talking of Michaelangelo.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
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tumid // 3:58 pm
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
I've been listening to Ralph Fiennes's readings of T.S. Eliot's poignant Four Quartets, at the moment, Burnt Norton is my favourite quartet and East Coker does not fall short either.
What I really meant to say before I was distracted by distraction from distraction was,
I admire you so much and I shower(ed) you with a plenitude of respect... but at the same time, I hate you for everything you are. You bring out the ugly in me like no other can.
It makes me feel petty to think of you in this way. To think that hate cannot even begin to suffice in describing these complicated feelings of regret and passionate anger. It is so much more than that. So much more complicated.
The more I find myself to sinking into the nebula of your words the more frustrated I am with myself. Your nonchalance laughs scornfully at me, and it unnerves me ... not for particular reasons per se. You, reader, you are crying, "Infatuation! Infatuation!" at me, but reader, you are sorely mistaken. Your uncaring, the way you brush me off your shoulder like an annoying flea not worth mentioning. Your words and colours though, take me by the breath sometimes.
Your brilliant storms and delightful skies are not mine. Your forms, your allusions, your enjambments are not mine. I cannot hold them as you allow other to and I am excluded outside of this. Cast out as though I were a lost pilgrim, seeking, always seeking your approval.
Oh, don't we all wish we could be forever young.
The end draws near, better save up some sleep in the bank before the sunlight pierces us again like rays of blunt knives -- ah, the seasons, they pass and Time... She is cruel.
linger for a moment --
Do you even understand what is going on here or is the whole world just colours and shapes and the occasional noise in your head?
We are the left behinds, we can't reach for those above nor those below... we are the left behinds, stuck -- in sticky strings and vortexes only forcing ourselves deeper into who we are.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
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happy // 2:38 pm
Saturday, April 24, 2010
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avalanche // 7:24 am
... of thoughts, feelings:
bitter like over-steeped tea, sweet like sleep.
As I planted my final words in my final English exam of my Bachelor of Arts Honours today, I felt my heart take a plunge. Where do I go from here? (Study for my final Linguistics exam and wait for the sinking in of those strange mixed feelings.)
time stagnates here
Oranges, they're bitter sweet, did you know that?
I walked in a daze, in hallucination and whimsical thoughts today, it must be from the lack of sleep. After my exam, I had to go to the washroom. I rushed into the first entrance I saw and thought "Why are the walls a different colour?" --- as you all guessed, I did enter the territory of the opposite gender. Frantic, I ran out, hoping desperately that no one saw. In haste, I rushed into the other one... so embarrassed... I forgot to go.
The toilet, the public and private sphere. The Squatter.
It's not a pleasant thing, this sleeplessness.
Tonight, I must mend my circadian rhythm.
Good-night, ladies; good-night, sweet ladies; good-night, good-night.
And goodbye forever, lonely nights with the Heathcliff's and the Bassaam's and the Ayako's and the Tess's. Goodbye, these lullabies that have been with me for four years now. Good bye you visions of different realms. Goodbye you haunting memories and things we long to forget.
-- indulge in Memory's rapturous pain.
Monday, April 19, 2010
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unfiltered ramblings // 1:43 pm
Egads!
Such a torturous existence is this one -- the passing of time, the loitering of the spirits, the practicalities of a life hopefully worth living (exams hopefully worth writing). Ah, the mundane, the mundane!
My ears are bleeding -- pierced holes be damned!
Those infectious little monsters plague me so!
My best friend has disappeared from my world and I am terrified she has forgotten me. But as she would tell me in that tone of hers, the world does not revolve around you, so get a grip and move on. Perhaps it was me who disappeared from her world first? (I can't decide if that's a statement or a question.)
Or maybe we're just all in the same world where desertion is merely a trick of the light -- a hallucination from insomnia. Perhaps we are taking ourselves too seriously. There's a point where we need to be more flippant and I think I've hit that point.
But still -- I miss you and I've called you at the wrong times. Don't abandon me like I abandoned others. Don't be a vessel for my deserving karma's sting.
We've all dug our own holes and we're all struggling to crawl back out of them. There might be blood, sweat and tears... but who's to say it might not be worth it in the end?
Complications and reductions... zoom.
Friday, April 16, 2010
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randomness // 12:50 am
:) Anti-residue makes me feel so good about myself,
what would I do without you?
The feeling is amazing even if you've slept at 6am for the past few days.
Beautiful days, but a chill and a breeeeze.
I've seen the sun grow and the birds rising to its occasion every morning.
Not fun, but poetically disturbing.
leave me paralyzed
(do you know that feeling of being addicted to a song?)
Monday, April 12, 2010
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too many words with nowhere to run // 12:14 pm
Looking for anonymity?
Still haven't found it,
so find your own?
a reduction to pure impulses...
信唔信一見鍾情? 我都唔信...
但係今日... 心跳加速...失控...眼神,
點頭, 然後... 一片空白
and life goes on.
they come and go
they. everyone.
so dying alone doesn't feel too scary
想點呀? 唔知自己想點.
行開...行開...行開...
lose with eloquence, and a smile
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creeps in you // 2:26 am
My brain is drifting to lalaland.
That place creeps with lala-s.
I feel reduced reduced to words and words and words.
On a page you can scroll, on a life with which
you can zoom in and zoom out.
I am so distracted,
There's so much on my plate,
it's like a feast of worries.
zoom in
and zoom out.
Fragments and reductions.
Words that don't mean what they mean
- sentiments unspoken, conversations unsaid.
Please zoom out.
Friday, April 09, 2010
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and as I approach the end tomorrow // 10:00 am
You say yes,
I say no
You say stop
and I say go, go, go
Oh, no
You say goodbye
and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
I say high, you say low
You say why, and I say I don't know
Oh, no
You say goodbye
and I say hello
Hello, hello (hello goodbye hello goodbye)
Tomorrow is the last of my undergrad class.
Queen's, this 4 year era is ending soon.
So close to the finish...
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
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poetically disturbing // 11:30 am
I feel as though, everything is, in some way, related to one another.
There's some sort of multi-directional claw that consumes everything and clashes everything and blends everything into one and then regurgitates it out in different forms.
Everything is related. Words, words.
They swirl and swirl and swirl.
There are games to play,dinners to go to,books to read.Time is the very liquid of this existence,
like there is a crack in its container
slowly leaking leaking l e a k i n g.
Today I am full of repitition like Vardaman.
I am full of thoughts and full on repitition.
Endure, with a cracked voice and dryed lips. Endure.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
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swirling // 11:17 pm
...towards my exit
It'll all be over soon
and all the goodbyes must be said.
The ending is so far
but it's like I feel like piercing into me already.
It's going to be late nights. Sleepless nights.
Not much different from the rest of my undergrad.
Joseph Stauffer will probably be my best friend for the week.
All the right friends in all the wrong places
So yeah, we're going down
They got all the right moves in all the right faces
So yeah, we're going down
I know we've got it good
But they got it made
And the grass is getting greener each day
I know things are looking up
But soon they'll take us down,
before anybody's knowing our name.
Do you think I'm special?
Do you think I'm nice?
Am I bright enough to shine in your spaces?
Between the noise you hear
And the sound you like
Are we just sinking in an ocean of faces?It can be possible that rain can fall,
Only when it's over our heads
The sun is shining everyday, but it's far away
Over the world is death.
So yeah, we're going down.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
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on essay writing // 12:07 am
I hate the first dive in. It always feels... unnatural, as though words were... coerced into existence from existence in another realm before. Like things were drawn from the air, or an empty hat. Like a trick, for kids, silly rabbits.
So terrible to take that plunge, that you go seek other venues to toss more word salad, to spew more verbal diarrhea.
You sit. You type. You feel nauseous from the impending doom.
There are no words you can draw out of the air, so you steal the words of others. You mastermind around that playful plagiarism. The plagiarism that is so, so illegal.
Before you know it, you are knee deep in vomit, in words you did not intend to write.
“That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
All of a sudden, I am reminded that the etymology of essay derives from the French infinitive essayer, "to try" or "to attempt".
An attempt at failing miserably, perhaps.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
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noisy world // 1:45 pm
We've arrived. Final academic month of our final year.
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
I am always reminded of this poem, every April. It is, after all, one of my favourite by Eliot. I hardly ever provide analysis beyond this one... but... heres another excerpt from it that I've always found a bit peculiar.
From Part II Game of Chess, here we find some of Ophelia's parting words:
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don't want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
And so, it begins. The nights of words, the days of quotes, flurries of rushed citations... HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME. It's like the future is hurrying me along from the comfortable present.
Ah, April, thou art truly interminably cruel.
I dread these things I have to write in these coming weeks. I dread the word spewage and the word salad I foresee. This won't end well.
How can you want something to end,
but want it to last so badly at the same time?
Ah, April brings out all its fools, doesn't it. Jest. All this jest.
Breakdown:
ENGL380 - 0/3
Pi) 0/4, Pii) 0/1800, Piii) 0/12
ENGL356 - 0/2500
WRIT295 - 0/1500