In Headaches and In Worry

The Heart of the Matter

2012-02-07T16:11:00.001-08:00

Green and red are the colors of bleeding frog.

Lost in the waters,

Her brush is a lantern.

The thought of gods and she returns for a moment,

How to best create a favored soul.

The colors bleed together like we bleed together,

Two dark figures entwined in the night.

The moon led me to her,

As she layers her colors.

"The heart of the matter,"

Is what she mumbles,

Gone again in the setting sun.

The painting is a book,

And she is the subject matter,

Clearly labeled by the library of congress.

We kiss and I finger through her pages,

She is the heart of the matter.

Night Wanderers

2012-01-31T17:18:00.000-08:00

It is always night somewhere.

The evening hours creep across the sky

Until another crooked dawn cuts through the blue-grey light.

Are there people like me in every night?

Tinkerers and time keepers,

Dreamers grasping for words to share,

Hands stained with ink,

Thoughts choked and running together like mascara in the rain.

I have imagined their faces.

A brooding young man who sits in the park,

Hair hanging over his eyes.

An old woman who stares out the window every day at one o'clock.

A child who lives in dreams.

These are the people who walk in the night.

----

I saw Edgar Oliver read from two poems the other night, and I was lucky enough to talk to him afterwards. This poem is inspired by some of the feelings I had while listening to his reading, as well as something I spoke to him briefly about.

New Celebrities and Persons of Note

2011-12-30T21:51:00.000-08:00

Johan Vermici - Fashion Designer

Trixie Milan - Model

Gordie Rhineheart - Singer/Songwriter

Tina LeRoix - Actress

Mark Verner - Economist

Helen Murges - Physicist

Anthony Perez - News Anchor

Leia Lee - Journalist

Jesse Reynolds - Self-help specialist

Lindsey Anders - Lawyer

Jean Cousteaux - CEO

---

I would like it if people posted some information about who they think these people are. If you know anyone who has the same name and job, I would recommend against posting about them as these are made up people who I will declare things about as time passes.

Polar Chef

2011-12-30T21:44:00.000-08:00

Collecting beets in the German forests,

I go digging for root vegetables.

The soil here is soft and fresh.

I am ready to prepare meat and potatoes,

And cook borscht with Ramsay.

My life is simple and good.

I visit the desert,

Collect sweaters and trinkets,

Measure my wealth in photos of rainbows.

----

I was looking at this website.

2011-12-27T14:53:00.000-08:00

Drinking lemon juice,

Hanging on my sofa,

Worrying about the electric bill.

Writing letters,

Watching TV.

Counting the moon beams

That pour in my window,

Raindrops

2011-12-15T18:55:00.000-08:00

A house of prayer sits in the rain.

She walks past with a sidelong glance.

If if turned to snow would anyone see it?

Not in this stillborn snow.

It came down in waves of grey,

The water as eternal as any god.

Holding close a black umbrella

She stares at the old stone road.

Miners and miners lay their bricks

And reap the earth,

Dwellers from another time.

When gods were fresh and smelled of earth

Rather than of blood and steel.

Or so she'd like to think

---

Wrote this while listening to Chopin's raindrops

The Box Has Wants

2011-12-06T19:34:00.000-08:00

An enigma wrapped in whirring gears and locking fates,

A door that shines with blood and dread.

This is what lies in the heart of the desert.

Lock it away, tightly as the new bound hay,

Seal it where you'll never know.

And if you die before you wake,

The taught skinned night will come.

Run out to the cornfield,

Forget the box as best you can.

A child again amongst the grains,

You build with wood and steel,

Burying the thought deeper with every summer harvest.

Until it comes,

They come,

The figures from the gleaming city,

That lie beyond the sand.

Hunting, screaming,

Like primal men,

They cut down swaths and spare no men.

Now with your congregation,

You struggle in the fields,

Spitting, spewing, fighting against.

But flesh is frail, and the box has wants.

----

Spent tonight watching Children of the Corn and Hellraiser on Netflix. Here's what it got me.

???

2011-12-03T15:16:00.000-08:00

A patchwork girl finds romance in an interior decorators office.

This is the story of where the christmas trees go.

Apple juice and dancing under pants,

Ink cacka baloney.

Songs I sang on long road trips.

Batman meets modern dance on a cougar cruise.

Nonsense is for lemony fresh girls.

Memorial Part Three: Again Today

2011-11-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

Again today.

This time a woman,
Faceless to me.

Again today.

Another swimmer,
With cold blue eyes.

How do you adjust
When it cuts so deep?

What do you tell yourself,
Now that you're older?

Again Today.
Death is an ocean
That never ends.

Again Today.

The words you spin
Have little use.

When I was young,
I thought the dead turned into stars.

Today I know that stars die.

---

Read I and II

I named it thinking of Taller Today.

Submissions?

2011-10-17T20:14:00.000-07:00

I'm looking to submit some of my poetry to journals and i was wondering if the internet had any opinions on this. I was thinking of:

Memorial I and II

Remembering

Standing at the Channel

Home is Where the Heart is Series

A Fork in the Road

In This House The Living Sleep

Home and Heart are Actually a Venn Diagram

2011-10-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

Heavy eyelids,
Like an evening snowstorm.
Slow breath,
Pain in my chest.

In a landslide,
The snow rumbled down.
Lost my progress,
On the icy mountain.

My ropes are frayed,
As are my nerves.
There's a crack running deep
In my looking glass.

House of Cards

2011-10-12T13:25:00.000-07:00

This house is the tumbling spiral.
I feel the king of hearts,
Sword thrust through my own temple.

I am astonished to learn all this,
But we even had chalkboards for the mouse to take notes.
----

"Lucien felt as if a house of cards were tumbling down inside him, all that was himself, in fact."

This Lord

2011-10-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

Hardly held together,
This lord comes home
The great hall is crumbling into
Desolate ruins.

Banner at my feet,
Blue and white tatters,
My wooden lance is broken by the likes of steel.

I have no faceless men,
Armies or dragons,
Piles of gold,
Or alchemist's fire.

Just this faded strength
And hallowed will,
And now I'll sleep in the Hall of Kings.

----

Clash of Kings is one of the few things keeping me going. Never has anyone appreciated the Lannisters this much.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

2011-09-27T08:05:00.001-07:00

A desert is but specks of sand,
Thousands upon thousands,
But when the wind comes,
The storm is fierce defiant and strong.

We are building a desert
We are building an oasis.
We are an ecosystem in Liberty Square.

An ocean joins rivers,
And ocean joins the lakes,
The rains and tides return
All flowing together.

We fight for life.
We fight for liberty.
We are the pursuit of happiness.

----

OCCUPY WALL STREET

http://www.occupywallstreet.org

FB: Poetry@Occupy Wall Street

I went down to Liberty Square with my partner last night and it was amazing. You all need to be there and be part of this.

Good Dog

2011-09-19T17:16:00.000-07:00

Certain ears
A ratio of nose to face
Big smile
Curly tail

You are a good dog.
You are the best dog.

Loving eyes glued to the woman in the green cap.
You are a shaggy red haired dog that lives in Astoria.

Patches
Sort hair
Uneven face
Stumpy legs

You wear a coat for the thunder,
You are a spicy dog.

Ashes in a jar
Stuck in the wisteria bush again
Pointy features
Loose tail

Stupid is and stupid does
But, you are still my dog.

Chewing a pig ear
Hiding it in the dirt
Stealing the witch's belongings.

You chewed on the carpet.
You are a computer dog.

----

Remembering

2011-09-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Listening to The Boxer I broke into tears,
Sudden weight filled my heart.

All that life turned to ash,
I never really understood
Until I was older
(You'll understand when you're older)

I was in Earth Science.
(Mr. Eberhardt was retiring that year)
We watched the footage on TV.
I couldn't remember if my mother was working
(It turns out she wasn't)
And now I'm in my twenties.

My own home,
My own bills,

And under all that the same sad girl.

Conclusion

2011-09-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

Houses are romance
(Our romance)

A place that shelters
(We say our love shelters)

And our home doesn't stop
(Our home can't stop)

Can't stop when there's taxes
Or locusts
Or bath rubs
Or thunder and frogs
Or rain storms and hail stones
Or automobile accidents on I-95

It just goes
Like the sun does
(It rises whether we like it or not)

And when I think about you it's not a decision
It's what is done

How could I do otherwise

The sun rises
The rivers run
The hippies smile at a perfect day

There is no way for me to be

Except in love.

----

I consider this the conclusion of this series of poems, which aren't really related directly so much as thematically and subject-wise. The topic will probably return for discussion, but now that my relationship is in a different place (a given/mandatory thing rather than something tentative), I expect them to be different for a while. I guess this is more of a turning point than a conclusion.

Queens

2011-08-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

Boxes on boxes,
Upon bags,
In a hall way.
A new home is a new heart.

Eating dinner eases the day out of my bones,
White wine and salt in the back of my throat.

---

BUT THE DEAD FISH IS STILL IN MY FREEZER.

Standing at the Channel

2011-08-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

From the docks we should have
Heard the far off cry.
The gulls' melancholy,
From the mackerel sky.

The ship was gone by morning,
Ensorcelled by the sea,
Pulled onto an island,
The bed of young Miss Lee.

A tempest in a marble,
Broke upon the waves,
Dragged them to the shoreline,
Dragged them to the caves.

Angles on the sand bed,
Strewn both left and right,
And so we send more sailors
Off into the night.

----

You should all read Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness.

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea--something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . . ."- Marlowe, Heart of Dakness

The Survivor

2011-07-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

Spinning fire,
Like the man in gray.
A flaming loom.

In their age there were dragons slain,
Curses broken,
Feats applied and done.

Rods and reincarnations,
Both burned out.
Old friends dead,

New friends found.
Resurrections,
Rituals.
The gods have smiled occasionally.

Moving On

2011-07-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

The other day I briefly remembered how much you meant,
And how much hate you stirred up in me.
It felt so far, I was impressed that you trekked it all,
Climbing boxes and rattling through store houses,
Pushing your way out of old dresser drawers.

And I felt fine.

Romeo & whatever that girl's name was...

2011-07-26T13:07:00.001-07:00

They came and went as quickly as the rest of their line,
Two young stars from a doomed house.
They crashed into the earth with a sizzle,
And sputtered out of existence.
Good for them.

Their love was bright,
Like those teens in that play,
Getting married three days after meeting on the internet,
Killing themselves in a misunderstanding,
Making their parents feel bad for fighting.

It's all well and noble,
To streak like a comet
Across the evening sky,
Burnt up in a flash of light.

You'll get constellation,
Or maybe a play,
Some roses on your tomb,
Or at least a Darwin award.
---

Figured I try instilling a bit more of an external narrative. Ended up being about some sad lovers, and possibly contradicting itself? I don't know.

So I'm not feeling the hypertext poem I tried to write very much. I'm just thinking that it's either not my style or I need to do it in a blog separate from this one. I'm leaving it up for now, but I might move it or take it down in the near future.

Now I'm just trying to get back on the update train. My writing time of late has mostly gone into my queer genre fiction. I'm thinking of assembling a collection and lulu or otherwise self-publishing it.

Hyptertext Context

2011-06-29T10:14:00.000-07:00

A hypertext is an interactive piece of literature that uses digital media

Begin the poem here.

ALLS WELL

2011-06-28T17:18:00.002-07:00

Om to Omega,

The deed is done.

THE HORROR AND DREAD OF IT ALL

2011-06-28T17:18:00.001-07:00

It creeps like a headless serpent,

Twitching through the dark,

In a soundless nightmare.

TREADING THE PATH

2011-06-28T17:17:00.002-07:00

A hermit walks the mountains,

With a lantern and no shoes,

Singing to the sun

And laughing with the moon.

PUZZLE

2011-06-28T17:17:00.001-07:00

Am I an answer or a journey?

VANISHING

2011-06-28T17:16:00.002-07:00

All things must fade,

Like the water from this grass.

It runs off to become a cloud,

How noble.

THE DAWN

2011-06-28T17:16:00.001-07:00

Over the hill and the eyes,

The sun sears through the cloudy night that was.

IN THE DARKNESS OF THE NIGHT

2011-06-28T17:15:00.002-07:00

The sun is visiting elsewhere.

SOMETHING: ANYTHING

2011-06-28T17:15:00.001-07:00

If I had anything to tell you,

I would have told you then,

Not now.

SOUND OF SILENCE

2011-06-28T17:14:00.002-07:00

The atomic equalizer,

Quiet except the buzz in my head.

Everything is the end.

SIREN SONG

2011-06-28T17:14:00.001-07:00

Eerie notes drift past the stars,

Drafting men to unknown causes.

A horoscopic horror.

A FADING GHOST

2011-06-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

A puzzle with no solution

That is the nature of it.

It being that black cloak I think of in late night hours,

Too scared to think of anything else.

START

2011-06-28T16:44:00.000-07:00

You are a ghost

That has no wail

Nor song,

Silent in the evening hours,

Hushed until the dawn,

When you evaporate like summer snow.

Friday At The Stonewall

2011-06-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

The air was abuzz

Out by the Stonewall.

Queer Valhalla

The victory hall.

Out on a dais

A drag queen stood tall,

Singing of New York

And Diaz's gall.

The House of Rayne

2011-06-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

In the burrows of the house I laid still conscious dreaming,

And every stony chamber was filled with Roderick's screaming,

An affiliate and acquaintance from my days at school,

Aloof and brooding, like a cat, but never like a fool.

A flapping in his chambers

----

This is a poem about the family of a D&D character I'm playing. In case you didn't read the poem and just skipped to the end, it's the story of the family's encounter with a wraith told by an friend of the family.

2011-06-13T09:37:00.000-07:00

Full of angels,

On an airplane,
Leaving slowly,
On the night train.

Back to work,
Back to school,
Feeling still,
Love's young fool.

And if I passed you,
Like a night ship,
Would you let,
Our ghosts slip?

Memorial Part One: The Dreamer

2011-06-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

Salt and pepper hair
Grim face
Tired blue eyes

Those things are gone now.

What weight possessed you to shuffle past
The familiar place that man knows?

Into some dark unknown:
Down the dreadful sea
Out into space.

Those voids must hold an ancient call.

As long as we have walked this earth,
There has been that shaded sea.

To lay upon the rocks,
Free of pain and thoughts,
Perhaps that's what you hoped for.

I only hope you dream of us,
As surely as we dream of you.

----
Part II

Memorial Part Two: Le Fantom Dans Le Classeur

2011-06-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

Yellow pages in a manilla folder
A bureaucratic ghost that dwells in the office.
The melancholy that wafts behind,
The dread that lingers in the air,
Are the signs of a haunting.

The man you are,
And will be
Is in my mind's eye both crisp and obfuscated.

The floor creaks and the boiling room wattles with your presence.
Ethereal and abstract,
You could tear through the walls,
Or sit beside my desk.
I would believe either.

Like for Elijah,
I leave a glass of water as I have before.

-----

Please read Part I first.

This is the second half of a two part poem I wrote in response to a suicide.

For/Against Protest

2011-05-31T18:28:00.000-07:00

Canaballastic missiles fired by firefighters,

Sinking battleshipments across the border.

Follow the dotted line on the map,

Existential crisis marks the spot,

What a sport!

What a Spartan!

Don't ask, don't kiss and tell.

Bread lines the Lady's pockets,

Liberty lifted to an American dreamscape.

I am your poor, your weary,

Your in/effective intellectual,

Your bl0g0sph3rev0.lutionary,

Your youtube follower,

Your jaded idealistic youth,

Your static parents,

Your hippie grandma.

More than that I am tired of being tired of the status quo.

----

Personally I have mixed feelings about the whole "I am a poet and I dislike America and here is some word play about it." I think it's a useful way to express the sentiment (rebellion against language as a metaphor for rebellion against government/standards etc), but I find it to be a bit overdone at this point. This is me both embracing it and fighting against it as a form. The purpose of the second line was to look at these stereotypes and ideas that are flying around: how intellectuals cause change or don't, how the internet affects politics, and how age relates and doesn't to people's outlooks. The most important part however, is the last line; whether or not this is a good medium is in some ways irrelevant to the sentiment behind it, sometimes you just want the things you dislike in the world to be fixed already.

To Pepper Matus

2011-05-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

++++++This +++ dog
+++++++is++++not
++++++a terrible dog.
++++++This dog is a wonderful dog
++++++With a lumpy face so full of life.
++++++Sour awkward
++++++Eyes that bulge
++++++From her head
++++++Like obie the
++++++martian or Ben
++++Linus from LOST.
++++This is the dog that
++++Made all dogs before.
++++A wonderful dog who
++Wag she own tail, thumping your bed
+While you are trying to sleep at 8 AM.
Best
Dog
++No arguments.

Horriballistic: A DIY Poem Building Experince

2011-05-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

Please define these words for me so I can use them in a poem.

Oreganobology
Tamablamarind
Anarcho-sundayclism
Meowcoholic
Constacornucopia

Nighttime on the MetroNorth

2011-05-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

The darkness outside the train

engulfs

as I ride to the place

where I now

sleep

(If home is where the heart is,

I am a

vagrant).

The night

rattles

on,

As does the

train.

I force a smile

When the

conductress

passes.

Thoughts of your

Grin

Cut through the

Pain.

Like a

Crow

the

fog

I hear your cry long

after

you've vanished.

Someday

we will be like

Other People,

But

not

now.

Our being is

spread

out

mushrooms,

mycelia

running under

wooded

hills.

---

So I guess this is postmodern? I realized that halfway through. I originally wrote the poem on the metronorth train home from Poughkeepsie. If you're interested in reading the poem in it's "original" format, here it is as a paragraph entered into my cell phone's drafts:

The darkness outside the train engulfs me as I ride to the place where I now sleep. If home is where the heart is, I am a vagrant. The night rattles on, as does the train. I force a smile when the conductress passes. Thoughts of your grin cut through the pain. Like a crow in the fog I hear your cry long after you've vanished. Someday we will be like other people, but not now. Our being is spread out like mushrooms, mycelia running under wooded hills.

There are a couple things that stood out as very important in this poem, one was the change to capitalizing Other People, and another was feeling like a fungus. Love is something that connects people across spatial temporal distance and a fungus seemed to capture that best for me. In writing this I am considering love as a 4 dimensional entity, as I have been thinking about the fourth dimension a lot of late. The way other people behave and the definition of "normal" can be such a large and overwhelming construct at time. The sense of what one "should be doing" can be incredibly stressful, even when one rationally knows "normal" and "normative" are social constructs.

Revelation 2:10

2011-05-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

The crown:
An infinite petaled lotus,
A sign of the will

Life:
The thing inhabited
When nothing else remains

Death:
One step further than life

The Crown of Life:
To reign over the infinite and the empty
A no life king or winged celestial
Both all eyes and fears
To rule with wisdom
For good or bad
Over one soul
That is the Crown of Life

Faithful:
Loyalty
Adherence to the principles of

Be faith unto death:
Remember and honor
The knowledge you've rent
From hours of study
And occulted pages
Stand by the thoughts you fought for
Against more learned folk

Be faithful unto me and I will give you the crown of life:
Follow the steps of your own learning
And forever be a monarch of your own soul
Blossom eternally
And guide thy own light.

----

Inspired by a lecture I saw last year. Some of you were there. The pursuit of knowledge is fairly important.

Coffee and Ducts

2011-05-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

met a man
who
built
houses
words
and air conditioners

shared
his thoughts
disdain for
burning
war
and misery

children
conflict
strife
outcomes
hopes
futures
children

he wrote in a series
of venn diagrams
with
thought
full
precision
and
skyscraper chains

I wished him to be
deep
dark
wet
with
buckets
rope
and rainbows

Well.

----

Talked about some poetry with a guy I met in starbucks after mentioning the movie Brazil to another girl in there (I asked them if they minded me joining their table, she said I was nice for a new yorker, I said "it's like what Robert DeNiro says in the Terry Gilliam movie Brazil,' we're all in it together.'") Anyway, the guy was nice enough to share some of his war poetry with me (as I was reading a book on American war poetry) and then we each went on out separate ways to work. I tried to write about this in a style somewhat reminiscent of his. My voice is somewhere between him and Pat Smith (he's on my blogroll) in this one, which is a bit more abstract and linguistically based then I usually am, but I think it's a good change.

2011-05-17T06:24:00.000-07:00

To see you so tender
When usually made of iron,
The stylish french woman who runs through our doors,
Your children,
Your children's children
Family lines that fall through time,
I guess they see your gentle side and stubbornness
In some whole light
I can't imagine.

Though every soul is somewhat shadowed
Kin seems to wander in.

Standing by the Thunder I Spy What Could Have Been

2011-05-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

Standing by the thunder,
I spy what could have been.

A lost opportunity,
Stares me in the face.

How different that would be,
Winter nights by the fire
Instead of an early morning summer storm.

Happy with the season,
But simply curious,
If the skies were not as hopeless as they appeared.

Lovely

2011-05-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

Her voice is craggy and cavernous
From years of cigarettes.
She comes in wearing over-sized sunglasses,
Clutching her cane.

She takes her time and sighs deeply.
She likes to get laughing gas when she goes to the dentist.
When she speaks the gravel of her voice fills me.

Man on a the A Train

2011-05-02T13:41:00.000-07:00

His beard was white,
Like Santa Clause
Or a civil war hero.

He had a bald spot,
And a twitch in his step.
He said the same thing over and over,
"Bless everybody please help."

His sneakers were dirty
But his teeth were clean.

When the train stopped he shuffled to another car.

Fifrty First Street Station

2011-05-02T13:28:00.001-07:00

Four rats in the subway,
Fighting over french fries.
Two big
Two small.
A train comes,
They hide under the rails.

I smile at them.
They too are alive,
Worried by trivial things.
Fighting amongst themselves
Until something wretched comes,
Barreling down the tracks
With no regards for life.

A Descision

2011-05-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

So I've decided that I am going to write a book on As I Walked Out One Evening. Plenty of people have written all kinds of things that have gotten published, and I see myself of perfectly capable of adding something useful to the conversation.

I'm of course reading Mendelson's commentary (he's one of the big names in analysis of Auden), Isherwood, some contemporary poetry, as well as a few different memoirs on Auden by acquaintances. However, As I Walked Out One Evening was published in 1933 (when Auden was 27), thus some of the influences on his later work may not yet be present.

Any input on formatting would be useful.

Here are my ideas so far

-Auden's Childhood and Education
-Themes and style in Auden's early poetry
-Public/Histotical and Private events around the time the poem was written
-How the poem relates to earlier and later work
-The poem in context of all of these things
-The poem in a vacuum

A Man is Dead

2011-05-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

There are people in the streets.

A man is dead.

A man I never understood,

Or could quite imagine.

I knew his actions,

The seed he put in the ground,

The roots he spread

Through a shrinking earth.

I stop to wonder

What was in the soil

That let him grow.

But he wasn't just

A man

Or a plant,

But a symbol as well.

Mason Jars

2011-04-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

It builds up slow and steady like a noise in the back of my head,
Leaking from the dark holes in my thoughts.
Some say it's red like the queen of the sea,
But in my heart it's black.

Black like stone:
Like the void,
Like the absence of light,
Like a dead tree in winter.
Like the absence of thoughts.
Like the space left by hate
In my swelling head.

I feel like a shelf full of mason jars.

----

Needed this one to get my head clear. By the time I got the last line I felt much better. Capturing this feeling and letting it out helped me in a way I'm not too familiar with. I've been trying to let myself actually experience anger of late and it's felt cathartic. I'm still not quite sure how to deal with it though.

Karelian Bear Dog

2011-03-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

Excited for life with golden eyes.
Soft fur and gentle features,
Somewhere between everything good.

The curve of a cat,
The smile of a dog,
Patches and spots,
Across it's face.

Grown along side men,
A hunting dog for bear and moose.
Sweet faced for a savage cause.

Raccoon Dog

2011-03-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

Round,
Beady eyed,
Perfect.

Tiny feet,
Short whiskers,
Bear like ears.

Standing stiff,
Alert,
Ready for danger,
Ready to dart at a moment's notice.

That Oceanic Feeling

2011-03-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the sea of thought I was formed,
A bottle floating, searching for some land.
No man is an island,
But I am a girl,

I grew out of the ocean, sandy and new.
I grew up in a furnace, so I'm glassy too.

The seagulls pass,
Caustic and shrieking,
But pointless.
All the same.

The older clownfish tell me
That I should seek an anemone.
But my home here in the deep sea
Is a shark's jaws, nonviolently.

Could I have been a starfish,
The hydra of the sea,
Spawning over and over,
Each time I was cut to shreds?

---

I wrote this with my girlfriend. She's pretty nifty, but I admit I am probably fairly biased in these matters (She has a blog of her own, but she requested it not be publicly posted).

We wrote this by alternating stanzas, except for number two in which I wrote the first line.

I felt the ocean to be a proper metaphor for both the mind and the outside world, because of the vastness of both (as well as the potential to be beautiful, life-giving, destructive, and apathetic at the same time). I used this to approach the fact that as wonderful as the queer community (or the world at large can be), I often take issue with the way other people pigeon hole me into what certain qualities about me mean I must be or do. I'm not just talking about being queer or being a girl here, I'm talking about any quality about me (or anyone else) that is used to define someone (I felt this important to distinguish as plenty of other people in the world get stereotypes hurled at them).

Here are some words from the other author:

Hey, so, I agree with Senia on quite a bit of what she wrote. To me, this was also about finding my own little hidden clearing in the forest of queer identity and discourse. Too often, one particular identity is sold as mapping one-to-one to certain lifestyle choices, or those lifestyle choices are delineated as taking place in a very narrow set of ways. I like my pancakes with hot sauce on them. Yes, that's a metaphor.

Love Thyself?

2011-03-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

Love your heart like a neighbor.
Love yourself like a god,
Bundle your lifeblood in newsprint and ribbons.
Leave it hidden for someone to find.

Where are the ogres that hunted our fathers?
Vast craggy features that came out at night.
Perhaps they were never there,
Perhaps they died out long ago.

Newspaper: Son of a Bitch

2011-03-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

"It's better than dating," he said.
The man was fascinated by manatees and dolphins.
"I went snorkeling in Florida,
And they came right up to me."

"I even adopted a manatee, you know.
You've seen all the little figurines I have."
We exchanged phone numbers.

It's almost like fate,
Like we should have known each other all along.

Was his favorite hibachi place still on the corner?
Son of a bitch.

Newspaper: The Victor

2011-03-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

They say people take notice when the Southeast has transformed,
Swapping time for modern hours.
Some rainy night the unassuming sign knocks at the door,
Extending her hand and swinging her dress.

Until then the mirror is curious,
Intrigued by musings on war and sleep.

A Prayer for Spring

2011-03-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

I welcome Spring like newborn seeds,
Nestled in the sweet Earth's breast.
The swell of life returns to us,
After Winter's cold dark depths.

The sun comes home, our hearts grow strong,
Thawing our great sleep.
Winds and creeks, the changing streams,
Starting life afresh.
The earthen ground is rich and warm,
Holding things to come.
We thank you Spring for your return,
And bring you in with love.

---

It'll be spring soon! I'm very excited. I'll be reading this at my ceremony as well as a poem blessing my love. I haven't written that one yet. As far as this one goes analytically, I had to throw in a reference to Kilmer's Trees (compare "Nestled in the sweet Earth's breast" to "A tree whose hungry mouth is prest/Against the sweet earth's flowing breast"). I think it's a beautiful conception of god as an architect and artist, rather than wrathful or scary.

Also, I politely demand post your prayers and spring poems for me. Then I can rearrange them and write new things.

The Star in the West Shoots Its Warning Cry

2011-03-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

He walks out briskly to infect a city,
Inspiring their bitter ambitious men,
Succumbing like doves to his adder's charms.
He knew human folly like the back of his hand.
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand.

----

This is another one where I rearranged Auden's poems. This time it's Danse Macabre, Epitaph on a Tyrant, and Gare du Midi(read the analysis with it, it's interesting).

Danse Macabre is about the Devil walking amongst modern man and how the narrator is some sort of instrument of divine action against the Devil. That or it's about a crazy guy who sees humanity as sinful and intends to punish them for it. Personally, I hope for both.

I wanted to create a sense of spiritual and emotional infection rather than biological infection, and this poem had several elements that helped to do that. In describing the subject's charisma and effect on the surrounding city (or in the original poem's case, all of man), it compares him to a snake, calling to mind that whole Garden of Eden related-issues (even though some interpretations think the snake was just a snake and/or let's not blame Eve). Though snakes much more readily rely on their ability to poison (which plays on the idea of infection), they are often linked to hypnotism and cunning in the literary world.

The infection mentioned in the first line is from Gare du Midi, which is a brief poem about a man bringing some sort of biotoxin into a city. I am reminded of the scene from 12 Monkeys, but really both are playing on the fear of biological warfare.

The last two lines of the poem are from Epitaph on a Tyrant and are originally used to portray the paranoid and brutish nature of the tyrant in question. Here, his poetry is innuendo for his violent means, and he knows human folly from both his own actions and carefully monitoring the actions of others. However, in the poem I have created here, the poetry and folly represent actual skill in manipulating men, based on the previous comparison to the snake/skill of the devil.

Lastly, the title is also from Danse Macabre. I felt it gave the poem an ominous foreboding feel, which suited it well.

Overthinking III: Lost in Lemons

2011-03-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

Lemons.
So clear in my minds eye,
The color pierces through my thoughts.
I scent comes to me,
Refreshing and light.

In the office,
The heater rattles,
And I let out a heavy sigh,
Dreaming of citrus fields far from here.

---

This poem is about how I really want a lemon right now. I have a grapefruit, so that will have to suffice.

Wikipedia: Joyride

2011-03-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

One of the highest of Machines,
Manufacturing sterile processing equipment.
He took part in a raid on a hospital to kidnap the child of Karim Bridji,
A heroin dealer mentioned in passing.

----

Chronyism
Industrial Machine Automation
Interrogator (G.I. Joe)
Karim Bridji
Savage Henry
Joyride (The Outer Limits)

Took bits from the previous wikipedia articles and rearranged them. Not sure how it came out.

No Longer Needed

2011-03-11T06:58:00.000-08:00

A wolf at the door,
In her head,
In her bed.

She exhales a storm,
And smells of the forest.

A girl at her feet,
In her wood,
In her hood,

She stitched it once,
With the love of the word.

He meant something once,
Before she felt moss.
His axe and thick hide,
Mean nothing now.

Dressed in red,
At her side,
Young outside,

She sees the woman
That no longer is.

In the fire,
With her thread,
And her dread.

She nestles in
With her wide eyed friend.
----

I'm seeing the Red Riding Hood movie today, because I expect it to be super bad. I decided to write a good Red Riding Hood related poem, that ended up being about lesbians, ambiguous possession, religion and metamorphosis.

Reproached the Night for a Companion

2011-03-08T11:33:00.002-08:00

One staring too long went blind in a tower,
Parting easily two that were never joined.
Always afraid to say more than it meant,
Because of the sun and a lost way.

---

Wrote this one using quotes from three poems by Auden: Taller Today, The Secret Agent, and The Letter (this one has some analysis and a few other poems as well). Each one of these poems discusses love, with both similarities and differences in their approaches and motifs.

Taller Today is a lover's reflection on the fleeting nature of love, that ends with the narrator is contented and fulfilled by the relationship/love and though there is knowledge that it may end it does not bring disappointment. I personally find this to be an interesting contrast to As I Walked Out One Evening, which grapples similar themes, but with a much darker feel (Read the poem: here. Read three of my analysis of it: here).

The Secret Agent is not necessarily or obviously a love poem. John W. Fuller proposes it to be one in his book of commentary, A Reader's Guide to W.H. Auden. I had only previously read and learned about this poem as a reflection on the war as well as Auden's landscapes, both psychological and mechanical (Auden has fondness for factories, mines, and juxtaposing them with the natural world). The basic idea of the metaphor is that the Secret Agent is seeking out someone who does not return or is not aware of his affection (hence the last line).

The Letter is a short story of rejection, and the narrator trying to reason that he is happier than he is. I also find the narrator's homosexuality to be fairly obvious as compared to Auden's other poems. Here love's fleeting nature is compared to the seasons.

In using these poems, I wanted to approach love that is somehow, unknown, vanished, or unattainable, keeping with the themes of the original three. In simple terms, I thought the poem to be the story of someone who loses themselves in pining over love due to their fear of actually approaching them (this is something I think about a lot...).

In the case of how I used the title line, the night is being blamed for the subject's lack of companion. Here the night represents both the subject's fears and the subject's flaws (both are unseen and obfuscated).

The subject becomes lost in reflection and pining (think of the interpretation of Nietzsche's "stare into the abyss" that does not involve literally being monitored by demons). Because no time was actually invested in approaching the object of love, no real connection exists between the two of them, nor will it be made as the subject now clings to delusions and dreams. This occurs because of the subject's fear of actually losing themselves in someone else rather than losing themselves in the fantasy of someone else, the imagined version being preferable to the real version.

I previously wanted to include quite a few other lines, but I found that they simply did not capture the lyrical aesthetic I wanted. I originally had a stanza previous to this, but I found it to be too length and not effective enough to conveying the feelings I wanted to.

Responses to Build Your Own

2011-03-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the responses I have gotten to my poem Build Your Own. If you would like to add a poem, feel free to comment on either page. If you would like more or less of your name or handle listed feel free to let me know as well.

-S
----

C.L.

In heartaches and in sorrow
My mind just slips away
And yet I know tomorrow
Will bring the same my way

J.P.

Your [Silky] [thrusting] [slashing]
MY [summer] [depression].
I [kick] myself in a [building] of [discontent].
What is this [happiness], that comes like [midnight],
[fucking], [pink], and [sparkly]?
You [rock] from my [empty set],
...My [freaking] [sight],
How does this [change the world]?

N.T.

Your tender, swaying, explosions
My autumnal spine.
I wrap myself in a veil of introspection,
What is this joy, that comes like midnight,
obscuring,vast and oppressive?
You flee from my hallucinations,
...My lilting, repellent,illusions ,
How does this fill my heart?

Pat Smith

Your corduroy salute tornados my summer elbow.
I wake myself in a train station of waiting.
What is this happiness, that comes like tea time,
singing, soft and quiet?
You pour from my quilted cement mixer, my shining sunburn.
How does this save me?

Stubert

Your caustic defenestration eviscerates my autumnal aplomb.
I pontificate to myself in a vestibule of demagoguery.
What is this weltscherz, that comes like brillig, heterophenomenologizing, apoplectic and paraprosdokian?
You instigate my aposiopesis, my waxing akinetopsia. How does this alleviate my anosodiaphoria?

Sin City

2011-02-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

Sinewy hearts,
On a darkened street,
A cop,
A killer,
Fighting to live.
His blood is a quick splash of color,
Her bent body is a searing reminder.
This city has never been anything,
Except a pile of grit and gristle.
A place where blood is shed,
And hearts are broken,
With the setting sun.

Sundered Youth

2011-02-18T19:34:00.000-08:00

Cave wanderer,
Lantern in hand,
Searching,
Grasping,
Alone in the dark.

Boils up his arm,
Marked by death,
To travel in deluded worlds.

Grandeur,
Romance,
Desire,
Figments in a young mind.

But the power is held,
Real and sharp,
A dagger in the night
Biding it's time.
---
Haven't updated in forever. I've actually been writing a lot, but I haven't posted it. I'm writing everyday this year again and it's going quite well. This one's about a character for a D&D game I just got a BEAUTIFUL commission of. I'm quite happy.

No Life King

2011-02-18T18:39:00.000-08:00

Endless hunger,
In deadened eyes,
With withered nails,
That hang like claws,

Jagged fangs,
Behind cold lips,
Dried out skin,
That smells of earth.

Nightly hunts,
To reclaim life,
And force it down,
It's powdery throat.

Guzzling blood,
To grasp the moon,
The no life king,
Amongst the dead.

Song Version of Auden's Victor

2011-02-16T13:39:00.000-08:00

Verse:
Victor was a pious man
Whose father taught him well
What gets you into heaven
And what gets you into hell

But late one night poor Victor
He was left alone,
The winter wind had chilled
His Daddy to the bone.

But time, it marched on,
Victor's youth was gone.

Verse 2:
Living in the boarding house,
Had no taste for sin,
Never cared for women till
Miss Anna marched on in.

All the fellows called her name
Whenever she walked by
It was no surprise that
She caught Victor's eye

But time, had it's plan,
Victor would become a man.

Verse 3:
The third time was a charm,
And finally they wed.
Thoughts of star crossed lovers,
Filled sweet Victor's head.

Till one morning at the office,
Through a creaky door,
Victor heard that Anna,
Gave all the men a tour.

And to the woods he ran,
Time unleashed it's plan.

The sky, threes, the rivers,
Said what he must do,
His father spoke and warned him,
She would not be true.

Returning to his house,
No look upon his face,
He watched as Anna drew
The deserved black ace.

Bridge:
A voice rang out in both his ears,
The left one and the right,
The voice that rang inside his skull,
Said she must die tonight.

He chased her through the household,
Brandishing a knife,
As they we're wed,
They were bound or life.

Off to the department,
Molding a piece of clay,
Victor was the start and end,
And would judge the earth some day.

----

I will try to post a sound bite later. Check out the original.

Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

2011-02-01T13:35:00.000-08:00

Late to bed,
Early to rise,
Leaves dark rings under your eyes.

Fast to act,
And slow to think,
Sounds like you could use a drink.

Asleep in church,
Awake for sin,
Is how you let the devil in.

January 29th

2011-01-29T13:28:00.000-08:00

Swathed in her charms,
Like a drop in the storm.
A peaceful start to an endless day,
A day of fire,
Of rain,
And of calm.
A soaring sun on a sandless beach.

Desire at the Edge of Sanity

2011-01-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

An Arcadian beauty in the truest sense,
Wild eyes and angled hair,
All edges,
All curves,
A glimpse of madness with one thousand eyes.

Sharp, unimaginable,
Chaotic, sensuous,
Impenetrable, fleeting,
A dipole shaking with arcane might.

In her the world turns,
Everything changes.

The stars bend with her twisting bones,
Dionysus sleeps inside the sun.
Old thoughts fill the poisoned well,
Silence flaps against the veil,
Is she a girl or something else?

Complex

2011-01-24T13:23:00.000-08:00

Once there was a city,
Made of parts and wholes,
And when it's body bled,
That was the human souls.

Once there was a river,
Who fell deeply in love.
This broke the heart of all the stars
Who watched him from above

Once there was a child
Who dreamed of bigger things
To walk amongst the giants,
And marry all the kings.

Goldfish

2011-01-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

Fish,
Like golden flecks
From the deep beyond.

They stir with some disturbance
Then carry on.

A simple life,
Deceptively so.

Sunflowery

2011-01-17T13:20:00.000-08:00

How was I to know?
The morning sun would come again.
Old worlds would be remembered.

Curses can be shaken off,
Like dew from blades of grass.

I will grow out of the webbed ways I used to be,
Bud into something fresh and clean,
And try again.

Diamond

2011-01-16T13:17:00.000-08:00

Red.
Everything about you is red now.
I imagine us inside a crystal,
A ruby perhaps.
Each side is one of your faces,
One of the ways you see yourself,
Or are seen.
None of them match,
They never do.
Not for you or I,
Or anyone else.

Arrange As You will

2011-01-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

1. Grammar can be as mad as a hatter

2. Because I love them all the same

3. Like a rose by any other name

4. The order of words don't matter

---
http://www.random.org

Apocalypse Then

2011-01-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

All chaos on the western front.

The white rider,
Silver tongued,
Wrapped in shawls,
A child in the eye's of men.

A six headed beast shot forth from the ground.

The red rider,
Cloaked in fury,
In fire and death,
And vanity of kings.

The angels sang from seven mouths.

The green rider,
Carrying an emptied gun,
Rabbits wither in its wake.
Jaw unhinged and screaming.

The beast thrashed and cursed their names.

The black rider,
A friend to all,
And an enemy to some,
He was once loved.

And the earth was swallowed as was seen.

Build Your Own!

2011-01-09T13:08:00.000-08:00

Your [TEXTURE] [MOTION] [VIOLENT VERB]s MY [SEASON] [EMOTION or BODY PART].
I [VERB] myself in a [PLACE] of [CONCEPT or EMOTION].
What is this [EMOTION], that comes like [TIME OF DAY],
[JERREN], [ADJECTIVE], and [ADJECTIVE]?
You [MOTION] from my [ABSTRACT CONCEPT],
My [JERREN] [SENSORY EXPERIENCE],
How does this [POIGNANT QUESTION]?

----

Read all the responses here!

Time Will Tell

2011-01-08T13:08:00.000-08:00

Uncanny insight from a nearby man
Was I that transparent?
Could he see to my core?
It didn't matter,
I knew he was right.
We are all just bones
We are all unknowns

Another Winter Night

2011-01-06T13:05:00.000-08:00

Powdered trees and heavy roads,
Winding through the winter life.
Christmas remnants hang from houses,
Gleaming lights in the setting sun.
Watching daylight sink into night,
Reflections flick through the evening air.

Rehash: Is Love Like Time Travel?

2011-01-03T12:58:00.000-08:00

A shrug,
I am unknowing in these things,
A hero has done this but once before.

I feel that strange sometimes.

When I fall will it be fast and fierce,
Like plummeting into some deep ocean?
Will it be a slow descent,
Realizations buried deep in the sand?

A dog at my heels and joy in my step,
Am I a fool or a jester?
A hermit?
A hero?
A wanted ad?
Some delusional dream?

A storm of thought on the open seas.

---

Yes, I reference Safety Not Guaranteed.

Matters of the Heart

2011-01-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

If I had a nickel for each of the ways I love you,
I'm not sure how much change I would have.

Enough to ride the bus through winding streets and traffic jams?
Enough to nestle in my coat pocket and buy a cup of coffee?
Enough to take the subway and hold you close again?
Enough to buy new snow shoes and march down to your house?
Enough to bring hot chocolate as the winter winds rage by?

I suppose so.

Bluebird

2011-01-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

A New Year
With open eyes and open hearts
With open mouths
like baby birds
With open ears
like temperament men
With open arms
like constant love
To give this year a gentle push
And hope it learns to fly.

New Year's Eve

2010-12-31T13:18:00.000-08:00

A snowy landscape,
Changed through the years.
It cares not for New Year's Day.

It grows and shifts with every moment,
Why celebrate what it simply is?

Birth and slow death, a jaded constant,
A night like any other.

The wolf howls,
It's brothers call back,
It's sisters run forth.
Do they hope for a better year?

The robin, oddly early,
Builds its nest fully unaware.

The sun rolls on,
The moon keeps turning,
Perhaps this night could be any night.

Special in its wholeness,
Special in its indifference,
A day chosen just as a day.

The quiet space could be anytime.
The mirror's edge is always welcome,
Glancing back at what we've done,
Distant shadows that slide through time.
But this day is unlike the rest,
Neither beginning nor end,
Just simply a day.

I understood it once,
But now its gone.

An Odd Day

2010-12-29T18:55:00.000-08:00

I find myself shaken,
Appreciative yet hateful of so many things.
Luck has floated past me,
And held me by my heel.

So many times I should have died.
Or perhaps just three that I can hold.

The first,
A quiet night,
Cut through by wheezing.
She is curious,
She wonders,
She wanders,
She finds me gasping and choking for life.

The second,
A ghost that never came.
Risks taken,
Cards played,
A safe arrival none the less.

The third,
Hapless and incomprehensible.
Yet nothing came,
Of death's near glance

Grateful to stumble forth.

Alpha Nexus: Pestilence II (Part 3)

2010-12-16T18:29:00.000-08:00

My initial hypothesis was fairly simple
The virus had done something.
I needed a way to test myself.

The world thought I was dead,
There had been an accident,
My family lived across the country,
I had no lab or place to live.
I might as well have been...

Except I wasn't.
Not precisely.

The first few days I begged,
Found boxes, new papers,
Lived in the streets,
Caught up on the news.

Things had gotten worse,
Governments were involved now,
Churches calling for the end of days,
Insurance prices off the charts.

I fought a drug addict for a square of space,
I lost.
Her desperation was greater than mine.
Though the pain was unbearable she saved me time.

Clutching my finger to the stump I wrapped it in old tape and newspaper.
When I dialed 911 they came faster than I expected.
By the time I got to the hospital they told me I had made a mistake,
My finger was still barely attached,
I should be happy, it might be easier to save.

As I lay in recovery I felt surprisingly well,
Perhaps the painkillers were stronger than I thought...
I shook my head,
My thoughts felt clear.

I unwrapped my hand.
I couldn't help my self,
The stitches looked well.
I re-wrapped it with precision.
The next time I was alone I left.

I may have stolen some supplies and equipment.
I needed to know.

My cells were repairing themselves with relative ease,
Not just replacing them,
But repairing them.

All the protiens looked different somehow,
I spat in a cup and isolated the DNA.
It was hardly perfect, but it would do.

I saved up some quarters and called an old friend.
He didn't believe it was me.
I explained what happened and he took me in.

For his sake I wish he hadn't,
I still couldn't control myself.

Inside The Bramble Bush

2010-12-16T18:08:00.000-08:00

My December words are withering:
Ample brambles of thoughts that heave and sigh
Grow cold and feint when unwound.
Gardens upon gardens and layers upon layers swirl around each other,
The words to ensnare them too many to mention.
Netting and webbing are placed like silk,
Carefully, quickly,
In precious silence.
Yet they run free,
Unbound by rules and regulations,
Untaxed and uncaring,
Filling the gates with life and madness.
Anyone is yet to catch them.
They run screaming through the night,
Beautiful and untold,
Consuming the foolish men who walk their way.
Sometimes they creep by doors or sit in window sills,
Granting gifts to the fair hearted,
Spinning gold to straw and back again.
Like little miracles they walk and speak and pulse and sing.
They build a city of whirring things,
With cogs and levers and spinning towers,
Filled with uncertain figures so filled with flame.

---
Sometimes I can't stop thinking. This is what it feels like. A big thanks to those of you who listen to when it all spills out.

Alpha Nexus: Pestilence I (Part 2)

2010-12-15T09:39:00.001-08:00

I was once a biological engineer,
You wouldn't call me that now
Though I am more than ever.
I worked on a project.
I designed a disease.
A disease for men and women,
For children and beasts,
But not as you know them.
The men I worked for,
They called them Second Wave Individuals,
You and I,
We called them Super Heroes.

The first burst happened.
Everything changed.
In a single moment one thousand people changed.
Perhaps more, perhaps less.
In fact, the number doesn't quite matter,
It was enough.

Magic, science, destiny all came together.
There were no patterns,
Just a single moment,
When something in us changed.

I was hired immediately.
When the second burst began,
It was decided my work had failed.
That was hardly true.
To protect their discoveries,
I was exposed to my work,
My child.
They assumed it would kill a lowly first wave human.
I'm not really sure if it did.
In retrospect the second burst was much longer.

I spent three months in the banks of the Hudson.
Thoughts were fleeting,
A flash of light would pass by.
I woke in pain and confusion,
But with no decay.
In the river for three months with no decay.
I knew then I had changed...
But into what?

Home Is Where My Heart Is

2010-11-17T09:11:00.000-08:00

A little house where I could grow
Dainty daisies in a row.
A quiet place to share our hours,
And hide our love in winding towers.
A blushing home with cozy arms,
With perfect nooks for all our charms.
And when I find it I will know,
What sweet things soon will show.

----

Now I feel all romantic and mushy...

Seafoam

2010-11-17T09:09:00.000-08:00

I saw hear singing by the sea,
A mermaid fair as fair can be,
But the sea is cruel as it is vast,
So alone I went back to my mast.

----

It's been a while. I wrote this yesterday while cleaning my room.

Into Many a Green Valley Drifts the Appalling Snow: How does love make life meaningful?

2010-11-08T10:06:00.000-08:00

I've been considering death a little bit more than I usually do of late. Sometimes in a much more romantic light, but increasingly in paradoxical acceptance and pure dread. There are occasional moments where I realize someday I will die and when that day comes there is a good chance all of this will be gone. That I will not come back. That everything I have know and done will be over, and all semblance of my consciousness may be gone. This is absolutely terrifying to me.

What comes from this is I admit that some day I will die and there is as of now nothing I can do about it, but if I think about too much I will break into a panic. I am guessing this is a fairly normal response, but I find myself thinking more about of late.

But on to the point of this, one time that this happened I drifted back to my line of self comfort:
"It was late late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on."

Generally, this stanza reminds me that there's hope yet. However, on this day I made a new connection as well: The love that makes life less unpleasant does not need to be romantic love. I don't know why I didn't see this in relation to the poem before. Loving "your crooked neighbor" doesn't need to be a romantic love of this person, it can simply being loving them as a a fellow human being. Love can also be a sense of agape, the love of man kind (though Auden discusses the issues of agape in the last stanzas of his poem, A Summer Night*). Or love can also be of things like learning, knowledge, and creation. Of things that enrich our seemingly short lives. At the time I found a comfort in this that perhaps romantic love couldn't supply.

Romantic love can be fleeting and end, but knowledge is something you will always have. Yes romantic love is a positive and wonderul experience, but it's not the only thing you should gadge life happiness in. I used to use romantic love as a crutch to deal with my own suffering and unhappiness, but I can't do that anymore, and shouldn't do that anymore. You can't be truly fufilled by another person untill you're fufilled by yourself. You need to find happiness and love in your own life first. Love is about sharing happiness not using that other person as your sole source of it. Perhaps that's the mistake the Lovers make...

*this is a summary of stuff leading up to the poem and the poem itself for those interested written on a blog

A Meeting on the Hudson

2010-10-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

For me the veil thinned by the river,
When I saw the right shade of green.
But I've seen you in my dreams,
Fragments that slip away.
And I I saw other visit,
When I slipped the apple by your grave.

I imagine you sitting on the hills of Bard,
Overlooking the river.

Part of Bard,
Part of the land in a way none of us can comprehend.

In my mind you will always be linked with it,
Intertwined in the soil and trees,
Running through the night air.

Maybe you can sense me,
The river runs both ways,
Perhaps somewhere upstream our thoughts meet,
Tangling in the currents.

---

As I walked along the pier I found myself thinking of a friend who passed away. I guess this would be the day to feel the closest to him. As I wrote this I found myself thinking of others who have passed away. I always imagine those I've lost just being off somewhere else. I will always imagine this person being at Bard now, even when I'm there and can't see him, he is still somewhere on campus, wearing that one damn hoodie.

To Be a Prince

2010-10-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

To be a prince,
To be in love.

I shake my fist at Cupid.
He throws slings instead of arrows,
No fortune to end my troubles,
No hope except the sea.

My pangs and patient merits
Are held at odds,
At arm's length.
They climb and shriek within the waves,
They give me pause,
It gives me time,
To think of things unsaid,
Of shuffling along a coiling road,
Of solitude and floating lanterns
Extinguished in the dead of night.

Are the repercussions,
The fearsome ripples,
What drives off love,
What drives off loneliness,
The unknown rub that casts the stones
That break the heart of wandering men?

---
I was thinking about Hamlet for some reason. I can't help if it's overplayed. If you're a purist, ignore the dash of Macbeth. I'm not sure if I like this one or even think it's any good, but you've got to keep on producing to get better.

To Danielle and Charlotte: Thanks to both of you for posting back. I've read The Bloody Chamber and it's definitely high up on my list. I find it to be very emotionally vivid and more believable in someways. Charlotte, your wisdom and sweetness is so refreshing. I've missed having you around. I want to put together a book of your sayings and advice.

Shouting About Bluebeard: An Intellectual Ramble

2010-10-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about Bluebeard a lot (the fairytale not the pirate). I'm being him for Halloween, and being the over-thinking intellectual I decided to use the opportunity to analyze both the myth and my own fears/anxieties. I thought of this since one of the roots of wearing costumes on Halloween is to ward off evil spirits. Thus we don the form of what frightens us to protect ourselves. From this I asked what about the story of Bluebeard intrigues/frightens me?

Let's start with the plot synopsis for those of you who don't know it.

A girl meets a creepy looking guy with a Bluebeard and decides to marry him. In some versions of the story she does this since he's incredibly rich, and he h it on her sisters. Also, optional: her mother gives her three doves as a wedding gift, one red, one black, and one white to signal how she's doing. When they are married he has to go away for some reason and gives her a set of keys. She can go anywhere in the house except for one room. Of course she goes in the room. Here she discovers all his dead/tortured other wives and blood gets on the key. She can't get the blood out and Bluebeard comes back. For discovering the room she's going to get killed to. She changes into her wedding dress (people wore them at their funerals) and asks if she can pray. Bluebeard says yes. She prays and depending on the existence of birds or some other plot device she is able to reach her family, and they come bust her out. Alternately she gets murdered. Depending on who is telling there are a couple different endings.

What I like about this myth is that there are a lot of different versions. There's the don't marry weirdos for their money version, the girl and her sisters use their cleverness to escape version, the be faithful to your husband version, and the being faithful to your family is the most important thing version. For the female character in it, I mostly like the tale of her quest for knowledge (what's in the room), and using her own intellect to escape (fooling him with the prayer and then escaping with her sisters). I also think it's a good idea to not marry people for money (especially if they have questionably tasteful facial hair), but that's not nearly as fun to read about. So the first thing I am drawn to: women extricating themselves from bad situations by virtue of their intellect.

That doesn't answer what makes Bluebeard scary (aside from the murder). In the original myth Bluebeard isn't given any motivation. He just seems to enjoy keeping a room full of dead wives. Though terrifying, killing for the sake of killing is a fairly obvious thing to be afraid of. After some reflecting I came to that perhaps Bluebeard represents a fear of intimacy, and the idea that some parts of the human psyche/identity can not and should not be scared. I openly admit I have a fear of being vulnerable around people, but I also have a fear of what will happen if I let that consume me. I think Bluebeard represents that paradox in many ways. I read a brilliant retelling in which he meets a girl and does his best not to test her, but he ends up feeling like he has to as to not be unfair to his other wives. The girl agrees to the test on the condition she may have her own private room as well. In a reversal of the story he enters her private space and she murders him, but he dies happy (knowing his wives are waiting for him since he has ended with the same fate as them).

This story takes the idea of vulnerability and mental privacy and runs with it brilliantly. How does one change when you are so stuck in your ways? What are the ramifications of self-inflicted isolation? Not to mention, isolating your emotions will cause you to destroy yourself and every one you love. I'm sure you could be grandiose and link this to the nature of humanity and how evil spreads, but I'm not interested in that at the moment. If the room is our misdeeds and innerself what is the key?

The key could be our affection for another human. Love has a way of allowing people to see what others don't. That can be dangerous, but also beautiful. The key could also be the slip ups and tells in our interpersonal barriers. Information about one's self is not always directly given, but implied by our actions (for example: think freudian defense mechanisms).

As a friend of mind pointed out, the story of Bluebeard is almost proto-Lovecraftian. I was thinking of writing a version where a new faculty member at Miskatonic discovers some unspeakable thing in his closet. My friend pointed out that it could just be about his wife entering some unallowed part of his mind, that the actual existence of some interstellar horror is not actually necessary. The room can come to posses him, and on entering the room she is entering some secret unallowed part of him. The room can be empty, as long as it is terrible. In either a lovecraftian retelling or the normal story the existence of the dead wives/shoggothy thing is actually unnessecary. What causes the murder is not what's inside, but the proccess of entering. This is interesting, because I have found that the things I think are a big deal and vast and terrible are usually not. Obviously, murdering people is a fairly big deal, but I'm talking about metaphors here.

On a similar vein, I had another idea for a Bluebeard based story in which the room is actually empty and the Bluebeard figure in the story is actually in an institution. He spends a good portion of the time trying to convince the staff his wives are dead and the women visiting him is an impostor/hallucination. He or she is incredibly guilty about this and for contrast I think there will be someone else in there who has actually murdered people and just doesn't care. I'm not sure if there's a bigger meaning to this story, but I like the idea of exploring the nature of guilt.

And here the train stops. I guess what I'm trying to get to out of all this is what I am identifying my fears as to outside viewers. Though I will probably get "you mean the pirate?" for most of the evening, I am trying to use this Halloween as a chance to reflect on my issues concerning emotional barriers. Also, I like thinking about fairytales.

Happy Halloween!

When Dreams Come True

2010-10-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

I went alone and held my head high,
Tilted my chin upon my hands.
There was girl whose voice I had fallen in love with,
Before I knew her.
Blazing down the highway,
Her voice in my ears,
Her words familiar and poignant,
I imagined what she must be like.
Today I met her.
Of all the girls I could have asked to sit,
Because there were no other seats,
It was her.
I didn't know until she took the mic,
Something slid in half inside me,
As if my torso fell with the blade of her songs.
Remorseful and swelling I watched,
Knowing she would be busy with her friends.
I gaze at the girl across the isle,
Whose boyish way and willful words
Made me think of Peter Pan.
My romantic notions mask an undercurrent of loneliness.
I was surrounded and smiling,
But also alone.
The girl at my table was a stranger,
Who I have admired as an abstraction,
With her flesh and blood before me,
I stumbled for words.
How do you say the things you feel,
When life doesn't work like films and novels.
No sweeping themes or vast crescendo,
No audience cheering for the nerdy underdog,
Hoping that she'll find the time, find the words,
To explain her delusional dreamings of a connection that doesn't exist.

So I went home,
To a television set,
Two warm smiles,
And one cold dinner,
And shared defeat with the powers that be.
We pat ourselves on the back and hope for tomorrow.
I imagine the place that pictures can't fill.

---

This is a true story. I once heard some songs on a CD in my friends car. I felt a certain intellectual attraction to the woman, but eventually brushed it aside. Tonight I went to a queer folk music event and offered the spare seat at my table to a cute girl who was playing later in the set. It was the girl from my friends CD. I tried to start a conversation with her, but she mostly spoke to her friends there. I couldn't quite say, "I heard your CD once and then imagined running off into the sunset with you, and I see you're really cute in real life so want to elope? Eh?" That would be awkward. She's playing a show tomorrow night though, so I might try to go. Damn it. All my poems are about depression and pining. I need to write more externally. Ugh.

Also, props if anyone notices the innocuous Dr. Horrible reference.

Also 2, the powers that be wasn't my idea one of them coined the term itself.

Autumnal Couplet

2010-10-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

Autumn is the time of year that sets my heart aglow,
Unfazed by spring's blossomy sweets or winter's gentle snow.

Standing By

2010-10-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

Today my heart rustled and I knew you felt no passion for me.
It was of little concern.
The wind was on my face and the flowers were in bloom.
All the love I needed was in nature's steady hands.

---
Consider this a sequel to yesterday's.