Grayscale

(This was written while I was in college, sans-rhyme, and I revised it at the beginning of 2003, in one of my first efforts to produce audially, aurally pleasing spoken-word material. I like the way it turned out. The subject matter concerns some of my deepest fascinations about meditative, inward-looking self-scrutiny. It had a different title, originally, but Grayscale applies to the revised version here presented.)

I wish I could float down the
Silver kaleidoscopic swirls
That dance on curtains unfurled,
In luminous black membrane shade,
Where Grayscale shapes parade,
And float in atmospheric gray jade
Within the cosmic array of the world.
Midnight pools radiate distortion
& mutate proportion, concentric
Twill snow in wavering shadow caves,
Reflective walls engrave waves
In the smooth muscle of the soul.
The orbs of glowing distraction,
Blanketed with flowing mystery & awe,
Cloaked in the history of mystical progression
& subconscious regression to the eternity
Of ourselves and their liquid shells.
The waves of the black ocean churn & roil,
Rippling outwards, the cloak of the cosmos,
The twist of the spiral, the coil
Of fractalized fabric & glistening darkness,
The undulating grid of primary shades,
The pendulous curving id
And its turbid chaotic masquerades
Flowing in and bursting out
Of the veil of vibrational ascension.
This is the nebulous symphony
of inward teloscopy, soul astronomy,
Reverse inspection of inverse reflection
The scrutiny of dun convection
In the turbulence of the self
And all its murky dimensions.

The Mass Republic

Our new life is information,

As it flows from station to elation,

Around the globe in contemplation,

Strapped and wireless penetration.

It soothes and nullifies us,

It headonates and skullifies us,

To coast on cerebral pathways,

Micro-process meets us halfways,

And Microphones etch new hallways,

Grooves and concentric parkways;

The city's infrastructural dark maze,

The information labyrinth,

Laced with wireless absinthe.

Urban synth and drum machine,

Is used to sync the sin,

Of the secular celebrities as we watch them slip again,

A truth synthesizer places lies right inside ya,

A propaganda plague will eventually lobotomize ya,

The governmental fingers will surely sodomize ya,

While the producers and the anchors televise ya,

And broadcast ya piece by piece they’ll electronically circumcise ya,

And customize the new configuration,

They’ll itemize their action list and mastermind your defamation,

Prioritizing control over freedom, them vs. you,

The rich percentage sanitizing our society’s mass zoo,

The tried and true guerillas escape the black cloak of the media,

And insert their facts directly into the street encyclopedia,

And alert the press about the organization of media mafia,

Throwing truth shuriken and poison darts of definition,

Redefining on a mass scale our obvious ambition;

To categorically protect our free speech condition,

As it phases in and out in military encryption,

Electronically encrusted and concealed in sin,

From within the body of the entrusted representative,

Smuggled in and injected intravenously like sedative,

To the mass consuming population producing mass intoxication,

The ability to control even day-to-day conversation,

People with no money can’t escape designer brand fixation,

Celebration for consumers involves consumption and spreading rumors.

They bite, chew, and swallow the lies they offer daily,

These quote news providers are fork tongued and scaly,

Scaling mountains of red tape, bullshit and bureaucracy,

The aristocracy is apocalyptically anaesthetizing us,

The cool fluid of propaganda flows down the vein smoothly,

Satiating the appetite for lies and osmotically diffusing us,

Categorically dividing us and rhetorically overriding us,

Providing us no alternative than to be medievally conservative,

To institute a Holy Inquisition to reveal the lies of the so-called representative,

And suitably punish the pundits and politicians,

The bullshit statisticians and spin physicians,

And eventually euthanize them and erase them,

For using media to puppeteer us,

The muppets try to double-handedly steer us,

But they should fear us,

The mass republic.

Electro-Chemical Thingie

My hair stands on end like a shock wall,

Waving and shouting at everyone else.

Morning bashes me with sharp bugle notes of light,

Empty sorrow tickles at my innards,

Trying to kick-start the machine again;

To twist the cogs and squeeze the tubes,

And spark the neuronal fire machine,

With electrical fervor and the will of contraption,

“Wake up and destroy the world!," it screams.

"Or at least some sector, so we can,

Light fires of unabashed enthusiasm,

Without complaints of conceptual arson.”

The machine pipes and churns, sparks and burns,

Gurgles chemicals and farts smoke,

And warms the visceral grease of energetic consumption.

The wires flare and the plumbing swells and courses,

And devices revel in their repetitive mania;

Tapes churn out and digital shapes and,

Characters are projected onto many shape-shifting surfaces,

Where their endless facets can fit and twist.

Manipulators grasp fuel modules,

Swerve and aim their cargoes into grind-o-matic mechanisms,

Where their essences can be filtrated and extracted;

Greasy fluids melt the strands and fragmentary,

Rubble and mush, unleashing energetic molecules,

While the projector screens mutate to accommodate,

The colors of satisfaction.

The devices continue oscillating with manic,

Intensity, searching for protein purity,

And carbohydrate clarity,

With which to inject power into bundled ropes of sinew and fabric,

So manipulators can continue squeezing, stroking,

And manipulating matter,

Bottling the scream of energy to,

Feed the machine so more tapes and,

Shapes and characters can emit themselves into the world,

And the archive can grow fatter,

with the thickness of experience.

BankCraft

It is sad

That

The question

Of legal tender

Is the answer

To the problem

Of world domination.

Is the question of interest?

Is it a question of interest

And

Inflation, depression, recession

A question of mere

Availability?

Do those decimal-shifting

Elite-erati,

The remnants of Bavarian Illuminati

Control fatalistic causality with

Pen strokes

And arithmetic calculations?

Do the bankers broker with our

Livelihoods and ride our wave of

Cresting

Interest debt

Surf our souls into the delicate reef?

Do they write our laws, design our

Social

Systems

Make gentlemen’s agreements

And divvy up our extant material?

The Money-Makers are merely

Symbol creators and indirectly,

Fear generators,

Producing coupons

To stave off fear

To purchase security

Buying self-help sessions

From the prison warden.

You get what you ask for

When it’s cheap

And

Painful

We are human animals

After

All

That is said and done

We kill each other

So masterfully

So lovingly and

Attentive

-ly

when we can be divided without

blood

multiplied by imaginary numbers

and concepts

and our real energies

can be bought with allegory

Economic fascists totalitarianize

Our well-being.

Mathematical profit-engineering uses

Percentages

Against us

Simple numbers.

The American Dream is the

Manipulation of more

Imaginary

Currency

Than our neighbor

To prove we

Are competitive and strong

And cannot be beat in

Self-enslavement

We have mastery

We have calm

And peaceful acceptance

Of our interlocked

Consumer lifestyle slavery

Protocol acceptance matrix

Boddihsattva selflessness complemented

So colorfully and well

With the Ultimate Mind Manipulation

The Data shifters

Old Money

Gypsies

Using age-old trickery and

Intelligent guile

To successfully create

Real-world-myth reality lattices

That spiderweb us

The sticky resinous glue of

Faith

Cut loose of context

Drifting erroneously

Care not what faith is!

But you must have it!

Says us!

We, your robotic mentor-controllers

Taught you to see this grid

Gave you The Sight

Gaze at the beautiful structure

Of our pyramid of lies and

S t r e t c h

Your mind

Around

It.

We are your creators

We give the power to purchase

To acquire your life segment

By meal

By appointment

By hour

By individual dependent citizen-in-

Training offspring

Your paperwork confirms your

Existence temporarily

Thank you for reporting

Leave your check at the

Door for processing

Your Gateway

To the other side of the very

Large room.

The wealth in the time

Vault is timed to exclude you

The “wealth” you covet

Resides in the trees and slave-labor

Fabric fibers and the assumed

Constructed structure of value.

The Bankers cash our checks and

Balance the good and filthy

Proportionately

, according to birth

right

left front center, have your

identification

ready, set

all set for rectal tracking

chip insertion, Citizen.

Your service began tomorrow

West of today’s Now

Your now is right now

But it’s too late for understanding

Only for complying

When we release more symbol fabric

For your enter

(s)tainment

Please spend frivolously and

Don’t think about the hazards

Of debt

Ignorance will protect you

And your protection money neighborhood

Atmosphere-respect tax will

Keep you

Safe and protected

Protected, served, and witnessed

By the tax enforcers

In blue and glaze-eyed

Conformity.

Don’t question the inquisitors,

Respect your elders

Learn your station

Know your place

It’s your turn

It’s your round

It’s my mother’s

Birthday

It’s your

Responsi-

Bility

And so

You shall.

Your programming is complete

The gestalt is clear

Your Free Will is no longer free,

But costly

And will depend upon

A satisfactory

Credit check

Any attempts to self-reprogram

Will void warranty

On your earthly vessel

And the Banking Cartels can no

Longer guarantee your safety

Your existence

Your modern credibility

Without cooperation.

So cooperate and continue to operate

Within acknowledged protocol reality settings

Your job is to populate

And bow down before tithing tax rate assassination

We work in mysterious ways

And with compliance, your days

Can be allowed to continue

Counting

Tracking

Profit Margin calculated

Report to processing.

The Sample (or The Remix Directive)

(This is a spoken-word piece I wrote about a year and a half ago. It pertains to the world of hip-hop and electronic music, how they can serve as a metaphor for how to view the world, how to change one's attitude or view of reality. Remixing anything one desires, changing one's viewpoint, never letting art or culture die, nor exploiting it, but recycling it in such a way as to pay homage to it as an influence.

Pieces of the world machine,

Often copulate and get copied,

Fragmentary frameworks screwed together,

With bolts and nuts,

Wheels, belts and buttons activate,

Borrowed long enough to duplicate,

Active reactive matter energy,

The sum total of proactive synergy.

The whole is not replicated,

Instead a beast with Non sequitur syndrome,

Is shocked into life and motion,

Sewn and glued together from fragments,

Pinched from bland culture,

Pilfered from pop-sitcom boredom,

Creatively re-constructed and de-socialized,

New form and goal,

Strapped together with digital duct tape,

Allowed to mutate and replicate,

After getting sonic DNA injections,

Re-programmed machines cutting different grooves,

Reverberation emitting different wavelengths,

With new labels beyond aphanumeric Latin.

Loaded with pellets of different palettes,

Of color and mathematical arrangement,

In a fractal flower of musical entertainment,

These contraptions blaze,

International neighborhoods,

Representing global stations,

Shouting proudly the proportions,

Of their re-constituted sonic skeletons,

Majestically recounting past history,

And proclaiming future future,

Breathing out radioactive anthems,

Speaking in blue and silver breaths,

Mutated by funkatronic science experimentation,

Assimilation is disintegrated,

Over-copying achieves absolute static distortion,

The abortion, of unnecessary ordinary repetition,

Sections of new robotic framework glimmer,

Glowing growing newness simmering,

Freshness boiling,

Organic fingers jiving mechanical keyboards,

Sending organic notes floating,

Warheads of emotion detonate,

In the lower atmosphere of concentration,

Sowing seeds of fresh creation,

Signaling the pulse of culture revolution,

Concrete existence gets digitally distorted,

Cyclic organic pathways are deviated,

Normalized meat-boxes cease the circulation,

Clunking into each other abruptly,

And ceasing the dirty altercations.

Mutation and alternation are introduced,

And the people start to turn on,

They tune in the beauty of difference,

De-phase their static boundaries,

Reboot their core systems,

Upload flowing electronic rivers of sound,

Emitted by splice-robot cyborg soldiers,

On decks and keyboards folding time,

Redirecting the energy of rhythm and rhyme,

Summoned from funk junk-piles and galactic garages,

Stagnated barges of forgotten pop lore,

Past lives are sampled,

Breaks and loops are broken and re-directed,

Elemental currents are shared and re-reflected,

And all these new arrangements,

Are collectively collected,

In the flowing motions of groove commotion,

The number of weaving arms is ample,

Channeling the new example,

The sample, and all its analog and electric brothers.

The Bush Doctor

A man with a fountain head,

From which flowed the mighty dread,

He walked along a lonely path serenely,

A Bush Doctor embracing life obscenely.

His medicine lay in the fields and trees,

Hidden in their branching networks,

His power in dancing herbs and rivers,

Arrays of worlds he treks in,

Poring over, exploring, and foraging,

In the forests of force and meaning,

Inner vision and direction he delivers,

Conducting symphonies of discovery,

His vision charmed with love melodies.

His gift cannot be captured behind glass,

Nor forced or exploited, but only released,

Let go loosely, the rivers rampage,

Flood the dawn with clear cool power,

To weave the souls of the spirit world,

Into the net of our own hedonism,

The world repeatedly melts and forms,

The Bush Doctor feels this transition,

Throughout the bio-plastic tissue,

Of his luminous and glowing body of light.

He follows the life-flows to,

The end of their dimensions,

Where the streams shrink and evaporate,

Falling from geometric corners,

Of the planes of the material world.

He knows which ones to follow,

Which to bow to deeply,

In tender ritual of the psychedelic soul,

Glowing sweaty brow to the earth,

Life-flows pass in placid silence,

They all diverge at different time-locations,

In different dimensions and realities,

Most are not followed by human senses,

The Bush Doctor is a man of medicine,

A shaman of sound, resounding inner energies,

A navigator of internal oceans,

He searches for energies of life unbound by time,

Forces flowing swiftly, deeply,

He knows they flow like liquid,

Everything is fluid at some level of magnification.

He learns through the lens of chaos,

He speaks in the language of the ancients,

Using the spirit voice to transport thought,

He knows that thought breaks like waves and crash,

And can be ridden and followed,

Revealed as flowing cords of light,

The currents of knowledge,

Flow up and down in helix spirals,

Sharp geometric webs of electro-spherical force,

He traces them with cylindrical inner senses,

Communes with rounded presences,

Conscious forces dance around.

The Bush Doctor massages life,

Caresses the flow of time,

Learning her secrets,

Always seducing, coaxing,

And leaving pathways behind glowing,

Drifting away like syrupy smoke,

He can weave and gyrate his hands,

And coerce currents of change,

To dance before his eyes revealing all,

Glowing prosperous streams of energy,

Contained in cascading liquid motion,

Glowing softly, violet aura shimmering,

Hair flows from his head in dread rivers,

Coursing keratin snakes charmed by time,

The Bush Doctor smiles as the atmospheres,

Of the world stroke his body,

Cleansing it and evoking erotic sensation,

He swoons and is reborn from the womb of chaos agony,

His beard follows the current of gravity,

His thin curving mouth opposes it,

He carves the edges of tension,

Riding the crests of ecstasy,

In the swarming jungles of naked truth.

January, 2007