Large Fierce Mammal

As part of my professional life, I spent 17 years operating and working in the emergency services dispatch centre in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. I designed it, set it up, wrote the policies and procedures manual, personally selected and trained every person who ever worked there, and by the time I was finally able to get out of that aspect of the business, my facility – call sign “Central Dispatch” – handled emergency traffic for five fire districts and the Lunenburg-Mahone Bay Police Service.

An interesting set of delineations occur when defining people involved in a call to a first response agency, and for the greatest clarity I’ll look specifically at a police call. When a police call came in that required any action beyond the dispatcher level, an “occurrence” was opened. This involved filling out a basic form that contained the information that would start a file on the event. People involved in the event, starting with the one calling but possibly including others they were calling about or on behalf of, were broken down into categories. These were:

• Complainant
• Suspect
• Victim
• Witness

There would sometimes be crossover – the complainant might also be the victim, or they could be a witness – but I always had issues with this simplified set of pigeon holes. in short, I made up my mind a long time ago that I will not be a victim. I will not cultivate that position in the world, and I will not accept its being bestowed on me by anyone else. Have bad things come into my life because someone else brought them? Of course they have. Sometimes I have been successful in exacting retribution, and sometimes I haven’t, but I have moved on. I have learned from the experience and carry no baggage beyond a solid memory of who not to save from certain death should the opportunity ever present.

A friend of mine who lives in a state where concealed handgun carry is legal recently encountered a man hiding in the bushes with clear intent to ambush him as he walked through a wooded area near his home. The encounter occurred at dusk, and when challenged, the man in the bushes moved onto the trail toward my friend until what was going to happen next became evident. After that he left the area at speed in a cloud of profanity, and my somewhat rattled though thankfully well prepared friend went on with his evening and the rest of his life. If I had taken my friend’s police complaint, the man he saw off would have been classified as the suspect, and my friend would have been both the complainant and the victim. He was no victim. Even if he had been assaulted before drawing his weapon, whether or not shots were fired, I am of the position that successful resolution of the encounter expunges all victimhood from the equation. One trains, prepares, and cultivates a mindset to maximize the chances of a successful outcome in all endeavours so that one will not be a victim.

Some may think this is a lot of bile to hurl at a mere word, and they would be wrong. “Victim” is no mere word. It’s a fucking biohazard. I was inspired to pontificate about it on this particular day by the timely combination of the recent firing from my life of a locally resident self-made, self-excusing loser, and reading an exceptionally well written article on John Rappoport’s Blog called Polishing Your Victim Story. Clicking the title of the piece will take you there. I’m sure everyone will be reminded of someone they know, and I sincerely hope the one who comes to mind isn’t you.

“True Love is passionately fierce on a primal level, and no mating pair possessed of its power can be defeated. The best an enemy can do is kill them. Both of them, for to leave one alive is to guarantee doom. A man blessed as I, and a woman blessed as Mrs. LFM, lives every moment, sleeping soundly at night, in the certainty that there is only one other human in the world who can be relied upon in any hour of need – one’s Mate. That in the inevitable cycles and evolutions of life, the waning of strength on the part of one will inevitably be compensated for by the waxing of strength in the other because their souls are intertwined and in balance. True Friendship is comparable, but its power does not even come close to True Love because True Love generates its own power.

“There’s a saying – if I have to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand. True Love will forever remain a dark sentiment because most prefer to delude themselves into believing it only exists in fairy tales and fantasy.” ~ Dark Sentiments 2010 – Day 28

Mrs. LFM has been my treasured Mate for 11 years, seven of which were before our marriage on the glorious All Hallows Eve of 2008. Adventurers that we are, it should come as no surprise to anyone to find that a photograph from the LFM wedding only finally appears on page 325 of the gripping chronicle that is our life together.

Today is the anniversary of an event I’ve described before, and will here reiterate, as being, “… the best, brightest, and most perfect thing I have ever done in my life,” and the only reason I have a hope in hell of exceeding that is because I have Diana at my side.

The first time I ever made Love to her was on one of the darkest days of recent history – 11 September 2001 – a tale I related (exclusive of the carnal details) in my article, 11 September 2001 Changed My Life Forever. Born 25 years after me in what was then an iron curtain country an ocean and most of a continent away, the multitude of events that could have conspired to ensure that we never met, lived to adulthood, or were even born is astounding to contemplate. Instead, they conspired otherwise, and for this reason, the snowflake figures prominently in our family lore.

I would like to conclude this year’s season of Dark Sentiments with A Thing of Beauty for your Viewing Pleasure, a piece that was published here on 27 September 2009 announcing the impending arrival of our first wedding anniversary. It contains a musical slide show created by my Bride that conveys the essence of the most perfect All Hallows Eve in human history. Go there now by clicking here.

In my life I have spent countless hours alone in what many would refer to as “wilderness”; or “lonely” places. Some people are horrified, and those are the people who have never learned the difference between being lonely and being alone. Likewise, when someone hears that I just came back from a reclusive week in the back country, it’s not uncommon for them to ask, “Don’t you get bored?”

My answer is always the same – I don’t get bored when I’m alone. I need other people for that. Hard on the heels of this revelation, I will point out that in the eleven years since Mrs. LFM, there is no alone in the back country, and even less chance of boredom.

The next most often asked question is, “Weren’t you scared?”

Of what? Of evil overpowering good? How sure are you that I fit your definition of good, or evil for that matter. What if my evil is less or greater than the evil that hunts me? Does that make the lesser evil “good”. If we have this debate in a grave yard at midnight, will it matter?

I do not consider good or evil to be connected to supernatural events, nor do I consider them Natural for they do not exist in Nature unless somebody brought them to the party. Man is the only animal who makes the distinction, so that narrows the list of suspects.

If good or evil are committed in a forest, and nobody is around to witness them, did they still happen? Surely you jest. There will most certainly be a bipedal primate skulking nearby who preferred no living witnesses.

Who Packed Your Bags?

By LFM

The lore abounds with demons
And dark things that rend and slay.
Things that wake to hunt the night,
And then it’s HELL to pay!

Their evil’s said to fall upon
Who finds himself alone.
Prey for every monstrous thing
That haunts the Twilight Zone.

You know the tale – a lonely place –
A hopeless victim’s path
Awakes a thing that feeds the while
Unleashing bloody wrath.

Well, for my part, I won’t accept
That good or evil dwell
In lands of mysticality
Like Heaven or like Hell.

A tomb is but a solemn place,
It’s neither bad nor good.
No worse than any desert is,
Nor any darkling wood.

In the Valley of the Shadow,
If the only Man I be,
All good and evil found within
Is what I brought with me.

“Lunenburg is an old town officially settled in 1753, and from such age is born much mystery and superstition. My father was a beneficiary of this and, with no disrespect to him, I will reveal that I came to know his faith in the old stories held more power in his life than anything his attendance of the Presbyterian Church could ever provide. He believed in witchcraft and malevolent magick. That bad luck could be simply bad luck, but persistent or exceptionally ill fortune could be the result of a spell cast by a witch on behalf of an envious or malicious rival. That warts could be “charmed” away. That a suspected witch could be tricked into identifying her or himself by constraining the suspect to enter or exit a premises by means of a doorway across which a broomstick had been secretly laid because a witch would make every desperate excuse possible to avoid stepping over it. That if you knew who cast it, a spell against you could be defeated by peeing in a bottle while thinking of the suspected witch, then corking it tightly and hiding it in a secure place. This would cause urination to become impossible for the witch requiring him or her to either find and uncork the bottle or, in final desperation, lift the spell from their intended victim.” ~ Musings as Hallowe’en Approaches

The lore says that when the spell I speak of here is voluntarily lifted, or those who invoked its casting die (amounting to the same thing), its effects go away. I prefer more definitive results.

Bad Choices

By LFM

A rival put a spell on me.
He paid to have it done.
When overnight my fortunes flagged,
I knew he was the one.

So I peed into a bottle
While I pictured him with care.
Then stoppered up the bottle tight
And hid it in my lair.

How e’er it took I made excuse
To stay and guard my trove,
So I’d be there to meet the one
That desperation drove.

For just as tight a plug had he
As did my hidden vial.
I knew he’d soon be seeking it
With every ounce of guile.

He’d need to find that vial of pee
And pull the stopper out,
Before a ruptured bladder
Put my bastard foe to route!

At sunset on the second day
He knocked upon my door.
The face he met my greeting with,
Less cocky than before.

He made excuse to come within,
He claimed he’d done me wrong.
He gasped that we were friends estranged
And parted for too long.

The perfect host, I smiled at him,
And beckoned him inside.
Yet my foe was fixed in place!
All movement was denied!

Across the threshold of the door
I’d lain me down a broom,
To keep the one who’d hired the spell
From entering the room.

I saw it in in his eyes he knew
I’d barred all ways inside,
And knew that he could tell from mine
I’d wait until he died.

Died with that who took his fee
To lay their spell of greed.
That one was likewise tortured
Knowing where my spell would lead.

I closed the door and poured some port
To sip beside the fire.
Four hours hence the screams rang out,
More sweet than any choir.

“Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun,
And baby when it’s love if it’s not rough it isn’t fun …” ~ Lady Gaga, Poker Face

The sudden upswing in popularity of such books as Fifty Shades of Grey is at once unsurprising and inexplicable to me. Unsurprising because the dark side of desire has always had, and always will have its allure, and only leads to a bad end when unstable personalities or Hollywood movie producers become involved. Inexplicable because I can’t see why anyone would find the concept of a relationship of sexual torture at the hands of someone who is admittedly symbolically punishing his mother to be anything appealing, let alone erotic. Anyway, this is not to judge those who may find something of value in that body of work. I’ve always had extensive interests in the genre that don’t require the introduction of mommy issues or any other form of sexual maladjustment to explain them.

In truth, not all in life, nor in art, need be explained – for what is wrong with accepting that a situation just is and telling the story from there? In short, the subject matter has been treated better, and I can send you a reading list if you’d like. Should you ask for that though, be advised that there will a time limit on completion and an examination at the end.

But enough of that. Here is …

Force Continuum

By LFM

A handsome rogue, a bodice ripped,
A woman for the taking.
Love’s helpless captive to endure
The fury of its making.

She struggles to resist him as
He takes her sans remorse,
Takes what she’d give willingly
And seasons it with force.

She knows that in her torment,
He will keep her sore beset
To the limit of enduring,
Then he’ll push her further yet.

She knows her scent, the sounds she makes
Fan flames of darkest drive,
As though, impaled upon his spit
He’s roasting her alive.

Her writhing, gleaming frenzy
Wrings confession from her lips,
She screams her need aloud to him
As climax comes to grips.

This is no rape I speak of here,
For each and every night
The lure of dark seduction gleams
Beneath the bedroom light.

‘Tis not to say all women crave
Such ravishment as this.
And if you think that’s what I’ve said
There’s something that you miss.

A Lover worthy of the name
Is one who’s come to find
The truest path to heart’s desire
Lies through a woman’s mind.

This poem is based on actual events that were earlier related in my piece titled Musings as Hallowe’en Approaches – Part the Second, published here on 7 September 2008.  On 20 September 2011, I also announced its inclusion in John Robert Colombo’s latest collection, Jeepers Creepers – Canadian Accounts of Weird Events and Experiences. I offer it in memory of good old Jasper who, I’m happy to report, lived healthily until the day he died, 3 months past his 18th birthday.

Jasper and the Little Girl

By LFM

I found myself a house in town,
And with some help from Dad,
I moved in with my trusty Dog
And everything we had.

The stairway to the second floor
Would not admit my bed,
So, needful of a place to sleep
The mattress went instead.

The last day of the moving in
Was tiresome indeed,
The siren call of dreamland
Was an easy one to heed.

Even so, ’twas well past two
Before I went to bed,
Followed by my Beagle
With his sleepy drooping head.

Upon the mattress, both of us
Consigned ourselves to rest,
Unknowing we were not alone
Within our rustic nest.

Exhaustion brings the kind of sleep
Not easily deferred,
And Jasper had the softest growl –
It hardly could be heard.

I’ll never know how long it took,
But ’twas a while before
I raised my head to see my Dog
Was staring at the door.

Still half entwined in sleep’s embrace
I followed Jasper’s gaze.
‘Twas then I spied the little girl
As through a dreaming haze.

She wore a checkered jumper
Falling well below her knee.
I saw her hair was long and dark,
And that she smiled at me.

As though a breeze had blown away
The mists from out my head,
The world zipped into focus
And I launched myself from bed.

A cry of, “HEY!” burst from my lips,
The girl ran out of sight.
I found her by the room across,
Still smiling in delight.

Thought I, what kind of parent
Would permit this girl to roam,
And play where dangers might befall
Instead of safely home?

My quarry darted in the room
As quick as any mouse.
The door slammed shut with such a crash
It shook the very house.

In hot pursuit I turned the knob
That barred the way inside.
I knew I had her trapped at last,
She’d nowhere else to hide.

The door was halfway open when
It seemed to hit a wall,
Then slammed again with such a force
It threw me ‘cross the hall!

I found myself laid on the floor,
A bruise upon my head.
How wroth I was I can’t describe,
So no more need be said.

I sprang up to the door again
And kicked my way inside.
Nothing stood against me and
The door flew open wide.

And what I found inside that room
Disturbs me to this day.
Or rather, what I didn’t find’s
A better thing to say.

The little room was empty
With not a thing inside.
Nor were there means to make escape,
And not a place to hide.

I never saw the girl again,
And though I asked around,
Enlightenment eluded me –
Blank stares were all I found.

In time I used that room for guests
When ever they would stay,
And only told them of the girl
At breakfast the next day.

Fifteen years of living there,
And ’til the day he died,
Jasper feared that little room,
And wouldn’t go inside.

If you’ve ever considered suicide, or ever knew someone who has done it, know that this is not to trivialize. I have a lot more to say on this subject, but this is not the day.

Suicide

By LFM

It’s said that one who kills himself
Just takes the coward’s way.
I’ll grant this Truth for those who leave
When Duty says to stay.

But if you lack dependents
Who must look to you for strength,
When all that’s good has fled your life
Why look to it for length?

Both the strong and weak will die
No matter what the cause,
And death will come no matter how,
Exclusive of Man’s laws.

So harken here ye mortal men
And bring this Truth to rest –
Speak not to me of cowardice
Until you’re put to test.

I haven’t mentioned him in this year’s series, so I’m dedicating today’s bit o’ work to my old and recently promoted crime scene investigator Friend, Martin. I’ve spoken of him before as far back as Day 3 of  DS 2010, and he’s the subject of my poem Crime Scene Man. I stand by my initial observation – A better man to draw a chalk line around you you’ll never meet.

So for you Martin, here’s …

Going Postal

By LFM

I killed a man the other day,
He’d just himself to blame.
First my patience emptied
Then my pistol did the same.

Disposing of his carcass
Was an easy thing to do.
So simple that you’ll wonder why
It never came to you.

I bubble wrapped and boxed him up
And sent him through the mail.
No surer way to lose a thing,
And never known to fail.

That’s why I always snicker when
I watch the news and see
Yet another one “went postal” –
It’s just not the same to me.

A Choir of Crows

By LFM

Deep within a forest once
I heard the strangest thing.
What must have been a hundred Crows
Had gathered there to sing.

What some might find disturbing
And offensive to the ear,
I heard to be an ode of joy
To all that Crows hold dear.

Curious, I closer crept
To watch the swirling choir,
And seek to learn what wondrous thing
Such passion could inspire.

Then as though it would explain
This joyous song to me,
One member of the choir came down
To perch where I could see.

Within its beak it held a ring
That glittered in the sun,
And through it was the finger
That the ring had rode upon.

With twinkling eye my messenger
Seemed calling me to follow,
And soon atop a hill I came
To gaze into a hollow.

The winter wind was at my back,
So not the slightest breath
Of charnel stench assailed my nose
Affording news of death.

Yet fifty men or more slept there
On crimson beds of snow,
Beneath the serenade of joy
Well known to every Crow.

The Crows sang on, as they will do
Whenever sabres rattle,
For such as they know more than most
The greatest joy of battle.

Last November I published a poem here that was finished too late to appear in Dark Sentiments – 2011. My Angelique is the strange story of a man who was one day visited by the Angel of Death, for the usual reasons, and seduced her instead. Carpe diem indeed!

This poem is a bit more explicit, and deals with some darker sexual themes. That means you should either leave immediately and come back tomorrow, or pour yourself a drink and slip into something more comfortable before reading further.

Spirit Quest

By LFM

The demon called the Succubus
Appears as young and fair.
With curves that are delight to touch,
And long delightful hair.

She hunts the night for virile man,
Then ravishes him at length.
Hour by hour she’ll ride him hard
Empowered by his strength.

She looks into his fantasies
And darkest heart’s desire
To find how best to set her hook
And stoke his carnal fire.

For this she enters through his dreams
While sleep doth hold its sway,
Delighting in his rampant state
The while she has her way.

But dream land is a haunted place
Where dwells some darksome things.
To hunt without permission there
Invites their hurtful stings.

I know all this because one night
A demon sought me out.
So sure she was, she entered in
Without a thought or doubt.

But blinded by her confidence
And everything she craved,
She missed another huntress there
And soon became enslaved.

I’m wed to such a huntress that
No demon can withstand.
Who poaches on HER hunting ground
Will feel her wrathful hand.

In my waking or my dreaming life
My Wife’s ne’er far away.
The demon learned that lesson then,
And still does, to this day.

Hers by right of conquest now
The succubus is kept
For the titillating torments
At which my Wife’s adept.

A succubus can be quite fun
When captured as a pet.
Though day may come she earns release,
It hasn’t happened yet.