Yui-chan

Friday, April 6, 2007

Song

Adrienne Rich

 

You're wondering if I'm lonely:

OK then, yes, I'm lonely

as a plane rides lonely and level

on its radio beam, aiming

across the Rockies

for the blue-strung aisles

of an airfield on the ocean.

 

You want to ask, am I lonely?

Well, of course, lonely

as a woman driving across country

day after day, leaving behind

mile after mile

little towns she might have stopped

and lived and died in, lonely

 

If I'm lonely

it must be the loneliness

of waking first, of breathing

dawn's first cold breath on the city

of being the one awake

in a house wrapped in sleep

 

If I'm lonely

it's with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore

in the last red light of the year

that knows what it is, that knows it's neither

ice nor mud nor winter light

but wood, with a gift for burning.

 

 

[i love this, because it's a topic that seems like it should make for bad teenage poetry, and instead it's so fantastic -- the conversational tone, the images, the rowboat that saves the poem from wallowing with its strong sense of identity. (How many self-assured rowboats did you think you'd read about today?) And the last line!]

 

More like this:

Diving into the Wreck, Adrienne Rich

Dear Adrienne, Adrienne Rich

Miracle Ice Cream, Adrienne Rich

Thursday, April 5, 2007

White Apples

Donald Hall

 

when my father had been dead a week

I woke

with his voice in my ear

I sat up in bed

 

and held my breath

and stared at the pale closed door

 

white apples and the taste of stone

 

if he called again

I would put on my coat and galoshes

 

 

[i saw Donald Hall at a reading last year, a few weeks before he was named poet laureate and he was funny and charming. He said he thinks this poem works because of the "st" sound at the end of taste and beginning of stone: "That's what lifts a poem, makes it get off the ground a little."

 

I like how it's kind of a stuttering sound, which seems to match the theme -- the interruptions of death, and being suddenly woken. And "white apples and the taste of stone" -- how it calls to mind graveyards without quite explaining itself.]

 

More like this:

To a Waterfowl, Donald Hall

My Mother Said, Donald Hall

Names of Horses, Donald Hall

Detritus, the memories say. The grumpy old troll before the tilde-o-tilde. There's a warm, fuzzy feeling associated with that one. Welcome.

The ghost,

~Yui

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

the mockingbird

Charles Bukowski

 

the mockingbird had been following the cat

all summer

mocking mocking mocking

teasing and cocksure;

the cat crawled under rockers on porches

tail flashing

and said something angry to the mockingbird

which I didn't understand.

 

yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway

with the mockingbird alive in its mouth,

wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping,

feathers parted like a woman's legs,

and the bird was no longer mocking,

it was asking, it was praying

but the cat

striding down through centuries

would not listen.

 

I saw it crawl under a yellow car

with the bird

to bargain it to another place.

 

summer was over.

 

 

[in this class I'm taking, a girl was talking about Bukowski and said apologetically, "I know he's kind of cliche," and my professor said, "we should all be so lucky." True! I think he can be hit-or-miss, but this is so on: "it was asking, it was praying," and bargain as a verb at the end there. Really effective with so few words.]

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Anywhere Else

Maggie Dietz

 

How anyone is happy in this country

I don't know. Any way you turn

there is an edge, and everyone

cocks a wind-burned hand over

the brow to look out under it.

The water flings petticoats of foam

against wolf-headed rocks, and

multicolored boats moored

among others to the weathered

pier bob dumb as soldiers.

We live on what's beneath us.

Dark snake-like birds curl into

the water, rise like rose blooms

floated in bowls. And every day

the riven, mended nets go trolling.

A far cry from my unforgotten fields.

How is it, then, the boat lamps

and the buoy bells dislocate me?--

aching not for home, for something

I can't name. As if I could be half-

another, as if I've lived someplace

I never will. Winter brought greenish

bergs to the harbor, floes composed

of further waters. And the strange

white crows here rode them.

A mustached woman poured

scalding coffee on the feet of one

to free it from the scalloped ice

night layered on the sand.

It screamed as my lost brother

does in dreams, with a creature's

anguished hatred. Next morning,

it lay in the wheat-colored grass,

half-eaten by dogs. Here, shells

resembling army helmets wash

ashore, and cataracted eyes of horses.

The town creaks, the seaward shingles

of the dry-faced widows' houses

loosen like teeth. A squall will snap

a mast in half clean as a bone.

Are we not shipwrecked?

The gravid sea holds nothing

for us--but how we squint out

over it, waiting for another sun,

for someone else's blessed hour.

 

 

[seventh line from the end -- "A squall will snap". The sound of that is so fantastic! Try it out loud, slow. And those first two lines, and how this weaves together tangible things, the seashore imagery, with bigger questions about suffering and emotion.]

Monday, April 2, 2007

Words for Love

Ted Berrigan

 

for Sandy

 

Winter crisp and the brittleness of snow

as like make me tired as not. I go my

myriad ways blundering, bombastic, dragged

by a self that can never be still, pushed

by my surging blood, my reasoning mind.

 

I am in love with poetry. Every way I turn

this, my weakness, smites me. A glass

of chocolate milk, head of lettuce, dark-

ness of clouds at one o'clock obsess me.

I weep for all of these or laugh.

 

By day I sleep, an obscurantist, lost

in dreams of lists, compiled by my self

for reassurance. Jackson Pollock René

Rilke Benedict Arnold I watch

my psyche, smile, dream wet dreams, and sigh.

 

At night, awake, high on poems, or pills

or simple awe that loveliness exists, my lists

flow differently. Of words bright red

and black, and blue. Bosky. Oubliette. Dis-

severed. And O, alas

 

Time disturbs me. Always minute detail

fills me up. It is 12:10 in New York. In Houston

it is 2 pm. It is time to steal books. It's

time to go mad. It is the day of the apocalpyse

the year of parrot fever! What am I saying?

 

Only this. My poems do contain

wilde beestes. I write for my Lady

of the Lake. My god is immense, and lonely

but uncowed. I trust my sanity, and I am proud. If

I sometimes grow weary, and seem still, nevertheless

 

my heart still loves, will break.

 

 

MORE LIKE THIS:

A Certain Slant of Sunlight, Ted Berrigan

Red Shift, Ted Berrigan

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Elegy of Fortinbras

Zbigniew Herbert

 

for C.M.

 

Now that we're alone we can talk prince man to man

though you lie on the stairs and see no more than a dead ant

nothing but black sun with broken rays

I could never think of your hands without smiling

and now that they lie on the stone like fallen nests

they are as defenceless as before The end is exactly this

The hands lie apart The sword lies apart The head apart

and the knight's feet in soft slippers

 

You will have a soldier's funeral without having been a soldier

the only ritual I am acquainted with a little

there will be no candles no singing only cannon-fuses and bursts

crepe dragged on the pavement helmets boots artillery horses drums

drums I know nothing exquisite those will be my manoeuvres before I

start to rule

one has to take the city by the neck and shake it a bit

 

Anyhow you had to perish Hamlet you were not for life

you believed in crystal notions not in human clay

always twitching as if asleep you hunted chimeras

wolfishly you crunched the air only to vomit

you knew no human thing you did not know even how to breathe

 

Now you have peace Hamlet you accomplished what you had to

and you have peace The rest is not silence but belongs to me

you chose the easier part an elegant thrust

but what is heroic death compared with eternal watching

with a cold apple in one's hand on a narrow chair

with a view of the ant-hill and the clock's dial

 

Adieu prince I have tasks a sewer project

and a decree on prostitutes and beggars

I must also elaborate a better system of prisons

since as you justly said Denmark is a prison

I go to my affairs This night is born

a star named Hamlet We shall never meet

what I shall leave will not be worth a tragedy

 

It is not for us to greet each other or bid farewell we live on archipelagos

and that water these words what can they do what can they do prince

 

 

(translated from Polish by Czeslaw Milosz & Peter Dale Scott)

 

[i love poems that give a fresh perspective to a fictional character,

and here Fortinbras, the soldier who shows up at the end of Hamlet,

gets to have his say. I love how the lack of punctuation gives this

poem a kind of immediacy, and seeing a really pragmatic perspective on

what happens after the end of the play, the end of the tragedy, when

life goes on, when you're the kind of person who isn't a Hamlet.]

National Poetry Month is a celebration of poetry first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. It is celebrated every April.

Inspired by the success of Black History Month, held each February, and Women's History Month, held in March, the Academy of American Poets convened a group of publishers, booksellers, librarians, literary organizations, poets, and teachers in 1995 to discuss the need and usefulness of a similar month long holiday to celebrate poetry. You can read more details of the history and celebration of the holiday here...

In the mean time, as my own homage to a beautiful and inspiring art form, I would like to once again pass along to the Pen one poem every day for the month of April. These are provided by "Martha" of the April_is Yahoo Group.

Index:

1 April - Elegy of Fortinbras, Zbigniew Herbert

2 April - Words for Love, Ted Berrigan

3 April - Anywhere Else, Maggie Dietz

4 April - the mockingbird, Charles Bukowski

5 April - White Apples, Donald Hall

6 April - Song, Adrienne Rich

7 April - Hour, Christian Hawkey

8 April - Death Comes To Me Again, A Girl, Dorianne Laux

9 April - Publication Date, Franz Wright

10 April - The Day Flies Off Without Me, John Stammers

11 April - Johnny Cash in the Afterlife, Bronwen Densmore

12 April - This Heavy Craft, P.K. Page

13 April - All There is to Know About Adolph Eichmann, Leonard Cohen

14 April - Supple Cord, Naomi Shihab Nye

15 April - Waste Land Limericks, Wendy Cope

16 April - you can't be a star in the sky without holy fire, Frank X. Gaspar

17 April - I Imagine The Gods, Jack Gilbert

18 April - Serenade,Terrance Hayes

19 April - from Briggflatts, Basil Bunting

Your servant,

~Yui

Too little, too late? I notice that Geldrin'Hor is still not using a signature graphic, so I must regret that my tardiness precludes me from being useful. Since her name came up, I sent a quick email to Signe to ask if she might still have that Bard graphic anywhere handy. I'm afraid she does not have it. A quick Google image search doesn't yield any familiar-looking results, either. X* years is a long time for one little JPG to survive.

On the other hand, I agree with Whiskey that it would be a quicksilver snap to recreate a graphic like that. Either of us could probably help with that effort, if you need.

Most regretfully,

~Yui

* Numbers changed to protect the elderly.

A familiar figure melts out of the Regel's shadow, her presence as subtle as her entrance. She hides a little grin when Regel jumps as she steps forward into the light. It's always just a tad fun to startle people... evil as it is.

"Ah, Wyvie!" Yui's smile is wide and bright as she hugs her favorite almost-dragon, deftly capturing the arm he had stretched out toward the shining paint-gold in Zool's portrait. "Many happy returns, you big lug, you. I left a present for you in your Office. Do please try to find it before it gains sentience and wanders off - or worse, tries to attack someone."

With a teasing grin, she glances up at his face... only to find him still mesmerized by the oil-paint geld. Luckily, she knows how to deal with this particular distraction - provide him with a more powerful one! A kiss on the cheek works (at least, this time) and he starts, blushing a bit before that more-rehearsed, smarmy grin lights his face.

"Yui, darling! I knew you'd --"

Laughing, she wraps her hands around his snout, muzzling him. "Shush, before you say something rather more silly than usual. Happy birthday, Wyvie!"

Most sincerely,

~Yui

We've missed you, Merelas. How's school going? What's the haps? What've you been up to? Have you been keeping up on writing?

Spill, man.

Tacklehugs in the form of inquiries,

~Yui

Allow me to summarize, then, the resolution as it seems to be shaping up in this particular debate.

We agree that a friendly and comfortable environment is still the goal of the Pen boards, but we assert that it is possible to maintain such while allowing political, religious and otherwise controversial debates to proceed without the here-to-fore required shroud of creative expression. That is, we no longer wish to discourage bald-faced controversial commentaries so long as their conversations remain civil.

Am I understanding correctly? Is this an appropriate statement of the desired policy change?

Dotting t's and crossing i's,

~Yui

Salinye,

Even when you make it a clear reality, it sounds mostly like a dream to me. Congratulations. I hope you get your deal, and I'm definitely going to enjoy keeping up with the web site.

All the best,

~Yui

If you can get the expertise, I've always thought articles on different -styles- of playing different classes could be fascinating. A fast-damage mage vs a kiting and survivability mage. An efficiency priest vs a powerhealing priest vs a longevity priest. A DPS paladin healer vs a tanking paladin healer. Etc.

I also tend to find MMO gamer philosophy an interesting topic with respect to WoW. The micro-culture that develops in-game and the economy ("playing" the AH is probably a long article all by itself ). The warping of 'real-life' social rules. The interpersonal dynamics that develop in the different types of guilds.

Congratulations on getting the job, by the way. It sounds way cool.

Yours,

~Yui

Congratulations, Salinye! Can we get any details? What kind of ghostwriting are you doing? Whose story is it and what genre?

Cats got nothing on this girl's curiosity,

~Yui

Thank you, Ayshela. I'm really glad you enjoyed this piece. It does my heart especially proud to hear you say that it comes together so well that it seems careless, as I think I worked harder to iron this one out than I usually do. Your impressions validate all that work.

Thanks!

~Yui

Solitaire.

... scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Welcoming Back Another Old Friend,

~Yui

PS: Special thanks to our neighbors at Arcane Artistry for introducing me to this pain-free shoutbox software. Thanks, Achithyn!

Aaargh! Ye be readin' right, ye pack o' landlubbers - today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, an' no mistake. Th'spirits o' pirates past an' present have come out t'haunt ye all with their piratical ways an' means, an' don't be thinkin' yer fancy walls an' magical jewjaws will per'tect ye from their possession. Ye'll be swaggerin' and spittin' like th'rest o' us soon enough. Just ye wait!

So hoist yer ale an' give over, swabs an' wenches! Today be the day of Pirates, an' ye'll give us our due or find yerself sinkin' to the briney depths t'join our rotted bones.

Yui smirks, an uncharacteristically dangerous look in her glinting eyes. Yer home an' yer selves be our'n for th' day. An' ye can bet we'll be enjoyin' ever' moment o' th'time.

With a sleek motion and a bellow fit to fill the black sails of any marauder, the slim form thrusts her saber high. Let th'fun begin! AHAARHAARHAAARRRGH!

Full of Opportunistic Glee,

~ Cap'n Anne Bonny, formerly of the Revenge

Awww... thanks for thinking of it, Fae! It's nice to know when a work makes enough of an impression on a person that they think of it out of the blue months later.

And for all who had given up on yours truly during the long poetry-dry spell, I offer the newest installment in the 'ist' series! Huzzah! It even won a contest at another site. Feedback welcome, though, as always.

Much love,

~Yui the Ghost

Narcissist

4 Sept, 2006

She caught me in an instant, the dream across the room,

her creamy skin and artful curves just waiting to consume,

and I - the chosen victim - I tumbled soundlessly

within a sea of frost-licked green and sparkling ecstasy.

Parted lips, then, silken smooth, released me with their sighs,

the saving breaths that lifted me from depthless, soulful eyes.

Floating there, in sun-filled skies that whispered love-warm air,

I watched her lift a trembling hand, caress her golden hair.

Gossamer and diamond-bright and soft as falling snow,

it tumbled down her naked back in liquid, graceful flows.

Draped in shim'ring satin, gemstones gleaming at her wrist,

she met my stare with dawning awe, my clear regard unmissed.

And that was when I fell in love, felt all my heart rest here

- this stunning creature peering back, behind the full-length mirror.

I've noticed that when I'm on the main page and I click the link for the forums, it brings me back to the main page...

This is quite a problem...

A couple of people pointed the error out to me. Thanks to all of you. It should now be fixed.

Thus, the top banner takes you to the portal, the Forums link on the Portal should now properly be taking you to the Index. Please let me know if it's still giving anyone problems.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion.

~Yui

Fixed, I think. Thanks to everyone who pointed that out. Please let me know if there are any more problems.

Yours,

~Yui

[*]resurrect the news page

Ask, and the collective 'ye' shall receive! Welcome back, Portal.

.... does this mean we need to resurrect the Mighty Pen News posts, too? Vlad? Are you even still ... y'know... around??

Ever at Your Service,

~Yui-chan

Pennites,

Ask and ye shall receive! The Mighty Pen Portal, recently on long hiatus due to the vagarities of a major board upgrade, has finally returned to organize and unify us. There will (inevitably) be tweaks and changes now that our dear friend is back, so if you have a specific request, please leave a comment and let us know. We may not have code-monkey gurus around our community (much ), but we do have an abundance of stubbornness, a plethora of determination, and a few bushels of love with which to make things happen.

So, let's make this a proper return and resurrect the old Portal introduction. Enjoy!

Greetings, Pennites!

 

So many great events happen here, so many interesting and fun activities, useful projects and community efforts, that it's starting to get hard to keep everything in mind. Here to solve any forgetfulness is the new, easy-to-use Mighty Pen Portal, the front page that will contain all the top tidbits of information and reminders of threads and events that need your attention.

 

"Where's the forum?", you ask? Well, it's right where it's always been. Just click on the Forums link in the Site Navigation box to the left, and you'll see the view we're all familiar with and fond of.

 

This page isn't a change, it's an addition, a cover sheet that sits over top of the exact same Pen you've always seen. You'll notice that on the left you can find new posts, display of any personal messages waiting for you, your control panel, the search bar, and even some hopefully-helpful links! Handy, compact, and all in one place, the Portal will be a useful tool for your peers in the Tower and Guild Halls to draw your attention to the most important Pen happenings.

 

So... sit back, relax, and take a few seconds to get acclimated. Let us know what you like and don't like. Let us know what should be changed, added or subtracted. We of the Tower and Guild Halls are here to serve you, so don't be afraid to ask for more features or changes to existing ones.

 

Thank you, and welcome to the Mighty Pen Portal.

 

Yours,

~Yui-chan

... on behalf of your Loremaster, Elders, and GuildLeaders...

Still Yours,

~Yui-chan

... still on behalf of your Loremaster, Elders, and Guildleaders...

Hahahah. My dear Sweet, add about ten previous conversations going back over seven years, and you might have the full picture of this ongoing and oft-visited discussion. We do love to natter on about the forum structure.

Dead from Irony Poisoning,

~Yui