Outsider's Vision

Outsider’s Vision

I see

Burning fields of the most valued crop

Cows yelling from hunger

Uninsured families weeping from their loss

Vultures dancing in the sky, waiting the inevitable

I see

Pillars tumbling faster than a rotting republic
Citizens scurrying away before it all falls on top of them

Leaders gathering their wealth in some haunted villa

I see

A ship lumbering through the lost seas

Its crew constantly fighting

Entrepreneurs hoping to become proprietors

And an explorer searching for a new home

Through a glass darkly

I see

Art Influenced Poem

This poem was influenced by Max Ernst's landscape.  The art piece is in the website of the museum (see notes after the end of poem for information)  Art can be very inspirational, along with music or other literature.  I often find myself making a whole short story based on a few lyrics from a song or a whole novel on one song (or put them on my novels to write list)  For those who have writer's block or if the writing business is getting on your last nerves, take a walk in a museum or listen to some music with the sound all the way up.  It will not only clear your mind, but it will also inspire some great creativity.  Depending on your writer's voice and what you observe, great chemistry can happen (if it blows up in your writing, then you can get the right reaction from you and your readers...science)   

Revolutionary March

People of all shapes and sizes

Yellow, brown, and green  

Leaderless

Abandoning their homelands 

All different

But with a common goal

Moving towards a small pond

Cutting through rows

Of cornfield

Of meadows and forests

Passing grasslands and valleys  

The harsh mountains behind them

They walk into the small pond  

They have travelled worlds  

All heading towards this one place

Where they wash away their sins

Some burn

Like bacteria introduced to antiseptic

Others fade away

Still, a fresh swarm moves in

They all desire this one  

Forbidden oasis

Where they quench their thirst

They couldn’t carve a different path

Or just settle in a different place

Instead they choose this one small pond

For its uniqueness

Being the only one of its kind left

The only reliable one

Free from contamination or drought

It doesn’t matter that it belongs to

The few elites

They march right into the forbidden waters

Manifesting themselves as rightful owners

Max Ernst, Landscape, 1957. Oil on glass in Art Institute Chicago 

The Villainous Cat?

A dog is obedient, dependent, loyal, and an attention hog.  The cat, on the other hand, is the exact opposite.  I used to own cats, and they always gave me the cold shoulder when I gave them too much attention.  A cat is cold, calculating, and strive for self preservation and excellence in aesthetics.  Even when the fall, they fall with grace (always landing back on their feet later on).  When they fall asleep, they always make sure that everything is geometrically aligned to their liking.  Cats can be playful, but are descendants of predators.  They are even weary of their ancestors whose genes tend to seep out from a cat's many array of abilities.  

Need I praise the feline more?   

Taking all those traits into mind, would an author be able to make a cat into a hero.  When we think of hero, we always go back to images such as Beowulf or Hercules.  They are all brave, strong, and willing to fight a dragon head on.  If we were to invent a similar hero and make him/her into a cat, would the reader still believe this.  Depending on the plot, setting, theme, and all the other good stuff, then perhaps.  But perhaps the reader will still tend to think that the cat hero is "phony" or fake because a cat doesn't have the guts to take on a dragon or other dangerous tasks head on.  They have the intelligence though, but if they used their own "street smarts" wouldn't it contrast the bold hero who wants to prove his/her strength against impossible odds?  

Puss n' Boots is a great example of a hero who is a cat.  Although he does posses many heroic traits, he is still portrayed as this cool "renaissance" outlaw and hero hybrid.  We praise his image because it is reasonably real.  He is more of a modern hero who survives on wits.  I have yet to see a cat in fiction being portrayed as this muscular giant trying to solve all the problem's of the world.

Memory Poem

Nostalgic Spice

How a smell of cinnamon can be so

Tantalizing

Especially if that smell coaxes you

To madness
And above all else

Can construct a memorial in the hippocampus

I journeyed to a place where very few

Have not seen already  

A megalithic bazaar  

My transportation blasting me with

Undisputed music of its time while heading there  

My guardian and I enter the great bazaar

Through a darkening underground hall

Where manufactured orange lighting soon illuminated everything

The same color

Even manifesting our skin

The dark hall was polluted

With dangerous toxic fumes and sickening poisons

And how I detested the markets

We would spent a great time lurking about

From one proprietor to the next

Walking started to become something

Meant for the gods

Yet my guardian refused to leave

Being pulled by the strong magnetic force

Of marketing   

Hunger consumed my sanity

Imagining the caramel color floor as if it were

Chocolate cake

But the requiem for my sanity was rescheduled  

When I smelled the aromatic smell

That penetrated the nose

And quelled the restless hunger

I went for the core of the cinnabon

Its sugary cream and cinnamon bread

Disintegrating in my mouth in a blink of an eye   

The Second Person

Using the words cascade, excavate, relish, drip, and dragging into this poem I was able to pull this out of thin air inspired by the verbs mentioned.  Even words can inspire.  What I really wanted to do was experiment with the second person, which is something that poets and writers rarely use.  Should the reader feel eerie?  Does the reader turn into the narrator?  The results of my experiment: 

 Going Down

Your stocks have cascaded

As have you

Yet you relish in the moment

Of it all

Excavating deeper into your wealth

Living the day recently

As if it were your last

With not an inch of worry

About the future 

You should just liquefy your assets

Live behind a warm tavern

Follow the demoralizing rigid rules of strangers

Accept being dragged

Back to school

Back to square one

Down into to that cold cave

Of innocence and ignorance

Water drips

Down your spine

Loosening your bike’s chain

Penetrating your shoes

Moving downward without hesitation

As if escaping

The judgmental eye

In the clouds

Where everyone looks up

Where everyone starts   

Pantoum Poem: World Walker

Free style can be easy to write for the author, but sometimes difficult for the reader to interpret.  When applying rules to a poem on the other hand, will it make the reader fall into the rhythm of the poem easier?  A Pantoum poem works with the second and fourth line becoming the first and third line of the next stanza.  Sometimes redundancies help create meaning (or double meaning) in a poem.  Restrictions do apply, so here are the results:  

World Walker

Walking in a muddy river

A never-ending road to dissent

We stumble over a rock

Falling at a constant speed

A never-ending road to dissent

Going downward like a slope

Falling at a constant speed

Humanity’s tower is falling

Going downward like a slope

Stocks fall down

Humanity’s tower is falling

But People are too busy fighting to notice

Stocks fall down

People lose their jobs

But People are too busy fighting to notice

And the leaders live in their last ultimate luxury

People lose their jobs

The Wilderness becomes an option

And the leaders live in their last ultimate luxury

They enlighten themselves with their rare living

The Wilderness becomes an option

The Crimson forests becomes their homes

They enlighten themselves with their rare living

The now ruined cities are coated with ash

The crimson forests becomes their homes

Becoming a confederacy of survivors

The now ruined cities are coated with ash

With their monuments looking off into the distance

Becoming a confederacy of survivors

They start all over from the beginning

With their monuments looking off into the distance

They walk to find food for their new world

Final Fantasy 10 Hymn of Faiths

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h03yRFpbsk0 Just listening to this song is enough to spark up ideas for a novel, even an epic.