Month: September 2014

Preening- an original poem

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"Depression- loneliness is a silent killer" by Kirsti Ottem Langeland
“Depression- loneliness is a silent killer” by Kirsti Ottem Langeland

I’m an expert at preening.

No, not hair-grooming and lip-smacking and nose-powdering
and all those kinds of skin-creaming schemings-
I’m an expert at forming a facade,
varnishing a veneer,
preening a pretense, if you will.

I’ve got a ripe, rosy smile. See? I’m smiling at you now.
Look at it, all pink and upturned and rigid.
It’s like a Barbie doll got a hold of Botox
and went to town on my lips.
Now I’m always smiling. Can’t help it.
But ain’t my beam a beaut?

I dress nice, I talk nice, I walk nice;
I am nice, with my carefully inserted giggles
and carefully crossed legs and carefully straightened posture-
you probably wouldn’t guess that I practice my laugh
in the mirror, ’cause it’s just so aerated and elated,
a chiming chuckle born and raised in my breast.

Persona preening isn’t just a personal pastime of mine.
I take it seriously with my morning coffee
(two sugars, hold the milk),
and tend to it with brittle fingers throughout the day.
I’m good at giving a guise,
real good, and though on some days
my lips wilt and eyes twitch and shoulders slump,
I can always wring it around with sugary sweet smirk
and assurance that no, I’m fine, thank you.
I’m perfectly ok.

 

A Home- an original poem

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"To High Region" by Kirk Quilaquil
“To High Region” by Kirk Quilaquil

I can walk this path one hundred nights,
a sewn-lipped traveller, bronzed and bare-
and still the air tastes of mountain heights,
reminding me of a long lost prayer.

On this road of familiar winds,
my feet lead forth, tempered to leather,
and though grazing gusts bite and chagrin,
my pace shan’t be stayed by the weather.

Ripe as winter, time-torn and restitched,
unchanged from rage and war and gall;
I pause upon the rock, bewitched-
a home, I think, is what it’s called.

200 Followers!

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happy fmab

What started off as a rather mediocre day turned quite the opposite when I peeked at my follower count this morning.

What? I passed two hundred followers and didn’t even realize it?

While two hundred followers might not seem like a substantial amount to most, it might as well be two million to me. Can I even count that high? One, two, skip a few…ah, screw it. Two hundred trumps all!

More than anything, this post is a thank you letter to anyone who’s ever liked a post, followed, or even visited my blog. You might not know it, but every like puts a smile on my face, and every follow makes my day. I note and appreciate every one of you. You’re all lovely and talented people.

I joined WordPress with the sole goal to write, and have no intention on stopping any time soon. So if you like poetry, short stories, random ramblings and writing tips, I hope you’ll stick around.

Happy writing! 🙂

thank you david tennant

Writing Playlists

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Today I thought I’d go ahead and post something new- a master compilation of writing mixes!

I have an account over at 8tracks where I make a lot of different mixes, and most of them serve as the cinematic background music to my writing process. The following are my five go-to playlists for an all-nighter. Whether it be reading, studying, writing, or working- this music just has a way of keeping me on track and immersed.

Hopefully, you’ll find them as helpful as I do.

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
― Anaïs Nin

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
– Ernest Hemingway

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ernest Hemingway

For those rainy days when all you want to do is write.
Try this mix with rainymood.com.

For those sleepless nights when all you want to do is write.

Happy writing! 🙂

 

The Three

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In obsidian nights
when the rain lashes cold,
the wanderer weeps through the land.

All hear his plight,
as the twilight grows old;
in tempest, how can he withstand?

First come the stars,
like eyes in the sky,
looking down on the traveler’s trail.
Sanguine and simple,
they smile in surprise,
and gentle they breathe on the gale.

Then wakens the moon,
veiled in velvet and light
and his face chases shadows away.
Mystic, his guidance
leads the stray through the blight,
’round rivals and out of the gray. 

In silence, the sun
overlooks her domain,
and sees the roamer wet and cold.
Sagely, she spreads
her arms ‘cross the plains,
to embrace and warm him in gold.

In amber morrow,
when the weather has waned,
the wanderer sings to the skies.

None hear his sorrow,
for the Three banished pain,
and in joy, he strikes his reprise.

This is a song written for my work-in-progress. I really enjoy song-writing (especially when it’s for fantasy fiction), and find that it’s helpful in world-building and culture-creating. I also like to actually write the music for my songs; most of the time I use medieval styles, intervals, and instruments to establish its melody and harmony.

It’s probably difficult to understand the overall message of this song when taken out of context (though you can probably interpret it in multiple ways). Basically, the realm that my w.i.p. takes place in worships three fictional gods who take the form of the sun, moon, and stars. This would be a hymn sung in the Temple or by traveling minstrels.

Shadows- an original poem

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"Shadows. Moonlit Night." by Isaac Levitan
“Shadows. Moonlit Night.” by Isaac Levitan

Shadows march across our cheeks,
stygian soldiers in an army of specters,
wielding their fists of smoke ‘cross our eyes
as we sit by the flames of their birth.
In that moment, we’re smaller than anything,
nothing but spots on the skin of the earth,
and the night is so heavy and the moon taunting-
as if the smallest shift in the air or the skies
would pull us to pieces, without any worth.
A small smile pricks your lips,
and you command my gaze away from the bleak-
away from the endless black above
that could swallow me whole in a breath’s streak.
“It’s not so bad”- your words milk the starlight,
and I think maybe it isn’t.
No, I know, we’ll be alright.

Tale- an original poem

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"Speaking Through Paint" by Meghan Arts Scozarri
“Speaking Through Paint” by Meghan Arts Scozarri

Her words shimmered alongside the fire,
rippling with life and light,
and in that moment, I wanted nothing more
than to sit there and allow her sweet words
to nourish me ’til the end of my days.
My eyes were weighed down by the night,
but her voice, like a star rising
from the sea,
possessed my ears and quenched my lethargy-
flooding my mind with her melody.
She speaks softly, yet louder than a siren.
She speaks cooly, yet warmer than a flame.
How her lips mold to stories
is magnificent to me-
and I hope that this tale she weaves
never ends.

Abandoned- an original poem

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The rain drowned their songs
and filled their boots with water,
cold as a dead man’s bath.
Braced on horseback they rounded
a hill webbed in weeds,
and suddenly the land unfolded before them-
a tower, standing solid and stout,
like an iron coffin;
a village, sunken in mud,
with long abandoned fields rolling across
the flattened land,
like brown patchwork on a falling apart quilt.
And beyond the empty pastures,
past the cold walls that threatened to scrape the sky-
was blackened land,
torn up by spiny weeds and husks of trees.
The sky was neither cloudy nor clear;
but a shimmering mist swelled the rain.
Some remembered this land,
and their breath hitched in their throats
as they pulled back the reins.
A gust of wind,
the flapping of cloaks,
raindrops clinging to eyelashes-
this was not the land they once knew.
This land was dying,
its fields spotted in flood water
and farms bare of cattle and mountain sheep,
with thatched roofs caving in,
and bone trees snaring the land-
they could almost see the ghosts
that, pale as fish,
dragged their feet across the earth,
acting through their endless day.
“How could this happen?”
they asked.
There was no answer, of course.
They dug their heels into their steeds,
and then reared onward,
as the wind bit their necks.

I extracted this piece from my current work in progress, and tweaked it into a poem. It might seem kind of lazy, but I’ve been overwhelmingly busy lately, and I did have some fun adapting it.

Everything Ends When It Rains- an original poem

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"knight in the rain" by Vladimir Buchyk
“knight in the rain” by Vladimir Buchyk

Everything ends when it rains.

This I know.

We can paint a field brilliant red,
streaked in tar and bile and bits,
but when the sky tears itself to shreds
and releases its fury in torrents and fits-
the evidence is drained.

When it rains.

We can ripen our quarrels for years on end
with hot irons and sharpening stones,
but it’ll all mean nothing when the floods descend
to quench our fury with thunderous moans-
there’s nothing more to show.

This I know.

For everything ends when it rains.

In Her Eyes- and original poem

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"Eyes of Ice" by Malinda Prud'homme
“Eyes of Ice” by Malinda Prud’homme

There’s a distance in her eyes,
like a path cutting through the snow,
weighed by wonder, cold as I blunder,
through the white, unsure where to go.

I could walk into her eyes,
trekking footprints through her soul,
jumping, reaching, shouting, screeching,
my voice muffled in this hole.

I get lost inside her eyes,
wandering past her doubts and fears,
sifting memories, dark reveries,
’til I find what wrings her tears.