Let this man say, You

Let this man say you weren't at all unrefined,
and, charmed, he'll take your hand
where no one else saw, and nothing else.

He'll take you on the last train
in black-and-white if only to tell
that the first time he laid eyes
on you was right then.

Foolish to consider it
ill-fated and untimely,
He'd laugh a little,
try some tenderness,
fumble with some reasons why,

But they knew all along it'd be
the same as the last. He'd finish
on the leading tone to sustain
the magic, and afterwards

Against the most velvet sunset
he could muster, this man waved
a long goodbye.

Four Elegies towards the Grand Unification of Poetry

I. Academic Festival Elegy

Eyepiece, monocle de mon oncle, May,
Under Milk Wood, fixed in two-(by)-two arrays.
Begs inverse questions
to kindling lusts they modified.
Erstwhile philanderers singing bawdy lullabies,
of "tarry, tarry yet, and yet!
Light's no matter, our ally, even."

For some length of time,
I was why we porcine plankwalkers
found ourselves contained.
Our fiery spirits quenched,
we, so drenched in mediocrity,
lose love for old gods,
and enjoin (For the love of God!) daily
constitutionals. All ye walkers, mourn.
Name and number each brick
on your way to Konigsberg.
Lay your soul down in (O I say these are)
the places where we'll lay.

2. Elegy for the Nuclear Family

Lord willing, we'll go out today
for lunch. Minor prophets would
seethe should you suggest otherwise.

My eye! Minor prophets? Who's going
to give them the talking to they deserve?

Hosea and a whore, Jonah and some stinking fish's
stomach acid, Noah (not minor, probably, and
half-prophet at best) drunk and naked? These men revered?

My father wasn't like anybody in holy scripture,
I don't think. Maybe a bit of Gideon and a pinch
of that guy who fished a lot before some guy said
quit your moneymaking and watch me do miracles
for a while. Most men like that just want to know
if Jesus likes the sea, and if he did they'd learn
to turn their eyes down at a woman. Especially mothers.

3. Elegy for Nucleic Acids

I was going to attempt writing a poem made
entirely of the letters "A", "T", "G", "C" and "U",
but after cut tag cat tug gut act tact I realized
how goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded
and dull, but also can't pick five letters to represent
nucleotides that poets can have much fun with.

4. Elegy for the first Nucleus

For America and no place else
the neutrons near ran their little
feet off trying to get to you,
crashing some evening get-together,
guest list two-hundred-thirty-five in all.
Yelling some strange rendition of Yankee Doodle
so infectious that inspired party-goers leaped up
to invade neighbors' homes with similar effect.

Unfortunately for scientists,
enough to send some country reeling
wasn't close to what would make these
in and out and in and outs again
drop a quark, or get quirkily near.

here's the verse

seventeen million pixels in the iris
of the average jpeg of a human face
and guaranteed at least once
you'll choose one for loving
from the seventeen that couldn't
give color to your eyes if they wanted to

Lemma

Indeed, because I was so
unloved (and in love)
I forgot what it was,
and things were deranged.

It followed, then
that I should be silent
and docile. It means so
little to be these.
To mean so little,
to be such, and to find
what would be our greatest
losses.

Hymn for the Northeastern United States

So many men
and so many yesterdays and
many flowers and seventeen
softly-born meadows and

again,
what were we to
do with ourselves
and
again, again.
I was so silently
contented, and not so.
(I'll never be
able to convey
how much I'm sorry
that this is true).
How? I don't know,
and I shouldn't hope
but I do hope
that you will
be sometime.

Indeed, there's some faith.

Have faith and
have
faith,
You will fly away.

Haiku and a short list of video games that might be worth your time

So I haven't posted in a while.

This is largely because I've hit somewhat of a dry spell in regards to writing poetry. I'm not sure why this is, but it may have something to do with the fact that I'm honestly getting a similar fulfillment out of writing proofs for real analysis and abstract algebra that I do when I write poetry. That being said, I do hope this is somewhat temporary and that I'll pick up a bit of steam over the break to finish off this blog. At 96, so four most posts and I'll probably start a new one.

Anyway, I did write a haiku for a contest held by the Japanese society at Harvard. Here it is.

Summer

On a steel train track,
three green-crusted heads compressed.
Six small hands and smiles.

I'm not sure how well it'll do. I tried to follow the model of stark imagery and avoid more abstract language. I think that a lot of modern haiku doesn't take into account the purposes and structure of the form. It's particularly well-suited for those types of images (which can, of course, be symbolic) and I think too much explanation of them in the meat of the poem is inefficient.

Anyway, I also had a discussion with somebody about certain, ahem, aspects of the male population she found frustrating. I found some validity in her points, but I, too, was frustrated by a clear stereotyping of both video games and "gamers" (I kind of hate that word, but I'll use it this once). There's no denying that playing video games can be addictive, destructive to one's ability to socialize, selfish, and/or escapist. I'd argue, however, that consuming other forms of visual or even literary media can have the same consequences. Television, for example, may not enjoy the same status as it once did, but watching it obsessively seems about as dangerous as playing video games obsessively. And any argument that cites game companies' attempts to sell a game by appealing to men's sex drives (e. g. Ivy from Soul Calibur, Lara Croft, etc.) completely ignores that using sex to sell is far more pervasive in other forms of entertainment and has been for a very long time. I'd argue that some instances of pop lit, even (and I'm sorry to pick on Twilight here, but it's the best example by far) are not only appealing to sexuality, but do it in such a way as to reinforce negative aspects of our dating culture.

As far as video games being useful to society, it's pretty clear that they stimulate the development of problem solving skills and develop certain aspects of mental acuity. That being said, I don't think it's the best idea to spend 5 hours a day playing video games in hopes that you'll improve your math SAT scores or become an expert sharpshooter. Anyway, here's a list of games I think people should take a second look at. I think they have a lot of creative merit, and they are so without sacrificing fun at all. Some of them are very old, but still available via the magic of the internet. Perhaps you'll enjoy them.

1. Earthbound (also known as Mother 2)

When I think of popular media that has influenced me in a positive way, one of the first things that comes to mind is Shigesato Itoi's masterpiece for the Super Nintendo, Earthbound. A prolific Japanese literati, Itoi has coauthored with such giants as Haruki Murakami. His wit comes out very clearly in the dialogue of his games, and it's incredibly unfortunate for the industry that he's stopped making them. He comments about some aspects of the game design in an interesting interview here:

Earthbound's plot is fairly conventional, in terms of its adherence to the good vs. evil archetype, but much of it is a satire of the conventions of gaming, particularly those of RPGs (in which fighting enemies revolves around a turn-based system, somewhat like a board game). One character, named "Dungeon Man" is actually a dungeon designer, who literally turns himself into a living dungeon and provides a lecture on designing dungeons at one point in the game. The game also is a profound satire of modern materialism, which is really sort of the crux of the conflict. As is typical, the antagonist of the game is bent on destruction, but is so due to a transforming self-adsorption, and his lackey (who reappears in the game's sequel, Mother 3) is similarly self-absorbed. The likable characters in the game tend to be Mr. T shaped folks with dreadlocks, musicians, and simple vendors. Itoi thus makes a statement against certain aspects of capitalism, and one that influences you as you play through the game.

Anyway, I'll defer to this review of Earthbound for additional information, but, be assured, you should play it.



So I'm going to stop for now, since I need to eat and get some abstract algebra homework done. I'll be back and post some more soon.

Two Stages

Today is a brown dwarf,
and I, its lonely recipient
of light, have no use for
the boon of slow burning.
I go.

Tomorrow might be the same size,
but white, nova-prior,
degenerate and one-point-four.
White next-days are common fates
I hope.