Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Experiments (and Arrows Through the Heart)

i'm done with this blog.

going to be starting a third blog, keep this one up.

revisedthinking.blogspot.com

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Day 75: It's Sleeping

i'll be writing new blogs starting on the 24th. and catching up on those 20 "lost days". as i think i said somewhere in this blog (around day 40 i believe) i'll be posting any missing blogs at the end of the year but they will go "where they belong", meaning they will be posted in order. there'll be a blog with links to all the missing blogs.

new job.

weird going ons and changes.

and megan is moving back down.

i am also pretty sure a couple friendships are dying.

both good and bad times.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Day 63: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came


I.

My first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of his lie

On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford

Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored

Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.



II.



What else should he be set for, with his staff?

What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare

All travellers who might find him posted there,

And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh

Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph

For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,



III.



If at his counsel I should turn aside

Into that ominous tract which, all agree,

Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly

I did turn as he pointed: neither pride

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,

So much as gladness that some end might be.



IV.



For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,

What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope

Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope

With that obstreperous joy success would bring,

I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring

My heart made, finding failure in its scope.



V.



As when a sick man very near to death

Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end

The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,

And hears one bid the other go, draw breath

Freelier outside, (``since all is o'er,'' he saith,

``And the blow falIen no grieving can amend;'')



VI.



While some discuss if near the other graves

Be room enough for this, and when a day

Suits best for carrying the corpse away,

With care about the banners, scarves and staves:

And still the man hears all, and only craves

He may not shame such tender love and stay.



VII.



Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,

Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ

So many times among ``The Band''---to wit,

The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed

Their steps---that just to fail as they, seemed best,

And all the doubt was now---should I be fit?



VIII.



So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,

That hateful cripple, out of his highway

Into the path he pointed. All the day

Had been a dreary one at best, and dim

Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim

Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.



IX.



For mark! no sooner was I fairly found

Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,

Than, pausing to throw backward a last view

O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round:

Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.

I might go on; nought else remained to do.



X.



So, on I went. I think I never saw

Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:

For flowers---as well expect a cedar grove!

But cockle, spurge, according to their law

Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,

You'd think; a burr had been a treasure-trove.



XI.



No! penury, inertness and grimace,

In some strange sort, were the land's portion. ``See

``Or shut your eyes,'' said nature peevishly,

``It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:

``'Tis the Last judgment's fire must cure this place,

``Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.''



XII.



If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk

Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents

Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents

In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk

All hope of greenness?'tis a brute must walk

Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.



XIII.



As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair

In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud

Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.

One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,

Stood stupefied, however he came there:

Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!



XIV.



Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,

With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,

And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;

Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;

I never saw a brute I hated so;

He must be wicked to deserve such pain.



XV.



I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.

As a man calls for wine before he fights,

I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,

Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.

Think first, fight afterwards---the soldier's art:

One taste of the old time sets all to rights.



XVI.



Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face

Beneath its garniture of curly gold,

Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold

An arm in mine to fix me to the place,

That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!

Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.



XVII.



Giles then, the soul of honour---there he stands

Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.

What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.

Good---but the scene shifts---faugh! what hangman hands

Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands

Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!



XVIII.



Better this present than a past like that;

Back therefore to my darkening path again!

No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.

Will the night send a howlet or a bat?

I asked: when something on the dismal flat

Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.



XIX.



A sudden little river crossed my path

As unexpected as a serpent comes.

No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;

This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath

For the fiend's glowing hoof---to see the wrath

Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.



XX.



So petty yet so spiteful! All along,

Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;

Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit

Of route despair, a suicidal throng:

The river which had done them all the wrong,

Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.



XXI.



Which, while I forded,---good saints, how I feared

To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,

Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek

For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!

---It may have been a water-rat I speared,

But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.



XXII.



Glad was I when I reached the other bank.

Now for a better country. Vain presage!

Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,

Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank

Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,

Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage---



XXIII.



The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.

What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?

No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,

None out of it. Mad brewage set to work

Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk

Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.



XXIV.



And more than that---a furlong on---why, there!

What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,

Or brake, not wheel---that harrow fit to reel

Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air

Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware,

Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.



XXV.



Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,

Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth

Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,

Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood

Changes and off he goes!) within a rood---

Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.



XXVI.



Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,

Now patches where some leanness of the soil's

Broke into moss or substances like boils;

Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him

Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim

Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.



XXVII.



And just as far as ever from the end!

Nought in the distance but the evening, nought

To point my footstep further! At the thought,

great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,

Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned

That brushed my cap---perchance the guide I sought.



XXVIII.



For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,

'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place

All round to mountains---with such name to grace

Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.

How thus they had surprised me,---solve it, you!

How to get from them was no clearer case.



XXIX.



Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick

Of mischief happened to me, God knows when---

In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,

Progress this way. When, in the very nick

Of giving up, one time more, came a click

As when a trap shuts---you're inside the den!



XXX.



Burningly it came on me all at once,

This was the place! those two hills on the right,

Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;

While to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,

Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,

After a life spent training for the sight!



XXXI.



What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?

The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,

Built of brown stone, without a counter-part

In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf

Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf

He strikes on, only when the timbers start.



XXXII.



Not see? because of night perhaps?---why, day

Came back again for that! before it left,

The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:

The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,

Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,---

``Now stab and end the creature---to the heft!''



XXXIII.



Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled

Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears

Of all the lost adventurers my peers,---

How such a one was strong, and such was bold,

And such was fortunate, yet, each of old

Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.



XXXIV.



There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met

To view the last of me, a living frame

For one more picture! in a sheet of flame

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,

And blew. ``_Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came._'
'

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Day 62: Week In (Weak Out)

so i haven't been up to blogging for this month. really just out of it. my blogs for the next week or so...

tomorrow:
"to the dark tower childe roland came"

friday:
"8th grade yearbook"

saturday:
"root beer popsicles"

sunday:
"senior yearbook"

monday:
"something like memory"

tuesday:
"name writing"

wednesday:
" 'i hate you' "

thursday:
"faith in god"

friday:
"quiet"

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Day 61:Today...

captain eo.

[edit 3/3]: was pretty much what i remembered and expected.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Day 60: I Love You

when we finally lay down
always sure to remember
falling from heaven
to land alone
the water is warm
but the air is freezing
standing at the edge of the world

i'm five years old
it's where my memory begins
pursuing thunder and chasing the winds
running up a hill to roll it down again

my first best friend was pretend
he was quiet and his voice was thin
and when i closed my eyes
and i would begin to spin
he would say, "i love you"
i love you
"truly i do"

recall those old times
and revisit old friends

i knew a girl
used to talk to the wind
she'd call them from the north
but they come from within
she'd raise her arms and say,
"hey wind, blow"
when they'd come
she'd run to and fro
and they'd say things to her only she could know
like,
"i love you"
i love you
"truly, i do"

hey, there'll be school in september
pencils and paper
and a brand new start
and will she even remember last year
she stole my heart

but the weight of emotions are heavy
confusion can rule like a loaded  gun
and if these hearts are too crowded with lonely
love is replaced with none
and murder seems right to some

see those children scatter and run
one by one they may all come undone

it's the answer i fear
it may disappear
close your eyes
with your ears you may hear it

fathers, mothers
tell your children
"i love you"
said i love you
love you

truly i do
i do
i do
i do.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Day 59: Art of Drowning

well there's a thin line between the empty and complete
test my theory true on the downtown street
like water and oil you know the two will  never meet
walking side-by-side staring at their feet
people all around the world, staring at their feet

people sleeping the alley
drowning in the rain
people sitting in their mansions
drowning on champaign
and that's the art of drowning

and the town square the politician came to speak
the poor gathered around like pigeons at his feet
he said, "we made it through the famine,
it's about time we had a feast,
so promise me your vote and you will eat,
good people, promise me your vote and you will eat"

and they go standing in the full line
like they're standing in their grave
so deep into the lie they're unaware
that the dirt beneath their fingernails
is falling from the air
but they've been warned not to look up
so they don't dare

and that's the art of drowning
hey, that's the art of sinking down,
down, down
that's the art of drowning

throw yourself into dark water
you will never be found

well my father had temper like you wouldn't believe
he drank liquor like the devil did on christmas eve
and he'd go raging through the house looking for mommy
we would go hiding in the closet beneath by stairs
we'd take refuge in the closet by the stairs

he would curse her name, saying,
"bitch, you'd best come out!"
and i would hold her mouth
when she would scream
i threw my body against the door
'till he broke it down
she'd just wipe her eyes
and then come clean

and that's the art of drowning

hey, that's the art of sinking down,
down, down
that's the art of drowning



throw yourself into dark water
you will never be found

i won't let me lungs consume the water
i keep gasping for air
i'm waving my arms inside these waves
until i'm breaking the surface
i'm...

i'm kissing the wind that touches my face
i will not go down
i will not go down
down down
down
i am not drowning

go on, save me from these waters
i want to be found.