Ekphrastic: L'Enigme

I guess the artistic spirit of Paris just infected me. Don't get used to it.





Long ago, in ages yet to come,
smoke rises from the glittering city.
The domes and spires and skyscrapers of home
stand blackened shells, or do not stand at all,
fallen and crumbling to dust where they lie broken.

 An angel, young and beautiful as dawn
coursed through the sky. He clothed himself in its pall,
his strong white wings filled with ash and smoke.
The darkness burned his eyes, the silence deafened,
too late, too late to hush the roaring guns,
too late to quench the fires with silver light.

He has placed rings in the young mother's ears,
hidden away the worst of the awful devices.
He tried to fan away the smoke, tried
to turn the beautiful harvest back to gold, tried
to find one green, one living thing, and all
to no avail. The city sleeps around him.

He falls before the sphinx, her slow thighs couchant,
still and silent watcher with distant eyes.
Desperate in his anguish, he looks up,
reaching, imploring, screaming to know: "Why?"
She smiles her curious smile, and tenderly
lifts up his tear-ruined face with a velveted claw,
but her bright eyes are cold and alien,
and her answer the same as it always is.







P.S. You know how a really long time ago I was trying to write a sad poem and the impossibility of that basically killed my blog and my poetry forever? Well, this isn't anything like the poem I was trying to write, but it is way sadder. I guess I just needed some art museums and to be really excited in Paris.


P.P.S. If you're still wondering about my obsession (I don't know why you would be, but just in case), it caused me to hyperventilate from excitement like five times in the past week. Just so you know.

Autumn

Uh, hey guys. Long time, huh. Uh... guess I didn't do so fantastically on the "every week" thing, did I? I kind of started this thing and it was too evil for me to finish because it kind of caused me to realize I would never be a poet because I've actually never really been sad because my life has been basically perfect, and then this caused my creativity to crash and burn, and I kind of gave up on everything. So that's why you got nothing all summer. Yeah.

BUT... then the other day last week the second day of fall it was the falliest day you could imagine and it felt exactly like this poem that I kind of wrote on accident and then liked too much for no one else to ever read it. So here it is. 


The misty mountains are wreathed in smoke
the aerie of some fiery dragon awoke
by the smell of the earth and the feel of the air
and the streamers of moonlight caught in the trees
whose whispers at night carry soft to his lair.
He sighs, and his cold spicy breath will freeze
gilding the grass and the yellowing leaves.
He shakes his wide wings, preparing to fly,
and mysteries like leaves, scarlet and gold,
flake from his scales and fall through the sky.
So reach out and catch one, all stiff from the cold,
then look up through the bones of the bare-branched grove
and shiver to think of his shadow above.




BUT don't get too used to it because I just got a real job writing things which real people who aren't related to me might theoretically read but you will never see because they will be terrible because apparently I've lost the ability to write real sentences that have beginnings and ends and punctuation. But anyway I hope you liked the poem.

Summer Reading List

Whoops, sorry about the gap, finals got a bit ahead of me.
But now that they're over, here is what I plan to read over the summer:

The Wheel of Time series, by Robert Jordan

Uh, yep, that's it. Probably also some of the ones I missed from last summer, but that's it, because have you seen that series? It's HUGE. Also because I will have a job (for REAL this time) and also an obsession, and those are going to take up quite a bit of time. Speaking of obsession, status: last week I was thinking about it, absent-mindedly, and got called out for staring into space with a big stupid grin. Oops.

Qualities of a Totally Awesome Fictional Character

HEY GUESS WHAT IT'S LIST TIME AGAIN 'CAUSE LISTS ARE COOL

Hi. I am still working on that poem/thing, but it really is very difficult, so in the meantime here's a list of qualities that make a fictional character awesome (I guess they could work on real people too, but that seems unlikely). It was kind of fun to think about why I love something, instead of just that I do. Obviously not all my favorite characters have all the qualities, most just have two or three. I'm pretty sure there's only one character ever with all of them. And, of course, it is not the qualities in isolation that create awesome, but the combinations. The list is arranged approximately in order of most influential to my approval.

Has a saving-people thing

selfless

transcendent

dazzlingly brilliant and/or possessed of vast stores of knowledge

extremely moral

brave to the point of idiocy

bad-boy vibe (or -girl, I suppose)

     -thieves and assassins are extra attractive, for some reason, especially if they feel guilty about it

tragic

wise and mysterious, perhaps a bit fey

curious intellectual with a sense of wonder

surety of purpose

crazy and funny, ridiculous

doesn't necessarily break the fourth wall, but does tap on it occasionally

quirky/awkward/bumbling (and rocks it)

chivalrous

sweet/adorable/innocent

strong protective/nurturing qualities

loyal

a great leader

being archetypal and maybe a tiny bit symbolic helps too.

      … or a lot bit. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good symbol.




Obsession status: you could also call this list "reasons why I am obsessed."

The King-fisher

Sitting on his flowered bough he
suddenly falls - not like a thunderbolt but
like a stone
beneath the icy river.
Three ageless seconds and then
he erupts skyward, life
held up in his sharp beak.



Yay, bonus poem! You get this on the same day because it's just a little thing I wrote while my professor was talking about "The Waste Land" (so it's a bit modernist-influenced, don't you think? Has that Imagist thing going?) and because it's pretty much exactly the same as every poem I have ever written.



Oh, and obsession status: a few days ago I realized I was sometimes forgetting about it for hours at a time. So I looked at some pictures and such and I'm better now.

The Hunger Games

Hey, a movie review! Haven't done that it a long time. And for a movie that is recent! Haven't done that... ever.

       So, The Hunger Games. You probably know what it's all about - an adaptation of the bestselling book by Suzanne Collins, about a dystopian American future in which the totalitarian government demands youth from its districts to fight to the death to prevent rebellion. It's a bit more complex than that, of course, but that sentence was getting long as it is, and if you're reading this you have Google. This is about my opinion. So, first impression: I enjoyed it. It was well made, the acting, effects, music, etc. were are excellent, and it was a good and faithful adaptation. Let's talk about that last one first. Fans of the book will love this movie. It is true not only to the plot, but the characters and the themes as well. I'm sure it helped that Suzanne Collins was one of the screenwriters. However, it wasn't so dependent on the book that someone who had never read it would be lost.

       I went into the movie expecting it to be the same-old sort of action/YA type genre standard (which I enjoy but is nothing special). To my surprise, the filmmaking was much more interesting than that. My favorite part was how it really tried to put the viewer into the experience of the characters (usually the protagonist, Katniss). So, when she was confused, the camera angles would be confusing, or when there was an explosion right next to her head, all the sound for the next minute was muffled with a loud ringing. While not a complete innovation, it was much better than not even trying to be interesting.
       All the other elements worked together very well, too. The acting was good, even powerful sometimes. The tearjerker moment jerked a few tears, the scary moment made me jump, etc. Overall, very well done.

       So, should you see it? Sure. If you're a die-hard fan of the book, you've probably already seen and loved it. If you just liked the book, it's a good addition and might add to your appreciation. If you haven't read the book but like dystopian scifi, you will probably like it a lot. If you hate all of those things, however, you probably will hate The Hunger Games movie as well.

Things Improved by Sunlight

Hi there. I'm in the process of writing a long poem/post/thing, but it's taking way longer than I expected (like really really long) and, seeing as it's already about two weeks late (sorry!), here's a filler poem while I finish it. It's really more of a list, but remember, lists are cool.



Mallards with their jeweled heads, and
unexpected stained-glass butterflies
Arching branches shifting dappled
shadows on the ground
Frescoed clouds in soft colors
Mountains with the red light spilling down
And my head, hair hot like metal
dancing solemn as a swinging censer




Obsession status: It is now possible to think about other things. But still somewhat difficult.