I confess, you are the best thing in my life.
23 February 2012
08 February 2012
II. A Game of Chess (Stanza 7)
When she came in uniform, he said—
“I missed you so, something wasn’t right without you”
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS, GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
“Make yourself useful, the floor’s dirty”
So she spat on it and held back the tears
She held for eight months
“There’s dirt underneath your fingernails”
She called him a failure for not finding a job
And he replied that he didn’t need one
If there were no kids to take care of.
She spit again, in the sink this time.
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS, GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
She sat at the window
Behind a desk
And watched the leaves fall
One by one until the earth had a blanket
But she was cold.
“We’re not getting any younger"
Why would she want another version of herself,
Sad and hollow and small.
“A figure like that can’t support a baby”
He speaks to her bones.
He bursts in the door every 2 A.M.,
Slurring words and stenches of cheap perfume,
He bleeds guilt but feels nothing.
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS, GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
“I need a real woman”
A ring on the finger but no children
To bear a concoction of your features,
An unfulfilled prophecy; selfish.
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
Goodbye captain. Goodbye sergeant. Goodbye lieutenant. Goodbye.
Farewell. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Goodbye gentlemen, goodbye brothers, goodbye, goodbye.
“I missed you so, something wasn’t right without you”
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS, GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
“Make yourself useful, the floor’s dirty”
So she spat on it and held back the tears
She held for eight months
“There’s dirt underneath your fingernails”
She called him a failure for not finding a job
And he replied that he didn’t need one
If there were no kids to take care of.
She spit again, in the sink this time.
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS, GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
She sat at the window
Behind a desk
And watched the leaves fall
One by one until the earth had a blanket
But she was cold.
“We’re not getting any younger"
Why would she want another version of herself,
Sad and hollow and small.
“A figure like that can’t support a baby”
He speaks to her bones.
He bursts in the door every 2 A.M.,
Slurring words and stenches of cheap perfume,
He bleeds guilt but feels nothing.
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS, GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
“I need a real woman”
A ring on the finger but no children
To bear a concoction of your features,
An unfulfilled prophecy; selfish.
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
Goodbye captain. Goodbye sergeant. Goodbye lieutenant. Goodbye.
Farewell. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Goodbye gentlemen, goodbye brothers, goodbye, goodbye.
05 February 2012
II. A Game of Chess (Stanzas 5 & 6)
I remember
When I first saw your gaping mouth, your lifeless eyes
‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your
head?’
Please
Doctor, doctor won’t you please prescribe me something
A day in the life of someone else?
Because I’m a hazard to myself
I’m my own worst enemy
‘What can I do now? What can I do?’
‘My capabilities running through my fingers like
grains of sand, I shall rush out
‘As I am, no glance in a mirror
‘No costume on my face, so. Where do I go now?
‘Where do I ever go?’
A meeting at noon.
And if it snows, by the fireplace we’ll be again,
And we shall play a game of chess.
We are just as much of no one as the hollow eyes
Over coffee cups,
We are vapors, temporary,
The steam billowing from the milky brown elixir
We exist, we rise, then we disappear.
When I first saw your gaping mouth, your lifeless eyes
‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your
head?’
Please
Doctor, doctor won’t you please prescribe me something
A day in the life of someone else?
Because I’m a hazard to myself
I’m my own worst enemy
‘What can I do now? What can I do?’
‘My capabilities running through my fingers like
grains of sand, I shall rush out
‘As I am, no glance in a mirror
‘No costume on my face, so. Where do I go now?
‘Where do I ever go?’
A meeting at noon.
And if it snows, by the fireplace we’ll be again,
And we shall play a game of chess.
We are just as much of no one as the hollow eyes
Over coffee cups,
We are vapors, temporary,
The steam billowing from the milky brown elixir
We exist, we rise, then we disappear.
II. A Game of Chess (Stanzas 2, 3, & 4)
‘The dreams are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
‘Comfort me. Why are you so cold. Empty.
‘What were you thinking? What thinking?
What?
‘I never knew what you were doing. Remember.’
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
‘What is that noise?’
Death’s twilight kingdom
‘What is that noise now? Do you hear the thunder?’
Nothing again nothing.
‘Do
‘You hear nothing? Did you think nothing? Do you
remember
‘Nothing?’
Note: there are several indentations that I intended to make here that show up in Microsoft Word but not Blogger. Same goes for other stanzas.
‘Comfort me. Why are you so cold. Empty.
‘What were you thinking? What thinking?
What?
‘I never knew what you were doing. Remember.’
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
‘What is that noise?’
Death’s twilight kingdom
‘What is that noise now? Do you hear the thunder?’
Nothing again nothing.
‘Do
‘You hear nothing? Did you think nothing? Do you
remember
‘Nothing?’
Note: there are several indentations that I intended to make here that show up in Microsoft Word but not Blogger. Same goes for other stanzas.
Lazy Sunday
Wow being sick is so great!! I missed three days of school and have basically been sick on and off since last Sunday. Luckily my immune system has finally decided to forgive me, and I'm pretty much healthy again.
Being sick means that I haven't had much time to write. In fact, I got 16 pages behind in my Writing Workshop class. Luckily, I managed to crank out 8 pages yesterday and 8 today, so I'm pretty much caught up. That also means I have more of The Waste Land to post!
I don't have much to update on, although being a second semester senior doesn't bring much crazy life updates in general. It's Superbowl Sunday, but I would be lying if I said I was really excited. What I'm more interested in is the Michigan vs. Michigan State basketball game, but the Wolverines are having a poor showing so far.
My wi-fi's been awful lately, and actually I had finished this little rant and was going to post it but then the internet stopped working and deleted half my post. Talk about first world problems. But from what I can remember, basically I said that I was astonished that Spirit Week starts tomorrow. Usually it's months of me biting my nails and thinking about costumes and such, but this year I guess I'm just going through the motions. Maybe once it starts I'll have more energy and excitement.
That being said, it's going to be a crazy busy week. I also have three basketball games which means I'm going to be all over the place and extra busy. So I apologize in advance for not posting much. Thanks for your patience, whoever you are out there!
Being sick means that I haven't had much time to write. In fact, I got 16 pages behind in my Writing Workshop class. Luckily, I managed to crank out 8 pages yesterday and 8 today, so I'm pretty much caught up. That also means I have more of The Waste Land to post!
I don't have much to update on, although being a second semester senior doesn't bring much crazy life updates in general. It's Superbowl Sunday, but I would be lying if I said I was really excited. What I'm more interested in is the Michigan vs. Michigan State basketball game, but the Wolverines are having a poor showing so far.
My wi-fi's been awful lately, and actually I had finished this little rant and was going to post it but then the internet stopped working and deleted half my post. Talk about first world problems. But from what I can remember, basically I said that I was astonished that Spirit Week starts tomorrow. Usually it's months of me biting my nails and thinking about costumes and such, but this year I guess I'm just going through the motions. Maybe once it starts I'll have more energy and excitement.
That being said, it's going to be a crazy busy week. I also have three basketball games which means I'm going to be all over the place and extra busy. So I apologize in advance for not posting much. Thanks for your patience, whoever you are out there!
01 February 2012
29 January 2012
II. A Game of Chess (Stanza 1)
The Chair she sat in, like a lonely throne,
Ebony legs met chestnut floor, glowing
By solemn candlelight, shadows in a dance,
Circling, changing with every flicker,
Her diamonds reflecting their own light.
Shadow puppets from sterling silver, cast iron, twenty four carat gold,
(They had more life than her.)
She saw herself in the glass cover of the cabinet,
Saw her sunken eyes and the dancing around her,
Saw her plants, her powders, her pills,
Saw the smoke form the joint between her skeletal fingers
join the smoke of the candles,
Saw the scars on the walls and remembered her broken promise—
troubled, confused
And drowned the sense by inhaling; forgetting.
Suddenly everything became brighter, louder.
Reds burst from the sides of her well-worn nails,
Bitten to the core, she swore she could see her bones,
Bare and white as her hollow skin.
In the sad light her skeleton danced,
All alone
But beautiful,
Moving to no music.
She looked to the window and was reminded of her emptiness.
She surrendered to the Poseidons of her eyes,
She let herself drown
She drowned in her throne
She was the queen, she was every color.
Silence screamed form her desperate mouth
She swallowed all the darkness,
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Quiet, girl,” from crooked teeth,
Tracing curves of her silhouette
The shadows teased and tickled.
She felt the heat of the candles, she burned,
She tore out her hair and watched it burst into flames,
Her skin fell as ashes.
The throne was empty, the room still.
Ebony legs met chestnut floor, glowing
By solemn candlelight, shadows in a dance,
Circling, changing with every flicker,
Her diamonds reflecting their own light.
Shadow puppets from sterling silver, cast iron, twenty four carat gold,
(They had more life than her.)
She saw herself in the glass cover of the cabinet,
Saw her sunken eyes and the dancing around her,
Saw her plants, her powders, her pills,
Saw the smoke form the joint between her skeletal fingers
join the smoke of the candles,
Saw the scars on the walls and remembered her broken promise—
troubled, confused
And drowned the sense by inhaling; forgetting.
Suddenly everything became brighter, louder.
Reds burst from the sides of her well-worn nails,
Bitten to the core, she swore she could see her bones,
Bare and white as her hollow skin.
In the sad light her skeleton danced,
All alone
But beautiful,
Moving to no music.
She looked to the window and was reminded of her emptiness.
She surrendered to the Poseidons of her eyes,
She let herself drown
She drowned in her throne
She was the queen, she was every color.
Silence screamed form her desperate mouth
She swallowed all the darkness,
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Quiet, girl,” from crooked teeth,
Tracing curves of her silhouette
The shadows teased and tickled.
She felt the heat of the candles, she burned,
She tore out her hair and watched it burst into flames,
Her skin fell as ashes.
The throne was empty, the room still.
25 January 2012
Hallelujah
You're the girl in the back of the room
My wallflower that's in bloom
You're so oblivious to this
But I could fall into those eyes
Pretty circles that I try
To escape into, yeah
Well, Hallelujah, when you look at me
Hallelujah, you're the halo over me
You're all that I need
With you, every day is Saturday
With you, every word you say is like a song
With you, well, everything is obvious
Hallelujah, hallelujah, well I found you
I found you, I found you, Hallelujah
I never thought I'd take that jump
A nervous laugh around someone
I'm sleeping in the palm of your hand
The way you whisper on the phone
I hear your voice when I'm alone
You always understand just who I am
Hallelujah, your love is free
Hallelujah, you're the halo over me
And you're all I need
With you, every day is Saturday
With you, every word you say is like a song
With you, well, everything is obvious
Hallelujah, hallelujah, I found you
I found you, I found you, Hallelujah
The best things are unexpected just like this
Like a billboard in the sky you just can't miss
And I'm never letting this love go
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
With you, every day is Saturday
With you, yeah, every word you say is like a song
With you, yeah, everything is obvious
Hallelujah, hallelujah, 'cause I found you
Yeah, I found you, yeah I found you
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, hallelujah
24 January 2012
I. The Burial of the Dead (Stanza 4)
Millions of nobodies
Grasping for sunlight captured by concrete vortexes
Sculpting their view of the sky.
Each walks lifelessly through the maze,
Sunken eyes and Starbucks cups,
Anonymity whispered in their footsteps.
Iron gates at 116th and Broadway conceal a world.
One o’ clock meant you were supposed to be somewhere,
Buried in leather-bound books or Jack Daniels,
A temporary ignorance of a permanent problem.
She put down the book, the bottle,
And saw him standing there, hollow-eyed too.
He looked familiar.
“Let’s be miserable together, let’s go nowhere together.”
And so they talked and kissed and touched.
He smelled like old paper and whiskey,
But her heart lurched, and she was lonely
So she laughed. And they slept together.
When she woke, the table was empty
And the bottle remained.
What happened?
“You! hypocrite lecteur! — mon sembable, — mon frère!”
Grasping for sunlight captured by concrete vortexes
Sculpting their view of the sky.
Each walks lifelessly through the maze,
Sunken eyes and Starbucks cups,
Anonymity whispered in their footsteps.
Iron gates at 116th and Broadway conceal a world.
One o’ clock meant you were supposed to be somewhere,
Buried in leather-bound books or Jack Daniels,
A temporary ignorance of a permanent problem.
She put down the book, the bottle,
And saw him standing there, hollow-eyed too.
He looked familiar.
“Let’s be miserable together, let’s go nowhere together.”
And so they talked and kissed and touched.
He smelled like old paper and whiskey,
But her heart lurched, and she was lonely
So she laughed. And they slept together.
When she woke, the table was empty
And the bottle remained.
What happened?
“You! hypocrite lecteur! — mon sembable, — mon frère!”
I. The Burial of the Dead (Stanza 3)
A slick bun and a pencil skirt,
Takes firm notes on a clipboard
And click-clack-click-clacks through the hallway.
Her pointed nose and sharp eyebrows speak volumes.
You think you can read her like a book,
Her pages worn, her spine torn.
(She’ll pick your insecurities until you beg for mercy)
Tsk-tsk and a turn of her head,
Pursed lips and you know you’re done for.
The tights, the shoes, the tie, the hair,
All wrong, all wrong.
She’ll burn you through the floor
Until you are only ashes,
But you still want to please her,
You are no longer human.
Hollow, heartless, every type of empty
To cover up her burial ground.
Her wrists ridged, covering up nightmares,
Waking up drowning in her own sweat.
The Helpless Woman. Fear death by water.
Briefcases and pleated pants suffocate you.
Woman, you make money,
But even I could tell you that’s not the secret to happiness.
Takes firm notes on a clipboard
And click-clack-click-clacks through the hallway.
Her pointed nose and sharp eyebrows speak volumes.
You think you can read her like a book,
Her pages worn, her spine torn.
(She’ll pick your insecurities until you beg for mercy)
Tsk-tsk and a turn of her head,
Pursed lips and you know you’re done for.
The tights, the shoes, the tie, the hair,
All wrong, all wrong.
She’ll burn you through the floor
Until you are only ashes,
But you still want to please her,
You are no longer human.
Hollow, heartless, every type of empty
To cover up her burial ground.
Her wrists ridged, covering up nightmares,
Waking up drowning in her own sweat.
The Helpless Woman. Fear death by water.
Briefcases and pleated pants suffocate you.
Woman, you make money,
But even I could tell you that’s not the secret to happiness.
23 January 2012
I. The Burial of the Dead (Stanza 2)
Beneath the landscape, stained of reds and golds,
Are roots still the veins of the earth in the autumn?
The air is dry and can no longer feed you answers,
Bare branches leak what little sunlight remains,
Casting shadows of skeletons on the ground,
A maple graveyard. The wind bites at your ears,
Filling every crevasse of your shivers.
(Come in under this blanket)
And we can watch the world die
While we watch frostbite tease fingertips
And watch darkness consume the light.
I will watch your eyes as you begin to understand the world.
Sunrise, sunrise,
Looks like morning in your eyes.
Sunrise, sunrise,
Couldn't tempt us if it tried.
"Sixteen sunflowers on the sixteenth year,
Didn't die for sixteen days."
-You were two thousand miles away,
But distance didn't keep words from failing,
And my breath lost when we met again in the airport.
Was there a world outside the two of us?
It was cold, like October, and I was numb.
Not knowing how to think
I scream aloud, begin to sink
My legs and arms are broken down
With envy for the solid ground
I'm reaching for the life within me
How can one man stop this ending?
I thought of just your face
Relaxed, and floated into space.
Are roots still the veins of the earth in the autumn?
The air is dry and can no longer feed you answers,
Bare branches leak what little sunlight remains,
Casting shadows of skeletons on the ground,
A maple graveyard. The wind bites at your ears,
Filling every crevasse of your shivers.
(Come in under this blanket)
And we can watch the world die
While we watch frostbite tease fingertips
And watch darkness consume the light.
I will watch your eyes as you begin to understand the world.
Sunrise, sunrise,
Looks like morning in your eyes.
Sunrise, sunrise,
Couldn't tempt us if it tried.
"Sixteen sunflowers on the sixteenth year,
Didn't die for sixteen days."
-You were two thousand miles away,
But distance didn't keep words from failing,
And my breath lost when we met again in the airport.
Was there a world outside the two of us?
It was cold, like October, and I was numb.
Not knowing how to think
I scream aloud, begin to sink
My legs and arms are broken down
With envy for the solid ground
I'm reaching for the life within me
How can one man stop this ending?
I thought of just your face
Relaxed, and floated into space.
22 January 2012
I. The Burial of the Dead (Stanza 1)
October is the heartless month, chasing
Sunlight with blood red leaves, painting
The earth and concrete, stealing
Last breaths of fragile grass.
Spring kept us waiting, watching
Taunting rain switch on and off, drowning
The flowers that were not ready.
Summer tackled us with Atlantic waves,
Saltwater swallowing our laughter.
Ghost crabs tickled our feet when the sun came down,
And we returned home to eat their cousins.
I was no more than five feet tall,
But I let the current take me and listened
To its stories and travels.
In the grip of my father I was safe.
He told me when to breathe
And let me go when I was ready.
I write in the light to try and make sense of what was dark.
Sunlight with blood red leaves, painting
The earth and concrete, stealing
Last breaths of fragile grass.
Spring kept us waiting, watching
Taunting rain switch on and off, drowning
The flowers that were not ready.
Summer tackled us with Atlantic waves,
Saltwater swallowing our laughter.
Ghost crabs tickled our feet when the sun came down,
And we returned home to eat their cousins.
I was no more than five feet tall,
But I let the current take me and listened
To its stories and travels.
In the grip of my father I was safe.
He told me when to breathe
And let me go when I was ready.
I write in the light to try and make sense of what was dark.
17 January 2012
Disaster
(Freewrite, ~8 minutes, after a 1.5 minute freewrite on the word "disaster"; the object was to keep your pen moving)
She fell onto her knees in the middle of the pavement, adding to the array of cuts and bruises that tattooed her once pure skin. It wasn't fair. She ran through the woods, the sidewalks, traced every step that they used to run, and he was there, he was there. She could sense him. But he was gone.
Hair, splattered in soaking branches across her face, crawled into her open mouth as she sobbed. The neighbors watched pitifully behind windows, where their perfect lives remained like museum exhibits. She was hollow, they were full. She could see the heaving of her chest and feel the warmth of her throat as vomit rose but the world was silent. Rain fell like bullets around her and traced tauntingly at her fragile skin and she eroded right there on the pavement.
She fell onto her knees in the middle of the pavement, adding to the array of cuts and bruises that tattooed her once pure skin. It wasn't fair. She ran through the woods, the sidewalks, traced every step that they used to run, and he was there, he was there. She could sense him. But he was gone.
Hair, splattered in soaking branches across her face, crawled into her open mouth as she sobbed. The neighbors watched pitifully behind windows, where their perfect lives remained like museum exhibits. She was hollow, they were full. She could see the heaving of her chest and feel the warmth of her throat as vomit rose but the world was silent. Rain fell like bullets around her and traced tauntingly at her fragile skin and she eroded right there on the pavement.
12 January 2012
Narrative
"I hate a song that makes you think you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim. Too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. I'm out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.
"I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own songs and to sing the kind that knock you down farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow."
"I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own songs and to sing the kind that knock you down farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow."
-Woody Guthrie
10 January 2012
Subjectivity
And so begins a new semester. I managed to switch into Writing Workshop, and even after two days of class I can already tell that this was a brilliant choice.
Today, I was asked one of the most difficult questions I have faced in a long time; what is "good" writing? My answer? "Thought-provoking! It doesn't need to be violent or dramatic, but if it provokes thought or reflection in the reader, it is good writing. The writing takes twists and turns, however little, and covers ideas that few have tread on before, or looks at a typical object in a new lens. 'No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.'"
Among the class's answers were: distinctive voices, vivid characters, pleasing language, variety, and conflict. Is good writing all subjective? How do you classify powerful writing? How is one piece more powerful than another?
Among the class's answers were: distinctive voices, vivid characters, pleasing language, variety, and conflict. Is good writing all subjective? How do you classify powerful writing? How is one piece more powerful than another?
This, in addition to our discussion on freewriting and its multiple purposes, is not helping me in my state of writer's block. Although, I wouldn't really call it writer's block. It's more like a cluttered mind. Hopefully this three day weekend will help me sort through my head. There is so much writing I want to be doing, but then other things come up and suddenly writing is shoved to the end of my list.
Life's rough, isn't it?
08 January 2012
Books
I truly believe that a book is one of the best gifts you can give to a person. Sure, you can give people clothes and jewelry and whatever, but with things like that, they take one look at it and decide whether they love it or hate it. With a book, they have to at least give it a try. It doesn't even have to have words in it. Even if it's just a book of photographs or other art, it gets them thinking. Maybe I'm just going on this rant because I recently picked up reading again and now I remember all the greatness I was missing out on. Or maybe because I want other people to realize how great reading is (sorry, Kindles don't count).
Now that I think about it, I really want someone to get me a book. It doesn't have to be great, but I'm terrible at picking out books for myself. I was at Barnes&Noble yesterday returning a book that I had a second copy of, and looked for a book to replace it. I intended on picking up a new PostSecret book and leaving, but then I remembered the poetry section and spent an hour leafing through books. I settled with From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002. After I finish the book I'm currently reading, maybe this will be next.
Of course, another one of the best gifts you can give to someone is music, but I could go on and on about that.
Sorry I don't have any new writing of my own to post. But here is a Pablo Neruda poem I like:
The Queen
I have named you queen.
There are taller ones than you, taller.
There are purer ones than you, purer.
There are lovelier than you, lovelier.
But you are the queen.
When you go through the streets
no one recognizes you.
No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks
at the carpet of red gold
that you tread as you pass,
the nonexistent carpet.
And when you appear
all the rivers sound
in my body, bells
shake the sky,
and a hymn fills the world.
Only you and I,
only you and I, my love,
listen to it.
Now that I think about it, I really want someone to get me a book. It doesn't have to be great, but I'm terrible at picking out books for myself. I was at Barnes&Noble yesterday returning a book that I had a second copy of, and looked for a book to replace it. I intended on picking up a new PostSecret book and leaving, but then I remembered the poetry section and spent an hour leafing through books. I settled with From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002. After I finish the book I'm currently reading, maybe this will be next.
Of course, another one of the best gifts you can give to someone is music, but I could go on and on about that.
Sorry I don't have any new writing of my own to post. But here is a Pablo Neruda poem I like:
The Queen
I have named you queen.
There are taller ones than you, taller.
There are purer ones than you, purer.
There are lovelier than you, lovelier.
But you are the queen.
When you go through the streets
no one recognizes you.
No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks
at the carpet of red gold
that you tread as you pass,
the nonexistent carpet.
And when you appear
all the rivers sound
in my body, bells
shake the sky,
and a hymn fills the world.
Only you and I,
only you and I, my love,
listen to it.
06 January 2012
In Phan Thiet - Huu Thinh
(translated from Vietnamese)
He owns nothing, not even a blade of grass
Though the hills are wide, not even a small plot of earth,
Yet my brother belongs to the land and sky of Phan Thiet.
It was here he first saw the sea,
Through an opening in a bunker
After days of climbing—
The ocean immense, the bunker so narrow
A sand shower whitened his shoulders at the slightest motion.
The stench of gunpowder and sweat in that place,
The uncontrollable beating of his heart,
The intense moist wind,
The sea rocking as anxiously as a ship about to leave.
Stars shining in the deep night
Cut trails towards the water,
The soldiers groping through hills by their light that December,
My brother among them,
Ocean rushing forward, embracing all,
And love for the sea made them careless—
He died in bombs raining down
Only inches from the water.
Here you are elder brother, though I’d been looking
Elsewhere, hope motivating me to scale the slopes
in Tan Canh,
Sa Thay,
Dac Pet,
Dac To.
I’ve had the fevers you had,
Soaked in the same jungle rain you soaked in,
But never imagined an afternoon in Phan Thiet
When I would stand crying alone behind a car.
The jungle is still there, the battle ground still there.
A few more steps to reach Highway One,
Just a few more,
And yet
Nothing can change what is or what happened.
The sea is the same deep blue as when you fell.
I don’t know the name of that hill,
But I know you are still standing there
Unaware the alert has long ended,
Unaware of news from home, or of your brother’s face.
Not lying in a cemetery,
You live with the hill, turning green with its grass,
The blades of it have become our family’s joss sticks,
And this hill is also our mother’s child.
I’ve had to bear all other family concerns.
Car horns blare as night deepens in Phan Thiet.
Lights of the city show the way for a fisherman.
You do not sleep, and the fisherman does not sleep—
You both have nightly conversations with the sea.
In that way, Phan Thiet owns my brother.
He owns nothing, not even a blade of grass
Though the hills are wide, not even a small plot of earth,
Yet my brother belongs to the land and sky of Phan Thiet.
It was here he first saw the sea,
Through an opening in a bunker
After days of climbing—
The ocean immense, the bunker so narrow
A sand shower whitened his shoulders at the slightest motion.
The stench of gunpowder and sweat in that place,
The uncontrollable beating of his heart,
The intense moist wind,
The sea rocking as anxiously as a ship about to leave.
Stars shining in the deep night
Cut trails towards the water,
The soldiers groping through hills by their light that December,
My brother among them,
Ocean rushing forward, embracing all,
And love for the sea made them careless—
He died in bombs raining down
Only inches from the water.
Here you are elder brother, though I’d been looking
Elsewhere, hope motivating me to scale the slopes
in Tan Canh,
Sa Thay,
Dac Pet,
Dac To.
I’ve had the fevers you had,
Soaked in the same jungle rain you soaked in,
But never imagined an afternoon in Phan Thiet
When I would stand crying alone behind a car.
The jungle is still there, the battle ground still there.
A few more steps to reach Highway One,
Just a few more,
And yet
Nothing can change what is or what happened.
The sea is the same deep blue as when you fell.
I don’t know the name of that hill,
But I know you are still standing there
Unaware the alert has long ended,
Unaware of news from home, or of your brother’s face.
Not lying in a cemetery,
You live with the hill, turning green with its grass,
The blades of it have become our family’s joss sticks,
And this hill is also our mother’s child.
I’ve had to bear all other family concerns.
Car horns blare as night deepens in Phan Thiet.
Lights of the city show the way for a fisherman.
You do not sleep, and the fisherman does not sleep—
You both have nightly conversations with the sea.
In that way, Phan Thiet owns my brother.
05 January 2012
T.S. Eliot: a project in the making
So besides the idiot Barnes&Noble employee that helped me try and find a book a few months ago, I'm assuming you all have at least heard of T.S. Eliot. This past semester, I took an English elective called "Into the Modern," and for a semester we studied the movement in British literature from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century.
One of the texts we read was Eliot's "The Waste Land," and after completing the poem, we were given an assignment to choose three short sections from the poem and replace them with contemporary verses. Not everyone in the class was as enthusiastic as I was about the project.
Even though about a month has passed since the project was due, I have had the idea in the back of my mind to rewrite the entire poem. Here is a section I covered in the project, taken from section III, "The Fire Sermon":
“Skeleton streets and dusty leather chairs.
Abandoned by Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn
Emptied me. By Queens I surrendered myself,
Selling my anonymous body to hungry passersby.
“My hands are at Ground Zero, and my head
In my hands. After that day
He was gone. He had promised a new start.
Without my heart, where do I go?
“On the Atlantic City boardwalk,
I am nothing
Among everything.
Foreign hands on my body plead physical pleasure.
My mother, my cousin, my daughter know
Nothing.
I am no one.”
I was required to write approximately one page analyses for each section, but I don't want to bore you with that. I'll post as I go. Wish me luck!
One of the texts we read was Eliot's "The Waste Land," and after completing the poem, we were given an assignment to choose three short sections from the poem and replace them with contemporary verses. Not everyone in the class was as enthusiastic as I was about the project.
Even though about a month has passed since the project was due, I have had the idea in the back of my mind to rewrite the entire poem. Here is a section I covered in the project, taken from section III, "The Fire Sermon":
“Skeleton streets and dusty leather chairs.
Abandoned by Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn
Emptied me. By Queens I surrendered myself,
Selling my anonymous body to hungry passersby.
“My hands are at Ground Zero, and my head
In my hands. After that day
He was gone. He had promised a new start.
Without my heart, where do I go?
“On the Atlantic City boardwalk,
I am nothing
Among everything.
Foreign hands on my body plead physical pleasure.
My mother, my cousin, my daughter know
Nothing.
I am no one.”
I was required to write approximately one page analyses for each section, but I don't want to bore you with that. I'll post as I go. Wish me luck!
02 January 2012
For You
I like to run.
So I ran from you.
Pounded my feet into concrete
Instead of fists into books
Like I used to
Because words hurt more than
Running away.
I ran in bare feet
So I could cry over you
But blame it on the blood.
My feet tore and my heart ripped,
You took out my pages.
I was wordless.
It was my fault.
I ran in the rain
Because fresh water tasted better
Than salt.
I ran because running
Is easier than falling,
Especially when you feel like
There's nothing beneath you.
If I ran fast enough,
The ground disappeared.
But one day I jumped
Just to remember what falling felt like.
It was then I realized
I had a parachute the whole time.
My apologies mixed in with yours,
Words tied into strings
Laced around my shoulders,
Through my fingers,
The warmth of your hands.
A paper parachute.
We kept writing,
And I let myself fall again.
The wind wasn't cold laughter this time;
It sang,
And clouds turned transparent.
You were there,
You are here now.
The wind kissed my lips
And gave me words to speak,
Stung my eyes,
But let me see.
The scars became maps,
So I walked to the edge.
This parachute is big enough for two.
Will you take my words
And jump with me?
So I ran from you.
Pounded my feet into concrete
Instead of fists into books
Like I used to
Because words hurt more than
Running away.
I ran in bare feet
So I could cry over you
But blame it on the blood.
My feet tore and my heart ripped,
You took out my pages.
I was wordless.
It was my fault.
I ran in the rain
Because fresh water tasted better
Than salt.
I ran because running
Is easier than falling,
Especially when you feel like
There's nothing beneath you.
If I ran fast enough,
The ground disappeared.
But one day I jumped
Just to remember what falling felt like.
It was then I realized
I had a parachute the whole time.
My apologies mixed in with yours,
Words tied into strings
Laced around my shoulders,
Through my fingers,
The warmth of your hands.
A paper parachute.
We kept writing,
And I let myself fall again.
The wind wasn't cold laughter this time;
It sang,
And clouds turned transparent.
You were there,
You are here now.
The wind kissed my lips
And gave me words to speak,
Stung my eyes,
But let me see.
The scars became maps,
So I walked to the edge.
This parachute is big enough for two.
Will you take my words
And jump with me?
Return
Hi there. Happy new year!
So I've decided to return to this blog now that I'm a second semester senior (no, not as a new year's resolution. I never keep those). Not only will I be working on the resurrection of my school's literary magazine, but I will also be a member of the new writing workshop senior seminar, so I guess I'll have to write now. Bummer, right?
I'll also have a lot more time on my hands, especially once I finish my final two college applications. I'm still completely convinced that no one reads this but I'm going to keep posting anyway. I like having a place to keep all of my writing and cool pictures I find and post on here in one place. In fact, I have definitely come back to visit this blog to find multiple pieces. For those of you who have ever taken a look at this page--thanks for that.
Speaking of new writing and whatever, I have a poem I wrote recently that I want to post on here. It was my first time writing since attending the program at Northwestern this past summer; I was pretty rusty at first, but, like usual, once I started I couldn't stop. I wrote it for my best friend. I hope he liked it.
So I've decided to return to this blog now that I'm a second semester senior (no, not as a new year's resolution. I never keep those). Not only will I be working on the resurrection of my school's literary magazine, but I will also be a member of the new writing workshop senior seminar, so I guess I'll have to write now. Bummer, right?
I'll also have a lot more time on my hands, especially once I finish my final two college applications. I'm still completely convinced that no one reads this but I'm going to keep posting anyway. I like having a place to keep all of my writing and cool pictures I find and post on here in one place. In fact, I have definitely come back to visit this blog to find multiple pieces. For those of you who have ever taken a look at this page--thanks for that.
Speaking of new writing and whatever, I have a poem I wrote recently that I want to post on here. It was my first time writing since attending the program at Northwestern this past summer; I was pretty rusty at first, but, like usual, once I started I couldn't stop. I wrote it for my best friend. I hope he liked it.
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