After reading some of the Carmina Gadelica, a large set of blessings for things, it was our assignment to write our own blessing. The point as I saw it was to take something that is a part of our everyday lives that is important and to write something that shows that it is important and makes the person saying the blessing remember why it is important. It is supposed to make you look at it freshly each day. Here is my blessing.

She will bring the world to me
To my eyes and fingertips
She will house my memories
Pictures from old relationships
And videos that make me laugh
And songs that can make me cry
And other things longsince forgotten
And through it all it comes that I

Will keep her cables orderly
Will keep her insides free of dust
Will keep her monitor smudgeless
Will keep her keyboard free of crust
Or crumb of bread or drop of milk
And though this takes its toll I must
Remember how it came to be
That she will bring the world to me

This one came when I was at the Spanish Arch sitting by the water trying to write a paper for my art history class. The subject was a gallery’s worth of abstract art by John Kingerlee.

A breath of air is wave’s gestation
Speaking words of invitation,
Each break of wave another plea
To let the sea encompass me.

But I remain dry on the land,
Pencil and paper in my hand,
Trying ever fervently
To dissect master Kingerlee.

Yet, he remains a mystery to me.

Notes: John Kingerlee is an Irish artist who deals mostly in highly abstract depictions of heads and of the landscape of the Beara peninsula, where he lives a fairly hermetic existence with the company of his wife. His art makes generally no sense to me as a layperson.

This one struck me during lit class on 12 April.

An unseen forceful messenger is bearing down on me
Creating waves of turbulence upon the western sea.
It might knock me down but it might also set me free
And I will find that I become what it was meant to be.

I wrote this one on my brother’s birthday (21 March) in the bar of our hotel in Cork, when I was inspired by my beautiful pint of Murphy’s.

When I raise my glass to the sky
It is to heighten thus my spirits.
A Beamish, Murphy’s, or a Guinness
Will meet a finish though I fear it.

When my glass is at its end
I will send to the barkeep
My cheers and a nod of head
As home, to bed, I go to sleep.

Notes: Beamish and Murphy’s are stouts brewed in Cork. They are delicious and more like American Guinness than Irish Guinness (though I still love Irish Guinness). Also, I was trying to be clever with the duality of the word “spirits.”

Since being in Ireland for a bit, I’ve written some poetry, I just haven’t gotten around to posting it. Here’s one from February in Dublin.

Once upon the river Liffey
I caught a whiff of something iffy.
I said to Erin “I smell your flower
And I would recommend a shower.”

Notes: The name Erin is a popular name for the anthropomorphism of the island of Ireland, and the river Liffey is the river that runs through the center of Dublin city.

Lost to the depths of my brain:
This rhyme I write,
This unrememberable refrain.
I will sing it once and it will die
On its way up
To fall on the deaf ears of the sky.

And I will go on never knowing what it is I missed.
My words will fade to nothing on the silent air I kissed.
Doomed am I to be deprived of all I make exist.
Were I aware of my misfortune, I’d raise a defiant fist.

But my Teflon neurons never seem to let things stick.
My memories are not my own to choose to pick.

However, never will you be forgotten.
Your memory is emblazoned on my mind.

When it is that I find my better half
It will be myself that I have found.
And I will love her
As I should have loved myself.

If Love will kill us all
Then I am ready to die.
If the lonely have naught but peace
Then I am ready for conflict.
If committment means the end of freedom
Then I am ready to slave.
If independence makes me strong
Then I am ready to be weak.

So I sit, alive, undisturbed, unshackled, apart.
Why am I doomed to be so lucky?

This is a poem that I started writing about 3 months ago at work in the Multimedia Lab. It hit me out of nowhere, so I simply got up and started writing it out on the dry-erase board. Ryan and I worked on it for over an hour, but there was one line missing that I couldn’t find until today. I guess today is just a literary day. It’s probably the rain.

The sky, today, it cried for me

But I shed not a tear

I remained safe inside my room

Hidden out of fear

Avoiding something

I can’t see and cannot understand

For if I leave my room today

She’ll take me by the hand

She’ll lead me down a darkened road

From which I’ll not return

At the end, my destiny

Forever shall I burn

My mind would slowly agonize

Itself with thoughts of what’s above

My strange tormenting nemesis

The one we call romantic love.

I wrote this today while walking home in the rain from working out.

The absence of my breath,
The absence of my touch,
The absence of my wanting eyes
Is affecting you too much.

I believe that it’s not me you want,
Not the heart I have inside,
Not the mind that I contain,
But the things that I provide.

All that I had given to you,
My touch, my gaze, my spoken word
Was sincere to say the most,
But please be not absurd.

You could find that anywhere
With anyone at all.
But if you find it where you seek,
Be certain you will fall.

When you’re broken,
When you’re hurt,
Do not come to me.
I am your past.
But if he’s your future,
Enjoy your tragedy.

Alright, so ‘One Corny Story’ has now evolved into ‘Here I Am.’ It’s an inside joke with a few people from my fiction class, but then again, that’s how the writing of ‘One Corny Story’ started. I’m also in the process of revising ‘So Close, and Yet So Far…’ It’s going in a slightly new direction, but I like it so far. At any rate, ‘Here I Am’ is up in the pages, so read it if you like and leave some comments. I hope to post the new revision of ‘So Close, and Yet So Far…’ soon, too.

I posted the second draft of ‘Out of the White’ in the pages section, along with a newly revised ‘So Close, and Yet So Far…’ where I took the first chapter and turned it into a standalone story with a resolution and everything. Shout a holla and let me know what y’all think.

I’m about to go on a walk with Ryan, because it is snowing and we haven’t had a walk this year in the snow. So I think that it’s very appropriate that I just finished transcribing the first draft to “Out of the White,” a story that I wrote a couple of days ago about a snowy walk. I am pretty proud of it, so I have posted it in the pages with the other prose and poetry. Many thanks to Ryan for conjuring me up a fitting title for the piece.

A pair of windows, so green in the dark.
A clean canvas, so pale and soft.
A cold summer, embraced by a warm winter.
A juxtaposition, too good to be true.

The heart bleeds for want of that which it cannot have.
Dreams bring all that life has not to offer.
Consciousness has lost all of its allure.

I wrote that this morning, and after about an hour of exploring my mind to finish it I don’t think I’m ready to title it yet.

Appended 03/13/2005: I have titled this piece ‘Sensitive Consonance’

To say anything explanatory about this one would be to give away it all. Suffice to say that it started as an inside joke about Static X.

One Corny Story

I took Creative Writing in high school, as a senior. It was a very easy copout way of not taking a class where I would have to read novels and write papers and whatnot. You know what? It was the first writing class that I liked pretty much everything I wrote. There were few works in that class that I did not actually think were worthy of paper. Among the works that I enjoyed creating is my favorite series: “So Close and Yet So Far…” which was alternately dubbed “the stalker stories” by my class. My teacher felt that it was good enough to read to the class, and as anyone would expect the first comment I recieved when she was finished was: “man, that was creepy.” I guess I deserved that one. Three people have told me that they like it, so here it will be for all to read.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The Poem