Tag Archives: violence

Once Were Savages

Once upon a time, we were all savages 

We will be again, if we let us be

Imagine the reality of the horror of that carnage for a moment,

Of killing and being killed, maimed, and leading the life that you lead now like that 

If you still think that is anything close to alright,

It is either your failure of imagination to grasp the true reality,

Or, this world is no longer a place I want to  continue living in.

Patience & Experience

Patience and experience,

Can you have one without the other?

Or, before you have the former, must you have a proper grasp of the latter?

Like receiving a savage beating to the head and torso:

Bearing through the pain;

While being beaten to within a whisker of meeting your maker;

And, even faced with wave upon wave of unbearable pain:

Managing to break out into a blood-smeared, broken-toothed, savage grin,

It does not make it any less painful y’see,

But it does give you perspective to abide and hope by,

To put away the hollow helplessness of before,

And mock your attacker with defiance,

To do their worst!

For, this is not the first beating you have endured,

And, though the experience left you near crippled,

You – even, now, in this present extremity – recall:

It hurt far more the first time round!

Perhaps it’s the onset of delirium and madness mixed with concussion,

But, if it provides you even the slightest hint of hesitation in your attacker,

A narrow opening:

To launch yourself  at him to rip out his bastard neck, and taste his life force ebb and flow away from him,

As he had taken great pleasure in leisurely shattering yours moments earlier;

Tables turn on occasion,

And, it is experience that allows you to judge when to time your counter-strike ;

Whereas, without patience, you would  never have reached that opportune moment at all.

Battlement

Staring out from the battlement,

At the gathering force of foes in the valley below,

Where the horde has amassed,

And is now whipping itself up into a deafening storm of hurricane force,

Who will be the victor and vanquished when it finally abates?

Will my blade shatter and spoil in the ferocious onslaught to come?

Or, will I find myself drowning in a pool of my own blood and gore?

Uncertainty is anathema to even the best laid plans;

An unwelcome harbinger on the eve of any battle,

When grim resolve, is the only comfort that temptress salvation will allow.

‘Hikikomori’

Predators among us roam freely,

In search of ‘prey’:

Making lambs at mercy of wolves and hyenas of us all;

Suppressed instincts that never left us;

Corrosive tides and difficult lives,

Washing away disguises borne of lies;

Sated by voyeurism;

A precursor to a revival of barbarism;

Or, their modern equivalents:

A meditation of the withdrawn for some,

Known as ”Hikikomori’ in the East, and “Recluse” in the West;

Outlet for boredom and over-complications,

Morbid fascination turned perversion for others,

When, abnormal becomes the new normal,

And, drawn-out silences are shattered by blood-curdling shrill cries;

A chorus too frequent to be isolated,
Ineffectiveness prevails,

And, what justice there is:

Is delivered at the end of the barrel of a vigilante’s gun.

Indecision

How can you sleep when the world is screaming its deafening roar outside?

Churning, twisting its chains and lashing out;

An insomniac’s day dream,

Bearing down like a Juggernaut,

I will not be crippled by indecision,

As i’ve spent a lifetime living thus;

Professional soldiers are trained to move toward the sound of violence (like a hunter to a kill);

While untrained civilians naturally flee,

A rare few will stand their ground,

Determined to make a stand;

For night or day, battle comes when you least expect it;

Some battles are unavoidable;

When neither fight nor flight is a credible option:

For, eventually, all dangers must be faced head on.

Pigeonholes in the Sky

We be cooped up in these towers, brov;

Like them pigeons that no body wants around, blood;

Rats with wings and vermin, is what they call us like,

We be pigeons, in a world in love with doves;

Choice pickings don’t make it this far down;

Violent tussles over scraps,

Till we all be slipping on spilt blood;

And, scraping the bottom of a barrel,

To make do is what we do, brov;

That’s our lot in life,

And, we ain’t got a lot.

(In)Sanity of Men

The sanity of men is at borderline at best,

Patience is temporal,

Tolerance is a luxury;

Fairness is an illusion and justice is a delusion,

When gangs roam the streets with long-knives calling for blood,

No one knows the cause,

Some such thing or other,

Does it really matter? When mad men stalk your door;

Nowhere to hide, nowhere to go;

Except to resign your fate to the mob;

With heads bowed, for cruelty is at large;

Politicians are opportunists given a platform;

Never forget: Institutions, the courts, and all safeguards, are manned by men,

Capable of turning their backs for self-serving ends,

Leaders, lead as well as they mislead,

Those who thrive in times of luxury, will also end up victims in anarchy;

The divide is as thin as a sharpe blade that cuts both ways;

This is not a dystopia nor a post-apocalyptic scenario,

For, it isn’t like it hasn’t happened before, or will again(!)

Viking: Resilience

Darkness envelopes the land,

Leaving folks at mercy of long crippling winters, and fleeting summers;

When even seasoned farmers must take up arms,

To guard their stores and each other from raiders or rivals of every variety;

And abide the long nights,

When, savagery is the only birthright,

For, in this unforgiving cold:

You fought and lived, or resigned to die;

No room for the weak, when the divide is so slight;

Hope guides the hand,

And in that calloused grip is an axe drenched in blood,

Wielded decisively in the heart of battle,

In a practised ritual of blood sacrifice,

For the Gods’ are rarely merciful,

And an honourable death, worthy of the glory of Valhalla,

Is the only vaunted prize.