Wednesday, September 29, 2010

A Paper Crown for a Paper King



After years of listening to people tell me what's best for me, inform me that I made the wrong choices, and my favorite; allow me to make 'decisions' (but only if they're ones that suit their wants), I came to a sudden realization, and a certain question I have for these folks:
  • What I want matters just as much as what they want, under any conditions, and in any relationship
and
  • Who the HELL do you think you are?
I don't need to be polite to anyone who tells me my business, nor do I have to 'recognize' anybody as an authority figure in judging my choices or acquainting me to the concept of right and wrong.

What I can do is respect your opinion to your face, and snigger at you behind your back when you're not looking.

What I will do is promise to both hear you out and yet be true to myself.

The result from the latter towards a significant other should be a reflection, but past attempts have failed and I don't expect anything to come of any new ones. Why? The past couple of men I've dated have had amazingly large egos and simply couldn't fathom how anyone could possibly be right, not even partially; while having a differing opinion. No compromise, only total compliance was accepted. Most of the time I wouldn't even be allowed to finish my sentence the instant it looked like I was going to diverge from what "We'd agreed on". If I dared to finish, more often than not I'd get abandoned for the rest of the evening.

What's to become of me, I thought; shall I just wilt away, accept my fate and become a little more than a mouthpiece? Would I not only get stepped on, but learn to like it? Would the word 'compromise', come to mean 'compliance'?

Then I read this quote by Gordon Livingston, M.D., a man who has been a psychiatrist for the past thirty years:
"Any relationship is under the control of the person who cares the least."

Dear God; He was right. The instant I let go of the conviction that this man was The One, and I Had To Do Anything And EVERYTHING To Keep Him Interested...~poof~. I stopped feeling frantic every time he shut me down, preferring to go off with friends and enjoy myself for the first time in a long, long while.
Yea. You heard right. Preferred, as in Choosing for myself. As in, I didn't care what homeboy did. He could sit and stew in his own ire while I was treated to a movie by people that had missed my company over the years. And I gloried in being enjoyed instead of tolerated.

I could still choose to agree or disagree as I saw fit; and I even at times genuinely respected his opinion!

Which is why I refitted him with a paper crown. A metal one just isn't flexible enough and would cramp his forehead, you see.

...Don't look at me like that!



King Of Anything

Keep drinking coffee, stare me down across the table
While I look outside
So many things I’d say if only I were able
But I just keep quiet and count the cars that pass by

You’ve got opinions, man
We’re all entitled to ‘em, but I never asked
So let me thank you for your time, and try not to waste anymore of
mine
And get out of here fast

I hate to break it to you babe, but I’m not drowning
There’s no one here to save

Who cares if you disagree?
You are not me
Who made you king of anything?
So you dare tell me who to be?
Who died and made you king of anything?

You sound so innocent, all full of good intent
Swear you know best
But you expect me to jump up on board with you
And ride off into your delusional sunset

I’m not the one who’s lost with no direction
But you’ll never see
You’re so busy making maps with my name on them in all caps
You got the talking down, just not the listening

And who cares if you disagree?
You are not me
Who made you king of anything?
So you dare tell me who to be?
Who died and made you king of anything?

All my life I’ve tried to make everybody happy
While I just hurt and hide
Waiting for someone to tell me it’s my turn to decide

Who cares if you disagree?
You are not me
Who made you king of anything?
So you dare tell me who to be?
Who died and made you king of anything?

Who cares if you disagree?
You are not me
Who made you king of anything?
So you dare tell me who to be?
Who died and made you king of anything?

Let me hold your crown, babe

Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Lie



I was told long ago I was nothing

I was

I am.

Nothing--as the air

the sky--going nowhere to infinity

I am the sky.


No beginning

No ending

No going up or down---just---

constantly watching in eternal silence.

It never asked to be there-

to be forced to open its eye every morn

to have to see the uncaring world beneath it

it just does

it grows weary-

A forgiving God lets it rest at night;

close that burning ball of fire

and sometimes he even lets it shed tears

I only have the dried-up selfish tears left

the kind that comes to

the self-pitying soulless that I am

and my heart aches.

I weep dry tears for what is no more

for a life that I have no claim to--

A life that I never asked to be

wouldn’t choose to be--

couldn’t ever be--

part of.

I grow weary.

There is no god for me

I am granted no respite

my thousands of tears have bled me dry;

and brought me nothing but shame.

For I am weak--

spirittired

mindblank

chestempty

no more pretending to be strong.

My tears fell as the rain.

The hated-cold-dead-RAIN

that has thunder to scream out its agony-

and lightning to rip through the pain.

I stare silently at the grey skies.

And mourn.



Saturday, September 18, 2010

The real Me























“And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in a masquerade.”

~Alexander Pope (1688-1744)


Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Rendezvous


























Bittersweet love

stare into the sun


and singe

as

we recall springtime


Watch our lust

play like a sordid television show


I exhale

and leave.


You only want me

as I go...


How to stop the picture;

the moment;


the Rain.


Elaborate dreams

smeared black.


Monday, September 13, 2010

Andromeda


















Peace is in the darkness
light could never calm me

Staring into the sun
never revealed any truth to me

only blinded me with virtue.

The night sky-
like a brother

The porcelain moon
like a sister

Would never once betray me.

Thus

I take the universe as a my family;

And declare myself a galaxy

So I might aspire
to embrace
my father
and mother;
at last...

in arms of shining stardust.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Dancing the Dance





















Dance down the night
no time between us
we never looked at the sky
it haunts me in flickering dreams
as flames of love die sweetly
and day soaks up our remembered kisses
like drops of blood
on the waves.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Dragonfly



















I die

In the only way I can die

caught unawares,

as you caught me

like a dragonfly in a thunderstorm..


trying to find a way home


-getting caught in the warm grip of friendship-

given the breath of love.


I snatched that first word,

that incandescent wraith of an emotion


so true I dared not use her

I kept her so that she may be..

my last breath


so that I might die in beauty and honor


I even had to steal that.


Friday, September 10, 2010

Phoenix













Thunder courses through me
I draw upon my anger,

Reveling
intoxicated
among the ruins;
the fallen-down monument
that was my life.

Dancing in ecstasy,
I sing of eternal oblivion.

And glorious within my darkness;
my fire...

I exist anew
In unending gracefulness

Then die
in eternal tranquility.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Drowning




I can't breathe
so the cold waves
douse me
arms, shoulders, and throat

I can't hear
so the ocean
sings to me
ears, lips, and tongue

I can't speak
so the tide
listens to me
eyes, mind, and heart.

I gratefully slip under.

"You don't need any
of those body parts
to remember",
it sings

"Your soul
is not of those things."

Just so.

I remember I had a house,
and I let you in

I remember when hard times came,
I tried to shut all the windows
and all the doors against you

But you didn't want to see me
burn in the darkness
with no way to get out of my mess.

You made a choice;
a decision that could kill the strongest in battle

Do you destroy your mighty kingdom
to save my wilted flower?

or to be selfish, and only view my torment
from your shining towers..

You began to break my walls down
You began to let the light in
just to salvage the pieces of who I used to be

But the house blew down;
swept away by a deluge of storms
as was I, carried afar and away

You retreated to your fortress
You rescinded your choice

Preferring instead to lose yourself
in the games and revelry
of what you were born into

The battle you once fought at my side,
lost...

So
The cold waves
douse me
So
The ocean
sings to me
So
only the tide
listens to me.

Once, you sailed your boat near me
I met your eyes
as you watched me drown,

Trembled as you threw me a rope...

And wept salt tears
when I saw you'd tossed in both ends.

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

NeverNever



it's the little deaths

the long rests


the things that wake you up

and put you to sleep


the voices that tell you who you are

and what you are not


where awake is

and what's asleep.


dreams and awareness

enlightenment and portrayal


the end,

and the final illusion.


You can't see reality

you can't feel anything but hope,


hear anything but loss


and the final chapter

is all futility.


How will it all end?


chaos..

fire.


the last dance;

meaningless.


always...

always.


Different names,

same rhythm

again and again.


you don't see

but I...


I do.


In this,

the Swan's song


While stumbling and hoping

And giving up.


Only for someone else

to pick up where ends meet.


again,


I dance

I try not to fall.


always...

always.


In the end

you are right.

Trying,

matters.



Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Sleeping Sun

Watch, listen and enjoy...
Nightwish - Sleeping Sun



The sun is sleeping quietly
Once upon a century
Wistful oceans calm and red
Ardent caresses laid to rest
For my dreams I hold my life
For wishes I behold my nights
A truth at the end of time
Losing faith makes a crime

I wish for this night-time to last for a life-time
The darkness around me - shores of a solar sea
Oh how I wish to go down with the sun
Sleeping,
Weeping...
With you.

Sorrow has a human heart
From my God it will depart
I..d sail before a thousand moons
Never finding where to go
222 days of light
Will be desired by a night
A moment for the poet..s play
Until there..s nothing left to say


The lyrics to this song always reminds me of one of my favorite book series', The Coldfire Trilogy.

A man gives up his love, his life, depriving himself of his own humanity thus...in a bid for power and eternal life. For noble enough reasons, Gerrald Tarrant wishes to save his world from the demons that plague humanity. At first. This man...becomes the abject personification of the phrase "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." A loving father, doting husband, faithful palladin turns into a creature not unlike those he sought to destroy. If he wasn't so heartless one might feel sorry for him when the God he once served rejects him.

Yet, he remains stoic in his original quest. All the while however he has been systematically feeding off the fear of man (well, mostly attractive blonde women, but *cough* we all have our tastes). A reader is left wondering at certain behaviors if some sense of humanity remains. For example, there is a hint of compassion in his reasoning at times. Or maybe it isn't compassion at all...perhaps he is merely tired of his inhuman existance and desires to rebel against the very forces that he bargained with in the first place.

What do you do with such a being? Defeat him? Or...ally with him? Twisted though he has become since the murder of his wife and young children; the bargain he made a thousand and more years hence, he finds those that would help him in his cause. One of them, a palladin of the order Gerrald built upon his own faith...



Interested? Read it!

Monday, September 06, 2010

The Power of God, Explained.

Ark of the Covenant is Ancient Electrical Power Generator, claim researchers

London, England -- Fortean Times magazine, the leading journal of strange phenomena, reveals for the first time in 3,000 years the truth behind the Bible's mysterious Ark of the Covenant. In this exclusive article, Michael Blackburn and Mark Bennett use the bible itself as a research source and cleverly decode the design of the Ark of the Covenant, revealing that it was an ancient form of the modern electrical device called a capacitor, capable of storing vast amounts of potentially deadly electricity. This technology has been a staple of modern science since the 18th century, but the author's analysis and explanation of this extraordinary piece of apparatus shows that knowledge of electricity was being used 3,000 years ago to create a 'shock and awe' style demonstration of the power of God. 'Re-engineering the Ark' is the first serious documentation upon the subject and explains just how it really is possible to catch the power of God in a jar, and demonstrates how we might be able to rebuild the Ark today. Article Overview: 'Re-engineering the Ark' is an in-depth and comprehensive study of the Ark of the Covenant, in both an academic/scientific sense and also from a metaphorical angle, which looks at the implications of the concept of the Ark in relation to religion and mankind's own evolution as a species. As such, further information on 'Re-engineering the Ark' may be obtained in differing formats, i.e. as a solely scientific piece, as a fully comprehensive and complete study, or even as a condensed and simplified 'pop science' synopsis.


Articles Key Points:
- The Ark of the Covenant was made by man for a specific purpose
- it is part of a much, much larger machine
- it did not contain the power of God but naturally occurring electricity
- it is possible to re-build the Ark using Old Testament information

- the technology of the Ark is now a staple of modern electronics
- implications of findings are more controversial than the Da Vinci Code



Hrm. This article implies that the Ark was constructed by ancient church leaders to mislead followers, doesn't it? I suppose it could be true. There are enough faith healers out there doing that every Sunday on television. You might have seen them; the ones that bellow benedictions and prayers, smack some 'blind' or otherwise ailing person on the head and they are healed. (It's a MIRACLE! Send them money!) However this article's claims have much, much greater ramifications. Those fake healers are somewhat of a joke, and people accept they are doing what they are doing with the proverbial grain of salt. But the fabled Ark of the Covenant, known to so many as The One True God's ultimate proof of power...reduced to some kind of pre-BC magic trick? I'm not sure I am ready to put any more stock into this article than any athiest's research & writing. I mean, Mike Blackburn has been a writer, researcher & historian for the past 20 years...should that be enough to discredit thousands of years of worldwide faith in God? I'm inclined to believe that a person is most likely to find what they want or expect to find when researching such vague criteria. A man of faith might have completely different findings. What do you think?

Sunday, September 05, 2010

There ARE teeth down there!

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP?!


A medieval device built on hatred of men? Or a cheap, easy-to-use invention that could free millions of South African women from fear of rape, in a country with the world's worst sexual assault record?

Dubbed the "rape trap", trademarked "Rapex", the condom-like device bristling with internal hooks designed to snare rapists has re-ignited controversy over South Africa's alarming rape rate, even before plans for its production were announced in Western Cape this week.

Some say the inventor, Sonette Ehlers, a former medical technician, deserves a medal, others that she needs help.

In the event of rape, the device folds itself around the rapist's penis, attaching to the skin with microscopic hooks. It is only when the rapist withdraws that he will realise the device is clamped around his penis.




As it is impossible to remove the device from a penis without medical help, hospitals and clinics will be able to alert police when assistance is sought.

"Its design will also go a long way towards lowering HIV infection as semen is contained in the device ... as well as preventing sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies,"
Ehlers says."This will rule out any possibility of the rapist's escaping arrest and speed up conviction."

If the rapist tries to remove the device, it will only embed itself further.

"He will have to be put under anaesthetic to have it removed. He will not be able to leave it as he will be unable to urinate."

"We never know when we might be raped. This device should become a part of every woman's daily routine, just like brushing her teeth."

Ms Ehlers said the rape trap would be so painful for a rapist that it would disable him immediately, enabling his victim to escape; but would cause no long-term physical damage and could not injure the woman.

Some women's activists call the device regressive, putting the onus on women to address a male problem.

Charlene Smith, an anti-rape campaigner, said it "goes back to the concept of chastity belts" and would incite injured rapists to kill their victims.

"We don't need these nut-case devices by people hoping to make a lot of money out of other women's fear," Ms Smith said.

But Ms Ehlers contends that South Africa's rape problem is so severe women cannot wait for male attitudes to improve.

"I don't hate men. I love men. I have not got revenge in mind. All I am doing is giving women their power back," Ms Ehlers said. "I don't even hate rapists. But I hate the deed with a passion."

The United Nations says South Africa has the world's highest per capita rate of reported rapes - 119 per 100,000 people. Analysts say the total, including unreported rapes, could be nine times higher. Last year, there were 52,733 reported rapes. In a study, the Gender-Based Violence Programme at the CSVR analysed 162 rapes in Johannesburg's inner city and found that one in four had been a gang rape. The study found that 56 percent of the victims had been raped by two men and 23 percent by three.

Ms Ehlers sees her invention as particularly attractive to poorer black women, because they often walk long distances through unsafe areas to and from work. She foresees women inserting the device as part of a daily security routine.

Chanaz Mitchell, spokesperson for the National Network on Violence against Women, says although it is a good idea for women to protect themselves, men should take responsibility for their actions.

"We still need to focus on men as perpetrators of this heinous crime."

Mitchell is also concerned that the device might lead to further violence against victims.

"Once the rapist realises this device is attached to him, he is more than likely to take his anger out on his victim."

Mbuyiselo Botha, spokesperson for the Men's Forum, said anything that could empower women should be welcomed.

"I would encourage my wife and two daughters to wear this device. It would send a signal to would-be rapists that they won't have it easy."

"It will be available at supermarkets, chemists, anywhere where one would be able to buy tampons," she says.

She said a majority of women surveyed said they were willing to use the device, which has gone into production and will sell for one rand (20 cents).

Ms Ehlers said she was inspired after meeting a traumatised rape victim who told her, "If only I had teeth down there."

...Good lord. I don't know whether to applaud or cry. Is this a good thing? Maybe if marketed properly. If it made a potential rapist think twice, perhaps. Sometimes stopping and thinking about the ramifications of your actions is all you need. But I also agree with Chanaz Mitchell, this might prove to be even more dangerous for the victim's life than her chastity. No kidding a man might become enraged at his willy getting bit! What good is it if it gets yourself killed?


Saturday, September 04, 2010

Jackie Does Mulan



HA, made you look!

But seriously, that is Jackie Chan singing Chen's part in Cantonese...I think he has a great voice. Plus, this is my favorite song from Disney's Mulan!

Hope you enjoyed...
*grumble* now I have to find the Chinese version of the movie, argh..



Friday, September 03, 2010

Karma.


She will never
rattle off a list
of rights
or wrongs

Never
show you
what you could have done
to avoid her

She knows
that you will know.

When you slip
off that roof,
breaking your leg...

When that icicle
falls on you,
impaling your eye...

When your car
stalls on the tracks
before an oncoming train.

You will see
Not your life
but the lives you could have
enhanced,

Instead of forborne.

Those you could have
saved,

Instead of vilified.

And in those last
fleeting
fading
moments,

You will know
unfailingly
unwittingly

That you had it coming.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Vending Ubiquity

The world is moving by fast, you need to get your groove on, be it hair or food, or even sport....what's a body to do? Find a vending machine, of course...and wow did I find a few:

Beauty Vending - Hair Straightener Vending Machine

(TrendHunter.com) BeautifulVending, a UK company, has released a hair straightener vending machine. Their site describes, "We all know how frustrating the British weather can be, the rain, wind and even the heat can cause perfectly styled hair to 'frizz' and ruin the best night or day out. The saviour of bad hair d… [More]

Pizza Vending Machines?

(TrendHunter.com) The first of its kind, a pizza vending machine at last. The Wonderpizza of Italy is a kiosk which holds, cooks and serves 9" whole pizza pies in just 2 minutes. 3 different pizzas available in each machine at any time. So there's lotsa pizza for everyone, everywhere, every time. [More]


ICE CREAM, ME WANT NOWWWWW!!

Moobella Robotic Ice Cream Vending Machine

(TrendHunter.com) "Massachusetts based Moobella have devised a vending machine a bit larger than regular Pepsi and Coke vending machines which uses dry ingredents to aerate, flavor, mix and flash freeze a cup of caramel icecream with walnuts or vanilla with cookies and so on. "Dry" refers to ingredients that can be tr… [More]

WaterWerkz Vending Machines Mix Drinks On The Fly

(TrendHunter.com) WaterWerkz has created a cool new concept in beverage vending machines with their patented PouchLink system. You can customize the size of packaging and mix contents of your drink to your heart's content with their new system that can mix, package and dispense drinks on demand. [More]

Massive Vending Machine (VIDEO)

(TrendHunter.com) We've seen a lot of innovation in vending this year, with everything from Beauty Vending to Art Vending. Now, there's a gigantic vending machine that is actually be enjoyable to watch! Hence... the video. [More]

Nike Joga3 Soccer Ball Vending Machine

(TrendHunter.com) What's new from Nike? Soccer Ball Vending Machines! At Chelsea Piers in NYC, balls are often lost after big goals are scored.. Now, the geme doesn't have to stop. I suppose the machines also cater to impulsive soccer players... [More]


Well, I dunno. These things all look pretty darn convenient, and not too farfetched. What do you think? Would you 'shop' at these?