Fun With Shelley.

To ----

One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not,--
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?


Obvs, the fine Master Bysshe, taking back and marking time with a favourite poem of mine from my teenage years.

(this entry is inspired by the fact that i've been fiddling the last two lines of this in my head for a bit. the devotion, the far, the sorrow, it's flickering a little, in an angst-ridden way. and then i looked up the poem and re-read it. i liked it, deeply in the past, but now, older, and far more cynical, it seems less romantic, and more of a cop out. this rant is not about you, anyone, it's about my own irritation... as with last entry. general disillusionment, a little less magic realism now covers the world... snow melting, and the grass is dead under it.)


i can't remember, exactly, which of Shelley's passing fancies inspired this. he was a wanderer, and constantly strayed around mary, as though she was a flagpole, one hand upon her, swinging in circles, circles, her the stable, but in love with the romance of time, those fleeting moments, oh, i cannot have you and i shall weep, weep, weep, at the melancholy of it all. i shall let my soul be wrecked in torment, poetic mistress, as i cavort, and you, my love, shall watch patient at this.

of course, as a teenager, it merely was a good poem to cement adolescent angst over my teenage crush on brent. (now married to a lovely good christian girl, excellent), then niftily i could transfer the feelings to these words to hannah, my divine, large handed actress. then finally, the buck was passed to max, my shelleyan love, born on the same day, unable to swim, and adoring of parallels between his life and that of bysshe, (only without the 'free love' polyamoury).

i hated being a distant goddess - this is the situation my first relationship put me in. this poem leaves a bitter taste now. i can recall it from memory, shelley is the only poet with which i can do this. i enjoy his rhythm. i want to argue shelley verses keats verses byron. i never want a lover who hasn't read at least one of the three.

the idea that shelley is unable to love this woman, that she is impossible, that his desire for her is pointless and endless and spirals up like moths fluttering at little flickers in the sky, that the night that never reaches the sun, that the rays can never be it, and that they are in fact, in their nature, impossible; it's a cop-out, fucker.

'the passion' is my favourite re-write of the romantics - fiction, but retold from the perspective of the women, embroiled with their selfish, and emotionally ignorant lovers. did shelley ask the woman in the poem (i think this is the one entrenches in the top of a cloister somewhere, she's sixteen or something, i dunno, memory is not serving me well right now) whether she yearned to be loved like a few scales falling of a moth's wing? what is it that 'men call love' shelley, and what makes you above this, this time: your flighty ambitions? your invisible dreams? your romance romance let me have these words and suck them dry from the orange, the citrus staining the corners of my mouth and stinging any small cracks in the lips? what's the use of poetry when ahhh, you are just an impossible flight to the stars, and the moth? does it know what a star is? does it care? it's misguided. it doesn't see a star. it sees something, and it is misguided, and it's directionless, and it too will die fast, flattened against the earth, under the tread of someone's shoe, or pinned to a board. little moth, your devotion is nothing. it's misplaced biology.

party hard....

lazy afternoon park dozing, with my amazingly great leather (sorry, cow, but it was at LEAST third hand, and a present...) jacket.

maybe not so late. i hadn't had much sleep! really! dozy dozy!

i am not sure what exactly it is that i have eaten in the last 48 hours that has caused my stomach to hate me, with a profound, badly stinking gaseous passion. but whatever it is, god, people, stay a good ten feet away. be glad loyal readers, and regular IP addresses (HI ON.NET.AU, damn you were up early, rise and shine with the birdies, singing away, 5 am?? i bet you slept alone, surely no one with a lover and a warm soft bed and arms and gentle giggles in the evening would be reading my blog so early, god, you think i write in here so constantly because i'm HAPPY with my life?) that you are kept distant through a screen and fiber optic cables. despite my (dubious) physical temptations (yes, i lose contact/one on one time with people due to mere presence ah lament) it's better to be further when the air flows like This, my dears.

my desk at work is now immaculate (by my standards). i feel my Expressing of Interest for work in another section has fallen to dust, oh i rise about my station, don't i, little bigmouth strikes again...

Like love we don't know where or why,
Like love we can't compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.

WH Auden (tail end of poem keep in context remove it, repeat it, replay it, love and law and poetry - these are the things that Kill me... i could go for a walk where it's quiet and dry, oh talk to me of precious things....)

i lost my faith in (womanhood?)? in general? ah we put our faith in love and it is misguided, really. we need retreat into logic, but that often sickens me, callous logical cause and effect, i know this on hearing words chopped out of mouths, even ones i've kissed, i hear those words of cautious clarity, of stunted sense, of searching for biological fitting partners, and i know this is not me, at all, ever, and that at heart, i am not a logical creature... i've just taken refuge in it, because my heart always leans me into circles and grabs an arm behind my back, throws me face down on to the floor and surrenders up a list before me :

darling heart and romance
contextual generation
some wierd mix of words i don't think you understand (this is numerous times over)
nothing blank no chance
i cannot kiss you because then i may love you; but i can make love to you, inside inside you, breathe on my neck, please, you god, you empty hungry ghost, take me ....

i get these lists and answers and i am not a logical creature. i want flesh and blood, and hand over hand. i want that madness.

talking in bed.

it is poetry time, boys and girls...

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.

Larkin.


i am sleepy, sleepy, sleepy now. i hope this leads to sleep. i am slowly reading poetry, the mind race ended somewhat, i am slowing to sleep, to dream, i hope, little lands, little pieces time forgotten. lazily reading poetry, non-committal. lazily belligerent, sloppily dozy. languid languid, frustrated, more than a little, switching things over a little, frustrated.

we've got this idea of love as some all conqueror. what wisdom is there but that of the heart, eh? and what, oh what, are we left with when that is disposed? when we slowly ease into logic and sense, snidely looking over the past, and present, and realistically asses the situation, and are left, contempt, metallic, passage of adolescence in a loop over loop, drama and theatrics and a surrender of control for desires? and i'm a child? it's behaviour, behaviour, easy not hard, loll about and luxuriate in a place of control, your hands are free now, you think you have the keys...

the anger is still gone. i think it is finished. i think i understand, half holding a question or two. and it's a lazy sort of feeling i am left with, like an overweight cat on a couch, eyes half shut, that cynical glance, and that fluffy apparition moving from room to room under your feet, between your feet, brushing the tail idly up your leg. let us sublimate for logic, let's pass it out, let's see what happens. let's wait. let's wait. but i am not waiting oh No, i'm not sitting back, claws tucked in, adoring at your feet. my teeth are able, and i'll hunt as i please, hungry cat, long soft whiskers, don't look so frustrated now.

i've got quiet expectations of happiness. i like to lead myself into slightly less uncomfortable situations, but end up constantly caught taut ribbons around legs, oh i tripped, there's egg on my face, it tastes like chocolate and that sugary white and sugary yoke, and you just do it for attention, right, like a child throwing a tantrum to the air, well, i'm stronger now, and i'll not stand back, hands to the sky and flag falling, arms out, take me, your life is mine, because it is not. my life is mine, my soul is mine, and i live for myself. my pleasure comes, my desire comes not from anything or anyone else, it is that pulse, it is that instinct, it is that freedom. i have those little claws, and i am speaking from myself again and able to defend the borders to the edge of the map; lines drawn clearly in white oil paint, fingers dug into the soft texture. my name is here, and my place is marked, and do not violate an inch of it. oh you won't now, because i am where i belong, the control is mine, that little lead, that little line, and i'll follow it where it goes, curious now. i am watching that madness to see it doesn't slip back. i hold the cards. it's my game.

haiku

the mental health team
are our special friends some times
when we cannot sleep.


'i will break your heart
but can we still be friends, yeah?
i still think you're hot.'


today i ate Peach
last night i drank too much Wine
and today is crap.


i wish i was home.
this shitty city sucks bad
when you are lonely.

muted

some sort of hidden pathway that might make me remember where i was heading,
the little fragmented documented placement of phrases
that label
the type and place and space of your thoughts
leave me lead around ditty to ditty to mind over mind
and there is no sign of rain.
no answer
nor home or knowing or placement of future or reality or sense,
nor what if i know what i am doing again.

little tracks from your own embedded directions.
i try and get lost, helpless, buried, devoured
in some loamy dense warmth. as i clamor
up
the edges of the wound that's not yet formed.

Dinosaurs with Feathers

i bought a book on them. Fuck Yes. i have been very inspired by them lately.

i love them a lot. they are dinosaurs! and birds! between. i like spaces between, that's part of the wonderous nature of evolution.

mmm. now i am tired and full. i am pondering writing poems about my teen lesbian novels. i will start with earlier ones.


here is one on 'Annie on my mind' by nancy garden.


ANNIE and LIZA - by Elizabeth.


Annie, sweet artistic soul;
you may be working class, quiet one,
upper New York
trouble, torn between
feminism and your own desires.

but Liza loves you.
and there are few things sweeter than
when your first lover touches you
and you know, oh yes,
something so much more profound about
that space inside
your
soul.

together, annie, liza, you look
at unicorns
that almighty feminine and
you ride across the city
over each other's bodies,
towards a future without
homophobia.

the end.

sweet valley poetry

their symmetry divides them.

one blonde angel mother,
the other whore.

jessica cheating random
advantage taking
heart stealing whore
shallow anti-hero

as elizabeth is veiled in
similar expectations
editing and gossip writing
secure with todd.

she waves mistakes
as she does also

they swap each other
yet remain so seperated and undulating.

waves of their differences cross over
enid
and carla
and
layla

carved across
that sweet valley.



::me snorts::

oh sweet valley.
bless their cotton socks.

baby-sitter's club inspired poetry

and now for something completely different.

claudia.

with her asian perfect skin
artistry
and inability to spell;
across the junk food hidden between
nancy drew books,
also hidden from librarian parents
afraid
of her dyslexia(?)
her inability to spell at 13.

acne threatens.
at 13 further puberty threatens.
as does eating
disorders
parental approval
causing her anxiety to spill further
into binging on
junk food
and nancy drew books.

janine, the perfect
older genious sister
will almost surely get pregnant young
and wreck the symetry of
good daughter bad
daughter
as claudia
vomits up dinner and smarties.

her body remains her canvas
she created her own caving ribcage
dressed in makeup
and art
and misspelt
mistakes.

did any of those boys really
love you,
claudia?
were they really worth
all that?c