SoaringIcarus

Nice twist at the end. The author's self-admitted naievety; I can really appreciate that. -Icarus

(As I didn't want to take too many rights in assuming the melody/rhythm/harmony/timbre of this song, I read it as a poem.) I like the musing over the loss of identity in what seems like a rut of a 'mating-call', if I may be so crude. I like the truth in this. -Icarus

I particularly enjoyed the ambiguity of this poem. A bubble over the edge, in it's short life-span... about to pop? And what would that mean to your relationship? -Icarus

My only complaint is that I wish I could've heard your voice recite the last line. Rather good. -Icarus

I like the imagery this connects with a peach, for me. Like ripping open a sweet fruit, the fruit of your labor, albeit somewhat gruesome. Silence always offers a fulfilling finality. Good. I miss reading you. -Icarus

For how long could you tolerate the dull glare in her eyes? Her quizzical half-moon eye brows, Her flat forehead, unfurrowed. She pines for nothing (A most frequent generosity of yours) She strives and strives To answer most fleeting trivialities But you found her sweet In her simple manner. Sweet like the dollar-china Growing skins of dust To protect them from ages of neglect. Small children depicted in white stone Eyes painted off-center from their sculpting. Years will pass And she depicts the same emotion. She takes no notice Of the long silence that stifles the air Between you. She takes no notice Of the dust-skin under which you do not blink.

Icarus nonchalantly strolls out of the dark forrest in which he has embeded himself, since the turn of the New Year. He is so casual, infact, that one might need a second glance to observe the haphazard twigs in his dusty hair and clothes. 'Afternoon, gents and ladies. A respectful nod. Nice new digs we got here, huh? Props. Icarus clears his throat for his first Roll Call; he wants to use his boomy voice. He practiced it earlier today, while ordering pizza.Icarus just opens his mouth to proclaim his name and rank when he spots :woot: a PLASMA DRAGON! He giddily hops atop this PLASMA DRAGON!, riding it like a bucking bronco around a far corner of trees, and out of sight. His yips of terror and excitement fade into the wind not long after. Just as any or all onlookers were hobbeling away (including the tap-dancing phoenix ) Blueish cumulus clouds begin raining a few dozen large, white feathers. There are so few, one might think an angel were plucked, or molted. But when examined quite carefully, one was able to read on the largest feather: Soaring Icarus. Page of The Mighty Pen.

It's not that I'm on the net too much, and am slightly but increasingly neglecting my music, work, and more long term issues of importance. It's because a herd of irate mountain sheep have gnawed through the power box, and main water pipes in my household, leaving me NO choice but to look to Indonesian residency. I know what you're thinking: "But your playstation is still intact, and Ohio is MUCH closer!" Ohio's full, I already called. And besides that, they don't offer gasoline-filled Power Bars at their local convience stores. (Ask Nyyark). Nevertheless, what I really mean to say is that I'm going on hiatus from every internet community (addictive-like-place) I belong to, not just The Pen. Although I still plan on checking my email, entering in Poetic Justice, and occasionally making an appearance on AIM, I'll be gone, pretty much, until April. That's a pretty long time, and, knowing me, I'm sure I'll post a bit here and there, but not nearly as much. I've been waning as of recent, anyway. The real reason is that I need to get my butt in gear for college auditions, and last night's lesson was... a good wake up call. Icarus smiles at the murmering city of The Pen, as he secures his small bag of belongings on his back, and makes way for the the Forrest. A few months of solitude would do him some good, he thought to himself. At worst he could go insane and write a sequel to Walden... But if things went as planned, the unfettering of his life could clarify his fundamental plans. If things went really well, this reality-check could even spawn a poem of sorts. Or better yet, a decent short story. But seriously, Icarus knew he would miss The Pen, as active as it appears to be these days. As he passed into the thick of the forrest and glanced back at bustling festivities remaining from the New Year, Icarus promised himself he would return in April with new work, better work, and more time on his hands.

This poem is actually about a girl I know who's a good friend of mine. Of course, that wasn't evident in the poem, but I wrote this poem as if I were her. Strange, I know, but we're very close friends. She spoke with me on the phone about her birthday, and afterwards I wrote this. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When [lost] is found Who's around That she would want, for Tea? Not me, certainly, She'd rather be In Ireland Her castle-land Far away from me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This first stanza is about her general relationship with her mother, [lost]. Brackets because her mother is lost within herself, and too afraid to admit it. She cannot stand her daughter and has a very distinct obsession with what she believes Ireland is like. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- She sang a song And it wasn't long Before all fled-- Scorched ears on heads-- What she said Would myself embed With closed arms (for I'm strong.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The song reference has to do with the temper of Irish mothers. There's not much more I'm able to relate than that. I myself don't fully understand it; I don't think I want to. However this, her mother's usage of song in a hateful context, is interestingly juxtaposed with her daughter's love of music in a context of primarily theraputic and meditative value. She reacts to this with stoicism, and opens up to few. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is humorous, almost That her anger was utmost To remember the day I was born. So out of scorn She informs her forlorn That he's to have no music dosed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Her mother refused to let her play the piano, on her birthday. No explanation given. She loves that thing more than I do. This was especially why I identified with her so closely. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A sneer tops her face In vindictive haste To press the only button not covered by snow. But she does not know My skin deep scarecrow The real music encased. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Although this came as somewhat of a blow; the only figurative button that her mother could try to push (not covered by snow, or stoicism) seemed to only have been painted on, in the first place. This girl... has a pretty vivid imagination, (I'm begging her to join The Pen), and when it comes to writing music, even without a piano... incredible things happen. No one can take it away from her. And with a scarecrow-like stoicism, who would even know she holds it so dearly? I hope this cleared things up; I'm glad some of you enjoyed this poem.

You are beautiful. Good atmosphere you set, it's something timeless I believe everyone on The Pen can relate to. I hope things have gotten at least a little better since this was originally writen. -SoaringIcarus

Nice rhyme scheme. The 'with you in my sights' versus 'wandering in darkness' really adds to the meaning of the 'you' in this poem. I've always been fond of the face. Write on. -SoaringIcarus

When [lost] is found Who's around That she would want, for Tea? Not me, certainly, She'd rather be In Ireland Her castle-land Far away from me. She sang a song And it wasn't long Before all fled-- Scorched ears on heads-- What she said Would myself embed With closed arms (for I'm strong.) It is humorous, almost That her anger was utmost To remember the day I was born. So out of scorn She informs her forlorn That he's to have no music dosed. A sneer tops her face In vindictive haste To press the only button not covered by snow. But she does not know My skin deep scarecrow The real music encased.

*looks around for an Elder to make this post part of the Rules and Regulations for posting on The Pen.* Hit the nail on the head, my friend. -SoaringIcarus

Finally I have discovered who is the root of these clever ideas that get marketed in a heartbeat. *hand-cuffs peredhil and two men escourt him into the back of a car* I'm afraid there's not enough room for you AND yule-tide joy, this season. *shouts to the men in the car:* "Give him 12 shots of 'nog, and the Rudolph apparel! That oughta clean him up." *mutters to himself about the twisted ancients these days as he straightens his blue Santa costume, and makes his way for the forrest*

Goals are good and the Beatles are better. I second that notion. -Ic

Nice Ouji Sama, and I agree with peredhil. I wish that I had the umption to sit down and write a poem that long. I find it interesting the way you utilise rhyming stanzas and non rhyming stanzas, but continuity is interrupted. Perhaps this isn't the right poem to critique in this way. Although I feel that this poem could be more effective if the structure were more carefully assembled. I hear the author's voice, if that saves me. -Icarus

It's one of the most uplifting songs I know. His voiced reached up the scale, Sounding like a million bucks... I heard it now, on my bi-weekly solo sing-a-long to rehearsal. It's winter and the trees are complexly barren Like last Thanksgiving we spent at my grandmother's. We always spent the night in her wooden guest bedroom, With it's wooden shades that car lights could spill through, across the closet, above the dresser, and fading into shadow, before it reached my pillow. It would never go past my pillow. My brother and sister would sleep just under that window, with their own headphones, whispering important words to semi-conscious minds. I slept above a folder of all the music I owned, although this was always the only CD that accompanied the melting lights across this wall. Lying there, never really asleep with music my siblings scoffed at. The room wouldn't have been the same without it. Year after year with the same white lace blanket, on the same rickety bed-spread, somber tunes filled the thick air with the same contented isolation. The sad tunes after pumpkin pie and rum, and just before biting wind from toothy trees (and an old car-freshener), were that room. The wind still nips in Richmond, and the light from the wooden shades will never go past that pillow. That room only exists now in the CD, in this voice rhapsodizing over the piano, rhapsodizing over the room. The atmosphere. Thick, dusty, occupied, and content. The music reminds me. The season reminds me. It was about a year ago that my grandmother passed away. Edited by: SoaringIcarus at: 12/16/02 8:53:08 pm

*steals a quick hug* *Looks around nervously for Nyyark* *Sees him eyeing the two, questioningly* *dons his Yodeler hat, sunglasses, and starts smoking..?* -Strangeling Icarus

#1 Interesting. By the 'stands tall and mockingly' do you mean the view of the blood as your head is tilted side ways on the ground, seeing it horizontally, or do you mean the person who caused you this pain? Definitely gives me a feeling of a confuse stupor of unconsciousness #2 Beautiful description of the ocean and/or the sky? Clouds, even? Definitely asking myself "What is it?" #3 The symbol for infinity? As a set completing a larger work, I like the variety of themes here. A good one to finish on, as well. Was I correct in my guesses? -Icarus

Oh, substitute. Condoning your small rounded teeth and Desperately wide-held grin-- You are still that which you were In High School. The careful patience of students, Twelve years your junior, Will fulfill you just As long as they can stand you. Take heed, as you are short and blend well With the shunned. As you take compliments We did not give. But you needed. Your good intentions are clear To all except you Whose vision is clouded From a Russian lonliness; An escape you can no longer decline. A thirty-something stranger to reality Tried making up for his mental years abroad In English today.

This showed up one night, when I was thinking about books instead. I couldn't turn it away, it's been so long, and I wonder if it said everything it had to, or if it will return. Nobody who's read it liked it, except me, but parents always think their own children are special. Maybe it's not mine. I couldn't turn it away. -Icarus Daylife strikes 11pm and withers and twists into night. The fearful are sleeping and the weak are hiding. Motionless neverhood streets, thick with emptiness, are flooded only in blotches of gray lights, droning to themselves. Outside of the blotches is an uneasy movement; the kind of movement people think they see because of the flicker of the lights.. House lights of orange invite you to walk past, noting the homeyness, and keeping well on your path, stranger. The houses are armed to the teeth with dark-matter sensors anyway. It's easier now than it used to be, now that security comes cheaper. Still, they're only growing stronger, and daylight has never seemed so fleeting. You look up to see precise periods ending celestial ideas. Commas sometimes. Elipses in Orion. Nightlife has yawned it's first yawn of awakening and my mind feasts upon the places I shall go. It is finally quiet. The dead in the center of a storm. A storm ideal for the dead, that is... Not dead, but The Forgotten. A black velvet invitation in perfect smooth calligraphy awaits my hand, inside a uniformly wrinkled envelope, bound in twisted dark ribbon. Mysteriously upright, outside of my door, now a portal into the Nightlife of insane things that writhe in shadows and music from the wind and cries of broken souls with no destination. An invitation in through the scared dimension that is the night, around abstract things on a whole plane of emptiness and echoed unanswered questions. Enticing me. Shaken but assured cursive lingers on and above the page. An invitation through the portal. The Forgottens would eat me alive, should I even make it past the river. But with this invitation and time enough in the full moon, I may be able to escape. There may be time. The portal could close, and all would be lost, but by staying here I'm just a chicken whose collar bone they would snap, to make a wish. The mere memory of me would be devoured, and I should only writhe with them in soft shadows, forgetting myself, forgetting the daylight, and knowing only unbearable starving insomnia. Their eyes are squinted shut. They feel their way through darkness, not like blind men, but like eternal Feelers who could just as soon make their way through your childhood as they could across the street. Nobody knows what drives them. Then again, nobody knows much from other human beings, since the age of the Great Shadow. We are all quaranteened and bedridden, enforced by eachother. Many have already gone mad with cabin fever, and it is hard to distinguish at sundown who has gone mad and who is a Forgotten. They will run amok, crying out to the empty pale sky, until silence reigns. They slip past a corner, around a building, and are not to be found. The feeling that in the profound silence is one entity that posesses every inch beyond your window, your door, that merely standing within it should let insanity trickle in through your ears and eyes, and you're not sure if what you saw a hundred yards away was coming or going, you're not sure how many limbs it had, or if they were tentacles or what it was saying or screaming or pleading, or if it was lost, what if it was lost, could you run then. Could you run. If it were some small child neglected and forgotten by sundown could you run, clawing your way to your door to leave them eaten alive by the movement underneath the leaves, and on the other side of the lights; that kid was you. You made it by pure luck or pure conspiracy that you should survive while your friend was chewed into himself, the dark stuffs growing into him from under his fingernails, you ran. You ran until someone jerked you violently through a door, you thought you were as good as dead anyway. Out of breath, bloody face, what did anything matter to you. What does it matter now if you ran from that thing coming up the street, up over the slope, coming fast and strong, or desperate you don't know. Your house was empty with orange emanating from the door like a lamp knocked to the floor, as you looked back at it. You look at the thing, and then down at the invitation at your hand. Something old, something new you thought, and you mingled with the idea of being a Maverick of the night. Or, by the looks of the dark Forgotten that barreld towards you, it's pathetic one-night stand. Your eyes narrowed as you shoved the letter in your pocket, while your other hand softly embraced the hilt of your pistol. The Forgotten only murmured sounds of mindless nightmares and emptiness as it approached. Would you run a fifteen year old memory re-emerged at the last crucial moment. No, you thought. The silence must be broken, and the soul-scavangers must be put to rest. With all of the ideas of the cosmos overhead, you were the only one who could save anything now. Your own mind; if it wasn't too late. Tonight was a night too feared for sleep, and too mutated to run from. Tonight was a night to live. Edited by: SoaringIcarus at: 12/12/02 2:16:17 pm

Wow. A most impressive poem. Quite powerful; I had to sit here for a moment, soaking in all it's power. It's rather vivid, and happens to have some of my favorite timeless themes of seasons. I really look forward to reading more of your work. Post more often, please! -Icarus

Are you musical, Mr. Darkcloud? Your poem certainly has it's own rhythmic pizazz to it. A lot is implied with "empty". I'm not sure what else to say about this other than the fact that I like it! It would be easy to mutter under one's breath as they marched confidently to an important destination. Call me weird. Call me Icarus. -Icarus

This is a good poem. It feels inclined to rhyme, in parts, but only does so, in parts. I guess I'm an all-or-nothing kinda guy. Curious usage of a capital letter, for Crazed. As if by capitalizing it, you respect the mental state more. Or perhaps it was only for emphasis, such as italics might demonstrate? Again, stylistic preferences. The ending has so much potential, but it feels like you compromise yourself. The door being locked implies that it's been closed. (Perhaps superfluous.) Don't compromise yourself. Run wild. Write on. -Icarus

What an excellent poem. A timeless theme. It felt very real to me. Thank you. -Icarus P.S. A truly beautiful poem.