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Systematic Chaos

(8,601 posts)
Tue Dec 2, 2014, 01:00 PM Dec 2014

Cop. [WARNING - EXTREMELY GRAPHIC WRITING]

Last edited Wed Dec 3, 2014, 03:33 PM - Edit history (1)

"I'm naked, on my hands and knees, crawling down the hallway towards the incinerator. I'm boiling, I'm sweating, the leash around my neck is choking me; I want to burn. My master, the cop, is digging into my back with his steel claws. I feel all five of them. Each claw makes a separate canal in my flesh. He's holding the leash tight, pulling the choker when I rebel. He's shouting down at me: "Move, dog! Crawl! Hurt!..." His big mouth opens wide when he shouts. Stale, heavy gas comes up from his stomach and forms a cloud around my head. His guts smell like bileous hunger. I want to burn, and smell my flesh burning as I burn. The hallway is shifting sideways. When the cop shouts it knocks against the walls then slams into my head. I can hear my breathing. It's amplified a hundred times. It's the breath of a mechanical beast exhaling steam. My breath comes back at me and grinds me into the concrete floor. I stop moving. I've lost strength. My arms and legs have collapsed. My head's resting sideways on the hot concrete, my tongue hanging out of my mouth. My tongue's swollen, ready to burst. I look up. The cop's looking down at me, the fire from the incinerator reflected in his eyes. He flicks lightly at my tongue with his boot, smiling, showing mock compassion. I try to pull my tongue back into my mouth so I can form words. I want to apologize, assure him that I'm trying to get up strength. I want to burn. He raises his boot. I feel my tongue smashed into a pulp. The incinerator's roaring. The cop's face is deep orange. His shadow on the wall behind him is huge, the arms swinging down onto his head as he beats me. When I wake up I'm suspended by ropes in front of a mirror. I'm naked, my genitals have been cut away. The word "Crawl" has been carved into my chest. I hate my body. I don't want to look at it. When I try to turn my head away I can't: The tendons in my neck have been cut. When I try to close my eyes I can't: My eyelids have either been forced open or removed. I hate my mind, I hate my body. I'm trapped staring at my carcass. The sound of my breathing is torture. I try to stop breathing. I can't. I can't escape myself. Several policemen come in. They stand around me in a semi circle, discussing the shape and contours of my flesh. One of them takes a knife from his pocket and carves a slice of meat from my thigh. They pass it around, each one tasting it in turn. I'm happy to have them eating me. Eventually I'll disappear. As I dissipate they'll grow stronger. I feel myself pouring into them."

The above are the liner notes to an album which utterly defines this moment in our history. That album is 'Cop' by a band called SWANS. Fittingly enough, it is from the year 1984, and it was released during an early spate of albums including 'Filth', 'Greed', 'Holy Money', and 'Children of God'. Read about Ferguson with the below playing in the background, for the full, immersive experience of justice ripped and torn asunder.

You're welcome.


6 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Cop. [WARNING - EXTREMELY GRAPHIC WRITING] (Original Post) Systematic Chaos Dec 2014 OP
Jesus CHRIST but you people are a tough fucking crowd. Systematic Chaos Dec 2014 #1
this is fucking horrible... snooper2 Dec 2014 #2
Someone who can SING? REALLY? Systematic Chaos Dec 2014 #5
PLEASE put a graphic warning on this. This is edging into torture porn as TOS violation irisblue Dec 2014 #3
It's not pornographic to me. Systematic Chaos Dec 2014 #4
Thank you for posting the warning. irisblue Dec 2014 #6
 

snooper2

(30,151 posts)
2. this is fucking horrible...
Wed Dec 3, 2014, 03:11 PM
Dec 2014

If you are going to post a song make it something by an actual artist who can sing....


Here, an example for you-



Systematic Chaos

(8,601 posts)
5. Someone who can SING? REALLY?
Wed Dec 3, 2014, 03:59 PM
Dec 2014

Okay....

I don't dislike all rap and hip-hop, but let's agree right here and now that 95% or more of the "singing" in it is auto-tuned, or just people alternately shouting "HEY" and "YO" into their mics every other beat while the frontman shouts out rhymes which are often no more intelligible than the chanting in SWANS' tracks.

We're trying to argue over which form of noise is better. Sorry you don't like mine, but sitting there and telling me that my preferred form sucks (check their critical acclaim on Wikipedia or elsewhere if you think they're not hugely popular in their own right), whilst passing your preferred form off as either "better" or "music" is just silly.

Live and let live.

Systematic Chaos

(8,601 posts)
4. It's not pornographic to me.
Wed Dec 3, 2014, 03:32 PM
Dec 2014

It may be the depths of torture, and intentionally disgusting, but I don't "get off" on it.

Instead, it's what runs through my head and fills me with anger and contempt every time I read yet another story about some kid getting shot for holding a Wii controller in his front doorway, or yet another woman getting curb stomped or grabbed hard enough to permanently mutilate her body at a protest.

I'm sorry if you can't see the clear and present signs of a complete societal breakdown and all of the horrible ugliness it will entail, if that is the case. But what is striking enough to me is that the guy who wrote those liner notes and created this extremely discordant and difficult music was feeling and seeing all of this, THIRTY YEARS AGO.

I'm going to make one more reply, to the person above you who suggested somehow that rap has more musical value than dark industrial music with guttural chanting vocals. After that, just let this thread sink like a stone a second time as it did the first.

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