Dance of the Titans

Dance of the Titans

Weightless for an instant,

A sliding brilliance of colours,

Blending wildly into buoyant splatters,

Becoming ever brighter stars.

Floating, now pulsing like life blood,

Whirling into unending void

Under Hyperion’s ever fixed gaze.

And I, as I lie, under a great unseeing eye,

Locked within a hoary host,

Things now seen from what has been.

Scarlet is the Titan’s birth,

Travelled long on cosmic rays.

Vast night and I so small,

Lost in its inky breadth.

Silent nigh, I wonder how many days

Have passed before this very place.

And I, but a speck upon the sand,

Once soared for but a moment,

Now covered by a cloak of night,

Burnt out to naught but ashes.

Desert Sun

Writing Club

Oct 22, 2013

Prompt: Write about something as though you love it and write about something as though you hate it.

I chose to write about the sun.

As the sun set blood red, I was loathe to see it go.  And yet, I was free of its scorching blast.  But night had come as it always would every revolution.  All day I had been baked into a listless leaf parched of water to the point I could not swallow, cursing my empty water bottle and the relentless orb’s inescapable light.  All pervasive, the grand ruler of this wasteland, no cloud dared to cover its golden shimmer to provide even a moment’s ease.  And the irony of it now was that I found myself seeking its bright return, counting the hours I must shiver until my teeth cracked in the absent light of the new moon.  As I stumbled along the rough ground, my toes seemed to find all kinds of hidden things in the sand so easily spotted in the light of day, sending me stumbling, scurrying, splayed and spilling, spit out and bloody upon this cursed land.

            Come sun and take away the unending dark with your golden glow.  Yet I, the newly made nomad must carry on through the inky night for I cannot survive on evening’s dew.  I’ve miles to go on desert sand to pass through this ocean of land. 

            For tomorrow the sun will rise again, a false prophet of flowing dreams to wet my leaden tongue, one more rise of the horizon to that evaporating oasis hidden between the dunes.

The Evolution of Academia

The Evolution of Academia                                                    May 26, 2013

Twenty pillars stood,

Suspending the grand façade as they should,

Illustrious splendour illustrated as best a sculptor could,

For worship of men great and small in assembly was understood,

Perfected as imperfection could be,

The temple of thought and recent fact,

Resurrected to stand unquestioned for all to see.

Fathomed depths of meaning deep,

So broad most minds dare not leap.

Rather stand to the side in shallow pools of sand.

When in pondering we find,

The threads of logic rather easy to unwind

And to another school of thought we bind,

Another tapestry of theory and scientific mind

In folly we follow, the blind lead the blind.

Taste and see that which is good,

Questioning what is truly truth as we should.

There is no magic?

Writing Club Exercise #1

May 13, 2014

Writing Prompt: What is it that you will never forget about this age and why have adults forgotten it?

When you are a toddler, the world is an amazing jungle gym full of cause and effect, science and magic are the same miraculous thing.  I remember the moment for about five seconds I thought my mom could do magic.  She sat my brother and I outside on a hot summer day on the front lawn.  In her hands she had the plainest tea towel ever, a marble and a green Tupperware bowl.  We watched in amazement as she plopped the marble in the bowl, covered it with the tea towel and waved her hand.  To our amazement, when she removed the tea towel, the marble was gone.  It was a moment of pure wonder.  For a moment, magic was real.  My mom had done something incredible. 

And then I realized as I played the moment over in my head that she had tilted the bowl, rolling the marble into her hand as she lifted the tea towel off.  The memory is one of my favourites and yet one of disappointment.

I think deep down inside we all want magic to be real.  The day our world expands and we lose our innocence, our naivety, is a grim one.  Suddenly the world has lost some of its beauty.  The happily-ever-after world of the princess belongs to rich girls and the frogs are just slimy green amphibians, not princes under a spell.  If you kiss them, you get no more than pond scum lip balm.  There is no fairy godmother that is ready to grant us our wishes or make our lives pretty.  Imagination becomes a bitter tasting pill no more than a placebo.  The world is neither good nor fair.  Some are born poor and others rich and its not their punishment or reward.  It simply is.  God grant us the grace to accept the things we cannot change.

We, as adults, forget the beauty of the simple belief.  We want an explanation.  We need science to tell us the hows and the whys instead of just enjoying the spectacle, the magic show, and letting the mind soar to places that reality cannot go.  Creativity is a gift that enriches perception in life.  As adults, we place more value on rational thought.  Maybe we are too busy running on the treadmill of life to let our imaginations soar.  A little escapism is healthy, for the world can weight a body down with overwhelming demands. 

I feel as though I missed out on the joy that simple child like acceptance brings.  The magic died out young for me.  I was one of those kids who reasoned that Santa wasn’t real when I was three because there was no way that he could get around the world so quickly let alone get down our stove pipe.  It might have helped had we had a chimney that a fat man could shimmy down.  I realized I was getting whatever mom and dad could afford to give under the Christmas tree.  There would never be a pony waiting for me no matter how good I was, but that didn’t mean they didn’t love me.  Thankfully happiness doesn’t come from stuff.

But then I wonder….maybe, just maybe, the magic isn’t gone.  I love me a good fantasy novel.  (As long as the universe formed is consistent with itself.)

For Jeremie, Father's Day 2014

June 15, 2014

Life isn’t always what we thought it would be,

But we’re in it together,

Both you and me.

Facing adventures we haven’t always planned,

But enjoying the moments

Over the years we’ve spanned.

Working, playing and loving

Together hand in hand,

No matter, the weather

You’re my partner, my husband,

My love,

You make life better.

For Jeremie