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Thursday, August 4, 2011

Dead Poets Society 2: The Dead Shall Rise

Please be aware that the following blog entry you are about to read could be very damaging to your health. Those of a nervous disposition and anyone currently taking heart medication are advised to stop read right now and leave this page at once.

During my mid teen years, I occasionally knocked out a free flowing and eloquent poem to better verbalise my teenage frustration and curiosity. Long thought lost forever, it was only recently when clearing out a load of old junk that I happened to come across these lost masterpieces.

Reading them now in the cold light of day some 15 years later, it is clear to me that my teenage years were a festering mind funk of putrid wonderments and gibberish. I hereby present you, dear reader with the full, unedited and complete works of one WG Mullins.

I shall attempt to analysis and uncover the truths in each poem as we process. But be warned, the following words are not for the faint of heart. Together we shall delve deep into a troubled psyche and uncover unexplored emotions and anger. Peeling back the veneer of time and aged wisdom, we shall dissect and ingest all the clever word play, verse structure and symbolism entombed within these long lost masterpieces.

Strap on your Beatnik beret and sit back daddy-o. Things are about to get wild.

Poem 1:

The Night of my Life

I’ve started smiling
But for no reward
They look at me with carrots for cats
Common people.

Drink, for my thumb has a beer
Cool man, I mean really cool.

Walking is a trip of life with empty shells
But where are the cracks?
IN THE BIN!

23-24, why are bats bind?
Owhhh, why are bats blind?
Maybe because I have 9 legs.

I AM BLIND!

I have hurt a tea bag.
His brown blood flows forth from his soggy skin
Why do I treat it so bad?
Ah, ah ahhh, yeeeeeeeeees.

Carrot, cat, kick, kite, car, kill.
Kit Kat?

Has it gone bright black?

Ah “The Night of my Life”. An action packed and energy filled far out trip into a universe of infinite possibilities and dangers. Currently negotiations are on-going for a feature film adaptation.

Let us analyse.

The first verse is a clear indication that I had recently had some sort of good news, which was not shared with my nearest and dearest. Carrots for cats would suggest that I was in combat with some strange, as to yet undiscovered vegetable/house pet hybrid. I can only assume that they were attempting to take over the work and replace the “common people” with “Catots” overlords.

In the second verse things start to get a little clearer. “Drink, for my thumb has a beer” is a clear indication that the writer has supplemented the childhood thumb sucking tradition for consumption of alcohol. A damning indictment of modern parenting standards? I think so.

In verse three we find our protagonist continuing his combat with the catots, “walking is a trip of life with empty shells”.  An obvious reference to the now empty “pods” that the evil hybrid creatures and be born in. An excellent verse for story progression and character development. “But where are the cracks?” he asks. Searching, as are we all for answers in these dark times. “IN THE BIN!”. And the first act draws to a close with realisation that answers cannot be found by looking at the cracks, but through the cracks! Through the holes that we all have within us, allowing us to combat evil in new ways.

Verse four is where the action really starts to crank up. “23-24, why are the bats blind?” is a reference to the power of sonar. Hearing the truth if you will, which can be half the battle when battling something evil. Continued questioning prevails throughout this verse. It is not enough to shout out the truth, you must repeat it and repeat it until the message gets through that we are under attack and something needs to be done. “Maybe because I have 9 legs.” SHOCK! The protagonist has been struck down by the mutating alien virus he has been trying to stop. He doesn’t have much time, he is racing against the clock in order to save the world.

I AM BLIND! The protagonist has lost his way, he is now questioning himself and his ability to lead the fight back against the alien hybrids. A classic third act twist.

Now we get to the big finally action verse. Realising that there is nothing to be done, but wipe them all out, our hero attacks, and attacks hard. He scythes through the evil hybrids, knowing that they are just following their primal instincts and know no better, but he cares no. Blood flows and the body count stacks up. This is a dark day indeed.

“Carrot, cat, kick, kite, care, kill. Kit Kat?” Could there have been a more eloquent and powerful sentence ever written in the English language? If there is then I certainly haven’t read it!
The Catots slowly die, through kicks, kites and kills. All that is left is the metaphorical “Kit Kat”. A symbolic breaking of the two wafers of our different civilisations. Always to be interconnected, but never to be together. Powerful, powerful stuff.

Has it gone bright black? The hero dies I think. Or there’s a power cut or something. Maybe a bulb goes out?



Now onto “We Apologise for the Delay”. A damming and ahead of its time study of the effect of crass consumerism and commercialisation have on a modern society. Read it and weep for the lost generation.

We Apologise for the Delay

Time, it is an eternal struggle.
But for some it is an excuse
The cooperate fat boys
Fat bellies squashing the life from the belly buttons.

(The life of a belly button)

I see it coming towards me
Squashhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The lie, they lie, why do they lie to me?
Do they think I am scared of bellies?
Nooooooooooooooo.

I AM ANGRY

(The life of a belly)

Shall we? No
Shall we? No
Shall we? No
Shall we? No
Shall we? No
Shall we? Yeeeeeeee… No

HA HA

They think I am a faceless belly button
But no
My belly will make them pay.

Brum Brum


Now let us analyse.

Verse one sets the stage of an epic battle that shall ring throughout the ages. We are not just fighting cooperate greed and callousness, we are fighting for the very future of our souls. The poem starts with a stunningly clever and heart breaking prologue. “Time, it is an eternal struggle.” No matter where I go or what I do, I feel this will always be the most personal and real sentence I have ever written. It just doesn’t get better than that. But if that wasn’t good enough, I then go on to expand from this original opening salvo and continue to blow the readers mind wide open! “But for some it is an excuse, the cooperate fat boys, fat bellies squashing the life from the belly buttons.” WOW! How I was allowed to get away with writing such incendiary and dangerous prose back then I will never know. Taking aim directly at the highest echelons of government and Royalty, I tear down the very building blocks of dogmatic control that enslave the population of this great planet. Is this first verse responsible for the end of Communism? I don’t know, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t? But it’s just a bit funny that they both seemed to occur at the same time isn’t it?

The second verse continues the great tradition of rebel poetry by taking on the target in the most direct and dangerous way possible. Through the metaphorical symbolism of the belly button. “Squashhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” I said! Yes, I said it! And I meant it!!!! Never let it be said that I am afraid to be controversial and daring. I would carve every letter of that sweet, sweet word into the chambers of Government if they would let me. Forever a statement to the power and fighting spirit of the belly button.

Verse three moves into high gear. The scared foolish power centres of the world combine in an attempt to stop this revolution. Offering pennies for souls and promises for placate people. The constant “Shall we? No”, a verse of a child’s tears as the powerful and strong bring down the full force of the corrupt upon an innocent civilisation.

Thinking they have won, verse 4 gives us a complete 180 as the masses fight back against their evil oppressors. “They think I am a faceless belly button, but no, my belly will make them pay!” represents the collective joining together to no longer be a belly button, but to be the BELLY! In a shocking twist that will leave M. Night Shyamalan crapping himself we discover that the belly buttons are now the bellies. Forever doomed to repeat the cycle of button and belly for the rest of time.

“Brum brum”. Yes, brum brum indeed. Brum brum indeed….



Finally we come to “No Title”. The most heart aching and personal of my poems. Even reading it now brings a tear to my eye.

Or at least it would if I could actually remember what it was about? Honestly, I have no friggin idea. I think I was just randomly writing down words with no real sense of what and where they were going. Maybe it was some kind of spontaneous prose that I was working on, but it’s more likely to be a bunch of random song lyrics jumbled together.

No Title

Why is life such a bitch
Giving you crap and feeding you shit
When all day long all……
What is it that makes me queasy?
You want is to wear pyjamas in the day time.
Doctors gives ohhhh-hhhh-afternoon
Coffee spoons and books to beat the bed with
Playback illness?

Ohhhh-ohhhhh-ohhhhhh
Measured with coffee spoons.
I am shrinking!
Tiny –CRASH –BANG
Child has an accident
No illness, blue or white hair is hard
Hmmm, hmmmm, girl doesn’t belong
Marks make her evilllll

Hmmm, hmmmm, hmm
Church on the road
Don’t understand?
Parents, evil beard, stopping on floor

Hmmm, hmmm, hmm, hmmm, ahhhhhh
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
Ahhhhhhh, ahhhh
Ahhhhhhhhh
Finish, frogs, fighting on my head an in the tent
Nature is evil
Tools are sharp and fingers look like wilder beasts
Shades of my body are laughing
Don’t get it?
Neither did the animals.
DIE!!!!!!!!!!


Let us analyse.

Uhmmm. Ok. This is where things start to get a bit weird. Did I ever mention that I spent a part of my teens locked up in a mental institution for the criminally insane?

I honestly think this poem may have been the one that cost me put there. I don’t even remember writing it, and bizarrely the original looks like it has been written in human blood. Though not mine… For some reason I remember it isn’t mine.

A rambling and incoherent jumble of “ahhhh” and “hmmmm”, I feel confident that this poem was in fact a statement of intent to be posted to the Police before I began my crime spree.

I even remember buying a hammer, shovel and knee pads after writing this poem. What the knee pads were for remains lost in the fog of time, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with poisoning the countries water supply. Is that weird? Maybe.

Thankfully I started taking medication after this incident and have not had a problem since. I’m doing so well that I stopped taking the meds last week and now feel completely fine. In fact, I feel so fine that I think I may write a new poem for the first time in 15 years!

Soon

I’m coming people, coming to get you all
I’ve been asleep for a long while, but now I am awake
Awake like the apple in the orchid that knows no pain

Evil seeping into my eyes like a clown into the night
Honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk
Dinky donk?

I look over the hill and sky, my domain, my prison, my wimberry tart
Custard, cream, single or double? No matter, all cream is the heart of a mother
MOTHER! She makes me listen to the sun. No sun, just rays of hats

Tip topping toeing tying tired teach tell tiddle.
Soon the darkness will come
Soon I will speak with the power of a cat on fire

LIFE/LIVE/little Billy don’t know what a toothbrush is
Weep for Billy
Weep for his jaws of death!

I gotta say, I’ve gotten so much better at this down the years.

2 comments:

rhoda said...

mr welshguy,
thank you so much for posting this. it must have taken great courage on your part to expose your innermost being in so naked, trembling and radiant a manner. we look forward to anything else you may dare to post.

Unknown said...

I appreciate the commentary, which I read only after I've read the poems out loud and made my own associations. It's interesting but humbling to learn how far off the mark I invariably am.