6 posts tagged “poetry”

I've noticed that recent entries on this blog have been steadily decreasing both in length and meaningful content, a trend that I have no intention of reverse any time soon. In today's news, I got a job at a library to go along with my job delivering pizzas. I now have two jobs. That's cool, I guess.

Oh, I did do some writing. Poetry writing, which means I may or may not show it to another living human (dead humans, though, I'm okay with, they're a much more forgiving crowd.) Still trying to kick around short story ideas, but so far, all I can come up with are roleplaying fragments about my dragon disciple in our current D&D campaign. Speaking of which, I have a neglected vox just for that purpose... maybe I should go update it with some content.

Okay, so I guess that post was a bit longer. Meh.

-Draxle

So, I've been doing better about promises to myself. I've tried to write at least a little bit each day, although that "little bit" is far less than I'd prefer... but hey, gotta start somewhere, right? I'm trying to come up with some short story ideas that I could write and post here (I know I still need to finish the Darkened Veil, as well, but it's been so long that the story sort of lost its relevance to me.) The problem I have with short stories is... I just can't seem to come up with "small" ideas. Every idea I get for a story turns into this big, massive epic, which may explain some of why it's been so hard to find the motivation to write: I don't have any small, enjoyable things to work on, it's just mountain after mountain to climb.

Anybody have any suggestions on how I can improve my short story writing? I'd really like to get into that habit, instead of just working on all these different novels, not only because short stories are less epic in scope, but I'd like to build a portfolio of stories that I can start submitting in an attempt to get published. I'm not even worried about publishing a book at this point; my goal for the immediate future is to write something that somebody will pay me for (and yes, I know that writing is not about money but all of my publications so far in my life have been in non-profit works, so... yeah.) You can call it greed if you want to, I won't mind.

Oh, I realized a few days ago that I've actually written a ton of poetry during one of my classes. I'm trying to decide if it's worth posting here; I'm not sure it ever gets read. Then again, this is my blog and it's not really about whether you decide to read it or not (though I'd certainly prefer if you did.)

-Draxle

Still working on my second essay. I definitely underestimated it, and what I thought would be an easy conquest has turned into a massive undertaking, full of citations and research and all kinds of actual work that I do not generally engage in when writing such projects. While it irritates me that this damn thing is due tomorrow, on the other hand, this situation really could not be avoided as I had these two essays assigned to me on the same day, and I spent virtually the entire week working on the other project first.

College sucks.

Anyway, while I was taking a break from essay writing, I scribbled this little poem down. I might add more to it later, but there's something about the brevity of a three-liner that makes it more potent, at least in my opinion. And yes, I do plan to get back to actually writing my fiction, at some point; it's just hard right now to want to put the energy into a story when I have all these damn research swirling around in my creative forge.

One final note on the poem: it was not an attempt at writing haiku.

-Draxle
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Silver Woman Crying
By: Matt Ciarvella

At the apex of sorrow
the silver moon crests over the darkened ridge,
a beautifully pale maiden crying for her loss.

Spent most of the day lying in bed watching Law and Order, even though I told myself I'd get write to work on that damn English essay that's going to both drive me to alcoholism and give me an ulcer. I did work on it, a little bit, although I didn't do what I'd call any actual writing; mostly I just tore through my sources ripping out pieces of texts that look like they might make useful quotes. I'm hoping that if I do that long enough, a viable essay will emerge. Hopefully, it'll emerge quickly... the damn thing is due on Monday. Which reminds me of the fact that there's another essay, also due on Monday, that I haven't even looked at. Shit. I fucking hate this.

Anyway, during one of my lectures, I started free writing random thoughts as they came to me, and today, I decided to construct a poem out of them. Felt good to vent my frustrations like that, even though the poem isn't about university bullshit or irritating exams. Maybe it's just the rum talking, but I'm actually pretty happy with the poem, which is why I'm posting it here, for you to enjoy. Also, it will help mask the fact that I still haven't written the final (hopefully) chapter of "Darkened Veil." I know there are some people out there waiting for that, and I promise, once I get this essay shit out of the way, I'll get back to work on that story. It's just kind of hard to be relaxed and creative writing now with this deadline shit looming over me.

-Draxle
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“Of Thoughts and Chains”
By: Matt Ciarvella

The Words
we write
are not words we think
because those things, those thoughts
are dangerous
evil
forbidden chainless beasts of an old times frontier,
the last wilderness
the final dragon.

Except
that’s not really true
is it?
Thoughts have been chained these past few ages
bound to smirking pundits and
truthless realities, a market of phobic lies
packaged up in plastic hair
brought to you LIVE AND ON THE SCENE!

Today
thoughts are slaves to the fear
the fear that maybe just maybe they might turn into words
and then, the horror of horrors,
that somebody might
hear you
and
judge you
and then you die beneath the weight that
you are what you think and
those thoughts of yours
trite hateful wrong myopic greedy stupid things
wrought of a
little baby god fearing love gun racist insanity
and
you aren’t
any of those things
are you?

You are
what you think and
to write what you are
is to provoke immortal merchants,
challenge unearned dominions
incite them all against you
incite them to hang you on the butcher’s hook to be
weighed, measured, deemed canner grade meat
nothing more
bereft of worthy purpose
empty of meaning
a void of all but evil thoughts.

You are what you
think and write and say and believe
and they will all of them seek
forever onward
to judge you down.

If you let them.

I'm currently hard at work on my essay analysis for my poetry class (yes, due tomorrow, did you even have to ask?) and in lieu of an update of my own, which I'm too busy to generate, I thought that, perhaps, you'd like to have a small taste of some of the poetry that I find appealing, since I'm always filling this damn blog with my mediocre attempts to create poetry of my own.

Anyway, this is the poem that I'm analyzing and discussing for my craft paper. I think you'll enjoy it. That is, if you even understand it, which many people don't, at least the first couple times through. That's okay. If you don't get it, but are curious, email me or something, and we'll talk about it. It really is a fascinating piece of literature. Hence the reason I'm analyzing for my essay. Very elegant, how that all works out, wouldn't you say?

-Draxle

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"The Emperor of Ice-Cream"
By: Wallace Stevens

Call the roller of big cigars
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal.
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

I spent the morning working on another poem; lately, I've found that I've been much more interested in writing poetry than working on my novel. One thing I'll mention about this piece is that if it sounds like it has something to do with MMOs, that's because I meant to draw a parallel feeling between the daily grind one does online and the grind that we all go through in our day-in, day-out reality. In both cases, the worlds that we craft, the secret places and special moments, get ignored in the neverending pursuit for more more more.

I intend to revist this one later and add another stanza or two, as I can tell by the flow that there's something else in there that I need to express, but I can't quite find it just yet.

-Draxle

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Where am I now
    but lost in the grind of today
    the furious race of living
    that has taken me away from you
    and away
    from the private world we made
Where are you now
    but left alone at night
    wondering
    if I still remember
    the good times, sad moments
    the things we shared
    the worlds we made together
Where are we now
    if our private world has gone
    empty
    with no one to remember
    or even care about
    what games we played