Mind Vomit: 2013

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Calliope!

I was featured in the Fall 2013 of Chapman University's art and literary magazine, Calliope!

Monday, November 25, 2013

Lyrics to "The Writer" by Ellie Goulding

You wait for a silence
I wait for a word
Lying next to your frame
Girl unobserved
You change your position
And you're changing me
Casting these shadows
Where they shouldn't be

We're interrupted
By the heat of the sun
Trying to prevent
What's already begun
Oh, you're just a body
I can smell your skin
And when we feel it
You're wearing thin

Oh, but I've got a plan
And why don't you be the artist?
And make me out of clay?
Why don't you be the writer?
And decide the words I say?
'Cause I'd rather pretend
I'll still be there at the end
Only it's too hard to ask
Won't you try to help me?

Sat on your sofa
It's all broken springs
This isn't the place for
Those violin strings
Oh, I try out a smile
And I aim it at you
Oh, you must have missed it
You always do

Oh, but I've got a plan
And why don't you be the artist?
And make me out of clay?
Oh, why don't you be the writer?
And decide the words I say?
‘Cause I'd rather pretend
I'll still be there at the end
Only it’s too hard to ask
Won't you try to help me?

You wait
I wait
Casting shadows
Interrupted

You wait
I wait
Casting shadows
Interrupted

You wait
I wait
Casting shadows
Interrupted

You wait
I wait
Casting shadows

Why don't you be the artist?
And make me out of clay?
Why don't you be the writer?
And decide the words I say?
'Cause I'd rather pretend
I'll still be there at the end
Only it’s too hard to ask
Won't you try to help me?

Why don’t you be the artist?
And make me out of clay?
Why don’t you be the writer?
And decide the words to say?
‘Cause I’d rather pretend
I’ll still be there at the end
Only it’s too hard to ask
Won't you try to help me?

La Musique

Reading these poems instead of hearing the lyrics was an interesting experience. Instead of hearing the melody, the reader may take on his or her own rhythm while reading, or perhaps they will experience the same melody. I think it is easier to understand songs when they are with music, as this is their intended mode of understanding. Having the lines only takes a way a critical part of their artistry. In a sense, it is like taking a certain brush stroke away from a painting or taking out a piece of a sculpture and expecting it to be the same art.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

A Long Way From Home

Don’t be afraid when the sky falls, my child,
and Heaven rains down upon the good Earth
from faraway faces of gods and stars
to kill not man, but the nature of him.
Don’t run from the great cosmos in free fall,
but rather coil like a spring absorbs shock.
When the first star of fire falls with great light,
don’t lose faith in the face of broken bone,
for you are not glass, not stone, nor iron
like the rails that brought you here – you are love.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Letters of Love, Regrets, & Secrets

I tremble in the dark, looking for ghosts
In the fleece that you left on my shoulders.

Those nights were beautiful, just you and me,
But you skipped away like a stone and sank.

Our hearts are like prisons when we’re alone
And I’ve been lost at sea like a rogue ship.

To taste you, the ocean, only a drop--
You would linger on my lips forever.

I should have done better to keep you close,
And if luck be my friend, I still have hope.

I'm famous... to this blog.

"My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun" by Shakespeare
In "My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun," Shakespeare compares his lover to nature. Throughout the poem, Shakespeare continually says that nature is more beautiful than his own lover. While the reader may at first be astonished when Shakespeare says that "coral is far more red than her lip's red" and then again shocked when he says her breath stinks, the last two lines are redeeming. "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare" is a line that essentially means "But yeah, my love for her is really special and there's no way I could compare it to nature or any other false representation." To me, it means that his love for her goes beyond the typical poetic idea to compare one's love for someone to any symbol of nature. He is making a point to say that while she may not compare to the redness of coral or the beauty in roses, she is something all on her own.

"The Everyday Enchantment of Music" by Mark Strand
The important thing to note about this poem is obviously the formatting of the lines. Instead of being arranged into lines inside of stanzas, Strand chooses to write this poem in a paragraph. I think the importance of this lies in the meaning of the poem as well. In the poem, Strand describes "a rough sound" being "polished until it became a smoother sound" and then becoming more "polished until it became music." Strand then describes how this song was great for one night, and then it all went away, and all that was left was "the empty home of a heart in trouble." The next day, the same thing would happen. I think what Strand is essentially trying to convey is that music has the power to take us to a different time and place, and that it can conjure up fantasies and feeling like you are elsewhere, but once the music is gone, you are still back where you started. I think the formatting of the poem works in this manner, too, because it is very basic. Instead of being formatted as lines and stanzas, the paragraph serves as a deconstructed way of looking at a piece of art, the same way the music started out in the beginning of the poem.

"Famous" by Naomi Shihab Nye
In the poem "Famous," Naomi Shihab Nye explores the definition of the word "famous" and gives it a number of meanings, but most importantly, a closeness and intimacy. For example, Nye writes "[t]he loud voice is famous to silence, / which knew it would inherit the earth / before anybody said so." This could be an allusion to creation and genesis, the idea that there was nothing but silence until "[t]he loud voice" (of God, presumably) spoke out and willed it to be so. Nye also defines "famous" as something dangerous when she writes "[t]he cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds / watching him from the birdhouse." Could it be that fame can eat you up? The next few lines seem to contrast the danger she describes beforehand; this time, she describes an intimate kind of fame. "The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek. / The idea that you carry close to your bosom / is famous to your bosom." Another interesting pair of lines is "[t]he bent photography is famous to the one who carries it / and not at all famous to the one who is pictured." Here, it seems that Nye finds the idea of fame as being subjective and personal to each person. Perhaps Nye is referring to idolizing a person as well. Finally, the last lines of the poem give the reader Nye's own idea of how she wants to be famous, which she answers quite simply, saying that she wants to be famous because she never forget what she could do.

A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22864#sthash.LwzVpLFo.dpuf

y mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15557#sthash.aSapKF5B.dpuf

Visual Interpretation

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.

-Dylan Thomas

The force that drives the water through the rocks Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams Turns mine to wax. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15379#sthash.DkcTzzTE.dpuf

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Dylan Thomas -- Poetry Analysis

In Dylan Thomas’s poem “In My Craft or Sullen Art,” Thomas is answering the same question we were instructed to answer: what does poetry mean to you? In this poem, it is important to note that Thomas calls his poetry both a “craft” and a “sullen art.” I think Thomas is suggesting that poetry is an art form, but one that is undervalued or perhaps not capable of reaching everyone. Thomas informs the reader that he does not write poetry for “ambition or bread / or the strut and trade of charms.” This suggests that Thomas doesn’t write for his own benefit (“ambition”), for money (“bread”), or for fame and power (“the strut and trade of charms”). Instead, Thomas writes “for the common wages / of their [the lovers] most secret heart.” I think Thomas is expressing that he writes for regular people, average lovers, who simply live their own private lives. In the second stanza, Thomas references this point, and suggests that even the lovers do not “heed my craft or art,” which implies that even his art form may be missed on his target audience. Perhaps this is why he calls poetry a “sullen art.”

“The Force that through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower” by Dylan Thomas is a poem about the energy of life, the force that goes by many names (God, the Universe, etc.). Thomas compares the force driving a flower to fruition to that driving his own “green age,” which could stand for his own youth. This very force has the power to move life forward, but it also has the power to destroy life, too, in the sense that it can “blast the roots of trees.” Furthermore, Thomas compares “the force that drives the water through the rocks” to the force that “drives my red blood.” In this case, Thomas is speaking of the same kind of life force. In the aforementioned lines, Thomas is expressing how this force has the ability to give life. In the next lines, Thomas shows how the force can take life away, too. He writes of the force “that dries the mouthing streams” and “turns mine to wax.” In this case, he is likely referring to the waxy look of corpses when they have been embalmed. He continues on with this, addressing how he is “dumb” to tell this life force anything of observation. In essence, I think Thomas is conveying the message that it is impossible to make sense of everything, and that it is silly or “dumb” to think that we are capable of understanding something as great as the force he describes.

What is Poetry?

The Reason
If you find yourself
Loving a poet one day,
Show him why he writes.
-Robert Julius

To me, poetry is a way to make language aware of itself. When we write poetically, we are highlighting the beauty of words, the rhythm of our speech, and thinking specifically about meaning. For me, poetry has always been a way of getting the inside of my mind onto paper. It's a way to take the formless nature of thoughts and the mind and give them form.

I have been writing poetry for a few years now, and I have grown a lot since the start of it. While I tend to focus more on writing fiction and prose, poetry has always been an extremely personal art for me. I write poetry to deal with my emotions and life. Poetry has always been very tied to my private life, and for that reason, my poetry is often raw, emotional, and alive.

I really admire Robert Frost and Rainer Maria Rilke as poets. However, my favorite poem is Desiderata by Max Ehrmann:

Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy. -Max Ehrmann

I read this poem whenever I feel afraid and I feel like I need to be reaffirmed in regards to my own life. This poem reminds me of the important things in life and has given me strength and inspiration during many hard times. To me, poetry is finding these words and storing them in your heart for later. With poetry, we are able to communicate our humanity to one another, and I find that I can resonate with a poet's words in very special ways.

Finally, poetry is also music. I find several musicians to write very poetically, and I believe that lyrics can count as poetry in many cases. I think that songs are one of the most effective forms of poetry because everyone relates to music.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

"Otherness" - Creative Non-Fiction

From a young age, perhaps five or six years old, I was suspicious of my own self in the sense that I knew I was different. At Christmas, I had longed for dollhouses when my two younger brothers wanted trucks. I liked to sit quietly and read or write while my brothers tossed a football outside. I enjoyed watching my mother cook while my brothers were content with eating what she prepared. Though odd, these things did not define me. I was much more than a boy who played with dollhouses, much more than a quiet artist, and my interest in cuisine was seemingly benign. Yet these traits were the seeds of my otherness, the characteristics that would set me apart from the majority of society for the rest of my life.

Had I known that when I grew older I would come to despise the flowers that had bloomed from those seeds, I may have dug them out as a child and disposed of those precarious little capsules. When the time of puberty came and those flowers began to open, I would spend most of my days picking away their petals, hiding them from everyone. I couldn’t let them know of my otherness. I couldn’t let anyone see that I was different. The flowers that grew on the outside were the easy ones to prune. Outwardly, I may have appeared as a normal teenage boy, but on the inside there was an entire garden of blossoms opening in my lungs, my ribcage, and in my heart, too. These blooms weren’t so easy to weed away, for removing them came with sacrifice. Taking away the blossoms of my lungs would risk losing the artistry to which breath was so vital, the steady rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, of inspiration and creation. To dispose of the roses in my heart would mean to extract and eliminate love. So it became that I could not bear to remove these internal flowers, and I surrendered to the spring inside me.

I was afraid to name this feeling, this otherness, but in the winter of my senior year, I would find the person in whom I could finally confide. We met in February on one of the coldest days that winter, and I can remember my parents telling me not to go out because I might get frostbite. The chance was obscure, and I dismissed it in my mind because I had already become set on meeting this boy. We had chatted on Facebook and arranged to meet up to go sledding. He was two years older than me. As I walked toward the intersection at which we had agreed to meet, the snow fell lightly and I could hear the sound of my long, blue sled dragging in the gray slush on the streets. My heart pounded with a nervous thunder that I had never known. As I got closer and closer, I wondered if I had made a bad decision, but my heart clamored on and on, expressing its desire with a reverberating go, go, go.

When I came face-to-face with this boy, we greeted each other and then decided to go onward with our sledding adventure. We walked for a few minutes to a cemetery where there was a big hill, perfect for sledding. After going up and down a few times, we were both worn out, so he decided to lie down in the snow. I stayed standing, gazing at his frame against the white canvas beneath him. I silently admired his beauty. This kind of attraction was something that I had never experienced before. When he finally opened up his pretty blue eyes, we had a brief conversation about the wonder of winter, how gorgeous snowfall was, and then we decided to leave.

After we parted, I went home with a tingly feeling in my heart and a smile on my face. A few hours later, I received a text from him asking me the question I had avoided up until now. It was the one question I was so afraid to answer. Are you gay? Deep down, I knew the answer, but I didn’t know if I was ready to tell someone. I carried this secret all my life, and I finally found someone who I knew was like me, someone that would understand. I was resistant to admit the truth. My stomach was in knots, but I thought about how much I enjoyed spending time with him earlier that day. My heart knew the answer. He was the first person I told.

We continued to talk, and after a few months’ time, we came to a mutual decision to be in a relationship. I saw him in secret, keeping this detail of my life from my closest friends and family. I really wanted to tell them all about the wonderful things I was experiencing. One of our first official dates took place watching a 3-D documentary about deep space called Hubble. We sat in front of a giant Omnimax screen, exploring the mysteries of the cosmos, when he reached out for my hand in the dark. This small act, a simple holding of hands, felt absolutely magical to me. Here I was, learning about the vastness of the universe, how humanity was smaller than a speck of dust in the celestial sense, and I could feel that isolation mirrored in my own existence. And here he was, reaching out in the nothingness, taking hold of my hand to affirm that we don’t exist in a vacuum; we do not—I did not—exist alone. I had never gotten the chance to have someone to call my own, to feel young love, like all my peers in high school had. I had lived in romantic isolation for so long because I was afraid of what being gay meant for me. As time went on and we got closer, living a double-life became too hard to handle, and I knew I could no longer keep up with the façade. One day in May marked the most important decision of my life. It was the day I chose to let the outside flowers grow.

That day I walked to my favorite spot in the neighborhood. My house was at the bottom of a hill and at the top was an open field of grass. In this field was a row of crabapple trees, and at one end of the grass, closest to the street on which I lived, there was a crabapple tree that grew all by itself. This tree in particular was perfect for climbing, and I was rather arboreal in nature, so I spent much of my teenage years sitting inside of this tree reading, writing, or just thinking about life. The crabapple tree was in full blossom, a beautiful display of pink flowers that ranged in hues from pastel to neon. The blossoms’ aroma was captivating and alluring, a scent that I can recall vividly on any day. I felt peaceful vibrations from this tree, like I could sense its tranquil spirit. I climbed into the tree, feeling anxious, alone, and afraid. I meditated among the flowers, asking for strength and courage to be myself. As I waited for some kind of response, I felt an overwhelming calmness and sense of loving kindness, what Buddhists would call metta. It felt like the crabapple tree was embracing me, wrapping me in its sympathetic branches and entwining its healing tendrils around my fearful soul. It was as if the tree whispered to me, “Hush, child. Don’t be so afraid to let your colors show.” The wind blew through the leaves and flowers delicately, releasing the perfume of the tiny works of art. I could have sat in this sanctuary forever, but I knew I had to leave. I had something to share with my family and friends.

As I descended from the sweet-smelling branches, I walked home with flowers in my hair and began to write a coming out letter. I had decided to write my parents a letter because I worried about the outcome if I were to talk to them in person. The confession was long and explanatory, and I left out no details regarding my otherness, the fact that I was gay. Writing the truth was painfully difficult for me. I was so afraid of what everyone would think. I wrote the letter with pain and tears, and it took all the courage I could muster to finish and sign that piece of paper. When I handed it to my mother and went to work for the day, it felt like handing over a loaded gun. I felt my heart flutter and I knew there was no backing out. The truth was there. I could no longer hide in my solitude or stay in the darkness. The lies that had become a part of me were being torn away, and there was nothing left but light.

While my friends were extremely supportive after finding out, my parents’ reaction created a gash in our relationship. My father stopped talking to me and my mother wept quietly. I had no choice but to accept the openness of the wound, and while I knew it would heal, it would leave a scar, and things would never look the same. Ultimately, what really mattered to me was the feeling of liberation. I no longer had to suppress a part of my identity, and I didn’t have to love in secret. I embraced this otherness. I allowed all the parts of me to bloom. Accepting myself at that point in time sparked the start of a lifetime journey of self-discovery. I could no longer see my otherness as a curse. It was a blessing and has always been a blessing. I was given a queer set of eyes with which to see the world. Through those beautiful, kaleidoscopic lenses, I see sameness in all the difference. I see love in all the hate. And I have been gifted with a loving heart, one that blooms with the most precious of roses, that loves freely, even when I’m reminded of the thorns.