Alright I’d like to bring some levity to the next daylog, so in the spirit of Edgar Allen Porn I’d like to post my own only slightly more pornographic version of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan

The Last Descendent of Kubla Khan

In Binghamton did Steven Wheat
A swingin’ Bach’lor pad decree
Where Alf the 80’s hero, ran
Through channels measureless to man
On a zenith TV
So twice five feet of messy ground
Where beer and ramen were laying round:
And there were fridges bright with expired dills
Where blossomed many a nasty smelling leak
And here was laundry ancient as the hills
Covering old mags of pornography

But oh! That deep pathetic closet which slanted
Down the white wall athwart a plastic cover!
A ravaged place! As holy and demented
As e’er within a simpson’s toon was flaunted
By co-eds flailing for their pork-chop-lover!
And from the classroom, with painful boredom leaving
As if this university were teething
A mighty kegger momentarily was forced
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Ping-pong balls vaulted like holy grails
Or sinking ships beneath alcoholic gales
And ‘mid these dancing cups at once and ever
It flung up momentarily the sacred river
Five men meandering with a hazy motion
Through couch and chair the yellow river ran
Then reached the bathroom odorless to man
And sank in one flush to a lifeless ocean
And ‘mid this tumult Steve heard from the bar
Fraternity voices coming with more Coors

The aroma of the drunken pleasure
Floated midway through the rave
Where was heard a techno treasure
With him spinning the party’s saved
It was a turntable of rare device
A sorority came with bags of ice!
A brunette with a tank top shirt
In the kitchen I once saw
It was a Staten Island maid
And on a tabletop she played
Dancing with other girls
Could I revive my kidney
From being drunk so long
That such a hangover ‘twould win me’
That my head felt like a gong
I would build my pad in air,
That smelly home! Those raves of vice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, What should I wear!
His bloodshot eyes, his matted hair!
And close your eyes while in his bed,
For he to many girls hath said,
That college is a Paradise.

I pierced my ear in the parking lot of the El Tapatio Mexican Restaurant. It's something I'd been meaning to do for a while, and I figure now is always the best time.

I'd been with her for far too long out of laziness and a lack of self confidence. I'd stopped believing in myself, which was the only reason I'd put up with these games for so long. I started believing again, I realize that's what's been lacking. I'm slightly angry at her, for putting up with it so long. She thinks that she is the one who is leaving, but I know that one phone call is all it takes to break her. I proved that last weekend, and I don't think I ever should have, nor do I need to again. I won't be calling her again. I don't really want her back, I believe in myself again, and I deserve better.

I'd always meant to pierce my ear. Needles have been my biggest fear in life since, well, since as long as I can remember. They've always inspired terror and fear in me, so I really feel that I've confronted my internal demons by shoving a piece of metal through my own ear.

I deserve better than a charade of a relationship, cheap meaningless sex, and hoping her number doesn't show on the caller id every time the phone rings. It's about damn time I remembered it.

...and then, right after he signed into the network, the internet totally stopped working. Mark's download of the latest episode of Internet Cum Sluts stopped midway. George, who was on Yahoo! Spades, suddenly couldn't play the winning hand. The webcam teleconference going on with the bosses and that bigass new client shut down.

"Dude," Brad said to Jason, "you totally broke the internet."

"No I didn't!" Jason exclaimed. "All I did was sign in!"

"Hey everybody, Jason broke the internet!" Pam said from across the room. "He fucking just broke it!"

"It must be just our network," Jason said.

Then his phone rang. He answered it. It was his friend in Tokyo. "Noo," said his Tokyo friend, "you did break internet! We no have internet here, either. It broke for wong time!" Then he hung up.

"SON OF A BITCH!" Jason exclaimed. He began banging on his desk.

"Look!" said that mail guy, pointing to the flat screen television mounted on the wall. Jason looked. It was the news.

"This just in," said Ted Koppel, looking at a piece of paper some bitch had just handed him, "apparently Jason has just totally broken the internet!"

"GOD DAMMIT!" Jason exclaimed. He threw his laptop onto the floor and began stomping on it. Plastic bits and pieces began scattering all over the office. "CRAPTOP! CRAPTOP!"

"Hey, I heard Jason just broke the internet!" yelled that asshole in accounting. Jason picked up his laptop and chucked it across the room. It smashed into the wall, narrowly missing that designer fucker's head.

Jason ran to the break room where hours earlier they had just all celebrated Earl's birthday. He jammed his face into the white cake and smeared it around.

"I'm better with icing!" Jason yelled as he bounded out of the breakroom. He ran around the office, flailing his arms about, dropping bits of white icing. "Yeeargghghh!"

"Caldwell!" yelled Jason's boss, poking out of his office. "Did you just break the internet?!"

"FUUUUUCCCK!" Jason screamed, running around in circles. He flopped to the floor and began writhing around. "I'm a baby seal!"

"This just in," said Ted Koppel, after receiving another sheet of paper, "that Jason guy who broke the internet, he's totally flipping his shit!"

Jason got up and screamed. He was so busy going totally bat shit that he didn't hear Jane say "Hey, look, the internet's back up."

Jason ran across the office, lunged himself at the windows on the far wall, smashed through them and...

I should mention that I am teaching myself to lie convincingly, because lying is a useful skill.

I go to a poetry open mic night on Sundays, in a local coffeeshop, and though I do not write poetry, I love the warm light of the stage. Sometimes I get up and read whatever has moved me most recently. English poets, or American occasionally, reading translations always seemed like a betrayal to me. I'm trying to learn French, but you know, they have the strangest puns and wordplay. So I stick with English.

Wednesday night, I told a lie in front of that mic: "So my mom found out that I like to read poetry, and she's a teacher, a French teacher in a high school. She wanted to surprise me so she asked the English teacher she works with to recommend something. She mails me this." I held up the book. "Bukowski."

Everyone groaned. And I said "So is it okay for me to read a really awful one? I mean... really horrible." And their response was "Is there any other kind?" So I opened up to the one titled Somebody. And I said, "No, really, I can read something else," and held up a pink and tattered leaf, containing a love poem written by an absent friend. But they're saying I should get on with the violence.

all the long lines of starvation within me
rose
and I walked over
and grabbed her on the couch
ripped her dress up around her face

People clapped. I was a little shocked. I mean, listen to how polite we are. We can't even boo a poem when it makes us want to vomit? We just clap. I even got catcalls. It's like this everywhere.

The host, or master of ceremonies, or, you know, the guy in charge of the microphone, well, he looks at me as I walk back to my seat and he says "I always feel beat up after listening to Bukowski."

and I didn't care
rape or the end of the earth
one more time
to be there
anywhere
real

"Yes, me too. That's why I read it." I was lying when I said that, too. I read that poem, in front of thirty of my closest strangers, and I meant it. I was not identifying with my listeners, I was not racked with empathy for the nameless woman whose stockings I was ripping now with my lips. I was the man who wants something so blindly that he cannot stop and hear the protest of another human being. Out of control. Just for a minute, I was filled up with that testosterone, and I was pouring out these hurtful words at my certainly innocent poet audience. I feared that I was starting to understand him.

And it's true, Even while I was standing on the stage, when I was adding my saliva to the collection inside the microphone, I could hear them, I always hear how they suck in their breath when someone says the "R-word." I could hear them shifting their coffeecups, saw them turn their faces down, away, anywhere but at me.

I saw myself hurting them then, betraying their trust that I would give them some kind of inspirational light and happiness. I was hitting them too deep, and even though I asked permission, even though they could have taken the mic from me at any moment, they didn't.

They clapped.

So this is me, again changed, Fi the verbal rapist, whose victims only whispered "No," in their thoughts and under their breath, but suffered just the same. My little victims who politely applaud after I'm finished with them.

But this is all lies anyway, because I never was that guy and I never will be. I never was Charles B. or Henry C. and I never will be. I never took someone by force, and I pray that I am never capable of it. I just tasted his confessions on my tongue for 3 minutes.

When I was done reading, I said "Thanks," but what I meant was "Why are you clapping when you should be screaming?" I suppose I have a ways to go before I master the art of reading poetry.


Quoted text in italics: "Someone" by Charles Bukowski, from Mockingbird Wish Me Luck pubished by Black Sparrow Books, copyright June 1972.

Suddenly citizen

Standard disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, daylog, anecdotal, and so on. Here are some good nodes for you to read instead: this one, by TenMinJoe, this, by Jet-Poop, and this one, by XWiz. Have fun.


I am a Finnish citizen. Always have been, but only because my father was Finnish. I have never been to Finland; the closest I ever was to the country was the time I was on Åland, an island roughly halfway between Finland and Sweden.

I grew up in Sweden, and further up in Denmark. I live in Denmark now, but I never really bothered to apply for Danish citizenship. There were a number of reasons for this, two of which were the questions on the application being too stupid, and the Finnish passport being a much nicer colour than the Danish. I am equally fluent in Danish and English, not quite so in Swedish - and I speak absolutely no Finnish.

Because of my lack of Danish citizenship I have never been able to vote in any elections regarding Danish national matters. It never bothered me. I am shamelessly (or maybe shamefully, I have yet to decide) apolitical. I sometimes complain about the state and the state of its affairs, but I have no idea what I am complaining about or what ought to be done about it.

Now, the other day, I received a letter from Finland. I have never, ever before received a letter from Finland. And to top it off it looked official. Inside the envelope was a letter telling me I should remember to vote in the upcoming Rigsdagsvalg. I am to go to the Finnish embassy - and I only too well know where that is - and there I can cast my vote on one of whatever party or politician might tickle my fancy (I won't, of course. It wouldn't be right. I was considering finding some pics and vote for the cutest candidate, but...)

One interesting thing about the letter was that it was written in Finnish and Swedish. It seems the Finns are used to their citizens not knowing their own language! Another interesting thing was that it contained my Finnish social security number. So now I have one Danish, one Swedish, and one Finnish number. It never, ever occurred to me that I, as a citizen of Finland, would have a social security number. Likewise it never occurred to me that I, having lived in Sweden for 8 years, would have a Swedish number too. Before I stirred things up by wanting a new passport neither the Swedish nor the Finnish authorities really knew I existed, and now... The sight of these ten digit numbers (all three countries use ten digit numbers) made me a little uneasy. Like I had left something behind in a place I'd never been. Odd that.



I sometimes think about visiting Finland. I am just afraid that I'll be disappointed. I know that I am ultimately hoping to get some feeling of "coming home" when I step off the plane - I also know I'll feel nothing of the sort. I don't feel it when I visit Sweden, I don't really feel it when I return to Denmark. I have discussed this at length with the immigrant and refugee kids I used to work with. Maybe that was why we got along so well. In my own small and rather pathetic way I too am a foreigner whether I stay or go.


Hmmm... yeah. Well, thank you for your time.

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