Written sometime between 11pm and 7am at the what? Roadway Inn? motel, anyway, Grants, New Mexico. Probably 2002, 2003. Hell, it wasn’t me who was depressed. Can’t recall what inspired this:
The Voyeur
Soul sucked darkness from eternity
Fashioned this, my tiny room;
This monumental construct of infirmity;
This animated tomb
With a peephole to observe
The profanity:
The bell shaped curve
Of insanity.
From Poems of the New Old West, copyright 2003, NineLives Press, Jack Purcell
Hi readers. Someone female sitting in the lobby late one night tossed The Bell Jar aside and groaned a curse. Headed for the wagon yard, I reckons. So I picked up Plath’s tome and read enough to remember everything else I ever knew, ever wanted to know about Sylvia Plath. Most vividly I remembered a poem, Daddy, by Ms Plath. Some University of Texas poetry course caused me to write a ten page paper about it once.
I learned to hate the thought Sylvia Plath and her lot shared this planet with regular human beings. And after reading a while on Bell Jar, chunking it, I wrote this:
Virus of the mind
The drumbeat litany of hatred
And blame;
Of smug mindless naiveté
Numbs the mind.
Alienation is a welcome gift
From the universe
When it involves the inability
To identify with THAT.
The preoccupation with death
As though death is an unnatural state,
Created by a dark maker for the shallow purpose
Of providing a source of terror and sadness
For tiny humans;
Leaves me with a yearning:
Just once I’d like to see a poem
Just once.
A poem full of truths:
“I gave you permission
to hurt me and make me angry;
because of my illusions and expectations
you never agreed to satisfy
and didn’t
now I’m angry.
“I wanted you to behave a certain way.
Because I wanted it, I demanded it
In my expectations of you
without saying so.
“I wanted you to give up your choices.
I didn’t want it
because giving them up would make you
happier
Or more fulfilled.
I just wanted it because I wanted it.
“I’m used to getting my way.
I’ll hate you if I don’t get it.
“I’ll hate you fiercely
and if that doesn’t work
I’ll threaten to kill myself
Just to get you back.”
Or,
“I’m angry. I’ve always been angry.
Life isn’t fair and it pisses me off.
I haven’t gotten everything I want.
Sometimes my parents weren’t kind to me;
Didn’t give me what I wanted.
“I talk to my friends and they’re angry, too.
The more we talk the more we realize life isn’t fair
And it pisses us off.
“We talk among ourselves
About how cool it would be
To kill some of those flawed bastards
We don’t like.
“We savor our anger; our hatred
We wallow in it
And think of different ways we’d like to kill
The bastards we don’t like;
How much we’d enjoy killing.
We all know
Because took a voice vote.
“Some nerd who wears his glasses crooked
And isn’t cool;
Some football jock who gets all the girls
We’d like to get;
We hate the girls and the jocks.
“Some sarcastic adult who isn’t cool
And doesn’t respect our views
About how the world is.
“We’d like to kill them all.
We took a voice vote
And we all agree.”
“We haven’t studied much
Nor read much
Nor lived much
Nor listened much
But that doesn’t keep us
From knowing how life is;
How life should be.”
“We’re angry and we’d like to kill them all!
We took a voice vote.
“And by God you’ll see
You’ll be sorry
When I kill myself!”
And the Ted Hugheses of the world , the Daddys
Sort through selective memories to avoid the truth
About this creature they loved.
From Poems of the New Old West, copyright 2003 Jack Purcell
Posted in 2014, America, Poetry
Tagged Bell Jar, culture, Daddy, Human Behavior, Life, lifestyle, literature, philosophy, poems, poetry, psychology, society, sociology, suicide, sylvia plath
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.
I noticed on the television down at the Olathe Community Center to be stared at by people on treadmills and other torture machines that some big name celebrity killed himself. Guy who was in an amusing movie once about a house that an airplane crashed into and he bought it because it had been pre-disastered.
I don’t know. Maybe the guy was terminally ill, or maybe just depressed. That crap can surely happen. Back in my younger days I used to go into a black pit of depression there seemed no way out of. Where it seemed the Universe was trying to drag me into the hole a person doesn’t come back out of, the way this Williams guy exited.
I was lucky in a lot of ways, though I’m not sure what all of them were. I had a name for the ‘entity’ that seemed to take possession of my mind and spirit during those times. I called it the blue demon. Because it seemed to be a real being.
And the way I eventually got it into my past so’s I have to work to remember about it, was by treating it as a living, thinking creature with a will I could do battle with, wrestle it to the ground. Banish it from my psyche.
And once I discovered I could do that and did it successfully and thoroughly one time, afterward it was a lot easier. For decades afterward anytime I sensed that blue demon out of the corner of my perceptions I’d immediately jump in and do battle with it again, drive it out before it got a foothold.
It worked so well for me that I’ve sometimes gone years, maybe decades without ever sensing it, doing battle with it. But it’s still there, lurking, waiting for things to happen in its favor. When my health began the slide down the slippery slope the old blue demon tried whispering to me out of the wings a few times.
Interestingly, I think I have a lot of the symptoms of clinical depression right now, today, minus the blue demon black pit and the anguish that goes with it. I’m a happy, lucky man, grateful and congratulating myself for it a thousand times per day.
But I can’t force myself to open my mail. I don’t answer the telephone unless I’m confident who is calling. Have to force myself to do anything that falls into the arena of acknowledging one hell of a lot of life that would love to come in and say hello.
I’m probably going to have to do something about that. Maybe give it a name, shake hands with it, and do battle. I’m just not there yet.
Old Jules
Tagged culture, depression, Human Behavior, Life, lifestyle, philosophy, psychology, senior citizens
The Onion, News in Photos• News• ISSUE 48•46• Nov 16, 2012
http://www.theonion.com/articles/israel-calls-for-increase-in-us-taxes-to-fund-atta,30423/
August 13, 2014 in 2014, America
Tagged animals, cats, culture, Human Behavior, philosophy, psychology, society, sociology
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Across the road I’m looking at a playing field filled with banners celebrating the return of the deaf athletes who’ll be attending the Kansas School for the Deaf. The buildings sit beyond the playing fields and cover roughly a city block.
Interestingly the players get their plays called by drumbeat codes. Reason, of course, being that shouted calls won’t be heard. However, one game they always win, Olathans assure one another, is the big one of the season against the Kansas School for the Blind. That one’s always a sellout, standing-room-only game. A heartening event to watch.
I’m not a big lover of football but I’ll be watching the practice occasionally from the front porch. If I knew a bookie I think I’d place a bet on that big game with the School for the Blind. I’m always on the side of the underdog. And I’m a firm believer in the old saying about finding acorns. This might be the Year of the Acorn for blind football players.
Old Jules
Tagged culture, Education, Human Behavior, humor, Kansas, school for the deaf, society, sociology, sports
Hi readers. Everywhere people gather with no television playing and no cell phone calls to attend to the US citizenry conversations eventually get around to fracking. Drilling oil and gas wells horizontally into shale and fracturing the deposition to release energy producing minerals.
Heck, I’d never heard of it until a couple of years ago, when my neighbor began telling me about the amazing oil discoveries in Texas now reaching production. Oil reserves larger than the combined deposits everywhere else on the planet.
At first I was skeptical, and I couldn’t imagine what fracking was. But one thing I discovered immediately was the fact everyone who knew the word was possessed of a certainty about whether it was a dangerous risk to one or another environmental facet.
When I visited Eddie Brewer in Andrews, Texas while waiting for the VA to try figuring out what manner of health problems I’d given myself I found he’d educated himself about it. A neighbor was drilling a number of wells so’s to sell water to drilling companies for use in fracking. And Eddie was concerned about depletion of his household water well.
It was through Eddie I first became fundamentally acquainted with what’s involved. And with him I watched a number of television documentaries on the subject of fracking and groundwater contamination. I didn’t come away with a deep understanding of the risks, and I doubt anyone actually can lay claim to a thorough understanding of those. But at least I was able to comprehend the basics.
And gradually became cognizant of how much BS was coming from the mouths of people who didn’t understand those basics in the form of almost religious opinion, either for, or against fracking.
So, even though I don’t have a good reason for doing so beyond curiosity, I recently decided to devote some time to learning about it. Just enough to decide whether I’d have an opinion if I were smarter and better informed than I am. I started by watching two movies currently streaming on Netflix: Gasland, and FrackNation. What would appear at first glance to be a way of getting both sides of the viewpoints.
Unfortunately, Gasland turns out to be a fraud. Which doesn’t mean a strong stand opposing fracking mightn’t be valid. All it means is that Gasland was a deliberate nest of lies and misrepresentations intended to propagandize unfavorably about fracking.
However, here are some other videos giving both sides of the subject. I’ve watched them carefully and learned a lot. But I still can’t figure out whether I have an opinion. Or, if I have an opinion, what it might be. I’ve graduated from not having an opinion out of total ignorance, to not having an opinion knowing a good bit more, and being more acutely aware of how much a person with an opinion ought to know. Which most of us don’t.
FrackNation vs Gasland
The Director of ‘FrackNation’ Fights Back!
Dr. Ingraffea Facts on Fracking
FrackNation the documentary that exposes Joshua Fox as a liar?
WARNING Fracking An Inconvenient Truth Watch Learn about Fracking Shale Gas what they dont say
If you watch it all and discover yourself to be without an opinion, I’d guess you’ve learned a great deal more than you knew beforehand.
Old Jules
Tagged drilling, economy, energy, environment, fracking, gas, Human Behavior, humor, Life, natural gas, petroleum, society, sociology, technology
The Onion News in Photos• Back To School• ISSUE 38•07• Feb 27, 2002
http://www.theonion.com/articles/school-bully-not-so-tough-since-being-molested,8848/
Many Americans say they frequently spend all night watching amazing sex.
The initial findings, which sociologists gathered from thousands of telephone and in-person interviews as well as field observations, confirmed that the sex that U.S. citizens now see on screen is considerably more adventurous, passionate, and satisfying than any they have previously experienced.
“Based on our data, the American people are now regularly viewing the highest quality sex of their lives, which is characterized by stronger connections with those on screen and longer, more fulfilling climaxes,” said lead researcher Patricia Oberlin, adding that the vast majority of those surveyed claimed they have watched “mind-blowing” or “earth-shattering” sex within the past five days. “Every demographic that we queried—individuals and couples, young and old, males and females, gay and straight—they’re all engaging in rich and rewarding sex-watching lives, with many respondents reporting that they never imagined they would ever see such thrilling sex.”
“We found that Americans now routinely take part in watching wild, energetic sexual intercourse, which often lasts for greater lengths of time,” Oberlin continued. “And the frequency of sex viewing in the U.S. has increased as well, with many people saying they watch sex every day of the week and occasionally two times per night. All in all, Americans’ sex-viewing lives are incredibly active.”
Sociologists attributed the improved quality of copulation that Americans are watching to an increased level of attention paid to their particular desires during sex-viewing. This heightened level of comfort and empowerment while watching sex, according to researchers, has allowed the general public to shed their inhibitions and view a wider variety of erotic acts, with many Americans reportedly experimenting with different or unfamiliar positions, toys, age groups, and ethnic and racial backgrounds to keep their viewing lives fresh and interesting.
“Earlier in their lives, people might have only been exposed to an old-fashioned sexual viewing experience where the sex was fairly routine and the emphasis was entirely on pleasuring the male, but our data shows that this isn’t always the case anymore,” Oberlin said. “In fact, we found that a large number of Americans even prefer to watch sex that focuses solely on female pleasure and doesn’t involve men at all.”
Researchers confirmed that since the last time the survey was conducted, in 1989, there has been a large increase in watching forms of sex that were previously considered taboo, citing examples such as oral sex performed to the point of asphyxiation, fisting, and erotic lactation.
While the study determined that vaginal intercourse is still by far the most commonly viewed sexual act in the U.S., more Americans, including a large percentage of women, indicated they are now open to watching fellatio, cunnilingus, anal penetration, and dominance and submission.
“I used to only watch the missionary position, which was kind of boring, but now, I’ve been getting into watching sensual massages and role-playing stuff with cheerleader costumes,” said Patrick Sanders, 38, a Phoenix-area husband and father of two. “The truth is I used to have a lot of hang-ups and I couldn’t even fathom watching a threesome with two men and one woman. In fact, the thought of seeing another guy’s penis during sex-viewing was just gross. But it turns out I was missing out on watching some really hot sex.”
“At this point, I’m completely fine seeing someone ejaculate on pretty much any body part—in fact, that’s something I discovered I actually enjoy viewing,” added Sanders. “I’m even thinking of exploring watching bondage. That’s something I never could have viewed years ago.”
Researchers also found that Americans are spicing up their sex-watching lives by viewing intercourse in different settings such as bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, offices, classrooms, parks, college dorms, public spaces, and even moving vehicles.
In addition, many of those surveyed said they are watching sex more spontaneously or viewing it at unusual times of day, which they said increased their arousal.
“Sometimes, I’ll watch sex first thing in the morning before I roll out of bed and get ready for work, and it’s fantastic,” said Mitch Watson, adding that he has never felt more alive. “I thought I was watching pretty good sex in my 20s, but this is a whole new level. I know what I want to watch now, and it’s a little more unrestrained and kinky.”
“Last week, my wife and I booked a hotel for a couple nights and spent the entire time in the room,” continued Watson. “We just ordered room service and watched great sex all weekend.”
Tagged Americans, culture, philosophy, psychology, sex, society, sociology, the onion
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
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