Hito's Writing Pile

[hitogoroshi]

Mostly I just wanted to post this, but I have a few other things (I'm in a writing group now, so I usually get something done every week.) It looks like I'm not gonna do NaNo this year, but if I can get myself to start producing more content I don't care how disconnected it is.

Anyway. Iambic pentameter.


One day there was a small kitten, so wise
he thought of a way he could reach the skies.
With an arc welder in his little paws
and in defiance of all natural laws
he built a high velocity jet pack.
“Huzzah!” he thought. “This gives me what I lack.
And with the aid of fuel so high-octane
I shall rise and see from where comes the rain.”

A streak of blinding light, and he was off.
And while I'm sure some engineers may scoff
and cite complaints about weight ratios
and claim the little kitten should have froze
the genius feline rose and was so proud
when first his flying machine reached a cloud.
“Now tell me, sir, what makes it rain?” he cried.
But from the fluffy white came no replies.

The cat looked for one more willing to speak
to no replies. “What gall!” he thought. “What cheek!
Surely there must be someone in the sky
who's not so embarrasble and shy!”
He traveled till he found a mountain's peak
but finding it also not one to speak
he was reduced to cry in frustration:
“Curses!” he yelled. “Gosh darn and tarnation!”

But then, he heard the loud distinctive sound
Of a furious, spinning funnel cloud.
“A ha! Finally, one who has a voice!”
This was enough to make the cat rejoice.
He flew in and asked, “So you can talk, then?”
And no one ever saw the cat again.
The moral of the story's plan to see:
Physicists don't know climatology.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Hito's Writing Pile

We stood in awe:
our flowers, our towers
and all agreed on their grandeur
save he.

He cast away
our books, our looks
and said to grow one must do so
responsibly.

Against him rose
our age, our rage
that we should not learn what he knows
by decree.

To him we showed
our life, our strife,
a struggle worthy of something more
than modesty.

And in reply
(Our blame! Our shame!)
he eliminated all that would defy
his jubilee.

He took them all:
our wrongs, our songs,
and but for a single whispered scrawl
went we.

[hitogoroshi]

Here's the beginning of my failed NaNo.





The noise was small, but it was a hungry silence, and the light tik-tik-tik was eagerly devoured and sent flying around an expanse that had for too long been fed only by the muted noise of the wind above. It was an ice cave; beautiful, but also desolate, and deep enough that it offered more danger than refuge from the driving snow on the surface. Only a few hardy fungi called this place home, and it had entertained no visitors. Until now.


Tik-tik-tik. The walls were a brilliant blue, but here was a black, furred blot. Two large, wicked horns pointed proudly above it's compound eyes. It had a well defined neck and a large body, taller than the average man by at least a head. Eight long legs kept it well away from the ground, and these legs ended in cloven hooves that crept across the ice. Tik-tik-tik.

The creature paused to ponder the great expanse below. One false step would result in an undoubtedly fatal fall. It's head scanned the surroundings as it pondered it's situation. Then, it squatted down and spurted out a bead of webbing from the glands on it's rear. After ensuring the small gob had adhered to the ice, it jumped down and landed on a small outcropping below, it's web trailing behind it. With practiced ease and surprising grace it went from ledge to ledge, before finally stopping on a flat, relatively large ledge that slopped into even great depths.


Here it again dropped a bead of web, such that there was a single cord stretching from where it was into the blinding light where it had begun. Tentatively, it brushed against the web, testing the tension. Apparently satisfied, it brayed loudly into the darkness. The darkness brayed back, the different facets of the cave reflecting alien variants of the call until finally the silence was sated and the air was again still.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Hito's Writing Pile

I am trying to write a poem a day. We will see how that goes.

For the record I am not really that much of an environmentalist (at least not in this sense - I want to spend my life studying evolution so I understand why animals have to die) but when I asked for a prompt I got 'bunnies' and this is what came to mind.



"Like a painting", we say
as we look upon the natural world.
And always, in the meadow
watches back a rabbits eyes.

But look from them, for a moment,
and the colors change.
There is no room for verdant green
in this nervous tic of a world.
The only color is that of fear:
dark and primal silhouettes against the skies.

And even in the quiet moments
there is no time for contemplation:
not when the watching orbs
are made impotent by cancerous lesions,
not when when the darkness is cut
by the 'thump-thump' of a dozen hungry hearts.
It is a fight for an embittered existence,
and it's extension is the only prize.

The artwork always has more, as well:
and for every brilliant red fox, there
are a hundred desperate chases, a hundred
scattering streaks of white, as instinct
unwinds itself against the world.
It is a tragedy made numb by size.

The family takes a photograph.
The painter steps pack from his easel with pride.
It's a picture worthy of admiration,
but god forbid you empathize.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Hito's Writing Pile

"Don't you care?"

A few stray glances bounce from
the crowd. The street corner advocate
stares reproachfully, her sign full of
hunger and squalor. The maw of the bucket's
mouth scowls.

Care. I float in the expanse of my mind
and see who looks back at the word.
Friends are there, and family. If I look
a bit farther, I see some screen names
I only know through text
and artists I only know through
silent admiration of their work.

Beyond? A teeming crowd.
They are a featureless mob
and I can find no empathy for them.
In vain I look for the children on the sign,
for something like the photographs
preserving their pitiful hunger.
But there are no bright spots,
no identies.

No. I guess I don't care.
But I look at the protesters,
and I quickly see that I'm not alone.
Their clothes, their phones, their shoes:
I take the price tags and unravel them
into food that I stack around me.
We are no longer making eye contact.

My change jangles reproachfully
in my pocket. It is no talisman;
it can't ward off the horde
on the edges of my understanding.
But it would be something,
and I can think of no alternatives.

Money can't buy off my conscience.
But I throw it in anyway,
because it will buy me time
until I can figure out
which one of us is right.