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1.
From my
uneasy bed
at the L’Enfant,
a train's pensive
horn breaks the
sullen lullaby of
an HVAC’s hum;
interrupting the
mechanical
reverie of its
steadfast
night watch,
allowing my ear
to discern
the stampede
of marauding
corporate Visigoths
sacking the city.

The cacophony
of sloven gluttony,
the ***** songs of
unrequited privilege
and the unencumbered
clatter of radical
entitlement echoes
off the city’s cold
crumbling stones.

The unctuous
bellows of the
victorious pillagers
profanely feasting
pierces the
hanging chill
of the nations
black night.

Their hoots
deride the train
transporting
the defeated
ghosts of
Lincoln’s last
doomed regiments
dispatched in vain
to preserve a
peoples republic
in a futile last stand.

The rebels have
finally turned the tide,
T Boone Pickett’s
Charge succeeds,
sending the ravaged
Grand Army of the
Republic sliding
back to the Capitol,
in savage servility,
gliding on squeaky
ungreased wheels
ferrying the
Union’s dead
vanquished
defenders to
unmarked graves
on Potters Field.

The Rebels
joyous yell
bounces off
the inert granite
stones of the
soulless city.

The spittle
of salivating
vandals drips
over the
spoils of war
as they initiate the
disassemblage,
the leveling and
reapportionment
of the grand prize.

The clever
oligarchs
have laid claim
to a righteous
reparation
of the peoples
assets for
pennies on the
dollar.

Their wholly
bought politicos
move to transfer
distressed assets
into their just
stewardship
through the
holy justice
of privatization
and the sound
rationale of
free market
solutions.

In the land of the
pursuit of property,
nimble wolf PACs
of swift 527, LLCs
have fully
metastasized
into personhood;
ascending to
the top of the
food chain in
America’s
voracious
political culture;
bestriding
the nation to
compel the
national will
to genuflect
to the cool facility
of corporate
dominion.

As the
inertial ******
of the plaintive
locomotive
fades into
another old
morning of
recalcitrant
Reaganism,
it lugs its
ambivalent
middle class
baggage toward
it’s fast expiring
future.

I follow
the dirge
down to
the street
as the ebbing
sound fades
into the gloom
of the
burgeoning
morning,
slowly
replacing the
purple twilight
with a breaking
day of cold gray
clouds framing
silhouettes of
cranes busily
constructing
a new city.

The personhood of
corporations need
homes in our new
republic; carving
out new
neighborhoods
suitable for the
monied citizens
of our nation.

First amongst
equals, the best
corporate governance
charters form
the foundation of
the republic’s
new constitution.
Civil rights
are secondary
to the freedom
of markets; the
Bill of Rights
are economically
replaced by the
cool manifests
of Bills of Lading.

The agents of
laissez faire
capitalism
nibble away
at the city’s
neighborhoods
one block at a time;
while steady winds
blows dust off
the National Mall.

Layers of the
peoples plaza are
plained away with
each rising gust.  

History repeats
itself as the Joad’s
are routed from their
land once again.

A clever
mixed use
plan of
condos and
strip malls
is proposed
to finally help the
National Mall
unlock its true
profit potential.

As America’s
affection for
federalism fades
the water in
the reflection pool
is gracefully drained.

We the people
can no longer
see ourselves.

The profit
potential of
industry is
preferred over
the specious
metaphysical
benefits
of reflection.

The grand image,
the rich pastiche,
the quixotic aroma
of the national
melting ***
is reduced to the
sameness of the
black tar that lines
the pool and the
swirling eddies of
brown dust circling
the cracked indenture.

From his not so
distant vantage point,
Abe ponders the
empty pool wondering
if the cost of lives
paid was a worthy
endeavor of preserving
the ****** union?  
Has the dear prize
won perished from
this earth?

Was the illusive
article of liberty  
worth its weight in
the blood expended?

Did the people ever
fully realize the value
of government
by the people,
for the people?

Did citizens of
the republic
assume the
responsibilities to
protect and honor
the rights and privileges
of a representative
government?

Now our idea
and practice of
civil rights is measured
and promoted as far as
it can be justified by
a corporate ROI, a
shareholder dividend,
an earmark or a political
donation to a senators
unconnected PAC.

The divine celestial
ledgers balancing
the rights and
privilege of free people
drips with red ink.  

Liberty, equality
fraternity are bankrupt
secular notions
condemned as
expensive
liberal seditions;
hatched by
UnHoly Jacobins,
the atheist skeptics
during the dark times
of the Age of Enlightenment.

Abe ponders
the restoration
of Washington’s
obelisk, to
repair the cracks
suffered  from
last summer’s
freak earthquake.

I believe I detect
a tear in Abe’s
granite eye
saddened by the
corporate temblors
shaking the
foundations
of the city.

2.

The WWII Memorial
is America’s Parthenon
for a country's love
affair with the valor
and sacrifice of warfare.

WWII forms the
cornerstone of
understanding the
pathos of the
American Century.

During WWII
our greatest generation
rose as a nation to
defeat the menace of
global fascism and
indelibly mark the
power and virtue of
American democracy.

As Lincoln’s Army
saved federalism, FDR’s
Army kept the world safe
for democracy.

Both armies served
a nation that shared
the sacrifice and
burden of war to
preserve the grace of
a republican democracy.

Today federalism
crumbles as our
democracy withers.

The burden
of war is reserved
for a precious few
individuals while
its benefits
remain confined to
the corporate elite.

Our monuments
to war have become
commercial backdrops
for the hollow patriotism
of war profiteers.

We have mortgaged
our future to pay
for two criminal wars.

The spoils of
war flow into the
pockets of
corporate
shareholders
deeply invested
in the continuation
of pointless,
destructive
hostilities.

Our service
members who
selflessly served
their country come
home to a less free,
fear struck nation;
where economic
security and political
liberty erodes
each day while the
monied interests
continue to bless
the abundance
of freedom and riches
purchased with the
blood and sweat
of others.

America desperately
needs a new narrative.

The spirit of the
Greatest Generation
who sacrificed and met
the challenge of the 20th
Century must become
this generations spiritual
forebears.

The war on terror
neatly fits the
the corporate
pathos of
militarism,
surveillance
and the sacrifice
of civil liberties
to purchase
a daily measure
of fear and
economic
enslavement.

It must be rejected
by a people committed
to building secular
temples to pursue
peace, democracy,
economic empowerment,
civil liberties and tolerance
for all.

Yet this old city
and the democratic
temples it built
exulting a free people
anointed with the
grace of liberty
is being consumed
in a morass of
commercial
polyglot.

3.

During the
War of 1812
the British Army
burned the
Capitol Building
and the White House
to the ground.

Thank goodness
Dolly Madison saved
what she could.

The new marauders
are not subject to the
pull of nostalgia.  

They value nothing
save their
self enrichment.

They will spare nothing.

Our besieged Capitol
requires Lincoln’s troops
to be stationed along the
National Mall to defend
the republic.

The greatest peril
to our nation
is being directed
by well placed
Fifth Columnists.

From the safety
of underground bunkers,
in secure undisclosed
locations within the city’s
parameters, a well financed
confederacy employing  
K Street shenanigans
are busy selling off
the American Dream
one ear mark
at a time, one
huge corporate
welfare allotment
at a time.

The biggest prize
is looting the real
property of the people;
selling Utah,
auctioning off
the public schools,
water systems, post offices
and mineral rights
on the cheap
at an Uncle Sam
garage sale.  

The capitol is
indeed burning
again.

Looters are
running riot.

The flailing arms
of a dying empire
fire off cruise
missiles and drone
strikes; hitting the
target of habeas
corpus as it
shakes in its
final death rattle.
I make a pilgrimage
to the MLK Jr.
Monument.

Our cultural identity
is outsourced to
foreign contractors
paid to reinterpret
the American Dream
through the eyes
of a lowest bidder.

MLK has lost
his humanity.

He has been
reduced to a
a Chinese
superhuman
Mao like anime
busting loose from
a granite mountain while
geopolitical irony
compels him to watch
Tommy Jefferson
**** Sally Hemings
from across the tidal
basin for all eternity.  

MLK’s eyes fixed in
stern fascination,
forever enthralled
by the contradictions
of liberty and its
democratic excesses
of love in the willows
on golden pond.

Circling back to
Father Abraham’s
Monument,  I huddle
with a group of global
citizens listening
to an NPS Ranger
spinning four score
tales with the last full
measure of her devotion.

I look up into Abe’s
stone eyes as he
surveys platoons
of gray suited
Chinese Communist
envoys engaged
in Long Marches
through the National Mall;
dutifully encircling cabinet
buildings and recruiting
Tea Party congressmen
into their open party cells.

This confederacy
is ready to torch
the White House
again.

Congressmen and
the perfect patriots
from K Street slavishly
pull their paymasters
in gilded rickshaws to
golf outings at the Pentagon
and park at the preferred
spots reserved for
the luxury box holders
at Redskin Games.

They vow not to rest
until the house of the people
is fully mortgaged to the
People’s Republic of China’s
Sovereign Wealth Fund.

4.

A great
Son of Liberty like
Alan Greenspan
roundly rings
the bells of
free markets
as he inches
T Bill rates
forward a few
basis points
at a time; while
his dead mentor
Ayn Rand
lifts Paul Ryan
to her
Fountainhead teet.
He takes a long
draw as she
coos songs
from her primer
of Atlas Shrugged
Mother Goose tales
into his silky ears.

The construction
cranes swing
to the music
building new private
sector space with
the largess of
US taxpayers
money; or
more rightly
future generations
taxpayer debt.

Libertarians,
Tea Baggers, Blue Dogs
and GOP waterboys
eagerly light a
match to the
the crucifixes
bearing federal
social safety
net programs
to the delight
of NASDAQ
listed capitalists
on the come,
licking their chops
to land contracts
to administer
these programs
at a negotiated
cost plus
profit margin.

Citizens
dependent
on programs
are leery
shareholders
are ecstatic.

To be sure
our free
market rebels
don disguises
of red, white
and blue robes
but their objectives
fail to distinguish
their motives and
methods with
some of the finest
Klansman this
country has
ever produced.

5.

DC is a city
of joggers
and choppers.

Corporate
helicopters
wizz by the
Washington
Monument,
popping erections
for the erectors
inspecting the progress
of the cranes
commanding the
city skyline.

USMC drill team
out for a morning
run circles the Mall.

The commanding
cadence of the
DI keeps us
mindful of the
deepening
militarization of
our society.

A crowd  
rushes
to position
themselves,
genuflecting
to photograph
a platoon on
the move.

I try to consider
the defining
characteristics of
Washington DC.

DC is all surface.

It is full of walls
and mirrors.

Its primary hue
is obfuscation.

Open
communication
scripted from well
considered talking points
informs all dialog.

The city is thoroughly
enraptured in narcissism.

Thankfully, one can
always capture the
reflection of oneself in
the ubiquitous presence of
mirrors.  

Vanity imprisons
the city inhabitants.

Young joggers circle the
Mall and gerrymander
down every pathway
of the city.  

They are the clerks,
interns and staffers of
the judicial, executive
and legislative branches.

They are the children
of privilege.

They will never
alter their path.

You must cede the walk
to their entitlement
of a swift comportment
or risk injury of a
violent collision.

These young ones
portray a countenance  
of benevolent rulers.  

They seem to be learning
their trade craft well from
the senators and judges
whom they serve.

They appear confident
they know what's best
for the country and after
their one term of tireless
service to the republic
they look forward to
positions in the private
sector where they will
assist corporations
to extend their reach
into the pant pockets
worn by the body politic.

6.

Our nations mythic story
lies hidden deep in the
closed rooms of the
museums lining the
Mall.

I pause to consider
what a great nation
and its great people
once aspired to.

I spy the a
suspended
Space Shuttle
hanging in dry dock
at the air and
space museum.

Today America’s
astronauts hitch
rides on Russian
rockets.

America rents a
timeshare from
the European
space agency to
lift communication
satellites into orbit.

Across the Mall
I photograph
John Smithson’s
ashes in its columbarium.  

I fear it has become a
metaphor for America’s
future commitment
to scientific inquiry
and rational secular
thinking.

I am relieved to
discover a Smithsonian
exhibit that asks
“what does it mean
to be human?”

The Origins of Humans
exhibit carries a disclaimer
to satisfy creationists.

The exhibit timidly states
that science can coexist
with religious beliefs and
that the point of the exhibit is
not to inflame inflame religious
passions but to shed light on
scientific inquiry.

I imagine these exhibits
will inflame the passion of
the fundamentalist
American Taliban and
provide yet another
reason to dismantle
the Moloch of Federalism.

The pursuit of science
remains safe at the
Smithsonian for now.

7.

Near K Street at
McPherson Park
a posse of
well dressed
lobbyists, the
self anointed
uber patriots
doing the work
of the people
stroll through
the park
boasting a
healthy population
of bedraggled
homeless.

The homeless
occupy the benches
that have been
transformed into
pup tents.

Perhaps some of
the residents of this
mean estate were
made homeless by a
foreclosed mortgage.  

The K Street warriors
can be proud that their
work on behalf of the
banking industry has
forestalled financial market
reform.  

Through it exacerbates
the homeless problem it has
allowed these K Street titans to
profit from the distress of others.

Earlier in the day
I photographed
a homeless man
planted in front of
the Washington
Monument.

I wonder
if my political
voyeurism is
an exploitation of
this man’s condition?

I have more in common
then I probably wish to
admit with my K Street
antagonists.  

In another section
of the park the
remnants of a
distressed OWS
bivouac remain.

The legions of sunshine
patriots have melted away
as the interest of the
blogosphere has waned.

As the weather
improves Moveon.org
and democratic
party operatives
pitch tents in an
effort to resuscitate
the moribund
movement.

They hope
to coop any
remaining energy
to support their
stale deception,
a neoliberal vision
based solely on the
total capitulation
to the bankrupt
corporatocracy.

I heard someone say
a campaign lasts a
season; while a
movement for social
change takes decades.

If that metric proves
correct, and if the
powers don’t succeed
in compromising the
people’s movement
I’ll be three quarters
of a century old
before I see
justice flowing like
a river once again.

8.

I circle back to
the L’Enfant and
find myself
tramping amidst
the lost platoon
of Korean War
soldiers.

My feet drag
in the quagmire
of grass covering
the feet of this
ghostly troop.

My namesake
uncle was a
decorated
veteran of this
conflict and Im
sure I detect
his likeness
in one of the
statues.

The bleak call
of a distant train
sounds a revelry
and I imagine this
patrol springing
to life to answer
the call of their
beloved country
once again.

Yet they remain
inert.  

Stuck in a
place that the
nation finds
impossible to
leave.

The eyes of the
men stare into
an incomprehensible
fate.  

They see the swarms
of Red Army infantrymen
crossing the Yellow River
streaming toward
them in massive
human waves,
the tips of
sparkling bayonets
threatening to slash
the outmanned
contingent fighting
to bits.

They are the
first detachment
to bravely confront
the rising power
of China many
thousands of
miles away
from their homes.

America like
this lone company
is overwhelmed
and lost in the
confusion
that confronts
them.

Looking up
I perceive the
bewilderment
of my muddled image
reflected on the
marble walls
surrounding
the memorial.

I am a comrade-in-arms,
a fellow wanderer sojourning
with th
mannley collins Jul 2014
Is such a big and impossible to miss step for a scribbler
of poetry free poems to trip over.
A step that cannot be ignored, except consciously and conscientiously.
Such a person as a scribbler of poetry less poems would be a person who cannot tell the difference between truth and truthfulness.
A person whose sole raison d,etre in pretending to be a poet is their lifelong angst in being unable to escape from being under the control of  their mind and its operating system --the Conditioned Identity.
The Conditioned Identity,which is the facetious and morally dishonest "I am a poet" mask that is the consciously adopted Conditioned Identity--the operating system for the Mind.
In the great scheme of things becoming just another member of the human GroupMind--one who doesn't count--not even on the fingers of one hand-.
One,who,in the grand scheme of things,never has counted and never will count-call them countless.
Shadows that flicker and dim on the walls of the Prison of political, racial,national,familial and religious conformity
And these worthless scribblers of poetry less poems do have an all consuming conditioned habit  of consciously ignoring truthfulness and integrity and substituting pathetic sub-teen lower middle class emo whinging "truth"--about their "art" and "insight"and "vision"and their "truth"--always their worthless "truth".
Sitting and mourning the fulfilling love that always evades them and always will evade them--unless they let go of the conditioned identity and the Mind--consigning them to the dustbin of history--where they rightfully belong.
Angst ridden whingers all--in love with their image in the mirror of Minds oh so believable deception.
Scribbling about a conditional possessive love that would have been a valueless truth but never can be the essence of truthfulness.
A conditional possessive love that never was and never will be unconditional and non-possessive.
Whinging about nothing more than conditional love and a truthfulness that never can be for them--- as we see openly here and there and everywhere there are scribblers of poetry less "poetry" who use sites such as this to scribble their pretentious infantile nonsense.
Poverty of values and integrity,orphaned from the Isness of the Universe, children of worthless technological consumerism and followers of false oligarchic hopes.
With their greedy gobs open for any crumbs falling from the rich peoples tables,like baby chicks in the nest--feed me feed me they screech.
Colluding with like minded betrayers of truthfulness,groupminds of
limp wristed bombastic poseurs.
Deluding themselves by babbling media made inane celebrities
empty insights and twisted conclusions--purveyors of puerile pettiness.
Oligarchic media celebrities noted only for the illusions between their ears,and the beguiling way they collude with each other to delude themselves.
Ludare!
Oh how they love to play mind games
Lives spent colluding with these babbling worthless celebrities who know the price of everything and the value of nothing,
Pompous posturing pretentious pissants of aesthetic poverty.
Bound together into a worldwide consumers Groupmind,
persuaded by perverts of PR into believing in the Illusion of Wealth and Demockery that the Oligarchy sells.
To step over the truthfulness threshold is,indeed, to  leave behind their
security blankets of "truth and beauty and revealed knowledge"
and the concomitment meaningless verbiage about "veracity" and "existence".
Shallow and unrequited attempts to own another that the weak and unwanted call "love".
Stomping through the quagmire of conditional love
up to their necks in the **** of consumer garbage.
The Conditional love of possessing another and grasping at thin air
as they submerge slowly in the seas of righteous stupidity .
poets cling to their misconceptions religiously,
poets cling to their ignorance avidly,
poets cling to their proto-fascist politics squeamishly,
with each word and stanza that they write.
Pouring out such pleasant and elegant and flowery and "deep"
words and verses(rhyming or not) that,at their core,
have only one meaning and aim.
Which is!.
To divert and confuse their readers with the"shallow beauty"
of endless strings of meaningless associated but fine sounding words .
To create a groupmind for their poetry business products.
Admire me--buy my product--join my groupmind--eulogise me,
let me rip off your energy--I need your praise,I need your lifes energy
gimme your money honey!.
The Publishing Oligarchy will bestow rewards and honours,
medals and diplomas--critiques fit only to wipe your **** on.
Book sales and the summer Poetry festival circuit--reciting and signing scribbles of narcissism--casting lecherous eyes over dripping **** or stiff wobbling **** in the adoring crowd of sycophants.
The  Media will fawn and adulate and cast its sly net
to entangle your desires in ---infamy awaits.
Come admire me and my use of other poets stolen words,
my criminality in even daring to think the word "poet" has any value.
These are my words about my inexperience and unknowingness they scream possessively in jaundiced teeny remembrance.
Remembrance of mediocre middle class homes and attitudes
of ingrained ignorance and wilful imagined self victimisation.
Eating societies poisoned dishes--.
Serve me up a burger of roasted babies on toast
from Vietnam--live on Channel Whatever.
Or chargrilled peasants from Afghanistan
with breathless commentary from
our "reporter on the spot".
Or homeless mental wrecks from the streets
of any Amerikan or World city big or small,
trailing acerbic criticism from the immoral majority.
Or dead celebrity  consumer junkies in 5 star hotels
complete with PR handouts and **** licking "friends"
positioning themselves for increased sales.
Or the children of the Oligarchs with their "I" newspapers
and inbuilt fascist attitudes.
Who spend their shallow lives hoping for the kind
of meaningless and worthless Honours and Validation
from those that do not have honour or validity..
Or the not just lame but crippled duck presidents with their finely crafted speeches that say nothing but I am a beard wearing  failure,
looking forward to penning lies and calling it a frank memoir
while holding out my hands  for the Oligarchies pennies.
Can anyone tell me where to get a bucket of truthfulness?.
A glass of honesty?.
A tumbler full of veracity?.
A beaker of back breaking honest labour?.
Can anyone tell me where I can find
a peaceful man or woman,of any of the 5 colours.
Not those merely observing a Cease-Fire
while they rearm their weapons of the lies of beauty and truth.
Oligarchy allowed social commentary.
Is there just one decent truthful man or woman out there?.
Judging by the world Id say not.
No Id say not.
Not.
There Ive said it.

www.thefournobletruthsrevised.co.uk
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2020
.i have come to realiße that... it's not so much what you write about... but the mere fact of writing... i can't imagine myself being subjected to something, like a narrative, or furthering a character study... i can be the object of whatever is whimsical enough to come into my head of its own accord - i want to forget forcing something to come into this puncture, this dam, this incision that i am coordinating... and it's not that i'm objecting to something, but i am not going to subject myself to - no more than a whim, of its own desires... with no attached: i think so too... it's not about what i write anymore: it's the fact that i write... if i'll be able to spew 3 thousand words tonight... i'll be content... because... i know that i have crossed the threshold of not being left "satisfied": nonetheless constipated by an instagram haiku... mind you... that's a very troubling hindsight note you have in there... wouldn't an object the size of the earth... in a vacuum of space... create its own winds to imitate movement? there is no wind on the moon... yes... and we're talking hindsight from 420BC... the moon landing happened in the 20th century... let's give it some times before that becomes an obvious hindsight too... do you feel movement - rotating - did the turkish dervishes help at all?

the fine line between: competition and corporation,
otherwise known as a: very, very, naive poo'em...

by a definition alone:
it's not so much concerning whether this
would ever become a capitalism vs.
a communism "debate"...

after all - i'm ref. walking a tight-rope...

of the latter, verbatim:
'an association of individuals,
created by law or under authority of law,
having a continuous existence independent
of the existences of its members
and powers and liabilities distinct from
those of its members'...

can i just point out, foremost,
in an environment of competition laws can be bent...
to add to: the spectacle...
the athletics doping scandals:
it's within a spirit of competition...
the sprinters are not corporating for give
a spectacle... they are competing...
for the the spectacle...
ask me again the difference between...
what used to be a competitive event
done during leisure hours...
and what was a leisure event akin
to reading...
and ask me again: the difference between
taking part in the event of competing...
and watching a competition -
and what had to be involved to give
the spectacle its architecture...
i don't think it was so much competition
as it was corporation... never mind for now...

after all... how many times have laws
been bent when watching a football match?
the passing of law is hardly an objective
crux that so many "rational" and logic-"riddled"
people stress - can be made by one man...
sure... laws in vivo - science and what not...
these objective safety-nets...
that can lead to endless to-and-fro...
but i hardly think... man is capable of passing
objective laws: in vitro... notably in -
           in unum: omni...
unless that's a schizophrenic metaphor...
which is already a metaphor when
tested on a bilingual brain...

how many people did it take...
to pass: the earth rotates around the sun?

the heliocentric model...
genesis in the west from philolaus,
heraclides ponticus,
pythagoras (hindsight...
wouldn't an object moving in
a vacuum of space... create winds of
its own?)
aristarchus of samos,
then onto philolaus of croton -
anaxagoras; whoever was
debunked by ptolemy... then so many years...
until enough time passed...
before people could take the plunge and
be certain: for old time's sake with
copernicus - well the people have been sleeping
for long enough...
enough time has passed and we can pass...
this objective truth... that the heliocentric
model is true and that the pharaohs held
no authority as the sons of the sun
in the static geocentric model...
likes Xerxes ordering the sea to the be whipped
to calm down... and become a lake...
some pharaoh must have had a wild
idea telling a sand dune to stop moving
or seeing some mt. sinai said: shrink!
so instead be said: let's build us a... perfect pyramid...
a mountain that looks... geometric from
both afar and near!

or at least that's what Homer would have
said when visiting Giza: Δ'uh!

so a single man is somehow justified
in passing an objective truth?
unless the mob encores...
but what about the jury - a trial without a jury
is any trial at all...
murky ground if you ask me...
i don't expect man to pass...
judgement for a universal equilibrium...
but what i do expect is that:
he doesn't think he's capable of this: grandiosity!
clearly he's not... the objective reality
of falling... the subjective: i'm right as
allocated the status judge: therefore i'm standing still.

competition in a medical environment...
only in the realm of psychiatry...
and the mine-field of misdiagnosed misfortunes...
but i hardly think... competition is a catalyst
for getting surgery done...
corporation, yes...
among farmers? a rare treat....
a hobby pursuit for a selected fraction of
the crop... the dear-to-my-heart "g.m." tomato...
but all the other tomatoes... need to be harvested...
but this my pet-tomato... which needs to be:
THIS BIG! another matter...

sport and competition...
but work... and competition?
no wonder work and competition,
rather than corporation gives end results as...
who's wearing the most trendy sneakers?
who's social media account requires...
the most editing? who's child is the one with
the smartphone? etc. etc.

the bait of the poo'em is that it's naive:
but i think it is - so there's that to begin with...

i still can't fathom that "capitalism" was solely
promulgated on competition -
i'm still having to address the "model" as...
having to retain a "socialist" aspect akin to corporation
to get away with... what later became:
an all out economic "war" of competition...

naive utopian of me to somehow huddle
at the fireplace of corporation...
work - if so many people hate their work...
what would be the only gratifying
alleviation? and i'm pretty sure some places of work
are less about competition: and more about
corporation - as i write this...
the british national health service...
some people will compete by cutting corners...
competition will lead to doping scandals...
competition is... an Elisium for the few
and... a crab-bucket for the some...
call them the 10% cliff-hangers...

i've noticed it in poetry... slam poetics...
what not... this affair is already riddled with too many
****-up ****-wit window-lickers:
of which i am primo...
but i don't think it necessary to compete...
this was never about competition...
not every work is required to be
tinged with competition...
sometimes... it's just better to corporate...
do... undertakers compete?
do... postmen compete?
last time i heard: each is allocated his volume
of letters... it doesn't matter whether
he finishes his chores before the other postmen...
no postman is stupid enough
to take up someone else's allocated letters...
the first finishes his chores sooner...
the latter works overtime without pay...
it's a corporation of endeavours...
all the same... but there is no need to give these
postmen running orders when
they can walk the ******* mile...

competition within the realm of sport is one
thing... i guess a long time ago...
some people engaged in competition: sports...
to escape the general lagging begin plateau
of corporation... Rome wasn't build in
a single day... others dedicated themselves to
slouch and sloth of expanding the cranium
by reading a book...

the naive is still the bait...
is conscripting in an army...
about competition... or following orders and hierarchy
and therefore: not solely about corporation?
hierarchy you ask...
well... wouldn't that be something borrowed from
plutocracy / nepotism?
competition in an army environment...
what if you're in the royal guard
competing at what... shooting more blanks
into the sky expecting to shoot down the moon
at a wrestling-match fake
of staging of a state funeral?!
the cannons sounded... and that's all these
ever did... they were shooting with
empty wallnut shells! the wallnuts were
eaten by gunpowder gremlins long ago...
before the pomp & circumstance was shot
with: aenemic *****...

this is not a capitalism vs. a communism
debate... communism was riddled with nepotism...
come to think of it...
capitalism is not there yet...
but it's already there...
from what i've heard...
capitalism as this utopia ideal is not a meritocracy:
exceptions are made...
cicero was an exception of the roman empire
under nero...
exceptions and genetic freaks...
is this still a naive poem?

i can understand where competition works -
notably in what jobs it might work...
but most jobs require a stable work ethic
of corporation...
perhaps all self-employed entrepreneurs...
"perhaps" have no corporation in mind...
to a greater degree of orientating themselves...
in that corporation is: outside the bracket...
if everyone was suddenly...
self-employed... there would be no fear of...
the robotic onslought to come...
at least then... the microcosm would open...
and there would no longer be any employees...
just self-employed facets of...
"corporations in name only"...
which they already are...
corporations in name only...
given that... the corporations are no longer
competing with each other...
they have consolidated on a monopoly...
and since they are no longer competing with each
other... they have designated their former...
inter-competition into a hierarchal intra-competition
of "employees"...

can a bus driver, or a tube train operator compete?
by law... you can only drive a bus for 8 hours...
to operate a tube train... you can do X number of hours...
and these include breaks... necessary breaks...
can you find competition in these:
ultra-corporative environments? no!
capitalism might think it is necessary to scare everyone
into: the robots are coming! time to be self-employed
and compete! compete!
but some jobs are still: primed to corporation!

could i ever see undertakers competing?
in times of a spiked demand - during a plague...
what is healthy in sport -
is not necessarily healthy in a workplace -
after all... most people detest earning money -
it's a chore - mind you: do i enjoy writing poo'etry?
am i being paid for writing it?
no... i am "volunteering"... for the love of
the art... for ****'s sake... nothing more!
nothing less!

is this still a naive poo'em: yes... sorry...
i forgot to be caustic and there's no rhyme... my bad...
but this is not a capitalism vs. communism
tirade... from the yoke of the soviet union...
i learned from my mother that...
flues weren't really that prominent...
not until the 1970s...
by then it was a common theme...
biological warfare... while the crown-virus has
yet to claim a life outside of the mandarin
genetics: in the age of propaganda journalism:
you hear a "truth" one day...
three days later you're singing along to your
own "biased" / solipstic narrative...
after a while you have to adopt the "autism"
of solipsism: the world can only bite so much
out of you... you have to turn to standards of delusion
to match to their: from the many, one...

in sport, competition is the "zeitgeist":
it's not a metaphor, it's a misnomer...
but given the " " ditto brackets - i'm tired of looking
for the: "required" word... sometimes...

by the 5th definition of competition...
it's not as direct as corporation, competition
needs to borrow from an -ology...
again, verbatim: 'rivalry between two or more
persons or groups for an object desired in common,
usually resulting in a victor and
a loser but not necessarily involving
the destruction of the latter' -

what is untrue about this is that...
the destruction of the latter is paramount...
at least these days...
am i to believe that capitalism was not,
not ever, tinged with a belief in corporation...
that it was always, somehow, only about
competition?
what was communism born from?
when did the abolishment of serfdom happen
in russia? 1861...
the abolishment of slavery happened
in england in 1865... 4 years after...
but... but!
in russia? the slaves were thought of as...
people from within russia...
in england? the slaves? en route a trade from
one foreign place to another...
wow!
all slavery: either foreign, or domestic...
and to think that communism was a "failure"...
hard to imagine... truly hard to imagine...
given that... communism was born...
4 years prior to slavery in general was abolished...
of foreign to become "nationals"...
what does english he-he-history tell us about
native slaves? four years prior to the slaves
moved from africa to the cotton candy fields...
there were slaves that were not: ***** out of africa...

reperations who's who?!
why didn't capitalism bloom in russia...
why will it never bloom - oligarchs and...
currency of modern western capitalism:
nepotism...
who is jared kushner?
mr. cushions mr. cushtie...
mr. minted in: network baron...
slavery was abolished on the international scale
in england in 1865... four years after...
internal slavery was abolished in russia... 1861...
isn't that the sort of wow you were expecting?!
so when was slavery-slavery abolished
in england?
again... if internal slavery was abolished in russia...
4 years after slavery on an international
stage was abolished...
communism was a failure because: per se...
or... was communism supposed to be...
a short-cut attempt to catch up to capitalism?
was it a failure in catching up to capitalism?
in the 2008 financial clash...
where was Poland? recession free...
again... communism was a failure per se...
but... was it a failure in terms of catching up
to capitalism?
to me... it's still catching up...
when again... we're talking... freeing people...
only 4 years prior to people who would
otherwise still be... rummaging the romances
of Kenya and seeing no albino tourists sipping
brandy on their shores...
perhaps better for the whole load of us...

i ask, again, in my naive way...
that's the difference between competition and corporation?
not much...
a football team needs to compete with other football teams,
but it needs a corporative methodology behind it...
you can sometimes spot a maverick who wants
to be the solipsist in the team and become
nothing more than the top goal-scorcer -
then again: a kevin de bruyne and the number of assists...

if there was to be a level playing field...
everyone was to be self-employed...
what fear from robots?
competition on a ford's:
each man is a cog in the assembly line...
you can't compete... were you supposed to?
i thought that the only reason sport
was fun was to be compete and corporate...
it wasn't solely about competing:
not even in tennis are you ever competing...
unless you're serving a ****-ace...
competing but also corporating:
for the spectacle: with 19shot rallies...

to reiterate: this is a really naive poo'em...
is has to be!
- again... before capitalism became this hell-scape
spiral of: fear of robotics / a.i.:
let's just see if we get enough self-employed
people on board...
oh sure: the self-employed undertaker...
the self-employed bus-driver...
i'm sure there was, what's not called:
a "healthy spirit of competition" in work related
niches of existence...

i'm an alcoholic living among workaholics...
not a pretty sight... believe me...

i'm sure that capitalism... must have began
with: a "healthy spirit of corporation"...
that one henry ford would benefit more than
all the assembly line workers: fine...
the brains is allowed the conscious efforts
to move the eyes, close them,
use the jaw... bite... do magic with the tongue...
the liver has no knowledge of alcohol...
the heart isn't exactly aware of either veins
or arteries... fine... a henry ford cigar can get
away with thinking he's not adding
a chimney to the whole affair...
or a rhine-valley load of chimneys...
the stomach doesn't know what taste is...
sure as **** the small intestine knows
what it feels like to be a woman:
should it find itself unfortunate to have
a hitchhiker tapeworm attached to it... etc. etc.

but i imagine the capitalism had a sense of
corporation before...
it worked too many psychopathic sport analogies
into itself... precursor to the fear
or a.i. robbing people of their jobs?
testing people in a self-employed job market...
again: oh sure... the self-employed undertaker...
the self-employed busdriver!
perhaps a self-employed cabbie...
a self-employed surgeon?
how would that work?

        what's that? the cult leader... would not find
a job status match... in a corporate market of ideas?
then a ******* maverick he is...
esp. with such dates as: the brian jonestown
massacre hovering over his head!

perhaps i am naive is reiterating:
work implies corporation rather than competition,
in that work implies chores...
i've seen this in my father -
he doesn't underand household chores
on the basis on corporation -
he understands them on the basis of competition...
and he's to somehow... take pleasure
in the "free bread and circus"...
when the circus is not what it used to be?
once upon a time: the circus involved
men... who were footballers...
but they also did part-time metallurgy work...
they would clock in at a certain hour...
then be let off work to play a football match...
they weren't paid: professional:
disappropriate wages...
because their "work"... was over-inflated
by the gambling syndicate dicta...

there was a utopia in Poland...
it lasted for... roughly 30 years... from 1945
through to 1975... after that the herrings
didn't want to be pickled...
the baltic sea started to boil and the fish
strarted to froth at the mouth...
it's not a nostalgia segment: i was born in 1986...
this is mythology: curating the temporal
standards of modern journalism...
history: what time ago?
50 years? elvis was abducted by aliens...
n'esst ce pas?!

slam poetry competition with fellow:
poo'em eaters...
can i jut take the armchair with Horace?
i don't feel like competing...
what am i competing for?
volume... a new YA novel?
i will not ***** language...
even if it is a language i acquired:
and it's not a tattoo native first come first served
expression...
this is not a capitalism vs. communism
affair...

all the: towel in champions of capitalism
have made it clear:
start a traditional family, start a farm...
milk some goats...
pluck some eggs... living the dream:
brown fingers and all...
                       way way out from competition
in the workplace...
so... no need to corporate...
solo does it...
                                and if i'll be needing some
milk... i'll likewise claim: an autistic
pension and enough barren land to feed
goats organic glue and toilet paper that
magically morph into... a propaganda poster...

olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum:
once i was a stump of fig,
a wood without use... this is my best Horace:
thank you, goodnight...

what is to be competed for?
rather: what it to be retained, kept, status quo
enclosed... this pride for corporation?
competition in the workplace can only go as far...
not all professions can allow competition...
some will forever retain their base:
corporation...
to compete outside the realm of sport...
sport... those with enough awareness
of the body would pursue it...
those with a bit more brain in tow...
wouldn't... the ghost limb terms:
there's nothing of note
when it comes to competing with i.q. in
mind... or corporating...
there's this ancient feat of "solipsism" and
self-bettering... rather than running
the "expected" mile...
was capitalism always this:
chicken-shack-shackled into... wishing to squeeze
out drinking water... from pig ****?

again... this is not as easy give-away
that it's a capitalism versus communism base scrutiny...
all the eastern european laid-deeds have made it into
their chandelier filled land-allotement sights of
better ****** that gynocentrism...
i don't mind...
      yes... because among the bulgarian strip-party
i'm the ottoman janissary turned
well spoken sheikh... when morocco is given...
a fictional name... and i'm the Ali
that rubs Muhammad's lamp and
averts the... most ****** schism...
oh sure... Islam would be a pure religion...
and they would be allowed to complain about
porky-pies...
but... you see... how long did it take
for a schism to emerge between the orthodox grees
and tha catholic italians?
how long did the islamic schism take
to grovel and dig trenches?
not that much...
after all... Shia... Persians... Ali Woke-oh-Haram...
and the ****'ite... the ***** muslims...
the Saudi bin-Ladens...
well... that schism... didn't take that long...
some whisper about a schism in the monotheism
of the hebrews...
ha ha! i write ha ha... but even i have to laugh
out loud... a monotheism an inbreeding
of something more than genes...
fix the idea... and continue!

by now even i know that christianity has reached
a status of polytheism...
it's the same jesus... sure sure...
via no other than the orthodox,
the catholic, the protestant (calvinist, lutheran)
standards... or the baptists... or the jay-***-***-V-and-G
standards...
next thing you know: the vegans are
the gnostic monks!
because it has to be a joke at this point...
if christianity is a monotheism...
i'm mother theresa and that albanian
that stole george w. bush' mickey mouse's watch
on a state visit...
so to complete the holy trinity...
i'll be... alastair campbell... always for the giggles...

an alcoholic among workaholics...
who always had the satan's postbox concerning
the niqab... the same ones who were to be always
quoted: the beast from the east...
jesus is coming! look busy!

i mean... no need to look busy...
when the high a tide is making a comeback...
would you believe it?
if you saw the words... united kingdom...
england, scotland, wales... ireland...
that this was not moldova?
this is a language these are letters so arranged...
by an island-dwelling folk?
if you're the first, driver...
shotgun! who are we smuggling in the passenger
seats behind us?

imagine my surprise at the rereading,
with the typo: a missing (s) in letter()
and a missing (d) in arrange(d)...
i call them... the lost key of solomon...
or my own personal, hybrid,
hard-on...
oh god kept me with a phallus...
while giving all the angels a proper chopper
of the ol' wood... **** to stump...
i'm the one that wasn't circumcised!

and all i now have to sing about... is...
a forest of pines! a forest of pines!
pines pines pines! yippy caye!
Ayad Gharbawi Jan 2010
Hi;

This is not a poem.

But given the infernal catastrophe that has befallen, I just think it is time for you Americans to listen to us people living 'out there'.

Here are my thoghts, that I submit to you with respect;


HAITIAN EARTHQUAKE: A HISTORIC MOMENT FOR AMERICA TO CHANGE ITS MISSION

Ayad Gharbawi

January 19, 2010 – Damascus, Syria


The recent Haitian earthquake is unusual in that it has destroyed the entire meagre ‘infrastructure’ of a so-called nation.
In fact, this 2010 earthquake succeeded in showing the world that the so-called ‘country’ of Haiti is nothing more than another piece of estate/land/property for a select, few oligarchs.
Anyway, the US response to this ecological/environmental holocaust that has befallen upon Haiti has been unprecedented.
America, under President Barack Hussein Obama, has behaved impeccably in Haiti.
The brilliance in Obama’s aid for Haiti is successful precisely because he has avoided previous attempts by the US to help on the basis of ‘humanitarian’ grounds, when those grounds happened to also include conflicts raging within them.
Obama avoided the mistake of getting America involved in a humanitarian crises that existed within a civil war – like what happened in Lebanon (1982-83), Somalia (1991-3), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999).
I write this article because I, as an outsider, wish ardently, to speak to you Americans.
Today, you Americans have the choice: either to follow the militaristic, expansionist policies of the US President, Theodore Roosevelt, or you may follow the path of the first morally-guided President of the US - Woodrow Wilson.
I urge you Americans to leave all countries where there are civil wars – such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and so on.
Let these countries do whatever their people wish to do against each other.
Instead, allow your great arsenal of democracy to help and intervene on humanitarian missions – in countries wherein there are no civil wars – such as you have been doing so magnificently in Haiti.
Use your power, your wealth, your US Army, Air Force, and Navy to help humans who need the helping hand of succour.
I tell you, that you Americans, once you adopt this peaceful, moral foreign; policy, you shall see that your enemies will fade.
Taleban have told you repeatedly, and have repeatedly contacted to you, telling you that they are engaged in an Afghani civil war. So why do you intrude?
Al Qaeda have told you repeatedly if you leave the Middle East, then they have no quarrel with you.
Why can you Americans not accept or understand that so long as you do not invade, occupy or create military bases in foreign lands, no one, and no organization and no party and no country will see you as an enemy?
This is a moment for you Americans do finally break off from the Theodore Roosevelt Principle (TRP) which is to attack, ****, slaughter and occupy any country you think is ‘worth it’.
And, at the same time, it is also a moment in history, when you can fully embrace the Woodrow Wilson Principle (WWP) of a foreign policy that is based on morality.
What you have done and what you are doing in Haiti is a pure act of WWP.
I believe the entire Third World applauds you and loves you for what your men and women are doing for the innocent victims of Haiti.
But, then, when other men and women, scream and shriek, saying: “Look at what these Americans are doing! They ****, butcher and ****** Afghans in order to support corrupt, drug dealing gangsters such as Hamid Karzai who, themselves, cannot control and, in any case, are not interested in ‘controlling’ their own country! So what else can you think of America’s real intentions?”
And what a good emotion-fuelled question, indeed.
What are you Americans doing fighting, losing American and Afghani blood in order to basically prop up and support criminal regimes such as the Karzai regime, whose only raison d’etre is to make profits through their various ‘business’ activities?
The more you Americans fight what are perceived as unjust, colonialist wars, the more you will create terrorists. It is a never ending cycle!
I argue and I passionately believe, that you Americans can do this. If only you US statesmen and stateswomen finally decide to adopt the beautiful, clean mantle of morality in your foreign policy.
Obviously, I do not have enough space to express my ideas and reasons. So, let me be clear: I am not advocating a slavish enactment of Wilsonian principles.
For, as an example, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US had to make a military move, because no country can allow a sick dictator to control so much of the world’s oil. There are clear instances when aggression abroad can seriously threaten US interests. But, in truth, the vast majority of the wars you Americans entered, were unnecessary: you did not need to go beyond the Yalu in 1950 in Korea; you did not need to enter the North-South Vietnamese Civil War.
Take Kosovo: yes massacres were committed on all sides. But you did not need to bomb Serbia. First and foremost, that should and must have been a problem for European powers to solve. Secondly, Kosovo was never vital for US interests. And the fact is, Kosovo could never be a so-called ‘state’. Today, it is nothing more than a geographical area run by warlords, drug dealers and other gangsters who each carve out their own territory. Was that piece of gangster-run land worthy of killing Serbians? No!
Take North Korea: let Russian, South Korea and Japan deal with that abnormal so-called state. Why do you spend money on your troops and camps there? It is not in your interests and yes, North Korea does not threaten you Americans!
The same goes for Iraq in 2003 – you did not need to invade that country for the simple reason that Baghdad posed no threat to its neighbours, and certainly no threat to Europe or to the US.  Again, you should have let the Iraqis themselves solve whatever problems they have on their fragmented plate.
You must see and feel that US lives are not expendable for pointless and futile foreign adventures.
America should help those who have suffered environmental catastrophes and who are in a war-free zone.
America should help stable, developing nations where accountability starts from Washington and right back in – Washington.
And yes, of course, America should only use its military might if it is directly threatened by any person, nation or organization.
And to reduce this hatred that has spawned against you: I tell you, a voice from a wilderness, one mute krill from amongst billions yearning for exactly what I yearn for, I tell you: remove your military bases from Europe, Japan, South America, the Gulf, and anywhere else. These military bases are seen by people as ‘evidence’ of occupation. You do not need to keep these costly outposts. Remove them. Reduce your military presence that, in any way, has no effect, except to increase fanaticism and anger amongst your people. This is especially so in the Gulf, where your presence angers the people – leave those countries and yes, you will then reduce your costs, which is obviously beneficial to you Americans.
Instead of military compounds and bases, why not enthusiastically create consortiums of companies to build American schools, universities, hospitals, housing projects and get involved in building infrastructure projects in nations that have good accountability, so no money is wasted and so can never go, instead, straight to the pockets of the leaders.
Build the world; use your superpower might to create hope in broken nations, and that effort will, in turn, build love and you shall see, your enemies shall decrease and your military costs will decrease and your building projects will bring you greater revenues.
The choice is yours: follow a Wilsonian foreign policy or a Theodore Roosevelt foreign policy.
I hope the Haitian earthquake catastrophe has shed some light on which path US foreign policy should take.

Ayad Gharbawi
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
someone once said: only the natives can be designated
free speech...
the immigrants can have their dog
and let it bark, along with whatever thinking comes
their way...

exploring the last remains of thought -
well then... suit and boot me up for some "thinking"
as i extend it into writing...

if i were of the native stock... "elsewhere":
most probably h'america or australia... even in italy
having tea with mussolini i'd be:
an expat... as an outsider among outsiders
but among my sameness-namesakes of surnames
akin to jones and smith:

i will never be an "immigrant" among...
it's not even a voice of cocern, this little voice of
mine...
an englishman who decides to move
to h'america is an expatriate for the native
englishman who stayed behind...
he's never an immigrant...

perhaps other nations view the people that left
them in such a positive light?
where else to emigrate to that doesn't
speak basic english with a tinge of
a "welcoming" plethora of accents?

proudly having expatriated...
or having to have had to humbly emigrated...
bark bite and tail in tow...
my the luck of being an expatriate...
readily prepared with a francophile basis...
e.g., or some other: less frost-bitten
idealism as the work ethic of:
work work work...

we know the english immigrants
as expatriates... but i doubt that people
from where i from would call me...
an expatriate... they'd call me...
eh... hangman noose... a deserter...
god forbid the fact that i somehow managed
to integrate... but then found myself wondering...

have, have integrated into... "what"?!
today i was truly astounded...
after all... Romford, Essex... England...
can boast about a few things...
notably? it's the past place you can buy vinyl
without amazon.co.uk...
you can actually play the buyer and the person
that loiters with his shadow...
flicking through a dictionary of sorts...
finding a record...

i actually left the house for ulterior motives...
but i succumbed to the allure...
and as i walked the January 2nd 2020 highstreet
in Romford...
i heard english... as a spoken language...
twice in the pedestrian commute...
and of course when it came to a lingua franca
scenario of buying or selling something...
otherwise:

perhaps i retained my primitive instincts
and the tongue and should have left it with a ghost
of me back in the clarifying vicinity of
an airport 50 miles from Warsaw...
i have bigger things to worry about though:
how i should start learning Romanian...
even though: i thought bilingualism was a good
idea?
it's not?

not among the natives could i ever be
an expatriate...
an ever: never... like any more thesaurus
sharpening would do the trick to balance
the optics of "perspective"...

if it wasn't a mistake...
it has still been a purchase:
freddie hubbard on the trumpet,
jackie mclean on the alto sax,
kenny drew on piano,
doug watkins on bass
and pete la roca on drums...

the only reason as to why i bought
a gramaphone was to buy the only cheap vinyl
there is... jazz...
to escape the earphones...
to find the complete volume of space
that would later be deemed:
confined to a room... cell... or some alternative
variation: but... oh jeez...
how wrong it was of me...

make a note: alto sax jazz is not for you...
remember: alto sax jazz is not for you...

a sensation of being a foreigner in
an already double-dutch foreign sense of land...
anything that drops from clinching
to the London transport system
with the trains and the tubes and buses
is: england...
the england of my youth where i remained
like that... dunce in the ****** tunes cartoons
interlude...

and what of my citizenship on paper?
wave a passport around
like a benchmark or an otherwise easy
accent-identifier?
perhaps i don't even know:
Bristolian - my best guess with this acquired
tongue...

but at least buying jazz is getting easier...
freddie hubbard a known name...
but... no... alto sax jazz is not for me...
now it figures...
i can get away on a whim when
a trumpet solos... but not when an alto sax
solos... i really can't stomach it...
will i give this Bluesnik record back?
no, i need a testament -
i have bought something
but the self-reflection is free...

there's only so much classical music escapism
you can try -
before long you realise that the people
listening to classical music...
mostly... when they make requests...
want "something soothing"...
want "something jovial"...
or usually it's a piece of music that has
been attached to a movie...
classical music - apparently doesn't feed
people a subtle stream of images...
and it's obvious: those requests are not phoned
in on by blind people...

imagine... the ****** of F... when you have ⠋
to work with...
what is an sunrise... a sunset but a dash
of colour... a spring of the heavens
an autumn of the heavens...
but my my... in this inverted listening of jazz...
⠙⠑⠑⠏
⠃⠇⠥ ⠑    DEEP BLUE...

if i were blind: and came to the pearly gates...
i'd ask for letters: primo pronto!
later i'd worry about colours and shapes...
as i'd probably stick to my first passion
and hearing this fathomless shapeless
sounds that... abide to no lineage with a recant
of a triangle's use of 90°...

otherwise... what if you've been fed
the: classical music when listened to when a child
will increase your i.q. -
but what are the chances that you will:
"regress" from listening to classical
music and take to jazz?
perhaps because jazz has to be felt,
it has to be heard, first,
rather than... the silence and scribbles
of a composer at his desk -
where a classical music composition
is very much like writing:
that whole a prior shabang!
none of the a posteriori zigzagging
of impromptu and jazz?

one thing is certain... i'm not going to
be a fan of alto sax jazz...
sonny clark on piano - yes...
art blakey on drums - yes...
kenny burrell on guitar - yes...
alto sax no... ah... but give me tenor sax
and... no please no big bang jazz
equivalent to thelonious monk...
at least jazz gives you pedestrian tastes
and whims...
nothing akin to bowing at the altar
of a Beethoven: or talking lightly of
the man - "the man"...

and who the hell said that being
objectivity "works all the time"
that objectivity "runs the marathon"...
alto sax jazz is pedestrian music...
don't get me wrong...
you want to walk down a busy street
and you want to drown the sounds
of progress: no horses sneezing,
no horses' hooves playing tic-tac-toe
chess on cobweb stones...
alto sax jazz is your take-out
walk-through...
but when you're hunched in a chair
and pecking at a keyboard with
ten good beaks of the tips of your fingers...

again: how do the hands rest before
the keyboard?
the right hand:
index middle, pinky and thumb...
the ring finger is used for the: delete button...
a revision - the pinky does the enter -
and the cascade follows...
the left hand?

primarily the index and *******...
the thumb is always attached to space...
shared with the right hand's *******
to space,
i can't remember if i ever used my ring
or pinky finger of my left arm...

so much for inverted chiromancy...
the polacks will never give me the wings
to be an expatriate...
i will be forever: he who abandoned
that land running with milk and honey...
but... look at how they stand behind those
from england that decided to go "elsewhere"...
they are not immigrants...
they are... expatriates...
have nothing filthy them it comes to
the connotation...
it's not sad it's not funny it's: somewhere
"in between"...

because we know that the only russians
that ever make it out of russia
are the oligarchs... and by that standard
of "sentiment": they're always welcome...
who wouldn't welcome the pharaohs without
giza pyramid ambitions of construction?!
passing chalk as cheese -
and passing... ink for blood...
perhaps i haven't sweated enough to be allowed
to write but as little as this...

there's always this sense of alienation
among the germanic tribes of "israel":
europe... even if they are the scots or the welsh
suckling at the teats of romulus & remus' lupa...
as the old saying goes among the slavic people
when "integrating" into a germanic-esque society -
by the time you have integrated...
there's this dog-**** pile of Babylon left...
and the germans are: "nowhere"!

the saying goes via:
if you go among the crows...
you must croak their croak...

here's to flying high as an imitation seagull!
brazen: into this arable land...
that's being teased by the Thames estuary...

passing through a Warsaw train station
i noticed the immigrants / the expatriates
on the eastern front...
mostly mongols...
notably the ukrainians...
but now in england i'm starting to think
in concrete terms... better start learning
Romanians...
and on the street: you can't see a focus of
who's here and who isn't here...
back east the Roma people stood out
like a sore thumb or a voodoo plum and...
that didn't bother the locals since they were
meshed like glue...
but, here, in england?
everyone's a sore thumb a voodoo plum...
because the natives,
the blessed idiosyncratic professional
eccentrics have left and...
i'm not going to be the first chasing them down...

London the only and last bastion is
overrun with the whole lot of us...
well: the "us" vs. "them" mentality...
don't get me wrong... i'll still listen to the concerns
of the peripheries... in this cest pool
of immigrants, degenerates...
old people who "forgot" to move...
the lunatics the in-betweeners and the old guard
clinging on...
perhaps, after all... english was a very
accomodating language...
it wouldn't take a genius to learn it from scratch
being thrown into the deep end of the pool
aged 8...
who was mute aged 8 going to school
being moved from "east" europe to this island
with... no prior to linguistic connection?
moi...

and now look at me... i'm teasing myself
with... sordid welsh as if i were ever the posterboy
for welsh nationalism...
scottish nationalism? eh... if they were to retain
their gaellic roots...

expansion:
the longing for those who have left:
in the anglo-sphere - expatriate...
the abhoring sense of those who arrive -
immigrant...
otherwise... the english are always
and everywhere: welcome...
hence the expatriate status of those
who have left their native land...
even in h'america: a shared language:
to be an immigrant... while speaking
the same language?! how preposterous!

the difference between eastern style
comedy presentation and western style
comedy presentation: on stage...

the eastern folk prefer cabaret: theatre dialogue
montages...
the western folk prefer stand-up:
monologue samuel beckett esque
performances...
'woe i... stand alone in this infinite
space and... find others to laugh with...'

- perhaps we're not being less funny because
we're lowering our "i.q.": yes, the we are...
we are... lowering...
i find lee evans to be funny...
a laurel and hardy weren't exactly funny
by modern comedy standards that:
it's only funny if it's intelligent...
if there's a crossword puzzle at the end of "it"...

perhaps pride is the shackle...
and ham... what ever happened to self-depreciating
humor that managed to somehow
elevate you as also having a sense
of humor:
do intelligent men even laugh
at something that isn't a word-play or
a corset of wit?
perhaps we're experiencing a drying of wip...
perhaps the jokes are only supposed
to come: days after as a form of
reflection on the sigma canvas:
the joke has to exist outside the performer
and the stage... it needs to be: a live-experience...
it has to take on DASEIN qualities?
it has to be internalised?

that: oh yeah... that's funny...
perhaps the same thing has to be observed
and it can't be retold in an impromptu
fashion shackled to a stage?
the stage is the new camp-fire?
i thought so too... about the television...

as: here's to slagging off everything that's
being published online bypassing
the editorial process of selection...
well... if it weren't for all the seriousness
surrounding internet banking...
and internet shopping...
pen to paper...
******* clinching a ripped roll
of cushioning paper
and a pseudo-***** imitation
for a wipe while massaging my prostate
over the enlightened prospect
of dropping the blitzkrieg plump-dump-plum
into an echoing lake in the ceramic basin...
otherwise...

a seanse with that moment of realisation:
"something is happening to us
collectively"... it's as if: we're under a spell...
oh i was under a spell today...
watching alec guinness in the fall of the roman
empire...
and as coming from a people
that were never conquered by rome?
on this fine fine island that was...
well... my hopes were also high for
the conquests of the mongol empire...
and the remains of it in the form of the tatars
in crimea...

here are my tattoos... it's hard to break from them,
it's hard to wash them away...
but at least i can attest:
my brain might be all fat and sponge and
electricity... but there's some skull and skin
to be had of it...
otherwise... why would the year 1066
be important for me... why would the magna carta
be important for me?
i too have my years in tattoos on this big brian
of mine...

otherwise there's that copernico-darwinian
surge of: journalistic science...
i still find it staggering that darwinism continues
to capture the imagination of people...
"of people"... only in Wittgenstein was left
alone in finding that Copernicus did something
astounding... this surge of "awakening"
via darwinism: this statistical bombardment
like it was some tabloid journalism:
throwing a pebble at a mountain while
also ushering in a mantra: grow by
a poppy's seed added height! grow!

perhaps i'm just jealous...
among the polacks i will never be an expatriate...
what a jealous people...
an englishman who moves to france...
comes 20 year later...
he will have never experienced
the mark of cain: immigration "humphrey bogart"...
he or she moved to france...
perhaps to italy...
i remember being in greece and...
i was nothing when i said i was ******:
but with british citizenship! to add...
so what?
well... so what greece...
i latched onto some north africans
and went to **** away the night
in some strip-bar where i had
two strippers either head o' mine...
and it was constellations galore...
grandmother Etna said:
rest here, among the smooches poor child...

i borrowed Etna from when Aeneas
"left off"...
****'s sake... this is the Meditarrean
and not the Baltic? where is the amber
the whiskey and the leverage of gratations
of time?!

i will agree. Macedonia come night traffic
of quicksilver tinging?
if the metal is cheap and you douse it in some gold?
a mountain dripping fresh from some quicksilver
from the moon peering at it?
objectivity what?

the finite plateau of snow-riddled Serbia...
and perhaps that's because these people
speak their own language...
and have so... and i'm just the next
"english" tourist...
a jack kerouac americanism and:
oh sure! sure!
spectacular fly-over country tourism!
everything's so so different!
and yet all so oh so much the same!

darwinism was going to run the 5000 meter
race... it's currently running the 10000 meter
race... god help it in running the marathon
of still pretending: old news is new news...
i can't distinguish between darwinism
and copernican discovery...
only in the english-speaking world
would this discovery not escape a criticism
from ancient greece and some, some predecesor!

wouldn't anyone just bore of darwinism
if they were told: over and over again:
the copernican "reality"?
a scientific fact is... akin to a religious dogma...
until... it becomes regurgitated with
enough time, with enough journalism and...
tabloid wind... and after a while...
it's only worthwhile to be spoken to
amnesia peoples of the world: unite!
it's hardly "stupid" or "intelligent"...
more or less overlooked...
because a pebble thrown at a mountain:
is... no added mountain to behold...
conventional wisdom is the only wisdom
that there ever was made to be made:
available...

nonetheless, the circumstance stands...
unless from the slavic hemisphere
of europe...
unlike any other circumstance: other than
the one given, among islanders...
among continent builders akin
to australia and h'america...
the post-racial societies of post-colonial
spain in south america?
ever wonder why the brazillians don't
look for inspiration from the portugese
when it comes to football?
you'd think: those yanks better have
the best football team in the world...
they haven't exactly looked back...
back at "us": oh god... tea afternoon and cricket...
baseball wha'?
basketball? "football"?
why are "we" looking forward and "they're"
looking back?
perhaps i should learn some spanish and
get some insinuation about:
the argentinian sense of lack when looking
back into spain...

or what else is there to be had?
move to Greenland... admire Denmark...
**** it: do the whole stretch and find
some locals on the Faroe Islands...
perhaps i too will find a tomorrow...
but tomorrow i will find: sobering up
and having to deal with: everything beside jazz...

mmm... "delayed gratification" prospects...
seven kings: canon palmer catholic school...
when boys are educated alongside girls...
what if i went to Ilford County High?
what if i were born to immigrant parents
and wasn't an 8 year old immigrant?
what if i went to the Ilford Ursulines?
the all-girls school... the former, Ilford County High?
what chances of me being an intellectual
******?

what, oh the chances!
perhaps praying: segregated... is a tad extreme?
but perhaps ******-exclusion policies:
teaching boys throughout their puberty
as segregated from girls in the same hormonal
development "range" is...
well! how else! you take a boy and girl
and you put them into the hormonal cocktail!
just because it's in a shared educational
environment... why these teenage pregnacies
you ask?
i wouldn't ask such blunt questions...
not since the genius of Copernicus
couldn't attract these...
psychological left-over intelligenstia clingers...
that darwinism has allowed...
what it darwinism and journalism?
everything! the ant as the ego
inside the mind of an ape...
the dormant tapeworm embryo
inside the mind of an ant:
with siesmic consequence of a disturbance
of the collective hive network...

borrow too much from an ape...
borrowing from an ape is one thing...
it's the borrowing from all other
animals: with the ape as the backdrop
that's truly bothersome!
at least religious spew the same facts
over and over again...
scientific dogma? who keeps track?
tomorrow might be the next:
butter vs. margarine controversy!
what sort of "religion" is science
(it's not a religion... if it's not...
why does it have to cohabit a bed
with journalism then, to spew "new",
"improved" facts, then?!)
when... it's so ******* finicky!

look via the ape long enough:
it won't matter whether it's a geocentric
of a heliocentric system that
reigns above your head, no torso,
a pickled spine...
legs and arms floating about like:
an octopus experiencing spasms
pickled in brine...

perhaps these are the zenith years of
darwinistic popularity...
perhaps like the copernican popularity...
there will come a time of:
fatalism... that somehow all of this
is... inevitable...

i see one answer: this cage of grammar
this cage of whatever this god made human
pressures me into complying to...
to the last typo! i will stand against it!
without caging me into a use of emoji or
some other hieroglyphic purse of:
shortened "thinking"...

the "seven silences" might have passed
around my presence that i dare not
call it: in concrete - figure...
and still my eigth silence to unmask
nothing more than a mask...

who are these immigrants, these tight brewed
broods, these furrow brows
representing the native pensive "squint":
of anything beside the eyes and a thought
of h. p. lovecraft?
perhaps inside of europe:
but as ever... without a russian passport...
without a russophobia that's
a tickling hard-on... the "in-between-land"...
perhaps the balkans...
who are we... to these germans and quasi-germans?

we use their tongue, their zunge...
their everything they will otherwise allow themselves
to deny: perhaps this is not Dublin,
this is not Glasgow this is not Cardiff...
perhaps this is not Italy,
this is not France...
perhaps this is "europe" as long as
Scandinavia is involved...

woe a we unto us: the viking Rus...
or some lent word of lost vogue...
last time i heard:
these northern ******* are in no favour
of treating the Spaniards or the Greeks
as their equals...
as long as they have rich arab pimps
race their lamborghini brute ******
down... knightsbridge...

then! and only then! iz ist europa "reconquista"!
"reconquista"... i'll defend these poor polacks
that didn't think it...
"necessary" to only learn english in order
to comply to the global dictum of neu-communist
internationalism...
- what, they didn't teach you you stupid
**** that it only took to learn from english?!
- last time i heard... not teachings polish
to a canape of anything beside the french,
the spanish... also worked!

english as a language is oh so accomodating...
the people will react like antibiotics,
naturally... enough of darwinism and you'll
be found, bound, to having to reference it...
past a de facto menu:
and more like a subjectivity...
there's only so much truth that can be stated...
before fiction has to reply...
because... how many regurgitated facts
can be regurgitated...
before the desert of fiction and...
there's only the fact of a bottle of water...
that remains...
and there's not impetus to walk toward
an oasis...
a fata morgana is hardly a scientific experience...
when experienced...
it's something associated with
a desert and within the desert must either:
live... or die...

what if etymology was to become the new
standard for journalism...
what if one were to escape this contant
bombardment of darwinism...
like it wasn't the next new vogue akin
to the copernican "revolution"?

is that even possible?
whenever i return to Poland...
esp. in Warsaw... i'm a deserter...
i'm not an expatriate...
the native english call those who left
with a sense of longing...
somehow: or at least that's the leftover...
the expatriates from the inside-out
perspective... never the immigrants...

i'm an immigrant and...
a paper citizenship is: no citizenship at all...
a passport is only worth a passport
at a border crossing...
in between the everyday daily affairs?
'where are you from?'
****... 'Bristol?!'...
i'm hardly going to speak
the cockney cockers or an essex schlang...
am i? ***!
all but ******* plumbers and church pulpit
mongers... and some over-ripe
riddle fruits: if not simply left
bottles of wine for the bears...

the first part though, bothers me...

someone once said: only the natives can be designated
free speech...
the immigrants can have their dog
and let it bark, along with whatever thinking comes
their way... in mere thinking...
and a dog barking...

the natives will only have a freedom of speech...
what if an immigrant becomes a citizen?
just asking...
what if an immigrant is granted a citizen
status?
well then... i am your humble example
of a civic nationalist...
such a confusing term...
it must be: for the natives...

oh ****... what language am i using?
the language of the... natives!
rubric civitas!
civic nationalism is reserved for:
those that came from abroad...
i guess the ethno-nationalists never made
this distinction clear:
watching their contemporaries leave their
native pit of woe...
and they would never call them:
deserters... only... only... expatriates...
after all... aren't we in the postmortem of ancient Rome?!
isn't this the time when the remnant
english come out and glorify being
the conquered people of this: lettering?

what is civic nationalism?
what is learnt, integrated nationalism...
this is civic nationalism...
how about the english forget about something,
like solving crosswords...
esp. among the middle-classes...
and let's envision their globalist dream!
let them learn a second language
and let us all become bilingual!
oh no... not polyglots... just bilingual!

i can't be an ethno-nationalist...
em... because (a) (b) and (c)?
aren't the post-colonial commonwealth
remnants of the empire the sort
civic-nationalists there's talk of?
what language am i writing in?
hebrew?! mandarin?!

ethno-natioanlism and its tribalism...
civic-nationalism and its state...
where does the church fit into all of this?
it's like not being an amuptee but
nonetheless being prescribed a "missing limb"...
the **** would i need a third arm for?
wilt the third leg allow me to run faster?!

i guess the term ethno-nationalist is
conflated with civic-nationalist in the ethno-nationalist
realm of "debate"...
a civic-nationalist is your casual parlance
h'american patriot...
patriotism in h'america: nationalism (still)...
in europe...
if we have to: hello, my name is: bob
do it all over again with the squares
and dictum assertions and what not attached...
between the ethno-nationalists and
the civic-nationalists...
the inter-nationalists...

i'm a civic-nationalist because:
i fear people need concrete examples...
i will not move back to Poland...
except on the holidays...
to visit my grandparents...
which is why i have retained the labour
of a native tongue... and "identity"...
i will remain in England...
until England becomes: Alle-Land...
and even when all these
ethno-nationalists ******* to Australia...
and become civic-nationalists over there...
well: over there good luck!

why would anyone ask an ethno-nationalist
the question: are you a civic-nationalist or?
civic- implies:
i'm a Brit from a grand "beyond":
circa 3000km away...
civic is a bewildering prefix for the nationalist
of a ethno- persuasion...
it really is... esp. when this ethno-nationalist
doesn't believe in the existence of
expatriates... that he would remain... "stuck"...
and that somehow... ethno-kin could come
and replace... those kin that left: "in good faith"...

savvy?!
Outside Words Nov 2018
Under smoldering red desert skies
Earthquake-like tremors displace sand
And giant gears pulling wide treads give rise
To a towering, onyx colored machine of man.

A scientific prophecy once foretold
That the oceans and trees could be killed
And in its toxic love of black gold
Humanity granted this prophecy fulfilled.

It used to warm our bodies and minds
But now, our sun is something to fear
Our lives and colossal machines combine
And chances of survival remain unclear.

For military rule has exploited
Our natural will to fight and survive
They’ve usurped us and anointed
Themselves rulers of the inside.

What’s left of our once great society
Roams the Earth in onyx colored arcs
Scientists try to return Earth’s sobriety
As we wage war for oligarchs.

Terrorism between 3 arcs ensues
As each believes the one to solve
The problem of an Earth abused
Will become ruler by forceful resolve.

I've had ideas fleshed out for this one for a while. Finally got around to writing it!

© Outside Words
Anais Vionet  Mar 2022
Ru$$ia
Anais Vionet Mar 2022
For the last five hundred years, posh “society,” is where the wealthiest and most influential people in the world mingled, inter-married and conducted business. If you’ve ever watched “Downton Abbey”, “The Gilded Age” or even “Crazy Rich Asians” you’ll know what I mean.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - a psychological pyramid that describes human fulfillment - states that part of our human nature (once your basic needs are met) is the desire to attain social position. Having mere wealth is just not enough once you are in the top levels of achievement.

In the 1970’s Arab money started pouring into the west. Arab petro-dollars bought swaths of land in the UK, in London and New York. The Arabs dazzled everyone with their wealth and bling but they never penetrated posh society.

Then in the 90s the second, Asian wave, of new wealth washed eastward and they had a bit more success in society. But starting about 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians started coming to the west with new money to invest - in the UK, in particular.

Russia became the billionaire capital of the world, oligarchs were everywhere buying anything not nailed down and eventually trying to insinuate themselves into posh “society”. Tatler (THE magazine of society) even began publishing a Russian version. If you were a wealthy Russian, you were moving up. By 2022, they weren’t too far from the edge of REAL success.

That’s what evaporated three weeks ago - with the invasion of Ukraine - Russia’s luxury infrastructure and their hopes of acceptance into posh society. Gucci, Chanel, Hermès, Dior, Apple and Tatler (just to name a few luxury brands) have left Russia to rot. If you’re Russian now, the chances of being admitted into posh society are gone for the next 20 years - at least.

You may say “so what?” Well, one way a dictator holds onto power is through mercantile largess. The granting of rights within the Russian sphere of influence - to control and distribute goods and services - is how oligarchs are created. The support of these oligarchs is important and transactional.

A man with a 100-million dollar yacht - looking at what chunks of their wealth may well be confiscated in the west - or lost to the Ruble’s collapse - could easily offer life-changing wealth to any henchman willing to end Putin one way or another.

Will this happen? I don’t know. But this is the system they’ve set up for themselves.
BLT word of the day challenge: henchman: a trusted follower who performs illegal tasks for a powerful person.
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2014
Everybody in Russia loves Vladimir Putin.
In the years since he muscled his way to the top of the tree, he has established himself as the Champion of all Russia!

In the degradation following the collapse of the USSR, national pride in Russia spiralled down to an all-time low, there was little to be proud of. The satellite nations fled to independence abandoning the Rodina,  Agricultural and industrial production fell dramatically, law and order diminished dangerously. The economy shrank and the order of success in business depended largely on connection with Government and/or the Mafia. The Oligarchs became monstrously rich, the average Ivan monstrously poor. Life savings were rendered worthless overnight by the plummet of the value of the rouble. Russian society polarised from the ecstatically happy, filthy rich to the chronically unhappy, beggared poor.

Russian leadership staggered from Gorbechev’s democratisation through Yeltsin’s alcoholism to Andropov’s sudden death…. enter the fray Vladimir Putin.

Putin tightened the reins.
He organised regular payment of wages and salaries to the movers and shakers, the police and the military.
He changed the rules of doing business within the nation and made investment opportunities within Russia available to outside interests.
He took charge and commandeered discipline within the ranks of central Government.
He set about correctional treatment for the terrorists/freedom fighters in the Chechen Republic and elsewhere.
He raised the expectations of the common man and gave the people an element of promise for Russia’s tomorrow.
He invaded and took back the Crimea as legitimate Russian sovereignty.
He garnered the roaring support of the six million ethnic Russians domiciled in the Eastern region of the Ukraine.

Putin now stands, bare chested, astride Russia. He faces a hostile but cowed West with pale, blazing eyes and a ******* bulge in his trousers.
He is widely idolised by Russian women and admired by Russian men. He is their champion; he is believed to be their key to the future.
His nation is currently under severe trade embargo and economic sanction by Europe and the West which is hurting the strained economy right across the board.
The declining price of oil is adversely affecting Siberian oil profits and making further shale oil exploration uneconomic.
He enjoys hugely profitable Siberian natural gas pipeline sales to the Southern neighbour, China, but they watch the unfolding political landscape with careful, calculating tiger eyes.
Putin is regarded by Europe and the West as an unpredictable, serious threat who should not be unduly provoked.
Undeniably, the West, in their sour lipped manner, would be happy to see him and his Russian bear, fade quietly and permanently into the obscurity of the frozen wilds of the far Siberian tundra.

But if Vladimir Putin plays his cards well, he could actually bring the Rodina all of the benefits, glory and rewards that it seeks.
However, should he overplay his hand here, he may well crash and burn….and in doing so, could bring Russia’s dreams and aspirations crashing down with him.

Marshalg
Auckland
15 November 2014
I'm looking to find my balance
Decorating it like valance
I'll bring plenty to the table
Talk about that spring balance
No more kidding around, kid's allowance
You want a real man
Looking for someone to stan
It won't happen at expectation
It will be a genuine donation
To your soul
When you're engulfed by the ghoul
Three strikes when you bowl
Too traumatized to smoke one
Good thing though, you don't want to be done
It's an unlawful run
Like you're afraid of Attila The ***
There's no need
To be swallowed in depression and other's greed
We all have our history of beads
That bog us down
You're not the only one in town
To have these emotions
But I might be one of the few to have that devotion
Causing intense commotion
You better bring the lotion
Because I'm making this swamp dry
Letting this fog die
I'm not a perfect guy
Maybe not the best buy
Maybe Geek Squad
I can barely carry quads
But I can carry you
To the shores
You can retain my core
These muscle remain sore
But I'd rather it be that way
You're the forever in the day
Unless you break my bays
Floodgates of acid
Don't like to come to this in placid
Or even casual
It all has to be natural
Call me super
You won't be believing your eyes
It's tough enough to realize
That you don't always need to be chastise
I like to run up the imaginary commas clockwise
Here's words to the wise
You got to read them
Carefully heed
Before you bleed
Out too much to grasp the rails
Carrying the pails
Dropping them horribly
I hope you'd be out unscathed
This pool we've bathed
Has changed us all
So refuse to stall
Face what's been breaking you
Because there's no replacing you
I'm not always going to be chasing you
So you better have a good reason
Don't force me into the feeling of treason
I can be your beacon
Your personal deacon
It's easy to weaken
Whether you're Persian or Puerto Rican
Same thing applies
The world can be full of flies
But you got to smack them down
Hard and ruthless
Just don't be shallow or toothless
I can definitely prove this
They'll devour you whole
Make sure they know you're swole
From the North Pole to the South Pole
You got it locked
Keep your weapon glocked
Firm and steady
So you're at the ready
Don't force yourself
To change to those peering
I'm going to be on the sidelines cheering
Snickering and sneering
It's all useless after the clearing
Do you want another hearing?
It'll be the same
You're born into this game
No need for the money and fame
You got that perfect level of tint
You're not desperate, you're just in a crisis like Flint
Everyone gets there
Under the rut
Under the rule of the oligarchs in the sophisticated tiki hut
Full breeds and muts
Are what they declare
But they couldn't be more wrong
We all don't sing in song
But the subtle singing still matters
No matter how hard they try to shatter
Don't destroy your bladder
Because you're growing sadder
Confront me, I'll drop it
Like the hottest mixtape
So I can fix your heart with invincible tape
Together we can vape
Just don't get too carried away
I like the bonding, let's keep it that way
Trying not to run out of things to say
To the likeness of you
What a beauty to see you swoon
Hate being gone so soon
If you were
That would be a tremendous stur
Causing me to say every derogatory slur
At the sky
Looking for a reason
Why this all transpired
You make my heart go higher
I'm not your sire
But we need each other
I got my brothers from another mother
But you are the rest
Pounding chest
Can you make another perfect guess
On where my loyalty lies
The last thing I'd ever do
Is lie to you
All these pictures I drew
All these planes I flew
The numbers turned into a slew
Nothing compares
To the Mary Sue
I found at the helm
I'll go wherever you realm
These gargoyles I'll whelm
They'll have to keep fighting
Cause my heart keeps igniting
It's a little freightening
But I'll make it work
I always do
Not always starting with the clues
But I can decipher all the blue
Turn you into orange and red
Making sure you're never truly dead
I won't ever imagine that story line in my head
Some things are better left unsaid
Give me your perfection instead.
Pearson Bolt Jul 2016
it's true
the revolution will not be televised
but the fascist revival premiered
on all the major networks' corporate channels
in 1080p HD at prime-time hours

with perfect clarity
viewers could see
an oompa loompa
with an orange toupee
a xenophobe
spewing violence and vitriol
peddling snake oil while spitting venom
stirring a bubbling cauldron
spilling over in fear-mongering demagoguery
served like crack candy to the Republican elite
reveling in their privilege
cheering white supremacy

a tyrant
tirading behind a polished wooden podium
flanked by hues of red white blue and gilded gold
like some comic strip super-villain
but this obtuse excuse for human refuse
is not some Saturday morning cartoon
defeated by the heroes after 30 minutes
of selfless feats and epic deeds
a death dirge plays on repeat in the background

you can't always get what you want

meanwhile
we're holding silent vigils back home
carving the sigil of Orlando's skyline into our skin
while a snake slithers into a City Beautiful
bedecked in her $3k pressed pant-suit
leering wolfishly at a local club for LGBTQ+ youth
the downtown heartbeat
of outcasts and misfits
a Pulse
that bigotry and self-hatred couldn't *****

but tragedies are converted to cheap currencies
in the clawed hands of dynastic oligarchs
sporting the support of billionaires and super-PACs
she knows the Establishment has got her back
she'll shed crocodile tears
just in time for the photo-ops

violence begets violence begets violence
humanity's universal language
a tongue shared by despots and presidents
in the wake of stolen sanctuaries
she'll justify razing Syrian children
beneath a barrage of hellfire missiles
and predator drones targeting cell-phone signals
under the pretense of bringing the terrorists
to some sycophantic mirage of justice

we're manufacturing new soldiers
for the Caliphate to brainwash with promises
of dead gods and seventy-two virgins
machine-fed by automatic weapons
to the toothy jaws
that bottomless maw
of endless ******* war
which always vaunts
profit over people

the conceptual construct of gender binarism
becomes an imperceptible selling point
in the incomprehensible and reprehensible rhetoric
issuing from either side of the political aisle
but what will it matter
either way
an egoistic megalomaniac
has his or her finger poised over the trigger
a neoliberal warmonger and hypocritical fraud
or a reality TV star who lauds the KKK on Twitter

our only hope is found in the streets
unchained by compassion's transformative capacity
freed to utilize our minds
humanity's indomitable faculty
nurturing a community that seizes life
in anthems of liberty equality and solidarity
anarchic manifestoes penned in lines
of red and black ink

progressives will insist otherwise
they'll declare emphatically that our only choice
lies in selecting the lesser of two evils
to lead us to the brink of oblivion
but Orwell wrote the future of humanity
looked like a boot crushing our heads
that either way we'd all be dead
and the harsh reality is that the soot-stained sole
curb-stomping this country
fits both the left and right foot
The world has been on fire recently. I woke last night from dreams of hellish landscapes reflecting on two photographs I saw from the past 24-hours. One depicted Trump on stage at the RNC, looking like some Capitol stooge from "The Hunger Games." The other was of Clinton in my city, pretending to care for the LGBTQ+ youth murdered at Pulse. I wrote this in a frenetic fit of ire and outrage.
Sharon Talbot  Mar 2021
Katrina
Sharon Talbot Mar 2021
Children of Louisiana,
Swept away and drowned,
In the river’s flood
And the ocean surge.
Never have recovered
Fully from the rain falling down,
And of a city that was purged.
Ignored by the government
And its fellow man,
Follow in a long line of sufferers
Since the melting, ice age glaciers
And even a tsunami in the North Sea
That wiped out Doggerland.
Dark Ages got darker as people ran
And Britain’s white cliffs were sheared.
Times got better and then got worse,
But the people carried on.
Now, the floods are a weekly thing,
A blip on a newscast,
As lost as the victims in a mess
Of other disasters,
Of wildfires, droughts and don’t
Even mention the quaking earth
Or volcanoes! We can’t take credit
For causing those!
Rich men in their castles,
Feasting and clapping each other
On their fatty backs,
Rolling in the spoils and spills
Of oil, on the flaming water of
The American plains.
Sheikhs in old Mesopotamia
Whine about oil pipelines,
Promised to them by President Cheney,
While the people starve.
Bloated oligarchs spread destruction
All over the world, from
The Congo to Chernobyl,
Melting icecaps and raising the sea,
Sinking islands where they don’t live,
Vacationing in the Maldives,
On special rates before those go under.
They won’t fix Miami, but let it sink,
But not before they plunder
The empty towers built on foolish dreams.
Of course, they’ll be the last to go,
Crammed into mansions up in the Alps,
Fighting with the European nobles
Over who gets a crumbling palace
Now sitting on the last ice floe.
A few American cousins round each other up
To catch the Dixie Flyer down to New Orleans,
Trying to hide from the polar vortex,
A dazzling case of ignorance and greed,
Only to find the tracks buried in the sea…
Down in the mud of the deep, brown sea.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2016
you see, i came to england when i was eight years old, and i still retain the primitive early structuring of being born in poland, e.g. i identify my father from the ages of 4 to 8 as a voice on a telephone and the odd package of gifts, my mother between the age of 6 to 8 as a mad doberman a parting gift... and the fact that i can't read philosophy books in english but in polish, whereby i translate what i read into english... the english language is terrible at expressing itself philosophically, too much shrapnel (i.e. too many little words in between graffiti like usage of the bigger words: conjunctions, prepositions, articles over-burden such catchphrases like zeitgeist, global capitalism etc.), i read poetry and fiction in english, but philosophy i read in polish; and i do speak four languages in that i can speak posh anti-essex-accent english, speak a polish accentuation of english, speak plain polish and speak pleb village-idiot polish; polish immigrants are overweight to soar like canadian geese introduced into england because of the trill of the r (mind you, introducing grey squirrels mirrored the seemingly perpetual overcast of the english weather) - indeed, the english use of the letter r is tongue-numbing-curl - instead of trilling the r the english curl it like an apprehensive turtle / hedgehog - and too the oddity of the h, hatch hay-puck-itch hey-a-haystack? two of the many more linguistic anomalies in the english tongue included.*

that's the problem i have integrating
into a post-colonial multicultural
society, i know i should celebrate
the english defence of poland should
a war with germany take place,
the short lived re-emergence of poland
quickly gulped up by the joint
expedition of **** german and soviet russia,
the exported government of poland
to london, the plight of polish and english
pilots over the skies of england in
the battle of britain, i should technically
be experiencing a great assimilation sensation,
but multiculturalism has really complicated
things, esp. when you turn on the radio
a first hear things about the emergence of
recorded sound, the gramophone,
the iconic jack terrier before the machine
and a very old acronym of music outlets:
h.m.v. (his master's voice),
or that in poland - knowing of the mass emigration
of poles to england the tabloid newspaper
the sun is cited with the highest credibility
(never mind the toned down **** on page 3
of that newspaper, which prompted *******
to do likewise) - currently i'm sifting through
the power broker pages of the newspaper
the times, i.e. the editorial pages, just
after the opinion pages... you see, the editorial
pages are almost anonymous, they're filled
with a major investment, high profile
people (usually professors and sirs and what not)
seeking attention of the editor, beginning with
something like: sir, at a time when european
challenges of security... and then indeed about
three articles of unchallenged dialectics by
the editor himself, e.g. (monday march 7 2016)
headlines: an autocrat in ankara; plan obsolescence;
cripes! (https://goo.gl/EzCbDO),
as i said, i find it overbearing to integrate into
english society, it's paradoxical actually,
so i have to integrate (tick), speak the tongue (tick),
become eloquent and gentlemanly (tick)...
but i can't acquire the history (a prime social
relation coordinate), and i certainly can't feel
pride... unlike those from the colonies integrating
and feeding this strange strange national pride
of identifying england as if by them originally
possessed; maybe three years in scotland fed
my alienation, i really did love mingling with
the scots, the only place on these islands where
the presence of the irish is limited by that
funny existential curiosity of a sikh speaking
a wee trill here, a wee trill there...
maybe that's it... because, you see, the oddity
comes after hearing the story of rash behari bose,
the one who was the shadow of peaceful gandhi...
who spoke like adolf ****** who actually
collaborated with ****** to no avail, who
then collaborated with the japanese -
how am i to assimilate into english society if english
society is a barren wasteland where newton
and michael faraday used to roam?
i'm just too bewildered in this sense of integrating
like a prerequisite of becoming a chameleon -
it's nauseating just to think of it - all this
psychological complexity to simply use a tongue
that's favoured for commerce and political
stagnation into the iron stage of a status quo
of russian and chinese oligarchs creating
a mortgage inflation from their power-source
that's london? this immediate sense of what used
to be mass propaganda has turned into
mass political correctness, same ****, different cover,
i really don't know how to integrate fully,
esp. with faked results that disallow falsification
because they're already false in that would-be
"science" of psychology which is just a crippled
humanism... how can you be a serious psychologist
when you focus on the interchange of the invading
barbarian word self and then become pompous
with so many theorisations of a single sound, ego?
after all we're, in the majority using the sound self
as an affirmative of 'i'm here, yes, check the utility
manual of my spine moving my fingers typing,
no descartes wasn't trying to prove he existed,
don't be stupid, what, because such a proof is
not compatible with you after his death proves
he was trying to prove himself a recipient? i too
buckle on the nonsense of some people, even my own
is worth a rusty door hinge and doorknob.'
and poetry will always remain the safeguard medium
of abstracting, poetry isn't a happy science as one
man suggested dying at the dawn of the 20th century...
poetry's eager spontaneity makes it an abstracting science,
there's no point arguing truth, in that abstraction is
required to cite a momentary pigmentation of
the everyday grey realism with a poem.

— The End —