This is a close-up view of asbestos, a dangerous material which is virtually impossible to burn. Asbestos has seen extensive use throughout history as fire-proofing and even clothing, despite being a highly carcinogenic rock that is lethal if inhaled. Isn't that stupid!

The man in the hoodie is a demonstrator protesting the business practises of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. Seattle police responded with full riot gear and tear gas but the protesters decided to stand by their beliefs. Isn't that stupid!

independent piece 2 intro

So, as I’m abundantly certain Nadia will point out, this is an older piece. I wrote a while ago but it has undergone recent re-editing so I’m saying it counts as new. Take that. Anyways, I like this piece for several reasons; first off, I wrote it and I’m awesome, but more importantly, I think it’s a good poem. Not a great poem by any means, but it has all the things a decent poem needs. It has a message, albeit a clumsy and forced one, and it uses esoteric vocabulary, which I think is always fantastic. So you folks can say anything you want ‘cause I love this piece with my whole heart and refuse to make changes of any kind to it. In fact, if you suggest improvements it will only make me discredit you in the future. Enjoy.

independent piece 2

Long Have Gone the Days of Old














Long have gone the days of old,
When kings and kerns, all warriors bold
Would march to war at trumpet’s call.
Many marched to father’s hall

Though ere they died they’d pay their debt
Oaths fulfilled, and payments met
Cross ever-growing fields of red;
Hope not lost among the dead

Fist to fist and sword to sword
The soldiers died for land and lord
By duty held; by honor bound
A kindred charge at trumpet’s sound.

A tide of fury, wave of rage
A final charge of knight and page
But lo and see through shining light
The hope of one, can change their plight

Stout of heart and strong of soul
One man’s courage takes its toll
His courage bright as any flame
Yet to this day he has no name

All deeds gone and long forgotten
The tree of life diseased and rotten
But hope remains while we still live
Honor still, our gift to give

We must seek to save what’s left
Before we meet with reaper’s heft
Ignite the ancient flame of honor
Rebuilding what was once our valor

Long have gone the days of old
When kings and kerns were warriors bold
Still lives hope to save our grace
We may with our fathers earn a place.

Lives piece

Back in the good old days; four houses and a good few years ago, I was a strange sort of child. Not like the well-adjusted properly motivated man of eighteen you know today, I was skittish and anti-social. Lacking the finer social graces I would later develop I preferred to shrug back from public places and strangers. Hoping to cure me of my diffidentness my parents would exercise any opportunity to force me out into the world. Pre-school was the most obvious choice and it served well enough; I would go and sit. Sit by myself, sit in the corner, sit in the bushes, I would just sit. Now, it doesn’t take my parents combined thirty-seven years of education to realize that crouching in a shrubbery doesn’t facilitate socialization. So my parents decided a more aggressive tactic was required. My mother set aside whatever it is that mothers do in the afternoon to march me around our wee town.
I would, under duress, accompany her on her daily errands; the grocer and such. Once in public I would be expected to stand tall, walk straight, and greatest of inhumanities, speak. By this point I would prefer the turmoil that was school, there at least silence was acceptable, except during prayer (damn nuns.) But on the unfortunate occasions I was sick, or when it snowed, I would once again return to the care of my mother. And once so supervised we would re-explore the familiar haunts of small-town Vermont. Thanks largely to the mind-freezing cold of New-England winter (that is to say all months except July, which could easily reach a balmy forty-seven degrees) we would stick to the great indoors. Lacking significant structures of a noteworthy nature, our town necessitated that we run the course of the usual small town locals. The grocer, the general-store, the teddy bear factory, the mall (a term laughably applied to the ten store collective in “downtown.”) It was on one such march that I was égorged.
One particularly pleasant day we decided to leave our standard route to stroll along the banks of the mighty Lake Champlain. As it was late summer so we needed only our lightest down as we walked that rocky shore. And it was in the frigid brine I spotted a delightfully unusual bit of flotsam, a pair of glass bottles. The two twin buoys bobbed about in the gentle undulations of the vast lake behind them. I watched the little submersibles twirl and dance about for a brief until my mother was suitably distracted. At which point my reasonable response to such an invitation was hold both bottles aloft and clack them together. It was a most appealing sound. I repeated the motion. This time; both bottles shattered, raining jagged glass down upon me. Little shards of glass ended up lodged in both my right eye and my throat. Bet’cha didn’t see that coming.
Anyways, one hysterical trip to the emergency room and a few stitches later I was good to go and ready to hit the beach again. Unfortunately, in the brief period that had elapsed winter had set in and the whole region was buried under snow drifts. The snow that september was as brutal as it was brumal, we were trapped in our house and forced to eat my little sister Liesel, but that’s a whole different story.

BRING ME THE WIKIPEDIA!

This is a lemming. These adorable little critters periodically throw themselves off cliffs whilst migrating. Isn't that stupid!

independent writing 1 intro.

This particular piece spawns for my long-standing belief that our school, and in fact our country, needs gladiatorial combat. I was thinking about the actual process of people being forced to kill total strangers for no good reason, but that wasn’t particularly interesting so I dragged forth a well-worn plot from the hallowed past. Once I had the considerably worse-for-the-wear plot out of the way I got to focus on specific details, of which I included none. In a true Hemmingway fashion I included only one-tenth of my knowledge about any particular facet of the whole death in the arena song and dance, a move that didn’t really pan out in a manor that would have justified its use. All in all, not particularly profound, or particularly good, but it’ll do I suppose.

independent writing 1

The Pit
"Now, you little half-breed, there are only two ways out of the Pit; with your shield or on it."
With that disparaging remark the Boss spit into the ground between the recruit’s feet. Every face in the narrow annex was marked with fear. These were the rawest of recruits, never tested, half of them wouldn’t even see the sunset and half again would never see morning. The rest had nothing to look foreword to except another round the next day.
At either end of the chamber was a door; one led out to the Pit, the other led out to the cages. They all came from the cages. Prisoners mostly, some were slaves, others had just wandered too far from the more hospitable centers of the city. It didn’t really matter where they came from, right now they were waiting to enter the Pit and in all likelihood they would never leave.
The particular pug at whom the Boss had shouted was indeed a half-breed. He was half-Citizen, half-Elselander. The Boss was part Elselander himself, but no one would dare point it out. The half-breed was unique among the pugs. While the rest of the litter was weeping and convulsing in silent terror, he sat unfazed despite the fetid stench of sweat and piss. It was that mute concord that so concerned the Boss. The pugs were usually fodder for the real fighters, but on occasion a veteran soldier would end up on the wrong side of the Pit and do some very expensive damage. It was the Boss’ job to make sure that happened as rarely as possible. He had a very short time to measure the half-breed before he was sent in. Each pug was forced through the far door in turn. Than a crescendo of cheers. Then the Vultures would drag the corpse through annex where the other’s waited and back out to the cages, there they would lay dead or dying until the rest had had their fight. Then the next would be thrown screaming through the far doors.
The Boss finally decided that the half-breed would have to go in. Soldier or not, he would have to fight in his turn. Once the rest had been exhausted he rest he pulled the half-breed to his feet.
"Now is your time." The Boss was decided; he would give the audience a show. "Stand before the door and draw arms."
Once the pug was in position the Boss kicked the door open and let the light of day slice into the dark, cramped chamber. He stepped out into the sand of the Pit and threw back his head, basking in the thunderous applause of the crowd. Once the crowd had hushed down he bellowed out. Proclaiming to the audience that the last combatant was a foreign warrior who had brought down dozens of Citizen-soldiers before finally being brought down. The Boss had been doing his job for a very long time, and he was good at it, he knew how to rally the crowd against a fighter. This half-breed was a real trophy. If he won, the crowd would herald him as the great Elselander Champion and if he was destroyed than the crowd could take comfort in the superiority of their people against the others. Once his work was done he stepped back through the door and forced the half-breed out onto the sand.
Once outside, the door was shut and bolted. The half-breed was alone with the Wolves; seasoned professional killers. The silence of the stadium was oppressive and the scorching heat baked the blood and sweat of the day into the sand. Across the blood-caked arena circled the Wolves: a retiarius, a hoplomachus, and a murmillo. Each man glanced at the other two, their predatory instincts evident in each violent jerk and twitch. Slowly they closed in on the half-breed brandishing arms. Circling like sharks they pushed the half-breed against the farthest wall. Soon they were within striking range but still they held back. All three killers surrounded their single opponent making feigned gestures of attack, but the half-breed stood his ground. Finally the retiarius thrust, easily piercing the man’s chest and allowing the other two Wolves to simultaneously slice into his vulnerable legs and stomach. The crowd erupted into cheers as the bloodied Elselander fell to his knees clutching his badly bleeding body, weapon and shield forgotten in the sand.
The Boss was watching from the annex as the man who had sat so quietly while others died in screaming agony knelt silently bleeding into the mud. There were no victims in the pit. Only the weak; only those who fell at the tip of a spear. There was no mistrial in the Pit, no poets, this was not the place for celebration. The gods’ justice was final and absolute.
As the Murmillo raised his sword to dispatch the Elselander in the traditions of a clean execution, the light of the sun gleamed off of the blood-marked blade of his xiphos. His muscles tensed and readied to give purchase, blade tip resting just above the collarbone.
The crowed rose to better view what was about to happen. With a thin whistling a black dart shot the length of the sandy stage. The beast stood frozen where he stood. A look of anguish coupled with slow revelation crept onto the soldier’s face as he registered what had happened. The rules of the games had come into play. No man would die in the Pit whose life was worthy; the Elselander’s was not to be forfeit.
The linothorax-clad combatant fell to his knees with nothing but dumb shock plastered across his face. He fell level into a pool of his own vomit, the bolt between his shoulder blades quivered to a rest. Across the Pit in the shadows of the terrace the Boss lowered his arbalest and pulled a second bolt.
"Now you two best be stepping away from that fighter." While he spoke he cranked back the windlasses. "He has my protection."
In an unprecedented display of mercy the Boss had decided that this pug was worth keeping. Laying their respective instruments in the bloody muck about their feet the undamaged wolves respectfully bowed low. The Boss slowly paced out the length of the arena, lifted the now-convulsing pug, and carried him back to the annex. Straight through the cadges to the cloisters wherein the wolves resided. This would be his home now. He was the Boss’ new apprentice. His story was only just beginning, but before he could take on that challenge he had a long road of healing ahead of him. A long and painful road.

poem in the style of cummings

while little girls skip rope they chant

while little girls skip rope they chant
of yellowed Cinderella
she loved the guy who lived
upstairs, and often climbed to see him

at their young age they don’t quite
understand how romance goes;
while late at night, another
seems to be self extended,
the garish light of day erodes
facades that night defended

when little girls are little women
they still gawk and cluck about
what stupid little boys may think (or
if they do at all) without
stopping to declare what they
think about (or if they do at all)

e. e. cummings.

i sing of Olaf glad and big

XXX
i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments
--Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat
--Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

Vonnegut blog

St. Marcus was a decrepit old church. The walls were all scoured clean so they shone bright in the sun, even if the paint was chipping off here and there. Every here or there a shingle had given up the will to go on and cascaded to the rocky ground below. But it was still standing. The small but devoted congregation filed in every Sunday and bowed their heads than filtered out. And so it was and so it continued until the day Francis Horten showed up.
When ever things changed in their town the pre-determined reaction of the "old guard" was the same high-nosed pomposity. This was particularly true where their beloved old church was concerned. They would have no mucking about with the articles of faith and most certainly no alteration of their sacraments. And it was that ridged refusal to compromise that their parents had taught them and that they would pass on to their children, or at least they would if they hadn’t all run off once they could walk. Horten had dealt with such hard-nosed conservatism before so he knew just what to do. And that was why on his first night in town he set that church on fire.

hemingway blog

Frank took another pull on his cigar. He swirled the cup of whiskey in his hand, contemplating another sip but deciding against it. He set the glass down on the small table and stared into the setting African sun. Finally, he opened his mouth, but stopped abruptly. After a long pause he spoke, “Jim. I need that Rhino.”
Jim sat across from him, each sitting low to the ground in their folding chairs. They had been afield for eight days already. Neither man killed their quarry yet. Both had traveled half-way around the world to bag their mark. After a long manly silence, Jim took a pull from his brandy flask. “I know Frank, I know.”
Thick manly plumes of smoke rose from the smoldering ashes of the campfire as the sun plunged headlong into the savanna. Both men retired to their respective dwellings for the night. Each lay his rifle by his bed.
The night passed too slowly for Frank. He woke twice in a cold sweat. His dreams kept bringing him back to Madrid, back to the Plaza de Toros. He couldn’t get the death-bellows of the bull out of his head. It called to him across time. The shear ferocity with which the innocent bull was hacked apart filled him with near-divine fervor. The savage grace of that final skewer, the warm splash of fresh blood, and the bewildered look of the bull all stuck in Frank’s consciousness. He woke in a cold sweat. He needed that Rhino.