Shakespeare Greenheart

By Raven Mack

Shakespeare Greenheart is book one in Raven Mack's freestyle sonnets project - to write over a thousand sonnets spontaneously, woven into heroic crowns. With the heroic crown, sets of fourteen sonnets are connected by the last line of one becoming the first line of the next. Additionally, the last line of all fourteen compose a heroic crown sonnet, so it's super-nerdy mathematical poesy nonsense. Shakespeare Greenheart is his first shots fired at Shakespeare's dusty crown as King of the Sonnet. All of these were written in "freestyle" mode, meaning more gut and heart than brain thought, skip conscious mind as much as possible, with minimal editing mostly done just to fit the strict mathematical form of the project. Themes explored mostly revolve around mankind's self-destructive reliance upon technology and brain knowledge, but in honoring the freestyle mode of writing, Shakespeare Greenheart shoots word arrows in all eight directions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raven Mack
• Release date: Jul 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310911903

Raven Mack

Raven Mack writes. Sometimes it is carved into metal along railroad tracks, sometimes it is etched into 0s and 1s for new-fangled cyber-devices, and sometimes it is spoken unto the wind. But that is what he does. He has been involved in self-publishing through zines, blogs, printing presses, pamphlets, smoke signals, street art, oral tradition, and astral projection for a couple of decades human time. But let's be honest, he's been doing this forever, or at least since the T'ang Dynasty.

Book preview

Shakespeare Greenheart

By Raven Mack

Copyright Charles Raven McMillian 2015

Published by Workingman Books at Smashwords (Workingman Books #005)

Hey you, this ebook is supposed to be licensed for personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or re-distributed. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy, or direct them to www.rojonekku.com. If you’re digging on this book but did not purchase it, please try to do something to support the author. They tell you to do these little disclaimers in the beginning, but look, let’s be real, times is hard and people are struggling. If you’re truly in the struggle, hit me up – I’ll probably give you a copy. If you just took it to be taking it, whatever man. If I could make a dollar off my writing, I’d be stoked, but honestly I’d be even more stoked if we just smashed this whole bullshit system to pieces. So if you stole this but you’re not actively working towards smashing the whole bullshit system to pieces and just trying to get cool stuff for free, you are perpetuating the problem, not changing a damn thing.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all the wild style writers who respect history’s all-time greats, but ain’t afraid of stepping to them either, and trying to grab their own shine.

Introduction

About two years ago, I started dabbling in writing sonnets utilizing accepted Shakespearean rhyme scheme. I found quickly that ten syllables per line didn’t feel right, due to freestyle MC hip hop background from my youth. So I ended up going with twelve syllables per line, and trying to see how fast I could freestyle sonnets, without too much thought and tinkering and traditional serious poet wrestling with every word. It became a little too easy once I unlocked it, so I decided to complicate matters by writing heroic crowns where fourteen sonnets connected through last-first lines into a circular crown, but also the last line of each also composed a separate crowning sonnet. This became an obsessive habit. This is the first of four collections from that Freestyle Sonnets project, after which when I’m done, I can only assume I will have usurped Shakespeare’s spot on the sonnet tradition pedestal.

Heroic Crown #01

Heroic Crown #02

Heroic Crown #03

Heroic Crown #04

Heroic Crown #05

Heroic Crown #06

Heroic Crown #07

Heroic Crown #08

Heroic Crown #09

Heroic Crown #10

Heroic Crown #11

Heroic Crown #12

Heroic Crown #13

Heroic Crown #14

Heroic Crown #15

Heroic Crown #16

Heroic Crown #17

Heroic Crown #18

Heroic Crown #19

(This particular heroic crown was written on my computerized desktop at work, with daily opening of a notepad file, never saving, trying to chip a couple out each day during the painfully boring monotony of what entails having a bureaucratic day-to-day to keep collecting paychecks week-to-week to try and keep from drowning financially year-to-year. I have a strange job where I simultaneously file a lot of papers, which is more a digital process than not nowadays, except so much of the bureaucracy is built on actual paperwork being guaranteed to exist so as to cover asses in possible instances of liability that a lot of the digital shit is doubled up with physical copies as well. On top of this, with my work history in a lab environment, and lack of squeamishness with regards to science’s nonsense, means I get to look after something called a head lab. It is exactly what it sounds like, as docs get themselves familiar with the process of cutting through skulls and accessing brains. As a young stoner metalhead, if you had told me I would have a job with actual heads involved, I would’ve thought that was pretty great. Oddly enough, it just feels like a mundane job. It has been interesting to note first hand how the human body loses a certain energy after death – the specimens are strangely empty. Even stranger about specimens is they have more meaning to those of us still living, so you have to respect that, and honor the living by honoring the dead, who don’t care. This particular heroic crown is brushed heavy with that work hate, as well as some scientific perspective. Having seen behind the façade, I don’t trust science completely, but everything is sketchy as fuck behind its façade. That’s human nature. But being situated at a desk where there’s a computer connected to the civilized world wirelessly pointed straight at my brain, and then I get to see post-living brain encasing heads, I don’t know… it kind of puts all this shit into weird perspective. Seems like too much we try to squeeze out of life has very little to do with enjoying the actual life and more with adorning it unnecessarily with a bunch of nonsense, which is why I write nonsense gibberish all the time – to fight the endless tide of consumeristic ridiculousness with mystic mythologies, from the unconscious mind.)

#001

I miss when words flowed wild from my mind with no thought,

no responsible distractions commandeering

muses into cubicle panel feedlot, wrought

with wireless technology, buzz behind hearing,

fed fog beyond sight, trying to fight for vision,

trying to still feel my natural urges, still

feel unstifled notions, no conscious decision

necessary to trigger action, sub-brain will

to resist increased domestication of men,

women, children, cyborgs into mechanisms

for more industrious productivity when

there’s so much more to be done as organisms

upon Gaia Earth, theoretics born from smarts;

fuck brains, I want stupid flows to feed human hearts.

#002

Fuck brains, I want stupid flows to feed human hearts;

fuck thinking, I want ignorant ass excitement

exploding from thoughtless, unseen, unexplained parts

of the mind where ancient ways without indictment

reside wildly, wilding through ungridded terrain

beneath your overtly self-conscious, sad ego

bullshit, fuck consciousness, fuck having to explain

each and every action through one and zero

shared code social codification group cuddle

creating muddled sense of self since nets entered

entrap attention spans pretending to huddle

by the light of right/just-ness, accept thoughts splintered

as brilliance, as intelligence, as what is best;

except those thoughts ain’t your own – beware your source guest.

#003

Except those thoughts ain’t your own, beware your source guest,

infiltration of spirit occurs when light wanes

at edges of what we know where the past can rest –

caveman molecules on DNA windowpanes,

scrawled with bazillions of years of existences

accumulated one at a time by matter

preciously shared organic over distances

of great chronology, human pitter patter

of steps across history’s timeline unrefined

where raw mind of matter intertwines with thoughts forced

to the surface by whatever bubbles behind

by the twin orbs of clouded vision, with outsourced

judgments cultivated by seeds planted in parts,

piecemealed together as where real world wisdom starts.

#004

Piecemealed together as where real world wisdom starts,

academic infatuations pretending

to be love of knowledge, pushing library carts

onto elevated access, special lending

of secretive collections, secreted by minds

intertwined with ivy, blue of blood plus bred pure,

raised most unferal behind stone walls where one finds

shelter from low-rank stank masses, where wealth can cure

into a pleasant sausage, blood invisible,

absorbed by the process of weeding out dandy

lion-hearts, common souls who’re ineligible

to be cultivated, curated, left standing

outside western culture’s brickwork considered best,

for betterment of man, unavailed to the rest.

#005

For betterment of man, unavailed to the rest,

theories put to test, replicated precisely

so as to exact pre-planned results because best

funded research confirms expectations nicely,

neatly, so discretely behind secured white walls

of gangsta scientifics – give thanks what you got

was even data snapshot quick mentions news scrawl

pointing at power displays crafted with robot

brains designed to intertwine new findings with tracts

calculated by social architects; bitches

behind scenes be manufacturing strong arm facts

to match directions desired by those with riches

to build realized world results from a masterplan –

dumbass slaves pushing stones en masse, fast as they can.

#006

Dumbass slaves pushing stones en masse, fast as they can;

look at my bitch ass, donkey head carrot chasing

tryna taste implanted desires like any man

raised amidst smokescreens with adrenaline racing

through fight-or-flight thinking, balled fists gripped tight at lies

disguised as unrealized potential to achieve

by climbing bootstrap ladders, to taste slice of pies

baked amazingly graceful; but the myths they weave

with historical white wools cover twin windows

into my internal universe – eyes glistened

with sparkle lust for shine promise, yet time follows

diff’rent paths than dreams travel; I never listened

to the master within, fearing whips external,

not realizing suffering remains eternal.

#007

Not realizing suffering remains eternal,

people chase momentary tastes planted within

tastebuds which blossom into corn syrup kernel

of nutritionless truth, then hunger will begin

to become a constant presence where gut level

congresses attempt to legislate true action

in life from safe space of wholeness, not god/devil

dichotomy psychology splintered fraction

where factions argue black-or-white until greying

all matter with undeserved contrast, implying

fissures in issues without much thought, cray-craying

life’s rich tapestry with crayon marks denying

existence of seams found throughout since time began,

unable to take non-dominion of each man.

#008

Unable to take non-dominion of each man,

political class oppresses prisoner class

for stepping out of line of overarching plan

from the master’s degrees, angels skewed through stained glass

and ivied walls, from which behind the on-high learn

to more easily implement foolish toolish

working class asses to labor without concern

for the masses, but the overlords with ghoulish

iron-fisted ways, plus endless means gilded gold,

never feeling guilty, even slightly unless

token act of ceremony if truths unfold

the harsh nature of social architecture’s mess

of men’s laws, delaying overthrows infernal,

left unwritten in the human spirit’s journal.

#009

Left unwritten in the human spirit’s journal

are the constant flows too fast for scribbling fingers

to keep up, swept up behind rapid, internal

consciousness streams, lunatic creation lingers

in rippling memories as the neurons process

what’s been thought, been lost, been forgot, been left behind;

our endeavors never match what our souls possess;

but then again does soul mean heart, or gut, or mind,

or all of it intertwined – no one fucking knows,

not religion, not science, not a goddamned thing

can answer that question, hence poetry and prose

exist to expose beauty question marks life brings,

with sexy curves of confusion, straight sensations

with periods of unplanned, lost exclamations.

#010

With periods of unplanned, lost exclamations,

I exhale poison dioxide from darkened lungs,

looking through ache-eyes at painful light sensations,

attempting to feel anything, hearing forked tongues

speak of lizard realities where children dream

of attaining their wildest wishes through hard work

and perseverance of spirit, getting that C.R.E.A.M.

and eating it too; Lady Liberty’s ass twerk

vibrating liberty throughout circles sheltered

in the heavenly light of privilege, ordained

towards successes, while the rest of us sweltered

in manmade hell, lacking bootstraps, four limbs constrained

by bullshit promises spake from prop mountain tops,

chasing false representations until time stops.

#011

Chasing false representations until time stops,

tick tock sands fall through too short, stained-as-fuck hourglass,

then years pass without thoughtful glance as nonsense slops

sludge upon slow death souls