[Verse 3]They call me privileged, y'all can't admit that I'm giftedI did it without a label's assistance, I made the business decisionsI overcame the addictions, lived in the streets, got evictedKicked it with killers and strippers, but still my vision was differentI bought a mic, started spitting, produced the beats and I mixed itI turned my hand into a fist and flipped a bird to the systemI prayed I'd finish my mission and keep my image consistentI fixed the parts that were missing and switched the gas and the pistonsIt's mathematics and physics, I had to travel the distanceI had to add some ambition and then subtract my suspicionsI wanted castles and riches, headed for caskets or prisonsI battled glasses of liquor and cabinets packed with prescriptions[Verse 4]And still these fucking rappers wanna sneak dissAll over my Facebook, always tryna tweet shitI ain't gonna keep this a secret, my marketing geniusThe algorithm triggered by exploiting your weaknessAnd y'all can call me clickbait and gimmicks, I call me richA million monthly listens on Spotify, suck my dickI'm about to drop a couple million dollars on the cribQuarter million on a whip, I just sent my mom a gripAnd first of all, I heard it all, I could write a perfect songI Google the net worth of rappers hating, and I don't respondMiddle finger from a private jet, I don't give a single flying fuckEvery single person I have met: pussy in person, on Twitter they tough[Verse 5]Yo, if rappers wanna beef, I got the roast panPut 'em in the dirt like a fucking UFO crashDouble time rappers mad I murder it with slow rapsAll they do is go fast, turn 'em to some ghost with the most factsSlow clap, pulling triggers quickly with no blowbackCracking under pressure like a cold glass, no fenceJealous that I rose fast, y'all are on the rollbackLook at your career: it's a joke, manPromise that I won't laugh, say you got the smoke, can't afford gasOh man, so sad, you record your album in a closet full of clothes with a notepadStrong on the outside, muscles with no bone mass
Good poems/rap verses/book excerpts (do not troll)
Posts
Total:
86
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
-Psalm 23
Thirteen thousand in Portugal, that's arena talkYou still on your Training Day, you Ethan HawkeRappers with your get rich quick scheme gimmicksInstead of hating you should focus on your sixteenth minuteWe are not side by side, ain't no split-screen imageI'ma be around forever like a Springsteen ticketI'm just bathing in success, yeah I rinse clean with itI put my best foot forward like a Nowitzki pivotI got blitzkrieg criticsThey ain't wastin' no timeBut I ain't wastin' no money, so I pay 'em no mindThat's a lie, I be snappin'That's my fault, I'm adjustin' to people spreadin' lies about meJust hatin' and judgingFor the sake of discussion, in the hopes of some cloutShit's been stressful, I just need some pretty hoes with some mouthPut my home in the South, 10K square feetName your favorite rappers now, let's play "where's he?"Probably chasin' a hit, probably lost in LAProbably paying for likes, probably paying for playsProbably owns a Corolla, but probably rents the AventadorBusiness manager furious, like "What the fuck did you spend that for?"Fuck y'all though, I'ma keep on winnin'I got angels all around me, y'all can keep on sinnin''Cause ain't no way y'all are fuckin' up my light lightI spent two million just on taxes, somethin' light lightIn hindsight, I was right all along, life of a donWritin' songs, all those hooks were a fight to get onYou gotta see it way before it happens, yes yesI'ma be the greatest, I won't settle for next bestGot your girl in her birthday suit, that's best dressedPlus she likes girls too like Ellen DeGeneresFirst class Emirates that's how I'm flyin'SUVs on the tarmac, that's how I'm arrivin'Presidential treatment, ooh this life so goodWhite skin, they can't believe that I got friends in the hoodI know the love songs and melodies throw y'all offDon't give a fuck about your face tats, we know y'all softPeople we know with face tats got them for a reasonYou use them for the gang culture aesthetic, you reachin'A lot of kids are poppin' xans and sippin' lean nowA lot of rappers using Instagram to teach howA lot of kids OD'ed that you don't read 'bout'Cause they don't follow rappers, they just follow fiends nowBut I'm the bad guy for callin' it outI come in clutch with the truth, y'all are stallin' it outI only get in trouble when I say the truthWhich means you gettin' fed lies everyday, you foolsDo your research before you try and speak on my nameRappers wearing CZs and leasing the chainsThe beats classic, I amaze myselfI'm a boss, I'm a owner, yeah I pay myselfFuck the capes of society, I saved myselfEven after all the millions bitch, I stayed myselfI still take my mom with me, Bugus still right hereNew people think my buzz got here in a lightyearFuck y'all, this ain't a Toy StoryI eat Nigerian, save some moimoi for meYeah, lot of y'all girls I coulda hitBut I'm the type to pass the pussy to stay home and cut a hitNever fuck a chick at her house, she got exesI just bought a crib, I got guns, I got exitsCameras at the entranceTry if you want toBugus told me, "God forbid they get you, I got you"I'm an idol, people treat me like BillySingin' and rappin' goin' platinum, people treat me like DrizzyTake the studio with meSet up shop in the tellyI've watched a lot of rappers talk but then they flop like BellyThere ain't shit you can tell me, you can save that shitFake convos before favors, I hate that shitYesterday turned down a 150,000I ain't trippin' 'bout itI get that every week like allowanceFrom my independent catalogFuck these rec league rappers tryna battle 'BronStay in your lane, this is big businessMove bitch, get back like Chris BridgesI remember only sellin' like six ticketsNow I make the girls crazy like Sid ViciousI coulda played it different, coulda silenced all my truthsCoulda buddied up with rappers for the sake of looking coolBut it's not in me to be fake, I can't do itI can see through it, man this game is translucentThey twist the truth for the headline dramaClicks create traffic, traffic creates dollarsThe sheep believe it, they ain't up on game yetSmooth rides ain't as fun to watch as trainwrecks (damn)Controversy is currency, controversy is cloutThat's why my haters keep my name in their mouthY'all are hopeless, this is a decade of devotionIt's hard to stop my movement when I'm already in motionThis ain't luck, this is by designI had to work in the dark for my light to shineA lot of people are dope, they just quit too soonA lot of rappers go broke, 'cause they got rich too soon (damn)My confidence plus my success is just a mirror for someIt forces them to look around and see what they haven't doneThat's a line for any hater, y'all are mad at yourselvesJudging every move I make, y'all distractin' yourselvesYou could do this shit too if you wantedBut you would rather sit around and bitch and make commentsOh well, suit yourself, be miserableI'm country-hoppin' in a jet, that's the visualI saw this coming in my hoodie with the plaid flannelI bet on myself, yeah I had to gambleI feel like I'm half god, half mammalBitch I turned my life into the Travel ChannelI'm not home, I'm in StockholmWith heated floors and the beds with the soft foamIt's like clockwork watching sore losers poke their heads outEvery time I big myself up, they get stressed outI'm the best out, yeah I said itSelf-made millionaire, you know what's up with the creditsI'm the best out, yeah I said itSelf-made millionaire, you know what's up with the credits
[Verse 1: Joell Ortiz]You can't tell me shit, I'm in this bitch takin' Belve' sipsFeeling like the only one who truly knew Joell'd be richI'm walking in the 40 feeling 26 as I watch heavy wrist pull-ups, push-ups and dips 20 a clipIn my tank top looking like the old fifEnemy killer on my hipGuess that's why they call it a fo' fifthJump in my new whipBumping some old shit, grown shitFahrenheit cologne shit, oh shitThe first half deposits from them shows hitBank teller cougar looking at your boy ferociousNo miss, I'm a married manWife badder than arrival time of ambulancesIn the hood with traffic jams after them cannons blamDigital scale with shake on it going hand to handNow business deals we shake on, it's still a hand to handBut different thoughCareful how you livin' broI keep business on my mind and stay minding my business, yo[Chorus: KXNG Crooked]Somebody said, "Get your money young man"I was walking in a storeTriple OG by the doorHe looked up and he said, "Yo! Get your money young man"But be careful how you make it'Cause them people wanna take itLeave your bank account naked"Get your money young man"Now the roles done changedI'm giving these kids gameI tell 'em the same thing, "Get your money young man"And there's six million ways to get itChoose one[Verse 2: KXNG Crooked]The cabinets were bareMama could barely prepare the recipesI got on my grizzly then go get the honeyWanted more than the bare necessitiesThe air, the seven seas, the landI traveled every place on the face of the earthTo repair discrepancies in my generational curseWent everywhere for extra cheeseSo drop your diss songYou'll be a wrap over wax like record sleevesWhen the heckler sneezeWe ain't playing with celebritiesY'all playing, we the refereesFlexing our expertiseUsed to slang and peddle deathGot the amphetamines from a BloodThat's red and methNiggas went from Haile Selassie to Emeril LagasseWhippin' work, ghetto chefBallin', tryna catch a checkBut falling down Heaven stepsDo better, this a new letter to whoever's next
USS NIMITZ
"New radar contact. Designate Raid-2-"
"What?" snapped Baker. Next came a call from the fighters.
"Clipper Base, this is Slugger Lead. I have a visual on my target." The squadron commander was trying to examine the target on his long-range TV camera. When he spoke, the anguish in his voice was manifest. "Warning, warning, this is not a Badger. We've been shooting at Kelt missiles!"
"Raid-2 is seventy-three aircraft, bearing two-one-seven, range one-three-zero miles. We have a Big Bulge radar tracking the formation," said the CIC talker.
Toland cringed as the new contacts were plotted. "Admiral, we've been had."
The group tactical warfare officer was pale as he toggled his microphone. "Air Warning Red. Weapons free! Threat axis is two-one-seven. All ships turn as necessary to unmask batteries."
The Tomcats had all been drawn off, leaving the formation practically naked. The only armed fighters over the formation were Foch's eight Crusaders, long since retired from the American inventory. On a terse command from their carrier, they went to afterburner and rocketed southwest toward the Backfires. Too late.
The Bear already had a clear picture of the American formations. The Russians could not determine ship type, but they could tell large from small, and identify the missile cruiser Ticonderoga by her distinctive radar emissions. The carriers would be close to her. The Bear relayed the information to her consorts. A minute later, the seventy Backfire bombers launched their hundred forty AS-6 Kingfish missiles and turned north at full military power. The Kingfish was nothing like the Kelt. Powered by a liquid-fuel rocket engine, it accelerated to nine hundred knots and began its descent, its radar-homing head tracking on a preprogrammed target area ten miles wide. Every ship in the center of the formation had several missiles assigned.
"Vampire, Vampire!" the CIC talker said aboard Ticonderoga. "We have numerous incoming missiles. Weapons free."
The group antiair warfare officer ordered the cruiser's Aegis weapons system into full automatic mode. Tico had been built with this exact situation in mind. Her powerful radar/computer system immediately identified the incoming missiles as hostile and assigned each a priority of destruction. The computer was completely on its own, free to fire on its electronic will at anything diagnosed as a threat. Numbers, symbols, and vectors paraded across the master tactical display. The fore and aft twin missile launchers trained out at the first targets and awaited the orders to fire. Aegis was state-of-the-art, the best SAM system yet devised, but it had one major weakness: Tico carried only ninety-six SM2 surface-to-air missiles; there were one hundred forty incoming Kingfish. The computer had not been programmed to think about that.
Aboard Nimitz, Toland could feel the carrier heeling into a radical turn, her engines advanced to flank speed, driving the massive warship at over thirty-five knots. Her nuclear-powered escorts, Virginia and California, were also tracking the Kingfish, their own missiles trained out on their launchers.
The Kingfish were at eight thousand feet, one hundred miles out, covering a mile every four seconds. Each had now selected a target, choosing the largest within their fields of view. Nimitz was the nearest large ship, with her missile-ship escorts to her north.
Tico launched her first quartet of missiles as the targets reached a range of ninety-nine miles. The rockets exploded into the air, leaving a trail of pale gray smoke. They had barely cleared the launch rails when the mounts went vertical and swiveled to receive their reloads. The load-and-fire time was under eight seconds. The cruiser would average one missile fired every two seconds. Just over three minutes later, her missile magazines were empty. The cruiser emerged from the base of an enormous gray arch of smoke. Her only remaining defenses were her gun systems.
The SAMs raced in at their targets with a closing speed of over two thousand miles per hour, directed in by the reflected waves of the ship's own fire-control radars. At a range of a hundred fifty yards from their targets, the warheads detonated. The Aegis system did quite well. Just over 60 percent of the targets were destroyed. There were now eighty-two incoming missiles targeted on a total of eight ships.
Other missile-equipped ships joined the fray. In several cases two or three missiles were sent for the same target, usually killing it. The number of incoming "vampires" dropped to seventy, then sixty, but the number was not dropping quickly enough. The identity of the targets was now known to everyone. Powerful active jamming equipment came on. Ships began a radical series of maneuvers like some stylized dance, with scant attention paid to station-keeping. Collision at sea was now the least of anyone's worries. When the Kingfish got to within twenty miles, every ship in the formation began to fire off chaff rockets, which filled the air with millions of aluminized Mylar fragments that fluttered on the air, creating dozens of new targets for the missiles to select from. Some of the Kingfish lost lock with their targets and started chasing Mylar ghosts. Two of them got lost, and selected new targets on the far side of the formation.
The radar picture on Nimitz suddenly was obscured. What had been discrete pips designating the positions of ships in the formation became shapeless clouds. Only the missiles stayed constant: inverted V-shapes, with line vectors to designate direction and speed. The last wave of SAMs killed three more. The vampire count was down to forty-one. Toland counted five heading for Nimitz Topside, the final defensive weapons were now tracking the targets. These were the CIWS, 20mm Gatling guns, radar-equipped to explode incoming missiles at a range of under two thousand yards. Designed to operate in a fully automatic mode, the two after gun mounts on the carrier angled up and began to track the first pair of incoming Kingfish. The portside mount fired first, the six-barrel cannon making a sound like that of an enormous zipper. Its radar system tracked the target, and tracked the outgoing slugs, adjusting fire to make the two meet.
The leading Kingfish exploded eight hundred yards from Nimitz's port quarter. The thousand kilograms of high explosive rocked the ship. Toland felt it, wondering if the ship had been hit. Around him, the CIC crewmen were concentrating frantically on their jobs. One target track vanished from the screen. Four left.
The next Kingfish approached the carrier's bow and was blasted out of the sky by the forward CIWS, too close aboard. Fragments ripped across the carrier's deck, killing a dozen exposed crewmen.
Number three was decoyed by a chaff cloud and ran straight into the sea half a mile behind the carrier. The warhead caused the carrier to vibrate and raised a column of water a thousand feet into the air.
The fourth and fifth missiles came in from aft, not a hundred yards apart. The after gun mount tracked on both, but couldn't decide which to engage first. It went into Reset mode and petulantly didn't engage any. The missiles hit within a second of one another, one on the after port corner of the flight deck, the other on the number two arrestor wire.
Toland was thrown fifteen feet, and slammed against a radar console. Next he saw a wall of pink flame that washed briefly over him. Then came the noises. First the thunder of the explosion. Then the screams. The after CIC bulkhead was no longer there; instead there was a mass of flame. Men twenty feet away were ablaze, staggering and screaming before his eyes. Toland's only thought was escape. He bolted for the watertight door. It opened miraculously under his hand and he ran to starboard. The ship's fire-suppression systems were already on, showering everything with a curtain of saltwater. His skin burned from it as he emerged, hair and uniform singed, to the flight deck catwalk. A sailor directed a water hose on him, nearly knocking him over the side.
"Fire in CIC!" Toland gasped.
"What the hell ain't!" the sailor screamed.
Toland fell to his knees and looked outboard. Foch had been to their north, he remembered. Now there was a pillar of smoke. As he watched, the last Kingfish was detonated a hundred feet over Saratoga's flight deck. The carrier seemed undamaged. Three miles away, Ticonderoga's after superstructure was shredded and ablaze from a rocket that had blown up within yards of her. On the horizon a ball of flame announced the destruction of yet another-my God, Toland thought, might that be Saipan? She had two thousand Marines aboard...
"Get forward, you dumbass!" a firefighter yelled at him. Another man emerged to the catwalk.
"Toland, you all right?" It was Captain Svenson, his shirt torn away and his chest bleeding from a half-dozen cuts.
"Yes, sir," Bob answered.
"Get to the bridge. Tell 'em to put the wind on the starboard beam. Move!" Svenson jumped up onto the flight deck.
Toland did likewise, racing forward. The deck was awash in firefighting foam, slippery as oil. Toland ran recklessly, falling hard on the deck before he reached the carrier's island. He was in the pilothouse in under a minute.
"Captain says put the wind on the starboard beam!" Toland said.
"It is on the fucking beam!" the executive officer snapped back. The bridge deck was covered with broken glass. "How's the skipper?"
"Alive. He's aft with the fire."
"And who the hell are you?" the XO demanded.
"Toland, group intel. I was in CIC."
"Then you're one lucky bastard. That second bird hit fifty yards from you. Captain got out? Anyone else?"
"I don't know. Burning like hell."
"Looks like you caught part of it, Commander."
Bob's face felt as if he'd shaved with a piece of glass. His eyebrows crumpled to his touch. "Flashburns, I guess. I'll be okay. What do you want me to do?"
The XO pointed to Toland's water wings. "Can you conn the ship.? Okay, do it. Nothing left to run into anyway. I'm going aft to take charge of the fire. Communications are out, radar's out, but the engines are okay and the hull's in good shape. Mr. Bice has the deck. Mr. Toland has the conn," XO announced as he left.
Toland hadn't conned anything bigger than a Boston Whaler in over ten years, and now he had a damaged carrier. He took a pair of binoculars and looked around to see what ships were nearby. What he saw chilled him.
Saratoga was the only ship that looked intact, but on second glance her radar mast was askew. Foch was lower in the water than she ought to have been, and ablaze from bow to stem.
"Where's Saipan?"
"Blew up like a fucking firework," Commander Bice replied. "Holy Jesus, there were twenty-five hundred men aboard! Tico took one close aboard. Foch took three hits, looks like she's gone. Two frigates and a destroyer gone, too-just fucking gone, man! Who fucked up? You were in CIC, right? Who fucked up?"
The eight French Crusaders were just making contact with the Backfires. The Russian bombers were on afterburner and were nearly as fast as the fighters. The carrier pilots had all heard their ship go off the air and were consumed with rage at what had happened, no longer the cool professionals who drove fighters off ships. Only ten Backfires were within their reach. They got six of them with their missiles and damaged two more before they had to break off.
USS Caron, the senior undamaged ship, tracked the Russians on her radar, calling Britain for fighters to intercept them on the trip home. But the Russians had anticipated this, and detoured far west of the British Isles, meeting their tankers four hundred miles west of Norway.
Already the Russians were evaluating the results of their mission. The first major battle of modem carriers and missile-armed bombers had been won and lost. Both sides knew which was which.
The fire on Nimitz was out within an hour. With no aircraft aboard, there were few combustibles about, and the ship's firefighting abilities equaled that of a large city. Toland brought her back to an easterly course. Saratoga was recovering aircraft, refueling them, and sending all but the fighters to the beach. Three frigates and a destroyer lingered to recover survivors, as the large ships turned back toward Europe.
"All ahead full," Svenson ordered from his seat on the bridge. "Toland, you all right?"
"No complaints." No point in it, the ship's hospital was more than full with hundreds of major injury cases. h hundreds of major injury cases. There was no count of the dead yet, and Toland didn't want to think about that.
"You were right," the captain said, his voice angry and subdued. "You were right. They made it too easy and we fell for it."
"There'll be another day, Captain.,,
"You're Goddamned right there will! We're heading for Southampton.
See if the Brits can fix anything this big. My regulars are still busy aft. Think you can handle the conn a little longer?"
"Yes, sir. "
Nimitz and her nuclear escorts bent on full speed, nearly forty knots, and rapidly left the formation behind. A reckless move, racing too fast for antisubmarine patrols, but a submarine would have to move quickly indeed to catch them.
Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising
We'd been decelerating at two gravities for almost nine
days when the battle began.
Lying on our couches being
miserable, all we felt were two soft bumps, missiles
being released. Some eight hours later, the squawk box
crackled:
"Attention, all crew. This is the captain." Quinsana, the
pilot, was only a lieutenant, but was allowed to call
himself captain aboard the vessel, where he outranked
all of us, even Captain Stott. "You grunts in the cargo
hold can listen, too.
"We just engaged the enemy with two fifty-gigaton
tachyon missiles and have destroyed both the enemy
vessel and another object which it had launched
approximately three microseconds before.
"The enemy has been trying to overtake us for the past
179 hours, ship time. At the time of the engagement, the
enemy was moving at a little over half the speed of light,
relative to Aleph, and was only about thirty AU's from
Earth's Hope. It was moving at .47c relative to us, and
thus we would have been coincident in space-time"-
rammed!-' 'in a little more than nine hours. The missiles
were launched at 0719 ship's time, and destroyed the
enemy at 1540, both tachyon bombs detonating within
a thousand klicks of the enemy objects."
"The two missiles were a type whose propulsion system
was itself only a barely-controlled tachyon bomb. They
accelerated at a constant rate of 100 gees, and were
traveling at a relativistic speed by the time the nearby
mass of the enemy ship detonated them.
"We expect no further interference from enemy vessels.
Our velocity with respect to Aleph will be zero in
another five hours; we will then begin the journey back.
The return will take twenty-seven days. "
General moans
and dejected cussing. Everybody knew all that already,
of course; but we didn't care to be reminded of it.
So after another month of logy calisthenics and drill, at a
constant two gravities, we got our first look at the
planet we were going to attack.
Invaders from outer
space, yes sir.
Joe Haldeman, The Forever War
Out front, George Pickett had ridden out before the whole division, was making a speech, but he was too far away and none of the men could hear. Then Pickett raised his sword. The order came down the line. Armistead, his voice never strong, bawled hoarsely, with all his force, “All right now, boys, for your wives, your sweethearts, for Virginia! At route step, forward, ho!”
He drew his sword, pointed it toward the ridge.
The brigade began to move.
He heard a chattering begin in the ranks. Someone seemed to be trying to tell a story. A man said, “Save your breath, boy.” They moved in the tall grass, Garnett’s whole line in front of them. The grass was trampled now, here and there a part in the line as men stepped aside to avoid a dead body, lost the day before. Armistead could still see nothing, nothing but the backs of the troops before him. He saw one man falter, looking to the right, gray-faced, to the sergeant who was watching him, had evidently been warned against him, now lifted a rifle and pointed it that way and the man got back into line.
The Northern artillery opened up, as if it had been asleep, or pulled back to lure them in. Massive wave of fire rolled over from the left. Pettigrew was getting it, then on the right batteries on the Rocky Hill were firing on Kemper. Garnett not yet really touched. Nothing much coming this way. But we didn’t drive off any Yankee guns. Win’s doing. He made them cease fire, knowing soon we’d be in the open. Guns to the left and right, nothing much in the center. Garnett’s doing well.
He began to see. They were coming out into the open, up to where the ground dipped toward the Emmitsburg Road. Now to the left he could see the great mass of Pettigrew’s division, with Trimble coming up behind him, advancing in superb order, line after line, a stunning sight, red battle flags, row on row. Could not see Pettigrew, nor Trimble. The line must be a mile long. A mile of men, armed and coming, the earth shuddering with their movement, with the sound of the guns. A shell exploded in Garnett’s line, another; gaps began to appear. Armistead heard the sergeants’ hoarse “Close it up, close it up,” and behind him he heard his own men coming and a voice saying calmly, cheerily, “Steady, boys, steady, there now, you can see the enemy, now you aint blind anymore, now you know exactly where’s to go, aint that fine?” A voice said hollowly, “That’s just fine.”
But the artillery sound was blossoming. A whole new set of batteries opened up; he could see smoke rolling across the top of the hill, and no counterfire from behind, no Southern batteries. God, he thought, they’re out of ammunition. But no, of course not; they just don’t like firing over our heads. And even as he thought of that he saw a battery moving out of the woods to his left, being rushed up to support the line. And then the first shell struck near him, percussion, killing a mass of men to his right rear, his own men, and from then on the shells came down increasingly, as the first fat drops of an advancing storm, but it was not truly bad. Close it up, close it up. Gaps in front, the newly dead, piles of red meat. One man down holding his stomach, blood pouring out of him like a butchered pig, young face, only a boy, the man bending over him trying to help, a sergeant screaming, “Damn it, I said close it up.”
Kemper’s brigade, ahead and to the right, was getting it. The batteries on the Rocky Hill were enfilading him, shooting right down his line, sometimes with solid shot, and you could see the damn black balls bouncing along like bowling balls, and here and there, in the air, tumbling over and over like a blood-spouting cartwheel, a piece of a man.
Armistead turned to look back. Solid line behind him, God bless them, coming on. Not so bad, now, is it? We’ll do it, with God’s help. Coming, they are, to a man. All good men here. He turned back to the front. Garnett’s men were nearing the road. He could see old Dick, still there, on the great black horse. And then the first storm of musketry: the line of skirmishers. He winced. Could not see, but knew. Long line of men in blue, lined, waiting, their sights set, waiting, and now the first line of gray is near, clear, nearer, unmissable, an officer screams, if they’re soldiers at all they cannot miss, and they’re Hancock’s men. Armistead saw a visible waver pass through the ranks in front of him. Close it up, close it up. The line seemed to have drifted slightly to the left. Heavy roll of musket fire now. The march slowing. He saw Garnett move down, thought for a moment, but no, he was moving down into that one swale, the protected area Pickett had spoken of. Armistead halted the men. Stood incredibly still in the open field with the artillery coming down like hail, great bloody hail. To the left, two hundred yards away, Pettigrew’s men were slowing. Some of the men in front had stopped to fire. No point in that, too soon, too soon. Pickett’s left oblique began. The whole line shifted left, moving to join with Pettigrew’s flank, to close the gap. It was beautifully done, superbly done, under fire, in the face of the enemy. Armistead felt enormous pride, his chest filled and stuffed with a furious love. He peered left, could not see Trimble. But they were closing in, the great mass converging. Now he moved up and he could see the clump of trees, the one tree like an umbrella, Lee’s objective, and then it was gone in smoke.
Garnett’s boys had reached the road. They were slowing, taking down rails. Musket fire was beginning to reach them. The great noise increased, beating of wings in the air. More dead men: a long neat line of dead, like a shattered fence. And now the canister, oh God, he shuddered, millions of metal balls whirring through the air like startled quail, murderous quail, and now for the first time there was screaming, very bad sounds to hear. He began to move past wounded struggling to the rear, men falling out to help, heard the sergeants ordering the men back into line, saw gray faces as he passed, eyes sick with fear, but the line moved on. Dress it up, close it up. He looked back for a moment and walked backward up the long rise, looking backward at his line, coming steadily, slowly, heads down as if into the wind, then he turned back to face the front.
To the right the line was breaking. He saw the line falter, the men beginning to clump together. Massed fire from there. In the smoke he could see a blue line. Kemper’s boys were shifting this way, slowing. Armistead was closing in. He saw a horse coming down through the smoke: Kemper. Riding. Because Garnett rode. Still alive, even on the horse. But there was blood on his shoulder, blood on his face, his arm hung limp, he had no sword. He rode to Armistead, face streaked and gray, screaming something Armistead could not hear, then came up closer and turned, waving the bloody arm.
“Got to come up, come up, help me, in God’s name. They’re flanking me, they’re coming down on the right and firing right into us, the line’s breaking, we’ve got to have help.”
Armistead yelled encouragement; Kemper tried to explain. They could not hear each other. A shell blew very close, on the far side of the horse, and Armistead, partially shielded, saw black fragments rush by, saw Kemper nearly fall. He grabbed Kemper’s hand, screaming, “I’ll double-time.” Kemper said, “Come quick, come quick, for God’s sake,” and reined the horse up and turned back to the right. And beyond him Armistead saw a long blue line, Union boys out in the open, kneeling and firing from the right, and beyond that violent light of rows of cannon, and another flight of canister passed over. Kemper’s men had stopped to fire, were drifting left. Too much smoke to see. Armistead turned, called his aides, took off the old black felt and put it on the tip of his sword and raised it high in the air. He called for double-time, double-time; the cry went down the line. The men began to run. He saw the line waver, ragged now, long legs beginning to eat up the ground, shorter legs falling behind, gaps appearing, men actually seeming to disappear, just to vanish out of the line, leaving a stunned vacancy, and the line slowly closing again, close it up, close it up, beginning to ripple and fold but still a line, still moving forward in the smoke and the beating noise.
He drew his sword, pointed it toward the ridge.
The brigade began to move.
He heard a chattering begin in the ranks. Someone seemed to be trying to tell a story. A man said, “Save your breath, boy.” They moved in the tall grass, Garnett’s whole line in front of them. The grass was trampled now, here and there a part in the line as men stepped aside to avoid a dead body, lost the day before. Armistead could still see nothing, nothing but the backs of the troops before him. He saw one man falter, looking to the right, gray-faced, to the sergeant who was watching him, had evidently been warned against him, now lifted a rifle and pointed it that way and the man got back into line.
The Northern artillery opened up, as if it had been asleep, or pulled back to lure them in. Massive wave of fire rolled over from the left. Pettigrew was getting it, then on the right batteries on the Rocky Hill were firing on Kemper. Garnett not yet really touched. Nothing much coming this way. But we didn’t drive off any Yankee guns. Win’s doing. He made them cease fire, knowing soon we’d be in the open. Guns to the left and right, nothing much in the center. Garnett’s doing well.
He began to see. They were coming out into the open, up to where the ground dipped toward the Emmitsburg Road. Now to the left he could see the great mass of Pettigrew’s division, with Trimble coming up behind him, advancing in superb order, line after line, a stunning sight, red battle flags, row on row. Could not see Pettigrew, nor Trimble. The line must be a mile long. A mile of men, armed and coming, the earth shuddering with their movement, with the sound of the guns. A shell exploded in Garnett’s line, another; gaps began to appear. Armistead heard the sergeants’ hoarse “Close it up, close it up,” and behind him he heard his own men coming and a voice saying calmly, cheerily, “Steady, boys, steady, there now, you can see the enemy, now you aint blind anymore, now you know exactly where’s to go, aint that fine?” A voice said hollowly, “That’s just fine.”
But the artillery sound was blossoming. A whole new set of batteries opened up; he could see smoke rolling across the top of the hill, and no counterfire from behind, no Southern batteries. God, he thought, they’re out of ammunition. But no, of course not; they just don’t like firing over our heads. And even as he thought of that he saw a battery moving out of the woods to his left, being rushed up to support the line. And then the first shell struck near him, percussion, killing a mass of men to his right rear, his own men, and from then on the shells came down increasingly, as the first fat drops of an advancing storm, but it was not truly bad. Close it up, close it up. Gaps in front, the newly dead, piles of red meat. One man down holding his stomach, blood pouring out of him like a butchered pig, young face, only a boy, the man bending over him trying to help, a sergeant screaming, “Damn it, I said close it up.”
Kemper’s brigade, ahead and to the right, was getting it. The batteries on the Rocky Hill were enfilading him, shooting right down his line, sometimes with solid shot, and you could see the damn black balls bouncing along like bowling balls, and here and there, in the air, tumbling over and over like a blood-spouting cartwheel, a piece of a man.
Armistead turned to look back. Solid line behind him, God bless them, coming on. Not so bad, now, is it? We’ll do it, with God’s help. Coming, they are, to a man. All good men here. He turned back to the front. Garnett’s men were nearing the road. He could see old Dick, still there, on the great black horse. And then the first storm of musketry: the line of skirmishers. He winced. Could not see, but knew. Long line of men in blue, lined, waiting, their sights set, waiting, and now the first line of gray is near, clear, nearer, unmissable, an officer screams, if they’re soldiers at all they cannot miss, and they’re Hancock’s men. Armistead saw a visible waver pass through the ranks in front of him. Close it up, close it up. The line seemed to have drifted slightly to the left. Heavy roll of musket fire now. The march slowing. He saw Garnett move down, thought for a moment, but no, he was moving down into that one swale, the protected area Pickett had spoken of. Armistead halted the men. Stood incredibly still in the open field with the artillery coming down like hail, great bloody hail. To the left, two hundred yards away, Pettigrew’s men were slowing. Some of the men in front had stopped to fire. No point in that, too soon, too soon. Pickett’s left oblique began. The whole line shifted left, moving to join with Pettigrew’s flank, to close the gap. It was beautifully done, superbly done, under fire, in the face of the enemy. Armistead felt enormous pride, his chest filled and stuffed with a furious love. He peered left, could not see Trimble. But they were closing in, the great mass converging. Now he moved up and he could see the clump of trees, the one tree like an umbrella, Lee’s objective, and then it was gone in smoke.
Garnett’s boys had reached the road. They were slowing, taking down rails. Musket fire was beginning to reach them. The great noise increased, beating of wings in the air. More dead men: a long neat line of dead, like a shattered fence. And now the canister, oh God, he shuddered, millions of metal balls whirring through the air like startled quail, murderous quail, and now for the first time there was screaming, very bad sounds to hear. He began to move past wounded struggling to the rear, men falling out to help, heard the sergeants ordering the men back into line, saw gray faces as he passed, eyes sick with fear, but the line moved on. Dress it up, close it up. He looked back for a moment and walked backward up the long rise, looking backward at his line, coming steadily, slowly, heads down as if into the wind, then he turned back to face the front.
To the right the line was breaking. He saw the line falter, the men beginning to clump together. Massed fire from there. In the smoke he could see a blue line. Kemper’s boys were shifting this way, slowing. Armistead was closing in. He saw a horse coming down through the smoke: Kemper. Riding. Because Garnett rode. Still alive, even on the horse. But there was blood on his shoulder, blood on his face, his arm hung limp, he had no sword. He rode to Armistead, face streaked and gray, screaming something Armistead could not hear, then came up closer and turned, waving the bloody arm.
“Got to come up, come up, help me, in God’s name. They’re flanking me, they’re coming down on the right and firing right into us, the line’s breaking, we’ve got to have help.”
Armistead yelled encouragement; Kemper tried to explain. They could not hear each other. A shell blew very close, on the far side of the horse, and Armistead, partially shielded, saw black fragments rush by, saw Kemper nearly fall. He grabbed Kemper’s hand, screaming, “I’ll double-time.” Kemper said, “Come quick, come quick, for God’s sake,” and reined the horse up and turned back to the right. And beyond him Armistead saw a long blue line, Union boys out in the open, kneeling and firing from the right, and beyond that violent light of rows of cannon, and another flight of canister passed over. Kemper’s men had stopped to fire, were drifting left. Too much smoke to see. Armistead turned, called his aides, took off the old black felt and put it on the tip of his sword and raised it high in the air. He called for double-time, double-time; the cry went down the line. The men began to run. He saw the line waver, ragged now, long legs beginning to eat up the ground, shorter legs falling behind, gaps appearing, men actually seeming to disappear, just to vanish out of the line, leaving a stunned vacancy, and the line slowly closing again, close it up, close it up, beginning to ripple and fold but still a line, still moving forward in the smoke and the beating noise.
They came to the road. It was sunken into the field, choked like the bed of a stream with mounded men. Armistead jumped down, saw a boy in front of him, kneeling, crying, a row of men crouched under the far bank, an officer yelling, pounding with the flat of his sword. There was a house to the right, smoke pouring from the roof, a great clog of men jammed behind the house, but men were moving across the road and up toward the ridge. There was a boy on his knees on the road edge, staring upward toward the ridge, unmoving. Armistead touched him on the shoulder, said, “Come on, boy, come on.” The boy looked up with sick eyes, eyes soft and black like pieces of coal. Armistead said, “Come on, boy. What will you think of yourself tomorrow?”
The boy did not move. Armistead told an officer nearby; “Move these people out.” He climbed up the roadbank, over the gray rails on the far side, between two dead bodies, one a sergeant, face vaguely familiar, eyes open, very blue. Armistead stood high, trying to see.
Kemper’s men had come apart, drifting left. There was a mass ahead but it did not seem to be moving. Up there the wall was a terrible thing, flame and smoke. He had to squint to look at it, kept his head down, looked left, saw Pettigrew’s men still moving, but the neat lines were gone, growing confusion, the flags dropping, no Rebel yell now, no more screams of victory, the men falling here and there like trees before an invisible ax, you could see them go one by one and in clumps, suddenly, in among the columns of smoke from the shell. Far to the left he saw: Pettigrew’s men were running. He saw red flags streaming back to the rear. One of Pettigrew’s brigades had broken on the far left. Armistead raised his sword, saw that the sword had gone through the hat and the hat was now down near his hand. He put the hat up again, the sword point on a new place, started screaming, follow me, follow me, and began the long last walk toward the ridge. No need for hurry now, too tired to run, expecting to be hit at any moment. Over on the right no horse. Kemper was down, impossible to live up there. Armistead moved on, expecting to die, but was not hit. He moved closer to the wall up there, past mounds of bodies, no line any more, just men moving forward at different speeds, stopping to fire, stopping to die, drifting back like leaves blown from the fire ahead. Armistead thought: we won’t make it. He lifted the sword again, screaming, and moved on, closer, closer, but it was all coming apart; the whole world was dying. Armistead felt a blow in the thigh, stopped, looked down at blood on his right leg. But no pain. He could walk. He moved on. There was a horse coming down the ridge: great black horse with blood all over the chest, blood streaming through bubbly holes, blood on the saddle, dying eyes, smoke-gray at the muzzle: Garnett’s horse.
Armistead held to watch the horse go by, tried to touch it. He looked for Garnett ahead; he might be afoot, might still be alive. But vision was mistier. Much, much smoke. Closer now. He could see separate heads; he could see men firing over the wall. The charge had come to a halt; the attack had stopped. The men ahead were kneeling to fire at the blue men on the far side of the wall, firing at the gunners of the terrible cannon. Canister came down in floods, wiping bloody holes. A few flags tilted forward, but there was no motion; the men had stalled, unable to go on, still thirty yards from the wall and no visible halt, unable to advance, unwilling to run, a deadly paralysis.
Armistead stopped, looked. Pettigrew’s men were coming up on the left: not many, not enough. Here he had a few hundred. To the right Kemper’s brigade had broken, but some of the men still fired. Armistead paused for one long second. It’s impossible now, cannot be done; we have failed and it’s all done, all those boys are dead, it’s all done, and then he began to move forward automatically, instinctively, raising the black hat on the sword again, beginning to scream, “Virginians! With me! With me!” and he moved forward the last yards toward the wall, drawn by the pluck of that great force from within, for home, for country, and now the ground went by slowly, inexorably, like a great slow river, and the moment went by black and slow, close to the wall, closer, walking now on the backs of dead men, troops around beginning to move, yelling at last the wild Rebel yell, and the blue troops began to break from the fence. Armistead came up to the stone wall, and the blue boys were falling back. He felt a moment of incredible joy. A hot slap of air brushed his face, but he was not hit; to the right a great blast of canister and all the troops to his right were down, but then there was another rush, and Armistead leaped to the top of the wall, balanced high on the stones, seeing the blue troops running up the slope into the guns, and then he came down on the other side, had done it, had gotten inside the wall, and men moved in around him, screaming. And then he was hit, finally, in the side, doubling him. No pain at all, merely a nuisance. He moved toward a cannon the boys had just taken. Some blue troops had stopped near the trees above and were kneeling and firing; he saw the rifles aimed at him. Too weary now. He had made it all this way; this way was enough. He put an arm on the cannon to steady himself. But now there was a rush from the right. Blue troops were closing in. Armistead’s vision blurred; the world turned soft and still. He saw again: a bloody tangle, men fighting hand to hand. An officer was riding toward him; there was a violent blow. He saw the sky, swirling round and round, thank God no pain. A sense of vast release, of great peace. I came all the way up, I came over the wall …
He sat against something. The fight went on. He looked down at his chest, saw the blood. Tried to breathe, experimentally, but now he could feel the end coming, now for the first time he sensed the sliding toward the dark, a weakening, a closing, all things ending now slowly and steadily and peacefully. He closed his eyes, opened them. A voice said, “I was riding toward you, sir, trying to knock you down. You didn’t have a chance.”
He looked up: a Union officer. I am not captured, I am dying. He tried to see: help me, help me. He was lifted slightly.
Everywhere the dead. All his boys. Blue soldiers stood around him. Down the hill he could see the gray boys moving back, a few flags fluttering. He closed his eyes on the sight, sank down in the dark, ready for death, knew it was coming, but it did not come. Not quite yet. Death comes at its own speed. He looked into the blue sky, at the shattered trees. It may be for years, it may be forever … The officer was speaking. Armistead said, “Is General Hancock … would like to see General Hancock.”
A man said, “I’m sorry, sir. General Hancock has been hit.”
“No,” Armistead said. He closed his eyes. Not both of us. Not all of us. Sent to Mira Hancock, to be opened in the event of my death. But not both of us, please dear God …
He opened his eyes. Closer now. The long slow fall begins.
“Will you tell General Hancock … Can you hear me, son?”
“I can hear you, sir.”
“Will you tell General Hancock, please, that General Armistead sends his regrets. Will you tell him … how very sorry I am …”
The energy failed. He felt himself flicker. But it was a long slow falling, very quiet, very peaceful, rather still, but always the motion, the darkness closing in, and so he fell out of the light and away, far away, and was gone.
Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels
CREON:
Can't you see?
If a man could wail his own dirge before he dies,
he'd never finish.
To the guards.
Take her away, quickly!
Wall her up in the tomb,
you have your orders.
Abandon her there, alone,
and let her choose—
death or a buried life
with a good roof for shelter.
As for myself, my hands are clean.
This young girl— dead or alive,
she will be stripped of her rights,
her stranger's rights,
here in the world above.
ANTIGONE:
O tomb, my bridal-bed—my house,
my prison
cut in the hollow rock,
my everlasting watch!
I'll soon be there,
soon embrace my own,
the great growing family of our dead
Persephone has received
among her ghosts.
I,
the last of them all,
the most reviled by far,
go down before
my destined time's run out.
But still I go, cherishing one good hope:
my arrival may be dear to father,
dear to you, my mother,
dear to you, my loving brother, Eteocles—
When you died
I washed you with my hands,
I dressed you all,
I poured the sacred cups
across your tombs.
But now, Polynices,
because I laid your body
out as well,
this,
this is my reward.
Nevertheless
I honored you—
the decent will admit it—
well and wisely too.
Never, I tell you,
if I had been the mother of children
or if my husband died,
exposed and rotting—
I'd never have taken
this ordeal upon myself,
never defied our people's will.
What law,
you ask,
do I satisfy with what I say?
A husband dead,
there might have been another.
A child by another too,
if I had lost the first.
But mother and father both
lost in the halls of Death,
no brother could ever
spring to light again.
For this law alone
I held you first in honor.
For this, Creon, the king,
judges me a criminal
guilty of dreadful outrage,
my dear brother!
And now he leads me off,
a captive in his hands,
with no part in the bridal-song,
the bridal-bed,
denied all joy of marriage, raising children—
deserted so by loved ones,
struck by fate,
I descend alive
to the caverns of the dead.
What law of the mighty gods have I transgressed?
Why look to the heavens any more,
tormented as I am?
Whom to call, what comrades now?
Just think,
my reverence only brands me for irreverence!
Very well: if this is
the pleasure of the gods,
once I suffer I will know
that I was wrong.
But if these men are wrong,
let them suffer
nothing worse
than they mete out to me—
these masters of injustice!
LEADER:
Still the same rough winds, the wild passion
raging through the girl.
CREON:
To the guards.
Take her away.
You're wasting time—
you'll pay for it too.
ANTIGONE:
Oh god, the voice of death. It's come, it's here.
CREON:
True. Not a word of hope—your doom is sealed.
Sophocles, Antigone
Robert Fagles, (translation to English)
CHAPITRE XII
La planète suivante était habitée par un buveur. Cette visite
fut très courte, mais elle plongea le petit prince dans une grande
mélancolie :
– Que fais-tu là ? dit-il au buveur, qu’il trouva installé en
silence devant une collection de bouteilles vides et une collection de bouteilles pleines.
– Je bois, répondit le buveur, d’un air lugubre.
– Pourquoi bois-tu ? lui demanda le petit prince.
– Pour oublier, répondit le buveur.
– Pour oublier quoi ? s’enquit le petit prince qui déjà le
plaignait.
– Pour oublier que j’ai honte, avoua le buveur en baissant
la tête.
– Honte de quoi ? s’informa le petit prince qui désirait le
secourir.
– Honte de boire ! acheva le buveur qui s’enferma définitivement dans le silence.
Et le petit prince s’en fut, perplexe.
« Les grandes personnes sont décidément très très bizarres », se disait-il en lui-même durant le voyage.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Le Petit Prince
That hot defiant screech was the Bohane El Train as it took the last turn onto De Valera Street. The El ran the snakebend of the street, its boxcar windows a blurring yellow on the downtown charge. The main drag was deserted this wind-less a.m. and it was quiet also in the car that Gant was sat in. There was just a pair of weeping hoors across the aisle - Norrie girls by the feline cut of the cheekbones - and a drunk in greasy Authority overalls down the way. The El train was customarily sad in this last stretch before dawn, that much had not changed. The screech of it was as a soul screech. If you were lying there in the bed, lonesome, and succumbed to poetical thoughts, that screech would go through you. It happens that we are often just so in Bohane. No better men for the poetical thoughts.
The Gant took a slick of sweat from his brow with the back of a big hand. He had a pair of hands on him the size of Belfast sinks. The sweat he found was after coming out on him sudden. It was hot on the El train and the flush of heat brought to him a charge of feeling also, the Gant was in a fever spell this season. The tang of stolen youth seeped up in his throat with the rasping burn of a nausea and on the El train in yellow light the Gant trembled but the familiar streets rushed past as the El train charged and the pain of memory without warning gave way to joy, a kind of joy - he was back! - and the Gant beamed then ecstatically as he sucked at the clammy morning air, and he listened to the hoors. ‘I fucking loved dat blatherin’ fucker big time’ said one. ‘He was filth, girl, s’bone truth of it’ consoled the other, he was casting off all over the town, y’ check me? He took you for a gommie lackeen.’
He was back among the city’s voices and it was the rhythm of them that slowed the rush of his thoughts. He had been glad to hop on the El train up on the northside and take the weight off his old bones. The Gant was back at last in the Bohane creation. Down along the boxcar he saw the Authority man mouth a sadness through his sozzled half-sleep, most likely a woman’s name – was she as green and lazy eyed as the Gant’s lost love? - and the city unpeeled, image by image, as the El train screeched along De Valera Street: a shuttered store, a war hero’s plinth, an advert for a gout cure, a gull so ghostly on a lamp post.
Morning was rising against the dim of the street lights and the lights caught just as the El screeched into its dockside terminus. The train locked onto its berth - the rubber jolt of the stoppers meant you were downtown, meant you were in Bohane proper and the El’s diesel tanks settled and died.
He let the hoors and the drunk off ahead of him. The Gant as he disembarked was fleshy and hot-faced but there was no little grace to his big-man stride. There was a nice roll to his movement – ye sketchin’? This Gant had old time style.
The station is named Bohane St. Francis Xavier, officially, but everyone here knows it as the Yella Hall. The Gant sniffed at the evil undying air of the place as he walked through. Even at a little after 6 in the morning the concourse was rudely alive and the throb of its noise was by the moment thickening. Amputee walnut sellers croaked their prices from tragic blankets on the scarred tile floors, their stumps so artfully displayed. The Bohane accent sounded everywhere, it was flat and harsh along the consonants, sing-song and soupy on the vowels, betimes vaguely Caribbean. An old man bothered a melodeon as he stood on an upturned orange crate and he sang a lament for youth’s distant love. The crate was stamped Tangier - a route that was open yet - and the old dude had belters of lungs on him, was the Gant’s opinion, though he teetered clearly on eternity’s maw.
Choked back another tear did the Gant: he was big but soft, he was hard yet gentle.
The early edition of the Bohane Vindicator was in, the city’s only paper, but the bundles had as yet to be unwrapped by the kiosk man who listened with his eyes closed to an eerie sonata played on a transistor wireless at this hour on the Bohane Free Radio the selector tended towards the classical end of things and towards melancholy. Nodded his head softly, the kiosk man, as the violins caught.
Oh we’d get medals for soulfulness out the tip end of the Bohane Peninsula.
The hoors who had wept on the train were ahead of him now on the concourse, they had gathered themselves. They were painting on bravery from their compacts as they walked. They would be bound, he knew, for Smoketown and its early-morning trade. The Gant watched as they went out through the yellow hall. Ah look: the quick switching of their buttocks beneath the thin silk fabric of their rah-rah skirts, and the way their calves are so finely toned from half their young lives spent on 6-inch spike heels. The sight of the girls made him sentimental. He had run stables of hoors himself as a young man. There was a day when it was the Gant did the runnings of Smoketown, a day when the Gant had the runnings of the city entirely.
Was said out in Bohane the Gant ran it clean. He looked out to the first of an October morning. The gulls were going loo-la on the dockside stones. Those gulls of course were never right. That’s often said in Bohane, the sheer derangement in their eyes and the untranslatable evil of their cawing as they dive bomb the streets, the gulls of Bohane are one ignorant pack of fuckers. He’d missed them terribly. He laughed out loud as the gusts of morning wind flung the birds about the sky but he drew no looks, sure the Yella Hall would be crawling with wall-bangers at the best of times.
The Gant set out towards the Smoketown footbridge. He took a scrap of paper from his pocket and opened it, he read a hand that had not changed with the years - still those big nervous childish letters - and its scrawl spelt out these words:
Ho Pee Chin Oh-Kay Koffee Shoppe.
The Gant had a wee girl to meet at this place. It was a good time for such a meeting, he could be lost among the crowd. Smoketown he knew would be black at this hour of the morning. The late shifts from the slaughterhouses and the breweries were only now clocking off. Bohane builds sausages and Bohane builds beer. We exist in the high 50s of latitude, after all, the winters are fierce and we need the inner fire that comes from a meat diet and voluminous drinking. The plants worked all angles of the clock and after the night shift it was the custom to make for S’town and a brief revel. In the dawn haze the brewery lads were dreamy-eyed from hops fume while the slaughterhouse boys had been all the silver and shade of night up to the oxters in the corpses of beasts, filling the wagons for the butchers’ slabs at the arcade market in the Bohane Trace and the wagons rolled out now across the greasy cobbles and it was a gory cargo they hauled:
See the peeled heads of sheep and the vein fleshy haunches of pigs, and the glistening trays of livers and spleens, skirts and kidneys, lungs and tongues – carnivorous to a fault, we’d ate the whole lot for you out in Bohane.
The Gant hunched his big shoulders against the morning chill. The lowing of condemned beasts sounded in bass tones on the air – our stock yards are laid out along the wharf. The Gant stepped over a gutter that ran torrentially with fresh blood.
Now how, he wondered, was a man expected to think civilised thoughts in a city the likes of Bohane?
Kevin Barry, City of Bohane
211 days later
'The Gods of the Copybook Headings' - Rudyard Kipling
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
I remembered each flashAs time began to blurLike a startling signThat fate had finally found meSo give me reasonTo prove me wrongTo wash this memory cleanLet the floods crossThe distance in your eyesLet it be enough to reach the truth that liesAcross this new divideThere was nothing in sightBut memories left abandonedThere was nowhere to hideThe ashes fell like snowAnd the ground caved inBetween where we were standingAnd your voice was all I heardThat I get what I deserveSo give me reasonTo prove me wrongTo wash this memory cleanLet the floods crossThe distance in your eyesAcross this new divideIn every loss in every lieIn every truth that you denyAnd each regret and each goodbyeWas a mistake too great to hideAnd your voice was all I heardThat I get what I deserve
34 days later
"He [God] wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
— The Screwtape Letters, letter VIII, C. S. Lewis
— The Screwtape Letters, letter VIII, C. S. Lewis
12 days later
"The Romans, observing troubles from afar, always found remedies for them and never allowed them to develop in order to avoid a war, for they knew that war does not go away, but is merely deferred to the advantage of others."
- The Prince, by Nicolo Machiavelli
"Used. You have used me truly, Loo-Macklin. My whole life has been toyed with in your service."
"Consider the end results, though. Your part in all this will be made known some day. Your family will be proud of your accomplishments, of the important events of history you played a part in. Even if you were something less than an active participant in planning those accomplishments.
"I used the Nuel. I used my own race. Why shouldn't I use a single brilliant psychologist?"
"Confirmation," Chaheel was muttering. "You needed someone to give confirmation." He switched both eyes to the human. "This Tremovan-thing is false. What of the Tremovan armada?"
"Oh, that," Loo-Macklin said easily. His fingers touched other controls.
The alien resumed its feet and backed up into its cubbyhole. The panel slid down, concealing it once again. Nearby, a screen lowered from the ceiling, came to life. It was vibrant with stars against which distant flecks of bright light moved slowly, traveling from right to left. The outlines of tiny ships slowly became discernible.
"With a little imagination it's not hard to build an alien," he explained. "If you can do that, why not an entire fleet of aliens? When you're talking about detection over distances that are in parsec multiples, it's possible to fool a lot of people in a lot of ways.
"Put a small but hot engine in a multiplier envelope of opaque mylarmer and to long-range detection equipment it will give the appearance of a ship. Expensive, but workable. Four thousand and several odd are much more expensive, equally workable.
"The components were manufactured in separate plants on different worlds. Final assembly took place out in space, by a small crew of very loyal engineers."
"I didn't think you trusted anyone."
"I had holds of one sort or another on every one of them.
It's not necessary to voice threats when the subject is already aware of them. That sort of thing's for illegals fond of dramatics."
Chaheel let one eye favor the panel, which concealed the Tremovan simulacrum. "So the whole business was truly faked. Fleet and threat as well as the original transmission. There never was a Tremovan attack. There was no reason for human and Nuel fleets to mobilize together."
"Indeed there was," Loo-Macklin shot back. "Unless you can get the military personnel of two groups working together, it doesn't matter how many treaties and professions of friendship two governments concoct." At a touch, the "fleet" of lights vanished from the screen, which promptly slid back up into the ceiling.
"All this sprang from your imagination, then?"
"Every bit of it." The industrialist did not seem particularly proud of having created and carried off the greatest fraud in human history. "Every bit, except for one thing."
"What's that?" Chaheel Riens did not care much anymore.
"There is a race called the Tremovan. My ship made the discovery of Tremovan frequencies. Their worlds do lie generally toward Shapely Center. They are completely and utterly dedicated to warring upon their neighbors.
"The difference is that they're not nearly as powerful, yet, as my simulated fleet made them out to be. They're not a danger to either human or Nuel, yet. But they can and likely will become powerful enough to pose such a danger. That's why it was important to establish a UTW-Family alliance now. Now both races will be ready to deal with the Tremovan when they break out of the Center. There will be no war with the Tremovan for some time. When there is, the alliance will be capable of dealing with it."
Chaheel was desperately trying to keep up, to keep truth and falsehood separated. "But when contact is finally made, the Tremovan will be treated as enemies because of this supposed earlier attack, when in fact they've made no such attack."
"The computer analysis is clear, Chaheel. The Tremovan are incurably warlike. It was necessary to prepare human and Nuel for a war that's inevitable. There could be no peace. But they are not suicidal. If defeated, they can be absorbed into the community of civilized worlds. Commerce will break down their love of combat. But they will have to be defeated first.
"In order to assure success, it may be necessary for the alliance to attack them first. The Board of Operators and the Council of Eight would never have ordered a preemptive attack. The new Council of Ten will be less hesitant, since they have already been 'attacked.'"
"Of course, they can always turn to you if their consciences trouble them."
Loo-Macklin did not bother to try to deny that. "It will be better for the Tremovan, just as the alliance I created by duplicity benefits both mankind and Nuel."
"It will also truly be better for Kees vaan Loo-Macklin's personal interests. So you will place the Tremovan, who are not even aware of what you've already done to them, under your domination as well. They'll never know how it happened to them, nor why."
Loo-Macklin said nothing.
"Tell me something, man," wondered Chaheel aloud. "When your Tarsis was found drifting and helpless after having been pursued by the nonexistent Tremovan fleet, half your crew was found dead or badly wounded." He gestured with a tentacle. "You yourself had lost an arm."
"My crew thought the attack, the fleet, was all quite real. I couldn't trust the secret to them as well as to the engineers who assembled the false Tremovan ships. They had to act as if the attack was in earnest. I made provisions for a private warship, suitably disguised, to attack us. The explosions everyone saw while I was delivering my warning were real."
"And how many of your own, trusting people did die?"
"No more than was necessary."
"And your arm?"
"I was in a heavily shielded part of the Tarsis. The attacking warship had a schematic and did their best to avoid damaging that section. Verisimilitude was vital. I had one of my own people shoot me several times, carefully, while I was sufficiently narcotized to drown most of the pain. My wounds were as real as those received by the rest of the crew." He looked thoughtful. "An old man did that, on my orders. He died soon afterwards. Of natural causes. His name was Nairn Basright and he was the closest thing to a friend I ever had. Funny. I once offered him the friendship I denied everyone else, and he declined it." His thoughts returned from the place where they'd been lingering. He flexed his left hand.
"The artificial one works well enough. I don't really miss the original."
"Monster. I truly should have slain you when I had the chance. I could do so now."
"I think not, Chaheel Riens. We are both older and slower and you could not get to me in time now as you might have those many years ago. It's true I've been responsible for the deaths of many people. I killed my first man when I was twenty-two. I neither enjoyed nor disliked it. It was simply something, which had to be done. There have been many deaths since, none of which I enjoyed, nor disliked. All were necessary."
"One such death to serve personal interests is too many," Chaheel said, rejecting the argument. He moved close, not to kill but to try and learn. "Why, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin? Not to save humankind and Nuel from each other, surely."
For the first time, for the last, Chaheel Riens saw something no one else had seen before or ever would again. He saw Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, effective emperor of the worlds of the Families, of the eighty-three worlds of the UTW and perhaps soon of the Tremovan as well, confused and uncertain.
"I think I know why, but even I'm really not positive. What motivates a man, truly? Greed? I care little for money, only for the convenience it bestows. Power? I told the truth when I said I never sought it. Ego? You will not believe me, but I have less ego than most men. Or Nuel.
"I've acted and reacted as I have all my life because something has driven me to do so. I remember when I was very young most of all. I did not have what you would call a . . ." he hesitated, ". . . a pleasant childhood. I was abandoned by a parent who was not ignorant. That I could have accepted. But she was intelligent, and wealthy. I was simply . . . an encumbrance on her life style. An object in the way, to be disposed of.
"Subsequent to that I
was shunted from place to place. My physical appearance was abhorrent to most people. You should sympathize with that." Chaheel said nothing, merely listened intently.
"What remains with me, what drove me from my earliest conscious years, was no quest for power, nor for revenge. Those are strong feelings, Chaheel Riens. I lost the ability to feel true emotions before I was seven. It was an emptiness inside me, a feeling of utter helplessness, of having nothing to say about my own destiny. I was treated like an object. So I turned myself into an object. My reactions were purely instinctive, physical.
"I resolved to do two things: to survive, and to ensure that no one, no one, could ever control my life again except myself."
He went silent. It was quiet in the vast chamber for a long time. When Chaheel Riens spoke again it was without the anger he'd felt on entering. This man, this emperor, this unbelievably powerful individual, deserved his pity, not his hate. He'd lived without family. To a Nuel, no greater crime can be perpetrated on the young.
No wonder Kees vaan Loo-Macklin had evolved as he had. But the psychologist was wrong about one thing. The man was not warped inside. He was simply numb.
- Alan Dean Foster, Man Who Used the Universe
It's strange the way the mind can wander, but also stop to gossipMaybe you're out to find love, maybe you lost who you wasIt's so impressive, the way the mind can play with the truthIt's interestin' that nobody can walk in your shoesBut still relate and feel the same, so in a way, guess we doYou ever think about what it would be likeIf the clouds were gone and you could see light?If the door was open, would you take flightOr just close the curtains up and stay inside?Take a walk with me, take a risk with meI'm scared too and it gets so temptingWhen you're so empty, to disown everythingYou hold dearly when you know clearlyYou been so buried in your own fairytaleThe soul's tearin' bunch of holes in meI relate to it, but in case you beenThinkin' no one does, here's a great theoryMake your faith vary, feel the pain glaringBut the weight carried ain't in vain, hear me? (Hear me?)[Verse 2]So often I feel desperate, I think my heart's infectedHow 'bout yours? How 'bout yours? How 'bout yours? I guess ifYou feel the best when your life is hectic, you might be destinedTo stay defective, so join the club, it ain't that hard to get inIt's hard to leave though, look at the guest listI bet that your name is on it, don't believe me? Check itSee dead endsIn life we come to tend to raise some questionsSuggestionKnow that your feelings might give wrong directions (Infested)Yeah, with the feeling of failureLet it take over your body, it makes yaQuestion the life that you have, situationsYou might have enjoyed become nothin' but datedOld and forgotten, but what would you say ifI told you that there was some hope we could make it?I know what you're thinkin', I'm thinkin' it tooCould you really improve and be somethin' worth savin'?See, I could pretend like I have all the answersBut none of us do, it's the reason we battleThe unthinkable and cancel our trips?What's achievable depends on the riskSo pick up your chin and listen to this
Fear and paranoia bring a false sense of entitlement
Pretend we're persecuted, love the sound or our own voice
Media fear-mongering is just a paper tiger
Because don't you know that misery is oftentimes a choice?
Caught up in our drama, we pretend that we have problems
While across the world our brothers are beheaded in the streets
Malcontents and dissonance uncover our indifference
Wolf's cry obsolete
Theocracy - Paper Tiger
It's complicatedRead between the lines if you want the statementI don't even listen to niggas, I'm killing off most of these motherfuckers, digging they ditchesThis feel like I wrote it in a graveyardElevated to this level, you ain't on my radarMaking a fucking mess, I attestLet 'em rest in peace, capiche, god blessYes, you are now fucking with the bestCoast to coast, down south, east to westAssess, your situation 'fore you take a stepI'm a mad man, tell 'em I did this shit for a repConnect, with legends, I only wanted respectI'm a venomous villain, I sink fangs in your neck, yes yesI'm spitting ridiculous, I am blessedI been coming to collect, I'm like the IRS, yes godI ain't took a loss in a minute, who the fuck said that I'm finished?Running to the goal with the team on my back like [?]Y'all pussy muhfucker look timidI don't want sit with nobody on the sideline sitting, to be honest nigga I prefer winningAin't no limit how far I could take my vision, I'd die behind the shit that I'm spittingShit can get darker than Riddick, I martyr them niggasI'm looking like a god to you niggas, it's hard for you niggasThey acting like they couldn't tell the difference between the real and the imageThe minute I made a mark, I been a marksman with the penI'm in the zone, I can't be stopped and I am hoping that I offendAgain, one of the illest, I am himOver they heads, atop brimsI could give a fuck what you think, bitch I know I'm top tenDamn, let that last line sink in, I am one with the BPMHumble these menTell them niggas please calm down, I don't wanna have to hurt no clownsI am in a circus, I can hear the serpents lurkingI can snake charm with the verses, mercy, mercy, stay outta my lane no mergingKilling everything I'm purging, working, godI had to connect with the LocksmithAnd that's a Bay Area prophet[?], lyrical militia, sick of the sickest, sound like I'm viciousAin't this shit everything you envisioned?They follow a nigga like a religionHandle my business, you know what the deal isIt's a guarantee they finished
30 days later
Old Godzilla was hopping around
Tokyo City like a big playground
When suddenly Batman burst from the shade
And hit Godzilla with a Batgrenade
Godzilla got pissed and began to attack
But didn't expect to be blocked by Shaq
Who proceeded to open up a can of Shaq-Fu
When Aaron Carter came out of the blue
And he started beating up Shaquille O'Neal
Then they both got flattened by the Batmobile
But before it could make it back to the Batcave
Abraham Lincoln popped out of his grave
And took an AK-47 out from under his hat
And blew Batman away with a rat-a-tat-tat
But he ran out of bullets and he ran away
Because Optimus Prime came to save the day
This is the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny
Good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see
And only one will survive, I wonder who it will be
This is the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny
Godzilla took a bite out of Optimus Prime
Like Scruff McGruff took a bite out of crime
And then Shaq came back covered in a tire track
But Jackie Chan jumped out and landed on his back
And Batman was injured, and trying to get steady
When Abraham Lincoln came back with a machete
But suddenly something caught his leg and he tripped
Indiana Jones took him out with his whip
Then he saw Godzilla sneaking up from behind
And he reached for his gun which he just couldn't find
'Cause Batman stole it and he shot and he missed
And Jackie Chan deflected it with his fist
Then he jumped in the air and did a somersault
While Abraham Lincoln tried to pole vault
Onto Optimus Prime, but they collided in the air
Then they both got hit by a Care Bear stare
This is the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny
Good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see
And only one will survive, I wonder who it will be
This is the ultimate showdown
Angels sang out an immaculate chorus
Down from the heavens descended Chuck Norris
Who delivered a kick which could shatter bones
Into the crotch of Indiana Jones
Who fell over on the ground, writhing in pain
As Batman changed back into Bruce Wayne
But Chuck saw through his clever disguise
And he crushed Batman's head in between his thighs
Then Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White
And Monty Python and the Holy Grail's black knight
And Benito Mussolini and the Blue Meanie
And Cowboy Curtis and Jambi the Genie
Robocop, The Terminator, Captain Kirk, and Darth Vader
Lo-pan, Superman, every single Power Ranger
Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan
Spock, The Rock, Doc Ock, and Hulk Hogan
All came out of nowhere lightning fast
And they kicked Chuck Norris in his cowboy ass
It was the bloodiest battle that the world ever saw
With civilians looking on in total awe
The fight raged on for a century
Many lives were claimed, but eventually
The champion stood, the rest saw their better
Mr. Rogers in a bloodstained sweater
This is the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny
Good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see
And only one will survive, I wonder who it will be
This is the ultimate showdown
(The ultimate showdown)
This is the ultimate showdown
(The ultimate showdown)
This is the ultimate showdown
Of ultimate destiny
I'm getting reported for this but it was worth it
-->
@AceDebatesStuff
No one's going to report you for this. Even if they do, moderation has reason to take any action against you for a post like that.
-->
@AceDebatesStuff
This is the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny
Creatively excellent! Tho a little long winded. :--O I know cause Ive been there myself.
Expressing Ourselves
.........Ebuc...
With reasoning thought
As prose or verse in rhyme,
Some of us are labeled as Poets
Others as philosophers of the mind.
We follow our earnest endeavors
With expressive emotions in kind
True to hearts contentment
Through eternity's embracing of
time.
Lost in our words with passion
As all good souls have befell
Searching for those good ideas,
That ring true like a bell.
We seek the depths of knowledge,
Of whats known and unknown,
We follow a truly great pattern,
A tree of life we have grown.
Branching outward and inward,
May each bud have its say,
Our experiences are continually
unfolding,
Throughout the night and each day.
Biology is recursively recycling,
A regurgative mesh behold,
Of spirits and souls around us,
Exposed as flesh we grow old.
Pleasing all the people,
With concepts and some verse,
Is a challenge for comedians,
Philosophers, poets and worse.
Seek and ye shall find,
All through the historical ages,
All manner of verse and orator,
Mystical and spiritual sages,
Everywhere are to be found.
Words may carry great power,
Of an intense conceptual nature,
They penetrate our essence,
They define all nomenclature.
The rationale that follows
For a prose I combine and concoct,
Is to share a few insightful
revelations,
Of mysteries I may unlock.
No the poems are not simple,
In fact their very complex,
For those who do not grasp them,
May feel that they have been hexed.
Life's Universe can be awful pretty,
Or ugly and guilty as hell,
The way that I have defined it,
Is my own special spell.
Enough already you say!
Please give this reader a break,
From this philosophizing poet,
Whom i can hardly take.
Now you may feel kind reader,
That i have spoken enough,
Of ideas in prose and verse,
Now I sit and ponder
At how you may rebuff.
---------------------------------
Old limerick from 15-06-2012, 03:06 PM
Felt like coming up with something.
Fight or flyt cry me a river
Triggering the linguistical quiver
A double edged sword quicker than your finger
-->
@Reece101
Triggering the linguistical quiver
I like that phrasing
Cosmic Evoluting
Transformations
...............Ebuc.....
From
the synergetic concentric heirarchy,
To
the action of the toroidal process,
So
begins our fall,
From
equilibrous grace,
And
the God-es,
Of
total comprehension,
Into,
the quasi-reality,
Of
disequilibrious,
Oscillating
and pulsating,
Phase states of consciousness.
We
evolute outward, from an involution,
With
seven planes and seven faces,
Sometimes
diverging, and then converging,
In
eternal transformation,
From
the unknown to the known,
In
a myriad of orbiting trajectories,
That,
are forever approaching,
The
critical proximity's,
Of
absolute truths.
Intellect
beyond time,
Purpose,
preceding space,
Falling
in, and out of love,
The
interrelationships of God-es,
Encompasses
all experience,
As
limited, finite, quantum bits,
And
their associated voids of space,
Tuned-out,
as micro-fields of gravity ( ), and,
Radiating and diss-associative, Dark Energy )(.
7 axi http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/plates/figs/plate09.html click 'Zoom' in at bottom of this site
The End Date of Time
.........Ebuc.....
This magic moment, --taken from old song---
Forever til the end date of time,
We blaze a trail, or set our sails,
Taoing within the flow of matter,
Bending, flexing and breathing in,
Then out, the rush of expiration,
And we pause, treading the flow of matter all around us,
Feeling the power, we hold on for dear life,
Whoa camel! Good camel, good camel,
Alive in the desert of contemplation, for survival,
We look around, and take inventory of our existence,
( ** ).... ( . . )...( @ @ ).....( 8 * ))...... all one, one for all,
A principle and religous ritual, an integrity of soul,
A pattern of data, with a soul for life. Yes! Yes!
I live, so that others can see the pathway of living soul,
Of a the existence of even a good soul, til the end date of time.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
- Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley
[Verse Two]I'm ten-zillion light-years away from any MC breathingIf heaven had a name, then it'd be Sa-Roc, Hand to ShivaI'll Buddha, Krishna, Shango, Allah, Christ you into believingHeist your followers with a haiku then invite you into our religionSee, I'm the type to fight the fame but still be in love with the game thoughAnd you the type to love to hate meYou relish in the painfulSee, all the greatest prophets had detractors at they tableThey ain't the first ones making plates from all the fruits of all my laborRebuke thee smiling facesI'll take real evil over kind fakenessWatch me rap a straight line to the pious from the fakersI'm Tony the Tiger, homieAin't no denyin' my natureIt's provenA man with no cause will fall from his flawsSo all them charlatans you follow bout to drown in they pondsYou can either follow the leader or two step on they bonesCall me Duku I'll neutralize your group attack of the clones[Refrain]This Black Magic for them addicts and them rap fansI'm back at it wreaking havoc on yo' sweat glandsYou want to test the God?Nah, don't make me act rashLight a spark and feel the blazing fire of my backlashThis Black Magic for them addicts and them rap fansI'm back at it wreaking havoc on yo' sweat glandsYou want to test the God?Nah, don't make me act rashLight a spark and feel the blazing fire of my backlash[Verse Three]I'm the twenty-fifth Century solar complimentaryHoly mic controller of the royal parliamentaryDopest to the nth degreeWho competing mentally?Me and rap like Ruby D and Ossie bond and meant to beNow pass me the batonImma take it to the winners circleDraped in garments like Alice's magnum opus, Tinted PurpleThat's that Empress Menen shitFine silks and linen fitsFOI and Chakas on the goon squadWho finna flinch?You don't wanna samba with the lyrical Dalai LamaSpit a piece and slapped a piece from out your chest and leave you stronger than when I met youUse The Force like Jedi weaponsBalance dark and lightWho Roc? Glow the brightest, shiny beacon in the darkest lightThat be mineCause humble never ever paid my billsAnd hunger made me a predator never pray before my mealsI'm NIck Furious. I'll quickly turn you agents into S.H.I.E.L.DBlock your hateful talk and save your final statements for the real, sucka
From Time To Time
......Ebuc......
Practice,
"over time",
Makes
better, "in time",
Whatever,
"takes time".
In
spite of, "limited time",
We
find, "the time",
And
possibly we resonate, "with time".
We
may also "extend or shorten time",
Relative
to the "sum-total of time",
Being
that there are those who take their "sweet time",
And
others who are constantly running "out of time".
So
it happens there is "no time",
In
a Universe that is "full of time",
And
those who keep "track of time",
Warning
us of the coming "end of time."
I
have no illusions "about time",
Nor
about the theories "surrounding time",
I
do know that there is "a time",
To
forget "about time."
Alas,
this is the end of "my time",
Talking
of endless ideas "involving time",
And
allowing me a one final concept "concerning time."
That
all people on occasion, hopefully, "have a good time."
-->
@Barney
@Vader
@whiteflame
@Username
@ebuc
WAHOOOOHAA LET'S GO WHO THE FUCK WANTS TO OUTRAP ME
Beat to loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-fMB9v56LI
Time for a rhyme
Tick, tock heart stops for a second but the mind ran,
Fear sets in, adrenaline gets me wondering 'why can ebuc rhyme time with time on all those lines and yet I'm posting lyrics so fire that grandmas be dyin' while cooking last supper's up in some fryin' pans,
Think you gimmicks can mimic these lyrics? I'll cut off your digits if you don't push on their limits and type this shit sick, you got fifteen minutes you BITCHES, this aint quick arithmetic, it's cryptic and you're tangled in vines that aint untyin', DAMN
I'll grab a whiteflame by the tie while he's cryin' and and say I'm the Messiah, Jew, Fuck is you thinkin' posing like you higher, fam?
This is the knuckleduster to your eye while you Barney-ass Dinosaurs dance round the fire sparkling from the Coal, yeah I'm slim shady here and you dissin' me's gonna end you up like Mariah's fans,
Better blow hard fans, or carbon dioxide'll lose an atom per molecule, monoxide chokin' George Floyd back in spirit, can't breathe, fuck my limits, I shit in your mouth, Supadudz that's some scat, suck on that, I'll batter you, rattle your diaphragm,
This is how you rap battle, I played nice and saddled so far, anyone wanna step to me? Forget it, G, I'll bend it like beckham and kick your balls through your jaw, straight up shatter your spine; now aint that a plan?