In-Progress

My poetry blog is sadly lacking in maintanence/all things needed to make it attractive, so I'm putting anything poetry related on here until further notice. (I don't have that much, anyway)

"The Letter" by me

I came home and saw his letter,
Written on old blue lined paper.
Careful words covered more than half.
Dazed I drifted through unchanged rooms.
All our things were still there.
Only the keys and his clothes were gone.

And because I appreciate me some Ambrose Bierce (author of The Devil's Dictionary):

"Weather" by Ambrose Bierce

Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be--
Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,
With a record of unreason seldome paralleled on earth.
While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incandescent youth,
From the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth.
He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote
On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote--
For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
"Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow."

Roger Alan

This is the longest I've went without seeing my boyfriend in close to a year. So I'm getting to know myself without interruptions (sans text) again. By that I mean I drink a lot of caffeinated drinks and spend my time having imaginary conversations with my friend Roger Alan. Who is also imaginary.

Roger Alan was originally two people when we first met fourteen years ago. Roger, who had black hair and was super intelligent. Alan, who had brown hair and was a knight errant. (I had a whole family of imaginary friends all with special abilities and back stories, but the ones who came through with the most detail were Roger and Alan.)

By the time I was fourteen I had decided that Roger, Alan, and the rest of them were actually spirits that inhabited the rather ancient graveyard behind my house. This would explain why I had less conversations with them as I had grown older. You see, when you are first born your soul has just came from something like the same plane of existence the dead are in currently. Therefore the younger you are the more susceptible you are to getting chatted up (minus pervy connotations) by the deceased. With notable exceptions of older people with open minds.

This theory of mine was supported by a lady who lived down the road from us. A devout Catholic lady who used to live in Mexico, she stopped when I was 3 or so (I was personally told the story when I was 13 by my mother.) to inform my mother that there was a confederate soldier sitting under a pine tree in our yard. That he was lost and that she should go out to the tree and tell him he was dead. Oh, and by the way, did we live near a graveyard? My mother did this without telling anyone about it, and nothing more was said. (For a time after hearing the story I was dead set that Roger was the ghost of the Confederate soldier.)

As I grew older and it became anathema to have an imaginary friend, I pretended that he was no more. When actuality I talk to myself and refer to the voice that answers back as Roger Alan in loving memory.

And when asked if I ever talk to myself I can honestly say, "No, I'm speaking with Roger Alan."

Censoring Children's Books

Neil Gaiman posted a link to an article about a book written by a children's novelist that has a sex scene right at the start.

I'm very pro-censorship when it comes to children, but not complete and total leaving them in the black. I think having children's books that deal with more adult situations are acceptable if they are not graphic or written in a way that makes children want to/comfortable with bad situations. (A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, Crap Books etc.) In order for ANY book to have bad things in them, I think they should be set in a horrific light.

Now, here's the author's response. It seems that she was quite open about the adult nature of her books, and there was even a warning inside the jacket of the book. If that's the case, I don't understand why journalists are prosecuting her via media. If she didn't write the book for young children, made it known that it wasn't for children...Then it's the parents fauts. Don't be an idiot, parents. If you don't want your child to be exposed to the more awful things in the world, then you should put forth effort, doncha think?

Whatever the case, the book looks decently interesting. It's called Tender Morsels and is a play off some Grimm fairy tales. I'll investigae it some more, make sure the author isn't Devil Ruining Children Incarnate as some people think, and then report back.

Reporting Back: After reading some reviews etc. it does look like it's a dark book, but the recommended reading ages are 14-up.... Fourteen makes you a freshman in high school. I'd read some pretty shifty stuff by the time I was that age, though I can understand that a good deal of people read less and therefore encounter less.

The deciding factor for me would be rather or not it's just non-stop graphic awfulness. Obviously that would be a fail.

If there was a moral/redeeming quality to it, then that's a different matter.

Deerskin by Robin McKinley for instance deals with a girl being raped by her father. But McKinley, tactfully has the character be mostly unconscience for this. This is a take on a tale of Grimm's that is pretty upfront about that going on. She also is completely open about the adult quality of the book. It has Deerskin's (main character) recovery and ability to move on from the experience and is ultimately one of my favorite books. It's a book about living, not rape. That, my friends is the difference.

Yes, life. I know.

Hullo, life. It's a beautiful day out, and the pigeons are cooing songs about trees on my front porch. I've been avoiding you lately and I apologize, but you have to admit that I've done well at it. Even if the only way to do so was to let my mind glaze over and immerse myself in fantasy.

Yes, life. I know. No, you're right.

So tell me, what's there to do now? I mean, childhood is technically over. I'm deciding what to do with my life, which is disappointing. Once I've made that plan I can never fantasize about being other things and have that silent promise of, "You've time yet."

Life, you are more realistic than what I once thought, and I've had enough of it. Really, what gives you the right to burst my bubbles and use a battering ram on my castles in the air? How dare you. Yes, you! How dare YOU!

P.S. I'll still be a Lady Knight if I want to.

Starr