felixblackworld

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Poem after watching Tarkovsky's The Mirror

Poem after watching Tarkovsky’s The Mirror

An evening blue cuboid, window modelledThe smell of an evening cushion couples a distant LondonTepid air removes all thought, gently, unseen,a silent consoling incantation.Images meld, shadowy corridors coalesce, hunched figures An all-too-real reality of a childhood spent looking upwardsCrooked beam partitions and fragile lamps held together on stoney floorsdecide in advance where is best for a…

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(via Tumblr) Some very lovely people voted me Best Non-Teaching Staff Member at Birkbeck College.

[felixblackworld]

The UK Debt Management Office

The UK Debt Management Office

The UK is currently borrowing (selling gilts to investors) at a rate of £11,000,000,000 per month That’s £366,666,666 per dayOr just over £15,000,000 per hourThis puts the total sum of UK national debt at roughly £1,600,000,000,000, or1.6 x 10^12, or£1.6 trillionwith a yearly increase in borrowing of between £100,000,000,000 to £150,000,000,000 According to Forbes Magazine, in 2020 the number of…

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G#

A single unwavering note hangs in the airLike a thistle seed bouncing in the windIt envelops the worldAll sense, all memory, all timeuntil there is no world left, exceptthe single note itselfThen, exhausted of all content, it becomes torturous It escapes the world but it cannot escape itselfand the world comes straight back.

[felixblackworld]

Three inter-related disconnected poems

Three inter-related disconnected poems

Calor Gas hadn’t updated their recordsCold air whips through the kitchenSerial number discrepancyDodgy drawers stuffed with green, lined paperSloppy breakfast and spilt coffeeBoiled kettles fill the room with a Dartmoor mistSwinging gates or songbirds chime the morning chorusBitumen and bright white paintTractor tires landscape The Great Lakes, and tributaries lead to leaf-filled drainsDown, out,…

[felixblackworld]

What My Brain Thinks (Written Down)

What My Brain Thinks (Written Down)

its just really difficult I don’t know there must be something that you can use to make sure that I can feel happier with it all and ensure we live with a cleaner future education without feelings of bitterness important to make things a reality and little by little get there and finally enjoy them so that when the time comes it’ll stop metaphorically and isn’t really relevant exactly if that’s…

[felixblackworld]

The Death of Karl Marx

The Death of Karl Marx

On this day, 14th March, 138 years ago Karl Marx succumbed to bronchitis and pleurisy, aged 64. He had spent his final years living in Soho and Havistock Hill, London, as well as a winter retreat in the Isle of Wight. Two months earlier his daughter had passed from bladder cancer, and two years prior to that his wife had also died. Marx had suffered from debilitating and chronic bodily pains for…

[felixblackworld]

11.03.2021

Saying something profound is difficult. Under the pressure of trying to say something profound is ultimately saying that which is the most mundane: saying that saying something profound is difficult. Whatever has been said has been said already such that we are left with ruminating on what is actually said, as it is said, in the present. We cannot forget what was said, we can only remember it in…

[felixblackworld]

09.03.21

Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Piers Morgan and The Queen are all in a bitter row with each other Ant and Dec walk in to try and defuse things But Prince Harry has had enough and storms out He bumps into Joe Biden, atop a horse And Barack Obama on the saddle behind him, popping his head out The Queen lobs a Faberge egg at Piers, but he ducks and it hits Obama square in the face Louis Theroux enters…

[felixblackworld]

01.03.2021

A message to all who argue we need capitalists: no, we don’t. Capitalists only exploit the worker and claim the profits (from the surplus value created by the worker) and it is a myth that they provide the workers with jobs, wages, well-being etc. The workers produce the value in commodities as well as their own labour-power, and the capitalist uses this productive activity only to consume, own…

[felixblackworld]

09.03.21

Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Piers Morgan and The Queen are all in a bitter row with each other Ant and Dec walk in to try and diffuse things But Prince Harry has had enough and storms out He bumps into Joe Biden, atop a horse And Barack Obama on the saddle behind him, popping his head out The Queen lobs a Faberge egg at Piers, but he ducks and it hits Obama square in the face Louis Theroux enters through a nearby secret door and yells ‘Tomato!!’ Which Meghan takes as a sign to reach for the fruit bowl Gallantly, Dec runs across the room to defend The Queen,  but trips over Obama’s unconscious body and flies out of the jacobean window He encounters Vlad Putin and Kim Jong-Un playing croquet on the lawn The Pope flies in and puts an abrupt end to their game He pulls down a nearby turret in anger Which spooks Joe Biden’s horse, and it bolts down the driveway Clinging on for dear life, Joe Biden yelps and squawks He becomes removed from the saddle with his foot caught in the stirrup He twists himself free in time for Sadiq Khan to run over his skull in his brand new Bentley Continental GT Louise Redknapp is on hand to deliver immediate aid And Tyson Fury’s son continues with the cello until the early hours.

[felixblackworld]

18.02.2021

a dim blueish hue penetrates by eyelids tyre hum and sirens prangs of metal from nearby scaffold worksmy phone bleeps All makes for an atonal morning I use the windowsill as a desk so I can pretend I’m outside A short tree with five trunks reaches to the sky each limb reiteratively producing another treeShorn at mid-height and strangled by thin white wires Its upper right fifth humerus is used…

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23.02.21

Panic the coronavirus restrictions are lifting We’re now on Boris time stolen from the invisible watches on the decayed wristsof slaves,  dead labourers of aristocratic England, and children put to work. The Day of Reckoning is set Although Heaven looks a lot like Hell Just with more investments On future labour  A new time beckons, Coronavirus time Recovery time Lost time Work time All times…

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A little plastic toy

A little plastic toy

A little plastic toy Thrown across the room for eight minutes Goes in the box of eight-minute toys One hundred and sixty minutes Panned into a biodegradable bin bag And cartwheels out the back of a dumper The bag, burst asunder, displays its goods The toy gets fucked by a seagull Who forgets her own name And hurriedly flaps back To the wrong bridge She pulls out a feather to use as a…

[felixblackworld]

01.03.2021

A message to all who argue we need capitalists: no, we don’t. Capitalists only exploit the worker and claim the profits (from the surplus value created by the worker) and it is a myth that they provide the workers with jobs, wages, well-being etc. The workers produce the value in commodities as well as their own labour-power, and the capitalist uses this productive activity only to consume, own the means of production and accumulate wealth. The worker actively produces that wealth and the wealth of society at any given moment. They can only really be considered together as manifestations of a level of activity, historically specific, of the systemic contradiction between capital and labour.

[felixblackworld]

23.02.2021

Panic the coronavirus restrictions are lifting We’re now on Boris time stolen from the invisible watches on the decayed wrists of slaves,  dead labourers of aristocratic England, and children put to work. The Day of Reckoning is set Although Heaven looks a lot like Hell Just with more investments On future labour  A new time beckons, Coronavirus time Recovery time Lost time Work time All the times wrapped into one big temporal cesspit Forgetting any time at all

[felixblackworld]

Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14, Op. 131

After this, what is left for us to write?"- Franz Schubert

It’s as if Beethoven was offering his final word on life. At parts reaching to God, the infinite, in others reckoning with finitude. The opening, Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo is perhaps Beethoven’s most inspired piece of writing. It is agonising, tortured, yet light and precarious. It could slip away at any point. An incredible, moving transition: a heart-stopping G#, a way out with the C#, and on to two quick, playful Allegro’s. Thereafter the Adagio ma non troppo e molto cantabile. This is true mastery: intricate, developed, yet fragmented and far from easy-listening. The sweetness of the violin, interspliced with a terse mournfulness. There is abruptness at every corner. Then, the famous Presto, Beethoven at his Sonata-composing best, dynamic, shocking and highly charming as ever. And the Adagio quasi un poco andante. Words do not do its sadness justice. This is music for Auschwitz, for a beyond of nothingness. A swirling section and final magnificent burst brings the piece to a close. This is music of the profound, wrestled true by the profane. It is Beethoven’s genius, exposed, and laid bare. A colossal masterpiece.