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Larry McDonough Oct 2011
She hides in pockets of flesh in my gums
I can taste her in the morning when I spit
at night I can feel her swimming in an ocean of mouthwash
In sleep she oozes onto my pillow
moistening the dusty fabric under my cheek
When shes really playful
she will wiggle herself into my cerebellum
and dance furiously with my dreams
or gently sing lullabies when my heart wont let me sleep
when the world and its filth have commandeered my hope
she is there to brush away the dirt with untarnished hands
she is my religion she is my ******
without her I am sick
a smoldering heat of black matter and fungi
she is antibacterial soap on my soul
Lysol wipes to my tarred lungs
with one whiff I am cleansed of debris
she saturates the oxygen in my blood
she resides in my abdomen
I can feel her in my kidneys.
Hal Loyd Denton Sep 2012
I need to finish the story for convenience I have the original Aftermath to be read first on the bottom
What was not stated in Aftermath was my concern for my writing you can’t write with two legs
Screaming when I got to the hospital my kidneys were of a concern eight alieve three times a day about
Thirty aspirins something like Tylenol didn’t count them no relief my mistake I would bang my ****** leg
Against the wood of the desk that would make it crazy for a few seconds so I finally had to stop for over
Two months well the devil won it seemed when I talked to my cousin I was at eighteen thousand reads a
Little while let me break in here for a second I know I’m talking about numbers it isn’t ego if I come in
Contact with any of you in any setting and I pass you by with just a glance I am your sworn Godless
Enemy I have just joined the cruelest damnable assassins Hell has ever released on the world I know
What awaits the lost even the Apostle Paul worked fervently because he knew the end cost of God’s
Holy severity can I do less I look but I take in all manner caring thoughts but without fail I am led to that
Future now no one even gives the last day a thought I will put this in as an excerpt this is the dream I
Had when I was seventeen or it starts this way your life began in the great head waters at Eden they will
End at the mouth of eternity. I was given a view into the celestial I was just a teenager while a sleep this
Dream came I looked into the heavens and saw two great wheels made of stars the hands of God started
To pull the wheels down as I continued I knew what was occurring God was stopping time. The wheels
Stopped then God turned to the seamless darkness grasped it and started to lift as he did it tore away
Reveling the bright true world of the spirit that was before hidden this was alarming since I hadn’t made
My peace with him Not long after this I was seventeen working at the refinery I just walked out of the
Boiler room into the section that was known as the flathead when a voice said time is finished all life and
Its concerns flowed out leaving me with the greatest sadness other men standing by laid down their
Tools and started milling about mindlessly on this wise in some manner this will happen all over the
World the great enterprises so important to man and society will halt government rule and authority
Abolished in an instant majesty and power will take the reins the river previously known will be
Empowered its first charge make the deserts bloom as a rose…

And I take the liberty to insert I am a person of deep feelings to make the case I wrote two pieces for
Roberta Merrifield’s birthday sorry your flowers are late then I forgot your card this was talking about
Her friends as flowers each of them need to go to their door and imagine nine hundred people standing
There reading about their lives that are filled with grace and beauty and earthen treasures that are in
Vessels of clay but to see them truly you will be speechless so I return to the numbers so it was
Eighteen thousand a little later when I couldn’t stand the pain any longer I called my retired preacher
Uncle and our pastor brother Russell I explained to them about being whipped and my writing had to be
Shut down it was thirty five thousand reads then so keys were stilled my lifeline to needy souls was at
A deadly stillness so then two months later I wrote fourteen pieces bringing the total to four hundred
And fourteen pieces and then Gods love demands the his heart be represented this is the one I am
Pleased about the most I wrote a piece called the mirrored pool over four hundred souls read this I’m
Sorry this is too important to excerpt it in you are not obligated to read I leave that to your discretion

Mirrored Pool
Wonder for all the hurts
First I knelt just to see my reflection then the depths started to reveal first the flowing thoughts were
Restrained and then a bubbling seemed to dislodge from greater depths hard truths churned with
Violent twisting but the motion made it impossible to turn away there were great large white clouds
From depths then even above the pool they rose fourteen stories high the sensation was you were
Standing outside clear air intoxicating views the pulse of many were throbbing in your ears their
Thoughts and dreams were known and their sorrows were weights that pulled you from the heights
It was a colossal game of tag and you were it first reaction fear then the appearance of bundled gifts
Broke down the fear it was promise in different sizes that met the required needs it was like a divine
Warehouse had just made a delivery there were cards with names and writing gave clarification tears
And smiles intermingled then the outer knowing postulated the difficulty the puzzle an enormous
Streaming that was now congested and it was beginning a vortex all was understood now human thought
With doubts was pulling the answer into this destructive hole where was one to find the lever to stop
This action that would disallow was the answer to touch the water bring the finger to my lips possibly
A blazing thought would occur that would strike the mind no all that brought was words that had the
Letters jumbled they made no sense unless there is a special book that is alive in it the letters and words
Are already set but they cover every act in the human condition the broken can pour over the pages
You won’t find thorns to repel your efforts there are thorns but they will speak and assuage your hurts
At the most basic and needed levels the points of your hurts will begin to dissolve from your eyes to
Your mind this inward rush and power will dislodge even spears driven deep by enemies carried for
Years you searched in vain over sad and lonely paths and days now you journey is at an end thorns of
Suffering for another produces profound power and mercy go in peace beloved one another bears your
Burden now maybe words cut you at depths you can’t even identify what if there is an antidote in a
Book you pick it up with trembling hands your body tingles from the knowledge that this is ancient texts
It will have a revival of appreciation in this world of texting but with gentle fingers and eyes that glow
With respect as you see the wisdom and the love cannot be denied you leave the world you know and
With total abandonment you swim in this sea of words until the your tears spill on this rich world of
Words those cruel barbed words that pierced tender skin and have bled internally all of these years
Begin to dissolve with stories and accounts of betrayals then the swells love and mercy you read about
Restoration not always found after apologies are given but the teaching of forgiveness strikes a cord
You have been made free from your prison the tangles of life are great as a great black cloud it hangs
Over head many are its troubles this isn’t mild but the disruptive made to strike and pierce deep the
Hidden that steals the morning blessing while other feast your hunger and unrest only enlarges a
Tormenting unquenchable fire a slow burn this is a forest being burned at the thermal level the hidden
Roots a slow process destructive but not so visible agony torture I have seen men crawl in war or fire
Fighting that where all else is lost you will know greater thrills than any other living soul with the
Desperate and those heavy burdened unable to stand a word will flow it puts out fires and gives
The luxurious buoyancy heaviness changed to joy the bouncy laughter every outward blast attack
The enemy launches is within its pages they are repelled overwhelmed by love you suffer unduly
If you don’t hold this fortress this informative book of stratagems that have made everyone a victor
Who has ever found themselves at their wits end no place on earth has a contingency plan though it
Will make the greatest claims all is just empty air when life as it too often does ***** the very air of life
Out we practically are unconscious but this help this rescue is activated by one name it’s not just a book
But the word is a person what a pool you will find what a reflection will engage you beyond your hope
To imagine just say Jesus all will be total peace your heart will know no more sorrow peace will surpass
Sorrow love will disallow the specter that was once a constant it will disappear it will return to the
Darkness from which it came stand in this newness totally free abide by still waters as the good
Sheppard stands by bless you

So the success against the evil one stands like this while he body slammed me the number of
Souls touched has risen to sixty three thousand five thousand while I was in Braidwood so I
Thank the father whose love and concern never wavers by Christmas I am hopeful I will reach
A hundred thousand if I make heaven I don’t want to see you at judgment and hear you say the
Words of that old song he knew I was lost but said nothing to me!!!!!!!!!!

The Aftermath
Please read this to see in my limited way I want to show you your true worth and value and you will see
what the devil never can get.
This is what I would stand and testify in church but what I have to say is lengthy here it can be read or
Not I would first say this to love souls is agonizing it comes with pain and great tears I went to the site
Where they started the church years ago on my Grandma Brown’s front porch as I set there I pleaded
With God to help me make a difference I turned and looked down the old street that held so many
Memories of course Tommy and Elise and Glena are the only ones that remain but I looked farther
That’s when God moved wave after wave of hard rocking sobs that lasted for thirty minutes or more
And after getting back home some will say this is foolish and I’m the first to know we can’t take the devil
On by ourselves but overcome with emotion I turned from the computer and spoke to evil its self that I
Was declaring total war for souls this is what it has cost me so far at the time I had one open wound on
My shin above the ankle two appeared directly above the first one then one to the side and then I knew
What was to come because I have sleep apnea I sleep in a recliner I knew the sores would ring my leg
And they did you can’t lay your leg out on the ledge with open wounds with nerve endings screaming
Then it jumped to my other leg so that was the first volley when I write I get lost time doesn’t exist many
A time daylight would surprise me coming through the window then the onslaught increases I go to the
Hospital I got there in early afternoon they got me in the room at ten thirty but just before a lady comes
In and takes my blood pressure it is close to perfect and then she comes back in five minutes and tells
Me take these three blood pressure pills trusting her I take them well about twelve or one they come
Into and take my blood pressure they had driven it down to seventy over thirty and plus my first
Experience with morphine I was sick and strangely loopy I wasn’t in the bed I couldn’t lay my legs
Down and no one else was in the room only one bed I did set at the end of the bed with it all the way up
In the back I put my head on it and slept comfortably one funny they have it posted call don’t fall I didn’t
Do this on purpose but when I was pulling the drawer out of the stand it came out with a wonderful
Crash Steve the male nurse made record time from down the hall at the nurse station he lunges in the
Room it wasn’t humpty dumpty just the drawer I couldn’t tell if he was relived or ticked off then it was
Their shot back over the net intravenous antibiotics five days needed a doctor from disease control to
Release me then there version of cons scarring kids with tales about prison to keep them messing with
Drugs scared straight now was scared healthy I walked out the same as I walked in I got a bill for thirty
Thousand well at least I didn’t have a bad heart then it was eleven weeks at the wound center this was
Where I met as I lovingly call them my healing angels they finally got all twelve open sores to close then
for the rest of the problem it was six weeks three times a week forty five miles to and from hundred
Degree heat every day you have to pay a hundred and seventy dollars yourself for the compress wrap
Material then you turn around a pay for compress socks that insurance doesn’t cover least the inside is
Pure silver so missed the Olympics but I got silver in fact every six months I will get silver again this is
Kind apropos I asked the compress wrap therapist where Lymph edema comes from and I will spare you
The pictures but the infection and lymph edema pictures even grossed me out but interestingly the
Therapist said an ancient king in Israel had the disease hello devil no cure just mange it from now on
This is the biggest cut of all someone else has to put them on I have always been called a free spirit
Try to take off on your own and what say hey stranger would you put these on my leg it’s like trying to
Put a baby squirrel skin on a full grown body the therapist does speeches internationally with a doctor
From India she asked permission after taking pictures to show the audience I wouldn’t want to see that
Show give the devil his due he is good at being bad I crossed swords with him he rampaged all over me
I didn’t include everything I have gone through and that doesn’t include my poor wife but I am profane
Corrupt undone should I speak to you of such great things as eternal verities matters that involve where
You will spend eternity there is the cleansing of the word the cleansing of changing my corrupt nature to
His by the spirit but know this no one will ever approach or in any way defile the very ones that as the
Finest gems will be placed in his Holy diadem this takes the cleansing of suffering and brokenness with
The heart Broken for souls and the most necessary of all this nature that is too much like the evil one
That’s what he doesn’t get the more he beats up on a person he is doing God’s work of purifying the
Most elemental evil that must be scourged if I touch you it has to be purist intentions of holy deign
We are awash in the lowest dregs dare I say quick sand only holiness can enable us to traverse this
Killing place of a dark and ever turning evil that compounds itself the devil will never lose the majority
On The Broad way that leads to destruction but there are the blessed few that stop and say oh no this is
Not for Me I was his child and I will be again thanks for the load you made me bear serving you devil now Only Love will be the weight I feel it comes by a great price of God Himself and His people

I need to finish the story for convenience I have the original Aftermath to be read first on the bottom
What was not stated in Aftermath was my concern for my writing you can’t write with two legs
Screaming when I got to the hospital my kidneys were of a concern eight alieve three times a day about
Thirty aspirins something like Tylenol didn’t count them no relief my mistake I would bang my ****** leg
Against the wood of the desk that would make it crazy for a few seconds so I finally had to stop for over
Two months well the devil won it seemed when I talked to my cousin I was at eighteen thousand reads a
Little while let me break in here for a second I know I’m talking about numbers it isn’t ego if I come in
Contact with any of you in any setting and I pass you by with just a glance I am your sworn Godless
Enemy I have just joined the cruelest damnable assassins Hell has ever released on the world I know
What awaits the lost even the Apostle Paul worked fervently because he knew the end cost of God’s
Holy severity can I do less I look but I take in all manner caring thoughts but without fail I am led to that
Future now no one even gives the last day a thought I will put this in as an excerpt this is the dream I
Had when I was seventeen or it starts this way your life began in the great head waters at Eden they will
End at the mouth of eternity. I was given a view into the celestial I was just a teenager while a sleep this
Dream came I looked into the heavens and saw two great wheels made of stars the hands of God started
To pull the wheels down as I continued I knew what was occurring God w
Camille Marie Jun 2014
The Heart is Selfless.
Literally.

When the human body gets hurt,
And life seems to be bleeding out,
It knows.

It pumps out more blood,
Stops itself from taking any of it.
Just to keep our brain, lungs, and kidneys working.

It doesn't think really think of itself,
It thinks of the needs of others.
Shouldn't love be like that too?
Realization when I was studying the cardiovascular system.
Akemi Apr 2017
Barbiturate is one of the few drugs capable of killing you painlessly, so of course the state has banned it. Instead we get paracetamol, a ****** over-the-counter painkiller that leaves you in pain for up to five days while your liver and kidneys shut down. Suicide prevention is a ******* joke. Secular appropriations of Christian values that assume life is worthwhile, whether you desire it or not. It’s long been known that rates of suicide rose dramatically with the birth of modernity—techno-scientific paradise for the middle-class which stresses efficiency over existence. New forms of automation, the human body disciplined into repetitious acts, the partitioning of workspaces so that no single worker could operate the whole—so that any worker could be fired and replaced with the minimum amount of training necessary for capital to continue circulating. The body is individualised, scrutinised, and punished by rich kids playing panopticon, so that any mass agitation is coerced into silence through the threat of destitution.

Slitting your wrists barely succeeds and more likely than not leaves you with tendon and muscle damage. Catalytic converters in cars now convert carbon monoxide into harmless CO2 and H2O. Drowning is one of the most painful ways to die. You cannot escape. The state places helpline numbers around suicide spots to treat life after the fact, rather than at the source of suffering. Vocal band-aids, ****** ******* aphorisms that seek to revert you back into a happy state-serving commodity. Things will get better. Life is worth living. Think positive. Alienation is omnipresent. Neoliberal discourse requires you to be subservient to the greater system of capital and the easiest way towards this is the instilment of comfort, of pleasant nullity, the circumscription of emotional capacity and reflectivity. Suicidal thoughts are abnormal, because life is worth living. Eat your packaged food item and watch Netflix.

For a drop into water to be fatal, it has to be 250 feet. Try to aim for your head to maximise brain injury. The most prominent suicide spot around here has a drop of 100 feet. They cordoned it off anyway. Your life doesn’t belong to you. The first time I tried to suicide my mother asked ‘why would you do that?’ as if it was the dumbest thing in the world. The second time, the doctor looked at me in an exasperated manner and prescribed me lots of drugs. Geettt bettterrrr. Nobody cares about you, they simply want you to return to normal. Normality as in serving your parents, serving your friends, serving the state, and serving the market. Normality as in not questioning social norms and institutions. Normality as in get a stable job (i.e. compete against other workers in an exploitative, undemocratic system that values and inculcates self-serving desires), get married (preferably to someone of the opposite *** who is middle-class and imbibes European culture), get pregnant/get someone pregnant (but only once or twice, because anyone who has more children than that is backwards), invest in housing (those students and lower-class families need to learn how the world works; really, it’s a benefit to take their money), watch sports (to instil national pride in your children; no son, we didn’t colonise the Pacific Islands, keep watching the man with the wooden stick hit *****), eat out every week (preferably exotic restaurants), go see the world (preferably exotic locations, so you can be served by exotic people, take in exotic sights, then leave without considering where any of your money has gone to, whether any of it has reached the slums, whether the beach you lay on is accessible to the people living there, or whether it has been privatised by the tourist firm so that only rich tourists like yourself can lie on it), join a club (those capitalists were innocent, it was the indigenous folk that were making a ruckus over the new golf course; it’s not like we’ve been colonising their land and culture for the past three centuries), donate to charity (but never any charity desiring systemic change; that’s crazy), consume, always consume (keeps the economy going; why question the desire for infinite growth in a world with limited land, resources and markets?), replace your phone every year (those poor workers in Asia need our help), repeat to the point of nausea.

The most successful method to suicide is a shotgun to the head; high calibre, slug rounds. Of course, with all these methods, the chance of failing may leave you disfigured, paralysed, mentally disabled or physically crippled (spinal damage, broken limbs, failed organs), with no guarantee that your family, or even your state, will allow for euthanasia. After all, the popular discourse paints suicide as selfish—an irony, considering liberalism places the self first and society second. It is viewed as sinful regardless of context—deontologically detached from anomie, alienation, material deprivation, social pressures, psychological affectations, any cause or structure. Life is worth living. This ignores that the subject is situated in existence. The subject moves through existence to live. Life, then, is the totality of the subject’s interactions. It cannot be universalised into a single state or judgement that merges all subjectivities into a catch-all worthiness. Worth is dependent of the subject.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe I just want everyone to **** themselves, because the world is ****** and the majority of people are ******* it worse. Most people think being nice makes them good. They turn blind to the systems of oppression they partake in. A while ago my mother was asking if I’d heard about the mass suicides happening at Foxconn, the largest electronics manufacturer in the world. This year she showed me her new iPhone. I don’t ******* understand. I don’t understand how people can be outraged at humanity abuses, yet do ******* nothing to help or change their ways. Yes, market solutions are ******* ****, but these commodities are still coming from somewhere, and while capitalism is in place, our money is still flowing back. I don’t understand how people can be concerned about ecological issues, then pour dishwashing liquid down the sink every night, dissolving the gills, eyes, and organs of fish in rivers and oceans. I don’t understand a ******* thing. I feel physically sick most days. I can barely function outside of university, because engaging with real people, in real systems, just reminds me of how careless, worthless, and disgusting they are. When I first turned vegan, my dad simply said plants are living too. Well no ******* **** dad, why didn’t you ask me my reason for turning vegan, rather than simply repeating the dumb **** everyone else says? If you were stuck on a desert island. Well I’m ******* not. I’m stuck on this **** world filled with nice people who don’t give a **** about anything. I’m stuck every week walking the same roads, to the same university, where I become more and more distanced from reality through abstract philosophical theories that no one else cares about. I’m stuck walking through the supermarket every week, to purchase overpriced commodities produced by transnational corporations I don’t support, but nonetheless have to buy to survive. What alternatives I buy are mocked because it's so funny being ethical in our day and age. Because it’s so much more normal eating pies, and drinking beer, and treating women like objects, and affirming nationalistic sentiments of white supremacy, and making fun of ethnic minorities while they’re incarcerated, and beaten, and killed. All lives matter, the liberal conservatives cry out, while doing ******* nothing to help any cause. I don’t understand this world, and I have no desire to be in it if this is all there is.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2016
if you can find c. g. jung writing an answer to the biblical Hiob, i can be found writing this... or as the Lad Bible states: be your superficial you... so when she's not her superficial self... you can just play the awkward monotone speaking caveman that you weren't before she played you that superficial card of hers to tone down your interests.

you know why i'm fascinated with schizophrenics?
primarily because they are concerned with
an inorganic medical condition,
there are, absolutely, no reasons to suggests they
are organically prone to premature degeneracy,
they are what the Alzheimer old man calls an angel,
and what the "angel" experiences from time to time...
to cite a non-typical schizoid experience -
a splinter in the mind?
when i wrote my previous poem, i was listening
to the song *the parting glass
throughout,
on and on and on... the rhythm took over...
and when the "poem" was finished i retracted myself
into my room and first played auld lang syne
(with lyrics and English translation)
...
                           and then... the pure instrumental
of knee-deep-bagpie... bagpipes, sure, horrid,
screeching drowning-lungs of magpie
cackling cut short into a carbonated highland water...
     oh don't worry, what this comes down to
is personal experience, such negations of ease
are not like the black plague, or a.i.d.s.,
they don't come into contact with purely-riddle
human incompetence... it takes more than that...
certain conditions are not viral...
you can't interpreted them as political malevolence
akin to a political movement... primarily because
the numbers don't add up...
                    the complexity of thought is
the complexity of regarding the mind as an abstract
of the brain, given the brain has no accuracies
concerning abstraction when stated against being automated
to a pair of kidneys... i too wish for a La La Land sometimes...
but that's not the reason people allow ***** donations...
     but you know, it really gripped me,
i wrote that poem, listening to the parting glass,
and felt nothing, nothing... because i was so
formulated to write what i wrote...
  i wrote the last bit, walked into my room,
and played the second version of auld lang syne...
the royal scots dragoon guards pure instrumental...
   and you get to weep these cold tears
after an insomniac cold shivers getting warmer with whiskey...
              and whimper and bite your bottom lips...
because you're hardly a woman fainting
and the drama isn't in you...
               and it's actual tears...
people laugh and cry saharan tears, meaning: it never
rains over it...   i see Sahara as the ancient version
of the Himalayan mountain range, suddenly reduced
because god is fickle and well, aren't we all?
           if any of us are alive to read or speak such
encodings... there will be a desert made from
the Himalayas that will be called the Himalaya -
but that's really being optimistic.
       there used to be mountains, mountains in
north Africa, Gandalf! but they crumbled in deserts!
where once a mountain range, subsequently a desert...
where now a desert, once a mountain range.
can i please get a taxi to leave this current
history and Darwinistic revisionism of it as telling
us ape Adam had more psychology about him than
Charles XIV? i want to hear the geological version
of Darwinism! but am i hearing any of it? n'ah ah.
       so yes, upon hearing the scotch dragoon guards
pipe a full whiskey sodden breath into the
         bagpi - i heard the word counter to my scrambled
narrative... king... king?!
                   which is what's bewildering about
a medical term deemed premature dementia...
   it's an organic impossibility...
but given society is an inorganic organism
and all our socio-political mechanisms aren't exactly
organic, there might be some sense in this piquant
dabble in an auditory hallucinogenic experience -
which, evidently, people find frightening,
since they occupy defining their thinking with
hearing so much, and when seeing a homeless man
think so little...
                     logic? a particular arrangement of words
that does not provide kind rubrics for the testimony of
the many...
                    i can hallucinate this auditory "addition"
and competently go on my daily business,
or my nightly business finishing a bottle of scottish amber...
some people cannot...
                 what i see it western society predicating
their poor knowledge of Alzheimer's as if searching
for some genius to explain what happens to the abstract
functions of what the brain represents
                 in terms of how the brain and abstraction
can't be cleanly separated, i.e. to treat the degeneracy
of the brain as succumbed to, but not succumbing to
the elaborated foundations of the "brain"
within the trans-physical functions of the "brain"
within a framework of memory, vocabulary, memory.
people first attribute the brain with too much
           concern for abstraction when in fast the driving
force for abstraction is the now-vogue zeitgeist
"psyche does not exist" -
                            and when the brain degenerates like
a heart or a kidney can... people start to freak
out propping out a Frankenstein revival that brain
cannot in-act upon...
                                 they told us the brain is fat...
          then they tell us only 0%, or fat-free yoghurts are
good... isn't the case for the epidemic of dementia
due to the fact that we're censoring fat?
what feeds the brain? fat! what are we censoring from
our diets? fat! fat free ******* yoghurt!
                             where does the modern epidemic
stem from? censoring fat! you anorexic ******* morons!
  you know why i put extra fat in the way i cook
meals, you know what orthodox cooks tend to
like a sizzle of a lump of lard? brain food...
     and yes, some call it eating a lot of nuts...
well then... fry me a ribs-eye steak on a handful of
cashew nuts you crazy *******!
            this is what drives me crazy concerning
auditory hallucinogenic experiences...
there are no drugs that you could ever sell that people
would buy to experience an auditory hallucination...
primarily because people made thought
   an auditory experience...
                  that's the norm, i'm not talking Walt Disney
here... and people enjoy music because it feeds the heart
in a way averse to images that feed the libido
or dreaming...
    the point being, my "hallucinatory" experience lasted
for less than a second... some ***** on l.s.d. trips
for half a day because he finds modern movies boring
and finally gets to appreciate cubist contortion
mechanisations... i can do more damage with a second's
worth of "auditory" hallucination than that little
hippy can do away with 12 hours, and only end up
writing a haiku thinking he can suddenly conjure up
spirits of Shinto like some Gilgamesh *** Bruce Springsteen;
then he shaves his hair and travels to Mongolia
to learn the index against the lips motorboating
harmonica... and i end up saying: thank you;
cos it wouldn't be twangy without that kind of a tranquiliser
to stabilise excitement beyond encoding sounds.
          i can tell you how ******-up my internal
narrative has become, so i'm defeatist,
here's how it looks like when i get agitated...
               writing on a white flag...
      oh look: wavy! wavy! i'm waving it...
going boats full of nuts and bananas!
             you ever hear the story of a psychiatrist
jumping on a table and barking when a conscription
  cadet tried to fake being mad?
      she did what i just wrote and asked H. Clinton
to reiterate on the campaign trail.
                    inauguration 2017:
   i solemnly swear, that H. Clinton barked like a ruffian
poodle on the campaign trail.
  beside the point though, schizophrenia is an inorganic
manifestation of an actual organic degeneracy -
it's a negation-of-ease for dangerous people...
     people who probably have a music taste outside
the top 40 best selling albums (let alone singles)...
                   and they're quick to pick up on this grey area
concerning premature depression...
                it's trendy these days... people who are melancholic
are people who are like Homer, wrote the Odyssey
went blind from making too much heroism from
      the cannibalism at the gates of Troy and couldn't
handle telling a single lie after having written such an epic...
   or as Virgil convened: Paris didn't escape,
Aeneid did... no one knows what happened to Paris,
       probably choked on a raisin or something:
it's ancient history, if you're not going to talk about it
in a callous manner, then be prepared for careless mannerisms:
pout, **** *** cheek, shelfie!
               what i am seeing is this quote:
a butterfly on the Galapagos Islands... a Tornado in
Colorado... the poetics of quantum physics,
or misplaced potentials of counter-quantifiable
simultaneous counter-interpretations...
    the butterfly effect? under the umbrella corporate
otherwise known, from ancient times: a metaphor.
hey, we started reading into hydrocarbons,
there's no way to talk easy for us...
                           for all my love for one inspiration,
i lost my love for him when he said that not tying your
shoelaces (i.e. spelling) was because he thought it was
indoctrination... you know who i mean: Mr. Chow Chewski...
   spelling? that's like tying your shoelaces!
         question is... who would ingest a hallucinogenic
drug that didn't utilise the multi-coloured world to
an excessive amount to be prescribed, say, an U.V.
phosphorescent spectrum of seeing... when, given all
that... sound occupies this realm of b & w?
               who could create an auditory hallucinogenic?
can you imagine it?
                             most people with a weakened cognitive
membrane would go nuts... as the case has been proven
many a times...
        but given the fact that no such hallucinogenic exists,
or that "auditory" / cognitive hallucinations are
disregarded even though Descartes stressed this
   notion of a substance / thought, and an extension /
       sensual disparities with regards to cohesive uniformity,
i.e. regarding over-stressing a particular sense
      and never reaching a former cohesion...
           can only mean a circumstance later described
by Kant within the framework of the noumenon -
    i.e. perhaps you've seen too much, but heard too little...
perhaps you've tasted too much, but had barely a sniff of
                  more...
        the original thought when exposed to a cohesion
of uniformed senses, experiencing a discohesion of
             a presupposed sensual "uniformity",
returns back into a form of thought, i.e. an extension...
                only because the thing in question is a
presupposition, not a supposition that can be countered
with a proposition, i.e. since we all made mistakes
presupposing, we have become prone to propositions to
suppose otherwise... in terse terms: invent politics.
so what i termed "auditory" and "hallucination"
and conflated them in a prefix of cognitive-, in consolidation
i meant to say that: once all presuppositions (thoughts)
disappear by the miraculous ape that man either is
or wishes himself to still be... and we deem to say:
   reality...                 we only have suppositions (extensions)
               that appear...
                         by the miraculous ape that man never
was and wishes himself to nonetheless be:
  in that consolidatory ref. to the last trinity of Cartesian
thought: substance - in the former the formation
of will... in the latter the complete lack of it -
                              to the simpler scenarios,
we already have knowledge of prisons and asylums...
            because internalising such possible scenarios
never leaves the many to be grafting such possibilities
with enough calm as to persevere for the sole purpose
of understanding, as what point can a noumenon-unit
enter the argument if not from a reflex
                       as this continued narration explains...
none of this was reflected upon...
reflection in such circumstances usually means weaving
a machete at your neighbour...
                                  the noumenon-unit
the ping-pong factor in all of this is a reflex action...
         not a reflective action...
               i am no king no more than i am a pauper...
   now imagine if i tripped for 12 hours on l.s.d.,
having extracted so much, from an "auditory" "hallucination",
that, in the realm of the mind, is neither a minute,
nor a second, nor a nanosecond...
               it's unitary equivalent is simply that of: a word.
Michael P Todd Sep 2010
A deep breath—I fill my lungs and close the airway. Submerge my face in a pillow and resolve myself to wait until my lungs burn—I await the pain. My senses screaming, my lungs driving me to let them have the oxygen they so desire—I decline. Funny how I chose that which offers peace to the weary, an item that invites comfort to rob myself of that most archaic means of surviving. I find it interesting how calm I feel while denying myself that which I know I cannot live without. Isn’t it odd how we only become aware of the subtle currents of air that tickle our skin, raising chill bumps where it finds us bare when we deny ourselves its luxury? Luxury. That’s an interesting way to phrase it really—Breathing as a luxury. A gift of power, smug in our abuse and neglect we fail to see what we loose when we breathe. Lying here refusing to give myself life—for that’s what air is really, and breathing is living. I laugh. Oh yes, I find it funny. I catch myself readying to breathe again and I still that notion. Shove it down; subdue it until it is nothing but a stinging memory in my chest. It takes a lot of strength to deny yourself to breathe. But somehow that only drives me to test that strength.
I wonder if I will forget how? Could the muscle memory that pilots such a necessary involuntary act be forgotten? No, of course not. But perhaps the feeling of fresh air full of life could be. Could it? Perhaps not. For even as these words find themselves onto this page I find myself remembering what it feels like to expand my lungs, for the blood to cool as it gathers its fill with oxygen as it travels on its wending cyclical way. I laugh again. The burn begins to spread and I feel my muscles atrophy. Yet they tighten and tense as if under assault, screaming at the atrocity wrought upon them. Though still I refuse to breathe.
I roll away from the pillow, open my face to the still air and feel it tickle as it tries to find a weakness. Denying my lungs for so long I begin to feel my skin breathing. Absorbing oxygen as cellular mitosis continues in spite of my flirtatious dance. Maybe I am just dreaming. I feel the fire subside. As if my body accepts its doom. “No breath for you,” I say. “No easy outs.” And resolve continues.
Amazing how long a person can go without breathing, pushing ever closer to that most primal fear—that of not being able to breathe. But I can. I feel my chest involuntarily expand, demanding the very thing I strenuously withhold. I know by that alone that I can breathe, I can live. But still not once do I begin to inhale the sweetness that I need. I want it now, but the primal is so enticing. After all, it is when we fear that we truly know what it is to live. That’s when we feel life. As if it were a tangible being that we’ve strapped to ourselves so that it won’t escape. I’ve set mine free. I’ve let go. Maybe it will return to me. Maybe it will leave me in my vain attempts to deny myself to continue fickly on to another. But which do it want--Perhaps neither, perhaps something more. Beyond breathing, beyond mere muscle memory, beyond what I cling to. The Pain returns.
I want to breathe. I want to live. I want to feel the rush as all my body awakens and revels in new existence--Rebirth. Its odd how something so ordinary can redefine a person, how something so obviously taken for granted and ignored can make us anew—a Renaissance of living, giving new life to life, helping life live. That’s just funny to say. My chest chuckles--I can’t laugh. I can’t breathe so how could I anyway? I smile. Vanity is alluring. I am vain. I deny that which defines life just to feel alive. Vanity, Luxury, Rebirth, Pain—such is the nature of my breathing, the archaic nature of involuntarily driven muscle memory.
Would I even know how to breathe if it wasn’t burned into the most ancient quadrants of my brain? I don’t even know the part that drives the muscle memory. Perhaps when people die there are a few lingering moments where their lungs contract like the twitching mouth of a decapitated fish, gulping at air to fill dead lungs. Maybe breathing is so primal that it doesn’t end with the rest of the body.
The burn has come. I can feel the fire inside my chest. I welcome its warmth, rubbing my hands over the radiating inferno as if I just came from the dead winter cold without the weathering to block out the chill. The warmth permeates through me. Would breathing feel better than this? Could it? I doubt. Only at the razor edge of life while teetering upon the precipice stealing insecure glances to the other side on the off chance that we may glimpse a greener field do we know what living really is.  So aren’t I living now more so than ever before? Whilst denying myself a breath, aren’t I more aware of what it means to be alive? I laugh. Denying yourself air only leads to an end. No, the end--Death. Yet I appreciate life more so dying than living. I deserve to die. Taking for granted that which is stolen from innocents daily. Innocent? Now that’s a peculiar ideal. They are the same. I wonder if they are aware that they breathe. That’s absurd, of course they are. How could they not be? ******* life, ******* air, but do they know what it means?
I feel my lungs contract again—Pain. That’s all it is now, but why? I know I can breathe, yet I choose not to. Is it the act of forcing myself not to take a fresh breath, or the fact that I have yet to do so that hurts? Maybe it’s because I now know what I’ve been doing all these years. At the brink I realize what it means to live. Was I living before? Yes, but I wasn’t alive. Interesting that, to live without being alive—sounds as if I’m hooked to a load of machines keeping me from decay. That’s all they do really. Awareness, that’s living. Breathing is merely the means. The end is being aware, awakened to the fact that an action which you can’t control is the only thing keeping your head above ground. After all, even when drowning the body wants to breathe.
I open my mouth. I lie to my body. I still fill my lungs with nothing but stubborn desire, desire to delay my breathing. I imagine what it will feel like to take that first breath—a Renaissance of living. I can feel the blood in my veins bubble in anticipation. My body wants to be alive. My heart can’t beat fast enough. Striking a furious pace it pumps my blood through my body spreading life and oxygen to every limb making me light headed and delirious with its purity.
I’ve decided. I’m going to breathe again. I’m going to live. And what’s more, I’m going to be alive.
My mouth still open, my lungs still closed, still screaming, still burning, still tightening in their involuntary way—breathing air that isn’t there, air that they know is there, available to them at their whim. I open my lungs.
I exhale. Now that is interesting. I’ve denied myself the life of breath until my lungs begin to pump out of sheer memory and longing for that which gives them purpose. Denied that which defines life, that which I want—that I need. And I exhale?!? Further delaying what my instinct has told me to take? How is that logical?
Air rushes into my lungs. Funny, I scarce expanded them at all. I feel the life rushing to my fingertips, to my toes, to my ears and eyes—to my kidneys even. I am alive. It’s funny though. Part of me feels like I’ve just died, like I’ve ceased to live. I laugh long and hard, throaty and merry and so brim full of life. I began to live again, became alive at the very instant I ceased to exist. And it is so funny.
drunk again at 3 a.m. at the end of my 2nd bottle
of wine, I have typed from a dozen to 15 pages of
poesy
an old man
maddened for the flesh of young girls in this
dwindling twilight
liver gone
kidneys going
pancrea pooped
top-floor blood pressure
while all the fear of the wasted years
laughs between my toes
no woman will live with me
no Florence Nightingale to watch the
Johnny Carson show with
if I have a stroke I will lay here for six
days, my three cats hungrily ripping the flesh
from my elbows, wrists, head
the radio playing classical music ...
I promised myself never to write old man poems
but this one's funny, you see, excusable, be-
cause I've long gone past using myself and there's
still more left
here at 3 a.m. I am going to take this sheet from
the typer
pour another glass and
insert
make love to the fresh new whiteness
maybe get lucky
again
first for
me
later
for you.
from "All's Normal Here" - 1985
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
.i'm in luck, they're selling it at under 11 quid right now,
stock dry - gone in an instant - laphroaig like -
but not as smoky - but smoked scotch it it
at £10.34 - oh the little joys of having little money to spend -
you end up less picky and less hoarder and
the junk yard.


na głowe sypano mi, tak popiół:
     popiół! a obiecano mi *****!
           popiół! a obiecano mi *****!
                 popiół! a obiecano mi *****!

                  (not my words... lao che's dym)...

me, beer, cigarette, outer-suburbia -
police whizz past, silent with flare
or screaming toddler and Odysseus' 20 sirens
with wax in the ears of oaring company
akin to Ajax'ς vitality -
along the way, my neighbour (who's mother
killed my cat.. listen, i know he had
heart problems, he was on aspirin -
but kidneys, even if complicated are not
real problem, felines take longer to ****
than do the no. 2, pigeons don't have kidneys -
they're always of an **** diet of diarrhoea;
write like Aristotle sometimes,
forget the facts, be wrong, get it wrong,
never put a glass cup into the waterfall of
poetic cascades - get it wrong, be wrong -
get to know yourself - it's not that dumb
to be predictable in yourself -
if you allow self-predictability you will
see certain social events as being pointless -
you'll see friends and "friends" -
self-predictability is a verb, compounded -
i already know i'll make references to grammar
and it being missing in philosophy -
no, not coherence and appropriate arrangement -
i mean undoing the box of thing-in-itself
and the subsequent tennis with a brick wall,
to surprise yourself when something is unearthed,
a little piece of the puzzle - simulating awe,
the genesis of all that's to come, even awe from a yawn
and boredom... it's here somewhere... i'll karate
catch it with chop sticks.... (looking around)...
i don't know, might be a moth or a fly...

Antichrist: or a summary of Antisemitism - a variant of,
or at least a concentration - mainly confiscated
by Christianity - prime complaint:
a democracy of Anointed One (Messiahs) -
obviously a manifested justifiable practice of Antisemitism -
the throng of Golgotha intelligence quotient -
Jew v. Jew, and one convert from the delusional
4 x 4 (in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy
                                         spirit... hold on!
                                    i make four gestures... and make a fifth
                 with Romeo and Juliet talking -
St. Matthew-Luke-Mark-and-John... penta penta pent-up
pentagon - evidently there's a pentagrammaton somewhere:
ah! i b l i s.                       Surat no. via Rumi - 7:143 - veils and
the one - reward in heaven - more veils, gardens veils,
grapes in heaven veils - stomach a veil - hunger a veil -
rewards in heaven also veils - the poem?
praise be Jesus - and Jason and the Argonauts - and whoever
wanted a strawberry flavoured pastiche to lick tears off -
love's apocalypse, love's glory -
         well bloodhound eyes say it all - droop drool -
droop & drool... Jack & Jill... went up the hill, and passed
the Grimm Bro. baton to Hanzel und Gretyl in the 100m x4
relay of Disney Limps - then rabbinical literature to sober up -
Albotini's Sulam HaAliyah (Ladder of Ascent, formerly Jacob's
ladder - to be: Ladder of Skip-rope; Oxford, hello! yes,
can you please consider un-hyphenating what is desirably
a compound worthy word in the practice of German?          )?
is a bracket necessary anywhere and i missed it?
Antichrist - or a very strange form of antisemitism -
be like a Jew, congregate applauding in the right corner: Jesus -
in the blue corner: Crux Golgothia.
export from Portugal - the said book -
key principle (kefitzah) jumping or skipping (dilug) -
and this being applied to the one practice of mystic Judaism -
the ****** gematria; hishtavut (stoicism) -

me - is it still 20 quid for an eighth?
Sim (my neighbour) - yeah, but these days
                                       they sort of cheat,
                                       you'd get an eighth nibbled on,
                                       twenty for a tenth?!
me - ******, well, we can't expect it to not happen,
         we had coin debasement - clippings of silver
         keratin with Siliqua, third stage and
         all encoded authority is gone: Thomas and Anne
         till death and nail clippings be fraud unison in
         the depart (or when narration extinguishes
         a character, the character is worth nothing -
         the narrator wakes up - all the characters run
         like phantom-hares into nonexistence -
         phantom! thin air!
politeness said: only one **** at the wacky wee ö wee
(umlaut O / double oh, 007 - 00'7 - double u... oh!
                                 i get it!                             Jamie Oliver!)
DEI.GRA.REG.FID.DEF.
   "   (-tia) (-ina)(-ei)(-ensor) -
all that would have been clipped - authority of visage -
the courtesan only knew the mint in silver
and the mint in the flesh - hence clipping of coin
to erase the authority from the holy authority of words -
in the beginning - but once dei.gra.reg.fid.def.jpeg /
                                   dei.gra.red.fid.def.gif.

that ****** moth is here somewhere! there it is! catch it!
                                                             ­   catch it!
SLAM!          and the job is done )                                      ).
i really waiting a bus stop pretending to wait for a bus
toking on a joint - joint is mix tobacco and wee wee
and spliff is pure? i forgot the slang - haven't been
addicted to it in years.
Sim - yeah, that's how it is. work in central london -
         have to get up early in the morning.
         corporate finance - no that's a commercial firm,
         corporate finance - McDonald's, etc.
me - oh cool waiting for  ghost bus - never get paranoid
         then?
(police cars whizz by)
Sim - n'ah, a perfectly decent area, got stopped once,
          three years ago.
and the price goes to the laziest narrator in history - absolutely
no engagement with characters - it's too real, everyone's
lying - this is the second time i spoke to my neighbour properly
in the past.. ooh 2002... 14 YEARS - it's not even funny -
no amount of marijuana will make you feel comfortable -
you can mate and make Kingston handshakes and what not -
this is purity of absurdity and western isolation,
we went against the maxim: no man is an island on purpose,
not by chance like Robinson Crusoe -
at least Crusoe had a talking Friday - we have a ghost
of Michael Faraday on Friday - ******* disco blink blink -
poet... or alt.: the narrator complex - inhibitions toward
character craft and pseudo-schizoid symptom -
believing in ghosts is easy, fiction writers and their ghosts
and abortions, hardly a way to escape from that -
poetry: rebellious narration - just anything with narration,
modern fiction is read like a chess match between deep blue
and Kasparov - or Pavlov v. Jezebel playing gynaecologist.

blank.... blank... wait for the atoms trilled R to make
their toady presence felt -
the more pricier the whiskey the more pristine water,
i.e. you get drunk more easily -
anyone that smokes marijuana and thinks
they're clever are stupid; how many people are out there that are
stupid!
- resounding hearsay-hooray!
drugs, ******, crack, blow, marijuana, ****, ***,
  cannabis, dope, ******, mary-jane, 13, M - herb shake -
Humphrey saying to Bogart - that joint.
as said in Saudi
Arabic - a Ferrari G.T.I. and MeKubalim HaMitbodedim
                  )
                                  -chism - schism - sky - ski -
                                  cha cha, cha cha - kilo or 100th -
                                  1000 thd. - hundredth a thousandth -
                                  - where then the acute,
                                  timber from Czechs -
                                  kebab from Mesopotamia -
                                  and the Trojan horse to boot -
                                 chatter - chopper whopper -
                                 astoikism - not chew off
                                 curve into cherish but
                                 cravat chew in -
                                 Slavic mining zed - czarna
                                 ciasność - blackened claustrophobia.
a Buddhist clap
                   immersion -
left handed the right hand claps against air
                  )             )              )               )            ) ) )            )
a night at the Opera, right handed the left hand claps against air
(                       (        (            (               (          ( ( (            (
scimitar Luna - so they said, would like an audience with the
further unmentioned mention -
you're mates with neighbours who over 14 years you only
spoke to the count of thumb and index on occasion -
and thus necessarily high -
i was going to write something really important before
i finalised this draft... but i forgot what it was...
got almighty this whiskey is good...
i'm smoking salmon and pickling reindeer hooves and antennas;
a bit like practising Chinese miracle medicine with
whale blubber and Mongolian nostril hairs.

it's not about loving your enemies -
this love sinister must be invoked as: making your
enemies bearable.

i'm sure i had something concerning poetry and narration -
ah! it was... poetic compensation -
a.d.h.d. narration - attention deficit hyperactive disorder -
true - all psychiatric terms are metaphors -
at least outside the psychiatric realm -
poetry as a.d.h.d. meaning: shrapnel narration -
a custard pie of missing characters -
poetry: i.e.: the inability to believe in ghosts
or write characters - claustrophobic or agoraphobic narration?
a mix of both - poetry - the inability to conjure
Ouija fancies - poetry, the over-specialised gift for
narration, but an inability to invent characters -
poetry, the truth of the narrative, and the truth of un-invented
characters, poetry: the ability to narrate, coupled
with the inability to create characters -
fiction and the dumb narrator - poetry and the exquisite
narrator - fiction and the exciting characters -
poetry and the God - our focus is based on that vector,
or bias to that vector - fiction and the Oscars -
narrator and director - when to change from first person
to third person - again Burroughs was right -
images 50 years ahead of writing - a bit obvious,
nothing spectacular with that phrase -
lightning and the sons of thunder: 12 of them -
made the tetragrammaton less spoken and swear words
fucken-uppen censored so the crucifix and **** could
collide - a fine fine excuse - the Boeing 747 first
and later the quasi-sonic broom shoo' 'mm -
poetry as fiction disguised when fiction was given
a seance with pure narratives - splinter group:
philosophy's juggling with pronouns esp. the plural deviation
from first person as if to proper punctuation -
psychiatry and the theory of pronoun usage -
poetry and the pronoun rōnin (macron = umlaut -
count to two, or prolong - reasonable man / **** sapiens, pre-noun pro-adjective / adjective attache-noun, noun counter-noun es duo-adjective, Kellogg's sunrise cockle-doodle-dip-in-tartan-chess) -
only poetry mediates the parallel vectors of prose-fiction and philosophy - it consolidates the use of pronouns, art of poetry alone -
pure narration we're talking about,
the narrator and characters of its fancy,
philosopher and dialectical placebos (character equivalence)
with self-conscious moments, mono-pro-noun - alone i name -
the sacred squash wall of lecturing an invisible audience -
rummaging epitaphs in a graveyard along with birth dates
and live by dates - yes, that sacred we philosophers use -
an entire theatre was summoned to continue in appearing
sensible when writing without fictive apparitions -
enabling a fluidity in pronoun use, without sensible letter
writing, as in dear sir,
                                       me in reverse, thank you.
w
Daniel August Nov 2013
I am that wounded dear, humbled
Stumbling ‘round
Rabbit holes of you, under—Brush
The I’s from my mist
The kidneys from my stones.

Elaborate mumbles deerly missed,
By habit, eye drowned in tones
Siren singing seas, under—Blush
Something subtle: easily kissed.
A human homophone.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2022
precursor - title correlation
body -

mind of:

C                oh

    oh                      Ri

n'ah.   (half an hour fiddling with a 502 bad
gateway; traffic these days! jeez!)

I.

it don't know what's more frustrating for the reasons that it's so good... i can't choose... it's a close call... either listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers' B-sides from By The Way... ugh! why didn't they release that as a double album! Stadium Arcadium was not that good as a double-album... all the prior albums are MAGIC... literally... for ****'s sake: GOLDMINE is literally just that... there's that... i can't concentrate on making my own translation of Ovid... i'm yet to scribble down the translation i have... i can't even drink my whiskey properly... the other frustrating focus? watching Armand Duplantis break his own world record of 6.21metres... the ****** has still at least 10cm in him! a record that will have to stand-still for the next 20+ years... i'll be dead before this record is broken... Сергій Бубка best be sleeping... i'm listening to the music, reliving the end of the World Athletics and trying to heel-myself-in-the-buttocks: better get a move on boy... hmm! "trying"... i'm actually heeling myself in the buttocks: no time to wait... one can wait for a bus... one cannot for one's own incentive... ol' Lizzy is coming up the mountain... she's coming with the proper closure of the 20th century... however many popes she outlived... however many prime ministers and american presidents... come on Lizzie... just one more year... i'm actually dying to spend money with whittle Charlie printed on the notes... my fingers are itching... but **** me... music so good By The Way should have been a double-album... no! Stadium Arcadium was not the salvagable double-album worth session... i'm getting "schizophrenic" vibes... i know that poetry is not an entertaining medium: it's a complacent self-congratulatory, thereupeutic load of *******... it's obnixious when staged: the exasperated art of speaking with speed... today i realised that i much prefer drinking to having ***... i like the preservation of my brain with a hard-on of itchy fingers than any actual ******* hard-ons... the knife opening oysters or plucking out the eyes of deer... best the eyes be gauged out... than having deer stare into car lights... hybrid confusions of static, motivated to move... frozen in a make-shift imitation of root and clay and copper: bam! one more statue down...

II.

it's no wonder why i'm not looking for a girlfriend, it's no longer bewildering why i'm not looking for a wife, at best i'm looking out for that ancient custom of Roman emperors: to become a foster father, a surrogate - i'm yet to find a match-up... i almost did, but she undermined my chances by undermining her own seriousness in such affairs... but clarity does come... as much as i might be a surrogate father to her son or daughter: i wouldn't be faithful to her... i would steal the night and run away into a brothel... but there's something else... the whole dynamic of publishing has changed... the whole idea of a library has also changed... i own more valuable books in my private collection than the public library of Romford... which is me peering at the dire straits of what the public is fed... i know why i don't aspire for pair-bonding... perhaps man so levelled aspired toward the imitation of birds a long time ago... perhaps swans are truly noble creatures: for one hears of widow and widower swans... perhaps parrots: born from those monstrous beasts that were the dinosaurs can imitate our talk... all that's this reality within the confines of "perhaps": nonetheless, it's all true... but perhaps being the mammal that i am... i moved from a community of chimpanzees into a solo-ride of imitation-bear... perhaps i only entertain the opposite *** on the encounter of ***... i couldn't land a conversation with a woman outside the constrictive-framework of work, so much so: i would abhor the mindset of men that go on dates with women: buy them food and then EXPECT... i leave that ******* out in my interactions... pay-up-front for what you're about to receive otherwise don't play cat while the woman plays mouse... or rather... a rat in cat's clothing: the woman therefore becoming a rat-trap... mind you: i can't think of a more terrible idea than the modern version of: eat first, **** later... at the old ****** proverb states: a hungry ****** is angry... a filled ****** is lazy... god forbid i ever become tempted by those dating sites... i'm currently looking for the original Latin text of Ovid's the Amores book 2 poem 6... why? what i have in my hand... and what i'm finding... it's like what Robert Pinsky remarked about once: TRANSLATIONS differ so much from one translator to another...

they have done it... UEFA are mad... just to get my
accreditation for the women's Euros final
at Wembley they're asking me to bring my passport
with me... so is Wembley the JFK of Florida
          space-shuttle launch? Houston? am i leaving
the country?
                but the girls have done it...
funny: some other people are still complaining:
IT'S TOO WHITE!
   there's not enough diversity in the team...
          that's me also planning to go and live
in Kenya and become a model for toilet paper...
i'm sure i could replace that known Koala bear /
golden retriever or perhaps i could go there
and model for soap adverts...
it just so happened that racial tensions (only football
could create them) rose up for a little:
just one night the day England lost to Italy
on penalty shootouts... because... 3 black guys
were playing a rigged roulette...
            then again? me? and the African heat?
fat chance...

find me the original Elegy VI: the death of Corinna's
pet parrot...
oh man... and her name was Polly...
i sat up late last night trying to find something
interest on the television...
bam! thank you ma'am...
                       kurt cobain: montage of heck...
sort of reminded me of...
                           a SCANNER DARKLY...
                           mind you: i sometimes do enjoy
a one-man show... or at least two...
there was this brilliant show in the West End...
Stones in his Pockets...
       two actors... sharing the roles of...
                  about 15 people each...
but it was back in circa 2001...
so... maybe it was Louis Dempsey
                                                        & Sean Sloan...
mind you... i'd still love to see Samuel Beckett's
             NOT I...

Jack Trades says: i'm about to a heap
of hay of hate...
                                i'm everywhere sometimes...
if it's not music, then its visual arts,
then it's philosophy, then fine literature...
then something "oriental" in thinking...
then its coupling my fetish for Deutsche as:
father to the English zunge...
then it's back east to rummage in some Katakana...

i know why i'm single, Roger Moore remained
a bachelor until his death...
  courteous: as ever as forever always...
i'd be a terrible match-up... i've given pair-bonding
a chance: i can't bemoan why X is not Y...
the sort of men that pair-bond are claustrophilic...
they love the company of a mate...
each time i was ever in a "relationship" i already
had one foot dangling: tapping an imaginary
drum set...
recently i discovered the B-side of the Red Hot Chilli
Peppers... so for me it's a version
of keeping the 20th century alive with
the "dichotomy" of the Rolling Stones vs.
the Beatles... i'm more... R.H.C.P.'s A-sides
of R.H.C.P.'s B-sides?
                                        i'm busy...
                i'm always busy... i don't want to relax...
i want a Turkish barber to suggest that
i need  hot-towel and an arm massage after
my beard is trimmed and... i'm still going to state:
getting a Turk to trim my beard is a close
contender to oral *** from a Turkish *******...

but try finding me that original Latin of Ovid's...
ah! found it! let's see if i can compete with
my own translation... the one i originally read
and the one i found finding the original Latin
were so disparaging...

**** yes! well... there was Ted Hughes writing
about the Crow... poor ******...
should have killed himself: might have competed
with his terribly-wonderful wife of a poet...
i give her that: what noose?
best head in an oven...
and you want a shovel with that?
but this is Ovid... "complaining" about
the death of his lover's parrot...
immediately i jumped to conclusions:
not enough crackers...

(A) the Original:

Psittacus, Eois imitatrix ales ab Indis,
    occidit—exequias ite frequenter, aves!
ite, piae volucres, et plangite pectora pinnis
    et rigido teneras ungue notate genas;
horrida pro maestis lanietur pluma capillis,
    pro longa resonent carmina vestra tuba!
quod scelus Ismarii quereris, Philomela, tyranni,
    expleta est annis ista querela suis;
alitis in rarae miserum devertere funus—
    magna, sed antiqua est causa doloris Itys.
Omnes, quae liquido libratis in aere cursus,
    tu tamen ante alios, turtur amice, dole!
plena fuit vobis omni concordia vita,
    et stetit ad finem longa tenaxque fides.
quod fuit Argolico iuvenis Phoceus Orestae,
    hoc tibi, dum licuit, psittace, turtur erat.
Quid tamen ista fides, quid rari forma coloris,
    quid vox mutandis ingeniosa sonis,
quid iuvat, ut datus es, nostrae placuisse puellae?—
    infelix, avium gloria, nempe iaces!
tu poteras fragiles pinnis hebetare zmaragdos
    tincta gerens rubro Punica rostra croco.
non fuit in terris vocum simulantior ales—
    reddebas blaeso tam bene verba sono!
Raptus es invidia—non tu fera bella movebas;
    garrulus et placidae pacis amator eras.
ecce, coturnices inter sua proelia vivunt;
    forsitan et fiunt inde frequenter ****.
plenus eras minimo, nec prae sermonis amore
    in multos poteras ora vacare cibos.
nux erat esca tibi, causaeque papavera somni,
    pellebatque sitim simplicis umor aquae.
vivit edax vultur ducensque per aera gyros
    miluus et pluviae graculus auctor aquae;
vivit et armiferae cornix invisa Minervae—
    illa quidem saeclis vix moritura novem;
occidit illa loquax humanae vocis imago,
    psittacus, extremo munus ab orbe datum!
optima prima fere manibus rapiuntur avaris;
    inplentur numeris deteriora suis.
tristia Phylacidae Thersites funera vidit,
    iamque cinis vivis fratribus Hector erat.
Quid referam timidae pro te pia vota puellae—
    vota procelloso per mare rapta Noto?
septima lux venit non exhibitura sequentem,
    et stabat vacuo iam tibi Parca colo.
nec tamen ignavo stupuerunt verba palato;
    clamavit moriens lingua: 'Corinna, vale!'
Colle sub Elysio nigra nemus ilice frondet,
    udaque perpetuo gramine terra viret.
siqua fides dubiis, volucrum locus ille piarum
    dicitur, obscenae quo prohibentur aves.
illic innocui late pascuntur olores
    et vivax phoenix, unica semper avis;
explicat ipsa suas ales Iunonia pinnas,
    oscula dat cupido blanda columba mari.
psittacus has inter nemorali sede receptus
    convertit volucres in sua verba pias.
Ossa tegit tumulus—tumulus pro corpore magnus—
    quo lapis exiguus par sibi carmen habet:
"colligor ex ipso dominae placuisse sepulcro;
    ora fuere mihi plus ave docta loqui".

mein gott... in English it reads so smoothly reading
it while listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers'
B-sides... quixoticelixer...
teatra jam (short)... and then thinking about it...
through to and through Going Li coupled
with trouble in the pub (instrumental version)...

i will never own a car...
              mind you: i already secretely own a house...
if i keep appeasing my mother and my father:
when reality kicks in and they're dead and i'm
project solo... it's not like i'm waiting for the day...
they are hoarders of shoes and screws...
literally... no metaphor...
  on my own: i will have to recycle so much ****
before i will put the house on the market...
and? i never pledged any allegiance to Essex...
England... i have: pledged an allegiance
to the English tongue...
                 but if not the Shetland Islands...
north... "god" send me north! even as far as
Greenland!
                i'm not willing to die in a place where
villages are flaring up in a July heat...

i can't bemoan what i honestly couldn't keep...
i sometimes get mad at my father for being
so submissive to my mother...
i sometimes get so mad at my mother for only
being able to talk about her chronic pains:
i'm alligned with my grandmother
who once said: she's just like your paternal
great-grandmother... every itch and scratch...
it's like writing with chalk on a blackboard...
hey presto! ruptures of the Grand Canyon...
that ******* bollocking of: ooh! ah!
           me? i don't understand people with tattoos...
me? i collect scars...
these two fading ones on my face are a disappointment...
i thought something more pronounced
could be kept from that bicycle-crach Francis Bacon
esque imitation of painting:
   the sort of painting where you can still revel
in brush-strokes being visible...
   because it's not rigid: Renaissance form painting...

now: i can sort of imagine what men couple up...
those who fear being alone...
those not interested in art...
those mostly interested in sport... but not all sport...
just some sports...
sports that they support "passing their lineage"
with according to the cult of football teams...
not all-sports... i.e. not an interest in fencing...
swimming... certainly guys who thought:
wow! tennis is great to watch!
   but squash is so much more fun to play!
cycling... well... if you love cycling per se:
watching other people cycle is a bit: BOO-RING...
what sort of other men get married?
probably those not interested in risque ***
with prostitutes...
ones interested in making money for a woman
to spend...
me? i'm not interested in money...
                       in terms of money:
i'm more likely to spend £30 on a book than
think about a dinner date...
                      
is that...   ??? i'm not even going to ask myself
that question that begins with a buzz-word
and the letters Mmmm... miso...
                             well... what is a boy to do...
figure out what to do with his spare time...
               i don't mind cleaning the house:
who ever said that it's the duty of a woman to keep
the house clean? i like living in a household in order...
i love cooking: it's like chemistry 2.0...
                      give me a bag of Indian spices and i'll
cook up a perfect storm of a curry...
but then again: i'm not work-shy when it comes
to using heavy-duty tools akin to the KANGO...
which... i later found out was a Japanese word for
Chinese in general... or the other way round...
i'd hate to be one of those Phil Collins types of
forgetting how many hands i have
by changing gloves like i might be an octopus...

and when it comes to children?
eh... it's enough for a boy in a buggy in a supermarket
pointing his finger at me as i walk past
making that chimpanzee face of OOH at me...
or a fist-bump with some teenagers at the London
Stadium... that's enough... i'm happy to play
the "secret uncle" role...
while women remain women: as fickle as the wind...
i've learned to live with that reality...
i scratch my beard and pretend that i'm playing
a violin...

plus, i'm a terrible drinker... i'm a loving-drunk...
i'm drunk right now...
if a litre of whiskey per night satisfies
my libido shortages i'm happy:
it implies i can write... i stop drinking and start
*******: alles goot...
                           today i was visited by a wasp...
i was visited by a bee before...
oh man... it was heart-breaking...
he was dying... i had to help him...
   i poured some honey onto the pave-,
and moved him towards the puddle...
he stuck his mighty Gene Simmons sucker out
and started to perform an OD on sugar...
i was glad... watching him die from a sugar-overdose...
it was: rather pleasant to watch...

TERROR! mix JAINISM with TAOISM
and fuse that in an European mind...
               but i'll still eat meat...
                        it's a parody of what's to be expected:
i prefer life with the possibilities of change...
with... curiosities of: extensive ulterior
possibilities that run counter to estblished norms
of expectations of a RIGID MIND...
i water: i flow...
      i fire: i dance...
i air: i whirl...
i earth: i rumble...
i lightning: i blink...
hey presto! the five elements!

in another language close to my heart:
since i was born with it...
the pronoun disappears:
ja woda: płyne
ja ogien: tańcze...
   ja powietrze: kręce się (odd)
ja ziemia: trzęse się (also "odd")
ja grzmot: mrygam

there are languages in existence where pronouns
hide... to be honest...
in ******? the pronouns are rarely used...
oh mein gott... when they're used in a sentence:
esp. the I... it's like... wow! i just found
a "nugget of gold"!
seriously... that how my mother-tongue
is structured: on English is the current
prounoun-circus available to watch...
i'm siding with the Somali pirates having
a giggle... playing blackjack with either Greeks
or some other Africans...

there are languages in English that cannot: will not,
succumb to the current Marxist onslight
happening in this tongue...
not because these languages will not:
they CANNOT...
mind you... it's such an intellectual low-bar
of achievement... but since it's piggy-pop...
it must be slaughtered on an individual level
before this DISEASE is allowed to spread...
thank heavens that English is only my second
language... how that allows me to bypass
buying into any sort of propaganda...
   my lingua Ingelese... my tongue for spreading
ideas...
    oh: and thank **** i' expressing in a medium
desecrated by the same people pushing these
sordid ideas... post-humous fame! 'ere i come!
obviously! who's in it for the "real" and immediate
if one isn't... fabricating a pickling of a shark
in plastic.... who? who?! woof!
   a-woooooo"

            my heart has shrunk and hardened to
the size and hardness of a pebble...
    i wish i could entertain cosy nights with a woman
watching some pointless movie about
the stereotypes of love... then again: no...
i'd rather not...
drinking alone: who the hell said i was alone?
i sometimes "hallucinate" someone crying:
of late... i'm like: this isn't Aud Lang Syne...
this isn't Shakespear...
then again i love the idea that my true readers
are yet to be born...
i'm happy, happy-bear-alone...
                       a Maine **** is sleeping in my
bed... i'll join him come the right hour...
but he's not looking at me... he's looking above me...
only yesterday i started to paparazzi
a wasp that flew into my bedroom...
          what the **** do i have above me?
please say letters... i will not do alright with a halo...
i'm not going to join that
archangel one minute... saint the next...
clip my ******* wings for a get-through-easy
card: no!
          
it became finalized today... i'm literally tired
of ***... i'm tired of *** when it's equivalent to not...
being tired of eating food... drinking water...
it's unnecessarily-necessary... *** as golf...
per say...
                2 months of delay in payment...
i'm thinking about rekindling my affair with that mountain
bike... i have to forget the streets...
i need the woods again... but for that i need new tires...
oh... hell... i no longer have anything
to prove in the brothel... blah blah whatever...
threesomes look great: LOOk...
like a block of cheddar looks great...
when shredded...
and then melting...
perhaps in pornographic flicks...
but in reality? the changing of condoms
from one mouth to another...
from one ****** to another...
                          
what?! peiple are having unprotected ***?
vermin ****?!
   **** me... well... at least i'm obnoxiously savvy
in that regard...
no no... it's too disappointing...
you have to split your attention up...
there's nothing good about a *******...
why? because, usually... of the two girls...
there's one you really want to be a screwdriver to...
while the other is just being a, *******...
a ******* bandwagon... leftovers...
a pair of **** you get to imitate ****** with...
it's a bit like:
coupling an elephant with a giraffe...
but i want to ride the elephant!
but i want to stroke the giraffe's neck!
but  i want to pretend the elephants's tusk...
no! not tusk! TRUNK....
that rectangular bit of ******* you shovel
your clothes in when travelling...
TRUNK... or a TRAMPOLINE!
no... not the bouncy layer...
TRUNK... sneeze! trambone! jazz! ******* Miles Daisies!
Davis!  trumpet *******!
no... don't get me started on the sax...

then again: i want a rhino's horn! ram-jam...
Black Betty Bam B'eh Lam!

- oh no... i moved along... R.H.C.P.'s: thanks for the t-shirt...
Big Bukowski style:
i hate the eagles... run through the jungle...
run Forrest! whun!
WHUN!
  and that's me... hardly a LAMNTIA of the Beatniks
tripping... me? enough whiskey
and the right song... and i'm grooving beside
an imaginary drum-kit...
in that: once upon a time...
when men grew their hair long...
they were the barbarians knocking
on the gates of Rome... rather than being
the implosion of Rome within with
all of Rome's degeneracy of transgender gimmicks...

mind you: i've given it some thought...
i broke it down toward the following schematic:

anonymous audience, commenting,
video making blah blah...
****** "schematic": if you can call it that...
mind you: the VAR in WIETNAM
had the best soundtrack...
just saying: hey! her?! hey! don't shoot
the messanger!
i'd rather work the Fulham opening night
with the new stand: Thames-side being opened
than attend Wembley for a Westwood...
Westworld... Westlife concert,
i'm all up for handling those Scousers:
northern monkeys?
southern fairies...
let's just call them for what they are...
northern TOURISTS...

but the dynamic of publishing has changed:
i already know the criterium first...
women and children first...
THIRST beccause water matters...
i'm thirsty too... one litre of whiskey and
i'm still typing like a machine...
i'll box my liver and kidneys
as long as i keep my brain and eyes happy...

but it's just a different dynamic...
the internet experience...
i know a lot of people miss it...
i can't force people to read my bollocking-riddles...
ergo? i don't stagnate into celebrating it
or therefore advertising it...
i'm either read or i'm STAUB...
   dust...
                
i can't! i'm only making something available...
i can't force people out of their democratic "wedlock"...
you like it? great! you don't? great!
but the psychology of those video creators that
mind how many views they receive and
how many comments they: likewise receive...
"false hits" with the number of hits of viewership?

me? i'm not bothered... i've been watching
the female Euro finals...
i was almost scared... what if the female England team
don't make it to the finals?!
me? i'm gearing up...
any rowdy hooligans up to speed?!
as much as i hate women not trying toi compete
in sports that are sexually-exclusive...
there's this... THIS... i watch the games because
the Colleseum is burning...
i'm only watching the fire...
    and i'm watching the women i'd love to ****...
this never would have happened if watching
tennis...

    the crisp biting attache of a sharpshooter
WONG sort of mixer-mix-up with a whiskey
and a pepssi...
me... reaching for a second glass
with one already filled like: *******... RAINMAN...

keep your horses!
i'm gearing up to a translation!
wait, the, ****, up! keep it cool in Doob-Lyn!
oh no... you don't get to tell me
i use too many vowels without me showing
you... you mishandled the vowel-to-consonant
dynamic... Doob-Lyn is Dublin: tow me...
no: not to me? tow me... now you're dragging me
along the snail-trail...

the disparaging translations:

(B) the A. S. Kline translation

Parrot, the mimic, the winged one from India’s Orient,
is dead – Go, birds, in a flock and follow him to the grave!
Go, pious feathered ones, beat your ******* with your wings
and mark your delicate cheeks with hard talons:
tear out your shaggy plumage, instead of hair, n mourning:
sound out your songs with long piping!
Philomela , mourning the crime of the Thracian tyrant,
the years of your mourning are complete:
divert your lament to the death of a rare bird –
Itys is a great but ancient reason for grief.
All who balance in flight in the flowing air,
and you, above others, his friend the turtle-dove, grieve!
All your lives you were in perfect concord,
and held firm in your faithfulness to the end.
What the youth from Phocis was to Orestes of Argos,
while she could be, Parrot, turtle-dove was to you.
What worth now your loyalty, your rare form and colour,
the clever way you altered the sound of your voice,
what joy in the pleasure given you by our mistress? –
Unhappy one, glory of birds, you’re certainly dead!
You could dim emeralds matched to your fragile feathers,
wearing a beak dyed scarlet spotted with saffron.
No bird on earth could better copy a voice –
or reply so well with words in a lisping tone!
You were snatched by Envy – you who never made war:
you were garrulous and a lover of gentle peace.
Behold, quails live fighting amongst themselves:
perhaps that’s why they frequently reach old age.
Your food was little, compared with your love of talking
you could never free your beak much for eating.
Nuts were his diet, and poppy-seed made him sleep,
and he drove away thirst with simple draughts of water.
Gluttonous vultures may live and kites, tracing spirals
in air, and jackdaws, informants of rain to come:
and the raven detested by armed Minerva lives too –
he whose strength can last out nine generations:
but that loquacious mimic of the human voice,
Parrot, the gift from the end of the earth, is dead
The best are always taken first by greedy hands:
the worse make up a full span of years.
Thersites saw Protesilaus’s sad funeral,
and Hector was ashes while his brothers lived.
Why recall the pious prayers of my frightened girl for you –
prayers that a stormy south wind blew out to sea?
The seventh dawn came with nothing there beyond,
and Fate held an empty spool of thread for you.
Yet still the words from his listless beak astonished:
dying his tongue cried: ‘Corinna, farewell!’
A grove of dark holm oaks leafs beneath an Elysian *****,
the damp earth green with everlasting grass.
If you can believe it, they say there’s a place there
for pious birds, from which ominous ones are barred.
There innocuous swans browse far and wide
and the phoenix lives there, unique immortal bird:
There Juno’s peacock displays his tail-feathers,
and the dove lovingly bills and coos.
Parrot gaining a place among those trees
translates the pious birds in his own words.
A tumulus holds his bones – a tumulus fitting his size –
whose little stone carries lines appropriate for him:
‘His grave holds one who pleased his mistress:
his speech to me was cleverer than other birds’.

(C) the  P. Green translation

parrot, that feathered mimic from India's dawlands,
is dead. come flocking, birds, to his funeral:
come, all you godfearing airborne creatures,
beat ******* with wings,
   mourn, claw your polls, tear out soft feathers
(your hair), and pipe high your sad lament.
Philomela, nightingale, the ancient crimes of Tereus
which you lament is long past -
    divert your grief to the obsequies of a rare and modern
bird: poor Itylus' case was tragic, but antique.
all wind-borne voyagers through the clear empyrean
lament now, and above all his friend the turtle-dove
they lived in complete agreement,
    their bond of faith held firm to the end.
what Pylades was to Orestes or Argos, that Parrot,
turtle-dove was to you - while fate allowed.
yet of no avail your devotion, your rare and beautiful
plumage,
your adaptable mimic's voice;
    not even the care that my darling lavished on you -
poor Polly, paragon of birdhood, is dead.
so gree his feathers, they dimmed the cut emerald;
scarlet his beak, with saffron spots.
no bird on earth could copy a voice more closely
or sound so articulate.
fate, jealous, removed him - that unaggressive creature,
that talktative devotee of peace,
with his tiny appetite , whose love of conversation
left him little leisure for food,
who lived on a diet of nuts, used poppy-seed to encourage
sound sleep: kept his thirst at bay with nothing but water.
quails spend their whole life fighting -
maybe that's how they reach a ripe old age.
carnivorous vultures, kites gyring high in the heavens,
weather-wise jackdaws, prophets of rain to come,
are all long-lived - while Minerva's bête noire, the raven,
can outlast nine generations. yet Parrot is dead,
that loquacious parody of human utterance,, that bonanza
from the eastern edge of the world,
greedy death almost always pickss off the best ones early -
it's the third-raters who reach a ripe old age.
Thersites attended the funeral of Protesilaus;
Hector was ashes while his brothers still lived.
what point is recalling the desperate prayers my sweetheart
uttered?
some stormy sirocco blew them out to sea.
six days he survived, and then, at dawn on the seventh,
his thread of destiny ran out.
yet somehow, though dying, he could still find utterance,
and the last words he ever spoke were: 'Corinna, farewell!'
beneath a hill in Elyium, where dark ilex clussters
and the moist earth is for ever green,
there exists - or so i have heard - the pious fowls' heaven
(all ill-omened predators barred).
harmless swaans roam after foot there, there dwells
the phoenix, that long-lived, ever-solitary bird;
there Juno's peacock spreads out his splendid fantail
amid the billing and cooing of amorous doves;
and there, in this woodland haven, the feathered faithful
welcome Parrot, flock round to hear him talk.
his bones lie buried under a parrot-sized tumulus
with a tiny headstone bearing these words:
r.i.p. Polly: this tribute from his loving mistress:
articulate beyond a common bird

the thought of LEMONS or perhaps
the IDEA of lemon...
then again: i can't refrain from
ORANGES and LIMES...
and the shy-sunlight of autumn
and the blooming of apples...
and operas...
             "someone"...
                              what pretty pies of
unfuckable wonders await...

divert your grief to the obsequeies of a rare and modern
bird: poor Itylus' case was tragic, but antique
(antiquated?).
all wind-borne voyagers through tge clear empyrean
lament nowm abd above all
his friend the turtle-dove, they lived in complete
agreement
   their bond of faith held firm to the end.
what Pylades was to Orestes of Argos, that, Parrot,
turtle-dove was to you - while Fate allowed,

i'm not even going to bother with a "bananna C"...
i woke up wild-awake with ideas...
brimming with Tao...
"non-doing" id est: point PROVEN
or rather point SERVED?!

Russia and China are clashing...
or rather sparring...
they're having their civilization-state
agenda being put in place...
while there's a "culture-war" in the "west"...
right... James Bond...
so we're refrrering to nation-stattes
as post-nationhood...
  "states"...
                    precursors to the globalist agenda
of fake space exploration via the ******* telescope...
if Russia and China are civivilasation-states...
then... whatever culture "war" is investing in:
or rather: digressing into... impliies
the FSA (federal states of america)
             is a culture-state...
                                                ­                 no?

personally? i don't like the current h'American culture...
it's absolute *******...
no! i'm not going to translate any more of Ovid...
i already read the better translation...
i found out only two minites ago that
i prefer drinking to having ***...
and keeping an eye on cats is just as rewarding
as rearing children: if you allow yourself
to give them a personality...

           so Russia is a civilisation-state...
while America is a culture-state...
                    well... no wonder...
                                            America is the zenith
that could be: but doesn't have to be
preserved...
the culture-state-of-the-sand-*******...
i wish: the Arabs clocked in lucky...
sitting on so much raw ill of oil...
bounce bounce libido bounce bounce...

hmm... "inner monologue"... i had that "thing"
once... i kost it... turning psychotic...
then again: within the confines of having
an internal monologue? i was passive...
       i was a passive agent...
                         upon losing it: having my soul
evaporate: becoming an "N.P.C."...
i became an active agent...
i opened my eyes a second time...

           i think my inner monolpogue became blocked
by:
został wyciszony... bo zaczoł być cykliczny,
tzn. nie po prostej:
       wymarł według koncepcji
sprawiedliwości...

even i know: the gods uttered the words:
shut the **** up! we know you're right!
but we're playing roulette!
shut the ******! we're playing cards!
shut up!
wait! wait your turn!
**** me, given the prowess at attaing
a concept of the differential of space comparing
time... i.e. speed... i'll be karma-happy
once i die...

i'm not translating the rest of that Ovid...
a girl's parraot died... great!
now i'm thinking about:
a bicyckle is a terrible idea... to ride...
on the roads towards St. Paul's... i think i might
require a horse!
i need a horse! bring me a hood, a hoof,
an apple and a toothbrush!
the last place i'm thinking about moving
to is California...
   and thank no god for that...
just the people who already live there.

III.

i sooner discovered the rare B-sides of Red Hot Chilli
Peppers than having realised... oh right...
they release two albums after By the Way...
i completely forgot about those two...
               guess i'm not as big a fan as i thought i was...
Go Robot... it's not oh so wo terrible now, or anymore...
oh woah woe... what a whale to ride into the night...

sometimes it just happens, a sort of blend of an Ezrra Pound
and a Charles Olson moment, poem, moment-poem...
it stretches for three days and you just don't want
to finish it... you kept repeating yourself writing seemingly
aimlessly with no focus...
at this point writing becomes theraputic...
by the simple act of writing: not theraputic regarding
what you're writing about: memories of frustration and
complications having finished Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus...
unlike those joyous frustrations with Samuel Beckett's
Watt...
                  and on the third day "he" finished painting
four metal chairs a new colour of copperhead...
a copperneck painting chairs copperhead...
to me the colour of copper is more appealing than
that of gold...

if i still had that inner-monologue people speak of
i wouldn't be writing this,
that inner-monologue fantasy i once was a proud owner
of: i.e. the closest "thing" to the idea of soul
was also filled with so many doubts...
i simply don't care what the supposed benefits
of it were... that whole no-inner-monologue ergo
one's an NPC (non-playable character)...
    i remember that that when my first psychotic episode
slammed me on a rampage i started to see DIFFERENTLY...
it was as if a veil was lifted from my eyes...
if i didn't write terrible poetry back then...
i most certainly wrote very little...
             the inner-monologue doubts... a plethora of them...
no? psychosis = the osmosis of soul...
   the body has remained... the devils said:
but these idle hands and this idle intellect have to stay...
we'll pass on the message with your soul
as it leaves your body...
call it whatever you want:
   res vanus or the silence of the "mind"...
that's how you become more of an active agent...
it might be called writing but i call it digging...
a tunnel toward some variaton of: marrying Hades
with Tartarus...
                after all... Venus is the daughter of titans...
and she's the only Titan among the Olympian gods:
such is her perfection... almost on par with
   the patron of philosophers that's Sacred Sophia:
who entertains the foolishness of elder men
without being able to tell them apart from boys...

IV. if i were to translate Amores II. XI

would i be willing to add a D in the translation sequence?
i don't think so
there's no need... i like comparing the two i already
made available...
i just wanted to stress how unbelievable Latin is...
compared to the modern tongue, for example English...
how compact it is!
- and course, i prefer the second translation...
     it... exfoliates!
                     this is the point for me where i truly appreciate
Ovid to be on par with Horace...

side by side walking through the zenith-nadir of
man...

   i'm finally come across a sequence of events that
make me unwilling to stop typing: perhaps if i get
drunk enough and stumble on my first typo
perhaps a series of typos would end my ambition...

do i think men in the west are living
in a land of libido-insomnia? i think they are...
whoever said that watching one type of pornogrphy
soon spirals out of control and men start
scouting for more extreme *******:
hello outlier A! hello outlier B!
where's outlier C? oh... he's coming...
at a time when women are supposed to be these
sexually liberated creatures while men
are either STAGS with harems or limp biscuit *****...
thank god i managed to catch the train
of having the ***** of walking into a newsagent
and buying a pornographic magazine to ******* to...
stashed about six in a folder behind
the radiator in the bathroom at 21B Beehive Lane,
Gants Hill...
                         mind you: i started prematurely...
8?
     i switch off with western ****** antics:
people are either having too much ***: ergo the kinks
or not enough of it...
outlier in the middle: when it's too hot
i leave the insects to do their lineage pride...
cooler temperatures: *** like rubbing sand-paper
on a ****** paint-job...

                         makeshift boney **** of the hand...
well: at least ******* makes me more interested in
the **** than **** ***...
but i did the opposite... i need to keep a sack-of-sanity
atop my head...
beside adoring the Katakana...
i very much adore Japanese tamed sexuality...
     グラビア アイドル (gurabia aidoru)...
back in the day when the English tabloid newspaper
the Sun had a page 3 girl...
back to basics... a show of *******...
    a show of cleavage... perhaps even the breast
like the eye... the sclera of the rounded breast...
the darkened skin at the iris and then the pupil
as the ******...
  floral patterns of the *******...
                  back to basics...
                           a photograph of a naked woman
and all the imagination at work: what wouldn't
i want to do with her?

well... if you begin pleasing yourself while concentrating
on the kiss between Venus and Cupid
in one of Bronzino's beauties of paint-strokes...
you're hardly going to go down a rabbit-hole
of "hide and hide": wihtout seeking it out...
people and thier kinks...
while a minority: dodo-project sexuality of
homosexuality is celebrated: garnerded unto the guise
of "pride": i can't stomach shame...
but hey: look at me! i'm about to parade my sexuality
like and ******* latex-clad gimp readied
for being given ***-favour-orders...

outlandish! god-forgiving god-fearing...
  hardly every god-loving...
           a settling in of a blue that's not the sky
but a melancholy... i'm finally willing to end this
"diatribe"... to start afresh... again and again...
like mixing: Dreams of a Samurai with
Hans Zimmer's spectres in the fog...

                      my ***: going back to figuring out
the premature adventures into ***...
one boy passing on the secrets of *******
to another while sharing a bath:
the cruel curiosity of the circumcision:
in a secular environment: without the kippah
or the niqab: the submission of the women...
i will not give up the "sheath" to my "sword"...
i will keep my teeth with my twirling tongue...
if ever an improvement on the aesthetics?
clipping the ears of Dobberman dogs...
banning clipping the clipping of their tails...
but still: the preserved atrocity of male circumcision...
i could agree...
once a woman is devoted to her man...
a circumcision like putting on a wedding ring...
noble swans... oh noble swans...

a melancholy that's sort of azure...
amass enough water and you will see blue...
amass "too little": freeze it...
a paleness somewhat grey...
but then the icebergs roaming that are
the Cistercians...
            all i need right now is for some lonely
dog to start barking into the night...
or the cackling "laughter" of a fox...
    
    but all those sexless lives...
            "lucky" me for taming my consumption down...
where would i be without it?
i didn't ask for a *******...
i wa offered it... i will never forget how she clamoured
for the opportunity...
she couldn't stomach being rejected twice...
she just had to clamour like a crab in a crab bucket...
even if she thought she thought she succeeded:
she was the spare wheel...
what i've learned... i prefer one-on-one interactions...
but i gave in...
   it would have never worked out:
not like it "works out" in pornographic flicks...
the sharing of saliva and other juices...
we're responsible adults...
unlike in the pornographic flicks...
          two women: one man...
the changing of condoms...
                           i had to think quick:
there's only one way i will not be undermined...
snuggling up to the one i really wanted
to spend an hour with...
                       kissing neck and cheek...
while she did a hand-job...
   the other just sat there sort of idle...
                          until i figured out... those *******
could be of some use...

- i couldn't pull off a Jesus look...
long hair and a beard is not my "thing"...
even with a sly undercut...
i chose the better option.... short hair, a beard, yes,
but a "fu manchu": an elongated love-spot...
competing with the length of the beard...
i really "don't understand" why i have no memory
of my chin and neck...
it's like there was never the idea of using
water as a mirror... perhaps poor Xerxes lashed
at the Aegean for hiding his reflection
when he had one of those Narcisstic moments
of anguish: he forgot how he looked like...
but then the sides of the moustasche also drooping:
elongated... that work much better than
a beard and long hair...
it's so unfashionable these days...
i don't get why men think beards and long hair
"work"....

then again i never figured out why Khadira
wanted to have unprotected ***...
  how she insisted that it was just plain o.k.
for me to ******* into her...
how i snapped and dived in into her pandamonium
of multiples springs of irritated ****...
all slobbering with oyster-tongue
and knose...
                               all that informed me...

companionship? what a rare commodity...
it's enough to have a mother to know
how a woman's company can quickly sour
the already sweet grapes...
one word: tell a man he's LAZY...
while he's just tired of being pushed and shoved...
if a mother can do that to a son?
what could a wife do?
                          and i'm come across curiosities of
men who waged wars with their mothers...
at the Tyson Fury boxing match...
i was trying to calm the **** down a guy
who was having a panic attack after being
"abandoned" by his mother...
who bought the tickets... and drinks...
i squeezed him hard... told him: but i'm here for free!
nay! i'm here and getting paid for it!
blah blah...
               i hate seeing panic attacks in men...
it makes me either feel like
more than a man or less of a man...
it makes me think of the men prior
with shell-shocks... or women exploiting
the challenges of p.t.s.d.

                                    i've seen so many people fake
a mental illness... i've spoken at length
to them... how easily open up to their own struggles...
while i'm left alone with whatever ones
i have...
                   maybe because my "mental health issues"
have morphed into philosophical caviats
implies that i'm immune to outright sharing
the details... and boring people to death...
so i listen...
        i listen...
                            in one ear out the other...

i remember days in high school when we would love
to change the subject, create a game:
SLAP-BALL... imitation of Tsar Peter III prior
to tennis... an imitation court... with a fence between us...
or just playing BLACKJACK...
cards... that was big... we understood that ignoring
women was best done with / by playing cards...
at one point: i remember it to this day...
Samuel Richards grabbed Ian Goodman's neck
and pinned him to the floor...
we tried to intervene...
i don't know whether it was about the actual
game of cards or whether it was about
Sam bailing out... he was about to move to France...
and ****** off from pur in-group...
started playing basketball with the black-boys...
forgot he was supposedly the "PUNK" in the school...
i remember skateboarding with him...
he actually stole his mother's credit card and bought
a skateboard for me...
but his ******* MOHICAN was ****...
it didn't entertain the entire length of his skull
meeting his spine...
but we did walk back from Romford
toward Ilford this one night...
underage drinking... singing Backstreet Boys songs...

ha ha...
         time is a museum of melancholy...
while space is a museum of furthering whatever is left
of leftover potential...

i'm so despondent about this life having to end...
today i cycled up to the traffic lights
on my ******... ******?! £125 viking road bike... say the word
****** one more time... what was i facing?
a solitary man in an Aston Martin...
behind him? some solitary guy in a Porsche...
right... "alphas"...
i'm on my bicycle... but these two guys
in those choicest of motor-examples?
that's the thing with "competing" in life rather than
sport...
     i like my bicycle... i love my bicycle...
i am yet to wash away the blood from my head
from the crash...
i don't have a broken leg: i just have an outgrowth of bone
on my shin where my bone should have cracked:
i love milk...

competing with these men... **** me...
i was thinking about the Porsche guy...
nice game... but it's not playing cards...
i taart myself up: compete...
what do i get? i get a Porsche...
     but then ahead of me there's this guy
in an Aston Martin: mate! i'm ******!
oh blue blue Hue... the Aston Martin looked like
the bomb that is already was...
the Porsche? the Porsche looked like
a ******* Ford Mondeo by comparison...
Civic Extra... if that's even a car...
i was sort of happy to by cycling...
i figured... well: i'm not using my legs...
to walk... i'm peddling...

ever heard the expression "push-bike"?
i heard that only recently... what a werid coupling
of words... a motorcycle is distinguished from
a a bicycle by the term: "push-bike"
this half-brain-dead coworker...
what the **** am i pushing?!
it's just as weird as calling it a peddling-bicycle, no?
eh?
but what am i pushing? a bicycle is a bicycle
a turtle is a turtle... i still have to figure out
what's being pushed...
what comes first? the donkey, the carrot, or the stick?!

mawn the lawn: sieve the sand...
mawn the lawn: sieve the sand...
keep nurturing the spacing between numbers
but also keep lost track of the alphebticaal
queue...
never the type to rehash a refurbishment
of SPAWN...

           i simply don't want this day-dream to end...
around me people cowering into sleep...
i'm left in limbo...
            between consetllations and the scythe
of the moon... dearest: moooooon...
i'm itching to break the silence with a howl...
but first: the thirst of a dog barking...
i hear a dog barking i'll start to howl!

aren't we simply becoming the same
tired people of old?
              more impetus...
more gravity! more fire! more tides!
more the quaking of the earth!
more whirlwinds! more! more!
one Pompeii is not enough!

                       almost one litre of whiskey
into the session and i'm sober-tense...
i'm starting to think that entertaining
hell is not a bad "gimmick"...
                  there's the imaginary hell-crowd
and there' some also doubly-imaginary
crowd of people that yet to be bound to imitation-migration
focus...
           next time you ask me:
i'd rather be eating ice: crunching on
ice than drinking water...
i want to burn my tongue...
licking ice...l i want to burn my tongue
licking ice: but first i want to be dipping
it in coridnader-cumin-chilli-turmeric mix-up
of spiders...

i want to first bruise my knees before
i lick them clean...
i want the strict juices of: not tomatoes?
red is red: ergo blood is blood...
vulture ****...
there's an open window:
there's an evaporating night too...

best refrain: 6 by 6s refrain on 9s...
since? there's plenty of 0s / oopses...
by this "flesh and blood"...
i heave this sand and timer
like: i was sadly woken up with
an inheritance of salt...
boiling blue bloods and boiling gravy...
a smile that reads: clenched teeth...
a smile so awkward that
it make^ a parrot think twice about
imitating human speech.

^a notable typo, i think i might require an editor
(insert a snigger); two alternatives:
1. it might make a parrot think twice,
2. a smile so awkward that it makes a parrot think twince...
all depending on the tense.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2020
.perhaps in my company we wouldn't be... opening a bottle of red wine... to let it breathe... or pouring it into a bowl to give it more air to breathe with: otherwise on life-support machine through the bottle-neck... right here, right now, we have... a glass bottle of beer (13, guinness hop lager) and 4 cans of stella artois (the wife beater's lager, so they say)... yes... beer in cans... for all intesive purposes - a good way to transport beer... in aluminium cans... but we're not bums... we don't drink beer straight from cans... we pour our beer into a tall glass and wait... so the beer can exfoliate like aladdin's jinn in the glass... away from the confines of the can... we don't drink beer from a can... we can drink it straight from a bottle... but if it comes in a can... we pour it into a tall glass... just so... so there's some head on top... we're not english in that respect either... of cutting the head (of foam) off the beer... which is probably why i always order a stout in a pub... you can't pull one without the creme de la creme on top... a head on a beer is what makes it look less like carbonated **** or concentrated lemonade... we're not bums... we drink beer from glasses... never directly from cans - the metal gets in the way... a beer like a wine needs to breathe too.

i found that there are only two types of music styles
that are suitable for drinking -
that's... drinking and not going out -
playing a cat with an imaginary fireplace...
the less imaginary fireplace being:
a stare confined to... watching a pillow...
and the general schematic of a bed...
and sitting hunched in imitation: all crow because
no crow doesn't get you far
on golgotha of daydreams: if only i...
humble servant of dusty feet - the tourist,
the pilgrim - would set off...
         on an amphetamine riddled skew into
a messiah complex adventure...

                     but not me...
                once upon a time the only music
worth drinking to was the blues...
            a long, long time ago...
                hell: once upon a time any music
would do if we all decided to go dancing...
or at least waited for the dance to come of its own
volition and not mine: i.e. the me in i would
just be dragged under the teasing waves
and slurped out to sea...

                   a thousand waves are all but the single
tongue of some swindling kraken...
drinking and random shamanic interludes in
the youth of the night-club...
when there wasn't a tally for score or...
the ones shot down by manfred...
good thing he was called manfred...
   and not some swabian helmut! oi oi!
                                             von Richthofen!
and that was when...
           until came the five beers and on
the 4th it became apparent...
                                  the red garland quintet...
soul junction...

   and it's not... a gerry mulligan's night lights...
piano sentimentality and the ode
to all things urban, cosmopolitan...
                        yes... it's not grenadine in that
sulk of yours... it's cranberry juice...
the city and... the sewers and...
                                 jazz for the urban scenes
of: anywhere but the park...
the graveyard... a choo-choo slowing into
a station... and billy joel come:
mid-life crisis and a new york state of mind...
while over 'ere we have...
     teasing the woods: where concrete ends
and mud begins... thus we can have our Adam...
and...

only today i was walking past his bride...
doing my odd citizen duty of recycling glass...
and buying the amber sedatives (carbonated)
for an evening with some cannonball adderley
or some donnie byrd... or a horace silver...
that's the beauty of jazz...
the music is all there is... the names come and go...
sonny rollins and the story behind
the bridge... and how he would pretend to
but not pretend to... retire and go off and practice
on the bridge so as to not disturb his neighbours...
all the details are there: on the vinyl sleeve
from 1963...

now that's jazz... i don't even want to mind
how pretentious this might sound...
but... it doesn't in that: jazz is jazz in that there
might come some great improv. -
after all: it's all somewhat improv. -
   but you can't really make such basic
generalißations...
        speedy-shoom-of-a-choo-choo whizzing past...
schematic!
   classical music is all a priori...
                              jazz... it's all a posteriori...
how? when people phone in between
1pm and 5pm to classic.fm and they make requests...
they sometimes ask for something specific...
but usually... they vaguely allude to... a feeling...
something "uplifting" - play something "uplifting"...
ergo... there's this... a priori "item"(?)
in the music that's... an expectation...

          i do know what jazz sounds like
a quintent: drums, bass, piano, trumpet, sax...
yes... the guitar... asking the algorithm:
a quintet is five - what is six?
        sixtet - d'uh... sextet... well that's the basic
"i know what jazz sounds like"...
but with jazz there's always this lag...
it's this lagging behind:
    i don't exactly know what i'll feel until
only after i've heard it and in the meantime too...
jazz is all a posteriori -

while classical music for me is all a priori...
given that... it's not exactly improvised:
there's the orchestra, the movie, the script...
   and it's such a music that doesn't worship
itchy fingers of improv. - the stale or rather:
the head-about-to-explode of scoring the music like
a dissected **** of beef...
the cuts for the violins the cuts for the woodwinds...
more so: the almost shy drumming...
the wet-drumming... like rain playing
rattle fingers on tin (roofs)... or what rain would
sound like... if it was made from sand...
either way... jazz is a baggage...

hardly any sort of envisioning a journey from
(a) priori through to (b) posteriori -
and at least with jazz... you never have to really
cite who's playing... in a passing gesture
for all necessary bookmark purposes
of: where i am in the library of jazz...
unlike in classical music... where...
it's either Mozart, Beethoven or then again...
some obscure composer... perhaps ola glejlo...
but it's less about the music per se:
it's about the music of THE composer...
bonus marks for keeping to a rigid diet of one
and completing the herculean task of digesting
his entire oeuvre...

-       so i was walking past the most usual scene...
a car stopped... and she got out...
she must have been no more than 16 pushing 18...
the heavy make-up hid her otherwise boyish
contorts... a short black dress...
and as she got out of the cab...
she had her high-heel shoes in her hands...
   she was walking the cement barefoot...
i peered into her eyes... the lights were out...
perhaps her soul was screaming - perhaps this was
her first disappointment - and it was only... what...
not even 10pm on a saturday night...
my nights of youthful regret usually came after 3am
having to wrestle a berserker...
or how a dog looks like when it takes
to beer with a fond heart and only three legs...
god forbid but "they" would also cut my tail off
to further throw me off balance...
the walked passed and i looked into the cab...
a very, very nervous asian was looking at me
and then her... this didn't exactly look like...
she was ***** or was fighting to escape...
           aren't those scenarios usually stage in and around
woods - without any pedestrians walking past?
call it a trainwreck a carwreck...
                      or just running mascara...
that bad, eh?
at this point... society is a cruise ship...
and i'm stuck with ottis and none of that sentimentality
of the dock: running away with a bag of
chips wrapped in newspaper away from
seagulls... who... are apparently prone
to kleptoparasitism - a real thing... i swear to god...
the animals that want to eat in the realm
of trans-species... dogs have had their
kleptoparasistism repressed: crumbs from the table...
the chicken bones with hopes for
cartilege and someone who... is bad at
cleaning the flesh off the bone: pucker up...
move aside leech... watch this slurp...
ol' hank mobley and wayne shorter...
        one cascade after another...
5th beer in and...

yeah... so that's what a carwreck looks like...
for a girl in her late teens...
the cute black dress...
   getting out of the cab holding her high heels...
walking home barefoot...
she wasn't crying just yet...
but i could see puffy tender demon baron
of the soft cheeks readying to turn into
medussa's stare-grip... but not there yet...
this must have been her first time at "life"
and the night life and saturday...
         the cab driver looked scared shitless...
as if frozen in time... about to have his photograph
taken by a more sensible shadow of his...
i did think she just escaped a bad
session of prostitution...
but not even prostitutes look so ******* gloomy
as she did...

the ******* ***** it up -
the pundit ***** it up - the show goes on...
stage or no stage... an audience or no audience...
those eyes though... not yet crying...
but they felt... like wheeping oysters nonetheless...
you know when eyes are like that...
teasing bulging out... they appear dimmed
at first... but that's a dimming before
the sparkle of tears...
it's the 29th of febuary - yes...
mr. zodiac wasn't kind to those who still believe
in the horoscope but never tried
gambling on a winning team or horse...
it's still winter and those poor feet of hers...
she must have told the cab driver to stop...
hell... half a mile before she would get home...
a 6ft2 115kg sore thumb up with a beard
up ahead: stop! let me walk past him...
that's why i gave an inquisitive stare at the cab driver...
the cab driver was looking at me...
aren't the **** victims the ones jumping
out of the cab as it speeds off or whatnot?
so this was... staged?
              i read the "situation" wrong...
well no... i didn't find a lancelot in me...
there was no door to be held open...
           not tonight...
                                           i was in a mood for
beer and jazz... and luckily for me...
marvel of all marvels...
     haig club (1627) was sold at a bargain...
                        down from 25 quid to 16 quid...
goodbye excessive drinking the cheap *****...
hello: clubman haig... is it whiskey...
is it ms. amber... or is it chanel no. 5 -
                   is it whiskey or is it a perfume?
a snapper of a dinner standing-up...
   the scent of the last bite still on my moustache
even though i had washed my teeth...
the beer bottle opened - a drizzle on the hand
and then the hand smearing the liquid all over
the stinking hairs from an unwelcome scent...
i don't mind stinking like hops...
                  but hops is better than smelly food...

- regrets? ah yes... the "what if" universe at large...
that "whaf if" this and "what if" not...
"what if" yes and... when a man takes to walk
the street at night... he's only looking for empty
streets and... the hope of not seeing his reflection:
which is never about abruptly stopping
a cab and taking your shoes off
and walking in a tight-knit black dress
having met the world and...
                     was it heartbreak or just...
disappointment that... there are no unicorns
and she isn't daddy's precious?

any of the rudy van gelder editions...
                      "what if" i had more than just these
words... a barren wasteland of a flat
with no furnishings, not a book to call it a genesis
of a private library... not a single record
to play... no bed no curtains...
and she was the: honey-catch and snare and...
what if i were still in my late teens and
didn't have these invisible tattoos of historical
dates and the tattoos that riddle bones
that are... "habits of hygiene"...
      by hygiene i imply: ontological fixtures...
immoveable objects of accumulating my mortal
years for this formal circumstance of
the worst magic trick of all...
                   transient and... packaged elsewhere...
apparently going nowhere...

if this was a truly urban scenario...
but we're talking essex...
the outskirts of greater london...
if i bothered myself tonight i might go
to a place where i'd sit on a throne of a stump
of oak and listen to owls...
spot a rabbit, spot a badger... the foxes would
come of their own accord...
and perhaps even a deer or two... or three...
there's no glit of a picaddily circus romance:
when a girl decides to get out of a cab early
and put her porcelain toes on the wintry cement...
as if: supposing she be enticing me...
as i was thinking about the scared-shitless
cab driver...        

to have once upon a time believe in love:
the sort of love you'd see in movies...
but that's of course...
before you'd get a chance to see love...
in opera...
blue pill red pill... spiderweb of fiction...
blah blah...
watch the sort of love in movies...
then go and see an opera...
most notably verdi's la traviata...
  the movies fizzle out and you don't really
need to read this to begin with...
        i was in love once...
it was a love that was in love with itself...
          a mirage a carrot on a stick...
probably something akin to this sort of impromptu...
rescuing a girl walking barefoot home...
oh sure... happens almost every other saturday...

- the beer is for these musings, for the jazz
and for... cleaning the kidneys and a work-out
for the bladder... the shot-at-a-crescendo
will come with the haig club whiskey...
is 70cl really worth 25 quid?

- there's a difference between food with a USE BY date
and food with a BEST BEFORE date...
most notably goat's cheese...
once the best before date expires...
which is way way down the line from
the use by date... the cheese starts to taste
like... ash...

i should know since i know of the alternative
to doing shots of tequilla...
the salt is replaced with licking some cigarette
ash...
the tequilla is replaced with *****...
and the slice of lemon is replaced with
black peppercorns...

so i do know what ash tastes like...
piquant tastes: this omelette of an octopus and
of tongue...

- society is a cruise ship and i'm waving it goodbye...
welcoming a sunset of a sea as calm
as a mirror... telling my feet to take root
and stand... inaccessible...
otherwise... i am barren when it comes to having
some (h. p.) lovecraftian sensibilities from
maine... aloof and anemic... anemic with bloodshot
eyes...

- of course she isn't a mystery...
the narrative would run: the little match girl...
hans... hans! hans?! hans andersen is drilling
a hole into my head about... a woman walking
home barefoot...
yes... but she is walkig home...
unlike the little match girl...
and unlike the little match girl...
this girl was carrying a pair of shoes with her...
it's not my problem whether
i'm the sore thumb that "got in the way"...
a fork in the road: like any other fork...
like any other road...

do you have to reach being 34 to see these
teenage break-ups and regrets come and bump into
you after you've done...
that most spectacular feat of towing a backpack
full of glass for recycling?
where is one to recycle bones?!

- right not all the ***** in the world is...
something of an adhesive... a hitchhiker pollen...
a hard-on of: ****** yourself for a hard-on
just because even flapping a pancake will do right now...
to ease constipation whenever necessary...

- it's a torilla... but it's wrapped like a burrito...
well... it's a torilla... kultur shock -
sarajevo - the entry level shock-awe and
blitzkrieg of drinking from the fountain
of the Haig...

- second tier... to treat pornographic movies
like... early cinema... silent...
otherwise a return to the magazine form...
and the ripe imagination readied for:
improv... or... when was the last time
my left hand didn't feel like an oyster...
and an oyster didn't feel like a leash...
and a woman's ****** stopped being
an hour worth 120 quid? -

             - third tier... the haig club whiskey
is not worth 25 quid... it's over-rated...
you're basically paying for the bottle...
i'll stick to my guns...
only the irish know how to make whiskey
on these isles... bushmills: mellow, tame...
the picts have decided to lodge
a smoking salmon into their barrels to die...
i'm supposed to have an aftertaste of vanilla...
with all that smoke... i'd be happy to taste
hungary and smoked paprika! that would
be a bonus to boot! -

- i can appreciate the picts for trying...
but let's just leave brewing whiskey to the irish...
and let's keep the english away from hops...
they'll make an undrinkable ale from it...
never the lager...

   - armed with balkan rock... standing before
the h'american monolith of tongue and culture...
or... just before what's filtered for the export...

- no... of course i don't think h'americans are dumb...
i just think there's only a naive majority...
i'm going to find the vermin and huddle among
them...

- sooner or later we'll be calling the germans
come spring... for winter provisions...
"keeshond" or: hund... i much prefer the latter...
from under the iron curtain forged from
a broken jaw when biting the curb of:
under the silicon veil... nowhere else to go...
beside Ishrael...
                        
          remains of the ottoman - which is hardly
me put into an iron maiden of akimbo...
where's the geisha and the samurai?!

- is your beard long enough?
      like mine... i tease it... catch it with braille
cardinals: the thumb the index and middle fingers...
twirl it... wait for some thread to tie it together
into a hanging ******* of a bundle...
while at the same time:
          before you... a throng of vermin...
this beard... a magic flute!
the zenith of my thinking...
and ultimately: the nadir of any narrative
that might be inclined to escape and
not become 3D...

- i listen to songs in german...
i put on airs of pride - my chin starts to contort into
the moon's scythe and sickle...
even if the night is overcast with beard,
or cloud...

- then i put on a record that's 20 years old...
deftones' white pony...
and i remember being a teen...
hungry for hormonal diet...
a diet to stop the bones from aching
as they grew extra sprouts:
adverse to the skin and photosynthesis...
bones that were expected to grow
entombed... not in flesh...

- sketches from the gasoline additive when
it comes to a beer, starter...
otherwise: elite... gonna breed on top
of the general... pucker up the tremor for a vibrato
kiss and leech her lips off...
to expose her most pristine:
todlächeln -
                           not a chelsea grin...
the joker lapse... i mean... extending the shaving
lines and just, completely, forgetting there's
any botox involved to grow a peach
from a duck of the reinvention of
the deflating balloon...

   leave no selfie without it...
                   herr grinsen: die / das / die / das...
i keep forgetting the definite plural and
the definite singular... feelz... feels...
maximum impromptu: das bösartigwimmern...
anything in german at this point...
sounds better than...
wenigbruder englisch...
                       dies, mein krawatte beste...
alle schwarz alle weiß:
      say to me... nein pinguine willkommen...

anything to keep these mosquitos these
zeppelins away... alt vater großartig Schwab
from this... herd of minor dicta
of the children of the house of ßaß...
translated nomad from the high pressure
***** basin of:
later, trajectory... later... the yawn and canyon...
and the sky above...

- beer first... whiskey after...
shrapnel... and gasoline... no car... no speeding...
fast but otherwise still walking...

            - a hurrah and the cohort of a hum...
to match the echo of the centipede...
         the silence and otherwise the simplified
complications of a conversation...
the bed torn between *** and sleep...
between saturday sunday and monday through
to friday...
   and the need to drink with someone else...
"the need"...
          
the skulls breaks at the sight of sea-riddled-and-*****
cliffs... daggers persuaded to be forever sharpened...
the fiddly parts of ***** as accountants when
it came to the pennies, copper, and granules
of sand... seized: the rivers of time...
constipated shock value elevated...
                            
                                am i to find a lover when
the orchestra tells me...
these words will never find a dear sir / madam
or circle round for a yours sincerely...
                godzilla... the theme i remember from
the days when the japanese still had control over the beast...
otherwise... an overweight t-rex with...
arm extensions... the lotus feet of the chinese...
which also includes...
the savory diet of... tendering dog meat...
i.e. beating the dog to a plum softening...
which is: then again... not curing the already dead
curated meat...
life aware needs to be involved...
brick by brick brick on brick...
the status quo: made in china...

         cheap whiskey... although in an expensive bottle...
that is the haig club whiskey...
        so much for ezra pound admiring
the ******* ideograms...
what's to admire... when...
it ends up being a crude...
current latin emoji-infiltrated grafitti
equivalent to: CUL8R...
               chow-chuckle-mein-hong-shui-chew?
all that intricacy into the ideogram...
and all that remains is...
bat soup... and an advantage at playing
poker... omnivores...
you'd think that Islam would be...
more geared to break ranks among the omnivores...
like all the fickle gods... a good joke...
they abhor / are told to herd sheep
because: what sort of pig would survive the desert
and not become crispy bacon...
camels are fine too... as are their testicles...
never mind the pork leather shoes and pork
leather belts...
but the chinese omnivores are fine by
Allah: Muhammad & Co....

                               khadijah **** khuwaylid..
wrote the first surahs of the quran...
she was the literate:
the stephen vizinczey epitome:
                          in praise of older women...
last time i heard... muhammad was illiterate...
pray! that i've exhausted sympathy on
him being an orphan...
but not a ******* oliver twist thrown into
an orphanage! b'ooh h'oo...

                     the end... the whiskey isn't going
to drink itself;
as i have exhausted the patience of my bladder...
while there's the remaining concern
for a bewildering and a simultaneously
bewildered peacock... on the hunt for coy;
which is not exactly the darwinian daydream
of the short-hand greek alphabet...
the α-β male thermodynamic...
          the Σ-Δ female harem...
salmon swimming up-stream to spawn...
                             and... Ω-man / unicorn...
                     sha! schtil!
Ryan Rylee Dec 2019
Where they came from
I do not know
The caterpillars were first
Squirming up the walls of my stomach
Crawling down the sides of my intestines
Wondering and unsure
With no direction
No place to go
Some had lost hope
Some had given up
Others had simply spun themselves dizzy
They latched onto what they could
Devouring the mindless glances
Consuming the shallow smiles
Ingesting the first hello
Their compass was fogged
But it didn't stop them
They continued
Still unsure
Still lost
Inching towards what they couldn't see

Tired, they became
Stuffed with appetizers
Of floating dreams
And cautious hope
Taking a break from their journey
Resting a second or two
Mindlessly winding themselves with flirty laugher
Tightly stringing themselves with awkward conversations
Around and around
Hanging
Upside-down
Waiting
Hoping
Waiting
For something in return
A wink
A smile
A compliment
Something
Anything

You'll know when it happens
The wink that lets the first one loose
The smile that releases the second
The complement unravels the third
You feel them
They flutter around your organs
Tease your kidneys
Dance on your heart
Swing on your ribs like monkey bars in a jungle gym
They won't stop
Not even for a second

When he calls you on the phone for the first time
You try to contain them
Not let them out all at once
But you can't help it
They shake your insides
Until they get what they want
Until the rest are set free
Hundreds, maybe thousands
Bouncing in your stomach
Like a jumper at a 5 year-old’s birthday party
You want to run
You want to scream
You want to be at that 5 year old’s birthday party
Doing flips in the bounce house
You don't know what to do with yourself
The butterflies gave you energy you didn't know you had
You have to be quiet
You can't make it obvious
You have to be cool
But the butterflies just hit open the piñata to the party in your stomach and you're missing out on all the candy

They plaster a smile on your face
It won't come off
No matter how hard you try
You can't speak
You don't know what to say
You can speak
You say too much
You talk too fast
Your cheeks are rosy
Your face is warm
You're shaking just a little
You feel overwhelmed with emotion

It's because of the butterflies
They have taken over
They dominate your stomach first
Then swarm to your heart
There was a vacancy in your heart you realize
You never noticed it before
Until just now
Because you feel it being filled
Almost up to the brim
With what, you do not know
But there is a loss of emptiness
You're sure you feel it
It's pouring in like lemonade into a pitcher
You try to describe it
But you can't
First hellos
Shallow smiles
Mindless glances
Flirty laughter
Rosy cheeks
The remembrance of the lost caterpillars
The numbness you feel in your body
The happiness you feel in your bones
The butterflies make your heart dance with them

You realize you've never felt this way before
You've had butterflies
But never this many
All at once

But the butterflies
They scare you a little bit
They fuel off of his presence
His jokes
His laughter
You have to nurture the butterflies
Take care of them
Give them what they want
Or they'll starve
You will try to save them
But they will become weak
Frail
Fragile
And die
Taking with them
The rosy cheeks
The sweaty palms
The fluttering heartbeat
Leaving behind hollow wings in the pit of your stomach
Leaving the sorrow feeling of lost hope
Leaving a hole in your heart more vacant than the last
After the butterflies have disintegrated into tears
Before the caterpillars have reappeared
The feeling of emptiness
Saddened loneliness
Like you've never felt it before
You realize the risk you're taking
Allowing the butterflies to play with your emotions
You tell yourself it's worth it
He's worth it

You take a deep breath
And feel them flutter around
Bumping into each other
Knocking into your rib cage
Tumbling across your stomach

These are the butterflies
They control you
Consuming your appetite
Devouring your sleep
Distracting your focus
But you don't mind
You like them
They make you happy
Thrilled
Overjoyed
Intoxicated

You can't blame yourself for these butterflies in your stomach
It's him
He directed the unsighted caterpillars
He confused them until they couldn't take it
And he released the alluring butterflies that took over your body

So I blame him for the butterflies that are bouncing in my stomach

And he can blame me for the butterflies that are tickling his heart
Written 5/3/16
Abigail Shaw Dec 2014
Don’t read this if you’re squeamish,
Or if you’re eating food at the present,
Since some of the subjects discussed in this poem,
Are let’s just say rather unpleasant,

On the subject of donating organs,
Or the subject of organs at all,
It’s not unusual for my claims to leave,
Some subjects feeling pretty appalled,

Now I’d say that most people die,
In fact I’d vouch that it happens quite often,
But when my time comes, set has my sun,
I want all of me in that coffin,

Now I get it, I’d save lives if I donated,
And I don’t mean to sound like a **** (yes I do),
But the unmissable flaw, the foot in the door,
Is that not all of my parts seem to work,

My eyes are screwy, my heart’s far too cold,
The state of my lungs’ll make you shiver,
My kidneys too small, I'm not sure I have a pancreas,
And don’t get me started on my liver,

And let me tell you with a face like mine,
Not showcasing this beauty’s a sin,
But it’s awfully hard to have an open casket,
If I’m not sporting any of my skin

It’s selfish and weird I know that,
But my eyes are where my soul is exposed!
…Yeah actually my soul’s pretty tainted,
Can someone make sure that my eyes are closed?

I only want those I love to have a part of me,
So if I’m forced, if I’m forced, to partake,
-
-
-
They’ll be frying up my organs,
For refreshments at my wake.
Short poem I wrote after a debate on ***** donation (which I am all for by the way)
Àŧùl Jun 2013
There they threaten the theologians,
Broadly breaking buoyant blueprints,
Here how humorously humongous,
Under upmarket upholstery undone,
Scaring supermarket's shopkeepers,
Zealously zooming zestfully zapping,
Its importantly impossible irreligious,
Around aroused automatic aromatic,
Giving goodness getaway goosebumps,
Cheekily chronologically caring cans,
Ergonomically exacting expenditure,
Madness making missionary mission,
Naughtily naked nonsense newspapers,
Xylophone's xylophonetic xylems' xyla,
Young-young youthful Yankees yankin,
Gladiators gladly going Godless givers,
Windows woefully wishing weddings,
Peacefully palpitating peeping people,
Fruitfully fitting fabulous framework,
Doubtlessly doubt doubtfully dubious,
Jacking Jillian's jackets jammy jokers,
Kids' kidneys kleptomaniacly kindling,
Ergonomically economically earliest,
Institutionalized Indian instinctively,
Jacking Jill's jolly junkies javelinas,
Victorious Victorians visiting visas,
Loveliest lonely lovebirds lost lives,
Obnoxiously overrule omnipotence.
Just a product of my idle brainstorming.
My HP Poem #321
©Atul Kaushal
Francie Lynch May 2017
Now that you're older
It's not about hair,
Consider the here and now;
There's no fooling with the passage of time,
Birthdays now greeted with whimpers and whines.
If you stay out til quarter to nine
You've missed your Red Rose pour.
Should we commit you,
Or simply omit you,
Man, you're sixty-four.
....................................................
­
We're getting older too,
But if the truth be told,
Never as old as you.

Now you can't frolic,
Or party til two,
You aches and pains own you.
Scan your body daily for foreign lumps,
By mid-afternoon you still haven't dumped.
Bladder in turmoil,
Kidneys are weak,
I could mention more:
All your joints creaking,
I think that's you leaking,
Man, you're sixty-four.
Always depend upon your diaper to conceal and not reveal
What you drank and ate.
We'll leave that with you.
And carry ID, Jake,
You'll forget you're you.

Make use of posties,
And Mary-Jo too,
What's old may now seem new;
Indicate precisely what you'll do and say,
Memory's surely slipping away.
You're still an alpha, thanks to ******,
Don't expect much more.
Should we just boot you,
Or simply just shoot you,
Man, you're sixty-four.


Seventy-four's at the door.
A thousand weeks til eighty-four.
At ninety-four get ten more....
In good health.
My brother is turning 64 next week.
The Mulberry butcher was amazed

a packet of kidneys arrived and glazed.

Where did this wonderful treat come from?

It said on the label, Choice, US, One,

The Chief of Police was having a fit;

twenty young women  

reported missing and found ripped.

Ripped through the throat and the back

as well

somebody was destined to go to hell.

The coroner cried, My God, look how they died!

He sliced their neck, took out their eyes and

then, My God the kidneys too!

This man surely belongs in a zoo.

The Chief, he knew, at once,

the Rippers return had given him lunch.
KM COLBY 2010@
Now when they came to the ford of the full-flowing river Xanthus,
begotten of immortal Jove, Achilles cut their forces in two: one
half he chased over the plain towards the city by the same way that
the Achaeans had taken when flying panic-stricken on the preceding day
with Hector in full triumph; this way did they fly pell-mell, and Juno
sent down a thick mist in front of them to stay them. The other half
were hemmed in by the deep silver-eddying stream, and fell into it
with a great uproar. The waters resounded, and the banks rang again,
as they swam hither and thither with loud cries amid the whirling
eddies. As locusts flying to a river before the blast of a grass fire-
the flame comes on and on till at last it overtakes them and they
huddle into the water—even so was the eddying stream of Xanthus
filled with the uproar of men and horses, all struggling in
confusion before Achilles.
  Forthwith the hero left his spear upon the bank, leaning it
against a tamarisk bush, and plunged into the river like a god,
armed with his sword only. Fell was his purpose as he hewed the
Trojans down on every side. Their dying groans rose hideous as the
sword smote them, and the river ran red with blood. As when fish fly
scared before a huge dolphin, and fill every nook and corner of some
fair haven—for he is sure to eat all he can catch—even so did the
Trojans cower under the banks of the mighty river, and when
Achilles’ arms grew weary with killing them, he drew twelve youths
alive out of the water, to sacrifice in revenge for Patroclus son of
Menoetius. He drew them out like dazed fawns, bound their hands behind
them with the girdles of their own shirts, and gave them over to his
men to take back to the ships. Then he sprang into the river,
thirsting for still further blood.
  There he found Lycaon, son of Priam seed of Dardanus, as he was
escaping out of the water; he it was whom he had once taken prisoner
when he was in his father’s vineyard, having set upon him by night, as
he was cutting young shoots from a wild fig-tree to make the wicker
sides of a chariot. Achilles then caught him to his sorrow unawares,
and sent him by sea to Lemnos, where the son of Jason bought him.
But a guest-friend, Eetion of Imbros, freed him with a great sum,
and sent him to Arisbe, whence he had escaped and returned to his
father’s house. He had spent eleven days happily with his friends
after he had come from Lemnos, but on the twelfth heaven again
delivered him into the hands of Achilles, who was to send him to the
house of Hades sorely against his will. He was unarmed when Achilles
caught sight of him, and had neither helmet nor shield; nor yet had he
any spear, for he had thrown all his armour from him on to the bank,
and was sweating with his struggles to get out of the river, so that
his strength was now failing him.
  Then Achilles said to himself in his surprise, “What marvel do I see
here? If this man can come back alive after having been sold over into
Lemnos, I shall have the Trojans also whom I have slain rising from
the world below. Could not even the waters of the grey sea imprison
him, as they do many another whether he will or no? This time let
him ******* spear, that I may know for certain whether mother earth
who can keep even a strong man down, will be able to hold him, or
whether thence too he will return.”
  Thus did he pause and ponder. But Lycaon came up to him dazed and
trying hard to embrace his knees, for he would fain live, not die.
Achilles ****** at him with his spear, meaning to **** him, but Lycaon
ran crouching up to him and caught his knees, whereby the spear passed
over his back, and stuck in the ground, hungering though it was for
blood. With one hand he caught Achilles’ knees as he besought him, and
with the other he clutched the spear and would not let it go. Then
he said, “Achilles, have mercy upon me and spare me, for I am your
suppliant. It was in your tents that I first broke bread on the day
when you took me prisoner in the vineyard; after which you sold away
to Lemnos far from my father and my friends, and I brought you the
price of a hundred oxen. I have paid three times as much to gain my
freedom; it is but twelve days that I have come to Ilius after much
suffering, and now cruel fate has again thrown me into your hands.
Surely father Jove must hate me, that he has given me over to you a
second time. Short of life indeed did my mother Laothoe bear me,
daughter of aged Altes—of Altes who reigns over the warlike Lelegae
and holds steep Pedasus on the river Satnioeis. Priam married his
daughter along with many other women and two sons were born of her,
both of whom you will have slain. Your spear slew noble Polydorus as
he was fighting in the front ranks, and now evil will here befall
me, for I fear that I shall not escape you since heaven has delivered
me over to you. Furthermore I say, and lay my saying to your heart,
spare me, for I am not of the same womb as Hector who slew your
brave and noble comrade.”
  With such words did the princely son of Priam beseech Achilles;
but Achilles answered him sternly. “Idiot,” said he, “talk not to me
of ransom. Until Patroclus fell I preferred to give the Trojans
quarter, and sold beyond the sea many of those whom I had taken alive;
but now not a man shall live of those whom heaven delivers into my
hands before the city of Ilius—and of all Trojans it shall fare
hardest with the sons of Priam. Therefore, my friend, you too shall
die. Why should you whine in this way? Patroclus fell, and he was a
better man than you are. I too—see you not how I am great and goodly?
I am son to a noble father, and have a goddess for my mother, but
the hands of doom and death overshadow me all as surely. The day
will come, either at dawn or dark, or at the noontide, when one
shall take my life also in battle, either with his spear, or with an
arrow sped from his bow.”
  Thus did he speak, and Lycaon’s heart sank within him. He loosed his
hold of the spear, and held out both hands before him; but Achilles
drew his keen blade, and struck him by the collar-bone on his neck; he
plunged his two-edged sword into him to the very hilt, whereon he
lay at full length on the ground, with the dark blood welling from him
till the earth was soaked. Then Achilles caught him by the foot and
flung him into the river to go down stream, vaunting over him the
while, and saying, “Lie there among the fishes, who will lick the
blood from your wound and gloat over it; your mother shall not lay you
on any bier to mourn you, but the eddies of Scamander shall bear you
into the broad ***** of the sea. There shall the fishes feed on the
fat of Lycaon as they dart under the dark ripple of the waters—so
perish all of you till we reach the citadel of strong Ilius—you in
flight, and I following after to destroy you. The river with its broad
silver stream shall serve you in no stead, for all the bulls you
offered him and all the horses that you flung living into his
waters. None the less miserably shall you perish till there is not a
man of you but has paid in full for the death of Patroclus and the
havoc you wrought among the Achaeans whom you have slain while I
held aloof from battle.”
  So spoke Achilles, but the river grew more and more angry, and
pondered within himself how he should stay the hand of Achilles and
save the Trojans from disaster. Meanwhile the son of Peleus, spear
in hand, sprang upon Asteropaeus son of Pelegon to **** him. He was
son to the broad river Axius and Periboea eldest daughter of
Acessamenus; for the river had lain with her. Asteropaeus stood up out
of the water to face him with a spear in either hand, and Xanthus
filled him with courage, being angry for the death of the youths
whom Achilles was slaying ruthlessly within his waters. When they were
close up with one another Achilles was first to speak. “Who and whence
are you,” said he, “who dare to face me? Woe to the parents whose
son stands up against me.” And the son of Pelegon answered, “Great son
of Peleus, why should you ask my lineage. I am from the fertile land
of far Paeonia, captain of the Paeonians, and it is now eleven days
that I am at Ilius. I am of the blood of the river Axius—of Axius
that is the fairest of all rivers that run. He begot the famed warrior
Pelegon, whose son men call me. Let us now fight, Achilles.”
  Thus did he defy him, and Achilles raised his spear of Pelian ash.
Asteropaeus failed with both his spears, for he could use both hands
alike; with the one spear he struck Achilles’ shield, but did not
pierce it, for the layer of gold, gift of the god, stayed the point;
with the other spear he grazed the elbow of Achilles! right arm
drawing dark blood, but the spear itself went by him and fixed
itself in the ground, foiled of its ****** banquet. Then Achilles,
fain to **** him, hurled his spear at Asteropaeus, but failed to hit
him and struck the steep bank of the river, driving the spear half its
length into the earth. The son of Peleus then drew his sword and
sprang furiously upon him. Asteropaeus vainly tried to draw
Achilles’ spear out of the bank by main force; thrice did he tug at
it, trying with all his might to draw it out, and thrice he had to
leave off trying; the fourth time he tried to bend and break it, but
ere he could do so Achilles smote him with his sword and killed him.
He struck him in the belly near the navel, so that all his bowels came
gushing out on to the ground, and the darkness of death came over
him as he lay gasping. Then Achilles set his foot on his chest and
spoiled him of his armour, vaunting over him and saying, “Lie there-
begotten of a river though you be, it is hard for you to strive with
the offspring of Saturn’s son. You declare yourself sprung from the
blood of a broad river, but I am of the seed of mighty Jove. My father
is Peleus, son of Aeacus ruler over the many Myrmidons, and Aeacus was
the son of Jove. Therefore as Jove is mightier than any river that
flows into the sea, so are his children stronger than those of any
river whatsoever. Moreover you have a great river hard by if he can be
of any use to you, but there is no fighting against Jove the son of
Saturn, with whom not even King Achelous can compare, nor the mighty
stream of deep-flowing Oceanus, from whom all rivers and seas with all
springs and deep wells proceed; even Oceanus fears the lightnings of
great Jove, and his thunder that comes crashing out of heaven.”
  With this he drew his bronze spear out of the bank, and now that
he had killed Asteropaeus, he let him lie where he was on the sand,
with the dark water flowing over him and the eels and fishes busy
nibbling and gnawing the fat that was about his kidneys. Then he
went in chase of the Paeonians, who were flying along the bank of
the river in panic when they saw their leader slain by the hands of
the son of Peleus. Therein he slew Thersilochus, Mydon, Astypylus,
Mnesus, Thrasius, Oeneus, and Ophelestes, and he would have slain
yet others, had not the river in anger taken human form, and spoken to
him from out the deep waters saying, “Achilles, if you excel all in
strength, so do you also in wickedness, for the gods are ever with you
to protect you: if, then, the son of Saturn has vouchsafed it to you
to destroy all the Trojans, at any rate drive them out of my stream,
and do your grim work on land. My fair waters are now filled with
corpses, nor can I find any channel by which I may pour myself into
the sea for I am choked with dead, and yet you go on mercilessly
slaying. I am in despair, therefore, O captain of your host, trouble
me no further.”
  Achilles answered, “So be it, Scamander, Jove-descended; but I
will never cease dealing out death among the Trojans, till I have pent
them up in their city, and made trial of Hector face to face, that I
may learn whether he is to vanquish me, or I him.”
  As he spoke he set upon the Trojans with a fury like that of the
gods. But the river said to Apollo, “Surely, son of Jove, lord of
the silver bow, you are not obeying the commands of Jove who charged
you straitly that you should stand by the Trojans and defend them,
till twilight fades, and darkness is over an the earth.”
  Meanwhile Achilles sprang from the bank into mid-stream, whereon the
river raised a high wave and attacked him. He swelled his stream
into a torrent, and swept away the many dead whom Achilles had slain
and left within his waters. These he cast out on to the land,
bellowing like a bull the while, but the living he saved alive, hiding
them in his mighty eddies. The great and terrible wave gathered
about Achilles, falling upon him and beating on his shield, so that he
could not keep his feet; he caught hold of a great elm-tree, but it
came up by the roots, and tore away the bank, damming the stream
with its thick branches and bridging it all across; whereby Achilles
struggled out of the stream, and fled full speed over the plain, for
he was afraid.
  But the mighty god ceased not in his pursuit, and sprang upon him
with a dark-crested wave, to stay his hands and save the Trojans
from destruction. The son of Peleus darted away a spear’s throw from
him; swift as the swoop of a black hunter-eagle which is the strongest
and fleetest of all birds, even so did he spring forward, and the
armour rang loudly about his breast. He fled on in front, but the
river with a loud roar came tearing after. As one who would water
his garden leads a stream from some fountain over his plants, and
all his ground-***** in hand he clears away the dams to free the
channels, and the little stones run rolling round and round with the
water as it goes merrily down the bank faster than the man can follow-
even so did the river keep catching up with Achilles albeit he was a
fleet runner, for the gods are stronger than men. As often as he would
strive to stand his ground, and see whether or no all the gods in
heaven were in league against him, so often would the mighty wave come
beating down upon his shoulders, and be would have to keep flying on
and on in great dismay; for the angry flood was tiring him out as it
flowed past him and ate the ground from under his feet.
  Then the son of Peleus lifted up his voice to heaven saying, “Father
Jove, is there none of the gods who will take pity upon me, and save
me from the river? I do not care what may happen to me afterwards. I
blame none of the other dwellers on Olympus so severely as I do my
dear mother, who has beguiled and tricked me. She told me I was to
fall under the walls of Troy by the flying arrows of Apollo; would
that Hector, the best man among the Trojans, might there slay me; then
should I fall a hero by the hand of a hero; whereas now it seems
that I shall come to a most pitiable end, trapped in this river as
though I were some swineherd’s boy, who gets carried down a torrent
while trying to cross it during a storm.”
  As soon as he had spoken thus, Neptune and Minerva came up to him in
the likeness of two men, and took him by the hand to reassure him.
Neptune spoke first. “Son of Peleus,” said he, “be not so exceeding
fearful; we are two gods, come with Jove’s sanction to assist you,
I, and Pallas Minerva. It is not your fate to perish in this river; he
will abate presently as you will see; moreover we strongly advise you,
if you will be guided by us, not to stay your hand from fighting
till you have pent the Trojan host within the famed walls of Ilius—as
many of them as may escape. Then **** Hector and go back to the ships,
for we will vouchsafe you a triumph over him.”
  When they had so said they went back to the other immortals, but
Achilles strove onward over the plain, encouraged by the charge the
gods had laid upon him. All was now covered with the flood of
waters, and much goodly armour of the youths that had been slain was
rifting about, as also many corpses, but he forced his way against the
stream, speeding right onwards, nor could the broad waters stay him,
for Minerva had endowed him with great strength. Nevertheless
Scamander did not slacken in his pursuit, but was still more furious
with the son of Peleus. He lifted his waters into a high crest and
cried aloud to Simois saying, “Dear br
Austin Sessoms Nov 2016
inside me are organs
inside my cells are organelles
inside me are organelles
they are mine
they are me

they are composed of atoms
they are composed of protons, neutrons, electrons
protons are mine
they are me
neutrons are mine
they are me
electrons are mine
they too are me
electrons and mitochondria and kidneys
are me
I am me

bone comprises skeleton
marrow comprises bone
bone and skeleton are me
marrow too is me
I feel this in my self
I feel this in my bones
bone feels this in my marrow
bone and I share marrow
Graced Lightning Feb 2015
She’ll be lovely. There will be spaces for you between her ribs. Your left lung is smaller than you right lung to make room for your heart, but there’s all kinds of room in her body. Her kidneys and liver are failing and soon enough they’ll be gone to make room for your love.

2. She won’t ever be expensive on dates because all she’ll order is a salad. You’ll never have to worry about not having enough money (for dinner at least). You’ll have to worry about emergency room bills when she passes out, but she’ll never ask for anything else. All she’ll want is ***** and sleeping pills.

3. She will always put you first. She’ll love you with all the love she should have kept for herself. She’ll make you hot chocolate and stay up until 3 AM while you’re crying over her. When she makes you cry because you just want her to see herself the way you see her, she’ll be there with cold hands and tired eyes. She’s dead, she’s exhausted, all she wants is a good night’s rest. But you can count on her to be there.

4. She will tell you that you are perfect. She’ll believe it, too. Everyone around her seems to be perfect and she’s drowning under the weight of mediocrity but it’s okay. She’s okay. She won’t understand that all of us are swimming and most of us are drowning.

5. She’ll always have scissors and pencil sharpeners on hand. The knives in her kitchen are always sharpened to perfection and if you forget your razor at home, it’s ok. She has extras in her closet.

6. She’ll ******* any time you want. As long as you don’t look at her while she’s getting undressed. She’ll be used to the sensation of knives but it’s a different kind of pain when you look at her. She will want to be beautiful for you. She’ll love you until she can’t breathe anymore. You’ll make her feel beautiful for the night but when she wakes up she’ll still think she wasn’t worth it.

7. Date a girl who hates herself because she’ll love you.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2018
. only last night i decided to put out a cigarette stump on my left hand's right knuckle...  squeamish? i didn't exactly hear a protest, invoking a gasp, of imploding pain.

                                           so...
  when was the last time,
you, actually tell your
neighbor to...
  *******...
   trembling with anger
as if waiting to have a fist-fight
over the most minor triviality?
i've heard him speak
foul words before his
supposed bride...
  and before the ******* kid...
i hate bullies...
  back in school i remember
being a bully for a split second...
i stephen kennedy...
   i heard an anecdote
   about a girl forcing him
to eat **** from the pavement...
so i jagged him up
with a fist to the kidneys...
    but then i took care of
         martin elliker -
the crooked toothed hunchback
during chemistry classes...
helped him out from time to time...
didn't mind the bad breath...
     we talked about playing
final fantasy VII...
   in this catholic school -
even the so called bullies protected
the genuine victims,
   from whimps, cry-babies,
you name them...
    and we shared a, as i mentioned
before, a pax non bellum...
we corporated in our approach
for the general morale of the peers...
in the 6 or so years at the school?
one suicide, a girl...
   just one...
              not bad...
       i met this girl at a romford
bus-stop once... told me her father
walked from Ethiopia to England...
        so we took the bus,
to Goodmayes...
    i, trying to be polite...
said i was going to visit a friend
to smoke some marijuana...
   she bought the story...
but then... i had to tell her the truth...
she already shielded my supposed,
slumber approaches with the line:
i have a boyfriend...
   so i told her...
    i'm actually going to the brothel
for an hour's worth of a, "girlfriend"...
all of a sudden, "richard" pops out
out of nowhere...
   "richard" was a proper bully before
moving from high school
to a six former status...
    on the sly:
    on a school trip to Glasbury-on-Wye,
for kayaking, caving, horse-riding,
      just after the mad-cow epidemic
cooled downed...
    each morning...
      me... at the breakfast table...
with about nine afro-saxons...
   not even making jokes
about phallus sizes...
                so this, "richard" remembered me,
asked me if i remembered his name...
which i did, several days later...
OH ****! DANIEL!
           would have been *******
easier if it was Fola Malomo...
a nigerian kid from primary school...
      point being...
  all this "real" life and the internet
imprint, internet banking
and internet shopping - also not being real,
apparently...
      well... internet trolling -
first i'm all for internet transparency,
second of all, some sort of cordiality
ethos -
                 ****-posting is not my thing...
neither is trolling...
   when you have a real problem
with a neighbor, over whether he tells
you that you should inform him
when you're cooking up a barbeque
and he has clothes on the washing line...
and you start trembling,
internalizing berserk anger in a
metaphysical ******...
                 and all you have in your head
is the color red, and plum...
    and a smashed in gorilla cartilage
of what was once a human nose?
    - and you have to use
verbal restraints, akin to: *******...
   what's with all these internet, "problems"?
it's not even worth the tunnel vision
analogy of a horse donning pomp
shutters...
     by then i turn off... become black-eyed,
losing a reference to an iris...
    i become a honing device...
between my tongue and my fist...
   is the matchstick's worth of width
of keeping up the least, or last
         artifact of civilized cordiality;
here?
   but an outlet - a refrigerator...
   some men would probably
      prefer to cool down aiming at
a punching bag...
                i can't do that...
       i have to be more subtle...
   and employ words as the worth
of punches... and a blank canvas as
the punching bag.
Daniel Magner Nov 2012
I ran my life around karma
karma ran around me
throwing sucker punches
right in my kidneys
right in my ribs
right in my heart

I still run my life around karma
karma still runs around me
throwing left hooks
right in my eyes
right in my gut
right in my face
© Daniel Magner 2012
Paul Hansford May 2016
This small green bear,
your name embroidered on its chest,
was never yours. It would have been
our Christmas gift to you,
had you lived a month longer.
The ones you would give
you had already bought,
wrapped, labelled -
thoughtful, organised
to the end,
to the bitter end.
We unwrapped them on the day,
smiled at your kindness,
wept at our loss.

Early Christmas gifts
that you had not organised,
that nobody could have anticipated,
went to strangers: your pancreas,
a life free from daily injections;
your kidneys, two lives free from dialysis;
your liver, divided, to a young girl
and an older lady, who would
quite simply have a life
they had almost given up hoping for.
Your heart, damaged by extended life-support,
not suitable for transplantation,
yielded its valves
to repair the damaged hearts of others.
Even bone and skin were harvested
for people you never knew.
That Christmas you gave hope
to so many people,
and to us the consolation
that they live on because of you,
and that you live on in them.
Scott Howard Sep 2013
Fig Newton Vanilla Wafers
Like sand through an hourglass
The smell of Doublemint Wrigley’s
Gum that lingers in the air like
Your poltergeist hanging on a string

Chicken and dumplings
Christmas at your place
There were so many pictures and
Do you remember me anymore?

Quicksand neurons coughing up
Phlegm and congestive heart failure
Diabetic membranes hooked up to pacemakers
You’re kidneys were caustic waste bins
And you ****** yourself

Cancer Cancer
Don’t shut your eyes
***** and hypertension
Hyperventilation
My mother is crying
I’m crying
Don’t die
Please don't die
"She’s not responding"
"Somebody say something"
Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace
SG Holter May 2014
Brother Bear (your name in English)
once again we meet in joy.
Soon our laughter rolls across the fields
and plains and forests, boy.

My best friend, my twin although
you're twin years younger than I am. 
Still in many ways superior to this
rough and rugged man.

*Hark, I feel my stomach shiver.
I can hear my liver sigh.
I can sense my brain's uneasiness,
I hear my kidneys cry.
I can feel my long intestine curling up
and screaming WHY!?
I can smell the smoke from meat ablaze
across the summer sky.
The last verse is a poem I sms' ed to my brother when recieving the news that he was going to celebrate Norway's Independence Day with our parents and me. First time we're all gathered since Christmas.
Aria of Midnight Dec 2014
I replay
the uproarious sound of your kidneys
at 4 AM; you tucked in a comfortable quilted bed,
and the curve of your glistening elbow
resembling the crescent moon
that my eyes averted from
because they fixated on you
instead.
For Deshy <3
(Actually, I was watching a YouTube video on how to compliment people, and the number one advice was to "not appreciate the sound of their kidneys, because you may creep them out." Naturally, I did just that in a Facebook conversation.)
Swords and Roses Aug 2015
Mirror, mirror
Said the queen
Self-conscious,
Not wanting to be seen

Mirror, mirror
Every day
Urging wrinkles
Not to stay

Mirror, mirror
She was taught
If she was ugly
She was naught

Mirror, mirror
She cannot feel
Emotions ruin
Her appeal

Mirror, mirror
She feels dead
To the husband
In her bed

Mirror, mirror
Her heart is failing
Her lungs are gasping
Her kidneys wailing

Mirror, mirror
The doctor said
She has a growth
In her head

Mirror, mirror
She cannot stand
But she's still the most
Beautiful in the land

Mirror, mirror
But not anymore
Her place taken
By the child of a *****

Mirror, mirror
She needs a heart
The child has one
There's a start

Mirror, mirror
She's in so much pain
She doesn't know
How to be humane

Mirror, mirror
The child is dead
The heart is weak
But she has fed

Mirror, mirror
The heart has failed
There is no other
That ship has sailed

Mirror, mirror
She is desperate to live
She finds a corrupt magicker
And gives all she can give

Mirror, mirror
She feeds on death
Each soul she takes
Lies in every breath

Mirror, mirror
She carves words in her skin
EVIL, VAMPYR
DEMON, SIN

Mirror, mirror
She moans in the night
Her husband sleeps in a separate bed
Yet still quakes in fright

Mirror, mirror
The child is not dead
All the lives she has taken
When she could have taken one instead

Mirror, mirror
Look at her now
Twisted and broken
Macabre magick on her brow

Mirror, mirror
The child must pay
Perhaps her soul will be redeemed
It is the only way
Raj Arumugam Jan 2014
Yeah guys, just back from the doctor’s
Turns out he’s worked at Apple
and Samsung and such –
he’s really into technology and all that,
you know
the latest stuff, really
“The heart,” he pronounced,
“is really a technology”

anyway, he’s given me
a pacemaker for me heart
and the doc, he said also
it’s state-of-the-art technology
so I can also download apps for my liver,
kidneys and my bowels
if needs be
yeah, I really feel good
inside out and all the way down
Note written after Joe Adomavicia's and Timothy's comments:
This poem is based on a joke (dark humour, no doubt) I found online . I am fine and healthy. I thank Joe and Timothy for their concern about my health. Does it not do our hearts good to have friends like that who show concern for one another? (:
David Flemister Nov 2016
Nothing in particular
Just high
Addicted ****** ****

**** my liver
Kidneys
Dissociation is the key

I've spotted the freight train
Have I made it?

Bring me there I beg you
Spoon me
Me, the spoon, all me

Drink DRINK like a FISH

pop pop pass percocet
C-c-c-c-c-cocaaaaiiinneeeeee

***** ****** bored, dumb

**** my LIVER AND KIDNEYS
Dolla dolla nose job **** a stuffy
**** me on a tuesday, sneez sick puppy horsey

Cant finde me
Kant fine me

Run run run run run baby, yes ya do
Explain but not excuse

Substitute kkkills as much
Methadopamine or a xany ***** one night
Dextrahydraphetamine, ketamine meta-clean

Don't try. Understand to
Completely

Every spring runs dry
       **** son, 'least enjoy the high
C Dec 2010
A drugstore pallid in waning light, always illuminated in halogen halos.
I am earless with music.
Black metal loud in clanging sets and blows-
foreshadowing the smell of cleaning solution,
air freshener and the outside
sweet at my back
all steeped deep in the rip roaring undertone torrent of cigarette smoke
blended with cheap perfume until I cannot tell the difference.
There is a limp familiarity to the underlying odor
born partially of personal encounter and-
nestled in the hive mind of social experience.
A distillation of regret and remorse,
of lonely,
of irrelevance;
this black hole swallows my voice the way of my ears,
eaten by rust.

Four cans of beans,
kidneys,
in cans squeezed without any power against sagging swells
melting into other curves
and I swerve close and around guiltily,
noting you only as the source of this pungent spring.
You are smiling apologies
ignorant of my apparent inhumanity-
blind to my selfish hands..

Pinioning belly flesh,
flattening,
reaching
and gaining attendance from a better man
retrieving every dropped can.
I’m retreating,
shaken,
tense to alternatively slacken.
My sweat slippery palms with whitened red sharp fingers feel foreign
and I am surrounded by razors then shaving cream,
moving from shampoo to conditioner,
the whole store is infected with smell.
Staring at nail clippers/snipers clipping touch smooth sooth my tense mind-
don’t look
don’t
look

I can sense little else but dread
drawing closer
you are now crouched so close I’m gagging,
taken forcefully-swept away in an olfactory flood
roiling in rot,
currents of solitude exude from your smiling sullen appearance when I turn to you
fumbling
with my electric ears,
surfacing
in a breath of Amish silence
broken with simple request
and I want to scream at you that I am not a man to ask opinions of
that it does not matter what fake nails she glues to her body
that she is excluded and I don’t know why.


I choose swirls of cream suspended within watery milk,
over childish lady bugs framed by yellow
or dots of red alternating to black,
an epitaph to a lifelike effigy.
Harry J Baxter Feb 2013
My Uncle Dec
was really a ***** old man
and I loved him for it
Overweight, but you'd better believe
he ate whatever the hell he wanted
bad liver bad kidneys
but he really loved drinking
almost as much as he loved the horse racing
putting pennies on the ponies
and it didn't matter if he won
he just liked going to the ******'s
a lover of beautiful women
but a loving faithful husband
He died in the shower
and I was sad at first
but I realized he loved his life
Lendon Partain Apr 2013
I.
AM.
A.
*******.

Here's how i roll.
I plop the excrement, directly in the pool.
I **** on chairs,
This is where i place stool.

Plip plob drop loads,
Crenated blood cells and lymphatic drool.
Hurt my kidneys in a fight with truth the other night.
7 brutal, flooring uppercuts to the Latisimus dorsi....

I am > "this girl"
That one that's taken more hits in the face than Tyson.
The one that makes Jenna and Sunni Leone look like pre-school dropouts of ****.

Guys say.
"She"
"got the,"
"best head."

She has nothing in it though.
Her brain's finished by the time words leave her lips whole.
thats as far as it gets
the words pass her **** then she falls, grab her hips.

Prepare the sword for the stone.
The one with the baby whole in her dome.

She's not good, much else.
Her black hair and wisdom lines go bout as deep as her shirt.
Depending on the day.
Pervert.

Lets do ANOTHER line.
"Oh My GOD!" "We did so much *******...."
Coke in cans.
Filled with whiskey flask-hand.

"This night's gunna be one to remember",
if his member is inside, that's my gender,
Blend it with all the worst intentions,
Use the worst intentions.
Stab the heart of conviction.
Tear it to tethers with tension.
Rip the strings of friendship.
Tease the knots of frayed linen,
Like its the only thing ya got.

"I am so high right now."
I forgot what earth looks like.
Probably like my town.

Only place I've been.
I'm 17 ya see.

Its the only thing you got.
You don't deserve roses, flowers, Laurels.
No trees.
No dime bags, no speed, no crying hag.

I can sure **** 25 yearolds.

Saying your better never sounded more like a lie.
Worst thing is you have that prevarication internalized.

I have a god complex...
Wanna save em all...
Can't save a ******* one...

I did lie once...
It was...
When I told you that you weren't...
A *******...
Elizabeth Vogel Dec 2011
Cheers!

I propose a toast to the pink elephant in the room, that with the encroaching darkness ******* lightly across his abdomen, seeping through kidneys and out, out, through veins unaware that they are carrying their own demise.


Cheers to you!

Every time I see you, the chasm in my heart gets just a bit bigger.

And she, darling companion, falls deeper. So now she’s submerged in this canyon-- something sickly beautiful, said to be carved from glacial ice thousands of years before.

She’s irritating the muscle,
tiny toes picking off bits of scabs just beginning to heal.

And then I see you once more.

Cheers to you!

You’re in the center of this pyramid. You hold your wife above, your son and younger daughter beside you, an arm around each. Buy she lies below, unknowingly wait for all of this to fall on her.

You  balance my life on this precipice. Doom sleeps on either side. I’ll fall slowly to the left, wake the monster. It’s barbs will dig through flesh and I’ll stand-- an audience member.

You’ve grown too skinny, turned so pale. I wonder if your veins have grown dark as you’ve become accustomed to carrying poison meant to **** it before it kills you.

Cheers to you!

You who wont, can’t, end the world.

I pull myself up and out—emerge from my rabbit hole of ignorance.                                                       ­            
I have this fear of the cutting edge of dragonfly wings-
How unoriginal.

We all let the hollow swallow us cleanly down, almost forgetting the tiny 
pebble-  bringer of doom and resident of the gizzard- we will most certainly meet in the course of our journey.

I get sent secret messages of affliction—a disheartened face here, the nervous twiddling of thumbs there. Secret, I say, as they appear of fog and disappear with the flutter of an eyelash. They’re all my own, sent with sonar like that of the blue whale.

One looks born of red, achieving different color as eyes move inward. A girl wearing a Parisian hat and a scream that’s almost silent. Another comes silently during a drive, more sensation than image. Everything slows. It’s hard to conjure words, to make the right motions.

I’m reminded that life is a paint palate, a measure of darkness. I know there are people much farther along than you and I.

Cheers to you!

Being submerged in pain makes a person different.                                                       ­                                   

Born of loss, causing loss-- pain never really disappears.

Sore that festers, oozes, scabs, gets torn open.

Cheers!

Raise your glass as I speak so quietly, I can only hope
You’ll hear this from across the room.

Raise your glass to the memories I have of your hair- now reduced to silvery down- your strength.

Raise your glass to your daughters, your son, your wife. I think you know I cry for them—not you. Two girls. One living in two worlds- mine and a world of parties and experimentation. The other so smart and so repressed. One boy. Unbeknownst to him, he won’t know how to proceed without a father figure-figure father.  Unbeknownst to him, he’ll have to proceed without. A woman. She’s lost in this never ending labyrinth of test results; given too many choices when there should only be left or right. And yet, she’s not ready for it to end.

Raise your glass to Insanity, the mother of Brilliance! Endurance, the daughter of pain.  

Cheers.
This poem was inspired by Josh Boyd's performance poem "Dolls in a Dolmen."
Babe you are worse than late night ****
Sinful like fried chocolate cake
Ironic like chicken and waffles with a diet coke
Or using lard based dressing on a salad

You bad
Like menudo without lime
Like hot cheetos to my kidneys

My desire for you is like:
That nostalgia you feel like a lump in your chest
The first time you smoked ****
The first time you came
The first time you fell in love

I’m sad cuz you ain’t here
And glad you’re far away.
Jeremy Duff Feb 2013
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
The smoking and drinking and snorting and fighting and drinking and crashes and drinking were not good for him.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One summer, when he was 16, everyday he would take a bottle of wine from his mother's liquor cabinet, buy a pack of cigarettes at the corner store, meet up with his friend Mario, who also stole a bottle of wine, and together they would ride down to the river and smoke and drink and swim. Everyday, for a full 1970's summer they did this.
And now he tells me, that at the time they were having fun and they were not worried about money or addictions or the future.
They were just having fun.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One day, in the dead of fall 1981, he and his friends Mario, Mark, ****** and John all got together at Mark's apartment on the corner of 51st and Diablo boulevard. They hit the town, drank, snuck into movie theatres, harassed girls and had a good time. They returned to Mark's apartment at 2 am and thought it a good idea to steal Mark's mom's new car. They decided to go to Reno.
Driving, as my dad put it, well above the speed limit on Highway 49, they collided head on with a big rig. There were no fatalities but my dad broke his shoulder and suffered a minor concussion. Mark's mom chose to not press charges nor did the driver of the big rig. The next day my father was back at work, refusing to adhere to the doctor's orders of taking it easy and wearing a soft cast, entrapping his left arm against his chest, climbing under cars, changing oil, and repairing engines.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One cold winter's day, in December of '82, my father's ever faithful companion, Mario, picked my father and his dog, Wimpy, up and they drove over to a small burger joint named Big A's. My father ordered two bacon cheeseburgers and a large rootbeer. Mario got the same, only with a single bacon cheeseburger. My father father gave his second bacon cheeseburger to his pitbull Wimpy.
My father was better to his dog than he was to his own body.
Now, my father coughs himself to sleep every night, and has chronic bronchitis. His liver and kidneys are shot and he plans to not live passed sixty. He will be turning fifty in two weeks.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
LCB Oct 2014
Screeching tires, blinding lights, smashing glass.
The whole ordeal took maybe 5 minutes.
Drivers slow down to peek and observe
Then speed down the road.
But, when you’re laying there in the glass and noise.
It’s not the same.
The paramedics came.
Remain calm.
Breathe.
Don’t close your eyes.
Stay with us.8
Breathe.
The only thing I can think about is my license.
Two Words

***** Donor.

They’re missing from my ID.
I didn’t check the box.

***** Donor.

The paramedics are talking.
Mumbling.
They’re underwater.
That’s not good.

I want to be an ***** donor* I say.
They pause.
One moment.
Dave looks at me.
His name is embroidered on his uniform.
Is uniform the right word?

I want to be an ***** donor.
I say again.

It won’t come to that
Dave assures me.
His smile is weak.

***** Donor.

Write it down I say
Firm.
Dave shrugs and takes out his clipboard.
I watch him write
***** Donor.

I sigh, relieved.
Anything else?
Dave asks.
He looks at his partner
He’s covered in blood.
My blood.
That’s not good.

***** Donor.

Yes. I tell Dave.
He gets his pencil ready.
He smiles.
It’s half sincere.
He’s worried.
Last will and testament smile.
I want to be an
***** Donor.

Got that.
Dave says.
The lights are blinding.
I smell and taste metal.
That’s not good.
What to say?
Everything. I want to say everything.
I think of my mom
Clutched hands
White knuckles
Sitting, pacing, crying
The waiting room
Green and white, calming colors
She is red
Her face from lack of sleep
From crying
Stark against the calm walls.
I think of my mother and breathe.

Take everything you can.
Take my body
I don’t need it anymore.
Take it and tell my mother the
Good
It will do.
Take my feet
And tell my mother
About every mile they will walk.
Tell her they will dance in homes
To silly music
and skip through fields
And trudge through mud.
They will scale mountains
And swim through oceans.
They will burn on hot asphalt
And curl up in Satin sheets.
Take my feet.

Take my hands
And tell my mother
About every handshake
Every high five
Every hand they hold.
Tell her they will be covered in paint
And chocolate and dirt and clay.
My fingers will run through hair
And sand and silk.
They will give hugs and caresses
And love to show they understand.
Take my hands.

Take my eyes
And tell my mother
About everything they will see.
Tell her they will see
Sunrises and sunsets
Mountains, oceans, and airports.
They will sparkle with laughter
And shine with tears.
Tell her that someone will
Fall in love with them
And they will grow
Old and wise.
Take my eyes.

Take my ears
And tell my mother
About all what they will hear.
Tell her they will rock out at concerts
And hear lullabies sung for children.
They will find magic in the spoken word and will hear love and hate.
Tell her about every heart beat,
Sigh of content, and bolt of laughter
They will hear.
Take my ears.

Take my nose
And tell my mother
About everything it will smell.
Tell her it will catch wisps of
Perfume and Cologne
Mingling with coffee and bread
From a Paris café.
It will crinkle at the smell of skunks
But open wide at the smell of rose.
Take my nose.

Take my lips
And tell my mother
About every sweet kiss.
Tell her they will whisper
I love you
And really mean it.
They will stretch with laughter
purse with disdain
and never make a duck face.
They will speak slowly savoring
Every syllable of sound
And tumble fast over flirty quips
Take my lips.

Take my lungs
And tell my mother
About every breath of air they get.
Tell her they will feel crisp autumn winds
And heavy humid summer breezes.
They will heave and pant in laughter
And in despair.
They will catch and gasp and get the hiccups.
They will bellow leaving
No song unsung.
Take my lungs.

Take my heart.
Please take my heart
And tell my mother
About every single beat.
Tell her when it moves fast
Or slow.
Tell her it will be consumed
With passion
And blaze with ecstasy.
Tell her it will grow
And grow
And grow
And grow
Tell her it will never forget her.
Tell her it will give someone
A new start.
Please, take my heart.
Please take my heart.
Take my kidneys, liver, spleen, stomach, and appendix.
Whatever you need take it from me.

***** Donor.

I want to be an ***** donor
Because I want to live.

— The End —