'I Write Because, I Write Until' - West London Buddhist Centre, 19th November 2019
One of my first decent spoken word pieces; a poem about writing poetry the genre is called Ars Poetica
I write because I’m naughty
I write because I’m haughty
I write cause I’m almost forty
For the late great Richard Rorty
I write cause in my mind, there’s so much more I ought to do
Because it seems this game’s already two quarters through
I write because my soul’s raw,
I write until I’ve told all, to slash this cabbage like savage gratings of coleslaw and even if the rawness of words is hard to face poetry marinates them tender in an artichoke base
I write to feel less gloomy
I write to be like Rumi
I write because my heart lotus has finally started blooming
I write from the heart chakra, the soul, the solar plexus
I write when the fact that I’m alone tends to vex us
To feel compassion for the suffering of my exes
I write to stop the spinning of these mental Rolodexes
To hush thoughts incessant become empty and just a mere vessel, my cranium’s the mortar and my writing hand’s the pestle; pounding up patties of alphabet millet; in this calabash of musement with some sentences to fill it
I write because of karma,
To be of one with the dhamma
I write from class trauma, out of half-caste drama,
And from the abuse I copped after lights out in the dorm room
I write until this tinder’s sparking
I write until I'm getting into this malarkey
I write until I’m Eastbound on the District Line to Barking
I write until my writing self becomes kin of me and I’m starting to see that there is some sad affinity between Philip Larkin and me…
I write until this cartridge needs replacing
I write until my response to praise is less self-effacing
I write until I’m chafing, till I think this is amazing
And I realize a moment ago I think I said the same thing
I write cause it's insidious
I write because I'm frivolous
I write until my pen nib gets flinty black like obsidian
I write until I scale latitudes and trace meridians, languishing in the moonlight of the Orchid Pavilion
I write until I’m stripped down and fairly stark
I write cause of Kate Tempest, Luke Wright and Charlie Dark
I write to go hither in the byways of conscience,
I write to put phonetic blizzards through the gizzards of my nonsense to play the zither with the GZA
Tell the RZA I don't want to dither with these ponces
I write to feel better when I’m aghast at this mess,
I write to catch the gist of Jay Elec, or Nas at his best
I write because I know props you can’t fake ‘em you’ve got to earn ‘em and I feel the yen of hip-hop from my sacrum to my sternum
I write until I’m teeming
I write until I’m steaming with broth
My mind’s teeming with stuff,
I write until I’m warm and calming like a tasty bowl of ramen; syllable morsels noodling around; a place where ruminating hoodlum pseudonyms abound…
I write until I’m beaming, I write because I’m scheming, I write as a fugitive on the outskirts of the precinct, being frog marched back to the prison house of language; I guess this plan need a rethink and now I’m feeling anguish…
I write because of library fines and dog-eared books,
I write to erase these ingrained lines and haggered looks
I write because of osmosed words and swallowed sorrows, because the world wants them back, you can’t covet words, they're always borrowed
I write because I’m haughty
I write because I’m naughty
I write cause I’m almost forty
I write cause in my mind, there’s so much more I ought to do
Because it seems this game’s almost already two quarters through
Chris Arning
I write because I’m haughty
I write cause I’m almost forty
For the late great Richard Rorty
I write cause in my mind, there’s so much more I ought to do
Because it seems this game’s already two quarters through
I write because my soul’s raw,
I write until I’ve told all, to slash this cabbage like savage gratings of coleslaw and even if the rawness of words is hard to face poetry marinates them tender in an artichoke base
I write to feel less gloomy
I write to be like Rumi
I write because my heart lotus has finally started blooming
I write from the heart chakra, the soul, the solar plexus
I write when the fact that I’m alone tends to vex us
To feel compassion for the suffering of my exes
I write to stop the spinning of these mental Rolodexes
To hush thoughts incessant become empty and just a mere vessel, my cranium’s the mortar and my writing hand’s the pestle; pounding up patties of alphabet millet; in this calabash of musement with some sentences to fill it
I write because of karma,
To be of one with the dhamma
I write from class trauma, out of half-caste drama,
And from the abuse I copped after lights out in the dorm room
I write until this tinder’s sparking
I write until I'm getting into this malarkey
I write until I’m Eastbound on the District Line to Barking
I write until my writing self becomes kin of me and I’m starting to see that there is some sad affinity between Philip Larkin and me…
I write until this cartridge needs replacing
I write until my response to praise is less self-effacing
I write until I’m chafing, till I think this is amazing
And I realize a moment ago I think I said the same thing
I write cause it's insidious
I write because I'm frivolous
I write until my pen nib gets flinty black like obsidian
I write until I scale latitudes and trace meridians, languishing in the moonlight of the Orchid Pavilion
I write until I’m stripped down and fairly stark
I write cause of Kate Tempest, Luke Wright and Charlie Dark
I write to go hither in the byways of conscience,
I write to put phonetic blizzards through the gizzards of my nonsense to play the zither with the GZA
Tell the RZA I don't want to dither with these ponces
I write to feel better when I’m aghast at this mess,
I write to catch the gist of Jay Elec, or Nas at his best
I write because I know props you can’t fake ‘em you’ve got to earn ‘em and I feel the yen of hip-hop from my sacrum to my sternum
I write until I’m teeming
I write until I’m steaming with broth
My mind’s teeming with stuff,
I write until I’m warm and calming like a tasty bowl of ramen; syllable morsels noodling around; a place where ruminating hoodlum pseudonyms abound…
I write until I’m beaming, I write because I’m scheming, I write as a fugitive on the outskirts of the precinct, being frog marched back to the prison house of language; I guess this plan need a rethink and now I’m feeling anguish…
I write because of library fines and dog-eared books,
I write to erase these ingrained lines and haggered looks
I write because of osmosed words and swallowed sorrows, because the world wants them back, you can’t covet words, they're always borrowed
I write because I’m haughty
I write because I’m naughty
I write cause I’m almost forty
I write cause in my mind, there’s so much more I ought to do
Because it seems this game’s almost already two quarters through
Chris Arning
'Imaginary Millions' - debut at Imaginary Millions, Book Club, London, 3rd February 2019
A piece of poetic futurology, and an ode to the importance of artists and the need to trust the process
It’s called Imaginary Millions: a piece of poetic futurology.
For the Imaginary Millions...The Imaginary Millions undone. This is for the Imaginary Millions to come, This is for the Imaginary Millions undone. This is for the Imaginary Millions to come.
This is for the quashed, the thwarted, the suppressed, the slaughtered, the promised by never delivered and thus defrauded, the unmourned, the unlauded the prematurely aborted. This is the vehicle of your idea that left the station on that train of thought…But you’d never boarded!!
This is a requiem for those day dreams, your brainwaves unsung, for the jagged lines tapped out on Stickies on your phone or slyly into voice memos intoned – perhaps in the snatched seconds on your morning commute before alighting at drudgery in a break from the humdrum…
This is for your Imaginary Millions undone…
For the moments that pass with a half-hearted ‘maybe I’ll do it later’ or a cavalier, ‘well it’ll never be any good anyway’, ideas suspended in animation dismissed with an ‘oh, well; I’m no Orwell, It’s only little old me and my amateurish utterings’ quelled by squeamishness and self-condemnation, the clenchings and declinations where a spurt was damned up, an impulse spurned, a vault slammed shut – the embryonic stirrings, when you should’ve played sommelier but you bottled it up, when you dismissed and disowned your offspring; made it a foundling, declared it a runt when you should’ve been bold, offered it fondness; taken a punt…
This is for all forsaken daughters, and unprodigal sons…
Where do all these Imaginary Millions end up?
Do they roam, botched and broken about a liminal space, teeming with frustrated monads, and teary hungry ghosts suspended in a Bardo state meditating on the great unaccomplished songs and concept albums they might have become, imprisoned in this nether region waiting for a safe passage to a reality they know they’ll never see; evanescent wisps of cherubim, unbaptised by your creativity held in limbo by an Original Sin your lack of belief the unwillingness to reach within to nurture your seed your kin when instead you deemed them unworthy; reached for the bin?
A prayer for the Imaginary Millions undone. Because in this graveyard of fireflies barely lit: snuffed out, breed souls of Imaginary Millions to come.
Because stirring in this regretful soup are fresh effusions, strains of new musements, fugues of that strange tug towards what you love so to hell with prudence / forget to do list. To be enthused is to be filled with God. What do we learn from the Sufis? Your art is a gift it feeds our deepest hunger and self-doubt is hubris, self-hate is hubris, your inner censor is hubris. Everything is germination, gestation & bringing forth,germination, gestation and bringing forth. Let’s do this. Eyes Wide Shut like Kubrick.
This is our shrine, it’s a magical find cause every time someone steps up onto this stage, they’ll find, whether rough or refined that their stage time makes the room more kind; consecrates, it to the divine, make it a plinth to their ambition, and all our wishes to see them shine, electric power, the audience extends to bring them it fruition – and makes it easier for the next one to come up here and to complete their often fearful mission.
We’re ALL perfectly IMPERFECT up here.
You all have a place up here on this stage; staked out in advance… your name is emblazoned right up here in invisible neon lights… Your fear on stage is your perfection and your unsteady gait as you walk up is your perfection, your fiddling with the mic cord is your perfection; your quivering lip is your perfection, yes, your mumbled first line is your perfection, your dropped and misremembered stanzas are your perfection; your crooked idiosyncrasy is your perfection. Because you bless us with the gift of noble endeavour; cause every new brave sister or brother and every blooming individuality helps to fertilise and germinate… to help us to grow another.
Maybe the Imaginary Millions are us. Just maybe we’ve got it sussed….
Because looking back, against all the odds, we’ll have brought it off. yup we'll have cut clean through the agnotology, fake news and algorithmic froth, seen through Samsara beat surveillance, scopophilia & shrugged it off… Because we’re the Cosmic Race, we’re coming, and we won’t be warded off… That’s right, we’re the ones The Daily Mail warned you of…
Because artists are seers, artists are the future & the future is something all artists should love…
So, this is for the Imaginary Millions to Come! This is for the Imaginary Millions to Come! This is for the Imaginary Millions to Come!
For the Imaginary Millions...The Imaginary Millions undone. This is for the Imaginary Millions to come, This is for the Imaginary Millions undone. This is for the Imaginary Millions to come.
This is for the quashed, the thwarted, the suppressed, the slaughtered, the promised by never delivered and thus defrauded, the unmourned, the unlauded the prematurely aborted. This is the vehicle of your idea that left the station on that train of thought…But you’d never boarded!!
This is a requiem for those day dreams, your brainwaves unsung, for the jagged lines tapped out on Stickies on your phone or slyly into voice memos intoned – perhaps in the snatched seconds on your morning commute before alighting at drudgery in a break from the humdrum…
This is for your Imaginary Millions undone…
For the moments that pass with a half-hearted ‘maybe I’ll do it later’ or a cavalier, ‘well it’ll never be any good anyway’, ideas suspended in animation dismissed with an ‘oh, well; I’m no Orwell, It’s only little old me and my amateurish utterings’ quelled by squeamishness and self-condemnation, the clenchings and declinations where a spurt was damned up, an impulse spurned, a vault slammed shut – the embryonic stirrings, when you should’ve played sommelier but you bottled it up, when you dismissed and disowned your offspring; made it a foundling, declared it a runt when you should’ve been bold, offered it fondness; taken a punt…
This is for all forsaken daughters, and unprodigal sons…
Where do all these Imaginary Millions end up?
Do they roam, botched and broken about a liminal space, teeming with frustrated monads, and teary hungry ghosts suspended in a Bardo state meditating on the great unaccomplished songs and concept albums they might have become, imprisoned in this nether region waiting for a safe passage to a reality they know they’ll never see; evanescent wisps of cherubim, unbaptised by your creativity held in limbo by an Original Sin your lack of belief the unwillingness to reach within to nurture your seed your kin when instead you deemed them unworthy; reached for the bin?
A prayer for the Imaginary Millions undone. Because in this graveyard of fireflies barely lit: snuffed out, breed souls of Imaginary Millions to come.
Because stirring in this regretful soup are fresh effusions, strains of new musements, fugues of that strange tug towards what you love so to hell with prudence / forget to do list. To be enthused is to be filled with God. What do we learn from the Sufis? Your art is a gift it feeds our deepest hunger and self-doubt is hubris, self-hate is hubris, your inner censor is hubris. Everything is germination, gestation & bringing forth,germination, gestation and bringing forth. Let’s do this. Eyes Wide Shut like Kubrick.
This is our shrine, it’s a magical find cause every time someone steps up onto this stage, they’ll find, whether rough or refined that their stage time makes the room more kind; consecrates, it to the divine, make it a plinth to their ambition, and all our wishes to see them shine, electric power, the audience extends to bring them it fruition – and makes it easier for the next one to come up here and to complete their often fearful mission.
We’re ALL perfectly IMPERFECT up here.
You all have a place up here on this stage; staked out in advance… your name is emblazoned right up here in invisible neon lights… Your fear on stage is your perfection and your unsteady gait as you walk up is your perfection, your fiddling with the mic cord is your perfection; your quivering lip is your perfection, yes, your mumbled first line is your perfection, your dropped and misremembered stanzas are your perfection; your crooked idiosyncrasy is your perfection. Because you bless us with the gift of noble endeavour; cause every new brave sister or brother and every blooming individuality helps to fertilise and germinate… to help us to grow another.
Maybe the Imaginary Millions are us. Just maybe we’ve got it sussed….
Because looking back, against all the odds, we’ll have brought it off. yup we'll have cut clean through the agnotology, fake news and algorithmic froth, seen through Samsara beat surveillance, scopophilia & shrugged it off… Because we’re the Cosmic Race, we’re coming, and we won’t be warded off… That’s right, we’re the ones The Daily Mail warned you of…
Because artists are seers, artists are the future & the future is something all artists should love…
So, this is for the Imaginary Millions to Come! This is for the Imaginary Millions to Come! This is for the Imaginary Millions to Come!
"We're Not Here for the Numbers" - performed Bowery Poetry Club, 30th July 2017
A passive aggressive anti-slam slam poem that has curiously, never scored high enough to win a slam
No we’re not here for the numbers,
No we’re not here for the four point fours or seven point sevens, we’re here for the pathos ridden, that sort of amorphous, unleavened sentiment, the unbiddable, the unweighable, the inadmissible, the uncontainable, the numinous, the luminous, the ineffable, the uncountable, the uncalibrateable the redoubtable, untameable, the absolutely & utterly unfive point eight able!
No, we’re not here for the numbers…
We’re here to honour the elliptical, the half hinted at, the rhythmical, the sympathetic, the epileptic, the dyslexic, the never algorithmical, oversensitive the insensible, to inch towards the Dickinsons, Ginsbergs, Whitmans & Rilkes.
We're not here for the numbers because we’re unquantifiable, indefinite, defiant and intemperate; cause we know that here are no miracles to be found in the statistically significant, and epiphanies even come to the arithmetically illiterate so we gather here today in the glow of the intimate, because we know that the perpetual quest to yardstick the infinite: well, it is only fit for Sisyphus…
No, friends, it’s not about the numbers
Cause you can always judge the performance but you can never the fathom depth of the delving inside, it’s not like we’re at the Olympics and judging a dive; cause this isn’t Montreal in ‘76, cause even Nadia Comaneci found that her Perfect 10 turned out to be an ephemeral fix, cause soon after she defected; and just because the scores are low when those cards go high, it doesn’t mean that we’re defective, Cause I won’t think that I’ve arrived with a 9.5 nor think I’ve been nixed with a 6.6.
No we’re not here for the numbers.But don't worry I think they got it covered.
They know your bandwidth, they know your zip code, the click rates, on your smart phone they put heat maps on your hit zones, they know the browsers you use to procrastinate and that your dwell time in seconds on that URL is 5.8 they harvest and track the metadata from your APIs and even they trace the skittish movements of your tired, online hazy eyes
As they flit from minis and frocks, to cupcakes and profiteroles, so they batter you with banner ads and promos and deals for all you can eat-a-thons, cause though they can see you through the screen into which you lean in they maybe they can’t see that you’re silently pleading, hypoglycemic, clutching a bottle of paracetamols just trying to flee the trolls, and that your brain’s bleeding, tears are streaming cause it turns out, you’re an extreme.. anorexic.. bulimic.
But the numbers, well… the numbers can’t see that.
Cause the numbers, I’ll let you into a secret, these numbers are basically unfeeling. And has there ever been such a thing as a quantitative healing?!
And this left brain; well it’s fiendish, nitpicking, quibbling, mean, and peevish, it fetishizes the detail but it’s blind to the meaning, it craves more data in return for less freedom, more video files uploaded, yup, but less time to see them, more poems uploaded but less time to heed them, dopamine receptors crammed full of tedium, cause they’re steeped in this regime of CCTV-dom…
We’re not here for the numbers, the digits… cos they only tell us when we’ve blundered. And I take umbrage, cos we’re not lumpen, our individualities are way too sumptuous to be lumbered with their kind of barcode humdrumness.
It’s not the revenue figure in my business, or how profitable or successful it’s how I’ve dealt with my workaholism, anxiety and over emotional investment
Cause it’s not the gag rate or accolades or how many times up at the Fringe. It’s that I’m willing to be visible on stage after being bullied as a kid....
It’s not the number of comments, or shares, or likes or page views,
It’s the likelihood that one of my blog posts or videos might just change you
Because, who amongst us misfits and Cinderellas and dilettantes you filibusters of syllables and citizens of innocence wants their filigree phonemes those ones forged in such diligence to be assimilated like similes to fickle maximals and minimals, to be minioned by medians and cleaved and then riven by decimals.
Look. Don’t get me wrong, I’m honoured to have the floor here at Lansdowne Club. And I’ve decided to conform and abide by the laws. But… As a Bad Seed once said to somewhat baffled applause. This isn’t a race, and my Muse isn’t a horse. Cause when I share my truth, and share my thoughts, I also bare my flaws, so if I’m going to share at all, I’d much rather share. Without the scores…
No we’re not here for the four point fours or seven point sevens, we’re here for the pathos ridden, that sort of amorphous, unleavened sentiment, the unbiddable, the unweighable, the inadmissible, the uncontainable, the numinous, the luminous, the ineffable, the uncountable, the uncalibrateable the redoubtable, untameable, the absolutely & utterly unfive point eight able!
No, we’re not here for the numbers…
We’re here to honour the elliptical, the half hinted at, the rhythmical, the sympathetic, the epileptic, the dyslexic, the never algorithmical, oversensitive the insensible, to inch towards the Dickinsons, Ginsbergs, Whitmans & Rilkes.
We're not here for the numbers because we’re unquantifiable, indefinite, defiant and intemperate; cause we know that here are no miracles to be found in the statistically significant, and epiphanies even come to the arithmetically illiterate so we gather here today in the glow of the intimate, because we know that the perpetual quest to yardstick the infinite: well, it is only fit for Sisyphus…
No, friends, it’s not about the numbers
Cause you can always judge the performance but you can never the fathom depth of the delving inside, it’s not like we’re at the Olympics and judging a dive; cause this isn’t Montreal in ‘76, cause even Nadia Comaneci found that her Perfect 10 turned out to be an ephemeral fix, cause soon after she defected; and just because the scores are low when those cards go high, it doesn’t mean that we’re defective, Cause I won’t think that I’ve arrived with a 9.5 nor think I’ve been nixed with a 6.6.
No we’re not here for the numbers.But don't worry I think they got it covered.
They know your bandwidth, they know your zip code, the click rates, on your smart phone they put heat maps on your hit zones, they know the browsers you use to procrastinate and that your dwell time in seconds on that URL is 5.8 they harvest and track the metadata from your APIs and even they trace the skittish movements of your tired, online hazy eyes
As they flit from minis and frocks, to cupcakes and profiteroles, so they batter you with banner ads and promos and deals for all you can eat-a-thons, cause though they can see you through the screen into which you lean in they maybe they can’t see that you’re silently pleading, hypoglycemic, clutching a bottle of paracetamols just trying to flee the trolls, and that your brain’s bleeding, tears are streaming cause it turns out, you’re an extreme.. anorexic.. bulimic.
But the numbers, well… the numbers can’t see that.
Cause the numbers, I’ll let you into a secret, these numbers are basically unfeeling. And has there ever been such a thing as a quantitative healing?!
And this left brain; well it’s fiendish, nitpicking, quibbling, mean, and peevish, it fetishizes the detail but it’s blind to the meaning, it craves more data in return for less freedom, more video files uploaded, yup, but less time to see them, more poems uploaded but less time to heed them, dopamine receptors crammed full of tedium, cause they’re steeped in this regime of CCTV-dom…
We’re not here for the numbers, the digits… cos they only tell us when we’ve blundered. And I take umbrage, cos we’re not lumpen, our individualities are way too sumptuous to be lumbered with their kind of barcode humdrumness.
It’s not the revenue figure in my business, or how profitable or successful it’s how I’ve dealt with my workaholism, anxiety and over emotional investment
Cause it’s not the gag rate or accolades or how many times up at the Fringe. It’s that I’m willing to be visible on stage after being bullied as a kid....
It’s not the number of comments, or shares, or likes or page views,
It’s the likelihood that one of my blog posts or videos might just change you
Because, who amongst us misfits and Cinderellas and dilettantes you filibusters of syllables and citizens of innocence wants their filigree phonemes those ones forged in such diligence to be assimilated like similes to fickle maximals and minimals, to be minioned by medians and cleaved and then riven by decimals.
Look. Don’t get me wrong, I’m honoured to have the floor here at Lansdowne Club. And I’ve decided to conform and abide by the laws. But… As a Bad Seed once said to somewhat baffled applause. This isn’t a race, and my Muse isn’t a horse. Cause when I share my truth, and share my thoughts, I also bare my flaws, so if I’m going to share at all, I’d much rather share. Without the scores…
"Man to Man" - recorded at home studio (such as it is!) 20th September 2020
A poem about the toxicity of transferred sexual trauma and how it can affect us all
No, I’ve never met you, but I’ve slept with you and many times shared a bed with you… And many times through my actions I may have even fed and tended you. You see, lately my mind’s been full of thoughts of her and me and how too soon it ended. Cause what you dented that afternoon hasn’t been so soonest mended. You see, you me and her form a triangle not exactly of love but yes some sort of tangled geometry. And yeah I guess you could say it’s got to me cause let’s just say you’re the blunt angle in this mangled isosceles.
But it was hard to see back then when we were holed up in our sweaty lair me, fussing over her, and muttering sweet nothings, whilst mussing up her messy hair when she’d flinch another a petrified stutter, I’d caress and suddenly yet another glitch, her wet lashes fluttering in the half light, like she was trying to blink away the wounds, of something terrible, fleeting but true; it wasn’t me she was with in those moments but she was dealing with visions of you, and when that night she hectored me when the route from foreplay to congress became hit and miss, and we sat up carping and clashed because we couldn’t find her clitoris, and when distrust dried up lust and congealed into a dichotomy of bitterness and SHE blamed ME for MYineptitude.
I now put that down to that peacock pride that day that leapt in YOU, those hates YOU hatched incubated in her; now raised by US that now form this septic brood.
Before now I didn’t see the nexus stitch between your cowardly act and her at turns anorexic, vexed and tetchy mood. Yes you bequeathed this hate, passed on from loin to loin, whose freight made her depreciate this coin I’d tendered through my tender loins and that made her callous and treat me as ballast meting out to me treatment surely intended for your offending groin.
Cause once you’d left her there, she lay supine, impregnated with this parasitic pupae, already feeding at her self-esteem from inside, her what you tamed now quite maimed; mind on detonating delay, self-flagellating, self-hate ashamed, in denial, pariah, suicidal, recriminating, self-blame, and it's just horrid cause what she has to admit, makes her feel slutty and sleazy and squalid and shit, gritting her teeth through yet another therapists’ list wishing somehow she could extinguish herself just to blandish away the stigmata a bit
And me just inadequate, and feeling I wasn’t man enough, unknowing that this animus she bore towards me had been embedded by you, in her thalamus when you manhandled her that day; SO ravenous.
And when she left me cuz, I thought I’d ‘effed’ it up, cause when I went down there betwixt, if you get my drift, to attend to her sweet cleft and stuff, she’d imply I was never deft enough, and us guys, well we do tend to self-chastise, not realizing that when such delicate flesh has been roughly ripped in unwelcome pelvic thrusts, well then it can always feel bereft of love.
Yes you, derailed our plan for bliss, with your vicious, grappling hands and fists, and no I won’t accept that rhetorical sexist twist that she seemed keen and made the first move in a drunken reckless tryst cause you and me both know that’s nothing but grist for this mysogenist mill that allows us to dismiss the fact that rates for prosecution have slipped and that leaves the man who comes after with this ‘vague sense’ that Cupid missed and a putrid cyst of shame where only love’s dimple should be; now it all seems so simple to me. This Gorgon;, birthed her in trauma; you wrought her she’s your distraught, maudlin, angry daughter. And me, excreted and clutching this dudgeon plea: yes I take umbrage cause I want you to see; that when you hammered her you also bludgeoned me. Because these contusions of your boisterous art; made a mug of me when they made a nunnery of her confused, bruised & cloistered heart. You and me, shared the same bed, maybe we’re from the same cloth, perhaps, but we weren’t made into the same coat, so very differently we’ve kissed that same throat but when you met this sweetheart you made her your scapegoat, and her in denial, of this vile fate, provoked by shame to flee, though I doted on her, she with anger loaded scapegoated me, and yes it’s human nature to blame, it’s almost innate for us to flame and misconstrue, but now my friend it’s my turn now, because now… you’re… my scapegoat too…
But it was hard to see back then when we were holed up in our sweaty lair me, fussing over her, and muttering sweet nothings, whilst mussing up her messy hair when she’d flinch another a petrified stutter, I’d caress and suddenly yet another glitch, her wet lashes fluttering in the half light, like she was trying to blink away the wounds, of something terrible, fleeting but true; it wasn’t me she was with in those moments but she was dealing with visions of you, and when that night she hectored me when the route from foreplay to congress became hit and miss, and we sat up carping and clashed because we couldn’t find her clitoris, and when distrust dried up lust and congealed into a dichotomy of bitterness and SHE blamed ME for MYineptitude.
I now put that down to that peacock pride that day that leapt in YOU, those hates YOU hatched incubated in her; now raised by US that now form this septic brood.
Before now I didn’t see the nexus stitch between your cowardly act and her at turns anorexic, vexed and tetchy mood. Yes you bequeathed this hate, passed on from loin to loin, whose freight made her depreciate this coin I’d tendered through my tender loins and that made her callous and treat me as ballast meting out to me treatment surely intended for your offending groin.
Cause once you’d left her there, she lay supine, impregnated with this parasitic pupae, already feeding at her self-esteem from inside, her what you tamed now quite maimed; mind on detonating delay, self-flagellating, self-hate ashamed, in denial, pariah, suicidal, recriminating, self-blame, and it's just horrid cause what she has to admit, makes her feel slutty and sleazy and squalid and shit, gritting her teeth through yet another therapists’ list wishing somehow she could extinguish herself just to blandish away the stigmata a bit
And me just inadequate, and feeling I wasn’t man enough, unknowing that this animus she bore towards me had been embedded by you, in her thalamus when you manhandled her that day; SO ravenous.
And when she left me cuz, I thought I’d ‘effed’ it up, cause when I went down there betwixt, if you get my drift, to attend to her sweet cleft and stuff, she’d imply I was never deft enough, and us guys, well we do tend to self-chastise, not realizing that when such delicate flesh has been roughly ripped in unwelcome pelvic thrusts, well then it can always feel bereft of love.
Yes you, derailed our plan for bliss, with your vicious, grappling hands and fists, and no I won’t accept that rhetorical sexist twist that she seemed keen and made the first move in a drunken reckless tryst cause you and me both know that’s nothing but grist for this mysogenist mill that allows us to dismiss the fact that rates for prosecution have slipped and that leaves the man who comes after with this ‘vague sense’ that Cupid missed and a putrid cyst of shame where only love’s dimple should be; now it all seems so simple to me. This Gorgon;, birthed her in trauma; you wrought her she’s your distraught, maudlin, angry daughter. And me, excreted and clutching this dudgeon plea: yes I take umbrage cause I want you to see; that when you hammered her you also bludgeoned me. Because these contusions of your boisterous art; made a mug of me when they made a nunnery of her confused, bruised & cloistered heart. You and me, shared the same bed, maybe we’re from the same cloth, perhaps, but we weren’t made into the same coat, so very differently we’ve kissed that same throat but when you met this sweetheart you made her your scapegoat, and her in denial, of this vile fate, provoked by shame to flee, though I doted on her, she with anger loaded scapegoated me, and yes it’s human nature to blame, it’s almost innate for us to flame and misconstrue, but now my friend it’s my turn now, because now… you’re… my scapegoat too…
"Emotion" (after the Daft Punk song of same name) recorded home studio 30th September 2020
A poem written about mood swings, mental health and the healing power of meditation
I’m a Wasp in the Bottle of the chamber of rap / lost in the bottom of this deep seam of shame that I tap / same old, same old crap / as I tussle with this future fossil of a tame old man…
Is it love of life or fear of death / the need to confess, in this screed of the blessed // is it the need to be freed from the flesh / or just a vestige of the sess? // Is it the anger / is it the wrath / is it the shatarangha or the Eightfold Noble Path? Man you don't know the half / you don’t know the graft and it’s cruel to ask cause I must have been through 40 drafts / and just when I think it’s finished it seems to fall apart / then it seems like a faulty task / then I feel like I’m a Punk and I’m sort of Daft
Cause hip-hop’s not a sport it’s meant to be a craft it's not plug and play fresh straight out the carton // I know exactly what it’s meant to me / cause I turn to it when I get disheartened / cause it gives me the intensity to fend off endless entropy and be open hearted cos I tend towards the fantasy and art and I guess by now it’s encoded in my ventrium striatum
I used to be a sort of a moody cloud, and be truly cowed and keep my true feelings down // and then I used to grab the lube and pound, now I’ve learned I have to self soothe aloud that my fears are allowed, I can show you the tears of a clown cause it’s only when I dare to remove the shroud that I can move myself, then move the crowd
So most morning occasions I sit in meditation / that’s the elation, that’s my devotion / that’s my vocation / honouring the waves of emotion that arise and pass away like the waves of the ocean / and it's only these strange notions / that help me stave off the moroseness // but you act as if I was a freemason, and it’s not kosher / but it’s more like freebasing // cause I keep lacing this track / with what in life we all have to keep facing / cause life doesn’t unfold like the pages of a glossy brochure so whether feelings are likeable or loathsome // I’m never complacent whether in rapture, infatuation or out of focus I’ll keep emoting until I’m doting and keep the respiration nascent and precocious // and stay unfazed in the mire like a lotus in mindful osmosis / and transcend death’s rattle & roll with my breath control pulsating with the beat / in joyful symbiosis
And it's only when the beat hits that I know what I’m feeling // layers of denial delusion I’m peeling / what I’ve been keeping pent up, concealed, self-deceiving / it's hip hop therapy man it’s healing, it’s like // saying a prayer without the kneeling / it’s like going up in the air without the glass ceiling // it’s massively relieving / being positive and passionate / like I’m Asif & Anil ing
And yes I concede it / when it's hungry, I’ve got to feed it / cause I need it / nothing heinous it’s healthy it’s Ayurvedic it goes all the way back to the Psalms, Suras and the Vedas // for the pious and the meek, the heathen that’s how I treat it when I hear the call I heed it I mean this / I bleat it, I’m fiendish, on my knees, like Keats did on the Heath did / undefeated // cause when I’m / seething I’m weeping, I’m circular breathing, I’m heaving aside these mealy mouthed ejits // cause I feel it / as I seep it, I seize it cause I fear it might be fleeting // so when depleted / I simply rewind repeat it, / re-plenish replete it / never Snapchat delete it, I beseech it, I preach it, like Chester P did / though my knees are creaking, as a rapper I’m still teething / I’m on a steed inside I’m leaping I’m reaching my peaking like sleeping with a butter Pecan Rican, she’s so sleek I breed it // best believe breathe it / I fucking bleed it ///
My abilities flow through my capillaries and these arteries / that’s why it’s so hard to see / that it’s part of me / I might not be blowing up but I feel a martyr see / so I lie down by the Bodhi tree with Siddhartha-ji / it’s the Bard in me, like balm for me to calm this volatility in my amygdala see /
And the serotonin and dopamine that I’ve been loaned since I been with my ex on the phone // feeling squeamish and prone feeling alone / with the pain and dole of a Nina Simone / when I do this I know my self esteem I disown / danger unseen like a drone / with an infra red beam with a bead on my soul I can’t be on my own because then loneliness feeds on my woe.
Sometimes life doesn’t seem so fair // cause those that care, don’t get it / and those that get it, don’t care / I’m looking for a girl whose soft like Mohair / with kindness and depth that seems so rare //
Perhaps I’ve failed the lesson / sometimes I want to bail the session, and return to the essence before I have to face senescence / and no, I Don't Want to Talk About It, like male depression //
But this is my Pharmacist, come on what harm is this me and the mic clenched in a harmless kiss I Namaste and make a palm like this // yeah, this is Dalai Lama shit / and at times like this, I’m hard to miss / you’ll find me listening to Brahms & Liszt, but then I plant my fist because us narcissists becomes Spartacists / cause in this War of Art // there’s no Armistice
And even though I’m no virgin at splurging my truth / I’ve learned through the requiems and dirges // and through the experience of urchins that when I delve beneath the surface and dredge up this sad surfeit /// and when I stay on the verge of my urges and even take a curveball and serve it // when I grab my inner absurdist and unfurl it like a whirling Dervish; and birth it - I’m doing service cause I…
Is it love of life or fear of death / the need to confess, in this screed of the blessed // is it the need to be freed from the flesh / or just a vestige of the sess? // Is it the anger / is it the wrath / is it the shatarangha or the Eightfold Noble Path? Man you don't know the half / you don’t know the graft and it’s cruel to ask cause I must have been through 40 drafts / and just when I think it’s finished it seems to fall apart / then it seems like a faulty task / then I feel like I’m a Punk and I’m sort of Daft
Cause hip-hop’s not a sport it’s meant to be a craft it's not plug and play fresh straight out the carton // I know exactly what it’s meant to me / cause I turn to it when I get disheartened / cause it gives me the intensity to fend off endless entropy and be open hearted cos I tend towards the fantasy and art and I guess by now it’s encoded in my ventrium striatum
I used to be a sort of a moody cloud, and be truly cowed and keep my true feelings down // and then I used to grab the lube and pound, now I’ve learned I have to self soothe aloud that my fears are allowed, I can show you the tears of a clown cause it’s only when I dare to remove the shroud that I can move myself, then move the crowd
So most morning occasions I sit in meditation / that’s the elation, that’s my devotion / that’s my vocation / honouring the waves of emotion that arise and pass away like the waves of the ocean / and it's only these strange notions / that help me stave off the moroseness // but you act as if I was a freemason, and it’s not kosher / but it’s more like freebasing // cause I keep lacing this track / with what in life we all have to keep facing / cause life doesn’t unfold like the pages of a glossy brochure so whether feelings are likeable or loathsome // I’m never complacent whether in rapture, infatuation or out of focus I’ll keep emoting until I’m doting and keep the respiration nascent and precocious // and stay unfazed in the mire like a lotus in mindful osmosis / and transcend death’s rattle & roll with my breath control pulsating with the beat / in joyful symbiosis
And it's only when the beat hits that I know what I’m feeling // layers of denial delusion I’m peeling / what I’ve been keeping pent up, concealed, self-deceiving / it's hip hop therapy man it’s healing, it’s like // saying a prayer without the kneeling / it’s like going up in the air without the glass ceiling // it’s massively relieving / being positive and passionate / like I’m Asif & Anil ing
And yes I concede it / when it's hungry, I’ve got to feed it / cause I need it / nothing heinous it’s healthy it’s Ayurvedic it goes all the way back to the Psalms, Suras and the Vedas // for the pious and the meek, the heathen that’s how I treat it when I hear the call I heed it I mean this / I bleat it, I’m fiendish, on my knees, like Keats did on the Heath did / undefeated // cause when I’m / seething I’m weeping, I’m circular breathing, I’m heaving aside these mealy mouthed ejits // cause I feel it / as I seep it, I seize it cause I fear it might be fleeting // so when depleted / I simply rewind repeat it, / re-plenish replete it / never Snapchat delete it, I beseech it, I preach it, like Chester P did / though my knees are creaking, as a rapper I’m still teething / I’m on a steed inside I’m leaping I’m reaching my peaking like sleeping with a butter Pecan Rican, she’s so sleek I breed it // best believe breathe it / I fucking bleed it ///
My abilities flow through my capillaries and these arteries / that’s why it’s so hard to see / that it’s part of me / I might not be blowing up but I feel a martyr see / so I lie down by the Bodhi tree with Siddhartha-ji / it’s the Bard in me, like balm for me to calm this volatility in my amygdala see /
And the serotonin and dopamine that I’ve been loaned since I been with my ex on the phone // feeling squeamish and prone feeling alone / with the pain and dole of a Nina Simone / when I do this I know my self esteem I disown / danger unseen like a drone / with an infra red beam with a bead on my soul I can’t be on my own because then loneliness feeds on my woe.
Sometimes life doesn’t seem so fair // cause those that care, don’t get it / and those that get it, don’t care / I’m looking for a girl whose soft like Mohair / with kindness and depth that seems so rare //
Perhaps I’ve failed the lesson / sometimes I want to bail the session, and return to the essence before I have to face senescence / and no, I Don't Want to Talk About It, like male depression //
But this is my Pharmacist, come on what harm is this me and the mic clenched in a harmless kiss I Namaste and make a palm like this // yeah, this is Dalai Lama shit / and at times like this, I’m hard to miss / you’ll find me listening to Brahms & Liszt, but then I plant my fist because us narcissists becomes Spartacists / cause in this War of Art // there’s no Armistice
And even though I’m no virgin at splurging my truth / I’ve learned through the requiems and dirges // and through the experience of urchins that when I delve beneath the surface and dredge up this sad surfeit /// and when I stay on the verge of my urges and even take a curveball and serve it // when I grab my inner absurdist and unfurl it like a whirling Dervish; and birth it - I’m doing service cause I…