28 August 2005

Life sweetens some, seasons others -- and, some, it embitters.

I live an ironic life, for irony is the contrast between what is expected & what is, the incongruity of word...

Some men are born aliens -- let them be. But to those who are freemen -- your land, do not leave.

Have there been many great poets who have not been mad? Does their madness not bring a certain clarity?

I unsystematically seek to become systematic in thought -- ironic or necessary?

When one has abandoned life as a goal, how can it ever be returned to him? Can he be redeemed?

I am extending myself beyond my means -- foolish child, trying to live as an adult.

( C: 1 )

27 August 2005

Summer wind,
Cheerful grin,
a scowl and a swift good-bye

She walks away,
a tiding change,
the season of red-orange resting

Beside that lake,
I change my gait,
I stumble and swift-breathe wind changing

And the leaves began to fall...

Additional Notes:
The intent was to begin the poem in summer (at least for one individual) & contrast that with the coolness of other, ending the poem in the autumn for both with the phrase “& the leaves...” lingering in the air. But that meter is insufficient. Rather, inappropriate... the meter cannot be strict, but should be flowing, not depending (I think) on rhyme but accent and syllabification.

( C: 0 )

24 August 2005

( C: 1 )

21 August 2005

One of many profiles of people I observe in the local coffeeshop.

She (to the front & righty, untidy direction) is beleaguered -- rather, her appearance is as such; I cannot truly judge her soul. But she looks like the besieged housewife, sagging from excess care. The orange hair is pulled back, but not quite. A strand, here & there, falls out, others half-rebel & hoop out while maintaining their tedious place in the clip. Her skin is rough, storm-whipped, and slumps downward -- not in rebellion, but in concession to weight’s dominion. Dull eyes like dull blue stones stare ahead. -- and though we love the eternity of mountain and stone, it is a dead eternity, powerful but empty. Reduced as they are, dead as they are, one only finds stone eyes, as they (her eyes) take on the death of stone and the mortality of men, sacrificing living eternity. They say (& who am I to disagree) that the eyes are windows to the soul -- so, perhaps, I dare judge. And it seems to me that her body & her life, such as it is and was, has worn the soul, not vice-versa. Like the storm that weakens the base of the cliff ‘till it buckles, the external has worn at the internal, till her soul, too, has buckled and washed away...

( C: 1 )

20 August 2005

... and its artificial and it is sucky crap, so here -- you take it, I don’t want it:

From the well-trod road rose the dust drones, as they had for heaping years. Up, up! they swirled and swarmed, violent and turbulent, their individuality forgotten in their heated fury. A mass, a wall is how they at times appeared -- a living wall, solid and tanned and threatening, feuding with the sky and at odds with the earth, bound to the violent whims of their invisible master.

A breath and a sigh and the master rests, and his power over the swarm is lost. Their taskmaster silenced, they drift toward the ground, wall fading into mist. And a mist they have become, a dry mist, a faint shadow of their former strength. With the sky, they make peace and to their father, they repent and begin to settle and return.

Another breath and the master wakes and sees

( C: 1 )

19 August 2005

Confidence is not the absence of self-doubt -- removing doubt w.out replacing it leaves nothing but void, and nature abhors a void. What, then fills the place? Likely, the comfortable self-doubt.

... as for the mundane, I worked today, in a city called Cerry; I remember the name as it seems to me a misspelling of the presidential candidate’s surname. The store was a Jewel, and I had no desire to be there & the time thickened, an ice flow in what ought to be fertile, warm lands. During break, I happened to wander outside w. a man whose name is Don. Don is a prattler; his mouth travels quickly, leaving his mind far behind. (Poor man, I’m not sure he’s aware.) He slipped from topic to topic, generally arriving at the end of a tale, much to my chagrin, with one of several conclusions in tow: a none-to-oblique reference to the imminent necessity of liquor; his travels -- or lack thereof; or a springy joke about his girlfriend (which he lacks) or wife (which he has). I nodded & grunted like a genteel beast...

Were I in a lyrical mood, I’d use this in a song:

“Leave me alone,” he cries, “I don’t ever want to be alone.”

It is wonderfully pithy, and an accurate assessment of my state.

( C: 0 )

16 August 2005

I sent this in an email to a friend, but it seemed wise enough to share with the world...

Whilst changing your oil, some advice:

Do not, under any circumstances, try to unscrew the oil pan plug by shoving it in the incorrect direction. The following events might make your life more difficult and -- indeed -- may even cause a certain level of stress and even irritation.

See, BMW intentionally designed the plug to be weak -- so that, when idiots decide to loosen by tightening, the screw will not strip the oil pan threads, thereby causing even greater damage. What occurs, in fact, is the breaking of the plug snap in half, leaving the head in the hand of the stupid head, and the rest in the body of the oil pan.

What’s good is that the oil pan isn’t shot. Thanks, BMW, for protecting me from myself. What’s bad is that I’ll have to drop the oil pan in order to pull the rest of the plug out, because for some odd reason engines do not enjoy sucking up large chunks of metal.

Update. Dateline: 11:22PM.
I may not need to drop the oil pan; it seems that the plug is hollow, meaning that the remainder is still screwed into the pan. There are tools designed to remove nuts that have lost their heads (a vaguely interesting remark, I’m afraid) called (alas!) Easy-Outs. With any luck, I’ll remove what remains of the nut, and screw... ah, this paragraph is fraught with double-meaning, and so I will stop while I am ahead. Summary: I’ll remove the remainder and install a new plug, and all will rejoice.

Also, Hellhounds are real. Tremble in terror. I do.

Update:
It works. End red alert. Everyone’s kung-foo partying.

( C: 7 )

14 August 2005

Yesterday, I visited N. It was his birthday -- a party was planned & I saw fit to attend... I visited for a bit with the students. This was enjoyable; but the highlight was when N. & wandered away & spent some time discussing literature & authors & many things written. It was euphoric, glorious. I felt more alive then (dwelling in the thoughts and worlds of the mind) then I’d felt in a long while -- incidents few & far, last being during talks with B. & before that... I do not know.

That (the talk with B.) was different, however -- after B., I felt clean, cleared, a blue sky emotion, heavens during spring. The talk with N. was the texture of the spring, living & blooming green. One begets the other, I suppose -- clear skys & sun (of the spirit) bring the living thing, just as dour rain does -- everything, a season.

My life has long been the storm, dead water rushing away life & seed, mud & leaf, nothing but bare rock & stone left. But a break in the clouds brought a hidden beauty to life, a small peeking green. Perhaps it will grow & spread...

(Lit. is not (cannot be?) an escape -- it is a window, framed and aimed at beauty and truth, aimed so that our sight my be limited to a few things -- in order that we not be distracted by the insignificant.)

( C: 1 )

11 August 2005

... I left early, since I found myself at rest & ready to rest. The night air, the evening’s airs, the stars -- one cannot properly write enough of the star’s beauty, especially on those evenings when the sky is a magician’s cloak. A regal & mystic & dark blue, pierced by arrow & spear so that heaven’s light glistens & flows -- a reminder, wrapped in mystery, that the heavens lie just beyond. “Wait -- wait!” urges totality’s perfect flaws. “Look to me! See me, the glowen hope of darkness. Remember me -- I wait, to return come morn.” -- and, in some way, the small lights, as reminders of the day to come -- memories -- hold a greater beauty than the day star. Their light is so small that they must be sought, desired, feasted upon -- it is the common that has value and the greatest beauty... and morning came and it, too, was beautiful, for the morning is even more rare...

( C: 2 )

10 August 2005

I shyly scribbled this at work -- at least the first two sentences, when they appeared in my mind. Someday, I’d like to use it (slightly smoothed, to be sure) as the first several paragraphs in a novel.

If there is one thing I try to not be given to, it is a fool’s hope. If there is one thing I am given to, it is a fool’s hope. A fool, I suppose, naturally inclines himself toward hope, since he lacks any skill in separating the impossible from the possible, the unattainable beauty from the more... common type. He therefore dwells in a world of great possibility, a world where eternity can be caught in a crystal vial & held as a tumbling, glowing defense against the night -- and can be given freely as the light of a great love. A fool believes that anything is possible -- and, for that reason, finds that it frequently is. For that reason, perhaps life can prove certain fools deeply wise for, certainly, the opposite proof is often demonstrated.

Some reckon me sage fool, others fool sage. As for myself -- how I despise my blindness, my foolishness! How I hate my weakness of sight that is weakness of hope -- that cataract that gives me both glorious vision and devastating blindness! (How I love it!) But this matters little, here. I write this not as my story, but a cold, emotionless history of lives lived and lives touched. A record of what was: written by one who lived in history’s grandness and tragedy.

Our story began with a fool’s hope...

( C: 0 )