Beyond the mountains, the crowning guardians,
There was an horizon that spanned the sky
From the seven stars in the cold East
To the sun hidden forever on the brink of the West.
At the foot of a glacier, where the moon turned blue,
I was come finally to the end of my way
Where there was an aurora every day.
In the cold warmth of the infinite loneliness,
Within a loud silence, slept a new world.
In the dark virgin waters, an unborn child swam,
And I knew somehow it was the coming of man.
The sun was never to rise in my eyes again;
I was finally come to the end of my way
Where there was an aurora every day.
A fierce wind lay to rest the reeds around me.
The flock of birds in the distance only reminding me
Of the many, many miles lying open behind my back,
My footprints in the mud showing my children the track-
I knew I was somewhere in a place they called home.
I was finally come to the end of my way
Where there was an aurora every day.
Showing posts with label darkness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label darkness. Show all posts
Monday, 23 May 2011
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Das Opfer des schwarzen Blutes
Denken Sie nicht über die Wahrheit, mein Kind,
Die Dunkelheit ist notwendig für unsere Augen!
Wo sind wir zu gehen, wenn wir nicht wissen, Krieg?
Wo können wir gehen, wenn es keine Straßen?
Lass dich nicht von den Geräuschen, Kind, Angst
Halten Sie alle Ihre Ängste auslaufen
In den Frauen, die Träume haben für Kinder,
In die Herzen der Unwissenden und Ohren.
Hurt sich selbst und lassen den Blutfluss, Kind,
Weil sie werden für immer die dummen Affen!
Die Wissenschaften sind Sie wissen Geheimnisse
Welche von ihren kleinen Herzen verschwinden!
Leg deinen Kopf auf meinen Schoß und weinen, Kind,
Damit die Menschen können niemals lernen,
Von Ihrem Opfer, das notwendig ist für die Zukunft,
Die Lehren, die Sie für heute abend sterben müssen!
*
Translation
The sacrifice of black blood
Do not think about the truth, my child,
The darkness is necessary for our eyes!
Where do we go when we know not war?
Where can we go if there are no roads?
Do not fear the noise, child,
Leave behind all your fears
For women who have dreams for children,
To spill into the hearts of the ignorant and ears.
Hurt yourself and let the blood flow, child,
Because they will forever be the silly monkeys!
The science you now know are the secrets
Which must disappear from their little hearts!
Lay your head on my lap and cry, child,
So that people may never learn
From your sacrifice, that is necessary for the future,
The lessons that you have to die for tonight!
Das Opfer des schwarzen Blutes
Denken Sie nicht über die Wahrheit, mein Kind,
Die Dunkelheit ist notwendig für unsere Augen!
Wo sind wir zu gehen, wenn wir nicht wissen, Krieg?
Wo können wir gehen, wenn es keine Straßen?
Lass dich nicht von den Geräuschen, Kind, Angst
Halten Sie alle Ihre Ängste auslaufen
In den Frauen, die Träume haben für Kinder,
In die Herzen der Unwissenden und Ohren.
Hurt sich selbst und lassen den Blutfluss, Kind,
Weil sie werden für immer die dummen Affen!
Die Wissenschaften sind Sie wissen Geheimnisse
Welche von ihren kleinen Herzen verschwinden!
Leg deinen Kopf auf meinen Schoß und weinen, Kind,
Damit die Menschen können niemals lernen,
Von Ihrem Opfer, das notwendig ist für die Zukunft,
Die Lehren, die Sie für heute abend sterben müssen!
*
Translation
The sacrifice of black blood
Do not think about the truth, my child,
The darkness is necessary for our eyes!
Where do we go when we know not war?
Where can we go if there are no roads?
Do not fear the noise, child,
Leave behind all your fears
For women who have dreams for children,
To spill into the hearts of the ignorant and ears.
Hurt yourself and let the blood flow, child,
Because they will forever be the silly monkeys!
The science you now know are the secrets
Which must disappear from their little hearts!
Lay your head on my lap and cry, child,
So that people may never learn
From your sacrifice, that is necessary for the future,
The lessons that you have to die for tonight!
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Blackbird's Egg
Ephemeral and lasting these sons of constant attention remain, swimming seas of white and seeking like brave fools the short-lived happiness that words bring. A bloodied chest of rubies with a curse screaming above their head, and I am pushed away, slowly, steadily, and I deliberately forget to fight as noiseless wonders fracture to an unforgiving life. My hollowness has been stolen and in its place is a black bird.
[caption id="attachment_819" align="alignright" width="420" caption="Broken sky, wholesome rain"]
[/caption]
A dreaded wall climbs high and lifts magnanimously on its bank a small green frog. The calendar is moving away, tearing slowly across the lines, the numbers are released up and down both at once. Ripples settle down in silence and the moon comes to watch a storm gently falling asleep in the morning. Jan-jan-jan, one by one, push the sun out. Was-now flaps its wings in a blur but white lingers, a black sun rises in the north, and the morning blooms now-was.
Dissension and debate rage on the outside while a sharp illness pricks within. Give me your promise, broken at birth, and exploit my choices as a preference. Blood on the world's hands and scratches on the queen's back, the marauder runs into eternity behind the pillars of creation. Reason gives fast pursuit but the catch is never done. Why must it be when the end is the end is the end? Raindrops slither down the damp wood and our fires won't burn for any bribe. The crime is only slavery... not you, my darling.
I'm a radioactive toy filled with evaporating purposes. Keep my right to freedom and keep my right to the skies. Give me the freedom to give up when I longer can, give me the freedom to throw my arms up, give me the freedom to shed a tear. To cry shamelessly. Dark patches of dried blood flake away into the wind while the sun sets slowly beyond the mountain, and sunflowers meet the Earth whence they came. The leaf, is airborne, skyward, as a souvenir of the true day.
[caption id="attachment_819" align="alignright" width="420" caption="Broken sky, wholesome rain"]
[/caption]A dreaded wall climbs high and lifts magnanimously on its bank a small green frog. The calendar is moving away, tearing slowly across the lines, the numbers are released up and down both at once. Ripples settle down in silence and the moon comes to watch a storm gently falling asleep in the morning. Jan-jan-jan, one by one, push the sun out. Was-now flaps its wings in a blur but white lingers, a black sun rises in the north, and the morning blooms now-was.
Dissension and debate rage on the outside while a sharp illness pricks within. Give me your promise, broken at birth, and exploit my choices as a preference. Blood on the world's hands and scratches on the queen's back, the marauder runs into eternity behind the pillars of creation. Reason gives fast pursuit but the catch is never done. Why must it be when the end is the end is the end? Raindrops slither down the damp wood and our fires won't burn for any bribe. The crime is only slavery... not you, my darling.
I'm a radioactive toy filled with evaporating purposes. Keep my right to freedom and keep my right to the skies. Give me the freedom to give up when I longer can, give me the freedom to throw my arms up, give me the freedom to shed a tear. To cry shamelessly. Dark patches of dried blood flake away into the wind while the sun sets slowly beyond the mountain, and sunflowers meet the Earth whence they came. The leaf, is airborne, skyward, as a souvenir of the true day.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
The Lonely Perfectionist
A few months before, I had a plot simmering in my head about a lonely perfectionist. I let it go over time for lack of interest – the way I naturally developed the storyline didn’t go well with the other half of me, the “me” that wanted to concentrate more on the reaches of insanity and what insanity itself desired.
The Lonely Perfectionist
He was a lonely man, sitting alone in his dark room for hours on end, and when he emerged, rarely though that was, he would conjure great stories about himself, his brave conquests. The lonely perfectionist was an intelligent man, and into these stories he would throw in specks of his humiliations, his defeats, just to provide the tale with a sense of balance and some plausibility, as such. One fine day, when his only son comes visiting, the lonely perfectionist wishes not to open his long shut door. When the incessant knocks becomes unbearable, he leaves his chair and pulls the door open with an inexorable irascibility.
As the hinges creak against the damp mass of wood, so also does his past. A multitude of memories flash past his eyes, each more vague than its predecessor, and the lonely perfectionist only ignores them. He deigns them as the foolish who chase after what was done. He left his wife to fend for herself on the lonely and cold streets of Kzar (a fictitious town), he left his toddler son to beg; he thought, more so than wished, that he was leaving his past to die. And now, it had raised its serpentine head once more, rearing up against his bosom. He looks up at his son, for he is tall, handsome, and rich by the merit of his garb. As the old man opens his mouth to shoo the stranger back into the darkness whence he seemed to have emerged, the son silences him with a casual wave. They only exchange a stern stare, each delving into the other’s eyes with an immense hatred.
The rich, finally, hands the poor a purse of leather, albeit leaving him to claim it from near his feet, and departs. The old man is intrigued. “What scourge from the dead is this?”, he wonders; he picks it up, pushes the door back into its termite-ridden nightmare, and gets back to his study.
The room of the lonely perfectionist is small, housing only a chair, a table and no bed. Clothes lay strewn on the floor. When he moved into Alam, he had purchased this small room and the house on the other side of the wall. He had further permitted a group of young boys to move in, and he only asked of them to feed him night and day by pushing a small plate of rice and chicken through a crack at the bottom of the wall, and some oil and wick whenever he tapped his stick thrice. He cared not for the rent, he cared not for the tantrums they seemed to throw. He was a lonely old man, and he only wished to stay that way.
Years passed, and the arrangement saw itself fit to continue unperturbed. None had seen the old man come out into the daylight. He always was inside, poring over great volumes that he had carried with him from Kzar. What evil or demise these tomes spoke of, no living soul would ever know. The truth was, they were empty with not a single sentence or line or word, not a single tale or fable or moral, not a single hero or king or kingdom. The lonely perfectionist was a creator and needed for himself only a canvas; unto a world of madness he may have been consigned, but he created legends every day.
What he always did and would continue to do for quite some time to come, however, was keep the pages of these books to his ears, and they would speak to him the epics of the past. They don’t, nor do I, know whence these books come from. In fact, they, nor I, knew not whether they were such magical books, ones written by sorcerers and necromancers past. All he would do is sit and listen to them, and whenever he completed a book, he would stand up and dance for days together, stomping and pounding his careworn feet on the floorboards. He would sing, screeching and howling into the night. None knew which memory he was reliving, whose birth he was proclaiming. And then, all of a sudden, even as immediately as God’s wrath descended upon Sodom and Gomorrah, he would quieten. Not a sound would emerge until the lonely perfectionist had completed another tome, another past.
When he finally opened the purse, he discovered within it a hundred glittering coins of pure gold! Not a penny more, not a penny less, but a hundred! The old man knew not what to do with them. What a sensible man does with such treasure – thus was his thought. As he pondered, the few fragments of the past that had managed to survive, the love he was bestowed with by his wife and son from the days older than his discovery, return like the horsemen of the Apocalypse: perhaps his only son had come all this way to gift him another story!
And so, pushing away the faithful books into a pile, and the pile into a darker corner, the old man doused the lights. And then, he slowly leaned his head in toward the coins now laid strewn on the table. One by one, he pushes them to the centre, and yearns for them to begin to speak! Days pass, the morsels are neglected. The tenants are concerned, their plates have not been returned. The neighbours are angry, there is a stench emanating from the room. But the old man ignores them all, until finally, he begins to believe the coins are mute. The coins are mute! Thumping his fist angrily on the table, he begins to shout. “Speak, ye worthless!” and receives only silent humility in return.
“How can you not speak?! You even have the face some other man embossed on yours, are you not ashamed?! You have lost your identity, you have been unmasked, and you have no sorrow to put forth, no regret?! What are you?! Who beat you into this torment?! I have been magnanimous before, and I will be once more now, all for you! - so forth.
He can't stand the silence of the coins, bangs his head against the table. Finally, he is dead.
Thus passed the lonely perfectionist.
I know I've been working towards writing simpler over the last few months, but the story just seemed to warrant it. Like I was venerating von Goethe.
So, that’s how my story went. It was inspired by a dream I had: I was sitting in a dark room, banging my head (don’t ask me why) against a wooden table upon which was a lonely gold coin. Now, this was the problem: I knew I wanted to base the story on insanity – insanity would be my protagonist – and the old man, the antagonist. However, I kept walking into a cul de sac when I attempted to depict such madness, which also served as a clear reminder that I’m quite far from being a good writer. IMO, the good writer differs from the not-so-good writer not because he has a better imagination but because he has better ways of putting it down.
The Lonely Perfectionist
He was a lonely man, sitting alone in his dark room for hours on end, and when he emerged, rarely though that was, he would conjure great stories about himself, his brave conquests. The lonely perfectionist was an intelligent man, and into these stories he would throw in specks of his humiliations, his defeats, just to provide the tale with a sense of balance and some plausibility, as such. One fine day, when his only son comes visiting, the lonely perfectionist wishes not to open his long shut door. When the incessant knocks becomes unbearable, he leaves his chair and pulls the door open with an inexorable irascibility.
As the hinges creak against the damp mass of wood, so also does his past. A multitude of memories flash past his eyes, each more vague than its predecessor, and the lonely perfectionist only ignores them. He deigns them as the foolish who chase after what was done. He left his wife to fend for herself on the lonely and cold streets of Kzar (a fictitious town), he left his toddler son to beg; he thought, more so than wished, that he was leaving his past to die. And now, it had raised its serpentine head once more, rearing up against his bosom. He looks up at his son, for he is tall, handsome, and rich by the merit of his garb. As the old man opens his mouth to shoo the stranger back into the darkness whence he seemed to have emerged, the son silences him with a casual wave. They only exchange a stern stare, each delving into the other’s eyes with an immense hatred.
The rich, finally, hands the poor a purse of leather, albeit leaving him to claim it from near his feet, and departs. The old man is intrigued. “What scourge from the dead is this?”, he wonders; he picks it up, pushes the door back into its termite-ridden nightmare, and gets back to his study.
The room of the lonely perfectionist is small, housing only a chair, a table and no bed. Clothes lay strewn on the floor. When he moved into Alam, he had purchased this small room and the house on the other side of the wall. He had further permitted a group of young boys to move in, and he only asked of them to feed him night and day by pushing a small plate of rice and chicken through a crack at the bottom of the wall, and some oil and wick whenever he tapped his stick thrice. He cared not for the rent, he cared not for the tantrums they seemed to throw. He was a lonely old man, and he only wished to stay that way.
Years passed, and the arrangement saw itself fit to continue unperturbed. None had seen the old man come out into the daylight. He always was inside, poring over great volumes that he had carried with him from Kzar. What evil or demise these tomes spoke of, no living soul would ever know. The truth was, they were empty with not a single sentence or line or word, not a single tale or fable or moral, not a single hero or king or kingdom. The lonely perfectionist was a creator and needed for himself only a canvas; unto a world of madness he may have been consigned, but he created legends every day.
What he always did and would continue to do for quite some time to come, however, was keep the pages of these books to his ears, and they would speak to him the epics of the past. They don’t, nor do I, know whence these books come from. In fact, they, nor I, knew not whether they were such magical books, ones written by sorcerers and necromancers past. All he would do is sit and listen to them, and whenever he completed a book, he would stand up and dance for days together, stomping and pounding his careworn feet on the floorboards. He would sing, screeching and howling into the night. None knew which memory he was reliving, whose birth he was proclaiming. And then, all of a sudden, even as immediately as God’s wrath descended upon Sodom and Gomorrah, he would quieten. Not a sound would emerge until the lonely perfectionist had completed another tome, another past.
When he finally opened the purse, he discovered within it a hundred glittering coins of pure gold! Not a penny more, not a penny less, but a hundred! The old man knew not what to do with them. What a sensible man does with such treasure – thus was his thought. As he pondered, the few fragments of the past that had managed to survive, the love he was bestowed with by his wife and son from the days older than his discovery, return like the horsemen of the Apocalypse: perhaps his only son had come all this way to gift him another story!
And so, pushing away the faithful books into a pile, and the pile into a darker corner, the old man doused the lights. And then, he slowly leaned his head in toward the coins now laid strewn on the table. One by one, he pushes them to the centre, and yearns for them to begin to speak! Days pass, the morsels are neglected. The tenants are concerned, their plates have not been returned. The neighbours are angry, there is a stench emanating from the room. But the old man ignores them all, until finally, he begins to believe the coins are mute. The coins are mute! Thumping his fist angrily on the table, he begins to shout. “Speak, ye worthless!” and receives only silent humility in return.
“How can you not speak?! You even have the face some other man embossed on yours, are you not ashamed?! You have lost your identity, you have been unmasked, and you have no sorrow to put forth, no regret?! What are you?! Who beat you into this torment?! I have been magnanimous before, and I will be once more now, all for you! - so forth.
He can't stand the silence of the coins, bangs his head against the table. Finally, he is dead.
Thus passed the lonely perfectionist.
~
I know I've been working towards writing simpler over the last few months, but the story just seemed to warrant it. Like I was venerating von Goethe.
So, that’s how my story went. It was inspired by a dream I had: I was sitting in a dark room, banging my head (don’t ask me why) against a wooden table upon which was a lonely gold coin. Now, this was the problem: I knew I wanted to base the story on insanity – insanity would be my protagonist – and the old man, the antagonist. However, I kept walking into a cul de sac when I attempted to depict such madness, which also served as a clear reminder that I’m quite far from being a good writer. IMO, the good writer differs from the not-so-good writer not because he has a better imagination but because he has better ways of putting it down.
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