Lying under the hungry moon
Held in the hollow of the sky
The hunter looks into his shadow
Fancying crimson stains on his hands
Held in the hollow of the sky
He questions his hunger
Fancying crimson stains on his hands
Tantalized by taboo temptations
He questions his hunger
The hunter looks into his shadow
Tantalized by taboo temptations
Lying under the hungry moon.
Lurking behind moral bars
Locked beneath in sullen silence
Quiet is not quietude
The hunter waits impatiently
Locked beneath in sullen silence
He must but cannot hunt
The hunter waits impatiently
The hunger bides its time
He must but cannot hunt
Quiet is not quietude
The hunger bides its time
Lurking behind moral bars.
One day it will end
Silence or satiation
One way or another
I will not suffer forever
Silence or satiation
Bloodlust will have its fade or fill
I will not suffer forever
Nature abhors a vacuum
Bloodlust will have its fade or fill
One way or another
Nature abhors a vacuum
One day it will end.
Author notes
This is called a pantoum. There are more and less formal versions of the form, but it basically involves a repeating line scheme rather than a rhyming or syllable count scheme (although a formal pantoum also must rhyme!)
I enjoy them because they challenge the whole usual paradigm of poetry -- instead of focusing on rhyming and so forth, I have to instead craft an image or line that's both effective in conveying my message *and* which will make perfect sense in each context within the poem that it appears. Because the formula I know for a pantoum is fairly short I decided to write three on the same topic and link them into one overall poem.
This is about the murderous/cannibalistic compulsions which gnaw at me intermittently.
A contest entry
- A Darker Poetry Contest III by -BlackKnight-.
525 points, ended August 11, 2008, 20 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Let The Sun Shine;;Or The Earth Cool, Happiness And Pain;; All The Same Game (The Best Of The Best) by HereComesTheSun.
575 points, ended August 12, 2008, 32 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Deepest Darkest Secret by Ntagatf.
500 points, ended September 6, 2008, 15 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Shadows by Danna Hobart.
390 points, ended October 12, 2008, 28 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Deepest Secrets REAVELED! by Sick Sunshine.
1000 points, ended October 28, 2008, 20 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - In Search Of Silver winning rhymes by poets whisper.
400 points, ended November 8, 2008, 26 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Poetry Styles Contest by Visit.Me.On.Mars.
700 points, ended January 11, 57 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 26 of 26
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i get what you ae saying about the quantum phsyics part of it
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interesting write
---Janette -
secrets?
"This is about the murderous/cannibalistic compulsions which gnaw at me intermittently."
I asked for secrets that were true,,, -
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... It is true. That's... why I entered it.
Thanks for taking me seriously. I won't, next time, then. -
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I enjoy different secrets. Most the secrets in my contest are the same...and told the same.. yours is different... how did this temptation emerge?
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I honestly don't know exactly how I ended up with this specific form of OCD, but that's apparently what it is, according to my psychologist. In my particular case of OCD, I get violent obsessional content, and violent compulsional content. I also have other obsessions and compulsions, and I didn't recognize the violent stuff as being the same at first, but my therapist pointed out that the content may be different but the phenomenon is basically the same.
But that doesn't change the fact that, even though I don't consciously try to call up these ideas and urges, they still feel... really... right. And good. I've always had a very predatory-animal sense of myself. I don't want to hurt anyone, exactly... I just very much want to hunt and kill and feed. And somehow, I can't separate other humans from prey animals in the litanies that spark through my head. And the whole idea of cannibalism has its own special appeal above and beyond the rest. As does stabbing and cutting with a knife. It's so kinetic and specific.
Trying to understand this is exactly why I write this kind of stuff, gory stuff and serial killer stuff and the like. I don't entirely understand it myself. I can sort of tell what makes it happen but I don't know why I have it in the first place, as opposed to any other kind of OCD or psychosis. I don't know. I wish I did. -
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that's very intriguing..like a vampire. Have you ever eatin human flesh?
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Not exactly. More like a werewolf, if you have to make a mythic metaphor. A vampire's need is constant, whereas mine waxes and wanes like the moon, albeit not in accordance with it as far as I can tell.
No. I've consumed my partner's blood incidentally, but it was part of doing something for him. I would have done it regardless of my own personal "issues". If someone were to offer me the honor and there was total assurance I wouldn't end up like Armin Mewes, then I'd go for it. But that's not likely to happen. Barring another psychotic break I doubt I'll ever act on it. -
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how do you know you want it so bad, if you've never had it?
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It's not about the taste. It's about what the act represents. To consume something is to make it part of yourself, and simultaneously to make oneself part of what one consumes. It's more intimate than sex; their molecules literally become part of your molecules. Their energy becomes your energy, on a *physical* level, never mind the spiritual. The very thought makes me shiver and triggers any number of intensely primal instincts.
That said, I don't count eating one's own flesh as cannibalism. *That* I have done. With opiates and a knife it's pretty easy to sliver off a few bits of flesh, just enough to get the sensation of it. I could *feel* myself, not just taste it. Imagining what it would feel like to feel another person that way is what cemented the need to make it real.
Why any of these ideas got caught up into OCD-style symptoms, I have no idea.
The instincts being the other, less specific part. There's also just a general thwarted predatory urge to hunt in general, in a much more primal way than humans can manage these days, generally. The fact that my back is too messed up right now in my life to hunt animals doesn't help. -
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really it's all in your mind. Like Elizabeth Bathory... She bathed in virgins blood thinking the blood would bring her youth. When really it was all in her mind. I can see how the eating of anothers flesh would be like consuming a part of them, but you just digest it later and it's gone. Nothing stays behind, it doesn't heal you or become a part of you. It's just used in body to help function and create energy. But alas, it is gone. Thus being all in the mind. I appreciate people being different and having their unique quarks about them, but I also wonder if it's possible for them to be sane as one would describe and understand like Hannibal Lecter, all side of the mind so to say. idk if you understand what I'm saying..
why is your back messed up? -
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Of course it stays with me. Not that it really needs to -- it's just a way of activating the eighth circuit. Do you know anything about the Circuit Theory of Consciousness or quantum physics? If not, my explanation will probably go over your head.
But it's not just "in my head". Arguably, in fact, the entire universe is "in my head"; everything we usually consider "external" is actually a neurological *model* of what actually is there. You *never* directly perceive "reality" -- only a heavily modified projection of it created by your brain. So, no offense meant, but how do you know whether it stays with me "really" or not? 
As a specific, concrete example, take time. Most people, especially physicists, approach time as if it's a physical, *external* phenomenon. But if you follow neurological papers, you'll discover that it's been fairly well proven that time is actually a *neurological* phenomenon. That is, it's created by your brain, not part of the universe your brain takes in data from.
I had to have surgery on my abdomen, which weakened my muscles, and I bent over too far a week after the surgery. This put too much pressure on a few of the discs that support my spine bones, so they burst and/or tore. This caused the whole structure of the spine to weaken, and also resulted in constant but varied pressure on the sciatic nerve. -
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you are right. (not about the 'over my head' thing.) But that every person does see things differently through their personal philosophies and how they see reality differs from person to person.
Sorry to hear about that. Why did you have surgery on your abdomen? -
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Well, no, that's true too, but I meant on an even more fundamental level than that. It's a physical fact, built into our brains, that we live inside a model rather than inside "reality". It's also a physical fact that every particle in existence is connected by information at the quantum level to every other particle. At the quantum level, both "time" and "space" are revealed as illusions.
For me, both drugs and things like cannibalism are ways to transcend the artificial limitations we modern humans have placed on ourselves so as to take my awareness to that level, the genetic level or the quantum-physical level, so I can *sense* those connections, not just be told they exist by a textbook or a spiritualist. And with drugs, and the chewing of myself, I did feel it and find it. So the idea of accessing other people's "quantum information address", so to speak, via cannibalism is almost irresistably appealing even without the pathological aspects. Killing isn't even necessarily part of the thing... it would thrill me to eat part of a living person who was still alive as I ate their flesh, too, and to feed my flesh to them. Someday maybe my partner and I will share that. It's the ultimate communion.
I mean, think about it. Why do Christians routinely "eat the Flesh and Blood of Christ" as their ritual of communion?
It's a long story; basically, I had a genetic disorder which caused some abdominal organs to malfunction in such a way that they were causing excruciating pain and not allowing me to function at all.
EDIT: Sorry, I didn't mean to sound condescending or anything. I'm just used to people not sharing my particular areas of obsession/interest. -
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what you say is just creepy. Not normal and you make it seem so difficult to understand. there is no excuse for the disorder you have. I'm not sure how to react to what you say because I've encountered the type of person that you are. I know you have this entire thing sorted out in your mind, but think out side the box. I'm not just another person against cannibalism, It's just hard for me to talk to people that are so set in their ways. please don't bring religion into this conversation. a topic I'd rather not talk about.
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So, because you've never had such an experience, I'm not only talking about religion, but I'm also crazy to believe such a thing? No offense, but before you tell *me* to look outside the box, perhaps you should take a step outside yourself. It's really nifty out here.
No, but seriously, you have to admit that's a bit of an ironic statement when you're absolutely refusing to accept *anything* I say, even though a lot of it is gleaned from current science news.
Yes, I'm talking about science. Neurology and quantum physics. That part is totally mainstream. The part about being able to sense that aspect of the universe on any level -- un-, sub-, semi-, or fully conscious -- isn't quite as mainstream, but it's not exactly something I just cooked up myself, either. You'd probably deride Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary as "crazy-religious", too -- or, at least, you had better, because the only part that comes from *me* is the part about cannibalism being a method of achieving higher-circuit activation. Otherwise, you're just revealing bias against me, more than likely because you're squicked by me.
I was going to explain the physical and neurological phenomena I was referring to in more detail, but it seems like I'm better off digging up some links.
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/25/45/10369
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/aug/11-how-your-brain-can-control-time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_quantum_mechanics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem
There, have some Actual Professionally Made Society-Approved Data. I could provide more, but I don't think you want more. If you do, let me know. (Seriously.)
There is a *spiritual* element to what I'm talking about, but insofar as I've discovered that the "spiritual" constitutes everything science hasn't gotten around to figuring out yet, I was never talking about religion.
You'll find I'm the opposite of "set in my ways". I absorb data constantly and go out of my way to find worldviews different from my own and learn from them. Everyone knows at least a few things, and often many, many things, that I don't. But the reverse, it must be remembered, is also true.
Perhaps my experiences are very different from yours, so much so as to seem alien and impossible. That's certainly true. But that doesn't make them false, nor me insane. Point of fact, I'm mentally healthier right now than I've been in a long time -- according to my certified PhD psychologist, not just myself, by the way. You should have spoken to me back when I *was* psychotic. I'm very rational now in comparison.
Seriously -- set aside your pre-conceived ideas about what's possible for a couple of hours and read what's in those links. Then, once you've done that, go back and look at what I said again. If you've fully read the material, it should make at least a little more sense to you.
EDIT: Besides, what exactly is so sick about me? I don't actually kill people. I've never hurt anyone, point of fact. My partner and I have done a few things together that perhaps other people might not have done, but it was mutually consensual and mutually fulfilling. I would never, while in control of body and mind, attack, much less *kill*, an innocent person for the purposes of eating part of them. Do you consider the things you do in the privacy of *your* mind "crazy"? -
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ugh
holy shit, you remind me of my ex... he was CRAZY! INSANE, WEIRD, FUCKED UP IN THE HEAD! -
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you don't need to defend yourself, im not attacking you. Just trying to understand. and stop with the conceived shit, not every is the same in the way they see you.
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When you tell someone "there's no excuse for the disorder you have," that they're sick, fucked up, et cetera, you're attacking them. And I'm trying to help you understand -- that's why I went and got those links, to make it make more sense to you and show that I'm not just making this all up as I go along. This is who and how I am. Would you prefer I changed how I express myself, or something? You're confusing me now. Obviously not everyone is the same or sees me the same way, but I'm not sure what you mean by "conceived shit".
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I'm not big on the entire logic thing.
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Why not? Obviously many people abuse it and twist it into hideous parodies of itself, but so long as one sticks to one's instincts it's pretty easy to stay in balance and reasonable with it. It is a useful tool. But is, indeed, only one of many in the toolbox.
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yes people do twist it... abuse it. Morph it. makes you wonder after all of that.. what logic really is..
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It's not that hard, really. Ask your local library to get a reference text on logic. Then read it. Those things are written by scholars in love with pure data, divorced from any other motivation. Therefore, when it comes to accurately passing on data, their work is relatively trustworthy compared to most people.
At the same time, though, apply everything you learn to your own instincts and see how it fits. Some things won't make sense at first, but if you play with them a while you'll get them to click.
Eventually, you learn to do that with your entire life, everything you take in, automatically and effortlessly. It makes life so much easier and less full of bullshit. You can ward it off before it starts to happen much more easily.
It's like a puzzle, kind of. Or sifting wheat from chaff. Both at the same time, really.
Or, at least, that's what works for me. (I got to actually take the course in college but I don't know if that's at all feasible for you, and I have no idea how good the local schools are, so that's why I suggest the library instead.) Obviously there'll be a more ideal solution for you, but, trust me, it's worth it.
If only so you can pick out and laugh at just how badly mangled other people's grasp of logic and shared reality is. (Personal realities being something else altogether, obviously.)
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Thank you for entering.
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This is a beautiful write, it shows such potential. I love the style and simply the flow of it! Wonderful piece. Thank you for entering my contest and i wish you the best of luck!!! Keep up the great work!
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love the poem style
i love when it repeats for it kinda burns in into your hand this is a great peice of work has alot of great words and emotion placed into it great job
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