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Lawrence Hall Feb 2019
The cultural filters are all in place
And truth, some say, is past its sell-by date
Weak hymns embalmed by hippies, and lost in space
Where time is always 1968

A poison-green tattoo on a fleshy back
No incense, but the Purell’s pretty strong
A ten-year-old gobbles his comfort snack
During Communion and a three-chord song

Our bishops quack and honk in flocks and herds -
We need a starets
                                           but all we get are words:


Intensify the Dallas Charter accountability focus accountability exclusively accountability collegial collective accountability responsibility address theme encounter dialectic collegiality variety universality unity flock dealing topic difficult reasons unexplored differences crisis difficult for bishops enable abusers gravely irreparably failures governance responsibility question engage conversation point brother problematic behavior cultivate culture correctio fraterna enables offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his  apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called intensify the Dallas Charter metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions Accountability focus accountability exclusively accountability collegial collective accountability responsibility address theme encounter dialectic collegiality variety universality unity flock dealing topic difficult reasons unexplored differences crisis difficult for bishops enable abusers gravely irreparably failures governance responsibility question engage conversation point brother problematic behavior cultivate culture correctio fraterna enables offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his  apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called Metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions accountable faithful promises episodes  accountability supportive talking collegiality obligation misbehavior failures circumstances reputation representative discreet inquiries interview expression concern geographically confronted reported matter subject investigating disciplining malfeasance proposal wrongdoing explained carefully considered matter alternatives remarks paragraph  rehearsed alternatives footnote 6 of text speeches delivered sessions briefing spoke involvement laity lay involvement transparency transparent offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his  apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called Metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions accountable faithful promises episodes  accountability supportive talking collegiality obligation misbehavior failures circumstances reputation representative discreet inquiries interview expression concern geographically confronted reported matter subject investigating disciplining malfeasance proposal wrongdoing explained carefully considered matter alternatives remarks paragraph  rehearsed alternatives footnote 6 of text speeches delivered sessions briefing spoke involvement laity lay involvement transparency transparent intensify the Dallas Charter…
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Allen Ginsberg  Jun 2009
Howl
For
              Carl Solomon

                   I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
      madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the ***** streets at dawn
      looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
      connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
      ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
      up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
      cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
      contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
      saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene-
      ment roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
      hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
      among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
      publishing obscene odes on the windows of the
      skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn-
      ing their money in wastebaskets and listening
      to the Terror through the wall,
who got busted in their ***** beards returning through
      Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in
      Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their
      torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, al-
      cohol and **** and endless *****,
incomparable blind; streets of shuddering cloud and
      lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of
      Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the mo-
      tionless world of Time between,
Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery
      dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops,
      storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon
      blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree
      vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brook-
      lyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,
who chained themselves to subways for the endless
      ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine
      until the noise of wheels and children brought
      them down shuddering mouth-wracked and
      battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance
      in the drear light of Zoo,
who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's
      floated out and sat through the stale beer after
      noon in desolate Fugazzi's, listening to the crack
      of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to
      pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brook-
      lyn Bridge,
lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping
      down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills
      off Empire State out of the moon,
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts
      and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks
      and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days
      and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the
      Synagogue cast on the pavement,
who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a
      trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic
      City Hall,
suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grind-
      ings and migraines of China under junk-with-
      drawal in Newark's bleak furnished room,
who wandered around and around at midnight in the
      railroad yard wondering where to go, and went,
      leaving no broken hearts,
who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing
      through snow toward lonesome farms in grand-
      father night,
who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telep-
      athy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos in-
      stinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking vis-
      ionary indian angels who were visionary indian
      angels,
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore
      gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Okla-
      homa on the impulse of winter midnight street
      light smalltown rain,
who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston
      seeking jazz or *** or soup, and followed the
      brilliant Spaniard to converse about America
      and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship
      to Africa,
who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving
      behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees
      and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fire
      place Chicago,
who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the
      F.B.I. in beards and shorts with big pacifist
      eyes **** in their dark skin passing out incom-
      prehensible leaflets,
who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting
      the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,
who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union
      Square weeping and ******* while the sirens
      of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed
      down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also
      wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked
      and trembling before the machinery of other
      skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight
      in policecars for committing no crime but their
      own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were
      dragged off the roof waving genitals and manu-
      scripts,
who let themselves be ****** in the *** by saintly
      motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim,
      the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean
      love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rose
      gardens and the grass of public parks and
      cemeteries scattering their ***** freely to
      whomever come who may,
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up
      with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath
      when the blond & naked angel came to pierce
      them with a sword,
who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate
      the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar
      the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb
      and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but
      sit on her *** and snip the intellectual golden
      threads of the craftsman's loom,
who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of
      beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a can-
      dle and fell off the bed, and continued along
      the floor and down the hall and ended fainting
      on the wall with a vision of ultimate **** and
      come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,
who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling
      in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning
      but prepared to sweeten the ****** of the sun
      rise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked
      in the lake,
who went out ******* through Colorado in myriad
      stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these
      poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver--joy
      to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls
      in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses'
      rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with
      gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely pet-
      ticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station
      solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,
who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in
      dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and
      picked themselves up out of basements hung
      over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third
      Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemploy-
      ment offices,
who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on
      the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the
      East River to open to a room full of steamheat
      and *****,
who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment
      cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime
      blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall
      be crowned with laurel in oblivion,
who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested
      the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of
      Bowery,
who wept at the romance of the streets with their
      pushcarts full of onions and bad music,
who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the
      bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in
      their lofts,
who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned
      with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded
      by orange crates of theology,
who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty
      incantations which in the yellow morning were
      stanzas of gibberish,
who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht
      & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable
      kingdom,
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for
      an egg,
who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot
      for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks
      fell on their heads every day for the next decade,
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccess-
      fully, gave up and were forced to open antique
      stores where they thought they were growing
      old and cried,
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits
      on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse
      & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments
      of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the
      fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinis-
      ter intelligent editors, or were run down by the
      drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,
who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually hap-
      pened and walked away unknown and forgotten
      into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley
      ways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,
who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of
      the subway window, jumped in the filthy Pas-
      saic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street,
      danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed
      phonograph records of nostalgic European
      1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and
      threw up groaning into the ****** toilet, moans
      in their ears and the blast of colossal steam
      whistles,
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying
      to each other's hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude
      watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,
who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out
      if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had
      a vision to find out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who
      came back to Denver & waited in vain, who
      watched over Denver & brooded & loned in
      Denver and finally went away to find out the
      Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying
      for each other's salvation and light and *******,
      until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for
      impossible criminals with golden heads and the
      charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet
      blues to Alcatraz,
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky
   &nb
Dan Filcek  Apr 2015
Faraday
Dan Filcek Apr 2015
Electromagnetism and electrochemistry added to the expanse of erudition.
Central calculations comprised of charged consecration
Diamagnetism and also electrolysis
Took in little of the ritual pedagogy
Most influential of archaic scientists.

The base for the conceptualization of the dynamic sphere.
Introduced the physics of ensconced enthrallment
Affecting rays of light
To say nothing of the underlying relationships there
Two phenomena, both similarly discovered

Inventions: Electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis.
the form of electromagnetic rotary devices
Foundation of electric motors
Truly technology was largely due to his effort
Electricity became practical for use

Scientific knowledge increased: investigating as an alchemist, discovered benzene.
Inventor of Clathrate hydrate of chlorine,
In its early form
the system of oxidation numbers, and the burner
Popularized terminology such as anode, cathode

Ultimately became the first and foremost, ultimate, and respected .
Chemistry Professor at the Institution
Position of a lifetime
He was an excellent experimentalist of conveyed ideas
Mathematical abilities in simple language  

His powers did also extend as far as trigonometry.
Took any but the simplest algebra
And worked around it
And also summarized it in sets of equations
The basis of modern theories
This year for Poetry Month, I decided to post a "found poem" every day. If writing a poem is like painting, a "found poem" is like sculpting. source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday
Sara  Jun 2018
To be a poet
Sara Jun 2018
Oh, to be a poet
one must be so emotional.
Well, no. Not necessarily.
We're only really capable
of understanding feeling,
investigating our emotions.
It doesn't mean we cry all day,
or pass nights in dark rooms moping.

We have lives; come home from work
or get in on a night bus back;
it's from all this experience
that we can draw out fact.
From mundane to extraordinary
we will become inspired.
Our strength is versatility
and life ignights our fires.

So, we do not all have to be
constricted to intensity
-to ponder oh-so seriously
on what it simply means 'to be'.
We can be strong, flirty, or mean
or to the brim with confidence.
For, what does 'to be a poet' mean,
if you cannot explore yourself?
'Our strength is versatility' is something I feel is very important and sometimes forgotten among stereotypes of what poetry should be about
Pablo Neruda  Jan 2010
Enigmas
You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with
        his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent
        bell? What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,
        and I reply by describing
how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.
You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers,
which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?
Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on
        the crystal architecture
of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now?
You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean
        spines?
     The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
     The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out
     in the deep places like a thread in the water?
    
     I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its
        jewel boxes
     is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
     and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the
        petal
     hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light
     and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall
     from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.

     I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
     of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
     of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
     on the timid globe of an orange.

     I walked around as you do, investigating
     the endless star,
     and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
     the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.
james nordlund Nov 2018
Whilst installed in the Blackhouse,
RumputiN's and vlad the impaler's latest
craven political attack on the military,
Against Admiral McRaven, who headed up
the capture of Osama, is just more raving.
This is clear to everyone since they,

the bi-headed underworld crown of
the bipolar axi of global supposed power,
RumputiN, republican capitalist materialists,
vlad the impaler, totalitarian socialist
materialists, put our military on TX's SE
border with Mexico, even though the "caravan"
which was 40 days away, was projected
to be arriving at the SW part instead,

A political stunt to get republican politicians
between 1/2 and 1 % more votes in the Midterms,
While it worked for the criminal gaining of votes,
The military is doing next to nothing there,
And should be allowed home by Thanksgiving.
Meanwhile, Trumpler said, the "Admiral didn't
do so well, since it took so long to capture
Bin Laden", when it was king george and his ****,
cheney, who ordered Osama to be allowed to escape
from Bora, Bora to Pakistan for safe keeping in

Abbottabad, "5 miles S. of Pakistan's Westpoint".  
You see, Bushs and Bin Ladens had been in business
for decades, and in the M.E. business is thicker
than blood, Bush could no more **** Bin Laden than
he could his own flesh and blood.  It's well known
that he received wedding invitations to Osama's kids
weddings, etc., for years, so, Trumpler blaming
McRaven and O'bama, when they caught him in the 2nd year
of his Presidency, is just more precious examples of our
king kong sized terrible two's use of 1st conclusion,
superficial, linear thought stragedy to attack everybody,
in attempts to silence, cower most if not All, in vain.

These attacks by Trumpler are also misdirections, to take
the news cycles off: his party's extreme losses and evident
voter crime they did, like in GA, where Abrams "couldn't
concede in her Governor's race for that would mean it was
proper...", it wasn't because Gov. Elect Kemp determined that
"...it wasn't a free, fair election, ...democracy failed in GA".
Also, his illegally installing Whitaker, a criminal the FBI is
investigating, to acting Attorney General, to preside over the
Mueller investigation (cover-up for: it doesn't use the RICO act
and asked for him to answer a take home test months ago, he
hasn't even handed in yet, while "...We(e),...", got our last
take home tests in 1st grade).  As well as his wasting a 1/2 a
billion of your tax $ on further militarization of our S. border.
His false, lame attacks against democratic leaders are unending.

On the letter by 16 democrat politicians who signed onto "the
leadership fight against Pelosi (for the republicans), Ocasio-
Cortez, Elect, says, "what's the point of changing just to...,
we might get a more conservative leader, for signers aren't diverse,
14 are male, very few people of color, progressives aren't signing."
I agree, why would the non-repubs get rid of their strongest
political leader going into impeachment time and 2020?  The supposed
left said "Hillary wasn't perfect", and helped to install him, when,
if you didn't vote Hillary you voted for the bi-headed, RumputiN/vlad
the impaler, head of the global oligarchy and bi-polar global axi of
supposed power to dictate the extermination to extinction of humanity,
large mammals, for the corp structure's convolution's devolutionary
direction + 'la machine''s, sociological programming (machining) human
(into not) being, individually, which is the social challenge of our
day, as the convolution's dictating cult of personality is almost all
and the socialist's extemist lie that "there's no reality without
their agreement", is the political one.  Don't be undone, be one well.
Thanx for the great worx, I look forward....  "...We(e),..." are advancing the Evolution in it's struggle against the corporate structure's (la machine) convolution and it's devolutionary direction.  You, indivisible life and illimitable potential, and your worx go along way in that evolutionary direction, for, we can walk in nature's balance, giving back to Earth's abundance.  If you didn't vote Hillary you voted for the bi-headed, RumputiN/vlad the impaler, head of the global oligarchy to dictate the extermination to extinction of humanity, large mammals, for the corp structure's convolution's devolutionary direction + 'la machine''s, sociological programming (machining) human (into not) being, individually, which is the social challenge of our day, as the convolution's dictating cult of personality is almost all and the socialist's extemist lie that "there's no reality without their agreement", is the political one.  All life are necessary threads in life's fabric, we can't allow to be torn asunder, as we followed none, we leave no footprints that will echo on, in all ways, always.   reality
John Jan 2013
Back when I was about ten or eleven, the only friend I had was the most beautiful girl I knew. Her name was Jessica and her and I did everything together. In school we were inseparable, always chit-chatting before, during and after classes. So much so that teachers bestowed upon us the annoying, yet endearing, encompassing nickname of "Jackica" - a combination of our names; Jack and Jessica.
     I was so thankful for her companionship, and thinking back it might have been a pretty uneven relationship, emotionally. I was an overweight and awkward Harry Potter fanboy and she was a cute little auburn-haired thing who could've won any Miss America Junior competition in the world, as far as I was concerned. She had the most piercing powder blue eyes. The kind that made my skin tingle and mouth curl up into a stupid smile at any given moment. I felt like she saw me, like she really saw ME. Not the blubbery flesh that coated my muscle and bones but what I was made of, the real me. And I loved her for that.
     Along with Jessica's physical blessings, she was also given an insatiable appetite for adventure. She loved to go to the park at night,  after the gates were locked and when everything was drenched in darkness. We'd hop the five foot chain-link fence and roam around the grounds. We'd go the water at the edge of the park and sit on the rocks, look up at the stars and take turns telling stories to each other with intent to scare the **** out of the other one.
     One humid night in mid-June, Jessica told a story that succeeded in making my skin-crawl. She always told decent scary stories, she was gifted in the art of fabricating tales of fright right on the spot, but this story really got to my core for some reason. I just felt uneasy as the words spilled from her mouth to my ears and with each sentence my muscles tightened and strained just from the mere tone of her voice as she told the story. She sounded serious, and she rarely did, even when telling these stories, but with this particular one it sounded like she really believed what she was saying was cold, hard truth.
     What she said was that she heard a story that her older brother's girlfriend had told her. It was about a house on the outskirts of town, placed just a few hundred yards from the mouth of the woods that lined our little suburban utopia. She went on to say that in the house was nothing all that scary. She said it was an old house, a very old house, as it was a log cabin that was built in the 1700s, when the town was first being settled. Supposedly, everything in the house was just as it was back then, little kerosene lamps sitting on home-mad oak tables. The maple-wood floors would moan and creak at the slightest hint of any weight being put on them. And then she said that no one had lived in the house since the man who built it died, around 1785.
     Needless to say, Jessica wrapped up the story by proclaiming that we had to find the house. And we had to go inside and see for ourselves what was so creepy about it. Being the scared, chubby little wimp that I was, I immediately rejected the idea. There was no way I was going to try to find a place that would only succeed in making me **** my pants in front of a girl, especially the one whom I'd placed the delusional label of "future girlfriend" on.  But, as I subconsciously expected, Jessica talked me into it with just a few graceful words: "I'll kiss you if you come with me."
    
     The very next Saturday night, Jessica and I put on some dark jeans and t-shirts and took the bus all the way to the last stop, the edge of town. We hopped off and right in front of the stop the woods were already waiting, I took a deep breath as Jessica's eyes lit up. She took my hand and pulled me as she ran, me clumsily waddling along behind her all the way to a little dirt pathway that paved the only marked entrance we could see. She asked me if I was ready and I shrugged, saying something like "I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be." And so we started down the path. As the tall trees swayed in the wind, I dragged my feet with  Jessica always about five feet ahead of me, as eager as ever. We walked for probably ten or twenty minutes before the foot of the cabin was before us.
     At first sight, it was a very old structure. I'd never seen anything like it outside of paintings in my history textbook and this Abe Lincoln documentary I saw on PBS. I never knew houses like that stood the test of time. But there it was before me, two stories high with wooden shutters clad in severely chipped paint and a big oak door that looked stronger than any door I'd ever seen. Jessica took my hand again, smiled enchantingly and rushed me forward.
     Once at the door, I was speechless. It didn't look as old as the rest of the house and whoever made it obviously meant for it to last a very long time, taking extreme care in carving it out impeccably and sanding it until it shined with a professional touch. Without a word, Jessica rapped on the door. Three hard times, and when no one answered after thirty seconds, she rapped again, and again. She shrugged and turned to me, asked if we should just go in. I said no and she frowned.
     "There's no way we came this far just to go back home with nothing," and then she wrapped her hand around the rusted doorknob and turned.
     The door opened with no hesitation as she pushed it all the way in. She stepped inside, and I followed. The first thing I noticed inside the cabin was the creaking floors. They creaked louder and longer with each step, affirming that part of the story, making my blood run cold. We looked around, going from room to room with wide eyes. We were amazed that we made it, that we got inside and now we were actually investigating a place that no one else supposedly had gone before. Truth be told, though, it was nothing special. There wasn't much at all to see, save for a few tables, the creaking floors and some very old paintings on the wall. We were just leaving when we noticed something on a table nearest the big oak door. It was a metal box with a small lock fastened to the front of it.
     "We have to open it," Jessica proclaimed after a second of curious inspection.
     "There's no way were going to find the key," I told her.
     "So we'll break the lock, Jack. Duh," she replied in her sassiest tone.
     I just shook my head as she grabbed the box and began to furiously slam it in the wooden table. The sound echoed through the house, exacerbating it and making me shiver from head to toe.
     "I don't know if you should keep-" but my sentence was cut off my the lock flying off the box and clinking onto the floor below.
Jessica smiled again, very pleased with herself and looked to me.
     "Wonder what's inside...," She said, lifting the top half of the box open.
     After an initial and cough-inducing puff of thick dust subsided, the contents of the box were revealed. It was a letter, written on old-school parchment in heavy ink. In neatly laid Victorian script, the likes of which I had never seen so simultaneously neat and scattered, like it was written in a hurry or during a time of distress, was a love letter. Well, a kind of love letter. It was addressed to a woman named Tania and it was signed by a William. It told the story of how William had loved Tania since they were children, and Tania was now to be married to a Pastor named Hensley. William told Tania how he couldn't bear the thought of her ever being with anyone else and that the fact that she could never truly be his was killing him. Literally. He ended the note by confessing his plan to **** himself.
     I took a step back, but Jessica just stood at the table with her eyes glued to the crumbling parchment in her hands.
     "I'm leaving," I said after a few moments, mulling over the sorrow that this poor man must've felt. I headed out the door, Jessica following. The walk back through the woods to the bus stop I couldn't get this feeling of dread from subsiding. It seemed like I felt what William felt, but not in a sympathetic sort of way. It felt like I was William and the pain he felt was actually my pain. And then I noticed that, rolled up tightly in her fist, Jessica had taken the letter with her.
     "Why'd you take that," I said, sounding thoroughly upset. "That's not yours to take, go bring it back!"
     "No way. There was no way I was going there and coming back with nothing to show for it," she said, gripping the letter tightly, her knuckles almost whitening.
     I knew how stubborn Jessica could be and I knew whatever I said probably wouldn't even phase her in the slightest so I did what I did best and just shrugged it off. I found myself wishing I could shrug off the terrible feeling the letter put deep inside me just as easily as I could Jessica's stubbornness.

     Over time, Jessica and I lost touch, as kids of that age often do. I grew up, lost weight and opened up, making more friends and acquaintances, no longer hanging onto the thought of Jessica being my only love. I didn't talk to Jessica all that much. Just once in a while we'd meet up and have a chat over some coffee or pizza. We had both changed and morphed into young adults with different agendas and dreams and I had no problem with that. But on one such meeting, Jessica began to worry me. She said that every now and then she'd open her desk drawer and take the piece of parchment out and read it. Over and over again. And lately, she had been opening the drawer more and more, she said that she felt drawn to it. Like something about it made her feel this deep-seated dread that no horror movie or scary story had ever made her feel. She said that she felt like the letter was beginning to take a toll on her. And, by the look of her, it didn't seem like she was lying or kidding around like she always used to love to do. She had dark circles underneath her once striking eyes, which were now darker and had taken on an odd and ominous color. I was scared for her. And I told her so but she hugged me and assured me she was alright. I wanted to believe her, and I tried to, hugging her back and telling her I'd talk to her soon. But when she turned her back I knew something was very wrong.

     I'm writing this now because a few weeks ago Jessica's mom gave me a call. When her number came up on my cell phone, I think I knew, deep down, e actor why I was getting this call but I pushed the thought away and said hello. Jessica's mother called to tell me that a few days before Jessica had gone missing. The only indication to her whereabouts was a note she left with the words "cabin at the edge of town", and below that, instructions on how to get there. Her mother said she took the note and hopped in her car immediately, and made it to the cabin. She said she was breathless by the time she got to the cabin but forged on and barged inside and looked around. She said she found nothing and was about to leave when she noticed a small door behind the big oak door she had swung open to get inside. She opened the little door to find a stairwell. She climbed it, calling Jessica's name all the way, sobbing and wiping tears from her eyes. At the top of the stairs was the attic. And she said she almost died herself when she saw Jessica. She was hanging from a wooden rafter on the ceiling. And next to her was a severely decayed skeleton, dangling from a rope only a few inches away.
It's definitely more of a short story but I felt obligated to post it here for some reason.
Jack Kerouac  Oct 2010
Bus East
Society has good intentions Bureaucracy is like a friend
5 years ago - other furies other losses -

America's
trying to control the uncontrollable Forest fires, Vice

The essential smile In the essential sleep Of the children Of the essential mind

I'm
all thru playing the American
Now I'm going to live a good quiet life

The
world should be built for foot walkers

Oily
rivers Of spiney Nevady

I
am Jake Cake
Rake
Write like Blake

The
horse is not pleased Sight of his
gorgeous finery
in the dust Its silken
nostrils
did disgust

Cats
arent kind Kiddies anent sweet

April
in Nevada - Investigating Dismal Cheyenne Where the war parties
In fields
of straw
Aimed over oxen At Indian Chiefs
In wild headdress Pouring thru
the gap
In Wyoming plain
To make the settlers
Eat more dust than dust
was eaten In the States From East at Seacoast Where wagons made up To dreadful
Plains
Of clazer vup

Saltry
settlers
Anxious to ******* The Mongol Sea (I'm too tired in Cheyenne -
No sleep in 4 nights now, & 2 to go)
Katlyn Orthman Oct 2012
Death was not unfamilar to me. I'd killed my share of things classified as monsters. I wasn't complaining really, my job kept the humans safe. I just felt guilty, I was practically a monster myself. They call us Warriors of the night, we're not Vampires, we are born with extra strenght and a long life span. I was born a long time ago, I was raised to **** monsters that terrorize the human race. Since I was six, I'd been trained to ****. I was a killing machine, best of my kind. Yet somehow, even though what I do is considered an honor, I don't feel proud. I've been doing my job much to long, and lately I'd began getting sloppy with my work. God knows Rowan would be one ****** of boss if he heard about me letting the group of baby Werewolves. I wasn't a complete heartless ******* to **** a bunch of babies.
    I might've been two years ago, before the whole incident happened. I layed my head in my hands, I couldn't go there, not now. I needed a clear head. My small apartment in Master Singu's house was getting messy. I hadn't had time to clean lately with all of the monster attacks that had been popping up lately. Ghouls, Goblins, Oni, Ogre, you name it and it's been attacking. Wasn't much we could do with the Banshee, they were more of a signifier then a monster. A signifier of death, and usually they gave me a heads up if the person who's house it's been surrounding, is gonna die. Banshee were cruel looking creatures, never gotten to close to one, they make **** sure of that. Not sure I ever want to. They were ruled by the one and only, Death. And i will gladly stay as far from death as possible. Haven't heard too many good things about him. Death is one of the Four horsemen. Scariest ******* in the underworld, and I would gladly never meet any of deaths brothers or sisters, what ever the gender their welcome to stay away. There was a soft knock on my door, io glanced at the clock on the wall, it was already three. Warriors worked night shift basically, since thats the time most monsters like to come out.
    The victorian styled door was a black cherry carved wood, with a ancient symbols carved in so no evil spirit couls cross into my apartment, so I wasnt worried any monster was at my door. But I was suprised to see Cameron when I opened the door. Cameron and I used to work the nights together until he'd gone off and gotten married to Sylvia, who was a vampire. Vampires were only considered monsters when they didnt follow the rules. No feeding off of unwilling people, only donors, and they couldnt go around killing people. Their biggest rule though was not to tell any human what they were, Warriors like me had a lot of people to execute.
   "Cameron, never thought I'd see you around here anymore," just as I was talking to him I realized, Cameron looked scared and desperate. Unlike someone who spent his life killing evil monsters that were twice the size of him. " What's wrong Cameron?" He shook his head and walked past me, through the door and into the living room. "It's Sylvia, Theon please help me," Camerons voice was going all thick and his eye's all watery. This was deffinetly something bad. " Tell me, what has happened with Sylvia?" I needed Cameron in his most focused form to help me out, but as I looked at the shaking man I knew he was beyond that. " You remember the king vampire we took down to save Sylvia?" Cameron said quitely, but I knew instantly what vampire he was talking about. That vampire had killed Abelia. I quickly swept that from my mind and focused back on Cameron. " Yes I remember, "  I had no idea where Cameron was going with this. " You remember his brother than, the one that got away, he said that we would both pay. He, ah, made you pay that day. I never thought that he would carry out with his threat. He kidnapped Sylvia, and Sylvia is pregnant, " Cameron almost lost it right there.
    I never thought that, pip squeak of a vampire had it in him, but he was smart and possesed powers we hadn't known about until we had come across them. Their king that we had slayed, had been capturing girls of all species and abusing them in such barbaric ways.
We had to put an end to his affairs, and we did but his brother wasn't too happy about it. He'd done one of his tricks and manifested behind Abelia and snapped her neck. Everything for me had stopped, all I could hear was the blood in my veins. I didn't breath, I could still remember the deafining roar I had unleashed as my monster had gripped me, took the reins and killed all of the mans servants.
Blood had bathed the walls that night, not even the crickets dared to sing. The sun rose late that morning, and I sat inside this very apartment, on that very couch, and cried. For the very first time, I had cried until my eye's swelled shut, until my throat could bare no more. Until I passed out.
    "We'll get them back Cameron, don't worry. For now get some rest, we'll start investigating later tonight, I have meeting to attend," I was going to **** that ******* when I found him. He had taken my only love from me, and he would pay this time, I would make that absoultely certain. Cameron nodded and headed for the door. It was a long way back to his house, and he crossed quite a few bridges. I didn't want him making any bad decisions, " Cameron you can crash here, I have a guest room your welcome here man," I say casually so he doesn't get all prideful. He stops and looks at me for a moment then nods " Yeah, thanks man, and also thank you for agreeing to help me on this I know it's a bit of a touchy subject for you, just know i appreciate it." He made his way down the hall, I listened for the soft click of the door shuting before i went to leave.
    I grabbed my coat, and the keys to my Ducatti and ducked out the door. The hallway was long and at the end of it was two flights of srairs, I lived on the third floor. My motorcycle was parked right were I left it, it was a beauty. Black and red sleek metal and nice leather seats. I loved the bike so much I had named her Racer. I loved to drive fast, and so did she. I tore off out of the parking lot and listened to the purr of her engine on the way to Rowan's , my boss, office. It wasnt to far, but I wasn't in a rush either so i took the long road just to stall. I knew Rowan planned on giving me a partner. Probably some ****** that didnt know his way around a swiss army blade, let alone a sword. Warriors didnt use guns unless absoultely necessary. I loved the feel of my sword slicing through the air. I didn't, however, enjoy the noisy bang of a gun. A sword was like another limb, you have to trust it to take you were you need to go.
    Rowan's office light was on, and I could make out the form of three bodies. Great, I knew it, Rowan was going to assign me a partner.
I hated partners, the only one I'd ever slightly enjoyed had been Cameron. I got off my bike, patted the seat for good luck, and made my way into Rowans office. When I pulled open the door I was ready to yell at Rowan for even thinking of giving me a partner, instead i dropped my hand off the doorknob. " *******," was all I coluld say. I was stunned to silence.
To be continued! Hope I left you wanting to know more!
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2018
. give me enough *****, lime juice and pepsi, the right song, and i will show you a control-environment psychotic episode...

sometimes, it's not about what you
know, versus who you know -
notably? when you're aiming at knowing
yourself...

      and psychosis?
   the synthesis of a soul while within
the confines of a body?
       one such example is walking
under two street lamps,
and spotting two shadows,
   immediately investigating,
whether or not, someone is walking
behind you, with a stalking
proclivity...

  you turn around -
  nothing but a hallowing voice
on the slightest of breezes -
the kind that barely motivates
branches to bow...

       - everyone knows that
the italians are famous for their pasta,
just like the french are, for their buns...
some Pakistani makes a joke
about the western love for cabbage...
esp. pickled cabbage -
mashed up with wild mushroom
to make up the filling for slavic
dumplings...

       sure... how's the turmeric?
i've been dying for the turks
working in kebab shops
to elevate the lamb doner (kebab)
using pickled cabbage -
  like they might use pickled
chillies -
       oh look... both are muslims -
the Ottoman's might have
figured out the southern slavic
palette, having occupied
the Balkans...

          we do more with potatoes
than a mere boiling down
to, what could never become an Irish
famine...
   first?
     there's the *****...
    nothing quiet unlike the whiskey
perfumery of pict-land of Scotland...

     Silesian potato doughnuts -
usually served with a cabbage radish -
pickled -
          and a thick pseudo-Hungarian
sauce...
   the potatoes are boiled,
then mashed,
   then sliced into 4 portions,
1/4 is moved aside,
      potato flower is added in equal
volume, and one egg...
   then it becomes mashed bashed
and given the skin
     tenderness of a drunk's wife's skin...
cut and molded into little doughnut
shapes,
   the index finger is inserted
into each one,
          and then each "infantry" member
is boiled,
till ready, i.e. floating on top
of the salted water...
             and there you have...
        Silesian potato doughnuts -

and there is a variant - potato hooves...
same ergonomics -
but instead of potato flower,
plain flower -
               i can't remember the proportions...
also boiled...
         but best cooled,
and subsequently fried -
for a crispness -
         mingled with honey
and something the Hindus know
that the Slavs also make -
     not exactly quark cheese -
   but getting there - more flaky...

    mind you...
   the whole out of Africa story?
   given that so many Roma live and trade
in Poland?
            perhaps having incorporated
the Africans into your pre- and post-colonial
nations, the genesis story would
begin with: out of Africa...
  
        and they swam across the mediterranean...
funny...
    you's sooner see a white competitor
in the 100m sprint final,
   than in the 100m final of
     the breast stroke / butterfly / etc. final...

no...
      i place my origins in India...
moving across the platitude of Siberia...
i have more in common with
Raj origin story... than i have anything
to do with: Zulu and the pinnacle
of Giza...

     i place my origins there...
         and those potato hooves?
they have a name in Italian...
       they're called gnocchi...
served with parmigiano-reggiano
       & pesto...
    never fried,
          and subsequently hardened -
next time i hear the cabbage
joke from some copper-skin
about a group's palette...
       having, actually enjoyed
the other group's palette?
             skin is a base no one works
from to make obsolete
     and redundant bigotry...
    we don't have to share
the same physiognomy...
  but sure as **** we can share
a meal;
        like among the russian drinkers...
i honestly quiet enjoyed
their dried fish ***-bits
to nibble on...
    because, whoever said that...
beer was to be accompanied by
peanuts?
Nigel Morgan Apr 2013
As he walked through the maze of streets from the tube station he wondered just how long it had been since he had last visited this tall red-bricked house. For so many years it had been for him a pied à terre. Those years when the care of infant children dominated his days, when coming up to London for 48 hours seemed such a relief, an escape from the daily round that small people demand. Since his first visits twenty years ago the area bristled with new enterprise. An abandoned Victorian hospital had been turned into expensive apartments; small enterprising businesses had taken over what had been residential property of the pre-war years. Looking up he was conscious of imaginative conversions of roof and loft spaces. What had seemed a wide-ranging community of ages and incomes appeared to have disappeared. Only the Middle Eastern corner shops and restaurants gave back to the area something of its former character: a place where people worked and lived.

It was a tall thin house on four floors. Two rooms at most of each floor, but of a good-size. The ground floor was her London workshop, but as always the blinds were down. In fact, he realised, he’d never been invited into her working space. Over the years she’d come to the door a few times, but like many artists and craftspeople he knew, she fiercely guarded her working space. The door to her studio was never left open as he passed through the hallway to climb the three flights of stairs to her husband’s domain. There was never a chance of the barest peek inside.

Today, she was in New York, and from outside the front door he could hear her husband descend from his fourth floor eyrie. The door was flung open and they greeted each other with the fervour of a long absence of friends. It had been a long time, really too long. Their lives had changed inexplicably. One, living almost permanently in that Italian marvel of waterways and sea-reflected light, the other, still in the drab West Yorkshire city from where their first acquaintance had begun from an email correspondence.

They had far too much to say to one another - on a hundred subjects. Of course the current project dominated, but as coffee (and a bowl of figs and mandarin oranges) was arranged, and they had moved almost immediately he arrived in the attic studio to the minimalist kitchen two floors below, questions were thrown out about partners and children, his activities, and sadly, his recent illness (the stairs had seemed much steeper than he remembered and he was a little breathless when he reached the top). As a guest he answered with a brevity that surprised him. Usually he found such questions needed roundabout answers to feel satisfactory - but he was learning to answer more directly, and being brief, suddenly thought of her and her always-direct questions. She wanted to know something, get something straight, so she asked  - straight - with no ‘going about things’ first. He wanted to get on with the business at hand, the business that preoccupied him, almost to the exclusion of everything else, for the last two days.

When they were settled in what was J’s working space ten years ago now he was immediately conscious that although the custom-made furniture had remained the Yamaha MIDI grand piano and the rack of samplers were elsewhere, along with most of the scores and books. The vast collection of CDs was still there, and so too the pictures and photographs. But there was one painting that was new to this attic room, a Cézanne. He was taken aback for a moment because it looked so like the real thing he’d seen in a museum just weeks before. He thought of the film Notting Hill when William Thacker questions the provenance of the Chagall ‘violin-playing goat’. The size of this Cézanne seemed accurate and it was placed in a similar rather ornate frame to what he knew had framed the museum original. It was placed on right-hand wall as he had entered the room, but some way from the pair of windows that ran almost the length of this studio. The view across the rooftops took in the Tower of London, a mile or so distant. If he turned the office chair in which he was sitting just slightly he could see it easily whilst still paying attention to J. The painting’s play of colours and composition compelled him to stare, as if he had never seen the painting before. But he had, and he remembered that his first sight of it had marked his memory.

He had been alone. He had arrived at the gallery just 15 minutes before it was due to close for the day.  He’d been told about this wonderful must-see octagonal room where around the walls you could view a particularly fine and comprehensive collection of Impressionist paintings. All the great artists were represented. One of Van Gogh’s many Olive Trees, two studies of domestic interiors by Vuillard, some dancing Degas, two magnificent Gaugins, a Seurat field of flowers, a Singer-Sergeant portrait, two Monets - one of a pair of haystacks in a blaze of high-summer light. He had been able to stay in that room just 10 minutes before he was politely asked to leave by an overweight attendant, but afterwards it was as if he knew the contents intimately. But of all these treasures it was Les Grands Arbres by Cézanne that had captured his imagination. He was to find it later and inevitably on the Internet and had it printed and pinned to his notice board. He consulted his own book of Cézanne’s letters and discovered it was a late work and one of several of the same scene. This version, it was said, was unfinished. He disagreed. Those unpainted patches he’d interpreted as pools of dappled light, and no expert was going to convince him otherwise! And here it was again. In an attic studio J. only frequented occasionally when necessity brought him to London.

When the coffee and fruit had been consumed it was time to eat more substantially, for he knew they would work late into the night, despite a whole day tomorrow to be given over to their discussions. J. was full of nervous energy and during the walk to a nearby Iraqi restaurant didn’t waver in his flow of conversation about the project. It was as though he knew he must eat, but no longer had the patience to take the kind of necessary break having a meal offered. His guest, his old friend, his now-being-consulted expert and former associate, was beginning to reel from the overload of ‘difficulties’ that were being put before him. In fact, he was already close to suggesting that it would be in J’s interest if, when they returned to the attic studio, they agreed to draw up an agenda for tomorrow so there could be some semblance of order to their discussions. He found himself wishing for her presence at the meal, her calm lovely smile he knew would charm J. out of his focused self and lighten the rush and tension that infused their current dialogue. But she was elsewhere, at home with her children and her own and many preoccupations, though it was easy to imagine how much, at least for a little while, she might enjoy meeting someone new, someone she’d heard much about, someone really rather exotic and (it must be said) commanding and handsome. He would probably charm her as much as he knew she would charm J.

J. was all and more beyond his guest’s thought-description. He had an intensity and a confidence that came from being in company with intense, confident and, it had to be said, very wealthy individuals. His origins, his beginnings his guest and old friend could only guess at, because they’d never discussed it. The time was probably past for such questions. But his guest had his own ideas, he surmised from a chanced remark that his roots were not amongst the affluent. He had been a free-jazz musician from Poland who’d made waves in the German jazz scene and married the daughter of an arts journalist who happened to be the wife of the CEO of a seriously significant media empire. This happy association enabled him to get off the road and devote himself to educating himself as a composer of avant-garde art music - which he desired and which he had achieved. His guest remembered J’s passion for the music of Luigi Nono (curiously, a former resident of the city in which J. now lived) and Helmut Lachenmann, then hardly known in the UK. J. was already composing, and with an infinite slowness and care that his guest marvelled at. He was painstakingly creating intricate and timbrally experimental string quartets as well as devising music for theatre and experimental film. But over the past fifteen years J. had become increasingly more obsessed with devising software from which his musical ideas might emanate. And it had been to his guest that, all that time ago, J. had turned to find a generous guide into this world of algorithms and complex mathematics, a composer himself who had already been seduced by the promise of new musical fields of possibility that desktop computer technology offered.

In so many ways, when it came to the hard edge of devising solutions to the digital generation of music, J. was now leagues ahead of his former tutor, whose skills in this area were once in the ascendant but had declined in inverse proportion to J’s, as he wished to spend more time composing and less time investigating the means through which he might compose. So the guest was acting now as a kind of Devil’s Advocate, able to ask those awkward disarming questions creative people don’t wish to hear too loudly and too often.

And so it turned out during the next few hours as J. got out some expensive cigars and brandy, which his guest, inhabiting a different body seemingly, now declined in favour of bottled water and dry biscuits. His guest, who had been up since 5.0am, finally suggested that, if he was to be any use on the morrow, bed was necessary. But when he got in amongst the Egyptian cotton sheets and the goose down duvet, sleep was impossible. He tried thinking of her, their last walk together by the sea, breakfast à deux before he left, other things that seemed beautiful and tender by turn . . . But it was no good. He wouldn’t sleep.

The house could have been as silent as the excellent double-glazing allowed. Only the windows of the attic studio next door to his bedroom were open to the night, to clear the room of the smoke of several cigars. He was conscious of that continuous flow of traffic and machine noise that he knew would only subside for a brief hour or so around 4.0am. So he went into the studio and pulled up a chair in front of the painting by Cézanne, in front of this painting of a woodland scene. There were two intertwining arboreal forms, trees of course, but their trunks and branches appeared to suggest the kind of cubist shapes he recognized from Braque. These two forms pulled the viewer towards a single slim and more distant tree backlit by sunlight of a late afternoon. There was a suggestion, in the further distance, of the shapes of the hills and mountains that had so preoccupied the artist. But in the foreground, there on the floor of this woodland glade, were all the colours of autumn set against the still greens of summer. It seemed wholly wrong, yet wholly right. It was as comforting and restful a painting as he could ever remember viewing. Even if he shut his eyes he could wander about the picture in sheer delight. And now he focused on the play of brush strokes of this painting in oils, the way the edge and border of one colour touched against another. Surprisingly, imagined sounds of this woodland scene entered his reverie - a late afternoon in a late summer not yet autumn. He was Olivier Messiaen en vacances with his perpetual notebook recording the magical birdsong in this luminous place. Here, even in this reproduction, lay the joy of entering into a painting. Jeanette Winterson’s plea to look at length at paintings, and then look again passed through his thoughts. How right that seemed. How very difficult to achieve. But that night he sat comfortably in J’s attic and let Cézanne deliver the artist’s promise of a world beyond nature, a world that is not about constant change and tension, but rests in a stillness all its own.
And after the last Galactic War, those from the stars came and gods became. They indulged in the pleasures of the Earth. They created and mated. Over time they got bored and got innovative. They created hybrids to work for them and adore them. This hybrid had a confused consciousness. Once this hybrid was one (whole) but because he was too god-like and powerful, he had to be separated. Male and female were born. Because this separation caused a void in each and a longing for freedom, laws were made and temples built. And the world as we'd have it would be As It Is In Heaven. There were different civilizations of lords and they contended with each other as to what the best way to rule man was. So each sect had its belief system. However this didn't build a bridge to close the gap between male and female. These laws of Conduct and Engagement became integrated into what is called the Game. If you were a man you had to court a woman in order to have her company but because of intense ****** activity and interbreeding you had to marry before having ****** *******. The women were encouraged to make the men trail, suffer and earn to have ***. This was effective to the lords for man would concentrate on the illusion of the game rather than the divine art, mystery, sophistication and connective power of ***. So *** outside of marriage was ridiculed, the participants scorned.

There were brawls and arguments about who had the right to court which woman. The highest honour was laying with a goddess or god; as it gave you all knowledge and ability - This was forbidden by other gods as it would amplify the mobility and authority of man. It was decided then that those of the genetic line of the dominant gods of the time or the empire with the largest influence had a birth-right to marry the fairest women. It was at this point that kingship was born, the MacGods of pure blood. They would then be the intermediary between man and the gods. They would see that the game is carried out  as well as other affairs. This new style of relationship conduct caused much conflict, hate and intolerance. And as the ages went with man defending himself with passive oppression; as division was succeeding with language, culture and tribes... Those who were in resistance sought to restore or imprint the liberty of humankind; they were known as the Rebellious Liberals. In those days if a man fornicated without being married he was hanged. These acts of tyranny and Authoritarian dictatorship led to man hating the gods; yes man hated his selfish parents. So the wars against the gods began. And the kings sought to protect the dynasty of the gods. The gods that were conquered hid in the underground, others fled into other galaxies and planets and colonized there. The beauty of love had endured a grotesque wound. Man helpless continued to submit to the rules of the game. As the world fell from 4-D to 3-D man was taught that he would communicate with his ancestors in the afterlife for guidance, as well as when asleep and in trance states.

However the game survived under kings, although peoples separated and new tribes were formed; men held on to rituals and believed it was the will of a god or another. This consciousness tore the heart of the Earth and the insecurities of self expanded, an incessant feeling of fear and an imbalance of self-love. This led to many looking to and aspiring to kings... Over the ages the glamorous have had an upper hand to court and lay fairladies. The indoctrinating dogma that is religion sprout patriarchal homes.

This bred insubordination and woman became the place of weeping. The ages passed and men grew arrogant, women bitter and helpless. The institutions of the game, marriage and religion were now attacking the love they claimed to protect. The world grew careless and bitter, male and female drifting so far apart as though they were never one. Consequent to this there were poets and liberals, there were also charlatans who were lackeys for the game. The male charlatans giving advice to men, the female charlatans giving advice to women. So psychotic ideologies were passed from father to son, mother to daughter - father to daughter, mother to son. A new age sprung with the evolution of man, or rather devolution of man as mystics would have it, this was the age of Banking. Not that there weren't enough troubles. Now money grew itself an ego, an ego to be protected, protected by the very descendants of the gods-MacGods, they were the gatekeepers. It was expected that bank-robbers would be heroes and the new face of man. All this in effort to uplift a self long wounded. It wouldn't be long that gangsters would be overthrown and police the new heroes... But a crazy world it was as both faces would grow to be corrupt with no one investigating the source.

The source now devised Feminism, this would bring justice to women on the face of it but rather vengeance to men. Men would wear a new garment of infants and senseless idiots. What happened to the justice? There was no justice.

Women would replace the face of old obnoxious, selfish and abusive men. With better jobs, equal opportunities, better insurance; the sky was the limit for women. Men faced a new threat either than themselves or the threatening boundaries of the game (which leave you a public fool if you don't follow, a player if you do) - and players were cool - the threat was the wounded vengeful woman who was now given the power to run the game. Judicial systems protected woman, Education systems, Banking Systems, Insurance Systems and Media and Industry; all protected woman. The game promised self-esteem if its rules were followed but it only led to folly, sorrow and despair. As women have wide coffers, power they can bear and power was given to her by the source. Justice became vengeance, impatience became resentment, being broke meant loneliness. Institutions of poetry, art, fiction and even the white magical arts were under attack. The new god was money and everyone would be made to bow, his guitar would be love, esteem, health, cognition and consciousness; and masterfully play he did.

It was now up to the few descendants of the liberals to uplift the consciousness of the world once more... That there be love, peace, harmony, hope, equality and human liberty. The 144000 Pleiadian Warriors led by the General Immanuel who fought for humanity promised to return in a burning, blinding and stormy white cloud. Hovering in a ship of space (spaceship). And the liberals and poets of old from the ashes would rise and the Game of the Lords meet its demise. One again we shall be, whole and eternal.
Various sources or references inspired this story... In effect love is its destined glory

— The End —