I figured I'd use this space to display things I have written in the past, either from LJ or wherever, that I liked enough to share with people.

Sometimes they will be long, most times they will be short. Some will be profanity-laced, some will be ... less profanity-laced. Anyway, hope you enjoy. :)

---

6/15/2004
Near Death
Dear gentle readers,

Life is a mystery. It's a blessing in disguise. It's also crazy and strange. Tonight, I will tell a tale of an experience that I must have repressed out of embarassment, because I didn't remember it until a chance brain wave last eve.

I was almost killed by a marshmallow.

At the tender age of ten years young (approximated, for I do not remember specifically the year), I was preparing for a summer afternoon bonfire with my parents. We had purchased comestibles such as hot dogs and jumbo marshmallows to puncture with sticks and roast over the fire. I was an excited young lad at this prospect. While in the backyard with my mother, we broke open the bag of jumbo marshmallows eagerly, and I decided to sample the raw merchandise. I gulped with aplomb at the pillowy, sugary goodness. In point of fact, I practically inhaled this marshmallow. But not practically, actually. I inhaled the jumbo marshmallow so quickly that it bypassed my teeth and tongue entirely and made its home just behind my uvula. Well, my throat's odd couple, the esophagus and trachea, did not like this new living arrangement. In fact, they threatened to cut me off. And they did. And I started to choke. And it was not good.

My mother noticed the rebellion my body was having against the intruder, and, as mothers do, she knew what was wrong and how to fix it. And I was Heimliched back to safety, while the evil (and now soggy) marshmallow found its new home in the grass. Luckily, I was only choking for a few seconds, but it still was quite disturbing. So disturbing in fact, that I waited a whole minute before eating another marshmallow. But I learned my lesson. I made sure to chew extra carefully.

So, ladies and gentlemen, there are lots of serious problems in life. You may find yourself facing one or several now or in the future. In fact, you can depend on it. But, as you have read this tale of ... something, you will be better off, because, you can face your problems with confidence, knowing that it could be much, much worse...

You could be killed by a marshmallow.

Damn those evil marshmallows! They'll be the death of us all! :angry:

Anyways, nice story.

Ehehe, I actually had a rather similar experience with a marble when I was younger...

'S a nicely written tale. I look forward to seeing more bits of Barry-writing here in the future. ^^

Thank you for the compliments. :happy:

That's probably one of the happier/funnier things I"ve got to share. A lot of what's coming here might be whistling a different tune.

But I'll definitely mix it up.

10/19/2004

I want to live! I want to cheer on the world without it dumping me for a goddamn football player. I want to taste the experience of the tallest mountains, because it must taste like chicken. Sweet, sweet life, dipped in chocolate. Wound around with sugar coating and baked at 350 degrees F. A confection for an erection. The brain-dead masses can only sit and squirm as I declare total victory, because the terms are mine and mine alone! That'll show them! Fuck the people that can't grasp the truth so simple that it lies forgotten in third-grade history books! They can't know what I know. They can't fear and love the world with such intensity. They can't divine the easy wisdom in a raised eyebrow. I will take hold of the universe and make it mine. I will fold it into a paper airplane and sail it out the window of time. I'll do what I please, because I am me and can do so. I won't do what you please, because I can never fully know it. I can approximate and shift accordingly. But I will only do so when it lines up with my ideals. I will comfort every single person on the planet if necessary. I will look after everybody that needs a friend, dangle their fears from the window, and threaten to let go. I will jump-start the world, person by person. They will not know what hit them, but they will know that it is good. I will rule all with an iron fist made of plush. I will give it all up while still retaining control. I will fall in love recklessly and leave tire marks all over my heart. I will hate with pure pleasure, but never directed. Abstract hate is the virtue of the moment. People are love, organization is hate. Dissuade the masses from adopting another sweetheart and instead look to the frayed edges of humanity for your saviors, you goddamned idolaters. Take your reality TV and go back to Transylvania, move back in with Uncle Vlad, and start a blood factory, you dullard! If you're going to waste a brain, make it somebody else's. Use yours to invent new words and be a general delight. Be a festering pimple on the back of humdrummery. Fight your battles in the backseats of cars at night, on the beds of teenagers, in the showers of humanity, not in wide fields where blood can pool and kill the grass. What did the grass ever do? Save the world, one person at a time.

11/12/2002
Lines

Lines;
Both grandiose and miniscule swirlings,
converging to craft abstractions
An ordered set for a disordered appetite whet
Disorder
Discord
Recorder
Revolver;
Solution for the destitute
Misunderstood by everyone, but only by myself
Shelves of paper scraps, filled by misled maps
Misled
Misread
Retread
Retry;
A golden grumble that most never make
The world comes in new colors
More joyful is the day with a reprieve on display
Reprieve
Retrieve
Disbelieve
Disagree;
Sense is broken like another weak heart,
but clear are the workings of abstractions again
A disordered set that makes the composed sweat
Compose
Combine
Align
Lines

12/19/2002
The Cycle of Music

Conventional card-carrying crackheads cry,
Destroying dramamine dreams, drinking dry drops of
Ether, entertaining everybody extraordinarily,
Falling face-flat, floors fly, fantasies of
Gray goblins grabbing groins greedily,
Aural apprentices author amazing alliterations of
Beauty, bringing big business bastards brandishing ballpoints.

Bump for some RAP. ;p

12/5/2002
Freestyle Rap: Volume XV

I be back again from a midnight expedition
Rappin' hardcore like I was cast into perdition
Pissin'
on your weak words
Meal for the birds
You been goin to classes, alright
Now to see what you done learned tonight:
"a b c d e f G
h i j k lmno P
q r s t u V
w x y and Z
Now I know my ABCs
Won't you come and rap with me"

I'm the rap necromancer
Raisin' the dead as my answer
on Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen
Find Santa more ho-ho-hos for deep dickin'
Betwixt 'n' between
smackin' rappers like poteen
Leavin' em fucked up with faces deep green
Keen sight keeps me alive
My raps got the jive
Glory be, the funk's on me
Slogan's cute but fuck you Nike
Before my raps even giant corporations flee

My mind surprises with five new rhymes in a second's time
derive crimes and connive, contrive another set of rhymes
while you're gaping like a mime
I deprive
all of a possible victory
Just candle wicks to me
Put 'em out one by one
Ruining your fun
Got y'all praisin' like nuns
Cuz I'm the victor before I'm even done

Barry got rhymes, yo. :thug:

Wow. I never got a chance to read the first one. I've pretty much stayed out of this section of the forum, but I'm glad I took a glance into this thread.

I particularly liked "Near Death" and "The Cycle Of Music".

Did you just add that or has that been there? :tongue:

Well, to be fair, the thread had died before you joined, but thanks for the compliments.

I'll continue mining the vast cornfields of my Livejournal for this thread. ;p

5/30/2006
restless

Pardon me while I disregard rational thought and go on a journey. This journey is to nowhere in particular, but it's of the utmost importance. I'll fly first-class to reach destination unknown. I'll force the plane to stop and everyone aboard to smell the daisies, even if there's no daisies blooming, even if it's the middle of winter, even if everybody's nose is stuffed up, even if we're in the middle of the ocean. There are some goddamned daisies. I'll force everyone to become artists for art's sake, then try to take it back when I'm surpassed a thousand-fold. We have reached our destination: sunny me. Wait, where's the sun? Hidden behind the clouds of self-doubt, once again. Forecasts call for light and steady showers with a chance of sun later on. Fuck that, I'm here now. I don't want a chance of sun later on, I want sun right now. I want water-boiling, earth-scorching sun, delivered to me on a silver platter by Tupac fucking Shakur. Yeah, I know he's "dead," but he's still making albums. And people are still buying them. They're endorsed by popular culture! Popular culture is the culture to end all culture, it seems. I mean, it's not important to discern whether you like something, right? As long as it makes you have a higher social standing, where you can soon gain access to more money and power. Because money and power is the American way! Who gives a fuck about your fellow man when you can use that loophole to sue him and make seven digits! BECAUSE IT'S JUST THAT FUCKING EASY. The showers have begun, I see. This me wasn't what I saw in my travel agent's guidebook. Maybe I can sue her and make back my flight fare and a few thousand for punitive damages for fraud. This me isn't the me everyone talks about. This me is just a rainy, stormy barren piece of rock with no real-estate possibilities, no tourist attractions, and for fuck's sake, no complementary bottles of water? Get me back to America, where I can buy and fuck anyone!

The natives peek out. Now that that guy is gone, they can show the real charms of me to the people who took an extra second to stick around and maybe learn something. Hey, me isn't so bad after all. After the rain, there's a charming warmth that spreads like wildfire, infecting everyone that feels it. There's a hot spot or two where people can be entertained for hours. I think they said something about this in the brochure, but damned if it doesn't take a little while to discover, does it Mabel? Maybe there's a place for people to be in me after all, I find. If they spend the time to find it, I can be a pretty hospitable locale. So as I get back on the plane that will shuttle me away from me, I take the time to thank those silly few that didn't want to rule over all who oppose, or even those who agree, too. Those silly few that took the time to discover those little hidden spots that are superb, that make people come back to me. It's those silly few that are writing those brochures, and those silly few that are making me a haven for like-minded people that want to connect. Pretty soon me will even be an underground sensation, suddenly courted and buzzed about by those who wish to buy and fuck their fellow man. And suddenly, me will be pushed to the limelight, ready to join popular culture. And me will collectively say, fuck you.

5/17/2004
ugly

It is late Sunday night as I write this missive, heart jammed full of emptiness. A strange mixture of emotion clouds my head. Therein lies the narrow, distressing ache of self-pity, the distance of logical thought, and the constant clicking and whirring of thoughts and memories both sublime and painful racing behind my retinas. As is with all feeling I have dealt with during my visit to life, the heart shouts louder, but the brain wins in the end, temporarily. The brain is not deaf, although I cannot help but wish it was. The wail of the emotional me can mortally rend the rational. I know what is, but I still cannot feel it. And so, what I can feel drifts through my skin and into the night like a strand of hair caught on a strong updraft, leaving a void. A void that I cannot describe, yet know all so well. The feel of a cold pillow between my arms at night. The fear of being ensnared for all time in a quicksand poured and mixed by mine own hands. The swift, breaking throb of pain that doubles over my cognitive faculty and renders it moot for minutes at a time. The void that will run and hide when good things come, but will creep back with a smirk as I sit in a quiet room, blinded by the pounding thoughts in my head. It murders the hope that always dies so young, so tragically. Fury personified is the burning in my chest as I realize that once again, I am the murderer.

---

(something to balance the depressing thing above)

4/16/2005
The Love of the Butterfly

Floating in the pillowy haze of a tired thought,
I cannot help but feel the gouges of my flesh,
the ache of bone that has taken too much.

I am ready to lose myself in it forever,
to drift away and be a distant mystery to the future,
but the love of the butterfly brings me back.

The haze rushes around me, filling my ears with
thirty airplanes upon takeoff, destroying the honing sense
I have adapted for such frequent flyer departures.

I can find no way out that will save me from this,
my precious sense lost in this maddening devolvement of life,
but the love of the butterfly guides me through.

The haze thickens in my eyes, blocking vision and breaking
up all pathways I had known, rendering knowledge useless
like the shriveled wings I thought I had kept.

I can see nothing but the glittering, jeweled daggers,
for they are waiting to pierce me at every turn,
but the love of the butterfly illuminates the way.

The haze burns with ice, numbing my skin and sending
me into paroxysms, obliterating my sense of direction
that had been nurtured for decades on twisting roads.

I have nothing left in me that can sense the right way,
and the haze thinks it has me, but no, it does not,
for the love of the butterfly envelops me in warmth and takes me home.

Hello poor thread, have some life.

---
To Love Someone
March 2004

To love someone is the greatest gift,
Or the greatest agony...

We would last forever when we kissed
You were my game I could always win
Your hair warmed me like nothing else could
But now cold night creeps over my skin

Your voice sang promises of devotion
Your eyes showed the sparkles of love
Your face expressed the deepest of feeling,
But now blackness falls down from above

Why have you run away from me,
The most beautiful one to my eyes?
Your picture is all I have left
With each glance a part of me dies

Every hour my mind is your playground
You dance back and forth in my head
Your laugh makes my smile so cheshire,
But I feel like I'm better off dead

Your embrace makes me feel like I'm wanted
Your stunning kiss drives my doubt away
Your body brings pleasure forever,
But all must end and it ends today

Why have you run away from me,
The most beautiful one to my eyes?
Your picture is all I have left
With each glance a part of me dies

My eyes cannot help but seek you out
I cannot help but avert my gaze
My body cannot help but want your touch
I cannot help but avoid your ways

Why have you run away from me,
The most beautiful one to my eyes?
Your picture is all I have left
With each glance a part of me dies

---

This is an untitled poem I wrote back in high school in the style of "Jabberwocky," the poem by Lewis Carroll that actually added new words to the English lexicon.

The adventurers were brave that night,
And the cawthy moon was full.
They thittled over their awful blight,
And lumbled to the tull.

A single lurker rested at the maw,
A muffled toum it made.
It warned the men of the gromping graw,
And the sleemy Forsinade!

The smaffish men advanced anyway,
And entered the darkened pit,
A torch smicked and preached the lovely day,
And all gasped a cammanit.

The pit was full of crobbish beasts,
Gibbering mouthers and smagged snappers,
They swithled and bothled in largish treasts,
And the adventurers ran from the happers.

Only one frightened soul survived that night,
He creethes to tell this tale,
He delivers his listeners quite a fright,
And ends it with a swail.

The adventurers were brave that night,
And the cawthy moon was full.
They thittled over their awful blight,
And lumbled to the tull.

Hey, Swig's Friend..

Have you ever thought of making a declamation or a monologue?

I think you could make a good one :happy:

I have not, at least consciously, written anything like that.

Thanks for the idea. :)

Sure

And if you do, I would like to see it ^^

Universe Extension
9/17/2003

A cry of loneliness heard naught but by one who will never answer
A scratch at the face of the fates
A teardrop falls with the force of a wrecking ball
An epiphany reveals the truth that fought and died a hopeless war

There is nothing more, the sweetest pain of all
Descend into the darkness of the imagination
Fight the creatures that mumble and moan within, then
Forget the crippled-bird anguish and live another day

A cry of loneliness heard naught but by two who will never answer
A dart in the body of desire
A teardrop falls and dooms the world
A confirmation reveals the truth that rests peacefully at the foot of the bed

There is nothing more, the sweetest pain of all
Descend into the darkness of the septic non-reality
Fight the nausea that threatens to consume, then
Forget the broken-neck anguish and live another day

A cry of loneliness heard naught
A knife in the back of a corpse
A teardrop falls harmlessly to the concrete
A strengthing of the theory reveals all is as it should be

There is nothing more, the sweetest pain of all
Descend into the darkness of eternity
Fight all, because it is all, then
Forget it all and live another day