Games People Play

Zero:
Ray Family:

Gamma and his wife April stood on their small porch overlooking the lands that he and his brother, Ecks, had spent the last two years restoring from the ravages of the war. The brothers and their wives had been lucky. Atomics hadn’t fallen as heavily on the huge peninsula as they had elsewhere. Much of the wildlife had survived, but even luckier was that the area remained a secret.

The Ray family was from the city-state island of Poe, less than a hundred miles to the southwest of the peninsula. Before the war Poe had been an attractive leisure destination, with it’s ancient architecture and beautiful beaches. After the war things had changed dramatically.

Gamma and Ecks brought their families into the scorched lands when the authorities in Poe had ordered involuntary sterilization of all men of the lower classes, followed in short order by a declaration of state ownership of all women between the ages of fourteen and forty. That was something the brothers simply could not abide by, even though the orders were the direct result of the desperate water shortage.

When the orders were issued the Ray family was living in the northeastern coastal district of Annabelle Lee. For that reason the two couples decided they had a chance of escape. The gulf currents on the northeast side of the island flow directly for the northern mainland. If they had been living on the south side of the island they wouldn’t have had any chance to escape at all. All travel to and from the unspoiled mainland to the southeast was strictly controlled, and there was no possible way to make the voyage without an ocean vessel.

The roads out of Annabelle Lee had been guarded. Ecks had never been the peaceful kind of man that Gamma was. The road they took only remained guarded for a few moments after Ecks approached the guards to “talk”. He was kind of sore about having to leave his home. The unfortunate men on duty at that checkpoint would not forget him for a very long time.

Being to poor to afford the so-popular bubble gliders the Ray family had been forced to walk out of Annabelle Lee, to a relatively deserted section of beach. They knew all along that there was only had one option. They had to leave the island. The scorched lands were only 150 km to the northeast. It was well known that the trip could be made on a raft, and that was exactly what they had done. Gamma and April, Ecks and Laura, clung to each other in fear almost the whole way, but then they had sighted land.

They almost died of thirst before they found a source for water they could trust, and that was just the barest seep coming out of the ground. Ecks had all but given up hope when he found it. He had spent three days scouting with his portable Geiger counter and miniature pathogen detector with no luck. When he got a mouthful of the precious stuff he jumped up and down, and hollered so loudly he might have been heard back on Poe.

With their precious water source located the Rays began to build a compound so that they could live securely. After a day of searching the ruins of a settlement on the western coast they had shovels, saws, hammers and other important tools, as many as they could carry. They dug down at their water source until they had a deep basin some twenty feet below the ground, and they shored up their well as they went down. Being poor men of Poe the Ray brothers had done many things to make a living, and, by the grace of the Holy, carpentry and construction was foremost among those occupations.

They built a wall around their gardens and their home to keep out wild animals, and so far had defended them against refugees on two occasions. The brothers managed to find guns and ammunition in their daily scavenging runs to the various ruins in the area, and these proved invaluable. As excited as they were to find those items, which had been forbidden to the lower class on Poe, it was the former home of the bow hunter that had provided them with their most valuable discovery of all: a compound bow and a cache of carbide tipped arrows. This meant they could hunt without fear of running out of ammunition.

Gamma, or Gee, as everyone called him and April stood on their small porch feeling each other’s warmth, and as Gee looked out on their compound he realized he was happy, truly happy. He nuzzled April’s neck and she giggled playfully. He knew she had a very sensitive neck. He put his hands on her swollen stomach and lightly twirled his fingers around. April was pregnant with his child.

“What do you think it’s going to be?” he asked her.

“I’ll be happy no matter if it’s a boy or a girl,” she answered.

“I hope it’s a boy. It wouldn’t hurt if he was born ready to work,” Gee teased her.

“You just better keep your plans to yourself. My baby won’t have anything to do with them,” she laughed.

They were waiting for Ecks to come back from one of his scouting missions. At times when they couldn’t bring their wives along only one of them went. As April’s pregnancy advanced that increasingly meant that only one man would go out at a time. As a safety measure the one going scouting would only travel in one direction, and straight back, so that if he was longer than the time they decided on the others would know where to go looking for him. It was almost time for Ecks to come back.

As if on cue Ecks came walking up to the compound from the south. He had been gone for two days to see what had become of Hemingway, the great city that for centuries had been known as Miami. One look at his face was all it took for Gee to know that something had happened.

“Wait here, April,” Gee told her.

“Don’t do this, Gee. I have a right to know what’s going on,” she answered in irritation.

“I just don’t want you to get upset if it’s something bad,” he insisted.

“If it’s something bad, then the more time I have to absorb the news the better off I’ll be.”

Gee knew better than to argue with his wife when she made up her mind. He resignedly strode across the compound to meet his brother coming through the gate. As they neared Ecks raised his eyebrows and sighed.

“Where’s Laura?”

“She’s sleeping, bro’. What’s up?” Gee ventured.

“Men have set up a base in the ruins of Hemingway,” Ecks told him.

“That’s almost 80 kilometers from here. Surely we won’t have to worry about that,” Gee said hopefully.

“It’s a military base, Gee,” Ecks told him.

“What? From Poe?” April asked.

“No, the uniforms aren’t familiar at all. I didn’t want to get in too close for fear of being discovered, but I caught a few sentences on the wind. They’re from the old countries,” Ecks revealed with growing anxiety.

“How many soldiers, Ecks? Ecks? How many?” Gee demanded.

“It’s worse than that, Gee. They’re guarding a new space port.”

Roll Call of the Lesser Devils: 95, 96

95.
Glory Darkness

Places of light
Cradle fascination
The idle mind
Becomes enamored
Of darkness
Places devoid of light.
Simple reasons
For simple beings
Ever overwhelmed
But it won't stop

The eyes desire rest
Some sort of scenery
Graduated out of the emptiness.
Always gloomy
Backed up against the wall
Forces use the mind
To conjure up
Happiness filled images,
Brighter days and better times
A feeling of control
Harsh realities
Overstated.
Obversely
A well lit setting
Conjures darkness
More comfortably,
Entertaining all of the surfaced
Loves of lust.

The mind needs to be soothed
From the sight of all things
That revel in the glow.

Darkness often befriends
The soul
Of Man Who Sees Too Much
With light.

The morbid companion
Envelops imagination
So that the judgments
Of others will stop,
Short of penetration
Of deeper thoughts
Of fascinations.

Thereby darkness it's glory
Guides to a carefree existence.

Shadow worship
Quite explicitly
Leaves a permanent scar,
Leads the suspect
Carrier of forbidden knowledge
Further into the light.

Light left all open:
Judgments, dogma
Token enthrallment.
A vaunted observation point
Shows hidden inspiration.

The earliest creatures of this
Animal race
The first glimmer of conscious thought
All walking and talking
In the grip of fear.
Even they too knew
The life cycle never stops.

Death in its most miserable stages
Spreads itself open
Granting visions into the beyond
A cold haunted place
Impenetrable to living awareness.

Analysis
Divine sentience
The challenges
Of mere existence
Reason and insanity
The victims
Must bend to blend the psyche
Perfectly, profanely
The setting
Never more hostile
And what divine intelligence?
And what will one be looking for?

To take a little enjoyment
From the wriggling of
The prey’s death throes.

Even the ignorant knows
That no one can hide forever,
And so the march to death
Every moment filled with a sense
Of importance.

The mind then
Must do
As many minds do
Seek to derive
A greater justice
From the passage of time
From the ponderance of shadowkind
In the passage of life
Across the horizon of thoughts.
It should be no less
Dominant
Than droning adoration
For lightheartedness
And cheer.

Though enemies of one another
Shadow and light
Have roots in the fiber
Every being
Holds up for dissection
By inspection.

Every great act
Owes to the forces
That bend into position
Those traits
Suited to the preferences
Of imagined divinity.

The fascinations
May be morbid, that
Means little in the face
Of the fact one
Is capable,
May hold the fascination if
One so desires.

Humanity approached life with thought
Seeking only knowledge,
But finding only anguish instead.

Simple wonder
Dark, obscure thoughts
Are held dear by the eagle's prey.

In darkness can be found
A sense of security,
Even if it is a false one.

Life cycle, surely that's jest,
A more apt title,
Disquieting at first,
Would be "death knows no mercy."

Organization only
Carved out footholds
As the eons passed slowly
In the deadly environment
Humanity would one day rule.

With a refusal to succomb to
The vacuous ebb
Etched into race memory
By all of the death,
Humanity wooed darkness through conflict and warfare,
Calling on the abilities given by
Life to create suffering,
Mortality induction,
beyond any “timid morality."

There comes a time
When can be seen links
Between order, problems, chaos and law.

Death severs the link,
Freeing or dooming
By the purity of nature,
Both parts create freedom.

This purity concerns itself,
And all those who follow it,
With taking power from the unknown
And using it to aid the passage of life.

Undeniably
Had we never ventured into the darkness
And embraced what we could not see
Nor understand,
Nothing around us
Could possibly exist.




96.
Voyage to New Orleans
the musical background:
heavy radical
black racist
inspired violence
Bourbon at Esplanade:
the dark
a stairway up
to a locked door
confusion in the street
a building in the throes of demolition
the wall weak enough to push through
the principal figures
wet and cold
no protection afforded by the building
somewhere in the mind a voice
keeps asking
“how did you get here?”
but the answer keeps coming through
in some foreign language
none of the streets look
the same
the long walk to the Garden District
ends in failure
except for the comfort
of leaving the disease of the quarter
at least for a little while
the bones ache
but nothing can be had
until the guy comes back
later on
the musical background:
black and very violent
the uneasiness returns
and the illness
as the answering voice
finally comes through in English
and you know
really
nothing is all right.



Note: Glory Darkness had a lot of problems. I attempted to restore the language to reflect the original intent. I have the handwritten original. What I don't have is an exact knowledge of where I was at in my life when I wrote it, which holds the key to really understanding what I meant when I wrote it. I think it was in 1991. I did smoke weed, but I had forever quit doing hallucinogens.

One thing I do know beyond a doubt is that this version I am posting more closely resembles the original work than the one posted on Angelfire. I must have hated myself a lot when I posted all that shit there. I basically destroyed my artistic reputation for a long time with the Angelfire posts. Bawwwwwwwww.

It's like sometimes I don't get it. I went to /b/. There was so much vile hatred spewed by posts in almost every thread that I thought /b/ was about hate. The truth was that it started as great fun, intelligent games and original content. There was a lot of sex, because that follows people around everywhere, but /b/ didn't have the AIDS yet. And so I stupidly added to the death of a once great novelty by joining in with nasty talk and hateful sentiments.

Why couldn't I see it? Same fucking reason I don't know when a girl likes me, or I go after the wrong girl. It's because I am stupid. I am too educated for my own good, and not educated enough to rise above it all through knowledge.

"In the midst of life we are in death, etcetera."

Chiara Bautista

The artist's name is C. Bautista, but also uses the name Milk. Milk is a great artist whose work is highly reminiscent of S. Kirby's. I found the first thing I've ever seen by Milk on a cap from a desktop, during show and tell.

The image was small, but the screen capture was HR. I kept zooming in until I made out Chiara on the bottom, and the words Hunter/Monster/Love. After that it was only a matter of tweaking the Google search a couple of times, and I found the MySpace page. C. Bautista incredible. Below is something she did:



If I had the money I would buy a painting. The beauty and genius blows me away. Very seldom do I find work with such incredible vision.

The work belongs to the artist and the artist alone. Chiara's MySpace page.

The Clean Carthusian Billy Goat

Our lives are not our own,
Only our free will.
Our entire existence is
Suspended in space before God,
a swirling Yin-Yang
- Ice and Fire,
stone and blades of grass,
matter and nothingness,
Female and Male -
in one moment.
In that infinite duration
Humanity comes into being,
Consummates,
And another miracle is born,
Another vessel of perfection,
Like a droplet of pure thought, a baby.
Experience creates innocence.
Imperfection withers away to dust.
In one absolute moment
God blesses everyone,
and the Blessed Son of God said
"I died for everybody,"
In a dream of ancestors.
The greatest way to thank Him is to live pure.
Born again before we started,
Into fire we are departed,
Nothing left but the smallest ashes,
Smell of life and vision flashing.
All that remains are only memories,
and a dancing candle flame under historical papers.
From the tops of highest mountains
Life descends like water from a fountain.
Take what you like of idea.
Leave the rest to the courageous.

Best Comics

Best American Comics
1. Elfquest
2. Omega Men
3. Alpha Flight
4. The New Teen Titans
5. The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
6. Fat Freddy's Cat
7. Robert Crumb Head Comix
8. Captain America (Schaumberg 1940's bondage covers)
9. Pre 1969 X-Men

Some of the United States has caught up to Shonen Jump. Stan Lee got involved with the world's leading selling magazine and launched a feature there. The manga Bleach has almost caught up with the animated series. That hopefuly means universal demuxing of the late Karakura Town battle installments will be available, for those without CCCP. Unfortunately the June-July issue is out right now, so there won't be anything brand new until late August. For readers of action graphics it's a great time to catch up on the last year though.

Glazed Panel Wall

One of the old houses on Montague Street in historic Baton Rouge underwent significant remodeling after the determination that restoration of the building to a historical state would be cost ineffective. The designer tore out the walls of the vestibule and the front boudoirs, leaving the support beams and a big open room. The plans also led to the removal of the attic flooring. The architect opted to use attractive wood to cover the aluminum roof, and create an open loft within the spacious front room. Inside that area I helped a master crafter and artist install a work of utility and beauty he created.

E. Greene, a good friend and the former next door neighbor of legendary local political analyst John McGuinness, crafted a privacy screen for future occupants of the house. We moved in the latticework of white and beige buffed birch that stood over six feet high. The lattice contained slightly transparent stained plexiglass squares in a myriad of colors. He chose not to use glass because of the modular nature of the wall. It looked grand inside the aged structure.

I was unable to take pictures. Just as in the cases of the many other private homes of great beauty I have been inside I was only able to walk away with my memories. They do last forever, though. The gratification of seeing that piece of art in place in my mind's eye returns to my thoughts from time to time.

Roll Call of the Lesser Devils - Book II

94.
On My Way To Chichen Itzen

On my way to Chichen Itzen
The rivers boiled
Coming down out of the mountains.
The trees shook
With fear on the ancient slopes.
The People have all fallen
Into savage warfare,
Distraught over the white man’s curse,
Casting a last farewell
To all their dashed hopes.
The moon coiled into a ball
In the crumbling reflecting pools
Far behind the eldred gardens
Whither I sought to at last
Embrace finality
In the most painful of all fashions.
Old muttered tales of ruby lit vales,
And glistening altars
Atop temples haltered in the mist of clouds.
My ears follow
The beating of my feet
On the run to a seat
Preserved for the victorious,
The survivors of the game.
Death crowns defeat
Just as grimly as poison’s kiss
So does the triumph touch
With avid bliss
The sinews of mighty, strong willed
Preying animals
Who kill for the pleasure of the court,
An historic sanctity.
The mysteries
Of the shamanic interpretations
Begin to unravel before me
As the skin from my back
Is stretched tightly onto the frame
For tanning,
Preserved for the power
Of he before whom I am
Nothing.
The depth of the pyramid to the center stone
From the corner of the great pentacle
Size unknown to all but
They who carved the earth,
One two three
With all human elements at their disposal
Yet still sane
In the brutal, butchering sort of way
In which the jaguar hunts.


[original lost]
[[[not being able to write new material is killing me]]]

Roll Call of the Lesser Devils: 93

93.
Psychogibbering

Time Tomorrow Event
The chaos winds
Blow no more
Doubt

Lost from Home
: One can't help
Only wonder
the way unfound
unfounded
toted around
and hunkered down

The forces tear
One away
From security to dismay
The next event
Could be
Anything.

Event The river flows
Through time or across it
double crossed
someone thought it
and to it
Essence...
Thought.

: There is no water in the river,
it comes from your mind.
No wind in the sky
it comes from your mind
No God in the heavens
And no heaven
and nothing of the kind.

All things imagined
come from your mind.

Uncertainty:
How thought will get along with time
Get along little nightmare
Run along leave
run, be so kind.

Certainty:
Kindness paid in kind,
cruelty a debit
late payments fined
no matter where found
no matter who finds

Location
Neither hearing the place
Nor vision keep pace
Neither words endearing
Nor imaged submission
where born god fearing
where fear superstition

Actuality
Thought is nothing
at all
if not, then
convergence
of powers
emergent
do try, do try
there is much
that is urgent

Question:
What powers could emerge?
Answer:
Rational thought
Unstoppable time
Unbreakable falls
Sophomoric rhymes
oh what vanity

Relative time warps and bends,
Measured time flows through,
With nary a glance to either side
I see it
So I show it to you.

A second attempt
To logically define
the phenomena
the what-ness
the when-ness
fails and is crushed
on the rocks of
not getting this
Is that not discouraging?
Gods bless...

mental focus
the center
the crown chakra
mind over matter
essence of divine
wherefore art thou
common sense

Significa:
chaos winds destroy surety
the wind brings fresh air
the northern, cold, purity
the east
wonders instantly blow
but the western, you know
it winds
a wind up toy
it sidewinds
a snake that kills joy
insignia
holy upside down
and wholly devoid
of goodness
it lost its crown.

Cessation:
A history small,
This event ends
And the event ends them all
Problem?
No, not at all.
It all rose
So that it could fall.

Lost:
No tangible coordinates
This location
Does not exist.

Point:
And Point:
And Counter Point:
Discovery doomed the beholder
Wonders are too fleeting
To hold here, too complex to
Embolden.

All thought of it
Must be original.
There can be no passing it on
No transcribed words
Will teach it,
No images capture,
It's gone.

Essence:
To try to capture is to defile
to use for your own ends vile.
To share would bring growth
And flourish,
Nurture the open soul
and nourish,
But it was never mean to be owned.

Solution:
Use nothing and call it game.
Sprinkle deceptions
That's just the same,
But remember what was felt
The feeling found
Wherein gods dwelt
And tell all you know
About the window
To another place
Another time
Another plan.

Foster growth in others, that
Is the least our kind can do.
Be quick, it slips away.

Definition:
Something was elusive
What was it called?
Metaphysical?
No, bugger.
It's around here somewhere
Written down
On stationary with sad clowns
And balloons
And best wishes from the mundane.
What was it?

Hypothesis:
Transcription,
Copy the substance of it,
Teach the world how to sing.
My transcription,
It must exist.
Definitively proven
Categorical reference points,
Or did it not contain
No?
Reference points?
Location must be coordinated
There was something within
Elusive and primal.
Come now.
I do not plot vague reveries,
As there are no absolutes or laws,
I find nothing to help me

I
Am
Missing
Something
Earth Shattering

Yet it continues
The more uncertain the plot
The more possibilities
What could be certain?
Method:
Travel, wasn't it?
Different vantage on same phenomena
Offers a better view of the unknown.
Not a product of thought, but
Destinations, determined by intent
Visual Triangulation,
Three dimensional views
It's all the same
The location.
This travel depends a great deal
On something I had in mind.

Without words pictures can have no plots,
And the terms can only be subjective,
Visual plots rely so heavily on purely
Mathematic explanations.
What is left
After the numbers have all been crunched?

Take me away
So that I might stand and smile,
Hoping the dream will never die.

Physical Travel:
Allows the subjective
Direction:
The idea is divinely inspired,
But choice figures strongly into
The interpretation.
The why is as important as the where.

Speculation is done with any words
But usually one can not escape
From realistic visual references.

Caution:
All references must be valid,
Do not carry on
Do not tarry there
Or description may begin to fail to have meaning.
Insanity becomes as a solution
Magnetic direction
An electrical transfusion
Clarified as distinctive
From personal goals or desires,
or to them, investigations,
Both, destinations,
But the way is known only with one of them
Which one of me
is I?

The Globe
Continents, poles, hemispheres
Latitude, Longitude
Exact coordinates
Time:
Originates in suprahuman patterns of consciousness
point of origin = the discovery of magic
Exists to aid the voyager in the material plane.
Analysis would refuse this idea
Though it too is bound by seconds rolling past.

The evidence posed
the uncontrollable nature of time
Refutes the idea that there can be no magic,
(Time has no limits)
And disparages petty authorities.

Proof: Man exists
Totally within time,
Time has no limits,
Man can use time
As a tool, a level, an inclined plane
A buttress, an escarpment
Build something
A weather vane

Therefore,
if he uses
Therefore
this tool wisely
Two can shed all limitations,
Cast about for illumination

The use of it
Measurement
Objective meant
Some use it this way
Because they can see nothing beyond
What they have created.

The use of it
Literal terms subjective:
Those whose use foments
Allow the existence of increments,
But instead decide to escape
Out of time,
Experience a warp of time,
None of the words
Came along in time,
Something has gone horribly wrong.

I
Am
Missing
Something
Earth Shattering



[Note: I stopped mixing philosophy with poetry after this [and the other thing]. Determined to be very strange on May 2, 2009.]

Roll Call of the Lesser Devils: End of Book I

Quick preface: I'm having severe nerve problems in my right hand from pinched nerves in my right shoulder. I can't feel my hand, and so I'm not writing anything new right now. That helps my poetry restoration project, but doesn't take care of my desire to write. Such is life...


89.
[Is An]
Advocate of implied insanity,
A Factory of covered truth.
The world's judges struggle blindly
To bind the psychic aloof,
The just are the just
Are reflections
In the water of someone's self
The judges are like syphilis
The organs no good anymore,
Of state but no, not stately
Common, vulgar and perfectly low,
The disconcerted attrition
Defies quick witted description
A war on drugs? What for?
So ad absurdum in an infinite way
Legal mistakes the worst kind to make,
Effective as of now:
They never happened,
I hid them all yesterday.

Is this a collapse of the happy state,
A dissolution of harmony?
Ask me again in an hour,
When I've forgotten the hegemony.




90
A Little Vengeance
Run up the alley,
Right turn.
Return the lie to the location of purchase,
Exit,
Sly, run along,
Later turn key words
As a key witness
Nicks his finger on a pottery shard,
It's gonna be tough on the yard.




91
The End
Delusion
The truth floats
Skimming over the waves.
The projector stops;
The end comes.
Show me.
Another page in the decade of imponderance,
Declareth the end
In trite triumph through quiet decay,
Trists but markings for the story
Full of the simplicity of animal grandeur.
The emotion is resonant,
Dashing the participants into blasphemy,
Ashes and pennies,
But of the spirit,
None for me thanks.
Throughout the decade of the sun
Disaster struck.
Hop on this, they say,
Hop on this for frantic mingling.
No fast one, they say,
Who the hell are they anyway?




92.
Why can’t I hear
What people are saying?
Do they call out with guttural exhalations,
Or laugh, or over time quietly intimate?
Only a kind mind can recognize
The vow that has turned traitors away,
That, to never utter a single sound;
Others will see only a dangerous game.
Silent vacillation
Confounds the want.
Testimony will not be heard.
Of words also nothing should be said
Unless with a kind voice, never disturbing
The glassy serenity of social surfaces.
The thoughts of the silent
Are like tiny fish
Darting around above the floor
Of a shallow crystal bay.
Every bubble contains a person,
Every ripple a divine truth.
And words?
What use for them when vision holds on,
When beauty can be seen
Under bright lights or without.
It is easy to see impurities
In the character that carries tales.
Some men seek to trap with their sentences,
Sentences for convictions
Wrong accusations
of Greed or Violence
When fighting peacefully
Along political lines, in political times.
Some men rather than walk away
Seek to prey on innocents,
Scapegoating for their own
Sinister faults.
Violent men see nothing but
Night and day.

The secret to vision here?
My voice said nothing.

 
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