Update

Brianlooney.blogspot.com has relocated to reclusewritings.wordpress.com.

The Same Sun

All that ever was, all that ever will be in this life, is you. Pain and pleasure come and go along with people, passing like the weather: snow, rain....shine. All one can do is clothe oneself. For when the smoke clears, there you are--the same you. A conglomeration of experiences since you passed from the womb, marred but true.

For real change is subtle. Wrinkles manifest in slow increments. Often we are the last to realize how far we've marched, how ravaging our wars were, how torn we have been.

Oh, mutilations are violent, but are merely physical. Their psychological impact takes time to work, to alter the revolutions of thought, to shift the shock. Our elliptical orbits change in small degrees when, some years later, we can map the processes with a compass. Nevertheless, we still turn around the same sun, the same sun.

All that ever was, all that ever will be in this life, is you. You take yourself with you wherever you go--you are cognizant even in oblivion, sensing in sleep. You cannot run from you. You can only slip into gross psychoses.

So look into your mind's mirror, and find a way to like what you see.

The Dawn of Insignificance

Today I stood, and my knees were quaking. The sun looked overfed as it shined across the globe, overrun with our species. An image was in my head, of a world atlas, unrolled and supine: all those tired greens, grays and blues, and spidery little labels frozen horizontally across the brittle page.

I envisioned my hands, placed upon the sheet, gripping it at the center in hard fists, the paper protesting, more alive than any of us. My hands were dictatorial, childish, brandishing disunity, as fear swelled my throat. I tore it all to pieces and blew the debris away.

Today I had trouble meeting the public's eyes. Their animal souls gleamed disturbingly. I hazarded a look, and their faces froze, still as a photograph. I broke away, but the damage was done, the image had burned, the simian features stored, framed and placed upon the pedestals of my memory's museum: an estranged depth of muffled whispers, of coursing griefs, of scattered leaves.

I waited for peace to curl through me, settling the bile, upset even in solitude, rippling my sanity, which is prone to fits. I waited for the bus to arrive, to take me away from this dilapidated building and its dead displays, back into the city of Life, where humanity counts. I waited for a time.

Finally I saw the vehicle lumbering in the distance, though its progress was painfully slow, stopping frequently to pick up others like myself. I heaved a sigh of relief and tightly clutched my ticket as the doors squeaked open to admit me. I pushed my face up against the windowpane, panting hotly against the glass, as we rumbled our way back into civilization.

What I Want

I want us to be an oasis from the grind, a relief from the mundane, a cool drink in the drought, friendly faces amongst antagonists. I hate those who attack the attacked, who oppress the oppressed, who aggravate the aggravated.

We mustn't irritate the wound, but be a soothing balm to its infected anger. I want positivity in place of pain; to exchange relief for desperation, a light-heart for woe. I want them to hold their heads high, to return home smiling, to make intelligent contentment contagious.

This is what I want; this is why I react. Because I believe in community, because I resent the disjointed selfishness pouring into the muddy pool of negative human interaction, the weight of economic transactions, of the egomaniacal self-made man myth.

I'm tired of irrational negativity, tired of pushing blame onto the blameless, sorrow upon the innocent. I demand intelligence; I hate all ignorance: systematized, compartmentalized, unrealized.

The Freeze

Brisk and bracing is the cold, as you gauge its mood in the morning. Your skin responds to its marital caress. Will it bite off chunks of flesh, nipping at your ears and nose? Its frosty fangs still the seeping stumps.

Or perhaps it will encircle you in its beefy arms, frosting your entire body evenly. It often settles deep in your loins, causing uncontrollable little tremors to pulse through your limbs and lungs, and you must will your torso back to equilibrium.

I know the days it invades your head, taking residence in the brain's darkest chasms, when only mental bonfire melts the freeze.

Mother Earth

Her cancerous teat; her putrid milk: hot, polluted, a feverish one-O-three. Suckling away. What the hell else are we supposed to do?

Some spit out the gnarled nipple, and it slumps: sickly and spent, wilted and gray. They did it together, spurting milk from their remorseful mouths, a collective protest.

I stop and watch its trajectory, the white mist falling like powder, heavy droplets raining down like needles onto unresponsive necks. The scornful cloud dews my face and clogs my eyes.

They roam and wail, lids half shut, huddling against the weather, against the extremes at both fronts, proudly starving, yet largely ignored, bony bodies quivering, while the hormonal mother sags beneath our weight: too little, too late.

In the throes of death, her wilted body gives. And the young blood suckles, ignorant, untouched, as the milk begins to cool. In this we recognize her demise, tasting it on our tongues.

And then some of us hesitate, hesitate, puppy faces ruffled, while the alpha males pump away at her slowing body...

The Gig

The sound goes off, the band starts to play, the drumbeat calls. I drift to the stage and stretch my arms over the railing: a sloppy grin steals in, creasing my gritty face. Jostled now, as the tension starts to rise. My mind elevates, my senses fire, my body goes wild, dirty leather flopping. Beads of sweat rush down my face, purging negativity, taming my inflamed nerves.

Behind me the circle pit rages. I keep one eye behind me, one eye on the stage, and my ears are tuned. Lightheaded now, but I push fatigue aside, demanding adrenaline, pushing myself as I've always done, pushing myself to a higher plane that knows no pain.

The night streaks by; the songs blend together. My voice grows hoarse as I scream along, sour breath settling in, and pump my fists in the air. We're all here for the same reasons; we sense it mid-show, gazing sidelong at each other while the communal mood awakens, siblings of the street.

Spirits

We are lucid, we are lightning, consuming the plains, flashing, flashing, and fires abound. We watch your ruby-red fingers blister, and chuckle sympathetically.

We spring from the loaded skies, from the densest clouds, waterlogged. Every so often a member joins our ranks. We watch as the seeds multiply, garbed in dirty animal skins, and romanticize our isolation.

We feel ourselves racing, knuckles electrical, white with speed. We feel endless, provocative, a part of the ubiquitous frontier that defies mortality but defines death. We stand out in the crowd, off-kilter and unsteady, shattering like stained-glass windows, to be pieced together again by the king's concubines while he looks on, burning, burning.

Growing calmer now, the raging waters left behind. The current ebbs, and our standing pools house amphibious lifeforms, while the small percentage longs for risk, for animism, for something to stuff into the drunken holes we've blown through our brains, while our wrinkled faces wane.

Place your ear to the shell and listen to our gushing senses, our spatial cries that bemoan moonless nights and forgotten graveyards. Do you hear the drifting distance? The forgotten sacrifice? The perilous future?

Listen to the sage's whisper that floats between sleep and wakefulness, whose raspiness jolts us upright, who calls for restitution, who reminds us of what might have been.

Brittle by Dawn

The music blared, our emotions flickered, and we moved like magma, gripping each other as only the dying do. We were a viscous sludge, slow and painstaking, that purposefully flows, busting apart American homes. How little we cared amidst the heat, drawing breath and diving in: melting instantly. You must remember.

You cooed and cawed, but our blood began to cool, and our flow began to cease. We sensed an end but pointedly ignored it.

The soaring temperatures plummet, the great passions turn obsidian: shimmering and voluptuous, coldly elegant, a petrified whisper.

And in our deadness, we bitterly clashed, shedding sediment, brittle by dawn.

The Overactive Imagination

The wicked eyes pierce your marrow, and you glance around, hyperactive. You just can't shake that portentous feeling, and your enemies abound, blades athirst. You know their histories; you know their intent; you feel your own shortcomings grind your guts. And when they draw blood, it hurts so good.

Look into your life, confined fiend, and question the way your mind swings. Damned to sway, damned to quest, a wanderer without roots, sorely tolerated but always unwanted. You think of all the places you've slept on this horrid pilgrimage, trudging your way to the final resting place, that leaves this aching life behind, and transports you into harmony's pure embrace.

Your hands shoot out, dying for love, but meet projection's glowing mist, and you feel yourself sinking. Familiar, all too familiar. And though you fall, your legs continue to push your body along the gravelly road while the moon breathes its faithful breath against your bared back, and for a minute, you aren't alone, although your purpose escapes you.

What are you searching for, fallen man? Blow the smoke from your lungs. You can't elude those eyes forever.

Outta Hell, Outta Heaven

The wheel turns as I run, an endless carpet, spinning faster and faster. And the energy I expend exudes from within, evaporating in the skies. Heaven's in the distance; on the horizon I see it, melting my eyes.

Fatigue grips me, but I don't rest. I push myself, though I get nowhere. Because I've always pushed myself where the compass points, rain or shine. Running, running, though the bearings age and immolate.

Suddenly I look behind me, and the rage spreads like cancer, while I smirk and pant a curse. I slow to a snail's pace and reflect, bitterness contorting. The curtains lift, and I step out from beneath the scented veil: the velvet makes me shudder with disgust.

They were holding hands in heaven, carefree, their perfect skin untainted, watching me with comic distaste as I stood by my wheel, eight months outta hell, burned and boiled, scarred so visibly, dirty with darkness.

My vision clears, and I abandon the wheel, to die forever, for I know my home is here, beneath isolation's neglected wing, whose smudged feathers shimmer still, murky and lifeless. I poke around the dank dark, pupils widening, perceiving the rugged landscape stretching out around me.

And again I abandon heaven,
And again I tread the tundra,
And again I tremble before the flame,
That flares and flickers in distress.

And again I huddle here,
While time blows its wrinkly breath,
Until hell is just a memory,
Until heaven is just a myth,
Until my hungry smile,
Returns to me again.

Bludgeoned by his fading hopes, his cold reality, the tired man slumps, shoulders hunching. The straining mind, taut with pressure, yields and begins to buckle. A dam cracks, a flood gallops; drowning memories, waters white and savage. They spit and foam as sanity surrenders, as blindness consumes.

The man trembles, frantic. "Oh, hell," he whispers, and the temperature spurts.

An Attack on Indifference

The internet has got to be the greatest invention of our generation. It offers an unlimited range of information to the average person. PHD quality material is available to anyone who cares to access it. Project Gutenberg(gutenberg.org) is a prime example of this.

Yet intellectual poverty continues to persist in this country on a widespread level, despite this expansive wealth of knowledge, causing rag-tag intellectuals like myself to ponder this issue with anger and indignation.

Is it due to the media's unrelenting barrage, with its showy commercials and cheap stimulations? Do the government and its cohorts actively expend time, money, and energy in suppressing a person's higher impulses? Perhaps, perhaps not.

It is much more likely that an unconscious bureaucratic process is taking place: one that is necessary if the governing institution is to maintain its control(and ultimately its life); a process that is rudely compartmentalized, and thus difficult to upset.

Or perhaps the ruck of men are simply crass and fickle creatures, who willfully persist in an apathetic state until death claims their undeveloped identities. This last is all too easy to embrace with a scholar's arrogance; a favored opinion infesting the intelligentsia, a fatalistic aristocrat's brassy romanticism, and the outlook which every social revolution in history has attempted to combat, but has fallen short of.

I write this because it's been clanking around my foggy brain, clamoring for expression, because progress is perpetually on the horizon, but goes unrealized. Isn't anyone angry? Or are we too distracted by Dexter and reality TV to voice our opinions? It is easy to become distracted. It's only human, and thus forgivable. Unpleasant realities are difficult to digest but must be faced soon, or moderation will simply die out, and socially conscious individuals will be forced to turn militant--a dangerous prospect.

A prominent opinion these days is that voting is useless, that politicians are corrupt, that the system is broken and, as a result, that change is ephemeral. But that is no justification for political indifference. Rather, it is a call to arms, an indication that the traditional channels of change aren't up to snuff and need to be replaced by more meaningful action.

Calamity is in the air, and we have to right to avoid asphyxiation.

-Brian Looney

The Great White Night

Her phosphorescent face, emotive and glowing, breathes out surreal life-rays, the whitish blue irises, the astrological mana. Then, through a breezy smirk, "Let there be night" resounds upon the hardening tundra, equal in all areas, from the deepest cave to the highest tree.

The great white night finds us final in all of our decisions; finds us reserved and implacable; finds us able to withstand its seashore strength. It finds our gaze connected, our knees unshaking, our wills intertwined. It rears in fear, hoofs clashing, jaws gnashing, eyes gushing anger. Now circling and darting, surveying its foe, as we glare back, impregnable.

White. White is its shallow converse, the exchange of the universe, slashing its canvas across the slab that beckons and beckons. White pigment to be seen with rapture, in circular flotation, battered but unmolested.

We float within its fog; we electrify within its cloud, our actions manifest within its dusty sword beams that slash and slay, wavering in the morning.

Treacherous Hearts

A drop of water ripples the screen; her face flutters: a frozen vision, a melancholy freedom. Praising disloyalty, the freedom of choice, the will to desist.

How accusing is her face when one's heart is unclean, when the civil muck clogs and conglomerates in its percolating ventricles. I stare back and quiver, muttering oaths, my knees shaking uncontrollably, bladder pulsing.

A purging pilgrimage, the flame's orange dance, howling faces, sadistic warpaint. Handles wilting, stripped screws, swamp stained steel, appendages whipped and whittled. Viewed, with cocked eyebrows, by ascetic scrutiny.

She's left the gas on, and abandoned the house. Its creaking heat intensifies, and the cabinets sweat, while she occupies her deaf hole in the sky. So senseless is she, staked aboard in the pitch of night, the ship's glue old and rotting as it decrepitly drifts forward, forward, the past smoking in the distance, away from explosions and treacherous hearts.

The Highway

The wind sweeps across the brigand desert and rams us, body and all, sections slicing through our plastic hair, whose greasy arms dramatically flail and flake. Buffeting in the silent night, across illusory lanes, a savage whisper in silky silence, a solemn wail, an ashen gasp, a muffled gurgle.

As the roadside flies, the black tongue lolls, a carpet winding and whirling, gyrating its frazzled dance toward our dreamy destination, whose noise and lights hum specifically for us in this lamplit purgatory. Spirits playfully prance at the edge of vision, their laughing lanterns archedly pouting, pettish from lack of love.

The engine chuckles in its bed, yoked to the frame, guffawing in rotation, gleaming gears grinding, whose intemperate teeth crunch, shimmering heat, fluid swirling. Casting away misuse and the clamors of age, it gains its wind and races from sight.

Quiet Moon

Quiet, quiet moon.

Transported to your ebullient bosom, I inhale the silence, gazing at the unconcerned world from this specious vantage point-- a costly pinprick, the stoic woman. Whose barriers dismay, whose disconnection grieves. Mousy voices undercut the heavy silence, heard at the edge of vision, scrambling like a swarm of insects outside the ear's periphery.

Here I am. Poisoned and cloaked in loneliness, toasting mute grief. I stand, suspended, as the stars unravel, stringing essences trailing, trailing, dissolving, dissolving.

Quiet, quiet moon.

You loom from my scrambled eyes; your grave peace solemnly reflective; acling with devotees. Rebukingly, rebukingly, yet witholding judgment.

We stand entranced, the traffic gushes by, streaming, streaming, fibs of breathing laughter killed in the new, new moon.

The Midnight Lover

Her icy face sparkled palely, the cratered moon. My loving fingers timidly quivered on her sapphire neck, frigid stings in the flashback eve. Sadness fogs her breath as it droops from her mouth in a tired sigh. Her sapped, sea-breeze skin is taut and unreactive, absolutely timeless.

I remember her eyes. She had pools of them swimming and swaying in isolated trenches. All staring out, imperious and impassive, sharply superior. But tonight, tonight they were sheathed and tender, and they were looking at me.

With an impassioned heave she went limp in the sky, my craning body aching with effort. Fading, fading, blink by blink, as the stars winked through her busty bodice, stabbing pinholes at the speed of light. From these beaded blood: black blood that blanketed her without a whisper, spiriting her from my desperate embrace.

My eyes continued to project her image onto the depthless canvass well after her scent had gone, and her blood had caked the sheets.

Dust

Faded and gray speckles a used face. A dull sheen, an aged expanse, are neglect's resentful styles. The particles settle and congeal, stilled in death, shrouding freshness. Withered is the room that houses these.

And yet, and yet.

A solitary streak dispels the stupor. It glares from the scene, parting the deadlands. What a trail it makes amidst the rot. A showy core peeps from beneath. See its youth brazenly shout, "I have beauty still!"

Recapture clarity, idle souls!

As we wipe the dust away and toss our years aside.

Our fears greet us,
Our joys reclaim us,
And the dappled veil,
Slowly shifts.

Shelter the skeletons, their fragile joints. Shelter them whole, their tensile infra. Shelter the cartilage, soft and caustic. Shelter the tendons, uncorrupted by the sun. Shelter the skulls, unbleached and misloved.