Overview/Welcome

Hey there!

My name is Michael, and this is the sort of e-pad where my favored brainchidlren crash for the weekend. I try to keep the layout self-explanatory, so in lieu of a verbose, long-winded FAQ/tutorial, I’m simply going to advise that you kick the door in and play wherever the mood possesses you. Feedback is always encouraged, and non-critical comments are seldom feedback. Thanks so much, and enjoy.

Peace, Love, and Wisdom

-Michael F. Brett X

Addendum:  I haven’t been around in awhile; largely because I’m not sure what to do with this site.  Some of this material seems increasingly self-indulgent – perhaps a weeding is in order.   In any event, I might start posting more philosophic work, or simply keep the space as something of a prosaic journal on which interested friends might opine.  Thanks for listening, anyhow – I hope something here made your day at some point.  Check back for updates of a less indecisive nature!

Sex, Love, and Mortal Kombat

I made the mistake of looking at her picture
Flowing tides of black lace swam on slender shoulders
Eyes lost, tragic pools of green and gorgeous anguish
Face still bleeding from the scabs she tore and ravaged
Streaks of crimson rimmed a smile lush and passionate.
Screaming human truth and frailty until I, too,
Needed to watch something bleed.
A friendly voice intrudes upon me
Offering challenge, and a less drastic violence.
“I love Mortal Kombat,” he says casually,
Sipping a beer and daring me to smile.
A simpler love, and yet less hurtful
Two characters that dance entwined in mutilation
Two minds finding their joy in mutual destruction.
B-B-Right C-Top C-A
“I love this game.”
Punch-Elbow-Knee-Kick-Backfist.
“I loved her.”
Kiss-Lies-Claws-Orgasm.
Spinning, dizzied, life-gauged depleting,
A picture glimmers in the television’s glassy surface
And though the battle’s lost, a warrior
Has only begun to bleed.
You play the game, proclaiming all the while to love it
But in a year, you’ll buy the sequel, learn to use a newer character
Make him move and dance and bleed and vanquish foes for your twisted,
Selfish sense of beauty and satisfaction
While an old, forgotten cartridge
Rots upon the table ‘neath a vodka glass.
“Fatality.”

Assassin of the Cloudless Sky

I returned in triumph to the desert
And found it to be raining.
As the cool, refreshing moisture bathed my flesh
I found my happiness in question.
Does the desert cry for lack of rain?
Or does our deepest misery misplace itself
Beneath the veil of some more noticed deficit?
“I am unhappy,” speaks the masked assassin
As we project his blame unto disguises
Fearing beyond fear to look upon the face of sorrow
And so does anguish stalk our fumbling herds unseen
While we point frightened fingers at a cloudless sky
With none to recognize the dagger’s bite,
We blame our agony and blood loss
On a lack of rain.

Twilight’s Cadence and the Thousand Eyes

I saw her soaring ‘cross the lake of life
This Dragonfly for whom all poets wept
Her fragile beauty spoke the visions of a thousand seeking eyes
And sang to me as many soothing notes
A twilit harmony for cosmic insects.

The gentle drone of wings that fought for air
Against the very sky
Had wrought a lullaby,
Which earned soul’s complacency by virtue
Of it’s struggle’s beauty.

Time passed, while many notes of ecstasy escaped our lips
And with each visit to the lakeside I became convinced
Of my deepest inability
To imagine it without her

Now many sins have flown like stones between us
Twilight’s promise broken by the fires of dawn
She in lust, and I in anger
Forsook love’s lofty flight
And spiraled headlong into wicked acts and darkened karmas

I know the evil in your soul -
Gentle lover, your wrath and mine yet circle,
Promethean vultures, stalking hungrily toward vengeful prophets
Insight dusts the scrying crystal of tomorrow – do you see them feasting?

Know this – a thousand eyes have shown the beauty in a tragic universe
While transience and transitivity foretell the tragedy in beauty
These visions yet remain in harmony.

As the end of it all, just as the beginning saw
My Dragonfly
Is but an insect.
And these thousand eyes
Seeing vultures to be phoenixes
Will shed their tears in memory alone.

To The Magdalene

Tones of dusk beset the hill Golgotha
Where saviors sink and beg the earth to mourn
Looking up, up toward the gently weeping
From down beneath the demon’s lashing scourge

We ask ourselves, forsaken yet salvific
Have we not by our constitution earned
Like iron swords that cry in infant innocence
The joy of pain – the right to burn?

The Sordid Ways of Man

Adam watched the sun fade slowly behind the cemetery’s seeping mist, settling peacefully across the scattered headstones. A subtle breeze accompanied him as he walked alone amongst the many graves, ‘till at last he found a fresher plot, marked by the unblemished topsoil of the groundskeeper’s wake. Sitting without a word before the simple monument, he let his gaze and feelings wander for time unmeasured; sinking more deeply into melancholic places and finally to nowhere at all as the moon rose higher. Long he dwelt in pensive silence, until at last he found his solace broken by soft, familiar voice.

 “Out for a walk, Father?” the Bishop asked, moving quietly from the within mist’s nocturnal veil.

“Mourning,” Adam replied, turning to face his friend with a heavy sigh. His voice seemed an eerie whisper to the Bishop, as if floating in from beyond some uninhabited body. Only the slight but constant wince that strained his eyes betrayed in Adam some shred of life or feeling.

“I’m sorry,” the Deacon replied in sympathy. “A friend?”

Adam’s eyes rolled back slightly, and the bishop thought he caught the man biting discreetly at his lip.

“An adulteress.” The Bishop nodded, and with a knowing look pursued the matter further. “It is upsetting to find our parish cursed with such a woman. Let her stay within the earth, my son – she’ll do no harm from these harsh trappings.”

The silence moved yet onward, but Adam didn’t.

“I threw the stones myself,” he continued, though whether or not the bishop’s audience concerned him seemed unclear. “I watched them drag her to the pit in chains, threw the rocks that smote against her head and body.”

“It must have been gruesome,” the Bishop responded softly.

“Gruesome,” Adam continued with a dismissive snort. “The spectacle was gruesome. The cracking of her human skull, the bits of brain and fluid caking on the missile’s surface – those were gruesome to behold. But her screaming, the damning tones of hatred and repentance, the pleas that hung behind her dying eyes even as her flesh was sundered – these were haunting in a way no ghast in hell can contemplate.”

“She was sent brutally, to a brutal realm,” the Bishop interrupted, impatience manifesting in his words and tone. Then, more empathically, he finished. “Let the whore burn, Adam. She has earned the wrath of the Lord.”

“You taught me that God loves all creatures,” Adam began, something terse awakening behind his mask of introversion. Still, the bishop only sighed.

“God has no love for this woman, I assure you.” Adam turned to face his colleague, as a barely measured anger fumed impatientyly behind his shell-like visage. Gritting his teeth, the young priest spat a brief and poignant retort:

“I did.”

A lone rose fell from Adam’s trembling hand as he turned to go, cursing his own heart and the sordid ways of man.

An Introspection

The drugs were starting to hit as I made my way roofward, casually scaling my off-alley studio in downtown Albuquerque. The sun was pretty much standard for ‘Burque in late spring, but an atypical breeze cut pleasantly through the unrelenting heat as I pulled myself over the rooftop’s edge. The shaggy mane of an Athens hippie-child was accented by my lack of shirt or shoes, in virtue of which I found myself paying more heed to the shards of glass strewn hither and yon about the rooftop’s surface. Truth be told, they were large enough to be avoidable, and therefore more likely to slice the flesh then embed in it; but this didn’t bother me so much. Walking easily if attentively through the roof’s gravel, I caught the presence of a few wayward syringes, which prompted me to restrain my presence to a safer corner. Apparently, I was not the first tenant of this particualr flat to get higher than balls up here.

And high I was, as the ‘psilo and THC took hold. My trip-mate on this particular journey peered over the building’s edge, standing comfortably atop my faux-something fence, a salmon colored mass of not quite stone that had facilitated my ascent. Nonetheless, I found my attentions firmly captivated by the aforementiond shards strewn haphazardly about the rooftop, laughing aloud at my companion.

“I’m being amused,” I told him, “by the fact that I’m not amused by the broken glass.” My friend dismissed himself for fear of heights, and I relaxed in the soothing warmth of sun and mushrooms. Reclining pensively against the rooftop’s edge, I thought on how the one-two-punch of masochism and nihilistic devaluation had led me to embrace the glass shard as a symbol of my own bizarre struggles – the “cover art” to my deranged if beautiful autobiography. Playing dinsintered with a random shard, I found myself perplexed and relieved by anewfound lack of identification with the obect. The glass’ brown tint seemed to mellow once-searing rays as the sun came through it’s shattered lens, leaving my to wonder why I felt so distant from the imagery of carnage, when I had come with pride and even celebration to embrace the more aesthetic darkness of its paradigm. Was it maturity, or perhaps vanity that spurred me to imagine something brighter?

There is a time, I believe, when shards are necessary; when we find our spirits shattered into similar disarray, lying with the needles and broken bottles somewhere off the alleys of our own misfortune. At this time, I found myself the loving son of knives and fire, melding my own shards back into something human in the only way I knew how. The blade seemed a necessary avenue, a road to something stronger, something scarred in the most gorgeous ways our universe imparts, and it was then that the part of Michael who’d traversed that road looked back at me.

“We don’t need me anymore,” he pleaded. “I came to deliver you through fire, and I am burnt, bleeding, broken.” I knew his weariness, and sympathized, wondering what part this strange, salvific warrior would play in a philsopher’s future scenes. I knew that he would stay as long as he was needed, that he would never fail to serve me in our damning need. I knew also what lay beneath this fellow’s resolute demeanor – the yet unspoken plea for something better, for a lighter load and a life worth bleeding for. At this moment, the facade was broken.

“My time is through,” he said to me, a wounded whisper amplified by moments into screaming psychedelia. He more collapsed than knelt before me, the pain behind his voice a manic wailing as he looked away, ashamed in his weakness to look ourselves in the eyes.

“I love you,” I told him as the sun washed over us, and found myself alone before the zenith of redemption.

 

 

 

Random Update

This is my first update since early April. Seeing as how it is almost July, I should explain that most of my writing has been, of late, either in an academic vein or published under the collaborative blogging endeavor known as Project Group Think (also on wordpress, no spaces in the username.) The novel is still in progress, though I have ceased predicting deadlines due to the not infrequent extensions of the work’s projected length and the unpredictability of my own schedule. Hopefully, the site will see some new content soon, at which point some cleanup and possible reformatting may also be in order.

To summarize” the site is still running, the novel is still being written, and you should amuse yourself at projectgroupthink.wordpress.com.

Peace, Groove, and Wisdom,

-Michael

Misapplied Philosophy

Why are Gushers © fruit snacks so tasty? Perhaps it is because, like the once-popular Warhead, they involve the pleasant symbiosis of a sweet shell and a juicy center? This at first would seem plausible, but grapes too meet these criteria. In fact, this is all any fruit is – a sweet shell with a juicy center. We even synthesize Gushers to taste like actual fruit! Why all this fuss when we might simply dismiss the Gusher and continue with our grape-y bliss?

Of course, discontinuing Gushers could have unknown economic detriments. Under the capitalist system, it is politically imperative that synthesized food products be given unique Pronouns © and sold to us and our nutritional deficit. Then again, what’s more important, health or comfort? Isn’t the former merely a form of the latter?
We also must consider the drastic social implications of this decision. For example, the grape may be offensive to some women, due to its status as a fruit – the perpetrative word in such sexually-laden colloquialisms as “forbidden fruit” and “fruit of the womb.” A quick thought to “poppin’ cherries” should kibosh the subject outright.
Gays, too, may be offended by the term fruit. This is why we have classes in “Queer Theory,” not “Fruit Theory.” Then again, isn’t the word “fruit” more positively conceived than the word “queer?’ Fruits are juicy, low in calories, and well-liked by people of taste – qualities which are attractive to people of all sexual persuasions.

This, it seems, may be the problem – all people enjoy fruit, whereas what is uniquely beautiful to some may be found queer by the majority. This argument collapses when one realizes that either X) there is no phenomena to which the agent ascribes the evaluative property of queerness, or ~X) the argument’s appeal to queerness necessarily presupposes a hetero perspective.

What we are left with are two distinct but equally pivotal questions; one concerning the value of fruit as such versus that of synthesized fruit morsels, and one pertaining to the ascription or relation of fruitness to various particulars. Thus, the debate must be dichotomized into two fields: fruit-sophy and metafruit-sophy. Never to be forgotten is the perspective of Asian fruitsophy, that fruit is Gushers and Gushers are fruit (G ↔ F), but this view is still not understood widely enough to present an immediate threat to our well-entrenched academe.

As there are particualrs within the category “fruit,” so must we concern ourselves with various and disparate “fruit-perceivers.” Are we then concerned with the secondary qualities of fruit, or the first order qualities of individual fruit-agent relations (fRx)?

These questions will surely puzzle fruitosophers for a decade or so, before some smart-ass meta-head asks what happens when someone creates a synthetic fruit or a natural fruit snack, through advanced culinary chemistry or genetically engineered Gushers plants. That useful little contribution will earn some lucky son of a bitch tenure.

In the end, very much will inevitably hinge on whether or not fruit exists in a material universe or as an artificial construction a la the Matrix. What happens when one contrasts an artificial mental construction of a natural Gushers plant and a materially existent synthesized grapevine? What if there exists a supra-present Grapeality over and around our own universe, a view endorsed by a staggering percentage of phenomenologist mushroomheads?

Don’t miss the answers to these and other maddening questions in the next action-packed installment of “Brett’s Frustrated Adventures in Ivory Tower Land.” Stay tuned!

P.S. This is pretty much what I do for a living.

The New Arthurian Legend

A drought had stricken Dublin
No liquid left but tears
Sure, the rivers still were flowin’
But they’d drunk up all the beer!

Oh woe! had stricken Dublin
All the people bowed and prayed
When lo, there came a hero
And Arthur was his name

Young Arthur was a magic lad
With spells learned from the Druids
He traveled to the Faerie realm
In search of potent fluids

To guard their nectar, horrid specters
And fiends assailed him daily
But not-a-one withstood the wrath
Of Arthur’s fierce shillelagh!

He fought and fought, ’till at last he thought
To search a place worth lookin’
Wherein he spied, with his falcon’s eye
The Dagda’s kettle cookin’

“Good Dagda, Dublin needs your ale,”
He asked the spirit’s mercy
“The men grow pale, the women wail
The wee ones’re getting’ thirsty!”

But Dagda denied, and our hero cried
“Great fool, you think I’m finished?
I’ll have your brew, before I’m through,
Or my name’s not Arthur Guinness!”

Irish proud, he yelled aloud
His voice rang out like thunder
“That beer will flood the streets this night
By charity or plunder!”

He ran home to his dressing chest,
His enemy outwittin’,
And stole once more to the Faerie realm
Disguised as a Briton

As he approached the Dagda’s lair,
He hummed a jaunty ditty,
With spring in step, he onward schlepped,
To hydrate his good city

A drinking match, he would propose
A sand-bagger’s solution
For a cornered hat and polished spats
Undersell one’s constitution

“Good chap!” he called in cheery tones
Before the Dagda’s kettle
“My tea’s run dry, do be a sport
And prove your liver’s mettle!”

If you should drink me under, sir,
A handsome sum I’ll pay,
But if your stomach fails you,
I will have your ale this day.”

The Dagda’s howling shook the ground
In disbelieving pride,
Till tears rolled down his giant’s face
And laughter tore his sides

“What merriment this jester brings
A holler and a hoot, he!”
The Dagda laughed, whilst Arthur moved
To steal the frothy booty

Yet longer did the Dagda howl
Fresh waves of laughter bubblin’
That ere he knew he’d lost his brew
Arthur’d booked it back to Dublin

Where Saint James Gate still sings his praise
With pints and loving smiles
“Long live good Arthur! Slainte! Cheers!
All hail the Emerald Isle!

The Grasshopper and The Ant

The Grasshopper and the Ant

Once upon a time, there lived a grasshopper. He was a friendly grasshopper, and very smart, but never long on cash. This did not bother him, however, because he had lots of friends, and good books, and the occasional bowl or two to keep him mellow. Besides, his field was relatively wealthy, and the grasshoppers in charge were willing to support him if he would study great grasshopping minds and teach future grasshoppers about philosophy.

One day, however, a colony of army ants moved into the grasshopper’s field, and started to do very bad things. They sent troops into other fields, killing innocent creatures and spending all of the money on bombs and guns. This made the grasshopper very sad, so, ever the philosophe, he elected to reason with his unwelcome neighbors. He told them that they should not go about declaring war on people’s fields, because it was not very nice, and because they were wasting all of the money. Unfortunately, no one listened to the grasshopper, and thousands of insect lives were wasted needlessly. No one seemed to care, however, except for the lonely grasshopper, locked quietly in his room with his books.

As time went on, the ants spent more and more, until there was hardly any money left in the field. It was a hard time for the insect colony, and finally some ants knocked on the grasshopper’s door. They told him that he was lazy, and should go and work to raise money for the rest of them, because their army was failing, and they had little food. They begged, they threatened, and they questioned his patriotism, until finally the grasshopper could take no more. Reclining in his grassy field, he felt the wind on his antennae, and thought about how beautiful life was without ants. Lighting a joint, he breathed deeply, and politely told them all to jump off of the highest fucking rock in the meadow.

The ants were very, very sad, and the grasshopper laughed as the world kept burning.

THE END