Babbler: cantankerous birds

I recall writing about Rufous babbler (at Silent valley) and Spotted babbler (Nandi hills), babblers are quite noisy birds. The above picture is that of White-headed Babbler while lower one that of Common Babbler (its behavior is more like pheasants). White heads are confined to south India and Srilanka. Generally found feeding on the ground in noisy groups they hop up to branch when disturbed. They are parasitized by Pied crested cuckoo.

William Carlos Williams: things “that astonish me beyond words”

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a poet, novelist and essayist, apart from being a practicing doctor! H e sought to invent an entirely fresh-and singularly American-poetic, whose subject matter was centered on the everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people. The Poetry Society of America continues to honor William Carlos Williams by presenting an annual award in his name for the best book of poetry published by a small, non-profit or university press.

This poem below is one of my favorite, the way he compares gaits of people (its not about “body language”…I hate that word, part of my job involves dealing with this, I tend to switch off when speaking about these!)….yah it does ‘astonish me beyond words’ too when you see people in crowded impoverished places making all attempts to carry their life with dignity, it is fascinating. And when you put it in context of crude manipulative richer section, snarling at each other for power and benefits, it becomes wonderful. Perspectives that add meanings to life…

Pastoral
The little sparrows
hop ingenuously
about the pavement
quarreling
with sharp voices
over those things
that interest them.
But we who are wiser
shut ourselves in
on either hand
and no one knows
whether we think good
or evil.
Meanwhile,
the old man who goes about
gathering dog-lime
walks in the gutter
without looking up
and his tread
is more majestic than
that of the Episcopal minister
approaching the pulpit
of a Sunday.
These things
astonish me beyond words.

“Libertad ! Igualdad! Fratenidad!”
You sullen pig of a man
you force me into the mud
with your stinking ash-cart!
Brother!
--if we were rich
we'd stick our chests out
and hold our heads high!
It is dreams that have destroyed us.
There is no more pride
in horses or in rein holding.
We sit hunched together brooding
our fate.
Well--
all things turn bitter in the end
whether you choose the right or
the left way
and--
dreams are not a bad thing.

“Hic Jacet”
The coroner's merry little children
Have such twinkling brown eyes.
Their father is not of gay men
And their mother jocular in no wise,
Yet the coroner's merry little children
Laugh so easily.
They laugh because they prosper.
Fruit for them is upon all branches.
Lo! how they jibe at loss, for
Kind heaven fills their little paunches!
It's the coroner's merry, merry children
Who laugh so easily.

Dawn
Ecstatic bird songs pound
the hollow vastness of the sky
with metallic clinkings--
beating color up into it
at a far edge,--beating it, beating it
with rising, triumphant ardor,--
stirring it into warmth,
quickening in it a spreading change,--
bursting wildly against it as
dividing the horizon, a heavy sun
lifts himself--is lifted--
bit by bit above the edge
of things,--runs free at last
out into the open--!lumbering
glorified in full release upward--
songs cease.

Pastoral
When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best of all colors.
No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.

The White Breasted Kingfisher

Unlike other kingfishers mentioned in earlier blogs which are chiefly water birds living primarily on fishes, White Breasted kingfisher is mainly a land bird found in open fields swooping on insects and reptiles, in the manner of rollers and drongos, from an elevated perch. Another colourful bird on the Indian plains they are quite common in other parts of Asia too.

Let’s go to Mongolia!!

mirages canter

along the mountain cliffs

the sun still burns untamed

That was a Mongolian haiku. It is difficult to get much material on Mongolia, but somehow managed these delightful poems from the Net.

A poem by Tsbavuudorj

a very big, white elephant

A very big, white elephant

Has passed through the world.

He’s left with the calmness

Of the mighty ocean.

He’s left, uprooting

The serenity of the earth.

He’s left, shaking

Dew from the topmost leaves.

He’s returned, disturbing the sun gods.

He’s left, commandeering

Golden temples, shining with blood.

He’s left, waking

Grey peaks under snow.

He’s left, shutting the eyes of the mighty.

He’s returned, shaking East and West.

A very big, white elephant

Has passed through the world.

A very big, white elephant…

These two poems by Gun Ajaav

The sound of rain falling on the roof

The sound of rain striking the roof

The sound of rain striking the roof

Repeat the unrepeatable

The sound of rain falling on the roof

The sound of rain striking the roof

The sound of rain striking the roof

Repeat the unrepeatable

When Time takes a break

I take a deep breath,

And when it continues on

I heave a sigh.

When Time takes a break

I fall in love,

And when it continues on

I come down from Heaven.

When Time takes a break

I write poems,

And when it continues on

I drop my pen.

When Time takes a break

I open my eyes,

And when it continues on

I stare at Death.

Verse upon an offering scarf (by Terdenetsogt)

1.

A poet’s verse,

Whispered to autumn birds, is the teaching of God,

is the song of coming back,

is the fate of being left behind.

A poet’s song,

Offered to the winter moon, is a burning love,

is the wisdom of struggle,

is an echo from the mountains watching over us.

A poet’s feelings,

Caressing a spring flower, the tears of beauty,

are an undimmed sadness.

are a credulous desire.

A poet’s character,

Brimming over the summer skies, is a flash of stars,

is the sound of the universe,

is the garden of space.

A poet’s verse,

Offered to humanity, is a song of freedom,

is the wind moving a pennant,

is a point to lean upon, a body to wear away.

A poet’s words,

Famous throughout Mongolia, are the laws of the state,

are a decree of the state

are an oath to the state

2.

A poet is a glimmering of the universe.

A poet is a magnificent flash of light.

A poet is the whip of the sky.

A poet is the messenger of God.

A poem by lolziitogs

Looking at mountains, I feel I am a mountain.

Looking at mist and haze, I feel I am a cloud.

After the rain has fallen, I feel that I am grass, and

When sparrows start to sing, I remember I am morning.

I am not a human, that’s for sure.

When stars flare up, I feel I am the darkness

When girls shed their clothes, I remember I am spring

When I smell the desire of everybody in this world,

I realise how my quiet heart is a fish’s.

I am not a human, that’s for sure.

Under the colourful sky, an immense emptiness

Starting from today I am only…

This I scribbled the other day…

The rain trickles down the leaves

and gullies through the trunk

into the earth

and form a puddle at my legs reach.

The muddy water is hazy,

restless at the corners,

at the deeper centre a new world is taking shape
in stillness

Asian Brown Flycatcher

One of the tiniest of birds, apart from sunbirds I have mentioned earlier in this blog, is actually a migratory. This little bird traverse all the way from Himalayas to Western Ghats, isn’t that incredible. It beats me every time I look at this bird, how do they do it?. Birds with large wing span do use thermals and that makes it relatively easier. Small birds with tiny wings flying thousands of kilometers is mind boggling, it is almost impossible. They are not really intimidated by human presence and indeed are quite confiding. But taking pictures was quite difficult, for its size and second they are quite active not as much as a sunbird though. They have a melodic song and are quite common in open woodlands.

David Dabydeen: Hear how a baai a taak like BBC !!

David Dabydeen, an Indo-Guyanese writer, editor, critic, poet, was born on a sugar estate in Berbice, Guyana in 1957 (“he grew up during a time when East Indian people could not attend school unless they had a Christian name. In fact, that era was popularly characterised by East Indian folks practicing both Hinduism and Christianity simultaneously. As such he would routinely attend church and go to the temple as well”). He was sent to England at the age of twelve. He won a scholarship to Cambridge University, completing his doctorate in 1982 (quite impressive!). During this time he came out with collections of poetry “Slave Songs”. He is the author of four novels, three collections of poetry and several works of non-fiction and criticism. I did go to British library to read any of his writings but unfortunately none available. All about him is through Net.

Dabydeen’s writing mainly focus on experiences of colonialism and migration. He makes particular use of Guyanese Creole, a dialect that blends African, French, Spanish, and Indian languages with English and contributes a great deal to the rhythms, rhymes, and emotional power of his work. The language itself is revealed as an area of dispute between colonial power and individuals themselves. He uses Creole in ways that reveal a fascination with and resistance to standard English, of assimilation and invisibility within white sociolinguistic norms. The way in which language is used to control and dominate is a central theme in many of Dabydeen's works. His writings explore the relationships between power and its consequences for race, gender, and empire, as also dilemma of diasporic writing.

The poem, "Coolie Mother," touches upon language and education as pertains to identity and cultural mixture. A mother tells her son that he must read books, that he "got to go to school in Georgetown", so he does not become a drunk cane worker

Coolie Mother

Jasmattie live in bruk-
Down hut big like Bata shoe-box,
Beat clothes, weed yard, chop wood, feed fowl
For this body and that body and every blasted body
Fetch water, all day water like if the
Whole slow-flowing Canje river God create
Just for she one bucket.

Till she foot bottom crack and she hand cut-up
And curse swarm from she mouth like red ants
And she cough blood on the ground but mash it in:
Because Jasmattie heart hard, she mind set hard.

To hustle save she one-one penny,
Because one-one dutty make dam cross the Canje
And she son Harrilal got to go school in Georgetown
Must wear clean starch pants, or they go laugh at he,
Strap leather on he foot, and he must read book,
Learn talk proper, take exam, go to England university,
Not turn out like he rum-sucker chamar dadee.

These lines from his poetic sequence Turner (1995) on J. M. W. Turner’s painting of 1840, Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying), Typhoon Coming On (that depicts an actual scene from the archives of the British slave trade: the case of the Zhong of 1783, a slave ship whose cargo was so badly affected by an epidemic that Captain Collingwood used the opportunity of an on-coming storm to throw 122 sick men and women into the sea. The reasoning for this was a financial calculation: he could claim insurance for Africans lost at sea, but not for those dying of disease)

Stillborn from all the signs. First a woman sobs
Above the creak of timbers and the cleaving
Of the sea, sobs from the depths of true
Hurt and grief, as you will never hear
But from woman giving birth, belly
Blown and flapping loose and torn like sails,
Rough sailors’ hands jerking and tugging
At ropes of veins, to no avail. Blood vessels
Burst asunder, all below - deck are drowned.

I could manage to get only the above lines few lines from the Net. These few poems…

Two Cultures

‘Hear how a baai a taak
Like BBC!
Look how a baai a waak
Like white maan,
Caak-hat pun he head, wrist-watch pun he haan!
Yu dadee na Dabydeen, plant gyaden near Blackbush Pass?
He na cut wid sickle an dig wid faak?
He na sell maaket, plantain an caan?
An a who pickni yu rass?
Well me never see story like dis since me baan!

E bin Inglan two maaning, illegal,
Eye-up waan-two white hooman,
Bu is wha dem sweet watalily seed
Go want do wid hungrybelly Blackbush weed
Like yu, how yu teet yella like dhall
An yu tongue black like casrip!
Dem should a spit, vamit pun yu, beat yu rass wid whip!
Is lungara like yu spoil dem good white people country,
Choke an rab, bruk-an-enta, tief dem people prapaty!

So yu tink yu can come hey an play big-shat,
Fill we eye wid cigarette, iceapple an all dat?
Aweh po country people bu aweh ga pride:
Jess touch me gyal-pickni, me go buss yu back-side.’

Slave Song

Tie me haan up.
Juk out me eye.
Haal me teet out
So me na go bite.
Put chain rung me neck.
Lash me foot tight.
Set yu daag fo gyaad
Maan till nite –

Bu yu caan stap me cack floodin in de goldmine
Caan stap me cack splashin in de sunshine!

Whip me till me bleed
Till me beg.
Tell me how me hanimal
African orang-utan
Tell me how me cannibal
Fit fo slata fit fo hang.
Slice waan lip out
Waan ear an waan leg –

Bu yu caan stap me cack dippin in de honeypot
Drippin at de tip an happy as a hottentot!

Look how e’ya leap from bush to bush like a black crappau
Seeking out a watahole,
Blind by de sunflare, tongue like a dussbowl –
See how e’ya sip laang an full an slow!
Till e swell an heavy, stubban, chupit, full o sleep
Like camoudie swalla calf an stretch out in de grass, content,
Full o peace...
Hibiscus bloom, a cool breeze blow
An from a hill a wataflow
Canary singin saaf an low...

Is so when yu dun dream she pink tit,
Totempole she puss,
Leff yu teetmark like a tattoo in she troat!

She gi me taat
She gi me wife
So tear out me liver
Or stake me haat
Me still gat life!

Greenish Willow Wren

If there is one species of birds that are difficult to classify then they are Warblers/wren. Even seasoned birdwatchers are flummoxed by the variety and spread of these small birds. These birds are really quite difficult to identify, and I had to spend quite a long time to classify the above-finally I think it is Greenish Willow Wren (again I could be still wrong!!).

A migrant from Himalayas these birds have characteristic chi-wee note, must say it is quite penetrating. A subdued bird found creeping in foliages searching for insects; these birds have pale yellowish streak above the eyes, dull olive green upper plumage and yellow white lower half.

Phillis Wheatly

Creation smiles in various beauty gay

While day to night, and night succeed to day

Phillis Wheatly was bought as a slave girl from Africa to America in 1761 when she was about seven years old. We don’t ev

en know her real name as this name was given by her master. She learned English in matter of few years and was writing poems. She was first Afro-American to be published, it was published in England as Americans refused to acknowledge and doubted that slave girl could write these; indeed they put her into interrogation to check the authenticity. Wheatly died when she was just 31 years old, despite her acclaim as a poet she died in poverty. Frankly I was quite saddened to read all these. More saddened since her talent were being used to please the masters, most of her poems are elegy to kith and kin of whites (I found that repulsive) with strong religious undertones, probably the reason why these were published. In one place she even mentioned Africa as ‘pagan land’ ‘May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train’, despite these constraints some lines shine through “While an intrinsic ardor prompts to write, The muses promise to assist my pen”. In the 1830s, abolitionists reprinted her poetry and the powerful ideas contained in her deeply moving verse stood against the institution of slavery.

Imagination! Who can sing thy force?

Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?

Soaring through air to find the bright abode,

Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God,

We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,

And leave the rolling universe behind:

From star to star the mental optics rove,

Measure the skies, and range the realms above.

There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,

Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul.

These lines from Hymn to Morning

To shield your poet from the burning day:

Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
The bow'rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my bosom

See in the east th' illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away--
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th' abortive song

From the poem “On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years

of Age”

Perfect in bliss she from her heav'nly home

Looks down, and smiling beckons you to come;

Why then, fond parents, why these fruitless groans?

Restrain your tears, and cease your plaintive moans.

Freed from a world of sin, and snares, and pain,

Why would you wish your daughter back again?

No--bow resign'd. Let hope your grief control,

And check the rising tumult of the soul.

Calm in the prosperous, and adverse day,

Adore the Lord who gives and takes away

Eye him in all, his holy name revere,

Upright your actions, and your hearts sincere,

Till having sail'd through life's tempestuous sea,

And from its rocks, and boist'rous billows free,

Yourselves, safe landed on the blissful shore,

Shall join your happy babe to pa

Its about the rains !!

I could never appreciate rains in the cities, but there are acres of beautiful gardens in Bangalore that does give the experience of rain. O the joy of going to these gardens the morning after heavy downpour. Quaint things in life, my top priority ‘things to do’. In contrast beaches go wild with the fury of ocean, another great sight.

Two of my scribbles, don’t know what to title maybe Rain series!!

When it rains I am what I am

all that is me come out to dance,

the pouring rain, surging blood

come around tapping in tiny circles

ankle deep and still rising

I’m drowning

I’m drowning

What will life be

without a drop of rain

not too less not too more

just right enough

for parched earth

and the soul

Racket tailed Drongo

These are Drongo’s with elongated outer tail feather, black plumage with patchy glossy blue. Crimson colored eyes and crest like plumes that fall backward over the nape. Quite a common bird that is seen in and around thick forest, purely arboreal they devour insects. Like other drongos these too are delightful mimics.

Namdeo Dhasal

Man’s lost his speech
His god’s a shitting skeleton
Will this void ever find a voice, become a voice?

Born in Maharashtra under dire poverty, grew up red light areas of Mumbai, Namdeo Dhasal is a unique and one of the most brilliant contemporary Indian poet. He burst into the scene with his collection of poems Golpitha (a red light area where he grew up…incidentally also the place that is backdrop to iconic debut movie Salaam Bombay by Mira Nair). Writes Vijay Tendulkar to the forward for the collection "This is a world where the night is reversed into the day, where stomachs are empty or half-empty, of desperation against death, of the next day's anxieties, of bodies left over after being consumed by shame and sensibility, of insufferably flowing sewages, of diseased young bodies lying by the gutters braving the cold by folding up their knees to their bellies, of the jobless, of beggars, of pickpockets, of holy mendicants, of neighborhood tough guys and pimps... " These evocative lines from the collection

... I am headless body of a rat with a pyramid rising above me
Meat and fish
Rice and eggs
Bootleg liquor and flowers of white champak
Kisses, embraces, coital postures, jewels,
And beds, and a house with a leaking roof,
And the rhythm of a lullaby.
I am squeezed: in my yearning
Feminine beauty flowers
The Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo da Vinci
In the service of A-B
Rain driving down in sheets, a dying cigarette,
A dehydrated dancing girl,
Contrasting colour harmony
I too have poverty as my own piece of land... .

I came to know about Namdeo Dhasal’s writings in 1996-97, but must say I went back to him again after the reference in Naipaul (India: A Million mutinies now) probably in 1998. Namdeo himself wasn’t too excited about Naipaul (there is a reference wherein he compares with Dilip Chitre…by the way I didn’t know that Dilip Chitre is dead, I came to know only the other day while I was browsing…he was an amazing guy. I liked his movie about the guy stuck in some remote place as an official, hilarious and thought provoking). Like or dislike Naipaul is brilliant and Million Mutinies is an insightful and well written book, chapters on Namdeo is one of the best (I read Dom Moreas was more perceptive about Namdeo getting his poems translated to get insight into the person).

Namdeo is the only Indian poet to have received a Lifetime Achievement Award from country’s apex literary institution, the Sahitya Akademi. He is the author of nine books of poetry. His works express the anguish and aspirations of dalits, their suppressed urge to emerge out of centuries of darkness and suffering to claim their just heritage and space in society. These lines from the poem Cruelty (contained in the collection Gandu Bagicha-Arsefuckers Park)

I am a venereal sore in the private part of language
The living spirit looking out of hundreds of sad, pitiful eyes
Has shaken me
I am broken by the revolt exploding inside me.
There’s no moonlight anywhere;
There’s no water anywhere
A rabid fox is tearing off my flesh with its teeth
And a terrible venom-like cruelty
Spreads out from my monkey-bone.
Release me from my infernal identity
Let me fall in love with these stars
A flowering violet has begun to crawl towards the horizon
An oasis is welling up in a cracked face.
A cyclone is swirling in irreducible vulvas
A cat has commenced combing the hairs of agony
The night has created space for my rage….

These lines from another of his poems, the wrath is astounding…
Man, you should explode
Yourself to bits to start with
...
You should carry acid bulbs and such things on you
You should be ready to carve out anybody's innards without batting an eyelid
…
Cuss at one and all; swear by his mom’s twat, his sister’s cunt
Abuse him, slap him in the cheek, and pummel him…
Man, you should keep handy a Rampuri knife
...
Launch a campaign for not growing food, kill people all and sundry by starving them to death
Kill oneself too, let disease thrive, make all trees leafless

The poem ends in these beautiful lines
One should regard the sky as one’s grandpa, the earth as one’s grandma
And coddled by them everybody should bask in mutual love
Man, one should act so bright as to make the Sun and the Moon seem pale
One should share each morsel of food with everyone else, one should compose a hymn
To humanity itself, man, man should sing only the song of man.

These lines from “Kamatipura”

Here queue up they who want to taste
Poison’s sweet or salt flavour
Death gathers here, as do words,
In just a minute, it will start pouring here.
O Kamatipura,
Tucking all seasons under your armpit
You squat in the mud here
I go beyond all the pleasures and pains of whoring and wait
For your lotus to bloom.
— A lotus in the mud.

This from another poem

howls and barks from time to time.
This is his constitutional right.
He lives on stale crumbs.
His mind is calloused with endured injustice.
If at a rebellious moment it becomes unbearable
and he jerks at his leash, tries to break his chain,
then he is shot.
The gaping wounds on the body will not vanish.
The marketplace of bones is flourishing.

My mind is turning into blood bathed doves.

This is what Chitre once wrote “Namdeo is a big poet in the sense Whitman, Mayakovsky and Neruda are big. But unlike them, his poetry contains large chunks of a real and dirty world peopled by have-nots and their slang. Henry Miller once said, ‘I am not creating values; I defecate and nourish’. Namdeo did precisely this for Marathi poetry. He restored its soil-cycle by feeding it the very excrement and garbage that could fertilise it for the future”.

I wrote these the other day…

An old man at Turf club

I must tell you about this man
who does post mortem of races
to anyone who cares to listen
“Horse 5 was not ridden properly, the trainer is not on job today. Look at the last run of the horse, it should win next time. Take note”
He isn’t much bothered about his audience
and walks with a gait of self importance
almost a swagger
Is that contempt for loosing punters? I wonder.
He doesn’t care
His grimy cloths and torn shoes doesn’t help the matter
though some do offer him money for winning tips
he pocket these with relish.
A week later he sought to work on this opportunity
and was seen with copies of his scrawled predictions
for a price, not many bought it
and so he is back where he belong
-giving random advice.

Recently though he has gone quiet
and went missing.
Last night I saw him shivering
on the dark corner of an abandoned bus stand.
Seems to be preparing for sleep.
Need any help old man? I ask.
He stood up brushed his tattered cloths
shrugged himself, gave me a cold stare
“Is it conscience motherfucker?
too much trouble these days”
behaved as though he wasn’t expected to be there
and walked into the night
with an intact stride his famished body could manage.

Pond Heron a city survivor

Wherever there is water you will find pond heron (also referred to as paddy bird), no water body is too small or too dirty. Sometimes it is a sad sight to see these birds feeding in muck water of city. Pond herons are survivors; they are omnipresent without being all that common. They are mostly seen humped motionless next to water source keeping a keen eye on fish or small vertebrates, though we may mistake it for a laggard but the fact is it is a successful hunter, striking the target most of time. It easily camouflages with muddy surrounding and so tends to bump into passerby, creating a ruckus for being disturbed. This blogger has always had a bad experience with these birds as they shriek out with loud croaks alarming my other pursuits.

Lorca: Even the tiny banquet of a spider is enough to upset the entire equilibrium of the sky

I, poet without arms, lost
in the vomiting multitude,
with no effusive horse to shear
the thick moss from my temples.

Federico Garcia Lorca was one of the widely known Spanish poet, he worked closely with likes of Juan Ramón Jiménez, Pablo Neruda, Salvador Dali. During the Spanish civil war he was captured and shot dead. This from one of his poems

It doesn't matter if the boy grows silent when stuck with the last pin,
or if the breeze is defeated in cupped cotton flowers,
because there is a world of death whose perpetual sailors will appear in the arches and
freeze you from behind the trees.
It's useless to look for the bend
where night loses its way
and to wait in ambush for a silence that has no
torn clothes, no shells, and no tears,
because even the tiny banquet of a spider
is enough to upset the entire equilibrium of the sky

Lorca stayed in New York for sometime but city had bitter experience for him he wrote…

there will be no paradise or loves that bloom and die:
they know they will be mired in numbers and laws,
in mindless games, in fruitless labors.

The light is buried under chains and noises
in the impudent challenge of rootless science.
And crowds stagger sleeplessly through the boroughs
as if they had just escaped a shipwreck of blood

Declaring
Find them a conscience declared in
an absolute casual
sun, find them a feat
declared by the happy
things
Absolute windows, absolute little lives
Always tell a wall, letter throne
stone desk-life, as it may
That which through
a cautious power dwells, accidental and passing

Fare Well

If I die,
leave the balcony open.

The little boy is eating oranges.
(From my balcony I can see him.)

The reaper is harvesting the wheat.
(From my balcony I can hear him.)

If I die,
leave the balcony open!

Random bets
So what’s your bet, the man behind me in the queue asks
Not decided, say I
But then you are in the queue, he retorted
Will decide at the payment, say I
Aha the random bet
I love random bets
Its guilt free, say he.

When On-money is Board out
‘Thoo’ ‘Eyewash’ ‘Made up’
‘Scoundrels’ ‘bastards’ ‘fuckers’
‘Sons of bitches’
Loosing money is no less painful
than earning.

No.8
‘No.8 is even money’ it is announced
Wonder whether the horse know about it, think I

(very much influenced by Charles Bukowski)