Pillar of Smoke by Day
Suspended over the city
like the sepia tone frames
of an antique mushroom cloud
it's a pillar of smoke by day
Charcoal dark it rises up
to mingle with the sky
either man has built an idol
to worship the night gods
or God is pouring down black paint
to mark the earth
Below it is the burnt apartment shell
like a dead animal carcass
the smoke a cloud of dark flies
keep sentry and call the predators in
sirens howling at your ears
put out this toxic campfire
asbestos and wood fill up our noses
gaped wide in search of autumn
As you move through the city
your eyes are drawn
they follow it like Israelites
until a building shields your view
and you can look away
Park Ranger
Sunday 30 November 2008
Saturday 29 November 2008
Ashoka
Listening to Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
Last post I was listening to a really great song, Danger! High Voltage, and when it was done I put up the hyperlink to the video of it, which I unfortunately only barely glanced at. So then when I finally do watch the video and realize I need to change the link because it's pretty sketchy, I turn right around and post the most sketchy sounding song I can find. I mean what's with that. No, it truly is a good song and a not sketchy video (as well as being a really good band). My only initial complaint was that the main riff sounds strikingly similar to the one from Soundgarden's "Mind Riot", but I think that's just because he uses the same sound and manages to capture the same vibe, so not bad.
I'm now officially finished with my first class. (dropping out of philosophy of religion halfway through doesn't count) I handed in the rest of my poems for creative writing and had a public reading and some brownies that the prof made. All I'm waiting for now is my final marks (which have to be above 60% in order for me to advance to the next creative writing class). I also won the award for the student who was most likely to be late. A very dubious honor. Here's one of the poems that I handed in on Thursday. It's about a really great indian restaurant in Langley.
soundmime
Ashoka
It's sense of smell that draws you in
To find a crowded restaurant
And what you want you know
But finding chicken biryani
Is hard when you don't know the words
Of what your nose descries
Paper thin papadums for appetizer
Menu tells you what you want
It's butter chicken isn't it
The only one you understood
There are other choices now
If you're so inclined
Floury naan bread fills you up
Chunky biryani, cautioned to be hot
Eating with your hands tastes better
Feel every grain of rice in sauce
And every tender chunk of chicken
Disintegrating, butter melting
Curry yellow, in your mouth
Wash your hands in cold water
And return for pungent anise
Biryani in a box, waiting at the door
Lunch tommorow or the next
Or just when you get home
Last post I was listening to a really great song, Danger! High Voltage, and when it was done I put up the hyperlink to the video of it, which I unfortunately only barely glanced at. So then when I finally do watch the video and realize I need to change the link because it's pretty sketchy, I turn right around and post the most sketchy sounding song I can find. I mean what's with that. No, it truly is a good song and a not sketchy video (as well as being a really good band). My only initial complaint was that the main riff sounds strikingly similar to the one from Soundgarden's "Mind Riot", but I think that's just because he uses the same sound and manages to capture the same vibe, so not bad.
I'm now officially finished with my first class. (dropping out of philosophy of religion halfway through doesn't count) I handed in the rest of my poems for creative writing and had a public reading and some brownies that the prof made. All I'm waiting for now is my final marks (which have to be above 60% in order for me to advance to the next creative writing class). I also won the award for the student who was most likely to be late. A very dubious honor. Here's one of the poems that I handed in on Thursday. It's about a really great indian restaurant in Langley.
soundmime
Ashoka
It's sense of smell that draws you in
To find a crowded restaurant
And what you want you know
But finding chicken biryani
Is hard when you don't know the words
Of what your nose descries
Paper thin papadums for appetizer
Menu tells you what you want
It's butter chicken isn't it
The only one you understood
There are other choices now
If you're so inclined
Floury naan bread fills you up
Chunky biryani, cautioned to be hot
Eating with your hands tastes better
Feel every grain of rice in sauce
And every tender chunk of chicken
Disintegrating, butter melting
Curry yellow, in your mouth
Wash your hands in cold water
And return for pungent anise
Biryani in a box, waiting at the door
Lunch tommorow or the next
Or just when you get home
Thursday 27 November 2008
Blood Behind Your Ear
Listening to Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage
Editing your work is important. This never really connected with me fully until last week on Sunday night. In my creative writing class a few of us have started up a "write club" for reading our stuff and giving and recieving constructive criticism. I read out some stuff that was totally freewritten and unedited and I got a lot of great ideas for it, but I realized how much better my stuff would be if I actually bothered to edit it. That's not to say that I don't (I do), but I'm not guerilla enough in my approach, I get too attached to what I write that I have a hard time changing it. I did this great freewrite about this actual person wandering around Surrey central station a while back so I decided to take all the constructive criticism on it from the first "write club" meeting, and get medieval with it. This is after editing.
Listening to Cold War Kids - Hang Me Up To Dry
Blood Behind Your Ear
You, middle aged man, wander through the bus stop crowd, cry Lucy with your head upturned. The pavement is your friend, it is your only friend. Cause Lucy is out there in the city, in a hotel room, on the floor, on a binge, with a snot slide burning at her cheek in fevered convulsion. In her eyes is infinity, the hotel bedside and the universe of stars and planets collide like her coke and LSD. But out here you wear down the rocks, caked blood behind your ear from when she left, two days ago, but you still call out her name. Throat bare and raw, chimes cut from a string, windtunnel backporch, untuned, unhinged, in love, in the city, waiting. You wonder was it drugs or a pusher brought her out and down? Or was it just running away? The blood behind your ear, testament to a bathroom fight with pillbottles and a razor. And you know it could be yours or hers, neither one of you is sure. So I look up to you, looking up as you walk by. You, middle aged man, keep calling her name. She's lost to the rest of suburbia, but you've left that world behind. You belong in the gutter and the motel room where she lies in waiting, not knowing. Mistress of mud, and you, middle aged man, will become the mud for her.
park ranger
Editing your work is important. This never really connected with me fully until last week on Sunday night. In my creative writing class a few of us have started up a "write club" for reading our stuff and giving and recieving constructive criticism. I read out some stuff that was totally freewritten and unedited and I got a lot of great ideas for it, but I realized how much better my stuff would be if I actually bothered to edit it. That's not to say that I don't (I do), but I'm not guerilla enough in my approach, I get too attached to what I write that I have a hard time changing it. I did this great freewrite about this actual person wandering around Surrey central station a while back so I decided to take all the constructive criticism on it from the first "write club" meeting, and get medieval with it. This is after editing.
Listening to Cold War Kids - Hang Me Up To Dry
Blood Behind Your Ear
You, middle aged man, wander through the bus stop crowd, cry Lucy with your head upturned. The pavement is your friend, it is your only friend. Cause Lucy is out there in the city, in a hotel room, on the floor, on a binge, with a snot slide burning at her cheek in fevered convulsion. In her eyes is infinity, the hotel bedside and the universe of stars and planets collide like her coke and LSD. But out here you wear down the rocks, caked blood behind your ear from when she left, two days ago, but you still call out her name. Throat bare and raw, chimes cut from a string, windtunnel backporch, untuned, unhinged, in love, in the city, waiting. You wonder was it drugs or a pusher brought her out and down? Or was it just running away? The blood behind your ear, testament to a bathroom fight with pillbottles and a razor. And you know it could be yours or hers, neither one of you is sure. So I look up to you, looking up as you walk by. You, middle aged man, keep calling her name. She's lost to the rest of suburbia, but you've left that world behind. You belong in the gutter and the motel room where she lies in waiting, not knowing. Mistress of mud, and you, middle aged man, will become the mud for her.
park ranger
Tuesday 25 November 2008
2046
I just finished watching 2046. Best movie I've watched in a long time. It walks a fine line. It lost its way often, without ever losing meaning. It was full of sex, but it was never obscene. It had science fiction, but only ever as a metaphor. It was hard to watch, but in the same frame compelling. It was beautiful and artistic, full of drawn out pauses and avant-garde cinematography, but it never alienates the viewer. I would recommend it, but unfortunately I don't think a lot of people would appreciate it, to be honest I'm not sure why I did. Not for the faint of heart or those with a short attention span.
I had a great test this morning. I only studied for it while I was driving to school, but I had taken surprisingly good notes so i think I did pretty good on the test. Next up is a whole slew of papers and approximately two poems that need doing. I could be doing the poems right now, but unfortunately I need to do the papers at the library and I haven't really had much time on campus now that I'm on the scc. And now that I'm acting director I probably will have even less time. I truly am fortunate that Kari is there to take the majority of the responsibility and show me how it all works.
fool sitting here typing
I had a great test this morning. I only studied for it while I was driving to school, but I had taken surprisingly good notes so i think I did pretty good on the test. Next up is a whole slew of papers and approximately two poems that need doing. I could be doing the poems right now, but unfortunately I need to do the papers at the library and I haven't really had much time on campus now that I'm on the scc. And now that I'm acting director I probably will have even less time. I truly am fortunate that Kari is there to take the majority of the responsibility and show me how it all works.
fool sitting here typing
Friday 21 November 2008
Vesuvius
This wasn't one of the rejected poems, but it was given a terrible mark because apparently it didn't follow the criteria close enough. I'm okay with that. (it's also pretty bleak and almost verging on nihilism).
pipesmokingprofessor
Vesuvius
I'm raked over the hot loud mouth of Vesuvius
old man spewing words of senile wisdom
"The world is going to end tommorow Pompeii"
"Punk music is cyanide filling your veins"
as I turn around to protest, he holds high his sign
telling me I'm sinking this ship, but i feel different
and yell back "don't bring me down old man"
he rubs a gumstain with his toe
and becomes melted down into the pavement
walked on by a thousand feet, after being spat out
and after all, i'm just another one of these
Where I'm going is a place of seizure lights
people screaming on a low stage
closer now than ever before, it seems
we will jostle and mosh, fighting for a piece of them
rats trying to escape a flooding sewer
weeds fighting for sunlight in a crowded pond
The old man will not dissuade me
I will have my fix
inject my poison in full knowledge
his drugs are his homemade clean white signs
he's a little child clutching his blanket or favorite toy
at least I know who I am
pipesmokingprofessor
Vesuvius
I'm raked over the hot loud mouth of Vesuvius
old man spewing words of senile wisdom
"The world is going to end tommorow Pompeii"
"Punk music is cyanide filling your veins"
as I turn around to protest, he holds high his sign
telling me I'm sinking this ship, but i feel different
and yell back "don't bring me down old man"
he rubs a gumstain with his toe
and becomes melted down into the pavement
walked on by a thousand feet, after being spat out
and after all, i'm just another one of these
Where I'm going is a place of seizure lights
people screaming on a low stage
closer now than ever before, it seems
we will jostle and mosh, fighting for a piece of them
rats trying to escape a flooding sewer
weeds fighting for sunlight in a crowded pond
The old man will not dissuade me
I will have my fix
inject my poison in full knowledge
his drugs are his homemade clean white signs
he's a little child clutching his blanket or favorite toy
at least I know who I am
Wednesday 19 November 2008
All the Wrong Reasons
listening to Rolling Stones: Can't Always Get What You Want
We sit on a sofa our whole lives. Getting worked up over our soap opera girlfriends. The monologue is our vehicle of choice. We don't want to speak, but we'd rather us than anyone else. On the backs of napkins there are half thought phrases. Boxes litter this room, left from warranty deals or just moving your things. you came, you sat, you've never done much since. I think it's called a burn out, but it sure feels like I'm fading away. You don't sleep enough to stay in tense or in person, blackouts if you try to go somewhere. It becomes a prison that you have a key to. You grasp what you need to do, but there is so much of it that you don't sleep. You still wont do it though.
listening to The Clash: London Calling
I finally understand why I get so little sleep. knowledge of self is important, but I often can't understand how I feel or why I do things until I write them out. I would say the reason I get so little sleep is that, although I know it's important in order to function properly, there are so many things that I could be doing with my time that somehow in my mind I lessen its importance. Case in point is what I'm doing right now. On one hand I haven't slept for quite a while now, but on the other hand I've finally been able to articulate why that is, so I'm going to finish typing before I go to bed. Part of it is certainly conditioning. I pull all nighters so often that my sleep meter doesn't register as loud in my mind, kind of like a concience. I will hereby refer to it as my sleep concience (even though it really has no moral significance).
pipe smoking professor
We sit on a sofa our whole lives. Getting worked up over our soap opera girlfriends. The monologue is our vehicle of choice. We don't want to speak, but we'd rather us than anyone else. On the backs of napkins there are half thought phrases. Boxes litter this room, left from warranty deals or just moving your things. you came, you sat, you've never done much since. I think it's called a burn out, but it sure feels like I'm fading away. You don't sleep enough to stay in tense or in person, blackouts if you try to go somewhere. It becomes a prison that you have a key to. You grasp what you need to do, but there is so much of it that you don't sleep. You still wont do it though.
listening to The Clash: London Calling
I finally understand why I get so little sleep. knowledge of self is important, but I often can't understand how I feel or why I do things until I write them out. I would say the reason I get so little sleep is that, although I know it's important in order to function properly, there are so many things that I could be doing with my time that somehow in my mind I lessen its importance. Case in point is what I'm doing right now. On one hand I haven't slept for quite a while now, but on the other hand I've finally been able to articulate why that is, so I'm going to finish typing before I go to bed. Part of it is certainly conditioning. I pull all nighters so often that my sleep meter doesn't register as loud in my mind, kind of like a concience. I will hereby refer to it as my sleep concience (even though it really has no moral significance).
pipe smoking professor
Saturday 8 November 2008
Child of the Trumpeter
This is one of the rejected poems, due to the fact that it's an extended metaphor rather than multiple metaphors. May be a bit disturbing.
pipesmokingprofessor
You are the egg of a regal swan
Laid with care upon a feather nest
Your mother watching over you
With jealous guardianship
Entrusted to her faithfulness
Not much swayed her eye upon that day
A ripple or a summer breeze
She moved to guard her charge
And from the reeds a hungry hand
Lunged and held its daily bread
Entrenched within a woolen satchel
He brought you to his country home
Where you were prodded poked and pierced
your lifeblood spilled and from you stolen
Sucked dry by old men and little boys
Now you sit upon a kitchen shelf
No natural beauty to attract
You're painted bold and clear
The blue and white of August sky
The red of prostituted pouting lips
pipesmokingprofessor
You are the egg of a regal swan
Laid with care upon a feather nest
Your mother watching over you
With jealous guardianship
Entrusted to her faithfulness
Not much swayed her eye upon that day
A ripple or a summer breeze
She moved to guard her charge
And from the reeds a hungry hand
Lunged and held its daily bread
Entrenched within a woolen satchel
He brought you to his country home
Where you were prodded poked and pierced
your lifeblood spilled and from you stolen
Sucked dry by old men and little boys
Now you sit upon a kitchen shelf
No natural beauty to attract
You're painted bold and clear
The blue and white of August sky
The red of prostituted pouting lips
Friday 7 November 2008
A Mildly Interesting Diversion and a Frustrated Monologue
What I'm listening to today is what the soundtrack would be if my life was a movie. I was reminded earlier today of this gimmicky list that made the rounds a couple of years back, where you would put your itunes on shuffle and the order in which they played would correspond to parts of the soundtrack to the movie of your life. Pretty inane, but I just finished burning all my music onto my computer so I've pulled it up and here's the list.
Opening credits: "These Stones Will Shout" - Raconteurs
Waking up: "A Rush of Blood to the Head" - Coldplay
First day of school: "Symbol in my Driveway" - Jack Johnson
Falling in love: "Pork and Beans" - Weezer
Fight song: "Mother Nature's Son" - The Beatles
Breaking up: "Love is a Miracle" - Delirious
Prom: "One After 909" - The Beatles
Life: "Michelle" - The Beatles
Mental breakdown: "Trip Through Your Wires" - U2
Driving: "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" - Coldplay
Flashback: "King of Fools" - Delirious
Getting back together: "August 30th" - Delirious
Wedding: "Waking the Dead" - Sam Roberts
Birth of a child: "Quiet Storm" - Toby Mac
Final battle: "Consolacao" - Smokey and Miho
Death scene: "November Has Come" - Gorillaz
Funeral song: "Everything I Said" - The Cranberries
End credits: "All Star" - Smash Mouth
Overall it didn't work near as well as the first time I did it. There were quite a few repeat artists (although I do have 150 Beatles songs on my itunes) and there was some music that I simply don't listen to anymore (Smash Mouth, Toby Mac). There also some pretty bad fits like Pork and Beans for falling in love, Mother Natures Son for the fight song, Love is a Miracle for the breakup song, and... Actually almost the whole thing didn't fit. That's really dissapointing. Y'all should give it a shot anyways, it's a mildly interesting diversion.
I had a tough time with my crwr prof today. Throughout the semester we've had to write a number of poems, but they were always pretty specific as to what we could write about, so today when she gave us an assignment to do some freewriting I was pretty happy. Unfortunately I read further and I realized that the catch was I had to pick a specific color and write it on that. There are two reasons why I would be pretty choked about this. Firstly, having done quite a lot of freewriting previously, I've found that when you start freewriting, your thoughts will be generally be pretty jumbled. It's only after you've got that initial confusion out of the way that you eventually settle on what you're writing about. If I started freewriting with a color, I would almost certainly not end with the color. I voiced this concern and stayed after class to discuss it with her, but only minor concessions were made. It wasn't until later, on my way home, that I realized the real reason it jarred with me so much. The real reason I don't like it is that I won't be able to write anything meaningful. The scope of my poem has been confined to someone else's purely physical topic. When I write poetry, I like it to be meaningful, to be able to impact somebody. There is a big difference between poetry written just for the sounds, images, etc. and political poetry. I try to write the latter. There is certainly something to be said for simply practicing your technique, but in this class we have to put a lot of work into our poems, editing multiple times, and I would like to have something to show for that. So I will definately overstep my boundaries on this (I have on all my other poems) and accept the bad mark. All I need in the class to advance is a 60% and it's not worth sacrificing your academic standards just for better marks. So that's that for that.
zen master
Opening credits: "These Stones Will Shout" - Raconteurs
Waking up: "A Rush of Blood to the Head" - Coldplay
First day of school: "Symbol in my Driveway" - Jack Johnson
Falling in love: "Pork and Beans" - Weezer
Fight song: "Mother Nature's Son" - The Beatles
Breaking up: "Love is a Miracle" - Delirious
Prom: "One After 909" - The Beatles
Life: "Michelle" - The Beatles
Mental breakdown: "Trip Through Your Wires" - U2
Driving: "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" - Coldplay
Flashback: "King of Fools" - Delirious
Getting back together: "August 30th" - Delirious
Wedding: "Waking the Dead" - Sam Roberts
Birth of a child: "Quiet Storm" - Toby Mac
Final battle: "Consolacao" - Smokey and Miho
Death scene: "November Has Come" - Gorillaz
Funeral song: "Everything I Said" - The Cranberries
End credits: "All Star" - Smash Mouth
Overall it didn't work near as well as the first time I did it. There were quite a few repeat artists (although I do have 150 Beatles songs on my itunes) and there was some music that I simply don't listen to anymore (Smash Mouth, Toby Mac). There also some pretty bad fits like Pork and Beans for falling in love, Mother Natures Son for the fight song, Love is a Miracle for the breakup song, and... Actually almost the whole thing didn't fit. That's really dissapointing. Y'all should give it a shot anyways, it's a mildly interesting diversion.
I had a tough time with my crwr prof today. Throughout the semester we've had to write a number of poems, but they were always pretty specific as to what we could write about, so today when she gave us an assignment to do some freewriting I was pretty happy. Unfortunately I read further and I realized that the catch was I had to pick a specific color and write it on that. There are two reasons why I would be pretty choked about this. Firstly, having done quite a lot of freewriting previously, I've found that when you start freewriting, your thoughts will be generally be pretty jumbled. It's only after you've got that initial confusion out of the way that you eventually settle on what you're writing about. If I started freewriting with a color, I would almost certainly not end with the color. I voiced this concern and stayed after class to discuss it with her, but only minor concessions were made. It wasn't until later, on my way home, that I realized the real reason it jarred with me so much. The real reason I don't like it is that I won't be able to write anything meaningful. The scope of my poem has been confined to someone else's purely physical topic. When I write poetry, I like it to be meaningful, to be able to impact somebody. There is a big difference between poetry written just for the sounds, images, etc. and political poetry. I try to write the latter. There is certainly something to be said for simply practicing your technique, but in this class we have to put a lot of work into our poems, editing multiple times, and I would like to have something to show for that. So I will definately overstep my boundaries on this (I have on all my other poems) and accept the bad mark. All I need in the class to advance is a 60% and it's not worth sacrificing your academic standards just for better marks. So that's that for that.
zen master
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