Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Who said that?

While sipping slowly on this drink,
My thoughts are manifesting
As two men at my mental brink,
And their exchange is interesting.

The sober man's a skeptic.
His uncertainty sure shows.
For every detail that he questions.
His anxiety grows.
Making sense of all this randomness
Takes time to contemplate.
But Earth's rotation is impatient
And for him it will not wait.
The intoxicated fellow
Thinks he can help the sober man
Through this conundrum so mellow
And he has a master plan.

"What you need is an epiphany"
The drunken man decides.
Then he shares his own philosophy
With a great amount of pride.
"You see, the only thing that we can do
Is perceive and then react
To the environment around us,
A kind of existential pact.
It's not a competition,
Though it's called the human race.
It's impossible to know
How to finish in first place.
Deciphering this life of ours
Is not worth all the stress.
You'll be driven to insanity
Without any progress.
'Cause once you think you've got it figured out
It's never quite enough.
So sit back and just absorb the world
It's really not that tough."

"That's easy for you to do"
The sober man replies.
"With help from that brown and bitter brew
You barely have to try.
I would like to take on your advice.
Some mental freedom would be nice
But when we part I'll be alone
And I am much too worry prone.
To me your words will simply be
Some spices for my skeptic's tea."



Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Friday, April 6, 2012

Not much thought put into this one...

I'll be cliche with this one
'Cause I'm running out of time
When I was one-and-twenty
I think it may have been my prime
Confidence at an all time high
No graduation in sight
The best question to answer...
Are you going out tonight?
As a senior, one year older
I guess I feel the same way
"You only live once"
Now that's the tritest thing to say.

When I was 21?

When I was twenty-one?
Hmm, that was so long ago.
I've been locked up all this time
There's not much point to know.
But now that you are asking
I believe I can remember.
That was the year I did it
On that dark night in December
My time in here has changed me
It has laid down some new tracks
For the best, it rearranged me
I wouldn't take it back.





1 and 20

When I was one-and-twenty
I set out to find
The meaning of this life of ours,
Some guidance for the blind

I thought it would be easy,
A prompt coming of age.
In just a couple weeks
I'll have the wisdom of a sage.

A year has passed. I'm twenty-two.
The only thing I've gained
Is anxiety and pressure
From these thoughts that I have strained



Ashbah by Brian Turner an Iraqi war veteran

The ghosts of American soldiers

wander the streets of Balad by night,

unsure of their way home, exhausted,

the desert wind blowing trash

down the narrow alleys as a voice

sounds from the minaret, a soulfull call

reminding them how alone they are,

how lost. And the Iraqi dead,

they watch in silence from rooftops

as date palms line the shore in silhouette,

leaning toward Mecca when the dawn wind blows.

Easter, 1916 Vs. Break of Day in the Trenches

The poem Easter, 1916 by Yeats uses some obvious and not so obvious metaphors to describe the revolution of Ireland against the British in 1916. I think that Yeats is mainly saying in the first stanza that he is acquaintances with many of the revolutionaries at the time and he may not believe in their revolutionary tactics but he talks to them about it anyway. He then goes on to describe some of the people who were killed by the British whom he knew pretty well. The third stanza I think is talking about how many of the revolutionaries have only one purpose and their hearts are of stone meaning that no matter what happens they want this change in their country. And that many bad things may happen, but they will still fight for their beliefs. The recurring line "A terrible beauty is born" seems to represent the fact that even though many revolutionaries died at the hands of the British for their actions, their deaths inspired the rest of the country to fight for the same reasons they did and the country became more unified against the British.
This poem is different in its message than the poem by Rosenberg called Break of Day in the Trenches. Yeats' poem implies that the war that was fought was meaningful and the deaths of the people he described were important and not in vain. In Rosenberg's poem, he is stating that war is pointless and useless and all it does is cause unnecessary death and destruction. The subject of the poem is praising a rat because he is lucky that he does not have to deal with this war and worry about dying for a useless cause. The language in this poem is more depressing than than of Yeats'.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Boredom

The word boredom is used now quite loosely,
But I just can't condone its existence.
Information arises profusely
It's the root of all opportunistence.



If you're bored
You aren't trying.
In fact, the word Boredom should be synonymous with opportunity.

Hap

The poem "Hap" by Thomas Hardy begins with the speaker suggesting that his or her sadness is the result of a cruel act of the Gods. In the second stanza the speaker goes on to claim that this hate from the Gods is completely undeserved, but he or she is at least "half-eased" that their suffering is being used for some good since it is giving the Gods pleasure. I concluded this from the following lines:

Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed

These lines may also mean that since the speaker knows that the Gods are the ones controlling his emotional fate, then he knows that there is indeed a greater power and this is somehow reassuring to them. In the third stanza, the poem turns to propose that the speakers suffering is not the work of the Gods but it is much more simple than that. Their sadness instead comes from the inevitable workings of Time and Chance, and the speaker believes that chance and time have treated them very poorly throughout the years. It seems as though the speaker does not enjoy happiness because they knows how likely it is that sadness is in their near future and that the short happiness is just a tease.

This poem is similar to many of Hardy's poems since they all seem to have a common theme. The theme that he uses a lot is that everything you perceive is not always what it seems. In this poem, the speaker at first thinks that his sorrow is the work of Gods but then reasons to himself that it is just the result of Time and Chance. In the poem "An, Are You Digging On My Grave" the woman believes that the person digging on her grave is a loved one since she thought everyone missed her so much, but in reality she was not as important as she thought. Also, in the poem "The Ruined Maid" 'Melia's old friend thought she had moved up in the world and gotten a better job because she looked as if she was rich when in reality her new job was as a prostitute.

I agree with Hardy in that it seems as if Time and Chance play the two major roles in determining the outcomes of all situations. In contrast to his overly depressing view I believe that with time and the desire for healthy introspection and reflection upon events, the human mind can turn any adversity into a lesson learned at the very least and maybe something much more mentally beneficial.