Wednesday, January 27, 2010

William Butler Yeats - The Second Coming

Whenever i read this majestic poem of William Butler Yeats,tears come  to my eyes.To me, the Second Coming is the manifestation of horrors to come,human cruelty and most importantly the danger of power and greed.The apocalyptic nature of Yeats' the second coming is a reminder to every well-thinking mind.




                  The Second Coming


Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


Note: if you are interested in learning more about William Butler Yeats, please click on here. To read an interpretation of the second coming , click on here.



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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Ulysses by Alfred,Lord Tennyson

    Ulysses is most certainly   my favorite poem. I hope you will enjoy it.            


Ulysses     







It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

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Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Madman is amongst us

             At four o’clock of the night, he woke up and managed to get out of his bed. Wearing a dark jacket, eyes covered by lunettes, he turned on light, took a deep breath and ghostly marched towards the door to wait for his victim. “The Madman,” those who saw him secretly whispered to each others, “where the hell is he going this early?”
            During the two or three years that he has lived in his isolated apartment, no living soul has seen his face or heard his voice. It is said that the few unfortunates who saw his monstrous eyes perished immediately. He never went out at daylight or spoke to his suspicious, foolish neighbors. There were rumors circulating that he was a spooky vampire or some kind of Greek mythological creatures called “Minotaur”. If you ask the neighborhood children about him, they will certainly say that he is a murdered hiding from the police.
           Behold! Curiosity took over me. In a cold icy day, I courageously took the resolution to uncover the identity of the person hiding behind this mysterious character. I woke up early to meet his habitual stairway descent time. He was wearing the same shit (cloths) as usual. As he walked down in the deserted streets, I followed him steps by steps with a snake-like attentiveness. After nearly thirty five minutes of endless march, he turned his back and carefully analyzed his surrounding; “Bump, bump!” I hear my heart bits - I felt like facing an imminent danger.
          At the corner of a street, he stopped and suddenly began taking his lunettes and jacket off. As I carefully observe him, a familiar silhouette distinguished itself: tall, white male, shaggy looking. PE-DER-SEN, I proclaimed loudly with an air of astonishment. I think he heard my voice and saw me running across the streets because his face was firing like a boiling volcano waiting to erupt. After making this astonishing, yet marvelous discovery, I ran to school heart pounding afraid.
                                   Do not stare at me, he is the madman not me.  
           While passing by his class room, I saw his devilish face uncovered; he was smiling like an angel to some of his students. He did not look like the mysterious madman who has inspired hundreds of myths. But, I did not let his angelical new appearance deceive me; for, the devil itself, Lady Macbeth, advised her treacherous husband in Shakespeare’s Macbeth “look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it”.
 Beware the devil is double-faced.
                                 
              I didn’t want to go into his class, but Mr. Noonan forced me to. I tried to briefly explain to him the true nature of the man hiding behind our Mr. Pedersen, but his ears were blind.  “Kids” he said with mockery “always trying to find excuses not to go to class”.  When I entered the room, he stared at me like a ferocious bull preparing to attack.
“Mory sit here,” he said calmly.
“Sirrrr,” I replied nervously “I would prefer to sit on the back”.
“No, no, the front must be filled first”.
           
While speaking I observed his facial expression. He laughed. He laughed and laughed again with the evil smile on his face.
            
Take ten minutes to write a short poem describing you” he addressed the class emphasizing the verb “to describe”. “Describe myself” I whispered, “why doesn’t he describe himself?” . Later on I figured it out that he wanted us to reveal or weakness’ and take advantage of them. Didn’t you see him smiling like a viper?
          
The bell rang a while after and we were dismissed from his class. While leaving his class, he called upon me and manifested his true nature. He was a bizarre creature …. Very bizarre...very, his has a rectangular face, big noose, eyes of varied sizes and a large disgusting mouth. Do you want to discover who he is? Well, he is an alien enveloped in an artificial human body. I know it because….. No, it is a secret, ask him yourself.
           
Since that day, the madman hunts me in my nightmares; I think that I’m his next victim. He once pointed at my face and said “you are the next”. Help, save me! Save me from the madman and his extraterrestrial insanity. Do not approach him. Do not let him deceive you with his smile, for the devil is a smile.

Note: This is just a piece of fiction; therefore any description presented in this piece is purely fictional.  


Mr.Petersen: my high school creative writing teacher.
Mr.Noonan: high school principal.
The school: High School for Arts , Imagination and Inquiry.

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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

I,Mory,Thor



He firmly stood atop a giant skyscraper in downtown New York, observing the streets, contemplating the empire of “peace" he has created. An empire ruled by him, king of kings, Monarch of monarchs, Caliphs of caliphs, and God of gods- him the Punisher. As he walked down the crowded street, his name was constantly hailed by ignorants, fearfuls simpletons “All hail the Punisher, we are thy humble servants." He glorified himself for bringing chaos which he called peace along with his demonic steps; He named dictatorship - democracy, and the world - his eternal kingdom. To represent his supremacy over the City, he replaced the head of the status of liberty with his own and placed his giant status atop the Empire State building.

But behold! His reign of terror was to come to its end when I,Mory,Thor, god of thunder rebelled against him.
I went to his celestial palace one early morning, defeated his guards with my godly fury. Then, I shouted at him “Give up, the punisher. Your reign of terror is over".
" Terror?" he replied mockingly “I bring peace to this world and the people like me."
"Come out of your cage, fight me coward if thou are deserving of thy name." I furiously yelled at him.
" Prepare to confront my fury" he instantly replied.

He suddenly threw his smelly body upon me and we began fighting. After endless hours of intense fighting, I finally smacked him with my mighty hammer and thunder stroke him. He perished like a vulture.  With rebellious bravery, I brought real "peace" to the world and vanquish for ever chaos.
Since that memorable event that defined the faith of mankind, humans are still hailing my name “All hail Mory,Thor, our Savior."
 Note: This is piece of writing is purely fictional.To learn more about  Thor,encourage you to click here to read the Wikipedia article.
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Sunday, January 3, 2010

Simply Brillant : Ingenious Archimedes




In 214 BC, a powerful Roman force attacked the city of Syracuse, the home of the famed mathematician and inventor Archimedes. To hold off the Roman legions, he devised one ingenious weapon after another, among them a catapult which could hurl a ton of stones some six hundred feet.


His most remarkable contraption, however, was brilliant in its sheer simplicity: Using an array of mirrors, Archimedes directed and concentrated the sun's rays onto the Roman ships and set them ablaze.


Creditanecdotage.com


PLUS“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”  said Archimedes.


to learn more about Archimedes click here to read his biography on Wikipedia.
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Charles Baudelaire "Le Mort joyeux"


here is, what i consider as, the masterpiece of the great French poet Charles Baudelaire. le mort joyeux ( the happy dead), is, though somehow cynical, the most reflective poem i have red. i remember reciting it once in class, when i was about 9 years old in my country. every french speaking person, i believe, will agree that that le mort joyeux is unique in its own way.

Dans une terre grasse et pleine d'escargots
Je veux creuser moi-même une fosse profonde,
Où je puisse à loisir étaler mes vieux os
Et dormir dans l'oubli comme un requin dans l'onde.
Je hais les testaments et je hais les tombeaux;
Plutôt que d'implorer une larme du monde,
Vivant, j'aimerais mieux inviter les corbeaux
À saigner tous les bouts de ma carcasse immonde.
Ô vers! noirs compagnons sans oreille et sans yeux,
Voyez venir à vous un mort libre et joyeux;
Philosophes viveurs, fils de la pourriture,
À travers ma ruine allez donc sans remords,
Et dites-moi s'il est encore quelque torture
Pour ce vieux corps sans âme et mort parmi les morts!

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