Practically every writer, writer wannabe and student writer out there has heard of this person called the Muse. I like Stephen King’s description of his muse best, and I doubt I have to explain what a muse is to anybody who reads this blog because 1) you probably already know about him/her, and 2) if you don’t know what the Muse is, you really don’t need to. I’m going to tell you why by invoking Virginia Woolf, who wrote an essay that included an interesting section on the “Angel in the House” figure. This woman, according to Woolf, kept female writers in line at the time with the expectations of their sex, and back then not too many professions had been open to women yet. Women in the U.S. had only received the right to vote in 1920, and women in England could not vote until 1928. The essay I’m referring to, “Professions for Women,” had been published in 1931.

So what does this have to do with the Muse? When the “Angel in the House” attempted to get Woolf to keep her writing aligned with societal expectations about women, Woolf did her best to kill the Angel, even though she “died hard.” The Muse may not exist for the same reasons the Angel did - she is, after all, a psychological construct that can take either gender - but the Muse must die for reasons similar to why Woolf wanted her Angel dead. What’s the use of hinging a writer’s success at the business of writing anything if he depends on some figment of the imagination?

I’ve been called someone’s Muse once, and I’ll tell you what: I’m glad I offer writing that can inspire someone else to write a work regarding the same subject or theme or genre, but anything I write is mine alone. It may be part of a group effort sometimes, but it’s still mine; where the group’s concerned, I only give what I can to keep the central story idea alive and moving. I might add that inspiration is in no way like the Muse; she may offer a thread of substance to get a writer started, but she isn’t the gatekeeper to the well of Creative Ideas. If she tried to claim this sort of role in my writer’s life, that would be my main motivation for killing her.

I don’t know what the Muse who’s attached herself to me looks like, and I don’t even know what sex it is. (I use “she” and “her” here because I jumped from Woolf’s “Angel in the House,” who was a female figure, to my own muse. May as well keep some continuity going with regards to her sex, eh?) I will only say that if such a persona ever came into my line of vision and tried whispering suggestions in my ear about what I should be writing, I’d kill her on the spot.

So be warned, Muse: flee, seek another more gullible writer to leech onto, do what you must to get out of my life. Because if you don’t and we happen to meet someday, YOU WILL DIE.

NOTE: This is a Revised & Expanded version of one of my posts from another blog.

“Excuse me, Mr. Shanagan?”

Myrick Shanagan glanced to his right, and his pulse immediately quickened. The Administration officer watching him held an orange ticket.

Orange tickets were always bad news.

“Come with me, please,” the officer said crisply.

Myrick nodded and slowly followed the officer out of his private office. Thankfully, it was Sunday or his co-workers would have witnessed this entire humiliating scene. He paused to lock the door, then pocketed the key and wondered if he’d ever step into his office again. He had had no time to say goodbye to his wife or daughter. What was worse, of course, was that he had finally been discovered.

The Administration officer escorted him to the car waiting below, politely indicating for him to get in first. Myrick quickly obeyed, his palms leaving damp prints on the cool, black leather seats.

The officer slipped into the backseat beside him, and the car pulled away from the curb. Myrick stared straight ahead, even though he could feel the officer watching him from the other end of the seat.

“You’re accused of using 34,903 words over the permitted limit,” the officer said quietly. Myrick jerked when the officer slipped the orange ticket into his hand, pushing insistently when Myrick refused to accept it at first.

Myrick sighed. “What took you so long to catch me?” He was making things worse by just speaking, but he couldn’t help himself. What was the use of prolonging the inevitable by reverting back to the norm, anyway?

“Your methods of hiding your extreme word usage evaded our sensors,” the officer admitted.

Myrick plunged his hands into his jacket pockets, where his fingers curled into fists. The orange ticket was now a crumpled ball. “What will happen to me now?”

“You know the punishment.” The words seemed brusque, but the officer was trying to limit his words, too. When Myrick finally looked at the other man, the sympathy in the officer’s eyes caught him offguard.

“34,914,” the officer said abruptly, as the car stopped. Myrick’s door opened, and another officer grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. The top of his head banged against the roof of the car, and Myrick heard himself cry out as pain ripped through his skull. The officer holding his arm loosened his grip. Just before they injected him with the hypo, Myrick heard the first officer whisper, “All is not lost.”

He craned his neck to look at the man, but the officer had already turned away.

His last conscious thought as they loaded him on to a stretcher concerned his wife - what would she say when her husband came home as a Mute?

Then the world as he knew it went black.

“Descend with me through fire and dark below
And seek refuge in Virgil’s care as I,
Or you will join the mournful spirits there
Who heeded not on earth salvation’s cry.

If hell does shake you so to drain your strength,
Repentance waits for your second journey;
The third will lead to Christ and thrones of white.
Heaven unlocks true meaning for the free.”

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.”

Minnie L. Haskins

(Via CQOTD)

She’s usually one of the first to arrive, since her last class is located further down the same corridor. Because nobody’s opened the lecture hall yet, she sits outside and eats the meager dinner she brought, reads a book or does her homework. Those last vestiges of procrastination still haven’t been worked out of her yet.

Jeanine shows up next. “So what did you think?”

“They were okay,” she replies, making a face and thumbing through the book of poetry they were supposed to read for the class tonight. “I read it in an hour.”

“I don’t get this stuff,” Jeanine says. “I liked the last book we had to read. This one…ugh.”

Rajah arrives, and the topic switches to her bridal shower, then to a faculty member with a condescending attitude towards his students. Apparently he doesn’t like “stupid” questions, but then again Rajah doesn’t like conceited instructors, and wasn’t afraid to tell him this to his face, either. The instructor didn’t take this very well.

Then Josh comes, out of breath, hurrying to write up his homework at the last minute, too. Chad sits down next to her and they talk some more about their assigned reading: it sucks. I liked it, but… I can write poetry, but I have trouble reading it, y’know? That’s because poetry’s a self-absorbed exercise, Tim says, joining the conversation. Ouch.

Philipps shows up with the key, and the students who now line both sides of the hall scramble to their feet.

They file through the narrow doors, line up to turn in the assignment for the week, wait for Philipps to introduce the guest writer. He steps up to the podium, shyly greets the assembled students, and says he’s going to read from that same little book of poetry for about thirty minutes. Ye gods! Beside her, Tim groans loud enough for only her to hear. Neither of them are enthusiastic about that idea.

They are the students, and class is about to begin.

“So what is it?”

“A cleon. C’heran weapon,” she added, when a trace of confusion entered his face to mingle with the admiration. “I grew up learning to wield it.”

“Sounds fun. Can I hold it?”

“Sure. Just don’t touch the handholds.” She tossed it to him, and he fumbled catching it, shocked because it was much heavier than he’d expected. He held it with both hands and slowly rotated it in his palm.

The wooden pole was capped on both ends with copper-colored metallic paddles. It was three centimeters in diameter and nearly two meters in length, and weighed maybe a couple kilos in his grip. The pole itself seemed to be made of oak wood, or at least had the color of such, but he could’ve been wrong on that score.

Between the two paddles, two blue-tinged, gel-made handholds with clearly defined finger grips were equally spaced apart. He resisted the urge to touch them, as she’d ordered.

“What’s with the handholds?”

“Throw it back.” He did, and she caught it between the two handholds, then threw it up into the air again and this time caught it on the handholds.

One paddle hissed, shimmered iridescent blue, and then a blade that would’ve looked better on a medieval Terran spear shot out of the paddle end. The blade started with five centimeters at the base, and climbed like a pyramid to a single sharp tip; the blade was approximately twenty centimeters in length.

“The handholds control which blade comes out, depending on how you press on them,” Rhiain explained, demonstrating the different grips that caused one blade to detract and another to slide out of its copper-covered sheath. About seven blades in all, each different in length and shape.

He stared, fascinated. “Seems easy to use.”

“Not really,” she countered. “It takes years to learn how to press the ‘holds correctly to get the blade you want. I’ve known quite a few people who managed to get a finger or another part of their anatomy severed because they were careless.”

He winced. “How long have you practiced with the cleen?”

“Since I was a child of four. And it’s cleon.” She grinned at the wry face he made and continued. “I know it’s heavier than it looks - it all depends on the person’s own weight and the weight of the blades. They’re quite light, even if they seem menacing.”

“Ceremonial weapon?”

Rhiain nodded. “Mostly, anyway,” she said. “When I left C’heras for the first time, I brought mine along to continue practicing with it, for old times’ sake. But it seems to have come in handy on some missions.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Primitive inhabitants mistook me for a goddess most of the time.”

“I knew that hair of yours would come in handy.”

She laughed and pressed on a ‘hold, watching the last blade retract. “There are also a number of ‘combat dances’ that we learned. They’re really a pattern of maneuvers we memorized for different situations.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Did those dances help on the same primitive worlds where you were a goddess in a GD uniform?”

“Yes.” Rhiain held the pole up vertically like a shepherd’s staff. “And only because I improvised.”

He eyed her with a slight smile. “You’re infamous for improvising.”

She answered with a wolfish smile of her own. “We’re all infamous for something.”

Now his expression turned thoughtful as he continued to watch her. “Indeed.”

His name was Nate. He towered head and shoulders above her, a little heavyset, loud, a mop of dirty brown hair, soft large eyes, a blunt nose, always smiling, always joking. He worked at a pet hospital and came to the seminar wearing the top half of his uniform, about an hour late.

He annoyed her because he usually talked to the people sitting behind him at the same time the training session leader was going through the lesson, distracting her and making it difficult to concentrate on the information given. What was worse, his answers to the session leader’s questions had nothing to do with the lesson.

That changed during the break.

“Hey,” he said, stopping her outside the conference room, “I’m sorry if I was being obnoxious or anything.”

She just looked at him and, despite herself, began to soften. “It’s okay. No harm done.” Just don’t do it again, will you? she added silently.

He smiled and held out a hand. “I’m Nate, by the way.”

“I know.” They shook hands and talked a little more, about life outside the session, where they were from and what they did for a living.

And then she noticed a funny thing about him. He complimented her on the sweater she was wearing, told her that she was attractive, but backed off and apologized immediately after the words left his mouth. When she smiled back, he talked about the irony of meeting women who were interested in him when he was already attached to someone and how no female approached him when he was single.

Mixed signals. Was he interested? Did she care?

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked.

“Um, no…”

“Really? You looked like the type who would have one.”

Well.

He asked her for a hug before they parted ways, and she gladly gave it. Then he asked her for a kiss on the cheek, which she gave a little more reluctantly.

One of the other guys in the seminar watched them, amused. “Kiss her on the lips,” he suggested.

Nate looked at her. “Nah. Well…” He leaned towards her, lips already puckered.

She turned her face away. “No…”

He apologized again, but asked for her email address. “And maybe your phone number,” he added with a grin as she wrote it down. “And what you’d like to eat for dinner.”

“Why don’t you email me so you can get all that information?” she replied lightly, smiling at him again. The email address was one she hadn’t used in a long time, and one she probably wouldn’t use again after that day.

He laughed and said he would. And just before she left the room, he grabbed her and hugged her again, and kissed her hair. “Aha!” he said triumphantly, letting her go and beaming. “I caught you on the top of your head, at least!”

She smiled and left without a word.

No emails from him yet, and she hoped he’d forgotten. Men like Nate made her feel strange and cold.

Her voice contained a trace of valley chick, mingling with sharp-angled academian, but she was mostly city girl.

When she read from her book, she wasn’t an author or writer, two completely different occupations. She was an actress, her tone changing for each character, the omniscient narrator maintaining a certain amount of objectivity despite the first person view.

The reading itself was okay. When I first saw her, she looked like a schoolteacher - grades one through five, not college level. When she said she was a playwright, I was surprised.

“I found an active community in theatre that I didn’t find in writing fiction or prose,” she said. “The actors involved weren’t afraid to let me know what they thought about the script because they didn’t want to look stupid when they performed.”

Well, that made sense. That also sounded like a playwright talking.

The questions flew from the audience and from submitted index cards. They were about marketing her work and about the characters of her book which had been assigned reading, about writing in general and also about publishing. She also touched on writing influences and the process of writing - yeah, didn’t I just say she talked about publishing and writing in general? Also different things, from a writer’s perspective.

She seemed open with her answers, often pausing to phrase them so they’d satisfy the questioner. Sometimes they were an answer, sometimes not. She didn’t seem nervous to be up there, either, in front of a large group of students who weren’t shy to ask her anything, being potential novelists and playwrights themselves.

She wasn’t Danielle Steel or Tami Hoag.
She was a published author.

That was reason enough to be her audience.

PS: I hope she didn’t see me yawning. I hope the applause made up for that.

Intentional Fallacy: a “term used in 20th-century literary criticism to describe the problem inherent in trying to judge a work of art by assuming the intent or purpose of the artist who created it.”

I sat on the wrong side of the train - or so I thought.

Normally, I try to avoid the side through which the sun shines because it’s hotter than the shaded side. Normally, I try to predict which side turns out to be the sunny side when I first get on the train so I can avoid it. Normally, my prediction turns out to be wrong.

So the sun blazes down during the hourlong ride, but I keep my eyes on my reading and think that maybe my side will turn into the shaded side. Traveling east to west, one would like to make that assumption, to build up false hopes about relief from the torturous heat on a particularly hot day. Such people should keep those assumptions to themselves or sell them to professional psychologists for analysis.

Then the train plunged underground, and the sunlight disappeared completely. Whether I was right or wrong about my predictions, about what side of the train would be the right side to sit on, didn’t matter now.

The train was moving, though, and it would soon reach its destination. Perhaps the sunlight there wouldn’t be as painful to avoid as it was at that moment. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to choose sides on that end, either.

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
(NIV)

Right now seems like a good time to be silent.

For us like any other fugitive,
Like the numberless flowers that cannot number
And all the beasts that need not remember,
It is to-day in which we live.

No wonder then so many die of grief,
So many are lonely as they die;
No one has yet believed or liked a lie,
Another time has other lives to live.

“Another Time”
W.H. Auden

A friend and classmate that I hadn’t heard from in awhile e-mailed me today, and included a quote that’s worth remembering.

Once a famous 10th century Egyptian woman wrote to a seeker of the ultimate truth “GOD": “If I worship you to attain heaven bar me from it. If I worship you to avoid hell please cast me in it. But if I worship you for who you are show me your love and I will show you mine.”

And congratulations, Solomon. I’ll be donning cap and gown next year!

From Bryon, who tackled the Book of Numbers:

Count Tribes of Jacob
Argument with a donkey
God guards the marchers

What God says, He means
And what He emphasizes
He’ll repeat again

Your post should include:

1. the previous book’s haiku;
2. a link to the post where the previous haiku appears;
3. your book and its related haiku; and,
4. these basic instructions.

(As Eric noted in the comments, all the Bible haikus are here.)

One of the TAs for my Use of Personal Experience (UPE) class sent me this beautiful poem. Enjoy.

MY Love is of a birth as rare
As ’tis, for object, strange and high ;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble hope could ne’er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed ;
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close ;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love’s whole world on us doth wheel),
Not by themselves to be embraced,

Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear.
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramp’d into a planisphere.

As lines, so love’s oblique, may well
Themselves in every angle greet :
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.

By Andrew Marvell
(1621 - 1678)

The familiar glow overhead winked like a slowly dissipating mirage. It was only part of a sky full of untouched black and silver freckles, like the kind a makeup artist would apply with eyeliner pencil for a play. As silvery as her own hair. But these freckles fell to earth and were reborn within a matter of centuries. She had lost her own freckles within a matter of months when the summer heat finally faded into the frostier fall. The sun always seemed to have that effect on her facial skin.

She gathered her legs to her chest with long arms and looked up until the back of her neck creaked in protest. She may as well have lain down on the sweet-smelling grass that surrounded her family’s Holding and made it easier on herself. But she fell asleep whenever she laid down, and sitting under the stars was a better position to be in when one wanted to get lost in thought.

The tour was still on her mind, although her father had only grazed over that subject at the dinner table. She couldn’t understand why, considering how much he had insisted that the tour was a mandatory Prime Heir function. Had someone told him beforehand about her “curious” exchange with the attendant?

“I’ve always wondered how far the stars went. They seem to go on forever.”

“M’lady,” he said patiently, addressing her as a child and not as a Prime’s Heir, “there are more species and worlds among those ‘glowflies’ than you will ever know. If you can catch them, you can catch the entire universe in your hands, too.”

Now the stars seemed much farther away from this level, out here on the O’uce property, away from most of familiarity. She caught a strand of hair between her fingers and idly rubbed it. The silver of her hair glinted against her cheek, caught by the amber light from the torch, silver and amber back to back, reflecting pale on her fair skin. She glanced down at the strand, blinking against the sudden dizziness that quick action provoked, before turning her gaze upward again.

One day, she vowed, even if was only for a moment, she would see the stars’ silver light glint against her cheek as well.

It wasn’t the stork wearing a milkman’s hat
Who delivered her at the home of N and L
Instead, I think an angel accidentally nudged
The “Deliver New Soul” lever a twinkle too soon
And a little girl arrived in the world a month early

If life wasn’t detailed with such vibrant lines
Life itself was an illusion

Monday

The train pulled into the Daly City station, and I looked up from my book to see a Bart employee with a walkie-talkie approaching the man sitting near the door. The man wore a bright yellow sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his unkempt hair; he had the look of a homeless drunk who was passing the time by riding the trains with no particular destination in mind.

“Sir, is this your destination?” the Bart employee asked politely.

“Huh?” Yellow Sweatshirt looked about, a little dazed, before his expression fell. “No, I think I went too far.”

“Well, let’s get off here so we can have a good look at you,” the Bart man replied, and gestured towards the open doors. The walkie-talkie squawked, and he brought it to his mouth. “Yeah, don’t close the doors till we’re clear, ‘kay?”

Yellow Sweatshirt stood and slowly limped towards the door. His pants were starting to sag and he didn’t seem aware of where he was going. He wasn’t swaying, so he couldn’t have been intoxicated, but he was being careful enough about walking to catch my interest. I glanced at his feet.

His left foot was bare and covered with raw lacerations, and he was doing his best to shift his weight to his undamaged foot while the Bart man encouraged him to keep going until he’d stepped on to the train platform. I wasn’t the only one staring.

However, I was the only one worrying about what to write for my assignment due tonight. I’d already thrown out one scenario that had to do with my captain alter-ego, which involved a jungle, a bunch of marines and a weapon that was a cross between a spear and a Swiss army knife. It got too complex, however, and I was too lazy to do the necessary research, so the scene in my mind would sound right when I started describing it on paper. I was delving into Marvel Universe territory, the way things were shaping up, so the story scrap disappeared into my mental file dubbed “Unfinished Crap.”

I returned to my book, Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, and pretended that the train doors were closing and we were on our way out of the station. “It’s not that bad,” Yellow Sweatshirt said on the platform.

“Yes it is,” Bart Man countered. He lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth again. “Yeah, he’s not in the train anymore. Go ahead.”

The usual ping sounded somewhere above us, the doors slid shut and the train began pulling away. Platform Three rushed past the dark-tinted windows and the wail of a train overrode the last glimpse of Yellow Sweatshirt and Bart Man as I headed for my own destination.

Suddenly, wondering about where those foot lacerations had come from sounded like something better to occupy my mind with rather than stuffy homework.

Now and then I come across a blog post that makes me stop in my tracks and go, “Whoa.” This is one of them. (Note: Doug’s posts aren’t permalinked, but as of now the post I’m referring to is called “An Imitation of Christ” that was put up today.)

I used to wear a “WWJD” bracelet as a teen, but it took a month before I lost interest in it as a fad. I like Doug’s definition of “WWJD” a lot more than what I know it to mean from Christian pop culture. Thanks for the reminder, Doug.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

William Blake
Milton
1804

On one hand, the writer in me likes reading this sorta stuff to get the creative juices flowing.

On the other hand, the writer in me gets irritated at writers who like to talk about writing in general. She’d rather say, “Oh, just shut up and do it, for crying out loud.”

I think right now, I’m leaning towards the latter position.

Yes, I’m pretentious and obnoxious at times. What’re you gonna do about it, huh?

You’ve made me acknowledge the devil in me
I hope to God I’m talkin’ metaphorically
Hope that I’m talkin’ allegorically
Know that I’m talkin’ about the way I feel
And I’ve never known a girl like you before…

Edwyn Collins, “A Girl Like You” (full lyrics)

What song’s stuck in your head right now?

P.S. Demi Moore is a kick-butt bad girl. Really. Just watch a catfight between her and Cameron Diaz and you’ll see what I mean.

Can you guess which movie I’m watching by looking at this picture?

I go now to the Lord of glory
Behind I leave my life’s story
And I pray that you will see
That time was not spent in vain
For to live is Christ, to die is gain
I became what He molded me to be
Born a sinner, but died a saint
In the end forsaking death’s taint
Striving for perfection all my life
Walking by faith, not by sight
Do not think I mean to boast
In the last of these pages
For the God who’s reigned throughout the ages
Did consume me with His righteous fire
And now calls me ever higher

02.20.01
RIP: For my grandfather, BMN

Something I found in ye olde notebook earlier. For memory’s sake.

This post has been floating around in my head of late. I think it’s mostly because I’ve started reading this book, plus a number of other factors. Ah, well - enjoy.

Shana Barrow carefully eased herself through the slim opening in the back that, for the moment, served more or less as an entrance into the war-torn building; all of the other “doorways” were now just gaping holes that the enemy could easily use as target practice.

She wished John had joined her for this simulation run, but the practice schedule he’d enforced for his students seemed to have wiped him out just as much as it had the students themselves. No matter, she thought. There’s always next time.

She silently slipped up the stairs to the third level of the seven-story building and let herself into the room where her Baby was waiting. A half-smile briefly crossed her face as she approached the loaded rifle and checked it over one more time.

Perfect. Everything was perfect. And her target was right on schedule, from the crunch of pebbles and the hollering voices wafting in from right outside the building.

Shana had checked to make sure no one had followed her back to this particular spot; it was not like her to boast about the ability to play a shadow, as it were, but her own safety was her first priority. The target itself was secondary. If he saw even a glimpse of her, her operation would be endangered.

She checked the scope, letting her vision adjust to the barely visible crosshairs etched into the eyepiece. Her Baby was angled down so that the barrel pointed at the wide swath of dirt that served as the main street in this part of the city. Anyone standing in her line of fire would be dead before they’d figured out what had killed them, mainly because no one would suspect that she was behind the room with the actual window until it was too late.

Snipers were very meticulous about their set-up, John especially. Shana would know - the man had once been her instructor. And she could still hear him lecturing her about the myths the old Terran movies had depicted about sniper positions.

“You don’t ever stand next to a window in an urban area, Shay. You could be dead before you got a shot out. They’d be able to see yer muzzle flash, and they’d be all over you in seconds.” The numerous simulations they’d run had more than proved this to be true.

Her target slowly rolled into view in an early twentieth century vehicle that still seemed brand new. The soldiers milling about and the target’s various lackeys failed to shield him from her Baby’s eye, which she quickly lined up with the tiny patch of skin just above his upper lip.

Turn your head just a little to the right, my friend, and say “Auf Wiedersehen"�

“Corporal Barrow?”

Shana slowly straightened and quickly schooled her features as the entire simulation dissipated in a quick flash of pixels exploding into nothing. She turned sharply and saluted to the officer standing in the simulation chamber doorway. “Mon Capitane?”

He smiled apologetically and inclined his head to one side. “Lights out, I’m afraid.”

“Ah, of course.” Her shoulders slumped, but her face stayed expressionless. “I’m sorry, sir … I didn’t realize how late it was.”

“It happens.” He watched her salute again and begin to leave the chamber, then stopped her just outside the doorway. “I caught you at a bad time, didn’t I?”

She paused, then turned to look back at him. “I nearly had him, Lieutenant.”

“Who?”

The half-smile that had touched her lips earlier now reappeared. “Have you ever wondered what Terra would’ve been like if certain tyrants had been done away with before they had the chance to unleash their terror upon innocent people?”

“I dream about it, Corporal. Frequently.” He gave her a curious look. “Which target were you aiming for this time?”

“The F�hrer,” she simply answered. “Adolf Hitler. Goodnight, Lieutenant.”

Crazy weekend ahead. Graduation ceremony+festivities, wedding, and Father’s Day packed into three days - which translates into, “serve lots of guests, entertain guests, and try not to kill myself in the process; go to wedding and try not to get lost on the way to the wedding; don’t pick on Dad too much and remember why we celebrate Father’s Day.” Some poetry to end the week and start the weekend:

Look behind at what was
You will only see the oblivion of the Past
Turn to the left and right
You will only see the futility of man’s directions
Consider this world’s offerings
You will make Lot’s wife proud
Your tears for its gain will be your eternal cage

The grinding thunder plummets in cavity and blackness
as, Alas! another falls
And they cry and wail
“ashes to ashes, dust to dust”
But the one they mourn
only feels painful bliss under gravel and marble

It was the mortar that took him
Delivered from the hands
of one so alike
The same dark hair and starlit eyes
the same deep laugh and grace
One returned to earth and ash, the other turning to his brother
And coolly, almost lovingly, cutting flesh from bone
With steel and gunpowder

And you ask “Why?”

And the dead rise to regard you with scorn
As their oppressor walks away,
Seeking another unfamiliar face to black out
From the attendance rolls of humanity

And the dead reply,
“Why not?”

03.09.02

My CW “Craft of Poetry” class has been pretty fun - here are the types of poetry I’ve learned to write or reviewed:

Pantoum (example)

Villanelle (example included - and no, it’s not as hard as the author claims - at least to me it isn’t)

Found poetry

Sonnet

Lakeside

I am the lake glittering diamonds
At the passing of gentle mother wind
Who tenderly caresses liquid
And stirs the flame within
I am the surface of the water
Whether the day is hot or cold
I ripple, dance, form many pictures
At times mirror smooth, at times pebble-rolled
I am the depths of father lake
Murky, mysterious, aged, wise
Colored with swirling sand and turbulent
Few find the treasure in sly earth lies
Above, beyond, around does my border cross
Come to my banks, bury your sorrow and loss

SMN, 2/25/03

Chant (or maybe you’re more familiar with Gregorian Chant)

Political (a self-explanatory category)

Narrative

Shards of glass
On bloody hands and knees
Along the path of life
Faltering in my shame
But never falling

Strength of will
With broken mind and soul
I carry on this task with love
Trusting in his Name
And never falling

- SMN/JMW

Sheesh, definitely need to put up the poetry page soon…

Voices and their fathers
Don’t speak to one another
In this world.
Books are celebrities,
Their keepers tolerated
To keep the peace between
Adoring masses and art.
Forget bridges.
Bring the flame,
Brand a circle,
Imprison the art
For being so greedy.

Not too sure what inspired this one, but it beats over-analyzing poetry in my creative writing class.

Note to self: must get poetry page up. Now if only my computer would cooperate…

Diving into poetry,
I breathe song set to rhyme.
Rhythm and meter round,
A school of golden fins;
Each letter, ev’ry word
In ev’ry line of prose
Touts meaning infinite.
Not even sharks snapping–
Writer’s Block Incarnate!
Every swimmer’s nightmare–
Drain my inspiration.
Though time does wait for me,
I’ll swim these depths again.
A poem’s shore is Home.

- SMN
02/04/03

For Jer - and all others who need some encouragement.

A man treading the path of Life finally collapsed in exhaustion by the wayside, watching the earth’s populace pass him in their meandering paces. He noticed that some bore heavy burdens upon their shoulders and wondered why any person would want to lug such troublesome rocks along for the journey. Others walked past with black thunderclouds hovering over their heads. Still others walked by, cheerfully, blindly smiling at nothing ahead of them, as if this trip were another excursion to a paradise that was but a mirage.

But then the man noticed that some people who continued to fall every few feet would dodgedly trudge on, despite the numerous invisible barriers that caused them to stumble so frequently. While he mused over how they could resume a path that tormented them so, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see a cleanshaven man in beautiful robes beside him, watching the endless parade.

“Who are you?” the tired wanderer asked, startled by the other man’s sudden appearance.

The newcomer merely gestured to the sea of humanity traipsing past them - to those who fell but regained their footing. “You wondered how such could continue, despite the obstacles. I will show you.”

He stepped closer and passed his hand slowly over the traveler’s eyes. The voyager’s mouth fell open. Behind every person who stumbled was a man dressed in similar garb as his newly arrived companion. Every time an emigrant fell, the man behind would gently help the person to his feet and persuade him to continue on.

“I believe, friend, that you only have a little bit more of the road to walk,” the stranger said kindly, and held out a hand.

The wanderer stared at him for a moment, then slowly reached out to grab the proffered hand. He was surprised at the strength behind the other man’s grip; the man pulled him up and wrapped a comradely arm about his shoulders, guiding him back towards the road. “Just a little further,” the helper murmured with an encouraging smile. “A little while longer. You’re almost there.”

“Who are you?” the traveler whispered, both awed and perhaps even a bit frightened.

“My name is Hope,” the helper simply replied. “And I am ever with you.”

- SMN

The way I look
at it, I’m passing through a phase:
gradually I’m changing to a word.
Whatever you choose to claim
of me is always yours;
nothing is truly mine
except my name. I only
borrowed this dust.

- Stanley Kunitz