Category : Books, Poetry

in Books, Poetry, Life of Giang

In Other News…

…it has been a fun little seven days:

1 Work has been mildly crazy. Or rather, I have been mildly crazy because of work. But…still good.
2 I painted a house.
3 Watched two movies: The Constant Gardener, which was not as good as the book – but pretty darned close, and Red Eye which was ridiculous, but entertaining. Trapped in an airplane movie! ;)
4 Went to a lovely party (honestly!) ;)
5 Got a lovely present (honestly!) ;)
6 Got tan. -ish, anyway. ;)
7 Got into the groove of my swim. I don’t care if this doesn’t make sense, I’m happy about it!
8 Discovered that sleep, and non-gaming…are wondrous things. Wondrous.
9 (Despite #8) Discovered that gaming is always going to be apart of my life. I will always be a geek. :) Yay!
10 Watched Monk very happily!

Things I did not do:

1 Take my car to be serviced (and it beeps every morning to nag me about it).
2 Take my care to be washed.
3 Clean my car.
4 (Overall, it was a bad weekend for my car.)
5 Pick up my dry cleaning.
6 Go shopping (must…go…soon…)!
7 Think too much about…anything. ;)

It has been a strange week, and an excellent, full, and enjoyable long weekend. I may even be ready for work tomorrow. ;)

Very much love to you all, my darlings. :)

excerpt from “Words”
by Edward Thomas

I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn,
Or an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnet rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer:
Strange as the races
Of dead and unborn:
Strange and sweet
Equally,
And familiar,
To the eye,
As the dearest faces
That a man knows,
And as lost homes are:
But though older far
Than oldest yew, -
As our hills are, old, -
Worn new
Again and again:
Young as our streams
After rain:
And as dear
As the earth which you prove
That we love.

in Books, Poetry, Life of Giang

Heaven Has Naps

A bit of a long and difficult day. But, just a bit of one. So things go. I miss…things. Happy trails, monkey darlings, be happy. :)

“Block City”
by Robert Louis Stevenson

What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.

Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,
There I’ll establish a city for me:
A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,
And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.

Great is the palace with pillar and wall,
A sort of a tower on top of it all,
And steps coming down in an orderly way
To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.

This one is sailing and that one is moored:
Hark to the song of the sailors on board!
And see on the steps of my palace, the kings
Coming and going with presents and things!

“288 I’m Nobody! Who are you?”
by Emily Dickinson

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

“254 ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –”
by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of Me.

“Tonight I Can Write”
by Pablo Neruda, translated by W.S. Merwin

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, ‘The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

in Books, Poetry, Life of Giang

I’m Such A GEEK, But…

What's that, Chief?
Great Chief Tuggles. He’s saying, “!” ;)

…we soooo just five-manned Baron Rivendare. ;) We were crippled. We’d wiped. We’d fought back in after repop. And we took him. It was freakin’ awesome. Two priests, a warlock, a shaman, and a warrior.

This is why I must marry a gamer. Who else would understand this insane babbling? ;)

Anyway – back in real life, today was interesting. A very good Monday, but an interesting day…work was excellent, but a little…interesting – I am very fond of my bosses, and of the people I work with. I have a new car freshener fan thing that advertises as “Citrus”, but really smells like kindergarten scratch-n-sniff stickers – a priceless evocation of childhood. Except, once, I got this scratch-n-sniff sticker of a saddle. Do you guys know what a scratch-n-sniff saddle smells like? Like…well, not like citrus. ;)

I actually stayed up until 2:00 in the morning writing yesterday. :) Bad writing, silly writing, writing that will never be shown to another soul – but I wrote, and it was great. I might continue a little tonight before I head to sleep. I’m in need of a little peace. I have so many thoughts all roiled up and ready to burst out of me like a Holy Nova (rank 3) (geek!) – opinions I have heretofore kept to myself, about religion and politics and sex and life and art and monkeys. It’s not me, but the strange day and the excess of sweet applejuice in my system that makes me want to blab. I will not. I will, instead, obey my body, and agree to retire, to sleep, to find succor in my very soft, warm bed.

Oh, I have a poem! :)

“Jenny Kiss’d Me”
by James Leigh Hunt

Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.

Goodnight, you silly rabbits. I love you all!

in Books, Poetry

A Good Thing

A thirty minute commute home is a gift. :) Being thusly blessed tonight, I hereby forego my usual fripperous rant. Be fruitful and multiply, and remember all the good things – I love you all like honey on bees! ;)

“Recuerdo”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

in Books, Poetry, Life of Giang

Goodnight

Checking in. Sleep soon. Happy birthday to Martin and Jeffie – and love to everyone. Take care of yourselves and the people around you. Goodnight!

“maggie and milly and molly and may”
by e e cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

in Books, Poetry, Life of Giang

Crumbs Instead Of A Yellow Brick Road

“Thursday”
by Sar-edi-nis-na & The Bohemian Cranberries

2 AM and I’m still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, its no longer
Inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to.

And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you’ll use them, however you want to.

I’m not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I mean –
Like any hot-blooded woman
I have simply wanted an object to crave.

Understand the words I say…
Don’t turn away from me.
I’m so tired but I can’t sleep
Standin’ on the edge of something much too deep.

I don’t love him.

But my God it’s so beautiful when the boy smiles…

Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you’ll use them, however you want to.

It’s “found poetry“. (Sorta.) Taken from lyrics of the music I heard driving home this afternoon – to be more specific:

“What I Am” by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
“Uninvited” by Alanis Morisette
“Breathe (2 AM)” by Anna Nalick
“I Will Remember You” by Sarah McLachlan
“Ode To My Family” by The Cranberries

So neener-neener, I’m not nuts. ;)

And I’m doing alright. Still hot. Less unreasonable, me. I’m okay – or I will be. Try and be happy, my beloveds. Good night.

in Books, Poetry, Life of Giang

Quickie

by Anonymous

Do you carrot all for me?
My heart beets for you,
With your turnip nose
And your radish face,
You are a peach.
If we cantaloupe,
Lettuce marry;
Weed make a swell pear.

I guess I’m just the kind of girl who likes her romance in cute fruit-and-vegetable puns. ;)

G’night!

in Books, Poetry, Life of Giang

Intermezzo

I’m about to turn in. Fixed a few minor things on the site, and need to make sure the time has been fixed. I had a sort of entry written, but am too weary to squeeze it out of my brain – so, a poem.

Lovebugs,
Me

“A Boat Beneath A Summer Sky”
by Lewis Carroll

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July –

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear –

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream –
Lingering in the golden gleam –
Life, what is it but a dream?

in Books, Poetry

Some Wandering Barks More Than Others

Sleepy. Will sleep. After some poetry. ;) Take care, my darlings.

“Bluebeard”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed….Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for Truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress;
But only what you see….Look yet again:
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room tonight
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.

“I Knew A Woman”
by Theodore Roethke

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing did we make.)

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)

in Books, Poetry

A Little Night Poetry ;)
“Barter”

by Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Much love to you all. :)