Two valleys partitioned by a ridge spell a face in a shard of tusk speaking through time and ice Age has not worn its gaze nor cold its voice I reach out to touch It touches back to bridge the gap I am the shaper and the shaped I cut the grooves that fire the neurons that see myself in the tooth of my kill I am Human The fire is dying now and I won’t survive the night Ages will come and ages will go but I will lie with her, two faces frozen in the eternity of ice Who will speak the louder?
"Now comes the season when we gray," I hear my ashen brethren say. "So slumber 'neath your crystal quilt-- "Allow the cold to seep and wilt." Instead, I rustle at the thought Of sleep, with dreams of freezing fraught. For after all, why shan't I bloom My brightest just 'fore winter's gloom? What better time to leave my mark Than when the lands turn whitely stark? If soon enough I'll join the rest, I may as well go dressed my best. My beauty bleeds upon the floor. I'll try to stay a while more.
Re: Thoughts on anniversary of The Great Scourge? by alapanamo, literature
Literature
Re: Thoughts on anniversary of The Great Scourge?
Re: Thoughts on 300th anniversary of The Great Scourge? It was no doubt our lowest point. Despair ran rampant in those early years. The Scourge granted us the terrible privilege of a timescale for our final days. That is, had we done nothing but submit to its seeming inevitability. That word, inevitable, became a question. A challenge. We banded together our minds, our skills, our hopes and our hearts in order to meet it. A new zeitgeist condensed. I'm sure you remember as well as I learning of the unique camaraderie felt among all nations on Earth at that pivotal moment in time. Any remaining petty geopolitical squabbles melted away in the wake of mutually assured survival. The old ways wouldn't do. Success built upon success. When we finally embraced space, I mean really dedicated ourselves to staying there, humanity had in a sense arrived. We'd rejected the notion that a single planetary catastrophe could wipe us out. The sun would never set on the faces of the human race. We
For long I'd long for bounding main; Of distant lands its rhythms sang. In motions surging, swirling, too I saw my valor gushing through. Though told by all I ought stay put, I'd shift from foot to antsy foot Until at last I could not stand To sit about with idling hands. And so as stowaway I hid Aboard a ship in gutsy bid To say, So long! to habits drab And try to play my own Ahab. Our hull was sound and strongly built, Our sail was full; it would not wilt-- Until, that is, an angry storm Did all around us swoop and swarm! By crack of lightning did our bow Into a rocky island plow! ...So crawling up its craggy coast, 'Twas only I not now a ghost. I took a look around and saw A sight that spat at natural law! For giants trod with booming gait-- Goliaths all; I would not wait To try my hand at playing Jack, Should any wish a Spriggins snack! What frightful land through which I ran, Its shoots of grass as tall as man. I had to bolt but had no boat Until, in shallow pond afloat: Salvation
My Experience with Salvia by alapanamo, literature
Literature
My Experience with Salvia
According to Wikipedia, Salvia divinorum ("diviner's sage") "is a plant species with transient psychoactive properties when its leaves are consumed by chewing, smoking or as a tea. The leaves contain opioid-like compounds that induce hallucinations. Because the plant has not been well-studied in high-quality clinical research, little is known about its toxicology, adverse effects, or safety over long-term consumption...A survey of salvia users found that 38% described the effects as unique in comparison to other methods of altering consciousness."
I tried smoking salvia a few times in 2010, when it was still legal in my state. I found it to
Everything stops. Frozen, but not for long. Now, you and the world around you starts moving in reverse. Every action performed up to that point plays out in reverse. You're walking backward. Talking backward. Withdrawing forkfuls of food from your mouth. Rain falls up. Days go by as suns rise in the west and set in the east. Your life replays in retrograde fashion. You are powerless to stop it.
But it's not as if you're conscious of this temporal horror show, see. You're not exactly witnessing this stuck-in-reverse routine, screaming in your head for it to stop. Because your very thoughts are reversed as well. Everything you've ever thunk is
I cannot know what's coming;
I only know what was.
I stand in cold so numbing
But warm up to a buzz
Of music, dancing, drinking
About a crystal ball;
And soon, a crowd unblinking
As all await its fall.
A chorus starts down-counting:
A Six!... a Four!... a Two!...
Anticipation mounting
Till midnight's mad ado.
Through air go ribbons snaking,
That final tick now had,
With joyous chaos making
Manhattan's bosom glad.
To lurid pyro-sparking
Which blossoms with a burst
Do lips lock tight, so marking
This January First.
Is this a form of coping,
To blow up dark with light
And show by kiss our hoping
That things will turn out right?
With party
"Pilot"
"Hiya Graham! Whatcha doing?" Lippo bounds downstairs with childish mirth.
Graham involuntarily grunts. "Counting my profits, if you must know."
"Fun! Christianity or Islam?"
"Huh?"
"Abraham, Noah, Paul, Muhammad...Oh! Nostradamus!"
"No, Mr. Malaprop, 'profits' with an F. And I'm doing it with a gizmo of my own making, so as to work out any kinks it has."
Scrunching his brow, Lippo slants in towards Graham for a good look. Graham's hand is a blur as it swoops across a small grid of buttons, his digits striking with snaky accuracy. A scroll continuously unfurls from a printing slot atop this contraption, showing his amounts.
"S
a maximum vacuum [viva vain rasa] by alapanamo, literature
Literature
a maximum vacuum [viva vain rasa]
a maximum vacuum's axiom: "roar,
man, roar as raucous as a caucus; oar
a vacuous vacuum's carcass sans arms"
xmas saviour, ransom an anxious man.
icarian aims swam, an ass's smarm.
mars, amass assassins: mars, canvass wars.
unarm voracious caravans—war soars.
main swarms mass; mars's aura roars, "c'arn, c'arn"
vicar, savor a wan man, a raw man.
a cannon rains moira—miasmic can-
can—warm animus rams marra's marrow.
unca sam: "'nam mania via scam"
unca sam saw usa moan an' scram.
maximum vacuum can, anon, narrow.
Two valleys partitioned by a ridge spell a face in a shard of tusk speaking through time and ice Age has not worn its gaze nor cold its voice I reach out to touch It touches back to bridge the gap I am the shaper and the shaped I cut the grooves that fire the neurons that see myself in the tooth of my kill I am Human The fire is dying now and I won’t survive the night Ages will come and ages will go but I will lie with her, two faces frozen in the eternity of ice Who will speak the louder?
"Now comes the season when we gray," I hear my ashen brethren say. "So slumber 'neath your crystal quilt-- "Allow the cold to seep and wilt." Instead, I rustle at the thought Of sleep, with dreams of freezing fraught. For after all, why shan't I bloom My brightest just 'fore winter's gloom? What better time to leave my mark Than when the lands turn whitely stark? If soon enough I'll join the rest, I may as well go dressed my best. My beauty bleeds upon the floor. I'll try to stay a while more.
Re: Thoughts on anniversary of The Great Scourge? by alapanamo, literature
Literature
Re: Thoughts on anniversary of The Great Scourge?
Re: Thoughts on 300th anniversary of The Great Scourge? It was no doubt our lowest point. Despair ran rampant in those early years. The Scourge granted us the terrible privilege of a timescale for our final days. That is, had we done nothing but submit to its seeming inevitability. That word, inevitable, became a question. A challenge. We banded together our minds, our skills, our hopes and our hearts in order to meet it. A new zeitgeist condensed. I'm sure you remember as well as I learning of the unique camaraderie felt among all nations on Earth at that pivotal moment in time. Any remaining petty geopolitical squabbles melted away in the wake of mutually assured survival. The old ways wouldn't do. Success built upon success. When we finally embraced space, I mean really dedicated ourselves to staying there, humanity had in a sense arrived. We'd rejected the notion that a single planetary catastrophe could wipe us out. The sun would never set on the faces of the human race. We
For long I'd long for bounding main; Of distant lands its rhythms sang. In motions surging, swirling, too I saw my valor gushing through. Though told by all I ought stay put, I'd shift from foot to antsy foot Until at last I could not stand To sit about with idling hands. And so as stowaway I hid Aboard a ship in gutsy bid To say, So long! to habits drab And try to play my own Ahab. Our hull was sound and strongly built, Our sail was full; it would not wilt-- Until, that is, an angry storm Did all around us swoop and swarm! By crack of lightning did our bow Into a rocky island plow! ...So crawling up its craggy coast, 'Twas only I not now a ghost. I took a look around and saw A sight that spat at natural law! For giants trod with booming gait-- Goliaths all; I would not wait To try my hand at playing Jack, Should any wish a Spriggins snack! What frightful land through which I ran, Its shoots of grass as tall as man. I had to bolt but had no boat Until, in shallow pond afloat: Salvation
I wondered as I looked around,
Just who before me stood this ground?
Unlocked my mind, and outward bound
Came secret memories, lost and found
They were not mine, nor should they be
This was a foreign century
Outside myself, how strange to see
A desertscape so vividly
And pyramids that scraped red skies
Glimmering too, before my eyes
I stood entranced when to my surprise
The mammoth structures began to rise
Inch by inch, impossible flight
That surely made me doubt my sight
Till finally like stars at night
They shone against that sky so bright
Their silent climb had just begun
When in a flash, the vision was done
I knew then where their cou
Poor Adrastea,
Her crumpled face hung in black
Slumped and locked in endless space
Suffering from cruel attack
Pocks efface her former grace
For Adrastea,
Her lunar songs go unsung
'Gainst her master's tempests vast
Ever staring, without tongue
As the years occult her past
Oh Adrastea,
Eons old, your history
Dramas none will dream about
Who could shed your mystery
Who could end the endless drought
So Adrastea,
Still the rocks hold final sway
For reasons Fate dissembles
Powdered glory drifts away
Your barren bosom trembles
Working the night shift
as a security guard,
the most difficult part of the job,
I find, is staying awake
Because I am not well-rested
and will soon pay for that
as I sit here,
clinging to consciousness
And my eyelids are the heaviest blankets,
my eyes are so cold
My head is a bobber
on a turbulent sea of sleep
The warm waves come crashing down
to carry me away as the environment dissolves and...........and...........
My thoughts degrade in a drifting brain,
are made fanciful and random...........and......................and......................
and there are two cracked cue balls flapping in a red wind arguing in familiar voices about wher
See the canyon calling, yawning
Filled with daylight falling, dawning
See the city on the bluff
Wherefrom our kind are spawning
Hands in exile building, baking
Artificers gilding, making
Carefully we pluck foodstuff
From land so ripe for taking
Native ones stand gazing, wond'ring
At the skies yet blazing, thund'ring
Callow minds, so cold and rough
And in their wisdom, blund'ring
They shall know our power, glory
As we face them dour, hoary
Travel-hardened hearts are tough
Yet ache to sow their story
In an age called mythic, golden
They'll adore us quick, beholden
New gods we be soon enough
To last the aeons olden
Do you remember?
Summers under the sizzling sun
At Grandma's house,
A blissful vacation from the stressful things
Like homework and bedtime and tuna casseroles
Do you remember?
The endless summer nights
Made mystical with rain and storm and wonder,
As we looked beyond the treetops, into the flashing black
And met its gaze with giddy expectancy
Can you remember such things?
Birthday parties at the hotel swimming pool,
The air rich with chlorine and pizza,
The arcade machines fattened with quarters
Buttons mashed with careless abandon
What do you remember?
That spider under the stairs?
The joy of a chest full of toys?
Grandpa's slideshow sto
Hi Alapanamo, Read your story 'Lightning' and though it was fantastic! Great twist! I have to make a student film at some point in the near future and was wondering if you'd mind if i adapt it into a short screenplay giving you full credit if it gets approved for production? Thanks