Mr. Snake All Alone

There are 1038 practicing immortals on the Earth
they practice every day
not to die
and fear
failure
in the future

Mr. Snake sheds away the years
and keeps each skin
in an onyx closet
his own museum

Gilgamesh is in the U.A.E.
He drinks only bottled water
and complains about the TV

Mr. Snake does not complain
even when people
confuse him with the Devil
"I get that alot,"
He says coily.

Lillith is in Paris
Courting the young and strong
But when she drinks too much
as she does too often
She talks about her first husband
and how she should have never left him

Mr. Snake Doesn't date
warm blooded girls
never understand him
and his own kind
regard him too cooly
dismissing
tongues flicking
at his bad smell and taste

Cain, would not agree with Lilith
He thought his father weak
He's in New York
up above the fray
sitting a chair lined with the skin
ripped from some unfortunate beast
He doesn't like holidays
and has bad relationships with his employees
and is
perversely
agnostic

Denial is not just a river in Africa

Mr. Snake
does not deny
His role in making
the Earth we know today
But is now honest
at least enough
To say he did
it all from
jealousy
how he loved
Eve

He still dreams of her still in his month long slumbers

Loki's still bound
and dreams of
world's end
Dionysius is still drunk
last seen
with a turkish
whore

and Mr. Snake
sometimes at night
will lie on his cold stone floor
listening to modern beats
reverberating
in vaulted chambers

The Wandering Jew is in jail
hitchhiking
The Daughter of Sun
is on welfare
The Hero Twins are picking
grapes in oregon

Money is a often a mystery to immortals

Mr. Snake has no problems
He was an apothecary
in old days
when he felt healing
was atonement
now for centuries
a lawyer
of one sort or another
He is doing very well
Dressed so severe
in black
and yellow

But being well
a deep subject
when forever
is just another day
and at night
as lights go out
one by one
Even Mr. Snake
feels misgivings
on his cold
stone floors

A tail
carefully hidden
unfurls
uncoils
a scaly smoke ring
now half mythology
grasps and brings
the phone
the modern
seriphim
and calls

"Hello Lillith?....
....What are you doing?"

There are 1038
practicing
immortals
in the world
God help them all

~ M. Wolff

A Note From Eleanor Rigby

She was born innocent
a blank slate
then her life began

~ E. Rigby

Where Was I?

Where was I when you needed me the most
Why was I just a dream in your darkness
Where was I when you needed to hear my voice
Why didn't I take away your sadness

Where was I when you were lying, bleeding
Why didn't I hear you calling to me
Where was I when you closed your eyes
Why didn't I know it wasn't alright

Where was I when the life had left your veins
Why didn't I wonder what was wrong
Where was I when night had overcome your day
Why did I take so long?

Where was I when your world almost stopped turning
Why didn't I notice anything amiss
What was I doing when for a second, you stopped believing
And why didn't I think anything of it?

Where was I when the questions crept into your mind
Why was I so oblivious
Where was I when your tears blocked out the light
Why did I not know somehow?

Where was I when you were at death's door
How did I not understand
Where was I when it was almost all over
How could I not have cared?

Where was I when you needed me the most?
Why was I just a dream in your darkness?
Where was I, tell me God, where was I when the light almost went out?
And then, and then....and then what would I have done?

~ Mike

The S.o.C. Freestyler says 'think before you speak'

Couple of updates. First, I've decided to open this blog up to everyone, so if anyone feels like linking it at this point, feel free. Also, if anyone wants to submit something, send it here. Make sure to check out the new Shoutbox in the side panel; it's called "Conundrums" and you can use it to help me answer some questions that plague me from time to time. Finally, look for more lyrics from Mike early next week.

Had a nice conversation with the always edifying Iron Gentleman yesterday. Since the idea here is to respond artistically and that has yet to be reflected, I figured I'd post my immediate response to our little chat.

---

And just like that
   we're in evocative elocution
extra-sensory two-way triple loaded ma-
tricks of matrices all their own
talking magik wordz

Espers of ether expounding
the truth beneath truth.
I'm all st-i-l-ted
thinking 'souls on the shoe walk away'
when that scatterling sounds
from an alien realm, in perfect pitch and typography:

We shan't deduce ourselves too much.

Instigator, Propagator, 'Cross Lands Infiltrator

Two or three years ago, I was sitting in the cafeteria at school when I stumbled upon this here napkin. Turns out my friend, the Iron Gentleman , jotted it down and stuck it in the middle of the holder. I'm a big fan of this kind of anonymous networking and, though I found out who wrote it, I think the idea fits this blog. Leaving notes or bits of poetry in library books appeals to me too. Check out Found Magazine for similar odd finds. People have been known to leave their own little secrets in The PostSecret book , too.

Mathos over Mythos

Logos is on the perch, and I feel on the verge of accumulating massive XP. Ever feel like that? Though I'm failing to stimulate much interest in communal art, I have been encouraged by a few non-commenters to keep it up. So I dug up an old poem that I wrote for a good friend of mine a few years ago. I think it conveys some of what I wanted this site to become (props to anyone who can pick out all the Chuck Thompson references in this post). That said, a bit of pathos for you:

---

Every day you and I see
a baby with two heads
and someone else who is
headless. Every day it becomes
harder to accept
that God does not interfere.
It was easier once
but now we are responsible.

Perhaps, though, Kant was a prophet.
If you can accept
that, God looks after us.
We affirm life
by grieving
        we create good
so that we may grieve.

Put the lyme in the coconut.
We will become parasitic
twins. Fetus in fetu,
one inside the other inside another
without extremities.

We will become
a creature on Earth
laughing and grieving.