in the old days

in the old days

i would want to write to you about all this

this devestation, this departure

i would want to tell you all about it

about the void you have left in my life

i would say 

how in the blank portals of my room

i look for your lovely body

its familiar bones and places

your corkscrew smile 

puncturing my heart

and drawing out my breaths

about how i'm using the recipes you taught me

how i'm wearing the clothes you bought me

i'm tasting the words you gave to me

every time i speak

and i desire to hear your voice in echo

correcting every dumb thing i say

there's no more familiar voice to me in this world

i am dying to tell you all about this

and hear your reply

because i assume you are going through all this too

and no one would understand this mess i made

as well as you

so long in tune

this pain is the loss of our alignment

its intensity and its reason

is just the very absence it records

that familiarity is what

no longer exists

if i went looking for it in you

i would be faced with the horror

of its disfiguration

as would you it in me

we carry each others ghost

and we can imagine it as we like

to imagine it

i can imagine you

as in the old days

your curly hair tumbling down your shoulder

your blissful cheek and your hip

ghost piercing through the London streets

like a wonderful disaster

the wonderful perfect disaster

that i welcomed into my life 

just so it could be messy forever

This is what we chose

 if they ask

you should tell them

that we could have stopped it

but we chose not to

you should tell them

we had the tools

the technology

and the time

but we chose to enjoy our comforts

a little longer

those same comforts we have now lost

and so we rake the leaves

the autumn leaves

the leaves of our history

 our poetry, our learning

we rake them all into piles

 and then we burn them

we burn them to forget

for to remember

brings too much pain

and all the leaves are burning

for the forests are drying out

and the coral reefs are turning bone white

the storm is coming

but there won't be much snow

and so the glaciers retreat

and the seas rise to drink our cities

and this is what we chose

this is what we chose

the poppy

 i saw a poppy in the field

waving its bright red head in the air

one fine summer afternoon

and i said

'the storm is coming

dark on the horizon

it will tear your petals

from your face

and crush your body

bend it down into the earth

'why can't you be stronger 

like the thistle over there

with its spikes and firm flowers

no storm will worry that one'

and the poppy replied

'my beauty is inseparable 

from my fragility

just as the thistle's beauty

comes from its daunting strength

'when the storm comes

we will all do as our nature requires

and afterwards you will remember us

for the truth we embodied

and not lament us 

for what we could not be'

The Pacifist (long version)

They killed my mother
they killed my father
they killed my daughters
they killed my son
now I must avenge every one of them

The police have been disbanded
so the law of the land is in my hand
and in my hand is a gun

Some call me a partisan

but really I'm a pacifist

and for peace I will do what must be done

There is a tree in the square
I cannot say what was hanging there
but we will take the fruit of their deeds back to them

So if you are free and you want to
you must join us we are many
but the fight must be faught to be won

Some call me a partisan

but really I'm a pacifist

and for peace I will do what must be done

There is a cancer, it is spreading
we must cut true, we must cut deep
if we're to save the country that we love

So don't turn around
don't look back
don't doubt
and don't fear
for the march
is to the heartbeat of the dead

Some call us the partisans
but really we're pacifists
and for peace
we will do what must be done

I kiss my mother
I kiss my father
I kiss my daughters
I kiss my son
and now I must avenge every one

Muletonic · PACIFIST - LONG VERSION

the black poem

throat cleansing /*[the wooden bucket
filled with goop.
a black panther.
eventide (even= evening, tide=me time) troop.

great green (like the roof of my grandparent's house) overalls.
half wit pike spill trident {obvs. neptune reference}.
]the coal lump[, coated.
to keep the black out. {this is a reference to an incident in the Australian Parliament where some member brought in a lump of coal to demonstrate its harmlessness however it was first coated with a clear protective resin to ensure that it didn't leave black marks on the hands or suits of members}

fast forward.
a gigantic spleen {nod to Baudelaire}
brief frenzied gope (invented?)
a big baked bean,]

({})a black nugget
small dark and soft (a mouse)
resting in the hand
plucked from the earth (an emerald)

a form like folded cloth
resinous, with a snake's skin
tight and light (beryl)
absorbent

lines (lineations) folded on one another
a complex knot of meaning
raw, drawn straight out of the ground
still with a crust of gangue

a blinking eye
gazing up from the deep well
or a reflecting star
or my own reflection [ just imagery to try and capture it --

(for how can we know
if time came to pass
the size of her cope [there is a band reference here i forget exactly..{oh yes camp cope!important band!(brilliant early dayz gtr videos on the bed)}i made one the other day but less sweet]
the pleasure of grass{yes that grass})(i am a gardener, and so of *course* i gardened)
]
still wanted you
didn't cope well
[i made a decision it was {wise [saturated fat palm oil
we're all being scammed] (that was a conversation nugget i overheard while trying to pose and so it got into the poem but is completely unrelated (rose was reading some article about palm oil is oil))}]

the big century {the soft pulse of meaning, quietly drawn into itself, like a creature}
opening wide {i am still thinking about her, most days, i doubt she knows}
take in the plaster {she is younger, so has the whole of her life in front of her}
fake it abide {don't ruin everything, (fool)}

open penelope {not her real name}
open for me {[her () heart]imagination}
don't walk away {she never did, it was I(or rather, nor did I{just a sentience(a sense)})}
keep it all free {free as her voice in the air}

ghost poet writing
upon a dark ground
the winner has frozen
the loser is found

how happy it was
the old burra day
remember it baby? (addressed to wife)
it's all flown away (sadness)

now grinds in the future
a train to nowhere (certainty of death, soon too)
the driver is stupid (me)
i've not paid my fare (also me)

hold out your hand
we'll spin once again
i'm not even sorry (i am)
i don't have a plan (true)

the endless tide rising (this poem is a test. an experiment [the rational way-non-continental])
drink in the days (freezomint!)
the pathos the pathos (references another poem)
it's all washed away

the endless tide rising (cc)
drink in the swell
i feel like i've swallowed
a 40 foot whale [must be said in Edinburgh accent, like my gt grandma]

be brief don't unpick it
there is no true story
a feast for a forest
a possum of glory [possums are misunderstood here]

the autos the path
don't think but do write
the meaning is hidden [of course]
inside the dark night [this old trope is tiresome but what else can be said about it? perhaps i lack the agility of old days to make more of it than this. but drawing my brush out of the well the fact is that it is black and i just splash it over the page as simple as that, no more to say]

a grass snake (makes me think of lou reed [shiny, shiny])a fit
a pumpkin to ride
a spade is a spade
and i'm ready for five [rather than a hundred, say {eh eric?}]

be giggling a moment
i'll undo your dress
in haste and in youth
the taste is the best

a hole in the wall
i kicked it i'm sorry (when rowan was born i had frequent rages
and once kicked a hole in the wall.  I felt i was inhabited by demonic beings
but it was just me, just me and my demons. One time he was crying, i put him down on the floor, he was very little, i put him down he was screaming, and i just screamed back at him, roared, i was
kneeling over him, it was the deepest rage i've ever felt, i roared right into his face, and his screaming just intensified. I had at that moment the impression that a demon had jumped out of my soul and into his. I've felt a deep guilt about that moment ever since. For some reason i never had the same rages again, it was just those first few months of our first child, the most trying time for most people.)
be empty my true one
i'll tell you the story

forthwith forthwith
unkind and unfriendly
emptying my mind
of the posturing telly

i can't scribe so well
got caught in a rhythm
it's taken all over
like butter and clover

will empty into fast days of plagiarism
i must give my poem to the people
it is not good enough to know everything
the mundane poisons me, i need tragedy
but don't give me what i want

frightened people do dark things
Rousseau explained it well when he said
"this sublime reasoning
soars above the heads of the common people"
(so give them god)

inexplicable writing nonsense
is this my own mind now?
a nonsense machine?
i feel like Coleridge in the later years
which gives me more comfort than it should

Carthage was a mere trade town
Rome burned
Paris was like a beautiful flower
London is a warm hearth

i used to have a frission
but now after years at home
being a father and working in an office
i have nothing to say

except -- here at the centre
here at the very heart
it is cool

madness does overtake the world
there is likely going to be murder
the spin dryer is speeding up
but here at the heart
it is cool

in the garden of the heart
it is cool
at night i like half awake
and cross my legs in half lotus
lying on my back still
and visit arunagiri

^*/

2020 vision

conjunction of Pluto-Saturn-Jupiter around the 21st September
notwithstanding
there is something going down this year

the money now collected into the fewest hands
according to a system which has rewarded the biggest lie, ahem best marketing,
and the lie it spins and spins faster its tale
the liars tale, to create the great confusion
this is going down now like sewage into the throats of the commuters
the great smog of the lie
the great normality gas spinning "everything is fine"
while the world burns up
"everything is under control"
naked humans glued to their screens holding their pizza boxes
as the world spins and burns and the guilt of the lie
will burn bright purple like sulphur and smoke will fill the air
making every eye weep tears of ash

my oracular inner eye spies into the smoke--
sees the learned leaves of civilisation come fluttering down
nature folded into black ruins, the oceans turned to acid
choked with plastic debris, its feeling creatures dying slowly
while the rich eventually from boredom turn on each other
eating each other, crushing the proles underfoot as they fight
like toddlers with world-destroying bombs
unleashing the chemical means to an inevitable end

logging off twitter, i am sitting in the kitchen
the nice smells of a biryani rising from the pan
through the window, green leaves and a cool breeze
and the chatter of local children, making their plans for the holidays
all of time stretching before them, endless days of play
as if life is just a dream, and it is
we need to give over having and keeping the nice things
forever and ever, clutching our 'wealth'
our hands covered in blood, our memory creased into our brow
not knowing the very fact of air.

everything i now do in this life
is about delaying the collision of these three worlds
for as long as is possible.

does dog exist?

The right response to this is to enquire of what is meant by 'dog' ?

There is a coalition of dogs within the universal 'dog', a cadre of puppies.

Or if dog is merely the letter 'd' in close proximity to an 'o' and a 'g', then it resides on the page here and there.

Perhaps you had a particular dog in mind? or perhaps you were looking for the ideal dog? Do we include the ancestral dogs? the primitive doglike animals? do we include statues of dogs? Do the individual organs of a dog constitute "dog"? How many parts of a dog is sufficient to be a complete dog? can we take away one leg and a tail and and ear and still have a dog?

Likewise also, what is the point of 'exist' - exist like a physical being?

There are plenty who go about life as if dogs exist. they build dog houses, they buy dog food, they make pilgrimages to the dog park. We may have never seen their dog, but their actions are real, so the source of their action is a reality also.  Let's not quibble over who or what has actually seen or been 'seen'.

Here is the question of 'exist' for if this means 'i have seen with my two eyes' then lots of things don't exist, atoms don't exist, emotions don't, scents don't.

As you add senses why not add one more - the 'dog' sense, which allows the presence of dog to be felt.

What are we really getting at with 'dog'? What is the whole matter of dogness? Can we really get away from this? Would life be essentially the same without dogs? Do alien civilisations have dogs? Can dogs be gods?