Calliope's blog

Where the pavement’s cracked
last year’s lost leaves lie
undisturbed until some passing breath
rushes them out from shadow.

When the faces pass
too fast for my sleepless eyes
but slow enough to perceive
a glimmering thread spin by.

There’s a man who sweeps
the traveler’s dust away, away
only for it to fly again into his face
the sandy grit of time.

Here lies a girl not in sleep
but drunk from dreaming days
when the sun reflects on ripples
of swaying grass and placid lakes.

Somewhere in the thinning wood
a bird has trilled a melody

Take it.

I’m giving it to you,
No strings attached,
At your fingertips.

Winds across the sea,
Fly away
Where sunsets never end.

Don’t you understand?
There is no wrong answer,
Except silence.

Fresh grass and soft snow
Under unhindered steps,
Dance on! Dance on!

In blurred reflections
I’ve turned away to watch
Your study of fingertips.

Breath in eternity,
The world outstretched,
Ours is only a moment.

Why won’t you listen?
It’s not such a slippery slope,
There’s no need for my hand.

Step surely,
The roads have no end

Link: "http://voices.washingtonpost.com">/44/2010/01/obama-continues-to-assail-supr.html?wprss=44

President Obama continued to assail the Supreme Court decision striking down limits on corporate spending in political campaigns, saying Saturday that the ruling "strikes at our democracy itself.” Washington Post

Just the start...trying to write a little bit every day.

They’re just words.

They’re just lines
rambling
across deserts.

White deserts.

Blank, staring
white

Desert n. a dry, barren area

Just words.

You want to master words?

Master n. a person who dominates

Dominate words?

Who is master?

Where are there
no words?

We are the bearers
of ideas,
the creators.

We are helpless
without words
to speak us.

Do you dream
in pictures?
Do you live
in a

Void n. a completely empty space

guarded
by indescribable
flickering images,

Ladies and gentlemen!—
Here’s to perfection!—
Raise your glass in the air,
And be blind to the dazzle,
By the dazzle,
For the dazzle.

Ladies and gentlemen!—
Here’s to perfection!—
Here’s to beauty
That can kill.
Here’s to beauty
That will kill.

Here’s to perfection!—
The perfection of a face
With arches and dark
Lines so easily erased,
But fearing the mirror—
Without the mask—
That can only unveil
The ghost of flawless
Reality.

Here’s to perfection!—
The perfection of life,
So carefully maintained,
So precisely dressed
And painted,
Cast into golden

I remember her crimped brown hair and the way she would always wave and smile warmly at me even though we barely knew each other, even though we could barely communicate since her English was limited and my Spanish was worse. I remember that she played the viola. I remember that she was from Venezuela.

Darkness softly takes in hand
Stars of silver scattered high,
Tossing diamonds towards the land,
Dancing with the winter’s sigh.

Shrouded in dream and fantasy,
The Lady Night breathes frost and rime,
Icing the grass, the glass, the tree
In robes as white as agéd time.

Silence reigns over a sleeping world,
Softly embracing the rising moon,
Whose argent beams evince unfurled
The frozen sea of Winter’s tomb.

Though some would call her seasons’ Death,
Beneath her cloak of snowy lithe,
Winter guards the frozen breath
Biding till the time for Life.

I feel like I need to start posting more, but am currently struggling with a bit of writer's block. Just tried a free-write to get the words moving again...

Morning’s glory brushes
Branches reaching towards the sky
Supporting the unblemished red—
Wreathed by honest green—
Guarding what has not yet fallen.

Bending and blending
Until what was once
Green edged with gold
Is now gold
Edged with green
And what was once
Red becomes the gold,
The filthy lucre,
Whose sweetness becomes sour
Though we would treasure it,
Even after so many battles
And promises of beauty.

And when all wars are
Won or lost
And Helen is simply
A name of the past,
The Hesperides will reclaim
The solitude of stretching shadows,

I had never seen a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream vending machine before England. The first one I saw sat nonchalantly by a set of stairs leading to the lower level of bus stops. I just crossed an ocean and there’s a little piece of home staring at me. I point this out to my sister, and she tells me that she’s been to small shops in rural corners of the UK and found Ben & Jerry’s vending machines. Imagine that.

The Oxford bound bus never did appear, at the misplaced fourth stop or any other. Its status went from being Delayed to nonexistent, and so we sat and waited for the next bus.

Resting on the treetops,
Brilliant stolen luster
Sending rays of ivory
Dancing through the dark.

Strokes of wispy grey
Patterning the sky
Wrapping round the scattered
Sparks of frozen flame.

Colored shadows stretching
Towards arrays of light,
Breath of ice rustling
Passing season’s wake.

Gatwick airport misplaced their fourth bus stop.

Sitting in a daze in the airport, too excited and too exhausted to actually realize that my dream of coming to England had actually come true, I stared blankly at the little television listing buses, times, and numbers.

Oxford—10:15—Stop 4

Muffled by the night’s gathering of snow and fog pervading the streets, Boston sat in silence. The midnight hour had struck and, upon finding the town quietly asleep in warm beds, wandered sadly west in search of a livelier welcome. The darkest hour of the night, that time just before the grey announcing the approach of morning, enveloped a large stone building.

Here begins the Shoshana&Shakespeare project, inspired by the movie I saw yesterday "Julie&Julia". Today is officially the first day, I find it rather fitting because it would be my grandfather's 97th birthday. He played a huge part in developing my love for books and writing; reading me everything from Dickens, to James Herriot, to Harry Potter, and always ready to read and critique my own writings. For that, I dedicate all the following writing I will be doing for this project to Donald.

To Read: 37 plays, To Write: 37 short stories, In: 365 days

Walking out of the movie theatre, with those golden beams that only an early October sun can produce, slanting down on hills ablaze with reds and burnt yellows, I considered what I had just seen. "Julie & Julia" is two stories in one, separated by time and space, but overlapping in three important areas: cooking, writing, and, most importantly, food. (I was recently reading the book "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" in which it discussed how stories tend to retell other stories, and most frequently the origins of a story come from either Shakespeare or the Bible.

Here's a rough draft of the synopsis of a screenplay I'm working on. Comments are greatly appreciated. Does it sound interesting? Am I trying to put too much into one movie? Thanks!

Ivy League bound Elisa Chase decides to spend her last summer before college away from her suburban New York home. She takes up an invitation from a school friend to visit her at her family’s vacation home in Stowe, Vermont, but is plagued by the question of what she actually wants to do in college. Looking for a distraction and a way to be useful, she volunteers at an immigration center.

Chapter One
Dane pulled irritably at his collar, his tie felt unnervingly like a noose. The rain hung menacingly in the air, blotting out the rising sun and making chills run through the inhabitants of the grey college town. The mud squelched beneath Dane’s once shining shoes, and he could feel it being kicked up on the back of his newly pressed suit.

Silver strings crossing
Against enveloping mist
Webs bridging the leaves.

Do you ever
watch the world
spin into night,
betokened by
the blazing red,
and fading light?

Do you ever
smell the smoke
on the frosty breeze,
swirling round
the silent world
of barren trees?

Do you ever
feel the brisk
of Autumn’s brush
painting the world
before the grey
of Winter’s touch?

Now you stop--
hear the fall
of September rains
announcing Autumn’s
overthrow
as Summer wanes.

Out they came in silent stride,
gravel rasping under foot,
resolute steps side by side.

Hats shading weary faces,
shadows bumping on the road,
callused hands grasping worn cases.

They are strangers traveling by
the twisted fences that edge their route,
beneath the bleached and endless sky.

Abandoned on a dusty plain,
seeking a world that passed them by,
mocked by ‘Next Time Try The Train’.

They went on in silent stride,
gravel rasping under foot,
resolute steps side by side.

Boards creaking
Brown planks bending,
Rusty nails gnawing
At their rotted holes,
Curling toes grasping
At splintered edges,
A drawing of breath
A bending of knees,
Moments in air
Arms flailing above,
Silence pulled tight
Waiting to break,
An eruption of water
Rain from a clear sky,
Circles of ripples
Reflecting streaks of gold.

Wings rasping gently,
A curious dragonfly
Explores the sunlight.

GG note: For Soovin's homepage: http://soovin.com/

(Inspired by Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time)

If Death had a song
to sing while going
about his dreaded business
it would be the keening clarinet,
the haunted lament of the cello,
the frenzied cries of the violin,
and the ever tolling piano.

If Death had a song
to sing while going
about his dreaded business

it would be too piercing for living
beings’ comprehension

…keening

too tormented for souls
to survive witness

…clarinet

too tortured for human

…haunted lament

even in dream

…cello

comprehension

The building is dark and deserted, echoing with silence. Sitting in the hall, I eye the ebony wonder standing proudly on the stage, waiting to be played. Asking to be played. Yearning to be played. People flit quietly through the foyer, in and out of doors that close apologetically. But even though these forms of life are present, the building is still empty, still waiting to truly come alive.

Jeewon Park steps onto the stage, a metronome in hand.

Metronome n. a device used by musicians that marks time at a selected rate by giving a regular tick.

(Inspired by David Ludwig's Flowers in the Desert)

The first rumbles
of the storm,

THE CRASH

fading…

Then emptiness,
abandoned
as all
flee
from the onslaught
of the darkening
warriors
in the sky.

(Inspired by the playing of Soovin Kim)

The umber angel
slips gracefully onto
his shoulder,
while he tilts
his ear, listening
for its song to begin.

One does not play
the other, but rather
they bow together
and begin a dance
halfway between
tango and tarantella.

His fingers treading
the bow sweeping
across the strings,
I close my eyes
and listen
to the dance of the violin.

I push the glass doors open and relish the cool air splashing across my face, chasing away the steamy weather that tries to follow me inside. The ceiling arches above me, soaring like a majestic cathedral. I am warmly greeted, and set on the correct path to the first event I’m attending. But I find myself straying, drawn towards the distant yet clear sound of a piano. I peer through an archway into a large room with chairs stacked against one wall, facing a glossy, midnight piano raised on the shoulders of the stage.

The music is as majestic as the hall it fills.

Listen carefully,
Let yourself slip

Into a world
Inside our known

Sphere of reality,
Succumb to sounds

Tossed and gliding
Tremulous and bold,

Ever unfolding,
Entrancing all listeners,

Never captured, listen—
Notes flying free.