A Magical Journey through the History of Modern India

#43 - Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
Finished 8/31/07
Rating: 4/5
Total Pages: 463
Reason for Reading: Literature Network
REVIEW: I very much enjoyed Midnight’s Children, my first Rushdie novel. This book has often been compared to Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude, for its qualities of magical realism. I agree, but I found Midnight’s Children to have much more of a sense of reality than One Hundred Years of Solitude. Midnight’s Children is the story of Saleem Sinai, who was born in Bombay at the stroke of midnight on August 15th, 1947 – the same day that modern India was “born.” The book makes a running commentary on religious and political matters in the nation, using parallel occurrences in the life of Saleem as a counterpoint. Rushdie’s writing is intensely detailed and involving. Even the most mundane of daily activities, such as making chutney, are brought to life with delightful colours, scents, and sounds. I’m left feeling that it needs to be re-read strictly for the purpose of fully enjoying all the intricacies of Rushdie’s masterful use of language. Highly recommended.

the spilling

within me
a building intensity,
a threatened smothering
that demands release...
a submersion into emotion
uncontrolled

my body feels ill-conceived
to contain within its boundaries
this thing
this sea swell
that fills up and spills out

flowing from me
in a voiceless cascade

DLD/30AUG07

Listening to: Better Now (Collective Soul)
Watching: Comfort & Joy

Maelstrom

There have been times
when disaster seemed to court my every step.
My heart, desire, my very being
captured in a whirlpool.....
ever spinning, ever drowning....
the waters pulling me down
.....down
..........down
until even breath
threatens to cease.

That whirlpool pulls our limbs
every which-way, all at the same time....
so misdirected as to be misinformed,
unable to focus, unable to imagine escape,
unable to see beyond the blackness
of the swirling maelstrom.

So easy to
give up.

Yet even whirlpools and maelstroms have endpoints,
and yes, we are spit out the other side...
.....eventually
...........and with strength and determination
a firm set to the chin
a glint in the eye
and a sense of humour
about what just happened (!)
we can rise above those tattered sails
and battered hulls....
and find a new island...
a place and a time
to begin again.

Would I choose to brave that maelstrom again?
Not sure it's my choice. :)

But yes.

Being inside the chaos
is the only way to appreciate
the serenity that follows.

DLD/28AUG07

Listening to: Roll with the Changes (REO Speedwagon)
Ran out of: Amazon DVD credits till September 14th. Ack! What will I do??? :P

Very Little Happens....

...in one day's work, as you can see by comparing these two photos. :)

But I do like it when they open their eyes. Hehehe.....

Caught

Caught
within a swirling maelstrom
feet lifted from sea bottom
while my spirit yet sinks....
I struggle to regain my footing
but am swept away over and over again.
Recovery seems torn
from my grasp.

Shall I surrender to the waves....?
give in to the urge to
breathe deeply....
fill my lungs with salty remembrances
of past disappointments....
Shall I sink into memories....?
resist the pull of the future....
or refuse the tides that call me home.

DLD/27AUG07

Stardust

To be born within stardust
Afar from the shackles that bind us here....
Can we be born again, on the far side of the universe?
And still continue our earthbound journey?
At once?

If this is possible,
I shall send my wings skyward
.....now.....
I shall pry thy fingers from my ankles
.....now.....
I shall lift thee from thy knees and take thee with me
.....now....
and we will travel there
as one,
floating high over this
troubled world....

I will wipe the worries from thy brow.
I will capture thy spirit within mine own.
I will hold thy heart in the palm of my hand
and whisper words of grace.

If this is possible,
then I wish it for all.

DLD/26AUG07

Listening to: Everybody Hurts (REM)
Planning: A day of utter laziness. The paperwork can wait.

One-Stitch, Two-Stitch

It's a long weekend in England, so I've taken a day away from books and writing and forms and decisions. Now that my glasses are updated, and now that my eyes have had enough rest, and now that I've moved the furniture in my room to give better light, I found for the first time in a year that I could sit and enjoy my cross-stitching again.

I'm sure this will be a short-lived burst of energy. It takes hundreds of hours to complete a project like this. I won't have that kind of time on my hands until all this schooling is done. But today -- for now -- I loved reconnecting with thread and needle, painting colours on my canvas. This piece is called Bundle of Bears, and will eventually become a Christmas stocking for my granddaughter. The design is by Donna Vermillion Giampa, and I'm stitching it on 28-count white Cashel linen. (Click on the photo to enlarge.)

i fall

i fall
into you

into your soft words
that create a melody
within the
quiet

into your soft embrace
that surrounds
my world with
gentle

into your soft eyes
that see my faults
and view me
beautiful

into you
i fall

DLD/26AUG07

softly

softly
come to life
stirring gently in the morning warmth
consciousness arising....slowly, quietly,
climbing up from the depths of sleep

gradually
the dream-mist slips away
leaving pools of reflection....
memories of before-that-happened
imaginings of what-is-still-desired
watch silently as the visions
swirl and drift...
join to one

the past and the future
become now
softly

DLD/26AUG07

Love (Like Life)

Love, like life,
is experienced
in the
in-between spaces.
The places we think
are too small....
The places we think
nothing can exist....
The places we sometimes
ignore
or
forget.

DLD/26AUG07

Listening to: True (George Strait), on iTunes 1.FM County.
Watching: The Last King of Scotland.

if only

if only life were so simple
that all of our needs could be filled
without expectancy
without impatience
without injustice
without anger

if only life were so simple
that all of our dreams could be realized
without exception
without impunity
without greed
without help

if only life were so simple
that we would all give
just give

if only

DLD/24AUG07

Listening to: Sensual Sensual (B-Tribe), on iTunes SKY.FM New Age.
Watching: The Pursuit of Happyness.

Innocence

No need for you to be a man...
Your grown-up world will never stand
The test of time, so set it aside
And let the little boy out from inside.

He'll teach you so much about
Love and kindness and lack of doubt.
The world reflects clearly in his eyes...
Perhaps only the innocent can be so wise.

DLD/23AUG07

Listening to: Bring Me to Life (Evanescence)
On my plate today: Continuing the foundation work for my final-year BSc dissertation (to be written next spring), and for my Masters research proposal (for a thesis that won't be written till the summer of 2009!!! -- BLAWK!). Off to London to pick up yet another stack of books from the LSE Library.

Come In.... and Be Afraid....Be Very Very Afraid....

Yes, indeed.... It's that time of year, boys and girls.... The countdown to Halloween and all things eerie and weird. :) And as the heat and laziness of summer begin to filter down into the cool coziness of autumn, it's time to join Carl V. and his band of dozens of vampires, monsters, and graverobbers as we drift down together into the depths of creepy horror stories that will make your skin crawl and keep you awake at night. Please do join us in the 2007 R.I.P. (Readers Imbibing Peril) Autumn Reading Challenge. You can read all the "rules" and join us in our insanity by clicking here.

I have set my sights on Peril The Third: The Scary Sandwich Peril -- Read two "monster"-sized books and read a smaller qualifying tale in between. Plus, as a side dish (the French fries, if you will), I'm adding on The Sunday Short Story Peril.

My "peril pool" is composed of the following scary, scary tomes:

#1 - Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
At 1024 pages (GASP!!!!), if this isn't a "monster" of a book, I don't know what is. Here's what Amazon has to say about JS&MN: "Any book touted as the ‘adult Harry Potter’ runs the risk of attracting critical parries from swords of the double-edged variety. If this wasn’t enough, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell -- the debut novel from Susanna Clarke -- also invites comparisons with Jane Austen. Set in the early nineteenth-century, the action moves from genteel drawing rooms — albeit where a mischievous Faerie king sips tea with the wife of a very human government minister, to the bloody battleground of Waterloo, where giant hands of earth drag men to their doom. The juxtaposition of perfectly realised magical worlds and the everyday one with which JK Rowling and Philip Pullman so successfully captured our imaginations and the social comedy of Austen and Thackeray can easily be recognised. But less easy to pastiche is the ability of these writers to induce sheer narrative pleasure, and it is Clarke’s great achievement that she succeeds with this hugely enjoyable read. Gilbert Norrell is determined to single-handedly rehabilitate his sanitised and patriotic version of English magic, which has suffered a post-Enlightenment neglect after a richly dark history. He ruthlessly secures his place as England’s only magician in two marvellously drawn feats. First, he brings the statues of York Cathedral to life and then, to facilitate his entry into London society, he brings a young bride-to-be back from the dead -- a feat with terrible consequences. However, another more naturally gifted magician — Jonathan Strange — emerges to become his pupil and later his rival. Strange becomes increasingly obsessed with the Raven King — the medieval lord-magician of the North of England and pursues his desire to recruit a fairy servant to the edge of madness. Whilst the differing characters of Norrell and Strange give the book a central human conflict, it is the tension between the dual natures of civilised and wilder magic that lends it a metaphysical texture that shades the narrative with wonderful and troubling descriptions of ships made of rain, paths between mirrors and faerie roads leading out of England to a bleak yet dazzling realm. Fortunately, the precision of her storytelling never reigns in Clarke’s prodigious imagination. Clarke’s broad canvas of characters — including Wellington, Napoleon and Bryon, locations and tones are masterfully realised....Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the perfect novel to take up residence in as the nights get longer." This one is on its way to my mailbox as we speak. Hehehehe.....

#2 - The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, by G.W. Dalhquist
At 768 pages, this one might almost qualify as a "short story" next to JS&MN.... but yes, it's still heavy enough to make my arms ache just thinking about it (in hardback no less!). Amazon says: "A gripping gothic adventure".... "Think of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes....Apply the production values of Buffy the Vampire Slayer....Literally a ripping yarn." Yum! Can't wait!!

#3 - Shattered, by Dean Koontz
This one represents the "filling" of my Scary Sandwich, the short guy stuck in the middle. "A chilling novel from bestseller Dean Koontz. It starts as a kid's game to while away the long drive across country. It ends in a grotesque nightmare of death and destruction. They're travelling three thousand miles to a golden city and a golden girl. She's Colin's adored sister, Alex's ravishing new wife. But she could cost them their lives. Someone's out to get them. To destroy their dreams. To plunge them into a paranoid world where every sound could be the last thing they ever hear!" Moooowhawhawhaaaaa.........

#4 - The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
I'm including LToTIA as an alternate, or perhaps an extra. (We'll see how I manage with those two big suckers. LOL! ) I've chosen this for its gothic factor, and also because it's a creepy travelogue of sorts of 19th-century Great Britain, and -- bonus! -- it fits into my Classics category as well! Besides, these classic tales are free downloads from Project Gutenberg, and they fit ever-so-nicely on my PalmPilot. A collection of short stories -- perfect for reading on my daily commutes into London! A synopsis from a Wilkie Collins website: "Humorous narrative of Collins' and Dickens' walking tour of Cumberland during September 1857. Written in collaboration, it was originally published in Household Words, 3-31 October 1857; and Harper's Weekly, 31 October-28 November 1857. Collected in book form in 1890. Collins assumed the identity of Thomas Idle (a born-and-bred idler) and Dickens that of Francis Goodchild (laboriously idle). Collins wrote three main parts. In the first, he describes his sprained ankle after a reluctant ascent of Carrock Fell in the mist. The second, the story of Dr Lorn, was later republished as 'The Dead Hand'. The remaining section, in which Thomas Idle, stretched out injured on a sofa in Allonby, reflects that all the great disasters of his life have been caused by being deluded into activity, consists of reminiscences, and is loosely based on Collins' own life. At school, after foolishly winning a prize, he was rejected by the other idle boys as a traitor and by the industrious boys as a a dangerous interloper. The only time he played cricket he caught a fever from the unaccustomed perspiration. Mistakenly studying for the Bar, where he was expected to know nothing whatever about the law, he became the target of a persistent legal bore." Also contains a Charles Dickens' ghost story...."The Ghost in the Bridal Chamber"....just to assure everyone that it does indeed qualify for the R.I.P. Challenge. :)

#5 - A scaaaarrrryyy selection of Edgar Allan Poe short stories
For the Sunday Short Story Peril. Also from Project Gutenberg.... I've downloaded a selection to fill in any other bits of reading time that I haven't already used up! Hahaha! (I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this two-month challenge...but what a wonderful way to go!) The Poe stories I've selected include:

* The Purloined Letter
* The Fall of the House of Usher
* Silence: A Fable
* The Masque of the Red Death
* The Cask of Amontillado
* The Imp of the Perverse
* The Pit and the Pendulum
* The Premature Burial
* The Domain of Arnheim

So.... there you go.... A two-month selection of scary stories. I can't wait to begin! And I hope you'll come along for the ride. Head over to Carl's site, and sign up TODAY! (P.S. There's prizes!!)

Mwaaaahhaaaahaaaaaa......!!!!!!!!!!

Interlude

Quietly I slip
past the consciousness of thought,
letting the sounds pull
me past the threshold of the
real world of worries and fear.

Tired eyes closed, I drift...
following the music's smile.
I float on the notes...
dance, sway, dream, explore a path
that leads me away from here.

A delicate touch
plays such simple melodies,
yet the depth of the
arrangement resonates in
smooth waves of tranquility.

The soft jazzy tones
play in concert with my heart,
skillfully building
to a gentle peacefulness...
an exquisite elegance.

For of what purpose
is life if not to welcome
simple moments of
beauty, pleasure - nay, rapture...
Let time come to a full stop.

Only then can I
feel the wingtips of the dove
brush against my skin,
hear the songs of truthfulness....
breathe the symphony of life.

DLD/21AUG07

Keys

We connect with many
Whose keys are different.
Together we open doors to new and wondrous places.
We learn together, we strive together....
We celebrate together.
And we grieve.

We connect with the one.
Our keys are the same.
Mine fits you, yours fits me.
My mind opens to embrace the beauty of you.
Your spirit welcomes my presence.
Our souls recognize, and rejoice,
Uniting in a bond that transcends the ages...
We were never apart.

DLD/21AUG07

Listening to: Can You Feel It (Nick Colionne) on iTunes SKY.FM Absolutely Smooth Jazz.
Still working on: Canada Graduate Scholarship application....pretending I know what I'm talking about. :P

Holding You

You opened the door and walked inside
and asked a memory of me.
It was so good and my mind quickly encircled you,
embraced you, held you.
Your words, your questions, your thoughts,
I hold you here in my mind.

You opened a window and your fresh air
blew inside my heart.
You climbed inside and it skipped a beat,
then raced so fast I couldn't breathe.
Your touch, your taste, your love,
I hold you here within my heart.

You opened a whole new world for me
and showed me pleasures I'd never known.
You draped your ribbons around me
and decorated my life.
Your eyes, your smile, your care,
I hold you here in my soul.

-- By a friend and fellow poet who goes by the name of Ampoule

I

I am Scarlett O'Hara, without the Scarlett
I am constructed of iron that I created in my own blast furnace
I am as flimsy as a house of cards
I am Strider, dark-clothed, hidden, stalwart
I am Merry and Pippin, a little silly but still mostly brave
I am the most un-mechanical person you have ever met
I am as wild as a tornado, and as crumpled as yesterday's news
I am the spray of the surf and the one unique snowflake amid a storm full of unique snowflakes
I am the comet's tail and Saturn's rings
I am the piano in a piece of music that was meant for saxophone
I am a very tiny facet, reflecting, within a very large creation
I am my father's daughter
I am a product of my past and my future
I am a student of the universe
I am in love with life

DLD/07AUG07

Overcoming Fear

#42 - Call It Courage, by Armstrong Sperry
Finished 8/17/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 116
Reason for Reading: Newbery Challenge
REVIEW: A delightful adventure, and a most deserving winner of the Newbery Award. Ten-year-old Mafatu, a boy from a Polynesian Island tribe, doesn’t seem to measure up to the standards set for being a “man” in his tribe. Most troublesome at all is his fear of the water. How can he grow up to be a powerful, confident, courageous chief if he is afraid to paddle out to sea and go fishing with the other boys? A wonderful tale of overcoming challenges and reaching through barriers to achieve your goals. Every child could benefit from this inspiring read.

The Only Path Ahead

The only path ahead
is through admission of our weaknesses,
confronting our inner selves,
recognizing the redundancy of
our separate solitudes.

We are all fragile,
yet our spirits are unyielding.

Give up to me your sadness,
your fears, your tears,
your loneliness, your despair...
as I give you mine.

Reach into my eyes
with your drenched spirit gaze.
Do you not see the truth therein?
Neither shadows nor blindness can penetrate here.

Let time sweep us into tomorrow,
where love is created anew,
where strength builds through togetherness.

DLD/18AUG07

Listening to: Against All Odds (Phil Collins)
Brain full of: My cursed inability to decide on a topic for Masters research. I have two more days to make up my mind.

A Mild Form of Insanity

Pushing paper, filling out forms
Transcripts required -- orders placed
Photos needed -- "flash"
New printer -- "install"
Colour cartridge? Print photos?
I can do this :)

187 webpages open at once
(oh yes.... where was I again?)
Nine-page-long applications with 27 pages of
accompanying instructions
*aaarrggghhh*

Reading fine print till my eyes water
Processing information till my brain
suffers a state of cataleptic entropy,
and begins to collapse inward upon itself
*groan*

Selling myself to the world
in bits and pieces
Two-page statements designed to
emit tentacles, grasp the unwary professor
who unknowingly opens the next application,
not realizing that she's about to inhale a healthy dose of
"you-really-want-me-at-your-institution" fairy dust
which I've sprinkled all over the documents,
cackling psychotically as I stuff them all into an oversized envelope....
(same dust, slightly different variety --
"you-really-want-to-write-me-a-big-cheque"
-- sprinkled on scholarship applications)

But today
sitting cross-eyed behind this computer screen,
sometimes I think I've lost my mind....
Right, yes....I've probably absentmindedly slipped it
somewhere between the pages
of my life.

Oh yes, there it is.
Reinstall. Shall we continue?

DLD/16AUG07

A Journey Back to the '60s

#41 - Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami
Finished 8/14/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 386
Reason for Reading: Recommended by a friend
REVIEW: I cannot clearly describe why I loved this book SO much, but I certainly did. The writing is simple and beautiful, the story is well-crafted and intriguing, the pages flew by, and the last half of the very last page blew me away, and made me want to turn back to page 1 and start all over again. It's about love and loyalty, about sex and death and insanity and reality, and about the world of college students in 1960s Tokyo. Poignant and lovely from beginning to end. I was transfixed.

FAVOURITE QUOTE: "It seemed as if the colours of the real world around me had begun to drain away from my having done nothing more than read a few lines she had written." [p. 110]

Listening to: All Right Now (Free) on iTunes Angel Fire Radio's Classic Rock&Roll.FM.
Quietly celebrating: Receipt of some VERY ENCOURAGING emails from various and sundry grad schools. Watch this space. More later. *grin*

Truth

I

The one...
The only....
The answer.

If such beings as us
could possess such knowledge
then wherein would be the joy of the journey?

The truth you see
and the truth I see
are as nothing
compared
to the one and only
truth.

And while we strive for the one...
While we imagine, while we dream,
While we ache for the fullness of the destination...
Scribe what you will....
For it cannot be written.

We are the infinity.
We are the one.


II

May this single truth be known...
For those who hurry to the goal,
Those whose footsteps pound
Resound
Hands in pockets
Body closed
Eyes ahead
Resolute
Forging a straight line
from here to there....

Know that joy resides in getting lost...
inexplicably finding oneself far from the path
of least resistance.
Joy resides in
mud puddles
cornfield mazes
strawberry patches
and stopped clocks.

Without these things,
Completion is irrelevant.


III

The canvas draws me in.
One step, and I leave my worldly existence
and enter the forest of emerald and jade.
Intricately crafted flakes of white drift down,
coaxed free by nothing more than a wisp
so that my path may be illuminated.

Diamonds of sunshine penetrate the darkness,
scattering the shadows of my being.
I catch them in the palms of my hands.
I let them slip through my fingers.
They float gently to my feet.
A witness to the weightlessness
of all that has gone before.
I do not know the words,
but I believe that
truth is here.

I shall seek you out
in the valleys, the meadows, the mountains, the seas.
I shall look for you in the moonlight
that sparkles on the ebony desert sands.
I shall find you
in the place
that is not
the end.

DLD/14AUG07

The Joy of Being Young

Listening to: Lady Luck (Rod Stewart).
Very much enjoying: Murakami's Norwegian Wood.

Along the Thames

Flanked on either side by a muddled confusion of historical architecture and modern-day glamour, the Thames is still very much a working river. I can't help thinking about all the billions of people who have walked these banks over the centuries, and how the skyline has changed (and will continue to change...interminably).




Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames at Evening
Glide gently, thus forever glide,
O Thames! that other bards may see,
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! come to me.
Oh glide, fair stream! for ever so;
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
'Till all our minds forever flow,
As thy deep waters now are flowing.

--William Wordsworth, 1790

Lost

Superimposed on this life's visions
lie the grey dreams of others past....
misty recollections of
unconquered enemies,
unfulfilled desires,
unfinished plans,
misplaced trust,
love's grace
lost.

DLD/19JUL07

What You See Isn't Always the Truth

#40 - Arthur & George, by Julian Barnes
Finished 8/10/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 357
Reason for Reading: Recommended by a friend
REVIEW: Wow! Hard to believe this is by the same guy who wrote Flaubert’s Parrot, which I read last month. Arthur & George is an intricately crafted, beautifully spun, most engrossing story of …. well, yeah, you guessed…two guys named Arthur & George. George gets himself into a wee spot of trouble, arrested for a crime he didn’t commit (or did he?), and Arthur steps in to help. A fascinating page-turner that cleverly and convincingly weaves the theme of hidden truths through several converging storylines at once. Highly recommended.

Sometimes

Sometimes an emptiness persists.
A creeping melancholy
An unfelt pain
An unwanted vacancy
And the question remains....

Comfort in familiarity,
in routine activity
that fills the days,
and that works....
sometimes.

For awhile, the vacuum disappears....
into a blankness that feels unfinished,
accompanied by an underlying quietness,
a searching....

And there is still a place
of nothing, no one....
that nudges me
and reminds me that I am
alone.

DLD/09AUG07

Listening to: Fireflies (Faith Hill)
Almost finished: Arthur & George. Yowzas!! Whodunnit?

Ever Had a Blue Day?

Lining the south bank of the Thames between the London Eye and the Royal Festival Hall is a lovely stretch of treed walkways and a dozen or so street performers in colourful costumes. Each performer maintains absolute stillness (sometimes to the point that you sometimes wonder if they're real live persons or not) until they hear the telling clink of coins hitting the bottom of the cash tin, which begins a short performance, no more than 10 to 20 seconds at most. The children are especially entranced and tug at their parents' sleeves, requesting coins, edging up quietly and a little fearfully, dropping in their money, and quickly dashing back to safety before the frozen performer begins to move. Kinda like real live wind-up toys. :)

I could never do this kind of work....I can't sit still for much more'n three seconds.

Listening to: Take It Easy on Me (Little River Band), on iTunes radioioSeventiespop.
Plans for the day: Collect scholarship and grad school paperwork in preparation for sending off reference requests to tutors and teachers.

we were children

peanut butter and jelly on sticky fingers
silent giggles behind mom's back
tickle fights, rolling around the livingroom floor
irrepressible

we loved Lassie and Mighty Mouse
we kicked stones to the curb
and we made blood pacts with friends
whose names we can no longer remember

we built treehouses in the summer
ice forts in the winter
we chewed gum and passed notes in class
and we couldn't wait for the bell

we rode our bikes everywhere we could
we put hockey cards in the spokes
because we loved the "click-click-click"
we traded comic books for
five-cent bottles of root beer
and fragrant ropes of red licorice

the wind blew us
wherever it would
and we let it take us

we were free

DLD/07AUG07

Listening to: Can't Stop Falling (Great Big Sea)

The London Eye

The London Eye is a marvel of design and engineering. You have to stand right below to get the full "wow" effect. I haven't been on (yet)....There is ALWAYS a line-up, because it averages 10,000 visitors A DAY! But I'm also pretty happy to sit on the south bank and just be awed by the magnificence of it.

No Sparks

#39 - The Immaculate Conception, by Gaetan Soucy
Finished 8/4/07
Rating: 3/5
Total Pages: 320
Reason for Reading: CanLitReaders
REVIEW: I do not deny that Soucy is a masterful writer and that he knows how to weave a twisted tale of horrifying events and even more horrifying consequences. I remember reading his The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches two or three years ago, and feeling assaulted by the language and the subject matter. The Immaculate Conception continues with the theme of matches and fire, but the sparks didn’t work for me this time. The main focus of the story, Remouald and his father Seraphon, are fascinating and detailed characters that drew me in for the first half of the book. But somewhere midway the novel fractured into multiple storylines that seemed only loosely connected to the main plot. The result, for me, was nothing more than a myriad of distractions from what I really wanted to know – the story of Remouald and Seraphon. I ended the book feeling frustrated and annoyed. I had spent too much time trying to understand how the divergent storylines connected, and not enough time paying attention to the only one that I liked.

Listening to: Hyaline (Human Mesh Dance), on iTunes Space Station Soma.
Annoyed at: Others' loud music competing for my listening space.

White

A moment's sigh...
a softness of sound
that brings life into focus.

Breathe.
Inhale the essence.

From within the darkness of your mind,
watch the white light enter,
permeating pores, flowing into corners.
Watch the light expand.
Brilliance fills the spirit
with an enlightenment
that can never fade.
Search out the source.

Speak softly without words.
Hear the waves that make no noise.
Learn from the source that knows no boundaries.

A moment's gasp.
Wisdom inside.

DLD/03AUG07

Wishes

I wish
I could open your heart
and find soft white feathers inside.

I wish
I could walk with you along a river of innocence
and lift your spirit across the water.

I wish
I could stride across the rainbow
and lose your pain amongst the shining colours.

DLD/03AUG07

Listen

Listen.
The wind soughs through the highest branches.
The leaves and boughs murmur a greeting
and a farewell....
The earth breathes.

Listen.
The waves swoosh up onto the beach
and then retreat....
A never-ending motion.
The earth breathes.

Listen.
Do you hear the heartbeat?
Over six billion souls in unison.
It is the pulse of humanity.
The earth breathes.

Our aloneness is only eclipsed
By the recognition of our
Togetherness.

DLD/19MAR07

Listening to: I Won't Leave You Lonely (Shania Twain)
Adjusting to: My spectacular new spectacles. :)

Burnt

The echoes drive me
from wall to wall....
escape this accursed place before I fall.
Voices scream, cry, curse....
How long till I realize that the voice is my own?
Eyes empty....pain overwhelming.
How long till I understand that my raving falls on deaf ears...?
that insanity is just a state of mind,
and that approach is imminent?

There is no rescue,
there is no survival....
but for that which I wrench up
from the inner core of my being deep....
Fingers gripped around the single source,
the light of the spirit,
from which I can arise again...

I stand in the fire.
I burn in the flames until only ash remains.
And the only sound
that permeates the stillness
is a single heartbeat.

DLD/01AUG07