literature, beautiful literature.

my love

my love
thy hair is one kingdom
the king whereof is darkness
thy forehead is a flight of flowers

thy head is a quick forest
filled with sleeping birds
thy breasts are swarms of white bees
upon the bough of thy body
thy body to me is April
in whose armpits is the approach of spring

thy thighs are white horses yoked to a chariot
of kings
they are the striking of a good minstrel
between them is always a pleasant song

my love
thy head is a casket
of the cool jewel of thy mind
the hair of thy head is one warrior
innocent of defeat
thy hair upon thy shoulders is an army
with victory and with trumpets

thy legs are the trees of dreaming
whose fruit is the very eatage of forgetfulness

thy lips are satraps in scarlet
in whose kiss is the combinings of kings
thy wrists
are holy
which are the keepers of the keys of thy blood
thy feet upon thy ankles are flowers in vases
of silver

in thy beauty is the dilemma of flutes

thy eyes are the betrayal
of bells comprehended through incense

- e.e. cummings

Prose before hoes

Sonnet 2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held.
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use
If thou couldst answer, “This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,”
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.


William Shakespeare

Taking it as Read

Taking It As Read
Disclaimer: Though the specific circumstances are mine, the characters and their past are all JK Rowling’s.

∞ ∞ ∞

Hermione was known for her books. Whenever her classmates pictured her in their mind she was always holding a book, reading a book, even sleeping with her head resting on a book. Having such a bookish nature had encouraged several traits to flourish in her. So many books meant she had to organize them, which carried over to the rest of her life. Because her books were so precious to her, she would never dog-ear a page, mark a page with a side of the dust cover or even use the beautiful, perfect ribbon attached to the spine. She always had a supply of bookmarks with her, no matter where she was. This may have influenced her motto -- “Be prepared”. But the most important thing her books had taught her was to look for confirmation, don’t trust just one source, keep looking until you had more than enough evidence to support your claim. Maybe that was her downfall.

∞ ∞ ∞

Sometimes she felt like a thoroughbred horse, brought up for her mind, not or looks or emotions. Until she turned fifteen, she’d never thought about it, but from then on it was a constant niggle. She knew there was nothing wrong with brains but she also craved balance. She was too logical, analytical. She couldn’t trust her feelings if they didn’t make sense, though feelings seldom do. Generally she invented feelings; rational, convenient ones.
He was kind, gentlemanly, smart, well brought up, and for that matter, rich. He could set her up for life, put her on the right path. She knew she would not be unhappy. Should a girl be thinking about life decisions at fourteen? Perhaps not. But something had to cover up the less desirable feelings for the less desirable person. He was pig-headed, lazy, argumentative, disorganized, and even though it shouldn’t matter, poor. Love doesn’t stop to check your Gringott’s account balance, but for her, security came before love. After all, security could be proven and guaranteed.
But, of course, fate dealt her a nasty hand.

∞ ∞ ∞

History of Magic was never to her the chore it should have been. She sat, deeply immersed in her heavy text book, finding the chapter about the Magical Creatures Cross-Breeding Act of 1392. “… aftere the moste distressing incidente involving the deadly combinatione of a Chimaera and a Acromantula, Ronald Hargreaves, drafted an acte declaring that no man maye breede two species withoute a Ministrie license...” Potions was more of a priority, of course. That’s why she snapped her book shut on the word that seemed to be glowing on the heavy parchment. Potions. “… the Clarity Concoction was first created by Edmund Weasley...” But it was nearly eight, she knew she needed sleep. She must have been tired, she left her books far closer to the fire than was quite safe.
The dormitory was never a good idea. One of her messy dorm-mates seemed to have tried to throw out some parchment, but missed the waste-paper basket. Picking it up she recognized Lavenders signature pink ink. “… so do I have a chance with him or not?” and Parvati’s reply “… of course you do, but taking Ron’s not really fair on …” and suddenly she was really tired. Tired to the point of tears.

∞ ∞ ∞

Was this how life was always going to be? Upside down and inside out. She’d never really known what to do as a Muggle. Her logic didn’t quite click. Magic, when it came, was like a breath of fresh air. Despite her obviously lacking background every thing came so much easier to her. After the first shock, things like goblins and unicorns seemed to make so much more sense. But now, oh, now magic only reminded her of one thing. One person. And the faster she escaped him, the better.
The holidays couldn’t have come quicker. This year she was going home and was glad. She could even stand the to-ing and fro-ing of numerous relative reminiscing over how much she’d grown and how they never saw enough of her. Anything to get away from that night and those people and the confusing mess of feelings the memories conjured up.
But somehow, it all seemed to follow her. Chasing the train to Kings Cross, following the car as it navigated it’s way to the suburban outskirts of London, hovering in the corners of every room she entered. She was convinced that everyone could see it, the pink erumpent in the corner, waving a huge sign; ‘Hermione fell in love, Hermione got her heart broken, Hermione let her feeling’s get the better of her’.
So, she clung to whatever reading material she could get her hands on, mainly cookbooks. Her parents were so happy to have her home for a few days, they wouldn’t let her out of their sight and the three of them spent hours in the kitchen. Unfortunately the books didn’t seem to help her. After reading yet another recipe beginning with ‘First, take one sprig of lavender’ she snapped the book shut and glared out the window. She’d never been much of a cook anyway.

∞ ∞ ∞

Another year, another futile attempt to interest Hermione in clothes. As her mother dragged her around Muggle London, buying her bags of clothes she didn’t like and wouldn’t wear, she thought. Her life was in constant danger now the war had started. After these few precious days she might never see her parents again. The more she thought, the more she realised her fate. She was a Muggleborn and Harry Potter’s best friend. She was effectively dying even now. Closer and closer to her demise. And wasn’t death a time to be dishonest in order to make the ones you love happy? So suddenly, without intending to, she asked her mother if they could look for a pair of shoes next.
Eyes roaming the shop for something sensible and affordable, her eyes lighted upon a pair of flat, plain, brown, admittedly dowdy shoes. She headed straight for them and picked them up. Underneath was stapled a small piece of paper stating the other colours, the other sizes, the price and the name. ‘Roonil Wazlib’. Apparently one could have too many pair of shoes. Nothing could have kept her in that shop.

∞ ∞ ∞

Years later she looked back on the wasted time and the obvious signs and wishes she’d done something, anything, instead of waiting for years in vain. The signs don’t leave her, they follow her even now, but they’re no longer unwanted. In all the Magical villages she travels through she stops to read the War monuments, just because she knows that the first name she reads will be his, and it’s still a sign and they’re still right even though they can no longer truly be together. Despite everything she and they have been through, that’s all she’ll ever need to keep going.

♥

My first fic. I've submitted it to Checkmated but they haven't told me whether it's in or not. I'm quietly stressing here.

Another good book.

High Society by Ben Elton. Not for the squeamish. It's about drugs and their effects on society, and societies effect on drugs and our response to them. It's so good.

I love Jake Gyllenhaal.

A storm is coming, Frank says.
A storm that will swallow the children,
and I will deliver them from the kingdom of pain.
I will deliver the children back to their doorsteps;
I'll send the monsters back to the underground.
I'll send them back to a place where no one else can see them,
except for me
because I am Donnie Darko

He's just so fucking perfect!

Hmmm...

Look at me. Blogging without an audience. Anywho, this is a book review I did for English. I got level six and if you don't know what Outcomes Based Learning is, I won't bother explaining. It's crazy. By the way, I'm in year ten.

Worth the look
Rose Murch

One Last Look
Susanna Moore


A harrowing sea journey. The most clichéd beginning for a period drama since the birth of the novel. But Susanna Moore’s early 19th century saga is anything but. It follows the arduous journey of Lady Eleanor Oliphant as she evolves to accommodate the painful transition between upper class London and the dull sparkle of India.

Lady Eleanor’s brother Henry had been posted to the colony as governor-general and along with their sister Harriet and cousin Lafayette, they must remould their life into the society of Calcutta. Eleanor is shocked by all she sees about Government House. Etiquette has been abandoned and replaced by more practical means. In trying to deal with the heat, disease and missionaries, the Oliphants soon discover that all they were brought up to know, and how they were brought up to behave is rendered completely useless and all they can do is drop their airs and graces and act as everyone around them does. Eleanor is at first appalled at the the number of servants she has waiting on her hand and foot (for the presumption that she is incapacitated in some way, she finds the servants quaint), and at the intimacy some ladies share with them. All too soon she becomes as dependant on her household staff, particularly her jemandar Zahid, as a child to it’s mother. Harriet adapts into a pseudo-Indian lifestyle, taking up the religion, ideas and even smoking a hookah. She devotes her time to her adopted animals and due to increasingly odd remarks, there is a general fear for her sanity. Henry and Lafayette barely seem to notice the change, each being distracted by a heavy workload and a dancing girl called the Lotus respectively. India holds many battles for the whole family and as Henry's failing reign was drawn to a close, none of them find they want to leave. London life seemed impossible to step back into.

Moore’s description of British India shows both the rituals and pageantry of the rich English and the exotic Rajas, and the non discriminative death and disease that attacked the rich as much as the poor. Throughout the book, at every turn, each journal entry contains a nasty shock as some secondary character or other meets their maker. It is significant of the era as death at that particular time was “celebrated” above all things, but even mourning for dead children was uncommon. As displayed vividly through the book, there is a time and a place for everything and no amount of Shakespeare will make early Victorian India either.

Susanna Moore is an American author with many highly acclaimed books to her name, and One Last Look is no exception. The description of Indian life is balanced perfectly with the natural discretion one of Lady Eleanor’s upbringing would carry. With facts come subtle hints and, in her delicacy, Lady Eleanor gives the reader a stunning insight into the seedy underbelly of Calcutta, and the outline of an idea which explains why a spinster in her late thirties is so devoted to her brother, and clues to what their relationship may be. An absolute page turner, you won’t be able to put this masterpiece down without picking it back up again.

Strange Meeting

Wilfred Owen

(1917)

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, -
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
'Strange friend,' I said, 'here is no cause to mourn.'
'None,' said that other, 'save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot- wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

'I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . .'

Well, will you look at this?

Another story! How good am I?

During the Second World War, in London, there lived a young girl of 14. Because she was no longer a child, her parents hadn't sent her with her younger sister to the country, to escape the Blitz, but had let her stay home to roll bandages and nurse the wounded civillians. When she had time to spare she went out with her school mates, to see the devestation. At her school was a boy. They often exchanged letters but somehow barely spoke at school. From the letters, she learned a lot about the boy and why he was the way he was. Though he seemed happy, he revealed his hidden sorrow. After the months of letters she tiny bit of worry which had rubbed off from each one built up. She felt as if she had the world on her shoulders. She was the only one he talked to. She felt it was all up to her. If he seemed sadder she felt she had let him down, no matter how much her better judgement told her it wasn't up to her. When he talked about joining up, she felt a glimmer of hope, his patriotism was coming back. But when he spoke of the war, he only talked of slaughter. He knew that if he went, he would die. He welcomed that. Her burden got heavier each day and the ways she lessened it, drop by drop, for only a moment, does not bare mentioning. Then one day, the air raid signal went off. She was by St Pauls and he friends all ran in to get cover in the crypt but she laughed. She saw the boy, as anxious for his life as the others were for theirs and all she could do was laugh her bitter, hard laugh. Then it hit her. She lay on the cobblestones, and let the silver rain fall around her...

Yeah, I know. I'm sensing a pattern here.

Tell me a story...

Once upon a time there was a girl who wore a happy mask. She thought she was happy because she had worn the mask all her life and she and those closest to her thought all was well. Then she slowly began to realise she wasn't as happy as she had thought. She kept slipping farther and farther until even the mask began to slip. She began to do things she hadn't thought she'd ever even consider doing. She thought she was too happy. She knew she needed help but she knew the response she'd get. "There's nothing wrong with you, your just looking for attention." So she left it. But by the time anyone realised, it was too late, she had swum too deep, gone too far, and no had noticed, no one had helped. No one knew.

A story I've started...

Tell me if it's going anywhere. It's pretty morbid but it's the kind of book I'd like to read, which is a shame if I'm writing it... I've got it all planned out. It will be a best seller and they will make it into a movie, and the tagline will be :

There is nothing
In the seven seas as turbulent
As the four small chambers
Of the heart - Pelsaert, Batavia

Belinda

"Belinda! The sun is up and your chores are not even begun!" The mill was dark. It's age caused creaks and whistles as the November wind whipped through it. The best of a man climbing the rickety stairs made the worn wood buckle alarmingly. The creaking grew ominously regular. Must be a flour sack hung on the heavy rope, thought the vast hulk of uncultered flesh, still lumbering up the stairs to the mills top floor, his neices favourite haunt. 'If the sack is up here, it can't be at market,' reasoned the vulgar man, using all of his tiny brain capacity. 'I'll hide that wench when I find her.' But when he reached the top floor, even he knew that no amount of "hiding" would get a reaction from the slight figure, head lolling to one side, lank hair half covering her face, swaying in the early morning breeze...


Ooooh...spooky. Who wants to know why she killed herself? If she did kill herself... I'm not even sure if it's worth continuing because it's one of those one's where some of it's set back then and the rest is in the present. And it keeps flipping back. But I don't really like those because there's always too much in the present and I prefer period dramas. *grumps* Anyway, it's called Belinda because both girls (that one from the first paragraph and the one from the present) are called Belinda. Creepy. Anyway, if anyones reading, tell me if they like the story, or the writing style or what ever. Paperback writer....

It's a thousand pages, give or take a few,
I'll be writing more in a week or two.
I can make it longer if you like the style,
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,