some very old and disgustingly dickenson-esque poetry-

A biting wind is blowing,
howling, snapping into me-
but it's nothing to the keening
of the growling northern sea.

The roses grow in scotland
bright beautiful grand blooms
makes it harder to remember
her dark winter's deepest gloom.

It's impossible to think about Iraq without stumbling over these kinds of absurdities. How do you get a logical foothold on a war that was nurtured from the beginning on absurd premises? You can't. Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. The invasion of Iraq was not part of the war on terror. We had no business launching this war. Now we're left with the tragic absurdity of a clueless president riding his bicycle in Texas while Americans in Iraq are going up in flames.

read full article here

A U2 moment

"Yes...

I can't believe the news today
Oh, I can't close my eyes
And make it go away
How long...
How long must we sing this song?
How long? How long...
'cause tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...

Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street
But I won't heed the battle call
It puts my back up
Puts my back up against the wall

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

How long...
How long must we sing this song?
How long? How long...
'cause tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...tonight...

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Wipe the tears from your eyes
Wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Oh, wipe your blood shot eyes
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

Sunday, Bloody Sunday (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Sunday, Bloody Sunday (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

And it's true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On...

Sunday Bloody Sunday
Sunday Bloody Sunday..."

Seems like everyone I know is missing someone.
Better than missing yourself, I suppose.
At least with missing someones you get sympathy sometimes.
But when you've lost yourself, why, no one knows.

Too much alone time is somewhat dangerous for random minds like mine, who often need the helpful, intrusive perspectives of others to maintain the distiction between reality and imaginings. But tomorrow I am going home. Every second is filled with visiting friends and family. I planned it that way. Too much time in my home is far far worse than too much time alone. I dreamed last night that the plane crashed. One should consider that a nightmare, but I found it somewhat humorous. Granted, I survived the plane crash in my dream. I actually once was calmly convinced that the plane was going to crash when I moved out to Arizona. See, I'd just finished reading A Prayer for Owen Meaney when my world suddenly came crashing down on top of me, and somehow came to the conclusion far back in my wildly stressed head that I too would be expiring under palm trees. I cant quite look back at that and laugh yet, but I can shrug my shoulders now at my silliness. I'm rather glad it didnt crash. :D

One last thing--Does anyone want cookies? I made a ton to send to Ali, but not all of them fit in the box. I dont want them; I'm leaving tomorrow. I dont want to leave them here though, 'cause I dont want them to end up in Barbie. She doesnt need them. Really, if you want some, stop by. Or leave me an address. I will mail them to you. Theyre really tasty...chocolate chip caramel and sugar cookies...Anyone? Please?

Some whaling wisdom....

"It was not down in any map; true places never are."

"It might be thought that this was a poor was to accumulate a princely fortune--and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I one of those who never take on about princely fortunes, and I am quite content if the world is willing to board and lodge me..."

"Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death."

"For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything."

This is why I love Ahab: "Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines."
He is a keenly intelligent and cunning, strategizing raving lunatic. But he is transcended!! Take that Emerson and Thoreau.

"Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form."

"Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blackness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows--a colorless, all color atheism from which we shrink?"


On pirates:
"Why it is that...all Pirates...cherish such a scornful feeling toward Whale-ships; this is a question it would be hard to answer. Because, in the case of Pirates, say, I should like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that assertation the pirate has no solid basis to stand on."

Captains of our destinies
Ahabs all
We but wait for our chance to strike the sun

A beginning. More later, but I am tired, and so retreat into pursuit of the white whale...


Mightily do the great cumuli crack and groan as they tumble and collide,
As though these ships of sky were made of earthly tar and lumber
Rather than sprightly flights of zephyrs multiplied.
Their anger grows as does their mass and blackness
And in their somber darkness caste a challenge for dominion of the sky...

Today was an unexpectedly reflective sort of day.

Looking for something to keep myself occupied, I set out for the post office on Mill, conveniently forgetting that post offices generally close at noon on Saturdays and it was a quarter to one. I cut through campus to reach Mill, passing the law library again. It is a prime example of postmodern architecture. I have yet to go in, but I find myself utterly enchanted and attracted in ways I cant quite identify to its unpredictable clash of graceful curves and sharp angles. Its chaos in patterns reminds me of smoke in a slight draft. Warring inside me now are the conflicting desires of exploring it and leaving it a mystery. Half of its intrigue right now is that I have no idea what to expect when I walk through its doors. Having left it unexamined so long has built it an almost sanctified mystique in my mind, and I'm not sure whether satisfying my curiosity will be worth destroying its secrecy.

The rest of campus felt for all the world like a ghost town. Utterly devoid of its normal noise and bustle, the cady mall still seemed to echo with the voices and steps of the countless numbers of students who had crowded its walkways just days before. Feeling somewhat oppressed by the absent thousands, I stepped through there somewhat more quickly than was comfortable in the stifling heat of the midday sun.

Mill is uniformly charming in the afternoon. It has a wholly different character now that scantily clad co-eds no longer congest its intersections. It is more relaxed, lazy even, with elderly women walking easily in pairs, talking fondly of their friends and pastimes, and families stopping for icecreams at the little shops. It was so casually friendly that for a whole three hours I completely forgot that it was 104 degrees outside, that I had woken up lonely, that I had ever been anything but quietly content to enjoy the isolated camaraderie of walking along Mill avenue on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

I briefly ducked into Border's, unable to resist the call of the thousands and thousand of books I could see calling to me through the glass doors. "I'll just look," I thought to myself, before buying Angles and Demons less then ten minutes later and booking it out of that den of temptation. I ambled along somewhat aimlessly after that, peaking into Urban, but with no real purpose other than to continue spending my time in such a pleasant manner. I passed the art cinema, which is playing Forest Gump tonight and briefly toyed with the idea of giving my rum swigging friend a call to see if he and his girl would want to go tonight, but decided not to interrupt the happy solitude of my wandering. I reached the end of Mill and headed back up the opposite side of the street. I entered the poster shop on a whim, and immediately saw something that had to be purchased for my sister. They were having a buy-one-get-another-half-off sale, so I felt the time had come to acquire the Dali I'd been eying for the past couple of months.

However, when I started pouring through the art prints, I came across a Renoir and was suddenly struck by a most poignant memory. My father went through a Renoir kick when I was about ten years old. It seems the filles of Renoir, with their quiet, self contained assurance, one younger, one older, invariably brought his two daughters to mind. My father is such a mix of hard work, idealism, humor, intensity, practicality, and occasional unexpected sentimentality; I tend to view him as a modern man de la Mancha. A few moments later I found myself in ownership of the Renoir print, moved inexplicably by the recollection.

I continued my walk, and stumbled next upon the greatest treasure in Tempe: Old Town Books. I pushed the door open tentatively and was welcomed by the warm wonderful musky smell of old books. Somehow I contained myself from skipping about as I flitted from shelf to shelf, nodding to old favorites and positively salivating over long desired classics. At last I contented myself with purchasing The Dubliners and Old Pussum's Book of Practical Cats, and promised the others that I would return soon and often. Its a very very good thing for both my checking account and my already bursting bookshelves that Old Town Books has very limited hours of operations.

Now I am back in my lonely apartment though, missing him and cursing Barbie's bad rap and Britney Spears. I think I'll escape into Melville for awhile.

I had forgotten how much I adore this novel (of course I would adore it; it's so deliciously anti-transcendental). Melville has an amazing way with words; sometimes he is brisk and reporter-like, sometimes he invokes the scriptures, other times he is charmingly poetic. Moby Dick is as complex as the world's oceans and just as alluring. It is an adventurous, dangerous, and irresistible journey of the mind. I'd praise it more, but I'm going to go back to reading it now. Be forewarned: my blog is likely to be positively littered with quotations over the next few days.

"Heaven have mercy on us all--Presbyterians and Pagans alike--for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending."
-Herman Melville, Moby Dick

A really long quote that I love:

From The Princess Bride:

I love you. I know this must come as something of a surprise to you...but I have loved you for several hours now, and every second, more. I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm. Your eyes are like that, did you know? Well, they are. How many minutes ago was I? Twenty? Had I brought my feelings up to then? It doesn't matter...I love you so much more now than I did twenty minutes ago that there can be no comparison. I love you so much more than I did when you opened your hovel door, there can be no comparison. There is no room in my body for anything but you. My arms love you, my ears adore you, my knees shake with blind affection...Do you want me to follow you for the rest of your days? I will do that. Do you want me to crawl? I will crawl. I will be quiet for you or sing for you, or if you are hungry, let me bring you food, or if you have thirst and nothing will quench it but Arabian wine, I will go to Araby, even though it is across the world, and bring a bottle back for your lunch. Anything there is I can do for you, I will do for you; anything there is that I cannot do, I will learn to do...Dearest Westley-I've never called you that before, have I? ...Darling Westley, adored Westley, sweet perfect Westley. whisper that I have a chance to win your love.

i love like a buttercup. :)

dark ages of the mind

I paint the emptiness with half forgotten dreams
desperate flights of fancy in horror vacui
scuro scribbling

tangible terror of the ignorant mind
your eternal sunshine only makes
my darkness deeper

then my prometheus holds out the candle
and my wandering mind's overwhelmed
with the possibilities

therein

but will I reach for the light?

This one needs some work.



Peter

Silhouettes of mountain against dark sky
slumbering great giants who wait
to wake at the end of time.
Will they speak of what they dream?
Of diamond lighted nights
whispering into dove soft dawns
and honey dewed mornings?
Of anvil headed cumuli breaking in the distance
a monstrous clash of titans
knashing their teeth to break the world but unable
even to disturb in the slightest the giants' sleep.
Do they feel the tears of the sky?
The caresses of the sun?
And if they do, do they care?
Can it penetrate their craggy hearts?
Or are they judging coldly
our frenzied scurrying across their timeless haunts.
They will wake at the end of time,
but what answers lie there?

"Yet Mr. Bush, despite all his talk of good and evil, doesn't believe in that system. From the day his administration took office, its slogan has been "just trust us." No administration since Nixon has been so insistent that it has the right to operate without oversight or accountability, and no administration since Nixon has shown itself to be so little deserving of that trust. Out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, Congress has deferred to the administration's demands. Sooner or later, a moral catastrophe was inevitable."

-Paul Krugman, nytimes op-ed

There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference.

Off to explore those uncharted worlds,
He shall navigate the cosmos,
Tasting each delicious mystery.
He follows seas of light,
With wings of solar zephyrs
Carrying him on his grand voyage
Through currents in the sky.
He may never return but
That matters not,
For all he seeks is held within
That twinkling blanket of eternity.
Brave bold dreamer,
The Star Sailor.

Eden

The scent of marigolds
Bright sunny banishment
Bleeding obscenely into life
Outside the garden.

I used to watch from the tree
Looking back at the past
Until the sky wept
And drowned my sanctuary.

Red soil colored my wandrings
Next like blood from the martyr.
I grew new gardens
But never a home,

So sacrificed my gardens-
Rejected-but I shall not
Be my brother's keeper.
I wander the desert.

Tamshel, and the breeze
Is my salvation.