Downstairs in a ill-lit room a tiny man
sits on a wooden chair and rubs his hands
together with a wicked grin then
scribbling in the ship’s manifest
“manifest – to reveal one’s presence”,
like an unwanted guest, not ghost

manifest, oh, manifest
your music with your words be dressed

manifest, oh, manifest
abradabra ullulates, magic
and hey presto,
from this jumble of silly sounds
bring forth your manifesto,

III. (Parts one and two are left absent for the readers own interpretation).

I have been released from the process by keeping myself locked up in here. Outside they are very happy because their redemption is their delusion. In here I try to make myself happy in a multiplicity of ways. I know that there are no second chances- in fact I am afraid of second chances, so I am learning to like this. Before I go I want to give you a little peak of the upstairs. It is quiet and calm and there is not a lot of damn talking!! Everything is freshened up and there are no dumb asses making a mess of things. First of all, right now I am going to stop talking. I still have work to do, which is about half done. I need to make sure things are in order- that the play list makes sense. I am going to down load the car crashes, the over packed hospitals and the corpses in the streets. People are soon to come in and take their seats so I need to make sure everything is complete. As far as I know- the down stairs will soon be full. While I am waiting for things to start- I must make sure all the scenes are in place. It is almost time to go but I am still unclear about what I need to do.

Lock the doors! These here fools is fools enough for any ship.
Sheath the mainsail and prophylactilise
any possible recipient of
random contagion.

James Brown

In Reality, Verne’s prosthetic head was a beautiful thing. It exploded,
as if in a movie of a dream,
from a distance,
on the pier,
in a seafood restaurant
in which I drank a glass of water.

Thinking that a guy’s brain is kinda a big deal, I looked round for someone else’s, while the water tasted of fish. This meant I could not be as refreshed as I might be if I shared Verne’s taste for the ocean.

Elsewhere in the story, I woke up in my own sweat, drawing the curtains back to pictures of Verne’s fake head. I knew then that I was elsewhere, perhaps in England or Australia or America or Spain. In short, I was awake.

So then, at the same time, Verne stroked his straw hair. Going over the dream with a toothcomb or a brush, I struggled to figure out the meaning of the things you are now reading. And a warm welcome to you and to the New Year, if I only say one thing that makes any sense at all.

Alain had his memories. He shared the name of someone’s father, long ago, and spent a month eating nothing but dried apricots. He almost died. His hair was blue. He wanted something different, said his father with the hair of straw. Alain woke from his senior’s dream of the seafront, and by day, in his room, he edited a film about religion.

In the corner of a certain bar called The Orchid Room, Alain stepped in, his head still thick with memories of the man I know as Verne, the man he knew as Alain.

The stereo played Cut Your Hair by Pavement. With hope freshly preserved inside a frozen tear from a showerhead, Alain made a statue of Barack Obama out of tinfoil; not knowing, for the moment, how to talk to Leonard or anyone.

“HEY! French, I mean, kid!” The face that had enough smiles for the whole room belonged to Handsome Johnny, who danced a little with his swagger under an amber spotlight. “YEAH! I know you, you the French kid who writes adventure stories?”

“Non.” Alain Verne Jnr. might have even giggled.
“Oh man! I picked up one of your pamphlets in the Laundromat! Awesome! Twenty Leagues…”
“Amy’s Century?”
Yeah! I liked that, the *liddle* jigsaw in the envelope, man! Son of a Dadaist! Hey Mamu, come here! You know this guy?”

You, long fingers’ miracle:

the countess must have smiled

peering from atop her secretaire.

Masterly chiseled carpals, meta-

carpals perfectly bound a

harmony of long phalanges

translated by the keys, the piano

you play at her side, by the source.

The princess also knew.

when caught by the spell

the love dream, that

the reward is you,

long fingers’ miracle,

and she traded her wishes

-the balls, the palaces-

for a melody.

I hide in my corner and

wonder about many others

that dreamt the swan dream

of arched violin necks

under the touch of

your long fingers’ miracle.

Have they found consolation

in your absence?

Prisoner of harmony, spellbound

by you, long fingers’ miracle

I leave from my corner sometimes :

back to Budapest Tom and Jerry.

(By Ana, the elegant lady sipping champagne)

“There are worse things…”, on that we can agree.
For instance, there are worse things than visiting the municipal zoo only to find all the animals asleep…
But then what is a person your age doing at the zoo? You may as well ask Don Quixote what he’s doing fighting windmills. Ask me what my interest is in sleeping animals and I’ll smile, but will not remove my gaze from some caged bundle of fur, a tail, and amazing lungs – which snores…

And I’ll say…
“How did you manage to break into the zoo at night-time?”
You make two assumptions here – that it is closed, which means one cannot enter. Also, I dislike your tone – why assume I broke in?
I had a camera; I listened to a symphony, but then preferred the sound of air. Which you will presume makes no sound, and it will be a poor soul like you, Amy, who wakes me from my daydreams of night.

As I read the paper on New World Street, my head and feet in foreign climes, I decided that there are worse things than downing one’s sorrows in…

cappuccino.
How I love thee.
I won’t count the ways; you know. It’s – your froth, my spoon, my lips, your warmth.
I need no flavoured syrups,
but love.

We know this better than Starbucks. And I know everything better than the man dressed as Santa Claus. Except here, he’s called Saint Nicholas, and I miss my local library. “Świat”, or “World”, presumably as in “World News”, was a word in the paper that I could recognise from the airport.

Confusing. I was freeing the penguins from the faux-Antarctic swimming pool, catching the fish that leapt for freedom in my hands. There I was in a daydream, dripping past the bars of the cage to see an old friend

and this is how –

my entire body reduced to tears, my hands recognisable only as puddles. For this I had to cry, and cry out so intensely. There are worse things.

When in the cage, I offered the lion a greeting he would not hear. He slept so deeply, and grand exhalations from his nostrils disturbed my puddle. I checked the time of the moon, and consulted my watch – a clock face that rose with a bubble to the surface.

Kneeling down beside the lion, I felt human but not solid, because that irritates me. In the dark, I felt for the lion’s bones, and in a state of liquidity, I notice my own – my muscles floating as if in a cold stew, the occasional human bone snapping with each movement. With every broken bone, I shed a tear, but it is painless. I find the lion’s mane, stroke it and, with the effortlessness of water, loose my clothes.

Leo Disney’s Post-Cartographical Espresso with Amy

The name “Amy” came to me earlier. Ah, Malina, my little raspberry. In my multicoloured waist-coat and shabby bow-tie. Since my company fell foul of the last nightmare sequence, let someone else lead that team of asses.

I understood an article about impotence and haemorrhoids.

I took the teaspoon,  and detached a finger from my hand.

Malina, do you remember the computerised ballroom?

The man sitting two tables away let out a short scream and spilt his mineral water.

“Excuse me, Malina” I said, drawing a map in blunt pencil, “Where are we, perhaps?”

Amy pointed to a tram station.

never met nobody like you, Mamu
always got one brown eye on the door
your silence
stronger than liquor
your heart
full, your skin thicker 

and the tumblenotes fall
and the teeny birds call
and we drink still to hope,

Twirl me Mamu

later, when its gloaming~light and dimpsy
whispers and echoes fill empty glasses
and you walk home with the tipsy~girl
tripsy
and lucky, so lucky are you, Mamu,
and the tumblenotes fall
and the teeny birds call

and i hang your hat on the hat hook until you come home.

(Take it away Jack, I need a drink)

I had a drink with her once, after a small show. We went to a small eastern european-like cafe. It was located in a dimly lit back alley. She wanted to be someplace dark and private where “time could not rage” her. She did not want to be seen because she looked unwell. As we walked to the cafe she told me about how the alley reminder her of a certain depressed street in Warsaw. She called it the “eastern bloch” and said that she was not sober the entire time while there. I detected a subtle depression in her voice as she suddenly told me that she needed to be alone. “Amy are you sure?” I empathically countered. “I am sure, but thank you for your company thus far. My pain is just to deep at this moment to share it with anyone. The way time keeps passing bye bye, relentless…I just can no longer be times victim…its target. It is too painful to watch everything, everything I love become apart of the dream….the big dream.” I tried to keep her with me by starting a conversation about maya, the illusion of all life. The moment I started intellectualizing her pain (unable to identify with her needs)- she was a shadow, a mere silhouette walking away from me- down a dark alley someplace in Warsaw.

She pinches the hem,
crushed satin tacked
secured with a single
Gordian knot,
a safeguard that fumbled
stitches won’t unravel
and reveal
that black line drawn
with kohl;
some vain attempt
to sexualise this naïve form,
this pretence that reluctantly
demands attention.
She pulls it, pinches,
drags it up revealing
porcelain skin and
catholic guilts
as the drummer
teases and rolls
her slight dip,
head bowed with her
curtsey in servitude.