#roll the bones

[radio-crows]

In the words of Will Wood and Chris Dunne

Roll Them Bones!

[bones-and-whatnot]

Evil AIMS Team Be Like

POACHER

CENT

JUNEBERRY

GEOFF

WALLY

TAME BILL

[andr3w-the-d0dgeb4ll]

"If I could only reach that dial inside, Turn it up or turn that Wild Card down"

Face Up by Rush is SOOO Wild Life coded and also Joel coded and also a great song so listen to it

You turn my head

I spin my wheels

Running on empty

You know how that feels

I'm on a roll now

Or is it a slide?

Can't be too careful

With that dangerous pride

If I could only reach that dial inside

If I could only reach that dial inside

If I could only reach that dial inside

And turn it up

, face up or you can only back down

(Face up), hit the target, or you better hit the ground

(Face up), there's still time to turn this game around

(Face up), turn it up or turn that wild card down

(Face up), turn it up

Don't complain

Don't explain

I don't think my new resolve

Can stand the strain

I'm in a groove now

Or is it a rut?

I need some feedback

But all the lines are cut

I get so angry, but I keep my mouth shut

I get so angry, but I keep my mouth shut

I get so angry, but I keep my mouth shut

And turn it up

, face up or you can only back down

(Face up), hit the target, or you better hit the ground

(Face up), there's still time to turn this game around

(Face up), turn it up or turn that wild card down

(Face up), turn it up

You get all squeezed-up inside

Like the days were carved in stone

You get all wired-up inside

And it's bad to be alone

You can go out, you can take a ride

And when you get out on your own

You get all smoothed-out inside

And it's good to be alone

Turn it up

, face up or you can only back down

(Face up), hit the target, or you better hit the ground

(Face up), there's still time to turn this game around

(Face up), turn it up or turn that wild card down

or you can only back down

(Face up), hit the target, or you better hit the ground

(Face up), there's still time to turn this game around

(Face up), turn it up or turn that wild card down

(Face up), turn it up or turn that wild card down

If I could only reach that dial inside

Turn the wild card

If I could only reach that dial inside

Turn your wild card down

If I could only reach that dial inside

Turn it up or turn your wild card

If I could only reach that dial inside

Turn it up or turn your wild card down

Did I just copy and paste all the lyrics of Face Up?? Yes, yes I did. Go listen to it.

[californiababylon]

[ashleybenlove]

Joe calls them kids again lol.

Which is funny because the age difference between Kevin Hanchard and John Reardon is like, a year. Hanchard was born July 4, 1974 and Reardon July 30, 1975.

Though actor ages are meaningless with their characters a lot of the time lol

[foldmorepaper]

[mercyantebellum]

Sebastian Tao sketches

[bocephusjackson]

To Wrestle With The Gods With Existential Delight

(An Ars Poetic Dialogue Between Human Consciousness and the Divine Silence of Existence)

By Bocephus Jackson, The Hemlock Bard, ©2026 Bocephus Jackson. All Rights Reserved

_____

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

— Albert Camus 

⸻

Preface

“This is my letter to the world,

That never wrote to me,—

The simple news that Nature told,

With tender majesty.”

— Emily Dickinson

Every age must rediscover its gods — and its laughter. To Wrestle With The Gods With Existential Delight is an offering to that rediscovery: a poetic dialogue between human consciousness and the divine silence of existence.

⸻

These humble truths I share,

in the spirit of those that came before,

like leaves of grass beneath Isaiah’s asp upon the open floor—

In the mighty footsteps of giants, my words passion-forged,

offerings not to be ignored

unto those who drank our wine,

and fished upon the shore—

Echoes of Sartre, Rilke, and Camus,

Humanity explored through intent,

and all the complexity it joyfully imbues,

the lived experience, such as wonderment—

in all its many untold shapes and hues.

Confronting a universe oh so vast—

lacking inherent truth,

unclaimed faith’s fatal grasp,

imparts much to be construed.

Existence precedes essence, every sinewed synapse majestic:

singing a transient song;

poetic, unapologetic—

The music lingers on,

melodic and frenetic.

What of Eliot’s Prufrock idled,

Or dear Dickinson in chambers cleaving stole—

Restless and unbridled…

Sexton’s midday confessions upon the open shoal—

forever gone; conflicted; yet ever bold,

haunting words from the fallen—

Her poems I talk to often…

“Soul, wilt thou toss again?

By just such a hazard

Hundreds have lost, indeed,

But tens have won all—”

“Angels’ breathless ballot

Lingers to record thee;

Imps in eager caucus

Raffle for my soul.”

Upon this night, I kiss the light

fading where it stands,

with idle glee and majesty

I roll the bones upon command—

To Heaven’s petroglyphic sands—

A curse, a verse; liquor to my taste:

“Fates, you reprobates!”

To nick the Moirai’s callous hand.

“I sing the body electric,”

from my beard falls idled years—existential crumbs apoplectic

upon the masses caught in the lashes.

My syllables dialectic—

races ran without remand,

seldom are ever won; peripatetic,

through discoursing doctrine.

Stars in multitude bear witness,

careening laughter into the void—

danced with gods in darkness,

and found their silence overjoyed;

I’ve romanced fair doubt, courting fire,

a subtle kiss without refrain,

loved the wound and name it ‘desire’—

my rite and ancestral claim.

Within every breath rebellion stands,

the cosmos pulsing from the poet’s hand,

No fate shall script my fleeting part,

for I am hazard, hymn, and heart.

⸻

Coda:

From the skin, it begins

ethereally poetic prose:

heaven’s hearth, and the devil’s sin

through corpuscled flesh interwove.

To the Gods above and devils below—

verses freely formed as intended,

through every woe and throe

I remain titillated and unoffended.

______

"Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem."— Walt Whitman

_____

Author’s Note

This poem was born of reflection and revolt — a rebellion not against God, but against despair. It draws upon existentialism, metaphysical poetry, and American Romanticism to express a single truth: that meaning must be made, not found.

Where earlier generations sought salvation in dogma, mine seeks it in experience — in the trembling joy of simply being. To wrestle with the gods is to confront the enormity of freedom and, still, to sing.

So in weighing that, this piece had to be a departure from my natural style. As I considered the overarching concept, I wanted to embrace the techniques, styles, form, and diction of the shouldered giants that I drafted into this syncretic intertextual conversation, forcing myself out of habit and into inheritance—I want to meet each where they lived.

So, where the line "I sing the body electric" is a direct quote from Uncle Walt (Whitman), I also mirrored his free verse and celebration of the human form. At the same time, with the central theme, I reflected Albert Camus’s Absurdism and Jean-Paul Sartre’s dictum ‘existence precedes essence,’ while adopting Anne Sexton's ‘confessional’ tone—bold and vulnerable.

I also called upon Emily Dickinson’s unconventional punctuation, using it to create rhythmic pauses, where her psychological ‘cleaving chambers’ are also utilized, echoing the underpinnings of haunted angst.

Ultimately, this was a fun exploration of varying technical styles and voices married into this piece. I am sure that we will chat again, and often—

Thank you for being apart of the conversation— talk soon…

⸻

Sources and Influences (Alphabetized)

• Beauvoir, Simone de. The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947).

• Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790).

• Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus (1942); The Rebel (1951).

• Dickinson, Emily. Selected poems, esp. “This is my letter to the world.”

• Eliot, T. S. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915).

• Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time (1927); “Poetically Man Dwells…” (1954).

• Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling (1843).

• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85).

• Rilke, Rainer Maria. Duino Elegies (1923).

• Rosen, Stanley. The Mask of Enlightenment (1995).

• Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness (1943).

• Sexton, Anne. Live or Die (1966).

• Stevens, Wallace. Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942).

• Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass (1855).

⸻

"The Soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."— Emily Dickinson 

_____

© 2026 Bocephus Jackson. All Rights Reserved