Poetry Hour

I've been told that my posts are too long, so I'll try to keep this one short.

Aside from the vomiting, this weekend was a lot of fun. It was really nice to do something different on Saturday night - one of my friends from the vet hospital had a bonfire, and I got to see some old friends and watch two sections of a very large couch go up in flames. Also, not so much fun - I got my first real dog bite since I pulled Stormy II's tail when I was little and got a bite on the nose. It's one tiny little puncture, but it bled like crazy. I'm really pissed at myself - three years at the hospital, and I never got bitten by a dog. I only ever had one real bite, and that was from a cat, as were nearly all of my injuries and close calls. I can usually read animals pretty well, (or at least, I used to be able to) but not this dog. I guess we'll never understand each other, Blade and I.

I'd really like to know why I'm so damn tired lately. I always am, but it's been really bad the last few days... I came home from work early on Friday and slept for two hours. Every time I rode in the car over the weekend, I slept. I even managed to fall asleep last night while watching gay cowboys going at it (no, come to think of it, I think I was awake for the sex scenes), and I lost count of how many times I dozed off at my desk this morning. I wish I knew what the hell was wrong with me.

Maybe I'll feel better when I've gotten through the next couple of weeks, and some stress is relieved. I have to hand in my short story in class tomorrow, and it's not really close to being finished. I have a fun night ahead of me - I'm coming home from work, grabbing some dinner, going in my room, and not coming out until it's done. And I'm sure I won't be able to sleep until the following week, when it's finally critiqued. After that, I'll get plenty of rest, because they will have completely ripped it apart, and I will have to kill myself.

Okay, maybe not. I should at least wait until the wedding, so I can play my song, which despite all my practicing, will suck. Then Kelly will hate me, and I will kill myself twice, if I can figure out some way of doing that.

I shouldn't say that, in case she's reading this. Kelly, it's going to kick ass, and your day is going to be perfect in every way.

I can't wait for the California trip. I swear, if I don't get rid of Christine soon... just kidding. I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye, that will be hard. But I really need a break from work. I need a change of scenery, that always picks me back up. Thinking about that week is good, because I know that by then, both of those other things will finally be over, and I can finally relax a little.

So this is what I call a short post?

Now that the short attention-spanned have already stopped reading, I might as well bore anyone who will listen with a few lines from some of my favorite poems. I hadn't read these in a while, but they've been on my mind lately.

Piety and conformity to them that like...I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,
Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!
...Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew before?
Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense?

-Walt Whitman, from "By Blue Ontario's Shore"


Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well--be not detain'd!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen'd!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.
Comerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

-Walt Whitman, from "Song of the Open Road"


...So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter,
and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul too, and anyone who'll listen,
--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed by our own seed & golden hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sit-down vision.

-Allen Ginsberg, from "Sunflower Sutra"