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TOD HOWARD HAWKS Mar 2022
LOVE AND LOVERS

by

TOD HOWARD HAWKS


Chapter 1

Jon walked down Broadway Thursday toward Tom’s to eat breakfast. He had taken this stroll hundreds of times after being at Columbia for five years during which he had eaten breakfast at all possible alternatives and found Tom’s to be categorically the best in Morningside Heights. It was a beautiful Fall morning. Monday he would begin the second and last school year at Columbia and in the Spring he would receive his MFA from the School of the Arts.

When Jon entered Tom’s, he was stunned. Sitting three down in aisle 3 on the right side in a booth by herself was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. After standing still for a few moments, Jon slowly walked toward this woman and stopped, then spoke.

“Hi, I’m Jon Witherston. May I join you?”

The young woman responded, “Sure.” Jon sat down.

“I’m Bian Ly. It’s nice to meet you,” she said.

“I’m assuming you’re a student at Columbia,” said Jon.

“Yes, I’m a senior at the College. Are you also a student?” asked Bian.

“Yes, I am. In fact, I graduated from Columbia College a year ago. Next Spring, I’ll be receiving my MFA from the School of the Arts. I’m a poet,” said Jon.

“A poet! How wonderful!,” exclaimed Bian.

“Thank you, Bian. What’s your major?” asked Jon.

“I'm majoring in Human Rights,” replied Bian.

“The world needs to major in Human Rights!” said Jon.

Bian smiled.

At that point, the waitress came over and took their orders. Both wanted breakfast.

“That is a beautiful ring you are wearing on your little finger,” said Bian.

“That a Nacoms ring,” said Jon. “Nacoms is a senior society at the College. I was selected to be a member,” said Jon. “I was Head of NSOP. Where are you from, Bian?

“I’m from Hanoi,” said Bian.

“Hanoi is a long way from Topeka, Kansas where I grew up, but I did come East to attend Andover,” said Jon.

“I also attended boarding school, but in Hanoi, not Massachusetts. I graduated from Hanoi International School,” said Bian.

“It seems we have a lot in common,” said Jon.

The waitress brought their breakfasts, which they started eating.

After finishing their meals, the two chatted for about twenty minutes, then Jon said, “Bian, before I bid you a good rest of your day, I’d like to ask you if you might like to join me to visit the Guggenheim Museum to see a showing of Vasily Kandinsky’s paintings this Saturday afternoon then be my guest for dinner at your favorite Italian restaurant in Morningside Heights.”

“I’d love to,” replied Bian.

“I’ll pick you up about 2 p.m. Where do you live?” asked Jon.

“I live in Harley Hall,” said Bian.

“Hartley Hall–that’s where I lived all four years during my undergraduate days,” remarked Jon. “ You’ve got a couple of days to pick out your favorite Italian restaurant,” added Jon. “I’ll wait in the lobby for you.”

Bian smiled again and got out of the booth.

“See you this Saturday at 2,” Jon said as he waited for Bian to leave first. Then he just sat in the booth for a while and smiled, too.


Jon arrived at Hartley Hall a bit early Saturday afternoon. He sat in the lobby on a soft leather sofa. Hartley Hall. Columbia. Four years. It had been an amazing time. Chad Willington, a fellow Andover graduate from Richmond, Virginia, was his roommate all four years. A tremendous swimmer, Chad had been elected captain of the team both his junior and senior years. He was now working at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. Jon’s most cherished honor while he was at the College was being elected by his 1,400 classmates to be one of 15 Class Marshals to lead the Commencement Procession.

Bian came into the lounge. She looked beautiful.

“How are you, Bian? Are you ready to go see Kandinsky?” asked Jon.

“Indeed, I am,” said Bian.

“Let’s go, then,” said Jon.

The two walked across campus on College Walk to Broadway where Jon hailed a cab.

“Please take us to the Guggenheim Museum,” Jon told the cabbie. The cab cut through Central Park to upper 5th Avenue.

“We’re here,” said Jon and paid and tipped the cabbie.

The Guggenheim itself was a spectacular piece of architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that spiraled into the blue sky. Jon paid for the admission tickets, then both entered the museum and took the elevator to the top of the building. Then began the slow descent to the bottom on the long, spiraling walkway, pausing when they wanted to the see a Kandinsky painting closely and talking with each other about it.

Vasily Kandinsky was a Russian painter and theorist, becoming prominent in
the early decades of the 20th Century. Having moved first from Russia to Germany, he then went to France. Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstraction in Western art. He was keenly interested in spiritual expression:  “inner necessity” is what he called it.

It took quite a while to make their way down the spiraling ramp, stopping at almost every painting to share their views. Finally, Bian and Jon reached the bottom.

“Well, that was most interesting,” said Bian.

“I agree,” said Jon. “Have you decided which is your favorite Italian restaurant in Morningside Heights, Bian?” asked Jon.

“Pisticci,” said Bian.

“Let's go!,” said Jon.

They took a cab to Pisticci. The waiter brought them menus, which they began to peruse.

“You first,” Jon said to Bian.

“I would like the Insalata Pisticci (bed of baby spinach tossed with potatoes and pancetta with balsamic reduction). Then Suppe Minestrone (with a clear tomato base and al dente vegetables). Finally, I would like the Fettuccine Al Fungi (handmade fettuccine tossed with a trio of warm, earthy mushrooms and truffle oil),” concluded Bian.

Jon followed. “I would also like the Insalata Pisticci, then the Suppe Minestrone, followed by the Pappardelle Bolognesse, then the Burrata Caprese. Thank you.”

Bian and Jon ate their meals in candlelight.

“Tell me about growing up in Hanoi,” Jon asked Bian.

“I am an only child, Jon. My father is Minh Ly and my mother is Lieu. My father was the youngest General in the war;  nevertheless, he rose to second in command. He has been a businessman now for a long time.

“My childhood was like those of most children. As I grew older, I loved playing volleyball. I read a lot. I began learning English at an early age. I had lots of friends. I love my father and mother very much.”

“Why did you come to Columbia,” asked Jon.

“Columbia, as you know, is one of the greatest universities in the world, and it’s in New York City,” said Bian.

“Why did you choose to major in Human Rights, Bian,” asked Jon.

“The world, and the people and all other living creations on it, need kindness and love to heal. All have been sick for millennia. I would like to help heal Earth,” said Bian.

Jon was struck by Bian’s words. He felt the same as Bian.

The two continued to share more with each other. Finally, it was time to go.

They took a cab back to campus and Jon escorted Bian back to Hartley Hall.

“I’d like to exchange phone numbers with you. Is that OK with you?” Jon asked.

“Of course,” said Bian.

“Thank you for a wonderful day, Bian,” said Jon.

“And you the same, Jon,” said Bian.
All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so
All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so
All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so
TOD HOWARD HAWKS Nov 2024
LOVE AND LOVERS

by

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Preamble:  I hope you will read LOVE AND LOVERS. I believe love is the only way to save Earth and all creations upon it. That includes you, your family, your friends, and all that you prize. One person can begin to save all that one loves. Let it be you. Best wishes, TOD HOWARD HAWKS


Chapter 1

Jon walked down Broadway Thursday toward Tom’s to eat breakfast. He had taken this stroll hundreds of times after being at Columbia for five years during which he had eaten breakfast at all possible alternatives and found Tom’s to be categorically the best in Morningside Heights. It was a beautiful Fall morning. Monday he would begin the second and last school year at Columbia and in the Spring he would receive his MFA from the School of the Arts.

When Jon entered Tom’s, he was stunned. Sitting three down in aisle 3 on the right side in a booth by herself was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. After standing still for a few moments, Jon slowly walked toward this woman and stopped, then spoke.

“Hi, I’m Jon Witherston. May I join you?”

The young woman responded, “Sure.” Jon sat down.

“I’m Bian Ly. It’s nice to meet you,” she said.

“I’m assuming you’re a student at Columbia,” said Jon.

“Yes, I’m a senior at the College. Are you also a student?” asked Bian.

“Yes, I am. In fact, I graduated from Columbia College a year ago. Next Spring, I’ll be receiving my MFA from the School of the Arts. I’m a poet,” said Jon.

“A poet! How wonderful!,” exclaimed Bian.

“Thank you, Bian. What’s your major?” asked Jon.

“I'm majoring in Human Rights,” replied Bian.

“The world needs to major in Human Rights!” said Jon.

Bian smiled.

At that point, the waitress came over and took their orders. Both wanted breakfast.

“That is a beautiful ring you are wearing on your little finger,” said Bian.

“That a Nacoms ring,” said Jon. “Nacoms is a senior society at the College. I was selected to be a member,” said Jon. “I was Head of NSOP. Where are you from, Bian?

“I’m from Hanoi,” said Bian.

“Hanoi is a long way from Topeka, Kansas where I grew up, but I did come East to attend Andover,” said Jon.

“I also attended boarding school, but in Hanoi, not Massachusetts. I graduated from Hanoi International School,” said Bian.

“It seems we have a lot in common,” said Jon.

The waitress brought their breakfasts, which they started eating.

After finishing their meals, the two chatted for about twenty minutes, then Jon said, “Bian, before I bid you a good rest of your day, I’d like to ask you if you might like to join me to visit the Guggenheim Museum to see a showing of Vasily Kandinsky’s paintings this Saturday afternoon then be my guest for dinner at your favorite Italian restaurant in Morningside Heights.”

“I’d love to,” replied Bian.

“I’ll pick you up about 2 p.m. Where do you live?” asked Jon.

“I live in Harley Hall,” said Bian.

“Hartley Hall–that’s where I lived all four years during my undergraduate days,” remarked Jon. “ You’ve got a couple of days to pick out your favorite Italian restaurant,” added Jon. “I’ll wait in the lobby for you.”

Bian smiled again and got out of the booth.

“See you this Saturday at 2,” Jon said as he waited for Bian to leave first. Then he just sat in the booth for a while and smiled, too.


Chapter 2

Jon arrived at Hartley Hall a bit early Saturday afternoon. He sat in the lobby on a soft leather sofa. Hartley Hall. Columbia. Four years. It had been an amazing time. Chad Willington, a fellow Andover graduate from Richmond, Virginia, was his roommate all four years. A tremendous swimmer, Chad had been elected captain of the team both his junior and senior years. He was now working at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. Jon’s most cherished honor while he was at the College was being elected by his 1,400 classmates to be one of 15 Class Marshals to lead the Commencement Procession.

Bian came into the lounge. She looked beautiful.

“How are you, Bian? Are you ready to go see Kandinsky?” asked Jon.

“Indeed, I am,” said Bian.

“Let’s go, then,” said Jon.

The two walked across campus on College Walk to Broadway where Jon hailed a cab.

“Please take us to the Guggenheim Museum,” Jon told the cabbie. The cab cut through Central Park to upper 5th Avenue.

“We’re here,” said Jon and paid and tipped the cabbie.

The Guggenheim itself was a spectacular piece of architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that spiraled into the blue sky. Jon paid for the admission tickets, then both entered the museum and took the elevator to the top of the building. Then began the slow descent to the bottom on the long, spiraling walkway, pausing when they wanted to the see a Kandinsky painting closely and talking with each other about it.

Vasily Kandinsky was a Russian painter and theorist, becoming prominent in the early decades of the 20th Century. Having moved first from Russia to Germany, he then went to France. Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstraction in Western art. He was keenly interested in spiritual expression:  “inner necessity” is what he called it.

It took quite a while to make their way down the spiraling ramp, stopping at almost every painting to share their views. Finally, Bian and Jon reached the bottom.

“Well, that was most interesting,” said Bian.

“I agree,” said Jon. “Have you decided which is your favorite Italian restaurant in Morningside Heights, Bian?” asked Jon.

“Pisticci,” said Bian.

“Let's go!,” said Jon.

They took a cab to Pisticci. The waiter brought them menus, which they began to peruse.

“You first,” Jon said to Bian.

“I would like the Insalata Pisticci (bed of baby spinach tossed with potatoes and pancetta with balsamic reduction). Then Suppe Minestrone (with a clear tomato base and al dente vegetables). Finally, I would like the Fettuccine Al Fungi (handmade fettuccine tossed with a trio of warm, earthy mushrooms and truffle oil),” concluded Bian.

Jon followed. “I would also like the Insalata Pisticci, then the Suppe Minestrone, followed by the Pappardelle Bolognesse, then the Burrata Caprese. Thank you.”

Bian and Jon ate their meals in candlelight.

“Tell me about growing up in Hanoi,” Jon asked Bian.

“I am an only child, Jon. My father is Minh Ly and my mother is Lieu. My father was the youngest General in the war;  nevertheless, he rose to second in command. He has been a businessman now for a long time. My childhood was like those of most children. As I grew older, I loved playing volleyball. I read a lot. I began learning English at an early age. I had lots of friends. I love my father and mother very much.”

“Why did you come to Columbia,” asked Jon.

“Columbia, as you know, is one of the greatest universities in the world, and it’s in New York City,” said Bian.

“Why did you choose to major in Human Rights, Bian,” asked Jon.

“The world, and the people and all other living creations on it, need kindness and love to heal. All have been sick for millennia. I would like to help heal Earth,” said Bian.

Jon was struck by Bian’s words. He felt the same as Bian.

The two continued to share more with each other. Finally, it was time to go.

They took a cab back to campus and Jon escorted Bian back to Hartley Hall.

“I’d like to exchange phone numbers with you. Is that OK with you?” Jon asked.

“Of course,” said Bian.

“Thank you for a wonderful day, Bian,” said Jon.

“And you the same, Jon,” said Bian.



Chapter 3

Jon picked up his receiver and gave Bian a call from his apartment.

“Bian?”, asked Jon.

“Yes,” replied Bian.

“This is Jon calling. Do you have a minute or two to talk?”

“Yes, I do,” said Bian.

“Well, first let me ask how you’re doing,” said Jon.

“I’m doing well, Jon,” said Bian.

“And school, how’s that going?” asked Jon.

“Well, I'm off to a busy start, but that’s not surprising,” said Bian.

“I’m calling to ask if you would like to go with me this Sunday afternoon and hear Santiago Pena, president of Paraguay, speak at the World Leaders Forum in Low Library, then afterwards have an early picnic meal in Riverside Park with me.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful!” said Bian.

“Great. I’ll meet you again in the Hartley Hall lobby around quarter of 2. Will that work for you?” asked Jon.

“Yes, Jon, that will work fine. Thanks for the double invitation,” said Bian.

“Oh, and by the way, I’ll have our picnic meal ready for us. We’ll have to pick it up at my apartment after the talk. I live on Riverside Drive between 114th and 115th Streets,” said Jon.

“I look forward to both,” said Bian.

“Have a good rest of the week,” said Jon. “See you Sunday.”


Jon got to the Hartley Hall lobby a bit early Sunday afternoon and sat down on a sofa to wait for Bian. On Saturday, Jon had written his most recent poem and he had brought it and two others to read to Bian during their picnic. After a short wait, Bian entered the lobby.

“Bian, it's so nice to see you again,” said Jon.

“It’s so nice to see you, too,” said Bian.

“Well, are we ready to head out?” said Jon.

“I am,” said Bian.

“OK, let’s go,” said Jon.

The two headed toward Low Library, now no longer a library, but the main administrative center of the University. Further, the Rotunda was glorious. That’s where President Santiago Pena would be speaking.  

The President began his speech with a concise history of Paraguay followed by his attempts to deal with the societal ills in his country, and then spoke at length about his belief, his wish, for all nations in both Central and South America to be united into one nation. Finally, he took a number of questions from members of the audience. The program lasted about an hour.

“I found President Pena’s comments about the potential unification of all countries in Central and South America united provocative,” said Jon.

“The world is one. Why not start with all nations in Central and South America?” added Bian as she and Jon walked down the steps in front of Low Library.


“Another beautiful Fall day,” said Jon. “A beautiful day for a picnic.”

They headed down College walk, crossed Broadway, then turned left on Riverside Drive and walked toward Jon’s apartment building that was just beyond 115th Street.

“Come on up while I gather all the picnic items,” said Jon, so they took the elevator to the 5th floor, got out, and walked down the hallway to Apt. 515.

“Here’s where I live,” said Jon. Bian entered first.

“You have a beautiful view of the park and the Hudson River, Jon,” said Bian.

Jon put all picnic items from the refrigerator into a large bag and grabbed the large, folded blanket lying on the sofa in the living room, then said, “Now let’s go find a great spot to have a picnic,” said Jon.

The two crossed Riverside Drive and entered Riverside Park. After spending several minutes looking around, Bian said, “Over there. That looks like a nice spot.”

When they got to the spot, Jon put everything he had been carrying on the ground and unfolded the blanket and spread it out.

"This will be an old-fashioned Kansas picnic, Bian. I hope you like it,” said Jon.

Bian sat down on the blanket. Jon began emptying the bag.

“We have before us pieces of fried chicken, coleslaw, baked beans, cleaned strips of carrots and celery, and black olives. Here are the paper plates, utensils, napkins, and cups, along with a container of cool water. I brought water because I don’t drink alcohol.” said Jon. “Plus, I have a surprise dessert.”

Jon then sat down and gave Bian a plate, utensils, and a napkin. “Help yourself, Bian, and enjoy.” And so they did.

After both had eaten everything on their plates, Jon said, “And now for the surprise,”

He reached into the bottom of the bag for the plastic container and pulled it out.

“I have here two pieces of chocolate cake from the Hungarian Pastry Shop,” he said.

“Oh, the cake looks delicious!” said Bian.

Jon carefully put the pieces of cake on plates, then handed one to Bian.

“We had no Hungarian Pastry Shop in Kansas,” said Jon.

After eating their pieces of chocolate cake, Bian and Jon chatted for quite a while, mostly about their respective childhoods, which were, surprisingly enough, quite similar. Being loved by one’s parents, especially, was the most important experience that both shared.

“I’d like to share with you, Bian, several poems I’ve recently written,” said Jon.

“I’d like that very much,” said Bian.

“The first one I’ll recite is titled I WRITE WHEN THE RIVER’S DOWN.

I WRITE WHEN THE RIVER’S DOWN

I write when the river’s down,
when the ground’s as hard as
a banker’s disposition and as
cracked as an old woman’s face.
I write when the air is still
and the tired leaves of the
dying elm tree are a mosaic
against the bird-blue sky.
I write when the old bird dog,
Sam, is too tired to chase
rabbits, which is his habit
on temperate days. I write when
horses lie on burnt grass,
when the sun is always
high noon, when hope melts like
yellow butter near the kitchen
window. I write when there
are no cherry pies in the
oven, when heartache comes
like a dust storm in early
morning. I write when the
river’s down, and sadness
grows like cockle burs in
my heart.


The next poem is titled THERE WILL COME A TIME.

THERE WILL COME A TIME

There will come a time
when time doesn’t matter,
when all minutes and
millennia are but moments
when I look into your eyes.
There will come a time
when clinging things
will fall like desiccated
leaves, leaving us with
but one another. There
will come a time when
the external becomes eternal,
when holding you is to
embrace the universe.
There will come a time
when to be will no longer
be infinitive, but infinity,
and you and I are one.


The last poem I’ll share with you today is THERE IS A TENDER WAY TO TOUCH YOU.


THERE IS A TENDER WAY TO TOUCH YOU

There is a tender way to touch you,
not more than a brush across your cheek.
I seek a gentle kiss so not to miss your soft
and red-rose lips that meet mine, the glory
of your darkened hair that falls across my face
as I unlace your flowered blouse to place
my fingertips upon your silk-like skin to begin
to love the rest of you. I lay you down on soft,
blue sheets, your head upon pillows made of
wild willow leaves softer than robin’s feathers.
I bare your beauty slowly that glows like a candle’s
flame in a room that is at once dark and bright.
The light comes from your luminous eyes that smile
at me as I reveal the rest of you from waist to knees
to heels and toes. No one knows the tender touch
I bestow upon your gentle being that I alone am seeing.


“Thank you, Jon, for sharing these poems with me. They moved me. I hope you’ll share others with me,” said Bian.

It was time to call it an afternoon. Jon walked with Bian all the way back to Hartley Hall.

“Have a good week, Bian,” said Jon, then leaned forward and
kissed her lips lightly.



Chapter 4


Bian and Jon began studying together in Butler Library. They read, they wrote, they laughed together. They got to know each other increasingly well. Their relationship, seemingly effortlessly, became romantic. They began to spend more time in Jon’s apartment. They became lovers.

Bian brought Jon a sense of happiness into his life that he had never experienced before. Not surprisingly, the same was true for Bian in a similar way, who previously, but not consciously, had always felt somewhat on the periphery of life in America. They complemented and enjoyed each other, so much so that full-blown love blossomed.

This is how the rest of the semester flowed. When Christmas break came, they decided to fly to Paris and spend the holidays there. Of course, they visited the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame. They strolled down Champs-Elysees and through Montmartre, ate mostly at bistros, and took a trip to see Versailles.

Among other excursions, they traveled to Amiens to see the famous cathedral there. Overlooking the Somme River, the Amiens Cathedral was built between 1220 and 1270. It was the largest cathedral in France, twice the size of Notre Dame. Jon said the skyscrapers in New York City paled in comparison to Amiens Cathedral.

Back to Columbia, New York City, and Spring semester. When the weather warmed, they spent many week-end afternoons in Central Park, visited many other sites, ate all kinds of ethnic foods, and, of course, had breakfast at Tom’s often. Furthermore, Bian’s parents were flying from Hanoi to New York City to attend Commencement.

But the highlight not only of the moment, but also, and most importantly, of the rest of her life, was Jon proposing marriage to her the week before they were to graduate, which, in a state of both shock and pure joy, she accepted. He gave her a diamond engagement ring he had bought at Tiffany’s.

“It is such an honor and a pleasure to meet both of you, Mr. and Mrs. Ly,” said Jon. Mr. Ly translated for his wife who knew no English.


Commencement at Columbia was always a transcendental exercise. That evening, the four of them celebrated by having dinner at Eleven Madison Park, courtesy of Mr. Minh. Three days later, Bian and Jon were married in
St. Paul’s Chapel on the Columbia campus.

Bian and John rented a cottage on Cape Cod for the summer. A summer of love it was. Sailing, relaxing, chatting, making love–all that two human beings could wish for.

The first thing Jon felt he needed to do was to call Chad, who had been Jon's roommate at Columbia, to thank him for coming to the wedding. They had a nice chat, then Chad asked the question below:

“Jon, I just have to ask you this one question,” said Chad. “Is Bian’s father, by any chance, Minh Ly?”

“Yes,” said Jon.

“Jesus, Jon! Did you know that Minh Ly is one of the richest men on the planet?”

Silence.

Finally, Jon said, “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Not only is Minh Ly one of the richest men on Earth, but he is one of the most connected in the entire world. But most people, even the richest, don’t know how internationally influential he is. He keeps an extremely low profile.

More silence.

“I didn’t know any of this, Chad. Bian never mentioned to me even an iota of what you have just told me,” said Jon.

“Well, Jon, I had to ask,” said Chad. “I hope you’re not disconcerted.”

“No, no, Chad. I guess I’m just flabbergasted,” said Jon.

“I found out about Minh Ly when I was invited to join members of the top brass at a Goldman Sachs luncheon and Minh Ly’s name popped into the conversation for a minute or two. That’s all,” said Chad.

“Fine, Chad. Thanks for telling me this,” said Jon, then hung up.


Chapter 5


Jon sat in the stuffed chair by the fireplace for a long time. Bian had driven into Hyannis to do some shopping.

When Bian had mentioned during one of their chats she had wanted to “heal the Earth” during her life, that phrase–that particular phrase–had pierced his being, bringing fully into his consciousness the same overpowering sentiment.  Once she had uttered those three words, Jon’s life had been profoundly and permanently affected. He had even written what he considered to be a “commentary,” a brief, concise pathway that humankind could follow to save the world, to create Peace on Earth forever. He had had no intention of ever sharing it with Bian, until now. Jon rose from his chair and went into the bedroom and opened the closet door and pulled out the big cardboard box in which he kept all of his poems. Near the top, he saw his commentary. He lifted it out and sat down on the bed and began to read it again.

PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE

Turning the World Rightside-In

by

Jon Witherston


PREAMBLE:  All we have is our little planet, Earth. For the vast majority of my life, I have thought, “What would it be like to have Peace on Earth?” But for only two, maybe three, weeks every year, usually around Christmas, I would see the phrase “Peace on Earth," usually on Christmas cards. But after Christmas, I would not hear or see that sanguine notion for 11 more months. The longer I lived, the more this annual ritual bothered me. At Andover, I had studied European history. At Columbia, I had majored in American history. Over time, I increasingly came to the realization that in both prep school and college, I had essentially been studying about wars on top of wars and their aftermaths:  millions and millions and millions of human beings being killed. Then, when I got curious, I used my computer to find out that, according to many scholars, only a little over 200, out of roughly 3,400 years of recorded history, were deemed “peaceful.” Humanity, I concluded, had a horrible track record when it came to effectuating “Peace on Earth.” And during my lifetime things have not gotten any better.  
      
SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY:  There is one land, one sky, one sea, one people. The boundaries that divide us are not on maps, but in our minds and hearts. John Donne was prescient. Earth is as impoverished as its poorest Citizen, as healthy as her sickest, as educated as her most ignorant. If we pollute the upper waters of the Mississippi, then ineluctably we shall pollute the Indian Ocean. If we continue to pollute our air, the current 8,100,000,000 Citizens on Earth will die. All species will be accorded the same concern and care as Citizens of Earth. The imminent threats of nuclear holocaust and catastrophic climate change we need urgently to prevent. This is the truth of Spiritual Ecology.  

CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH:  If we can wage war, why should we not wage peace? Nations are anachronistic;  therefore, there will be none. There will only be Earth and Citizens of Earth. Each Citizen of Earth will devote a sizable number of years of her/his life to the betterment of humankind and Earth. All military weapons--from handguns to hydrogen bombs--will be destroyed, and any future weapons will be prohibited. All jails and prisons will be closed, replaced by Love Centers (see below). Automation and other technological advances will enhance the opportunity for all Citizens of Earth to realize exponentially their potential, personally and spiritually. There will be no money. All precious resources and assets of Earth will be distributed equally among all Citizens of Earth. The only things each will own are the right to be treated well and the responsibility to treat Earth and all its Citizens well. All Citizens will be free to travel anywhere, at any time, on Earth. All Citizens will be free to choose their own personal and professional goals, but will do no harm to Earth or other Citizens. All Citizens will be afforded the same resources to live a full, safe, and satisfying life, including the best education, health care, housing, food, and other necessities throughout Earth.

LOVE:  The only way to change anything for the good, for good, is through love. Love is what every living creation on Earth needs. Love Centers are for those Citizens who were not loved enough, or at all, especially at their earliest of ages. Concomitantly, they act out their pain hurtfully, sometimes lethally, often against other Citizens. Citizens who are emotionally ill will be separated from those who are not. Jails and prisons only abet this deleterious situation. Some Citizens in pain may need to be constrained in Love Centers humanely while they recover, through being loved, so they do not hurt themselves or others. In some extreme cases, Citizens may be in so much pain that they remain violent for a long time.  Thus, they may need to be constrained for the rest of their lives, but always loved, never punished. In time, Citizens, when loved enough, will only have love to give, and the need for Love Centers will commensurately decline.

EARTH:  In 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the commission that wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UDHR, with some updates and revisions, will serve as the moral and legal guidepost for Earth.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY:  Earth will be divided into sections of approximately the same size. One Citizen of Earth from each section will be elected only for one five-year term as members of the General Assembly. Every five years, twenty new Citizens of Earth will be elected.

FIRST VOTE:  The first vote of all Citizens of Earth will be to establish CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH. Majority rules. All Citizens will have access to Internet voting, as well as access to cell phones and other types of computers. Citizens of Earths will have her/his own secured ID codes. Citizens of Earth will have to be 18 or older to vote. Citizens of Earth will be encouraged to bring before the General Assembly all ideas and recommendations, as well as any concerns or complaints, which will be considered and responded to promptly. Citizens of Earth's ideas and recommendations will be formed into proposals drafted by members of the General Assembly. Citizens of Earth will vote on these proposals of each month during the first two weeks of the following month. Citizens of Earth will be Earth’s government. Members of the General Assembly will be facilitators who will work with millions of volunteers. There will be no president of Earth.

THE FUTURE:  There will be no money.  All items on Earth will be given  shares of worth. Each Citizen of Earth will receive equal shares of worth. All shares in excess of what’s needed reasonably by each Citizen of Earth will be saved for future generations. No violence of any kind will occur during the transfer of these shares. Citizens of Earth will take these steps because they are the moral, the right, steps to take to save all living creations on Earth, and Earth itself.

CELEBRATE AND SHARE: If one were to take a photograph of humanity and gaze at it, one would see a beautiful mosaic of mankind of different, beautiful colors. If one could step into the photograph, one would hear a melody of languages and dialects. One could have a worldwide picnic with all your sisters and brothers and experience different customs and taste different, delicious foods. And in moments of silence, all of you could pray in your different religions, separate but together at the same time. One would also share the same human laughter and joys and feel the same sorrows and cry the same tears, all in Peace on Earth eternal. All would come to delight in these differences, not dread them. One would look forward to celebrating and sharing with your family, not killing others. The spiritual whole would be larger than the sum of its sacred parts.

A QUANTUM LEAP:  The world, over millennia, keeps evolving. Over 3,400 years of recorded history, powers, nations, keep shifting, sometimes seismically. Now is the time for not only the grandest seismic shift ever, but also the one that will save Earth and all living creations upon it. It is time for Earth to become one Earth--not a scattering of over 200 nations with artificial borders. Technology, with its innumerable advances, has made us into a world when all can become one. We are free to be our real selves, to spend our variegated lives not aggrandizing, but sharing and giving. Rather than dreading our superficial differences--our different skin colors, our different cultures, our different religions, our different languages--we can explore and enjoy them. Let us finally be what we truly have been forever, one big, worldwide family of humanity. No more wars, no more weapons, no more killing. No more hunger, no more homelessness, no more hopelessness. No more ignorance, no more illnesses, no more social classes. This is the quantum leap of which I speak.

PEACE ON EARTH:  Wealth is not worth. The mansuetude of loving and being love is. When love is your currency, all else is counterfeit. Citizens of Earth will be able to go about creating their own happiness that is built on love-based personal relationships and professional activities. No longer will human beings be able to profit from another’s pain. With love at the center of being and living, there will be no more wars, no more dictators, no more corruption. Finally, there will only be Peace on Earth forever.

Copyright 2026 Jon Witherston.


Jon heard the front door open and shut.

“Bian, I’m in the bedroom,” said Jon. “I’ve got something I want you to read.”

Bian came into the bedroom. “What is it?” she asked.

“It’s something you inspired,” replied Jon.

Bian kissed Jon on the cheek then sat on the bed.

“Read it, then we’ll chat,” said Jon. He handed the commentary to Bian who began reading.

“Jon, when did you write this?” asked Bian.

“I wrote it after you shared with me your desire to spend your life trying to heal Earth,” said Jon. “At Tom’s. Do you remember?”

“I’ve always dreamed of this ever since my father told me about the war,” she said. “What I remember about Tom’s is when I told you I was majoring in Human Rights, you said the whole world should be majoring in Human Rights.”

“Of course, I remember that, too,” said Jon.


What Bian came to realize about her father as she grew up was he had become anti-war. He had come to hate it. But there were two things she had never known about him, though. First, her father was one of the wealthiest men on Earth. Yes, she knew he was well-to-do:  she had grown up, after all, in a large, comfortable home, and her father had had the money to pay for her expensive educations,  Second, he had belonged, for almost two decades now, to a secret, worldwide group of extremely wealthy and influential men and women who wished for, and were working toward, a world that would never know war.

Jon did not dare tell Bian about what Chad had shared with him over the phone, about her father’s megawealth. Bian had never known about her father's pursuit of eternal Peace on Earth. She always had thought all those trips had to do with his businesses.

“I’d like to elaborate a bit on what you’ve read in my commentary, Bian, if you care to,” said Jon.

“Of course,” said Bian.

“I’m thinking about the poor,” Jon said. “The poor, and the extremely poor, on Earth, as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have put it,” Jon said, with more than a tinge of contempt. “Out of 8 billion human beings on Earth, roughly 2 ½ billion fall into these two ‘statistical’ categories. That’s more than 1 out of 4 human lives on Earth desperately trying to survive day-to-day.

“Here’s my idea, Bian,” said Jon.

“There are more than 7,000 languages and dialects spoken on Earth. Most of the poor speak those dialects. How to communicate with them is our biggest challenge. In broad strokes and succinctly, this is what I have in mind. I want to share this with you and hope you’ll be my partner.

“I want to travel Earth with you. I want to meet first the poor of Earth with you, speak with them, eat with them, live with them, answer all their questions about creating one land, one sky, one sea, one people. I want to talk with them about all Citizens of Earth cooperating with, not competing against, one another, creating Peace on Earth through love forever. If ever we can create a vote on CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH, I’m sure the vast majority of them would vote for it.

“We would start in Mexico, then visit the nations of Central America, then those of South America. Then we would go to Africa where there are so many poor and do the same thing. Then the rest of the world.

“Does all of this sound audacious, Bian? Well, it should, because it is,” said Jon. “Logistics will be beyond enormous, but in my heart, I believe there will be eventually millions and millions and millions of volunteers around the world who will wish to join in.”

Bian had sat on the bed taking all of this in, paused, then said to her husband whom she loved and admired so much, “Jon, you are a genius, but all of this does sound audacious. My first idea is to share all of this with my father and get his reaction to your commentary and what you’ve just shared with me. He knows the world probably as well, if not better, than any other person on Earth.”

“A great idea!” said Jon.

“I’ll call him at 10 p.m. tonight. It will be 9 a.m. in Hanoi,” said Bian excitedly.



Chapter 6


Bian spoke with her father that evening. Bian thought she had detected a good measure of surprise, if not excitement, in his voice. He would be in Toronto on business in mid-September. He could meet his daughter and Jon at 10 a.m. at the Ritz-Carlton on Monday, the 11th. He said he would leave a note at the front desk telling them which room he was staying in. He told Bian he always used aliases when he traveled, a fact she had not previously known. Understandably, Bian was thrilled.

Bian and Jon had enjoyed immensely the rest of the summer, as only on Cape Cod one can. They flew from Logan Airport to Toronto the morning of Sunday, 10 September. They arrived at the Ritz-Carlton around 9:45 Monday morning.

“I believe you have a note waiting for Bian and Jon,” said Bian.

“Just a minute, please,” said the clerk.

“Here,” said the clerk and handed it to Bian.

“Thank you,” said Bian. “Father’s in room #715.”

The two took the elevator to the 7th floor, found the room, and knocked on the door. In a moment or two, Minh Ly opened it.

“My dear daughter, Bian! How are you?” said Mr. Ly as he gave his daughter a big hug. “And you, Jon, how are you?”

Jon shook Mr. Ly’s hand as he entered the room.

“So good to see you, sir,” said Jon.

“Come in. Make yourselves comfortable,” said Mr. Ly.

“Mr. Ly, the first thing I would like to share with you is my commentary. It is an overview of what I would like to pursue with Bian,” said Jon.

“Let me read it,” said Mr. Ly.

It took a couple of minutes for My Ly to finish reading. He paused for several moments, then exclaimed “Jon, this is extraordinary!”

“Bian inspired me,” said Jon. “You know, Mr. Ly, I’m a poet, not a financier. It would take untold amounts of money and the best technology on Earth--unbelievable amounts of it--to realize this dream.”

“Don’t worry. I have friends,” said Mr. Ly.

"I envision Bian and I traveling around the world visiting the poorest sections of most of the biggest cities on Earth, using a translator when necessary to explain how we collectively can bring lasting peace to Earth. Furthermore, I expect not only the worldwide, but also the local, media to be informed of these gatherings," Jon said.

"You need to know I must always remain anonymous. Bian, you, and I shall need to meet periodically. I and my friends have developed ways always to be in touch, but will never be able to be detected. I wish not to elaborate. Jon, you inspire me the way Bian inspired you,” said Mr. Ly.


Chapter 7

“Read me some more of your poems,” said Bian.

“OK,” said Jon and went to get the box that contained his poems in the  closet. He looked through the stack and selected several of them, then sat down next to Bian on the living room sofa.

“The first one I’d like to share with you is titled SOUTHWESTERN KANSAS.


SOUTHWESTERN KANSAS

When you fly to southwestern Kansas,
you see a different kind of Kansas.
The land is flat,
the sky is big and blue,
and the folk, the common folk, well, they get along,
the common folk get along in southwestern Kansas.

On a ranch down near Liberal,
the black night roars
and the wind is wet.
All are happy tonight, for there is rain
and tomorrow the pastures will grow greener.

In the morning when the sun first shines,
the hired hands
with leathered countenances
and gnarled fingers
awake in old ranch houses
made of adobe brick
and slip on their muddy cowboy boots
and faded blue jeans
to begin another day of hard labor.

On the open prairie made green by rain,
tan and white cattle huddle together,
munching on green grass and purple sage.
A new-born calf bawls.
Her mother, the Hereford cow,
is there to care
and the baby calf ***** her belly full
of mother’s milk.

About 60 miles to the north
and a little to the west,
The sun stands high in a blue sky
dotted with little puffs of white.
At noon in Ulysses,
folk eat at the Coffee Cafe:
Swiss steak, short ribs, or sweetbreads
on Tuesdays
with chocolate cake for dessert.

The folk, the common folk, well, they get along,
the common folk get along in Ulysses.
They got a new high school and a Rexall drug store,
a water tower and a drive-in movie theater.
They got loads of Purina Chow,
plenty of John Deere combines,
and co-op signs stuck on almost everything.
And they got a main street several blocks long
with a lot of pick-up trucks parked on either side
driven by wheat farmers
with silver-white crew cuts
and narrow string ties.

Things are spread out in southwestern Kansas.
A blanket woven of green, brown, and yellow
patches of earth,
sown together by miles of barbed-wire fences,
spreads interminably into the horizon.
Occasional, faceless, little country towns,
distinguished only by imposing grain elevators
spiraling into the sky
like concrete cathedrals,
are joined tenuously together by
endless asphalt streaks
and dusty country roads,
pencil-line thin
and ruler straight,
flanked on either side
by telephone poles and wind-blown wires
strung one
after another,
after another
in monotonous succession.

But things, things aren’t too bad in southwestern Kansas.
Alfalfa’s growing green
and irrigation’s coming in.
Rain’s been real good
and the cattle market’s really strong.
The folk, they got the 1st National on weekdays
and the 1st Methodist in between.
The kids, they got 4-H clubs and scholarships to K-State.
And Ulysses, it’s got all that the big towns got–
gas, lights, and water.
So the folk, the common folk, well, they get along.
the common folk get along in southwestern Kansas.


“The next poem is SIMONE, SIMONE," said Jon.


SIMONE, SIMONE

Simone, Simone
I’m all alone.
Simone, Simone
I’m all alone.
Simone, Simone
please come to me
and bear your breast
for me to rest
my weary head
and shattered heart
upon a part
so soft and warm.
Simone, Simone
I’m all alone.
Simone, Simone.


“The final poem, Bian, is TREE LIMBS,” said Jon.


TREE LIMBS

A long time ago,
I used to lie on my bed
and look out my window
and watch the big elm tree
as it died slowly.

And I used to watch the cars
as they traveled by,
some fast, some slow,
from right to left, and left to right,
and wonder where they were going to
and coming from.

Once from my window
I hit a bus with my BB gun.
I was scared
because I knew I wasn’t
supposed to shoot buses,
even though it was kind of fun.

And sometimes I used
to hide behind my curtains
and watch the pretty
girls walk by my house
in their swimming suits
coming back from
the pool in the park.

But mostly I just used to lie
on my bed and think,
and watch the big elm tree
as it died slowly.


“I love not only your poetry, Jon, but also how you read each one,” said Bian.

Jon gave her a kiss.

They drove to the tip of Cape Cod to watch the sunset, then drove back to the Twenty-Eight Atlantic to have dinner. Bian ordered oysters, lobster “Carbonara,” kale salad, and scallops. Jon had salmon tartare, chowder, baby green salad, and grilled octopus.

“Well, I’m excited!” Jon said. “We have a tremendous amount of planning to do, but we will have the experience of our lifetimes, and my greatest pleasure will be sharing it with you.”

“D’accord!” said Bian.



Chapter 8


Bian and Jon began preparations with gusto.

Mr. Ly and his friends would  pay all expenses;  they would handle all details, such as reservations for air travel and hotels and rental cars;  they would contact the best interpreters in each country and pay them; they would contact leading newspapers and other news organizations in the world, including, but not limited to, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Youimuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, Bild, The Daily Telegraph,  Le Monde, Times of India, China Daily, Russian Today, BBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, NHK (Japan), ZDJ (German), Univision, China Media Group, Telemundo, and they would contact the leading media–newspapers and TV and radio stations–in the largest city of each country prior to Bian and Jon’s visit there.  

Somewhat tired, but extremely gratified, they sat on the sofa in early evening to listen to Jon’s favorite Beethoven Symphony, #7. The Symphony’s second movement “was a jewel,” Jon said. Of course, he leaned back and closed his eyes as he listened.

When the recording was over, and after a silent pause, Jon slowly stood up, and without ever saying a word, reached down and picked up Bian, and holding her in his arms, carried her carefully into the bedroom where he stood her up beside the bed, then, slowly and softly, undressed her, and after he had pulled back the bed sheets, picked Bian up again and lay her on the bed. Then he undressed and got into bed beside her.

The room was dark and full of silence. Then Jon turned toward the woman who had brought limitless joy into his life and said to her, “Bian, who in the Heavens made you?” And then he kept leaning until he gently lay upon his wife, and these two lovers made love deep into the dark of night.


Chapter 9

Jon was thinking about Minh Ly. Jon knew he was beyond genius, but more importantly, Ly made Jon think of what Jorge Luis Borges had once written, that every person’s most important task was to transmute pain into compassion. Ly had been the youngest General ever appointed by ** Chi Minh, and, in short, General Ly had had to order North Vietnamese soldiers into battle. 1,100,000 of them had died during the long, ugly, brutal Vietnam War. Minh had spent many days in tears. That he had had the fortitude to persevere and ultimately transmute his unbearable pain into compassion is what Jon most respected about Minh Ly. Because he was so brilliant, Ly initially threw himself into the throes of worldwide business at war’s end, amassing, over a number of years, massive wealth:  billions and billions and billions of dollars. Concurrently, however, Ly, overtime, experienced a life-changing metamorphosis. He came to realize that wealth was not worth, as Jon had written in his commentary PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE, that compassion was humanity’s most important goal, that only love could save Earth. And that was why he ultimately decided to use wealth not to buy as much of Earth as he could, but to use it to save all of Earth, to eradicate all the vicious inequities that had ineluctably killed billions of human beings over many millennia. Moreover, he secretly went around the world and met with his megawealthy friends, asking them to join him in this goal, and many of them did join him. Now Ly and his friends were warring against war, fighting every injustice that caused horrid hell into which all the poor, all who suffered from myriad forms of racism through torture and death, fell. Ly was hell-bent on saving Earth and all living creations upon it. Then he met Jon.  

Bian, thought Jon, was as incredibly intelligent as her father. Of course, she was soft-spoken, but that belied her brilliance. After all, Bian has just completed the most rigorous, as well as the best, undergraduate liberal arts education to be found on Earth, graduating Summa *** Laude, an incredible academic achievement. Jon knew how much she loved her father, and he believed as well that his wife yearned, probably unconsciously, to emulate her father. That notion alone was enough to cause Jon to fall in love with Bian, then propose to and marry her. Now she was co-parthers with Jon and her father to realize her wish:  to heal Earth.

“I wrote a new poem yesterday, Bian. Would you like to her it?” said Jon.

“Of course,” said Bian.

“OK,” said Jon who then reached into his satchel and pulled out the new poem and began reading it.


SOLITUDE AND GRACE

I will wander
into wilderness
to find myself.
I will leave behind
my accoutrements,
memories of medals,
of past applause
and accolades,
accomplishments that
warranted degrees
and diplomas
portending future
successes. I like
who I am, who
I have become. No,
I love myself, and that
is my greatest achievement,
the acme most men
are blind to as they
mistake wealth for worth.
Most would say
I will be lonely,
but they are wrong,
because I will always be
with my best friend ever,
my real self. And I will
share my joy with
squirrels and rabbits
and deer, with bushes
and broken branches
and brush, with rills
and rivulets and rivers,
with rising and setting
suns and countless
stars coruscating in
night's sky. I will say
prayers to piles of pine
and sycamore limbs
that once were live,
but now make monuments
I worship. I am at one
with all I prize.  My eyes,
even when they are closed,
see their beauty. I know
I will be blessed forever.
I lie on my bed, Earth,
and wait to join all
in solitude and grace.


“That was beautiful, Jon,” said Bian as she sped toward Logan.

“Thank you, my dear,” replied Jon.



Chapter 9

Jon was thinking about Minh Ly. Jon knew he was beyond genius,. Ly had been the youngest General ever appointed by ** Chi Minh, and, in short, General Ly had had to order North Vietnamese soldiers into battle. 1,100,000 of them had died during the long, ugly, brutal Vietnam War. Minh had spent many days in tears. That he had had the fortitude to persevere and ultimately transmute his unbearable pain into compassion is what Jon most respected about Minh Ly. Because he was so brilliant, Ly initially threw himself into the throes of worldwide business at war’s end, amassing, over a number of years, massive wealth:  billions and billions and billions of dollars. Concurrently, however, Ly, over time, experienced a life-changing metamorphosis. He came to realize that wealth was not worth, as Jon had written in his commentary PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE, that compassion was humanity’s most important goal, that only love could save Earth. And that was why he ultimately decided to use wealth not to buy as much of Earth as he could, but to use it to save Earth, to eradicate all the vicious inequities that had ineluctably killed billions of human beings over many millennia. Moreover, he secretly went around the world and met with his megawealthy friends, asking them to join him in this lifelong endeavor. Now Ly and his friends were warring against war, fighting every injustice that caused horrid hell into which all the poor--all who suffered from myriad forms of racism through torture and death--fell. Ly was hell-bent on saving Earth and all living creations upon it. Then he met Jon.  


Chapter 10

“Do come in! How wonderful to see you both again! Your visits are becoming the highlight for me every month,” exclaimed Mr. Ly.

Bian, before she said a word, rushed forward into her father’s open arms to be hugged by him. For almost a minute, Bian stayed silent in her father’s arms. She did not want him to stop hugging her;  it felt so good. Finally, Bian stepped back and, almost in a yell, said, “I love you!”

“My dear Bian, I love you too, with all my heart,” said Mr. Ly. “And you, Jon, it is always special to meet a person like you. You are my only son and I am blessed to have you now as part of my family. Please, both of you, have a seat.”

“Thank you, Mr Ly. I am honored now to be a member of the Ly family,” said Jon, then joined Bian on the sofa.

Jon spoke again.

“Mr. Ly, I have for you the information you will need to prepare the press releases you will send to all media and people you wish to inform about our imminent sojourn January 2027. Here it is,” said Jon, and handed the pages to him.

Mr. Ly continued.

“Bian and Jon, I need to share with both of you the following. My friends and I will create our own Starlink-like internet company so no “Citizen of Earth”--as you, Jon, call all 8 billion human beings on Earth–cannot be blocked when each votes on CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH. Furthermore, we will provide cell phones to all CITIZENS OF EARTH.  And Bian and Jon, you will be able to visit safely in all the more than the 50 totalitarian nations. How is this possible, you ask? It is possible because I and my friends have our ways. In addition, we shall translate your commentary PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE into all 7,000 languages and dialects and, beginning January 2027, will send it monthly to all media. This will continue until the vote on CAMPAIGN ON EARTH takes place during the first two weeks of 2028. And, as you have told me, Jon, only love can save Earth.”

“Mr. Ly, you are, with the exception of your daughter, the most intelligent, the most compassionate, the most self-effacing human being I have had the honor of ever meeting. You know, I’m sure, the difference between personhood and behavior. Everyone’s personhood is sacred, inviolable, intrinsic, whereas so many peoples' behavior is often uncaring or hurtful, or even much worse. It is not unusual to react to one’s untoward behavior with at least displeasure, if not outright hate, even on rare occasions with violence. But this latter response is unknowing. When one encounters bad behavior to any degree and wishes it were not so, do not exacerbate what is already deleterious by making it even worse through punishment. Instead, constrain this negativity and love this forsaken person. Love is the cure for all those who suffer pain. It may take a lot of love to heal a hurting soul, even a lifetime, perhaps even longer. But love is the antidote for all emotional maladies. But for one to be able to love others, one must first be loved preferably by one’s parents. This dilemma is what our world suffers from the most. Wealth, fame, power–all are illusory and therefore feckless. They are but unconscious efforts to compensate for lack of love, and that is why our world has been turned inside-out for millennia. Only being loved, and then being able to love, will we be able to turn our world right-side in. Then, and only then, will we have Peace on Earth forever, and for the first time.

“I lavish praise upon you, because you are a beyond-magnificent human being, Mr. Ly,” concluded Jon.

Mr. Ly sat in silence, stunned. Finally, he said, “Thank you, thank you, Jon.”


Chapter 11

Upon returning to Cape Cod, Bian and Jon packed everything they thought they would need for their long, long trip to Mexico, Central America, and South America. They then flew to Mexico City. Jon wanted to give a speech in Iztapalapa, one of poorest sections of the nation's capital. Jon gave his speech before a large crowd and a sizable group of worldwide media. Bian thought Jon's speech was well received. She sensed the crowd's reaction was positive. After the speech, the two spent an hour or so mixing with the crowd with the translator answering questions and telling each person he spoke to that that person could help realize Peace on Earth by chatting with friends about how love would change the world from killing to caring.

"Jon, you gave a great speech!," said Bian. "I'm so proud of you."

"We are co-pilots, Bian. We can't hope to succeed without both of us," said Jon. "On to the next nation!" They then flew to Belize, the only nation in Central America whose main language was English.

Jon gave his speech at the University of Belize. Many students gathered to hear him. Belize had a comparatively low percentage of poverty--about 25%. But as Bian and Jon ambled through the crowd, Bian, along with Jon, spent the better part of the afternoon enjoying not only chatting, but also found time to have long conversations with both the students and a number of professors.

Bian and Jon were a bit tired, so they decided to spend the night at the Inn at Twin Palms in Belmopan. They decided to eat dinner at the Paddle House Restaurant

Bian ordered first. "I'd like the Shrimp and Chorizo Soup. Then I'd like the Basil Pesto Paneer and Cherry Tomato Salad, Next, I'd like the Cream of Yucca Shrimp Pasta. Then for dessert, I'd like the Wild Berry Chocolate Cake."

Now it was Jon's turn. "First, I'd like the Seasonal Seafood Soup. Next, I'd like the Grilled Chicken Ceasar Salad. Then I'd like the
Chuleta de Cordero. For dessert, I'd like the Wine Poached Pear."

They ate their meals with gusto, then flew to Guatemala City.

Jon and Bian decided to go to Zone 3, one of the poorest sections of Guatemala City. In early afternoon, Jon gave his speech with the help of the translator. An increasingly large number of worldwide media showed up. The crowed was large also. The fever Bian felt from the crowd was palpable. Bian and Jon even got word that their worldwide trip had gone viral on the internet. The two spent the night at Hotel Barcelono. In the morning, they flew to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.

One of the poorest sections of San Salvador was Benedicion de Dios. Its citizens faced severe hardships, including extreme poverty,  lack of infrastructure, and frequent fire disasters, because most structures were built of wood, zinc, plastic, or cardboard. These people also suffered from unreliable electricity and gas supplies.Violence in Benedicion de Dios abounded. For the first time, a worldwide television network, BBC, interviewed Bian and Jon.

(more to come)
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
.h'america.... the last theological playground of... whatever the mind left behind in the decrepit bulwark that's europe... oh... and those mid-western died-hard hitchcock platinum-blondes in a-waiting... my typo pristine dutch-girls-go-to-church mantra... otherwise? no b'ooh'y'ah! chugger-chugger-chugger-chuck-cherry-choppy-chops-you-*******-cuc­­k-chuckie! quasi-whitman wannabe... billy was a butcher... a thematic long lost gun... billy was a butcher... and all the ripe choppers of pork... gave us a belief in snow; and what some heaved with a falling-of-a-star of dis-.belief: i too was bound to glorification of: what was expected to be known! and the subsequent: wow! i have met only the most limited of men... i have therefore met all men... the "all" men of this rubric of a year, a decade... all that's bygone of a yawn; swear it sn't so! a so! that's not be be sown! i am here too: upon the whim of expectation... merely... waiting... a man comes to be born come his 30s... his 40s? his nostalgia "moment"... former known name of: Jack Lil Lick 'Em Boots... and the crescendo of pauper's black lining of the Wall St. "better oiled"... scalp the ******! and send him unto the rabbi's true blessing... in the cusp of the scalp of the kippah!  and now... you take... your anglo-spreschen-tangle... into the salt-wounds of your h'america! first born: young... i don't like your revision... looking toward Europe with a hope for a sensibility... this pseudo deutsche: pseudo dutch, anglo-; this is no loss of the French or the Slav! this is our celebration! does one have an irish phrasing in uns to be at in it or one? beyond this grip boyo bound glue? this clerical spare of the otherwise leftover skivvy? we have made barons of these minutes.... as if we were to be kings of the coming years... and how we didn't become gods of the atoms... and the men of the suns and planets... that is our... most worthwhile conundrum in a da pacem domine bound; you're going to Beirut on me... or something?!

in my haitus away from this canvas:
naive me thought: perhaps a surge...
again proven wrong -
albeit not disappointed -
so i had to look elsewhere -

i had to look for a clarity of diction...
i had to move away from
the western lands and their:
death of god and their death by metaphysics...

even in this barren english...
i could not figure out:
why are these people,
apologetics from the central leftists...
these liberals...
ditto: i will butcher this name...
i will butcher the pronunciation
of this word...

if there are "questions" regarding
what's being phonetically encoded...
so much for me "learning to code"...
i too once wrote a html encoding...
with all the < and < and > toys...
spacing... {[( gradations... etc.,

i had to look east, after a while writing
schlechtdeutschegrammatik...
bad german grammar...
again: it's posthumous "Latin"...
it might be...
bad grammar german...
or german bad grammar...
deutscheschlechtgrammatik...

spelling is the mathematical equivalent
of... arithmetic...
but grammar? you need a ping-pong
table...
you need something cymru-esque...
a scandinavian-esque bilingual cushioning...

english alone will not solve the matter...
it's not french, it's not german,
it's certainly not spanish...
spanish and how post-colonialism was
settled with a post-racial attitudes of
Brazil...
england has taken too much time
looking up and out of the h'american
*******...
no grand satan 'ere...
no silk road bazar of fruits exotica from...
Teheran...
something more... subtle...

i had to go back to the "tsar"...
and the цэркйэв: 'cerkiew'...
and there i was amused how...
well apparently...
there are a lot of words
that do use the sz'cz...
enough... to deviate from
the Latin bollocking represented via
шч = щ....

that's perfectly logical...
i'm done with "perfectly logical"
if it exists outside of the realm of
orthography...

szczypta soli - pinch of salt...
in russian...
щ... that's a bit of a "question"...
yes, yes it is complicated...

szczery / szczera (he's honest /
she's honest)...
szczerość (honesty)...

no it's not... you german fickle-wit!
you forget the ы!

ah! well then... щыптa....
**** me... disorientating...
they could do all that with greek and glagolitic...
but they still had to keep...
latin: roman: holy roman empire: GERMAN...
lowercase lettering...
akin to a... e... c doesn't count...
since that's a greek cedilla "missing"...
ç... or... sigma... ς -
otherwise known in english as that S
after the apostrophe...
when something is called being:
the possessive article...
a (indefinite) the (definite) - some -ism to mind?!
no... but 's is... a bit like the SS...
in greek...
all in lower case: stephen's and...
στεφηνς...
σtephenς: that very much desired: ha!
ridiculous gag... the "much desired"
alternative to an apostrophe S ('s)...

it's Stephen's! it's Stephen's!
it's Sylvester's!
three articles in english:
the indefinite article (a)...
the definite article (the)...
and the possessive article ('s) - apostrophe S...
eS eS!

russian accents...
ъ, ы, ь...

but i only know of one "hard sign" example...
and that disqualifies the J ever needing a lower-case
"dot"... ȷ... namely... зъ: ż... alternatively
also: rz... and ж...
żuk! beetle! somehow the caron makes it...

szczyt! zenith!
щыт!

- and since i'm no longer writing:
i'd be writing if i were monolingual...
or... if i was animated by
the sort of Knausgardian bilingualism
of chop of swede: marker norgie...
but... i'm painting...

i forgot how to write when i could
see "synonyms" of sounds...
entombed in two different phonetic
encodings, namely elevated latin
and "pan-greek": cyrillic...

the variations between:

й and ы...
i.e. via е - "ye"
ё - "yo" (there's an umlaut in russian?!)
"у" - yew and you...
the gamma subscript...
ю - "yu"...
and... я - "ya"...

with regards to this rubric...
i am in the middle...
i can see a distinction between
a "y" (whine why and no I)...
hardly a jotted anecdote...
and yes... the closest the russians
ever come to Cracow is with ы
to a western slavic y...
ask me: toй - ask me: toȷ...
who needs a dot above the J
in the lower-case... if...
if... there's no absolute need for it to
be there: unlike some greenwich mean time
focus?
it ȷust so happens that...
the better clasp of the equator is
married to Greenwich: London...

dr. who time lords:
bellybuttons of the world: the english are...
again: i have to remind myself...
ı am not wrıtıng... ı am... paıntıng...

1(one), l(el)... I and ı(ıota)...
i guess an apostrophe would suffice...
ıf it's not an "ı"...
ı'ota... ı: oath...
sure as fıgurative "****" it's not...

ı must wrıte some more examples
in russıan...
to get me off me mark into
some "wax lyrıcal"...
ıslander mentalıty of the hen'glısch...

see how "the dot" can appear...
and disappear, as one see fıt?
and ıt makes: no little bıt of...
"dıfference"?!

i need to sleep on thıs "exercise"...
dot-pop-up...
dot-fold
dot-pop-up...
dot-fold...

w­­ıll eyes gets it?
hardly...

the rest of these cosmopolitan *******
focused on gwaffiti awt...
which is welsh for: GRA GRA...
when was the last time you heard
an englishman trill an R?
ı can't remember...
give me a night to soak up the pickling
juıces... i can't remember the last time
i heard an homest trIll eıther!
pauper me...

it's probably because of the welsh:
GWA GWA! gwadleıth cowonew...
or coroner row row row a rombat into a rue:
or a woo...
rhyme: contorts...
shapes and disappearing: oopses...
a whole multıtude of 'em...
come like the tıde...
leave... lıke a tilde... quası N:
it's a... H is a zeus...
and J is a Ha Ha Ha wrap-up rap of
laughter: in spanısh: of course...

i don't wrıte... ı paint...

impromptu interludes, quickened:
i'm a marriage of two continents...
and one island...
east of moscow...
asia... west of warsaw and...
these gloomy island pits of
idiosyncracy... never quiet the icelandic
answer to norway...
or greenland's answer to denmark...
but an island... nonetheless...

- to hell witth cascading linear cascades
of narrative: i'm blind to the optics
of "the narrative" in the paragraph
format...

i will look back east...
i will look at the russian script...
i will look at it as a time in ******
history equivalent to:
why didn't you just think of it as Greek?
but "my people" didn't...
and i'm not exactly a "why / didn't"...
i'm part of the excavation machinery...
i come with what was served...
i will leave without
leverage...

and here is the russian icon translated
from the Babel...
the following are orthodox letters
shared by one and all
to the western lands...

а б в г д e з и й
к л м н o п р c т
у ф

a b v g d e z i j
k l m n o p r s t u
f

now we leave: łen łill that be?
we should all somehow know...
to łork out a When a Where
(notably with the "h" being but a surd)...

mother how should i further this?
herbata
hasło (ha-s-woe)
hołd (**-**-w'd)

to no other: otherwise only in scotland:
the loch of tipsy work...
albeit: orthographic distinction...
хęć - a whim a desire...
a loch is no: cheat of a lake...
latching onto the otherwise boredom caron
exposed...

дух (ghost) with a душa (soul)...

else there's c dissociated from the s...
and more so with a kappa kaput...
the drumstick slick on a wet snare of: tss...
ц - almost...
then morphing into a ць -
yet in my version: no so silent...
ćma: moth...
цmokaць / cmokać: to click with the tongue...
to kiss smackingly -
to ingest food via a smoczek...
a smoчek - a smoček... the baby soother...

this is my third day having to return to
this canvas...

first thing's first:
palatization (palatißation)
is not... a name of german crusader song:
palästinalied...

this is one of the main reasons why
i can't imagine myself as being able:
to write a novel -
i can't bear this birth of words into
this pseudo-Kandinsky -
it would be much easier with painting
something for a year -
than writing for a year -
the same thing, over and over again...

if i write a "poem" or, rather, a poo'em...
i expect the concept of
ensō: a circle has to be drawn with
a single uninhibited stroke...
when the body is set free and the body
merely complies...

comparison... if one were to draw
a most pristine ensō...
one would never achieve an ouroboros
depiction... it's quiet impossible
to use one volume of ink
attached to a stroke to complete
a circle... let alone a depiction
of an ouroboros...
what starts off as concrete soon...
fades away... thins out...
until there is so little ink left
on the brush that individual hairs
of the brush start appearing...

a pristine depiction of life...
but never the hardline ouroboros
depiction: this cerberus of reincarnation:
i never would have believed in it -
given that: there would have to be
a limited number of souls...
the thought that i might be introspective
enough as to be one of these: "elites"...
and the rest... were "n.p.c." drones...
zombie-esque drifters...
that had no psychological infrastructure
to have memory and rubric of learning
bound to them to be: invested in?

i am still going to write this Kandinsky...
one way or another...
but i can say only that:
i can imagine myself returning
to a painting - and painting it for a year...
but a book?
if a poem can't be written in one sitting...
it's not a poem...
this is not a poem: this is a novel
equivalent...
the best to my ability: which is none...

all i will ever manage with this
is a pedantic scrutiny of russian orthography,
how i don't follow metaphysical arguments
of the germans, the english or the french,
because i don't dream that often,
and when i do dream?
i dream up nonsense...
last time i dreamed that a hiena was
biting at my arm like a corn-cob...
but it wasn't biting to draw blood...
it was biting and cackling in order
to tattoo me... it bit into my arm and detailed
indentations akin to braille...
a pianola roll...

and that's the only details of the dream
i can remember...
perhaps i strained memory...
perhaps people who dream...
are fond of forgetting...
perhaps i don't dream because i can
remember being 4...
a shadow (my maternal great-grandfather)...
a large piano, a small piano...
he worked a retirement as a security guard
in a kindergarten...
i once spent an afternoon with him...
i have seen pictures of him...
but i don't remember the face in the photographs...
he sat me before a bonsai piano
while he sat at the large piano...
and i guess: we were going to be the new
Chopins or something...
he's still a shadow... a grey form...
perhaps a extract of memory that reaches
back 29 years is the reason why i don't
dream... then again...

what if i were to have recurrent dreams?
i've heard people have recurrent dreams...
i just have details of dreams...
i'm not complaining but...
it has become exhausting to simply sleep sometimes...
to replay that lullaby of the void...
yes: yes... i will return to russian orthography:
give me a moment!

well, on my "haitus" i had to look beyond
"conventionality"...
there was a period where i found
the glagolitic script - i said to myself:
there must be an equivalent alphabet to match
the runes...

there must have been a way to encode
without the romans and greeks...
after all... there is the St. Cyrill alphabet
and that of Methodus...
how many ethnic groups are there
on this old, yawning continent -
minor point: old age is not plagued by
yawning - only youth yawns...
old age is cured of yawning -
hanging over them the yawning death...
when father - when father - will this old
ponce come into my *****?

glagolitic and cyrillic?
well Ⰱ Б...
Ⱂ and P... which is not exactly lent-greek...
i guess it's only "wise"
to go back into the modern scribbles...

there are so many branches
to be plucked off a pine
to reserve yourself with ending up
to owning a pike...
so what would it help me:
if i had to reverse and ezra pound
my way forward...
bubble bulging roma notations?
i see: when that chisel in marble
V is not supposed to be a U...

EVROPA... etc.

i need to bring to the fore my own
distinctions...
spread: universally within the confines
of the people that speak it:
i even had to made balkan additions...
like the caron S and caron C...
to hide the english gimmick
of SHarp and CHeat...
evidently we use the Z to replace
the H when stressing our "demands"...
Šarp and Čeat...

so back into russian?
i almost forgot that i said...
their orthography is not worth the dog's
bollocking of a lick...

i was wrong, obviously...
but even the russians are supposed
to be allowed their idiosyncracy -
their orthographic pedantry...
russian orthographic pedantry?
ah...

when е met э...
was also the time when э didn't meet з...
this is pedantic...
another russian pedantic "detail"...
how many Y's or J's do you need...
to detail: the elongated-iota?
before... "****" becomes confusing...
within the confines of gamma...

i'm pretty sure the russians have
fixated their attention on the Y/J "debate"
working from their central premise of
the english AYE... I... the pronoun bunker...
der deutsche affirmative: ja!
yah in the hebrew respective for: wisdom...

let's see... i'm pretty sure the russians
have all the vowels bow to this mecca
of Moscow, cite me: and please reiterate...
that i use J and Y interchangeably...
i don't imply: to jot - to "dz"ot...
or Joseph in Ypres...

otherwise: a yeti climbing a yew shouting: yes!
it's not exactly jargon -
but... a prefix y- in english...
is not a suffix -y in english...
which just... "out of the blue"...
demands to be associated with the iota
of: ply... and yet: it's no i.e. e'et...
it's neither ate or the fwench and (et)...
it's a yeti... but not a jetty!

never mind... back into the fussy russian...
i'm pretty sure you will find all
of the pentagram (vowels) bowing before
the altar of pseudo-gamma:

                                     ю (yu)
                                    /
(details in) й ------ я (ya) -- ы (oh look, solo!)
   the above"rant")  |
                                  у (which is a u)
                                /   \
                     e (ye)       ё (yo)

almost... but i'm far from learning russian...
i find these orthographic details...
coexisting...

зъ = ж = ż = rz = ř / ž...

eastern, mother slavic...
beginning with a western slavic translation
"innovation"...
central / western slavic...
balkan slavic...
oh we are such famous clarinet players!
because what happens
when the caron is sliced into two...
and an acute ****** pops out?!

hence the зъ beginning...
yes... it's not "silent"... it's simply not
palatalißed... the tongue doesn't tip-off
the palette... the sound escapes via
the gritting of teeth...
with it: the tongue can rattle and a trill
R is heard...

зъ (ż) contra зь (ź) -
życzenia - well wishes| źródło - source...
now to only write these words
in russia - without knowing the russian
noun-denotations...
for orthographic purposes...

жыченя... or is it... жычениa?
зьруд... problem... can't find the english
W in russian... or the ****** Ł...
there's the english V... the ****** W...
but russian doesn't translate (Вв)
so vell into wery: not so weary but
nonetheless very not so, so...

my problem is not about that though...
this poem this poo'em this:
a pigeon drops a zeppelin-****
on your top-hat implies good luck...
no 13's or black cats crossing your path either...
i could most honestly spend
100 years of each of the 100 individuals
bound to the salt mines in the vicinity
of Beijing... and i would still find myself...
without tears...
because this is the most inexhaustible
crux: it's really bugging me foundation stone...

i won't even mind the modern greeks
at this point... they do use diacritical markers
too... but over-do it... as if compensating
or trying to compete on level par
with their metaphysical dittos...

чaхa: czacha... almost slang term for:
czaszka... чaкшa...
and this is by no means "smart"...
i can't solve crosswords puzzles...
well i can: but i need to find myself
in the company of my grandmother...
in the morning...
i would have had to drooled over some novel
from 7am until she gets out of bed
come 9am... we'd drink coffee and i'd
smoke cigarettes...
and it would be a month prior to christmas
or easter, or the interlude...
and... i'd be freed from writing or
reading anything in english...
either me looking at diacritical distinctions
in the realm of orthography between:
russian, ******, balkan...
or... me never learning french,
or attempting to: ever, again!

******* suffix-eaters...
dyslexics in reverse...
say one thing: write another thing...
this is probably born from my frustration
at being unable to learn french...
perhaps after having acquired english
i was given german to learn...
but no... first hurdle... french...
flop!
now it's a diet of no crosswords...
some sudoku from time to time...
and my new hobby after having found
"too many" googlewhacks...

so there's nothing smart about this:
this is in no way useful to anyone -
being the sort of person
to "mind" whenever one's being asked
to spell their surname...
it's hardly that difficult but...

would i go for the echo sierra charlie
hotel lima echo romeo tango...
or go out full greek with it?
perhaps the greek...
since that would solve the problem
i've had for a while,
concerning the eta / epsilon "debate"...

how does a greek laugh -
what is the crux letter via which
a greek laughs?
you see a H shape on the horizon...
but you... hear the noun: eta...
you later see the name eta...
but that's eta: without an apostrophe...
the apostrophe 'eta being the "surd" H...

in greek then...
epsilon sigma... **** it... there's no "sch"
of a german worth in greek...
let's cut it out:
epsilon lambda epsilon rho tau...

otherwise in russian...
once more:

ś(lub) - wedding - сь(люб)
"soft" sign - ' - apostrophe -
or ACUTE elsewhere...
why not сьлуб?
i don't know... it's not like сь is even
minded in russian...

ah! my favorite!
goń! gonitwa: a race -
the verb impetus: race! chase after!
гoнь!

since ы is the "odd" one out between
the application of "ь" and
and "ъ"...
come to think of it...
ы gave birth to: ю (yu), я (ya),
у (u), й ("y"), и ("e")...
i... i.e. and... in ******...
akin to those languages that use e...
to also imply and...
ё (yo)... how did i miss the umlaut
infiltrating the russian 'bet...
i blame catherine the great!
and... е (ye)...
is that the pentragram?
u, a, e, i, o... yes! we have it!

i truly had better days when sudoku was
the better puzzle to fill a day with...
not this... from glagolitic, to greek,
to roman, to post-roman to russian
and back into...

if we are all "supposedly" literate...
begs the question why: why oh why the emoji...
the *******-wanking hieroglyphics...
the :) and what not...
i guess to better escape this sort of
headaches... minor chances of everyone
becoming a bilingual:
but what's there to brag about
being bilingual!
i guess the polyglots do not have such
headaches of detail...
they just... bypass these rules and regulations...

to better guide me:
if i managed to sift through james joyce's
finnegans wake... and didn't find any
diacritical markers in it?
can't i compensate?
i'm compensating right now!
if the 2010s as a decade was a decade
filled with... sisyphus titans akin
to kant, hiedegger, kierkegaard,
knausga(a)rd, joyce...
beckett - yes...
again that hollowed "y" distinction!
it's not a sisi: yes yes problem...
hardly me being ***** either...
e'ver... i'ver...
ain't that a *****...

clarity of diction... the best motto there is...
crab-bucket-intellectualism:
alternatively the focus away from
any ontological stressors of "example" -
ontological and its variant of
a priori:
perhaps, given that the ontological
is an a priori argument...
here's my crossword puzzle -
ref. thesaurus rex...

and by no means... at all...
etymology is the better variant of any known
history...
when this bundle of words:
that an ontological dialectic can be achieved:
that ontology can be given within
as much as an a priori: bigot! focus...
with as much as an a posteriori:
wizened unicorn quid pro quo tanz!

hamsterwheel loopholes or:
crab-bucket intellectualism...

now: i really could have put these words
to better use... to make them linear...
less cryptic... but how can i?
i'm solving a crossword puzzle in reverse!
i don't expect the easily scared moths
to entertain this fire...

i expect midgets to be dancing...
before my eyes...
whenever i listen to
faun's tanz mit mir
or in extremo's rotes haar...
when the bagpipes and the flutes
kick in...

- since if i were to write a coherent sentence:
succumb to a linear narrative...
i'd people reading this to be also found:
easily talking about it...
perhaps i don't enjoy freedom of speech
as much as i enjoy the freedom to think...
perhaps i haven't written anything
worth speaking about, regurgitating,
making vogue, working for some intellectual
period-piece of "vogue"...
perhaps this is a shared problem,
hidden in a cipher...
of: how i can't heave this tool...
this tapeworm of existence,
this medium of god...
to later trash it, to have nothing better
to do with it other than play-games...
worded games... crossword puzzles...
perhaps i need a crossword puzzle to imply:
neighbour's share some words...
together... but then write them differently...
perhaps i require a crossword puzzle...
to read into some russian...
on the praxis base of english...
flying past Warsaw toward the itch
of the edge of Asia...
breathe the air - the heart of the continent...

perhaps i would have never managed
to escape this world if i ingested
mind-benders of the h'american 1960s
revolutionary schematics of the:
new-humanists... crash course in literature:
only one magic mushroom trip away!

фoрк ин дэ рoaд (fork in the road)

ИN...

some shared words, of etymological
curiosity...

(fork) вилка - wilka -
polish? wilka? that which belongs to
a wolf... widelec...
видэлэц...

(knife) нож - nóż -
well... orthography comes into play...
while people can have their...
ahem... in-the-meantime metaphysical
playground...
the ground, the word,
the geology is already here...
written alternatively?
нузъ...

i take a different stance to the common day
****** back east...
when russia starts slagging you off...
you put on a Boris Yeltsin mask on
and dance the drunk panda dance...

(spoon) ложка - łyżka -
in polish? ah those russians... ло ло...
лож: lorz...
lo lo and behold the translated
quasi-russian into the borders of europe...
ł.w.(ызъка)...

black and white (черный и белый):

czarny i biały: rho-si-ye!
char-nee-ye! bel'ye)...

perhaps the timing is a bit off:
the proper wording would be:

czarno na białym -
not: in black and white...
чaрнo на биa-wh-ым...

knocked-out to be honest...
the russians use ый like that?
YJ? oh right! i use it too!
in the prompt:

tyj! tyj ty grubasie!
hmm... -asie...
it would do me a lot of good...
if that iota didn't have a decapitated
head of a halo hovering above it...
why? so i could introduce the acute
slant over the S and surd it...
i.e. -aśιe...

тый! ты груб... exactly...
grub-               -aсьие
тый! ты грубaсьие!
to grow fat: тый!
              "problem": -aśιe vs. -aсьие...
well... it's there: сь...
but it also isn't there: и...

but it isn't: but it also isn't...
i just managed to find out that...
in warsaw (if i lived in warsaw)...
we have that conjunction: -ый-
however rare it is: it is there...

any more delegations from Moscow?
tyj! tyj ty grubasie!  
and i will write these last few words
and know why i don't really feel like
solving crosswords puzzles...
or doing those i.q. schematic tests...

**** it... the welsh should know and help me
out... concerning?
how it's YN and not IN...
how it's Y and not I when referring to THE gwyll:
dusk...
y gwyll o hywels: the dusk of powells...
only the welsh would know my "pain"...
yn y gwyll o y hywels:
in the dusk of the powells...

taking a step back - a step back...
yes yes, apologies... if my punctuation...
is too much of a ******* arithmetic!
too bad!

p.s. and yes... don't leave anything lying
around in the drafts or as private...
chances are... with a 2 day delay...
this will never be fed into the LATEST feed.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
.oh ****! now i remember, now i remember that other school of English thought... pragmatism! everything is so rational these days, no wonder that so many mental illness diagnoses exist... apparently every deviance of, "success" is, "magically" worthy of psychiatric scrutiny... but then you get psychopaths in the upper eschallance of society... and they're immune to psychiatric scrutiny... so much for pragmatism... whatever that means these days... what?! e-scha-llan-ce... usher-lance?! oh right, ****, i was going for an adjective... echelon... my adjective? feeling up to the level / rank within an organization, and subsequently, perfecting stated rank with robust, pompousness and erudition, matching up to a pedantic exercise within the confines of either, grammar, or, diction; my bad. see... i don't get it... i could somehow couple up the ancient Greek concept of the Stoic school, and the Epicurean school (of thought)... it became crystal clear... but... but when it comes to the English school of thought? i can't make the logical-leap of a worded multiplication concerning the schools of: egalitarianism, and... pragmatism... maybe i'm just *******... but i... i sometimes can't come at a worded equals sign, or at least: a mutually inclusive / mutually exclusive sharing processor of looking at both attempts to revise 1 + 1 = 2... then again, i'm not bothered... English liberalism doesn't bother me... the English were never libertarian in letting go... who are the English? they have their equivalence among the Prussians... but, yes... i was looking for this noun, this last remaining school of thought from the Anglophone world... i was thinking... what goes well with the cognitive spaghetti that exfoliates egalitarianism? ****... what else? pragmatism! so help me god, i can't concede making this dualism of ideas, perhaps contradictory, perhaps not, as i did with classical thinking... stoicism and Epicurean school i can justify... but the English, somehow complimenting within the realm of pragmatism, and egalitarianism?! good luck, i can't do it.

currently i only identify two schools
of thought in English...
i might change my opinion
in the future...

how, just how petrified people
are of exploring dialectics,
the fear stemming out
from... having opinions that
do not deserve questioning,
such blatant solipsism...

but i do identify two schools
of thought from the English
speaking world...
o.k. three... ****...
four...

egalitarianism...
egalitarian idealism...
unitarism...
utopian-ism...        

****... four, five...
how many in total?

scholasticism, in general...

  there's one more...
i'm sure there's one more...
it's related to egalitarianism...

what's the word i'm looking
for?
a morphed liberalism
of: one freedom can eventually
over-compensate
another statement of freedom
and deride the former liberty
with a... ore ******-up
liberty...

but there was another mode of thinking,
i'm sure of it...

you know that people
are afraid of experiencing dialectics,
when they have to phrase
their opinions:
but these are my personal
opinions...
   yep... stated in a public sphere...
why is it that i don't
make videos?
      your freedom of speech
is one thing...
mine? constricted to the comment
section...
   this? an extension of thought,
since i'm bashing a blank piece
of "paper"...

what was the other root of the English
school of thought?!
no... it wasn't universalism...
England, given the stated terms...
is a covert communist state...
a subdued communist state...
a dubiousness from the empirically
tested experiment...
where did Marx and Engels
concentrate their observational
capacities if not in England?
weird...

  communism originated in England
under, said, sociological observations,
was tested in Mongolia...
and then returned via Russia to
Eastern Europe...

*****... gets to my head...
it might come to be two days later,
but i'm sure i wanted
to work with another school of thought
from the English demand
for the egalitarian take on things...

looking at the English,
i see a people burdened by a desire
to make "things"... fair...
          i see people teasing Utopia...
a people who haven't experienced
a momentary transition period
of a quasi-Utopia of communism....
within the countries that
received the Bolshevik mantra
and not the Marshall Plan payout...
even Sweden (neutral, source of inspiration
for the Nazis) and Switzerland
received Marshall Plan funds...

       but the English...
              what an oddity...
oh i don't imply a demeaning
interpretation...
       but the English are teasing
a revival of socialism...
you know how many archetypical
human emotions socialism curbs?
you can't do it unless
subjected to foreign rule...
given the current Brexit agreements:
now's your chance...

but socialism really did originate
in this fine, fine land...
Marx didn't look alongside
Engels outside of England...
they looked at Liverpool...
and children being employed...
German children had Krampus...
English children had
work in the factories...

this probably is an over-simplification
of history, but all the details
are there...
personally?
i find English existentialism
(if there is such a "thing")
over-powered by Darwinism's
over-simplifications...
Darwinism, having killed modern
or pre-modern history,
having to expand beyond
our known, and kept history...

a big bang theory i can deal
with...
i can congest it into a subscript
of words, via a conceptualization
of atoms...
and bigger atoms,
suns... protons, neutrons,
planets...
and electrons...
lost in the realm of sub-atomic
particles and antimatter...

but when i go back to Poland?
you know what i don't hear much of?
overly simplified existential
explanations pivoting on
nothing, but Darwinism...
in England it's all Darwinism,
and not much more...
i guess when Einstein disproved
Newton,
the only thing motivating
English culture boiled down
to focusing and pivoting on Darwin...

outside of England?
you know how important Darwin
is?
          in Poland... Mickiewicz...
a poet...
                         Copernicus...
            a astronomer...
            and in Russia?
Dostoyevsky...
          Tolstoy...
                     Mendeleev,
Tchaikovsky,
Rasputin,
                      Prokofiev­,
Bulgakov...
        Kandinsky...
               Anna Andreyevna...
Chekov...
                      how much is
Michael Faraday worth these
days in England,
if you're going to celebrate
only the scientists
and shove every artist
into the shadow of Shakespeare?!

i really shouldn't drink
*****...
                       i go crazy crude,
mad and... it's *****!
       you can't mellow out like
you could mellow out with
ms. amber, of the Scottish highlands!
All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
you know, you are allowed a Kandinsky or a *******
moment in poetry:
it's like the development of the cut-up technique
beginning with Tristan Tzara and the Dada "school"
of "thought", developed later by William Burroughs
et al., it doesn't have to be fixated to a definite
curvature, a smooth narrative, this is poetry
in a boat, during a storm on the sea, it's not a Cambridge v.
Oxford boat race on the pristine Thames...
some critics ascribe such methodology as either
outright stupid or by psychiatric definition a word
salad
, but it's simply kaleidoscopic juxtaposition,
it really is a dog drooling ultraviolet saliva onto a
canvas, while someone shakes his head
(preferably a bulldog, or a boxer, or a St. Bernard)...
oh look at him, such ***** eyes, gotta just cuddle him...
i'm not using newspaper snippets, as if writing
a stalker's letter, cutting out letters and gluing them
together on a piece of paper... it's spontaneous
combustion (most of the time)... the only method in it
is that there isn't a method to begin with...
unless randomisation of a gaseous substance with
that hectic squash game of atoms is the adequate
simile... if i were to say that was a metaphorical comparison
i'd be walking through foggy streets of London (circa 1884):
after all words have only a one dimensional interaction
that's the existential recipient of all of them,
the existentially affirmative aye - i left the other
affirmative word thought among the others,
since, sometimes, as in the cases of melancholia, thought
isn't necessarily categorised as affirmative, relegating,
drowning the prime affirmative aye with its awkward
structure (form)... all the words must pass through the ego,
not all of them have to pass through thought,
the ones that bounce against the squash cube wall that's
ego make it onto the page... more do so when compared
with treating thought as the wall and the effective structure
for the rubber ball to bounce against.
me playing squash? oh yes, very much so, loved it,
played about 4 times a week, better than tennis,
which is why no squash tournaments are televised, it's
not really a spectator sport, it's too enjoyable to have
a passive public... it's a sport with the player in mind,
like a horse attached to a carriage with those shutters
over their eyes; so now what? is poetry not allowed to
look like a ******* painting, randomised and incoherent
when compared to the standard practices of narrators?
All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2015
it's a paradox of yevgeny zamyatin, that the true rebellion is caused by a stress of the necessity of dreaming... talk to any schizoid individual and you find they're the dream manufacturers... dreams happen in the safe environment of the laboratory of the unconscious... they're the socially acceptable hallucinations... it's even socially acceptable to interpret them... which i find very odd... why should unconscious hallucinations be socially acceptable and profitable and career crafting and conscious hallucinations be socially stigmatised? ah the safety, the environment of the freduain interpretation of dreams: well... he's ******* asleep, isn't he?! ******.

after my usual walks drinking, i tend to enter the
realm of heat and christmas tree
a little bit too brooding,
i just painted a picasso or a kandinsky,
burnt it, and then am told to "plagiarise" it...
i don't like the approach nietczsche had
taking a notebook with him
and writing his thoughts written,
i like the way my faculty memory
eats the immediacy of thinking
as counter to the translation of descartes'
theory equating existence with thought
as if thought could prove i exist
thus uncoupling it from the original:
thought and doubt.
memory is central by comparison,
i have the revision from the miscarriage of descartes'
aim: memini ergo cogito.
it makes sense, given i started the night off
buying three san miguel bottles at tesco,
buying five beers at the turk,
spotting russell the schizoid-affective man
huntched in a corner...
told him five minutes max...
started talking with him
about the ol' sailor's narrative... turbulent noons
and midnights with a bottle of jack...
wide eyed russell every time i speak to him
reflected...
i remember drinking my first coffee aged 7...
i was born with a heart condition...
i shouldn't have... live dangerously though...
drank it... magic!
i remember the taste even now.
the cognitive me is not the existential me...
odd, isn't it?
i should have kept the original kandinsky,
but i burnt it and kept the plagiarism...
why is it that the function of memory
is paramount to mental health?
this prof. of psychology itemised this girl
who's north mania south an airplane descending
from the height vector with the ears popping...
why is it that i can remember me aged 7
and most people got cheated into total engagement
in life in the orientation of satisfied or dis-satisfied
expression of puberty?
if the faculty of memory is not defended
then diseases enter...
not one of the diseased is like an original adam,
like translation of original adam, i.e. mozart beethoven
einstein...
good enough to be without plain jane as narrator
and puppeteer...
let the strings do the talking, please!
i'm in love with ****-****** literature...
take that **** of yours, that suitcase
of ***** stockings to your mother to give it a eco-friendly
spin of the washing-machine...
**** that crap should that crap enter my heart...
you heard of ****** latin? i think you have,
it's not church slavonic, it's rude latin...
the type of thing that adds oil on the cogs
and makes you adherent to the philosophy:
pause for thought or pause for fake vocabulary?
i sweat with oaths to add fluid...
if you're offended by **** and not f
ck you
must be really appreciative of pronography...
so they said: we must rid the word of a vowel
and expose the people with **** corn bits between the teeth!
well... it worked...
i didn't tell you remember the pythagorean theory
you were taught aged 12... i told you
to remember you aged 12... like i remember nathanel
with his briefcase in year 8 in math class...
like i remember this english teacher's legs
when i dropped the pen to loon inside the stash-load
of pooddles and *****...
like i remember racing a guy from bałtów
to ostrowiec and winning: he on a tour de france bike
with anorexic model tires and
my on mountain bike fatties...
i told you memory is crucial... given our thought explored
inanimate things as the perfection of our knowledge,
given our thought explored animate things
as perfectly categorising man and animal alike
thus mis-interpretating ourselves, oh the sacrifice of
the perfectly catalogised atom among the toothbrushes...
a convo of assortments...
it's perfect knowledge in relation to inanimate things...
the sort of thing which is question:
but atoms are animate things... calling them inanimate
just because they're invisible doesn't give you a
right to driftwood clung to in robinson cruseo's shakespearean friday.
hence the passing inspiration... so dull now
that i only feel inspired to pour myself another whiskey
and justify the meaning of relaxed.
associate yourself with the world,
hardly many of us will end of with the genius score of don juan,
we're in an environment of strict biology,
we're told that memory governs our world
with the world being on the quest to repeat...
and it does repeat... sounding the encore of biting frost,
sounding the encore of delighted shadows of summer
having postponed snipers to shoot them dead with night...
the world that inquires per se via repeat
only divinites man's faculty that's memory,
and quickly attacks it in revenge by dementia...
imagination is left to the murderers' who fancy
all the hues of red on the face....
this world is not pleasant to those who think,
to those who couple thought with imagination,
and to those who couple thought with memory...
alas... such few increments are left to re-discover
after being taught the uselessness of centimetre
when no centimetre knowledge is used in their
mechanisation of a profession.
that bit monkey less than man already happened
contradictory in theoretical terms
given the diversity whereby man's diversity
per se cannot explain the diversity of each thing
using evolutionary relativism, niche by-product concerns...
penguins will always make it to antarctica...
no banker or plumber on antarctica... just
scientists who started the whole expedition as
worth anything by counting penguin eggs...
indeed... ah this is going nowhere...
i don't believe in evolutionary relatvism
like socrates didn't believe in moral relativism
theft is punishable with the cutting of the hand
that stole... ****** is punishable with the cutting
of the head - it's all really related)...
and the aesthetic relativism is as true as: beauty
is in the eye of the beholder -
to that girl in the night near the church
walking with a concerned friend
concerned by her attractive panda-eyed mascara expression.
most of the time i find the inherent vice of jungian
interpretation of poets
to be a case of narration: poets don't write enough
to be valued! i respect fictional occupants of the
equivalent hammer of a labourer writing long paragraphs!
well, true enough... any idiot would suddenly exclaim
a symptom as: i differentiate that i'm a constant inspiration
for a non-existent narrator, and the symptom i differentiate
from true to fake by the fact it hinders my faculty to think...
pronoun shrapnel i call it... auxillary pronouns
that benefit me to expand my thought on a levelling
that did not want to see in monochromatic divergence
of continued with linear-ism akin to horse blinders
that only exposed a corridor where a valley could have stood
for the eyes to be inspired by.
All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so
All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so

— The End —