Fear and Trembling: The Arts

A Richard III quote for no apparent reason. Or is there?

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:51:19 GMT

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now,--instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,--
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I,--that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;--
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore,--since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,--
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,--
About a prophecy which says that G
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul

A one sentence poem of non-fiction. No, really...

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 04:51:09 GMT

As the day's sane light surrenders, the night's psychotic shadow

presses against the windows of the diner and sick orange neon

,that went unnoticed just moments before, now blares out its call

to those who cannot bear the bright and cannot brook those who have

friends to meet or families to feed or sandwiches to eat on a break

or business to do or deals to make over coffee and polite platitudes

or any one of day's people who cast suspicious eyes upon those who

live in night's cool and quite cover and who gaze on life through

damaged eyes and hear more than they want to hear when all they seek

is a place to sit and tell others of new inventions, like alarms placed

on deer to signal when a car has liberated free meat or clear TV cubes with

floating 3D pictures trapped deep inside, all the while pouring down sweet

tea and lighting up a skinny Capri in a fat face or maybe they want someone

to notice the pretty new hat that she found at the home and tell them about

the dangers of crosswalks and near misses or someone to hear tales of

north wood taverns filled with Canucks looking for copper profits and timber lucre

but only finding trouble at the butt end of a pistol, or waiting out the night with

a steady rocking of man trying to quiet the mind with rhythmic thumping of an

overstuffed and buttoned booth, or a private place to scan satellite snapshots looking for

Templar gold and Aztec relics on North Atlantic isles or those who look for coffee and place to

read Zen books but only to find themselves caught by murderous thoughts for teen

kids in black fingernail polish talking about magic, the "E" and raves they have

been to this week, and they all know the name of the girl at the counter who shoves

tips into a black ketchup stained apron next to her Marlboro lights and her

boyfriend's Zippo that he left on the dash as she dropped him off at weekend

lock up even though the plants in his closet were taken without a proper warrant

and he had a medical condition that kept him from working which forced the girl

to be caretaker of night's people and that preacher in the corner flipping onion skin pages

, scribbling on yellow pads, and watching it all unfold in night's psychotic shadow.

A Protest Poem

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:23:35 GMT

Ok, here is a poem that I wrote for my poetry class. Modern poetry is not supposed to rhyme (too predictable) but this poem assignment was supposed to be an imitation of poem found in our Norton's Anthology. I chose a poem by Dylan Thomas called "The Hand That Signed the Paper" This was a poem about the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which to most people is not a proper poem topic, but it really caught my eye

This poem of mine is about an occurrence that happened six months ago. Kaiser, who was persistently ill at the time, was thought to potentially have Lupus or some other immune system disease. In the middle of this, Christie Clinic decided to drop Kaiser and the whole family as patients for slow payment of a $150 bill. Since Kaiser and the other kids are on Illinois' KidCare medical program this means that NO ONE IN THE AREA TAKES THIS INSURANCE and even the poor person clinic had a 6 month to a year waiting list for new clients. To add insult to injury we could not even include him on our private insurance since he had a prior condition. So we were in a situation in which we would not be seen by any doctor and we could not get any insurance. Catch-22.

It was clear to me that Christie Clinic did not drop us over the bill, they dropped us because the State of Illinois does not pay its bills. I am absolutely positive that they were systematically purging all KidCare patients that had been grandfathered in (they were not taking new KidCare patients). They denied this claim, but I was eventually heard by the CEO of the corporation and he tried to explain to me the politico/economic situation in Illinois. Why would he go through all the trouble of explaining this if we were dropped because of the $150? I nailed it right on the head and he knew that I caught him. I was eventually reinstated at the Clinic and Kaiser's was able to see a specialist in Peoria. Thankfully, Kaiser's situation cleared up on its own.

Never underestimate the power of calling someone a LIAR when they are trying to pull a fast one. You should see the look on a pencil pushers face when you cry out "LIES!" right in the middle of their lame explanation of why they are denying health care to your sick son.

"The Calculus of Worth"

Notice from an office of pressboard desks 
to those of modest means and no voice.
Black ink edicts made by clerks so Kafkaesque 
seal Kaiser's fate with their cold choice.

Hirelings charged with the calculus of worth
purge the system of its chaff.
The boy's illness eclipsed by financial dearth
and a clerk's yearning to pad his graph.

Fever grips Kaiser as his young frame aches
and father and mother seek out cures.
There is no doctor to see nor salve to take
The calculus includes not the poor.

The father  has only rage with which to fight
and threats fueled by love for the son.
To deadly equations now add fear's hot light
and  clerks recant;  their decree undone.

The Haiku Contest

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:47:40 GMT

I have had several Haiku posted in my ongoing contest. This first one was posted by my beautiful wife who feels that I am inaccurate and unfair in my portrayal of her in Fear and Trembling.

I'm not an ogre

An ogre you make me be

I'm nice most agree

Another reformed minded blogger named Mustard Grains has left this Haiku

I cannot write good

Haikus are not my forte

Though I wish they were

And finally, these were emailed to me by a friend/congregation member, Erica Hoagland

Poetry I'll write,

Though my muse has went astray-

Left to seek new job.

and

Find Hope in the Lord.

Answers He will give in time,

Patience in the wait.

The thing that I like about the Haiku is that they are so short and easy to form that they can accurately reflect current states of mind without being so laborious that you lose the moment.

Can anyone tell that Erica is looking for a job?

I am taking a poetry class next semester

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 04:12:32 GMT

I have never written poetry other than the haiku that my wife and I used to write at the Corner Diner when we were first married. We used to write haiku about the very next person that would walk through the door. I am not sure why we did that.

Drip drip on my head

It has been raining all night

left my hat at Dave's

I think that I will have a haiku contest. The best haiku will receive a prominent position on Fear and Trembling. Just leave your Haiku in the comments section. A haiku is a short poem of 3 lines. The first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables and the last line has 5 syllables. 5-7-5. Real haiku usually have something to do with nature, but I really don't care.