Sunday, May 26, 2013

In Which I Copy Down a Plethora of Poems I Love

You Are Tired (I Think) by EE Cummings

You are tired
(I Think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.

Come with me then,
And we'll leave it far and far away-
(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you are fondest of
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and-
Just tired.
So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart–
Open to me!
For I will show you the places Nobody knows,
And, if you like,
The perfect places of Sleep.
Ah, come with me!
I’ll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
That floats forever and a day;
I’ll sing you the jacinth song
Of the probable stars;
I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
Until I find the Only Flower,
Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
While the moon comes out of the sea.

The Sick Rose by William Blake

O, Rose, thou art sick!
That invisible worm,
That flies through the night
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark, secret love
Does thy life destroy

Have You Ever Tried To Enter The Long Black Branches? by Mary Oliver
Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches
of other lives --
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey,
hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning,
feel like?
   
Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?
   
Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over
the dark acorn of your heart!
   
No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!
   
   
Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?
   
   
Well, there is time left --
fields everywhere invite you into them.
   
And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
   
Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!
   
   
To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!
   
To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!
   
To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the
present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened

in the night
   
To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!
   
    
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
   
While the soul, after all, is only a window,

and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.
   
   
Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe
   
I even heard a curl or tow of music, damp and rouge red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.
   
For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!
    
   
A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.
   

   
Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?
   
And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down
to think about it.
   
That was then, which hasn't ended yet.
   
Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.
   
I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.


Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
   In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
   By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
   I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
   My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
   And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
   Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
   In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
   Of those who were older than we—
   Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
   Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
   In her sepulchre there by the sea—
   In her tomb by the sounding sea.
____________________________________________
Is it weird that every time I read You Are Tired I think momentarily of the Doctor? If you don't know who that is, you need to remedy that immediately and join the ranks of the other Whovians. Anyway. Just four of my favorite poems. 
 
love,
Alice

Monday, March 18, 2013

So.... It's been awhile

Hi. I was thinking it's about time to explain where the fuck I've been since October. I've been here, but writing hasn't been working out for me because... I found out at the beginning of October that my best friend since the seventh grade, of nine years, committed suicide. I was one of the last people to talk to her. There was no note left, no indication as to how it went from her telling me about wanting to join the air force and then killing herself a few hours later. If this wasn't enough, her family neglected to inform me until October fifth. She died at the end of August. I've spent all this time trying to put the pieces together and not drown under guilt and grief. I was also kind of in s semi catatonic state for a month or so. I couldn't write because everything I'd be working on felt ridiculous next to what was really going on.

Now I'm stringing together a collection of short stories to try to break myself back into writing. It's easier than working on the novels. Thank you guys for being understanding.

Love,
Alice

Monday, July 30, 2012

Ours- Taylor Swift


Elevator buttons and morning air
Strangers' silence makes me want to take the stairs
If you were here we'd laugh about their vacant stares
But right now my time is theirs

Seems like there's always someone who disapproves
They'll judge it like they know about me and you
And the verdict comes from those with nothing else to do
The jury's out, my choice is you

So don't you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
And life makes love look hard
The stakes are high, the water's rough
But this love is ours

You never know what people have up their sleeves
Ghosts from your past gonna jump out at me
Lurking in the shadows with their lip gloss smiles
But I don't care 'cause right now you're mine

And you'll say
Don't you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
And life makes love look hard
The stakes are high, the water's rough
But this love is ours

And it's not theirs to speculate
If it's wrong and
Your hands are tough
But they are where mine belong and
I'll fight their doubt and give you faith
With this song for you

'Cause I love the gap between your teeth
And I love the riddles that you speak
And any snide remarks from my father about your tattoos will be ignored
'Cause my heart is yours

So don't you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
And life makes love look hard
Don't you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
But they can't take what's ours
They can't take what's ours

The stakes are high, the water's rough
But this love is ours

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

In Which We're Missing The Point

I have become incredibly frustrated recently watching men and women fighting to say which is the "better" sex, who is genetically wired to come up on top every time based on if you have a Y chromosome. If you want to see prime examples of this insanity, head to Cosmo's list of things women can do and men can't, and AskMen's list of things guys can do that girls can't. Because of course in the grand scheme of things whether you have a penis or a vagina totally dictates who is better. This fight is absolutely batshit crazy and just utterly pointless. In fact, we are just missing the point entirely. The goal is not to win, it is to be equal. The fight is to say that whether you are XX or XY you are an equal human being. Men are not better than women even more than women are better than men. We are equals.

My fellow ladies, when you are trying to find ways that we are "above" men, then you are being just as bad as the men you label sexist pigs. Sexism swings both ways.  And yeah, I do feel you when a guy says something about it being a "man's world" and you want to beat the shit out of him and prove that their gender is inferior. I completely want to do that, too, but it's wrong. Two wrongs do not make a right. If we fight to prove that we are better, not equal, this is never going to end.

The point is that we are EQUAL. We are one and the same, and that is what we are fighting for. Not to be better, but to prove we stand on a level playing field.

love,
Alice 

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Quick Update

Wow, this looks weird. Um, anyway. My life is still insanely busy, but there is an end in sight now! Next thursday is my last final and then my ass is free from actual school work. All I have to do is get through hell first! Hell being defined as a moment in time when you have to practice a dance you choreographed yesterday to no damn music because the composer sucks and perform said choreography as a solo tomorrow, having a lab final you are completely unprepared for, having a performance completely unrelated to the solo tomorrow, taking four finals next week, packing your shit to move out, doing all fifteen math assignments in two days because you procrastinated until the very end, doing random ass extra homework in another class, and getting no sleep.

On an only slightly related note, for those who don't follow me on twitter or aren't fans of my page on facebook (shame on you ;) ), my goal is to have finished at least one book by the end of the summer. Let's hope that works....

love,
Alice

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Too Many Things To Do!!!!

Seriously. Way too many. I have a presentation on whaling at 2:30, and I get to present at the symposium tonight (the six to seven twenty slot if you're going for extra credit or whatever. We're board.... twenty something. Probably should figure that out). Also need to cut my mash-up down to a minute by midnight. Wednesday I have a lovely meeting with the head of the psych department as well. Yay. And choreograph my solo, write my critique of a dance show, do all of my math homework, study for my lab test.... in other words, too much shit.

As I haven't given a lesson lately, I'll give one today over how to not get stung by a wasp in the library.

How to avoid being stung by a wasp in the T-Dub library:
-Don't sit by windows. If you have to sit by a window, carefully shake the blinds and then listen for buzzing. If you hear buzzing, there is most likely a wasp, move the hell away.
-Listen for wasps before you go down an aisle. Just pause and see if you can hear buzzing or the slight zapping noise when the wasp hits the light (you would think they would have figured out that's a bad idea by now). If you hear anything, chose another aisle or go for your second choice of book.
-Either remain perfectly still when you see a wasp, or run the fuck away. Just don't irritate it.
-Don't try to kill it.
-Just avoid the library in the spring in the first place.
love,
Alice

Monday, March 26, 2012

*insert creative title here*

Wow, I suck at blogging lately. In my defense I am insanely busy, and insanely behind on research for the project we're presenting at the symposium.... and by insanely behind I mean I haven't even started researching yet. And the symposium is in April. Also I need to do math homework... as I'm also insanely behind in that, but I have actually started on that. Somehow. I'm awful with procrastinating; I can find like five billion "important" reasons why I can't work on it currently. And by important I mean bullshit.

My dorm is pissing me off because my internet won't work. I actually had to call my dad and ask him to look up the weather for me. Hopefully it'll be figured out by the time I'm done with classes, and if not I guess I'll have to send in a work order. Lame.

I should probably end this entry now because my government class is starting.

Lesson: DON'T PROCRASTINATE

love,
Alice