In Coffee Spoons

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

(William Blake)

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

(William Blake)

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

(Sylvia Plath)

1. Explore my personal philosophy.

2. Learn more about philosophy.

3. Never stop learning.

4. Get my certification as a medical clerk.

5. Have an excellent semester.

6. Become a better writer.

7. Write every day.

8. Write ten poems.

9. Post 43 of my favourite poems.

10. Own a bookstore.

11. Read 100 books.

12. Read more classics.

13. Be more creative.

14. Learn how to draw.

15. Learn how to paint.

16. Make a collage.

17. Post 43 of my favourite works of art.

18. Learn more about art history.

19. Learn more about music.

20. Listen to more classical music.

21. Post 43 of my favourite song lyrics.

22. Make a short film.

23. Make an indie horror film.

24. Watch more art films.

25. Watch more foreign films.

26. Learn French.

27. Learn Welsh.

28. Learn Japanese.

29. Travel the world.

30. Become a fabulous cook.

31. Try new recipes.

32. Explore new flavours of tea.

33. Lose 55 pounds.

34. Eat healthier.

35. Eat more fruits and vegetables.

36. Exercise daily.

37. Do my yoga and meditation every day.

38. Stop pulling my hair.

39. Stop picking my skin.

40. Cleanse my face every morning and night.

41. Be unapologetically listy.

42. List 43 men I wouldn't kick outta bed.

43. List 43 women I wouldn't kick outta bed.

@ 43things.com

I spent the last couple of weeks doing five minutes of freewrite a day, a nonstop uncensored stream of anything that my mind tossed out. Put away each day's pages without looking it over at all.

The idea of this practice is to come back to a wealth of material that you barely even remember writing-- things you barely even remember writing.

Jesus Christ.

After culling the stuff like "damn it i can't think of anything" and "stop worrying about your typing", I had six solid pages of raw material.

Much longer fragments than I was expecting, sometimes entire paragraphs or stanzas, weird imagery, every single piece a potential poem. Some of them nearly poems in themselves.

I wasn't expecting the bizarre trip into my subconscious, either. A lot of recurring imagery that I wasn't aware I had in me-- green and yellow skies, red raw dripping meat, a lot of anatomical stuff, a lot of OCD stuff. A lot of emotional outpouring about issues I honestly believed I'd gotten over. Things I didn't know still upset me that deeply.

So. Yeah. Why did I ever stop doing this?

A toppled wine-cup,
A stone path floating beneath the moon
Where the grass was trampled;
One azalea branch left lying there…

Eucalyptus trees began to spin
In a collage of stars
As I sit on the rusted anchor,
The dizzy sky reflected in my eyes.

A book held up to shut out candlelight;
Fingers lightly at your mouth;
In the fragile cup of silence
A dream, half-illuminated, half-obscure.




(Shu Ting)

Lettuce, tomato,
cucumbers and celery,
carrots and your mom.

I *was* going to call this "A post that does NOT involve famous dead people", but nooo, Heath Ledger had to go and spoil that for me. It sucks that he's dead, not because I admired him terribly as an actor or anything, but because this has completely halted a Terry Gilliam film featuring Tom Waits.

Allow me to repeat that: A Terry Gilliam film featuring Tom Waits.

FUCK.

~

The Tiger Lillies:

“The criminal castrati and his accordion driven anarchic Brechtian street opera trio performing their unique mix of falsetto crooning, strange gypsy music, cabaret from hell and deranged black comedy all over the World.”

Heart. Heart. Heart. Heart. Heart.

~

Reading a lot. Reading a lot of Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine. I don't understand it, but Ruth Rendell's novels under her own name are much better than the ones she's written as Barbara Vine. It's like her junk pile pseudonym.

~

Erin wrote a really amazing story and you should read it because I am extremely fucking proud of her.

~

My spam is now writing poetry of a sort.

It is lucky moment to be in an excess of joy
Just dont hesitate
And the glariest ladies can entertain you
When you see indecent show without paying any penny

~

The movie "Gamebox 1.0" cannot tell the difference between ninjas and zombies. Which is sad. Really, really sad. And dangerous.

~

Aaaand the big update- Dad slipped on the ice out at the lake, and fractured his knee. Whereas a normal, sane person would get himself to the truck and go to Urgent Care, my father chose to get himself to the truck, go home, change his clothes, have dinner, and go to Urgent Care.

This is ultra big news because if Dad has to have surgery (waiting for MRI results on this) or have a cast put on (ditto MRI results), he won't be able to go back to work for some time.

If Dad can't go back to work, he's pretty much made up his mind to retire now instead of at the end of the year, since this would allow him to collect both retirement and disability.

Erin: What are we going to do if Dad retires and he's home all the time?
Me: I...don't know.

Mom: What am I going to do if your father retires and he's home all the time?
Me: I...don't know.

What are we going to do if Dad retires and he's home all the time?

I don't know.

~

Last but not least, I love my mom.

It's early in the morning, Mom's getting ready for work, I'm in the kitchen having a cup of coffee and enjoying the quiet.

Mom comes in and pours herself a cup of coffee. And we both just stand there in the kitchen, drinking our coffee, nice and quiet.

Mom: *apropos of fucking nothing at all* Why pubic hair?

Me: *spitting coffee all over myself* What?!

Mom: Our our underarms, either. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. It seems very random where we ended up with hair and where we didn't.

Me: ...

And then this afternoon, we're doing laundry. Just down in the basement, sorting laundry, nice and quiet.

Mom: I'm glad I don't have eye stalks.

Me: What?

Mom: Well, just imagine if your eyes were on stalks like an alien, instead of in your head. I'd be very depressed.

Me: ...

( Human House )

by Ryuichi Tamura