The Smell of Money: Skullduggery

Cha-ching!

Have you ever rationalized through the use of money? Have you ever tried to trace back its original usage to discern how it developed into the way we use it today? I recognize the practicality with which it was employed, but in its present incarnation - everyone trying to maximize acquisition while minimizing loss, catching things while they're on sale, buying things with nonexistent money, and then accruing more money for not returning the money you didn't have in the first place - it seems to be no more than a farce. Morality is tossed by the wayside as the precession of the financial parade rolls by. A man is measured by the quality of his work, not the quality of his heart. In a corporate world, there are no allies.

There are some who have bowed at the feet of the Almighty Dollar, evoking its compassion and reaping of its supposed benefits. Though, it seems rather incongruent that our dreams and aspirations should come with a steep price tag. Is it non-negotiable? Sorry, but I'm on a budget. Why should we be limited by an economic reality? I see no Wall Street in nature. Does my soul carry a credit score? It seems ironic that currency is almost entirely made of cotton, while it rarely keeps us warm. I have met far more wealthy men with a poor character than I have met penniless men without a rich one.   
   

In whom does God's money trust?

Skullduggery

Walk alone

On a jagged road

No place to go

No home

To call my own

Want the best of this world with an empty pocket

Seal it up tight in a box or locket

Collect all the reveries and memories

And make a heart shaped balloon to take me far away from here

Thank God for imagination

My one way trip

My final destination

Wrapped me in the wounds of expectation

And sow me up tight

Don’t want any representation

No paperback dream

No voice to scream

No hands to bleed

And no eyes to free 

A faceless meaning in a blank dictionary

An insignificant dot in the obituaries

No synonyms

No acronyms

Wasted soul set to sail on a boat full of holes

Doomed to sink into this deep sea of wishes

That had to come true

Windowpane of longing

See, but don’t touch

No, can’t touch!

Need to prove to everyone something that can’t be seen

But you can lie to everyone, as long as you’ve got the “green”

Walleted world we live in

Everything is fraudulent

Set to mock and shun us

Make fun of us

The door to beauty stained

Tainted with the fingerprints of the deranged

Czar

President

King

Emperor

Ruler of the world

A filthy world

Lovely and once beautiful

She’s all that we’ve got

So you rape her

Deprave her

Try to escape her

Live in her womb while you try to claim her

Feeding off her insides

Glutton!

Tarring out her eyes

While you see nothing!

Bruise and break her

But she’s still prettier than you

So goodbye!

I won’t accept this play anymore

Theater of puppet strings

You pull while we push

Scars and calamity

Always dying in vain

Because we know

All those fingers

Are jammed back in your face 

Stringing You Along: Corsage, Croissant, Crochet, Croquet

We've all been backstabbed by someone we thought we knew. Someone we loved who reciprocated only to snuff it out; a friend we confided in who spilled the precious beans; a risk taken only to result in failure. Sometimes it is intentional. Other times no one can rightfully be blamed. Spite and anger always seem to be the first emotion resorted to in such instances. Perhaps there is some evolutionary explanation as to why. Perhaps there is a savage benefit to spitting in the face of something that once was.

Venting is a healthy way of dealing with such intense reactions, especially if they are out of our control. Sometimes, the powers that be ordain things that cannot be shaped by our attempts to change them; when one half of a duel party refuses to alleviate the situation, the other half must depart. Providing yourself with a robust route of dispensing of your anger and spite will prove far better for the heart and mind in the long run than bottling it up or even allowing it to burst forth. 

That's why the arts are so important: Music, painting, photography, writing all provide the most successful and healthy routes of attenuation. Hatred never helped anyone - Go write a poem!  

Corsage, Croissant, Crochet, Croquet

Swallow your tongue…

Digest your own weak imaginings!

Essence I shall bung;

Oh, how I would love to cleanse your muddy footprints

From this place.  

Demystify the fossils;

Fill in the cavities with concrete,

Like the lungs you falsely filled,

While you don’t deserve to breath!

You cauterized the dagger

That now wriggles in my back,

A joystick that you grab

To lead me along

This Mobius path.  

I will take quick pleasure

In ripping it free!  

A champagne rain to bath and boil bloody mead.

I pulled you from the sand, but left you dangling from a string;

Freedom isn’t gathered with a shackle or a stitch,

It doesn’t matter if you feed or beat the bitch,

It will bite you back.  

I found myself in a bathroom stall,

I was fading painting on a peeling wall,

It was a porcelain kind of forever

In a plastic canon ball.  

I’ll throw shrapnel in the eyes of all you so fiercely guarded

And all the opportunities you so sweetly pardoned.

A figment of fiction is truth in all its vindications

And now the threat is imminent,

A valedictorian vendetta;

A glistening inscription.

Your accord has been cut,

Raped in your wedding dress,

Grinding off the malaise

As the partitions you press

To get drunk off the plaster.  

I’ll place the coin beneath your tongue before the trumpets begin to play

If that’s not proof of a foreclosed heart,

Than what more do you want me to say?

I HAVE A BOOK COMING OUT

I'm still working on the title, but it will be a collection of poetry with an overarching theme of death. I'm shooting for an April, 2013 release. Stay tuned for more details! 

Destructive Criticism: The Worst Decision

A lot of people are self-defeating. We take external pressures, flaws inherent in others that are too often deposited on ourselves, and allow them to persuade us to change. We attempt to conform to the demands of society, the people around us, or even global trends without a thought for the consequences. There are a lot of people walking around with a skewed sense of self - a definition of identity built from years of constantly attempting to quell the murmurs of others. As a result, many of us are disillusioned and unhappy, and are sincerely unaware as to why. We have inadvertently and systematically killed ourselves.

A path to find yourself...

All ultra-violence aside, a flawed self-identity is precisely the catalyst that leads to flaws in the self-identities of others. When we are unhappy with who we are, we impart onto others that unhappiness, which breeds further self-damaging behavior in both parties. One is far too often the cause of their own demise and the seed-sower of others'.

With the harkening of 2013 upon us, a time for unkept resolutions, it is time you began listening to who you are and began committing to your own sense of self. When others pressure you to conform or modify to fit their moulds, instead of objectifying yourself to pull out the "flaws," fortify the uniquenesses you know and strengthen the self you deserve to be. Idolize yourself, learn to love every "mistake" and "shortcoming" that makes you you, and commit to changing things about yourself for you and no one else. You must make it a habit; the self is in a constant state of construction, of becoming. You have the potential to be your own messiah or your own murderer.

Down, but not out!

In the end, 

it's you who listens to the bullshit others have to say.             

The Worst Decision

Death is not an easy prize to gain:

You can’t just fill out the slip and,

‘Please, clearly sign your name.’

Suicide is not something I would prescribe,

No matter how you deem it worth the loss,

There’s no reason you should have to die.

Hold tight to what you have,

It's more than just evolving remnants of mom and dad,

It's choices that carve up the past

And shape the future

That only you can make last.

May I proceed to cure the beast,

To solidify the righteousness conceived?

Are these the weights you wish to bequeath,

To pin the guilty hand on me?

Ring you out like a sponge;

Set you off like a gun;

Sever the cord of a broken spine;

You’re a book, but they judge what lies inside.

Whet the palette and rub the scars.

Dig your own grave to reach for the stars.

Sharpen a knife on a fork;

Buy into family, but shoot down the stork.

Bundled up peace – beat like a dog.

Swallow the key – sleep like a log.

Let go of all the things you've lost.

Don’t kill yourself to survive the battles fought.

Self-destruction stops permanent construction;

Soul disjunction nullifies finding your function.

Never choose to be the victim or the killer,

Or, even, the weapon of your own murder.