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