I Am

They spied my existence in a heap,
Tossed like bronze pennies into a fountain;
Wished on, but forgotten.

They saw the canvas of my skin wax sallow,
And the flame in my eyes flicker dim,
The vessel of my soul grow fast rusted
And the hairs on my head fall and thin.

But the Charybdis of my mind will keep churning,
Should the Earth on her axis halt spin.
And the wear of the thing that fast holds me
Tells nothing of the life that's within.

So they'll spy my existence in a far off place,
Scattered like a handful of amaranths;
And then they'll know,
They'll finally know

That I am.

On The Bus

Let's go Further.
With wild words on our knuckles,
Wrecked uncensored chuckles
And seatbelts unbuckled;

With 'mind manifested'
And Ken's Acid Tested -
Before he almost got arrested -
But how he impressed us -
Us?
(The bus left in 1964
And here we are in 2008;
Just a little, only a little
Just a little too late)

Go Further with fervour;
Let your neon light
And paisley patterned promises
Burn forever.
Writing to living
Is a silver fish to water -

So write like a maniac,
Get wrecked like a train wreck,
Live in the now
And don't ever look back.

You can still get on the bus:
Write L-O-V-E on your bent fingers
And L-I-F-E on the rest

And then do it.

Elizabeth Gaskell

"That's the haunting thought to me, at least to one of my 'Mes', for I have a great number, and that's the plague. One of my mes is a true Christian - (only people call her socialist and communist), another of my mes is a wife and a mother...Now that's my social self...Then I've another self with a full taste for beauty and convenience whh [sic] is pleased on its own account. How am I to reconcile all these warring members? I long (weakly) for the old times when right and wrong did not seem such complicated matters. I am sometimes coward enough to wish we were back in darkness where obedience was the only seen duty of women."
- Elizabeth Gaskell, Letters

I never, ever, thought I'd be able to relate to Elizabeth Gaskell. But it turns out I am. I like the way she describes the conflict between her many selves; I can identify with that.
I don't necessarily agree with the last sentence, but I get why she feels the way she does; sometimes having the freedom to choose between right and wrong is such a big responsibility that blindly following a higher authority looks like a more attractive option - it sheds any blame off your own back.

I suppose even liberty has strings attached. 

A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)

I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. When people are soft - soft people have got to court the favour of hard ones, Stella. Have got to be seductive - put on soft colours, the colours of butterfly wings, and glow - make a little - temporary magic just in order to pay for - one night's shelter! That's why I've been - not so awf'ly good lately. I've run for protection, Stella, from under one leaky roof to another leaky roof - because it was storm - all storm, and I was - caught in the centre...People don't see you - men don't - don't even admit your existence unless they are making love to you. And you've got to have your existence admitted by someone, if you're going to have someone's protection. And so the soft people have got to - shimmer and glow - put a - paper lantern over the light...But I'm scared now - awf'ly scared. I don't know how much longer I can turn the trick. It isn't enough to be soft. You've got to be soft and attractive. And I - I'm fading now!

- Blanche to Stella

Do I Have To Do This?

Thank you stfallen for tagging me. Apparently this means I have to write down a list of 10 things that make me happy. I'm pretending to complain about having to do it, but I'm actually pretty interested to see what I come up with. 

Okay here goes.

In no particular order...

1)Hearing a really great song - the kind that you want to listen to over and over again, but you restrict yourself from doing so in case you overplay it and it loses the effect it had on you when you first heard it.

2)Writing a good essay (Yeah, I'm a nerd)

3)Going out with my friends. It really does make me happy - I love the feeling of being out at night. Especially when we do something unusual (I'm not going into details). Oh and rooftop rendezvous' at my place.

4)My family - sometimes. I was playing with my baby cousin a couple of days ago and it made me weirdly happy. I don't generally like children, but I surprised myself by how enthusiastic I got around him. 

5)Lying on my roof looking at the sky and listening to good music. Just being alone with my thoughts

6)The prospect of an empty house. My parents go away a lot, and I like being left alone.

7)TALKING. I love to talk, so good conversation with an interesting person.

8)Continuous Wikipedia linking. Like when you look up something, and you click on a key word and you find out something else, and then you click on another key word on the page you just got to...and this goes on until you end up somewhere completely different from where you started. A good wikipedia linking spree satisfies me greatly.

9)Winning a game of Boggle. People hardly ever play with me, but when they do and I win...ah, it feels good.

10)Making up stories in my head or thinking about make believe situations. I suppose you could call it daydreaming.

I'm not tagging anyone else. I don't do that kind of thing - I hate facebook wall tags, forwards and such. But for someone who hates 'that kinda thing' I sure did spend alot of time on this :)

To See, Or Not To See?

The strangest thing happened last night. Well, actually, that sort of depends on how you look at it.

Before going to bed I was reading a book called 'The Turn of the Screw' by Henry James. The blurb described it as "a subtle and unconventional ghost story that concentrates on the psychological rather than the actual". It was written during the late 19th century, so I read it quite skeptically, doubting that anything written back then would have the power to disturb or frighten me. In addition, I'm pretty used to all sorts of material belonging to the horror genre - and today's horribly generic 'scary' movies don't really scare me. Anyway, the point is, even with all the superior cinematic powers at their disposal those movies fail to frighten me, so I naturally thought that this slim little book wouldn't stand a chance.

Hmm, I was wrong.

Whilst actually reading it, I wasn't particularly moved. The book was nothing spectacular, and weird, to say the least. It was vague - it alluded to everything and nothing, and was frustrating in it's lack of specifics. It's basically about a governess who goes to a secluded sort of house to look after a couple of young children. The childrens' parents are dead, so they're under the care of their absent uncle - who can't be bothered to take care of them himself, hence the governess. So the governess is looking after the kids in this big house and she starts seeing two figures - a man and a woman. The whole book is about how she's trying to protect the children from these two ghosts, whilst thinking that the children themselves are secretly communicating with them. I'm not going into the details of the story, partly because I can't be bothered and partly because, actually, it's just because I can't be bothered. The essence of the tale is that she keeps seeing these ghosts. Although James apparently indicated that the book was meant to be read as a pure ghost story (meaning we're meant to believe the woman), I suppose you could question her sanity (since she's the only one who sees the ghosts) - does she actually see the ghosts or are they mere figments of her lonely imagination?

Now, after finishing the book I went to bed, and I was sort of thinking about it - but unconcernedly. I wasn't disturbed by it at all. As I was lying in bed I was texting a friend, and then I sort of drifted off into sleep. It wasn't a proper sleep, it was just one of those briefly-shut-my-eyes-before-I-get-a-reply kind of sleep. Anyway, I soon opened my eyes, and I saw, in the dark, some sort of figure coming towards me. I couldn't quite make it out, but it was moving right at me with a finger pointed in my direction. I immediately grabbed my phone and pressed a button for light, and then the thing was gone. It happened so quickly that I really can't be sure of anything. I'm wondering, if like the woman in the book I actually saw something, or if I was just dreaming?

I suppose I could have just been dreaming, especially since I had been thinking about the book that night. But still, in that moment it felt pretty real, not to mention scary. And then I started thinking about the book some more and I got really scared and ran to my parents room.

The somewhat delayed effect that book had on me was surprising. I'm not fanciful enough to believe I actually saw a ghost; so it just goes to show that story was clearly plaguing my subconscious enough for it to manifest itself in my dreams. Either way, I ended up quite frightened.
So well done, Mr James, for successfully scaring your reader using nothing but the good ol' tools of language.

Fool's Pair of Dice

Solitary companionship in a smoke.
Alienating inhalation.

A slideshow of perspects shifting into place;
Flittering patterns,
Golden threads of thoughts
Weaving and spinning swiftly beneath
Furrowed brows knitted together in contemplation,
And eyes milky with earnest expectation.

Hello there
You untapped legacy,
You almost greatness,
You land unchartered,
You longing not sated:
A mind now opened to waking dreams,
A mind removed from conscience's crystalline screams.

Exulting in the seraphim's unholy caresse
And stroking old-newfound glories with paws of velvette.
Every sensuous touch,
Every accidental brush
Sends thrills branch-shooting through the flesh -
Like a snap-burst of electric or the crack of a whip,
Crackle, swoosh, smack and z-z-zip.

A tapestry of thoughts unfold
Beneath the mind's 'dread' hold,
And the crowds vaporize,
A million becomes just one.
One with a new power unleashed -
A power to be explored in a silence not breached -

A sudden thirst oozes on the tip of the tongue;
A hunger for something, anything, someone:
Savouring the salty zinc-tang of a gellatine delicacy
That slithers in the mouth with a delicious intricacy.
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Deliciously divine.

- Alienating inhalation,
Flickers of paradise;
But paradise all the same,
However ephemeral.