RKS Poetry Anthology (All We Get Are The Coffee Grinds)

Childhood Plus

Slapped on the ass

Wrenched out with plastic gloves

Spotlight blinds the primary vision

Horrid formula milk

And the accursed Pablum

Shitting all over the place

The Big Ones pat our heads

So cute

But so obnoxious and get rid of them quicks

Thrust into the gulag of kindergarten barricades

Angry ones

Yell at us

Discipline us

Morals

Response to the command

Tolerated and patronized

Riot after the first joint

The women you have been taught to hate

Frustration equals the ten o’clock rape

Radical

Or suburban

To the factories of imaginary consumption

Politely work for the son of a jerk

The son in law

Punks or respectable

45-year-old jacketed (from high school)

Losers crowd the Montreal Forum

And beer swillers at Lafontaine

If not perhaps to the college

For paper tiger degrees

Suited to the paper maché world

Elitism of the unemployed

Beer bellied

Joints in the alley

The paranoia of survival

Choking onset of the crematorium

Companions fall in the wayside

Life vanishes

To be bashed in the ass once again

The cry

Incessant

Robert K. Stephen

RKS British Literature: The Oh So Polite British Conversation Without Any European Humanity (John Fowles)

Nobody said what they really wanted, what they really thought. Nobody behaved with breadth, with warmth, with naturalness; and finally, it became pathetic. I could see that my host and his wife had a genuine love of Greece, but it lay choked in their throats. The critic made a perceptive little disquisition on Leavis; and then ruined it by a cheap squirt of malice. We were all the same; I said hardly anything, but that made me nor more innocent – or less conditioned. The solemn figures of the Old Country, the Queen, the Public School, Oxbridge, the Right Accent, People Like Us, stood around the table like secret police, ready to crush down in an instant on any attempt at intelligent European humanity.

John Fowles, “The Magus”, 1977.

RKS British Literature: The Great Misconception About the Nazi Rise to Power (John Fowles)

One of the great fallacies of our time is that the Nazi’s rose to power because they imposed order on chaos. Precisely the opposite is true – they were successful because they imposed chaos on order. They tore up the commandments, they denied the super-ego, what you will. They said, “You may persecute, you may kill, you may torture, you may couple and breed without love.” They offered humanity all its great temptations. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

John Fowles, “The Magus”, 1977.

RKS British Literature: The American “Man’s World” (John Fowles)

‘That is, a world governed by brute force, humourless arrogance, illusory prestige and primeval stupidity. He stared at the screen. ‘Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because they imagine it is the one thing that stops women laughing at them. In it they can reduce women to the status of objects. That is the great distinction between the sexes. Men see objects, women see the relationship between objects. War is a psychosis caused by an inability to see relationships. Our relationship with our fellow men. Our relationship with our economic and historical situation. And above all our relationship with nothingness. To death.’

John Fowles, “The Magus”, 1977.

BEYOND PUPPYDOM: INCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS, EXPLORATIONS AND MAYHEM: RORY DYLAN STEPHEN TELLS IT LIKE IT IS: RORY’S TREATMENT PLAN: WHO ARE THESE MYSTERIOUS CHINESE DIPLOMATS?

While preparing for our alpine walk in the afternoon Fritz, the institute’s porter, pulled me aside informing me three Chinese diplomats (verified by showing their credentials)insisted upon seeing me but due to a strict no contact or visitor’s policy Fritz would not let them enter the premises. Although with ten 100 Euro banknotes and a healthy supply of the famed Guangzhou dried mushrooms Fritz did agree to take to me a hastily scribbled note on which a postcard of a sculptured Westie displayed at Suhewan MixC World in Shanghai’s Jing’an’s district was attached. The note said, “Comrade Rory, please contact the Chinese Embassy in Bern at your earliest convenience concerning the upcoming Chinese Canada Friendship Tour. Signed Ming Tan.”

And as we headed up the slope of Mount Vouno were those three Chinese men in the parking lot spying on me with binoculars?

BEYOND PUPPYDOM: INCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS, EXPLORATIONS AND MAYHEM: RORY DYLAN STEPHEN TELLS IT LIKE IT IS: RORY’S TREATMENT PLAN: MINDFULNESS THERAPY

After our lunch we attend mindfulness training. You might want to say mindfulness now runs in the family as Bob is certified in mindfulness by the University of Toronto and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and has conducted a few workshops on it.

Very basically, as this novice canine interprets mindfulness, it is being in the moment. Let’s say you are going for a walk. Most will have their incessant head nattering away at them, something as you know meditation attempts to manage. Instead shut up that voice in your head, if you can, and look at the trees carefully. The leaves rustling in the wind, the birds on its branches, the texture of the pavement, the noise of the traffic…you get the picture. Or perhaps when you are having your bowl of noodles don’t just chew and swallow. Look at the texture of the noodles and the seasonings floating in the broth, the steam rising from the bowl, and the pink shrimps and their bursts of flavour in your mouth. There is more to a bowl of noodles that a satisfied tummy!

Yep, so simple you think. Just try it and watch how your mind blathers away detracting you from being in and enjoying the moment.

From a therapeutic standpoint your being in the moment is a diversion from not being in the moment and thinking about unpleasant thoughts like for example, all the carnage after the United States bombed the Eastern & Oriental Express moments after I left it in Malaysia.

I must eliminate these terrible thoughts from my mind. It was bad enough my puppyhood was stolen from me. I am not going permit those thieves from stealing the rest of my life from me!

BEYOND PUPPYDOM: INCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS, EXPLORATIONS AND MAYHEM: RORY DYLAN STEPHEN TELLS IT LIKE IT IS: RORY’S TREATMENT PLAN: MEDITATIVE THERAPY

In our first group session of meditative therapy Dr. Skilos explained the goal of us learning how to and appreciate the effects of meditation.

We had difficulty understanding him when he told us mediation is about being. Once you are in a meditative mind it is you and there is nothing but you. He said we all subject to a racing mind; there are too many distractions in our head; do this, don’t do this, must go for a walk, what is in my bowl for dinner, thinking about chasing a ball and so on. Meditation is an opportunity to displace all these thoughts racing around your head. It puts you in tune with your breath. The key is to focus on your in breath and outbreath and nothing else. Dr. Skilos smiled as he saw our smug faces saying it sounds easy but let’s try it!

So we sat in a circle with Dr. Skilos saying repeatedly, “Relax. You have nothing on your mind but your breath. Breathe in and out, in and out, in and out.”

Skilos was certainly correct. I managed a few times to focus on my breath in and out but invariably my mind focused on all sorts of matters and pardon the expression “barking out commands”. Some of my canine friends fell asleep! Skilos encouraged us by saying we must keep working on it daily and then that sweet spot will be there; ultimate relaxation and self realization.

The very few times I managed to focus on my breath in and out and that’s all, many thoughts about my abduction vanished. If only I could continually focus on my being perhaps those negative thoughts could be controlled and not have so much impact on my psyche.

RKS British Literature: Happiness and the Economic Hazards of Life (John Fowles)

‘Wealth is a monster. It takes a month to learn to control it financially. And many years to learn to control it psychologically. For those many years I lived a selfish life. I offered myself every pleasure. I travelled a great deal. I lost some money in the theatre, but I made much more on the stock market. I gained a great many friends, some of whom now are quiet famous. But I was never happy. However, in the end I did discover what some rich people never discover – that we all have a certain capacity for happiness and unhappiness. And that the economic hazards of life do not seriously affect it.’

John Fowles, “The Magus”, 1977.

RKS British Literature: AN EXCELLENT DEFINITION OF MAN (John Fowles)

‘Victims?’

‘Whatever you call people who are made to suffer without being given the choice.’

‘That sounds like an excellent definition of man.’

John Fowles, “The Magus”, 1977.

RKS British Literature: About Being an Air Hostess (John Fowles)

She began to talk about being an air hostess; about herself.

‘Oh Jesus, excitement. That lasts about a couple of duties. New faces, new cities, new romances with handsome pilots. Most of the pilots think we are part of the aircrew amenities. Just queuing up to be blessed by their miserable old Battle-of-Britain cocks.

I laughed.

“Nicko, it’s not funny. It destroys you. That bloody tin pipe. And all that freedom, that space outside. I just want to pull that safety handle and be sucked out. Just falling, a minute of wonderful lovely passengerless falling…..’

John Fowles, “The Magus”, 1977.