Despair, mother, father of emotion
A raw intensity, a singularity
Exploding outwards, expanding into
Every pastel sentiment
Love's antimatter
Doppelganger
Evil twin, yin yang
Just as love lace edged with despair
Despair runs threaded through with love
Like seaside rock once the season's dead and gone
Whispered ghosts of dreams
Of sunny days and might have beens
Gone all too soon
Of childhood summer memories
Simple pleasures at the time
Refocused under a lens of grief
Once bringing joy
Now heralds pain so exquisite
All other feelings rendered pale
Translucent echoes when compared
And with such brilliant intensity
Informs that you are still alive
Ironically
At least for now
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 5:33 PM UTC
Body broken from military service
Comrades gone or dead
Cast adrift in civvy street
I believed their lies. They said
They would take care of me
If service took its toll
They said there would be help for me
If nightmares sacked my soul
Instead I'm turned from door to door
My country has betrayed me
Now I'm used up, no longer fit
Youth gone to keep you free
You treat me like a burden
An encumbrance you don't need
Helpless anger bubbles
As I cut until I bleed
Anger turning inwards
As there's nothing I can do
Dulce et Decorum Est?
Is that really true?
Or is it simply if you live
A veteran you'll be
Outlived your use
A shattered wreck
Is all that they will see
The great and good
Who never served
Not even for one day
Huge great poppies they will wear
And stand and seem to pray
Yet turn their face away from you
A figure of disdain
Would be much more convenient
If you had been slain
Your country doesn't want you
Now you've served your use
They told such lies and you bought in
And now they cut you lose
So don't expect their help
And don't believe the lie
Your country only wanted you to
Do and then to die
Oct 24, 2015
Oct 24, 2015 at 6:25 AM UTC
Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.
Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.
And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression.
And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.
How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.
Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 8:39 AM UTC
Written by Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger; adapted by Mike Essig.
Halfway around the world tonight
In a strange and foreign land
A soldier packs his memories
As he leaves Afghanistan
And back home, they don't know too much
There was just no way to tell
You know you had to be there
To know that war was hell
And there won't be any victory parades
For those that's coming back
They'll fly them in at midnight
And unload the body sacks
And the living will be walking down
A long and lonely road
Because nobody seems to care these days
When a soldier makes it home
Somewhere in America tonight
In this strange and foreign land
A soldier unpacks memories
That he saved from Vietnam
They said it wasn't easy
Just another job, well done
*Then the government in Saigon fell
To the sounds of rebel guns*
And the faces of the comrades
Who were blown out of the sky
Leaves you bitter and disgusted
That they didn't have to die
*The old men who planned that war
You know they all died safe in bed
With none of their rich and privileged sons
Ending up torn or dead*
Back home they didn't know too much
There was just no way to tell
You know you had to be there
to know that war was hell
And there wasn't any big parades
For those that made it back
They flew them home in secret
and told them to make tracks
And the living were left walking down
A long and lonely road
Because nobody seemed to care back then
When a soldier made it home
The night is coming quickly
And the stars are on their way
As I stare into the evening
Looking for the words to say
That I saw the lonely soldier
Just a boy that's far from home
And I saw that I was just like him
While upon this earth I roam
And there may not be any big parades
If I ever make it back
As I come home under cover
To a world that can't keep track
Of the heroes who have fallen
Let alone the ones who roam
Guess that's why nobody seems to care
When a soldier makes it home
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 8:28 AM UTC
I fear them....and so
They anger me...and so
I hate them
I hate it that I need to hate them
I hate them for making hate necessary
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 5:15 AM UTC
When we met you said life had broken you
It started in childhood, what he put you through
And now you felt shamed because you were homeless
Abandoned by society, drifting and rudderless
You told me as though it was a ***** secret
And thought I'd walk away
You told me how you washed in the railway station
Fighting for work to improve your situation
Never giving up and never giving in
The very epitome of "Who Dares Wins"
And you thought I'd walk away?
You looked in the mirror and saw a loser
I cried and wished that I'd met you sooner
But you just said you'd learnt a lot
Sleeping rough on Christmas Day
You looked in the mirror, hated what you saw
But I looked at you, seeing so much more
Where you saw a loser I saw a hero
A samurai stood where you saw a zero
Knocked down 9 times you got up 10
If it wasn't enough you just did it again
Shotokan Tiger, in potentia
Noble, brave, strong.
Living proof that birth can't dictate you
That a ruined childhood needn't break you
You overcame all, yet I never pitied you
Forged in flames and born anew
Vicious abuse from a cowardly father
A little half man who claimed to be a soldier
So "brave" he beat you black and blue
But he could learn to be a man from you
In you I see a Pilgrim, bold and free
Longing for mountains and glittering seas
Always going farther, one peak more
You'll find your Mecca at the Dojo door
So walk beside me on the Golden Road
Let me share your honour code
Be my Sensei and guide my hand
While you light our way to Samarkand
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 6:50 PM UTC
I would love to say we should love others
Just as truly and deeply as we love our children
But given the childhood of many
That would be condemning us all to hell
Better to say we should love others
As we would have chosen to be loved as children
When JC said "Suffer the little children" he did not mean literally
Of that much I am sure
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 5:25 AM UTC
I am nineteen
And sitting in an over-glorified sports bar,
Telling him about my ex
Who would sip from the Devil's cup
And pummel my face
When he tells me
"You are too young to have dealt with that."
And I almost cry.
Because having been involved
In some serious **** before my 18th birthday,
I am afraid to tell him
That I have seen my friends
In coffins with track marks kissing their veins
And truly guilty rapists walk free.
I am ashamed to say
That I know what it is like
To have a person say to me
With no concern, only disdain
"Are you going to calm down
Or do I have to call the police this time?"
I took Atticus Finch too seriously
When he said to put on your fellow man's shoes
And walk around in them.
I have been on first dates in mental hospitals
And I became addicted to nicotine
By tasting it on men's breath
And he would be appalled to find out
The real reasons
I don't drink.
In a world where a year ago
I had to ask to leave the room and ****
I am now in a world
Where I am condemned
For not knowing where I'm going yet
But I will be dammed
If I do not know
What you're allowed to gift someone
Who is in the hospital after a suicide attempt
Or drug overdose.
Books, but only ones with non-controversial themes,
Shoes, laces prohibited.
It seems to me that they know
That my connection to this earth
Has become so frail
That even a shoelace
Could sever it.
His eyes are as young as mine
But he is saying these things to me
With a cigarette in his hand
And the weight of sleepless nights on his shoulders.
And I want to tell him that pain isn't relative
And what hurt me
May **** him
But I will not burden him
With the knowledge
That life gets better
Because I know he is hard headed.
I wonder some nights
If a shoelace is all it would take for him, too
And I almost cry.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 4:57 AM UTC
So you got yourself a gun
Tell me something son
What do you think life will bring
That requires that kind of "protection"
So you got yourself a gun
What could occur
That will result in cold steel and hot lead
Creating burning pain and decaying flesh
Bodies overcrowding hospital beds
So you got yourself a gun
For hunting the less intelligent for sport
To hang pelts on your mantle
To brag about conquest as frivolous as the wax from a melted candle
So you got yourself a gun... What were you thinking of?
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 4:54 AM UTC