Rurik the viKing

Come all ye women, come all ye men
behold ye Rurik, the Varangian king

In Norogod they're erecting gods
some of  stone, some of gold
dynasty lay in disgrace
bricks littering the space 
but when Rurik gets here, those bricks will fall in place 

Come all ye women, come all ye men
behold ye Rurik, the Varangian king

When trolls come to eat your goats
And when your kid's eaten by "centipedes"
dont despair, dont sell your boats
Rurik will drive them beyond the sea

Come all ye children, come all ye quick
behold ye Rurik, the Varangian king

Some folk waiting for their khan
others wait for uncle tom
and those wait for Christ to come
but when Rurik the viKing gets here, he'll bow to none

He wields his power, he wields his sword
He can use it for good and use it with force, 
he can even use it as a fork

Come all ye women, come all ye men
behold ye Rurik, the mighty king

Others fly when dragons come,
but when Rurik gets here
dragons fly to him

Everyone knows him but not his name
in the dead silence of his tongue
his story's a mystery
when the cross comes to the kingdom
it burdens all but not his majesty

Come all ye women, come all ye men
behold Rurik, the Varangian king

Come all ye women, come all ye men
behold Rurik, the mighty king

Mother of Wings

This piece was initially about the flying mammaliform1, a lineage similar to living mammals but quite as we understand a mammal to be2. Now it's about a desire to escape from the pressures of  not being wanted.

Millions before the modern era, age of my early child I crawled under leviathans
A nocturnal dweller
A lurking time traveller staggering through history

When will we fly?


In a bowl rich with Asian grains, both in size and in kind
A Mesozoic mosaic put together in theAge of Reptiles
Now I find myself lying flat on my epitaph
Naked and exposed, just showing impressions of skin and bone

Momma your wings didn't break my fall
your gliding destination unknown

When will we fly?

Incisors erupted painfully but quite truthfully, when "rats" took to the sky
Unique occlusion fuels your delusion
A diffusion of images creates a haze
A maze for my wandering mind

Like a mortar and pestle you crushed me
Like a dinosaur steps on a mortal
Like a pest in your field of dreams

Haramiya knows not the sweetness of sour grapes
My protocones used to eating stems and pine cones
Not remarkable to hear you silent
Not a single remark as you blaze with your herbivores
My volition you cut, my wing volant no more

When will we fly?


This past Wednesday you paraded your male menagerie
In front of me evidence came to light

When will the "rats" take to flight?

Overhead I soar
While down below my arm carries needle sores, a design I adore

In pre-placental flight, on one silent night,
"Rats" will take to the sky

Ken Gerhard looks for the woman of Danang
And I wrap my fang around sugar death
The platypus chromed your family tree
In return you poached her egg
Lineage of words produced pouches of hope
The kangaroo curious questions while the possum furious,

When will we glide?

Tell about a branch no one knew before, more primitive than you or I
Surprise some swam in Jurassic jacuzzis while other scavenged your ravaged fridge
Volaticotherium a no-name with credit card debt
You oogled and googled my skinny corpse as though you hadn't eaten for awhile
Then served me bits of bone,

Flickers on a frame from another film
Our paths convergent and our roads will not cross again
It's meaning stretches from your cheek to your leg
And your tail long enough to step on,
Warm blooded in appearance but not skin deep


When will you fly?






Works Cited


1.   Zhe-Xi Luo; Qing-Jin Meng; David M. Grossnickle; Di Liu; April I. Neander; Yu-Guang Zhang;
Qiang Ji (2017). "New evidence for mammaliaform ear evolution and feeding adaptation in a Jurassic ecosystem". Nature. in press. doi:10.1038/nature23483

2.  Zimmer, C. (2017). When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Mammals Took to the Skies. New York Times. Retrieved August 9, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/science/dinosaurs-flying-mammals-squirrels.html.

The Law of Succession

The paleontologist digs up your bones,
a fossil among the living dead,
confirmed and expanded by your silence
the australian deceased wombat wont make a comeback
you barely noted dully when you tossed my dreams
into the gully in full gravity
and my purity you sullied, turned it to depravity

And the dead will mourn
When the young are pissing on their grave

Tingamarra marred the marsupial "Mara"
their histories erased by placental supremacists
Argentine armadillo curls up to withstand the storms of time
as my curled frame withstands your famines
my glyptodont granddad protects me
from the shell shock of your age of ice
your silence speaking cold and your eyes my love ignored
familiar forms fading into the dust just when I opened to you the most

And the dead will mourn
When the young are pissing on their grave

You and I obviously of different fauna
both in heart and in mind
I wont be singing odes to you anymore
our pattern of correspondence saw decline
when you ignored my colors
today you descend without modification
in your scheme of cruelty and in crime
I will succeed vertically while you wallow in slime

And the dead will mourn
When the young are pissing on their grave

I survived many hitches, I survived just fine
I'll withstand your your attack of ice and stone
I'll ruffle my feathers one more time

Just like JAWS replaced Megalodon
Someone will be succeeding you
You'll just be a stain on a floor
you and I of different times, both in heart and mind
I shall stand and you shall wallow in slime

And the dead will mourn
When the young are pissing on their grave

Tara the Engineer (Moving On)

The terror of moving away from you,
I'm just transitional form speeding past through time
watching the time I wasted on you

Novel characteristics flew by your auld vestige of kindness
in Germany feathered dragons found to be birds
and I,  just a side branch, one more stepping stone for your one way flight

I realized you gone before you left, your skinny body like a small dinosaur
vulnerable and devoid of cozy fluff no more in my bed, empty nest
No longer lay my head on your breast, my hope in the middle of the night that you turn right just when you left me crushed like an egg

Feathers that adorned adonis plucked painfully one by one
once I recalled the walking whale nimbly without weight danced on the land
now the jailed dromaesaur dreams of flight, glimmer of light in his cell but for now staring at million dollar bail

My pelvic vestiges cant walk me anywhere away from you,
the basilosaur mistook for lizard was really touchy feely mammal,
you denied your milk to this kitten that cried,
and your enormous hind limbs form awkward chain link between limbed and limbless


Wish I was a train speeding away from you

Victoria the Vivisectionist

Vestige ragged remnant, body form useless to you
Rudy's rudimentary organs too much time too little want,
married man's penis vestigial no sex life with wife,

You take the path of least empathy and increased entropy,
vivisectionist pressure eased "harmful appendage", this your sick adage,
appendix intestine clandestine like Apteryx wings,
taken out of context is textbook serial psycopath, you killed the caged bird that sings

Vestige offer no vantage point like grandad's vile vulpine ears so it disappeared,
well i gave you my heart like pumping treasure,
your scalpel took its measure your chill took the rest and ripped it out my chest

You junk my DNA and exact my arms and legs,
subtract my emotional tract and thats a fact

Degenerate degrades degenerate kinds from knife's point of view, its precision persecutes and executes in full

The penguin on pins and needles walks,
his beak pricks ballon of flight but its alright,
he finds in water his bouy

By degree you boil your toads,
the ostrich wing wound stitched,
by detriment damaged and left stunted stubs,
all just a stunt for your class

Blunt object, blunt discretion blatant lack of compassion,
assasin by passion, you left ark of lamarck razed and ravaged,
the descent of man is complete

You utterly aborted our precious moment, utterly abhorrent,
the docent of death unearthed freudian demons that took my last breath

Extraction emancipation my obsession, extirpation from your sinister persuasion,
I risk my wrists and morphological real estate
go ahead, carve my flanks into steaks,
take a break and exact my testicles then sever toes from the horse

Cut the ratite rare and make the nerd flightless, useless
like eyes of the axolotl, and those of the cave fish
I wish for sight severely
Go ahead slander my anatomy
the python's path lined with pylons crawled on his pelvic pegs as if former walking legs,
the amphisbaenian lost his right lung, gained the wrong song

The ileum colonel in his dungeon like colon corrodes with chains,
tailbone disease borne no more since we stepped into the pliocene,
goosebumps stress and raise my reflex of imaginary hair when scared,
butI'm prepared

I'll close my eyes to hide from burning light,
but you dear are blind




 

Jane Gone Montego

Sugar cane standing tall in the field, workers strike for better pay,
on the graves of giant rats¹, West to Montego Bay


Put your hand on my chest babe, is it too cold to feel warm?
Are you gonna admit wrong, or you gonna bear arms?

Moses the overseer, pistol in his hand
Caribbean Pharoah incarnate
his people cant escape this land
rouge the color of the irate

Jane Sharpe² steppin' stones, rebellion across Caribbean sown
On Christmas 1832, the Baptist War³ had grown, like a hurricane full blown


No dull knife can liberate blood,
On eleven days of fire, you and I left humiliated,  207 left dead,
babe you lead the rebellion, your piercings glistened
ants rose against the grasshopper, you tried but no one listened

Citations

1. In prehistory, before humans came to the Carribean islands, a lineage of giant rodents inhabited them. Called, Hutias, and were more closely related to Guinea Pigs than to actual rats.  (See this link for info) 
2. I turned the leader of the Baptist Rebellion, Samuel Sharpe, into a female character for story purposes.  
3. The Baptist War, also known as the Christmas Rebellion occured in Montego Bay, Jamaica 1831–32. During a period of eleven-days, 60,000 of Jamaica's 300,000 slaves revolted for a working wage. (See Barry W. Higman, "Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1834", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 365–367)

Epistemologic Princess Vol. I

Usually, especially for my more complex pieces, I start by brainstorming a topic. That means I sit down, drink a shit ton of coffee, and get into an altered state of awareness, and let all associated images and words pass through my mind. This is the key to my work as it translates the idea or theme into symbols.

Most of my work has double or even triple layers of meaning. Epistemologic Princess Vol. I is no exception, and I'm providing the full text as well as a guide to understanding the meaning. Rarely do I include the text that lead to the image as part of the piece, but here it is nonetheless.  Inspired by the lovely Marie Terra, This piece is about the history and modern application of the philosophy called Epistemology. The main visual element, the magnifying glass, represents this philosophy's practice of closely analyzing the structure of belief. (Check out Marie's photography here)

One last thing. I cite my quotations with academic references (usually) to prove all these passages are not just a load of shit. What seems like "bonkers text" is sceintific/academic passages translated into prose.

Enjoy!




Common speech more like common screech - to a halt (1)
perhaps a lapse in evolutionary leak prevention (2)
Trump times take scientist's paradigm on its head
like ingesting lead lead Romans to death
but with it levies tax of light bulb, (3)

Socrates went to bank and deposits empirical coins to scientific account (4)
Gettier go-getter go philosopher's panties tied thousands of years, (5)
True believers not considered human by the ape, (6)
job applicants' ten pocket coins obsession blind to his own fortune (7)

The go-getter receives constant reality fiat to sustain belief
Trumper efficient ideology survives on scraps,
guess who cares? (8)



Logos=knowledge, nature of justification, logic of belief,
truth pain in the tooth of the Trumper, (9)
Problems with the skepticism unanswered by the scientist, (10)
The Scottish wildcat pen-named Epistemon, caught bird in flight
King James farts and the journalists write, (11)
How many monkeys does it take to type critically? (12)
Debate rebate grabbed by the priest,
The diest has contest about burning the witch,
and the Greek scientist's ode written is a poster on King's wall, (13)
Dialogue by stand-up comic bounced off the mic and splattered the audience, (14)
Branch of philosophy has cancerous growth, (15)
Emile the hedgehog uncurls to identity reality, goes to the barber to get a haircut, (16)

the known 2+2=4 process is silent about the journey like taxonomist ignorant about thousands of
lepidopteran lives pinned, (17)
English distinctions indigest the immigrant,
Italian translator's misplaced radio dial not so simple to sew together, (18)
Wisen Kennen not brew, bro, but drug to recognize and demonize acknowledgement (19)

1.  Patterns of culture by the masses is generally uncritical, unintelligent and erodes societal progress (in general) 
2.  This feature, of general intellectual poverty, could be a blind spot in the idea that humans are an enlightened species. However, with every curse, there is also a blessing.
3. The election of President Trump is a sign of society rebelling against the scientific paradigm, that is, people are rebelling against a strict observance of the outside world as a basis for reality.
4. An idea in epistemological thought (started by greek philosopher Socrates) is that a "fact" is really just a "belief" that must consistently be reinforced. For instance, the belief that gravity exists (called a fact) must be reinforced moment to moment to be considered reality. ( Cornford, Francis M. Plato's theory of knowledge: The theaetetus and the sophist. Courier Corporation, 2003.)
5. The Gettier Problem, first conceived by American Philosopher Edmund Gettier, has questioned the theory of knowledge that has been passed down for thousands of years. The "go-getter" reference brings attention to the iconoclastic qualities of his work.  (for more info on this problem see this link).
6. Many times, rational-based belief system holders (i.e. Liberals) see those that utilize more basic methods to construct their reality (i.e. "Trump supporters") as inferior humans, yet fail to see blindspots in their own systems. 
7. As part of his work, Gettier presents several "cases" to exemplify his theories. One of these involves the the structure of belief in a job applicant who is so obsessed in figuring out if other job applicants are more qualified than he is, blinding him to his own qualifications. (Gettier, Edmund (1963). "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?". Analysis. 23 (6): 121–23. JSTOR 3326922. doi:10.2307/3326922) 
8. While the "liberal" belief system requires constant external feedback, that of the "Trumper" can survive on scraps of external perception, thus it is more "efficient" in this sense.
9.  Objective "truth" is generally an obstacle in the worldview of the Trump supporter.
10. The rational liberal is often blinded to the loopholes of a "rational" paradigm of existence.
11. King James VI of Scotland  created a character named Epistemon to personify philosophical debate of whether ancient religious perceptions about witchcraft should be uses to excuse punishments in Christian Society (King James; Warren, Brett. The Annotated Daemonologie. A Critical Edition. In Modern English. 2016. p. x-xi. ISBN 1-5329-6891-4).
12. A pun of the parable "how long and many monkeys does it take to write  a shakespeare play by chance?" How many monkeys to evolve critical thinking humans?
13. Epistemon means scientist in Greek, and was a favorite parable used by King VI to illustrate these important societal questions.
14. The words of those in power can have a great affect on the masses
15. Every theory has holes and is imperfect. These imperfections, if left unanswered, can lead to rogue ideology.
16. Emile is a fictional character named after  Émile Meyerson, French epistemologist. The idea is that the limited belief system of a defensive individual ("i.e. Trump Supporter") can be shed to allow a more open system that incorporate more information from the external world.
17.  The limitations of "reality" based belief systems, for example the scientific world view, is that they do not give information of what a process is like in experience. For example, the taxonomist can tell you a lot about which scientific classification a butterfly belongs in, but cannot fathom what its like to live as a butterfly.
18. The translation from one language to another is often times a process stitched by indirect and mismatched linguistic elements in order to make sense. For example, in Spanish "ir de viaje" can be directly transliterated as "Going as a trip" in English but would make little sense. Thus, in order for a proper translation to occur, other words not directly being referenced must be used.
19. The german words wissen and kennen are used to differentiate nunances in  acknowledging knowledge (see this link). They do sound like beer types, though.