Forgotten Passions in the Dread of Desolation

Forgotten Passions in the Dread of Desolation

Beelzebanian charm:
the Lord of Flies
gathers with mead
and gluts
on supplicating succubi.

The cloying palaver
of gilded tyrants
caballing their gilded thrones
crowns the obeisant mawks.

Unctuous divestment
of the gilded –
deposed by thorny,
deadheaded roses
who bathe in retching remorse.

Poached psychopomps
limn the barren pudenda
of capricious nymphets
who kick against
the penetrating pricks
of rapacious power.

Acrid tear glands
dried from hellish heat
belong to fleeing augurs;
a resin of rue
for the reprobate.

Promethean anguish:
his bitter gift–
sealed with stigmatic wounds–
reverses its fortune,
and burns instead of lights:
a prize absent of victory
against the Gods.

Gurgled cries
and sibilant wheezes
are the only voices
of the caged,
whilst impish pliers
pluck their teeth,
and bleeding gums
anoint fellatio.

Ravenous purloiners
muse their fortune;
lowered gibbets
offer suborn manna
of androphagy.

Cursed are they who feed:
they soon find themselves
caged in the offering plate
that gave them their meal;
the rat laments his cheese
as he is mounted.

Oh they that predicted the end
share their fate
with the damned.

There is no end.
There is no respite.
Though flesh is stripped,
and consumed...
There.
Is.
No.
End!

Roasted
on the bonfire of sin-
Burn!
Burn!
Burn!

Longevity endowed,
else suffering
cannot truly be known.

At least the wolf of Gubbio
knew mercy.
None of the abandoned here
will speak mercy’s name.
None of the forsaken,
though they behold
the mutual hideousness of each other,
will die; they only shriek.

There is no chance to rule here;
all who arrive
are victims
and perpetrators alike.

Shrieks that beg
to be blind
to be deaf
to be dumb...

To be dead.

Why Thanksgiving Is Really Turkey Day

First of all, let me preface whatever I’m about to say with a deep-felt respect for those who truly get into the Spirit of Thanksgiving. Having the spirit of gratitude is rarely a bad thing.

For many of us, Thanksgiving means time with family and friends, and much food. Perhaps less of us take time to reflect on why we get together and share a meal. Some write gratitude lists, while others simply sit in the pervasive feeling of peace and thanks. Yet others of us participate in what seems like a spirit of mockery, calling Thanksgiving “Turkey Day”. Some of us appreciate the humour, some of us shrug, and some of us don’t care for the term.

Those of us who “mock” have our various reasons. Perhaps some feel that holidays – all of them – have become so commercialized that there is no real meaning in them. Perhaps some are jaded about having no place to go. Perhaps some, however, do it for other reasons.

Like Christmas, Thanksgiving comes once a year. There’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, its rarity often leads to truly appreciating it. What is problematic, though, is that it’s too easy to limit the spirit of these holidays to their calendar correspondences.

Oh I’m sure many of us are tired of hearing “why can’t the spirit of Christmas/Thanksgiving last all year round?” – and certainly I would be included in that group, which is what makes writing this somewhat hypocritical. However, that really is the gist of this paper. Why do I need one day out of the year to be thankful?

Originally Thanksgiving was intended to celebrate a particular event in history – and I’d be damned surprised if any Canadian knows the history of Thanksgiving in their own country. So, if we’ve lost the original context of this holiday, what is left? Taking one day out of the year to appreciate what we have? Seems like a rather vacuous activity.

So, what of those who make it a daily thing to be grateful? What of those who actively develop the over-used cliché “attitude of gratitude”? What does Thanksgiving mean to they who already give thanks every day? Oh, it probably means a day to eat turkey.

Life isn’t a test, life is life

One of the biggest mistakes that people often make in life is believing that the burdens they carry or the obstacles they face are somehow a test – that somehow the grand events of the universe have coalesced into a unique set of circumstances for only them. Let me just say that you are not that special.

Life is what it is. After your remarks of gratitude towards this captain who sails the ship Obvious, that statement is still true and relevant. Life goes on with or without us, and though life’s events are often shaped by us, they are rarely shaped for us.

When we accept life for what it is, that life happens on its own, we shift our conscious awareness of life into an resigning acceptance. Life on life’s terms, as the cliché is known by some. Once we understand and accept this acceptance, life simply becomes about how to work our way through or around the barriers in our lives. If I have to get to school from home, I simply plan my mode of transportation. What I don’t do is believe that I’m somehow being tested because school is so far away from home. I simply accept this and make accommodations.

If believing that “life is a series of tests” was simply a benign paradigm, there would be no need for this current rant. But it isn’t, and there is. Let me repeat myself: you are not that special. Believing that you are being tested when life gets difficult develops a mentality of victimization, that somehow life is out to get you, and that these things make you somehow more unique than everyone else. The inevitable result is the belief that you are “worthy” of a special set of burdens set aside for either the lowlife or saint.

Hubris shows itself when we believe we are above our station in life. What often goes unrecognized is that believing we are burdened more than the average person is just another form of hubris. You are not that special. It is impossible to develop an attitude of humility when the desire for such humility is born from a foundation of arrogance. There is nothing humble or burdensome about deciding the method and route to take to a destination; likewise, there is nothing humble or burdensome about trying to figure out a way past life’s difficulties.

Granted, there are some things in life that are unique obstacles. This is either because there aren’t too many other people who share them, or because something really is difficult. However rare or difficult something is does not remove it from the necessary paradigm of overcoming it. This is the fundamental difference between victims and survivors. Victims are burdened and stay burdened; survivors are burdened and overcome.

Whatever the case, the burdens and obstacles in life just are. They were not designed for you, nor do they make you special. While participation in life may not have been your choice, how you participate is. Believing that life is a series of tests impairs one’s ability to cope with problems, and is an intoxicating viewpoint that prevents solution-oriented thinking.

Now pardon me while I hop on the bus so I can get to school.

Saw a counsellor at UVic the other day. The tranfer from Camosun to UVic is starting to become areality, thought I don't think it will fully hit until the first or second week of classes.

I really liked the counsellor I was seeing at Camosun. He was a great guy. But, I felt too much like he was more of a colleague rather than a counsellor. He was great to talk to, but I didn't really get any special insight or work the way that counsellors are supposed to do.

It was incredibly refreshing that the counsellor at UVic was able to make a small breakthrough on only our second visit. She gave me a bit of insight that I can use as a tool for future self-analysis, to examine my habit of projecting conflict into the future thus creating anxiety. I feel much better knowing that this counsellor has the capacity to challenge me and get me working on the things I need to work on.

I recognize in her a lot of technique that Maslow developed, but she is able to interject and offer an analysis when needed, which is something that Maslow's technique sorely lacked. She also inadvertantly reminded me that being a counsellor at a university setting makes it so that she is used to having incredibly intelligent persons come in for help. This loses the aspect of uniqueness that I am used to dealing with, and I probably won't get any special recognition for me intellect and personal insights into myself because of it. That's not really a bad thing, just something to help me to remember my place. We'll see how things go from here, but I'm hopeful, but a bit wary knowing that it's unlikely that I can continue to be complacent in my personal growth.

So, I'm no longer an atheist. If my descent out of Mormonism and into atheism was a giant blur, this recent ascent from atheism into theism (for lack of better terms) is a condensed version, condensed to a week or two.

Mostly it's Hermetic thought that I find appealing. It has the ability to explain the existence of God in a rational manner, something that doesn't require such a leap of faith as most religions do. I suppose some coherent system would be necessary for me to buy into it. Yes, God exists. That's about as far as I've gotten. No possessed qualities or intrinsic characteristics other than it has/is a mind, and existence is a product of that consciousness. At this point that's about all my belief is. Who knows where this will take me, but it's enough for me to abandon the atheism paradigm as an encompassing one. I'm still critical of religion and dogma, but only when they present themselves as an objective, absolute truth, and not a relative manifestation of individuality.

By and large my desire to study and learn about debating theists is mostly gone now. I'm going to have to rethink a lot of things, but I guess I'm getting used to abandoning old paradigms and trying on new ones. One of the side effects of this is an inability/unwillingness to form identities that are attached with these paradigms. In fact, it might be fair to say that I'm abandoning the identity thing altogether, and that I'm just accepting me for who or what I am, and that I don't have to attach myself to anything to find meaning. I am me. Now, if only the ego were so easy to shed.

There are no words to describe how depression feels.
You want to say you’re sad, but really you're too numb to cry.
You’re empty, hollow – a shell with nothing inside.
Your food tasted better when you used to smoke than it does now; bland and flavourless – besides, you don’t eat because you’re hungry, you eat because you’re trying to fill that eternal vacancy that is never sated.
How can I be dead already? That’s what I am: the walking dead.
There is no desire, no hope.
Life cannot be defined by our physiological health.
Even a person in a coma has a heartbeat.
The eternal state of anhedonia knows no equal.
There is no anguish, no torment, no hellfire quite equal to that kind of emptiness.
Don’t forget to smile so no one thinks anything is wrong.
Don’t forget to fulfill your obligations so other people can enjoy what you’ve never known.
Wanting to die is necessary and sufficient to be declared insane.
Yet I can form sentences coherently, even eloquently if I desire; I know where I am, what day and year it is, who our prime minister and premier is; solve a simple quadratic equation if I had to, or even discuss the finer points of ontological epistemology or whether identity is intrinsic to existence or merely a construct of the social world, yet the simple desire to end this incessant madness, this descent into insanity is enough to get me locked up.
Why is the right to choose to live or die not considered the most basic, fundamental right for anyone?
Should not all freedoms start with this basic liberty?
Is it not the most arrogant, condescending position to look at another, fail to understand their torment yet refuse them absolution?
Are you really that cruel?
You would fly to my side, call an ambulance, or go to whatever lengths were necessary to ensure that I am protected from myself, and you would feel like you’ve done your part, but why do you not seek me out in my bedroom, when I’m hugging my pillow with shame and guilt?
Why do you not visit the lonely, the sick, the afflicted?
Why do your efforts come at that end rather than at the beginning or middle, when they might have made a real difference?
You call suicide a tragedy, yet you do nothing to interfere with the steps that lead to it.
You who look upon death as a tragedy could never understand those of us who look upon it as a reprieve, as a form of mercy.
Would you really deny me my final solution if there were no cure for this?
If I were condemned to the life of madness and anhedonia, would you force me to live it to the end?
How dare you.
How fucking dare you.
You sadistic piece of shit, you fucking bastard how dare you.
I don’t want to die, I just want the pain to end.
The throbbing, aching pain that never goes away.
Go ahead, put on a hundred-pound backpack and go on with your daily activities.
How far do you get?
That’s a good day.
Tape toilet paper tubes to your eyes so it’s all you can see out of, duct tape your fingers and hands, and tie your feet together so they can never be more than half a foot apart, and then try to function.
Don’t forget about the backpack.
The heavy backpack.
And then, when you’ve done all this, you still won’t understand, because you still care that these things, these burdens are upon you.
When you stop caring about your backpack, your toilet-paper-tube eyes, your duct-tape hands, and chained feet, then you will know.
You will truly know.
And not until then.
Oh God, please end this now.

Not too long ago I committed myself to writing 1,000 words each day. Tonight's project turned out a bit differently, a kind of conscious flow rather than an edit-as-you-go process. Though much of it could be refined and edited, I am pleased with the raw essence that it is now. Here it is:


Drama 101. Right next door to Deposing a Tyrant 254. Such is the banality of my writing tonight. Torn between forfeiting a day of writ, and actually beginning to feel the compulsion of habit forming. My thousand words, elusive sycophantic pomp, expressing themselves in whatever loinal flame intuits. Sometimes it’s pure nonsense; others suggestive of mastercraft. Today, though, I simply write: unadorned, unfettered, and unafraid. I write. Thoughts and words in Word inseparable and insidious. This is not one of those times that makes sense. Even the very sentences that craft this daily obligation do not in themselves organize coherently. Leaps in logic and language, bounds in babble and bidding, gaps in gregarious garbage. I want it all and want to want for nothing – alas, such a pitiful fate, a manqué destiny already realized. Lyrical theft and disorder characterize and trivialize what I call work and others call fluff. Platitudes passed as pure predilection: none of it makes sense; pedant penchants, precarious proclivities. How many other words that begin with P can I include in this drivel? This soppy foddersotch. Go ahead, make up words. No one can care if no one reads, n’est ce pas? Such trivial ideas and ideals, inclinations and insights – to pass the petty as grandeur, and dismiss the grand as unintelligent. Might as well dismiss the entire universe, if truly grandeur is forsaken. You and you and you and you – all gone, and no one cares for even the poet has vanished – is that why I’ve been left behind? To stay and stink and stain the page with my foddersotch words, my sorry, pitiful expressions, written in dichotomous delight and despair, only to be dispatched in the face of true talent – of pretty much anyone else who puts pen to paper, or fingertip to protruding letters in this case.

My thousand words; my spellings and misspellings and typos and mistypes. How dare Word try to correct me on my grammar! Has the vile paper clip ever considered the human equation? The human desire to put it to death in visions of glorified and satisfying hell, where piece by piece it’s suggestive agony suffers for each time it tells me it looks like I’m writing a letter or that I have some form of unidentified fragment yet cannot offer even a single suggestion. Die, motherfucking paperclip, die you rat bastard! Oh forsooth and forlorn! My thousand words might as well be a daily million, as I type and type and it just becomes more nonsense piled on more nonsense. These are the words of neither the poet nor the craftsman. They are fluff; empty, shallow, surface words, designed to appear important but really included only because they sound intelligent. If only the writer possessed even a grasp of lingual comprehension, perhaps he might be more...

Oh thousands words, elusive thousand, perpetual chase, a fair maiden dressed in dreamy white, glancing behind as she runs away in playful games; I never get closer, though I run with more vigour. Were I to catch up she would simply disappear. If particularly feisty this evening she would appear behind me with a sudden tap tap so that I might reverse my chase and repeat the same foolish game on a path already trodden. And if I get tired and lay my head to rest, she comes and kisses me so tenderly that I dare not wake, lest the tear I just shed proves imagined. And if I lie perfectly still, she will rest her head on my chest, listening to the pounding of my heart. She knows it beats for only her, and she loves me for it, loves me, loves me, loves me for it. And never, though my wildest and fondest dreams but reach, never does she fall asleep before I. I awake, and she is gone, and a different tear falls this time. She is gone. She is gone. My mistress is gone. Oh sorrow-filled heartbeat.

My thousand words has died tonight, before it was ever born. It leaves behind its cousins: sensible sentences under fifty words and stories told in tandem – both more lazy and inferior products. Where is the emotion? Where is the drive? Where is the human spirit in such order and laziness? Where is the arcane pining? The capricious whim? These are not found here! Nor should they be. This wordy garbage should die before associating with that filth! Oh lexical villain, phonetic antagonist, go back to your infernal pit and entreat us no more with your sordid business. Deprive someone else of their joy, for I have already paid you too much. Indeed, what more can you ask for than ruin? Where is my maiden? Where are my words that stir the human soul? Such insipid, banal claims, these should be abhorred like the whore they are. Oh Babylonian canvas. I long to exist as a pillar of Sodom salt, better dismantled tiny piece by tiny piece than turn in this drivel for marks. And all this but an act, some pseudo-feeling, feigned for the duration of my maiden search. But she is on the road ahead – I can see her! Why does she not move? Is this my fixed mark? Hath summer’s lease shortened its day? Why can I not run to her? Such terror, such loathing! What have you done with her, insidious paper clip? You mock my pain. No, I do not want to write an obituary! Fuck off!

Yes, that is the difference: we bury our dead. My mistress, cold and etiolated – good for one last lay when you get right down to it. Oh dear mistress, fair white lady: thou art slain. Thou art passed beyond this world, and I must bid farewell to my Annabel, though no sea can be seen. My thousand words, elusive sycophantic pomp, expressing themselves in whatever loinal flame intuits. Torn between forfeiting a day of writ, and actually beginning to feel the compulsion of habit forming. Such is the banality of my writing tonight. Right next door to Deposing a Tyrant 254: Drama 101.