Eloise in a Christmas tree,
swinging a straight razor
at the children below.
  Never held enough
as a baby.
  Never in love
just a maybe.

Eloise's father
in the living room,
drinking the news.
  Those *******
******* and *****,
  he screams.
Never held enough
  as a baby.
His mother smelled of
  a late night and
pineapple blend *****.

Eloise popping Prozac
like Tic-Tacs.
  Fantasizing about
shooting the school body.
You sonuvabitch,
her father screamed.
He penetrated--
She screamed
  and writhed.
Wrists held.
Body pressed.

Beans and toast
  for dinner.
Mom left dad because dad
  isn't big enough
or makes enough money.
Enough. Enough. Enough.

Eloise was supposed to be
a miscarriage.
Her dad lost some toes
when he missed a log.
  Chop, the axe said.

The world is a swinging place.
Whispering in the dark.
A hushed frenzy.
  Mix and **** out,
her gun let out a shout.
Eloise, queen of the
  student mass grave.

Eloise's father turns on
the news.
He drinks liquor instead.
Eloise on the t-v.
Oh, woe is me.
He went to the shed
  and blew his head
clean off.

The world is a swinging place.
The world in a frenzy.

>Want a thing? Relax
>into a script to get a taste.
>Fetishes? or repressed natural inclination?
>Roll a D20 to feel better, take fun and make it killing,
>with just enough free will to make it interesting.
>Nothing else can become reality so in the universe we got
>in the cosmic lottery, calm down
>and have fun.
>Find the most effective deformation — BAM BAM
>SHOOT EM UP — and life is real. Over the top?
>Or so aware that art is less than or equal
>to life, so why settle for realism?
>Say something the way that no one else can say
>it. Maintain a state
>of relaxation by white knuckling your partner until you forget to breathe.
>Fetishize white men not being racists.
>Lay it all out for your audience
>whose uneducation cries out to be fixed
>by you
>and you alone.
>Reassure them
>you get it:
>art is hard,
>so I’m going
>to speak my subtext
>and spice things up
>with some choreography
>just to make sure
>you get what it is
>exactly
>that I’m trying
>to say,
>because god knows you wouldn’t get it otherwise.
>(And this way, people will finally understand you, and you will be complete, and you will be satisfied, and you will get everything you ever wanted, and you will ride fulfilled into the bright new day of artistic enlightenment you lucky sonuvabitch.)

New musical sketch/work in progress thing!!
If anyone is so inclined, check out my newest musical sketch for a track called "Within":

https://soundcloud.com/apexparadigm/within-theme-1

It's an instrumental track with 3 guitars, 1 piano and drums.
Guitar is me recorded by me, effects are done with Guitar Rig, from Native Instruments
piano and drums written by me and synthesized with Kontact, also from Native Instruments.
-
I've been messing with playing in the 5th position in drop tunings,
and thus was the riff born,
then I adapted it for several things and wrote in some drums in a sort-of hastily fashion.
(that's why I call it a sketch)

If anyone wants specifics:
it's in F# harmonic minor at about 93bpm.
with the guitar tuned to Drop C# (Drop D but down half a step: C#, G#, C#, F#, A#, D#)

Harmonic Minor means that you take the minor 7th scale step, in this case E,
and make that sonuvabitch a major 7th instead of a minor 7th by raising it one semitone, or step.
The result is a step and a half gap between the minor Sixth and the major Seventh,
and the major Seventh makes the dominant chord, C#, into a major chord rather than a minor chord, increasing it's functional harmonic resolution potential, and thus "Harmonic" minor.
Harmonic minor has some interesting flavor; it's rather exotic for how similar it is to the natural minor scale, aka. Aeolian mode.

I think it's rather ******* sweet, personally.

Spanish classical music plays on this harmonic structure thoroughly, as do many other things.
Anyway, there you have it.

Feedback is appreciated,
if you listen, I shall be honored to hear what you honestly think.
It may not be your style of music, but I implore you to think about listening.

As always,
thank you for your time.

everything withers on a vine like
                                                         grapes
                                                                ­      to
                                                                ­           raisins.
Seeking the power of sublimation,
I grasp the ghost of my sadness
by the scruff of it's ghostly collar
and look it in the ghostly eyes to tell it,
as resolutely as Horatio Nelson
                                             screaming
                                                                ­  commands to his fleet to attack
Napoleon's assembled navy
at the mouth of Aboukir Bay
two centuries
and
19 years before the meanwhile write,
that I can't breathe.
I can't breathe.
I really can't breathe you
sonuvabitch.  

*but in the end, my victory is as
assured as Napoleon's eventual
defeat. I will route my demons at
their own little Waterloo...
and even if they return
from exile to rule one last time,
they will find their second attempt
much
more
fleeting.

(In memory of Glen Slater)

Ya stupid sonuvabitch, the place is deserted!
It’s gotta be a ******’ night game, ya ******’ mook,
But though the parking lot had the forlorn look
Of a down-on-its luck strip mall on a weekday afternoon,
There was just the hint of activity and indeed a game,
A friends-and-family affair with the Cubs,
Losers if not particularly lovable,
So we departed the ancient Gremlin
(Ostensibly painted cab-yellow,
Though festooned with enough Bondo and duct tape
To make it difficult to tell
Where car began and slapdash repair ended)
Strolling toward the deserted ticket window
To drop the two-bucks per for upper deck seats,
Knowing that we would find amenable ushers
Willing to let us move down to the boxes
After it became fully apparent
There was no last-minute influx scrambling off the 7 train,
And we sat in the sun-drenched field level seats
(Though its warmth a relative thing,
The rays’ angle and the decidedly April wind
Requiring buttons to be snapped
And collars to be turned upward)
Viewing the spectacle of two clubs
Dutifully and somewhat optimistically
Performing the rites of Spring, each nine knowing
There would be no October heroics in their futures,
Their first-rate plays and foibles
Gathering our appreciation or scorn
Between gulps of over-priced watery beers,
And as we sat in this unlovely stadium,
Looking for all the world
Like some Bunyan-esque chipped ashtray
Plopped down on an unprepossessing landfill
(The hopes and wistful dreams of this children’s game
Perched uneasily atop ancient sardine tins and discarded rattles)
We agreed that we would do this again,
But it never came to pass, as life its ownself
Rolled on like the cap of John Pacella
(Invariably flying off his unruly mop
From the effort of launching yet another fastball
In the all-too-vain hope it would find itself
Somewhere in the vicinity of the strike zone)
Tumbling brim over crown in the swirl of the breeze.

Isn't it always a sonuvabitch,
When someone takes the wind out of your sails?

My uncle hung himself in twenty-sixteen.
At that time I had been thinking about suicide
For maybe three or four years,
And when I had heard that he went and actually did it
I remember feeling so irritated.
I remember thinking that he stole my thunder,
He went and crowned himself the selfish King
And I was left being the Prince of ******* nothing.

Suicide had been my fall back for awhile,
It offered me a certainty that I couldn't find
In my day to day life.
It offered me a sense of control.
When I couldn't sleep at night
I could just remind myself that
No matter how bad things seemed,
Or how massively I ****** up my life,
That I always had a way out.
I always had that escape hatch.
It was calming imagining the cold circle of a barrel
Pressed into the roof of my mouth,
It soothed my existential dread and
It gave me a swaggering confidence
That I wore like a cloak of indifference.
Nothing mattered,
I didn't give a **** about anything.

When Mike hung himself I spent the following weeks
Living with my Aunt, and my two cousins.
A new widow, and her children.
I lived there and helped her make funeral plans,
I helped in any way that I could,
And I watched the aftermath unfold
Like an emotional tidal wave.

I used to think about commiting suicide
To help me fall asleep.
Now I just think about my family,
How much I love them and
How much they love me.
I sleep like a baby.