Gargouille

Fallen

I have fallen under the weight of the wreckage.
A carefully mapped out junk-yard
where dogs had the run
of the place after dark.
Tore apart the vinyl
in the back of the old chevy -
ripped the stuffing and cushion apart.
Found the place where you hid
the keys and fell apart
when I tore those out.




"They'll never leave."


[edit on 12-12-2006 by clearwater]

The House Never Loses


The human animal survives, partially because nurturing over bullying; healing over competitive attacks are hard-wired into our biology. Message boards are like schoolyards and everyone knows how misfits fare in schoolyards. People should be warned: Message Boards are gambling with people's lives. Boards can make people vulnerable and combined with cruelty it's a deadly mix. When the master said you're only as strong as your weakest link, I don't think he meant you should dispose of them. Bullying is a major cause of suicide.

There appears to be a need to maintain a certain cliquishness on boards and it can be quite destructive. Especially combined with potent subject matter. There is hypnotic effect to the computer screen that is similar to the one on slot machines in casinos. This combined with the physical isolation that's part of internet use is creating a lethal activity. The slot players at casinos are often the most delusional. That's probably contributing to the addictiveness of internet pornography. Internet addiction is destroying lives. I know of one woman who attempted suicide over someone else's internet pornography addiction.

Sitting behind a machine, unaware of the state of the person your addressing, other than by what one can infer from the print, it's easy to throw insults around. The pathology and the cruelty is a lethal combination. I have more than a little contempt for people who prey on the weak, especially for the sake of decorum.

The human family is a global family and nowhere is this more reflected than on the mirror of a message board. The global family is not yet functional. There are roles that recur in dysfunctional families with regularity. The hero, the lost child, the over-achiever and the scapegoat. The scapegoat dies most often. Scapegoats always feel they must deserve it. You can only kick scapegoats around for so long. They die. Scapegoats, if they survive and outgrow the dysfunction, make the best healers. They have the greatest acuity of insight, and they're some of the toughest people on the planet. Scapegoats see right through you, they know that to stick the knife in, they only have to speak the truth.

Addiction is an illness with a biological basis. Denial and criminalization of that pathology only evinces the fact that it's systemic. It is still treated like a moral weakness or evil. It is more prevalent in the modern psyche than is admitted socially. I'm sure rising suicide rates have a corollary to the internet. Internet addiction in its most pernicious form, like any addiction, is a form of psychosis.

If they haven't found a biological indicator for suicide, they will isolate one soon. It runs in families. It's a little ridiculous to judge one another for being what we are. Some people may find themselves vulnerable at certain points in their lives to suicide. There are the traditional contributing factors. Some depressions are situational and need to be addressed with a change not a drug. Many people commit suicide as a result of addiction and the real culprit or disease is never even addressed. Message boards, the internet, computer games - all add an extra dimension to the phenomena. Now there's a new player on the scene. I see he's being greeted with characteristic derision. Such as that 16 year old boy who committed suicide after 20 hours of straight game-playing. Everyone pointed a finger in scorn, and let the real monster get away.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a deadly mix with some activities. The longer the duration of use the more likely it is a person will have a psychotic episode. There is a biological basis for the sickness coming from computer games, the internet etc. that is the same as a gambling addiction. It can take quicker or slower pathological degrees - either way it is a disease. Combined with cruelty and the pecking order of human society, it can be deadly.


Whenever an addictive cycle is established in the brain it permanently changes brain chemistry. That never changes back, that's why with substances, abstinence is the only solution. It can also be the same for behaviors. Gamblers can never gamble again. Every person who has ever had a problem with addiction is susceptible to internet psychosis. It may not be a full-blown fugue, any good psychologist knows that psychosis has functional forms. Just look at some our socially condoned behaviors.

When people are isolated, emotionally stunted or depressed, they will often find themselves turning to the internet as an outlet. I think the combination is deadly. A greater awareness of the destructive and addictive nature of internet use is needed. Easy to predict the activity contributing to varying levels of psychosis and other symptoms of addiction. Header warnings wouldn't hurt. Addiction is a systemic and powerful disease and its presence in society is already mis-diagnosed and treated like a moral failing instead of the result of human physiography. Addiction is the leading cause of suicide. Namely addictions that don't require a substance, such as eating disorders and gambling. The despair endemic to addiction that is based solely on behavior without a substance is the most deadly form.

I really do wonder how many people have died from internet addiction and the stats go unnoticed or undiagnosed. I believe it will be a bigger problem in the future.

Until addiction and it's threat in internet formats are more honestly addressed by society, the death tolls will continue to rise. The internet provides a depersonalized machination for the hen-pecking reflex of tribal living. Addiction is the great imitator and many people are mis-diagnosed and treated improperly. The unlucky people who find themselves in the position of being eaten alive by addiction, ignorance are no more to blame for their suicides than victims of other illness.

Many elders have predicted sickness would come from that machine. Some boards are more toxic than others. They are like casinos gambling with people's lives. Who's the luckiest of the lucky? The house never loses.



The tongue like a sharp knife, kills without drawing blood. - Buddha



Que pasa con el caballo? That was the last straw for her.


[edit on 12-3-2007 by clearwater]

Goya was 'just a nut'. He didn't find that insulting. Exocizing his demons - on canvas.

~

She saw those same lights in the sky,
as she saw 22 months ago.

"You will be three times through the hells with me" and three times was the number.

~

Quigley is a friend and adviser to Clinton, these are his precedents for the decline of civilization:

The most important reasons for decline are the breakdown of internal investment, ie. manufacturing and technology.

Decline in the rate of growth and expansion. An increase in class conflict, Increasingly frequent and violent imperial wars.

No abundance of resources. No strong economy - all towards military spending.

Growing irrationality, otherworldliness, superstition and the absence of good; growing skepticism in anything good.

[edit on 11-1-2007 by clearwater]

Don't look at the Elves

You always loved everything about empire.
From how it organized your numbers
to how it told you how to dress.
Riding out in front
arrayed in empires finest
there was little else captured your interest
than feathered caps,
processions, banners,
titles of address.
Cornucopias on your shoes
empty but for the wild spirits
you thought you left behind
in the woods.


[edit on 11-1-2007 by clearwater]

Hybrid Witch Chimera

Witches are born red - atavistic recall.
A hair colour distinct to Neanderthal.
It may later turn light or dark,
but red hair at birth is the mark
of the Neanderthal hybrid.

They tease and taunt her self-pity
when she's tiny, shrunken and wet;
or light her on fire in the public square,
after taking her from her bed,

All those hopeful warriors
dreaming of virgin dead
may find steely bones, wiry crones
with gleaming white armour instead.


Born and bred,
Blessed be.

Circled


We crawled out of holes we'd dug into the mountainside,
covered slick and black
a wet dry ash
viscous like acetone and oil.
We heard the sound first,
a wall of agony that could stop hearts.
Then the paralyzed silence,
deaf to ourselves
like trees planted,
not breathing.
We fell into our holes,
some already dead.

Do you remember it was green and white we wore?

We never found out if the boats we helped were a success.

It was a different green then, exuberant.
We have first green in epaulet on our uniforms.
A wise distinction to be buried in white,
and married in black.
Absence is the first step on the path, serving others.

Following sheep from dawn to dusk
coal from peat, a triumph of soul's secret knowledge.

Markets of Sumer where
garlic and saffron adored you.

Watching through the stone aperture
in the wall of the turret,
You arrived early at the courtyard.
All the girls run to greet you
dressed in pinks and purples,
Silks and dyes


Heavy horses, flasks, beakers,
outlawed books
priests and sorcerers.

You always taught women to read

Do you remember before forgetfulness.


[edit on 11-1-2007 by clearwater]

Do YOU forgive?

Kim Jong Il is slightly psychotic
and George is slightly better.
Products of conditioning,
products of the weather.
Music sings the dreamers
up and out the open window
and dancer's dance their hearts
through the past, present and future.
It's true faith alone can move mountains.
To return every insult with a prayer is a challenge.
St. Michael rides a winged white stallion
and Love Conquers All.



You can always tell a person's character by how they treat people they don't have to treat well.

[edit on 8-11-2006 by clearwater]

Mercenary World

When visitor's leave puddles on the floor,
you can be sure they're saying much more.

Seems I knew a horse like that
full of piss and vinegar was the term, I thought -
the power of ridicule and derision.



[edit on 17-1-2007 by clearwater]

It wasn't like normal consciousness, it was like a suspension - like a watcher stretched between polarity. Panic welled, or the distant memory of panic, and attached itself like an accessory to the patina of images and meanings that swirled through watcher's eye. Swirled impotent and unattainable; a myriad of consequence for all past and future choice. There was the notion of movement, though she couldn't move at all.

Another face super-imposed itself and something was explained but she couldn't hear it. The roar of her own realizations taking shape as terror. No body with which to be afraid. A terrible drone set in, as though her spirit were being pressed upon - not painful or even uncomfortable, all-encompassing. The drone was all of her. 'It's not a canker', was her last thought before unconsciousness.

Her long blonde hair tumbled over her back, she shivered with the liquid sensuality of it. The body was aroused beyond reason or thought. Yearning, yearning, yearning - was all she felt. One touch and it was complete ecstasy.

People looked funny next day. Feeling stretched across an age; not really a part of this one. Some of them just looked like 'meat', appearing as a cold and impersonal calculation on the next meal or rut. Worse than animals; more capable. Other's more pleasant, while her brain addles her with strange thoughts. 'Just shut-up' she thinks; calling her names she hadn't spelt yet.

So raw, opened up like the first time here.
Hard to go outside.
Hard to think for the voices.
Pick your time wanderer.


[edit on 11-1-2007 by clearwater]

The Volk

Nazis were environmentalists.
They had an approach of lowering down,
not lifting up -
always dreaming of the next big catastrophe
that would level their
animal kingdom.
Prince Bernhard fled Germany
when their fortunes turned
and started the world wildlife fund
with his friend prince Phillip.
The oil companies started the
Sierra Club.

[edit on 5-11-2006 by clearwater]

Pink drink tinkled
down the side
of the glass
and beaded
daiquiried strawberries
into surreal carnage
onto her thigh.

A meaty hand
shot out
to nurse the wound,
and played
with the slaughter there.

Sunshine boomed
through a hanging lattice.
A translucent balconey
exploded into view;
a dizzying panorama
of a city she never knew.

Vertigo seized at her stomach.
'View' she spluttered
and buried her brow.
Mind racing
to place those new shoes

Calenders Never Upstage Prescriptions

Schmetterling

His shadow fell across her small bed
the cot placed underneath his bedroom window.
'It's different for men and women', he said,
standing regal.
'Sleeping like wraiths in their wants and worries,
the dead are like children',
he toed her little hand with his boot,
'They will follow me
thinking themselves free
and you will be grateful.'

Of Cretins, Intermediaries, and Corpses Strewn With Flowers

'Look at all the heads along the wall'
points a shoeless dirty child
to an intermediary.
The boy's tattered trousers
are held by twine.
A shredded rag
where a shirt's been.
Rosy flowers
blooming under his chin.

'Soul hunter', asks his illustrious friend,
'Who do you look for?'
A long hoary scar from fore to jaw,
still, regal without question.
'Soul hunter who do you look for?'

not this little one

no pipe
no pre-historic friend
of burdens and blessings
and the labyrinth
bowl of light
bed of bliss
warm sweet kiss
of his lost feebleness

Soul hunter
who's the inquisitor
who is the witch?

The Lizard's Bride


Tides of sparkled midnight time
carry hushed and darkened dreamers
down history's dusty rhymes,
where hope chimes a frozen chime.

Asleep, a silent siren
between the worlds of care.
At forests' edge, or castles' siege
or beloved so dear, always near.

It's true, future too, still cares
of actions wiled thus passing,
a consent of prudence more pleasing
than thefts of passion.

There, remember the sad virgin,
whose blessing is now misery.
Tethered in a tent at desert's edge
to a cruel destiny.

Enthralled and heavily lidded,
still her heart beats erratically.
One so claimed, by a power named,
is like-bound after death.

On the shimmering sand sea
you may hear the camel's scowl
and come upon the twilight promise
for which she made no vow.

There under Jupiter mournful,
where her body you cannot abide,
you may find her belt still hopeful
and release the lizard's bride.

Awake on time for tea,
a dream,
fog-faced and speckled,
awakenings.
Asleep for an hour,
or maybe three,
while the radio buzzed in the kitchen.
Sunlight makes shadows
of the trees leaves
fluttering twitches
in love with the breeze,
on her face,
as she dreams
her souls wishes.

She is loved,
She has always been loved,
Her lover will always be with her,

The Lucky Sister.

Conditioned for Compliance

Noam Chomsky was a scholar, before he became lionized for his political opinions . He has the freedom to idealize solutions without having to compromise with political and public appeal. He writes by logic and compassion and not by punditry. Before he became famous for his social and political analysis, Chomsky was a linguist. He performed ground-breaking work in that field by seeking what he called 'Deep Meaning'. Linguistics became a cognitive science in which he sought a universal format for all language. He claims there is no connection between his linguistic research and his political analysis; I feel there are strong parallels.

All of the military and industrial complex spend money convincing people they want to consume something. Advertising and social control play on fears, guilts and lusts. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, someone is trying to convince you - you need to buy something in order to feel 'right.' Even when a person is aware of the intent behind the carefully crafted constant psychological assault, and actively analysing the messages - it elicits the desired conditioning. The message is pervasive, systemic and constant. Fears of death, inadequacy, ostracism; lusts for power and violence all subliminally stimulated, taunted, dissapointed and enthralled, every time you spend money. People are not sleeping enough and living in 24 hour a day conditioning. Everyone identified with the Truman character - television turned inside out. It happens to all eyes watching a fish-bowl. We have our big-brother in Orwell's world, so banal as to be un-noticable. They all want to sell you something.

Like Chomsky's approach to the learning of language, there is probably a univeral deep-meaning syntax to the learning of social interaction as a whole. Authority as it exists in its current form mirrors the fractured similarities of our diverse set of languages. Children are indoctrinated to see themselves in a carnival's mirror when they look at the structure of power in our world. The spartan's valued psychopaths, not the slave-class of helots they ruled with fear. Double messages achieved that for them. They starved their apprentice warriors - getting caught stealing could warrant a death penalty; getting away with it insured survival. To paraphrase John Perkins 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman', 'They are to be pitied - never, ever emulated.' Emulated they are, 24 hours a day - TV lends authority to the cult of celebrity. The word fan is derived from ancient Rome when slaves fanned their masters.


Inconsistency and double standards are inherent to a power structures more exploitive than mutually reciprocal. Until our leaders are trusted servants who do not govern, we will emulate madness. That power structure would require a social indoctrination of personal reflection a responsibility more akin to the spirit of democracy. A way of relating that is nurturing and mutually beneficial woven into the 'deep meaning syntax' of daily life.





[edit on 5-11-2006 by clearwater]

I saw a hybrid the other week on a bus; sometimes I tell myself that.

It was a new bus, the kind with hydraulics that hiss when they stop. I paid the fare, grateful for air conditioning, and lurched to an empty seat I'd spotted.

The seat-rails that housed my disinterested audience saved me from landing on my new neighbour and flung me instead into the seat beside him. He didn't budge. He didn't have to shift because he was tiny; not even a twitch at the arrival of the clod.

Shock suddenly informed me as to why the seat had been empty, his neck was pencil thin. Much too small - for that length. I thought some disease had emaciated the structure; although the skin didn't look loose, just somehow thin or translucent.

None of the passengers seemed to notice, nobody glancing or staring. I recovered my start and glanced ahead nonchalantly. A skinny man, whose head protrudes unnaturally from straight and narrow shoulders.

I didn't really get a feel for him one way or the other. I sensed he was more quiet than absent. He stared out the window impervious to anyone or anything - something, I assumed, must be difficult for someone in his position.

I mustered my nerve and turned as if to share in the window. He had a sharp triangular chin, a kafkaesque peak of a boldly heart shaped head. A large hat covered his brow to his eyes and shaded some of his face.

He kept his head cocked towards the window. The question of how - on that neck, made me draw my breath. He didn't flinch at my intrusion, or shift the fragile hand beneath his chin. His skin had no markings, nothing to visibly suggest he was sick. Just his odd frame, fragile neck and triangular chin.

An orange ray of sun came through the window and caught an un-shaded part of his face. An iridescence of purples, greens, blues and greys danced from his eye. A play of light more subtle than crystalline, more beautiful when wise. His mouth was nondescript and thin. His nose as thin as the thin of him and he had dancing light eyes.

My stop arrived with my rudeness interrupted. Reluctant to leave but satisfied with not intruding further, especially with the other riders taking no notice of him, I departed. What might I have asked him. Some things too strange or too daily to see. Healthy hybrid or ailing human - a miracle, he must be.

Modern Life

Crackberry finger.
Chinese finger torture.
Some of them never get out.
just one breath's all it takes.
Shining granite, black granite suits
on top of Italian shoes.
Fingers stuck in one place.
Marvel comic keyholes.
Never go in uninvited.
Little empires of man.
Wadded up against couches and chairs.
Walls windows doors
fences, bricks, bells for that.
telephones
Separated,
barely eating, craven
hypnotized like heart-broken wild-cats
pacing 'Giant Tiger' circus cages
heads swinging rhythmicly left to right
staring whitely sideways
in a tawdry pantomine of prey.

There's a very fine line between genius, psychotics and sages. - Deepak Chopra

Raw hearts,
buried inarticulates,
untrained sages -
the dissapointment
and double message
must drive them all crazy.



[edit on 12-12-2006 by clearwater]