Post-for-post 4: Limerence

Fourth entry to my post-for-post with my friend Patrick. I'll link to his post-for-post when he sends me a link to it. This one is a rewrite of my previous limerence acrostic, this time with the word spelled correctly:

Limerence

Lurking somewhere under the surface
Is my deep certainty that the
Myth of being lost is just that.
Everyone falls eventually, as I am falling, I
Reach out, grasping with weak fingers, for you, for
Everything I ever wanted – the hard landing, I
Need the broken bones that come of shattering myself, of
Crashing against you. Your love is cliffs, towering; I know now, certain as anything:
Eventually, everything falls silent.

—Puck Malamud
31/3/2012 18:39

For the record: I give up on formatting this blog forever. Sorry.

Post-for-post: Scalpels and Sibilants

Entry three of my post-for-post with my friend Patrick (link to come when he gives me his). This one's a creepygory love poem. Been a while since I've written one of these. <3

Scalpels and Sibilants

When I slice you open,

I will do it with neat lines; I have the scalpel ready

to peel away the layers of tissue and skin,

slowly

revealing

muscle and bone.

When I have you alone,

I will open you wherever you feel you are poor or thin.

I want to catalogue your every part,

cover over your scars with other, better scars.

Your eyes are jellyfish; your pupils, distant stars;

I want to taste the raw flesh of your heart.

You devastate me, deadlier even

than arson or arsenic,

than atom bombs or time;

I want to know what makes you tick,

dissect the clockwork of your brain;

I want to forget my handkerchief inside your spleen,

monogrammed with my initials, so there is something in you

that is mine and only mine.

How could you ever think that you are plain

or ordinary, when you are

permanently perched somewhere between

mundanely mad or maddening, obscene?

It is obscene how I've fixated

on whatever is in you,

your capillaries, sinews,

and anything that is vaguely related

to the anatomy of my affection;

I cannot pass the cooking section

in the supermarket without staring at the knives,

deciding which one to buy for you, only for you;

it will never touch food, unless you are food,

unless we eat the fabric of our very lives,

raw, red, and dripping from lip and tongue and tooth:

your flesh and mine will be the only truth.

and that,

my love,

cannot be understood.

--Puck Malamud

Fri, 16 March 2012

Poem: Limerance

Entry 2 to my post for post with my friend, Patrick. His post can be found here. This one is a rough draft of a poem about limerance, which I actually am not feeling for anybody at the moment. Still it's a fun feeling, so I thought I'd write about it.

Limerance

Lancing myself through the heart
It’s a silly game, as if
My heart is a ring, dancing in the wind.
Enjoying the gallop, are you? It’s a
Risk, but you like risking everything on the
Approach, stabbing at my heart at the last minute, you
Never miss, though. I can feel each pass, each
Centimetre of the ground you churn beneath your feet:
Everything about it feels like falling.

Hope you're all doing well!

Journey to Faded City (Work in Progress)

Entry 1 to the post-for-post with my friend Patrick: his post can be found here. This is the start of a short story that ties into my unfinished NaNoWriMo from 2007.

Journey to Faded City

“Down here,” hissed the ratfox and dove headfirst into the rocky hillside.

Soon stifled a cry of shock as her guide vanished, then crept closer. If she unfocused her eyes slightly, she could see, swimming in the rock before her, a tiny hole. She had grown used to such strangeness on her journey, but her senses still balked at recognizing it entirely. Still, the hole was clearly there and that was where the ratfox must have gone. She took off her pack and began to squeeze through. The rocks tore at her already ragged tunic and for a second the space was too narrow; the hard rock clamped down on her small, human body. She fought for breath; she could see nothing but she had to keep going down.

The tunnel entrance seemed to be alive, some malicious purpose clutching at her, squeezing the air out of her lungs and threatening to break her ribs. She would have cried out if there were any air to spare. Closing her eyes, she gave it one last squeeze. The pressure of the rocky tunnel vanished. She was through.

Gorki stood before her, his red eyes glowing in the dim light of the entranceway. “You made it,” he said, his voice a soft growl. “The passage doesn’t like humans much.”

“I gathered,” she said, after her breath had slowed. She didn’t have it in her to be cross at him for not warning her ahead of time, not after weeks on the road together. She shouldered her pack again. “Onward?”

“Onward,” he agreed. “Keep close to me. There are things in the tunnels that are not known in the daylight worlds and they are not all content to let us pass.”

He turned and plunged on. She followed close behind, letting the tip of his bushy tail brush against her chest. She could see nothing, but so long as she felt that soft touch, she knew she was on track. If she had been foolish, she would have been inclined to grab hold of it, to have a solid anchor between her fingertips; but she was not foolish, so she contented herself with that small reassurance that he would not abandon her in the tunnels below Argnot.

She did not know how long they walked, black tunnels giving way to more black. Every once in a while, she felt the cold air of an opening in the tunnel to her right or left, but Gorki plunged them unerringly onward. She could hear whispers in some of the other branches of the tunnels and they turned her spine to ice. Eventually, though, light began to filter into her vision, showing the grey on grey stone making up the roof and walls of the tunnel. When she could see everything clearly, albeit without colour yet, Gorki turned around and motioned for her to stop. She did, perplexed. This part of the tunnel looked no different from anything else they had walked through.

“Take this,” said the ratfox. In his open paw he held a small white capsule. Soon picked it up and raised her eyebrows at him. On its side, in a clear, institutional font was written 20 MG.

“Drugs?” she asked.

“Faded City is not only a place; it is a perception. You need to have the right filters to get there. If you don’t… I don’t know what you will see, but it won’t be Faded.” He paused. “Your perceptions are nearly right,” he said, once she’d nodded. “So I’m giving you the smallest doze.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a mind-altering drug made from the powdered bark of the tsokin tree,” Gorki said. His tone made it clear that he was humouring her and did not expect her to know what the drug was. “My people back home use it in a recreational capacity. Here, you can think of it as a slight adjustment. The only difference you will notice is that you can see Faded.”

Soon sighed and accepted the pill. She had not come this far to get squeamish now. Uncorking her waterskin, she popped the capsule into her mouth and drank it down. Then she recorked the skin. “And now?”

Gorki took off his own pack and sat down. “Now, we wait.”

“For what?”

“For it to kick in.”

Soon licked her lips nervously, but sat, her back against the cold stone of the tunnel. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes; there had not been much time to rest the past few days. She was glad of the chance to sit down.

After a moment, she opened her eyes again and dug in her pack for a piece of waybread. She chewed it for a bit, then washed it down with just a little more water from her waterskin. After that, she took down her waist-length hair from its bun and began brushing it. She was dimly aware that she had grown unused to having free time while on her journey. It was certainly nice to have a rest, but she kept trying to find ways to fill the time.

After some time (after she’d finished brushing her hair and put it back up in its severe braid), she noticed that she could see colour again. Her guide’s reddish fur with its golden highlights became clear and her own skin no longer looked grey-white in the half light. The walls of the tunnel, too, were not simply grey-on-grey; another look revealed many earthen shades among the rock.

“Has it grown lighter?” she wondered aloud.

“You’re seeing colour?” Gorki asked.

“Yeah,” Soon said. “But I haven’t seen the light grow.”

“It means the pill has worked. We are very near the border now and that affects things.” He leapt lightly to his hind legs, grabbing his rucksack as he did so. “Time to go.”

Soon rose, massaging her tired thighs as she did so. “Great,” she said, her voice warm. She was nearly there.

A Little Rain

This is a poem from a few months ago. Not the most, uh, cheerful of works, so perhaps not appropriate to a New Year, but I'm sure you will forgive me.

"A Little Rain"

She peeks through a chink in the stone wall—
The garden looks desiccated and dry.
Her handmaidens continually weep and sigh.
‘Perhaps tonight a little rain will fall,’

She says and glances at the sky.
It remains the same cloudless, oppressive blue.
The sun is warm; it bleaches every hue
and sucks the moisture out of passersby.

Thus, my life, robbed as it is of you:
Day after cheerful, endless, depressing day
My tongue is dry as cotton and cannot say—
—
I know not what. What words could end this drought?

Christopher Hitchens is Dead

I haven't much to say about it that hasn't already been said. I knew about Christopher Hitchens' existence because of being an avid lurker on the atheosphere (what a silly word!), but he always seemed to me to be a reference rather than a person. Bloggers I knew and followed referenced him all the time, but despite how much I want to be one of those people who follows references back all the time, I'm actually really intellectually lazy, so I just took the references at face value and left it at that. Before today I had read maybe two pieces by him and seen maybe one video or two.

Today I've done nothing but read article after article and watch video after video about Christopher Hitchens and linking back to them on my Facebook and twitter. J Daniel Sawyer suggested that I post all the links in a single blog post (which I didn't even think of doing because I frequently forget that this blog exists!), so here it is:

Articles:

From FreeThought Blogs:

JT Eberhard: RIP Hitch | What Would JT Do?
This is where I first heard about Hitchens' death.
"The man never stopped going, he never stopped fighting, and he never stopped living to the fullest extent he could conceive. Frankly, he was due for a break. I’m glad he’s finally getting it."

King of the Vultures Thinks Little of Hitchens and Christianity | What Would JT Do?
In this post, JT destroys Mark Judge, who thinks that maybe as death approaches Hitchens will rethink his position on the existence of god. (JT's response? Aw heeeell no!)

Kylie Sturgess: We Lost Hitch. That Is All

Greta Christina: Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011
This one actually made me cry. I am not ashamed.

Ophelia Bensen: The Hitch
If you read this to the bottom, you'll see she's got a few more posts on Hitchens. They are: Hitchens the writer and simply Hitchens

PZ Myers: Hitch is not in heaven
This one also made me tear up.

Hank Fox: So Long, You Magnificent Sonofabitch
Okay, the picture at the bottom of this article made me unabashedly weep. "Thanks, Hitch. We'll take it from here." Indeed we will.

From The Guardian: Christopher Hitchens dies aged 62

Two from Vanity Fair: In Memoriam and Graydon Carter Remembers Christopher Hitchens

From Slate: Christopher Hitchens Remembered
Slate's full tribute to Christopher Hitchens, a collection of "tributes from those who knew him best—his friends, colleagues, and fellow writers."

The Longform.org Guide to Christopher Hitchens
This is an aggregate of what Slate and Longform.org say are the greatest magazine stories by Hitchens.

From J Daniel Sawyer's Literary Abominations: Un-Hitched

From the LA Times blogs: Christopher Hitchens has died: Fighter, doubter, provocateur
This one contains a number of reactions to his death from people all over the web.

From NPR: Writer Christopher Hitchens Dies At 62

From Shakespeare's Sister: RIP Christopher Hitchens
Recognising his complicated legacy. (personal note: jesus christ, did someone as smart as him ACTUALLY write such a terrible piece as Why Women Aren't Funny? REALLY?)

From The Moth: The Moth Remembers Christopher Hitchens
(Wasn't sure whether to put this one in articles or videos, since it's got an audio file, but sticking with this one.)


Videos:

From the Washington Post: Divine Impulses: Christopher Hitchens on his life's work

From Intelligence Squared: The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world Arguing for the motion: John Onaiyekan, Ann Widdecombe; Against the motion: Stephen Fry, Christopher Hitchens; Moderator: Zeinab Badawi

From Penn and Teller's Bullshit!: Holier Than Thou
About Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama. Hitchens is a source about Mother Teresa.


Tell me in comments if you want me to and I'll add some great articles by Christopher Hitchens as well to round out this collection.


That's all I've got. As parting: