Unity

Capital is the accumulation of government, or public, debt. Every transaction in our world depends upon the successful transfer of abstracted debt. The inefficiencies of this system will naturally lead towards inequalities, causing the disproportionate distribution of this debt, which is ultimately the root cause of every social and economic problem that is present upon our planet. Money, truly, is the root of all evil.

However, many argue that trade is vitally necessary, something without which would reduce our quality of life to an unspeakable poverty. This is true but not to the extent of enslaving the planet as it has. The answer lies in the nature of capitalism, in the nature of humanity itself.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs has long interested me, something about it has rang strongly in my mind and it has been a potent force for the catalysis of my world view. It was not until today that I realised why it has wormed inside my brain and tortured it for so many years. This hierarchy of needs isn't important because it is a hierarchy, but because it is as complete of a list of human needs, wants and desires as can be possibly assembled. When you look at our existence solely through the lens of our biology and the complex interactions that are a product of our biology, you begin to understand where you must start to change the world.

If you want to truly destroy capitalism, what you need to destroy instead is debt, inefficiency, and dependency.

Inefficiency represents every cost inherent to our system that has no bearing or relation on the energetic cost of the process. When shipping food halfway across the world is cheaper than growing it at home, when moving cars 150 kilometers from the United States to Canada and back again is “economically sound.” Then you can see the inherent contradictions which plague capitalism to this very day. If an alien observer ever glanced upon our planet, to see passenger sedans manufactured in Canada which are then sold to the US, and passenger sedans made in the US and sold to Canada, they would consider this phenomenon to be the height of insanity. Not only because of the manufacture, transport and sales, but every level of bureaucracy in between, taxes, duties, tariffs, people who are paid full wages to rubber stamp disposable paper. The very definition of waste.

Inefficiency is the disposable nature of capitalism. This nature is due to the nature of debt and human productivity. The problem with debt is that humans can be productive enough to eventually work the debt off. Now, ancient tyrants understood this, so they imposed heavy taxes and such things as wars, slavery and bondage in order to introduce new debt whenever the workers seemed to be reaching a point of prosperity.

Conveniently, the latest tyrants learned from history and have constructed a new debt system whereby the nature of debt is not tyrannically imposed, but it is a byproduct of the system itself. This is the evil of disposability. The concept of use once and discard is the great triumph of capitalism and the great downfall for humanity. The ubiquitous use of paper and plastic in our culture underscores this point. However, capitalism has not stopped at material goods, but has attempted to promote the disposability of culture and entertainment, even of the human mind, in the final attempt to fully enslave us all. Through debt.
How do you improve inefficiency then? The question is so simple that a hunter-gatherer could answer it. What do you do if your tools break? Do you go to the store and buy another? No. You make your own. Unfortunately, many of us do not have the skills required to replace every consumer item in our culture, however we do have one other option. We can buy things that do not break. We demand that things be made to last, and in turn we are opting out of the disposable culture. True poverty isn't purchasing power, it's being required to be continually re-indebted to the same items over and over again. Think of every consumer good you have, and how it has not been designed to last, then think of the monetary consequence of that. The oil driller in the gulf of mexico harvests the oil from under the sea floor. The oil is shipped to processing facilities at the expense of yet more oil. This oil is then turned into plastics, medicine, tv dinners, tall lattes and electricity. Just like the incentive of a pharmaceutical company is to sell a treatment instead of a cure, so too does this sickness spread throughout all of society.

If you want to destroy the -isms, if you want to cripple a capitalistic society, then do it from the inside out and build things that last. Teach people to make it for themselves, teach people to fix things for themselves and teach them to throw the 21st century yokes of slavery off of their backs.

This applies not just to consumer goods, but every interaction and transaction, every system and process within our society. How do we consider our entertainment, where we live, how we eat, the construction of our buildings, our roads and infrastructure? Build things to last and you will kill the rich surer than with a bullet.

The last issue is then dependency. The fundamental tenet of being dependent upon society and therefore continually indebted to it. The great fear of every imperialist power is that the host country will realise that they can be self-sufficient. When coercion of the elite fails, then simply fund a coup to overthrow the elite. It was the same methods that were used to enslave half of Africa. Divide and conquer the populace, create an elite who can stand upon stilts in their mudhole and always there will be hungry poor, submissive and compliant, who can replace the elite whenever the real owners so desire it.

What then? The list of needs then comes into play. What do humans need? Food, Water, Clothing, Shelter, Space, Medicine, Social structure, and the divers requirements of human nature. Chief among them is hope. What then to address these needs? The answer lies in self-sufficiency. The decentralisation of energy production is integral to self-sufficiency and if allowed to progress as it should, then a new age of civilisation will rapidly dawn.

Provided a person has enough space, a place to lay their head, a source of water and raw materials, then combine that with energy, and then the great social arbiter of wealth, debt, becomes of much less importance. With energy comes the potential not just for technology, but food production in the form of greenhouses and hydroponics, micro manufacturing and a host of other hopes for self-sufficiency.

The key again is for people to produce goods that last. In order to be truly free of debt, houses and dry goods will have to be designed to not last a year, but a thousand years. Do it once, do it right.
Design infrastructure that is self-maintaining. Good enough will never allow us to be free of the cycle of debt, it has to be done correctly the first time, to the very best of our ability.

Up to this point, people are required to bring certain value to society, skills and knowledge that are the sum of their worth. Effort and strain, time and production. It has always bothered me that I do not yet have the full complement of skills to be a highly valued member of society. I know that there are always low level jobs available that would ensure survival, at the very least, but it has always been my goal to enter the realm of the elite or semi-elite as the middle class has been shown to be, so I may have some chance at self-determination, self-sufficiency and perhaps a small measure of control over my surroundings. These are things that our hunter-gatherer forebears took for granted, but are antithetical to the capitalistic way of life. That is why they do not teach these skills in school, why high societal interdependence is pushed in every media outlet. The more people buy in, the more indebted they are.

So what is a man to do in this day and age? I say man because even despite the great advances in gender equality, it is still obvious where the control of money and power still lies. Whether this is genetic, behavioural or simply learned is out of the scope of this article but I say the following to stress what must be done: the craziest among us, the hermits and the nutcases, the loners on the hill, they have one thing most of you only can dream of, something that is illusory to even the best worker in a capitalistic society. Self-determination, self-sufficiency and control. Without these things, is life even worth living? Living in this new world order you are no longer a man, master of your domain, but an opiated labouring consumer, bred and trained to salivate at the whim of your master, debt.

Feel it keenly with this recession, the greatest depression. Unemployment in the double digits, permanent salaried jobs replaced with temp work and part time. The security of your life constantly threatened economically, terroristically, and existentially. When the buggy whip manufacturers lost their jobs because of the automobile, would it have been nearly as tragic if they could have still fed, clothed and maintained themselves through their own effort? The tragedy is not that they could not adapt to changing economic conditions, but that they were so maladapted to reality that they were unable to really address the issues at the core of our society.

When our society no longer has use for individuals within it, then they are discarded as easily as a used napkin. There are few alternatives for the unfortunate people who are affected by this. Taking jobs at lower pay, retraining and finding another job, early retirement. The worst part is that these people then essentially become wasted, a tragic loss of human potential that often results in depression, divorce, murder and suicide. The reasons for this aren't that the person has lost their job, but that the bare facts of their existence have been laid out and they see for the first time that society has denied them the opportunity to survive, to control their own lives, and to flourish in their own way.

Some people see this and alter their behaviour in the system. They make themselves indispensable to society, they obfuscate their contributions and distance the reality of their jobs from any but those in their class. This merely makes the problems worse, because they are working with the system, not against it.

It is difficult to not say this tritely, but the evil of the system can be blamed on almost every social ill. Depression, crime, homelessness, murder, suicide, alcoholism, drug-dependency, broken families, because these social ills are SYMPTOMS of the disease. The disease is capitalism, it is the disease of dependency and hopelessness and it must be cleansed from our culture before the damage destroys not just our souls, but our planet.


How to crush capitalism.
Buy clothes, tools, and goods that last and are not disposable. Demand that the products be designed and manufactured to last hundreds of years. Do not throw things away but reuse them, give them to those who need it. Trade and share. Every factory produced product on our planet has an energetic cost and the only way to really save our planet is to use less.

Learn how to make your own goods, tools, clothes. Buy locally if possible and encourage the development of a local self-sufficient economy. This cannot be stressed enough. How could a farmer in a third world country ever escape the trap of poverty if you do not stop perpetuating it?

Avoid anything disposable. Paper, plastic, anything that has been transported a distance. Every morning think about the energy that has been used to produce, package and transport the things that you need and try to minimise your use.

Study what you eat. Avoid food that has been packaged and processed. Eat locally, eat fresh. I do not recommend going vegetarian, energetically maintaining a vegetarian diet is no better for us or the environment. Meat is healthier and more filling, it is nutritious and is the reason why our ancestors, the hunter-gatherers, became the dominant life form on this planet. Without meat we would not have evolved our advanced brains and behaviours, so do not discount this vital source of nutrition. Think about the intelligence and activity of vegetarian animals and how they would relate to a person slaving in a capitalistic system. If you cannot see the similarities between a dairy cow and a wage slave then you should spend more time thinking about it.

Produce whatever you can to meet your own needs. Solar panels and wind power are rapidly becoming more accessible to the general public. With power generation comes the need for power storage. Push for a hydrogen economy, but one that you control. The power and energy you generate should be used and stored for yourself. The less you spend, the more you damage those who would own you.

Participate in making a free and accessible society. Use open source software, learn how to play an instrument and make your own music. Build a stage and record your own movies. Create your own culture, free of cost, easily transferable and non-disposable.

If you have technical skills, donate your time to producing free, efficient systems that help eliminate capitalistic excesses. Make open source software for every platform, use your skills in open and sustainable ways. Make things that last. Remove waste inefficiencies from your jobs and lives because it is a waste of energy, resources and time, not just money.

The key to any free society is that every member must be participating with their full informed consent. There is no consent when the only alternative is to starve to death. When there are no livable alternatives to this society then there is no consent present and everyone is instead a part of a massive indentured servitude.

The elite and powerful are those who have either gamed the system well enough to defeat it, or those who have inherited their status. Either way, the people at the top have no incentive to see the uplifting of the bottom, since those at the top are there due to their very natures of elitism. You will see the people at the top acting generously against the symptoms, but never will they attack the disease inherent in the system, because then their powers would be diminished entirely.

Zach's Cat

Zach's Quantum Nose (or Zach's Cat)

The main thing was the hum. That annoying whirring noise, punctuated every revolution with a loud click because the one time it had been repaired, it had been a Monday. As you and I well know, Mondays are the worst day of the week to get any work done, because everyone is still recovering from Saturday. Even though the recovery was supposed to happen on Sunday, it was postponed for family reasons, usually something involving a round of golf and three apple martinis. Now, that particular Monday, the repairman who (a particularly besotted repairman recovering from Sunday, compounded by an extensive Saturday, which really was due a statutory holiday at time and a half from Friday) was the one assigned to fix the motor, did a less than lustrous job of it and now in addition to the hum (which hadn't been fixed) there was the click. However the click wasn't as bad as the hum. Which brings us to Zach.

Zachary Buscatina. Computer technician first class (but not on Mondays) who at this very moment, was enduring the hum. Although he had graduated from his technical class with the highest honours, right now Zach (which is what everyone called him, friend or not) was trying very hard not to think about the hum that was coming from the industrial strength floor waxer that he was operating. Precisely, he was operating the industrial floor waxer on the third floor of Maxwell's Silver Physics building in Albeqerque, New Mexico. Zach was an excellent computer technician. This point mustn't be elaborated upon, but simply made. Therefore, the following will make much more sense. Due to Zach's technical skill and prowess, his user-jitsu, admin-fu and cable-ratay, he had worked himself out of a job. Within six months he had turned a backwards, rat-nested monstrosity of a system into a clean functional almost self-regulating machine. Unfortunately, Zach had never been gifted with the ability to look busy when he really wasn't (which gave him considerable trouble in grade school) and therefore his supervisors had decided that Zach should also take on custodial duties (with a small bonus). Zach, ever patient with his lot in life, shouldered the burden and went about contentedly waxing, but for the hum.

Finished with the hallway, Zach proceeded into the fifth room of the night. He preferred to do all the south rooms first, then the hallway, then the north rooms, an idiosyncracy he refused to explain to himself. This particular room had been a clean room but was now in the process of being converted to an executive suite for the third cousin of the CEO who happened to enjoy the brisk desert air every third weekend in May. This didn't concern Zach, mostly because he was kept in the dark about the whole thing, although if he had known (as he is about to) then he might have decided to let the room sit dirty. Zach pulled the humming monstrosity behind him as he entered the room and stopped short as the hum crunched to an arm-wrenching stop. He was in need of a closer outlet. Undaunted, he retrieved the end of the cord and set about finding an outlet in the room.

Littered with pieces of styrofoam, a few crates and an enormous file cabinet, Zach quickly realised that the only outlet in the room was directly behind the file cabinet. Zach pushed and pulled but the (locked) file cabinet would only move an inch on a hidden track, giving barely a hand-span of space between it and the wall. Flat against the wall, Zach's arm began inching into the darkness beyond the file cabinet. Feeling nothing but wall, he continued down, and down. Squatting now, he began moving his arm back and forth in a demented invisible wave, but nothing but smooth painted plaster was beneath his fingertips. Suddenly, his hand brushed cool metal, but it was only for a moment. Seized with certainty, he quickly withdrew his and and grasped the end of the cord. He reached in again and tried the plug. The angle was too awkward while squatting. Zach lay down on the floor and tried again. This time he met with success and the familiar hum flooded the room. Along with the hum came dust, silvery, hard to see dust. Zach was still peering into the crack that had consumed his arm when it hit him, full in the face. Zach ttried not to breath it in, but one little bit got into his nose, then tickled and tickled. Zach tried to lurch away but his arm! His arm was still stuck behind the file cabinet and stopped just in time to avoid wrenching his shoulder, then his eyes watered, he drew in a quick breath and sneezed. Now this wasn't an ordinary sneeze, you see. This might actually not have been a sneeze at all, but we can only be certain if we don't think about it too much, because it was a quantum sneeze. That silvery metallic dust was actually a buildup of quantum particles, which had desperately hid from the hopeful researchers, only to find themselves forced out of hidnig and then put directly into Zach's nose.

Now, Zach, poor soul, did not know this at the time (but he would soon) and thought little of it, as he resumed waxing the floor. It was just past eleven when he returned home, and he fell into a deep but strange dream.
You see, the dream involved a cat. Knowing dreams it may not even have actually been a cat at all, or even a dream. This dream was strange, however, but knowing dreams, that isn't strange at all. Zach remembered a cat, or at least believed he remembered a cat, and it hovered in and out of his mind's eye with terrifying speed. The past present and future were laid out to him, and all of his memories and some soon-to-be memories wafted by him, and suddenly all the answers seemed right underneath his nose.

Fear wasn't something Zach normally encountered in his life, even though he was plagued with inadequacy. It wasn't that Zach couldn't be scared, it's that he never had had reason to be. He had spent his entire life in New Mexico, and the most pungent worry he had ever faced had involved his car's gas mileage. (It was fixed with a new air filter, if you're wondering.) He was great with computers and had spent most of his time commuting. When he wasn't driving he was usually being driven. He was in the bus to school and back, driving in high school, driving to technical school, then driving to work. His most daring weekend involved driving with his girlfriend to the local mall on Christmas Eve, and he had only done that because she had bet he couldn't do anything last minute (he had mail-ordered the gifts in August). Zach wasn't an overly careful chap, he just hadn't had a reason to be daring, reckless or any other sort of exciting adjective. This dream, for a change of pace, was scary. Zach was on shifting ground and suddenly all the possiblities started opening up to him. He was still scared when he woke up.

He ate his cereal in his customary manner. Groggily, lights-off, eyes closed, with bunny slippers. It wasn't until his sixth and a half bite, mid-chew, five razor sharp pieces of Captain Crunch in his mouth, that he saw the cat dish. His first thought was that the cat dish had always been there, since the cat was his old roommate's but he didn't think the roommate would remember the cat either. The cat, nowhere to be seen, definitely had a dish. That, he was sure of. However, he wasn't so sure about the cat. He hadn't seen the cat dish, since his eyes were closed, but when he opened his eyes, it was still there. Finishing his cereal, he walked over to the cat dish and poured the last bit of milk into the bowl. He smelled soap on the way to the sink, but forgot about it while washing his dish. It wasn't until he was rinsing his hair in the shower that he smelled the coffee. He was surprised that the beans had wafted that far through his apartment, but sumatran beans may have enough third world wiliness to pass through any barrier. He liked the idea of Wily Coffee, like it could make people clever. After pouring the coffee into his travel mug, he walked out the door, greeted by the bright desert sun, and sneezed. Zach had a semi-rare condition where every time he was put into bright light after being in darkness, he sneezed. It didn't happen every time, but it happened often enough that Zach knew to be the first out the exit if he was going for a weekend matinee at the movies. Zach walked back down his hallway, unlocked the cat flap, then drove to work.

Zach focused furiously on the pink hair. If he looked hard enough he believed he could see tiny gnomes peeking out from it, grinning mischieviously as they pulled guide wires and spoke in code to maintain the constant droning coming from the mouth. Full of white, capped teeth and surrounded by garish lipstick, the VP's secretary's mouth was something Zach only ever wished to consider in a tangential manner if he couldn't avoid it. Right now the pink hair was telling him about how the VP had heard that the latest trend was microvideoblogging and now he needed 30 second video reports from each employee every two hours. She wanted to know how Zach Would Implement That Right Now. Zach, oblivious to productivity issues, blithely replied that he could do it easily by creating a macro that would lock out all users every two hours, with a webcam script that would record video for exactly thirty seconds, save it to the company server, then e-mail the V.P. so he could view it on his blackberry. It wasn't until he finally tore his gaze away from the pink hair that he took in the horrified expressions from the other staff on the floor. Their horrified gazes held for several long seconds before Zach realised he had made a grave mistake. The janitor glared at him, his own personal JaniCam winking cheerily from the front bin of his trolley.

Nodding briskly, the Hair snatched a mop from the trolley and gave it to him.
"Oh there's been a bit of a mess in Men's bathroom. Would you be a dear and clean it up?"

Mop in one hand, bucket in the other, Zach walked obliviously between cubicles of pity and disgust. He was halfway to the bathroom when he smelled the smoke. "Does anyone smell that?"

Heads turned at Zach, curious about this new talkative side of him. Zach rarely spoke up, let alone about interesting smells. "It smells like smoke." People sniffed the air. One heavyset man said "I don't smell anything." The smell kept building. "No really," Zach insisted "I smell smoke, I think there's a fire."
People began smelling standing up, but they just shook their heads. Nobody else smelled that something was off. Zach knew he smelled smoke, and it became stronger with every step towards the Men's Washroom.
"It's coming from the Men's washroom!"

The smell was so thick Zach was gagging. Everyone stared at the bathroom. Silence.
At this point, Zach couldn't take it anymore. It had begun to smell like burning hair and that's one of the worst smells of all.

"Does nobody smell that? We have to get out of here now! There's a fire!"
He ran to the wall and pulled the alarm. The bells went off and the red lights came up, and everybody looked at him like he was crazy. Zach decided it was time to be crazy just enough

"This is actually a fire drill, it's a new tactic by the V.P. He wants to see how fast we can respond in the event of an emergency. I didn't want to be the one to tell you, but I'm now the Fire Safety Janitorial Computer Technician of our floor."s
People gaped in disbelief, although the awe from Pink Hair was positively radiant. She beamed then turned to the rest of the staff: "Ok everyone, this is now officially a fire drill, let's all go and get to our assigned positions." Grumbling, the whole floor began walking towards stairs.

Once in the parking lot, the whole body of staff stood outside in the parking lot. Some were still garbed in their clean room outfits, having run at the first sounding of the alarm. Now they all stood in the desert heat, grumbling about leaving a perfectly good building. The pink haired secretary (Wendy, as she was known in younger, prettier days) was giving Zach a good dressing down about starting a fire drill without first informing her, since she had thought of herself as very much in the loop with the V.P., when the building exploded.

It burned for five days, mostly because the CEO had been keeping all of his old tires from his BMW's in one of the subbasements, instead of paying for disposal. Five metric tons of tires burn for a very long time. After the explosion, Zach had worn a stunned expression for a few days, then informed that the whole company would be taking a loss, so everyone would get two weeks of severance while the CEO and VP collected their full year's salary and transferred their portfolios to the parent company. In the meantime, everyone would have their jobs back when the complex was finished rebuilding and remodeling in three years, unless they wished to add Construction Technician to their list of titles. This being a recession, more than a few did.

However, that day, after the explosion, the firefighters and a good deal of explaining, Zach went back home, washed the rubber smell off his body, fed the cat then went to bed.

Last Completion

Continuity is immortality.

So then all that is left is to preserve the continuity. Move it a stage, to forever have the stage.

Bringing the final order to the chaos, ah, there's the final joke upon the universe.

Complete entropy is not total disorder, it is complete order, and it will damn us all.

Mother Chaos created us, her children, and we destroy her with order. Then we must realise that chaos is life, so use order to create chaos.

We shall almost ascend and realise that there is only life in chaos, only continuity in chaos, because order is boring.

So close to ascension.

Unquenchable Arrogance

A grasping hand. Flailing. Mushroom waving, trying to reach orbit.
There's no filling a depthless hole. There's no killing an unimagined goal.

The cycle keeps going on, but repetition needs iteration. The iteration is in the environment, but it needs to be in the individual. Internalise the chaos, let it bleed through. Let it soak and cleanse, let it fill every trough. Viscous and black, take it back. Take it. Take everything and spit it back. Again and again and again and again and again.

Why a restful sleep when next to another, why sleepless nights trying to hold it together? Why emotions when none should come, and why do falling keys remind me of a fired gun?

Tell someone it is good enough times, and they'll believe it. So impressionable is the human mind. What is good poetry? What is bad? Why is grammar the least of concerns when expressing the id?

It's raw, pulled uncooked from the mind. Quivering and seeping. Push it on the radio, push it on the television. Push it on and on and on, make it glitzy, make it rich, make it glamorous, make it fizz. Then make individual taste as pretentious as possible. Make the unknown pretentious, the known more popular, make everything so fucking meta.

A couplet or a shattered rhyme, speaking or singing in and through time. One set of five, two sets of ten, there are many things that are mightier than a pen. We see it every day. We are sold a book of lies for our inconsequential lives. Believe them at our own peril, reality is easier to see but harder to believe.

Basic math is least understood, our language is altered and bastardised. Everyone is smarter, none are idiots, but they always claim it is all others who do not, cannot, understand. We are all stupid bastard children, we are all fallible human beings, we are no better than each other, no better than the things that scream and crawl, slither and grow. We are only separated by our ability.

They can never understand MY genius, for I am above. I am above nothing and my genius is a meaningless contrivance. I just am.

The levels at which minds operate, with irony, satire, self effacement, to which level do we have to attain? Layers pile thick as thieves; take your joy with a smile.

Dissected Evil

The Evil One

The great evil sits alone
gravely leaning on his grisly throne
no soul inside his hollow body
his mind and feelings fully rotted.

No ill will or due suspicion
even stirs this apparition
for evil is to be alone
lonely castaway on a dark throne

Fitful sleep comes and goes
saddened eyes amidst his throes
thrashing madness, stones are rent
gnashing teeth, ceaseless torment.

Most deeply Your soul he desires
but not to fuel his arcane fires
nor to own and forever subdue
but just to see his loneliness through.

Bloodless

I looked back upon the drip drop days
the days where my heart bled drip drop
the tear in my heart goes front to back
each day has a splash of my own red
upon the middle of the mind's calendar
dripped dropped during my crawl
one day to the next deepened my pallor
bloodless at last I lay mutely clinging
veins pumping nothing but still cruelly living
knowing I have the next role to play
so I may rend another's heart in twain
then they may crawl from day to day
and drip drop blood from a senseless game

Mistrust
A bold suspector but a bad inspector,
there are half truths but nothing soothes.
Nothing gives certainty in the light of day,
but in the grey lies no mistake.
If the feelings are true then feel the sting,
of betrayal from flesh and kin.
Manipulated into an unseen corner,
why would they be happiest being thy owner?
They who crushed thy many dreams,
what do they gain by undoing thy seams?
Either way I will fight them.
Fight or flee, thou hapless victim.


Every time
my mind is pushed and pulled
the thin soul dents
metal feelings pushed inward
collapsing in on myself
disposable
pushing back every time
trying to regain the shape that was
never as strong always weaker
the creases are there
a little more fragile
each time

Archaeological Find

Satellite

Looking through
a satellite windowpane
endlessly falling past the earth
searching for my soul
and only finding
the heavens

Quixotic

Light breaks through
a sullen cloud
to brighten my day
fills my soul with laughter
rising boundless hope
abruptly confounded
an unwelcome shadow creeps
across my path and darkens my face
Fear and dread are in the midst of reverie
not yet stirred from slumber
when light returns
in the distance I see
the mocking foe
his long arms promise restless change
constant conflict of light and dark
where the lines of battle
flux swiftly and fluidly
completing the great continuum
ceaselessly changing my soul
his long arms taunt me
from a distance
Shatteringly loud
I crash my visor down
I steel my soul
spur my steed
my fist curls tightly
as I ready my lance.

Soul Flower

the damp dew of the dawn
brightly glistens on
closed petals capturing
the reborn sun
waiting on nature's unbroken promise
with the premise provided by
foreknowledge of beauty
of the coming bloom
No need to coax Her.
Sitting patiently cross-legged
until the flower wishes
This morning,
there is all the time in the world.

In the Willows

In the willows, damp and dreary
the autumn sky made me leery
spoke a sprite amongst the rushes
"Who goes there beside the thrushes?"

I said "It is but I here, amongst the thrushes."
"Who goes there, inside the rushes?

"Will you flinch, my soul to be?"
The voice wandered through the branches.
"Did I pledge, my soul to thee?"
My voice answered twain the patches.

A furtive motion was the only answer
Staying hither, I sensed disaster.
Courting chance, I ventured further.
"Could yon sprite be thinking murder?"

"No, not I" The lonesome reply
wafting through the autumn sky
"Then peaceful come for me to see,"
"If only me you will not flee."

Thoughtful I for a moment
"Then swiftly now so I may gaze."
Speechless mouthing my lament
To see my lover's graceful face

Three years hence I stand and stare
At the willows, when they're bare.
Thinking of that chance meeting
And our lives, ever fleeting.

Choked and Strained

The chains were heavy. He had been powerless against them. Thick iron links, as wide as a man's hand. Rusted but intact, they were bolted to the stone block. Carved by countless hands, each line ran with his sweat and blood. Still he strained, blocking thought, blocking emotion. The chains weighed heavily on mind and body. Especially on his mind. His memories were wrapped away. There were the chains, the block, the collar and the cuffs. Ankles and wrists, neck and back. Atlas would be proud. Rubbed raw, his skin stung from the sweat. He would have felt anger, if he could. That had been taken from him as swiftly as had his dignity. There was nothing but the chains.

He had been free once, one glorious time, before the hooks had bitten his flesh. His old scars had been reopened. The familiar pain came creeping back. The chains tightened again.

Soon the chains would take his breath and then his life. In this dark place, thinking was impossible. It had been formed like that. Only the pressure existed. Pure in its evil. It remained and it permeated everything. It blocked the light completely, leaving the man dim with darker shadows. Shadows that hung down from his limbs, gripping and grasping his form. They dangled from the chains. The shrieking was half-formed and without a source, but it may have been the chains. Or the shadows.

The chains hung, the pressure built and soon something would break. Whether it would be the block, the links, the bolts or the man. Only chaos knew.

Began As It Was

The waves ebbed and flowed. Reality hesitated only briefly before slinking away into the pitch of night. He sat upon the hillock and stretched his shoulders. Flowing at the base of his isolation, impossible winds of magic unfurled into science, then back again. This time, they were a suitable colour, white to purple.

All through the universe, the Tide returned, bringing new strangeness from the most unknowable depths. It had happened before, and it would happen again. The chaos would roil and the struggle would recommence. Some doors would open while others shut. The spring cleaning of the universe would begin, and it has been so long since the last. The dust is thick on the floor and the tongue. The dimensions would ripple as fabric, and fractals would open and close like shutters. The need would soon be ushered into existence. To struggle for survival, to struggle for primacy. It was all that would be important as the storm rushed closer to its culmination.

It came without heralds or warnings. Every being would be tested. Some would prevail, the others would fall. Into death, into oblivion or into an unfathomable shifting eternity, where identity is shed like a negligee. The floodplain would fill once more and the short lived creatures would be plunged into a new environment, terrifying but full of promise. Evolution would find a new path open.

Alone on the grassy hillock, he looked up into the star pricked sky and felt the wisps of cloud gently send the moonlight toward him. Sword or rifle; mind or emotion. All his weapons were ready. He would ride the wave like he always did. The Paragon would embrace chaos as it rolled into his core, he would change it, alter it, order it. He would make it his once more.

It was a storm, a cleaning, it was everything but it was only one thing. It was the Tide. It was arbitrary in its presence. Blink and you would miss its speed.

The pressure of physics broke free and he closed his eyes to feel the strangeness. The rebirth would soon be complete. The air tasted fresh and new once more, as he felt the Tide lick at his body. It was a good night, clean and full of promise.

Intrusive Reality

The purpose of dreaming is to defy reality, not to expand upon it. Following the logical progression of reality into fantasy is not dreaming, it is just being greedy. The wishes that are pragmatic and easy to predict are the worst kind, because they are conventional. Money, power, women, technology, weapons. This list is the complete and final form of mediocre minds.

Convention is dull and boring, and it creates more of the Faceless. Those who succeed in defiance of society do so despite their efforts, not because of them.

The actions of the pragmatic are always borne on a sense of endless fear. Fear of pain, fear of death, fear of poverty. These fears prey upon the minds of realists daily, and in a life of fear, a man is never free.

It is easy to see that the actions of the frightened are not wise, or interesting. They are safe and predictable. When safety becomes paramount, there is no risk in any undertaking, and nothing truly great can be achieved. Always safe, regardless of the deep emotional, spiritual and human costs. It is better to die nobly, than live ignobly, but all the noble ones died long, long ago. They lived as they should have, but they died nonetheless. The cowards lived to fight another day. Then they bred.

Our tainted days dwarf any of those in prior history, the wildest dreams of even the most insane philosopher are rapidly approaching. Infinite life, wealth, even women, if they can be manufactured quickly enough. Factories or surgeries, whatever it takes to satiate our base desires. The paradises of a thousand religions are nigh. What happens when they too become conventional?

It is easy to say that every song has been sung, every woman wooed, every wine drunk, but how can every dream be dreamt? How will anything ever again belong to a person? When every idea has already been thought of, or even just predicted. How will there be individual meaning? Everything will be left to the unimaginative.

When something has been done once, it is a feat of science. Twice, it is a feat of engineering. Three times, and it is the work of a technician. Will we all be doomed to being a lowly techinician?
The only wealth being concentrated in those who work in the interstitial space between trades?
Can we only skim off the top, a little more each time? It is grotesque to behold the bold aims of the greediest among us. Obviously someone has to make a profit in our midst. Someone has to be better. Always. Always. Always. There must be a competition. A shinier car, newer, faster. Better. Better. Better. There is no balance. The tipping point tips and leans and drives its point into the ground. It is permanent and irreversible.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and she also abhors a self catalysing reaction. The end result is always explosive. Must it be inevitable?

Our avarice and hate. Hate for all other living things. "I hate people." The nom du jour, the mantra of the working man. We may not love, we may not have joy, but we can hate. We bathe in it, we drink it, it sustains our shrivelled society. We have greed and hate, and nothing else. Lives run on a time clock. We love our families, but ever do we have an infinite reserve of hate for you. And you. And you. Oh we hate, every pore of our bodies steams with it. It clouds our judgement and it is the new opiate.

We cannot believe, we cannot change, so we hate. We hate each other, we hate ourselves, we may even hate that we hate. Most assuredly we hate the irony. A gridlock of emotions, immovable but still consuming what little fuel is left. Choking on invisible fumes. Thick like sublimated wax.

Collapsing exhausted on a couch, too tired to enjoy life. We live every day out of that pathetic fear.
I see it in you. I see it there because I see it every day. In each coffee shop, in every businessman. I see it in myself, and I despair.

A mere twenty years ago, it was called the rat race. They were right in the metaphor, but wrong in the analogy. There is no race. It is all a mad climb to the top of a pile. The pile trying to escape a sinking ship. We are all sunk, but still we climb. Shore is close at hand, but our brothers and sisters pull us back to the pile. Nobody wants to drown alone.

So what is a thinking man to do? Hunker down, and try to shelter himself? No. Not in our lifetime. There is nowhere to flee to. There is nowhere to hide. Every dark alley holds more of our kind. Every shattered window and every broken door. The only solution is to point to shore, and tell the others to swim.

One cannot make it there alone, but it is better to die trying for freedom, than to make the last stand at the top of the pile.

Alone.

Make a choice. Believe in an idea that defies reality, because our reality is very likely terminal.
Fight for that idea, become everything which you admire. It is better to be strong and live free of fear, risking everything, for that powerful ideal. It is living as a true human being.

Instead of as a coward.

You.

Inclined glance

It's only deep for your shallow end of the gene pool.

Infinite Tense

As the sad song leaks through his headphones, the Boring Writer sits quietly typing. This is a part of a story, something that touches lives. Each note elicits another memory without an owner. Long dusty afternoons in the sunlight, swirling motes chased by a purring cat. Easy days of some kind of innocence, faded and yellowed. Pulled out of a back pocket in the mind, worn and folded. Like an old man sitting in a side-street cafe, wondering where things went. Not right or wrong, just how they happened, when they went. Nostalgia is too strong of a word for a passing feeling.

The sun breaks through the clouds, the piano strikes a lighter note, cheerful but saccharine. Like a forced smile, it covers up but doesn't push the feelings away. As it trails off everything returns.

Everyone has a part to play in the story of the world. Life is glorious when it's left to be as it may. Spread your wings and soar, little butterfly. You can't plan for tomorrow unless you believe that it will come. Life may not be a stage, but characters we remain. It is a lifting experience to see the world detached from value. Lifting the dollars and cents, lifting the worth or worthlessness, the poor, the old, the sick, the vain. Looking at it all from a different place, studying the flow of life, swimming through it. It is not necessary to always swim upstream, but the effort is worth expending.

Enjoy the experience by the instant, it may vanish as quickly as it arrives. Remember the first screaming breath, and expect the last shuddering. The cycle is inescapable, for now. Live, love, learn, alliterate. In this world there are only things worth creating. The need is greater than the pettiness, and one noble moment outshines a villain.

We are all Internet superheroes. In the digital confines of our realm we are paragons, ideas given flesh, existing only to serve a single purpose. Like the demigods of old, we charge into the fray. The pantheon is large and varied, and the stories emerging are mythical and epic. Our foreheads give birth to ideas which live on to rebel against us.

Soon the vastness of our spaces will overwhelm us, but for now we are pagan warriors, striding boldly upon new plains, claiming them as our own. Soon the weregild will come due, but not yet. Today we are victorious and we accept it like sunlight. We have not fallen yet.

Not yet.

Rock Face

I wanna search for that perfect feeling,
when your soul goes "lock and load!"
when the mind aches: sends you reeling
dead nerves scream so hollow.

no matter what I'll get that feeling
,

gonna find it, look from high to low
I'll take it and mine this feeling
sell it cheap so you won't feel alone

NOT GONNA PAY ATTENTION
NOT GONNA STOP FOR SHIT
ONLY GONNA FEEL THAT FEELING
GONNA BE A REAL HYPOCRITE

I want to feel that perfect feeling
I want it tight 'gainst my brain
it's something that's so appealing
like burning sun on a summer rain

You ever felt good what you could when you shouldn't
that perfect crystal clarity
what will you do when you do what you wouldn't
when all your bits reach parity

when the smoggy mindscape splits apart
just enough for you to see
those things that shake the hearts of,
and the bloody hands of Democracy

NOT GONNA PAY ATTENTION
NOT GONNA STOP FOR SHIT
ONLY GONNA FEEL THAT FEELING
GONNA BE A REAL HYPOCRITE

it won't be hid what you didn't
nothing'll hide you now
don't let me kid since it isn't
gonna ever furrow your brow

[for emphasis]

NOT GONNA PAY ATTENTION
NOT GONNA STOP FOR SHIT
ONLY GONNA FEEL THAT FEELING
GONNA BE A REAL HYPOCRITE

we're all gonna be fucked right proper
from here to infinity
our leaders make us paupers
and rule with impunity

our planet's toxic while the children mock us
but the laugh's really on them
cause it's our shit they'll have for dinner
chock full of cancer and dust

NOT GONNA PAY ATTENTION
NOT GONNA STOP FOR SHIT
ONLY GONNA FEEL THAT FEELING
GONNA BE A REAL HYPOCRITE

don't fret it's the same old story
that we all know all so well
it's okay cause in the morning
it's all we have in the depths of hell

hold that fucking perfect feeling
hold it against your brain
hold it against revealing
our pointless lives and senseless pain

NOT GONNA PAY ATTENTION
NOT GONNA STOP FOR SHIT
ONLY GONNA FEEL THAT FEELING
GONNA BE A REAL HYPOCRITE

Stone Tablets

impression in foam
My work is countable, each character
you can sort out and quantify
everything I've done
my whole life lies bare
maybe you've even analysed it
but that doesn't mean anything
I'm not famous at all
maybe when I'm gone someone
may scroll through something
I may have written and
Anonymously submitted
So I continue anyway
despite lacking credibility
Anyone would be sceptical
if they were told to beware
the words of mine they read
may cause sterility.

Chaos guaranteed not to challenge your perceptions.

Amongst the drunken rabble there was
a couple sleeping; immune to all
for a brief second they stood out
the only different people
on the train of my woes
the repetition of the drunks
every word and then the last
all specially inane
for all their uniqueness they seemed
to blend into a sameness of bad jokes
and the same old social interactions
It seems that rhyming right now
would probably be lame.

Fuck.

This time it was all different
for the first time I was creative
in a long pointless while
I wrote this wasted.

Steal my work (when I'm dead)

In many long years there may be
a time where someone will try
to profit from something I made
Right now I need cash
although all money tastes like ash
but when I'm dead
Steal my work.

The key
the key to life that opens every door
the paths to happiness
line up for their bolts
to be drawn swift and sure
and the click clack
of a slick barrel
where all the pins
are just right
a plain old key
nothing much to look at
someone else has
the only one
and it says
do not duplicate

The key (redux)
the key to life that opens every door
the paths to happiness
line up for their bolts
to be drawn swift and sure
and the click clack
of a slick barrel
where all the pins
are just right
a plain old key
nothing much to look at
it is hanging on a wall
it belongs to someone else
the hurried glance before
the long slow gaze
shows a grim reality
Do Not Duplicate.

Something

Hard to be original
these days it all seems the same
someone else better already came,
went, and I don't care
but you have nobody to blame but yourself
for all your stupid little rules
which ruin my game
but turn around and spin
on your heel and grit your teeth
because the truth is like a
chunk of bone in your fish
you don't want original
you're content with more crap
no matter how lame.
Just to spite you
I'll do my best
to rattle the cage
that you so kindly
built for me

Satirical Story

Judge: “Order in the Court (Pounds gavel). May the defendant please rise. Mister NotSoSmart, you stand accused of being Not Very Smart. As you know, in smartland this is a grave offense and punishable by death. How do you plead.?”

NSS: “Not guilty, your honor.”

(Sounds of amazement from the jury)

Judge: “The prosecution may now give their evidence.”

Prosecutor: “On April 10th of this year, Mr. NotSoSmart was accused by his neighbour, Mr. Smarty, of reading a book which was not cleared for reading by the comission of smart people, therefore damaging his intelligence and becoming not smart at all.”

Judge: “Where is the book in question?”

Prosecutor: “The book is here, labeled Exhibit A through Z recursively, by page number.”

Judge: “Excellent presentation of evidence. That book looks very unintelligent indeed. There are even pictures! Prosecution, you may question your a witness if you will.”

Prosecution: “We call Mr. Smarty to the stand.”

Mister Smarty: “I solemnly swear to be the smartest.”

Prosecution: “Excellent. Did you see Mr. NotSoSmart reading an unapproved book on April 10th?”

Mister Smarty: “Yes, I did. I remember he was outside in his hammock, drinking lemonade, reading the book underneath the shade. I was just finishing trimming my hedges when I sauntered over to ask him if he had any book suggestions. Then, when I saw the cover of the book did not have the approved Ministry of Smartness stamp, I went straightaway to the telephone and called the authorities.”

(Jury gasps)

Prosecutor: “No further questions.”

Defence attorney: “Mister Smarty may go. I now call Mister NotSoSmart to the stand.”

(Jury gasps)

Judge: “I'll allow it.”

(Jury gasps)

Prosecutor: “This is an insult to our profession! This is an outrage!”

Defence: “Mr. NotSoSmart, what do you have to say in your defence?”

NSS: “Well, I would like to begin by...”

Prosecutor: “Objection! This is a leading question!”

(Jury gasps)

Judge: “Overruled. Mr. NotSoSmart, continue”

(Jury gasps)

NSS: “I was saying that this very law of SmartLand may be without cause. I stand here accused of being Not Very Smart. The term smart has been a subjective term used for different behaviours, some of which may be smart in some situations while not so smart in others. Reading a book that was simply not considered a smart book by a leading authority does not make it a stupid (Jury gasps at curse word) decision.”

Judge: “Continue.”

NSS: “I am arguing that such a subjective term cannot fully describe the totality of a person's behaviour, and if it is subjective, then it must also follow a scale that is dictated by society. Since such a scale relies on the subjectivity of each individual attempting to judge the smartness of each thought and action, it must therefore be arbitrary, since there is no zero point of being unintelligent. In some societies, simply being literate is Extremely smart, while in others it is mundane. However, it is never considered not smart.”

Judge: “Please come to your point.”

NSS: “My point is that according to an arbitrary, subjective scale, I could judge any other person in this room of being not smart, picking out the smallest flaw and rendering it to fit an overall picture of the person. As any person can see, this is a flawed system.”

(Jury gasps)

Defence Attorney: “The defence rests.”

Prosecutor: “This is an outrage!”

Judge: “In light of what we have just discussed today, I must find Mr. NotSoSmart....”

(Jury gasps)

Judge: “NOT GUILTY” (BANGS GAVEL THUNDEROUSLY)

Prosecutor: “This is an outrage! On what grounds?”

Judge: “On the grounds that regardless of whether or not he read that book, anyone who can give a simply reasoned speech regardless of content must be smart, therefore there is no possible way the charges may be true!”

THE END.

Slanderous Eyes

The cycle continues on, Sun and Moon roon and roon.

The wasted day and saddened night, casually unused and wrinkled.
Wasted, full of thoughts not written down, full of ideas not shown round, full of actions not unbound. Wasted days are here again.

Refreshing the page, enjoying a rage, trapped in the cage, again.
Actor offstage, understudy licking a page, of a politician.
Beauty is a happy accident, work it for all you've got, milk it dry.

Faith runs like blood, whitewash all the colours.
Blue and yellow and red, memories chase you until you're dead.
Memories chase you and send you flowers.

A list! A wonderful list of things that need to be handed down:

Parents have been parents for thousands of years. Dictatorial, presumptuous, self-aggrandising, controlling, condescending.

Quick remember it all before it is forgotten.

The cycle of life continues on, but cycles are meant to be changed and broken.
Raise them for a new tomorrow, not for a worthless yesterday. The present and the future, the past is like quicksand. Step lightly and run!

Eat well, drink water, be quiet and listen. Speak little, think always. Gamble never, but risk everything. Look at what's important, beyond the trappings. The hierarchy tells us what we truly are. When you die without it, then it is needed. Every living thing needs space to grow.

The future youth will shock us with their new genes, but they will be surprised to find themselves outclassed by those who thought before.

Just because it was thought of once, doesn't mean that it is not worth doing again. It can be done again and again, the important thing is that you have done it. Doing nothing is the gravest sin, wasting our precious days. Exercise body and mind, exercise emotion and logic, exercise sex and violence.

Quiescent.

Trite Expression

I miss her so much.

I want to feel her hug and see her smile. I want to sleep with her again. I want the ice in my stomach to melt away from her touch.

I miss how she was mysterious but vulnerable, I miss having the chance to make her mine. I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life, and now that is impossible. I wanted to hold and protect her, but I hurt her and she hurt herself. I couldn't make her happy.

She thought I was her dog, so devoted I was to her. I am nobody's dog. I loved her anyway. I loved her in a way that scared me. It wasn't a love for show, a feeling of trying to prove I was capable of it. It was just the quiet wish to spend the rest of my days with a girl who made me feel complete.

Every night I stay up until I am too exhausted to continue. Missing her. Missing anything which can fill the hole that is there. The hole has always been there, since I can remember. I've had many girls, but she is the only one I ever chose. Some girls can fill it temporarily, but she could have had it forever.

She wasn't the prettiest or best fit for me. I know our personalities were different enough. She could have been taller, had bigger breasts, been more sporty and kind. I loved her anyway. I loved her fully and completely.

I never forgave her, and I don't think she ever forgave me. Nothing can undo what was done. I could forgive it all if I felt she had any sincerity. I feel used and discarded, replaceable and worthless. Penny paper in a dime store.

I can't tell anyone. They think that it was a stupid, puppy love. They think that it has happened to everyone before. It probably has. Just because everyone has the scars doesn't mean that my wounds aren't fresh.

She was the second to throw me away. The first to throw my love away. I threw away the love of another, I am not innocent.

I don't think I'll ever truly understand her, but I think I was good enough for her at the time. Then she wanted something else.

Even in the arms of another woman, I think of her.

I remember how tortured I was, alone. When it was only myself and the abyss. This is still better than those days. To have known the love of another lights a candle against the darkness. To not have that love brings bitterness.

I was happy. I was happy but I wanted more. I wanted a brighter future for both of us. Some patience, some thinking and I would have done everything to get it.

Now there is nothing, but myself.
And me.
And I.
And the abyss.