have all subjects matters truly exhausted them?
once upon a time i would have a decent
dozen up my sleeve -
now? no amount of late night drinking seems
to bother me in order to jump-to-attention
should some scraps some crumbs of the alphabet
become a feast of words... or a poem...

mellow afternoon: the house is cleaned -
the grass has been cut this one final time before
spring comes the next calendar year -
the two grapevines died earlier this year
so i won't be making my annual 12 bottles of dark
rose...

the dinner is in the slow cooker:
i finally managed to find a recipe for chilly con carne
that uses dark chocolate...
and... i've hit a block wall -
the everyday in a life of Knausgård has
exhausted me: it has stripped me to the bare
minimum -
there seems to be nothing to make impressions
on me -

i warned myself against reading him:
he will rob you - you will once again enjoy reading
so much that you will no longer want
to write... how spectacular that it's true...

i liked reading when it felt like it was a chore...
there was this schoolboy errancy about it...
this persistence to have to better oneself...
or have to perform spectacular errors -

the house is empty and i'm petting someone else's
cats... at 33 most would have succumbed
to all of life's great rejuvenations:
probably a wife, probably a child or two...
at 33 that infamous age when Christ was crucified
and everything came to its dramatic halt:
the cosmopolitan messiah had already
invested and was paying for the pay-off
down the line...

i have Travis' - walking down the hill playing
and a glass of whiskey and some pepsi -
and an empty house -
i am as i have always been:
alone and hardly bothered about it -
it's this stupendous state of affairs that
prompts this writing -

in about an hour i'll take a backpack with
about 10 bottles: cider, whiskey and head to the local
recycling center next to a supermarket -
and of course i'm adamant that i don't have
a drinking problem:
long gone are the days when
two bottles of wine in Harlow and a pint
of beer would equate themselves to eating
a daisy spinning on the dancefloor
before passing out in the toilet -
being dragged outside to a bench and...

i've aged and this silence keeps me stern...
ah... a moment when all this introspection isn't
exactly necessary -
again: what grand subject shall i pluck
from the ether or what cloud will i form
into a swan... what airy bullshit will i Oh and Ah
about like a true poet?

perhaps i'm working on something akin to:
a presence in a house - a fleshed out canvas -
imitating ghosts and giving an impression,
for the house (of course) - deserted or at least
haunted by the odd sound of shuffling feet,
a creaking of wood...

what's left other than to peruse from modern
poetry?
if anything is going to come of mine -
it will require a complete stillness:
i be stone and this be moss -
or... i am to be stone and this is to be moss...
here's to being hopeful...

what grand affairs of the world are supposed
to "interest" me - or rather:
what am i to invest in: my democracy
my two-pence thrown into the coffers of
an argument / augment?

my my: what a grand idea,
borrowed from OBIT by
a v. chang: or, otherwise,
found in plain sight of
a newspaper - namely?
column writing, in column
as in: in between shifting
goal posts, or rather:
to ensure to never move
outside of || / them, yes,
here they are - also to keep
perfectly still... and how to
keep away from anything
remotely biographic:
of course nothing concrete,
not many people would
call having read Kant's
critique of pure reason
as something to be worth
being added to your
atypical 21st century
autobiography... of some...
famous footballer, etc.

- and then back into what doesn't require a measure,
besides: as one might appreciate the rigid form
of prose - the sometime lapses of narrative
and weaving in of memory -
a grand scotch tartan / piet mondrain's new york...
namely? PARAGRAPH...

yes: but only if certain wishes are kept -
for example: Kafka begged that his writing be in
large print... because: frankly...
it does feel congested in every single
edition i've read: tiny almost subscript printing...
whereas Bukowski? large doughnut print:
sparse "paragraphs" and chapters
like paragraphs for Kafka...

the great printing injustice: or there abouts...
now "what if" a wife and "what if"
a child running around?
it's not exactly precious to have these opinions
either: but nothing of such microscopic
"significance" would have even began
its existence... since: "what if" life had
to become grand, had to become -
less a lived experience and more a:
living testimony?

is there such a concept of god as that: ex machina?
does this seance of the senses require
this mechanic - bothersome: nothing new!
nothing new! deism... no wait...
indifference... that's not the same as:
and because the heavenly orbs move in
a symphony of perpetual motion...
it's not an impossibility if...
it's something lived in: without an access
to a man-made replica...
last time i checked: next time this year:
i'll still be lamenting not having the grapevines
of 2 years ago...

well: if you don't have a wife or child...
of course your mind with settle on this...
profanity of thought: whatever the arguments
and counter argument...
well that's not exactly deism:
it's not about any "feeling" of indifference...
it was always a question:
does that have to constitute all matter?
if this is: perpetual motion...
why would a god-matter be invoked as
necessarily involved without this:
willy-nilly - whim -
it's hardly original... it's not like having to
invest yourself in creating
an Adrian Leverkühn...
or a Prince Myshkin...
it's god: some sort of a priori stressor...

after all... god as a posteriori... a hindsight:
well... not exactly practical...
background noise of facts doesn't steer
the heart - how i just get my willy wet
over some abominal scientific fact: oh yes...
it has to exist in my head: in vivo -
outside of the laboratory -
never! never! the plethora of emotions
ascribed to doubt - can there be anything
more wonderful - perhaps love...
but doubt is just as good:
almost a perpetual motion instigator -
and within doubt: sometimes the concrete -
sooner or later erased: revised -
a courosel...

but at least doubt is not an outright
negation... i believe by doubt -
it seems harsh to have to believe by negation:
or to unbelieve by affirmation -
or however this quadratic can be structured -

but oh not so akin and fervent with
the lunacies of pomp and circumstance -
religiosity to give a thought some concrete presence:
a shadow of thinking -
never a thinking itself - how else the high
moral ground if not by: (th)ought i?
good question: did i think of it...
no... someone else wrote this social contract
for me: my question is then: ought i, break it?
nothing concrete...
today the radio suggested:
it's be polite day... well sure:
standard social etiquette...
lead by example... avoid people...

since what would have i learned... if i weren't
an only child from the start?
would i leech off other people's company?
lucky me for having:
the four walls for company...
i did mention that i'm keeping an eye
for someone's two cats... didn't i?
two weeks... i hate cats...
i spent 6 weeks in a house that was animal
free... i helped with the vacuuming...
once every 2 weeks...

cats in the house? vacuuming: every single,
day... eh... what use...
but they're the sort of company that
is... better than a fern...
at least they have a sound that denotes:
hungry...

but it has still been an hour's worth of an
afternoon having written this,
sipped a little amber and abstained from
smoking a cigarette till that metallic taste
in the mouth could return.