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{Dream-logic rarely succeeds.}Archive for January, 2008
Secrets
http://deviantartsecret.deviantart.com/art/secret-2949-75806052
I hate secrets, yet in effect, I have far too many of them.
And yet, I’m almost tempted. Helen can be very convincing when she wants to be.
Sell thy soul to the mirror
I really ought to be memorizing “The Seven Stages of Man” speech from “As You Like It” right now, but for the time being procrastination appeals to me far more than expending any real effort what-so-ever. This is the same reason I have not yet sent in my ACT and SAT scores, or my transcript to any of the colleges to which I applied. I have about three days.
And so, in the interests of furthering my lack of productivity, I have compiled a list of what I intend to submit to “The Looking Glass.”
“Who Knows the Big Bad Wolf?”
“Sonnet I”
“Sonnet III”
“Down”
On the Issue of Why Instruments have Names, and Musicians are so Lonely
The question of why we name our instruments is a tricky one.
Not everyone does, you see.
The argument is that,
Like boats,
If you name them and love them they’ll never fail you.
But I’ve been in plenty of unnamed boats.
I assure you that they still float as well as any other.
Likewise,
An instrument without a name will undoubtedly still play.
And even before the question of names is that of personification.
Failure is never our fault,
It’s our instrument’s.
“It doesn’t want to play.”
“Her pads are absolutely shot.”
We treat them like recalcitrant pets
Or children
Or even equals.
This is, of course, ridiculous.
I’d like to meet the woman who gave birth to an alto sax.
How could you have ever played one after that?
For all that I know people who are
Best friends with their instruments,
Who care for them like children with bones as brittle as glass,
And spend just as much time with them as–if not more than—
People who can speak without assistance.
It’s not as if we don’t have friends,
But they can’t go everywhere with you.
In the long run, I think we name them because,
By the time we’ve gotten lost in the music,
We find we are very much alone.
Consumed
I can feel something burning well off in the distance. I can’t see it, or smell it, or hear it, and no heat is reaching me, so it must be quite some ways off, or else physically very small. All I’m getting is the sense of something of enormity being destroyed, and if I can feel it’s presence from this distance, it must be burning. That’s all I feel now, really.
I suppose I’m just lucky it stopped hurting when it did. I’d say that “it” was my heart, but flesh scorches far too easily for something like that to occur. Had it been, I can only assume that my blood would have ceased flowing long ago from the sheer enormity of my despair. Besides, the feeling ran far deeper than that.
Can souls burn?
I suppose I’m unlikely ever to find out again unless I simply tire of living. But that isn’t likely to happen. She died, you know. I never told her I loved her, and now she’s dead.
But years ago a priest told me that on occasion mortals are reborn. I can only hope he’s right. The gods must know I’ve prayed enough.
I’ll find her eventually. I must. I have to tell her how sorry I am, how much I really did, do, love her.
I need to make up for lost time before the burning consumes me.
Settling down and Getting out
The thought had crossed my mind, after all this time. What was I hoping to find? Was it worth the pain?
Through E I recently acquired a recording of Frank (?) Ticheli’s “Blue Shades” being performed by the Kanagawa University Wind Ensemble. She also pointed out, sometime during the 12th consecutive time we listened to the song, that it reminded her rather forcefully of some sort of detective noir story.
E has done far more for me in the last few weeks than she probably knows (not the least of which was ceasing the worship of a false god), and as such I’ve resolved to write something for her. Of course, a premise and set of characters is utterly useless without a plot to organize it all. I’ll come up with something. I’m toying with the idea of illicit substance abuse, as much as I was hoping to save that for the inevitable “Pink Elephant” sequel.
And on the subject of writing, I either need to pull together some older work, or churn out something entirely new in the next few days if I wish to meet the deadline for Looking Glass submissions. I expect Sterling will be doing his best to halt any progress I might otherwise make (my memory is going, but if it still serves in this I do recall him saying something rather to that effect), but if nothing else I’m interested to see if it is his handwriting on my rejection slip again. That is, of course, if there are actually any such tangible slips.
Updates shall come when they come.
Everyday
One for today, one for tomorrow,
I’ve for tale for every day that we’ve traveled.
What could have happened to cause all my sorrow?
Only meeting you.
That was a very silly thing for me to have done.
I could argue all day, until I grew blue in the face if it came to that, that what I did was necessary. But the truth is that my actions of late have been about as idiotic as embezzling the 6th penny.
Apparently I’m no fun anymore.
Perhaps if I could still see the sun . . .
It wouldn’t do any good. The lemons have already done their damage, so all I’m left with is a pair of peacocks dressed in motley and an ink well with a hole in the bottom for entertainment.
Where the World Ends
First the peacocks, now the idiots. Mein Gott, sie sind dumm wie Brot.
Until such time as the archaeological finds come back from the lab Zagreus is a dead god. Dead, devoured, and born again as something rather less desirable.
He would be correct in the assumption that there is some sort of underlying cause of the tension between them. Between myself and the rest of E’s issues she can’t really deal with Zagreus’s separation anxiety. If you feel so damn neglected then find someone else to lean on. I can promise on E’s behalf that she won’t mind in the least.
Events came to something of a climax today at lunch. As she put it, she “made the mistake of assuming that the seniors on the right half of the room would have the maturity to listen to what [she] was saying, even if [she] wasn’t addressing them directly. Clearly [she] was wrong.” As I understand it, when it became apparent that Zagreus, the lummox, and Merryn’s adopted son would be completely incapable of shutting up E just ignored them completely in favor of trying to keep the much larger population of sophomores under control. Once again in her words, “I wonder why I didn’t realize he was so fucking stupid until now.”
Well put? If I wasn’t already on a side by default, I’d be rather annoyed with E as well. But since we live in rather closer quarters than most, I suppose I’ll have to grin and bear it.
My supply of inspiration seems to have gone and dried up again. This is, as you can probably imagine, rather annoying. But, pieces are pieces, and they’re worth putting up for a time at least. Since the spacing here has gone all pear shaped I’ll have to do things the old fashioned way… with “/” marks. So it goes.
Fair is fair, yet not so fair in thine eyes./The possibility of beauty falls/Between endless permutations of lies./Your visage hides behind the curtain walls./Winter follows in Autumn’s chilly wake/Arguing the merit of cold, pale snow/Against colorful patterns that leaves make./Who is right? Who could ever really know?
Speak softly of the gently falling leaves,/Foliage never once let out a wail./Spy the man who for dying color grieves,/For it is he who won’t look past the veil.
We all strive for constant inspiration/Derived from muses caught and cast in stone./Malleable is an aberration,/Mostly ideas are brittle as bone.
There is another, completed, sonnet that I shall post to DA as soon as the mood strikes me. I call it “I wouldn’t get my feet wet, not for all the fish you fling at me.” I would be amiss if I failed to mention that it is one of my odder works.
Incomplete
I’ve got about the first 1/3 to 1/2 of two or four sonnets going right now, and I can’t seem to finish any of them.
This is, regrettably, very characteristic of me. I’m notorious for never finishing anything that I start unless my life somehow hangs in the balance. Curses.
In any event, I’m considering just posting the pieces until I can come up with something to do with them or get sick of them.
And now to work the word “malleable” into something. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy the song “Stephanie’s Shoes” until now.
Back From the Dead
Snow White is back and, unfortunately for her, no more beautiful and intelligent than when she was technically dead. However, she is apparently just as well liked by those stupid dwarfs and the prince with something shoved up his ass. Perhaps she and the Spaniard should get together. He’s got enough “responsibility” for the both of them. Take your bitching elsewhere, thank-you.
The pair of peacocks has reportedly split up, or so Disgleirio and a number of other factors has led me to believe (do peacocks mate for life? I know that swans do.) With any luck this means that any possibly loss of plumage has been averted. Peahens are ugly enough as it is without sabotaging the very identity of their mates.
Zagreus apparently attempted to speed his own demise the other day. Though, I must admit, he would have done well to have chosen a somewhat larger appendage to cut off. Ah well, it’s the thought that counts.
And on that note, I find myself once again crossed in love, but not my own.
I do despise being the only responsible party. You’d be amazed at how difficult it is to get a table for “1/2″. The wait staff tends to give you odd looks and occasionally even bring along a child’s menu.
If I knew Why I’d tell you
[As I write this I have officially reached 1337 pageviews on DA. Does this make me l33t?]
I’m writing sonnets.
I wish I knew why.
I imagine it has something to do with the excessive amount of time spent explicating Shakespeare’s Sonnet XV with Dane the other day. Possibly free verse just doesn’t appeal to me right now. There are times when structure has its place. Though, to that effect, I know I’m in trouble if I every start trying to write a sestina. I’ve only known those to turn out well on one or two occasions. Both times by professionals.
Professional I am distinctly not.
In any event, I had might as well put them here, just in case my projected public personal life goes off the deep end again.
Sonnet I “When the Light Comes on, All Sense Goes out”
Incandescent thoughts implode in other
Rooms, where the lights have all long since burnt out.
Inspiration is constantly smothered
In carpet laced with broken glass and doubt.
The red light should have given her away:
My darling, dread mistress all too merry.
I knew her face when I entered the fray
But leave I now with sorrows to carry.
And yet perhaps men’s minds are meant to break
In the hands of those with hammers and fate.
Life is, after all, just what you can make.
The light only ever comes on too late.
Glass walls are seen as far too confining,
So long as for you, mistress, I’m pining.
Sonnet II “Open Your Mouth and Let the Words Tumble Out”
Speak not of knowing thoughts in endless streams
Which do not belong in your empty head.
Humanity has fought hard for its dreams,
Only to lose them when we are all dead.
The competence to think before we speak
Is a presence of mind not borne by all.
Blank words tumble from the lips of the meek,
Rambling and falling to answer the call.
Some thoughts are best locked in the mind’s vault.
Left in the dark, they can do little harm.
Offense taken from them is not my fault,
Promised I not they would bear any charm.
In the chronicles of the human mind
Be not terrified of what you may find.
