Severed Heads: The Hearts of the Helpless, We Die In Gray Skies, the Wicked Within

By William Goodman

Three completely unique stories that form one cohesive story. Each story is written in a different writing style to capture a new perspective. "Severed Heads" is enhanced poetry. It's like you’re reading the lyrics to any great hip-hop song. It flows seamlessly with captivating imagery and creative word play. Each story is dark and heavy and covers a wide range of topics like: addiction, depression, vanity, sexual abuse, religion, and revenge. William has been crafting a unique writing style. His love for lyrical hip-hop has lead him to create a genre he calls, “rhyme story”. Meaning, it’s lush like poetry, but has the technique of any skilled lyricists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jul 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483473031

William Goodman

For the past 20 years, I have been giving motivational talks to diverse groups around the country. My main emphasis has been on the benefits of smiling, laughing, humor and music, and how to make those qualities play a greater role in our lives. I have also worked for 25 years with people with disabilities, including five years in Norway as a psychologist at a school for the blind. For three years, I served on the faculty of The Florida State University, where I received my doctorate in Rehabilitation. Overlapping these two prongs of my career, I have added a third as a musical entertainer in a musical duo with my wife, Susan, who sings and plays piano; I join in with my clarinet, soprano saxophone and some vocals. Our home is Mabel, Minnesota, but our work takes us to Chicago and Florida.

Book preview

GOODMAN

SEVERED

HEADS

THE HEARTS OF THE HELPLESS,

WE DIE IN GRAY SKIES,

THE WICKED WITHIN

Copyright © 2017 William Goodman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7302-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7303-1 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 07/11/2017

Contents

The Hearts Of The Helpless

One

Chapter 1: Convoluted

Chapter 2: Sirens

Two

Chapter 3: Contrast

Chapter 4: Run

Three

Chapter 5: Twelve

Chapter 6: Caged

Four

Chapter 7: Crash

Chapter 8: Sacrifice

Five

Chapter 9: Hearts

Chapter 10: Helpless

I.   (Intermission)

We Die In Gray Skies

Chapter 1: Odyssey

Chapter 2: Execution

Chapter 3: Mannequin

Chapter 4: Lycan

Chapter 5: Omnipotent

Chapter 6: Hennessy

Chapter 7: Prisoner

Chapter 8: Limbo

Chapter 9: Nimbus

II.   (Intermission)

The Wicked Within

Chapter 1: Stone

Chapter 2: Golden Spray Paint

Chapter 3: Dark Room

Chapter 4: Wicked

Chapter 5: Remember

Chapter 6: Schizo

Chapter 7: I Surrender

Chapter 8: Egocentric

Chapter 9: The Parallels

Chapter 10: Text Tone

Chapter 11: Wilted Roses

Chapter 12: Cowards Quiver

Chapter 13: Viole{N}T

Chapter 14: Solitude In The Ocean

Epilogue Sing My Eulogy

OVERTURE

I’m a helpless pessimist, a merciless, a mascot to this masquerade, sent from the masses to massacre the optimist. Compulsively agitated by smiles and annoying positive attitudes, contributed to attributes that poison the medicine. Sentimental to sentiments that are sent from the devil. Severed heads are sentenced to life separated from others. Mothers tell daughters I’m the wrong fish in the water, polluting the population, like a politician in congress. Sign a petition to change the policy to politely impeach the trouble from the public. Smothered in anger, I anchor my achilles and actively act upon jumping metaphorically, metamorphosing my hatred into something more horrid. Corner boys know my prescription perfectly before I’m forced to verify my order. Tortured by the constant pouring, the rain continuously pours water so murky, my skull is drowning; yet oddly enough the temperature seems perfect. I’m a two-faced havoc, evil tempted, manic feeling the turbulence. My soul is where you’ll find a black hole destroying an asteroid, I’m like a supernova that can’t support its gravity, theatrically I explode and wreck havoc across my own galaxy. I constantly ask myself why people continuously seem unworthy. And believe me, I’m enjoying the emptiness too much to actually care to be worried. Break the yolk, because I’m egging you on to break the barrier and come at me first. You throw a fit and I’ll throw an adjective. I’m a cancerous, disastrous, magnificent mad man; here to masterfully murder your vocabulary. I’m a vindictive and manipulative son of a bitch, raised by wolves, syndicated over linguistics to maliciously twist and turn your own pathetic words. Call me Mr. president with my soft-spoken set of lies, persistent with pressure to persuade the people I’m paradise. Leisurely I lay protected by my poetic state of mind, by my side. I wine and dine with the devil lingering and laughing over every sin I emphasized. I’m scrutinized and ostracized by the coward leaking from those petty crying eyes. Every masterpiece I compose I turn more and more static towns into Columbine. Frantically they seize and plead for some mercy out of me, little did they know that mercy is a fallacy to a man who believes and sees the world and its civilians are his enemies. Fuck society, I’m sick and tired of being an outcast for thinking differently. Like the devil, I’m a rebel; I’m a man of seven me’s. Like a felon, I see heaven as conformity. My head is spinning, dwindling, headed towards disaster, faster and faster, towards a patch of black ice and a loss of traction. I should fasten my seatbelt and embrace for a better reaction, but fuck it, I rather barrel roll, than perform any acts that actually benefit this sad, catastrophic manequin. Caught in the self wreckage, crossfire of anger, depression and allusion. But pity me, In the morning, I’m given the opportunity to awake and die again, because clearly, I’m my own worst enemy.

THE HEARTS OF THE HELPLESS

1. Convoluted

2. Sirens

3. Contrast

4. Run

5. Twelve

6. Caged

7. Crash

8. Sacrifice

9. Hearts

10. Helpless

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CONVOLUTED

I have a convoluted constitution with a contradicting confidence, a constant con whose counterfeit with a complicated common sense; I counteract my cataracts with constant acts of caring tasks. To compensate with common law, I concentrate my consciousness. To comply I must commit and conserve my carelessness. Though my hate will congregate and conjure and I’ll have no other choice but to take the world and conquer it.

I’m a vindictive and artificial artifact, I articulate my atrociousness and act upon acting viscously when the moment seems most appropriate. I appoint my violence when the sirens sound like villains clashing their vengeance against my visually vibrate yet, visibly tiny violin. Or maybe that’s just my justification that I present to the jury when my backs against the wall and I know that a conviction won’t conflict my hatred, but I know convicts die in prison, so I must convince the sinner inside me to lower my limits and react a little more wisely to the ignorance around me.

But, my psyche is a cycle, a disorder that circles around the circumference that sits on my head. And when I’m sitting in bed, I imagine my psyche is recycled, to reorder the silence that once surrounded my lacking confidence that I’d so heavenly dread. I would wish I were dead, if my psyche surrendered; it’s torturous vengeance that accumulated over the years of not giving a damn.

It’s safe to say, I’m a convoluted, maniacal monster, come at me once and I’ll show you I don’t hide under beds or deep within closets. Even when I was a boy, I didn’t shy away from showing my parents I was possessed demonically with nothing angelic hiding inside my soulless body. I remember my juvenile delinquent days and my father telling me I was sick in the head and needed to see a doctor. I told him to shut the fuck up as I picked up a cast iron and showed him my real colors ranged from black to a couple of shades darker.

I’m a copycat killer without a flood to wash away humanity, so I’m forced to be my own deity and wreck havoc in any way imaginable. Imagine me imagining myself without self-esteem; I’ll be an image in a mirror, reversed like the imaginary man that I am hiding in another universe. And