The empty wanderer

He ran away from his problems and ended up on an island. But soon he discovered that even an island could not detach him from his troubles. The disturbance within would ebb and flow. He often sat on the shore enthralled by waves crashing onto the sandy beach but ineluctably disappointed by the receding tide. Soon he grew bored with the beach and its fickle waves. He would find new distractions, always ending up worse than before. He searched for peace in the seclusion of wilderness and sat for years in pure stillness. Alas, he could not stand repressive serenity. Three years passed and he was ill-equipped to cope with himself. He abandoned nature and returned to sensuality.

They told him not to fritter his time away, not to idolize the pondering wanderer. But he did. He loved to wander - not to know where he was going, or when he would get there. He loved the distractions of the island, its slow deliberate pace. He loved the cabana boys who slaved for his enjoyment. But they did not love him. They loathed how his meaningless decadence. They loathed his lecherous gaze and despised his overt predation. One day, he was found strangled, with a half-full pina colada in his right hand.

The Coming War

The Coming War is between forces on each side of a vast emptiness. Once markets collapse, illusions lose their strength. When money and contracts no longer can constrain antagonism, the first salvo will be launched. First, it will be a battle of vitriol, then sabre-rattling. And ultimately, each will be raised as THE Great Evil. The Great Evil is no longer one that threatens the soul. The Great Evil threatens hegemony. The Great Evil threatens to dominate, threatens to repress…threathening to displace the current machine of repression and domination. Where shall you stand in the Great War? I am at the margins. I have no home. On one side, I face patronization. I am still immature in their eyes, and always will be. On the other, I am corrupted; impure, I am infected by foreign values. I was born at the margins, and raised to aspire for the norm. What norm can exist in a time of war? But when the war comes, where can I stand? Will I be tore to shreds being pulled in infinitesimal directions? Or will I stand alone as passive observer, chronicler of the End? Here I stand …at the margin between worlds lost to each other…at the edge of a universe on the verge of annihilation.

Armageddon of Banality

Frank was born and raised in line. After his parents passed on, he talked to the girl before him in line. They traded significantly irrelevant information: name, age, number in line. He then asked the question he desperately wanted an answer to. He unzipped his pants and asked her what the fleshy appendage was. She answered with her lips and the line moved. Having received an answer he asked another.

“Why are we in line, girl?” She confessed that her father might have once knew but he was now gone, neglecting to leave her with that knowledge. The line extended to the ends of the earth - origin and end as if one in the same. East and West, left and right were untenable categories.

“Let’s go this way, girl”, he said pointed in one direction.

“No, let’s go this way”, she pointed in the other. The question of direction consumed them, for neither knew where the End was. Others in line started to debate as well; the End is there, here, up over where? Unquestionably puzzled by the futility of the chatter, they stepped out of line, walked in a random direction, and in search of futile answers to a question already forgotten.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

“A line to Armageddon?”

“Yes, you have stepped out of line and Armageddon will elude you.” They looked out over at the window past the drab curtains and saw the meadow.

“But if Armageddon is the End, who processes these applications?”

“The Fire.”

The Officer continued, “The Fire purifies; vessel to Eternity.”

Dennis and the Reverend

“God is Dead. The flames of hell have gone out!” blared from a public announce system. Dennis walked into the church, ignoring the noise. However, his fellow parishioners reacted adversely to the chant, shouting and shaking their fists in a futile pantomime. He suspected that neither side listened to the other and proceeded quietly to his pew. After the reverend cursed his agitators to hell, he composed himself and led the congregation inside. The reverend began his sermon and Dennis settled into a peaceful slumber. Rather than ignore his napping parishioner, the already agitated good reverend lashed out.

“How dare you! How dare you sleep through God’s word?!?” Dennis was shaken from his slumber by sanctimonious bellowing, looked at the reverend, and shifted back into a more comfortable sleeping position. The reverend was now inconsolably outraged and rocketed out of his pulpit to confront the sleeping parishioner. Dennis slept through more admonishments until the reverend led him forcefully to the front of the congregation; it was his intention to give him a dressing down.

“Dennis, God loves you as he does all his children. But why? Why do you persist in disrespecting the House of God on the Sabbath?” Dennis was unhappy that the reverend thoughtlessly wrecked his day of rest.

“Reverend, you say this is the Sabbath. What did God do on the Sabbath? Yes reverend, God rested on the seventh day. I sleep to honour...”

“God is Dead. The flames of hell have gone out!” The pronouncement drowned out Dennis' last words. As the reverend once again shouted futilely at the agitator. Dennis yawned at the whole affair, only to face the wrath of the congregation. “Blasphemer!” they bellowed and converged on him, tearing him limb from limb.

The reverend stepped over the remains and continued his sermon.

I walked while they talked

I walked while they talked.

I hopped in and was off.
They could keep all of it.
I had no need for those things.

Where would I end up?

I had no clue. I just wanted to go.

I saw the stop sign. I went through.
Not in rebellion,
or indifference;
I didn’t want to stop so soon.

I rolled and rolled and rolled,
grey blurred into green.

Soon it stalled.
I dumped it and walked.

I was nowhere, but it seemed like somewhere.

I took in a breath. A long whiff; inhale exhale.
I hadn’t breathed in sometime. It was fresh and almost free.

The light grew fainter…

dimmed…

faded…

and…

was gone.

I walked and wandered, followed the sky.
The Dipper, the Cowboy, the North Star,
soon gave way to morning.

I took a breath of the morning air and hacked.

It claimed to be somewhere, but was nowhere.

The monsters were there,
grunting like the ones I had abandoned.
Waste all around.
Joy nowhere to be found.

I am nowhere, yearning to be somewhere;
dying with every breath.
Withering beauty,
my beloved is lost.

We learn too well to think

Depression, alienation, and isolation; these meld to form the norm. I despise. I loathe. I hate. And I disdain. I am quick to judgment, incapable of thought or attentiveness. I am modern man – the most bungled of perfect creatures. Crudely sophisticated distractions numb the pain, repress my destructive fury, and allow me to put on that glorious smile dripping saccharine; the image makes it all okay. We learn too well, are too easy to train, and malleable for all sorts of tasks. We learn well and forget to think.

Man loathes his mortality and envious of the eternal cosmos. He desires a grand reduction, to bring eternity into individual mortality. Those who pursue greatness unto death brings the world into the self and refuses humanity. He wants to walk among gods by annihilating the imperfection known as man. The universe is no larger than his enclosure. He grins as he stares through the screen door, watching the bugs slam into each other and plummet to earth. All is well. All is mine, as lord of minutia. But, the bars of the cage are still there in spite of particular delusions of grandeur. The universe brought into the self is no larger than two bugs colliding into each other. The world will go on without him, as it will go on without the bugs. As individual, man is no god, simply a deluded bug. In togetherness, he stands in fellowship with life and the universe.

Rainmaker man

As he stood on the edge of the bridge, the voice on the megaphone read cue cards and the voice in his head told him to do it. He contemplated the fate that laid below, above, and in between; all the while with voices talking at him. It was a rather calm scene for him, in spite of the surrounding commotion. Vertigo. Blissful vertigo. The megaphone echoed incomphrensibly; the voice told him to jump.

Paying no attention to the voices, he gazed below at the afternoon sun glistening off the distant water. He found it unbearable and tilted his head upwards towards the cloudless sky. Sunshine had always depressed him and it was no different on this particular day. He wanted it to rain, in the worst of ways. But he didn't control the heavens, regardless of what the voice told him.

Jump and you'll make rain! the voice said, now changing its tact. Rainmaker man, that's what you are - plunge in and make it fucking rain! He looked despondently at the helicopters. Why do they have helicopters for this, he thought. Somewhere there must be murder, rape, robbery, and of all sorts of stuff going down. Why were they so concerned about him standing on the edge of a bridge?

They can't let you die, the voice returned. Why? Jump. Jump and you'll make a mockery of them. Jump, take the plunge and erase everything they have over you. Their power, their repression, their authority vanishes like that. Free! Released! You'll be free, don't you see? Free! Why don't you just do it, you rebel! Make your mark!

Vertigo. Blissful vertigo; baring weakness for all to see. Help me! Jump! Please get off the bridge! Help me! Jump! Plunge! Over the edge, you go. Vertiginous sounds, each emptier than the next. Hollow noise, constant clamour. Jump! Don't do it, there are other ways, poison; noose; bathtub gore; sliced piece by piece; bullets; immolation; electric, fried body; and JUMP! Spin. Spin. Take the Leap. Vertigo. Blissful vertigo stretching to the depths.

He looked towards the bridge; the negotiator was approaching, a heavy-set guy with a bald dome and a couple whiskers sprouting above his upper lip. A contemptibly cardboard cop, he thought. Instant deja vu.

"Now, son, you've got the rest of your life ahead of you. Whatever is troubling you now, we can work through it together. We promise you..." the negotiator paused momentarily, as if trying to muster a little more. But it was too late. The boy was on his way.

He ended up in the water. Spining the whole way down. The bliss of vertigo was there to the bitter end. On the way down, he saw the officer's face; the face of a vanished father, tears raining down for a forgotten son.

"...I promise you."

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What will you most regret? Never having teenage love between the sheets.

Really? Yeah, prom night happened in the back alley of a Denny's.

Oh. Okay.

What will you miss the most? The rain.

Figures.

Who will you miss the most? My dog Skip.

Alrighty.

Last question: Do you believe in God? Hell no.

Alright, we are done here. It will take about 6-8 weeks for processing. At that time you will enter our re-training program and we'll get you started on your new assignment ASAP. Just sign here and here - and please feel free to visit the sites while here.

What is there to see? It kind of looks like a void.

Well, there is where you are wrong. A void is anything you'd like. So please explore.

What if I wanted to be in a brothel?

Think it and it will be.

Um, how about a brothel full of chicks without dicks?

It is the product of your thoughts. We can do nothing to change it.

What are you insinuating?

Nothing at all. It is what you imagine it to be, only you can control it.

I wasn't thinking about trannies!

It is what it is.

Um, okay. And what is 6-8 weeks in a void anyway?

About 2-3 days earth time.

Why didn't you just say that?

Can't. Company policy.

The fucking voice lied to me.

Shall we become intimate?

Another cloud mushrooms somewhere in the distant sky.

"Is that it?"

"Let's hope so"

Another cloud rises.

"Is that it?"

"Probably not."

Several clouds erupt, growing less and less distant.

"They're closing in."

"It doesn't matter anymore. All is lost."

They sit down; eyes fixed on the horizon.

"Shall we become intimate?"

A hand reaches out to no response.

"Intimacy is of no use."

And as the clouds choke the sky above, they accept their fate.

"Ashes to ashes..."

"...dust to dust."

They nod and vanish.

Damien?

I was riding the bus the other day, listening to Modest Mouse on my IPod shuffle and reading my copy of Kafka On The Shore, when a small child, about six years old, walked up to me to say hi. I waved politely - acknowledging his presence and reassuring his mother, sitting a few rolls back, that her wandering boy was okay. But the little boy anxiously tried to tell me something, motioning for me to take out my ear plugs. I played along and took out the earphones and motioned for him to sit down in the seat beside me. I asked him how his day was going. And like any precoious young boy, he recounted his day in detail. He informed me that his mom had taken him to Gyro Beach for most of the afternoon. He went on the swing, the slide, and the monkey bars - he was quite adept at the monkey bars, a fact that he was proud to share. I smiled and commended his proficiency on the bars; confessing that I was no good at them when I was his age. Then I asked him whether he got good at the monkey bars while playing with his friends. But he responded by shaking his head.

"I have no friends," he said, erupting into a laughing fit. I smiled and pressed that surely he had shared time on the playground with other kids and they could be considered friends - even in the broadest of terms.

"No friends," he said again, as his face took on a bleaker pallor. I tried to reassure him that his superb ability on the monkey bars would surely impress in the future and win him friends.

"I won't ever have any friends," he said, but this time with a wry smile that seemed out of place on the face of a six-year old. "Damien tells me that friendship is not for me."

"Who's Damien?" I asked him, now slightly perturbed by his responses.

"Damien's in my head...he tells me things."

"Oh, I guess Damien could be an invisible friend." I said, unsure of whether I wanted to know what Damien was telling this boy.

"He tells me you are a...kind red spirit..." he paused, as if waiting to relay the last of Damien's message, "...and that you will not burn...when the time comes."

Once again, I smiled. I couldn't help but smile. And of course, I didn't know how quite to respond, apart from posing the obvious question.

"When what time comes?"

"When it is time for all to sleep," he replied with a slightly less innocuous giggle and ran off to join his mother, as the bus pulled up to their stop. I waved bye to them and put my earphones back into place. As I watched the boy and his mom walk away from the bus stop, I noticed a couple preoccupied with a gaggle of shopping bags walk past a man sleeping on a bus bench and wondered if we weren't already all asleep.

Kitsch

Kitsch, invariably, makes life bearable. Kitsch turns shit into gold. Kitsch is rapid obsolescence; a fad fades away before it launches. Without kitsch, all we would see would be shit. Without the possibility of irony, all would be serious and without play. We all end up kitsch; epiphets on would-be headstones attest to that (Kundera). The world free of kitsch would be unlivable, because we would see the shit. Everything is shit without kitsch. Kitsch is a placeholder, a necessary illusion, until we can find meaning in silence, find comfort in nothing, and discover reality apart from image.

Clam up boy

Clam up boy,
there's much to fear,
abandon hope,
cry to mommy,
cry to daddy,
soak them,
with your snivelling tears;
failure is man's everyday destiny,
without mommy-daddy.

Freshman

Once upon a time,
in an office space,
a freshman left breathless,
by mundane complexity;
life in a textbook,
stuck on repeat -
a disc projects,
images as images,
and nothing more.

Images of a fight,
a desperate flight,
from a broken home,
and the image of a lonely road -
returning,
to start again;
all images return,
stuck on repeat.

Alas,
monotony reigns supreme,
dulled sensations,
turning circles,
craving for response,
and only getting dictates;
there is no silence or rest,
for the programme in full effect.

Then there is touch,
most immediate of sensations,
reduced to mere mechanics,
enslaved by proximity;
discordant intimacy -
ah, there's the rush,
the endless meander, trifling saunter,
towards catharsis.

G-A or A-G

G: This photographic memory, what a curse! What a pain! I wish I could forget and live today.

A: But you can't live without recollection. Man cannot be without recollection.

G: How so?

A: Without recollection, there's no ground for our being here now.

G: On the shoulders of giants?

A: No, no...more like, uh, the origin we don't know.

G: Who cares about an unknown and incomprehensible origin?

A: You're here, right?

G: Yeah.

A: I'm here, right?

G: Sure.

A: We're here, right?

G: Yes, so?

A: That's all there is to origins. Besides, it beats obssessing about the end.

G: What about numerology and Nostradamus? He knew the end...

A: But could do nothing to escape his own demise. Plus, Nostradamus couldn't prophesize his erection while masturbating. You can't know the end. Nobody can.

G: What if I hung myself? Would I not be able to will the end?

A: No, you could will your own end, but not the end. The world will go on without you or without me.

G: What if I were to take a whole lot of you with me?

A: The world would still go on.

G: What if I were to wipe out everything, every living thing?

A: Man's destruction cannot be total, even if he likes to think he has that power. The world would recover and go on.

G: But in what sense would there be a world without man to confirm that it exists?

A: On the other hand, what is man without his being in the world?

G: Nothing, I guess.

Hamstrung

Hamstrung, testing, testing,
one, two, three,
thunderbolt,
doubled in succession;
why, why, why,
isn't thunder just flatulence?

Hamstrung, whimper and cry,
where, where, where,
is all the time?
Blue and green,
dribbling, dripping,
and expiring;
never to be seen.

Hamstrung, tender snore;
tardy, tardy, forevermore,
what, what, what,
will come of the day,
not yet imagined,
in an image-Way.

Hamstrung, tried and true;
heads roll and stain the streets,
red, white, and blue,
the king's head on a pike,
the emperor's in the nude,
so who, who, who,
is next in line;
for throne and gallows,
is mere difference in kind.

Locked on repeat

Locked on repeat,
the seconds, the minutes,
the hours, the days,
and on, and on,
the weeks, the months,
the years, the decades,
and on, and on,
centuries and epochs,
and on,
and on,
and on,
strains along,
ending at the beginning;
the absurd category,
of the formless,
elusive, ether-like, substance of life,
known as time.

Dream machines,
conceal the nightmares,
of time out of joint;
straining to inspire, to bemuse,
to arouse and abuse,
the disenchanted and bored;
happy to pass time,
and wait for the end.

Melodies spin hypnosis,
to a familiar beat -
chewing bubblegummed synapses,
on the elevator,
in the mall,
and on the street.
You know,
it's still on repeat.
Out of element, out of place,
skip,
shuffle,
switch,
repeat.

Come here,
and touch the sky,
go on and plummet,
plunge, freefall, and spiral,
towards great heights.


Study the text,
register the surface,
for the title says all,
and the pages say nothing.

The Word unquestioned,
remains absolute;
peddling facility,
posing as redemption -
for the one and only.

Hope is the dawg,
who gets into heaven anyways.

The doomed believer,
soaked in saccharine,
clutches onto dogma,
and searches skyward,
for the Fatherly corpse -
beset by rigormortis.

Still it is nothing,
if not everything,
for what possibilities lie Beyond?

Possibilities, possibilities,
infinitismal in hand;
yet abysmally incomplete.

Time is not paused,
it passes and returns,
here and again.

Locked on repeat,
sputtering along,
yearning for end;
only to begin again,
to unconscious return,
onwards anew;
a virgin instant restored?

Restless

Restless in a constant way,
occupied with boundless thoughts,
about what was,
about what might be,
and about time --
where did it go,
what does it do?

Time has passed,
or was squandered?
Does it hang above all,
beyond reach and comprehension,
fated to crush us into submission?
If this is true,
then inevitablity will scar me,
branding my flesh:
doomed.

Pathetic resignation leads to the pit;
just you and me,
the dark lord,
and your saviour
- with no way out,
unsure of why we are there.
Yet the admonishments continue:
"Time is at an end;
accept eternity or be banished."

With refusal comes tribulation;
adversity presses against me,
against you,
against you and I?
You and I,
together in the world of the inane,
forever confronted by the absurd.

Soon, we realize that time has no destiny,
for there is no abysmal fate;
because it is nothing
without presence,
here and now.

Look up and listen,
what do you hear?
Silence, boundless silence.
No sacred words,
or edicts from on high,
still just you and I.

Between you and I --
silence mustn't rule.

Restless in a boundless way,
with constant thoughts,
about what was,
about what will be,
and about now --
what shall be done,
in response to here and now,
in response to an incommensurable present?

Let go

Let go. You have to let go.
Holding on compounds pain.
Holding on compounds frustration.
Let go. You must let go.
Lingering stagnation.
Lingering on will destroy you.
Let go. You can let go.
Sentiment is irrelevant,
attachment futile.
Let go. You have to let go.

Sweet paradise?

Trapped for escape,
it bursts through the crust.

What emerges?

A dark pus,
tasting ever so sweet.

Tasty?
Then do continue to lap it up.

What is seen now?

The bright...brightest of light...
illumination upon illumination;
blinding iridescence calling to unbearable rapture.

Yes, soon it will cease to matter,
whether it is nothing
or everything!

Lap it up, the voluminous treat
- continue as you are.

What do you feel?

A comforting rage against this bile;
I have consented to...servitude.

Yes,
ecstatic servtiude gives birth,
embrace rebirth,
embrace the poison.


No! No! I see through now;
it gives birth to the Reaper...
as saccharine seductress.




There is no use in resisting;
want is now need,
triumphant atop your crumbled will.

Is there no escape?

None at all.
The poison is within you
you will succumb;
your fate is sealed.





I will fight even an ill-fated fight;
for no demise is worse than one suffered on my knees.

It circulates even now,
and it was you,
you who ingested it,
allowing it to flow so freely within.

Don't you feel guilt?
This is the fate you have chosen.
To fight now is foolish;
a foolish fight against oneself.









I see clearly now.
The poison has no affect.
It is nothing
- mere illusion.

I fight not for purity,
not for myself,
not for the eternal.
I fight on,
I must fight on,
because I still am,
here and now,
naked and flawed;
in no need of vestment,
in no need of nectar,
and in no need for paradise
- vacuous and hollow.

Doom is assured,
for the one who submits;
I refuse.

Rasputin

A passing observer would have seen him fidgeting with the cutlery and condiments on his table. But it was far from fidgeting. It was routine, the product of discipline and righteous repetition. When he was seated, the waitress casually plopped down the items onto the table - in a carefree manner consistent with lunch hour service. While she thought nothing of it, heading quickly to the next table, he was instantly preoccupied with ordering the table setting. Everything had to be just right. He arranged and re-arranged the cutlery, salt and pepper shakers, and ketchup bottle. This continued for some time until he found equilibrium.

“What’s that you are having?” he asked a patron seated at an adjacent table.

“Chicken-and-something linguini.”

“Looks good,” he opened up the menu in search of chicken-and-something linguini. His search for the menu item mirrored the meticulousness he invested in the table setting. His fellow patron, hoping to be of some assistance, directed him to the pasta section of the menu.

“Oh, roasted garlic and chicken linguini.”

“Yes.”

“It does looks good, but I think I’m going with the clam linguini. I like seafood.” His fellow lunch patron nodded in agreement as he finished chewing his pasta.

“If you like seafood, then this is definitely your town.”

“Yes, it is. This is quite the change for me. At my last locale, seafood was a rarity.”

“Where was that?”

“Vienna.”

“Oh, I see. What were you doing in Vienna?”

“I lived in a monastery. I was studying to become a monk.”

“Like Rasputin?”

"Yes and No. Yes, a monk. No, not Rasputin."

"I suppose no one would want to be known as a mad monk."

"I suppose not," he replied while signalling to the waitress that he was ready to register his order. His fellow patron returned to his roasted garlic and chicken pasta dish.

"So you ready to order?"

"Yes, I would like to order the clam linguini."

"Okay, the clam linguini then."

"Oh, does it have parmesan in it?"

"Yeah, I think it does."

"Oh, parmesan is terrible in seafood dishes. Could you please hold the parmesan?"

"Can do." But as she was turning to place the order, he once again interjected.

"You use nothing but fresh clams, right?"

"That is what it says on the menu."

"Ah, yes. But I have been mislead by such claims before."

The waitress paused for a second. She restrained herself, not wanting to come across as being brusk. The bluster of the lunch rush made picky customers the bane of her existence. Valuing her tips, she often employed some finesse in dealing with such customers. He was no exception. She swooped her ample chest to eye-level and assured him that everything, at least at this eatery, was on the up and up.

"Darling, the only way to get clams fresher than these would be to grab them straight out of the sea. Now you wouldn't want little old me to go to those lengths, would ya? So can I go put in the order, sans the parmesan naturally?"

Not knowing what to do with display, he nodded sheepishly, ostensibly confirming the food order. The waitress walked away, contented with a job well done. He turned his head ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of her haughty backside. A smirk emerged on his face, only to vanish just as quickly - displaced by his usually disciplined and stoic visage. He again rearranged the items on his table, sensing that its equilibrum had been disturbed. His fellow patron, however, chose to interject once again and reinitiated conversation, now without the distraction of a meal.

"So what motivated you to become a monk?"

"Verticality."

"What do you mean?"

"The modern world lacks the quality of verticality. It is quite unbearable."

His fellow patron, briefly taken aback by the trite, yet cryptic, response, paused to contemplate what was said. He partly understood what verticality meant. Nevertheless, he found the sentiment somewhat repugnant.

"I don't think an egalitarian society is unbearable at all," he replied. "It is the best possible alternative to tyranny and repression."

"Oh, you are confusing the two. The modern world does indeed lack the quality of verticality. That does not mean it is necessarily egalitarian."

Upon hearing a repeat utterance of that contention, he realized that he left it unchallenged, tacitly accepting it as if it was fact. But, he thought, it was not fact. Verticality? Was not the modern world nothing but a story about class and class struggle, of the haves and the have-nots?

"I don't agree with that contention. The modern world does not lack the quality of verticality. Without verticality, there is no modern world," he said, attempting a bold flourish despite unsure of what verticality meant.

"How so?"

"Well, the world is full of inequality. The gap between rich and poor is increasing every year. Millions are on the verge of starvation, while others live beyond excess. The hierarchies are still present, but they take on different forms."

"So you are saying that hierarchy is equivalent to verticality?"

"Well," he paused to rethink his approach, aware that he was now trapped in the vice of Socratic inquiry, "hierarchy is a structure of status decided on the basis of wealth, therefore on the basis of power. Verticality..." It was clear that he was at a lost what the word meant or entailed.

"What do you really mean by verticality?" he asked, finally giving up trying to fake it. The answer he received was decisive - a finger pointed skyward.

Endgame

Secret suffering and bountiful illusion,
Life is but a game?
Love is only a game?
Win or lose, victory or defeat,
is there no other way?

Follow the rules,
bend the rules,
break them to procure victory.
Appearances must be maintained,
to conceal what cannot,
and must not be known.
Win or lose, life or death,
With us,
play on.
Against us,
game over.

Poison flows undetected,
enchanting and enrapturing;
Death approaches with stealth.
You will not know,
when it has arrived...
endgame.

Secret suffering and bountiful illusion,
life is just a game,
played alone on a darkened pitch.
Surrender or defeat, capitulation or coercion;
there is no other way...

Bloodthirst

Empty and formless;
man rises from his solitude,
Massacre spells his doom,
Back into the abyss, emerging once again,
To kill without limit, with an unquenchable thirst,
For blood and gore is mere illusion,
In the self, there is only One.

One must survive,
Beesch the grace of the divine;
power most demonic,
“The killer in you is the killer in me”,
J’accuse, twin progeny bathed in blood.

Departure

The morning was at end. He awoke and never awoke again. Looking within, he was witness to his demise. Lying limp and prostrate, he was entrapped. The body was gone despite lingering thoughts.

He looked up and found no response. He looked below and was met with silence. The serenity of nothing was his sole companion.

It was some time before the body was discovered. Its stench grew potent, making vistors recoil in disgust. The usual poking and prodding was no longer invasive. These examinations appeared to him as redundant, done solely to satiate morbid curiousities. At the morgue, he was once again with nothingness.

They dressed up the cadaver for its ceremony. It was an outfit, he mused, that - if he was still kicking - wouldn't be caught dead in. The formal wear was part of the proper formalities. One by one, they took the podium to eulogize the corpse. They spoke words expected to be uttered at such an event. Tears flowed with free formality. Disagreements and conflicts were repressed under the weight of apparent grief. While they spoke about potential, promise, and of what might have been, he saw it as subterfuge. The rhetoric cloaked their collective disappointment - concealing whispers of gossip bubbling below appearances.

Soon the ceremony was over. And one by one, they passed by the pine box a final time. They closed the lid, lowered him into the ground, filled the hole, and thought nothing more of it. Lying in his resting place, he stared at the darkness - once again left to his thoughts. Alone at last. To contemplate for all time...only him and the maggots.

They gnawed away. The body erroded, until it was no more. He was returned to the earth and began anew.

Gone

The images seduced him, lulling him into a soft, comforting complacency. The images were far too real to him. All too real to go beyond, and all too real to ignore. His mind soon was overwhelmed by simplicity.

"I will never learn," he confessed. He wouldn't. Days passed into months into years while his stasis remained mired in self-delusion. Delayed action was his modus operandi. He waited and waited for the perfect moment, until even the occasion, the opportunity, came and went. When he wanted to go, to get out of illusion and encounter someone, something, he was unable to. Paralysis became his condition. Passion was snuffed out. Regret was all that remained.

Regret, his fated foe, came to being at the very beginning of the illusion. He was lost once he had succumbed. Self-flagellation and retroactive rationality obscured his ability and will. With no will to act, to become, or to change, he lost the will to live. He remained as he was until he was gone.

Officialdom

Look! In there lies the realm of officialdom. It is a world of litigants, payees, creditors, debtors, complaints, paper, plastic, black and red.

Where the fuck will you hide?

Paperwork, paperwork, you ain’t nothing without your paperwork. Stamp, you exist. Bang, you don’t.

The individual is paramount and useless.

Sign this and that…and that, through the shredder it goes. That isn’t the proper signature. That is not how you should sign it, illegitimate otherwise. Forgeries, frauds, nothing but threats abound. What are you? What am I?

A maze

Running around, he was frantic about what may lie around the corner. He hurtled through the maze, unsure why he was running the course. “Can’t stop”, he told himself. “You can’t stop”, the voice from above or was it from below? echoed through his head. This is what progress is, he thought. Move constantly. Exertion and effort was going to be rewarded. The efficiency of perpetual motion demands a disregard of human limits. So he ran endlessly until he fell, finally dead from exhaustion, finding himself in front of a slightly opened door labeled “Freedom”. With the last of his energy, he crawls through doorway. Infinite darkness surrounded him. “Ah, sweet freedom, I prostrate myself before you.” Having followed the arduous path, there was no return; he stepped off the narrow ridge between infinite and void.

Enter my friend...

Enter my friend…

Where am I?

You are with yourself.

In isolation?

No, the individual is never merely one.

Am I fractured?

Has my poor fragile mind succumbed?

No, you are quite well. All too well, some would say.

Too healthy?

Yes, far too healthy.

A mind too pure - free of perversion and depravity - is miserably robust.

But…but…?

Living as the purest of the pure was utterly futile, because here you are on the verge…

Curse it all!

Yes, you learn well, albeit tragically tardy. Lessons of life come in hindsight, do they not?

Blasted jester! Quit your tricks!

Passion, do you not enjoy it? Anger, do you not enjoy the release? Do you not like freedom?

Where is…?

Paradise? The paradise promised to you was nothing but illusion. There is no such place. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…was this not what you were told? But paradise is benign, a nauseatingly innocuous place. It lulls the most vigorous into tranquil passivity.

Trickster, your contradiction betrays your dishonesty!

Contradiction, my friend, is certainly not the same as dishonesty. The promise of eternity is the highest artifice of duplicity.

Your tricks are useless…

My friend, you are in no position to go on as you do. Here, look down. This is your fate.

There is nothing but darkness…abject darkness. It is an abyss.

Come on my friend, do not slander the darkness with that word.

Abyss?

Yes, yes, that horrid word, the work of mongoloids. For what is light without darkness, or darkness without light?

But it is an abyss. There is no other way to describe it.

How can you know while standing up here? How can you judge without first exploring it?

But there is no return.

That is what you would like to think. It justifies cowardice. For what will you return to? The banal. The benign. The repetition?

Try as you might, you cannot push me into the depths.

You are right. Only you can decide.

I refuse to succumb. I refuse the plunge. I want to live.

Prudent choice, my friend. Until next time…