Quote of the Day - Emerson

Periodically my mother quotes this great Emerson line sans the "Thou must bleed for me" part. It is great but each time I intend to look it up and find the author and share it here I can't remember enough of it accurately enough to find it, even with the help of the Google monster. Today, she mentioned it again in conversation and this time I made a point of recording it verbatim in the notes app on my iPhone. With that, here it is:

"Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote of the Day - Emerson

I saw this posted on a high school classmate's Facebook page earlier this week and it has stuck with me since then.
"The dice of God are always loaded."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Birthday Dude

Today I turned 47 years old/young. My little brother by another mother composed this poem to celebrate this milestone. It contains allusions to various factoids of my life currently or generally:

While the birthday candles are glowing,
The rib eye kimbo is mowing,
Bloody and rare.
The limocello is homebrew,
And to star wars he is glued,
Because kimbo does what he wants,
For he is the birthday dude!

~ Russell Brittan

Quote of the Day - Dolores Abernathy

The past couple of weeks I have become addicted to the new HBO series Westworld whose first season I finished watching tonight. I have long loved the original 1973 movie Westworld starring Yul Brynner as the rogue robotic killer running amok in the futuristic fantasy park originally contrived by Michael Crichton. Any movie or television program or song or poem that makes one think about it for days after encountering it is something special. This Westworld television series is something special. It is good on every level from storywriting to casting to acting sets and shooting localities to special effects. My newest crush is Evan Rachel Wood as the unforgettable Dolores Abernathy. She repeats the Shakespearan line below (from Romeo & Juliet) which her "father" tells her which has the same effect on her as it does on the person she shares it with and it spreads like a virus. She was neither the first or last to say it but to me her telling of it is the most memorable. I will not say more as to not spoil it for you but this is must-see-tv!

"These violent delights have violent ends." ~ Dolores Abernathy

Watching A Sea Story

Earlier today in my post "Seawatching and Waiting" I asked my reader's help in finding the title and author of a poem accompanying the prologue of the music track "Seawatcher." Thanks to my English major undergrad bud, Russell Brittan, who is currently attending Humboldt State, I now know this information. The haunting poem "Watching: A Sea Story" was written by female American poet Ullie R Akerstrom in her 1884 self-published collection "Poems by Ullie". Frustratingly, I can find almost nothing about her online, not even a Wikipedia page. What I shared earlier as revealed in the music video was a highly edited version of the poem extracted from the complete original version featured below.

She stood alone on the wild sea shore, 

Her lover was far away, 

Yet she watched and waited for his return 

Patiently day by day. 

"'Tis many a day," I heard her say, 

"Since he sailed o'er the dark blue main, 

But I'll murmur not, he has not forgot, 

I know he will come again." 

O'er her brow so fair 

Her soft dark hair 

Was tossed by the wind so wild, 

Yet her eyes so true 

Scanned the Ocean's blue 

With the faith of a little child. 

But no welcome mast 

Her vision passed 

Though she watched with anxious pain, 

And whispered low: 

"He will come, I know 

Yes, he surely will come again."  

The year passed by, her soft dark eye 

Grew dim with watching long, 

Yet her heart's pure will was constant still, 

And her maiden love was strong; 

Yet she faded fast, and she died at last, 

Her watching all in vain. 

From the distant strand, of a foriegn land 

Her lover ne'er came again. 

O'er her brow so calm 

The summer long 

The roses bloom so pale, 

And the Robin's trill 

And the Whip-poor-will 

Her early death bewail. 

Yet I often dream, in the Twilight's gleam, 

I can hear her whisper low: 

"I will murmur not, he has not forgot, 

He will come again, I know."

Seawatching and Waiting

I am haunted by the poem displayed during the moody and brooding prelude segment of this Danish DeejayValentin-remixed progressive house track "Seawatcher" by Canadian artist Lessov (Kevin MacInnis). I desperately want to know the title and author of this work, but I am unable to find this informatino anywhere on the Internet thus far. If anybody can help me please chime in. I find the story hauntingly heart-wrenching, yet beautiful. I feel like there is something from this story essential to my character. Am I waiting for something that will never come and will have my heart broken?
*UPDATE: by this evening, a friend directed me to the answer to my question as author and title. Please read "Watching A Sea Story."

She stood alone on the wild sea shore 

Her Lover far away. 

Yet she watched and waited for his return 

Patiently day by day. 

O'er brow so fair 

Her soft dark hair 

Was tossed by the wind so wild 

And, her eyes so blue 

Scanned the Ocean's blue 

The year passed by, her soft dark eye 

Grew dim with watching long. 

Yet her heart's pure will was constant still, 

And her maiden love as strong. 

But she faded fast, and she died at last, 

Her watching all in vain. 

From the distant strand of a foreign land 

Her lover never came again.

Quote of the Day - Yeats

While doing research for my senior project I encountered this poem entitled "The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats. I vaguely remember this poem written in the immediate aftermath of World War I and a reaction to it revealing the growing sense in many people that civilization had ended and the world was hurtling forward out of control. However, for whatever reason this poem did not previously grab me as it did today. This is merely an excerpt from the first stanza:

"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."

Scars Of A King's Fire

My friend and retired career firefighters Rick Bates of Cameron Park whose playground up Highway 50 until the advent of the ongoing King Fire had the burn area been, composed this poem about the fire.

The days are filled with stress and doubt
For firefighters have chased us out.
Our homes unsafe, we now must go
Can we return? We do not know.

Police say hurry, they cannot talk
But they'll be sure, your door to lock.
To leave so quickly, it does so chafe
But they all mean, to keep us safe.

We hear reports, we're filled with grief
We hear of things, beyond belief.
We rant, we rave, we wonder so
We want our homes, we love them so.

Now lightning crashes and thunder roars
We can't help pacing around these floors.
Firefighters are the ones that go
Into the storm, that they well know.

The sky now dark from all the smoke
We cannot breathe, it does so choke.
Firefighters do, what just they dare
Come home safely, our whispered prayer.

The trees, the plants, the animals keep
These are the losses, for these we weep.
We cry for JUSTICE, to soothe our pains
 The rocks themselves, show fiery stains.

The fire's cause, for this we've sought
A miscreant soul, who now is caught.
 He'll spend his life, in a concrete jail
 While we still hear, the forest's wail.

The forest may, be whole one day
When that will be, no one can say.
Of these foul days, one thing is good
For we are now, a neighborhood.

~ Rick Bates

Tread Softly Because You Tread On My Dreams

A particular part of a particular poem by William Butler Yeats known to most people as W.B. Yeats has been echoing through my thoughts in recent days. I first became aware of it from the 2002 movie "Equilibrium" upon watching it again recently. I realize this movie did not exactly overwhelm film critics or movie-goers alike. However, I have always unapologetically loved it since I first saw parts of it and I feel there is more substance to it than most movie-watchers appreciate or realize. The movie is set in a future dystopia where following a global nuclear war the emergent society in North America (called Libria ironically enough) has banned all emotion (referred to as "sense crime") and doped its citizenry to not feel emotion and begun a purge of all sorts of things that elicit emoting such as  literature, music, and other forms of art and artistic expression in an attempt to prevent violence in the form of war or crime. For this to happen a totalitarian regime controls all of society turning everybody into unfeeling worker drones whom are easily controlled. This dominant paradigm is enforced by highly specialized and trained personages called Grammaton Clerics of whom actors Christian Bale who plays John Preston and Sean Bean who plays Errol Partridge are two such. Ultimately, Preston realizes his partner Partridge has begun to feel again and is committing sense crimes in reading a book of poetry by Yeats. Near the beginning of the movie when Preston confronts Partridge the latter is reading a book of Yeat's poetry and quotes to his partner the excerpt from the Yeats poem "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" below right before Preston executes him:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. ~  W.B. Yeats

Below is the scene in the movie to which I refer:

"Those Who Came Before"

My late friend David Brooks, a.k.a. "Studebaker Dave" to so many and whom I christened "Klau Mine Dave" loved poetry and was a poet himself. He was the closest thing to Renaissance Man and polymath I have ever met and I mean that in the Leonardo Da Vinci style, not some effete, sissy-la-la urbane modern man. Dave was also the damnest finest blacksmith and mechanically-minded tinkerer I ever met. Lastly, he was a loyal friend and the closest thing to an older brother I ever had in my life. I miss him sorely but I am comforted by the personal revelation that he is okay having had an appointment with a patient and loving Creator on the night of his leaving this world. He frequently shared poetry with me and below is perhaps my favorite of Dave's poems with this one being rather ironic in light of his composing it not long before his ascension. Watch him read this poem HERE.

"Sometimes I think we walk alone

That I see the road is made of bone.

The bones of those who came before

In times of peace and times of war

I do believe they're at my door

The spirits of those who came before.

My house is built upon their tomb

Their graves are under my living room

The room in which I sit and think

And forge my visions into ink."

A Man Said to the Universe

A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However", replied the universe,
"That fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

~ Stephen Crane

(1871-1900)

High Flight

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
 And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
 Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
 of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
 You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
 High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
 I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
 My eager craft through footless halls of air....

 Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
 I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
 Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
 And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
 The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
 - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

~ John Gillespie Magee

A Rockhound's Lament

I know that there shall never be

An ignoramus just like me.

Who roams the hills both night and day

To pick up rocks that do not pay.

For there's one thing I've been told 

I pick the rock and leave the gold.

O'er deserts wild and mountains blue,

I pick up rocks of every hue.

A hundred pounds or more I'll pack.

With blistered feet and aching back,

And after all is said and done,

I cannot name a single one.

I pick up rocks where ere I go.

The reason why I do not know.

For rocks are found by fools like me,

Where God intended they should be. 

~author unknown