Not ever again-
as I made my excuses.
Not to be trusted-
Of this I was certain.
Never, oh never-
Like a song in refrain.
But I’ll wait all the same-
As always, anyway.
©TheHairyTeacher2014
Tag Archives: isolation
Arany Pénteken
Imagine not recording this moment.
Imagine sacrificing it to a higher cause…
Delusion!
An utter sense of hysteria
coupled with an idea
of value, a worth
uncertain,
a worth unproven.
Imagine sacrificing this moment,
not recording this moment
because you thought silence was better!…
©TheHairyTeacher2014
Narcissus
The violence rendered on his face spoke volumes.
He didn’t seem content enough to just stare me down.
He seemed to be growling just under the metre.
He seemed to be grinning just beneath the frown.
There seemed to be no joy in his presence
and yet his t-shirt proclaimed him Mr. Happy.
Was it some kind of joke, and did the others get it.
Well, they did seem to be laughing quite a lot.
But this guy remained solid, mimicking my discomfort.
There was malice in his soul brimming over into his eyes.
But he held a composure, a measure, almost a reserve.
I snorted as false bravado, he returned it venomous.
I held his eyes for as long as he held mine.
The church bells rang and I looked up, away.
Did he do so? I could not tell, but he was watching me
when I returned to watching him…
and then he was gone, swinging out of my vision and a couple stood there
till invited to the bar whereupon the sniggers returned.
And then he was back, looking at me looking at him.
I scratched my head,as did he. Coughed and convulsed in unison…
Every night…a voice whispered from the bar
Poor thing…God how I hated pity.
Doesn’t anybody tell him?
Why?
It’s cruel…
I get up to leave and as always I brave the leering fool and as ever he steps aside as I pull open the door…and then the steps drag me up into the street, and home.
©TheHairyTeacher2013
The Raven’s Rainbow
Beneath the feathers of every raven there hides a rainbow, the old man had said, but Billy had just put it down to one of those things that old men said: some thing that pretended to wisdom but was more probably nonsense.
The old man had died that night and Billy had given his last words no more thought. Huddled together with his best friend Sammy at the bottom of a mist carpetted field, each trying to keep warm by rubbing up against a tree trunk and letting the cigarette ends close to their encasing hands, both wearing jackets that were designed to stand up only to summer showers, Billy found the words coming back to him.
The bare trees veined the sky above him and not for the first time did he come to the notion that they looked very much like bronchioles, or at least the diagram of the trackings of a lung as he had seen in his biology book at school.
“The lungs of the earth” he muttered; Sammy grunting, used to his friend’s inner monologue escaping.
“What do you think the purposes of crows are?” Billy suddenly asked.
“Crows?” came the reply.
” Crows, ravens, whatever. I mean what purpose do they serve?”
” None according to my father” Sammy replied “Pests he calls them…Pests!Pests!”.
Billy smiled. What else could he do? Sammy was eccentric that way, but when asked if he’d ever thought of a career in theatre he had answered a firm “No!”.
That was his father speaking, Billy’s mom had said. It was well known that Sammy’s father, a military man, had no love of the performing arts, but his rejection of his eldest son’s sexuality had been the subject of much debate. Needless to say Billy’s mum was not a fan. “Poor Ivan,” she used to say. Wasn’t it hard enough growing up without a mother but then to be shunned by his own father…
Sammy for his part didn’t speak too much about Ivan beyond the boundaries of memory, a fondness of childhood, a time long since gone. When pressed he had matter of factly stated that all queers are diseased, but this had definitely been his father speaking.
Billy’s father, on the other hand, was cut from an entirely different cloth. As happy, if not happier, to be among the wilds, he had often taken Billy with him on his expeditions, in search of nothing as his mother put it.
To not understand the nature of others is no reason to call it unnatural, Billy’s father would often retort when pressed by his mother to justify his long days in the woods. Later Billy would realise that there had been a little jealousy on his mother’s part, Billy’s father having the lion’s share, as it were, of Billy’s company.
“Do you ever wonder why people seem to want such different things, especially people who seem to have so much in common?” Sammy suddenly asked. “Look at Ivan for example.”
“To not understand the nature…” Billy began.
“Oh would you shut up!” Sammy lambasted. Billy face took on a pained expression.
“I’m only messin’ ya silly clot! Don’t be so sensitive!”
“I’m not. I’m only…” Billy began.
“I’m not. I’m only…”Sammy parroted.
God, how Billy hated that, that ridicule.
Oh, how Sammy loved to see such squirming.
“All I’m saying is, why do people with the same upbringing change so much?” Sammy continued.
“Other circumstances,” Billy began.
“Ah, don’t give me that shit about all the little things that could affect us.” Sammy snapped.
“Why not?’ Billy asked.
“A butterfly’s wings bollocks!” Sammy replied getting quite irrate.
Billy never knew how to control these situations, getting angry as he usually did didn’t solve anything, but staying silent only allowed Sammy to feel smug, as if he had won.
Wisdom could have told both boys the pointlessness of their undertakings but, as they say, youth is wasted on the young.
“Well, since you have all the answers” Billy snapped.
“I don’t” said Sammy “but I’m not about to surrender to some hippie dippie shit, neither!”
“As opposed to doom and gloom!?” Billy volleyed.
“Yeah yeah whatever!”
“Whatever!? And there ends the conversation.” Billy was beginning to get very annoyed.
Changing tack Billy decided to let spill the old man’s last words.
“Ravens and rainbows. What rubbish! I mean fair enough if that’s what he said but seriously, what crap.” Sammy stood in cool repose but Billy had no defence. Afterall, hadn’t he also been considering the whole thing nonsense.
The silence laid waste to the cold, both friends grumbling their own righteous state. And then the last of the cigarettes was spent and so they had no more reasons to sit perishing in that place.
Passing down through the golf course on the way home Billy ventured a question, an opening up of dialogue.
“Do you think Ivan is really that different from you?” he asked.
“He’s a fuckin’ faggot for Christssakes; or haven’t you noticed” he snapped. “Maybe because you’re one too” he added.
“I’m not” Billy protested, but he could already feel the blush rising from his neck line.
Sammy just sneered, derision etched across his face.
The rage now welled in Billy and without word he scampered ahead, cleared the fence and marched off taking the left fork, and the shorter route home.
The thought suddenly came to him that it was Sammy who had the money for cigarettes, and he, Billy, had been planning to spend the night in his friend’s place. A regret rose but was buried by the fury currently at large.
©TheHairyTeacher2013
A letter to any listener
Hi there
How are you? How’s tricks? How’s the family, or not? How now brown cow! Any news? Well, apart from the usual nonsense…
[Blah blah blah]
Anyway, as for the teaching regulations I seem to have avoided their web for another while and am still in the white as far as invoicing goes but it’s becoming more and more difficult. If the companies are spooked then rather than jump through the legal hoops they’ll just jump ship. As far back as 2011 there was a change in the law which meant that companies to whom I issued invoices had to cover my health insurance payments. A funny thing about it was that in some cases this seemed not to be true, while others, believing the initial rumours, wanted instead to pay me in black. Two years on the companies that stayed with me have had no trouble so whatever shadow had passed over in those dark ’11s had dissipated…only to loom much larger as of Sept 1st this year…when, indeed, the law stated much more specifically that people of my disposition, the idiots-for-honesty, were most definitely dis-entitled to issue invoices with the trademark “nyelvoktatás” code. Instead in a frantic scramble for legitimacy another existing code was sought out and came in the guise of “egyéb oktatás”. That there is a clear distinction between the two is obvious in the way of spelling, and may even be supported semantically, but to say that what I actually do has gone from being “language” teaching to “other” rings of something sinister. I see myself in a coutroom some time down the line pleading innocence in the light of allegations of some newly contrived perversion as distinguished by an ever-enlightening-ruling-elite (the word government ringing too much of communist ideologies by that time). That my case will hinge on the ominous term “other education” will certainly be my downfall and as I am dragged away by my oppressors I will rage loudly and invoke the honest Hungarians now resident in Slovakia (and other Trianon treated regions) who at once in a darker past woke one morning to find themselves strangers in a strange land, and note that in my own demise I may take heart that I am not alone. A man made criminal, a man made foreigner, in my case to the profession that I once purported to be be qualified to do.
For now I do bid you adieu.
Martin of the Magyars
©TheHairyTeacher2013
Again a circle drawn
The night that takes me home could have been an evening,
but then the snows again appeared, deceiving.
And all the Spring incline once more a muddle
As snowdrift veils the snowmelt puddle.
Again the fields are white and all cars too.
The very Henry’s dream in negative hue.
The slow retirement -a childish glee.
Where age perceives its doom,
youth dreams infinity.
©TheHairyTeacher2013
Afternoon Tram
Afternoon tram, the smell of perfume, aftershave and youth.
Some more aged try blending in with the chaos,
and I’m reminded of what some students said:
“the old are so annoying.”
Am I old to them or am I still young if but mature?
Do I become old when I find them irritating?
No, they irritate each other! Don’t they?
Am I OLD if I even have to ask these questions?
My stop comes…
©TheHairyTeacher2013
Las Ramblings
“A villamoson…nem hallom!”
Well we certainly could hear her but gladly she made this her insistence point and hung up. The idea right now mid-Friday afternoon – just having been to the doctor with Tara, my own chest paining – of having to listen to this woman would have been frightful. Frankly, I needed rest. I’d slept some last night, but rather erratically. Tara being feverish – fighting a throat infection – tossed and turned the whole night through and was tracing buses and trams and trains across the ceiling by the skylight. My first impression had been that she was still dreaming. Now I’m more inclined to believe she was being just a little bit delirious. Nothing like a fever to push the mind to other streams of consciousness…
Arriving into Barcelona all those years ago, 44°C on the roadway sign, me huddled up in a thick blanket shivering with a soul deep chill, I can only reminisce to the comedic concerning my mind’s wanderings.
The gay guy at the petrol station who would have gladly taken me home. No doubt he had a cure for my fever.
The campsite we stayed at where I marked, like a wagon rut, a trail between the tent and toilet, each time a pot to hand in case both ends decided to erupt at once. They didn’t, then, to my knowledge but I’m certain they would have had I forgotten the pot.
What a place to have been. An arse-hole ripped from posterior propulsion, sitting grimacing, looking through tear-filled eyes at a lap full of vomit! Not that I was getting the satisfaction of a projectile puke by then anyway. Bile, and blood vessels bulging – ah, what sweet memories.
As for the city itself, well, I have the occasional figmented memory, flashes, though in all sincerity, beneath the brief returns I have at once an underlying and overwhelming appreciation for the toilets in that city, especially the McDonalds on Las Ramblas!
Oh, how the mighty had fallen!
Swimming against the flow
There is a house in New Orleans, there may even be a hotel in California, but if there is any sense to be made of any of this try NAV, post-APEH, Budapest.
When I first tempted the threshold I turned and fled and if only I had listened to these base first instincts, and stayed the hell away, but as the man said, there are only two certainties in life, Death and Taxes, and here I am fighting the mortal battle while playing to my idiocies as a semi-honest man. On one of the hottest days on offer, topping 40c, I find myself in the foyer (!) of the Kertesz utca NAV office, the shade is welcome even if the air-conditioning comes in the way of the coolness exuding from the security man’s tub of ice-cream.
Ticket to hand and my number called I go delving into the mystery finding within a beast of a machine set in the middle of the room freshening up the interior. If this is hell, well, apart from the seeming shabbiness, it isn’t at all bad but I’m aware of the old adage – don’t judge a book by its cover – but as with previous experiences my temptation to explode into a rage is mostly down to my lack of understanding ( so that’s why there are so many conflicts in the world!). Again the lady borders on the edge of Job, patience tested by my continual expressions of “Nem ertem”. Now where people criticise the office staff at any tax branch anywhere in the world I have to come to their defence and say – listen it’s a bullshit job working for bullshit consecutively corrupt governments, and having to deal with people’s discontent day to day. Noone wants to pay taxes, not even administrators I imagine, but it is not their fault that the system has the average Joe running ragged. They are not the financial consultants, policy drafters, the experts credited with calamity. They have been duly employed to offer the buffer between the people and the shit (as are politicians but more on that later) and if shit floats then we, the hapless taxpayers, are face down in the deep-end with the same civil servants stepping on our backs to climb up. The problem is, they, too, are caught in the chaos and are being swept away on the whim of the bastards floating on top, who seer in the light while their putrid stink rises. In the sewers the rats don’t bother to dress smartly. On the oceans of power the stink of corruption is a badge of honour and up there nobody needs to hide who they really are. It’s just us, the drowners, who feel compelled to play with masks while casting accusations. “Oh they’re corrupt!” we scream but on the filter of leagues this merely bubbles to the top as another unanswered request. To them who reside there this is redundantly pretty. They are not fishermen, not interested in the depths and so we may pilfer our happiness for the remnants of hope, ordering this energy into another ream of hot-air-rising.
Redundantly pretty. That’s all. And just in case you thought it could change – remember we all stink up there so take heed and grow gills. Stop trying to support them with the banality of our existence.
On that note let’s remove ourselves to election time, and those moments when the bigger fishes* drop low to ‘dirty’ their filthy hands with the propostioning of the electorate. I say fishes here because they are not the boatsmen, merely the bait, ironically. They have only the capacity to aspire. Up where they are it’s brighter and closer to the stink…
What says you? Cast in the darkness with justice abounding or on a cruise conscious of the depths of depravity beneath? Trick question! If you’re up there you’re not thinking down here. But let me realign…
Come election time, come the chance not to change and revolt; toppling, sinking and rising on the crest of a new wave – this at best is just the inversion of power. The only true revolution allows for the acceleration of decadence and the collapse into the depths of everything. Only from the ground can we build a foundation and this is the flaw of everything. If you truly despise the system destroy everything it ever represented, represents, and will have the potential to represent. To allow tit-bits to favour you is to allow the germination once again of the festering seed, or rather to kill the daffodil but leave the bulb. And please, I don’t want to hear the “but that’s such a pretty flower”. If you’ve missed the analogy drink cyanide – one less dope when all comes to pass. In the real revolution the pretty, the ugly, the insane, the destitute, the intelligent, criminals, addicts, fools, the best, the worst, shall all be considered first as this – equal! And from that premise we must then move forward rationally towards a better society. Nothing is for the betterment of humanity if it doesn’t include all humanity**.
Ah, but I may have strayed. So apart from the bad news conveyed by her, the lady in APEH, now NAV, that I dealt with was a sweetheart, a darling. She even had the gall to compliment my Hungarian. Now that took courage. In truth I understand more than I once used to*** but please, no more compliments, no, oh you shouldn’t have…OH, you didn’t!
Leaving Kertesz utca and strolling into Pertu Cafe on Dob utca, I have indeed found a rhythm, a rhythm increasingly indicative of the understanding of my position. Unless I want to be drawn into immorality I must strengthen myself against the temptation, and even when those around me may fall victim to the aesthetic, I must be strong enough to enjoy life on my terms. As we in the drowning department are under the illusion that our voice matters, them in their boats in that stinking hell hole up yonder are also deluded into thinking we really care.
Choose not to care about them and one day they’ll have to submerge themselves deep enough that they shall really be in our domain. Until then, civil servants beware. You are test subjects till the cowards come along.
Viva la revolucion…whichever one you may choose.
* Fishes as a plural can exist and whereas it may usually be defined as the different species rather than the number of individuals it has its biblical usage in the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes, so there!
** Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
*** “Alas, how terrible is wisdom
when it brings no profit to the man that’s wise!
This I knew well, but had forgotten it,
else I would not have come here.” Sophocles
The Other Kus
“A masik kusz, nem szeretem!” Tara announced defiantly.
She didn’t like the ‘other’ bus. Well, I knew what she meant. A funky-blue bus – air-conditioned – has arrived in Budapest and appears sporadically on our bus route, 129. That I, and Tara, both, prefer the older, smellier, rattlier models is to understand our traditionalist values…hehe.
The new one as we entered was immediately declared wrong by Tara as I lowered her into her seat. Was it the A-C? Maybe. The constant beeping, however, I fear was the real culprit, and the fact that there is that blackout on the windows. Her view was obstructed – she being every bit the explorer already, this was tantamount to blindness in front of the Greats (visual artists I mean though Pele or Messi would necessarily apply).
We suffered the journey, needless to say, songs and reassurances doing the bare minimum to provoke subsidence, and yet the truth was plain to see. She was unhappy. On the way home later, an older model, still expressed some reservations but this may have only been due to the lingering memory.
Next time she missed the funky bus deliberately with Andi and it crashed. Maybe she knew. Later the following day she began to profess a love for all motorised vehicles, at least as long as they fell within the range of securely familiar. No fancy schmancy. At least not till she turns three and wants to impress the Kindergarten ‘bastard’!
Homeward bound on the newer model now I find myself curiously inclined to wondering – what is it that is fundamentally wrong. The seats though tiered are more coach like which provides the comfort. There generally seems to be a more logical layout even for the prams, but something in that intercity feel only to the suburbs may be a little disconcerting for the tormented traveller while furthermore the air-conditioning is not exactly tip top, well not down the back at least. I’m beginning to feel the nausea as once I did on the school mini-bus we had, all huddled in together on those day trips to the beyond. Heat stuffiness, vomitessness. I’m merely implying a discomfort but I’m willing to heed my daughter’s senses more than the rationality as proffered by those in the know. Haven’t some of those clowns also condoned GM foods – those soulless, tormented miscreants, whose eventual suicide is their only true gain. The yields initially astonishing are recorded, in fact, as depleting rapidly in each subsequent year. The super pesticides used, and flaunted airborne into neighbouring non-GM fields, are developing an environment where super-pests are slowly but surely ensuring the death of everything.
Our technology, I fear, has only given us the illusion of comfort because it tinkers with our memory and encourages us to think that we cannot live any other way. Now where did I put my phone? I know: I‘ve got a map app on it and GPS, but really what use is that if I can’t even find the phone. And no, I don’t have that whistle-and-it-beeps key-finder either! Damn-it! Well enough of this. Here’s my stop…
My Site for another perspective