Friday, October 19, 2012

Shadows on my Mind: Harder than Diamonds.


                                         Shadows on my Mind.
                                         Harder than Diamonds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poEgGqHadA8

                                        By Mark William Darus

To what do I owe for the amazing gifts I have been given? In the last two months I have had two of my photographs become book covers. I am stunned in a way so unfamiliar that I have thrown up twice today. My God, two covers and possibly a third.

 

I feel something is happening to me. I have no idea what though. It’s sort of exhilarating and frightening at the same time. It’s like I have somehow stumbled into some obscure movie that it so slightly based in reality that I’m almost afraid I’ll wake up and find it an illusion.

Since July 2012, I have taken over 8000 photographs, generally liking about 10 percent of those. Such is the luxury of digital photography, oddly something I had little interest in as opposed to 35mm SLR’s. In the last two months or so, throwing myself into workings of my Fuji, I taught myself to only shoot in manual mode.

When I go on my journeys, usually with a huge cup of coffee and a pack of L&M’s, I am usually alone. It’s not that I don’t like being around friends when I shoot so much as I feel it wrong to ignore them. I get absorbed wherever I go to the point that my surroundings become my lover, it’s embrace so warm and welcome.

From a written standpoint, this will the least amount of words I have ever entered on my Blog.

Enjoy…


 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 



 


 





 

 
 
At this point after taking the last two to three hours reviewing, I think I know those that should be thanked.
I humbly thank Ryn Cricket and Deborah Gilbert for thinking enough of my shots to place them on your books. I would also like to thank all my Facebook friends for their kind words of encouragement.
But it is with profound gratitude that I say this: Big thanks as well as milk and kisses to the loyal readers of Psychopathy: Another Life! I don't think I would've returned to photography if it hadn't been for you.
 


                       To everyone, to my god, nature, cold man made steel, I bow to you for the gifts you share with me.

Mark William Darus 10192012
 



                      

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Reflections.

                                             
                                           Reflections.
                                  By Mark William Darus.

 

How many of us take the time to look back on our lives objectively? Sure, as the sharpest edge of depression stab us in the gut, most of us do. But at that point, what do we really feel about ourselves except fear and shame?

 

 

A few years back, I was with a woman that wanted someone to kill her. So utterly miserable and painfully scarred, she wanted death like one would crave a rare t-bone after happily leaving a vegan life that failed.

Laying next to me on the dampening grass, she is trembling and eyes looking crazed. Chilled air traveled around us, the moon riding high behind budding trees. The vibrations from trunks thumping from rap music playing way too loud.

“I want to die!. There is nothing for me here. Can’t you see that?” She is whimpering as shadows run across her face displaying eyes that loosen and tense up, fighting tears. Quivering lips, their ends curling up and down.

“No, I can’t. Explain.”

“I can’t do anything right. You’re not happy with me. I hate my job, I hate my life!”

“And what of your son?”

“I’ve failed him! I can’t get him what he needs. I snap at him like I do at you.”

“You have two sons though, did you forget about the other one?”

“You’re a bastard! I hate you.”

“Yeah, I am. Sorry, it was a trick question.”

Laying in a highly public park, I found it nice to know that at least one person could take it upon themselves to leave their safe-place and inquire.

“You guys alright?” Wearing a flowing skirt caught by the breeze, a short crowned blond looked down at us.

“We’re fine. Thanks for asking. She’s just upset that Dominoes is late with our pizza. I mean, really, how hard is it to deliver here?” I sarcastically initiated. Seeing the cock of head, I added, “sort of tense, but I’m handling it.” I then looked squarely into eyes and mouthed the words: ‘do me a favor. Stay close behind her in case I fail, okay?’

Nodding to us, adding, “Don’t let them forget the Cheesy Bread sticks.”

Looking into my girlfriends eyes, “People can be so rude, can’t they?”

“Yes, they can be. But not like me. I’m evil. You have to be able to see this.”

“Evil? You can be very evil. My family and friends saw this about you early on. I’ve known it all along though, kind of what attracted me to you.”

“Attracted you? That’s all you saw in me?”

Staring at her, I am entrenching, getting ready for the storm front of hostility to fly my way, I said, “Sure! I haven’t met many so self loathing and thoroughly unworthy I thought I’d take you for a spin. Do you have a problem with this? C’mon, we’re been together for how many years?”

“I HATE YOU!”

“Good.” I smiled. “But exactly why do you hate me? Because I saw you as you are early on? Because your eyes seldom meet your actions? Because I looked at you as one of the most hypocritical people I have ever met?”

She quickly rose to a sitting posture, glaring at me, arms tensing, fists clinching. Still not speaking verbally.

“You gonna cry? Huh? Are you going to cry like a baby?” I prodded.

“I-I-I! Why don’t you just kill me?”

“Well, sorry, haven’t got a knife handy. Oh, wait, I’m sure there’s a few in this hood that do. Give me a sec. HEY! DOES ANYONE AROUND HERE HAVE A SUITABLE KNIFE FOR A MERCY KILLING? I’m only gonna charge 10 bucks to see it or 20 to vid it.”

If you ever wish to gauge human reaction, just throw that out there. Everyone except the crew-cut blond took staggering flight.

She began to cry slowly at first. “I hate crying. I’m not a baby! I’m not!”

She is rocking in the fetal position, sobbing fully.

Not quite there yet, I say: “Yeah, your sons deserve better than you. They really do! And by the way, I so love watching you crash!”

Snapping too, she lunges at me full force.

I roll away, rollback and plant myself astride on her pinning her arms. My browns never leaving her flashing eyes.

“Do you hate me?!?!” I ask.

“YES!”

“You want to fight me?” I grin at her

“YES. DAMN IT!”

“Good.”

“Good? How’s that good?”

“Well, it means you ain’t done yet.”

Her voice lowering, speaking with heaving breath, “I hate to cry…”

“I know, dear. But crying is necessary. It’s like milk, it does a body good!”

“I love you. I’m so sorry.”

“I know you do and I know you are.”

By this time we are embracing each other. Her tears hit both my face and chest with their warmth as we roll across the dewy grasses.

“Why do you put up with me?” Her tone quieted and nearly even.

“What makes you think I have a choice?”

“But you’ve never left me.”

“Why would I? You’re not the monster you think you are. That and the fact you have a talent to say things in odd vocal inflections that nail you to me.”

“Where would I be without you?”

“If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else…”
                                          

 

 

So many are the times I reflect on this frequent event in my life. I’ve experienced things similar to this with many a fine woman in 34 years of dating.

What things do you reflect on? Have you ever been the ‘her or I’ at some point in your life?

As you close your eyes, perhaps laying with another, falling into the land of sleep alone, do you regret anything? Do you reflect on anything across the decades of your life and how it causes tosses and turns from things not dealt with?

Looking back, what would you change knowing that any change you could do would alter what you know now?

Sure, if you could go backward and not date that woman that you hastily learned to hate with your friends and family. You could chop her from your past and thus trash the very children you love created only through her in the process. Where would be then?

Standing one morning in front of full length mirror, taking inventory of areas needing a work out while hearing the sound of her ex husband on voicemail asking for her to fill the kids meds again. Thinking ‘So, he has custody, but I’m trying to do something here! Can’t he understand? I wish I never met him…’

Imagine, or don’t imagine anything as I think these things do occur, where people end up when their thoughts are heard?

 

I believe it to be the total sum of our lives that make us what we are where we are.

We are where we are, and we best learn to appreciate it. There a beauty out there.

I wouldn’t change any element in my life no matter how bad it is…
                                            


Mark William Darus10172012

Authors note: Photo subject was Rachel Anne Darus. Always a great shoot.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

What catches in your head?

 
 
                                        What catches in your head?
  What hits you in a way that doesn’t catch my interest as we walk together?
                                         by Mark William Darus

        May you and your higher power hear the words of this song as you read my tiny offering. Read the God line in any respect in your lives.
Don't take it personally, okay?
                               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esXTFQzvXJI
               

 

Why do some of us slow down as our eyes catch the swirl of reds and blues flashing on the other side of a freeway, causing us to slow and see the possible carnage of blood on the highway? Perhaps a mangled body, bloodied face down on an auto’s hood, caught at the hip by shattered windshield, catches our fancy. Others seek the frantic elements of bodies running about to save someone else with their energy. Occasionally, there are a few that just want to get somewhere and are tired with another Gawkers block on the road.
                                         

You are standing near a towns square during a warm summer eve. It’s about an hour and half before sunset. Birds quickly stop chirping as squirrels madly dart toward trees . Heads snap in all directions as sounds become frightening echoes banking off many a stone structure.

In the towns center, a polka band plays Frankie Yankovic’s Beer Barrel Polka, it’s lead accordion player rocking about like a  heavy metal god. People are dancing, most so inebriated they think this song is the Turkey Dance.

An ambulance sirens cut this eve in half though few notice. Apparently someone is beyond drunk. A trashed, highly overweight man fell on the mayors third cousin. Granted, she of stout form and holding 365 pounds on her own, got leveled by the town drunk with his 250 pounds as he passed out.

“My lord! He crushed her!”

“I’b thunk he jus wan-ted a Queen sized to zretech onn.”

“Please tell me your camera is rolling!”

“FLAT, LIKE A PANCAKE, MOMMA!”

“That bitch had it coming! Is she dead?”

“Dude, why the fuck is the mayor smiling?”

“I did tell her it was not just a yeast infection.”

Towns process what they do in their own way.

Yet there were about twenty five townsfolk that saw a tiny woman take a beating from some cowboy hat wearing idiot in northern Ohio.

She yelled, cried, and needless to say, screamed her fucking head off.

In Ohio, all the screaming a female can do only means getting the one beating the shit out of her a bigger audience. Blood from her chopped lips flies about,, landing on storefront windows, pavement and passerby as they lick it from their face or passionately kiss one another.

She attempts to stand, rising to her knees before her husband, he spirals with pivoting left foot and plants his right heel to her forehead.

Pain rising fully, tendons hitting hard bone. “That hurt, slut!” His Achilles hit her solidly and he dropped to the memory embossed brick pavement: "in the loving memory of Irving. You bred such good pigs. My Loving wife, sorry, yourbest friend did me better. and so forth," fools payed to have cut into Beldon Brick.
Shaking off his tumble, standing fast, he aims his fists at her.

“She mustta done som’thin to git this.”

“Christ, someone needs to stop him!”

“Y’uh, I saw her by Johnny’s Feed last wee’kund. I seen her face.”

“Why’s the ambulance over there?”

“I guess calling a cop would be pointless here, honey. Time to bolt!”

“Oh! Fuck this!”

A single gunshot rings out, worthy of Oswald, and kills the abuser as the sounds of Frankie play on and the whiffs of elephant ears getting cooked fill the air. Children laugh about in the background as gasps hit this near place where ones murder is a delight to see.

In my opinion, the best line of this night went to the moron that asked if the mayors third cousin would be alright.

 

What do you see when you see?

Is that such a hard question to ask? What do you see as life passes before you?

Look at it this way: How many seasons can you experience before you die? Perhaps eighty, more often less, and what do you take into memory to pass to others? If you’re lucky, out of the 70 or 80 years you have to share, how many really good Christmas’, Pass Over’s can you recall?

I see this land I walk as some extremely disturbing place to be. Problem is, to me it is not disturbing at all. I see drug dealers and hookers all the time and I find their conversations quite interesting with twists you just can’t get from the more pathological in our society.

A few weeks ago I did the Donate-For-Cash plasma thing. Got fifty for my hour of time for my first visit. Know this: This is the first time I donated anything and had an IV connected to me. I hate needles: period! I wasn’t freaking out though. I was in ‘recorder-mode’ and did so.



“Uh, let me get my supervisor,” stating and bustling away from me.

Tall, slinking mid-length hair brunette looks down at me. “You asked for a supervisor?”

“Nope. I did ask questions though.”

“You free at 6PM?”

“You buying?”

\

“depends. What’s your thoughts on Genetic links in homosexuals versus nature?”

I gave her an answer and she stuck my right arm. Clean, painless stick like none I have ever known from tetanus shots and blood work over my decades.

“You’re a real vampire, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Meet me at six, and you’ll see.”

“okay, but do you like bacon?”

 

 

Laying flat on a mirrored bed.



I asked aloud, fighting my bodies wanting to faint dead away, I bit my lip hard and asked “So, what brings you all here?” I cannot say I hate the taste of my blood in my mouth. Truthfully, I did not mind the blood of women that ran their cycles when they were with me.

When they began to answer, I fully realized what landed in my attentions-mesh and the shit passing away like piss to a colostomy bag.

Questioning those that said: “my momma’s dying.” My asking them how: Small cell cancer? Remarkably many said their moms had kicked several years ago. Wow, cool, got them held by the arms on couches! Rock with me Freud!

Let’s speak clearly here. Did I want fifty bucks for 60 minutes? Yep. Was it my intention to talk to others laying flat and vulnerable? Absolutely! Was this a chance to dig into the minds of others? Oh yeah!

“Sorry to hear that, how’d she die?” I asked emotionlessly.

“Sh’ got trumphed by Amtrak, sucka!”

“she was weak, you see. Her man killed her.”

“I really don’t care how she kicked. The whores around here will give me a discount on a blow job!”



When my sixty minutes concluded.

I strolled to the employee smoking area and hawked a few lougies with them. I smiled as my mind thought this like some odd communion of the strange.

Wearing various forms of acceptable clothing: nursing prints of flowers, country-western themes and clouds and crucifixes, I had to ask: “ So, does cotton and polyester really prevent the connection from infected blood?” Like roaches fleeing when a light gets turned on, they split quickly.



So, what falls into your strainer?

What hits you and makes you think?

What makes YOU human?

At what point do you cut yourself from the norm?

                  

Mark William Darus 10162016

Monday, October 15, 2012

Open letter to my family about Rape and Death-Farms.

                     

                    An open letter to my family about my RAPE entry.
http://psychopathyanotherlife.blogspot.com/2012/10/raped-story-of-woman-failed-by-system.html
                         When I say family, this includes close friends.
                                   To me, loyalty means family.
                                     My closest friends hold me

                       the link below should be listened to with this entry
                                             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V5VkMqM07s

                                   I originally sent this to Gretchen.

Personal note first and foremost.

Gretchen, M'dearest.

This one is true and very painful to many. I am sure of this but had to write it all the same. I hope as it goes further it does not cause you distress as you feel so many stresses now.



There are so many elements I need to add to part two.



Elements?



I take so many areas of human feelings and emotions and break them down into areas that make sense to me. To me, they are elements, fragments, slender threads those that ask me to put into words for them. They say they're lost and their shadows keep on changing. These wonderful people are not schizophrenic, psychopaths or sociapaths. They do have families, possess friends and passerby acquiantances. More often than not, those closest to them dismiss them and strip them from their lives. . I have witnessed this more often than not with WASPs <white anglo saxon protestants>. They seem to love animal causes and can't stand people.

                                   About Death-Farms )nursing homes(.

               Unlike so many nationalities in the USA, WASP's  without any sense of heritage, other-land background sense,  more often than not negate their failing family members. So causually, like  placing a pair of stinky socks into a soon discarded locker, they meander about their lives feeling justified as they do their best.

              Seeing this as I visited what I would call a  Death-Farm, nursing home, several times a week. All this patient needs is the caring attention of one that would place their life on hold to care for them and bring them back to either health or meaningful passage to death. Didn't this needy person do the same for us back when as they raised us?

              This being my blog, I don't care who would argue what I say. Frankly speaking, no one here in the United States comments whatsoever about what I say. No Sweat: You probably need more ego boosting media amp'd Viagra to fill you or where women are concerned, fuller tits to make you both feel important.

             Sure, I'm an idiot. But why do I see the majority of those in nursing homes <death farms> so tiny in frame that a 14 year cannot turn them to prevent bedsores? Why can't a child born of them take the time to learn the simple motor skills they taught us?

               How hard is it to place Playdough in their fragile hands and ask them to roll it out to the shape of a worm and squish it flat? To help them to stand as they regain the strength of legs?

              Most of us with enough coin can afford this when retirement benefits fail and Medicade <sp?> runs amok. Over 75 percent of all those in nursing homes have at least 2 married family members living within 30 miles from them. Most of those would rather spend 10k on a deck, pool or further living space.

                       I have learned much in the past 10 years. What I have learned, saying little positive about what makes us human, I believe most of us to be predators.  Going far and beyond what Dr's. Cleckley and Hare research discribed, we've taken this to such an acceptable level reaching a sick norm in society.

                       Who cares? Someone is making money, right?
                     Let's blow them off like bright autumn leaf.
                                                   
                                            

Mark William Darus 10152012

                 

Raped. (story of a woman failed by the system she supported)

                            
                                   Corporate Security failed me.
                                Alone in camera covered parking lot.
                                 As I became a whore down the road.
                           The story of another by Mark William Darus.

 

            After leaving her call center job for a major insurance, moon rising solidly that chilly September night at 11:05 PM, wishing she had a sweater to add to the below length black skirt and flowery pink top. Bidding goodnight to her coworkers she walked toward her car.

       Reaching into her tan purse for her keys, taking in the brisk air as fall approaches once again, feeling happy about the shift just ended. Overhead lights beaming down in circles across automobiles and cold concrete.

       “Excuse me, missy. Can you tell me how to get the Denny’s?” a shadowed voice asked from a dark Lincoln Continental.

       Stopping short of her beige Camry, she turned to him. “Sure. Just go down Wilsons Bend to Zeta Drive and it’s on the corner in front of Home Depot and Kohls.”

      “Sorry, call me slow.” he exited his Lincoln carrying a sheet of paper and a pen. Walking to the cars hood, he bent over to write directions. Wearing a skull cap and thick glasses he glanced at her.

     She innocently walked to him, meeting him at his vehicle.

        There are many security cameras that cover every inch of this parking lot.

        “Okay, you leave the lot, go straight ahead-”

       He spun around her, placing one gloved hand over her mouth and his other firmly around her tiny midsection. Over-powering her, he threw her into the car.

          Her mind, filled with horror, eyes opened wide, her limbs struggling to no avail against him. She saw his look of hatred and evil smile as he began to punch her in the head and stomach repeatedly. Losing consciousness, gasping for help, going into the black place of ‘shutdown’.

 

       Coming back from the dark-lands, taking inventory of self: ‘I can feel my arms and legs.’ Lifting her head slowly as a force smashes it back to the floor. She sees dots fill her eyes and a swimming sensation in brain, ‘why can’t I bend? Why can’t I stand?’ she thinks.

       “Oh, no no no no, missy! You’re not going anywhere. I got ya for a turn and bit! Lord yes, I do!” he chuckled happily as his saliva sprayed on her. On his knees, bent over her right hand flailing about as his gloved left hand, again, planter her head violently to the ground.

        Cold air rolling over her. So cold. Oddly she felt her nipples not erect but digging in. Nearly paralyzing frigid air but not quite. Her eyes caught him looking away from her. Raising head once again, tears running down her cheeks, realizing. ‘MY FUCKING GOD! I’M NAKED AND TIED!’

        Desperately yanking her arms and pulling her legs, screaming frantically, “HELP ME HELP ME HELP!!! FOR GODS SAKE HELP ME! HELLLLLLLLLLLP!”

        Twisting his head back to her and then looking upward. Laughing with a low voice, he throws his arms behind him stretched wide like Elias in the movie Platoon. Eventually looking down at her while smirking, ‘momma, who’s got you now,’ his mind churns about like maggots devouring spoiled pork.

        There is a stirring in this abandoned Cleveland warehouse with her cries. Lighting being only that of 55 gallon drums burning wood and cardboard for heat as reflected off the chipped painted ceilings. The hive-mind of the Homeless begin to rise from their stupors. Possessing different minds, wanting something apart from their norm, they amble toward the sound like zombies in a landscape seldom seen by most without bad movies and video games.

      Her head turns to the right and left. There are back-lit shapes heading toward her. Help arising for her.

        He looks around and sees what she does.

         Vile breath fills her nostrils as his face meet hers. “Missy, you think they’re gonna help you?”

       She meets his eyes, “:Please, don’t,” she mutters.

        He reaches into his left pocket and grabs a wad of singles. Holding this high above his head as vast array of lifeless packaging descends toward them. He yells: “YOU WANT YOUR MADDOG? YOU WANT YOUR CRACK? C’MON, I KNOW YA WANT YOUR FUCKING STARBUCKS!”

       The risen horde stop short and watch his hand.

       He hurls the cash.

       They go for it like hungry carp at the Pennsylvania Linesville Spillway, flopping over one another in a mad dash to maintain.

      “noooo,” she sobs. The world above her a choppy landscape of pale shadows of flickering light.



 
                                         Where she lay: Held. Tied. Racing heart.

          This warehouse off west Sixty-Fifth street has seen so much in its history. It once made military parts for WWII, car parts since the 50’s and other things. It is has witnessed workers going nuts as their wives left them, sadness as children passed before parents and several Mafia slayings during closed hours. It has smelled the sweat crossing strong brows and the smell of gun powder. What it has heard over time: the crying, the pleading, industrial sounds before Unions and the death pangs. Haunted? Must be.

         The failing and ever chipping ceiling looks down at her. She is spread-eagled upon dank and filthy floor. ‘she is tied to my pillars. We can’t have this here.’ This building gives a shudder as if in an Earthquake.

        He crosses over her, gun in hand and tells her to open her mouth.

        Placing its barrel between her teeth, he says, “You’re going to shut the fuck up, momma! No one cares around here.” Looking around them, stating, “Do you see? DO YOU!? They only care about their fix, momma.”

        Tasting the sick flavor of oil on her tongue, knowing where this is going, she relents.

        “Oh, I am so gonna take you! I am going to hurt you!” Unbuckling his jeans, panting breathing like an asthmatic, lowering his pelvis toward her.

          ‘No! Lord, For gods sake, don’tletthishappenpleaseno!”

             Thrusting into her dryness, she felt a ripping as if sandpaper had enter her, pain. A pain like nothing she’d ever known. The hurt, anguish. The full throttled running of her blown away mind.

         “Owww, ya, getting’ smoother, momma. Wetter. I feels ya!” he grunts as he pounds her splayed body.

           Thunder vibrating as rain falls from above. Lightening flashes casting blue light around her.

         Cutting her, slamming about her unwilling vagina, feeling his liquid in her as his dick moves in and out. Wanting to throw up and being unable to do so. Lost…


                                              

                                         End of Part One.

Mark William Darus 10152012

 

Authors Note: I met a woman last week that told me a tale about her life. How she had been raped and what she remembered about it. She gave me what she saw, smelled and felt. Who hasn’t known some female that hasn’t been raped? If you were close enough to them at all, hearing what they spoke, cried hysterically and shared. Please share what crossed your mind.

                 This woman's story hit home to me. Well, a past home that is.

She worked for the very same company that I had worked for over ten years and how her capture happened in this companies parking lot. Their very own cameras, so high tech in 2011 to give employees comfort, could not justify her abduction. Well, one paid off ex-employee did speak up when she was terminated. This woman witnessed this and went public.

I'm glad I remember the value of research from when I in college. Talking walks into public record areas, viewing microfilm, hammering away on ancient Smith Corona office typewriters. The Internet makes this so much easier.

Corporate Security Cameras are only there for one purpose: To record employees sharing unhappiness, idle threats toward bosses, massive violent threats to the company or sharing thoughts toward getting a Union inside. These cameras are only there to protect the Company.

I needing to find some place in writing this, I had to find some comfort to level me out. I found this with one of the best choirs I have ever heard. Given to me from my blog friends in Iceland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDKy-vf0JDc