Justice (31-HP Day 31)

[Today, I am pulling a poem from my ebook Shakespeare's Monkey--this poem written about five or six years ago in a creative writing class--it was the first time that I realized that semi-poetic form was a good story telling form for me.]

You fool
Piss me off
Do me wrong
You have no idea
 
You laugh
Think you’re scot-free
And me powerless
You wish

Dead of night
Storm threatens
Lightning broods
My power gathers

Tombstone altar
Ancient book
Tattered robe
Yew wand

Harness and yoke
My anger
My rage
My power

Aim at your skull
Aim at your blood
Aim at your heart
Anger smashes

You think you’re safe
You idiot
You fool
You wish

Do me wrong
You will pay
A pound of flesh
An eye for an eye

Be careful
Look both ways
Black cat watching
Funeral waiting

What will it be
A bus crash
A sniper
A heart attack

The wheel spins
Your fate sealed
Your doom beckons
Your death engulfs you

You made a mistake
Wronged me
Bottom line
Don’t mess with a sorcerer

Heart screams (31-HP Day 30)

[Warning--trigger: abuse]

You say you love me
You lie, my heart screams
You say you won't hurt me
Better stay two arm lengths away

What scarier?
An empty Wal-Mart?
A Wal-Mart full of people?
It is a toss up

A pan dropped on the floor
My heart races for an hour
Never been in combat
Must be crazy

Not abuse at all
Just a really bad kid
Fear, blood and pain
Perfectly normal childhood

Not allowed to complain
Continuous sacrifice
Everyone else more important
Must do as they wish

The tired greyness
Millstone around my neck
Locked in my own mind
Unable to speak

Must be crazy
Perfectly normal childhood
Just a really bad kid
After all, you would not lie

Must not talk about this
Perfect family
Not abuse at all
You lie, my heart screams

Hollywood reboot (31-HP Day 29)

Paid good money
Stood in line forever
Made new friends
Just to be first to learn
How horrible it was

Eyes blinded
That train wreck
My favorite book ruined
Can't Hollywood read?
Boy, did it blow

What a waste
My precious time
Gone down the drain
Could have stayed home
Gone to bed on time

I tweet, I blog
I Facebook, I meme
Ranting and raving
Foaming at mouth
Minus a million stars

Never again
Will I trust
Stupid, dumb Hollywood
To treat a beloved book
With the proper respect

What? No kidding?
Someone special and nice
Just brought the movie rights
To my favorite story--Alien XYZ
I can't wait to see it!

Mother, may I? (31-HP Day 28)

You come asking
Questioning and begging
Seeking an answer
Crossing my palm
With silver coins

Shuffle and flip
Pasteboard images
Messages and truth
Spirit communication
Divine wisdom

Your eyes blind
Your ears deaf
Ignoring reality
Your mind set
Could be home

Bits and pieces
Wrenched out
Of proper context
Only heard
Is what you want

Seeking agreement
Looking for a goat
Your course is set
Advice you need not
Permission sought

I see no good
Coming from this
Outside my fee
You are doomed
Spirits annoyed

Go forth
Do your worst
Blame the cards
Blame the reader
Anyone, but yourself

Trade secrets (31-HP Day 26)

Coffee stained
Enciphered and encoded
Old and browned
Handwritten recipes

Weigh and measure
Pound and dollop
Pinch and handful
Exactness counts

Fresh berries
Crushed and mashed
Staining hands
Blue and purple

Fresh onions
Skinned and peeled
Tears forming
Yellows and tans

Cactus lobes
Smuggled in a box
Covered with beetles
A delicate red

Pound of ancient
Dried up mummy
Such a delicious
Shade of brown

Old ways remembered
An artist's craft
Original colors
All handmade

Lucky penny #1 (31-HP Day 25)

Go ahead and share the lucky penny.

Here is a lucky penny
Pass it on and on
If you don't,
Imps will invade
Your underwear drawer

Here is a lucky email
Forward it to five more
Multiplied by five squared
If you don't,
No more puppies

Here is a lucky elephant
Pass it on to a friend
Never mind your back
And just duct tape the hernia
After all, it is a lucky elephant

[This poem is part of my ebook, Grandma' Broom and Other Witchy Poems available on Amazon.]

Another death at my house (31-HP Day 24 & 31 Days of Halloween Kitties Day 23)

A picture of Merlin from the Presidential election.

Apologies to both those who have been following the 31 Halloween Poems and/or year three of 31 Days of Halloween Kitties, but I am a little off today. Last night, one of my cats, Merlin passed away in his sleep. He had been ill for awhile, and try as we might he wasn't getting any better despite getting medicine from the vet.

This afternoon, me and my wife buried him out in the yard near a stand of catnip--he was the biggest catnip fiend in the house. So this is the fifth cat that is buried out in the yard (the seventh that has died here since we brought the house eleven years ago). The cat ghosts here outnumber the human ghosts.

Speaking of human ghosts, today I learned of an expensive (twelve dollars for a basic search) website to see if someone had died in your house. It is only for the United States; and no, I did not attempt a search...because twelve bucks for a basic search seems a little pricey to me (and I am not sure how reliable it would be--after all, I know that there are still a lot of records that have not been digitalized...thanks to my time in the UCD history department and researching stuff at the Western History collection at the Denver Public Library).

So hopefully, I am back on my game tomorrow, and will return you to back to the regularly scheduled programs of poems and cat pictures. And if not, I know that you will understand.

Select models (31-HP Day 23)

All types of models
We have today
Slim to husky
Wide range of colors
Basic blacks,
Whites and greys
And more exotic reds

Some select models
Are self-sufficient
Needing only kitchen
And bathroom privileges
Perfect for workers
Gone for endless hours
Operate best in twos

Some select models
Are mischievous
Impish souls
Tricking all in the house
Quality checking
Softness of beds
And toilet paper

Some select models
Are fabulous
Super-models
And show stoppers
A little extra cost
A lot of extra care
Beauty has a price

Some select models
Are coddlers
Who will greet you
After a long day
Insisting relaxation
And heart-felt kisses
Reduce stress levels

What model is this?
No way to tell
Until you get home
Cats much like women
Rely on appearance
To lure you in
Later surprising you
With their secrets

Joy-ride (31-HP Day 22)

It will be fun!
Live a little!
Don't be a muggle!

Not fun
Could die
Muggles not bad

Everyone does it!
Need to see London!
Perfectly safe!

See no one else
More like barf over London
Almost hit a jet

Nice broom!
Antique?
You're a natural!

Discontinued Pam-Am 93
Fire hazard
Hanging upside down

Ain't this fun?
Look muggles!
Let's buzz them!

It is horrible
Let's get caught
They had cameras

Don't worry!
Muggles easily confused!
What's instant-gram?

We're so grounded
Viral photos
All over the news

Oh dear!
They look upset!
It is his fault!

Please ground me
I barfed a whole lot
All over London

Cthulhu oh gee (31-HP Day 21)

I am Cthulhu
Oh gee, I am
Large and green
Crushing buildings
Sinking boats
Stomping humans
Long before
That other guy

Oh gee, I am
Sleeping beneath
The wide Pacific.
Radioactive breath
I need not.
Broadcast madness
Fill the asylums
In my sleep

Throw planes at me
I eat them
Tanks make nice shoes
Atomic weapons
Make me laugh
I am an Elder God
An Old One
Not some young upstart

Cthulhu I am
The original bad
You are insignificant
For I am
Cthulhu oh gee
The original Godzilla
Accept no substitutes
Not even in Japan

Bully time (31-HP Day 18)

[This poem was inspired by something I read by Wil Wheaton. Warning: Triggers--abuse and bullying--or maybe it is just me...because I am writing about my own bully.]

Your eyes lit up
First time you saw me
Short, thin, talking funny
A perfect target for abuse

I disliked you
I hated you
I loathed you
You were the perfect bully

I knew not your pain
I knew not your past
No clue about your home
How could I?
No friend, you were

New in town, I was
Unhappy at home
Miserable in school
With you as the cherry on top

Name calling
Mocking my voice and strangeness
Shower room pranks
You were the perfect bully

You remember this fondly
As you think I should too
Not with rage
And anger bubbling
Venom in my veins

Wish you harm, I do
Wish you restraint
And unhappiness
When I remember the past

Yet I must thank you
Others have tried
To control and bully me
To bend me to their will

But they are not you
And I have grown
Confident in my abilities
To endure abuse and threats
For I learned this at your hands

[Needless to say, bullying is wrong, even if it made me stronger.]

Results not typical (31-HP Day 17)

A full head of hair
In just seven days
Be at your ideal weight
In just ten days

Never suffer road rage
Ever again
Be a sexual magnet
With just one pill

We have what you need
For a small princely sum
Ointments, tonics, pills,
Creams and treatments

It is a modern day miracle
The latest advance in science
Endorsed by doctors
Celebrities and athletes alike

As seen on TV
Magazines and the internet
Would commercials lie to you?
Trust us, we're honest

Never mind the constant
Peeing and falling off
Of your favorite body parts
And the rare sudden blindness

It is what you want
Your greatest desire
Never mind the expense
And unseemly  side-effects

Step right up and buy it now
Hand us your coin
And take your snake-oil
Ignoring the fine print

Results not typical
Paid celebrity endorsement
Side-effects may kill you
No FDA approval

My sweet voice (31-HP Day 16)

Deep in my brain
The earworms squirm
A never ending loop
I must let the lyrics out
"Please don't."

My voice rough
At first wobble
But it soon warms up
I sing, I sing
"Shut up! Just shut up!"

Angels cry
When I sing
My beautiful voice
Ringing though the cosmos
"You are killing angels."

Dogs join in
A chorus of kindred spirits
United in harmony
Singing across the land
"You are scaring the cats."

My voice so sweet
Maybe I should audition
Become a big star
Make big bucks
"I love you--please shut up!"

Sing I do
*Whack! Whack! Whack!*
Hey, I was singing--
"Exactly." *Whack!*
Ok, ok, I will shut up

Growing up poor 1 (31-HP Day 15)

Trailer park
Mixed neighborhood
Condemned houses
Father blackballed from job
Forced into business
Cheated by partner
All lost, all gone
No escape from poverty

One heater only
Three boys one room
Five girls other room
My mattress on the floor
A few scattered toys
Books read a dozen times
Canning stored in crawlspace
Vegetable garden in the yard

Food stamps
Government cheese
School breakfasts
Kindness of strangers
Gaunt and shy
Too short for my age
Bad teeth
Bad headaches

Harsh truths
Learned too soon
Always worried
Always hungry
No Santa Claus
No Easter Bunny
Sacrificing self
For the good of others

Then you wonder
Why I sympathize
Why I fight
Why I associate
With the downtrodden
You forget where I came from
I am one of the poor
Still in the back of my mind

Plans and lessons (31-HP Day 14)

Dear Brother of the Art,

Question of redemption

Read the trestle board
Dance the cards and stars
Adam Primus
So Above, So Below
Build the Tree within
Climb up from the Kingdom
Upwards to the Crown
Rung by rung
Step by step
Day by day
Hour by hour
Gather Mercury, Sulphur
And Salt
Grind and distill
Until the Great Work
Is completed
Strive to be
More than Human

Sincerely, an Adept

Of the Rosy Cross

Rant--helping the poor is in your best interest (UBC--day 12)

Apologizes to all who have been following the Halloween (witchy) poetry series. But this morning, I was reading a post by one of the other bloggers doing the Ultimate Blog Challenge and I feel a rant coming on; therefore, it is probably best that I just get up on my soapbox and address the issue that I am raging about today.

(For those who are curious to read the post in question, it is "Rant--stop hating on the poor for not being 'poor enough'" that you can read here.)

Dear people who think that the poor are not poor enough to deserve help,

Let me appeal not to your human decency, which I presume that you do not have, but rather to your enlightened self-interest. There are good reasons that you want to make sure that the poor have roofs over their heads, warm clothes, working fridges, cable TV, computer games, internet access, and phone service. Quite simply, it is in your best interest to make sure that the poor have these things.

Why? Because you do not want to die.

No, I am not talking about an armed uprising. Your life will be endangered long before the poor take up guns to take away your belongings. Why? Because we live in the same areas that you do.

And more importantly, we occasionally handle your food.

Stop and think about it. The poor need clean water, safe and healthy living conditions, including warm clothes and working fridges, simply because without them, the poor are a pandemic just waiting to happen. And don't think that your money and holiness will protect you from a raging disease that starts and spreads among the poorer citizens (and non-citizens) of your nation. It just takes one bad contact and the disease will leap to those who have money.

A pandemic can wipe a large hunk of the population out. I can hear you say, "Good, less poor people." Just keep thinking that--because poor people will not be the only ones to die in such an event.

The 1918 Spanish Flu killed off fifty million people (3% of the world's population at the time). And it must readily killed off the healthy people, not the typical kids, elderly, and infirm that a typical outbreak kills off. Half of the deaths were adults between the ages of twenty and forty years old. And it did not care about your social and economic class either.

And the potential for a pandemic to develop in the poor populations of the civilized world increases once you start to take away basic survival items, such as working fridges.

Plus mistreating the poor will inconvenience you long before that. For instance, internet service--are you aware that many fast food restaurants are now only accepting online applications? No applications from the poor, especially those who need the aid (such as food stamps to supplement their dirt-poor wages), and you will have no one to serve you your Big Mac. Or bag your groceries. Or...well, the list goes on and on.

So just remember that if you get your way, and cut off aid to anyone who does not appear poor enough to deserve aid, that you will reap the benefits by gaining the health hazards of a third world nation (go to India and tour the poorer areas if you think that you might want to do it anyways).

Oh, and just remember that we live in an equal opportunity county. Just like everyone can work hard, or simply get lucky, and become rich, every person who is not living in poverty can become poor (stock market crashes, etc.).

Blessed be.

[And for anyone curious, I grew up poor, and have never made more than nineteen thousand a year--twenty years in restaurants making minimum wage or close thereof--hence my membership in the ranks of the poor...which is why this issue annoys the hell out of me, and why I am so well aware that poor people are touching your food.]

Personal mental problem (31-HP Day 11)

You say I have a mental problem
You insist that I am ill
Not evolved enough to understand you
That an enlightened being of prime intelligence
Would totally agree with you
If I was really smart, you say
Then I would obey your every whim

Well, I am sorry that you hurt
Because I won't follow you
But your ideas are boorish
And a touch immature
They smell of cheap tequila
And dollar a gallon perfume
Yes, it's a personal mental problem for sure

Oh yes, you are smarter than me
Yet you seek my advice
Yes, you are more experienced than me
Yet I have more scars
You know my business better than I do
Yet I am the one with the profit
Oh yes, I do see a personal mental problem here

You rack up evidence of your truth
Bogus websites and shady reviews
Plus a history that is truly daft
Oh yes, the problem is with me
Being unable to follow you
Because I am laughing too hard to even walk straight
Oh yes, it is definitely a mental problem I suffer from

Yes, I need some counseling and some happy pills
A priest and salvation
A guru and enlightenment
But most importantly, complete adherence to your will
Yet I would rather stuck with my lowly opinion
That you are a complete and utter prate
The cheese in the fridge is less green than you

And yes, there is a personal mental problem here
On that I would agree
But no amount of exorcism
Therapy or dog-kissing
Will negate the fact that I am old and grumpy
Quite unwilling to believe your fantastic claim
That the personal mental problem is actually mine

Four kitties of the apocalypse (31-HP day 10)

Read from the ancient text Liber Bastet:
John, your vision is faulty
Not only four horsemen there be
But also cats of gloom and doom

First is Famine
A fat cat that cries
All hours for more grub
Despite overflowing food dish

Second is Pestilence
Nibbles and drools on all your food
Drinking out of your cup
After licking their own butt

War is the third
Hisses and howls day and night
Patrols the neighborhood
Raining down violence on all intruders

Fourth and final is Death
Half-eaten mice and birds
An occasional rabbit leg
Left on mat and pillow

And behold the house they live in
Behold their loyal owner
Naïve human unknowingly
Petting the true harbingers of the Apocalypse

This is what true evil looks like.

Shakespeare's monkey (31-HP Day 9)

One of the many monkeys that I have drawn over the last couple of years.

A long time
Years, decades, centuries
Millenniums, eons, universes,
A really long time.
Randomly pecking at keys
Click, chunk, jam, curse
A roomful of monkeys
No computers for angels.
Give us long enough
And we will give you
Milton, Shakespeare
And the entire Old Testament.
It is probability,
It is randomness,
It is blind chance,
Order arising from chaos.
From random acts
Came fire and the wheel,
Towers and rockets,
The entirety of civilization.
Life itself is random,
Chance made our DNA,
The monkey and Shakespeare,
You and me.

One hundred ninety eight thousand all time views here

Secret Chief Apollo states his reason why you should read this blog.

So according to the Blogger's information, as I write this, I have exactly 198000 all-time views. There is part of me that wants to claim that "nearly two hundred thousand readers have discovered this blog"--but that would be false. In fact, it is probably just twenty-five readers who have came here eight thousand times apiece. Yes, that is right--overall views is just the number of "page views/reads" that you have received, not the number of readers overall...despite what some bloggers would have you believe.

I have no idea (and either does any other blogger) about how many "unique" readers I actually had over the years--mainly because the NSA will not tell us. Why is that? Because every time that someone rereads a post, or checks my comment section, that is counted as an additional pageview--the only way to track "unique" readers is to install cookies on visitors computers, and the cookies are only accurate until the user wipes their internet browser cache. That is, if you are not the NSA--the NSA is tracking something else completely (as in your individual email addresses, phone numbers, and service providers) and using a really big server to store all the information in.

And yes, if you are reading this, the NSA is probably looking at you--after all, this blog is about the Golden Dawn, and the Secret Chiefs of my Order have light bulbs. That is radical occult science!