I addressed the prologue elsewhere, so we’ll start with Chapter One:
“It was felling…”
Stop.
When ripped from mommy-context’s grasp, this creates double entendre, piggybacking on what came before. We could say, “A man waiting to die was felling.” Lumberjacks fell trees, but a felling is the amount of wood they fell in a given season. If double entendre, then he used “fell” verbally – to chop down. “The broken tree” is one meaning of the Ademic Maedre, Kvothe’s other name.
Continue reading
Sorry I neglected Monday, gang. I was shooting a short film. Here’s some quick crits for you:
Two years ago, I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret and gave props to Selznick. The guy invented a new medium – part silent film, part graphic novel, part picture book. Anyone who invents a new medium for telling a story gets the A from this teacher.
Beyond this, Selzinick actually told a good story well. I had hoped not only for a movie version of Selznick’s film tribute (thank you Scorsese) but also for ANOTHER BOOK! Brian brought us Wonderstruck – a book about a deaf boy. Three quickies: (1) Selznick pays extravagant tribute to the awkwardness of Deaf culture, (2) he tells the story differently than Hugo, but just as well, (3) he changes up picture and text framing, reinventing his own new medium. Go. Get. It. Continue reading
The last time Malcolm Gladwell wrote in the New Yorker, it was the same issue as the Facebook sonnet.
That seemed hyperbolic to me, so I pulled out every issue between this week’s and that. I can’t find Gladwell’s name in any T.O.C. from any issue between the May 16th and November14th.
Curious…
“The Tweaker” is classic Gladwell. Take a sociological hypothesis and slap an attractive label-story on top. VIOLA! An engaging read about a engaging genius named:
Gladwell takes the jerk personality of Jobs and applies it to the nature of an editor – someone who takes preexisting creativity and hammers it bloody, only to reveal folded steel afterward. That May article shows up in “The Tweaker”, even to the point of borrowing.
So of course I pulled it out.
“Creation Myth” in the “America just erased bin Ladin from the planet” issue shows how the mouse, for instance, was invented by Douglas Engelbart. Douglas didn’t care about much – only the freedom of thought unleashed onto technology. He invented a device that controlled a cursor on a screen through a movable box, hoping to translate animal movement into technological movement. He called it a “mouse.”
I retold this ancient story to a college class. Some might find this inconsistent with Wednesday’s post. Two thoughts (1) this isn’t a novel and (2) it’s a retelling of someone else’s story with some history thrown in.
Enjoy.
Last week, The Boy Wonder and that other schmuck in the black suit talked on voiceover, visual show-don’t-tell and the power of good dialog. This week, we dig into the meat: SYMBOLISM!
LS: Something we were talking about, symbolism in general, there’s a picture that was posted of Rothfuss’ Facebook page. This guy said, “I thought of you.” It had concentric circles. On one side it said, “What the author meant.” And over here it said, “What the English teacher though the author meant.”
DW: [laughs.] Oh right.
LS: And there’s this iddy-bitty dialog like: The door, as he walked through the room was blue. “Well the blue represents his inner angst and…” And the author’s like, “No the door was effing blue.”
DW: [laughs.] No. I chose blue because I was…
LS: Because I like the color blue.
DW: Right. I remember going to my grandmother’s house and the door was blue and that always gave me a sense of calm or…
LS: [laughs.]
DW: The principle’s office door was blue and I was in trouble.
LS: So how much of symbolism is intended?
DW: Well…
LS: Can we ever know, or is that… ?
DW: Or is there a shared text with all humanity that even says, “it doesn’t matter whether it’s intentional or not. What’s coming out of you is the shared text that we’re all drawing from. You pulled from it as you created it. Consciously. Unconsciously. Subconsciously. I’m pulling from it as the reader…”
LS: As I interpret it.
DW: As I interpret it. “Well that wasn’t what I…” Well no, but, blue door being one thing… We wrestle with that when it comes to Christ-figures.
LS: That’s kinda what I’m getting at.
DW: The sacrificial hero. Well is that a…
LS: Is it this? [Pulls The Hero with a Thousand Faces off the shelf and sets it on the table.]
DW: Yeah. Is it Campbell? Is it Jesus? Well and some suggest well… is there something created within us as part of Imago Dei or whatever that recognizes the value of sacrifice as a pretext to understanding the Gospel? Yeah. I think so. I do.
LS: The need for a mediator.
DW: Right! Need for a mediator or need for… that self-atonement is never enough.
LS: Like on Seven Pounds.
DW: RIGHT!
LS: [laughs uncontrollably.]
DW: That’s EXACTLY the movie I’m thinking. That’s why I HATE that movie cause it’s flying in the face of all of that. “Oh. Y’can jist kill yerself and give yer body parts away. Make sure you kill yerself with a…” What was it?
LS: A Portuguese man-of-war.
DW: Yeah. A jellyfish. That movie deserved to be spoiled.
LS: [laughing.] As we’re talking—
DW: Yes. That movie deserves spoilers.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: You should thank me.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: For saving you the time and trouble and perhaps money to see this movie. I’m glad I didn’t spend any money on that movie. Somebody brought it over to my house, “Hey! We’re gonna something else.”
“Ugh. Uhkay.”
So I would say, you know I argued about Wall-E being an image of Christ.
LS: Right.
DW: I don’t know if that was intentional of Pixar or not. In fact, I think they were sort of thinking of the Adam and Eve mindset here. In the midst of chaos here is the reunion, but—
LS: If you deal with first Adam…
DW: Right. If you deal with first Adam, you have to deal with second Adam. That’s what. He. Becomes! Eve turns into a mary at some point, you know, the feminine counter-part to whatever Wall-E is doing at that moment. Again, it’s Andrew Stanton. Is he deliberately portraying a…? No. I don’t think so. I think he’s… But I think that’s the text that comes from.
How do you get there? Well, what makes us human. People keep coming back to love. Love. Love. Love.
It’s the Beatles song All You Need is… Love.
LS: [smiles.]
DW: So how do you demonstrate that? Well you demonstrate that through the image of an Adam. That’s where they’re pulling from and that’s where I’m pulling from to interpret that.
LS: So that’s an okay thing to see that?
DW: I think so. You know we say “author’s intended meaning.” Well okay. How much do you trust the author? Is it … … … I admit. It could lead to eisegesis, but I don’t know that eisegesis is always a terrible thing. I mean is it?
LS: Well we certainly can’t jettison our opinions when we’re approaching something.
DW: And everybody does. Everybody brings an opinion, brings something to the party with you. Not that that has to define it anymore than the author’s. I don’t reject author’s intention.
LS: Just that the two dance?
DW: Yeah. Don’t limit it to author’s intention.
LS: Yeah.
DW: Yeah. Exactly. You mean the dance between the two?
LS: Yeah. Reader’s response and author’s intention. It’s-
DW: Yeah. You have to… you have to understand the shared subtext (conscious, unconscious) from which people are drawing this language.
LS: Well is there a point at which it reaches a threshold that like… I know a lot of guys, Christians especially, who get ticked off at other Christians for doing things like Finding God in the Matrix or Finding God in Lord of the Rings or…
DW: Right.
LS: Is there a point at which that reaches a groaning breaking point?
DW: Mmmmmm.
LS: And how do we discern when it’s okay to talk about that or when that’s not okay and we just let art be art? And when does that even… we’re doing that with something that wasn’t actually art, it was just a piece of advertisement and then we become a piece of advertisement?
DW: …and we use advertisement in sermon illustrations.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: I’ve seen people that do that quite a bit. It’s a good question. Well, Looking for God in the Matrix… Well… as long as right next to it you’re Looking for Buddha in the Matrix or…
LS: Right. [laughs.]
DW: Looking for Allah in the Matrix I’m sure there’s a Muslim scholar out there that thinks the Matrix is a wonderful metaphor for… you know…
LS: With the dualism?
DW: Yeah. Yeah. I dunno… I wouldn’t be surprised. One of the appeals of The Matrix is that it’s so fluid, worldview-wise. Zustiak would say it make a perfect postmodern myth because it’s drawing from everywhere. It’s got these multi-sensory things to it.
LS: ‘Till Lost came on.
DW: Yeah. I don’t know. Is it The Gospel According to the Simpsons or The Gospel According the to Sopranos or –
LS: [chortles.]
DW: churning out the [snaps twice.]
LS: According to Dexter
DW: I wonder if some of that is self-justification of watching some of that.
LS: Right.
DW: I think what you have to say is it’s not… you’re not pulling from it. Maybe it’s better The Gospel interacting with… I think maybe that’s—
LS: Where are the cross-sections?
DW: Right. Exactly. So I’m not saying even The Gospel According to Harry Potter, I’m saying, “Here’s where the gospel intersects with Harry Potter and where they’re sharing—“
LS: Similar things.
DW: Maybe it nods to, or maybe it points to, or maybe it points to something within us, again, through Imago Dei that is yearning for this. I’m not expecting in watching this to have the Gospel told back to me.
LS: As an evangelistic tool.
DW: As an evangelistic tool. EXACTLY. Which is… you know… God forbid. But for me, as a Christian who has the Gospel, watching these things, interacting with culture, interacting with the poets. Here’s Paul listening to the poets saying, “We are his offspring.” Paul’s like, “Yeah! That’s not bad.”
LS: Virgil, yeah.
DW: Yeah, and I can now interact with that with the Gospel, use it in my preaching or not use it in my preaching. That’s what I’m trying to do. It’s not Christianity from culture or Learning About God through the Matrix. Gosh, I hope not. Even Learning About God through Harry Potter…
LS: Yeah, that’s not—
DW: “Well Jesus doesn’t act like Dumbledore here.” Well, he’s not Jesus. He’s Dumbledore.
LS: Yeah.
DW: Okay? Or Gandalf or…
LS: Well Gandalf gets testy… often.
DW: When we push that… whether it’s Superman or Neo or Wall-E or Harry Potter or whoever, when we push that to the breaking point, then we allow things to be change. What I’m wanting to know is how does the Gospel wrestle with Dexter? How does the Gospel wrestle with Lost? How does the Gospel wrestle with Mad Men?
LS: Or The Wire and A Song of Ice and Fire. Very pessimistic.
DW: The Wire, yeah.
LS: Or McCarthy! Like The Road. How do we…
DW: Yeah, you have dueling eschatologies there, so…
LS: Right.
DW: This sort of glimmer of hope: we’re carrying “the fire.” What is that? Is it enough just to survive? At some point, no. The Gospel tells us more than that.
LS: Beyond Prometheus, stealing the secret fire.
DW: Yeah.
LS: That’s something I’ve always found anemic in some of these Christian ratings sites. They’re always… well part of it’s political. Part of it’s saying, “Well the Day After Tomorrow is just liberal propaganda.”
DW: Well, it’s also a bad movie.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: [laughs hard.]
LS: Yes. But what do we cut away and what do we keep? When do we say, “Okay. You used that as a method to tell the story and use honesty about that character that exists in this reality?” And what do we say, “I’m just gonna leave all of that there and take only this principle or this image?”
DW: And that’s coming back to when you intersect the gospel or whatever… is the blowback from too much of culture and not enough Gospel leads to self-justification.
LS: “It’s okay ‘cause I…”
DW: “Well… that twenty minute sex scene needed to be in that movie because of such and such and I’m—“
LS: [laughs.]
DW: No. There are movies that may be very interesting with the relationship of Gospel next to whatever. But for the life of me, I just can’t for my own conscience, for my own capabilities, I just cannot see it.
LS: That takes me to a place I don’t want to go.
DW: Right. It’s just too dark. One of those would be a movie I’m never going to see is Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, which is basically a context without any sort of God figure and people are doing despicable things to each other. And I don’t know if he’s depicting… There’s a couple who lost a child and they’re just abusing each other because that’s the only way they can express this. The value of seeing that and trying to interact with that culture, is that greater than what effect that movie will have on me in a negative sense?
LS: So that’s the standard.
DW: For me. You can’t, like Donald Wildmon, get there by counting profanity.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: Well…
LS: Molly Weasley.
DW: It makes it more real, certainly. And we don’t live in fantasy land. I read a review about Goodwill Hunting where someone said, “Defend this.” Well, this is South Boston. We don’t talk golly-gee-willikers, oh shoot. That’s just not the way people talk there. If the point of a film is to, within this context, depict this kind of fantastical story – the genius and his trials. The genius coming out of the rubble of South Boston without his baggage. In order to tell that story, we have to tell it in this context and he has to be this kind of character and the context has to be this kind of context and in order to do that we have to use this kind of language, because that’s where they are. If that’s the story I’m going to tell, then that’s what I gotta do.
LS: ‘Cause it’s honest.
DW: It’s honest, yeah. And it’s not glossed over. It’s not white-washed. It doesn’t glorify that. When we start glorifying that, like some films obviously do.
LS: Like make it like… fun. Then there’s the threshold beyond that, like Tarrentino who subverts it.
DW: I guess so.
LS: Like with Kill Bill, pushing the violence within multiple genres within one film to such an extent to say that this is… it does this mamma bear/baby bear thing where… at the end it says, “The mother bear has her kids returned and everything’s right in the wood,” or whatever.
DW: I dunno. I appreciate Tarrentino without really getting him. I think I understood Inglorious Bastards. I think what he wanted to say was, “One of the reasons we won the war is that our film was better than their film.” Our propaganda was better than their propaganda. Our propaganda to go in and save the Jews was better than their propaganda of Defend the White Race Homeland. Because we had Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne and everybody else – Gary Cooper – because we had these depictions of “We’re gonna get in there and win this thing”
LS: Of inglorious bastards.
DW: Inglorious bastards, yeah, we had that… that was better motivation. It the end, that’s the film that wins. So… in that context you can play around with, you know, them killing Hitler and the style of it.
LS: Do you think he was talking of his own career? It almost seemed like he was saying something about the violence in the film itself.
DW: I dunno. That’s a good question. Certainly it seemed self-justifying.
LS: In comparing that to Germany’s films.
DW: Oh. Yeah maybe.
LS: Some people think it’s him showing his cards a little bit and saying, “This is what I’ve been doing with my career. I’ve been saying here’s what violence does in film and here’s where it leads us.”
DW: Hmmm. I don’t know about that.
LS: Like, at the risk of using a philosophical cliché, in a Wittgensteinian way. Of subverting language with language, of pushing it to its extreme.
DW: Certainly he does that. Kill Bill does that.
LS: Pulp Fiction.
DW: The anime sequences and the…
LS: Cutting off heads and all that.
DW: Blood everywhere. I dunno…
(Ask the Experts continued next week with part 5!)
Last time, the film hero Doug Welch (and your Daily Bugle rep here) talked through show-don’t-tell, the evil of voice-over and the benefit of imagery when used in voice over’s stead. They also read some comics aloud…
LS: That might be a really terrific exercise to sift through [Shawshank] and say what does that show us, not tell us but show us, about his character, watching them and then “how do you deal with this now?”
DW: But having it given to you. In Shawshank’s defense, it gives it to us brilliantly, which is the power of the poetry of those line, different than say the beginning of No Country for Old Men which is less expositional and more poetic. There’s no exposition in those lines, even though there’s a little story. It’s just setting tone. It’s there with the music and they’re there with the stark pictures of the Texas landscape.
LS: Well even the eschatology at the very end.
DW: Sure. Oh yeah, absolutely. But that’s not voice-over.
LS: It’s showing.
DW: That’s dialog. That’s somebody there, the old man at the table. Or no. He’s talking to his wife about the dream, right?
LS: Mmmm.
DW: Yeah, so…
LS: Well, I mean, we tell preaching students, for instance, not to do the first-person without thinking through it. This class you’re gonna teach is Christ and Film.
DW: [laughs.] Yeah, one day.
LS: When it comes in the future.
DW: Few years.
LS: So is that like Finding God in the Matrix [smirks] or what are we talking about?
DW: Yeah, no. I hope not.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: In the beginning, yes. In the beginning you have to, when you talk about film, it’s a classic story, at least in the beginning. Here’s a class in plot. Here’s a class in story. Here’s a class in the…
LS: [Points to the shelf behind him holding The Hero with a Thousand Faces by John Campbell, The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker & Story by Robert McKee.]
DW: Yeah, the arcs that these stories take, and do we see hints of creation-fall-redemption-restoration… I was reading, looking at a book recently which I have not yet read, but I’ve flipped through enough to see, umm… From the Garden to the City and he adds, you know I’ve heard the “Creation-Fall-Redemption” arc quite a bit. But he adds “restoration” to create a fourth part to the move in the story, which I think makes a lot more sense.
LS: Bell’s preached on that before.
DW: Right. Yeah. Umm… You have one thing about the act of redemption, you know, the turning point. But then you have the denouement
which is the turning point, the restoration of all things.
LS: The eighth-day stuff?
DW: The eighth-day stuff, yeah, just New Jerusalem… and they lived happily ever after. At a basic level, that’s what at least the first part of that class would be about. Okay, here are the stories and so as we take a look at these characters, how do we see types of Christ? And these characters: what are they doing? What choices are they making? But after awhile, you have to be more mindful of the grammar of the film and how they’re depicting what they’re depicting, the often-used quote from Roger Ebert, “Movies aren’t about what movies are about. They’re about how they’re about what they’re about.” So what techniques are being used? What are the underlying…
LS: Subtext.
DW: Subtext. Right. Whether camera angle. Whether… For instance, in Bronson, you have basically a one-man-show with all these character moving in and out of the lives of these prison wardens and guards and other people… relatives and such. Pretty much every shot, he’s center-frame. He’s not off to the side and there’s other action over here. [Makes palms parallel facing each other, like a frame, in front of his face.] He’s here. They never show depiction that way.
LS: Mmhmm.
DW: He is always in (or most often in) the center of the frame. Your eye cannot leave him. There’s one scene where he’s in a mental hospital ‘cause he’s… you know is he insane? Well… yeah… but…
LS: But how insane?
DW: But how insane. Later in the movie, in order to get back to prison (‘cause he can’t exist outside of it) he almost kills somebody just to get back into prison.
LS: Wow.
DW: Yeah. They’re having kind of this dance-party. And there’s people jumping around and they’re playing these insane people, obviously, so it’s a lot of chaos. And he’s just standing there very calmly in the center of the frame, and he’s just there. Very calmly looking around and watching. He’s just in the center of the frame with all this chaos around him. You know? Where is the action in that frame? In that shot?
DW: Well, we’d say, [points to center of frame]“Well that’s where the action is. Right there in the middle.” The filmmaker’s trying to show that. In that shot, is he making an editorial comment on whether he thinks Bronson’s insane? Yeah. I think so. In the midst of that, he’s sane. He’s very much sane. He’s very much in control, but his choices are just…
LS: Absurd.
DW: Yeah, absurd, and what we’d call psycho… socio…
LS: Sociopathic?
DW: Yeah. Or a psychopath. I dunno he’s just…
LS: Devoid of emotion.
DW: Yeah, devoid of emotion and… I dunno… understanding consequences of actions and such other than presently wrong. So hopefully it’s understanding that aspect, you know? What does the score of a film provide?
LS: If anything.
DW: If anything at all.
LS: French films. Cast Away.
DW: Right.
LS: Well, not all French films.
DW: What does the editing of a film provide in terms of heightening the tension, heightening the conflict?
LS: Hammeke said, and it’s probably not him originally, but he said that every single time they give an actor an Oscar, they should give the editor an Oscar.
DW: Oh absolutely. Well, just because they…?
LS: Because they chose that scene!
DW: Right. ‘Cause they chose that take. They chose takes six rather than… You know film editing, people’ve often said film is a directors medium, director plus editor whereas stage is really, truly, the actors medium. TV is a producer’s medium. With the technology anymore, sure do twenty takes. What’s the, you know? Digital makes that even easier. You can do long takes and you can do…
LS: Like the Facebook intro.
DW: Right, you do the coverage, and then you do your two-shot, then you do your closeups, then maybe you do a different thing…
LS: The back-and-forth.
DW: The back-and-forth, and that’s how things typically go. Establishing shot: where are we? Two-people-shot: here’s two people in relative proximity to each other.
DW: As the conversation goes: shot, counter-shot, shot, counter-shot. They’re pulling those not from one specific take, but from the first question from take three and the second answer from take seven.
LS: Right.
DW: And that’s just the nature of film, you know. As you create an acting performance, yeah it’s this person, but Derek’s right. It’s cobbled together by the editor from all the various options that he or she has before them. That’s pretty crazy. That’s one reason it takes so long. I can’t imagine in the olden days when they’re—
LS: Oooh. Cutting.
DW: Cutting and—
LS: Splicing. Oh good grief.
DW: splice.
LS: Like Gone with the Wind, especially for something four hours long like that.
DW: Sure. Yeah.
LS: Although, you can tell in some of those, if it’s old enough, you can tell if there’s a cut because a person will move just a bit or you see the cigarette burn. And they’ll–
DW: Oh, right.
LS: –they’ll jut or the silverware will be five foot to the left. It’s just like, “Wait a minute… that wasn’t…”
DW: Where did that go?
LS: There’s like a moviemistakes.com, where Spiderman goes out the window twice and breaks it both times.
DW: You were smoking the cigarette when you asked the question…
LS: [laughs.]
DW: –and when the camera came back to you, there was a banana in your hand.
(continued in next week’s Ask the Experts)
Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest having to do with prose. I realized January 19ththat I will turn twenty-four in three months, and since I started writing some poems before it’s too late: forty-six poems at twenty-three. I’ll post each Friday until the last week of March, then I’ll post one a day until my birthday on April 30th. Here’s number 18, a pantoum:
Each leg broke sound’s barrier in stride
The Coach who outran superman
Momentum loosened, swiftness strayed
His foothold gripped like sipe or moon
The Coach who outran superman
Despised horseflies, dragonflies
His foothold gripped like sipe or moon
But bug guts in face, drugged on fleas
Despised horseflies, dragonflies
For glory, for flight, for speed
But bug guts in face, drugged on fleas
Goaded his legs: don’t work space, work spade
For glory, for flight, for speed
He dug his feet down in the grave
Goaded his legs: don’t work space, work spade
Buried with gut-laden grin, grim’s grove
Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest having to do with prose. I realized January 19ththat I will turn twenty-four in three months, and since I started writing some poems before it’s too late: forty-six poems at twenty-three. I’ll post each Friday until the last week of March, then I’ll post one a day until my birthday on April 30th. Here’s number 19, a villanelle:
Oh grant the man a seer’s sight
In shades of blue from what will be
Arouse! Arouse! Expose the night.
Begone pale dread – a teacher’s fright
Reveal each student choosing free
Oh grant the man a seer’s sight
Within white oak, her branching height
Twelve paths diverge to disagree
Arouse! Arouse! Expose the night…
Both Tragic, Comic, wane delight
Both sweet and sour potpourri
Foe? Granted. (This man’s seer’s sight).
He cannot change them, cannot fight
Still watches horror, lets them be
Aroused, aroused exposing night
Though seeing, never felt he mighty
Hearing choices: pain & piety
Endows, endows imposing night
Don’t grant the man the seer’s sight!
Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest having to do with prose. I realized January 19ththat I will turn twenty-four in three months, and since I started writing some poems before it’s too late: forty-six poems at twenty-three. I’ll post each Friday until the last week of March, then I’ll post one a day until my birthday on April 30th. Here’s number 20:
They could not touch her, scaled as she was
She’s invincible, ironclad, armored , reinforced
Scaling wales, scaly skin, tatar scales on teeth to scale
They could not touch her
Over time left stranded, abandoned
No hug, touch, tickle, brush by those who
Held her close, once, before the scales sprouted; the man who
Took a fillet knife to her, scaling her, helping her see once more:
They could not touch her.
Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest having to do with prose. I realized January 19ththat I will turn twenty-four in three months, and since I started writing some poems before it’s too late: forty-six poems at twenty-three. I’ll post each Friday until the last week of March, then I’ll post one a day until my birthday on April 30th. Here’s number 23:
The Man Who Could Fly had abandoned his hope
When the sun rose in colors of slate
He ached for the world he aspired to save
As black stratus rolled in on a slope
Not for our wretched deflated events,
Nor for our own pessimists
But for the rest of his body’s support
Did he wish for another new force.
He had giant wings that glided fair well,
His back muscles flapping both strong
But none of the rest of his figure supported
The sound of that unhappy song
When he hoisted up, he flew overhead
Above stratus, puffed cumulous clouds
His breathing adjusted to his dizzy head
But still did he feel unindowed
The problem came forth while descending to land
With grass, hills, treetips rushing forth
He hadn’t a way to slow down or to berth
He hit, then heard grinding like sand
His femur collapsed under gravity’s force
His tibula turned into twigs
His ribcage collapsed when his torso attended
His lower half, melting like snow.
And in his degenerate landing-gear mode
A crowd gathered round just to sneer:
“We asked you to save us, to fly us all home!”
He cried over burst landing gear.
Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest having to do with non-poetic words. I realized January 19ththat I will turn twenty-four in three months, and since I started writing some poems before it’s too late: forty-six poems at twenty-three. I’ll post each Friday until the last week of March, then I’ll post one a day until my birthday on April 30th. Here’s number 35 (thanks to David Fish for the name):
Tefnut chipped hunks of ice
From her hardened heart
Threw them down
Taki-Tsu-Hiko chased them
With tears over her island
Tears for the waves
Waruna sent. She felt bad for Taki,
Offered her own tears
As penance.
Ganymede grabbed icicles
Halfway down from heaven
Shredded them with a golden grater
Into snow.
Mawa & Hiro tried to roll in sable
Stratus clouds putting on a
Front, but
Tlaloc & Chac liked gilded sunshine enough to
Patch the sky with light.
Gray resulted. Continue reading
