So, Bin Laden is dead and...what a surprise, you're all still ridiculous. I was told by a customer yesterday that Obama has refused to release the photos of Bin Laden's corpse. Although, replace the words "Bin Laden's corpse" in that sentence with the word proof. Fucking proof. Well, you know where this is going.
First, I'm not even going to comment on the people who are still, despite the undoubtedly wide-spread readership I enjoy and my uniquely persuasive way of arguing my point, insisting that the War on Terror is, in any way, keeping everyday Americans safely driving their SUVs and owning guns. I'm not going to address that because if I have to explain why American soldiers dying in this conflict is actually a noble sacrifice one more fucking time, I'm going to skin and eat the next person I see drinking Coors Light or driving a pick-up truck. Because fuck you.
Second, why do we need proof? He's fuck-off dead. He's not on trial. The men who killed him aren't on trial. Death, Himself, is not on trial. There is no burden of proof to be had. None. If you don't believe the man has died, call Jesse Ventura. I'm sure he'd be more than happy to blow smoke up your ass in exchange for a bag of crystal meth and a rimjob and permission to use your bat-shit crazy rants on television. You'll be famous among even more pathologically fucked up people. Won't mom be proud?
Third, have we forgotten that Osama Bin Laden, despite being a total dick and all infringing on our Freedoms or whatever, was a human fucking being? Is that something we've decided to collectively block out? How morbid are we that we won't accept the death of a man who, just by the way, was in his gods damned twilight years anyway, without seeing a picture of his corpse on CNN? How is that not evil? He's fucking dead! Look, here's the bullet hole! Look at how his face caved in at the impact! Hurray, America!
Sometimes, I fucking hate people.
We lost our shit when we saw that there was celebration in Gaza right after 9/11. Remember that? We were all ready (and by we, I mean you.) to go on over there and start shoving our boots up more brown people's asses. What kind of effect will it have, not only on extremists and generally shithouse crazy people, but on the rest of the world as a whole if we start showing pictures of a dead guy on television? Who the fuck even takes a picture of a man that's just been shot in the head? What are you, the guitarist from Mayhem? Did they make boneshard necklaces out of his skull too? I'm all for America being more brutal and less utterly devoid of both balls and intellect (I'll settle for balls if I have to pick just one) but fuck me, we can probably find another way. Let's start raping women and crucifying children everytime we invade someone. You know, go back to the classics.
This is, allegedly, some sort of civilized, Christian country where other people are free to worship and do as they please (unless that includes building a church with a funny name near some rubble) and yet we're totally willing to go all medieval and start broadcasting the defiled bodies of our enemies?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not sickened by dead bodies. I think having a picture of a dude with a bullet through the skull is great. I think putting bullets in skulls is great. But there's a line between photographing the guy you just killed and broadcasting that photo on all the major news networks, the internet and out into space for all the universe to see that we're not exactly prepared to cross.
How about we just collectively decide that since he's dead and we're not, our dicks are bigger? Isn't that what is most important here?
One of these days I'm going to get kicked out of the America Club. I'm hard-pressed to say, given the people I've seen admitted, that I'd be heartbroken.
Loathsomely Yours,
-S.R.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
An Old Man
AN OLD MAN ON HIS LOVER
When I became an old man,
I told my sons
Stories of a woman
I loved,
A long, long time.
I told them of her
Skin like untrod snow,
Hot as a blacksmith’s forge
To the touch,
And her crystal eyes
Like deep, placid water.
I told them how those
Eyes burned
When she laughed.
I told my sons,
As they will tell their sons,
Of the bruises that still arise each
Mid-winter, unbidden,
Unseen, unwanted,
Reminders of the time
She went west, toward
Warmer shores,
And I stayed East,
To fight my wars,
And find my fabled
Treasure in the ice.
I cried sometimes,
As I told my sons about this
Love, but I laughed much more often,
And that, too, brought fresh
Tears to spill down my cheeks
The way her lips once did,
With such unabashed
Sweetness.
My voice rose as I spoke,
As if it, too, was caught in the same throes
Of passion
Our young bodies once were,
Writhing together
In what better poets would call
Rhythmic, loving, beautiful
But better men would call
A flailing sort of motion,
Replete with twisted limbs
And throbbing back.
I was more poet than man
In those days.
I told my sons of
Summer spent and winter
Suffered,
Of spring and autumnal
Wishes.
I told them so they
Would feel the way that
All the world must when they
Look upon this love of mine,
The way I feel.
And thought I never told them,
Your name,
My boys are anything but fools.
AN OLD MAN ON HIS LATE WIFE
I am Shamed, my love.
You would deny me my despair
But listen.
Allow an old man his sorrow.
I can already feel the ache in my bones,
The cold seeping in everywhere.
I have long been the enemy of Time.
I’ve searched a thousand worlds
Of elves and dwarves, trolls and gnomes
Of dragons. Always searching
For my Fountain of Youth.
I have not yet decided which side to take.
I am not ready to meet God.
But I have searched in vain
Because you were my Fountain.
You knew which side to choose, found the Paradise
That I had Lost.
I will keep searching.
When I became an old man,
I told my sons
Stories of a woman
I loved,
A long, long time.
I told them of her
Skin like untrod snow,
Hot as a blacksmith’s forge
To the touch,
And her crystal eyes
Like deep, placid water.
I told them how those
Eyes burned
When she laughed.
I told my sons,
As they will tell their sons,
Of the bruises that still arise each
Mid-winter, unbidden,
Unseen, unwanted,
Reminders of the time
She went west, toward
Warmer shores,
And I stayed East,
To fight my wars,
And find my fabled
Treasure in the ice.
I cried sometimes,
As I told my sons about this
Love, but I laughed much more often,
And that, too, brought fresh
Tears to spill down my cheeks
The way her lips once did,
With such unabashed
Sweetness.
My voice rose as I spoke,
As if it, too, was caught in the same throes
Of passion
Our young bodies once were,
Writhing together
In what better poets would call
Rhythmic, loving, beautiful
But better men would call
A flailing sort of motion,
Replete with twisted limbs
And throbbing back.
I was more poet than man
In those days.
I told my sons of
Summer spent and winter
Suffered,
Of spring and autumnal
Wishes.
I told them so they
Would feel the way that
All the world must when they
Look upon this love of mine,
The way I feel.
And thought I never told them,
Your name,
My boys are anything but fools.
AN OLD MAN ON HIS LATE WIFE
I am Shamed, my love.
You would deny me my despair
But listen.
Allow an old man his sorrow.
I can already feel the ache in my bones,
The cold seeping in everywhere.
I have long been the enemy of Time.
I’ve searched a thousand worlds
Of elves and dwarves, trolls and gnomes
Of dragons. Always searching
For my Fountain of Youth.
I have not yet decided which side to take.
I am not ready to meet God.
But I have searched in vain
Because you were my Fountain.
You knew which side to choose, found the Paradise
That I had Lost.
I will keep searching.
Poetic Duality
Vices
I get drunk on long legs,
As smooth as Kentucky moonshine,
And I hang like cigarette smoke
On red lips like sweet Amaretto.
You burn in my throat, in my chest,
Like bourbon,
Smoky and sultry, dizzying
My thoughts and tuning my senses
Like guitar strings.
You are the inspiration
In every fit of drunken laughter,
Every song I ever play,
In the silence and worlds I craft,
You are the summer sunshine,
That kisses my forehead
And the stars that glitter
On the beach at night.
I can’t see you for the haze
Of scotch or mead,
Or wine as golden as
The locks that hide the corners
Of your mouth when you smile,
But I can feel the way your fingers
Fit mine and fill the spaces
Between them,
Like lazy days spent dreaming
Or sunsets,
Where the sky is paved with fire,
And I can drink you down,
In the failing light,
And never, ever, imbibe enough.
Paradise
Come,
Cross this ancient river with me,
And seek the ageless treasure
Beyond.
Oak and maple and golden sun,
The untouched earth
Beckons,
She aches for hands to
Till the virgin soil,
For bare feet to
Race through the emerald grass,
For young lovers to rush,
Naked,
To wash and take their passion
In pristine lakes.
Come,
Hand in hand
Through Eden
Let’s make our solitary way.
I get drunk on long legs,
As smooth as Kentucky moonshine,
And I hang like cigarette smoke
On red lips like sweet Amaretto.
You burn in my throat, in my chest,
Like bourbon,
Smoky and sultry, dizzying
My thoughts and tuning my senses
Like guitar strings.
You are the inspiration
In every fit of drunken laughter,
Every song I ever play,
In the silence and worlds I craft,
You are the summer sunshine,
That kisses my forehead
And the stars that glitter
On the beach at night.
I can’t see you for the haze
Of scotch or mead,
Or wine as golden as
The locks that hide the corners
Of your mouth when you smile,
But I can feel the way your fingers
Fit mine and fill the spaces
Between them,
Like lazy days spent dreaming
Or sunsets,
Where the sky is paved with fire,
And I can drink you down,
In the failing light,
And never, ever, imbibe enough.
Paradise
Come,
Cross this ancient river with me,
And seek the ageless treasure
Beyond.
Oak and maple and golden sun,
The untouched earth
Beckons,
She aches for hands to
Till the virgin soil,
For bare feet to
Race through the emerald grass,
For young lovers to rush,
Naked,
To wash and take their passion
In pristine lakes.
Come,
Hand in hand
Through Eden
Let’s make our solitary way.
Tripping
I want you to drink me, that I might slither down your throat and take up residence in your body. I will not fester, nor grow. I will not take up much space. In fact, you'll hardly know I'm there, save for the slight warmth somewhere near the center of you. I would be pleased, I think, to live there for a time. Basking, perhaps, in your presence. Relishing in the wholeness with which your body encompasses mine.
There is nothing foul in you, I think. Nothing distasteful, nothing diseased. I like that, admire it. I thought surely I would be greeted by some great, churning monstrosity as is so often the case. Some blood-engorged evil, lurking in the small intestine. Some roiling pool of acid in the stomach. Some infectious parasite waiting for a hapless visitor like me to wander by for a meal.
Terrifying as they are, I'm fairly certain spiders live in every inch of my body.
I want you to drink me, that I might feel your lips wrapped around me. There is something fascinating about the idea. Something so utterly captivating. I have never been more thoroughly romanced than while inside your mouth.
I want you to peel back my skin. Look with wonder at what you find beneath. Replace my bones and sinew with parts of you. String my limbs to my body with tendrils of soul and give me form with odds and ends collected from your memories.
As much as I yearn to be inside you, I need you to be my insides.
Yours,
-S.R.
There is nothing foul in you, I think. Nothing distasteful, nothing diseased. I like that, admire it. I thought surely I would be greeted by some great, churning monstrosity as is so often the case. Some blood-engorged evil, lurking in the small intestine. Some roiling pool of acid in the stomach. Some infectious parasite waiting for a hapless visitor like me to wander by for a meal.
Terrifying as they are, I'm fairly certain spiders live in every inch of my body.
I want you to drink me, that I might feel your lips wrapped around me. There is something fascinating about the idea. Something so utterly captivating. I have never been more thoroughly romanced than while inside your mouth.
I want you to peel back my skin. Look with wonder at what you find beneath. Replace my bones and sinew with parts of you. String my limbs to my body with tendrils of soul and give me form with odds and ends collected from your memories.
As much as I yearn to be inside you, I need you to be my insides.
Yours,
-S.R.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
The Cyclic Nature of Peace
I've picked up the pieces of my shattered peace. I found them lying, as all my things, scattered about the rooms in this old place. Some of them were covered in dust and I thought, briefly, that if I coveted them so much I would not let them become lost as they did. I found a few in cupboards, set beside glass jars where my lovers remain frozen. Others I swept from beneath the couches and carpets, as if I had hurried to tidy up this room or that in preperation for company, without bothering to do a thorough job. So unlike me, I'd like to think. Realistically, I'm sure it's entirely characteristic.
I gathered the pieces, the shards, and arranged them on the table. Some were large, some small. Some were sharp, their edges honed like tiny, jagged teeth or the serrated edge of some improbable sword. Others were round, smooth, practically mirrors the way they captured the light and reflected it back at me in my own image.
I'm not sure why, of all the things I've left here, I went in search of peace. The long months at sea, and the awakening thing that lives in the shadowed parts of me should not look for peace. Perhaps I found it just by coincidence. Perhaps not. I'm not looking to reclaim it. I will not put the pieces back together like some metaphoric jigsaw puzzle. I will not, either, discard them entirely. There is an empty jar nearby. I suppose...no.
In the midst of pondering, I am reminded that not all old things are fit to be remembered fondly, or at all. Simply because something was, it may not necessarily be worth keeping around, cluttering up this already cluttered place. Neither, I find, are new things always to be feared. Tonight, I am exhilirated.
I am borne up on the hands of countless, faceless masses, crowded together, evidently, for no reason other than to lift me above their heads. A kiss, I thought, perhaps a kiss. The thought was fleeting, like light leaving a star for the vast expanse of nothing. It fluttered away. Or flitted. Or fled. I can not recall. The train of thought picks up speed now, the engines make a throbbing sound like a heartbeat. Palpitation. If it beat so quickly I would surely die. Impossible.
I am torn between th absolute certainty of my own immortality, and the very real suspicion that, if your lips were to seal themselves to mine, until all I could imagine was the taste of your tongue, I would die a thousand times. Indeed, your fingers twining between mine, despite the long-standing imagery of unity it evokes, would surely see me sundered from this flesh and hurtled out, like so much starlight, into the Void.
I am so like a child. Enamoured for all the world with little things. Subtle hints of my own divination. Silly things. Simple things.
I long for a kiss, and so perhaps that thought did not flee like the others. I have yearned for many things, both innocent and perverse. Beneficent and maleficent. This, I think, may be all of that and more. Whole nations have burned for less. Men have stood and struck down great evil for less.
Tonight, for the first time in weeks or months or eons, I am content not to take and conquer and destroy. I am satisfied without leaving the marks of my passing in your flesh, or leaving scars on your bones. I am, oddly, peaceful.
Stricken from my reverie, I can't help but wonder when I managed to put those pieces back together.
Humbly Yours,
-S.R.
I gathered the pieces, the shards, and arranged them on the table. Some were large, some small. Some were sharp, their edges honed like tiny, jagged teeth or the serrated edge of some improbable sword. Others were round, smooth, practically mirrors the way they captured the light and reflected it back at me in my own image.
I'm not sure why, of all the things I've left here, I went in search of peace. The long months at sea, and the awakening thing that lives in the shadowed parts of me should not look for peace. Perhaps I found it just by coincidence. Perhaps not. I'm not looking to reclaim it. I will not put the pieces back together like some metaphoric jigsaw puzzle. I will not, either, discard them entirely. There is an empty jar nearby. I suppose...no.
In the midst of pondering, I am reminded that not all old things are fit to be remembered fondly, or at all. Simply because something was, it may not necessarily be worth keeping around, cluttering up this already cluttered place. Neither, I find, are new things always to be feared. Tonight, I am exhilirated.
I am borne up on the hands of countless, faceless masses, crowded together, evidently, for no reason other than to lift me above their heads. A kiss, I thought, perhaps a kiss. The thought was fleeting, like light leaving a star for the vast expanse of nothing. It fluttered away. Or flitted. Or fled. I can not recall. The train of thought picks up speed now, the engines make a throbbing sound like a heartbeat. Palpitation. If it beat so quickly I would surely die. Impossible.
I am torn between th absolute certainty of my own immortality, and the very real suspicion that, if your lips were to seal themselves to mine, until all I could imagine was the taste of your tongue, I would die a thousand times. Indeed, your fingers twining between mine, despite the long-standing imagery of unity it evokes, would surely see me sundered from this flesh and hurtled out, like so much starlight, into the Void.
I am so like a child. Enamoured for all the world with little things. Subtle hints of my own divination. Silly things. Simple things.
I long for a kiss, and so perhaps that thought did not flee like the others. I have yearned for many things, both innocent and perverse. Beneficent and maleficent. This, I think, may be all of that and more. Whole nations have burned for less. Men have stood and struck down great evil for less.
Tonight, for the first time in weeks or months or eons, I am content not to take and conquer and destroy. I am satisfied without leaving the marks of my passing in your flesh, or leaving scars on your bones. I am, oddly, peaceful.
Stricken from my reverie, I can't help but wonder when I managed to put those pieces back together.
Humbly Yours,
-S.R.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Indestructible
I was driving home tonight, and it occurred to me that I feel strong. In fact, I feel nigh on invincible. For months I have been so wrapped up with the things that fester in my guts, so warped in outlook, that I'd forgotten just how powerful I am.
I rage against the things that would bind me, lashing out in every direction with raw hatred. It is a clean feeling, something undiminished with time or effort. Something refreshing beside the nauseating taint of brooding. Depression sits in the stomach, the throat, lines the intestines until I'm bloated and ugly, purpled with lack of air. My flesh becomes blotched, pock-marked, scarred and scabbed. Boils of infestation grow on my limbs, spilling pus until it drips from my fingertips unheeded. Hatred, though, hatred is cleansing. Hatred burns away those boils, wipes the scars off like oil trimmed off the surface of a pool of water. It expels the venom, the vileness, the infection and I can breathe, I can eat. And I'm fucking unstoppable.
I wonder where I lost sight of my own potential. I have built and destroyed in equal parts. I have torn men limb from limb and feasted on their entrails. I have laid waste to entire worlds with no more provocation than annoyance. The universe sets its sights on me, and for every blow I strike back with fists and teeth and claws. Let it come, let all the trials come that may. I will not be bowed.
I will be terror incarnate, violence beyond measure. Horrors in numbers too great to discern. I'll talk shit and spit nails and tear your heart out through your asshole.
I will savage lovers and leave them for dead until I make Byron look like a good samaritan by comparison. I will have my fill of flesh and scent and amorous things. I'll drink til I'm sated with amorphous things and finally, finally, ready for a night's rest. I have thought to settle myself down, that perhaps the things I have done are enough to quench my thirst. I think the gods have other opportunities in the making. I am hungry. I yearn for more. And with every step I grow more powerful.
An ache has grown in me of late, a terrible need in my bones for conquest. Insurmountable, this desire. To taste the cinnamon on your lips, inhale the slight tinge of cherry that clings to your skin. Alabaster white throat raise, bared for my teeth. Legs, wrapped around me tight, constricting like pythons. No difference between predator and prey.
I have slept off the last, residual effects of those dark moods. I have awoken, covered in the refuse and rubble of accumulated time and I shake myself free.
I am awake. I am powerful.
Eternally Yours,
-S.R.
I rage against the things that would bind me, lashing out in every direction with raw hatred. It is a clean feeling, something undiminished with time or effort. Something refreshing beside the nauseating taint of brooding. Depression sits in the stomach, the throat, lines the intestines until I'm bloated and ugly, purpled with lack of air. My flesh becomes blotched, pock-marked, scarred and scabbed. Boils of infestation grow on my limbs, spilling pus until it drips from my fingertips unheeded. Hatred, though, hatred is cleansing. Hatred burns away those boils, wipes the scars off like oil trimmed off the surface of a pool of water. It expels the venom, the vileness, the infection and I can breathe, I can eat. And I'm fucking unstoppable.
I wonder where I lost sight of my own potential. I have built and destroyed in equal parts. I have torn men limb from limb and feasted on their entrails. I have laid waste to entire worlds with no more provocation than annoyance. The universe sets its sights on me, and for every blow I strike back with fists and teeth and claws. Let it come, let all the trials come that may. I will not be bowed.
I will be terror incarnate, violence beyond measure. Horrors in numbers too great to discern. I'll talk shit and spit nails and tear your heart out through your asshole.
I will savage lovers and leave them for dead until I make Byron look like a good samaritan by comparison. I will have my fill of flesh and scent and amorous things. I'll drink til I'm sated with amorphous things and finally, finally, ready for a night's rest. I have thought to settle myself down, that perhaps the things I have done are enough to quench my thirst. I think the gods have other opportunities in the making. I am hungry. I yearn for more. And with every step I grow more powerful.
An ache has grown in me of late, a terrible need in my bones for conquest. Insurmountable, this desire. To taste the cinnamon on your lips, inhale the slight tinge of cherry that clings to your skin. Alabaster white throat raise, bared for my teeth. Legs, wrapped around me tight, constricting like pythons. No difference between predator and prey.
I have slept off the last, residual effects of those dark moods. I have awoken, covered in the refuse and rubble of accumulated time and I shake myself free.
I am awake. I am powerful.
Eternally Yours,
-S.R.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Like Lili Von Shtupp
I have found, in my rare moments of reality, that I am alone in ways I cannot readily describe. The things I have always held closest to me have moved on with their lives. Onto brighter shores and, perhaps, better things. I wish I could say that makes me feel immature, that it motivates me to follow that path and be, for all intents and purposes, an adult. I wish I could feel bad about not aspiring to loftier things, about not having what the people I cherish have for themselves. But the truth is, I just feel loss.I feel lonesome. I feel as if, when you strip down all the things I've crafted around myself to make me more appealing, I'm really little more than a child in desperate need of affection, attention. And that isn't the sort of thing a grown-up should discover.
I recall our last nights together, and how I wished for an island with a volcano. Those moments, those slivers of time could be petrfied. Paradise is my Veuvius, and you could be my Pompeii.
I'm languishing. Where once I wrote lavishly of beauty, of men and women that I'd loved, now I just dwell on the things I've callously left to die, the things that have carelessly left me. All the while using enough adverbs to make and old professor of mine angry enough to throw a terminally-ill octogenarian through a plate glass window.
I remember the simple things I took joy in. The simple things that still bring me those overwhelming feelings of...what? Peace, I suppose. Contentment. Something good that feels slightly squishy in the guts. The problem seems to be that I lack some of those things, and the ones that are readily available are hardly as enticing as they used to be.
Mostly, I'm just tired of being in love.
Yours,
-S.R.
I recall our last nights together, and how I wished for an island with a volcano. Those moments, those slivers of time could be petrfied. Paradise is my Veuvius, and you could be my Pompeii.
I'm languishing. Where once I wrote lavishly of beauty, of men and women that I'd loved, now I just dwell on the things I've callously left to die, the things that have carelessly left me. All the while using enough adverbs to make and old professor of mine angry enough to throw a terminally-ill octogenarian through a plate glass window.
I remember the simple things I took joy in. The simple things that still bring me those overwhelming feelings of...what? Peace, I suppose. Contentment. Something good that feels slightly squishy in the guts. The problem seems to be that I lack some of those things, and the ones that are readily available are hardly as enticing as they used to be.
Mostly, I'm just tired of being in love.
Yours,
-S.R.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)