Flow of Conscious 3:52pm, Dec 31, 2012

To Love Oneself...

The blood, the honey...
That has purloined my loins of money
Left me a blind passenger
In these unlit streets of cells and meat
Flames divine have struck and stirred
Semen in their freezer burn
Dark, Spring dreams brought defeat
Murdered apples plucked a dirge
Rotting in a case of meat:
The blood, the honey,
And the stars' fire?--
A cold and broken, frozen breeze...

Cloven Michaels - 11 years, 11 months, 28 days ago

Flow of Conscious 2:29am late December

To forgive is divine
My spirit has shed blood
Like the skin of a snake
So I am fine
Floating in the flood
Of my peers that have faked
Every behavior, every word they believe is kind
Like a broken record, the moments pass while I'm in mud
The muck, and mire of sweet, tender pats on the head
Anxiety breaks,
I'm fine,
My spirit soaked in the blood of saccharine lies
Chains caked in crud
I bask in the release that forgiveness will not offer
The ball of fire in the throat that cleanses the altar
This lamb has grown fangs, breathes sulphur
Gnaws at the shephard's absent father
Rises like a python above the floods
The fairweather paupers
Gives thanks to the apple
And the despair it has cost him
With wild, wide serpent eyes, to forgive the lies
Only polishes the chains that bind
To forgive is divine,
Break bread with me
With honest lips, and sound hunger
With a voice steeped in honey like tea
And you'll never have to ask forgiveness from me
I'm fine
In this ocean with waves of lies
I won't forgive you
Licking and lapping up the blood
From the razorsharp barnacles
That have grown in these waters
That still somehow reflect rays
From the warm, forgiving sun
Where I float, but never falter
Cloven Michaels - 11 years, 12 months ago

Drops of Love at 887 Feet

A common lover keeps a date
oPportunity in his turn
HeR height has twisted their fate

bE nImble when you climb that fern
So RuNning will not help you mate
yOu HeCkle my time and turn

to Me EvEryone has place
i trY cAuSal connections, sure
and a SiRe Says i can't chase

she is OuT sInning for my cure
it is yoU sInNing in her place
that can LoSe Her soul for sure

she boughT tAlEs to weave blood and heart
and it was tHe PeRsonal dirge
she sang out A pLoT in art

and this will TrAp Our hearts to merge
together we're In CoWard hearts
but instinct alSo EmErges

death, in us, makes SaFe, Restful spaces
now, my opponent's hAlO's Blurred
he knows that it is oVeR, qUits the race

leaving made our lovE a MiRror
divided by space, is toDaY uNphased?
in my palm, her hair burnS, eGo stirs

the tower makes us all sePaRate
love is something that yoU eArn
the ground's mine, and so my gRaVe awaits

the tower's height is hers, siN, hEaven-churn
this twist of fate sewn up our'S in hate
i'm a statue now whose heart burns

Slant-verse Stanza( last one interwoven in text top left to bottom right, used capitals to make it stand out since I don't know how to italicize or embolden on this site)

A princess in her tower burns
Her heart is a place for my grave
So my soul that is saved spurns

*This piece has three line stanzas where the last is interwoven into the text, which I call Slant-verse, I also attempted pure syllabic verse 8-8-7 syllable count which held up until near the end of the piece, and I also utilized anachronistic rhyme scheme created by Dylan Thomas (read his Prologue) where the rhyme scheme reflects itself top-bottom (ie aba, bab, bcb, bcb, bab, aba) Though this one uses three lines exact reflection is difficult and it turned out more like: ABA, BAB, CDC, DCD, EFE, FEF, CDC, DCD, ABA, BAB--BAB for SV (more like anachronistic backsliding ;)). I didn't capitalize the beginnings of the lines hoping it would make the stanza easier to see, and there is editorializing, and punctuation efforts that need to be made to clean it up, but I'm fucking happy with it! It's hard enough to write this way, but just try figuring out how it's done! ;) ps, the poem is about two men trying to get the love of a princess locked in a tower, and neither one can climb her hair to be with her, the one that loves her stands his ground until he becomes a statue, proving his everlasting love for her.

*to read the last stanza, take away all the punctuation (commas, periods, etc) and the spaces between the words and the lines of the slanted verse cascade like a waterfall, easy to read.
Cloven Michaels - 11 years, 12 months, 3 days ago

It was recently pointed out to me the myopic aspect of a current tragedy, and I do agree...So, this is what I wrote as a response:

[...], and as an avid fan of Noam Chomsky, and have read at least 8 books by him--I also have a first copy of "Language and Responsibility" I understand your disappointment. I wrote about the recent one due to a few reasons: I know my audience[in America], most people will focus on what's recent and in their face, America is insulated media--look at East Timor in the Nineties, or what's left of that genocide from Indonesia. I applaud your worldy sensibility and comment that it is everywhere and I believe far more rampant in other countries. I despise our foreign policies and titled it 'strangers with candy' since we give food as long as people vote for our candidate and repeal it and send in guns when they don't--Haiti over the past five years, and also in the early nineties when a grass roots effort caused a South American country to vote for their candidate instead of ours! It's a beautiful thing. I am, if it is lost on people since I pulled some of my pics, an anarcho-syndicalist, and it's not a perfect society, but I think it has parts that are progressive and may hold up better if it was widely accepted, far better than democracy and capitalism--seeing how I think capitalism is a parasitic form of economy and can't survive if every country adopts it without turning every country into what we consider a 'third world nation'.

Cloven Michaels - 12 years, 8 days ago

The Connecticut Tragedy--A Response at 11pm December 14th, 2012
Before this day finally ends, in the 11th hour, so to speak, I want to say my peace. It's not as though my words mean anything or carry any weight beyond the ink or digital trail they leave behind, but I must put into words the weight my heart feels right now. Connecticut has suffered a severe tragedy, it has to simply be put in those words--others would just be biased, self aggrandizing, or sentimental beyond reproach. Twenty children in kindergarten were gunned down along with seven adults (as far as I am to understand all were teachers except the gunman's mother). The gunman was in his twenties and carried some friction toward his mother-he shot her in the face at home before heading toward the school where he committed this heinous act. In my mind, I am unable to prove or disprove any deity--ones currently prayed to, or ones that we commonly call myths, but in my heart I believe in a higher force that guides all actions great and small in the universe. And, my heart has been leveled by this saddening news. I am not a parent, a teacher, or big brother to another. I will probably never have children of my own, but I, as a human being feel unrest and how that feeling is growing larger, expanding like ripples from a drop of water in a quiet pond. Eventually, the waves of these ripples not only enlarge over distance, but strike against the shores, rocks and animals in the pond, and find their way back to the center. The internet, and its social media are like a double edged sword, where people can find comfort in others who have faced tribulations, and find more information and turn toward their intellect to attempt prevention of further absurd and senseless pain. So, here I am not only feeling the effect of a single act, but with hope, reflecting the ripple back to the source with an equal and positive effect. Since all actions require equal opposite reactions, I hope that as time passes, the ripples of information strike a chord within our small pond and reverberate back a positive reaction from other human beings with compassion, intellectual prowess toward prevention, and prayer for those who are grieving. I am a Taoist, but that does not mean I don't pray to an unnameable force, or pray for strength for people who suffer senselessly. I am over thirty and I believe anyone who has reached my age knows something about senseless suffering and if not, they are truly blessed. So, I am taking a few moments to inform the pets on this site to find their gifts in life and use them to attack the negativity that has transpired today. I know full well in my heart that the ones lost, not just the children, but the seven adults as well--and many will be upset by this statement but for the gunman also--that their energies are all in a better place, because even in the darkest of human acts, they are acts that have been catalyzed by some influence, and that every human, at their core is always trying to become better, but some have lost their way. The mere fact that the gunman took his own life reveals to me his conscience was laden with guilt, he may stay for several eons in Hell, move into a purgatory, and if God truly is all forgiving for those who come to Him, then at some point he will find his way to Heaven once he has paid for what he has done in the afterlife, but that timetable is not for me to judge or demand from God. What I pray for is strength and positive thoughts for all who are left with the emotional, and psychological damage this event has caused, and I hope the pets here, animal/human/deity as we all are will take some time to reflect and send their positive reaction back into the universe in some small way and not fall into fear, paranoia, overreaction, and damnation of what we will never totally be able to understand. For our fears mainly start from our ignorance and breed terrible behaviors that destroy ourselves or others. In summation, I want to thank anyone who has taken the time to read this, and has the sense of brotherhood we should all feel at times like this, no matter our religion, philosophy, or ideology. This was not a strike against a group or group cause, religious or otherwise, but the senseless act of a man who obviously suffered and never reached out for the help he needed before allowing his fear to grow to anger and delusional hatred against his fellow man, his world, and his universe. And, since this absurdity leaves us in a state of ignorance and fear, let us all take the time to enlighten ourselves and others as a way to react to these events instead of ignorantly sliding down the same path this man had followed. The families in Connecticut have my deepest sympathies and prayers to God to give them strength to sail across a now turbulent pond until its ripples ebb and they can glide peacefully across a calm pond once again.
With my deepest sincerity,
Cloven

Cloven Michaels - 12 years, 10 days ago