Psycho-Hexameter

by Shaun Grub

                                                     art by Greg Davis

The joke of history is it isn't a mystery
 to the ones who don't wanna know
It's just a string of perversions undergoing reversions
 with hot pockets in the snow
When things are at their worst it starts improving
 but the only real way to tell
You could be feeling better and getting sicker
 while freezing intermittent in hell
It's paradisiacal and quite maniacal
 the revelations heating up in your head
After cooling down a bit you think you're full of it
 and don't wanna get out of bed
There ain't no one to blame ya just trying to frame you
 for something that you never did
Demanding to convince everyone you exist
 is just a workout like a statistical spread
Trick is never forgetting to remember
 that we aren't even actually here
Its because we're moving and constantly grooving
 while our proximity disappears
With the whole damn planet a-plunging onward
 through the cold and sterile void
We're just under-sampling and aliasing forward
 in a wagon wheel effect conjoined
In meditation we reach equilibrium to relish
 stillness which we usually reject
The fact remains its not an illusion
 just a mirror of the void we reflect
In trying to use tact to avoid confusion
 nothing remains the anchor to our lives
We're sailing onward redressing grievance
 and selling our souls down the line
So how's it possible we can even conceive
 that we're usually just feeling fine
In a war torn nation caught up in cold fury
 with provocations from both sides
You don't need a judge or even a jury
 if you're quick enough on this ride
In paroxysms of executions compounded
 with a series of nervous tics
That's not religious order nor spiritual chaos
 or a random case of Tourettes
Just a sexual disease twitching from spirochetes
 and that could be as good as it gets
If God created the missionary position
 we came up with dancing in the streets
Its odd we're mated with nuclear fusion
 and always doing what we're told
When the whole damn point of being created
 is just a chance at growing old
Look at this joint do you think we're fated
 with a predetermined destiny
Well it depends on just how serious
 you're taking your own individuality
That's why I sing get down with me brothers and sisters
 and don't you fret no more
Flip that frown in the air and if it comes down heads
 don't let your tail get caught in the door

A Comprehensive Appraisal

by Shaun Lawton

I am a machine. I am an apparatus. I use and apply mechanical power. I have several parts, each with a definite function. I often use these parts together in order to perform a particular task. I am a mechanism.  I am an assembly of apparatuses. I have many orders of several parts, each subset extending its own definite function. Most of the time I utilize these parts in complex combinations to perform particular tasks. I am a series of machines. I am an accumulation of mechanisms. I am a hierarchy hosting many assemblies of components, in turn introducing various subdivisions of groupings organizing combinations of assorted directories toward establishing their own specific assignments. I am a contrivance. I am a contraption of machination. I operate and administer programmed capabilities. I am in possession of a manifold of functionalities. 
I am a proprietorship of a staggering array of directives, each ordinance perpetuating its own clearly defined set of operations. I am an extensive array of instruments appropriating and implementing a multitude of standardized dynamic procedures. 
I have an unmistakable purpose. I have been designed to be engaged in the process of conducting a perpetual series of enterprises fashioned with explicit precision for the execution of an indiscriminate assortment of subsidiary programs accomplishing a pervasive sub-directory of heterogeneous commands calculated to bring about the construction of more vehicles like myself tailored to the overriding specifications materialized in our own subordinate formulation of perfunctory and automatically generated response stimuli. I am a catalyst for the mechanical motivation of an arrangement of appliances functioning cohesively together as a seamless meta-mechanism achieving animation within the presence of an overmind. I am a battery of minuscule characters too small for the eye to observe working together in concert into an arrangement serving as a utensil to help propagate just one of the dominant species existing on the planet. I am what has already long been considered to be a human being. I have for many eons been prearranged to reason. I have been formulated over a drawn out process to love. I am constantly programmed to think. I am a machine. 

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painting by Greg Davis

WHERE A FLOWER LEADS IF YOU TAKE IT BY THE PETAL

by Shaun Lawton 

All one really needs to find out

the difference between their original

conception of what tomorrow would be

and their current understanding of what yesterday was

seems to be the allowance of their own personality

with all its faults and modifications so that

an honest assessment can be made of the real

value one represents to one's self insofar as

the present situation demands the general

condition of their existence to be

and whether or not it carries with it

the strange divided penalty of only

remembering the most interesting

episodes after waking up from

a temporary malady where

microseizures have cast

a static network of almost

subordinate control over every

aspect of their waking consciousness

to the point when they finally fall to sleep

in their beds it never happens at an hour when

they could best manage the continuation of total

rest due to the constant chitterings emanating from

under the crack of the closet door allowing a ghostly

green light faintly roiling with smoke and dust

penetrating the floorboards of their bedroom

to creak and groan until feeling the commotion

shiver the termite powder from the ceiling out

of the slightest cracks with a pulverized silt

comprised of every notebook and article

of clothing ever worn in the family going

so far back as to penetrate the remotest

conduits of antiquity through the severest

Scottish keeps isolated on the dotted lakes

each one a solitary tower of confinement

for an individual convict sentenced to

calcify into another skeleton embedded

within its own bricked in tomb which

remains solely as a reminder to us all

that we better watch out for what we may

inherit because even the greatest of ordinances

may amount to a paltry sum in the receding

reflections cancelled out within the eyes

of an orphaned child standing by the side

of the road holding out a dying flower.

OCTAVE WAVES

by Shaun Lawton

One world gone life
Above before beyond below
Imagined increments gathering deadliness
Divinity infinity proximity vicinity
Venerate generate congregate tolerate
Seventh heaven peasant kingdom
Born from torn drum
Beating bleeding feeding seeding
Congregate replicate duplicate simulate
Fraternity uncertainty hesitancy eternity
Communication insinuation intimidation assimilation
Axiogenesis biodiversity ejaculatory cryptozoology
Circumlocutionary exteriorization incompatibility industrialization
Unidirectionality autobiographitically deanthropomorphisation indistinguishability
Artificiality electromagnetism indiscernability mischaracterization
Anthropological computerization extraterrestrial decentralization
Accidentally complimentary demoralizing demonology
Biologic abberation decomposing calculation
Abstracted technical kinetic variance
Freedom fortune hazard setback
Grown stood blood form
Learning fury burning jury
Instigate consummate tournament ornament
Particular meticulous incendiant delirium
Satisfactory heliocentric immaterial parallelism
Radiological originality overpopulation reproductivity
Overenthusiastic multiculturalism internationalistic justifiability
Tetrahydrocannabinol hyperemotionality xenobacteriologic dodecadodecahedron

FIRST SIGHT

by Shaun Grub

Open your eyes wide enough to see
What the dead crawl back here to find.

If you have to see it to believe it
I'm afraid you'll have to stay blind

In bricks of faces all held together
With a most curious mortar of eyes.

The future has already been set in stone.
The time it takes must be paid up front.

Drawing towards them flies.

Shin stabbing pencil pushers.
I'm dead. Wake up the dog.
There are candles in your eyes.
Fingernails are growing in the cellar.
The blind run faster if wounded.
The past will complete itself soon.
All that remains will scatter adrift.
Those asleep should not be killed.
The grandest illusion of all is change.
Like the rippling reflections of a gem
Turned between thumb and forefinger 
In bricks of faces all held together
With a most curious mortar of eyes.
If you have to see it to believe it
I'm afraid you'll have to stay blind
Open your eyes wide enough to see
What the dead crawl back here to find.

THE LOOM

by the bloodHost 

Humans dwell encapsulated
within cellular insulations.
Cilia measure vibrations inside
vessels which circulate blood
throughout central nervous systems.

Optic fibers translate data
reflected through eyes into
brains which process these signals into
relatively three-dimensional images.

This occurs on a planet revolving
about a sun hosting this activity
en masse by a process which involves
the necessary transorbital positioning of
repeatedly placing these beings in between
their planet's and its star's geomagnetic cores.

When they are in between these
magnets (a position labelled "day")
there manifests a sufficient amount
of energy by which they may achieve
their daily tasks toward survival
and the continuation of their race.

While outside these magnets
(the intermediary position known as
"night") the majority manage
to rest and recharge their batteries.

If information overload has ever occurred
in the history of this sentient species,
it may best be personified by what occurs
online all over their world wide web today:

The disparity of data and how it
relates directly and indirectly to
humanity eventually collects
into extreme disproportion.

These incoming waves of daily
tidings serve as fast-moving
ticker-tapes of windows
through which individuals
may glimpse single frames
of their living skin.

Scales of the ourobouros
they are each in the process
of weaving together on their
planet looming in outer space.

A SIMPLE QUESTION

by Shaun Lawton 

Given a choice directly ahead of you 
on your pathway toward a binary split
at the fork in the road so to speak
would you turn left to buy yourself more
time in this existence for the cost of
being eaten by an anaconda eventually
or would you turn right where you would
perish painlessly much sooner?  Or
can you accept the spirit of the question
and answer 'left' or 'right' without
rebuking it by providing another reply? 
Your answer reveals a lot about your
capacity to listen.  Those who shout into
the well of tears hear something familiar
echo back up at them, while those who listen
greet something familiar by making a friend. 
Somehow this message got lost on
a lot of us.  Please don't make God 
into an echo chamber where you transform 
loneliness into companionship.  Instead,
reach out to what others are trying to say
and humble yourself before them.  You will
see what I mean when given a choice ahead
of you on your path toward a split of your 
tongue.  The next time someone has
something to say to you will you turn your
left cheek away from them to lend them
your right ear?  Or will you turn right away
and say something about having left
them behind?  Think hard before you 
answer and don't just sit there; say something. 


SL 
SLC
6/30/15

I AM I

by Shaun 

Lawton 

It is it
A wide open eye
our umbrella
staring awake
seeing all
receive its vision
in dreamshine
we remain dry
while on high
beyond all skies
exists nothing
which our greater eye
needs protection from
unblinking with no shield
it lowers the lids
for all men to yield
to dreams in which
they come to see
what we are
but what are we
must ask again
when we awaken
every morning
slowly coming
to our senses
if not the manifestation
of that countenance
which never sleeps
nestled below
in this blue nest
farthest from the deeps
to get some momentary rest

HARLEQUIN VENTRILOQUIST

by Shaun Lawton 

He cared not for the stars, he did not feel so wise,
there was nowhere for him to go, no matter how many
times he tried, and as a matter of fiction stitched
into our lives, we are sewn together, the teller
and the reader, you see, and that's what draws
you in, the sentences hypnotize your mind
through your eyes, for the duration of the narrative
generated by the source text, the reader begins
to identify with him, our lost protagonist suffering
from sidereal disdain, feeling immobilized on
his pillow at night, and suffocating with routine
during the day, dealing with the intensifying 
awareness that there may be no escape, that
the parameters of our biological continuum may
have been preset for execution, our genetic
message being pronounced along the unfolding
sentences of our generations, that there was
nothing you or we could do to prevent the next
generation's outspoken message, materializing as
word balloons with human outlines, going about
their daily business and routines, mulching the
detritus of our dreams into a palatable nourishment,
our ashes, their fertilizer, but the part that smarts
the most, they cannot see this and are relegated to the
pitiless, regardless of how filled with curiosity
or wonder they've become, nothing less than
being shown themselves directly with time and
experience, until they have reproduced themselves,
that our tongues do not extrude from our own mouths,
so much as they fork through our children's.  

RAGE AGAINST THE DIVIDE

Doing time without rhyme or reason;
surely is a mad season.

Feeling lost at what cost (a hollow one).
If I sound caustic it's cuz we lost it.

Fist in the air in the land of the free
(between you and me reigns a cut and dried society).

Much worse off than simple hypocrisy:
we've got outright lies and shameless blasphemy.

A corrupted system where the rich can kill for free
and the homeless and poor must pay to behave.

That's right, land of the free
(free to be doomed by the likes of We

ourselves who can pull the strings using dollar bills
and flashing rings with our professional smiles

all the while hiding the real nature of this beast—
that we're all killers at least.)

Trained to remain calm at the embalming.
That's how we became character actors.

So now I'll cut myself off from this train of thought,
because I know where it's leading.

And if you think that would make a great candidate— 
well you're probably right—it's a great fuel, hate. 

You think that's not the issue, well it isn't justice either.
In a divided union there can be no believer. 

So remember in November, I dare you to step forth
and make your voice count.

Otherwise you grant power to the other side.
And that is all it takes to seal our fate—

Conscientious cooperation— 
wide awake or quite sedate.