Worlds of Wanwood

When they asked her later, Madeline couldn’t really explain what was wrong.
Maybe it was the smell of wet pollen in the air,
or the cracked streetlight globe.

Maybe it was the blue glow of the television the night before,
or the words her mother had spoken to her on the phone,
worried and inspirational.

A walk around the neighborhood seemed like a perfectly rational idea.

Nobody was looking.
(She found out later she was wrong about that).

It was wet and the tree wanted to be climbed,
And the leaves that she plucked, numb-fingered –

they wanted to fall.

And fall.

And fall.

As said by someone you respect more than me…

About a year or so ago, I met a friend of a friend who runs a pretty successful internet start-up. We chatted a bit online for a few weeks, during the course of which, he googled me. He found some of my KinkForAll videos.

He proceeded to give me stern warnings. Much like the one mentioned here, only with a stronger overtone of “I am a Successful Person and know about these things.”

I didn’t do a very good job of saying I don’t care. And I still don’t do the best of jobs explaining why, for instance, this blog is still linked to my professional page.

You all like XKCD, right? You all think Randall Munroe is a pretty smart guy, and it’s worth paying attention to the stuff in his comics?

Yeah. So do I.

PS thanks to Sara Eileen for re-pointing me to this comic.

Rose Hips

wee and sassy

It was easy to tell myself
that I didn’t like roses.

It was easy to look at their long leggy stems
and their few graceful leaves and their manicured petals,
inhale their anemic, gentrified scent,
and dislike them.

But we all know that isn’t the truth.

The truth is as simple as nature intended:
I like a rose with hips.

I like a rose with briar-patch thorns and raggedy petals
and bright yellow stamens alluring the bees.
I like a rose with branches and thickets
that push at the fence.

But most of all, as the summer starts waning
I like a rose with bright red and shining,
sassy and swollen, tangy, replete –

I like a rose with hips.

Pond Poem

There is nothing like the privacy
afforded by a tall-tree perimeter
around the edge of a large pond.

It is not as private as your bathroom,
with the door locked and the shades drawn
and the shower on as hot as it will go
pouring solace onto you.

It is not as private as your car,
where you can sing as loud as you want
and say the mean things you think of other drivers
and ignore what you know:
That they have lives and circumstances too
and might be in a hurry for good reason.

But don’t try to tell me that
or remind me that just beyond the edge of my miopia
those lighter patches around the curve of this tiny peninsula
are other humans having their own day out.

Honestly. I’m not listening to you.
I am listening to the lapping of wavelets brought up by the wind
and the sound of my skin forming goosebumps.

I am listening to her laughter
and the sunshine
and the pollywogs and dragonflies and snakes.

I am listening to being naked in the water and the sunshine
In the perfect privacy
Of trees and sky and pond.

Sometimes in Spring

Sometimes in Spring
When the clouds are sitting low and broody
And you forget your warmer jacket
And sit shivering

You look up and in the middle-distance
There are little white flakes, fluttering

And your heart jumps
And you think
“Oh no. Please no.
I thought we were done with this.”

And you let your eyes wander
For some sort of comfort to hold you
against the looming specter of cold,
And you see the rest of the blossoms

Still on the tree.

Relax.
Winter is not following you.
It will be warm again in time for the weekend.

A Woods In May

Path at Caratunk

Go down the path (notice the violets.)

Bridge at Caratunk

Cross the first stream. There are more ahead.

Moss on rocks by the edge of a stream

Think about how happy you would be if you were moss.

small plants and moss by a root

Look: Small things.

Folds in the bark of a tree

Strange things.

Small red leaves

Fiddlehead Fern

New things.

Rocks in the path

Old spreading roots

Old things.

Broken boardwalk

Broken things.

A whole new tree.

Things which are no longer the things which they once were.

Comp-Sci is Epic

So the other night I was hanging out with my friend Hoy as he stayed up late fighting a really evil Comp-Sci assignment.

I have this pet theory that everybody has a poetic form that fits them better than others.

A while ago I decided that Hoy was best suited to the Anglo-Saxon alliterative epic form. The form focuses on lines divided with by a caesura (a beat pause – that’s what’s indicated by those sets of vertical lines), with two stressed syllables on either side of it, and a strong emphasis on alliterative words. It has no set meter and no call for rhyme, setting it apart from most other forms of Western poetry.

Also unlike many forms of Western poetry, you can’t do just anything with it. Like dactylic hexameter, it’s an innately epic form. It’s a form for the oral tradition, designed to keep your warriors from brawling too much in the meadhall during the long, dark Anglo-Saxon winter nights. Which meant I couldn’t make Hoy a poem in the style I had chosen until I watched him do something epic – like bravely battle code dragons into the wee hours of the morning.

If you speak Anglo-Saxon (or if you don’t, or if you know somebody who does, or if you can find a recording) you can find good examples of this all over: Beowulf, of course, but also the Dream of The Rood, which is a particular favorite of mine.

And it’s actually a little tricky to accomplish in Modern English, and so it is with great pride that I present to you my very very first Modern English Stressed-Alliterative Epic-Style Poem.*, **

***
Deep was the darkness || without the window,
high in the home-place, || lamp light yet burned.
How fought the hero, || creating, computing,
long into lateness, || trying the task.
Handsome Hoy Loper! || Fights he the figments,
code lines and cunning || the weapons he wields.
How high his hopes were, || baited his breathing,
as his fleet fingers || readied the run.
Dark his despairing! || Fallen his face was,
twisted the code text, || line upon line.
Massed on the monitor || mind numbing numbers,
senseless and silent || by bit and by byte.
Cried he “Crap! Crap! Crap!” || stymied and sullen,
full of frustration, || restless and wroth.
Pensive his pacing || ’round the small room-home,
dark his demeanor, || made he sad sounds.
Code in Crayola-bright colors, || slow scrolling
shows on his screen, || continuous, cold.
How shall he triumph, || terrific, tempestuous,
over this onslaught || of stress-making stuff?
Dread dawn approaching || brightness and birdsong,
on hacks the hero, || disgusted, dismayed.
Shall there be sleeping || or drear deprivation?
Vanquish or victory, || slumber or strife?
Deep is the darkness || on hacks Hoy Loper,
till Comp-Sci completed || he righteous shall rest.

* Thanks to my friends Marshall and Vlad for helping me come up with accurate tech-speak. I may have a good grasp of A.S. poetry, but C++ is totally beyond me.

** Who spotted the kennings? Anybody? Anybody? Gosh I’m authentic!***

***For definitions of “authentic” equal to “a huge, huge geek”

But is it alphabetized?

I love books. I love order. I love beautiful things moving to music.
Alora, I love this video! Despite this love, I find it deeply unsettling to watch – are the books in order, at the end? Are they easy to reference? I can’t tell. I think not. That hurts me.

HOWEVER: The fact that the wonderful folk who made it credited all of the books totally makes up for it. I’m sure they can find the ones they need, if they can give them all credit for their debut performance.

to say

It has been said that no man is an island,
but I think it might not be true.
I mean, islands are connected.
There’s water in between them. You can send boats across.

There may, however, be an accident at Sea.
You never know just what will show up when the boat hits shore again.
Sometimes you can’t even predict what shore it will hit.

It may occur to you that this is a metaphor.
You would almost certainly be correct in that assumption,
and, indeed, you could probably make a fairly accurate surmise
as to what I’m getting at.

Some boats are better bets than others.

Collective Nouns

Clattering, jabbering, unkind and wise
collective nouns fall into my brain today,
describing those avian clouds
that fill the sky in springtime and fall
like terrifying, wheeling, glorious storms.

Those are starlings
and they come in murmurations

Geese come in an unsurprising gaggle
more surprisingly accurate
girls do, too

Some of these terms are concrete,
Set,
Oxford English.

Others are spurious, unverified,
misapprehended.

But all of them are surprising
and wonderful.

What a world! What great groupings it contains!
And what extraordinary ways we have contrived
to describe it.