Eat It

Note: This poem was written sort of in response to some stuff that's been happening at work (not my internship, the other work). I wrote it yesterday and edited once so it's a little loopy and incomplete. Anyway, enjoy. I felt much better after I wrote it. As always, fuck blogger formatting. It just doesn't want to recognize that indentations are a thing.)

Assertive

I lack confidence, or so I’ve been told

but consider this.

I have collaborative, poetic absolute truth coursing in and out of my skin and

there is a commiseration of complex algorithms for the perfect being

sloshing around in my skull and dripping from my nose.

A lattice of artificially constructed spirituality is shattered when I breathe

the unobtrusive and yet earth pummeling catharsis that comes

from saying the word “fuck” on repeat until your problems are too scared to emerge.

Someone hung a length of rusty wire in my brain when I was young

and I spun it into gold! and then-

(seeing how useless gold was)

turned that into a belt of bullet casings to attack to dynastic bullies who

claim to come from God but only come

from the Wall-Mart Super Savers Super Manager Seminars!

(inspiration kitten poster-based law is no substitute for mutual respect)

Elaborate enumerations of clandestine sectarian movements find within me

a flag, a hope, a new day and an earpiece!

Vote for Morgana! Queen of the night!

Cast ballots for the vaginal goddess of fertility, Ceres!

Collect signatures to recall the overtly destructive penile pretender

(he knows who he is, but we’ll call him Condescension

for no one can rise to meet his gaze)

Confidence is irrelevant when you set the bakery of clichés on fire!

Self-worth seems silly connected to the criss-crossing wires of harm and help

that are needed to be free from the tyranny of ownness!

In all of this have you ever once considered

that just perhaps

you do not know me at all?

An alternative to skype

Hey guys!

Me, Allya and Cerasi were discussing last night the possibility of a monthly face-to-face meeting through a video chat service. Unfortunately, because skype is lamesies and you have to pay for group chat, I have brought up the idea of using Google chat. G-talk is free. Below is a link on how to download google chat and how to use the group chat function. I will open a separate post in the edit section so we can share our gmail accounts or set up ones just for the service. Links are below, lovelies:

Download google talk:

http://www.google.com/talk/

How to use the conference feature:

http://www.computric.com/2011/08/how-to-make-call-conference-in-gtalk/

Person, Place or Thing

For the theme of this month, I've written some poems.  There are unfortunately not that hard to figure out, but I thought I'd put 'em up anyway.  And they are unrelated aside from being generated by the same prompt.




I am freedom
As I oscillate
can't you hear it ring?
I am honor
I am valor
I am respect
I am the first in any war
and the last
I am followed
but I lead
I unite
and inspire
hope
I fly 
to show pride 
or I rest
in tri-cornered boxes 
to comfort
I am freedom
because 
we are freedom.








I am a place you can visit
     But I am also a place 
     you don't have to travel too far
     to reach


I am nostalgia
     and dreams
     and promises


I am immature
     But I can bring wisdom
     and growth


I am magic
     and hope
     and surprise


I am fun
     But I can be full of danger
     and treachery


I am where you visited
     as a child
     and where you long 
     to return


I am never to far
     Just second star to the right
     and straight on 'til morning
   

The Dante Club

It's book review time, once again!  I finished The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl yesterday, and it was a pretty good read.  It followed a group of friends who are poets and publishers (Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, and Fields), so I suppose I was inclined to like it simply for that.  But these guys form a club to help Longfellow translate Dante's Divina Commedia.  Then murders start plaguing some of Boston's elite and only they can help because the murders reflect specific circles of hell from Dante.

In highschool I read The Inferno, okay skimmed and spark noted, so I was mildly familiar with the work which helped my reading.  But Pearl does a good job in providing enough for a reader to not be familiar with Dante and still enjoy the book.

I have to say, it was a little bit of a slow start (at least after the book begins with the discovery of the first murder victim).  But once we get to more people being killed, the intrigue, horror and mystery really pick up and the book takes off.

It was interesting to read about a time (1865- post Civil War) when Dante was unknown to America.  Though I'm not necessarily familiar with his works, I've always felt a certain amount of reverence for it, like I do other classical authors (like Shakespeare and others).  So when reading about some characters talking about Dante and his 'smut' and how Italian is not a superior language worth knowing, I was thrown.  There was a time in literary history when Dante was not thought of as an accomplished and admired poet?  And more significantly, the Harvard fellows at the time believed the vernacular languages to be greatly inferior to Latin, Greek and Hebrew.  They thought, what could be written in these languages of any significance?  Now, hardly anyone uses these languages with frequency.  They are no longer revered and held above vernacular tongues as superior ways of speaking, writing, and thinking.  I found all of this fascinating.  It's like they thought English was just some passing phase.

Aside from the interesting historical aspects, this book is pretty solid: well-written, interesting characters, thrilling plot.  I would say though, that it's not a quick read.  The language (and perhaps smallish print) is very literary and intelligent and not something that you just fly through.  Not that this is a problem, but stylistically important and in keeping with the characters and subject matter.

About the characters, I only knew Longfellow by name, but it was interesting to pretend to get into the lives of well-known poets and a publisher.  I thought it was funny though, how the three poets (except Fields, who is their publisher) are not really on equal terms.  Longfellow is revered by Lowell and Holmes, not to mention the rest of Boston. Everyone recognized him where he went; it was like he was a celebrity.  (Which sort of made me laugh, because I could not recognize any famous poet if I saw one today.)   I guess if I was friends with Longfellow, I might be a little intimidated and respect his mad poetry skills, but I'm kinda glad that our group of writers doesn't have a dynamic like that.  None of us is thought to be better or superior than the rest.  We all have different strengths as writers, but no one is on a pedestal, and out main focus is supporting each other.  Though if  when we get published and one of us is recognized by a complete stranger I will doff my hat and give you Longfellow-esque admiration.

I Want Something Else in My Life

(Note: This post is kind of loopy and disjointed. I'm tired. Sorry.)

I am sorry I have not been on POW. It's not really reflective of anything (I haven't been like lonely or depressed, etc.) I've just felt, well, scatterbrained lately.

It's very different from earlier this year. There was kind of a two week period or so after my grandpa died that I felt this incredible sense of loss. Loss of him, loss of my friends and my college lifestyle. But that's passed, finally, and now I feel something else.

Sometimes I feel like there's nothing else in my life besides work. I get up, go to one job, go to the other, come home and play video games. Repeat. I like both of my jobs very much, but it's just not enough to build an acceptable life on. I also never seem to get enough sleep since I work from 5pm-11pm on the week days and then sometimes work at 9am on weekends. Uck.

I want to exercise more. I want to write A LOT more, I think is one of the biggest problems. There just never seems to be enough time to do as much writing as I want.

So here is what I want to change. I want to join a writer's group, something I've been trying unsuccessfully to do since June. I want to work out more. I'm also going to try to have a social life.

I made a friend. This girl from work I've started hanging out with (just a couple of times), so I'm going to get on that.

The other thing I did was I let my parents rope me into the church musical. I don't know if I've ever told you guys this, but at our old church they would write a musical every year and write the music with a member of the church who was a professional musician (very folky, he had long hair for quite a while). This year's musical is a little embarrassing because it's kind about Exodus (Moses and the Israelite leaving Egypt) and . . . . it's sort of Star Trek themed.

No, seriously. The Israelite go on a space ship and travel around the stars looking for the promise land where they discover 1. A planet where everyone looks like a Dr. Seuss character 2.A planet where characters look like stereotypical Frenchman and sing a song about getting water from the rock (the female character's name is Madame D'eau) 3. A two headed intergalatic cow.

Goddamn my parents are nerds. This is what happens when Trekkies write plays for the church. But that is neither here nor there.

I know pretty much all of us are going through tough times right now in one way or another, but I want you all to know (and I'm sure you're sick of hearing this) how much I love you all. Also, I am so goddamn happy we have this blog you have no fucking idea. I don't know how I would get through this post-college uncertainty without it.

You're all fabulous and I love you. <3

So Viciously

fucked.

Guess who does not have enough money currently to hire anyone on.  The place I'm interning.
Guess who's internship is up this Thurdsay.  Mine.
Guess who is unemployed.  Again.

I was told today that I would have had to bring on a new yearly contract client in order for them to have enough to pay me.  Glad I know that now, and not 3 months ago when I could have actually done a damn thing about it.

I created and implemented a direct mail campaign for them and yesterday I began calling them to follow up with the prospects. (Which was something I suggested that I do to up the response rate.)  I wrote a shit-ton of copy for all sorts of shit.  I learned all about SEO and all that crap.  I did everything I could.

Too bad it was never up to me.

Internet Crap

You may find some of this funny.  I certainly did.

Let us begin with something I believe we all enjoyed:
If Pokemon were real, they'd look like...

Charmander

Venusaur

Blastoise

A random assortment

And everyone's favorite:

 Pikachu!!

Switching references now....

I need directions from my house in The Shire to Mordor.  Thank god, Google has some advice.

Switching again: what should I dress my newborn in?

Definitely.

What everyone should watch after they see the movie 2012: this video.

And to round off all of this internet crap: here's some unadulterated cuteness.