Tangible

Sometimes I tap my foot to reassure myself I'm still here.
For, my reality does not exist here; it exists within.

Procrastination....I'm good at it.

I love thunderstorms.

The lightning, the thunder, the immense amount of rain.....aah, all of it is so wonderful. Thunderstorms are even BETTER when they are at night. I'm not sure why. They just are.

Truthfully, I should be writing a 5 page paper (double-spaced) on Mary Shelley's "The Last Man" and Dickens' "Bleak House" right now...obviously, that's not happening. I love writing papers....but I hate starting a paper; the introduction is the toughest part of the paper for me, it marks the beginning of my stream of creativity (too bad the stream usually starts out as a small trickle). 

So here I sit. Eating Quaker Oatmeal Squares (mmmm) and listening to the thunder. 

Time to turn on the jazz music and get the stream flowin'.

Blue.

I am at peace, here in this ocean-blue embrace
A medley of colors swirling all around me
Colors of happiness, sadness, fear, and love
But none quite compare to blue, to you
A walk in the park, I wear my tinted glasses
Colors changing when my eyes pass over them
Black is no longer fearful, nor white so empty
Red, now purple, is passion with a twist, of you
Yellow, what we now call green, is true happiness
The gray skies which hung low over my head
Are now streaked with color, vibrant color
This is peace, true blue, true you

---------------------

On a side note, school is consuming my life right now.

My bookcase is getting full.

We just finished reading Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" in my Brit Lit class.
I really enjoyed reading it. The ending was quite dramatic but very appropriate. I recommend zee book.

We are now starting our last book of the semester: H.G. Wells' "Time Machine". I'm excited to read it....my professor picks wonderful books for us to read. I have loved every one of them.




Oh my, I love the smell of books.........and the smell of books AND coffee (together). I usually always smell the book I am reading....am I the only one who does that?

I want to write a book, someday.

A bit of poetry.

I love Rainer Maria Rilke.

The Second Elegy

Any angel is frightening.
Yet, because I know of you,
I invoke you in spite of myself,
you lethal birds of soul.

Were the archangel, the dangerous one
beyond the stars, to move down now
one step closer to us, we would die
from the fear in our own hearts.

Who are you?

Fated to be happy from the beginning of time,
creation's spoiled immortal darlings,
summits of the cosmos shining at dawn,
pollen from heavenly blossoms, limbs of light,
hallways, stairs, thrones carved from existence,
shields of ecstasy, shrines for delight -
and suddenly, each one, mirror:
where our own evanescent beauty
is gathered into an enduring countenance.

But we, when we feel, evaporate.
We breathe ourselves out and gone.
Like the glow of an ember,
the fragrance we give off grows weaker.
One could well say to us,
"You have entered my blood,
this room, this springtime is full of you..."
What use is that when he cannot hold us
and we disappear into him and around him?

And those who are beautiful -
who can keep them as they are?
Unceasingly in their faces
the life in them arises and goes forth.
Like dew from morning grass,
like steam from a plate of food,
what is ours goes out from us.

Where does a smile go, or the upward glance,
the sudden warm movement of the heart?
Yet that is what we are. Does the universe
we dissolve into
taste of us a little?
Do the angels radiate only their own
outflowing essence,
or is there sometimes, by some oversight,
a bit of ours in it as well?
Are we mixed into their features,
even if only vaguely
as the openness in the faces
of pregnant women?
The angels themselves
don't notice. How could they?

Lovers, if they understood this,
could say wonderful things to each other
in the night. But it seems
our own impermanence is concealed from us.
The trees stand firm, the houses we live in
are still there. We alone
flow past it all, an exchange of air.

Everything conspires to silence us,
partly with shame,
partly with unspeakable hope.

Lovers, you who are for a while
sufficient to each other,
help me understand who we are.
You hold each other. Have you proof?
See, my hands hold each other too.
I put my used-up face in them.
It helps me feel known.
Just from that, can we believe we endure?
You, however, who increase
through each other's delight,
you who ripen in each other's hands
like grapes in a vintage year:
I'm asking you
who we are.

You touch one another so reverently;
as though your caresses
could keep each place they cover
from disappearing. As though, underneath, you could sense
that which will always exist.
So, as you embrace, you promise each other eternity.

And yet, when that first look
struck terror in you,
and you stood at the window, longing,
and you walked together, just once,
through the garden: Lovers,
are you still who you were then?
When you lift the other to your mouth
to drink each other - drink to drink:
ah, how strangely the drinker fades from the act.

Haven't you been moved, in those early Greek carvings,
by the care you see in human gesture?
Weren't love and loss so gently laid upon the shoulders
that people seemed made of different stuff
than in our day?

Think of the hands, how they touch without pressure,
although there is strength in the torso.
These figures seem to know,
"We have come this far.
This is given to us, to touch
each other this way.
The gods may lean on us more strongly,
but that is their nature."

We may yearn to come to rest
in some small piece of pure humanity,
a strip of orchard between river and rock.
But our own heart is too vast to be contained there.
We can no longer seek it in a place
or even in the image of a god or an angel.

(the inability to create an interesting title)

Remember that game Frogger?
Ya know, you are a little frog who has to hop across the highway and then across some logs in a river to get to the colorful bugs....and then, later on, you hop around on clouds or on ice.....
I wasted some valuable time on that game.
Damn Kermit.

Which reminds me...

I love the muppets. Beaker is definitely the coolest of them all (although I cannot choose my favorite book, I can choose my favorite muppet). I used to have this Beaker pencil topper.....I wonder where that went....






Rhyme or reason? Neither rhyme nor reason? Rhyme AND reason?!
I've had too much coffee today.

The Sky Clears

And
with the night
comes moonlight

Promise of
a new day.

Artistic endeavors.

In response to Pixie's latest post:

“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.” - Charles Dickens

(In the art world) This, to me, is what separates those who sit, stiffly, inside of the box and those who have been daring enough to step outside of it.

The problem with thinking too much.

I always seem to come up with the greatest ideas for poems or for books while I am driving in the car. Now, this would not be an issue if I could simultaneously write and drive...but I am not that talented (or stupid).
So I usually end up losing the great idea by the time I pull into the driveway. This is due to the fact that I move through ideas quickly, without realizing it.
And that frustrates me greatly because, not only do I lose the idea, I can rarely retrieve the great idea. I usually just retrieve the semi-good idea or I retrieve some random idea about how to make my peanut butter and honey sandwich taste even better.

Mmm, peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Bet you didn't think peanut butter and honey would be FANTASTIC together. Well, they are quite a pair.

Just some nonsense.

So I finished Charles Dickens' "Bleak House".
It is a wonderful book. A long, foggy, intertwining, poetically written, WONDERFUL book.
In other words...it's a good book. Haha.

My professor proudly declared that "Dickens...is....GOD!!" I laughed hysterically.

Now I am reading (for my Brit Lit class) "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde".
For my Brit Lit paper I am reading Mary Shelley's "The Last Man".
AND, for my own enjoyment, I am reading Mr. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye". (I have been wanting to read this book for so long)
So...many....books...oh my.


Have you ever thought about how difficult it is to pick a favorite book? I cannot pick just one. It's absolutely impossible. I can pick a favorite author (Ernest Hemingway) but I cannot pick a favorite book. Oh well, every book that I love has served a different purpose in my life and has taught me a different lesson.