Matthew Conrad

May 15, 1986 - Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski
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three things happened today

three things happened today...
i was trying to figure out
what to do with an afternoon -
thankful i didn't find the afternoon
"in question" -
more like something resembling
a waiting room
in a hospital...
the dire news was to come...
i was to feel queasy and diarrhoea-prone
for no expected or
un-expected reason -
other than some atypical per se...
but i did manage to witness
this... this most bewildering spectacle
of a funeral profession...
now... perhaps if this was Poland
i would be the village idiot in
my bewilderment...
no... i wasn't the only one...
someone from across the street
had to go out of the house and stand
agape... mouth open...
attempting to play the roulette of
mystical insight from the universe
should a pigeon manage to drop
of load into it...
the procession?
fuck me... it lasted a good 5 minutes:
speed of passing vehicles?
roughly 15mph...
at the front the undertakers...
then a flag-ship esque vehicle...
TESCO in a flower collage...
(i figured... the wife of the man
who founded TESCO...
wasn't she called Tessa?)
then some many other flower collages
(o.k. that's an exaggeration -
but enough to require another car)...
dearest loving granny on one of them...
fuck me: the chelsea flower show
is passing through town...
then the coffin and the woman in it...
drawn by two horses in a glass cart...
then... about 10 limousines
rented for the occasion...
the closest and dearest sitting inside...
yes... those big ass funeral limousines...
that look like they have the president
of the united states in them...
and then... a cordon of traffic
as part of the funeral...
4 x 4s... a Merc Benz here and there...
i should have counted...
but i'm guessing about 20 cars
involved...
i've seen a funeral from time to time
in a public space...
but never something akin to this...
i must have been a witness to
a true old testament style:
death of a matriarch...
it was surreal in that: apart from the size
of this public display:
"the old lady really went out with a bang...
i bet her wedding cost less
than her funeral"...
the fact that it was staged
on a really remote street in outer-greater-London
30 minutes shy a walk to find
yourself among grazing horses...
well there was that...
then finding a meaning for a day in a life:
deep fried buffalo chicken wings
and a blue cheese dip...
as ever... the love of cooking...
then... the most exhilarating game of football
on the t.v.:
liverpool vs. arsenal in the carabao cup:
5 - 5 (5 - 4 on penalties) -
the colt cup -
when the respective teams pick
their youngest players and their
permanent subs and the odd 1st team
players... you can't get better football than
that... when money is not really driving
the game: beside what is driving the game:
the game itself - and the most authentic
audience of supporters...
and the most easy-going referees who
never referee like they've been bribed...
and then...
to conclude the day...
finding an old radio... switiching it on...
classic FM: smooth classics...
because i've given up on YOUTUBE...
when it was what it was 3 years or so ago...
related videos...
like being a red-faced kid
found to be in delirium while darting
through the aisles of Hamleys...
when you used to play with toys...
plastic... toys... you were the grand narrator...
the puppeteer...
i do remember my first and only time
spent in Hamleys just before Christmas...
fresh off the boat... as it were...
a cold December... the London of 1994...
mad about batman...
but it's certainly something...
turning on the radio...
i'm oblivious to new music...
there's always a back catalogue of some composer...
and it can just play...
which frees my hands to compensate
the otherwise mediocre...
into a crescendo of "what's next"...
that funeral was something...
that liverpool vs. arsenal match was also:
something else...
and being able to rediscover
the radio? well... that's as much as what
these words were supposed to convey...
being most grateful for the banal...
which is somehow the subconcious schematic
of horror...
which is always the never of:
the: never being able to write a book...
about rock climbing...
or sky diving...
or surfing... of playing sport...
you can sure as shit write a book
about being a sport commentator...
or... m'eh... it's not like Sisyphus
was going to write a book -
he had to become the ancient archetype
of what became the modern:
Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener...
Nietzsche citation:
now i'm no longer the artist...
i'm the work of art (non verbatim);
but you could certainly write a book
from a repetitive mundaneity...
in the west: yes... but has it been forgotten -
that respect for manual labour...
in the east: brewing tea...
as... something requiring but also
attaining a perfection -
a: "thinking" with the hands?
fuck me... you throw a perfect ball
for a wicket in cricket...
but you're never a carpenter in that respect...
there's too much concerning luck
in that: "thinking" with the hands...
plus... there's always an opponent...
but this is most certainly...
or at least it has been...
a day worth salvaging with words.
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