Gaia Community: Fa- La- La- La- La- La- La-'s Blog

w103 assignment 2.1

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:35:35 GMT

"Pick one of the poems you read for this week: Simic 'Watermelons;' Roethke 'Root Cellar;' Swenson 'Strawberrying;' Snyder 'Axe Handles;' Plath 'Morning Song.' Identify one figure of speech or several concrete images. Try to define them. Then discuss why they are significant in the poem. Why do they add to the poem?"

Watermelons
by Charles Simic

Green Buddhas On the fruit stand. We eat the smile And spit out the teeth.

The power of the imagery in Charles Simic’s metaphoric Team Buddha Funny Car is enough to clock a quicker elapsed time from sensory input to inspiration than John Force. The weighty word which widens my eye is Buddhas; with a big B and an s. This is important as it shows that, while still included in the Dharmakaya Ground of Watermelonness, the image is of physical embodiments of Watermelonness as the Sambhogakaya/Nirmanakaya. Simic’s diction shifts the vehicle into S, where the linguistic gears grind out the sounds of Communal Enjoyment as the Dharma Wheels speed Simic’s Funny Car to the syntactical photo finish: with the Buddhas (presumably sitting) “On the [hood of the] fruit stand” enjoying the fruits of standing firm on the Path through lives and lives of drought and impenetrable earth.

In the second lane, when Simic records the jataka tale of the Watermelons pulling up to the christmas tree, it seems to be from the perspective of the assembly, where “We” ‘gaze on the [Watermelons] in astonishment, in amazement, in ecstasy;' where “We eat [up] the smile“ of the ‘Tathagatas, worthy of offerings, of right and universal knowledge, perfect clarity and conduct, well gone, understanding the world, unexcelled worthy, trainers of people, teachers of heavenly and human beings, Buddhas, World Honored Ones;’ and do what? “We… spit out the teeth,” the pearls of Wisdom, so that more Buddhas can grow and sit and inspire. Maybe though we should, every now and then, “eat… the teeth” too and let some of them take root within as well. And if the GI tract isn’t hospitable to their growth the moral fiber couldn’t hurt.

Tags: home, work, flow

What have you lost in your life?

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:58:34 GMT

sometimes
"It's like everything's gone, but I'm a survivor
Standin on stage in front of thousands
Don't amount to me not havin my father
That's real talk, I know a lot of y'all got 'em
But you need 'em way more when you gotta go without 'em
And I'm without 'em, but that's life y'all
Sometimes you gotta learn to swim with no lifeguard
[but] I'm alright God, shit I'm still breathin...

This what the streets showed us
This how the block made us, the same block where they layed 'em
I pray every time I cross the spot on the pavement, save me
Lord will I be next for the taking? Take me
I know I'm livin like I know when I'm comin
But I'm just livin cause I know that it's comin
And the end is comin, but I ain't runnin
I ain't hidin and duckin, I'm in the middle of a war, I'm alive and love it
I'm just speakin from the heart of the diein' public
We still beatin, we gon rise above it
Though it seem like they cheatin and we loosin
We survive if nothin, they could never take the stride from strugglin"

T.I. ft. Jaimie Foxx - Live in The Sky

Tags: QaR, lost, letting go, giving up, getin over

rising to the fall

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:09:57 GMT

mera fall semester lineup:

Phys-p 150    How Things Work MWF 10:10a-11
Math-m 119   Brief Survey of Calculus I   MWF 11:15a-12:05p
Biol-b 352      Fungi Lab                            MW   1-2:55p
Eng-w 383?    The Craft of Poetry                  TR     11:15a-12:30p
Hist-b 226     Mafia & other Italian Mysteries     TR     1-2:15p
Eng-w 403    Advanced Poetry Writing T 2:30-5p

Tags: lessons

w103 assignment 1.2

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:55:59 GMT

Climbing the Stairs

I find myself here, sitting on the floor,
all red and bleeding, pouring desire;
   yet I know in this life there’s more,
   there’s so much on the floors higher.
I’ll just sit still and climb the spinal staircase
   exploring all the different spaces.
Rooms with sacral orange sexuality,
and solar yellow expansion of grace.
   To garden green fields at the heart
   with sky blue speach clouded lightly.
In the indigo attic things are dark,
   until its window’s curtains part,
letting light lift sight to the violet peak,
   where a thousand petals rain peace.

Tags: home, work, flow

What's troubling you?

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:46:39 GMT

having $ < 0

Tags: QaR, worry, trouble, assistance

inspiration?

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:43:46 GMT

a friend once said something about inspiration

and then another said something about energy

and then another said something about life

and then i said 'to me the three are one'

...energy channeled is life,
     life experienced is inspiration,
inspiration channeled is Energy,
    Energy experienced is Life,
     Life channeled is Inspiration,
Inspiration experienced is Energy...

Tags: QaR, inspiration, inspiring, life, love, passion

L357 assignment #--

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:20:49 GMT

The Day Light Shined
Ala Frank O’Hara

It is 7:17 at Ivy Tech Wabash Valley
one day after smoke ring day- yea, fryday-
it’s 2006, I’m a student and working- the JD Gator
is my chariot as i clear Coke cans and Camel butts
from the four cardinal facing parking lots
before any but maintenance walks the grounds

I drive into the shop and look for my Echo
trimmer and line, a pair of cutters, some gas and the time
as I’m driving back to the lots whose slots are filling,
but my sight’s on the lawns, where i dance and play

I’m paid
when lunch rolls around so i roll on down 1st street
to Pizza Di Roma for a slice of Italy, New York style
and I smile as i drive back, this time for biotech class
where we play with jellyfish GFP and bacterium genomes;
we cut and paste with REs1] and Topo II[2] and the bugs glow-
We discuss efficiency, how Lilly and Pfizer bank roll;
i think about all the ways Cannabis could help the world
and how wild lettuce could help reduce what’s swollen

Driving down 1st again I side-step the traffic of 3rd
and I’m home, where I pack the evening bowl, Prince Albert
Cherry Vanilla, and i pack the evening bowl of Popeye power
and my bud Clint & i putt down Maple to Fruitridge
to the Hawthorn Park short cut which leads me to a grove
on the lake just as the sun is working itself westward and low

i’m snapping a lot now, with the Canon’s shutter firing;
i lean against the wind and watch sunbeams shatter and
flow into my squinted aperture and i imagine the sun’s wave;
and Gaia breaths- and thought and clocks stopped ticki-

[1] A restriction enzyme (or restriction endonuclease) is an enzyme that cuts double-stranded DNA at specific recognition nucleotide sequences known as restriction sites. Such enzymes, found in bacteria and archaea, are thought to have evolved to provide a defense mechanism against invading viruses. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_endonuclease

[2] Topoisomerases (type I: , type II: ) are isomerase enzymes that act on the topology of DNA. They were first discovered by Harvard Professor James ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topoisomerases

Tags: home, work, flow

HAAHAH...

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:30:57 GMT

Steven Caylor

Steven completed the quiz "Which Crazy Writer Are You?" with the result Thomas Pynchon.

A great, brilliant, blinding enigma of a man comes screaming into the literary world; it has happened before, but there's nothing to compare it to now. Nobody has seen you since sometime in the early 1960s - indeed, you appear to be so adverse to the idea of being photographed that you've been known to jump out of 2nd story Mexico City hotels in order to avoid it. Rumors abound about your whereabouts and your goings-on... and yet you think it's okay to do a guest voice on "The Simpsons"? Is this just a game to you? Dare we look down at the footnotes of the text of the Day? Does a Day need to make sense by Day's end?.

· Comment · Like Unlike · Take this quiz!

Tags: :~{)>

L357 assignment #-

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:47:05 GMT

The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,

And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.

It is what the dead close on, finally: I imagine them

These three lines are big enough to daze me, as Plath’s peacefulness expands enough to enclose such a confidently clear approach to the experience of death. But when the light becomes blinding, putting on sunglasses is well advised, so let us bring some shade to the dazzle and see what emerges from a close reading of lines 32-34 of Tulips.

With a first quick look at the poem’s title, something emerges, maybe a mirage, maybe not, but something that illuminates the passage by shadowing it in perspective is the fact that Plath’s father was a zoologist. This doesn’t directly apply to tulips, but he studied bees and sometimes those who know bees know flowers. So on one level or another this poem (and passage) applies to her father; as most of her poems likely did.

One layer of protection that may prove useful is the Oxford English Dictionary, with which we can clear the haze from around the words themselves, and thus the images they conjure in the imagination. Peace is a rather abstract concept even in the concentration of everyday experiences, and its use in a poem, especially one by one as prominent as Sylvia Plath, cannot be taken lightly, though likely represents something specific in the artist’s life. The online OED offers a definition of peace that, when used as a filter between Plath’s life and poetry and our understanding, acts as the concrete in our cement recipe: “Peace- Freedom from conflict or dissonance between individuals, (esp. in early use, between an individual and God).” This seems to describe the primary goal of Plath’s life. For her, her father represented the most prominent symbol for ‘God,’ and his death early in her life was her greatest disillusionment with him. The word ‘big’ used to describe the fullness of her desired freedom from dissention with her father carries a lot of weight. Big, beyond the surface connotations of large size, is about inclusion, or, as the OED phrases it: “Filled to busting; teeming, pregnant.” So Plath’s use of ‘big’ isn’t just a reiteration of the fullness of the freedom, it also brings along a piece of the puzzle with life-giving symbolism printed on it. The word Plath uses to provide the image of what the peacefulness is big with is like the sun on days free of clouds and covering, and the OED defines is as; ”to prostrate the mental faculties… as by weariness; to benumb or confuse the senses; to confound or bewilder the vision with excess of light or brilliance.” So the inclusiveness of the freedom she sought, so teeming with light that it becomes excessive and prostrating to the mental faculties was her replacement for the prostrating nature of her father’s brilliance to her mental continuity.

In order to clear up the image in line 33 let’s retreat once again to the perspective gained through the poem’s title and look at line 51 of Daddy, it goes: “You stand at the blackboard, daddy.” It only seems logical that for Plath, her peace, her freedom from the Daddy that “d[id] not do any more” might possibly be full of a lack of questions fired from the blackboard like panzer shells. The second portion of line 33 seems to state that, for her, peace only required letting go of herself, and the idea of things as possessions that are valuable in themselves.

Turning now to line 34, the word ‘close’ pops into the foreground and brings us back to the beginning. The OED defines it, in its verb form, as: “to stop an opening, to shut; to cover in; to contain (enclose); to include, contain within itself.” If we include the adjectival definitions some shade might be found that supports Plath’s conjecture: “close- of proximity in space, time, form, or state… of intervening space or spaces closed up, whereby the parts are… near to each other.” Many of those who have experienced ‘near death experience(s)’ describe the perception of light and, in the Buddhist philosophy, a departing being is said to be presented with the ‘Pure Light’ that occasionally dazes and sends the being back into the cycle of birth and death. So, with the polarizing lenses of anecdotal philosophy and the OED, we discover that when we die, or near die, we come close to the light that fills and dazzles and sometimes seek again the shelter of embodiment. Then, finally, we ‘stop [the] opening’ of that book in our lives and begin “to include, contain within,” the light that is peace until we’re full. If only Sylvia could have found means to do so within her incredibly expansive imagination…

Tags: home, work, flow

L357 assignment # [ver.2]

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:06:28 GMT

Summer Snows
Ala Langston Hughes

Winter weather can bring a young heart low, baby.
A weary heart needs a strong start when cold winds blow,
and with snow piling up, baby, the broken one needs more.

Winter weather can bring a young heart low, baby.
And sometimes it’s found in the warmth as a closed door
that hides behind it, baby, your sweet sweet glow.

Winter weather can bring a young heart low, baby.
Yeah, winter weather can bring a young heart low.
What’s the chances of you helping me rise tonight?

Winter weather surrounds me, that’s fo sho, baby.
A weary heart needs a strong start when it swims for shore,
and with waves piling up, baby, the broken one needs more.

Winter weather surrounds me, that’s fo sho, baby.
But sometimes the silence calls to me, and i know,
that winter’s fine, baby, even if it’s not my home.

Winter weather surrounds me, that’s for sho, baby.
Yeah, winter weather surrounds me, that’s for sho.
What’s the chances of you chillin’ wit me tonight?

Lagnston Hughes uses the line, punctuation and formatting to create a musical continuity that works to transform the oftentimes sorrowful subject matter of his poetry of the streets, of streets that ran deep as rivers and occasionally red with the shed tears of his fellows. He transformed Eliot’s Waste Lands into quick lyrics, powerful and poignant, pointed as the spears that pierced the side of ‘Christ in Alabama,’ somewhat distanced from the goreiest of the details, but fully immersed in the reality of it all.

His language has a bounce and step to it that provides the rhythm, melody, and vocals for his silent songs. That, combined with his treatment of line and line breaks, and his use of italics and CAPITILIZATION work to keep the eye and mind moving, through the sometimes disturbing, often cutting edge, perspectives encapsulated in Hughes’ poetry.

Tags: home, work, flow

L357 assignment #?

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:37:45 GMT

OneLove
Ala Elizabeth Bishop

The will to bleed isn’t hard to muster.
So many things need money to be spent,
and making it while helping others is juster.

Give something every day. Try not to bust, or
greet the loss of bosshood; find your intent.
The will to bleed isn’t hard to muster.

Then practice bleeding faster, hustler.
All parts of you are valuable, gent;
and making it while helping others is juster.

Love Mother Earth. Look, watch, trust her.
She needs to last, this third house from the cent.
The will to bleed isn’t hard to muster.

I’ve got two dreams: Peace & Love. Standing under
these umbrellas the World is content,
and making it while helping others is juster.

In losing blood (cells in a fluid umber)
i Love, and shall not die. It’s evident;
the will to bleed isn’t hard to muster,
and doing it to help others is juster.

Tags: home, work, flow

L357 assignment #

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:38:06 GMT

Tha 1-2-3 Blues

Ala Langston Hughes

The day’s growin’ old on us, Yea, the light’s gon’- baby,

I’m standin’ here waitin’ witma Dancing shoes on,

& the tower bells ’re chimin’ but my heart ha’nt a song.

I’m struttin’,

stutter steppin’,

doin’ the 1-2-3 Blues

The day’s grown new on us baby, Yea, the Moon’s Shin’in-

out here movin’ baby, in the crowd we’s grooving,

& the tower bells ’re chimin’ & the Dance floor ain’t thin’in-

well the tower bells ’re chimin’ & the Dancers keep it movin.

We’s struttin’

stutter stepin’

doin’ the 1-2-3 Blues

The day’s gro’n on us baby, Yea, tha stars ’re glO’in bright

our kulas ‘re Burning; red, yEl’a, green & Blue ‘re shO’in- tanight

& the tower bells ‘re chimin’; which-way-’re-ya gOin’?

well the tower bells ‘re chimin’; Which way-‘re-ya gOin’ baby?

Yeah, the Clock tower bells ‘re Chimin’; which way-‘re-ya gOin’ tanight?

Let’s keep struttin’,

keep it stutter stepin’,

doin’ the 1-2-3 Blues

Tags: home, work, flow

L357 assignment #?-(through)?

http://Steven-Caylor.gaia.com — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:32:39 GMT

It’s funny, the opening of the T.S. Elliot Voices and Visions talks about seeking to say something yet unsaid, something new, and then tacks on at the end of the statement ‘something that is even true.’ For me truth is more appealing than ‘something new’ mostly because the truth is always new. Somewhat into the video there’s a statement that goes ‘there’s no more use trying to be traditional than there is in trying to be original’ that really points to it. The poet, as with the visual artist, is left to express their Now in light of personal belief, general truth, and Ultimate Reality.

As the video takes on one of Elliot’s most well known poems, The Waste Land, the whole image is made clearer with footage of Europe laid waste by ‘the great war to end all wars.’ The bits and pieces of global literature collected and coalesced into The Waste Land are much like the bricks and blocks and rubble, the bomb crater ponds and pieces of left-over barbed-wire strewn about the cities and county-side of Europe. The power of Elliot’s Waste Land comes, though, through the fact and true understanding of his internal lands which paralleled so closely to the sights and sounds he experienced in his external world.

Marianne Moore is a cheerfully refreshing person that produced playfully poignant poems of profundity, perfectly arrhythmic yet prosetic, and possiblly as scientific as anything in Nature or National Geographic. The Voices and Visions on her moves quickly, not focusing on one poem for many minuets mainly, it seems, since she showed prowess for writing on nearly any subject from poetry to phish to phone clocks to fine filigreed ice fields with the potential to flatten forests to baseball to boats docked while the town’s chapel donned a new hat. One passage from the poem ‘Four Quartz Crystal Clocks’ is especially inspiring: “The sea-side burden should not embarrass the bell-boy with the buoy-ball endeavoring to pass hotel patronesses; nor could a practiced ear confuse the glass eye for taxidermists with eyeglasses from the optometrist.” It almost comes across as nonsense when spoke, but remains quite sensical all the same. Taken out of context it looses the more explicit metaphorical meaning associated with Bell system clocks, but still somewhat alludes to the concept of accuracy. Why in fact should the bell-boy be embarrassed by his buoy-ball burden? It’s his job to lug the luggage of the hotel’s temporary home callers; i’m not sure why one would bring a buoy-ball, but regardless…

Langston Hughes is an encouraging example of the creative intellect that was free in himself from the start it seems. I find a kind of joy in his strength at overcoming the challenges and roadblocks in his path to happiness. His message is powerful and his life was a beautiful parallel to Martin Luther King Jr.’s. He wasn’t focused on equality quite like MLKJr, but he was a point of inspiration for the oppressed communities so that they felt equal throughout their areas of actualizing experience; nutritive (educational), emotional, social, and psycho-spiritual. Hughes is made all the more intriguing to me by his explorations into his roots, grown deep as the rivers from which they drink. I like how he bends the language to express more clearly the sense of the sounds found on the tongues of everyday people in everyday speech. The Voices and Visions film on Hughes seems to be less focused on his poetry and more inclusive of the general atmosphere of the man, but it makes clear that Hughes wasn’t limited to poetry for linguistic expression. His journey expanded into journalism, prose stories, plays, songs, and others surely.

My favorite poem of his, Goodbye Christ, only received a glossing over in reference to the controversy pieces like that brought him, but i recognize the inner assurance and freedom that would be necessitated by that kind of expression even in today’s ambiance, let alone in the prohibitionist style morality of the poem’s time of penning.

Tags: home, work, flow