Friday, August 31, 2007

Quip o' da day, lads and lassies

The quill, quintessential to quiver; quixiotically it will "shake" the spear.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The unforgivable sin

This world may have been painted by an amateur god.

The sky is a deep blue but a dull ceiling. It is small and lifeless, unbroken by a bird or a cloud or even a puff of smoke. Beneath it, what life there exists is confined to this narrow yard of colorless rock and surrounded by cement walls. The rough faces like curdoroy, are pierced here and there by open black windows. There is also that single, wide, doorless hole that is the sole exit from the yard... or entry to the yard depending on your mood.

The animal inhabitants, myself included, are of no interest. Not worth the bullet as the judges told us. They were right. We are so contemptible that we prefer total silence to conversation. You might think I wonder what the others think, what crimes they had committed and so forth. But the truth is I don't care in the least. That would be like admitting they matter somehow. They matter less than me if that is possible. Their silence says tehy think the same way about me. They are here, like the cement walls and the gaping maw and the yard and the painted blue sky.

From day one it has been the same. I walk counter-clockwise. Everyone does. Some faster and some slower but it doesn't matter a bit. Standing or walking its the same. I could have passed the black hole a hundred times or a million or a hundred trillion and it matters no more than if I had passed it at all. I haven't even got the will to reach out my left hand and touch the walls. I just walk. And do you want to know the worst of it all? I can't even muster a sneer. Not even a sarcastic snort. Absolutely nothing.

Nothing matters but this. I am a cynic and nothing. not. one. thing. will touch me.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Perfect Opening Line to a Perfect Country Song, No. 673

"Dear Lord...bring me somebody who'll treat me, just like that gal who treated me so fine, a'forin I treated her so rotten, right before she treated me worse to get back at me, and then treated her fiance so bad when she said there, on the daince floor, in that smokey ol' pool room that she wanted me back, which led me to think (for the rest of my life) what I really wanted, which was 100 per-cent pure (and unadulterated) true love, of the variety of sorts that existed a'forin all the above-said crud went down...holler julia! I am HOOKED on luv!"

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Ravenous Quote, Numero Uno est Duo...ver

"Everyone who puts quill to page doth plagiarize the sage"

"Trust in what you want, as for me, I'll ere on the side of God's good reason; all else, I fear, is vicious treason"

Saturday, August 25, 2007

On Drunken Drivel

Spew not ever,
one syllable that is torn,
of strong drink down gullet poured
from which some drunken drivel is born.

But here I lie
and here I say
it is the writer drunk of passion
who should be avoided in all ways.

The Quadrillion

Millions strong, they marched them in
across the pregnant sands
where lightning fuel doth ooze
these brothers march in bands.

"We'll have them home by Christmas,"
one Governor did say.
"We'll bring them in by greyhound,
if the flying wing should frey."

And yet we cannot escort,
our visitors here so wrong.
Yet soldiers we can march them,
for all the months so long.

"Political expediency,"
it was their rallying cry...
"we must have them home by Christmas,
else victory's slim chance should die."

And to what end would they grab their power,
these lepers at the gate?
For their mouths unbridled and dour
they run so fast from hate.

Like striped dogs they worm around
and blame the other packs
for bellies them so yellow
no hair left on their backs.

With baren tooth, once alarming
they snarl and spit their bile
about them, nothing left is charming
and what backbone there is vile.

An inebriated populace
play these video games
And wolves win victory domestic
Then who do former allies blame?

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Gegangen Fischen (Gone Fishing)

Lanny had hated hospitals since the time he was a kid.

He really hated institutions of all variety.

He hated school. In school they take you away from the finer things in life. Like fishing; or hunting, or damned-sure just about anything besides being in school.

School was a place they educated you. And a hospital...well hell, it was just a place for the lame, sick and dying.

Living, for Lanny, was being anywhere besides cooped up inside four walls.

When he was about five years old, his family took him to Johnson City to visit his sick uncle at the Veteran's Hospital. He could still, all these years later, close his eyes and see the puke green tile on the walls, smell the sickening sweet smell of the alcohol on the ward, and just picture in his eyes the chicken wire windows and the ominous shadows they cast on that dirty tile floor.

His stomach still twisted in knots at the memory of his Fahter's voice "I wouldn't bring my dog here to die, much less my brother".

Lanny hated these damned institutions. They stunk of the government. Of fat men in straw hats with cuds of tobacco in their fat, filthy cheeks peppered pink with engorged blood vessels and three-day stubble.

"We're from the government, Mrs. Davis, and we are here to help you".

His family had always lived by the code "ain't no kinda help for them, can't help themselves".

No kinda help's right.

And here he found himself again, trapped by four walls and that sickening sweet smell.

It tore him up inside to watch his best friend, tubes down his throat, stickin' out of his spine and and even shoved up his privates.

Institution ain't no kinda place to be, for a free man. No kinda place.

"Tomorrow, I take the kayak down Tellico Plains way, out past Toqua and Razor to the mouth of the fingers. Tomorrow, I catch fish. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll be free."

And with that Lanny took his friend's listless hand and drifted off to dream of a heaven that would never be defined by the walls of a cold and Godless institution where men seem to just die a little more each and every day.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Signs of Scientific Armageddon No. Thwee

"The lesson for today is the cause of Earthquakes. Eathquakes, lads and lasses, are caused by the body human and its excrement. So, in a word, let's cut the shit, put a cork in it and wait until our head's explode thus atomizing all the liberal loads of crap forced down our gullets by education liberalis and thus contained there-in; then we save the planet from this scat-induced shattering of Mother Earth and make it free for all the Earth Faeries, and of course for Charles Manson who everyone knows is the nuclear genius behind our Global Village ! Down with Crap. Down with Crap! Brown with Crap! Helter-Skelter 4-evuh!".

Quoth du Jour No. Four Hundred Ninety Fuhrer

There be no greater angst than the angst that be at the quill that is nil - feckless, soul-less and utterly dry of its life-giving ink - as is poor writer who has no writing left to think.

-"BLUESTEIN !!! Get in here. NOW."

Monday, August 13, 2007

The Price

"It is a heavy price we pay when we do the bidding of the Lord".

"A heavy price, indeed."

"Indubitably, and, in deed".

The deed, 'tis done, and 'tis done, in deed.

"In deed, indeed.".

"Indeed! 'Tis done.".

"And 'done', in deed."

"Indeed! 'Tis done! ".

"Yup. Done, in deed.".

Flippin' Flip

"It's a flippin' outrage," he said.

"Flippin' flip, my "flipper's" done flipped.

"What's the flippin' matter.", you might ask?

"My flipper's done broke, and betwixt channels, none-the-less".

"Well, what the flip?".

"I'll tell ya the flip! It's flippin' outrageous, I'll tell ya, a flippin' shame.".

"Shame, ya say. Well, I'll never!".

"Yer probably right, I'll say. You probably ne'er will. Fer the likes uh you'll n'eer experience tha like of a flippin' flipper that's done gone 'flip'!"

"Well, I'll be 'flipped', I certainly will!"

"And a flip it'll be, if ya flip with me!".

"Well, flippin-A!".

"Flippin' 'A' ".

"Yay!"

"Ya know...if I gave a 'flyin flip', I'd done give a flip about the likes uh you, and yet, I don't. Now, who's ta say 'what the flip'? "

"I'll tell ya done who" ME, for cryin-assed flip. ME!. I certainly give a flip, I do at that!".

"At that, at that?"

"At that, I say. I give a flip."

"A 'flip', ya say!".

"A flip, indeed!".

"Well, I'll indeed be 'flipped' ! ".

"You are indeed, Sir.".

"Flipped, ta be sure!".

" 'Fliped', indeed! ".

And a flipper's noose, she done shall wait fer thee!

"Well, flip me o'er, an' flip me done."

"Done ye ere, Sir.".

"Done, I am!".

"And a cyrin'-assed flip y'all turn, when the door done slam on yer' cryin'-assed fate".

"Fer sure, fer sure. My flippin' flipper done flipped. And I, you see, done "flipped" fer sure!".

"Well, a flippin' shame it is!"

"Fer sure, fer sure. A shame indeed."

A shame...a shame, indeed!

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

PM 11: Cleaning Up

"Now try and relax," she continued. "Take a deep breath."

I did as she told me, my first breath quite rapid and shallower than I intended. Then I gained some self-mastery and swallowed hard. Gradually the weight or pressure seemed to subside a little and a warm feeling spread all over my body. When she could see that I had calmed down she returned to her work at the console. The air came into my body and went back out: in, out, in out. My heart beat in my chest, thump-thump thump, thump-thump thump. The blood flowed through my temples: throb, throb, throb, throb. I clenched my fists and released them, I clenched my jaw and released it. As I calmed down I began to notice another sound which at first I mistook for my own breathing. It was deeper and rougher and out of sequence with the movement of my chest.

"You'll be glad to know that you now have been assigned a number and are on a schedule. Aren't you lucky."

I tried to lift my head again and found it much easier. I turned my head back to her.

"Well now, you're existence has been re-established. I put a bulletin out for you, but we'll have to wait to see who is interested in you." She took a moment to look me up and down. "I think we might as well get you up and start getting you used to things." She shuffled towards me, gracelessly, with heavy footsteps. Then bending over me she unhitched several straps and I felt the pressure diminish further, though not completely. The table I was on tilted and my head elevated as my feet descended. I was soon sitting upright but the position felt very precarious as if at any moment I would topple over and slam hard against the floor.

I felt a pinch in my arm and a burning sensation. She was using a syringe to inject some yellowish fluid into my arm. "This will keep you from throwing up. Just sit here for a minute and let the medicine work." The ill-lit cavernous room stretched out before me in all directions. I noticed that it was not exactly an aseptic environment. Little piles of damp cloths and other indefinable substances were strewn around the room. I waited for quite some time as the human resources worker went from one locker to another, from one console to another, disappeared altogether and reappeared from another direction, never taking a fast step but always with that ungainly gait.

Eventually she emerged from one of the shadows with a walker and placed it in front of me. "I hate this part of the job." Diot said and sighed. "Time to get you cleaned up." She slipped an arm behind my back and pulled me off the inclined table towards the walker. My hands reflexively stretched out for the handles. My grip was weak and I stumbled again but she, much larger than I, managed to keep me from total collapse until I established enough muscular control to correctly distribute the burden of my weight between my arms on the walker and my wobbly legs on the floor. The shroud had fallen off me and I realized I was naked.

I glanced at her in my shame and embarrassment but she was clearly oing her best to avoid contact with me, visually or physically. “Go straight ahead, follow the little copper colored strip and it will take you to the showers.” On the trash-littered floor there was indeed a copper colored walkway painted. “I will meet you there.” She stepped away and I was left to my own abilities to reach my destination. At first it was a struggle but with every step I gained some more self-control.

I soon left the realm of the spot lights and corpses and worked into the shadows. These had been created by rows of hanging curtains the purpose of which I could not guess, but every now and then I seemed to catch a glimpse of some reflection of a metallic object in the murkiness of that room. The copper path I walked along seemed to glow a little in the darkness and if not for that luminescence I would have had a great deal of difficulty. Eventually I reached a wall which, from the shallow semi-circular grooves, appeared to have been ground out of a solid rock and then coarsely smoothed down. And in the wall was a doorway to another room. As I looked a bank of lights came on in this room revealing it to be no more than ten feet deep and twice as wide with a series of shower heads in the far wall. I wheeled my way in and as I did the water came on in one of the heads.

Steadying myself with my right hand, I reached out with my left to touch the spray. It was very fast and hard and the temperature was lukewarm at best. I hesitated to step into it. But this whole time I had not looked down at my body and when I finally did I saw that it was rather filthy.

“Any soap?” I called out. My voice merely echoed. There was no other response. I noticed however, that on the floor, the water from the tap appeared to be generating its own sudsy lather, so I stepped into the spray. It was unpleasant, neither hot enough or cold enough, or even, for that matter wet enough. It seemed to take a long time to effect much cleaning. The filth on me was rather sticky but oddly did not have any smell to it at all. I wondered a little what it might be. The water dripping down from me, hardly a trickle actually changed from dark to lighter and as it did the soapiness of it seemed to reduce and then the spray stopped altogether. The stream of water suddenly became a blast of warm air, but with a kind of chemical odor to it. Then it too stopped. I was now clean and dry but still naked. And I was cold. I turned to look around wondering what I was to do now.

“MacLeinn.” said Diot’s voice from a masked speaker. “Step through the showers and into the uniformary.” Then I noticed a doorway off one of the sidewalls. I wheeled my way through the door and into an ordinary looking locker room. I was feeling steadier, and wanting to get rid of this walker but I did feel physically tired and still very heavy. On a bench against a wall was a little stack of clothes. I assumed I was to put them on. Wheeling my way to the bench, I parted from the walker and sat down heavier than I intended hard against the wall, my head coming to rest with a solid thunk. “Put it on.” Diot’s voice urged impatiently and I turned my attention to the clothes.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Dee Bob Daily, Diddy-Quip No. 96

"Faction schmaction", said Jackson.
I'm just here fo the "punch" !


*The writer of this piece dissociates himself from all criminal and civil liability that may as a matter of course arise from any liberal interpretation of said piece, or any more liberal "leaps in logic" such as an affiliation of this piece to any piece (penned or coined) by any such authors as Nomran Maelstrom, Wilt Killdey's "PoBo" series, "L'il Babler" & "Unfaisen Dazey" or any other concocted piece of acid-induced fiction that might be floating around in some fat, licentious and bulbous-brained, flatulent-headed fat-asses in baseball caps who's appearence (even in print) just oozes stench; and from the commie-left wing socialist party of Aremenians backing such nondidates as Sillary Whimseyon, Usama YoMomma Mohemian or Michel Moor. Periodosio. Ad Infinitum!

Coupier Liberiaum!

Monday, August 06, 2007

Unfinished Poem

We're all born with the appetite for a certain kind of pain
and as we age this appetite grows ever more refined
so torments of our youth we think we've gladly left behind
imprint upon our hearts a thirst which always will remain

Evincing in domestic wars and struggles for success
this lust for self-abuse obscures and smothers every good
and never will permit us to behave the way we should
...

Sunday, August 05, 2007

The Purloined Penman: or, that bastard propagandist

He's a stolen man, with a stolen life
he's a stolen inkwell, and a stolen wife.
He'd steal from the blind,
to aid the sighted
and steal from the clean
to advantage the blighted.

He's stolen words as thoughts
and penned them as his own,
stolen hearts from young maidens
and flew on high - as sick, filthy raven.
Then there's the concepts he'd steal from all the world's thinkers
and bright, shiny daubles he'd steal from the tinkers.

In his path he's left nothing,
and all ahead all he sees
are opportunities for thievery
driving sane men to their knees.
If only able, he'd steal even soul,
but for that he would hang in heaven's own trees.

So he's content to bend minds,
with the words that he's taken
and for those who consume
God, let them not be foresaken!
Mend them up, stitch them well
and for this glutenous thief, may he rot in wordy hell.

On Intellectual Bankruptcy

In the courts, the crime of over-indulgence is "beheaded" by the process of chapter thirteen.

The little man, he is "kaput"...out of cash, out of life, out of time and literally, out of pocket.

How does one "run out" of intellect? Can you assert that it is really the same as mis-managing money?

I say, "hell yes"!

Thinkers can get lazy with their "thoughts", and pundits can state "and this passes for intellect"?

I could propose tomorrow that the best system of government is no government (and darned sure, may be correct in the assertion) - but only "certain" people would live well in what would surely be a time of chaos.

Intellectually, I know that those equipped for living in the woods would, for all intents and purposes, be as happy as the proverbial "pig wallowing in his own...ahem...Svinsti". Where would this model leave the rest of the world? To fend for themselves in the sewers of the cities? To fight for the last morsels of food left on the grocery shelves?

And what of intellect then?

Catastrophe of this magnitude would certainly issue challenges for the American human race like none other in its infantic existence...but in the end, would it be a good thing?

I've been in the woods enough in my long, long life to know - it ain't exactly a bowl of cherries. Yes, you can survive out there...yes, you can get used to it, and yes, you can "make it pretty good"...but each and every time I've been out there for a prolonged period there is nothing I look more forward to than a hot, hot shower and, well, a bowl of cherries.

Thus, my position on anarchy. It would not be a pleasant thing, living like wild animals, but I do think that living as such would most certainly be living sans-intellect. There is not much time in the woods for discussing international politics over brandy (although, it has been done on safari, I understand).

Mending ropes, chasing varmints, and killing quary are but a few of those "everyday things".

The point being, with the breakdown in social graces comes the breakdown of the nation's intellectual soul. There is not much need of intellect when all that is required to survive is to hunt and to kill and to eat and to hunt and kill and eat again.

The only engineering would be left up to the shelter builders...if and when man finds that inevitable discretionary "time" he might then begin spending it building aquaducts and spring houses (and with it, of course, the advent of new "civilization").

Well, I suppose it is time to "wrap" this meandering mess that passes for "intellect" - I will close by simply posing the question "is anarchy, from an intellectually rich standpoint, truly what we want for our world, or for our Nation" ?

Here's to the thinkers! May they never, ever find themselves without a thought (and should they, may the Good Lord help us all in our dark time of bankruptcy).

Friday, August 03, 2007

Ditty #73

Can any guilt be so sublime
as that of the thief of another man's time?

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

The Many Lives of Dolimer Gusset

Dolimer Gusset had lived a life that was a compendium of mini lives.

Truck driver, stock clerk, loader on the loading docks, bell hop and purloined pen-man (for he stole every drop of ink); yet the life he was leading today was unlike any preceding.

Dolimer had found his curtain call in the arms of a married lady.

Jealous husband, rants and raves, and there lay Dolimer in a bloody pool perhaps to live another day - his sins forgiven perchance in belief, a belief over-all?

For it was now only known to the stars in heaven, as his many lives (and many wives) had now become only one.

And the many lives that had been part and parcel of Dolimer Gusset rise and fall, and rise again with the sequential nature of that hot and boiling - rising, falling sun...and all those lives that come, and go, forever reaching under its seemingly ever-present domain.

One life it is, in strife; yet at its end two roads that follow very different, but equally infinite lines.

And these lines that unlike the many lives that become singular in the One, these two shall never merge as one again. Alas, the one becomes the infinite Nil where and when time itself, and that seemingly ever-present sun that measures become forever irrelevant and evaporate in self-consumption in a vacuous chasm within a dark chamber that to no one life will become even a singular matter ever again.

And a Sheriff's report lies on an empty desk with scant little detail of a man who'd lived so many lives and was now in this life eternal, dead.

And thus is written of the many lives lived and now died in and of a name on a page of a one, Dolimer Gusset.

May he rest in peace.