Hahaha

First read-through for Urinetown was today, and I can tell that I will enjoy playing Caldwell VERY much. I get to sing a song about killing bunnies, for crying out loud!

Finally we have returned to meditations in Humanitas. Today was more disturbing than previous days. From when I entered the meditation to when I opened my eyes I felt a bit scared for no discernible reason. It was similar to the meditation I tried just before the Friday performance of Cuckoo's Nest. I have identified two recurring figures in these exercises: the zombies and the Black Cloud. I haven't yet figured out what the Black Cloud is, but it's connected to the zombies and I think it has something to do with guilt. I'll have to keep an eye on where I go in upcoming exercises.

The following poem is the result of an exercise during a Shel Silverstein presentation in Poetry:

I'm back, little kid--don't you remember?
I'm the snowman you made and forgot last December.
I started to melt the very next day,
So I hopped on the train to Canada. Eh?
Some older kids wanted to play a mean joke,
So they gave me a beer and taught me to smoke.
My top hat is ragged; my eyes are not coal,
But rather some Agent Smith glasses they stole.
My poor Christmas spirit is as dead as an ember,
So take better care of what you make in December.

Surrender Poems

The first one was a blues assignment for Poetry inspired by One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Bred to fit the mould
This is how to exist
Bred to fit the mould
Comply if you want to exist
The system’s so successful and old
It’s pointless to resist

Nail sticks up gets pounded down
Rebel locked up in a cage
Nails everywhere pounded down
Mistakes kept in a cage
Don’t even bother to frown
You’ll be here for an age

Some of us could leave
If we weren’t afraid
So many of us could leave
But they keep us all afraid
Thrash, buck, and heave
All you like but watch your spirit fade

You can’t make them stop
They control you hand and foot
You’ll never make them stop
When they control you hand and foot
You can’t scream in the Shock Shop
When you’re choking on rust and soot

Magnets control us now we’re machines
Hooked up to the combine
We’re just a group of faulty machines
Reforming for the combine
Some of us locked up since our teens
The moment we stepped out of line

Open up my arm
And see the gears inside
Open up my other arm
And see the wires inside
They say they mean no harm
So I thought until I died

***

My mind’s ears dance with fevered violins
And any hope of concentration twists,
Snaps, splits apart, and scatters ‘cross the winds
To disappear into distraction’s mists.
It’s funny just how fragile order may
Become at what small provocation makes
Its presence known: one violent melody
In full my contemplation overtakes.
At times when we need clearest thinking most
The strangest images may circles trace
Within our skulls, which play unwilling hosts
To useless antics of this mental chase.
But since diversions such I cannot fight
I may as well enjoy the sound and light.

I hate bronchitis.

Or whatever malaise infests my chest cavity. The coughing has become less frequent, but more painful when it does show up. I didn't see Argonautika on Friday, and I didn't see Pleasanton today (bringing the counter to 6.5 months). I still attended Softy's class, but I tried to avoid physical contact. Most likely I'll take school off tomorrow to recover.

Here's a slam poem I wrote a few days ago for Poetry class. It won't make much sense unless you keep up with Internet fads.

who needs a microscope to examine viruses
when you can examine the internet and find
a teeming mass of memes and message board fads
more than you can fit into a container which you don’t even have because
NOOO THEY BE STEALIN MY BUCKET
you can’t insinuate yourself into that social network without
strapping on your armor of insulation against illiteracy
and running the gauntlet of repetition like
LEEEEROYYYY JENNNNKINNSSSSSSS!!!!!
and once you’ve battled your way through three hundred
jpegs and youtubes
of gerard butler screaming, “THIS! IS! SPARTA!!!”
and that weird little face intent if not hell-bent on-a FIRIN HIS LAZAH
you may be able to locate those rebellious snippets of intelligent conversation
half-buried in hairballs the lolcats coughed up
now I’m not saying the serious threads are any good
most likely they could be spiced up with a little ASCII or
moar Mudkipz which I heard u liek
no argument on the boards is complete without its counter-argument delivered
in the form of a deafening
OBJECTION!!!
by Phoenix Wright pointing his finger so ferociously it may be mistaken for a
FAL-CONE PAUNCH!
which inevitably incites a flame war over the relative manliness of
Captain Falcon to Chuck Norris
who roundhouse kicked the world into existence and don’t you forget it
who WANTS TO BE THE VERY BEST, LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS
then before you can say “you have no chance to survive, make your time”
you are buried in the brawl
between n00bs and trolls
between Star Wars Kid and Potter Puppet Pals
between Captain Planet and an unexpected Jinjo
between Rick Roll and the L-block from Tetris
between the O RLY? owl and badgerbadgerbader
and Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White
and Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Black Knight
all presided over by the prairie dog’s DRAMATIC LOOK
until the sum of banned posters reaches
OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!!!
at which point
your computer crashes
your frontal lobes liquefy
and
all your base are belong to us

And I close with another homespun verse to "You Are a Pirate:"

Yo ho, anchors aweigh!
We will find mountains of treasure today.
Drink up the rum till your liver is grey;
You are a pirate!

I come from a place.

I wrote this poem a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post it. Rehearsal today reminded me.

I don’t come from three California towns.
I don’t come from Altadena.
I don’t come from just north of the Los Angeles smoke and lights,
Where certain people can make a half million dollars a day
For having a fashionably unkempt hairstyle.
I don’t come from the yellowed hills of the Bay Area.
I don’t come from Pleasanton.
I don’t come from a blacktopped elementary school
With a buzzer
And buildings like abandoned wagon wheels.
I don’t come from the house that leaves
Nine years’ worth of memories to clog my cortex.
I don’t come from Alamo.
I don’t come from a one-story house
Built in the fifties
Where I still can’t remember where to lock the gate after
Six years.
I come from an isolated black box,
A high school I’ve never attended,
And an auditorium in Orinda.
I come from pages crisscrossed with a highlighter
And framed with notes on blocking.
I come from a mountain climber’s axe.
I come from Venice, 1941.
I come from a broken belt tied around my head.
I come from a trampoline.
I come from iambic pentameter.

Poetry contest: round 2

The school creative writing contest is back this year. This time it appears to be poetry specific, with three categories for haiku, form (excluding haiku, obviously), and free-form. I plan to submit to all three. I'm not sure what I'll send in for form, but here are my haiku and free-form submissions.

Bright enough for shade
Cities never get this chance
To read by the moon

I wouldn't want to be one of the haiku judges: It feels odd to know that a branch of the contest is between poems of no more than seventeen syllables.

This one loses something in reading, since I wrote it with performance in mind, but I like it anyway. It was very fun to write.

I’m an action star.
I am Keanu Reeves, Jackie Chan, and Harrison Ford all
Bundled into one thunderous package of property damage.
I am Ahnold. I am Bruce Willis. I am Clint Eastwood.
I am Bond, James Bond.
That’s Sean Connery, Roger Moore, AND Daniel Craig
For you smart-alecks out there,
But Pierce Brosnan only wishes he was part of me.
Oh, yes:
I am even Chuck Norris.
I can kick through a brick wall,
Wrap the bad guys in a lamp post,
And bag twenty buxom babes, all before breakfast.
I am so badass
I can’t even SPIT without the world going into bullet time.
I have more guns than fingers,
And if I think for an instant
You might be a mook
I’ll empty instantaneously half my infinite ammunition into your abdomen
EXCEPT on Sundays.
On Sundays I use a katana.
I consider myself a failure if I don’t
Blast a half dozen homes daily to smithereens, and
The more expensive
The better.
No insurance company will take me,
And the rental car agencies soil themselves when they see me coming.
They think,
“Oh no here comes the action star
There goes a car
There goes our stock
SWEET JESUS WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO
Oh what luck he’s riding a motorcycle today”
But I don’t care about what they think,
Because I’m an action star
And I WILL save the world
No matter how many Nazis,
No matter how many explosions,
No matter how many innocent bystanders,
No matter how many scantily clad double agents, and
No matter how many millions of dollars in checks to Industrial Light and Magic stand in my way!

Dreams and prophecies

"Prisoner at the bar, have you anything to say?"
I hear the judge inquire at trial upon the break of day.
But he knows my case already, for the gavel man is me,
And jury, and, in time, my executioner I'll be.
In vain do I protest I had no power o'er my crime,
For few can rule the happenings within the dreaming time.
"The crime is yours, and no one else could ever take the blame;
I must condemn the perpetrator: you and he the same.
And yet your crime do you regret and fully understand:
I therefore choose to sentence you to death by your own hand."
I leave the court condemned, but I wear no chains because
Without them I'm a prisoner as much as e'er I was.

*****

When nature lovers drown in leaves
And every dog its master grieves
When artists from their scaffolds fall
And birthday cakes are poisoned all
When models' throats are slit by mirrors
And laughing children choke on tears
Then shall knowledge of a smile
Turn to something dim and vile
When families burn on Christmas morn
And flowers have their petals shorn
When houses all are made of smoke
And every book a fire doth stoke
When words of love live not in tongues
And judges blind themselves to wrongs
Then ends the time when, if in pain
The world could have begun again

I have returned.

The Ashland field trip was very enjoyable, as Ashland is wont to be. We saw a Depression-set As You Like It the first afternoon, although I didn't get much out of the first act due to fighting of sleep. That night we saw Taming of the Shrew, which was very well done, in the outdoor theater. Over dinner Red, Tech, and I developed a preposition-scrambling language which eventually mutated into an intelligible monstrosity to all around us (and even ourselves in the last few minutes). The next day we took sometime to stroll about Ashland and swap riddles, and I ran into Song! What are the odds, I ask you!?

It was raining during Romeo and Juliet, but I was in the last row to receive full shelter. Juliet must have been freezing. I believe R&J was my favorite of the three plays (this may have changed had I better remained alert during AYLI).

The van rides each way were very long, as rides to Oregon are wont to be. I wrote a couple of poems during the field trip, one of which I'll share below, and Red and Tech agreed with me that my classical element is Earth.

I returned to school just in time for part 1 of Cuckoo's Nest memo tests. Methinks I got a A.

And here I digitally stand before you.

Speaking of Shakespeare, I plan to see Cal Shakes' version of King Lear this Friday. PLEEEASE be better than last year's The Travesty of Venice!

Oh, right: poem. This one I wrote on the ride north. It got started and then wandered where it would. Morbid and strange.

Shadows spin
Crack a grin
Sun is shining red
Opal steam
Broken beam
Masks of newly dead
Clouds are low
Charcoal glow
Ripples cross the land
Suicide
Side by side
Lying hand in hand
No more fears
No more tears
No more worldly mess
Now we laugh
Half and half
Damning as we bless
Mirror souls
Cooling coals
Land embraces sky
Blooming pain
No one slain
Only we could die

Life goes on

Hm. it's been a while since I updated.

Loyal, Gentleman, and I saw Song for the first time since the cast party on Friday. She was in a very enjoyable production of Oklahoma!

Also on Friday I had a college interview with a representative from St. John's, and yesterday with Reed.

I have also been grappling with a poem for the last few days. I know exactly where to go with it, but I haven't been able to put it into verse yet. Perhaps I can do so now.

...

Eh. It's not one of my better ones. I'll think about posting it.

Sure.

For a long time did I stare at the cliff
That claimed so many before.
Never to fall did I expect
If I not outright so swore.

Then strolling along one day
The edge beneath crumbled away.

In the first few moments I was not sure
What exactly had happened here,
And I asked myself and whoever else heard
How much I had to fear.

(Though at times I'd dreamed while awake
That my ledge might one day break.)

The face of the cliff rushed up and away
I may have caught it to slow my pace
But instead I took a moment to feel
The rush of the wind on my face.

The act was as foolish as brave
When I had myself to save.

In that moment empty of caution
The plummet became my friend,
And I promised myself and the air about me
Never the fall to end.

Then the wind nipped me with its chill
And revealed the potential for ill.

I returned my gaze to the edge above
Now well beyond my reach
And asked myself if I had erred;
Would a hard lesson life to me teach?

Now pondering this is where
You will find me high in the air.

Even so, in my current predicament
With no sign of change for miles around,
I would not wish to end my fall
Lest I may hard hit the ground.

And would the impact bear half as much pain
As tumbling over a cliff again?

Is this what the school head feels like at the end of the year?

‘Twas only this year in the fine month of May
That America’s abridged history was the school spring play.
The laughs kept on coming, as did the stereotypes
Italian, Indian, and cowboy, but no gripes.
We mangled the national anthem, and could you blame me
When I mangled the letter of obnoxious little Amy?
Early on was crafted a balloon dog sublime
By your own tribal elder, Wears-Sweatpants-all-the-Time.
Then lickety-split, just as quick as you please,
Vince rapped on about the thirteen colonies.
We made a mockery of the Revolutionary War
By filling it with stoners, munchkins, and cross-dressers galore.
We hastily posed for the War Not So Civil
As the announcers were caught up in their personal drivel.
At the end of act one did conspiracies abound
Backed up by creepy voices and an X-files sound.
Post-intermission we ran World War One
And let the audience in on some Super Soaker fun.
From there we moved on to the Great Depression
And Hitler, two centuries too late to be a Hessian.
(That I struggled for a rhyme there you’re well beyond guessin’.)
At last we entered the dramatic home stretch,
And Caitlin did her film noir outfit fetch
To match pace with the shade-wearing, manic and spry
Mix of Gollum and Joker: the Conspirator Guy!
And just as were assassinated civil rights leaders black
Justin was snuffed out before he could bring sexy back.
Spade Diamond was then confronted by Uncle Sam
With questions about the war in Vietnam.
Some years later our hero had a fixin’
To learn about the Cold War from President Nixon.
From there we jump to Bush Senior beggin’
For recognition from a spaced-out Reagan.
Now finally we trekked to the Berlin Wall
Where Uncle Sam and Conspirator Guy to bullets did fall,
But the feeling of conclusion was marred, oh,
By the sudden reappearance of Lucy Ricardo.
In need of a happy ending, the entire cast ran
The American timeline back to where it began.
The performance was wonderful, but I do confess
Between noodles, confetti, whipped cream (none on my dress),
The Altoids meant to be consumed in quantities less,
And who-knows-how-much water, we made a spectacular mess.

The poetry assignment was to write one alluding to a song or literary work of this generation. It got away from me a little, but no complaints.

My post title is a reference ot the school tradition: at the end of each year the head of the upper school writes a poem commemorating every graduating senoir in a manner much like this one and with similar stretches for rhymes. Every year he tries to get out of writing the poem and every time he fails.

Untitled poem

I wrote a few lines of this poem in Humanitas and then expanded it yestersay afternoon.

To know you sense what isn't there
But not to sense the true:
Edification's mockery
With devious rivals few.

This mural of the mind which does
Obscure the world outside
Ignores the plea to end the chain
Of years for which it lied.

Lunging at the veil which dances
Inches out of reach,
I curse the villain who would my
Hallucinations teach,

Content no longer with the dream
My senses sought to give.
You take my life when you do take
The world in which I live!

I pluck my eyes and think to hear
A hungry raven's caw,
For they could only offer lies.
I stumbled when I saw.

This wakingless dementia doth
Provoke my death to call.
I'll have a life upon my terms
Or have no life at all.

More sonnetry

No rehearsal today: T was sick.

This appears to be Sonnet Week in poetry class. Homework for tomorrow was to write a sonnet on any topic, with love and death as suggestions. Here is my death sonnet:

The disadvantages of death are few,
For corpses have no knowledge of torment,
But this is quite a selfish point of view
If one would leave behind such men as Kent.
‘Tis better dead before senility?
Once there a life cannot be used in full.
Or better to waste no ability
And cowardly to flee the senses dull?
Yet what know I the quality of ends
When I and all my relatives yet live?
And when I pass I cannot make amends
With those who sought my misdeeds to forgive.
And yet I can’t ignore that when I fall
I forfeit joys, potential, mind, and all.

Meh.

I wasn't planning for the Shakespeare allusion, but I wanted the first quatrain to touch on leaving others behind, and torment/Kent was the first rhyming match I could think of.

Snippets of Bat Boy began playing through my head while I was doing my Stats homework. It's been a while since that production: nearly four years. I recall that, after the last song, we added a Jamaican reprise. I never did understand why.

Nostalgia...rising...

Upon its head

The rainy season doth begin anew,
And as a wetness seeks to court the land
A firmament-shed patch of solid blue
Drops from above and ambushes my hand
I cast my vision skyward and I see
That heaven bleeds away its azure face,
Displaying stony vaults while land below
Is covered by this rain without a trace.
Where ground is gone for good some victims fall
Upwards--or is it down?--into the void
While trees of lightning flay their forebears all
As madness with its patient may have toyed.
In vain I pose myself the question, "Why
Does sky become the earth and Earth the sky?"

Dummyman

An act that went off without a hitch
An audience all too eager to laugh
A new dummy with a perfect voice
My best night all month
Titles dancing through my head
Chase Philips, World's Most Renowned Ventriloquist!
Departing with elation
A cry of "Encore!"
The manager eagerly waving me back onto the stage
The show's not over while the audience laughs
Repositioning my partner on my knee
The prelude to a second deluge of hilarity
Silence
A prick of embarrassment
Valiantly continuing on
Silence
Beading sweat
A hand feeling cramped inside the dummy
A voice not mine
Confusion
Catcalls from the audience
Eyes drawn downward
A wooden jaw dropping open
"Why so stiff? The show's not over, my man."
Yanking my hand out in horror
Bits of wood clenching tight
Another question bouncing off my eardrums
Standing to flee
Pinned down by so much weight
Gabbling the first words that enter my brain
A wisecrack from two feet above my knee
Laughter
Blank faces above gaping mouths of mirth
"Thank you, thank you."
My unliving partner bows and rambles on
Unable to leave
Crying for help
The audience points and laughs
A hundred faces of painted wood
The jokes run on all night
Punctuated by the occasional call for an encore
Lost count hours ago
The show's not over while the audience laughs

I wanted to make this a structured poem, but it wasn't working out.

Fallen celestials

This poem was inspired by the appearance of the sun through the smoke this morning.

The world looks up at the sun
Bleeding its life away
Masses wonder if this
May be their last crimson day

The blood of the sun washes out
All that we used to believe
Row upon row falls to its knees
Even the madmen grieve

The moon grins in the veil of night
At what its rival became
And now as glory bleeds away
It sets itself aflame

A bleeding sun and a burning moon
Overlook the dying earth
And some newborn babe will know
Nothing but pain from birth

Huh. I didn't envision the poem to go in quite that direction. Other than the break after the second stanza, I rather like it.

Must write poems

Staring through the window screen
Shadows swallow day
Twenty-four more empty hours
Life is drained away

Shutting up the house's ears
Fleeing to the mind
But unable to forget
The world left beind

Opening my house's door
Creeping into night
Eager to go out and live
Bring my world some light

Wand'ring through the city streets
Learning what I lack
Promising upon my life
Never to go back

Fleeing from the raging storm
Of truth that seeks to burn
Poor fools who are unprepared
Home I must return

Tracing back my winding path
Again a living ghost
Up ahead the place I know
And now abhore the most

Staring through the window screen
Haunted by the power
Borne by that one memory
Of living but an hour

My poems seem to have been following a dully dismal trend for a while now. Come on, Peter! You were titled Disconcerting for a reason! Where's the death and gore?

Poetry

Getting back into the writing classroom means I'll be putting up some poems again.

Poetry work today--well, yesterday; it was homework--involved composing respresentations of more abstract ideas and vice versa. I rather liked some of what I came up with, so I'll put them here.

Exercise: A salesman of the body for the price of sweat
Amusement: A capering buffoon
Wretchedness: The cowering of the leper beneath a thousand glares
Locality: The province [eh...got stuck on this one]
Velocity: Overtaking the world
Attraction: The strings that pull the eyes and the hand that beckons the body to follow
Dryness: A tongue’s desert
Spiciness: Arcs of lightning popping the taste buds one by one
Agitation: A taut neck below wide, unfocused eyes
Deception: The dagger in the comforting hand
Insufficiency: The withered sum in a debtor’s palm
Authority: A gavel-pounder on high
Success: A ribbon whose ends flutter in the runner’s wake

//

Puppet: Manipulation
Hummingbird: Agility
Lightbulb: Alertness
Brick: Inertia
Playing card: Risk
Newspaper: Information
Wastebasket: Rejection
Padlock: Security
Mailbox: Expectation
Dust: Neglect

//

A world retreated quicker than a thought
Although I heard no whistle of the wind
And in an instant every speck forgot:
The actions spent, the earthly portrait dimmed.
I ope’d my mouth the passage to recall
But caught not even dust to savor well,
For in departing hence in part and all
The world left not a breeze behind to tell.
I clasped my temples, and in vain I strove
To wring from them a poor, delaying trace
Of what had been; my fruitless efforts drove
The tang of sweat to bead upon my face.
But even if I wait until my last
I’ll ne’er return to nor restore the past.

We also had to write poems about a "disappearing world." The first interpretation that came to mind for me was the present disappearing into the past.

Time to tuck in.

The Man Made of Ash

It's been forever since I wrote a poem for its own sake, so getting this out of my head at last was a relief. This reads more like a song than a poem to me, but I don't have a melody. One could sing this to the tune of "Babes in the Woods."

The widow came home on the funeral night
She lit up a fire and cried out her woes
And the flames must have heard, for just before dawn
A man made of ash from the embers arose

He looked 'round the room for the widow with eyes
That glowed with the heat of a fire gone dead
He saw her, called out, but no sound could emerge
For the man made of ash had no tongue in his head

He sat by her side as she cried in her sleep
His hand on her cheek as the morning did break
As the sun touched her face she started to stir
And the man made of ash saw the widow awake

She looked up in fear at the dark, looming shape
Who held out his ands as if pleading to stay
But she struck out, her hand driving into his heart
And the man made of ash slowly crumbled away

Then the widow cried out for the man not to leave
But by then he had vanished without any trace
She begged for forgiveness; too late had she seen
That the man made of ash wore her dead husband's face

So each night thereafter the widow would set
A fire in the hearth and leave it to burn
She cried o'er the flames till she sank into sleep
But the man made of ash didn't ever return

Death Valley: Poetry

WARNING: Extreme levels of desert-induced morbidity ahead!

I wrote this on our first fully day of hiking.

Fall asleep by a cliff and wake up dead
When a too-loose rock tumbles down on your head.
On bile, on blood, or on worse you might gag
When a rattlesnake bites you in your sleeping bag.
Forget the routine and a foot you will lose
When you don't shake that scorpion out of your shoes.
You'll know you're in danger of dying of thirst
When your head feels as though it is going to burst.
Collapse, burn, or just go insane
When the heat bakes its way right through to your brain.
Paralysis stems from your poor, broken back
When your legs give out and you're crushed by you pack.
You think you're saves, but life grinds to a halt
When that water you find has far too much salt.
A surprise twist ends your last living day
When a flash flood sweeps in and sweeps you away.
A lightning storm hits and you watch for a flash
When--too late!--you body is blasted to ash.
You'll run for the road, whispered prayers on your breath
When you see why it's known as the valley of Death.

This poem started out about a series of nosebleeds and mutated into what it is now.

Rivers of blood, blood all around
Blood on my shoes and pooling on the ground
Blood from the mouth and blood from the eyes
A stench that attracts many thousands of flies
Blood on my pants and blood on my shirt
Stains that glisten with each renewed spurt
Pouring until it obscures an trace
Of expression upon the agonized face
Blood from the chest until I scream, "Why
Does this boy bleed so much when I can't make him die?"

Thinking of Sweet Charity on top of a mountain...

There's gotta be some land tamer than this
There's gotta be some path better to take
And when I find me some kind of path I can take
I'm gonna get up
I'm gonna get out
I'm gonna get up, get out, and take it

On top of Ubehebe peak...

On the peak
What we seek
Tarnished metal box
Holding years
Of smiles and tears
Fumbling with the locks
Open wide
And inside
Papers to the brim
Sorting through
Planning to
Read, peruse, or skim
Others shout
Pull some out
With their names addressed
None for me
Though I be
Happy for the rest
Write I will
Leave until
I mingle with the past
On this day
I am on A.
W. E. at last

Around day 13 or 14 I got to thinking about Strident/Tam's version of, "Hush, Little Baby." Verses in a similar vein popped into my head.

Hush little baby, hold my hand
Don't worry about the nightmare land

Hush little baby, let me dry
The tears from your one remaining eye

Hush little baby, listen well
Just try to forget this brand new hell

Hush little baby, try to bear
You fate for nobody's going to care

Hush little baby, take your rest
Before a knife lands in your breast

Hush little baby, just the same
Even though they'll cast you into flame

Hush little baby, save your breath
Crying won't delay your painful death

Hush little baby, don't ask why
This will be your final lullaby

This poem was based on The Pillowman. I never got the fifth couplet to work out as well as I hoped. Oh, well.

My brother, you know best of all just why I'm not so bright:
for seven years your loving parents tortured me each night.
At times the line 'twixt real and false can slip beyond my ken,
So why are you surprised I made the little apple men?
It took so long to add the hidden razor blades she ate.
My dedication can you not at least appreciate?
And what about the little boy whose foot I chopped in two?
You'd ask the same if even the Pied Piper came for you.
The little Jesus took so long, but it was worth the sweat
To see your words come true at last: I'm ever in their debt.
I'm honoring your stories in the only way I can:
They are the single reason I refused the Pillowman.
If you had never written them be sure that I'd be dead.
I owe my life to all these bloody harvests from your head.
So that I've explained, Katurian, do you see why
I'm not to blame for children that your stories caused to die?

Return of the twisted poems!

I'm back from Atlanta. But I won't talk about the trip now, since I don't have much time and I want to talk about Azine. The school literary magazine was released today, and I just got back from a reading. My "Forever a Nightmare" poem was among the works published, as were the pieces written by the other winners of the creative writing contest. We had a lower turnout for the reading than we had hoped, but there was still a fair collection of attendees. Tomorrow at lunch there will be a book signing which I will attend. Hee. I also read a poem that I had written on the spot, which was inspired by another poem in Azine. Here it is:

Child's Game

One, Two
Where am I going?

Three, Four
I've never been here.

Five, Six
Something's not right.

Seven, Eight
Who is counting?

Nine, Ten
Can't retrace my steps

Eleven, Twelve
Heart begins to race

Thirteen, Fourteen
What is crunching?

Fifteen, Sixteen
Bones!

Seventeen, Eighteen
Voice grows louder

Nineteen, Twenty
Too late to run

Ready or not, here I come!

I also would like to post various ruminations and ramblings from my unexpected free period today.

Dreams of dust/Cathedral
Hand blowing away/Laughing and crying
Headache/Crawling red
Tinkling music/Unwelcome impulses
Eyes rolling back in deer heads/Grins sickly and terrifying
Jacob Marley's jaw/Amadeus
Smoke and violins/Ghosts and mirrors
Legs begging to be snapped/Promise of impossible vengeance
Portraits/Bloodlust
Peripheral sneers/Nonexistent memories
Who is really behind the fourth wall?/What defines a nightmare?

If you were to die at noon tomorrow...
Would you want to know your time of death?
Or only that you were to die?
Or nothing at all?

Heads is life
Tails is death
But what if the coin
Lands on its edge?

Smeagol lied!

When a smile is seen
as a glower,
What does that say
about you?

Is anything more unsettling than
a properly grotesque wink?

In nightmares...
There are those who watch
There are those who die
And there are those who kill
Who are you?

If pain were pleasure,
Only the wise would survive

If you force yourself to look upon the horrid
Do you become stronger or weaker?

To break the mold a little, here are the two love sonnets I have written for class.

Love Sonnet

If you do love another, then declare,
For fruits of love may wither on the vine.
Those feelings sworn to secrecy do fare
Not well; what, then, am I to do with mine?
The risk I run in speaking out is high,
But so is happiness I stand to reap
Unless I find my feelings are a lie,
And then our friendship stands no chance to keep.
How shall I know if what I feel is true
While I refuse to give my thoughts a chance?
What one has once said one cannot undo:
So goes what makes a peril of romance.
My lot is at one time both blessed and cursed;
The happiest dilemmas are the worst.

Cheesy Love Sonnet

My love for you has flourished like a rose
A brilliant, glowing blossom seen by all
And with each passing day it further grows
But petals from my love will never fall
I told you that I loved you first at sight
Though I knew naught of courtship at the start
I drew my courage from your visage bright
Which now and ever dwells within my heart
A stroke of luck, the rarest of the rare
This beautiful relationship we tend
And with each soft, impassioned kiss we share
I swear to you our love will never end
To you I stand devoted through and through
There never knew a man a love so true.

While I'm posting...

Ode to Sweatpants

I’ve worn sweatpants
For ages,
At least since third grade.
Yes, I
Was a shorts-wearer for a time,
Switching to sweats on a cooler day, but
Eventually the bright city of
War Drobe was
Overrun and settled by those
Grey, soft, baggy, heavy
Sweats.
Those late February could have staked out my
Identity.
In time, legs for me became
A thing of the past,
And they were as the coins
In a magician’s palm, that one
Never sees, even though
They are known to be
There.
Recently,
Upon request, I
Betrayed
My sweatpants.
I wore jeans, and even though
Everybody said that they looked
Good,
I disappeared, becoming an
Anyteen. Dressing for comfort
And not looks, I am
Myself.
I banished that blue charade
Back into my closet
And returned to walking
The path I
Wear when I walk.

I need to take a shower now. When I next update I will discuss my life of the past few days. Then I shall begin the long and arduous process of blogging my two-months-overdue Death Valley journal!

Good night.

pessimist's sonnet

We were working on sonnets during Creative Writing today, and I wrote this.

Idealistic youths with smiles bright
Believe the best of those who’ve fully grown
Until they age, mature, and see the light
And harden ’neath the gloom the past has sown.
A man dug up a diamond in the rough
And strode away with songs upon his breath
Until he slipped and lost it down a bluff
When, in despair, he chased it to his death.
The avatars of ignorance and bliss
Who never live a moment free of pain
Are well off from their lack of joy to miss
They know not what they have no chance to gain.
Consider this before your life you choose:
The more you have, the more you have to lose.

On a slightly less dreary note, today was scheduling for next year's classes. I moved sideways from Calculus to Statistics and dropped Spanish to free up my schedule for more seminars. If all goes my way, next year I shall be taking such wonderful classes as Humanitas (a high-demand class on what it means to be human; definitely at the top of my list), Shakespeare, The Divine Comedy, Classical Worlds (with an amazing teacher from my seventh-grade days), Poetry, Dramatic Writing, and History of Justice.

One other thing: apparently my PSAT scores made me a National Merit Scholarship canditate. Yippee!