... quizzical look:
you're going to ***** into me or not...
can i? well... i'm not going to get pregnant...
second time the lubricant was out...
jerking like mad... tongue out... spitting on the phallus...
what's not to be loved about women?
more talk...
might as well... chances are... i might still get
a third child into the bargain...
we're already planning a date around her free Sunday...
i'm thinking... cinema? n'ah... i'd rather take her
for a walk... perhaps spot some deer...
  beautiful daughter, mind you...
but the tactic worked...
   2x 20minute excessive bicycling sessions...
fasting... i only ate some cottage cheese
     with a hot-cross bun and some jam...
             a bottle of white wine: *** vino virilitas...
****** off without actually climaxing...
chill... chill... now i'm completely relaxed...
i'm looking at having a girlfriend that's also
a *******... hell... let's not judge...
we all have to share the same ******* pavement...
ride the same bus...
     ooh... the universality of gravity...
all get dragged down...
                  but taste this...
   how must my personal hygiene be up to scratch...
if she allowed me to ******* into her?
even she said: it doesn't matter if you're wearing
a ******... all those Indians are aqua-phobic...
and this is coming from a Turkish woman...
see! i know there's a third avenue of Islam waiting
in the fore... unlike the H'arab "orthodoxy"
and the Persian "unorthodoxy"...
there's an itching third branch of Islam waiting
to be spawned... spearheaded by the Turks!
we agreed... in this profession...
what sane woman would allow a pundit to...
******* into her...
wait... wait... there was a pause before i actually did...
well lucky me...
all in the *******...
how beautiful i am...
how intense my look while *******...
blah blah... i take these things to heart...
because: i have a heart...
no western woman would ever say such things...
proud nunnery *******...
stiff *****... i'll take the Turkish *******...
to hell with wanting to idolise all that that sells crap ****-in
-ing;
my god... i still have the scent of her skin
on my skin...
    petite little creature... ol' raven hair...
when i kneel before her she's just a forehead's height
above me...

right now: the world can *******...
it doesn't even exist...
that's the beauty of fathoming relationships,
however imperfect they are:
they are nonetheless: EXCLUSIVE...
i guess i could think of something...
she's already thinking of exporting my writing...
she wants out: and i want in...
i already messaged her back:
you know... i never felt this good since
the last time i played hide & seek as an 8 year old boy...

i gave her a copy of a book of poems
i wrote... not that it was a massive sample...
signed it... all my love: Khedra...
let's see what happens next...
    a life in Istanbul doesn't seem that bad...
i'd get the best beard trim in the world...

it was worth it... standing pointless... pointless...
at those stadiums... in the cold...
dealing with football hooligans...
as... steward / security guard...
      yeah... all those hours... worth it...
for this one hour spent with Khedra... worth every moment...
that's what i intended to spend
the earned money on to begin with... prostitutes!
why would i spend it on anything else?
mind you... how charming... have i become?
extroverted... she's now asking me
whether i'd care to spend time with her outside
the brothel!
    why judge... it's not like she has an only-fans
account... like she's bribing sim-ps-on-loans...

who the **** am? odd...
                     i love it when she strokes my beard...
tells me i'm her type...
oh man... and i thought i had the charm offensive...
but with English girls... you try it...
and it's like: talking to someone with prosthetic limbs...
a bit ******* awkward...
they look sort of horrific when trying to
speak let alone move...

at least here... i paid for ***...
i didn't pay for lies or... ****** *******...
but i got all three... well... why would she lie?
well... now i didn't just impregnate her...
what's that, she's going to leverage my *****
on some poor schmuck?
could happen... felt strange when compared
to the first time when she managed to stretch my
imagination of relief into the concentrated
presence of a ******...

i'm past living a safe life... let what may come:
come;
even my madness turned out to be,
rather... unsatisfactory... it always missed the mark of:
well... if there's no woman involved?
i'm ******* sane, by all accounts!
even if i've been diagnosed as mad...
it truly takes a woman... to... make the full transition
into: being a madman...
what's that... child no. 3?

               ha ha... quizzical: you're going to *******
into me? can i?
do you want me to? well... thank god there was no:
"oops"... i asked for permission...
she gave it... now i'm sort of waiting
for... payback... maybe i can draw on the insanity
card...
eh... life's great lottery.

— The End —