Muse and Anti-Muse (Melencolia)

The following is the sonnet I wrote for my Western Humanities I Final Project on the Renaissance. I had to display a Powerpoint on the Shakespearean sonnet, write and recite my own sonnet. 

My sonnet is inspired by the 1514 metal engraving "Melencolia 1" by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer. (see below)

Muse and Anti-Muse (Melencolia)

In the happy course of composing plots, 

full of daring deeds and mortal affairs.

A sudden chaos, then my mind is fraught:

Calliope! She leaves me unawares!

Imagination now an empty room;

the door therein stands frightfully ajar.

Souls who pursue the arts know well this gloom;

with Mind and Melencolia at war.

Melencolia violates the space,

that dearest Calliope once did fill;

And stirs me not with her Stygian face.

All inspiration she’s designed to kill.

    O Anti-Muse! turn yourself ‘round again,

    Leave by that door, and let my Muse back in!

Only Silence Remains

This poem of mine was published last month on "Soft Whispers." 

I am here...right here...

just a step or two away

from you...here-

with only the distance

of the aisle to separate us.

You are looking at cans of tuna fish,

I am contemplating vegetable soup.

You turn and look in my direction and I smile

but your eyes are blank and unfocused;

seeing right through me,

not seeing me at all,

as if I have become Invisible.

Again and again I observe this 

tragic ritual 

in American marketplaces

and city streets, where a

smile and a “Hello” are rare commodities

and sometimes more precious than gold.

We are a nation of Invisible People:

frightened of any confrontation

beyond our computer and cell phone screens.

How will we re-learn the Art

of spoken Communication 

once it is forever lost?

Will our public voices continue

to dwindle into nothingness

...until only silence remains?

(dedicated to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who envisioned this long before I did, and wrote about it in “The Sound of Silence.” Poetry can be prophesy.)

Works in (slow) progress...and a trip into the surreal life.

1.) Outlining chapters for my NaNoWriMo novel, which is to be called "Mages of Morrow." It is set in the same alternate world as my short story, "Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dragon."

2.) Working on finishing up some incomplete poems: "Ars Gothica," "The Thoughts of a Statue of Dead Poet in a Park Watching People," and "Blame, Lies, and Manipulations." I have another poem I am working on, that doesn't have a title yet. The only thing I know for certain about it is that it contains the "F" word and is sort of about that. So that means it will only get published here, on the "Risky Fiction" site. 

I have other unfinished business, this is just the stuff I'm working on now. 

I work on these projects when I have a spare moment. And I haven't had too many of those lately. Recently my time has been maxed out with studying and writing essays for college. My term ends 7/23 and then I'll have a small break before the fall term begins on 8/23. I hope to squeeze in a little writing time during that nice break. 

I took a nice little field trip to the Salvador Dali Museum as part of a cultural experience for an essay I had to write for Western Humanities class. I love Dali's work. Especially those pieces from the years when he was fully engaged in doing his best Surrealist stuff. 

I feel inspired to write a story based on "Archeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelus." But I need to chew on it mentally for a bit. When the time is right, I'll know it. I want to be able to do it justice.

This is a photo of the artist outside the entrance to the museum:

Golden Warm

Lying back on summer-green grass, 

gazing up at Heaven.

Stars are brighter than ever.

Night is blacker than velvet.

Heat lightning flashes in the distance:

far away for now, no threat now, no harm.

For now, I am warm--golden warm.

Warmed by love and wine

and the thought of you--asleep at my side.

Though sharp is the wind;

it howls and keens!

Come storm and do your worse!

I am golden.

I am warm.

Bastard Out of Oklahoma

I was there the day Chaos

was born: bastard out of Oklahoma.

the Great Plains breed these rag-tail

sons of bitches like shady businessmen

breed money-heavy bad deals, and

this deal could be the worst of them all.

Deception was his mother's name:

to all appearances sweet and mild,

cycling into another beginning,

bright and beautiful to behold

lady in waiting, waiting...impatient for lovers

to violate her and impregnate her,

filling her empty womb with savage life.

Heat was the first who came calling

and he enveloped her

neatly, trapping her in a tight

embrace from which she could not escape

and he tormented her body like an oppressive fever

and left her sweltering,

dripping with sweat.

It was then that Breeze

entered the scene, following

closely on the heels of Heat-

so they both shared her bed

stirring her passions. In this moment

her First Children were

born: white and chubby-cheeked.

smaller, subtler indications

of the greater labor to come

Afterward her next lovers: Energy and

Entropy crushed her beneath them

in a violent fury of assault

she cried out in protest and in pain

but they held her fast, penetrated her depths,

rising and thrusting,

thrusting and rising

in a swirling frenzy

to the place where her Children

rushed together and Amalgamated,

leveled off: flat, dark-skinned and boiling

and shuddering with intensity,

the rape nearly complete

The collective mind of Amalgamation

stirred. It rippled, crackled and seethed.

and Mother's ripe belly continued to swell

as the Amalgamation grew there 


along with the Bastard Child, who 
was waking slowly

from his slumber.
 Mother was nearly obliterated

by them all and they hung heavy and damp and brutal,

thick with ripening entropy

In the nether region of the Amalgamation

a furious tide could no longer be stemmed

and on the underside, as black-green Mammatus bubbled

with Energy, moisture-laden breasts to suckle a hungry beast,

at that moment

a vortex was forced open and

born into the world was Absolute Horror

a hideous breech birth, branching out

bleeding down from above

touching the tentative tendril of its

God-awful tail to earth, digging in with massive, clutching claws

beginning his short, violent life with a wail

that sounded as if booming

from the depths of Hades.

And thus the Bastard, Chaos, was born

and he bore many, many other names

as well: Apocalypse and Armageddon,

they called him Ahriman and Azhi Dahaka,

Kalki, the Destroyer, on his solemn steed

the snake of Midgard, rising from Ragnarok

poisonous and drunk from the blood of gods

and Charon, the boatman, ferrying death and

destruction, as icy-hard stones

rain down in torrents

to cover broken land like dead men’s eyes,

Celaeno, the dark one, and her evil sisters

swiftly churning, End-Of-All-Things and Judgement Day.

Chaos bore all of these names

and he bore them well, but not for long.

but while he reigned over the plains,

all things fell and were crushed before him...

plant, animal, bark and steel...

all were consumed by his ravenous maw,

masticated and spit out into the roiling air.

Even brick and concrete block

felt the pain of his passing.

and the people who were out of doors only

felt a growing uneasiness and heard

screaming thunder as he approached,

a rain-wrapped and terrible vision

they could not see.

For thirty minutes he rained down death

and it took another thirty for him to die,

the cycle closing down, a calming inward intake of breath

as Mother opened up her arms and the bastard

roped out and ascended back into her bosom,

becoming gray and harmless once more

waiting for another day, rife with heat and breeze,

energy and entropy, the four-corners that

make up the Alley Proper, to breed another

Bastard out of Oklahoma.

A Coin from a Fountain, Lost in Time

(to “Junkets,” I would love you, if I could travel back to you)

You took me by surprise, my lover

I knew you were waiting patiently by the fountain

for me to come to you, as you knew I would

both of us slipping quietly away from 

our alternate lives, bound and chained by time

in servitude to the lies we see

as reflections in the mirrors we pass through

as we leave our promises behind us

like ashes from long dead fires

smoldering softly asleep.

I gasped as I felt your arms

encompass me in the dim light of the street torch

your lips burning like sweet poison 

everywhere they touch

and they touch everywhere

and I think: if we should be discovered

at this moment and be killed for our indiscretion

then I would die content

but the street is happily deserted

the tinkling fountain and our sighs the only sounds.

The larkspurs by the fountain are drooping

the hour too late for their lovely faces

You dip your hand in the shimmering pool

and pull up a piece of shiny gold...a coin

of some foreign mark: a bright, thin thing

and you whisper, “Make a wish on it, my love

And I shall throw it back in!”

“No,” I cry. “Let us both wish on it, then

leave me have it so I can 

wish on it always and wish for you!”

So we wish. And I take the coin from him

and leave him there. And through my silvered

mirror I pass again, back to my own age

my own time, my own space, 

my realm of utter unhappiness and as

I wait under electric street lights by fountains

I pull out the coin and wish, wish, wish

I’ve gone back through the mirror many times

Yet, I’ve never seen my lover since 

the night we didn’t throw the coin back in.