The Resolution

An inverted season and another impromptu alibi

for why I haven't quieted the mind to escape

the hive


Drudgery on a production line

to fertalize neurosis


Looks and laughs shared by inmates

in cages made of skin and clocks


Another number assigned to identify a

corporate relation to the system,

a prole role as an extra in a comedy for the gods


A resolution is conjured arbitrarily

for the annual let down of tradition


This time it will be different.

This time it will be.

"Modernity Revisited" a Poem by Allen Masterson

All around, digital clocks involuntarily report time,

HD images turn leaves, perpetually color

Loops of an Autumnal Equinox

Pixelation love affairs, 3D trysts in phantasmagoria

While slick Presidents strut up to hovering tele prompters to

Haunt our broken dreams of an abstracted concept of change

A shoe, a book, a naked man

Can’t shatter the manufactured reality propagated

To enslave us with catch phrases developed in focus groups

Polls read the pulse of dying consumers in death throws

On wireless worlds where words shed their meaning with

A wanton dictionary’s evolutionary Newspeak whisper

Our days burn upon us with solar flares that melt our

Individual icecaps, drown our individual expression

In seas of analog egos

We can only hope to meet on the other side

Of fiber optic gateways, and modem magic

To love in purity, having escaped

To the infinite breath-Nature

E version of 1000th Monkey with Apocalypse Retrofitted

1000th Monkey (E Version)

The Dust is in the Detail by Allen Masterson

I've worked hard most of my adult life. I'm talking "fingers to the bone" type work. I've only had a few cushy jobs like; bank teller, suit salesman, security guy. Most of my employment history sounds like a "what's what" of careers which are detrimental to one's health: screen printer, hod carrier, lumberyard guy, sign painter, gas tank removal, and the list goes on. I've never actually sat down and created a list of all the jobs I've suffered. I've never made a detailed list of my sexcapades, either. I guess I'm not a list type a guy.

My latest increment in Job Purgatory, is auto detailer. With all my previous experience with mind-numbing work, I fit into this occupation like a murderer fits into a noose.

"Misanthropic Me" takes over as I clean the filth of others from between the seats of Ford Focus's,  Mercury Grand Marques, Flex Fuel Expeditions, yada-yada.

Everything about car detailing sucks. Every piece of lint I find after the fact makes me hate the human race and the laws of physics. Cleaning chemicals coat my nostrils and leave my mouth tasting like I just ate a sandwich made by Jack Kevorkian.

I know I have bad Karma. There's no question in my mind I have toxic energy seeping through the walls of this particular incarnation. This may sound a bit defeatist to the average person.  No one wants to acknowledge their life may be influenced by factors beyond their observations. I have learned Eastern  ways to possibly minimize suffering due to the residue of bad Karma; but the discipline is monumental while the concept is fairly simple. In other other words, it's easier said than done.

I'm realistic enough to lay down my sword, pick up the Shop-vac hose, and curb my rage while sucking up the half melted fragments of a discarded Clark Bar under the driver's seat of a Ford Taurus. It's all for a good cause. I'm scrubbing away at the nastiest stains in my soul; to give my next vehicle that showroom shine...

Selfless Selfishness by Allen Masterson

We inhabit a planet comprised of many different systems. Our very natural environment is an intricate and beautiful system which most of us look upon with awe and wonder. We try and master Nature by instituting a system called "The Scientific Method". Human civilization is made up of many different systems; from global trade structures, to family units. Ideology and Theology play big roles in constructing systems created by humans. The systems created by Man and the system we witness in Nature are as different as nightmares and freshly squeezed orange juice.

As an individual, I attempted to make sense out of my environment by taking sides on certain issues, and finding fault with those which ran against the grain of my self-admitted conditioning.

Taking a stand and pointing out the injustices of my reality and perspective kind of validated my existence. If I could only make others see things the way I did, and inspire them to do the same, then I could look at reality and say, “I’m alive, I exist”.

I sharpened my rhetoric on whetstone barstools. I read Freud and Jung. I sought out the Extreme to get their perspective. I made errors of judgment. I had “AHA!” moments of complete delusional enlightenment. While in prison I examined the criminal mindset and mentality. I studied Eastern philosophy and practiced Zen meditation techniques. I experimented with entheogens (and still do) to face my hidden demons. I have brought myself to the brink of suicide and death just to catch a glimpse over the edge of it all. None of these methods have led me to join any political group, religion, adherent of any school of thought permanently, however.

I have often heard of great men who had gone through amazing tribulation, and even depravity, to emerge greater for their experiences. Most great and inspirational stories left from these persons of Herculean will are twisted and fragmented into quotes for speeches given by ideologues with ulterior motives. I often hear the great Martin Luther King Jr. quoted by politicians and media pundits who have just enough cunningness to get a camera on them or get majority vote out of a populace. It seems to me no one can translate the great lessons of another without attaching an agenda to it.

So here I sit with no seeming point of reference, and becoming more and more misanthropic by the hour. But I’m beginning to realize something significant I may have missed if I were at this point earlier on in life. I’m not completely miserable; actually, I’m quite content. Exhausting my efforts in pursuit of ultimate answers has allowed me to look inward, and examine my experiences more objectively.

I no longer get angry with any seemingly opposite point of view. I’ve taken my view almost completely out of the equation. I’m not so bold as to say I can completely sympathize with religious fanaticism, or hatred and biasness of any sort. Any time I get worked up over an issue, I check myself. I eventually recognize the pitfalls of passion when it comes to a shared reality.

Most would throw terms like; apathetic, lazy, or even coldhearted at me to get a rise out of me. Whatever tricks passionate people use are easily thwarted when I point out the very passion that fuels their beliefs are also felt by their opposition, but from different perspectives. For some strange reason, that throws the tempo of a discussion off. The usual response is, “But they’re wrong”.  

I have but one more direction to take to justify my existence, and that direction is inward. I’ve decided to detach myself from any so-called concrete issues, or systems of belief. I will reflect back on all my experiences during the course of my life as if I were examining a completely different person. To keep this all as pure as I can, I will attempt to reignite whatever way I happened to look at the world during certain events in my life and share them with others through my work. I’m not only going to dig deep into sore spots and completely dissect my ego, I plan putting it on display for any and all who wish to examine themselves.

I don’t want to win over adherents, or change the status quo of any system but my own. I have realized how selfish I ultimately am, so I give my selfishness over to the world, selflessly.

Apocalypse Retrofitted

Ever since my early childhood, I've been fascinated with the end of the world. I remember when the first television show about Nostradamus aired back in the eighties. My Mother's side of the family talked about the end times incessantly. Almost every civil conversation would inevitably find itself on the subject of the end. I've been loosely studying prophecies and the plethora of conspiracies about any given subject just to be able to find missing clues to what I consider to be a very near apocalypse.

Through all the trials and tribulations I've endured trying to acclimate and thrive in a society I believe to be ultimately doomed and horribly flawed, I've never once bowed down to optimism; though I have put on temporary facades to navigate certain circumstances comfortably so as not to be labeled a nut job or god forbid, a pessimist!

I've been on the brink of suicide a couple times due to the wear and tear of the many conflicts I have internally. These conflicts are precipitated by the misanthropic mindset, and the innate survival mechanism found in every thriving creature on this planet; a needing to live and experience versus the cold realization that humanity as a whole is unnatural and not worthy of its status.

I try like a man possessed not to dwell on the negative, and to hunt ferociously for all the beauty and positive qualities the human race has to offer, but I am hampered at every revelation. A general rule of thumb for me is that if you get more than five human beings together for any purpose having to do with an action which takes longer than a few days, they will begin to combat on a subconscious level and an alpha human will subjugate the rest; thereby instituting a spontaneous caste system and retarding the optimal collective process. Now that corporations have more rights than individuals, they are always going to be the alpha ego guiding us to a total system collapse.

But corporations, governments, religions, and a list of other institutions are nothing but apparatuses designed to give the few power over the many. These systems can only last so long separate, but if combined, they become the ultra control state which has been foreseen by many, and is what I refer to as the "Beast" to kind of give a nod to one ancient perspective.

You don't have to go back to ancient history to see the systematic implementation of a global super state with all the amenities of religion, commerce, and coercion. Going back a mere sixty-five or seventy years will get your thinker thinking.

There are but a slight percentage of the population that believe this system is thriving. And the reason for their indifference to the rest of the human race is that they believe most all humans are not worthy of power or even truth. They hold secrets handed down by the ancients that we just aren't privy to here in Middle-Of-The-Roadville. Once in a while they'll let loose a rogue teacher to recruit from the hiring pool of longing initiates but these prospects are only allowed to go up the ranks so far. These fools are referred to as "Gate Keepers", but I like to call them "Pressure Valves".

The one thing the elite of the world are prepared for is the inevitable frequency shift about to go down in the very near future.Whether there is a comet strike, pole shift, sun burst, plasma burst, etc., our beloved elites believe this current caste system should be maintained. The push is on and the shit is going down.

Many of us find solace In religion and meditation to make sense of this crazy world. I'm with you guys, I've tried. I really have, but every time I get into the doctrines, or essence of a certain religion, I find gaping eerie holes jumping out of the woodwork. No amount of faith can make me go blind. But when studying many religions, I inevitably find correlations and similarities that help me to see and go further into our past.

I discovered bits and pieces of the Mystery Schools of ancient Egypt and may go as far back as ancient Sumer. I started researching the Mystery Schools about the same time I began researching Quantum Physics and reverse engineering. When CERN's Large Hadron Collider was kicking up the rhetoric on the doomsday scene, I did my best to make any connection I could sniff out.

"AS ABOVE, SO BELOW" began to echo in my mind on a daily basis. Looking at the SOHO images of the sun while reading about the Mayan Calendar for me is like David Carradine tying his noose while admiring the sexy curvature of the hotel closet's light fixture.

After a few bouts with my own personal apocalypse done by my own actions, I realized the show is too entertaining to walk out on, my role hasn't been written off.

The only savior I've found in this madness that surrounds me is my very own imagination. I used to think my creativity needed to be directed towards what others' expected, or whatever would make the masses feel entertained. I've fairly recently discovered this to be a misnomer on my part. My imagination is much more than connecting with other beings, it's the tool which is aiding me with an ultimate connection with my higher self.

Whatever events may play out on a global scale, I've found my role in my own private apocalypse retrofitted especially for me.

Cellhouse Brawl

"Jay, you cool, man?"


"Yeah, I'm cool. I've been cool the whole time."


The argument started in night cell one between me and my bunky, Jeff. We were both locked up for armed robbery, but he was facing sixty years for beating a cashier with a hammer. I, on the other hand, was only facing twenty years because there wasn't bodily injury. I was more of a bugged-out gentleman robber. We had been bunk mates for going on two months, and there seemed to be a growing resentment between us which I was only remotely aware of. The medication I had been taking, Depakote, had dulled my perception; otherwise, I would have seen ahead of time the madness which followed, and may have been able to avert it.


I stood in the walkway just outside the first night cell and stared through the bars separating the walkway from the day room where a group of "offenders" watched one of the many fake judge shows which air on daytime television. The irony never escaped me regardless of my dulled, medicated senses. I failed to pick up on the rising tension emanating out of night cell one, though. While I absorbed the irony through the lead painted institutional-green bars, Jeff was boiling over with unmedicated rage.


Fruit Fingers, a fifty something black guy with a penchant for drama and punks, tried to give me a heads up by asking if I "was cool". The subtlety escaped me along with many other innate abilities Depakote suppresses.


"You called me a motherfucker!" Jeff screamed, while hurling blindly out of our shared night cell. He had apparently been listening to the exchange between me and Fruit, and ignition had been achieved.


To be fair, I did call Jeff a motherfucker. "Motherfucker"s were thrown around the cell house as casually as "man" and "brother". "Motherfucker" is not considered to be taboo like, "bitch", which is the ultimate name to call someone to see if they are a "punk", or if they, "stand on something". In prison the word motherfucker takes on the role of a punctuation mark more than the shock value curses thrown out to crowds from comedians and rappers. Apparently Jeff hadn't gotten the memo...


The first wanton blow landed on my upper lip, and the second found pay dirt squarely on my nose. A river of blood instantly replaced the taste of cheap instant coffee I had been gulping just seconds before the melee. It was all I could do to catch my breath and keep from collapsing as the fists kept landing. I ducked my head down and Jeff's knuckles began to land atop my skull. I realized if I didn't do something quick, I would certainly end up on the wrong side of a statistic. With all the might I could muster, I grabbed hold of Jeff's midsection and thrust with my legs. Jeff wavered slightly as I hooked a fist around his back and landed an awkward, but powerful, punch in the vicinity of his left kidney. I thrust once more to try and take the upper hand hoping Jeff's psychosis may have been waning, but my hopes found no validation as my left knee crumpled backwards, hyper extending.


Jeff began another series of blows to the top of my swelling noggin as I grabbed my leg and popped it back into place. Blood drenched my bare chest and I could see pools forming on the ground around us. I attempted another mighty thrust when the most horrific sensation in my asshole region added shame and embarrassment to my personal catastrophe. I had ever so slightly shit my pants. Instant coffee had joined the universal conspiracy to drive me completely out of my mind. While I was acutely aware of the new development in my underwear, the fecal matter hadn't escaped the clutches of my buttocks. I can only attribute this one saving grace to the steady diet of peanut butter which I bought off commissary to supplement the lack of protein in the jail food we were given by our keepers.


Some of the other convicts which were gathered around must have noticed a lull in the action and took it upon themselves to break up the brawl. I had regained my footing and positioned myself for my redeeming offensive. But before I could serve up my piece of humble pie, Jeff had melted into a wall of gawking inmates.


Blood coated myself and the entire floor around me. I had been opened up pretty good. With shit in my shorts, and blood drenching my body, I stood erect with a fearless air. I made eye contact with as many derelicts I could hone in on. I finally belted out, "What the fuck is up now?!!!"





The motley group of detainees that surrounded me cast their eyes away and fell eerily silent. I could hear muffled voices coming from down the walkway. I made my way through the crowd and headed towards the voices. I acutely became aware of the relation of my gaping wound and the state of my environment. Filth embedded in the crevices probably from years of inept cleaning harbored any number of diseases that could haunt me in the form of several popular maladies.  

I boldly approached the person mostly responsible for my condition, planted my feet squarely, and postured for an offensive. I noticed Jeff cradled his right arm and stared wide eyed at me with fear so thick I could almost smell it.

Up until that day, I believed myself a tough cold-hearted hardass. But realty rushed to my ego to awaken my higher self. All my previous fights I had been intoxicated in some way or another. This was my first physical confrontation without the uninhibited qualities of Xanax and alcohol. The Depakote worked its magic to quell the extremes of emotional responses. This situation I found myself in had no point of reference. Naked reality is the best creative phrasing I can apply to the experience.

Jeff's arm looked twisted and a nice sized lump took shape just below his elbow. It was clear to me he had a fracture. In his newly petrified state, I knew I had the upper hand for round two.

"So, what's up, now?" I belted out.

"Man I don't remember what happened. I'm sorry, man. I think my arm is broken. Do what you have to do, but I can't fight back." he said in a quivering voice.

"Well what happened, man. Now you're all fucked up and not a badass anymore?"

I began to draw back a fist but I paused, unable to muster up the anger and adrenalin to follow through with the first swing. I turned to look over my shoulder and saw a small sea of unkempt faces greedily anticipating another violent scene. 'I'm not like these people' ran through my mind along with,'I could easily become like them, though'.

I turned back to Jeff and simply said, "If your arm isn't broken, we're gonna fight like men in the day room."

"Okay..." he squeaked out.

I made my way back through the crowd and entered my night cell to retrieve my toiletries. One of the other inmates had already began to spray cleaner on the ground for the blood. I said, I'll get it man, you don't have to do that."

"Ain't no thing to me. You don't even want to know how many times I cleaned this shit up," he said matter-of-factly.

I first looked into the metal mirror over the toilet/sink in the night cell and inspected my head. I had several huge lumps scattered all over my skull, bruising had already began on several places on my face, Blood crusted half my goatee, and the source was a gaping hole through my upper lip. I chuckled slightly and proclaimed to one of my other bunkies in the four man cell that I could blow bubbles through my lip. I was creating an air of levity to ease the tension of the fight.

The crowd outside my cell had dissipated, but everyone was talking about the fight and taking sides, and possibly bets. I had no illusions about saving face at this point. The constant reminder of the humbling fecal matter allowed me to embrace whatever amount of shame I faced after losing a fight. If I weren't under the influence of Depakote and actually respected my peers as actual peers, I may have put on some kind of confrontational air. But at that point I just wanted to comfortably, and cleanly, make my way out of the cell and get stitched up in a sterile environment. Gangrene haunted my irrational train of thought and I told my other bunky to bang on the door after I finished with a shower to let the guards know about my condition. I instructed him to say I had a seizure while in the shower. My crime had been a violent crime and any record of violence would be frowned upon, and could easily have added a year or more to my sentence. I may have been medicated, but I wasn't stupid.

The single shower had a good coat of rust and probable lead based institutional-green paint. I pushed the button for first spray as I removed my underwear. No shit had touched my underwear, but I began washing them with a bar of lye soap. Blood, shit, and sweat swirled down the drain. And for one moment I paused in the steam and realized how strangely beautiful the horrors of life could be....

I never took Depakote, or any other psychotropic, after that day.

Reality Check by Allen Masterson

You know your life has taken a turn for the worse when "dropping the kids off at the pool" becomes serious business (that's a metaphor for taking a shit, if you're unfamiliar with that particular euphemism).


It's the little things which get you when acclimating to a prison environment for the first time. Taking a shower, the unceasing noise level, rap battles in the shower room, getting served hot dogs from a six foot eight black transvestite who goes by the name of "Twon", etcetera, etcetera. I could make a list of annoyances which would rival the long version of Pi, but the consequence of a nervous breakdown dissuades me.


Most inconveniences of prison can be overcome, and can even settle into background noise with time. But the one activity which never failed to disturb me, and forever changed my view of our species, was taking a simple shit.


The first time I truly felt the error of my ways was not in a courtroom, not in the back of a police car, not even the first freezing shower and strip search while being processed. It was sitting knee-to-knee with a disgusting gang banger, with diabetes, wiping his ass back to front.


You see, the stalls in some prisons have no dividers. They stand juxtaposed for intimate shitting with a friend, or with diarrhea ridden mortal enemies.


At first, I believed I could hold out for just the right time to shit in peace, and avoid getting sandwiched-shit sandwiched, but my inner works began to revolt due to wanton scheduling, and I figured eventually I would get used to it like the hot dogs and zillion other bizarre prison idiosyncrasies I was destined to endure for my three year sentence; but I never did.


There are days when I begin to feel a bit of the outlaw stirring inside, and even entertain thoughts of making a score that would save me from mundanity; but I usually snap out of it when I sit down comfortably on a lonely toilet residing in an isolated bathroom for my shitting pleasure. We'll call it a daily dose...

Some Inspiration

New Poem 3/03/2010

In Repose





Dominoes fall through time and space
Cut through checkerboard fixtures,
Nod to the Keepers of Set

Believing they know laughter

Walking in a parade

But if they stop and wonder

Colors help them escape

Every night's a plunder

As an eye finds breath

Things to do tomorrow

Haven't happend yet

Under the stairs I dream
Of perfume and a bottle of red
Bitter taste heeds a call
And the day is erased

De'ja vu of sorrow
Hides in rings of Saturn
While teardrop stars
Drench the myth of matter

She is the other side of me
In fault and favor
Hand held scents
Embed in sheets of memory

We write our songs
With salt and sugar
'Til appetites are sated
And our journeys fade

Crumb Crawling by Allen Masterson

Crumb Crawling

Intrepid chemical crank mites surf the bloodstream of our good friend, and social pariah, Jeremy Matheson as he brings a well worn glass bowl to his slightly chapped lips. He flicks the flint, and the flame finds home under a rolling glass vehicle used primarily for delivering hysteria, and an occasional stroke.

Heart quickens.

Phantom ringing.

Blood pressure skyrockets in reaction to the million mile an hour meth invasion.

There's a dainty little scab of a girl crawling around on a filthy shag carpet looking for wayward rocks that might have fallen to the ground.

"Jess.... hey baby, quit crawlin' round on that dirty-ass floor fuckin' crumb huntn'! We got plenty dope, no need to strain yer eyes." Jeremy says.

"Waste not, want not. Waste not, want not. That's what my momma used to say at the dinner table. Bitch! Well, I guess it stuck." she says, and begins an eerie guffaw accented with a snort. "Fuck her... fuck that cow!". Guffaw-snort-guffaw-snort...

"Shhhhh! You're flippin' that lithium loop again, girl" Jeremy whispers emphatically.

Jessica stops, looks up at her soul mate, and says matter-of- factly, "I'm bipolar, ya know. Searching for these rocks is a celebration of mania! Would you rather have me flip out while yer sleepin' and hack yer cock off?"(Rhetorical in nature, of course) "Then let me have my Zen!"

"Hun, we may need to slow down a bit. Want some Xanax?"

"Nah-uh...... not me, baby. I'm comin' up with some hella concepts on birth control and the heartbeat of God," she replies; as she hones in on a fragment of Saltine.

Jeremy grins, sits back, and lets her go. He can relate to the plane his girl is treading.

He pulls a medicine bottle out of his jacket pocket, cracks the lid, and prescribes himself six blue Xanax for stress and reality negation. No muss, no fuss comedown; without the meltdown. 'Life is good,' fleetingly tickers through his mind's eye as neurotransmitters joust for rule over a declining kingdom that is Jeremy Matheson's conventional brain.

"Honey,"

"Yeah, Jer?"

"I'm gonna exit, stage left. Let me know if God's heart skips a beat, 'k?"

"Jesus was a barefoot politician, ya know."

"Yeah..... I know, baby...... I know."