Copyright 1995,1996 by Wes Stone. May be reproduced or excerpted for non-commercial, not-for profit purposes as long as credit is given to the author.
Copyright 1995,1996 by Wes Stone. May be reproduced or excerpted for non-commercial, not-for profit purposes as long as credit is given to the author.
Like life, this
collection is continually changing as I edit it. I have just decided
(8/22/96) to cut out several previously included works. I have decided
that I will not miss them in any way. I continually correct
typographical errors that keep creeping in. Sometimes I decide to
include one work at the expense of another, and occasionally I dig
through my archives and find a forgotten work that may warrant inclusion.
With the advent of the Internet, publishing has become so flexible that I
will never have to say that I have made my final decisions. This all
started when I had a late registration time and was unable to get into a
poetry writing class during my freshman year at Lewis and Clark College. I decided
that I would write on my own. Almost daily, I contributed something to
an audience on the Computer Forum, which used to be LC's bastion of free
speech but unfortunately has fallen into disuse. Monica Harris(tm),
editor of the Radikal Radish Microzeen, read a few of these
poems, and encouraged me to put some of my works in the
Radish. I continued writing on the Computer Forum, under
names like "PS", "Apollo", "IaI", and "Llao", and many of the pieces
presented here still bear their original electronic markings. Prose and
discussion, as well as poetry, leapt onto the screen as members of a
small virtual community tried to get out what we were thinking and
feeling. The Radikal Radish disappeared with Monica's
graduation, leaving the College considerably poorer in a way that no gift
from Bob Pamplin could even start to make up for. The Computer Forum is
still there, but its operation is no longer second nature in a time when
everyone has e-mail. We desperately need a new technology for anonymous
expression. In the midst of this desert, I offer my humble musings from
days gone by. This is first and foremost a selfish venture, for I need
to look back on myself as I am forced to go forward with my life. As
before, I offer my thoughts to anyone else who wants them or feels that
they might be helped by seeing another's triumphs and struggles. This
volume is dedicated to the users of the Computer Forum and to Monica
Harris(tm), as well as to the many others who inspired these scrawls. As
in "Preface", "I have kept your name[s] and face[s] out of this: Only
unaccountable illiterates and louts would do otherwise." This is an annotated version intended
for use with Netscape 1.1N. Lynx does well, too, as most of the links
are text rather than images. You may select any of the links to see
additional information (like what the heck I was thinking when I chose a
particular word). Use the navigation buttons to work your way around.
No matter how textured and divided it may seem, the whole thing is one
big document. You can find anything by scrolling up or down. When you
select a link within one of the individual pieces, you will be
transported to the "notes" section of the document. The note for the
link you selected will be at the very top of your screen. If the
document has not fully loaded, you may not be able to get to the note, so
wait until it has finished loading before you select any
link. 1) Steps and
Pauses I take a step of life: just
a tiny one, ( 2/12/92
) Did it
ever really happen? (February 26, 1992) There is a path
stretching over the dunes March 7, 1992 It is a
quiet walk, the short one leading to solitude; The walker feels the moist night
air on his cheeks, Behind scores of these lights there are happy
people, A silent cry forces itself
up: "Is there no way to be alone?" (April 1,
1992) They are two points,
diametrically opposed. (April 8, 1992) Subject: The East Wind is Blowing The East Wind is blowing The East Wind is blowing Wish it, seek it, find it, run
from it. Massive
anaerobic jog. (November 5, 1993) Subject: Detached Ambivalence I am dead. Do not pretend to worry about
me; The most
important part I cannot live, and cannot die (having
already done so). Preface Now that I
have elucidated my present state of mind, you may conclude that I am
unsound, in need of a bit of therapy or at least some extra hours of rest
each night. I will not deny any of these hypothetical accusations.
However, if I were to use them as an excuse for not continuing, you would
be left without knowledge of why I committed my sacrifice, or how you
could possibly be its ultimate cause. It takes little pain to explain
the former, although the latter must eventually be addressed as well.
A pen is simply a writing instrument utilizing ink; this one happened
to be humble and priced under 15 cents. All of its power is begotten
from the hand of the writer, but that power is indelibility. Conferred
is the ability to make marks that cannot be deleted without traces, and
that ability is dangerous. I was thinking of marking in a book when the sacrifice presented itself to me, about
to make a note in the margin concerning the author's interested failure
to comment sufficiently on this topic or that. The gravity of what I had
almost undertaken was appalling, for this was no signature of readership
or appreciation I was about to add. It was a criticism that could not be
fully taken back. [I make a distinction here between a book or tome and
other forms of writing; academic papers start out half-written so that
the other half may be added in ruddy markings that profess superior
knowledge. As another example, the paper of the common
press invites use as a doodling pad and, should it lack any element
of beauty or information that is of use beyond the present, may serve its
best purpose as a means of initiating combustion.] The literature I held
in my hand was neither of these lesser forms, but a full-fledged book by
a competent author, doubtless years in the making. There was feeling in
there, emotion that transcended halting discourse or lackadaisical
attempts at objectivity. There was a story in the true sense of the
overused word. I am not saying that stories cannot be added to, simply
that the pen is not worthy of making that addition. You have probably
concluded by now that the pen was destroyed for this reason alone, to
prevent my committing a personal sin. But you might better wait, for I
have not mentioned your role yet. There is something much deeper
surrounding this account. Before I bring everything else out, I will
first let you know that I am in love with you. This is not a trifle with
me, nor a misstatement. You will realize this if you remember the one
time that the subject of love came up between us. What I said then holds
true now. As your lover (in full spirit, although not in physical
consummation) I feel compelled to notice various happenings in your life.
The one I noticed most recently gives me great pain: You seem to be
taken with, and perhaps also by, somebody else. I fancy your reaction
will be in asking me why I should be pained at this if I love you and you
are happy. From you, this is sincerity, from anyone else it would be
sarcasm. I have heard that you are in love with him as well; this would
seem to rule out your loving me. "It is not so!" I hear you say, but you
misunderstand me. You love everybody, and it is for precisely that
reason I was drawn to you, even if the attraction was paired with envy of
all your other loves. If one has taken precedence, the others must fall
back. This is especially hard for me, as my love is exclusively for you.
There is, indeed, little life left in me as I write this. Ah, I was
warned by many, not the least of whom was the author whose book I almost
marked in. She described my feelings for you with
impeccable clarity, and then marked them as faulty and hurtful to the
object of love. Love she would not call them, so that they seem more
vile. Still, the feelings are there, in a flame that could bear no name
other than that of Love. What am I to do? I must resign myself to my
fate, one of waiting for a transitory love to pass. I cannot tell which
is ephemeral, my love for you or your love for him. If it turns out to
be the former, I shall not continue to live. I now know the remainder of
the reason I sacrificed my pen: I did it so as not to make any indelible
statements, remarks that I would not be able to take back when a better
future presents itself. In the same spirit, I will only express my pain
here, where you will not see it. I have kept your name and face out of
this: Only unaccountable illiterates and louts would do otherwise. I
am thus satisfied that when you find those shards of plastic, you will
pass it off as a mere curiosity, and nothing of any
importance. (February 20, 1994) Subject: Night and Life and All That (I don't
know if this message can be completed; the system is frozen as the new
growth on the spruce tree at home after a surprise frost on the Fourth of
July: It may recover, or it may not. I am not in a position to
know.) My name is not that important; you see that I am IaI, but many
of you know me as something else. I and I, spiritual and bodily or
perhaps the expressionless outside and the exploding inside. All that is
me tonight, as woe and a life not yet complete but growing closer all the
time. Complete failure or complete experience or both? All that I ask
of myself; I do not know. I only feel, as Catullus wrote. Why live that
which has already been lived? Why want for death when everyone has died?
Why does existence bind yet constantly unravel its bindings to leave a
frazzled remnant of a perfect plan? These I cannot answer, and will not
attempt to. I am alive, and while I am, there are experiences to savor.
Dismay is savory, for it adds contrast to the brightness of a charmed
life. Or, perhaps, it is the good that provides the few golden specks
against a background of pain. I find myself again in no position to make
a stab. As a scientist, I would experiment. All pretensions of
objectivity have been ripped away, so I must approach as a thinker and
more importantly as a writer. I will think and
write, very soon. (To be
continued...) ------------------------ Subject: Night The woods of the ravine
are a different place at night. I had seen the path clearly many times,
but it was still all I could do to find my way without a light. What if
the woods were truly dark, instead of in their place on the edge of a
polluted, mad metropolis? I would probably have been food for something.
As it was, I kept stumbling along, taking a step into the ivy here,
sliding down a mud-bank there. I fancied I saw a light on the ground,
but was too busy keeping my footing to pay it any mind. Still, there it
was again, not feeble at all. A double spot there among the leaves,
green with bioluminescence. Foxfire (fungal mycelium)? I wasn't sure.
The spots looked so much like eyes. My sense of touch betrayed me: The
organism was round and small and light, but I could not discern its
texture. I picked up this (as I imagined) fallen star and let it guide
me through the woods, its green light flooding out from my palm. I held
onto it over the bridge; the rotting wood nearby had harbored Armillaria mellea in the fall, but no glow came
from it. Maybe my star was not foxfire. I ascended and descended, still
slipping occasionally and splashing through invisible puddles. Once I
dropped my gem. I saw it on the ground, and could have easily picked it
up again, but there was another one glowing in the bank just beyond. I
fancied that it shone with a stronger light yet. This new rider revealed
more of its nature to me, as it crawled along my hand. It was a
caterpillar or worm of some kind. It crawled with the luminous "eyes" to
the rear, and stretched to maybe an inch and a half. Why was this
creature here? Why did it shine so? Its spots must have made it more
plain to nocturnal predators, and if they aided its own vision why were
they not placed at the other end of the body? An enticement to mating,
perhaps? It seemed likely, as all creatures seem to put themselves in
danger while attempting to attract the one they desire. Tonight the fate
of this little voyager was in my hands, so literally. The forest was
almost at an end, and I emerged into the glaring lights of campus. The
floods nearly drowned the creature's light, and it tried to crawl towards
the dark tunnel of my sleeve. Afraid of the light.
It showed, and made sense. How many of us are alike? I would have taken
it home and identified it, but somewhere I dropped
it, left it to face a foreign world and hope that it could find its way
to shelter before dawn. (Not over
yet...) ------------------------ Subject: Life Perhaps I will find another creature
like the one I held, or perhaps never again its kind will I see. I might
be suddenly struck down: It could happen, although my body has not been
as susceptible to attack as have my mind and emotions. Why am I writing
all of this? Because I have to. I am cold. Why am I cold? Because I
am. It might be the air from a vent below, or simply that I chilled
myself more than I planned during my nighttime adventure in the ravine.
I will not say that it comes from within. Were I to freeze up inside, I
would be shocked. For, as I have written perhaps too often here, I
direct everything within. I needed to direct a lot to my core tonight,
and I am worried that enough got out. Enough to show my weakness, which
I have pledged that I will not show until it becomes a strength. I
could say that I don't know where I am going anymore, but that would
imply that at some point I knew. A lie. Such a fucking lie. Maybe for
some it is different. I am not in their bodies, so maybe the consensus
that we base all our knowledge upon is a fucking artifact of our need to
be in contact with each other, to relate to one another. How many
characteristics do our lives share? Would I recognize the world if I was
inside someone else's mind or body? I have stated before that I do
not need anyone else. I do not question that statement. Any need I feel
is a result of being around other people; when I am here in society I may
actually need contact with a specific person. I certainly am not
convinced of the existence of this need, considering the times I thought
it before, only to feel the contact broken while my wretched existence
continued. More? Perhaps, but not tonight. I may go into the woods
again and gaze at fallen stars, or I may go to sleep and take my chances
with the dreamworld that always ends. Drat! I have so much to say about
maintaining connections, which may be a primary reason I view my life as
so disconnected and irreconcilable with others'. No hurry do I feel; all
that can wait for another
day. -------------------------------------------------- [But hurry,
hurry now. For another day, or maybe a week is all that remains. The
rush of time will not wait; as compensation I live doubly in my dreams.
There is little I can do for the amount that I feel.]
5/29/94 Subject: Pisces to
Arcturus Picture the night: I
couldn't, as the cheap-ass Mac SE that is allocated for imaging was frozen. The water that had collected in the
dome roof and rolled off was frozen by the time I left. Cold here means
clear, and the clouds had rolled away to reveal the morning sky for the
first time in months. Something had moved me to set my alarm and to obey
it, and I was rewarded with this spectacle. Four o'clock a.m.: 12
hours, Coordinated Universal Time. I had come here to
experience and to escape. I longed to experience the satisfaction of
locating a certain comet. Borrelly was in the Lynx, one of the least
conspicuous constellations ever created. My eyes adjusted, and the faint
stars popped out first in binoculars and then to my naked eyes. I
followed my finder chart, drawing an imaginary line in the sky where the
comet's path crossed the line for December 4. The star 3 Lyncis was a
good starting point. The comet should have been just west of it...nope.
Maybe it hid near one of those stars...to the North a bit...got it! A fuzzy, elongated glow swam into my vision. A
starlike condensation was visible near the center. Borrelly, faint but
pretty. For months, this comet was hidden by our beautiful weather. For
years before, it had traversed the Solar System out of the reach of
optical instruments. Tonight, I crossed its path for the first time.
Time did not stand still, and the WWV signal reminded me of this as I
made a rough sketch. Still, I was able to banish thoughts of the future
from my mind. I slipped in a more powerful eyepiece and a light
pollution filter. The skies of Palatine Hill aren't that bad...compared
to those in SoCal. These days, Mooney's giant,
glow-in-the-dark redwood phallus isn't helping things, either. I
grumbled to myself that some of the money spent on those lights should
have been allocated to the observatory, for a PowerBook with a grayscale
monitor. Oh, well, the fact remains that pure visual observing is more
fun than CCD work. The field soaked in, and I glimpsed the comet's tail.
This was a privilege reserved to me, to my eyes. I sketched its length,
my data-gathering methods a compromise between accuracy and brevity.
This is what I call the Observer's Paradox: the more
rigorous the study and the more information recorded, the less is
actually perceived. This is for fun; my eyes dart around and catch a
falling star for an instant. The hours fall like that meteor, and
produce many other vistas: the Great Nebula in Orion, the Eskimo Nebula,
Hubble's Variable, M34, M93, M50, M47, M46, NGC2438, M96, M95, M105, M66, M65...the list goes on. These objects are
special to me, but they are blobs to those without the eyes of a lynx.
That's how that boreal constellation where Borrelly was hiding got its
name: Only the lynx-eyed could see its stars. I did view an object
that should be more exciting to the layperson: Mars, standing proudly in
Leo's sickle. Hoping to see some surface detail, I magnified it 233x. I
was at first disappointed by the glaring surface, but then I realized
what I was seeing: the North Polar Cap, white as could be. It was
ringed by dark features, one stretching down to the small visible portion
of the South Polar Cap. Canals they are not, but Mars remains the only world besides Earth and
the Moon that allows ordinary observers to see its true surface. Rising
in the East, and dramatically obvious by this time, Venus was shining at
maximum brilliancy. The quantification of its brightness, magnitude -4.7, does not communicate the awe with which I
perceived it. The last time it seemed this striking and fearsome was
years ago, when I was a kid going to nighttime recreation hour at the
school gymnasium. A lot has changed since then, but Venus remains. In
the telescope, it is too bright to be viewed (comfortably) without a
filter; application of a polarizer makes its nature plain. Venus is a
crescent. Galileo saw this, and reinforced the claim of Copernicus.
What good has it done in our society? Thousands of Christians around the
world will probably wake up at 6:00 and think this "star" is the sign of
the Second Coming, ignorant of Venus and of Galileo's Siderius
Nuncius. Venus is truly that bright and awesome, to its credit.
Venus is also the Goddess of Love, as a friend reminded me the next day.
Doing some quick math, I found that on this night Love was over 83 times
as bright as War. If it could always be like this...
[On the other hand, while War shows all the bloody details of his
surface, Love keeps herself hidden in a thick veil of clouds, so that one
must send out a delicate probe to see what lies beneath. Survival times
of spacecraft on the surface of Venus are very short, due to the crushing
pressures and tremendous heat. Is there an analogy here as well to
Love's subtle cruelty?*] Mt. Hood graces our horizon,
and it showed its majestic silhouette long before sunrise on that fine
morning. Also there, bright and orange, was Jupiter. That royal planet
had been the object of my attention through the summer. With some regret
over the time passed since, I welcome it back to the sky. I don't know
why I write this, for I cannot say most of what I want to say except
through wordplay and allusion. Suffice it to say that the world is a
wondrous place, and sometimes experiencing that wonder leads one to pain.
The pain I feel now, in a warm computer lab, dwarfs that felt by my cold
fingers on the morning of which I have just informed
you. Subject: Keys to a Long and Happy
Life
There. I
downloaded them all. My watch alarm goes off; I forgot that I had set
it. Cheap thing doesn't work half the time, and when it does I have to
strangle it to turn it off. Soon, I will wish that it hadn't worked. I
take a shortcut and face the inevitable. There is
something about SEEING what you already know that makes it all the more
real. Don't count me out, I know what you're thinking: SUICIDE CASE.
Hell, I gave up on that long ago. You should know
that. I recently upgraded the imaging system in my brain to store a dark
frame in memory. This is the first time I have used it. I had warning
in advance of this event, just enough time to hit "Command-D". While my default buffer was freaking out, the
imaging system was calmly recording the value of every pixel throughout
the integration period. Exposure: 10 seconds. I guessed it pretty
well. That moment, surely one of the low points of my life, is now
stored permanently in memory as a zero, a baseline value, something
neither positive nor negative. From now on, everything starts from there
and goes up. Anything below that is just noise, and will not contribute
to my final
image. -------------------------------------------------------------
There is
still plenty of snow in the Coast Range. I was there last night, so I
ought to know. Plenty of snow, but more rain. I've never been that
confident about driving in heavy rain at night, especially in the city.
All the lines seem to disappear, and the water collects in troughs,
waiting to throw a small car into a compromising position. The city was
a barrier to cross, on the way to a destination in my mind. The
destination was a sign I sought to remind me of my kind. I needed to be
warned again of exactly who I am. When I fly out into the darkness, with
the last streetlights and headlights miles behind me and something by
R.E.M. on the radio, it is easier to concentrate on the road. No one
else is headed my direction, so I have more leeway to experiment, to feel
what my car does. The snow is piled two feet high off to the sides, but
there is only slush on the road. Nevertheless, I take some degree of
care with my speed and steering. I have felt what looked to be "only
slush" spin my car around. There's someone who didn't make it. The car
is pinned incredibly between two snowbanks, perpendicular to the road.
The rain pounds harder; the river will be out of shape but I do not see
it as I pass over it again and again. My journey at its farpoint, I
swing around and head back, reversing the tape. Driving down the Sunset around midnight, peace finally overtakes me.
[It occurred to me, during and after the drive, that my round-trip
distance was about a hundred miles. This was disconcertingly close to
another distance that I would soon have the opportunity to travel. I was
sure that if I indulged myself in this other drive I would wind up in
trouble. In the end, the fifty miles one way became a small leg in a
circuitous journey of two thousand miles. The small distance was a
detour necessitated, oddly enough, by rain and flooding. I stopped only
for gas.] Two Poems Inspired by Daylight Sightings
of Venus I used to tear trees
apart, 6/13/96 On "Steps and
Pauses": This is the most self-explanatory piece I've ever
written. On "Reconciliation": This is personal,
but it was such a catharsis to make it public. Have you ever met
somebody you thought you should get along with, and then had the whole
thing fall to pieces? Were you forced to come into repeated contact with
this person and act the part of friend or professional colleague?
Instead of wishing that you had never met this person, did you just wish
that you could get along? This is for you. Yes, it is related to #5. On "One Hell of a Sunset":
So much of my travel, my introspection, even my netsurfing revolves
around getting in touch with my past. Although I'm not always
successful, contemporary vistas can frame old places in a new
light. On the dunes: Ah, the Oregon Dunes
National Recreation Area. Windswept sand blowing across the sun and at
my feet. Stinging beachgrass. Glimpses of the ocean. A feeling of
being alone. A knowledge that any marks made will be ephemeral. Is it any wonder that I spend so much time
there? On #4: This untitled piece was
posted to the Computer Forum as "alone". Monica called it "The Loner".
Take your pick. It is certainly about being alone and being lonely.
Somehow the walker finds himself lonely but not alone. This is the
dilemma of the introvert: really wanting contact with another without
having to deal with others. Three years later, it is
still relevant to my everyday life. I am still a walker. On light pollution: City lights suck, in an evil and
beautiful way. They take our attention away from the much grander
natural lights, while simultaneously overpowering these stars with
unnatural skyglow. It is rare to see the Milky Way from Portland, yet I
would say that the multitudes of stars in our galaxy are more important
and intrinsically more awe-inspiring than the glowing skyscrapers that
dot our pitifully inconsequential skyline. On
#5: The futility of reconciliation. Monica's title, "When Peace Fell to
Pieces", reaffirmed my belief in a subconscious connection between a
writer's motivation and a reader's reaction. I will say no
more. On "The East Wind is Blowing": The
header shows what a post to the Computer Forum looks like. An east wind
in Portland can keep marine air at bay, providing temporary clear
weather. The sky opens up, and I seek the heavens from the observatory.
On "Apollo": There are several reasons I
might choose this name. I have the "Apollinian" NF temperament. I
somehow got the nickname "Apple", which looks a bit like "Apollo". The
darkest: Think of Apollo's pursuits in love. On
"Run": This is a statement of revitalization, although it may not look
like one. Sometimes, I just feel like running.
On "Detached Ambivalence": This is yet another statement of
revitalization. I was doing pretty well at this time, but I was also
leaving a lot of my old thoughts behind. I think I got a bit too caught
up in mourning their passing. On "PS": Most of
the early pieces in this collection were posted under this pseudonym. It
is short for "Pond Scum", which has something to do with "Reconciliation"
and #5. On "Preface": A preface to what?
Who knows? Just more of life. A lot more, more than one can realize
when faced with what looks like a critical juncture. I think this is my
best work, exploring diverse ideas while remaining true to my inner
feelings and to the inspiring incident. YES, THIS IS A TRUE STORY. It
was finished at 3:05 a.m., on a Sunday. Even before this weekend went to
Hell, my writing was at a classic level. I wrote at least five long
pieces during a four-day all-nighter, not the least of which was a term
paper for Immunology. Yes, I got an "A" on it, although I haven't
included it as it wouldn't exactly fit into this collection. Did I get
the girl in the story? No, but I didn't lose her, either. That's why
this is just a preface. What book? A
Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf. I read it for an
interdisciplinary class called "Genre and the Technology of Thought", but
a good book will always raise issues before it is discussed in the
classroom. On newspapers: I have started lots
of fires with them on cold Eastern Oregon mornings. Was I talking about
the Pioneer Log
here? --from Woolf, Virginia, A Room of One's
Own. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York: 1989 edition, p.
35. While reading this, I found that my own opinion of myself came
mostly from what I saw reflected in the eyes of one person. I would have
felt ashamed, but the feeling in my heart was natural. I recognized it
as Love. While Woolf goes on to show that this need to be seen in a
favorable light has contributed to the oppression of women, here the
narrator is in no position to oppress. He is subservient to the woman he
loves. He would sooner die than break the mirror through any type of
confrontation. Given that these feelings exist, are they healthy? In
moderation, they may be necessary to prevent the loss of the concept of
beauty. Again, the ill use associates the feelings of Love with power
over women rather than admiration and self-empowerment. Oppression is
societal rather than individual. We need Love as individuals and as a
culture, for it is something to write, sing, and feel about. In the Conversation application on the Computer Forum,
you have to title your post before you start writing. Often, I'm not
sure what the heck I'll write about, so I leave the subject line as vague
as possible. The inspiration? Okay, someone was talking about leaving.
Let's just leave it at that. On "IaI": I and I,
as the body of the work says. Probably also related to Llao. Who cares? Armillaria mellea
is also known as the honey mushroom. Sometimes its mycelial threads,
buried in the wood, will glow at night. This is known as foxfire. A
photo of the mushrooms is available here.
Ah, remember what I said about lights before. Of course, it
was a glowworm, an organism more familiar by name than by experience.
Glowworms are the larvae of fireflies. In many areas, the adults also
glow, and use this trait to produce unique mating signals. On the West
Coast, however, there are no firefly species whose adults glow. That the
larvae retain the glow is very strange, especially in light of the
vulnerability of conspicuousness. On "Pisces to
Arcturus": Pisces is an evening constellation in December. It is also a
sign of the zodiac. Arcturus is a star, like the sun. It rises in the
morning during early winter. Time and distance...
Here I refer to CCD (charge coupled device) imaging, which uses the
same type of imaging chip as in a video camera but is able to take time
exposures and store information digitally. Lewis and Clark has an ST-4
CCD camera like the one shown here. Because of time zones, local time differs depending on
one's location. When astronomers want to define the time of an event,
they use Universal Time, the local standard time at the Greenwich
Observatory in the United Kingdom. Universal Time is Pacific Standard
Time + 8 hours, as the narrator notes. In the US, time signals can be
picked up on special receivers for radio station WWV, Fort Collins,
Colorado. Lewis and Clark's president decided
to put Christmas lights on a couple of campus trees. You already know
how I hate unnecessary lights.
Someday I'll write this up into its own essay. Some of my thoughts on
the Paradox are influenced by David Vick, who I met at a star party. He
described himself as a "naturalist without a field notebook". It is the
task at hand, the professionalism of it all, which keeps us from seeing
and doing the very things that drew us to a field in the first place.
That is why astronomy for me will always be an avocation rather than a
vocation. Astronomers use a magnitude scale to
quantify the amount of light we receive from an object. Lower magnitudes
are brighter, and the scale is standardized so that an object of
magnitude +1 is 100 times brighter than an object of magnitude +6.
Therefore, a change of one magnitude is a brightness change of about
2.512, the fifth root of 100. Comet Borrelly at magnitude +8 was not
even visible to the naked eye, and some absurd fraction of the brightness
of Venus. The God of War, Mars, stood at
magnitude +0.1. *I thought I had hit upon a novel
concept in this section, combining not astrology but astronomy with
discussion of human emotions and the planets as deities. I was humbled
to find out that Geoffrey Chaucer had done the same, masterfully, in "The
Complaint of Mars". Chaucer made references to the paths of Venus and
Mars across the sky; Venus travels faster than Mars, so they never stay
together for long. On "Dark Subtraction": This
is a technique used to reduce noise in CCD images. Could the same thing
be accomplished in the human brain? The
inevitable is "the hardest sight for the walker" in #4, with a personal touch.
Command-D is the command to take a dark frame on some imaging
programs. I didn't mean for it to be confused with "logout". On "Defensive Driving": When you can't find loneliness
on a walk, try the extended distance that a drive can provide. The Sunset Highway, US26 west of Portland. On "Telling Time By Venus": This is a little sonnet
written after the fact, undoubtedly influenced by Petrarch. Venus was
still bright on the morning of December 21, 1994, and was visible to the
naked eye for some time after sunrise. I penned it under the name "Llao". Llao was the Klamath Indian god of darkness and
the underworld, who lived in Mt. Mazama and threw fire at the people of
the marsh until he was defeated by the god Skell. He is now back
underground, somewhere below Crater Lake.
On "Venus Versus Violence": I was having a bad day on March 29,
1996, and went into the woods to get my frustrations out. I looked up,
and there was Venus, shining in the afternoon sky. It was odd to be
transfixed and have my rage calmed by such a chance sighting. I find
myself wondering about the ways Venus is cast in both this and the
preceding poem. Does she give strength or take it away? It is all a
matter of perspective.
2) Reconciliation
3) One
Hell of a Sunset
4) Untitled (Alone)
5) Untitled (When Peace Fell to Pieces)
6)
The East Wind is Blowing
7) Run
8) Detached Ambivalence
9) Preface
or Sacrifice of the Pen
10) Night and Life
and All That
11) Pisces to Arcturus
12) Keys to a Long and Happy Life
13) Two
Poems Inspired by Daylight Sightings of
Venus
But a step nonetheless.
Enough, perhaps, to throw
me
Into the path of an oncoming train
Or to enter through the
golden door.
Finding neither result, I pause
For a second to wonder
if the two
Would have been the same.
Life is like that for me; a
series of
Steps and pauses with no clear outcome.
My voice remains
in choked withdrawal
Except on those rare occasions when,
Wasted
on words, I dare to take a leap.
Those are the moments of my greatest
successes,
As well as my greatest downfalls.
Did you ever mistake my clumsiness for
aggression?
My smile for a leer?
That was so long ago.
Maybe I
misjudged you and conceived our enmity
For the sake of having an
enemy.
Whatever the cause, I look into your eyes now
And sense
cold, empty space.
I shiver as I realize that my gaze must feel the
same upon you.
You once said something that struck me;
Something
about expressing emotions.
It seems that neither of us do it very
well;
However, this is but one trait we have in common.
Our
similarities are incredible.
We might as well destroy ourselves,
Rather than rip each other apart this way.
If we are enemies, how
can there be friends in this world?
I run my eyes fleetingly over your
face,
Hoping to catch the hint of a smile
In your visage or
mine.
All the while I remember the day we met.
On that afternoon,
we walked together,
And I thought I had found a kindred
soul.
Where one can relive
the past.
The sun that has fallen will rise
And the dying day will
be born again.
I have walked for miles and never found this
trail.
But I will keep searching; I know it is there.
The wind and
sand erase my footprints,
But I will make new ones.
It is worth the
steps just to believe for a while
That I will never lose this best of
times.
I reach the ocean and see that I am too late.
The tears
sting my face, mimicked by the salt spray.
Then I look up and smile;
if I cannot live the day anew,
At least I can watch
One hell of a
sunset.
Taken by fewer and
fewer each day.
There are those who have found comfort in
others
And those forced by their environment to bear company.
I am
neither of those yet, so still I walk.
Wondering if it will ever be replaced
By the
soft breath of a nymph.
A form materializes out of the mist and
disappears quickly;
Another walker, bound by isolation to take a
perpendicular path.
The patterns of trees are ephemeral, changing with
every step;
Tricking the walker's mind into perceiving human
forms.
Grass is reduced to a bridge between asphalt trails.
At the
end of one of these, the walker glances up for the first time.
The sight is horrifying to him: The stars imprisoned and
starved
In a cage of blinding city lights. It is indeed
horrifying to him,
But how many others would scoff at his primitive
perversion?
Loving and talking and drinking, with not a hint of
despair
And only pity for the walker standing in the hanging
haze.
"Come in from the cold!" they would say.
But the cold is the
walker's ally, freezing is almost welcome.
Voices
bounce off a stone wall: a hand-holding couple
Secure in their notion
of love, oblivious to the walker's gaze.
This is the hardest sight
for the walker, one that no light can match.
His eyes feed not the
mind, but the heart, and the food is poison.
And the timeless answer: "None.
There are always others."
The walker's only choice is to live near
these others, not with them.
A painful choice, for some of the others
must be good.
And there must be some good in the walker, though rarely
is it found.
Enough of the choking sky, the glare of reality.
The
walker trudges home, a sacrifice of loneliness for darkness.
And
surely he has found just enough loneliness out here
To whet his
appetite for more on the following night.
Ah, but they do share the same circle.
What
is the power that separates
These two points, or people
rather,
Forcing combat?
Missiles guided and fired by fierce
eyes,
A cold war of non-words
Unnoticed by but a few.
When did
it start?
How long will it last?
Even the foes themselves are not
sure.
And the arrows and bullets fly on.
Each day a hope of truce
rises with the sun,
But by noon, without fail,
The white flag lies
trampled on the ground.
From: Apollo
Date: Tuesday, January 5, 1993, 11:22
pm
With the force of a gale,
Shooting
down the Gorge and breaking
Like a wave upon the city.
Trees and
buildings and people shiver;
Water drops, water freezes,
Wind
whistles, wind stings.
Wind swirls, wind sends
Snow curling down in
great white plumes;
Sharp daggers that pierce the face
As the acid
air pierces the body.
And I stand in its
path,
Then shudder too soon and step inside.
Paper and plastic and
metal are ripped;
Hands tremble, hands tighten,
The Moon glares,
the Moon stares.
Stars sparkle, stars shine
Through the exposed
slot to the East
Open to the wind in all its fury
And the sky in
all its beauty.
I know what I am not and why I can't be it.
I don't know
what you are not; I won't try to find out.
I go instead to the wilds:
Fair and equal judges they are.
Put my heart, my mind, my limbs on the
line,
On the trail, through the dirt, my eyes to the stars.
Get the evil out; burn it off with the trash.
Can't
love, can't hate, can't watch; just wait
For something to strike me,
turn me, push me to the light.
Put my creativity back where I can find
it again.
Sometimes I dream you'll be the one. Yeah,
right.
From: PS
Date: Friday, January 7, 1994, 9:39
am
----------------------------------------
It has
taken me a couple of years to realize it,
but finally I must face the
fact
that I have nothing to live for.
I have nothing to die for, either.
They [life and death] used
to be one and the same;
I guess I just drifted away.
is that which does not get replaced once
lost.
Everything else has been replaced,
but I no longer have
anything (anyone) to fight for.
Those who claim that I am alive are liars;
Any
reports of my death will merely be yesterday's
news.
or
Sacrifice of the
Pen
From: IaI
Date: Wednesday, May 4, 1994, 11:02 pm
From:
IaI
Date: Wednesday, May 4, 1994, 11:27 pm
From: IaI
Date:
Wednesday, May 4, 1994, 11:50 pm
From: PS
Date: Monday, December 5, 1994, 11:08
pm
------------------------------------------
From: PS
Date: Saturday, December 17, 1994, 6:50
pm
-------------------------------------------
fitting break, the rain ceased overnight
and
left an azure realm for this last dawn.
The morning star so fair to
look upon
Still beckons to my eyes and casts her light.s daytime's dazzler rises to my right,
Behind me
fading Love still guides me on.
I know within the hour she will be
gone;
Sunward I run; the rays confuse my sight.
till there she stands, my own Venus, her face
Turns to me, as
I knew it would, that smile
Invites me now hard feelings to
erase.
o more might I see her in this
place.
"Yet none of that will matter for a while,"
I think, and
close my eyes while we embrace.
-------------------------------------------------------------
smash all in my path
over far less than I have seen
today.
Is it out of strength or impotence
that I restrain myself,
abstain from my typical violence?
Why do I catch myself, silent,
gazing at a light
above the trees,
between the clouds,
shining even at midday?
Women have served all
these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious
power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural
size.
elling Time By Venus
