Sitting in synthetic rain, sipping cold coffee,
Wishing the pathetic pain would just slip off me.
But there’s no time for living life these days,
Only time to die for it,
So I’m giving all my trees away,
Traded for a bowl of porridge
I once was the king,
I’d do as I pleased,
And you, my plaything.
Eager to please me
When I fell from power,
Sweet things turned sour.
Enshrouded in shadow,
Approached the heavy hour
Ooooh, darkness interposed.
My features too devoured,
Soul invoked in furls of smoke
As like a beaten dog there cowered
Three beasts intent on eating the Moonchild-
“Come with us” three sirens sang,
What was it about those smiles?
“We know the things you seek to gain
I left home for a while,
Saw on their teeth edacious stains
By dawn, I was beguiled
My soul was sold and bought.
But my eyes no more denied
The prize the she-devils sought-
Was solely…. Enterprise…
It began at noon, with the Sun to the East.
It was done time the Sun set in the West,
The Beast chewed the feast to the bone:
Breast
Rib
and Domepiece.
Those teeth shone red with blood, ripped clean of flesh beneath
The latest irony of my life: I had the recorder on my schizophrenic touch screen phone going and started rapping some written verses over instrumentals… then at one point went off and freestyled for 16 minutes straight, coming up with several hooks and other decent lines consistently and then the damn thing decided it was time to just cancel the recorder for me. Which was considerate and perhaps I should be more appreciative. But it’s the kind of phone that just helps in its own way, if you catch my gist. It just canceled. No save.
Unawareness creeps along the sidewalk late at night.
Ignorance goes stalking Stupidity to fight.
You can watch the whole gang pimp-walk
Towards the city lights
Leaving Hearts bleeding and Brains in their wake.
Jealousy follows close behind Pleading for a break.
Now, make no mistake, they’re evil to the core.
But somehow their antics leave Romantics needing more.
Right before your very eyes, their numbers quickly grow.
Minions of Semantics,
See them leaching off the city’s dimming glow.
The Wickedness they weave will win your own Soul
While the Wrongness they ooze
Will wane what you think you know.
Few remain themselves when faced with an imposing mob.
How does one beat many when they risk
Being trampled, killed, or robbed?
The possibility of failure, too great to tolerate.
The pleasure of hate overwhelms with orgasmic quakes
Even when the world’s at stake-
And it may be torn asunder.
Will the purging giant wake or languidly forever slumber?
With winter on the way, certainly
Spring will fall this summer.
The wrongness seeps in as
My conscious oozes out. I feel
It filling my once-confident soul
With grimy, overwhelming doubt.
The unbearable heat is
My only sanctuary from the
Icy teeth she sinks into
My epitome, unfairly.
Now nowhere am I safe,
I lost my one last space
Where I thought naively I could
Stave off the entire human race.
And stay to pray, focusing my love
And my faith that someday I’ll be
Released and see my lord
Face-to-face.
The one tradition that Americans can claim as their own as a culture, an American culture undivided, is summed up in one word: improvement.”
I schlep on down to open the old antique workshop.
Brief nod to the bike trop riders cropping on the corner.
I can’t feel the pain anymore, not from up here on the market hill.
This is where the kings were born, and champions got broken or made.
But to get here you have to walk down a long dark narrow hall;
Where thieves aim to stick you the minute you begin to stall.
Take that stroll down this hellhole. It’s worth it in the end.
How did I end up doing the same old shit my father did?
In the same hand-me-down suit no less.
I don’t even feel like a real person…
I’m floating along watching myself from a distance-
Criticizing everything that fool does.
Jealousy overtakes the strongest of us when even they fall weak.
Prey to the beast hunting in the heat, so why am I sweating even more?
I’m a shadow to everyone outside the antique store-
Swatting a butterfly leeching nectar from my flowers.
I’m indoors and there is no real butterfly.
I’m actually going insane this time.
The butterfly changes shape a lot,
But I want to kill it for looking at me so smug…
Fucking bastard who the fuck do you think you are?
I for one, am John Ogellman.
That used to mean something, my name I think.
I don’t feel connected to words and different languages all seem bland.
I am floating away slowly but surely.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be back…
I’m insecure about everything that I can think of
Which makes the cycle worsen and it starts again of course.
When I break this trance and read what I have scribbled
Down on my sales pad,
I’ll hate myself for feeling it and putting it on shop paper.
How can a man live to be eighty?
I was about ready to quit by sixteen….
I haven’t seen it all and never will understand it,
And if I don’t die soon- which is fine, I’ve had my fill-
I’ll be killed; I hear my time approach nigh like stampedes at high noon.
But that’s scary to the everyday mindless
Fucking transients who stroll the streets;
Conformists in rags and trash bags as if some statement of fashion- Ironic.
The non-conformists all get together to repeat after the leader.
And the biggest joke is that I think I’m any different.
I wanna be, but I’m tired all the time as my body slowly fails.
Up until five thirty, woken at eight thirty and work all day.
I almost miss how a woman would mercifully play with my mind
Miss being dangled before them when I know in the end I’d be destroyed.
But no, they take their time, clever demons of such gore and beauty.
At least I was acknowledged by them when I was a younger man.
In my prime. Now I waste all my time blabbering shit out onto sales pages
At eighty, the rulers succeeded in systematically taking away my creativity.
They taught the opposite of what I’ve learned to be true.
Can’t deny anything, it’s all just a joke and I’m half unconscious all the time,
Every night, when I leave the house I feel gone from the world.
This was a free-write from when I was 16. After 5 years, I edited it briefly into a more readable form (although WordPress formatting always changes how I originally wrote the lines. and posted it to your feedback!
On any given night in my hometown,
With luck you might make out a star or two
Hours after the Sun’s gone down.
That is assuming it’s before the wailing sirens
Scare off any light that may have seeped through the unnatural
Glowing dome that envelopes Suburbia.
Every single season we’d harvest some abomination
Of disease; we’d feast on one another’s illness.
Siblings waiting for the bell, frozen in jealousy of the bed-ridden.
To be a living conscious soul enduring this operation,
A living Hell
Oh, to get away!
The days made up of subjects:
Subservient behavior
Submissive thought-
Make proud those who misspeak to us
Without speaking up or out of turn.
Stifle any passion that may burn.
Belittle us, the small; we prefer riddles, games,
And ‘stuff’ over intellectualism or trust.
Teach us that life’s a little easier if you just
Do what you’re told you must.
If you worked hard enough then maybe
One day you could buy a house bigger than
Your father’s or even
Your mother’s.
One that’s the same as your neighbor’s-
And he’s a real kindhearted guy.
Work your stocks up so you can
Stuff the stockings properly
As you shy away from LIVING life.
I mean, what would Jesus do, right?
My hometown couldn’t keep me cooped up.
I bought a ticket to way over there- you know-
Where it’s mostly the same.
Black & White 