Individualist Manifesto

I have set myself apart from the world
I choose to be one of the chosen people
I am not a part of consumer America
I am not a number in the corporate cube
I am more than the money I don’t have
I do not heed the subliminal signals in the light box
I live a real life of my own
I leave the house during prime time
I work to keep my mind functioning
I remember the spiritual grandfathers
I read the words of the artist warriors
I do not let my mind solely be filled
with the reflections of digital images
I do not let the media tell me who is right and wrong
I ignore politics because nobody’s right
I use my own mind
I am one who lives for today and lives on forever
I don’t hide myself from the world
I love the way I look even if Hollywood doesn’t agree
I look through microscopes and telescopes
I do not allow the earth to rotate without me
I get actively involved in my life
I get actively involved in others’ lives
I am not content to sit idly by while
the best minds of my generation are destroyed
by the apathy of the general population
I am different than you
Who sits in the supercenter vacuum
Who listens to clichés coughed up by anorexic pantywaists
Who vacates to the ends of the earth
to get away from your worthless existence
Who believes that voting for America’s Next Vapid Star is time well spent
I believe that there is more to life
I believe in things that I can touch, smell, hear, see and taste
I am in tune with the world around me
I am filled with the spirit of light and truth
I may not worship your god
I know that all gods are equally valid
I worship the wind at sixty five miles per hour
I pray to the ink on pages bound imperfectly
I kneel before jugs of red wine
I give offerings to tightly bound threads sealed with acrylic color
I place value on skin contact
I spread love like dust
I can’t keep it all inside
I catch on fire and rise from the flame in the form of vocal vibrations
I do not do what is proper or normal
I choose not to blend in with the rest of the world
I want to be seen and heard
I want to mean something to myself
I am in the world but not of the world
I do not swim with the current
I believe in what I believe in
I believe in answers from star formations
I believe in truth inside a bottle of whiskey
I am not what is popular or conventional, and
I don’t give a fuck what you think, because
I don’t live to please you

- Lilly Penhall

(featured in the poetry forum 10.22.11)

editor's note: No corporate memo will circulate this manifesto for all us cube-clones to acknowledge and forward. No social net will publish this to the cyber-ether for us "friends" to "like" and "comment." No one will pay attention to whether we sign on, sign up or sign off. No one will care... except you? - mh

When I Die, Take Me To City Lights

My aunt had very aggressive cancer.
By the time she died three weeks later
she had already prepared for her aged mother,
and she had made clear her wish for no funeral,

no burial, no gravestone, no casket,
no memorial, no service, no ceremony,
not even an urn to hold her ashes.
She wished to join the fire that burned her body, and
whatever remains to swirl with the dust in a dumpster.

For three weeks she knew she was dying.
She could feel the virus spreading through
the squishy gray mass inside her skull
signaling naptime only three weeks
only two weeks
only one week
only days
only hours
only minutes
only seconds
away.

Of all the ways to die,
that’s one I don’t think I could live with.
I don’t want time to prepare.
I don’t even want to wait one second
for the inevitable fade to black.
When death arrives
I want to have my eyes closed
so I won’t know it’s coming.

I’d rather catch a stray bullet
to the cerebral cortex
while walking down the street
listening to
‘This is the end, beautiful friend…’
or get into a wreck while I sleep in the backseat,
blaring speakers speak
'all the children are insane.'

And when I die,
don’t bury my artificially preserved corpse
in metal and fiberglass
with synthetic flowers adorning my slab.

I wanna go out Gram Parsons style
a barbecue in the desert.
Collect my ashes
put me in a jar,
and take me to City Lights.
Place me in the highest room in the tower
in the corner
on a stack of good books.

After that, I don’t care what you do.
Have a service or a wake
or even a drug-fueled orgy.
I don’t care. Mourning is for the living.
I’ll be distracted
by the words of the dead,
listening for The Doors to play
through the store’s speakers.

- Lilly Penhall

(featured in the poetry forum 10.01.10)

My Mecca

Your wounded deviancy
Youth tarnished from infancy
All good things come with a price
Nothing beautiful without suffering

Born from a brain aneurism
Suckled at the inverted nipple
Crawled on the matted carpets
Walked on semen trails
Fucked in the daybed
Sucked the cock of the non-convicted
Sucked the cocks of several since
Still most pure Ivory skin
Most sanctified lips
Most clean mountaintops
Mostly harmless hankering
For a forbidden fruit
Or at least a well made meal
Never fully even but somehow equal
Perfect incompatibility
Extrasensory perceptions
But never actual sightings
Withholding evidence
Keeps the passion alive
Conspiracy theories of pleasure
New Mexican deserts of pain

This is where I breathe.
It’s everywhere I’ve been.
14-year-old hand holding delight
And the evolution of the sun
Into what it has become
Gravitational centrifugal
Binding glue
Codependency with a twist

Coiling masses frame
Star struck eyes of adoration
Twinkling pointed diamond
Cheekbones pink and freckled
Purest smile of prayer
Dedicated to me in the name of Saint Bernadette
Angelic arsenal of self-destruction

I say I’m better and laughter trails from our tongues
Intertwining in the atmosphere
From a satellite of the moon
I to you

Some may walk a million miles
But to my Mecca
I pilgrimage on weakened knees
Perfection nearly attainable
As far as I can see

Silhouettes face the light together
Shoulders square
Ready to take on the journey

- Lilly Penhall

(featured in the poetry forum 06.29.10)

“Frenemies”

Preface: I HATE the word “frenemies.” It is a trite word that only people who read Cosmo and People Magazine would say. However, a certain person used it to describe our relationship, and unfortunately, I couldn’t argue with him; the word fits perfectly.

You want to kill me.
Don’t lie. You do.
You’d like to fuck me first,
but when it’s all said and done,
you want me dead at your hand.

You’d like to run your fingertips
along the sides of my breasts,
circle my areolas, and then
plunge your hand through my sternum and
rip out my heart.
Maybe even take a bite of it,
you sadistic fuck.

Don’t try to deny it.
We are way past pretenses.
You can’t even call this “love/hate.”
This is so much more.

If I let you get close enough to me
you would caress my neck with your lips
before strangling me with your bare hands,
looking into my eyes as I take my final breaths.

It goes both ways, buddy.

I don’t want to hear about your death
through the grapevine,
or even in the obituaries.
I want to cause it so that
I can make SURE you’re fucking dead.

I believe I already threatened to
stab you in the eye with a fork.

Though my friendship with you is PURELY artistic
(and YES, I will keep telling myself that)
I would use my “Kane Muthafuckin Hodder” autographed machete
to gently remove your head from your body
so that I could eat your brain
Hannibal Lechter-style with some farva beans.

So, yeah, you’re a pretty great guy.

I wouldn’t expect any less from you
than wanting to sodomize and slaughter me.

And I think you’d be pretty insulted
if I didn’t have a strong desire
to dismember and consume you.

I’m glad we had this talk.

- Lilly Penhall

(featured in the poetry forum 02.24.10)