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Maggie Emmett Jul 2015
PROLOGUE
               Hyde Park weekend of politics and pop,
Geldof’s gang of divas and mad hatters;
Sergeant Pepper only one heart beating,
resurrected by a once dead Beatle.
The ******, Queen and Irish juggernauts;
The Entertainer and dead bands
re-jigged for the sake of humanity.
   The almighty single named entities
all out for Africa and people power.
Olympics in the bag, a Waterloo
of celebrations in the street that night
Leaping and whooping in sheer delight
Nelson rocking in Trafalgar Square
The promised computer wonderlands
rising from the poisoned dead heart wasteland;
derelict, deserted, still festering.
The Brave Tomorrow in a world of hate.
The flame will be lit, magic rings aloft
and harmony will be our middle name.

On the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl;
the ‘war on terror’ just a tattered trope
drained and exhausted and put out of sight
in a dark corner of a darker shelf.
A power surge the first lie of the day.
Savagely woken from our pleasant dream
al Qa’ida opens up a new franchise
and a new frontier for terror to prowl.

               Howling sirens shatter morning’s progress
Hysterical screech of ambulances
and police cars trying to grip the road.
The oppressive drone of helicopters
gathering like the Furies in the sky;
Blair’s hubris is acknowledged by the gods.
Without warning the deadly game begins.

The Leviathan state machinery,
certain of its strength and authority,
with sheer balletic co-ordination,
steadies itself for a fine performance.
The new citizen army in ‘day glow’
take up their ‘Support Official’ roles,
like air raid wardens in the last big show;
feisty  yet firm, delivering every line
deep voiced and clearly to the whole theatre.
On cue, the Police fan out through Bloomsbury
clearing every emergency exit,
arresting and handcuffing surly streets,
locking down this ancient river city.
Fetching in fluorescent green costuming,
the old Bill nimbly Tangos and Foxtrots
the airways, Oscar, Charlie and Yankee
quickly reply with grid reference Echo;
Whiskey, Sierra, Quebec, November,
beam out from New Scotland Yard,
staccato, nearly lost in static space.
      
              LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
8.51 a.m. Circle Line

Shehezad Tanweer was born in England.
A migrant’s child of hope and better life,
dreaming of his future from his birth.
Only twenty two short years on this earth.
In a madrassah, Lahore, Pakistan,
he spent twelve weeks reading and rote learning
verses chosen from the sacred text.
Chanting the syllables, hour after hour,
swaying back and forth with the word rhythm,
like an underground train rocking the rails,
as it weaves its way beneath the world,
in turning tunnels in the dead of night.

Teve Talevski had a meeting
across the river, he knew he’d be late.
**** trains they do it to you every time.
But something odd happened while he waited
A taut-limbed young woman sashayed past him
in a forget-me-not blue dress of silk.
She rustled on the platform as she turned.
She turned to him and smiled, and he smiled back.
Stale tunnel air pushed along in the rush
of the train arriving in the station.
He found a seat and watched her from afar.
Opened his paper for distraction’s sake
Olympic win exciting like the smile.

Train heading southwest under Whitechapel.
Deafening blast, rushing sound blast, bright flash
of golden light, flying glass and debris
Twisted people thrown to ground, darkness;
the dreadful silent second in blackness.
The stench of human flesh and gunpowder,
burning rubber and fiery acrid smoke.
Screaming bone bare pain, blood-drenched tearing pain.
Pitiful weeping, begging for a god
to come, someone to come, and help them out.

Teve pushes off a dead weighted man.
He stands unsteady trying to balance.
Railway staff with torches, moving spotlights
**** and jolt, catching still life scenery,
lighting the exit in gloomy dimness.
They file down the track to Aldgate Station,
Teve passes the sardine can carriage
torn apart by a fierce hungry giant.
Through the dust, four lifeless bodies take shape
and disappear again in drifting smoke.
It’s only later, when safe above ground,
Teve looks around and starts to wonder
where his blue epiphany girl has gone.

                 KINGS CROSS STATION
8.56 a.m. Piccadilly Line

Many named Lyndsey Germaine, Jamaican,
living with his wife and child in Aylesbury,
laying low, never visited the Mosque.   
                Buckinghamshire bomber known as Jamal,
clean shaven, wearing normal western clothes,
annoyed his neighbours with loud music.
Samantha-wife converted and renamed,
Sherafiyah and took to wearing black.
Devout in that jet black shalmar kameez.
Loving father cradled close his daughter
Caressed her cheek and held her tiny hand
He wondered what the future held for her.

Station of the lost and homeless people,
where you can buy anything at a price.
A place where a face can be lost forever;
where the future’s as real as faded dreams.
Below the mainline trains, deep underground
Piccadilly lines cross the River Thames
Cram-packed, shoulder to shoulder and standing,
the train heading southward for Russell Square,
barely pulls away from Kings Cross Station,
when Arash Kazerouni hears the bang,
‘Almighty bang’ before everything stopped.
Twenty six hearts stopped beating that moment.
But glass flew apart in a shattering wave,
followed by a  huge whoosh of smoky soot.
Panic raced down the line with ice fingers
touching and tagging the living with fear.
Spine chiller blanching faces white with shock.

Gracia Hormigos, a housekeeper,
thought, I am being electrocuted.
Her body was shaking, it seemed her mind
was in free fall, no safety cord to pull,
just disconnected, so she looked around,
saw the man next to her had no right leg,
a shattered shard of bone and gouts of  blood,
Where was the rest of his leg and his foot ?

Level headed ones with serious voices
spoke over the screaming and the sobbing;
Titanic lifeboat voices giving orders;
Iceberg cool voices of reassurance;
We’re stoical British bulldog voices
that organize the mayhem and chaos
into meaty chunks of jobs to be done.
Clear air required - break the windows now;
Lines could be live - so we stay where we are;
Help will be here shortly - try to stay calm.

John, Mark and Emma introduce themselves
They never usually speak underground,
averting your gaze, tube train etiquette.
Disaster has its opportunities;
Try the new mobile, take a photograph;
Ring your Mum and Dad, ****** battery’s flat;
My network’s down; my phone light’s still working
Useful to see the way, step carefully.

   Fiona asks, ‘Am I dreaming all this?’
A shrieking man answers her, “I’m dying!”
Hammered glass finally breaks, fresher air;
too late for the man in the front carriage.
London Transport staff in yellow jackets
start an orderly evacuation
The mobile phones held up to light the way.
Only nineteen minutes in a lifetime.
  
EDGEWARE ROAD STATION
9.17 a.m. Circle Line

               Mohammed Sadique Khan, the oldest one.
Perhaps the leader, at least a mentor.
Yorkshire man born, married with a daughter
Gently spoken man, endlessly patient,
worked in the Hamara, Lodge Lane, Leeds,
Council-funded, multi-faith youth Centre;
and the local Primary school, in Beeston.
No-one could believe this of  Mr Khan;
well educated, caring and very kind
Where did he hide his secret other life  ?

Wise enough to wait for the second train.
Two for the price of one, a real bargain.
Westbound second carriage is blown away,
a commuter blasted from the platform,
hurled under the wheels of the east bound train.
Moon Crater holes, the walls pitted and pocked;
a sparse dark-side landscape with black, black air.
The ripped and shredded metal bursts free
like a surprising party popper;
Steel curlicues corkscrew through wood and glass.
Mass is made atomic in the closed space.
Roasting meat and Auschwitzed cremation stench
saturates the already murky air.              
Our human kindling feeds the greedy fire;
Heads alight like medieval torches;
Fiery liquid skin drops from the faceless;
Punk afro hair is cauterised and singed.  
Heat intensity, like a wayward iron,
scorches clothes, fuses fibres together.
Seven people escape this inferno;
many die in later days, badly burned,
and everyone there will live a scarred life.

               TAVISTOCK ROAD
9.47 a.m. Number 30 Bus  

Hasib Hussain migrant son, English born
barely an adult, loved by his mother;
reported him missing later that night.
Police typed his description in the file
and matched his clothes to fragments from the scene.
A hapless victim or vicious bomber ?
Child of the ‘Ummah’ waging deadly war.
Seventy two black eyed virgins waiting
in jihadist paradise just for you.

Red double-decker bus, number thirty,
going from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch;
stuck in traffic, diversions everywhere.
Driver pulls up next to a tree lined square;
the Parking Inspector, Ade Soji,
tells the driver he’s in Tavistock Road,
British Museum nearby and the Square.
A place of peace and quiet reflection;
the sad history of war is remembered;
symbols to make us never forget death;
Cherry Tree from Hiroshima, Japan;
Holocaust Memorial for Jewish dead;
sturdy statue of  Mahatma Gandhi.
Peaceful resistance that drove the Lion out.
Freedom for India but death for him.

Sudden sonic boom, bus roof tears apart,
seats erupt with volcanic force upward,
hot larva of blood and tissue rains down.
Bloodied road becomes a charnel-house scene;
disembodied limbs among the wreckage,
headless corpses; sinews, muscles and bone.
Buildings spattered and smeared with human paint
Impressionist daubs, blood red like the bus.

Jasmine Gardiner, running late for work;
all trains were cancelled from Euston Station;  
she headed for the square, to catch the bus.
It drove straight past her standing at the stop;
before she could curse aloud - Kaboom !
Instinctively she ran, ran for her life.
Umbrella shield from the shower of gore.

On the lower deck, two Aussies squeezed in;
Catherine Klestov was standing in the aisle,
floored by the bomb, suffered cuts and bruises
She limped to Islington two days later.
Louise Barry was reading the paper,
she was ‘****-scared’ by the explosion;
she crawled out of the remnants of the bus,
broken and burned, she lay flat on the road,
the world of sound had gone, ear drums had burst;
she lay there drowsy, quiet, looking up
and amazingly the sky was still there.

Sam Ly, Vietnamese Australian,
One of the boat people once welcomed here.
A refugee, held in his mother’s arms,
she died of cancer, before he was three.
Hi Ly struggled to raise his son alone;
a tough life, inner city high rise flats.
Education the smart migrant’s revenge,
Monash Uni and an IT degree.
Lucky Sam, perfect job of a lifetime;
in London, with his one love, Mandy Ha,
Life going great until that fateful day;
on the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl.

Three other Aussies on that ****** bus;
no serious physical injuries,
Sam’s luck ran out, in choosing where to sit.
His neck was broken, could not breath alone;
his head smashed and crushed, fractured bones and burns
Wrapped in a cocoon of coma safe
This broken figure lying on white sheets
in an English Intensive Care Unit
did not seem like Hi Ly’s beloved son;
but he sat by Sam’s bed in disbelief,
seven days and seven nights of struggle,
until the final hour, when it was done.

In the pit of our stomach we all knew,
but we kept on deep breathing and hoping
this nauseous reality would pass.
The weary inevitability
of horrific disasters such as these.
Strangely familiar like an old newsreel
Black and white, it happened long ago.
But its happening now right before our eyes
satellite pictures beam and bounce the globe.
Twelve thousand miles we watch the story
Plot unfolds rapidly, chapters emerge
We know the places names of this narrative.
  
It is all subterranean, hidden
from the curious, voyeuristic gaze,
Until the icon bus, we are hopeful
This public spectacle is above ground
We can see the force that mangled the bus,
fury that tore people apart limb by limb
Now we can imagine a bomb below,
far below, people trapped, fiery hell;
fighting to breathe each breath in tunnelled tombs.

Herded from the blast they are strangely calm,
obedient, shuffling this way and that.
Blood-streaked, sooty and dishevelled they come.
Out from the choking darkness far below
Dazzled by the brightness of the morning
of a day they feared might be their last.
They have breathed deeply of Kurtz’s horror.
Sights and sounds unimaginable before
will haunt their waking hours for many years;
a lifetime of nightmares in the making.
They trudge like weary soldiers from the Somme
already see the world with older eyes.

On the surface, they find a world where life
simply goes on as before, unmindful.
Cyclist couriers still defy road laws,
sprint racing again in Le Tour de France;
beer-gutted, real men are loading lorries;
lunch time sandwiches are made as usual,
sold and eaten at desks and in the street.
Roadside cafes sell lots of hot sweet tea.
The Umbrella stand soon does brisk business.
Sign writers' hands, still steady, paint the sign.
The summer blooms are watered in the park.
A ***** stretches on the bench and wakes up,
he folds and stows his newspaper blankets;
mouth dry,  he sips water at the fountain.
A lady scoops up her black poodle’s ****.
A young couple argues over nothing.
Betting shops are full of people losing
money and dreaming of a trifecta.
Martin’s still smoking despite the patches.
There’s a rush on Brandy in nearby pubs
Retired gardener dead heads his flowers
and picks a lettuce for the evening meal

Fifty six minutes from start to finish.
Perfectly orchestrated performance.
Rush hour co-ordination excellent.
Maximum devastation was ensured.
Cruel, merciless killing so coldly done.
Fine detail in the maiming and damage.

A REVIEW

Well activated practical response.
Rehearsals really paid off on the day.
Brilliant touch with bus transport for victims;
Space blankets well deployed for shock effect;
Dramatic improv by Paramedics;
Nurses, medicos and casualty staff
showed great technical E.R. Skills - Bravo !
Plenty of pizzazz and dash as always
from the nifty, London Ambo drivers;
Old fashioned know-how from the Fire fighters
in hosing down the fireworks underground.
Dangerous rescues were undertaken,
accomplished with buckets of common sense.
And what can one say about those Bobbies,
jolly good show, the lips unquivering
and universally stiff, no mean feat
in this Premiere season tear-jerker.
Nail-bitingly brittle, but a smash-hit
Poignant misery and stoic suffering,
fortitude, forbearance and lots of grit
Altogether was quite tickety boo.



NOTES ON THE POEM

Liverpool Street Station

A Circle Line train from Moorgate with six carriages and a capacity of 1272 passengers [ 192 seated; 1080 standing]. 7 dead on the first day.

Southbound, destination Aldgate. Explosion occurs midway between Liverpool Street and Aldgate.

Shehezad Tanweer was reported to have ‘never been political’ by a friend who played cricket with him 10 days before the bombing

Teve Talevski is a real person and I have elaborated a little on reports in the press. He runs a coffee shop in North London.

At the time of writing the fate of the blue dress lady is not known

Kings Cross Station

A Piccadilly Line train with six carriages and a capacity of 1238 passengers [272 seated; 966 standing]. 21 dead on first day.

Southbound, destination Russell Square. Explosion occurs mi
This poem is part of a longer poem called Seasons of Terror. This poem was performed at the University of Adelaide, Bonython Hall as a community event. The poem was read by local poets, broadcasters, personalities and politicians from the South Australia Parliament and a Federal MP & Senator. The State Premier was represented by the Hon. Michael Atkinson, who spoke about the role of the Emergency services in our society. The Chiefs of Police, Fire and Ambulence; all religious and community organisations' senior reprasentatives; the First Secretary of the British High Commission and the general public were present. It was recorded by Radio Adelaide and broadcast live as well as coverage from Channel 7 TV News. The Queen,Tony Blair, Australian Governor General and many other public dignitaries sent messages of support for the work being read. A string quartet and a solo flautist also played at this event.
Vincent Gandsey Feb 2013
On the east end, there's a chamber
where the weak end barely
a cut beyond Ms. Short;
can you blame her?

Vigilant as hawks, there's a scent
that the crowd gawks over
on their way to pay for ******;
here the filthiest repent.

On the pavement, there's a clue
as to another payment made
by loyal patron;
we're left to wonder, who?

In Whitechapel, there's a tale
of crimson gravel split
by thick-skinned knees;
their owner has since gone stale.
A Mareship Sep 2013
(Not a home, I said.
An address.
The badges and the blossoms
Bragged ‘excess’.

Etched into every tree

The word:

S U C C E S S)

I am London
And he is me,
Not ever knowing which London to be,
A button eyed orphan,
A one man band,
A Dickensian madman
Whey-faced and untanned.

I was a Ruby Infant,
(Montpelier)
Via turreted school
(Machiavellian lair)
My conspiracy of ravens
The guardians of lore,
Falling in feathers
To a barbershop floor.

My mind is confetti -
From each Westminster wedding,
Each pill, each stumble,
A little be-heading.
I first kissed a girl in Trafalgar Square
And the memory of her is still there in the air,
In the backdrops of photographs snapped up by tourists,
In the lost eyes of pigeons,
(I know it, I’m sure of it -
because I know London
And he knows me -
We flow into each other
Like the Thames, to the sea).

Gobstopper ******* in Whitechapel lanes,
Knee-deep in the streets, leaving opal-ghost stains,
The bleeding graffiti of Mary Jane Kelly,
Our deaths, our murders,
So many, so many...

Bells,
Chiming,

Dark
Oubliettes,

Cradle me, London,
My bowed silhouette,
Settle me down
in your newspaper bed,
Love me,
Watch over me,
And when I am dead,
Make me a martyr,
Smooth out my head
Swallow me up in your gum studded streets,
Somewhere busy where I can feel millions of feet
Treading into me,
Over and
Over again,
And every so often, now and then,
Play out your bells for my syllables four,
Ding **** ding *****
Four and no more,
To remind yourself, London,
Of silly old me,
Who like you,
Never knew,
Which London to be.
um - unfinished and work in progress
A nice cruise from New York, I thought

From down by Pier two-one

I thought I'd head to England

For a good old spot of fun

An Ocean trip, some nice fresh air

Eleven days at sea

I thought this would perfect to

Help inspire me

I'd never been to Europe

So I did some reading first

The history's insane there

The books did quench my thirst

I couldn't wait to get there

To travel all around

And take all sorts of pictures

To show folks what I'd found

On board, I met a punter

A real hard boiled chap

He told me of  "his England"

Not the funny, tourist crap

He asked where I was going

I said "I've no idea"

He told me that he'd show me things

As long as I bought beer

I asked him what he meant by this

He said "Just wait and see"

"I'll show you things...will curl your hair"

"You watch son, follow me.'

He told me of a werewolf

Running loose in London town

He was killing folks in Soho

And they couldn't bring him down

He said "Two nights from now"

"The moon would be real nice"

"A full moon brings out werewolves son..."

"That's your first bit of advice"

I shuddered then, I wasn't sure

If "this England" would be right

But, I begged off from the table

And I settled for the night

My mind was working overtime

Nightmares and dreams came quick

And with the heaving on the water

I woke up to be sick

I went up on the deck to walk

And grab a little air

But who to my surprise was

by the railing standing there

He said " I thought you'd be here sooner

Isn't it a lovely moon?

Just a few more days to go

The werewolf walks real soon

"Let's go and get a coffee"

"I figured I won't get back to sleep"

"And my nerves are really shaky"

"I know I won't sleep deep"

He said "Don't worry laddie"

"I've lots more tales to speak"

"But their stories for the hearty"

"And you son...seem so weak"

I asked him about Whitechapel

He said ...."Oh, Jack the Ripper"

"He murders girls down that way son"

I then peed in my slippers

He goes around at night you see

And picks up girls in the night gloom

Then he takes them back and guts them

In the comfort of their room"

I thought, I wanted jolly stuff

Like palaces and such

This tour of London ****** sites

Well, it seems a little much

I said "I've heard of Harley Street"

"Can we go there for a ride?'

He said "No problem son..

"We might meet Mr. Hyde"

"Dr. Jekyll drinks this stuff

Thats turns him to a beast

The monster's name is Mr. Hyde

It's in London...to the east."

I thought, this isn't what

I signed on to go see

I didn't want the next victim

To end up being me.

I said "Is there a place that's safe at all?"

He said "I can take you by the palace"

"We can go walk up the mall"

I said "that would be perfect"

"That doesn't sound so hard"

He said "Just watch for Moriarty"

"Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard"

At this point I got up and said

"I think I'm off to bed"

"All this talk of horror"

"Caused an aching in my head"

I said " I think, I'll just move on

And travel somewhere like Albania"

He said that I must see His friend

in southern Transylvannia.

He said Mr. Van Helsing

Would take me for a tour

And with what I'd see in Europe

I'd forget the London gore"

I thanked him and I went to bed

And I then asked him his name

"Dracul" he said...but call me "Vlad"

"I'm sure we'll meet again"

I changed my plans, went to my room

And I figured "What the heck"

But I have this one last question"

Why was he staring at my neck?
.
Micheal Wolf Jan 2013
Sounds disappear as if smothered into the shadows
Footsteps make a dull thud lost in a blanket of fear
A fear that is held taught by the night and it's visitor
The cold velvet makes the dark light but impedes sight
All move on edge from doorway to doorway ears acute
Are those footsteps or the mind playing tricks
Working girls, Gin filled amid the stinking streets
Will I be next?? Is he a regular or a new player
The cry goes out followed by whistles
Boots on cobbles, screams! He has returned
No person saw him he morphed into the night
Her body lies torn mutilated to precision
Organs laid out in a rutualistic yet barbaric display
Once again unseen his work done "Jacks back"
Fear grips the streets again the press give him status
The people condemn, the police powerless or forbidden to act?
Only history will reveal the killer in the fog
We gather in Old London town,
the time is getting late.
The fog is slowly coming down,
the year is eighteen eighty eight.

The Leather Apron stalks this eve
ladies of the night beware.
Such things he does you wont believe
and for your welfare he’ll not care.

Hello Mister have a heart,
a girl has got to earn a crust.
A shilling for this fine old ****
for you look like a gent to trust.

In her hand the coin doth shine.
Does she lead this toff astray?
Here’s a quiet place that’s fine,
as she walks up the alley-way.

Face to face and eye to eye.
The victim happy to be plied
with vigour she lifts up her skirt
but now her hands are occupied.

Seizing strongly at her throat
he strangles her till unaware.
Unconscious although not yet broke
he lowers her by head and hair.

Now insentient on the ground
the Ripper sets about his work.
In the dark without a sound
there is no detail he will shirk.

He keeps the body to his left,
her throat is sliced from side to side.
The woman’s family now bereft,
whilst she lies here without her pride.

Left to the nights illumination
Jack executes his deadly art.
Performing such skilled mutilation.
and leaving plus one body part.

Daylight opens up commotion,
"Whitechapel Murderer", strikes once more.
The peelers haven’t got a notion
who it is that killed this *****.

Scotland Yard are in despair
as they try to Investigate
their credibility beyond repair
for they cant find this reprobate.

Eventually the death toll, five,
the murders now come to an end.
Folk are free to live their lives
but could you trust even a friend.

Over an hundred years or more
professional research is far to late.
Jack, can we ever know the score?
"No... All you can do is speculate."
1st August 2011 Jack the Ripper series. poem 1.
I knew you forever and you were always old,
soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold
me for sitting up late, reading your letters,
as if these foreign postmarks were meant for me.
You posted them first in London, wearing furs
and a new dress in the winter of eighteen-ninety.
I read how London is dull on Lord Mayor's Day,
where you guided past groups of robbers, the sad holes
of Whitechapel, clutching your pocketbook, on the way
to Jack the Ripper dissecting his famous bones.
This Wednesday in Berlin, you say, you will
go to a bazaar at Bismarck's house. And I
see you as a young girl in a good world still,
writing three generations before mine. I try
to reach into your page and breathe it back...
but life is a trick, life is a kitten in a sack.
This is the sack of time your death vacates.
How distant your are on your nickel-plated skates
in the skating park in Berlin, gliding past
me with your Count, while a military band
plays a Strauss waltz. I loved you last,
a pleated old lady with a crooked hand.
Once you read Lohengrin and every goose
hung high while you practiced castle life
in Hanover. Tonight your letters reduce
history to a guess. The count had a wife.
You were the old maid aunt who lived with us.
Tonight I read how the winter howled around
the towers of Schloss Schwobber, how the tedious
language grew in your jaw, how you loved the sound
of the music of the rats tapping on the stone
floors. When you were mine you wore an earphone.
This is Wednesday, May 9th, near Lucerne,
Switzerland, sixty-nine years ago. I learn
your first climb up Mount San Salvatore;
this is the rocky path, the hole in your shoes,
the yankee girl, the iron interior
of her sweet body. You let the Count choose
your next climb. You went together, armed
with alpine stocks, with ham sandwiches
and seltzer wasser. You were not alarmed
by the thick woods of briars and bushes,
nor the rugged cliff, nor the first vertigo
up over Lake Lucerne. The Count sweated
with his coat off as you waded through top snow.
He held your hand and kissed you. You rattled
down on the train to catch a steam boat for home;
or other postmarks: Paris, verona, Rome.
This is Italy. You learn its mother tongue.
I read how you walked on the Palatine among
the ruins of the palace of the Caesars;
alone in the Roman autumn, alone since July.
When you were mine they wrapped you out of here
with your best hat over your face. I cried
because I was seventeen. I am older now.
I read how your student ticket admitted you
into the private chapel of the Vatican and how
you cheered with the others, as we used to do
on the fourth of July. One Wednesday in November
you watched a balloon, painted like a silver abll,
float up over the Forum, up over the lost emperors,
to shiver its little modern cage in an occasional
breeze. You worked your New England conscience out
beside artisans, chestnut vendors and the devout.
Tonight I will learn to love you twice;
learn your first days, your mid-Victorian face.
Tonight I will speak up and interrupt
your letters, warning you that wars are coming,
that the Count will die, that you will accept
your America back to live like a prim thing
on the farm in Maine. I tell you, you will come
here, to the suburbs of Boston, to see the blue-nose
world go drunk each night, to see the handsome
children jitterbug, to feel your left ear close
one Friday at Symphony. And I tell you,
you will tip your boot feet out of that hall,
rocking from its sour sound, out onto
the crowded street, letting your spectacles fall
and your hair net tangle as you stop passers-by
to mumble your guilty love while your ears die.
D Conors Jul 2010
"On October 16th George Lusk, the president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received a three-inch-square cardboard box in his mail. Inside was half a human kidney preserved in wine, along with the following letter. Medical reports carried out by Dr. Openshaw found the kidney to be very similar to the one removed from Catherine Eddowes, though his findings were inconclusive either way. The letter read as follows:"

From hell.
Mr Lusk,
Sor
I send you half the Kidne
I took from one woman
and prasarved it for you
tother piece
I fried and ate
it was very nise.

I may send you
the ****** knif
that took it out
if you only wate a whil longer

signed
Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk
_______
View the actual document here: http://www.casebook.org/images/lusk
small.jpg
The letters of Jack The Ripper set to poetic formation. Part the 3rd
________
With appreciation to Casebook: Jack The Ripper, the largest public repository of Ripper-related information.
http://www.casebook.org/index.html
D. Conors
11 July 2010
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2023
i've noticed that, upon ushering words from the depth
of nothing, or as an interlude in Knausgaard's day-to-day
musing in vol. 6 after inviting Geir over:
this "i" or that "i" or for that matter "my" i...
however you want to frame it...
    i noticed that if i allow myself an evening of not writing...
esp. on an electric screen for someone else to see...
if for example i lay down to go to sleep...
not exactly asleep: dart out of bed and scribble something
on a piece of paper for only me to see...
i will still dream...
but if i sit down and face the electric screen:
pixels like the eyes of a fly... for someone else to see?
i don't dream...
   otherwise... having scribbled down the following
on a piece of paper:

   exploring Heidegger's dasein in another language...
my native, which i will translate into English,
basically prepositional coordination of(f) being
off not necessarily implying non-being -
perhaps merely: being-in-itself or rather the other...

tu-być : be-here
              to-bycie : this-being
ten-byt :                      ditto
although: nuance... there is a distinction...

i also scribbled down something i heard a long
time ago about how Russia, India and China are
re-orientating themselves with the slacking of the western
influence on: whatever it was that the west had
for the past three decades beside
proxy wars, collateral damages and "culture"...

i heard the term: post-ethnic-nationalism
post-ethno-state post-nation-state...
ergo: multiculturalism... which, oddly enough:
i can't come to grips with trying if not trying to
pretend to be a native of these isles -
perhaps it might be a shock for someone outside
of London - but in London it's almost
second nature to... be surrounded by people
from all around the world...
needless to say: the natives are not so disgruntled
once they're sitting all pretty-cherry on top
of some hierarchy: esp. in the journalistic
opinion sections of the Saturday / Sunday magazine...
then it's an open bonanza against
the "lower class racists" and what not...
i can't be an anti-racist: after all...
                                     anti-racists once produced
a schematic for us to learn from in primary school...
which shower the size of brains of...
a white person, a black person and a racist...
and some other brains...
the racist's brain was under-developed:
smaller...                                      ­ really?!

anyway... so Russia, India and China have opted for
what has come to be known as the:
civilization-state...
                                     given the ongoing zeitgeist
******* blowing up in the Anglophone world from
H'america... the culture-war(?!) -
i would bet fairly and say that pretty much all
former nation-states of western Europe
and beyond are currently in a state of morphing
into: buzz buzzword: being - culture-states...

but whereas a civilization-state seems an abrupt
optimal to counter and disagreement with regards
to continuity: civilisations don't merely come and go...
whereas cultures do...
   culture is somehow a totality of the little things
in life... fashion, the arts, politics, faux pas innuendos,
trends, diet...
that's culture and some...
but civilisation? to me that's like saying...
the foundation of Rome was the creation
of the aqueducts...
                  civilisation to me is like saying:
the British Empire and the steam-engine...
civilisation to me, London, exclusively is... the tube...
the underground network...

seriously... i don't need to go to a West End Play
i don't need to go and see Ed Sheeran play
to a sold out Wembley stadium of 100,000+ people
(although, i did, even though i did because
i worked a shift there doing security,
so, technically i didn't, but did)
            i don't need culture... as such...

all i need to do is first, do a shift at Craven Cottage...
hope that the Elizabeth Line won't be working
travel on the Central Line from Newbury Park all
the way to Holborn... and then blah blah...
instead of trying to look at the tired faces opposite
me admire the map of the Central Line
(it's a toss-up between the Central Line map,
or the District, Northern or Piccadilly)
and then, on some sunny day... get my bicycle
out... and bicycle for most of the route... notably...
skewing... merging at Fairlop working my way
through Barkingside, coming to Gants Hill
then less of the tube route (mind you...
between Leyton and Stratford it's pretty
much over-ground) -
   and then from Stratford - through to Mile End...
from Mile End via Whitechapel... to Aldgate...
from Aldgate to St. Paul's... Chancery Lane...
Holborn... rat beneath the ground:
like a rat needs a bicycle -
   well this rat is no hamster: hence the bicycle
and not a hamster-wheel...

what culture? movies?! i tried watching something
relevant to the 1980s today... ***** Dancing...
great soundtrack but... cringe!
that's even before Malcolm X and how inter-racial
inter-****** relations had to be the new norm:
i mean: ******* fair play...
    building the new Brazil -
    but i still think there's an under-representation
(and isn't everyone supposed to get a fair share
of representation) of white boy Romanian girl
(Roma, gypsy) or white boy Turkish girl...
   or white boy half-white half-Indian girl...

i know i will not dream tonight because someone
will see this...
my little itchy thoughts, my freed from the reins
"i" that doesn't really have these words clogging
up its mind - only until the itching of the fingers starts
and i have a blessed day...
like today...

why is it that a Saturday evening can feel like
a Sunday evening?
oh, right... i made steak for dinner tonight...
potato wedges (skins on, first boiled until
the the water started boiling, turned off, soaking
for 5 min, drained, olive oil, cajun pepper sprinkle,
into the oven)
    and some baked vegetables:
leeks, carrots, parsley root, red onions,
celeriac, swede... balsamic vinegar,
    sambal, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper,
sugar (i stopped using honey,
   it sticks to the baking tray plus the vegetables
lose their crunch, and vegetables need their crunch)...
2 steaks (456g total) shared between three people...
seasoned with sea salt and grain black pepper
(i prefer pepper grains than pepper powder,
i.e. pockets of explosion of that spice)
    3 min each side... a perfect medium-rare blush...

however the Indians might sell their spices...
chillies etc. there's still something wholesome
when it comes to eating certain types of food...
given that... i wouldn't be eating beef in India:
i wouldn't be seasoning beef with chillies!
that's why pepper is important...
that's why horseradish is important...
i let most of the Indians slip up: oooh! the Europeans
didn't have any spices...
apart from thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender,
mint... pepper, horseradish, i#m sure we
were also familiar with cumin seeds -
as well as that anise-seed that' not the star
(i forgot the name of it, it looks like
a cumin seed, but fatter, and split down
the middle - green) oh and of course:
plenty of salt...
what's all the spices in the world in the culinary world...
IF, YOU, AIN'T, GOT - SALT?!
   (if you don't have... i know i know...)

it's rather bewildering talking to certain Asians...
although, saying that...
most of Eastern Europe had plenty of interaction
with Asians, namely the Mongols
and the Turks - which the western Europeans
sort of... "forgot"... after Darwinism they
skipped over Asia and went straight back
to Africa... personally? i feel more akin to Asians
(esp. the oriental folk) than i do with anyone
from Africa... however Christianity was born...
after all: what's the definition of a white man?
Caucasian? and where's the Caucus?
Asia... Europe was always going to be
a funnel - a bottle-neck continent -
a port... a departing point...
       perhaps we shouldn't be so clingy to it...
unless of course:
   oh the parody of Jesus never came out of
Europe: "we" had to wait for it coming from
North America, but by then it was no longer
a parody of Jesus but a parody of North American
Christianity... a North American parody of Jesus
is... oddly enough... a European parody
of North American Christianity: via Jesus...

which brings me to another thing... only upon
doing a shift at Craven Cottage did i first hear
the parakeets... never before...
     i'm not going to bloat my ego this much but...
since then i've seen an article on Wikipedia that
i never saw before, the article just appeared out of
nowhere: feral parakeets of England...
subsequently... only a day ago:
you're only here for the parrots, fans chant
as birds swarm Leyton Orient pitch (Evening Standard
4 hours ago)
and bare conker trees overrun by bright green
parakeets make them seem vibrant despite leafless
branches (Daily Mail, 3 days ago, somewhere
in south London)...

today i was given the chance to walk back into my old
haunt... as much as i love cycling...
it's sometimes refreshing to walk...
the slowing of pace, the horizon almost intact...
more so... if walking into a forest...
Bower Wood... i know it is a curated wood...
it's not as feral as the pine woods of Eastern Europe...
but: if life gives you X... you make XY...
x = lemons, y = juice ergo xy = lemon juice...

i'm pretty sure i was familiar with this wood...
i was out hunting for souvenirs for my mother to dress
the table / fake deer antennas for candles to sit in...
holy, some other greenery with black berries...
i was hunting for ferns, almost near impossible
given this time of year... found some! bright blush
of childish envy... oh... and birches...
some oak barks fallen off... just me alone in the forest...
i was so thankful by myself...
but usually i heard crows, magpies and woodland
pigeons... but now?! parakeets?!
here?! now?! parrots in winter in these parts?!

i swear the world is standing-up-side-down...
it's hard not to miss an under-current of a serious
pagan revival weaving and slithering its way through
Europe: if only you care to listen...
i switched off from whatever is available in culture
these days... i know that what i'm listening to
will not gain popular traction...
i can walk into the forest and... there's the forest...
i go back home... cook dinner...
go into my bedroom, open a bottle of cider
thinking: no champagne will beat this...
put on a record akin to...
Heilung's TENET and... hey presto!

                       i was in company of a good friend:
someone already dead who...
i don't know how someone can lose themselves
in the forest... pareidolia...
   you can sometimes see paths already trodden...
unseen but somehow: you can see a "ghost"
of a foot here and there...
    you know: you just KNOW where a human foot
prior to yours once treaded...
there are patterns... better sticking with pareidolia than
the iconoclasm of celebrity...
i always thought that was better...
i like to think i'm in the company of strange
creatures: phantoms of my mind...
but hardly! how can these be phantoms of my mind?!
i didn't spontaneously conjure a face in a tree
when the ******* tree is older than me!
the tree was here before me!
what?! some sin?! some psychological sin
of non-conformity?! i don't adhere to star-gazing
in the filth of commodities and entertainment?!

i know why this feels like a Sunday evening even
though it's a Saturday night...
i was planning on going to the brothel tonight...
but... oh hey mother, hello father...
i'm going out... where? you don't have any friends...
blah blah... yeah... well... i'm kind of happy
because of that: no social-constraints of expectations...
as the conversation usually ran with the last
remaining friend i had from high-school...
- so, what have you been up to?
- nothing...
     and he knew that i was scribbling like mad...
what's there to talk about when it comes to writing?!
last time i heard: you read what is written...
you don't talk about it...
hopefully the reading of something written goes
back into thinking and is not spoken of:
since the conventionality of everyday
formality of social-speech crushes anything delicate
that is born from i-ought-not-but-regardless-i-must!
it's a compulsion!

i went to the shop about 3 hours ago to buy an extra
bottle of cider because i knew: having read a little more than
usual i had to keep the Libra of conscience in place,
"conscience": never write more than you read...
and never read less than you write - so so...
          wow... FORK in the "ROAD"...
                        this is me replaying the opening of the song
TENET - the sound of the horn...
well... i didn't have a horn in the forest...
but i had my pagan statue... a dead white tree...
i left this little stick next to it... i used to walk this wood
more times than i can remember...
sometimes i walked into it bare-chested...
blind from the darkness, but somehow illuminated
by the moon... sat on a stump of wood...
silence... then a breaking of a branch...
not the sort of breaking of a branch still attached
to a tree... something stepped on it...
i wasn't alone... i froze but then ushered in my voice
to compliment a shared bewildered amazement:
that is not a foot of a man stepping on a branch...

in the same wood i saw my first GARMR...
would i really have to go with the flow
of a Christopher J. MacCandless?!
                                       if hell is going to send its hounds
out to meet me, it doesn't matter where that might
be... i don't need to visit the northern most parts
of Norway to find what i'm seeking...
and what i'm seeking i found: since i'm dragging what
needed to be found around...
it's not surprising that at Bower Wood i was
alleviating a traffic problem when
two does and about 5 fawns were causing havoc...
"havoc" in the night implies 3 cars pulling over...
me coming down from the hill running up to
the village of Havering-atte-Bower spotting one...
not caring if there was a stag nearby running
with the fawn which subsequently ensured
the two does and the rest of the fawns
started to gallop and disappeared into the Wood...

i wish i could make this stuff up...
but then again: i'm not jealous of people
who have seen the Galapagos Islands or the Maldives
or... ah... just recently...
i took that rat-above-rat-below trip on my bicycle
into central London... i said to myself:
circle round St. Paul's cathedral... nope...
not good enough... around the Old Bailey then...
o.k. - and i "prayed": please! not another flat tire!
hey presto! on my way back... a flat tire at Aldgate!
great! well... i walked this distance before...
i can walk it again... walking back...
passed the East London Mosque and then...
Allahu Akbar! a bicycle repair shop!

walked up - leaned the bicycle against the wall,
the Chinese guy said: just 10 minutes
(while he was fixing this Deliveroo rider's
electric bicycle) - no problem -
i took some times to each some gelatin sweets
and drink some water, looking at people,
i felt like i was in some exclusive club,
only cyclists allowed - it felt like a very urban
sensation that most punks must have felt,
or goths, standing out...
i paid too much compliments to those guys
in Cycle King bicycle shop in Chadwell Heath...
i knew the front tire was worn down,
but i thought: get the professional's opinion...
they would be more than willing to change
the inner-tube for the Nth time before telling me:
oh... you need to change the actual tyre...
how many times did i change the inner tube?
**** knows! milking it... ******* were milking it!
but this Chinese guy said outright plainly...
it's ****... i'll change it for you...
inner tube, tyre and labour... £55...
done!
               he changed it to a tyre that...
well... let's face it... 2nd gear front
and 4th, 5th 6th and 7th gears in the back...
i was whizzing past home... he said:
less width... more grip... for the grit...
   but at least he was ******* honest...
that's what i mean about a European's relationship
with the Asians... i'm honest, they're honest...
they're not some SCAM MERCHANT KNIGS
of NIGERIA: CNUT-MBAPPE typos...

oh... and it's not like anyone didn't notice
that Indian girls think they're the bomb?!
oh yeah... oh no, not the Muslim girls... those girls
are whipped into always staring down...
like white girls are whipped into peering into
their smart-phone screens and envisioning:
anything outside of inter-racial relationships is:
pederasty (loose term)... whatever it might me...
bulimic antics: not done properly, mind you...
not in the Roman style of training the oesophagus
to just spew on a whim: i.e. i ate too much...
apologies... i need to... ugh! ugh! ugh!
                      get ready the trampoline!
we're going to launch half-digested fish-heads!

now i'm happy... my Trek Merlin 5 is compatible...
fun... looking at that *** trying to chase me down
working my way down toward the Old Bailey...
Asian ceramic raven haired
no helmet... and never, never... ride a bicycle
in an urban environment minding
the sticker on the inside of a large vehicle:
BLIND SPOT... well... d'uh... so use the large
vehicle like a battering ram against all the gnats
of smaller vehicles... ride on the outside of the large
vehicle... always on the outside...
what are you, cyclist... a Hebrew forced by
the **** brown-shirts to walk in the gutter rather
than on the pavement?! what am i?
just because i'm a cyclist i'm no less a hazard
to a motorcyclist?! momentum, self-generated!
i like my legs... let me know when you're dealing
wheelies and whizzes on a ******* wheelchair...
until i have my legs... i'll be skimming through
traffic... Norman Davis might have called
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth God's Playground...
i think i'll call London my playground...
there's plenty to play with around here...

                 but for once i listened to my ego...
for some reason i didn't require a depth of the
Freudian secular trinity of the addition of superego
and id... i was just about to think about going to the brothel
but then my ego said: you're not feeling it...
and i wasn't... i still had to clean the kitchen up,
take the garbage out... i was oiling myself up...
"oiling": checking if i still had a 30 year old's hard-on
i stopped using the fake diet of ******* of
actors: disposable, unattainable...
i switched to: ROMANIAN AMATEUR ****...
well... it's what i'm going to get...
but i checked my hard-on too many times today...
checked, i.e. checked without climaxing...
checked about 4 times... the 5th time i checked
i was thinking about going to the brothel...
but then my ego (not my ego) checked me...
you're not going anywhere:

THE FICKLE MIND AND THE FIRM TRUTH
OF THE BODY...
the mind lies more times than the body cares to admit...
until, of course... the reality of body steps in
and the mind has to retreat... just as happened with
my excess drinking... i went to buy that extra bottle
of cider and waiting in the queue while a mother
with three daughters "****'s sake" the mother retorted
while the girls were undecided what else
to add to the basked i looked at the shelves
with all the spirits... no! no! no more whiskey!
no more *****! no more!
i checked my supposed "impotence" too many times
today... "impotence": more like being
insulted by the madam: beached-whale...
she just flicked it when it went limp because
i found her physically abhorrent...
flicked it... like it was a worm...
like she was 6 years old and i was 5 years old
and she was still playing with Barbie dolls
and unlike she was...
because she knew what a key was and what a keyhole
was... but she had no idea what
physical attraction was...

                        reciprocated...

well ****... it's working... guess it's not working with you...
a bit like the horse that Christopher Reeve rode
when it dropped him and recalculated Superman:
without a spine...
plus i had no excuse to leave the house...
i had plenty of excuses to read some more of Knausgaard
and write this...
tomorrow i'll have the excuse of "working late"...
going to a brothel is not like saying:
oh yeah... i'm going on a date with a girl
we're going to the cinema blah blah...
       no... dearest ******* Madam...
she's the one that chased away both Mona and Khadra...
what the **** happened?!

what am i? a Duracell bunny?! there's an ON and OFF
switch with regards to my phallus?!
if that's the case... what's the dynamic of ****?!
is ****... no... it can't be... **** is a man *******
a turned-off woman? i once had an experience
of a woman who... let's put it mildly:
her **** was as dry as the adequate metaphor
of sensation one might regret to feel from rubbing one's
hands on sandpaper!
hands... finger tips... rough skin...
ergo the ability to play guitar or rock climb...
we're talking tender skin...
so... technically: hardly a pleasure for a ****** to feel
pleasure from an unaroused ****!
ergo?! that was an aroused **** and it's all psychological:
not physical... the shame of giving it so freely
and unwillingly... whereas playing games with
those one might want to give it up to...
i can hardly **** with a LIMPY -
   but i certainly wouldn't want to **** a timber-mill worth
of toothpicks, match-sticks and left-overs...
**** is psychological it would seem...
                the shame of it... all those labyrinths of playing
games suddenly disappearing from the case of
"spontaneity"...
   you should ask her: South African... Sancha...
worked in a private school... teaching boys Mathematics...
maybe she was a *******... by now who knows?!
i do know that i wasn't terrible aroused by her
the first time we tried...
i got a limp... like i got a limp with Ilona:
a forewarning... but she was adamant and whispered
into my ear: you will not deny me...
second time i was in her teacher accommodation
i brought a copy of the Machinist with me on DVD...
she must have spiked my drink because then the horror
of cocoon *** ensued and that's when
she climbed on top of me and gave me the sawdust
sandpaper **** treatment in the dark...

it kind of follows through to the casual mode of
argumentation people have concerning the schizoid condition:
it's all in your mind...
right... so the schizoid condition is simply: so...
your i-think detaches itself from thought
and forms a i-hallucinate complex as if: spring follows winters?
well then... it's all in your mind...
**** is probably in most of women's minds...
it doesn't actually exist in reality:
in the physiology... **** is a mental construct...
it must be... since i don't recall any ******
talking about: oh ****... i had to pull out...
her **** turned into a mantis or the mouth
of a worm from the planet Dune... i just couldn't
continue!

the next day she drove me to the station and i never saw
her again...
ergo? i have a strange relationship with a limp ****...
it's not impotence: per se,
it's more a judge of character concerning a ******
partner: however brief, however informal...
it's like a wild animal freezing still...
     deer in the headlights...
                                      i should have known better
with Ilona... but she pressured to the point where it
finally started "working": i wish "he" didn't...
it would have saved me so much pointless drama...
if i were a man with a child i would tell him just as much:
it's not working for a reason...
that ***** is a mantis... you're not a robot...
this isn't a *****... you're not an extension of a *****...
it's not working for a reason...
go and check... watch the most realistic "*******":
switch to amateur stuff...
                                that's all you're going to get...
and can you, get it up? well then...
it's not you...
                                     once all the glamour is gone
and you're left with a butcher's cut of antics...
                              well... if you're aroused by that sort of stuff
in private... why can't the partner reciprocate?
maybe that's just me finalising some logistics for
tomorrow...
shift at the Ice Rink tomorrow...
me... two girls...
   one butch lesbian... she keeps rubbing off on my arms
every time the home side scores
and she's celebrating...
      one rub by chance i can understand... two rubs
and i'm thinking: this isn't homosexual conversion therapy,
is it?
the other? got me the job to begin with...
started taking dieting pills because she feels depressed
because she thinks she's fat and this is what
working with women looks like if you're not
in the business of being a plumber: in the realm of
customer service...
    
                 that's how this new girl i fancied at work
got fired... about 4 other girls ganged up on her
and she was literally bullied out of work because...
            
it's coming up to 1am... i need to get up early tomorrow...
do a cycling shift...
trim my mustache, my beard, my ***** region, my arm-pits...
finish one more bottle of cider for good luck:
or no luck...
           listen to some more pagan music...
think about Bower Wood and how i wish that if i weren't
working tomorrow
i'd buy myself a bottle of whiskey and walk
into it, right now... to howl and wake up the crows.

p.s. oh, right, that dream i had last night when
i didn't scribble any words for anyone else to see?
two night ago i was swimming with
pseudo-jelly fish on the edge of the universe
transmitting vibrations of light...
last night i was watching while some colts
were gleefully celebrating their ability to drink
shots of absinthe... until i walked up to the bar
and showed them how to drink absinthe
properly...
i took out a spoon, dipped the spoon in some
sugar... poured some absinthe onto the spoon...
lit the spoon and the sugar alight...
watched the caramel form...
then poured some water into the glass
to clue them in into the secret of drinking absinthe:
you don't drink absinthe like *****...
you need for the green-milk of wormwood
to emerge!
    sie müssen für die grünmilsch von wermut
zu auftauchen!
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
it has been exactly since ~3p.m.
                                                            yesterday...
                                       through to
3p.m. today: that's 24 hours +
                                      4 o'clock, 5 o'clock rock,
          6 o'clock,
                                          7, 8, 9
                     10, 11 and the upcoming twelve
         24 + 9 + excess passing the 36th hour...
oh this is just target practice -
                  what used to be
   serotonin has become adrenaline:
   spawning cobweb shadows with
   a mere arm-hair aligned with an itch:
i say to my cohabitants -
        i'm too poor to rent an apartment
with my contemporaries,
         and i can't be bothered to look cool
for 10 years... before the money starts
coming in... a day before a tongue spoke:
and see you in 20 years...
         and see you in 30 years...
the people born prior to 1975
       and after 1969 came out to earn
£57,000 a year... while those born
after 1979 and before 1985 had a wealth
*** of £27,000...
                            who are the landlords?
quick digression, i love how the idea
of exiting the bloc (it used to be designated
to the eastern bloc, now anything east of Calais
if a bloc... the European bloc -
        my my... ain't it love-ly?
   they wanted an Australian points system,
so first came the Australian plastic currency,
boy, i was happy, cashing in my first Churchill
miniature that i could dip in baked beans
and use as a spoon) spread beyond the old
stereotype... and the points system?
you know who's smoking the hookah of
panic here?            
                            the freelancers of nationality...
   they haven't fitted in...
don't worry... they'll keep you,
but after seeing you they just thought:
once the cheeky chappy, now a chavvy chappy...
  we love the E2 dialect, it's hardly Coccers
or bonkers... but after my day
(i'll relate to it in a moment)
       i heard to prop'ah Cockneys giving it
all the guv' and n'ah and
        what's Kilimanjaro in Cockney slang?
all the Cockneys are living in Essex,
   Romford, Chelms and the Essex lads
from Ireland are a bit shy, never talk to
the old people who used to live on
the Isle of Dogs or the Wharf -
              East London moved, and i'm in
the thick o' it... you ***...
                       i'm here,
open ******* spaces and hedgehog counts
to mind... never the next Susie from
Whitechapel doing the runner from Jackie,
             and funny that,
the day began during the night,
sober, i tested the idea: if you gonna go
nocturnal, stay sober...
                  fast... drink coffee in the morning,
and what some proper bollocking
        on the box...
                               i say: revivals never
sounded more like bells, the 1970s
had Patois... the old parle with dread-lock Sam...
             i squeeze in a bit of Norse
and hey presto... Ahmed's your uncle...
                     'cos we all like a bit of
way-hey banter, the: back in the day
   when the 1966 squad was best known
for West 'am...
                               am i sensing the idea that
i'm licking off the prop'ah beef burger 'ere?
                    what the **** rhymes
with Kilimanjaro?
                                wait! got this one:
apples & pears - stairs...
                          you gyro?
                        no! wait... the two Cockneys
weren't from south London,
this ain't Peck'am talk... this is proper grub...
         jar squared: verb, meaning?
     i know my neighbour, heard him
lecturing his wife over the wall about
the diminishing concept of family in the "west",
           to me that's
the Cockneys meant by guv'nah:
                           aw right der geezer,
   stop that fidgety: don't be late tomorrow,
let a man eat his plums and wear his trousers...
       i swear: the only good cinema these days
is English cinema...
                                 i said! the only good cinema
these days is English cinema...
               if i didn't watch
       we **** the old way during the night,
after spending my day as i did (i'll get onto it,
hold your submarines)
                               i would have pricked my ears
on the two Cockneys next door
   at 4p.m.                  finishing some job...
but given the "guv'nah's" attitude: 'aving
a laugh at coming early tomorrow, if at all.
     my day?
                 i wished i could say i woke up
early...
                            the entire spectrum
of sunrise...
                            epileptic shock from the sun
after smoking a cigarette at 5a.m. when
all the constellations where out...
                          not enough sleep,
as the Russians say: no good to live but to
not have seen snow.
                               it shivers with enough
hours under your belt...
                                      i'd love those
Soviet torture chambers of sleep malnutrition...
gents? when the ***** and the cards and cigarettes?
    i'm currently the most loathed
  person in America... which technically makes me
more than simply unemployed...
        anyway...
cut my hair... two millimetres off the helmet...
off the cranium... not crew cut, not skin on side
and some ***-fluff on top...
in the night, when the moon is bright,
   my two millimetres of hair look like skin...
oi! Skinners! the shame would have really been
to have protruding ears...
                                    come to think of it,
i love the contorts of my shadow more than
the body my shadow disdains...
                  i decided to visit my old school
after that...
                     ...............................
do you know the feeling of getting onto a bus
when you having been on any other form
of transportation (other than your legs)
for a few months?             surreal...
                   and even that's a bad way to describe it...
this is where words simply fizzle out...
                            they just did the white rabbit
trick and you're felt with nothing else to
do but squeeze into the top-hat and hope
that some other magician will pull you out
rather than another: white rabbit.
                          so the 499 from my house
up to Romford (sunny! glorious day!
   shirt, sleeves rolled up,
           denim trousers, navy suede shoes,
azure shirt, headphones, bus ticket,
wallet, packet of smokes, and the ride -
smile all you want - when you smash a sports
car you don't have the view of a dozen
horrified passengers there with you
to practice your ultimate Buddha gimmick -
Ching-Chong Eyed and smiling)
                oh yeah, the insurance... huh?
   off at Romford central, and onto the 86
courier from Bangladesh to Ilford...
                    what did i miss in the list above?
ah... three copies of poetic optometry...
written by? moi, n'est pas? oh come on,
let's not get the ruler out: mangetout and manage trois...
                           (only fuel is horses)
           the 86 is a double decker, the 499 isn't...
sun in my eyes behind the glass the enhanced star
gleamed: what privilege -
               by day the star
                                           by night the star in
   a mirror that's the moon -
                                         selfish helium
giggling into a hydrogen Hindenburg fury!
                 or that's what the scientists say...
how they worked it out, i'll never know...
                            but apparently the sun
is a H-He           something or other...
            H because of atom bombs,
   and He because we giggle like idiots when we see
it: never the thirsty horse in cowboy movies.
   got off at Seven Kings...
in between school girls eyeing everyone and everything...
just my luck... schoolchildren...
                               everywhere on the bus...
just there...
                                    and also just nowhere...
         so i got off at Seven Kings and went into my
old catholic school...
                                  waited at the reception for a good
5 minutes (good to know they're still teaching
people manners with regards to the uttermost
productive necessity of bureaucrats)
               -              i asked about my old English
teacher: does Dr... er... does Mr. Thomas,
        er, does Mr. Bunce (Thomas) still work here?
   yes, he does.
             you see, i'm a former pupil of this school
and i wondered if i could have a meeting with him.
oh, that's impossible, he's currently teaching.
                     Kafka... note this in your afterlife...
         well... in that case, could i leave him a message?
oh sure, just write your name and your contact details
and he'll get in touch with you.
   well... i need a bit more than a scrap of paper,
can i have a notepad?
                 sure.
                                    so i took  the pen
and the notepad and sat in this grand refurbished hall
of the school that used to remind me
of chemistry labs stinking of old wood and sulphur,
of the old ways... of being beaten and Pink Floyd
escapism and all the hippy crap...
                               what a grand place this has become...
it's no longer known as C. P. Catholic School...
but the plus version: C. P. Academy...
  but you still walk into the plus surroundings and there
are still pamphlets written by Father Ted
about *our Lord and Saviour christ Jesus...
          or Hey! Zeus! in Spanish... same ****...
different cover...
                               but i was well dressed in my
Indian summer wear that's Indian summer:
English September and October...
              i'd move the calendar up a bit...
get the kids off anti-depressants...
                           anyway, i had my three copies
of the "first edition", try tell that with the internet
breathing down your neck... it doesn't, matter...
             but i did write him a lovely note:
unchaining me from the straitjacket of grammar!
                  i wrote from what year i graduated
2002 (g.c.s.e.) or 2004 (a-level),
                        and blah blah and one more blah
later                    walked back to the reception
  and asked for a rubber-band...
                   then i bundled the whole thing together
and asked if she could give it to him...
                    of course, she replied.
                            p.s. if you don't mind,
Mr. Thomas, you can always shove one of those
copies into the school library...
                         p.p.s., someone stashed
the book about the Gnostics by some German in
there once... maybe i'm thinking along the same lines.
      the journey back?
i walked.
                                 i walked from Seven Kings
to Romford...
                               taking a stroll
with one hand in my pocket (left)
because holding a cigarette in the other is never
exactly great when it's not doing something...
that's what the pockets are for...
not exactly suited for your wallet... but your hand...
when you're strolling in the green-belt fields
segregating the outer-most London (wannabe
Londoners / Eastenders) and the Essex inheritors
of Cockney... Kilimanjaro?
                                  Kilimanjaro?
                 ­                          me, i don't Essex
either...           most of the bankers chose this
district for the scenery, i.e. standing in a field
that isn't a hill or any sort of elevation
and beyond, yonder, the glass shards of their
former institutions...
                                        4.7 miles... not bad...
  a stroll... and that's without any food and solely
on coffee and a sleepless night...
           a butterfly fluttering along the way (only one)
and a fresh ripe auburn conker lying beneath
an oak tree (also, only one)...
            but what hit me was walking back...
it was truly like reading the book of revelation...
13:7... all the way from Seven Kings through to
the Romford: the street vendors, the bookies,
the Muhammedian car dealers...
                  the bewildered ones walking into
mosques, Sikh temples...
                                       one man cleaning the patio
entrance to a church from weeds...
                           cheap Kentucky chicken from America
         (if you think, that they don't synthesise
the meat in cat food and call it tuna or beef
but rather use actual meat... you're grossly mistaken,
    it was on the news...
                                         they are already
capable to synthesise meat...
                                     they do it in the perfume industry,
they're doing it in the food industry -
    a childhood memory of asking why they were
smearing lipstick on the frogs they caught...
they replied: they burn easier...
                  and they did... paint a frog lipstick
pink and boy... that's a French marshmallow, right there)...
           but if you ever walk that stretch of road...
               revelation 13:7...
          i'd like to see the Evangelists wriggle out
of that one...                       oh sure...
i treat religious television like some meathead
might watch football... it's game on after 5 minutes...
but anyway... that was my day...
           all 36 or so hours of it... how was yours?
                                                          ­                        g'day!
They call me Jack! A Jack the Lad
a man who likes to go out late.
I must confess that I'm a cad
and often seen in Aldegate.

Whitechapel and Spittlefield
are other locations I frequent.
Tis where I often draw my yield
and nay for that I'll not lament.

Inspired by my ill repute,
repugnant chanting of my name,
I'll seek and find a *******,
commencing to secure my fame.

Reference books cannot advise
what two skilled hands can show.
Exacting cuts when I excise,
instructing where my blade doth flow.

My first, Miss Nichols, I recall,
whom blinded by the lure of coin,
into my clutches she did fall
and she, I did indeed refine.

Chapman then I did impress
with incision so demanding.
Nothing taken to excess
an ***** now made outstanding.

Stride and Eddowes in one night
but fortune demanded I should race.
Though well presented to the light,
embarrassment is my disgrace.

My final lady played the game,
Miss Kelly whom at my insistence.
She alone recoiled my fame,
my very own Piece de Resistance.
4 May 2005
© Copyright Christopher K Bayliss 2014
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2018
always back in
a monochromatic society,
twice a year...
   a nausea -
    of only interacting with whites
akin to myself...
most people will not understand
the nausea...
   and there is a nausea -
within these anti-major
cosmopolitan hotspots...
but the nausea passes...
   but in terms of a personal
psychology?
  i lose something...
   a game a learned integrating
into english society...
the... chameleon game...
   i never have that
in Poland, i'm back to square
one, generic,
like the rest of them...
       i prefer the English
multi cultural society for
personal, "selfish" reasons...
namely?
i can play the chameleon game...
i can speak two tongues
and four accents,
   reserving a fifth for
some Muslim who thinks
i have the ****** features
of a German...
       back home i'm just
a Pole among Poles...
      nothing that couldn't
be conceived as lack-luster...
back in England?
ah nay.. not exotica for
the women...
             i prefer the chameleon
game...
as it turns out...
not all immigrants huddle...
at least not all Polacks huddle
together in... communities...
communities of workforce?
sure... Poles coexist together
only in work environments...
socially?
    like a ******* dog & cat...
i don't know any Poles in terms
of community,
  or social interaction...
      no chance in hell...
never will...
   which shows...
when i travel back to Poland
to visit my grandparents...
**** me the nausea of being
an ant in an anthill...
      i once landed in Krakow
and fooled around
by pretending to not speak
the native tongue...
only interacting in English...
i felt sick...
            how?
   i eased out an ear of
compassion and spoke to her
when she approached me
talking about how her son
hanged himself and she needed
money...
   and there was this
immigrant Anglo with
a Polish girlfriend,
and some Miroslav with a
broken French accent who
emigrated to France and
forgot to speak the native tongue...
and the girl of the "expat"
was like: huh?!
    England is unique in that respect...
well...
not England...
   London... and London
is not England...
    England is not London
and Londoners were never merely
Cockneys...
last time i heard?
Jackie the Ripe-Piper
was probably a Jewish Pollack...
    i was born in a small torn
just shy of Masovia -
every, single, time,
the monochromatic nausea
of only seeing white people...
i guess... it must be the same
for a Nigerian who grew up
in England and gets to visit his
grandparents back, "home"...
women are different,
i'm talking about males...

           then again... ****...
a Nigerian can't exactly perfect
the chameleon game...
i've been Hungarian,
Swedish, but mostly German...
never a Pollack...

            back "home" you miss
the ethnicity roulette...
    i can understand the ultra-nationalism
of small towns of nations...
but i can also understand
the ultra-cosmopolitanism of
capital cities of post-nationalistic
states...

come to think of it...
    i'm only comfortable in East London...
west London is off-limits for
comfort, again,
equivalent to the monochromatic
nausea bound to urban Poland -
the tourists sticking out
like birch trees in a ******* pine
forest...

      it's all contradictory -
rural - small urban strongholds...
where people recognize you
via recognizing your grandparents
and your grandparents fill
the locals in...
   no problem...
   traveling through Warsaw?
a ******* gutting sensation
like some variant of William
Wallace being executed...
   Mongols, Ukrainians, Roma...
    the odd Lithuanian...

it's the nausea of the effect of
a revived commonwealth once seemingly
lost...
    unlike the British commonwealth
slowly disintegrating into
farce and: keeping up appearance...
pomp & circumstance
having replaced pride & prejudice...

i can walk down a shady East End
street and talk...
            and feel nothing but
a welcoming thrill of contempt...
   strap me to a crowded place in the center
of Warsaw...
and i'm disorientated,
like a fox in daylight...
                   wildly afraid...
all the time on my guard...

  and i'm! "supposedly" the native...
   merely having inherited
the language is no guard...
      i might speak "their" language...
but when it comes
to the several underlying
languages of human interaction?
****... i can walk down
some shady alley
of Whitechapel -
                           i've learned it from...
i guess...
that one time me and my three
friends were robbed
in South Park, Seven Kings...
two girls as bait...
and then 10 of them approached...
started kicking my crying
friend to the ground...
some **** about me asking
for my walkman back off of him
while he was getting kicked...

whatever it was...
   there are actually more languages
than the mere communicative
of a Fwench class of buying
groceries...
   there is the language that
extends into the surroundings...
   the sort of language
that allows you to visit a Goodmayes
brothel
and leave it
telling the girl:
   can i not shower,
so i can keep your skin's
perfume for a while longer?

  there is no chameleon game
when i visit Poland,
i don't visit Poland,
  i visit the dutiful grandson who
still has grandparents...
and that?
is the most boring game of chameleon...
i stop drinking, enforce
a self-styled rehab...
   read a book, watch Polish t.v.
befitting pensioners...
   sunrise... sunset...
   and give my grandmother
a holiday from cooking for
a dementia sufferer...

  but back in London...
              a parade of over 280+
languages... making the mold
in the shadows of off-limits Mayfair
and other, politico, ******-pots
of riches,
exhausted by the Sheiks
   and Mandarin Emperors
                 of the Lapis-Lazuli.
Olivia Kent Jul 2013
Stands tall in dark cloak.
Menacing shadow smacks the alleyway.
Wall dressed in gaslight.
A bag of tricks grasped in his hand.
To turn tricks of his own on night ladies.

The night ladies cackle in raucous laughter.
In the grasp of inebriation's smile.
A stallion bedecked in funeral regalia.
Waits impatiently for his return.
Heavy shod hooves heard scratching the flag stones.

Stallion awaits acknowledgement of death.
Death soon to approach the first sweet soul.
The first of five.
Sweet Mary Ann Nichols.
Throat unceremoniously slashed.
Her abdomen was broken too.
The work of the devil maybe.
Whitechapel August 1888
Was no place for a lady of the night to be.
Despite the chapel, in the name.
This was no religious lair.
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2017
i keep, and keep, and keep trying
to put on the most sane face... **** me...
   listening to abba's super trouper?
this ***** isn't strong enough...
are these people really
the capitalists they deem themselves
to be?
   they're not reading into
the nah hammadi jesus crap,
are they?
   they must be! so much money in
that flesh, beginning with judas!
            now it feels like another whiskey
short, a mixer withou ice-cubes' worth
of a mixer...
             who the silly billy?
    last time i checked i wasn't named
the billio the reminder.
cares for the bored 'uns...
                     so too, minutes
later: with the scandinavian spandex...
          strut strut or so do the magic dance
invoking the fly-by of a yellow
submarine?!
           talk to me! come one!
   tell me whether there's an eye
                                in an oyster shell!
              glasgow? you live 3 years
in edinburgh,
is a bit like living in london,
imagining birmingham:
no river - no flow -
             islamabad up yer ****...
what?! got that wrong?
you sure? isn't ozzy placed in
a californian mansion?!
            maybe i got that one wrong too...
am i perfect? no...
   would i like to be?
can i be perfect and not write insolent verse?!
no? in that case.... no!
an outer-londoner about birmingham":
hardly a venice, let alone an amsterdam,
or a st. petersburg:
                       no river? no flow!
they dared to call edinburgh the athens
of the north...
  well... birmingham is the islamabad of
the the north... what?!
never ate a red cabbage cumin infused
coleslaw? ******* racist...
   get with the grit & grime of sharing
alt. social normatives...
             you ******* preached it,
mr. bankrupt post-colonial-stress-disorder
(p.c.s.d.) - & ms. blackpool
                                 wanking handy!
what?! not so handy any more? not so
pleased with interruptions from non-colonial
countries?
      oh shay shay, tiresome missy,
aren't you the proper wanked over
  pauper... ms. east-london,
ms.: the grit-&-grind-of-whitechapel...
& that eager chopping worded phrase for
'ackney... poor you!
  oh look... wait! wait!
let me get a cabbage leaf out to imitate
a tissue to cry into!
the english? in the roofing industry?
they're personnas non grata -
   no please, don't sent the english into the trade...
and my father? who did he learn
the trade of roofing from? picts! who?!
                       the scots!
the english are best attributed to their papa
darwin and their fetish for **** ***,
divorce, and having 2nd or 3rd wives,
and a pearly career...
                   as the sing-along of
polish children goes:
             angol pedał...
                                     angol pedał...
no, that's not verbatim...
  the original was better...
   even though the fact that my
little village team made it to the national
leage 1 in 1997 / 1998 -
and i manged to chant
          Ł.K.S.! JEBAŁ PIES!
funny... i was a football hooligan for
one afternoon...
           that feeling of beloning
has schtuck to me, like a leech...
consuming more than blood,
         i.e. memory fusion with thought.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2016
talking to ritchie (a scaffolder on the Whitechapel project of the cross-rail) and his girlfriend nicholle, the smurf who i told about gargamel... while almost begged the sri lankans to buy a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of diet pepsi, past the allowance for the shop's opening hours and catching the last bus from chasing the cross... me and ritchie got talking randomly... hugged and shook hands by the end of the encounter, i don't know why; ritchie was a scaffolder... i told him i was once a roofer... i don't know why i have a healthy affiliation with scaffolders;
nicholle the chihuahua walking in front of us reminded us of drug testing on the building site, i said a day off, she said a day without pay and randomised crap like curtains... now i remember why i didn't join the crew with girlfriends, i'd be in a mental asylum by now, should they exist, otherwise with the failure of community care projects... maybe that's why women look amazing in *****, but cats look better in real life; i'm not even trying to be sexist, it's just too much reality.

i have only a few words
for her:
why won't she touch me?
why am i to resolve
my objections like this,
ah, i see, because they are
objections to that
subjections that are of man
succumbing to woman
and the ordeal of chore;
that are, man objectifies woman
with all that *******,
while woman makes countless
subjects from him to appease her,
while the world around sees no
appeasement...
indeed in the crusader's song to
later show, as a psychosis
(elevation of soul via the body's
non-existence, a funny atheism)
i'll show you a levitated stone,
that doesn't require stones or loafs of
bread for proof of alchemy;
cup my hands in tears to capture
tears like rainwater...
make my eyes a convent....
i say a convent not a covenant!
da pacem domine* -
and i see the mother nuns ushering the flock
into carcass of obedience,
a volume of body as tall as the pyramids;
why are we the defending?
what pleading would craft an altar
if not to compare
idle prayer crafted as a larger spectacle
to allow marriage in its eyes
permitted...
   when i'm the sparrow of sorrow
i sound like my mother, because of you,
it's what i see that's to come
that makes me disbelieve the magic of
the advert, and embrace the advent of the saints
in petulant prayer.
Slur pee Jun 2016
Ripped tights, holy knees
Bow in prayer, let her please.
She'll worship you for money
In the dark, where he heavily breathes
Watching,
Watching,
Watching...
Stalking girls who wear torn stockings,
Slit their throats, blood bubbles while they're coughing-
Begging him, but there is no stopping
Ripping them to shreds until they are nothing;
Just a ***** in the street,
Grotesque and appalling.
Mutilated body,
Embodying the evils
Of the district of the angels
The impoverished Whitechapel.
A disappearing devil,
Whose name brandished hell.
Leaving his mark in the shivers
And the chills.

-SLuR
There be no more a white chapel
at Whitechapel
nor a blind beggar to see that
I saw,
they've built up a city of concrete and steel,
unreal for the real and there ain't
nothing more.


Bishopsgate waits for the next Bishop to come
St. Paul is a mugger and carries a gun
the crutched friars were tried and found guilty of heresy and at the bank where blasphemy rules
they've fooled us all
except for St Paul
who makes a strategic withdrawal.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2021
chopper: chop-off-chew; a 502 bad gateway bypass cheat code...

i know what i'll spend my money earned on, in what priority, i'll spend them on a brothel, i'll spend them on a *******: after all... she will spend that earned money on trivial matters, she will buy a pair of shoes: i'll buy a pair of shoes when the ones i'm wearing will become worn... i hope i can write this without an inkling toward spite... i'm happy to be childless, i'm happy to not be married... how best to decipher my feeling, at present... FAUN... WAINAMOINEN... i will not trust the leftist cosmopolitan brigade to break up this... resurgence of a folkish spirit among the Hyperboreans... making a resurgence in song, in wording... covert... under the radar... seemingly sleeping... even Heidegger mentions this... of the people is very much distinct to: of the folk... people inhabit cities and the make-shift constructs of nations... the folk? they inhabit the land! why should an African feel welcome among the winters and the crows... when i... giggle like a child... foreign among the lost seasons at the equator with the macaque monkeys?! these people are not here to belong... they know it themselves... however many safety-nets are placed for our liberal liking & their comfort... they are unnaturally "here"... our own worst enemies... white "liberal elites"... one cocktail after a second... after... no more water to churn out alcohol... these people have come for a reason... i don't know what the reason is... better living is hardly requesting more complications from technology... when life can be simplified from the closest of the most close connections... hier: hoch norden?! alle er tabt! tysk er æsten dansk...
deutsch ist fast dänisch! we might have fought wars among each other... but at least we belonged, together, even i... liberal as i were, for so long... it's not like i can't be... leaving a route for allowance for other cultures, other races... but... i'm... becoming more... detached from reality... detached from purpose... from the geography... from the forest... language is my last defence... these people shouldn't be here because they shouldn't be here: they shouldn't be here because... there's no need for me to be among their culture! their people! if i don't need to be somewhere, why should someone "think" it necessary to be among "my", people? mongrel ******* mongrel gives us this... ****** culture! hardly any tourism... i can be a tourist in Africa... would i want to live in Africa? no! so... why the ****... thank you Russia... WE, HAVE, NO, SHARED, STORIES... JUST... THESE... SOCIAL-JUSTICE ARGUMENTATIVE POINTS... EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL: HARDLY NARRATIVE... SUFFERING FROM MEMORY EROSION... IN THE IMMEDIACY OF JOURNALISTIC *******... i bemoan this sudden quest of man: because... i believe in its failure... a failure most gross... my heart prays for this ****** experiment to fail! fail it must! scheitern es muss! svigte det skal! lethargy kicks in... being too pleasing... too pleasant... my mind retorts: almost automatically... i'm QUITS! why? looking at children... i don't want them to suffer this mental diarrhoea in future years... i want them to look at faces most familiar... i'm SLEPT... i'm QUITS... ******* SAVVY?!


i've been a hermit for so long,
shunning human contact with only minor
outbursts of contact with strangers,
old men on park benches
talking about their grandchildren
and sons-in-law,
Rayleigh bicycles, seasonal diets
(not buying watery strawberries from
Spain in the winter months,
eating more vegetables - in general -
binging on local, seasonal fruit
from local farms),
prostitutes in the brothel, talking...
*******...
but always in concentrated outbursts
of interaction...
someone in London around Whitechapel
stopping me while he implored me
to fix his breaks...
hands up... listen: if i had some tools...
i'd try...
this spurned me on to now ride around
with some tools... i only need about three...
obviously i'm not going to take a *******
pump with me too... there's a reasonable
point of what i am willing to do for strangers...
so i gave him some advice...
it's the back break, that's faulty?
remember... take longer to break...
since the front break is only working you
might go forward by breaking too heavily...
and if you're going to break heavily...
stand up on your breaks...
and leverage yourself on the handlebars...
put extra pressure on them: top down...
homeless men...
once i ******* this woman for sitting
down on the pavement with this homeless man
i knew who migrated from Romford
to Seven Kings...
gave him a cigarette and laughed a while...
with some fwends... some autistic guy from
school who... got into drinking...
blah blah...
     so she starts attacking me with...
YOU! YOU! i just waved my hand and told her:
i'm not going to argue with you...
i suppose she was implying i was supposed
to be talking up women...
i was there for a Guinness...
later that same night i went to the brothel
for some love... or as i like to call it:
cuddle & giggles...
- that one time this crazy Rastafarian started
talking to me about the Hebrew deity
deformity (in his Rastafarian way)
we started talking from Romford
he dragged me to... Hackney... of all places
to distribute pamphlets to black Baptist churches
i had a "date" with a few fwends to watch
some boxing on t.v.,
- i won't even mention that one black guy
who took me on a carousel of his crack *******
addiction... that was a long time ago...
the two of us were strapped to the insides of
a phone-box while he took up a crack-*******
glass doo-di (what would you call it?
a glass smoking pipe?)
******* madman... that's also at the same time
i was having my first psychotic breakdown
from... smoking marijuana and fasting...
and walking around London...
so many more isolated instances of "dealing"...
interacting with... people...
now this... from my period of isolation...
social hibernation... where i threw myself at writing
so heavily hearted...
graveyards, forests... at night...
there was this one funny instance...
a car parked in Bower Wood...
took a while to take a **** on the grass...
owl... check... fox... check... rabbits... check...
deer... check... something cracked some
branches while i sat on a log bare-chested...
i actually opened my mouth and uttered
the words: that's not a human... is it, are you?!
walking almost blind screaming at the top
of my voice, growling... snarling...
through havering county park... climbing past
a barbwire fence to get up close to
the horses grazing in the field...
in the dark putting my hand against a horse's mouth...
i can forgive the horse...
it thought i might have something in my hand...
like a sugar cube or an apple to nibble on...
it started nibbling on my fingers...
bucktooth ****** turned around and his hoof
almost skimmed my forehead...
i still wonder what it might feel like
to be kicked in the head by a horse's hind legs...
i tried it once... punched myself several times
in the face until i gave myself a black eye...
i still have marks on my knuckles from the time
i took pleasure from putting out
cigarettes on them...
i guess i don't dream much...
i need to be closest to reality through...
the only best available a medium that most
resonates: pain...
- or perhaps a quote from Pablo Coelho...
the alchemist...
as a teenager i was planning on travelling to India...
India came to London,
****'s sake... the whole world came to London!
why would i leave (Greater) London?
if i were to travel across the Thames...
i'd be in a completely different country...
i once cycled from Romford to Greenwich...
already the difference were visible...
the north is like... what's the right comparison?
BUDA...
the south of London? PESHT...
less underground, more trains...
trams of Croydon, for ****'s sake: i thought that
trams were a Berlin / Warsaw "thing"...
if i wanted to: i'd ******* to Edinburgh and...
find the old place i was staying at
in my third year... Montague St.
just off Nicholson St.,
i'd go back to the mosque near Appleton Tower
for a curry... i'd perhaps do some bouldering
on the Crags... if i were to find my mountain
climbing shoes...
i am still, yet, to eat a deep-fried Mars bar...
or a deep-fried pizza...
like **** i am ever going to...
just today i ate a revelation...
usually... smoked salmon... well... obviously
on a bagel... with some fresh cucumber and dill
with a decent dollop of mayo...
today?
soft white cheese... the smoked salmon
& some lemon juice...
wow...
- finding work outside the family business...
i.e. not working with my father has become...
refreshing...
he... he could "abuse" me verbally as best he could...
you're doing this wrong, you're doing
that wrong... strangers? no chance...
but this own son: he treated the harshest...
i said to myself: **** it... i'm not putting up with
this sort of UBERSCHEISSE!
i haven't worked in... has it been a decade?
"worked" worked... i wrote... investing in
people not yet born!
the people, my contemporaries: sure, i care...
but... i'm not writing a Dan Brown novel:
am i? i'm looking for... longevity...
i'm looking for immortality...
to hell with not being paid...
to hell with spending money in ways that makes
you regret it: you will never find yourself
earning money: but you will regret... spending it
in ways that deviate from a "pattern" of
well-kept endeavours...
i don't mind spending anything on my bicycle...
why? cycling is my last outlet
of... aloneness "tourism"... to hell with going
on a cruise... i take up cycling to...
Thurrock... or deeper into Essex...
hell... i'll cycle into central London...
ah... sigh of relief... i'm alone...
i like dodging traffic... i like the added thrill of large
objects that might **** me...
but at the same time i adore the abundant emptiness
of the countryside...
well... it's not: "empty"... but writing makes it out
as it is... no ******* Wordsworth's worth
of ode to nature here...
perhaps some... die grenzwacht hielt im osten...
folk songs in, esp. in die deutschezunge...
- i think i know why, why i find this language
so endearing... it's all about the infiltration process...
i could... wholeheartedly... abandon it...
with even having to wear shoes...
i feel so much for it: yet at the same time...
if i were recalled to the mutterzungen needs...
i think i might... how i can hold twin-allegiances
i will never know...

uns ander'n brach die kraft...
und heute noch und immer
    den weg nach osten zeigt...

so far away from people... yet so close...
to put into writing...
i would have loved joining the army...
chemical engineer? ZYKLON B...
rings a bell...
now... reengaging with people...
on a minor scale of what an army cohort
looks like...
i still feel ****** getting a chemistry
degree: not leaving school at 15 and joining the army...
then again... i really don't know what
i'd do with too much money:
you can always have too much money:
even if you earn... £15,000 a year...
i remember my student years back
in 2004 circa 2007 (circa, ergo, no hyphen +/-1
a year in the "bracket")
beside the student fee...
£3000 could easily cover the rent,
the food... the odd spontaneous going to
the cinema... the gym fee...
well, fair enough... as students... we weren't paying
council tax... but £3000 could cover a lot of things...
if we're talking earning... £15000...
and you take a Paulo Coelho approach
akin to: there's nothing to ******* find when
you get to the Giza pyramids... when you *******
to Brazil... you seen the world doesn't actually mean:
a local crack-head took you on
one of his ******* shimmy run...

i don't belong no more in Kenya than
a Kenyan belongs among the Hyperboreans...
sure... if he feels suicidal...
and abhors his people so much...
but look where Brexit left us...
all the Polacks suddenly didn't feel welcome...
not part of the multicultural project
of the implosive Empire as they might have
felt...
what English soldier ever fought
on the lands of Poland during the second world
war... yet... how many ****** pilots
fought for Britain?!
huh?! huh?!
history implies: people keep on forgetting...
the labour of love for us that love
to remember... like...
the world offers us rubrics borrowed from
school...
i don't mind an African trying to live
in Europe... but **** me:
you won't find me living in Africa
any time soon!
sure... the macaques are cute...
to hell with the heat!
no time soon!
i, need, seasons!
i need, eating, bland!
what, rosemary & rhyme not good enough,
for you, ******?!

smoked salmon managed to bench press
my liking for raw herring...
miss the raw cucumber, the dill, the mayo...
add some soft white cheese...
some lemon juice... keep the bagel...
now we have ourselves a sport!

the Polacks have left the shores...
hello tourists... your anti-racist rhetoric has
paid off!
i'm hardly native...
weren't your own natives...
your own fathers supposed
to bemoan the fate of your own daughters?!
you don't...
and... i'm... somehow... supposed to?
i'm much more invested in the men...
i need... rigidity... structure...
women always tend to **** it up: anyways...
some... amnesia principle...

FAUN:  WAINAMOINEN...
unplugged... "v"...
  NIRVANA's unplugged sessions...
choke... shotgun shot to the head..
Christine Chubbuck vs. the Court of Courting Blind...
rich Russian girls taking  picture of the pitch...
i'm standing in the middle...
i guess there's also me involved...

- from my hermit phase... being engaged with so many
people... esp. the children... oh god... i love the children...
for someone who enjoyed their absence from
society...
to be so, greedily... reengaged.... like a snap....
almost weird...
but... almost like: I: WANT: IT!
sure... i'm but a pawn in this role...
but... here's my excuse... i'm also anders-wo...
here's my antithesis of da-sein...
anders-wo...          am-ich?!

tid: til begynde! ja: nu! kvik!
tabt en time
tabt løs "næsten" alt...

         fanden du:                     ord så blød

KURWA MAĆ!
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2019
the more i watch these youtube
videos,
the more i think...

where do these people get
so much energy to talk?
and... that's what talking does:

it attracts bothersome
comment sections...

i'm proud to say:
i haven't received an email
in years...
   whatever comment section
activity is...
confined to the bare minimum...

recently i invested in
a gramaphone and,
i'm happy to say:
   just my luck in not having
invested in a camera /
mic.,

       to be honest:
i've matured beyond thinking
that: completing a novel
is some sort accomplishment,
and how there's
no shame in reading
poetry...

as in:
  optics...
you can't exactly multi-task
drinking a nightcap,
listening to music,
smoking a cigarette
and reading a novel...

a novel requires a sober
judge,
silence,
   and a worth of a good
hour to eat up chapters...
plus the over-congested
lines of a paragraph...

since when was poetry
all about the ghouls,
the rhymes,
          and the gallows of
broken hearts?
really? poetry was also
about, feelings?

one thing is for sure...
i'm glad i invested
some saved money
in a gramaphone
and not a camera / mic.

sorry... i just don't have
the energy to
give someone passive
content...
on which it is easier
to comment...

            how else would
you create a depth of
consciousness to concentrate
on a novel that lasts
for 1500 pages in
small print?

   you'd begin by listening
to music: with lyrics,
and reading poetry...

      and being able to tell
someone what the poem
was about...
   and the lyrics of the song...

i've changed...
and it only took me a month
of being without
internet access...
what i've lost is:
the ability to become engrossed
in this medium...

well... at least ladden
with conversational overtones
type of poetry:
is much better than
any piece of journalism...

given journalism:
as a style of literature is...
well...
pretty much all the opinion
pieces in the times
(English edition)
are alien to me...

        i can't relate to them...
sure...
the classical type of journalism:
what, when, where?
  that's passable as in:
reading an encyclopedia...

but the opinion pieces are...
sorry to say:
     unreal...
             so i give them a pass...

but coming back
to poking around for a niche
on the internet...

               it must be exhausting...
being like a cow during
summer in a pasture...
   bothered by so many
bothersome flies...

- and it's not even that i want
to express a freedom
of speech that could be...
anti p.c.,

              i...
                          i'd much
prefer a subtle variety of
presence...
                a shadow presence...
all of and all the much
more of an existential
lethargy that's
become a fine, fine architecture
that consolidates
a man in a throng...

but when internet "content
creators"
   drop videos...
of running around this and there
with their cameras...

hmm...
i walked past the mosque
between
whitechapel and aldgate
drinking a beer in public...
that day i walked
from the sq. mile
to Goodmayes...
i managed four beers...
drank in public...
sure...
   a few snoops along
the way...
                   ***** looks
from passing cars by young
Muslim men...

but... i stopped caring...
truly... which is not the same
as: not giving a ****...

i very much concerned
myself in chancing
a public toilet to take a whizz...

were you ever hand-cuffed
for taking a whizz in
a back alley,
and being miraculously
un-cuffed?

           - once i found
a police van to be the next
best thing to a taxi
back home...

- fun fact:
if something hits a police car,
like i once did on
a bicycle...
the smart-car stops,
locks in...

    - and the incident needs
to be reported...
i said to the pair
of officers: i'm watching
Wimbledon back home,
i live 5 miles away,
can i go?

nope...
i had to wait for them
to report the incident,
before the central
office could unlock their
patrol car...

i.e. sometimes i can't
exactly stomach some
of these ivory tower
"content creators"...

good thing i invested
my money in a gramaphone
and not a camera / mic.,
that ship has sailed,
long time ago...
and i'm not going
to bother with that medium
any time soon.
In one and out if the other is not blocked by wax,

You know that
personal hygiene is bankrupt when
your ears sprout potatoes,

'now't wrong that a dab of soap won't clear', me da' used to say

Steep is only that which we steep in
that which we keep inside.

An assortment if thoughts can be this on a morning in June when the bus comes too soon and yippee there really is room
on the top.

On to the platform.
ready to view?
I see a aeroplane
hanging in the sky
it doesn't seem to move
can you explain why?

heading to Poplar which used to be popular
until U went away.

and here's the asylum
( picture included)
denuded of lunatics
home now for the heretics
(***** those on benefits)

it's changing too quick,
and where do the sick go
or don't we help them
no more?

And they're already out
shaking their buckets,
money for this one
money for that one
I haven't got none,
where does it go
and who gets relief,
is charity the thief
in our midst?

We're not supposed
to ask awkward
questions like this.
let's
ask them anyway.

Armed police down
on Whitechapel road
( picture not included )
for security reasons
treason is trending
bridges need mending
and yet
who is it out there defending
the system?

five an hour at a push
who's driving this bus?
I'm at a loss
but
for certain it ain't
Sterling Moss.

Wednesday
bedless day
work today
and the guy
In front of me
earphones on
looks like a
nodding donkey
gone wrong.


If life is a pipe dream
why then
this smoke screen
what is it hiding?
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2018
if only with a sense of irony, if that word is
even remotely meaningful anymore -
what you, what is irony?
I was supposed to be writing this an our
early, far far away, in lil Charlie's kingdom
come, or whenever that old hag will
thrown in the towel and hip,
just itching, itchy winking spider starting
spinning a mandala on my rechthand...
fingers begging for the dough
or the copper strings und...
english-german
    english-polish-german...
polish-english-german
          polish-german...
my axis of the beyond,
russian would too be handy,
had not the orthodox Athenians
dug tunnels behind the Roman empire
and moved straight from Greek
to Cyrillic... alas... rigid Latin rubric,
german grammar engineering,
and a slavic hot head for drink,
     plus the Anglican lisp behind
a thespian: Y-tongue serpentine...
                     siamese kiss...
                                   on the 19th April,
jests... a bothersome headache...
the Warsaw ghetto uprising...
   never mind, upon return to Israel,
like and p.t.s.d. baptism, scolded and shunned,
apparently not rubber enough,
not eventually reaching the palms
and date trees of Tel Aviv...
      don't worry... grey Sarajevo was around
the corner, around the corner the deflated
Ottoman...
         to tell the truth: what I inherited
is, perhaps but a ditto, making me nothing
more than a Ditto Eddie...
                    like grating root veg for a clear
soup, instead, floating, murky floodgates
open...
           what are these names,
these mental tattoos supposed to do
to me? at least in England the are but two
dates summarising the 20th century,
11:11:11 (Armistice) and 1966...
                    and that's about the summary
of England, as given by pedagogy...
   only when watching Deutchland '83...
    beauty in the west is achieved by
creating an en masse consent of apathy...
which isn't exactly verbatim...
                    somehow quasi immersed,
a return of an "exiled" 8 year old...
westerplatte isn't exactly the story
  of thermopylae... but give it enough
time and there too will come a window
of necessary myth-making, id est:
exaggeration...
            i am i am a psyche-mongrel...
which transcends whatever the other
mongrel is...
            but the transcendental menu
changes...
   on a side, in philosophy:
in the phenomenological vernicular,
is a nation a phenomenon,
or a Kantian res per se, id est: noumenon?
apparently both...
        the Mongols became a phenomenon
of the golden horde, subsequently
some polished glass fatamorgana
                                      north of Gobi...
flatter than a Parisian pancake...
        a dry horse meat blood drinking boom,
Baghdad gambling houses
               were skulls were thrown with
painted one to sixes, blindly from a bag...
and whenever Islam thinks it stopped
the horde, and didn't assimilate them
into Crimea where Mongol became Tatar...
they'll cite the battle of ain jalut...
    and mamluk becomes synonym with
janissary, meaning,
probably one of those children from that
infamous Stephen of Cloyes expedition...
which I hardly think was a noble cause...
that ******* slave handler of orphans
I can add, to the wheel of Fortune of Dante's
inferno!
              a year from now on whatever
day or month, it will be 75 years from
the next kamikaze expedition...
        sure,  applause,
but on a lesser note...
in a tiny town like this,
come to think of it,
    i'm only 2nd generation urban...
my grandmother was born in the country
(or rather on the Front)
my great-grwndmother (who I still remember)
was born there...
     and you see these remnants,
after all, Ukraine the bread basin of Europe...
after all Poland und der Größer Pyr
    (Posen)...
                     ******* mental grafitti
everywhere, beg to differ if you think you're
walking on eggshells, relics,
      sacred ground, schloß...
    or Hegel's the philosophy of right...
seriously GDR had a problem with Shakespeare
over Marx?
    I have a problem with Marxism being
at once the Liverpool Project co. Engels
and as much, a critique of Hegel's lecture
notes...
I can feel England breathing on my neck,
the relentless misery beyond
the south east, the nibbling, nibbling,
scuttling vividness of the last east end rat
making it to Romford, as spotted
at the bus stop...
   ****... if the rats are leaving London
and moving further afield into Essex County,
what the hell does that tell ya' about Cockneys?
yesterday spring, today:
            these feral lands...
                if you want a sample of Ukraine,
head to the West Warsaw train station ***
bus station... even the signs are written in
Ukrainian...
        but alas, no Polish-Lithuanian romantic
heading to Donetsk...
because how far back does history become
revival,  when nostalgia becomes
less thought + sigh...
        and more... well, the ******* caliph
of Baghdad and the hidden gem miles
from Tripoli?
                            and should you know,
I think Assad is going on the Haj...
just shy off a slap-head, given the shaved
moustache...
                       at what point can we cut off
a the criminality of past events?
well, apparently inheritence is taxable
on two fronts... material goods,
and psst hush hush events of our ancestry...
but history as a criminal act not
perpetrated by future examples of
"said" peoples? mind boggling...
            looks like ol' Jack of Whitechapel,
the ghoul, is more in favour
than your everyday German...
                                       ah, no ancestry,
no inheritance... tax...
                 hence the romance with ol' Jack...
unless you compare that to
the reality of the mechanisation
of serial murders,  their frequency etc etc.,
but history as a crime,
               a little tapeworm spawn lying
dormant in some distant body...
keen whisper says to me...
what if anorexic women were to ingest
a tapeworm...
   how would a tapeworm react to
a body that didn't want to eat?
secrete some hallucinogenic?
after all, the idea is not far from the medieval
ages, and how leeches were used
to drain, bad blood (schlechtblut)...
      for all i know tapeworms are not
feral parasites, not worms in dog insestines...
they're clinal parasites,
like bacteria in yoghurts are clinical...
all it takes is one brave soul
suffering from anorexia to ingest a tapeworm
spawn...
                 evidently a hit and miss,
a parasite will know if the host body
is worth attaching itself to the small insestine wall,
after which, its evolutionary mechanism
will kick in... and the host will be "forced"
to eat...
              and that comes from a cul de sac
idea from a schizophrenic friend of mine...
   he had the delusion of being a tapeworm host...
but... he didn't exactly know what a tapeworm
could be used for... should Europe
return to the Dark Ages barbarism,
and using leeches...
                hey... it wasn't called west,
before it was called wild...
         at least a tapeworm has a mouth
at the head rather than a mouth
in its bellybutton...
                    oddly enough cancer,
that botanical translation with roots
in mistletoe has no known mouth...
pseudo fungus...
                              yes yes, let's play
normies... the antibiotics are just about
to run out... no wild ideas are going to save,
the niche markets of ailments, akin to
anorexia.

— The End —