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Mateuš Conrad Dec 2019
hiding behind images:
rather than standing before shadows...

perhaps it sounds better
in german, in german:
it (being german) is more...
informative...

or at least... that's how i see words
as...

example... DOG...
will i hide behind an image...
or will i... stand before the shadow?

as bad insurgent "translations" go...
this is where you find the "lost"
artefacts...
why would a ****** snuggle
up with some deutsche-spreschen
bollocking: to begin with?

we have settled our difference...
we have to have them...
wir haben zu haben: ihnen!

Plato... and iconoclasm...
christmas is over and i can,
finally! celebrate!
we do like in a democratic pseudo
state of affairs...
no man shall reign for more than
100 years...
even if he is god-bound....
but this little *******...
******* pivot,
it all begins with him and ends:
with him...

before all the greek demigods...
i will seek: being naive...
i will seek... keeping my mouth shut...
i will make minor details:
enlarged protest projects!
perhaps the german will
clarify...

verstecken (the past tense...
i never found it...
the paste of hiding...
to be couple with a present participle
of still... hiding)

verstecken hinter bilder...
lieber als stehen vor schatten!

die architektur aus wörter
(von Goethe... "von wörter"...
'goeRte')

nichts nein!

what is a melancholic arson?
the inflamed heart: its last willing rubric
genesis...
the mind is either automated cold
or stitching up cobweb matrixes of borrowed
time... but the heart...
oh a heart can become something more
than the bundle of clockword muscle...

i have tried to keep this mind
candle-lit and "curious"...
to keep it: intellectually focused...
to be prone of being starved: retaining
being a curious case of:
but i've found extinguishing points
of reference...
the only stupidity i found was...
it was going to be: oh so... predictable...

the modern tongue...
libra! meet the hydra...
i can either hide behind images...
and fuse them with words...
or i can... stand before these shadows...
these skeletons...
and properly disguise an "alternative
arithmetic"...

there's no point arguing over what is,
and what isn't "central europe"...
the masses have spoken...
we know what's fly-over territory when
it comes to h'america...
there's the east coast and the west...

but i will keep borrowing german
to... to the best of my abilities...
pretend to leisure myself in the comment
section, of the serious, sober,
liberal elites!
the true mind grifters and...
perhaps the odd chance of
a dutch puritanical rabbi...
to... "manage" an equilibrium...
to... not... rattle the boat...

common theme: i drink, i want to speak german,
i'm dead: i want to speak german...
i want to tell jokes in german...
-esque buzz lightyear in toy story 3 with
his... hispanic psychosis interlude...

i've experienced psychosis...
most... unsatisfying... i never managed
a complete disintegration of the self...
shame... i almost wish i did something...
that would have kept me in
Broadmoor for the past... 12 years...

i'm still "here"... but it's already apparent...
to have invested in german existentialism...
to have invested in... german idealism...
somewhat... and "then" / only now...
do you realise... you're not going to be part
of some ******* bookclub!

oх dye scheiße!
чoпперс chomp!
их... alternatively in eat... east germany...
isch... so?
ишь... alt. being? ихь...
variations go... where the caron... doesn't...

i will not solve you a crossword
puzzle in english...
i still have not opened a bottle
of jack daniels this very night...
and i'm already making a summary
as to: why i will not open
a bottle of jack daniels tonight...

i will... but i'll sniff the bottle-neck
as if it were a line of *******...
and the sober, sensible people,
can have their fill...
they can have their: formal...
promenade poetic excursions into the night...
and they can rhyme rhyme rhyme!
they can walk their ritual crescendo
of left right, left right...
which will never make them odd...
should Beijing stage an army parade
"impromptu"!

have them! have them all!
too bad for me... to bad for you:
to be of those people...
who read books...
that... makes it hard...
to find someone... who also read them...
and when you have...
done both...
you find out... oh, right...
those books were never supposed
to be talked about...
they were supposed to become
cognitive tattoos...
you were always supposed to...
"think" about them...
in "think" as in: not talk about them...

you would never be able to
mainstream them...
regurgitate them... fall flat on your ***...
donkey comparison...

Balaam's donkey...
Jesus' donkey...
i'll repeat this...
Balaam's donkey... Jesus' donkey...
and those four horsemen...
minus one donkey-jockey...
Balaam's donkey... Jesus' donkey...
if only someone told either of them...
about...

one of the donkeys knew...
as my cat knew when... clear as day...
i remember him utter the word:

яабэł...

he had two names: oscar darshan...
i'm way past being crazy...
being crazy these days is:
being known for making yourself
be accustomed to rules and laws...
outside of the rules and laws
that make stealing a criminal act...

otherwise: christmas is over...
now i get to celebrate the every day...
i'm done with this:
worshipping a baby...
on a day... when... Herod did a
Pharaoinic imitation...
major, or minor improvements?
beside the point...
only he exists... the rest of us...
perhaps some... porridge... will suffice?

oh thank god the c.c.t.v. cameras weren't there...
and the sceptical community...
i wouldn't mind some cynics...
but so the story goes...

because why would i want to...
"persuade" anyone toward, anything?
less of me, less of me on instagram...
ensuring i post the perfect
hot-dog sublime piece of legs
before the altar of a swimming pool...
or whatever chlorine cocktail...
with a "missing link" sombrero for
a stump of wood...
excavated from a sacred forest of Lithuania...
or some other variant bollocking...

christmas is over...
i can forget about being secular and sensible
over these past three days...
so i can return to my cognitive religioisity
in the outcast domain of mingling
gnosticism with qabbalah...
and... i can due those said prayers
in silence with my thought...
the ought-i-ought-i-not:
in that sigma-***-theta morph prefix
exemplification... of translation...

dry-humorless: pedantic...
that's me...
because i can finally! finally! breathe!
i can enjoy winter without these
******* fancy-lights!
i can enjoy x-ray vision of skeleton trees...
balding fully...
i can enjoy winter... after all...
winter can only be settled into an armchair
of comfort... when christmas resigns from
being a calendar event...

i can enjoy winter now...
ich dürfen zu genießen winter, jetzt!
ich, auch, dürfen zu genießen:
bekommen betrunken,
bekommen betrunken genug:
zu necken deutsche-tippfehler-quack-sprechen...
etc.

christmas is only christmas come
the 27th of december...
now i can celebrate...
now i can ******* peacock strut me way
(my my my)... into
the never available "oblivion"...
as you do... you really need procreation...
you need children to appreciate christmas...
otherwise you're ******* stuck...
with a delay button...
waiting for Easter...
the big boy celebration of christianity...

christmas and... the siege of Gaza...
what's the common thread?
human shields... children being:
human shields... excuses excuses ad nauseam...
it's because of the children that we justify
christmas...
i have none so... i don't justify it...
i'll usher in some herr bernstein
in the form of monsieur gauner...
or some... all brothels have a stench of
bourbon about them...
alle bordelle gestank von bourbon!
alle!

and what "good" isn't coincidental
with the advent of spring?
ah... the resurrection "part"...
flight to egypt... josephus ben mathias...
1945... the nag hammadi library...
and... plenty of greco-hebrew politico
propaganda hybrids along the way...

i can hide behind an image
that a word designates...
but... i can also... stand before...
the shadow that the word impregnates...
it just so happens to... rhyme;
bluntly.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2019
.ich! schreibenmann! über oder mann: nein güt! ich! schreibenmann! alles gelb... ja?! entschuldigen (mir) verstecken (hocken).

contra millenial contra baby-boomers
no....
people didn't say much,
all they ever said was:
"we" have no problem with
you drinking yourself
until you reinvent
the yo-yo...
   i so too thought:
   this... "labyrinth reconstruct"?
this is not coming from
a rotten mind,
this is coming from a rotten
head,
the shackles of Brazil...
             good to know!
know what?
the fact that i will drink myself
to death,
iwill never have to be made
compensate for,
i will have a hybrid
choir of ****** overdose
addicts being entombed
in a vinyl collection listening
section / choir...
               ich, diable, ich père....
rob the poor man
of his metaphor,
to make dues of his...
missing quiff, ***** style 1970s
style!
      my *******
miane **** dog qua basset hound
cat..
2H of sleep...
no... i want, to, butcher it;
chose chicken and curry
instead...
but for the ear crsip:
i wish i could:
        
YOU BLATANT DUMB
IDIOT...
that's how we pet
animals in Slavic countries...
children?
you don't want to know,
i already know how they're
"petted"
in post-germanic countries
of England, or France...

only in a wealthy nation...
will you sooner see
a homeless man,
than a homeless dog!

I WANT, TO, SLEEP!
and i don't like being given this
excess of attention!
no!
circa!
       round round
the ******* go!
go! *******!

   i never dated in my life,
o.k., once, speed...
  i didn't like the whole
formality of acting a
pretense of...
whatever never for a fragility of:
no. that wasn't too soon.

     my... "culture"?
it isn't even on your, ******* map...
me white, your brown,
you hiati something
royal or something?
you no go, to the modern variant
of the Hermitage... savvy?
me white too...
but me no go
where your tanned
is already a tanned / non-nigerian
no-go... savvy?
              
i hope to die by toast...
you die:
by hope for forklift
in the ******* ****
of kilimanjaro doing
the black betty sing-along
through & through...
and...
what wouldn't i give...
for a kissing scene with
rooney mara...
esp. her most...
whatever that was
in a girl with a dragon tattoo...

gein: meet bukowski...
bukowski...
meet me...
    necrophilia meet
necrophilia...
i want to be strapped
in such an Arizona
stronghold with only...
a gueswork of tongue
to be given the leash!

i eat off the table that
becomes
the hushed crumble
of... that meme...
                n.p.c....

  which... obviously related
to the mahjong solitaire
and the "whole"
NP-complete-ness...
  
  i know of NP-C...
not that i am smart,
  but in that i have enough
ingenuity to avoid...
what cannot be a furthering
of argument..
    worth sustaining...

too much of unknown
to people geometry has
riddled them
beyond the compensate
of being related to...
what argument is there
to have,
when the people you're
trying to over-shadow,
are un-relateable,
in that...
to have to claim
defeat by having
no simple symbology,
having to perpetually
retort with geometry
that cannot implode
counter-intuitively
for a "sacred" scrutiny?

die kröne überreste die kröne,
als die volk überreste nichts mehr
"ein" der mensch'n;

ja? savoy.
Caroline W Jun 2019
Scherben in nem eispalast -
Konserviert und eingefasst..
Labyinth aus Licht und Schatten,
Alpträume die sich verstecken
Träume die sie versteckt halten
Den Blick zu den sternen,
Weil nur dort oben keine Schatten sind
An ins Sternbild des Drachen
Weil ich nur dort zuhause bin
Und nicht auf dieser Erde

Nein ich muss aus einer dieser anderen Welten,
Da oben bei den sternen sein -
Kann mich nicht von natur aus um diese sonne drehen,
Keine Ahnung von wo da oben ich herkam -
Oder wohin ich dabei war zu gehen,
Doch Weiß ich das es nicht hier unten war,
Sonst würde sich nicht alles hier unten
Völlig falschrum für mich drehn,
Selbst Tag und Nacht sind verkehrt ,
Zu kurz ,zu schnell und kalt -
Wie alles andere auch ,
Viel zu schnell am vergehen


Es sind nur lichtblitze zwischen all den Schatten zu sehn,
Die die Bilder ein brennen die in diesen Schatten entstehen,
Wie blitze fotos in einen Film -
Jedes davon ein Beweis,
Das ich blos gestrandet bin,
Hier wo Dämonen wie sonst engel aussehn,
Wo alles sich gegenseitig frisst,
Und allein Wahnsinn fähig macht,
das alles lang genug zu überstehen,
Um auch nur lang genug das licht,
des wegs weit genug nach oben zu sehn,
Um überhaupt heraus zu finden
Das sterne an nem Himmel existiern -
Hoch genug oben um sich zu verstecken
Vor allem was nicht fliegen kann oder
verzweifelt genug davon ist,
in realen Horrorfilmen zu stehen,
‎um auf der Flucht vor all den Szenen
‎einfach blind nach oben zu gehn,
‎wo eine wand ist ,
beginnt zu klettern,
‎um nur nicht mehr in blut und Asche zu stehen
Fight your way up!
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2021
all the hard work seems to have been done,
not that any was done
to begin with...

   from the fountain of nouns -
   there's nothing...
   well there's no new new
   in the sense that
   a hammer was monumental
   a bridge too...
   when wine was first made...

i'm waiting for something spectacular,
like a Krzesimir Dębski
arrangement or a film like
American Beauty -
        or just tomorrow that can
be turned into a resurrected
dog...

         not that a life, this life is
somehow wished alternative...
      that it can be: the life... that life...
today i was at the fishmonger
eyeing up a lobster -
perched on a platter of dead fish...
more animated than alive...
animate thing -
   eyes like dark portals -
         i a puddle's worth of a labyrinth
in which an ******* could
equal genocide of my d.n.a. -
something a little horrid:
   just like that...

and of course...
      what is a george oppen poem...
what's a miroslav holub poem...
   two days prior i was in a w.h. smith:
in the classics sections
with the meagre display of poetry
on offer...
    and... well there wasn't much...
so here's to... doing it for free...
doing it for the cult-esque fancies
of a readership...
doing it for... best served outlet:
bypassing editorial qualms and
what would / might sell: eyes peeling...

what's a Will Alexander poem...
what's poetryfoundation.org even about
except: race, bad grammar in bio:
i they O vey you and my pronoun
whiplash: Aladdin's ditto to
               a Khan or otherwise a variation
of Ottoman...

pristine nouns - historical gravity
i.e. a receding pastoral version: today
yes and of a time: that's prior...
when written i'm assured:
not spoken -
  at least that's how i know when
i can relax a little from thinking:
or any other: moral-ought
should i still have any...

       to the source of ontology -
       how to be: prized culprit a nuanced
       deity of the omni-
       prefix rubric like 2 x 2 =

there are some places where only
a first Tuesday of January
at 2pm belongs to...
   i can think of at least three-quarters
of a dozen of such
places: which i will not name...

but at least here: i would like
to express how i relax from thinking:
or... not thinking...
between the structures
of res cogitans / the narrative ortho-physical
gob...
and res vanus / the empty vacuum
two eyes for periscopes
a sea of grey amassing -
     a variation of suppose: people
their own lives...
    placebo solipsism /
           it's like that 'the earth is flat'...
"theory"...
      it's not an 'ought experiment...
it's more a: because it might happen on
c.c.t.v. no chance for north.east.west.south...

exhaustion... fork in the road:
now more sketching than...
it was never going to be a conversation
or a script to... orate & plagiarise...
in the end: that's a beginning...
while in the middle
there's all this shrapnel and...
   a need to compartmentalize...
shove and sort and take a strong arm:
work a shovel...
not that you'd ever use
a shovel to shove...
or shoo / cuddle with a coo coo...
a flurry of pigeons...

    and that i was shat on one today...
years ago i thought it might
be deemed lucky...
  but the image in my 'ed was...
only lucky... should 'un'
                        take a diarrhoea "tot"
on a bowler 'at o' mine...

3 full glasses of wine...
   that's... 3 full glasses of wine...
       a cat sleeping in my bed...
and half past midnight to come...
also...
   had i discovered pinyin earlier...
no matter i'd still be
bothered about the eternal glyphs...
needless to say
i came across hangul and katakana
prior and i knew
they made sense...
            
well: sounds...
         back to the sound of ambiance
i.e. the "music" a refrigerator makes
in the middle of the night...
that there's N
and all the vowels...
       (ン) ア     イ ウ エ オ

and this is how N looks like
     when "mutilated" by, said vowels...
acting as a prefix

n.b. why ES and not SEE
                "C" but not ECK
                 KAY... TEA but not ET
                ZEEZEDZEZ but:
                 EN
                 EM
                           ME N'EH...
                  NA            NO...
syllables syllables...

(ン)ナ     ニ ヌ ネ ノ

MANNA
   i.e.                          マンナ         (1)
                                   マンンア    (2)

      (1) is...             (2)... isn't...

rigid structures of bull-tied-to-tongue
doy'ch:
           stier-gebunden-zu-zunge...
a name of a woman...
                         アンナ...

ナノ:                   n'ah "know":
   which isn't: now...
           ergo: n'oh...
                                laughter in
katakana: ハ ハ
                            ハ   アハ      ハ ....

bother:           cull the surds and then
"somehow" the sounds...

borrow / lend: apples and coal...
i.e. セキタン
          (sekitan)
          リンゴ (ringo) non essentially:
1960s anglo-ßaß culture: rut...
nostalgia... bonfire...
       crisp as: cutting in with words
it's not like there's a moral
backlog of cursed morose & dodgy
fabric... history sort of:
relaxed & ****** off...

           if i could wiggle in some
korean: Ta
                 Ke
                             the periodic
of keeping tables...
   having chairs to char a bias
on for bone...
  serve up the chisel...
    rough up: coincidentally
the brood of stones & stoics...

              hoops... which you could
dub bonanza for chitters,
jokes and jitters...
           variations of D        Z:
talk Fwench ****:
wan                   and qi    cue: K...

the "currency" of verbiage...
      
   otherwise: when a pronoun behaves
like an article...
notable example:
       mein kampf - i'll treat "my" as
a pronoun rather than as a determiner...
the way i see it... thus...
my struggle is...
      casually... my: definitely articulated...

ich / i(s)ch kampf...
                   "i" struggle... which is...
an indefinite article...
blessed jah! the grammar *******
have... cometh!
phi or theta closure?
both?!                  hey-ya!

   variations of:
     chew-tongue... slurp-bone...
  kauenzunge
                 schlürfenknochen...

    loiter-with-shadow:
                   "head" detached...

herumlungern-mit-schatten:
           "kopf" abgetrennt...

rigid like Trent and...
              heave the Rhine, Rodin...

ol' schwab...
    wine = sour-grapes
                                            wein = sauertrauben...

these fesseln these scharniere,
these schleifen: ernte... nichts...
             my godhead humming...
                      no play-pristine-good-fork
of a **** 'ere "now"...
language for the eyes...
language for the nose: K: cardamom...
before we: were never going to
sit it out in a Siberian work-around...
chasm such that the echo: spawned...
litanies in Byzantine...
     which was a precursor to
Turk & Ish...

                     schweinefleischhacken...
what a nice... nice bIG best...
rounded word with
not hyphens...
maXen m'ah mummy: noun that's also
a verb... alias:      schleichumfang...

ein / eine bursary für
                                    sechs ("z"ex):
          
           zitieren:
quetschen - unter alles die onomatopoeias
  (rigid ******* word...
hasn't changed since the greek's
eureka 'id it)...

           los los los...
               gargantuan only with
a glagolitic mmm...
   almost looking armanian...
ⰏⰀ
   マ...
                 Helmut gorun'd'tat...
heave!
              
   - and "they" thought i might just...
give up... tongue like ice-cream...
like easy like
low hanging fruit... like:
for the taking...
all the **** and ****
and she still has a superiority
complex when
i look at it as: collateral...
little o... pseudo-***                  
  
             (ch / č
                        hide a vowel / vowel-catcher...
      cache a vowel...
                    verstecken ein vokal...
                 vokalfänger - or pretend...
just pretend to laugh)...

and croat... down the corridor
of an arm-wrestle between
proto-prussian and pan-slavic
rus...
        tell me some more:
and i'll acute that S for you...

                                                if only:
details could be written in german
as: detallen detallen...
but is... otherwise... beiwerk / nähere...
oops is for: regenschirm -
and bloat is for: pilz...

         and here's for a *******
carousel!
   rotondo, kalimotxo... "jajaja"...
meow-up-m'ah crease of zzz of agitated
lazy of herr Kraz...
certainly...                 if that's how:
letters "work"...

                 arbeit: arrived at:
macht...               freedoms pigeons
and dolphins...       creases of paper...
           come 2am... it's plenty.
Marie Nov 2020
Ich sei kein Dichter,
hast Du gesagt,
weil Du Dir einen Reim auf alles machen willst,
hinter dem Du Dich verstecken kannst


"Ja",
hab ich geantwortet,
"Ich bin kein Dichter",
aber bist Du überhaupt ein Berliner?
Inspiriert von John F. Kennedy:
"Alle freien Menschen, wo immer sie leben mögen, sind Bürger dieser Stadt West-Berlin, und deshalb bin ich als freier Mann stolz darauf, sagen zu können: Ich bin ein Berliner.“
Das bedeutet für mich: Bist du frei genug, ein Freigeist zu sein?
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2020
i have died a thousand times
and that's only before...
i get a chance to fall asleep;

i've been taking twitter accounts
and instagram entries polaroids...
reading Milton doesn't ease
the headaches...

this burden of the wriggling
earthworm that's about
to be pulled out from nibbling
on the clay: london proud...

         sheffield... the artic monkey's:
n'est ce pas?
that field felt grift...
smoking baron and the ashes to
lick up lick to keep...

         my furore!
my hunger my guise my everyday
lost case of slumber...
the death grieving the date of
the lost review...

          bygones be left as bygones
of Navarone...
  crown of pandemic proportions...
still waiting for
ol' lizzie to drop it to a down
of pressure on the ol' ticker...
she'll die and hail!
robert the bruce!
            my ivory of white winding through...

each night i die...
i die because i fall to sleep
and there's no dream
for my sort of licking the altar
of open and salting the wounds...
let them breathe they'd be prone
to implore me of to keep...

if there's no darker loot of black
then perhaps it
will sound more impeding
in: altvaterdeutsche...

schwarz! schwarz!
                   came the lone roman ******:

švarц!
            wo alle straßen enden...
der schlamm ist knöcheltief...
            
schlamm ist eisen:
          wenn skulptur ist:
gegeben "die aufwachen" prompt...

             *******: inselwohnsitzleute!
east of warsaw... or west of kiev?!

fetish peoples unite under the rubric
of the scaling prop-up latex
of *** games that...
wir wurden einst kinder...
         wir benutzt zu spielen...
                  verstecken und suchen!

gamma goblin of the "vierte *****"...
or just a fetish for an old version
of english... this... my exhauasted anglo-sax...
reuters... back toward
the ***** of a fake father i too have...

grenadiers of the horseoperamärц!
lernenzuerst:
                kind-deutsche-unger­ade-leere...

for all the english that is given,
why wouldn't i want to escape into
a prehistoric german...
       old saxon the would-be eager
tourist of exhibitions...

      i would, i somehow still persist
to: versuchen...
                     grief from
a tongue... neither...
otherwise a ****** vater otherwise
a ****** mutter...
             zähne auf eisen...
                      zunge auf austern!
sing-along
in alt ***** german or...
            that subtle brotherhood barrier
of neighbouring love...

very far from "home"...
      home... home... what is home?

god i hope every single word spoken
in german will make me out
to be an unrepenting
                         sturmführer...
trägt schwarz... trägt weiß...
trägt grau...

                           the least opposition...
salz bestreut auf zu öffnen
atmen wunden...
                      
easier for the croat...
or the serb...
                              easier: never mind...
new continent h'america...
and but the breadcrumbs of history...
this 20th century locum
of all that had to happen...

                            if a harry can get away
with donning khaki...
i would love to appear
in schwarz... weiß... und grau...
                   prompt galore!
            brechenöffnen - nach vorne!

      as ever... limitations of residue for
all that ever was:
self-help bollocking of a tickling        
of forever "future" events....
Abel 7d
In meinem Kopf, da haust ein Tier.
Ist schleimig und eklig, ist schrecklich und groß.
Fremde Augen tief in mir
Stelln mich vor mir selber bloß.

Will ich es lieben, hass ich es doch.
Bleibt es mir fern muss ich es suchen,
Und kommt es zu mir, dann lass ich es los,
Um es zärtlich zu verfluchen.

Ich will mich vor der Welt verstecken.
Will, dass niemand sieht und schaut,
Wie ich in meinen tiefsten Ecken
Mein Monster hab aus Angst gebaut.

Treten, schneiden, Ketten legen.
Hin und wieder brüllts in Wut.
Wills nicht lieben, wills nicht pflegen.
Geilt sich auf an meinem Blut.

Ich halt es fest und nochmal fester,
Dann stöhnt und schreits soviel es kann.
Mein einz´ger Freund, mein bester.
Es stöhnt und schreit in Stille dann.

— The End —