BIMA is to SUMMER CAMP what this BLOG is to SAPPY LOVE NOTES PASSED BETWEEN CLASS
Friday, July 3, 2009
Midnight
Seriously, happy 4rth of July!
Sleep Soundly
---
I wrote this for a solo piece for viola that I am writing, called "Sleep Soundly." The piece is supposed to mimic a child sleeping. It begins with a dream which morphs into a nightmare. Then the child is waken up for an extended quarter rest. I wrote the above paragraph because following the rest, there comes a lullaby. After the lullaby, soldiers will come into the house and kill the mother and child.
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BIMA writers of 2009, where are you.............................?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wrote a play...if anyone steals this...
Friday, June 26, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Lexington and Concord
Facts not mentioned:
- New England winters used to be hell on Earth. Now they're just a bit of hell, nothing too big.
- Major John Pitcairn of the British marines thought that the first shot was a flash in the pan fired by a civilian who was watching the battle.
- The war lasted eight years and a few months- we were still fighting battles into the '80s. The war did not end at Yorktown.
[At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town's common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment's hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the "shot heard around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun.
By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents. On April 18, he ordered British troops to march against the Patriot arsenal at Concord and capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington.
The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a military action by the British for some time, and upon learning of the British plan, Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes were ordered to set out to rouse the militiamen and warn Adams and Hancock. When the British troops arrived at Lexington, Adams, Hancock, and Revere had already fled to Philadelphia, and a group of militiamen were waiting. The Patriots were routed within minutes, but warfare had begun, leading to calls to arms across the Massachusetts countryside.
When the British troops reached Concord at about 7 a.m., they found themselves encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. They managed to destroy the military supplies the Americans had collected but were soon advanced against by a gang of minutemen, who inflicted numerous casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Frances Smith, the overall commander of the British force, ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans. As the British retraced their 16-mile journey, their lines were constantly beset by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls. At Lexington, Captain Parker's militia had its revenge, killing several British soldiers as the Red Coats hastily marched through his town. By the time the British finally reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties.
The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first battles of the American Revolution, a conflict that would escalate from a colonial uprising into a world war that, seven years later, would give birth to the independent United States of America.]
Monday, April 6, 2009
Etched
You were carved into the sky
blossoming and black
and acrid.
Around, the people milled about
picked flowers
slipped them into their daughters' hair.
They didn't notice you rising heavenward
in great and powerful plumes.
They haggled over bread,
instead, in coarse and native tonge.
But you,
You were tattooed into that sky,
Something the sky would remember forever,
embarrassed,
as if you were a rash decision,
and ex-lover's name imprinted on his arm.
The sky hides you behind his back,
murmuring, "It's nothing."
Rolling up his blue sleeves.
But it's too late.
I've seen.
And to me, your face is always
carved into the sky.
(Jeez, Abbie, we're a cheerful lot.)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Eyes
Never really gave much thought to you, did she now?
Amber
Oh hell yah, that bitch is doing time.
Natalie
Remember her ashen skin? She's doing time in heaven for smoking pot.
Deniese
The outcast. Yah, she committed suicide. What did you ever see in her?
Yah,
I never really thought you were a special guy.
Candy,
You made my life hell
You drove them all away
Now I'm stuck at home typing a God-effing letter to you
To say goodbye
'Cause you love me too much to let me go
Breaking Addictions is Like Puling Teeth
I've given up. addiction
I've given up.
HOLY MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST!
I did it.
I've given up!
Nothing important, of course.
Breaking Addictions is Like Puling Teeth
I've given up. addiction
I've given up.
HOLY MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST!
I did it.
I've given up!
Nothing important, of course.
Righteousness
So often the better, wiser option
All our resistance, crumbling beneath
WAIT!!!!!
Their reason?
What in the name of Jesus fucking Christ said they could-
God.
God, of course, you little twit.
Your God. Their God.
All the same, it is the right God.
Right for you, but not for me, though.
Too late.
It is NEVER too late.
Really, now, but isn't it always?
Nothing Important, Honest!
Is he really a person?
That one, no that one,
His arid, blubbering mouth
Lips shuffling across his face
He must be daft, she says, and flounces off down Poverty Lane,
With a capital "b" for "bitch" sand-blown into her eyes
She saw his skin, his lying flesh
Just long enough to cut a smooth incision
His already damaged soul broken again
She did not see his youth
Lost it to the nuclear mushroom cloud of warfare, that's what 'e did
Didn't see it coming now, didja, missy?
Didn't see it screaming at your lost soul
Least he has 'is- what have you gone and done with yours?
His mouth she saw, but never read
Dancing and swimming his face around to hide
Burning saltwater she has turned her back to,
But it's better his way
She doesn't have a soul; why should she deserve to cry?
Progress
Slowly snatching the fame
From their material hosts
Tossing it into the recycling bin
In heaven labeled "For Witless Jerks"
Shadows of scrawny, one-armed trees
Stand sentinel
Propped up by plastic sheaths and asphalt soil
Merely for show, of course-
Concrete is more lively these days
Then again, progress was never wrong.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
A half-dozen stand upright and proud on my bookshelf
Many more in the little box on my desk filled with the beginnings of stories I never wrote
Schoolwork I never finished
Outside the window, he walks by, firm-breasted girl on his arm
Because I only loved half and not all of him.
Behind him, a gaggle of girls living amongst themselves,
Laughing and crying into each others arms,
Myself not a part of them because I was too timid, unopened, unliving
I lie on the floor of my room because I am too lazy to sleep in a bed.
Staring at the ceiling shrouded in darkness,
I wonder how much longer this half will sustain me.
Boredom is easy to relieve so as long as it is done with a book.
There is a book of anonymous poems on my shelf that I never opened.
She is a
wilting flower because she shuns the light of the sun.
Sun-baked earth because she rejected the rains
Unburied because she refused to rest in piece
And yet she laments her suffering,
refusing to acknowledge her own short-comings.
She cannot weep, love, cry, exist, be, anything at all,
She can do nothing because she doesn't want to live though she has everything.
Providence works in clever ways.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Doubter's Prayer
Not the words oft mumbled by dwindling lips,
Not the scriptures, hallowed by the pens of scribes,
Not the sacrifices made by ancient hands.
No, this is all I can give
My half-believed god,
Somewhere between father
And the monster under my bed.
(To speak the words would be to look you in the eye.)
Now, past the disclaimers,
Tired admissions of my inability,
I pray.
Lord of my semi-belief,
God of my forefathers,
In my improbable and wavering faith,
Grant me clarity.
Give us peace.
Thank you.
(I love you.)
Came up with it during prayers the other day.
It's missing something.
I was reminded a little of Glatstein's "My Brother Refugee":
"The God of my unbelief is magnificent,
how I love my unhappy God,
now that he's human and unjust."
Look, Abbie! A post!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
This is the first installment of a novel I'm worrking on
He curls at the base of a tree, pulling closer into himself, hugging his knees. He wanted to stay like that forever, a bundle of frozen flesh and blood and cloth, immortalized forever in the snow drift mounding all about him. In due course, it dawns on him that he must get up, or he will die, and as much as he hates himself, he does not want to die. Slowly, he manages to rise to his feet, cracked and bleeding as they are, steady himself against the tree. He glances about, trudges towards the frozen road that is partially obscured by the snowdrifts, realizes that he can’t remember which direction he came from.
The snowstorm picks up about him, shrouding his form in curtains of lace. He looks despairingly at the heavens, knowing that he will die. He will die. Providence will bless him at last. The joy of that certainity fills every fiber of his being except his heart, and he wonders why it won’t. It’s want he wants, isn’t it? There is nothing left for him anymore, so why try to live? What is wrong with death?
The wind blows away some light snow and leaves a scarlet patch on the road, barely visible because of the snow, attracts his attention and an unwanted flood of memories rushes at him: his screams when he woke up in the barracks and saw that his closest friend had died in the bunk below him, the lice in his hair, the feel of his flesh stretched tight over his ribs, the endless hunger and fatigue, the heartache that carried him out of Jockey Hollow and into the New Jersey countryside to die while his own blood marked his progress along the country road. Burning tears leak from his eyes and freeze halfway down his cheeks. Memories continue to wrack his heart: the blindness as he stumbled through the storm, his exhausted collapse against the tree, the return to the road where he is now, and the longing to die-
No. He will not die. As hard as it is for him, he will not die. Not while his brothers in arms are still back in camp. He will not sit back and watch while they fight and die for each other and for him. He will not be a coward. A sudden image of the Brits breaking down his door, their bayonets through his sister’s chest as she is pinned to the wall, the release of unholy steal from her bosom, the thud of her body on the floor. No. He cannot let that happen. He will not sit by idly. He will fight.
He kneels down and begins to clear away snow with his hands, some more red. Now he must do this until her reaches Jockey Hollow. He reckons his distance to be half a mile and furiously clears away the snow as he follows his blood. The wind screams in his ears, biting away the warmth of his face and stinging his eyes. He reaches for a scarf at his neck, but he left it in camp, and the wind eats at him there as well. No matter, he will not freeze to death before he reaches the sentries.
It takes him all of the afternoon to reach the American sentries, who spot him crawling toward them through the drifts on his hands and knees. A slight trail of blood behind him.
Immediately they run towards him and lift him up by his arms, half-dragging him past the camp’s fortifications and to the nearest barrack. The door is kicked open and they pull him inside, lift his body and lay it on one of the bunks. He is barely breathing, a small steam issuing forth from his mouth. A sharp pain in his feet and he screams everything he can, all of his pain and misery and shame and love and hate and want and hunger and thirst and anguish, all of it. Again and again, he screams, his body writhing in pain, his emotions carrying him out of the barrack and into the room where his dead friend lies, cold. A rough hand pressed on his mouth, more hands restraining his body. Automatically, he calms, but he is overwhelmed by everything that has happened to him, and so he gladly lets his vision swiftly darken, an empty void where nothing can touch him, not even pain…
Friday, January 16, 2009
Oy
Thursday, January 15, 2009
HA!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Renewal of an Earlier Proposition and a poem about anorexia
---------------
Hands alighting on a drop of water
Ashes whipped up by the sand and the rain
Craving the emptiness only for wonder
Reaching something, sustenance a curse
Swallowing what is left inside my hollow
Bringing up meals to please only God
Are not the shallow men looking for starving birds
Bones shatter skin in their effort to stretch in taught
Floating in clouds of gold and silver light
Rock hard remembrances of bounties now past
Choosing to die such a slow death of loving me
Suddenly seeing one flitting away 'fore my eyes
Chasing it, following red and blue strips of paints
Seeing it flicker, a dark, sudden gasp
Reeling over to clutch fatal emptiness
A shooting pain cloaks the basket
PLEAST POST!
Monday, January 5, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Remember me
Father Time departed this ancient earth,
So forgotten, as the centuries, ashamed, take wing.
Like waning heroes in the after-war
Like blind doves we give ear as our sorrow sings.
There is no place left for love in this bygone land.
Soot and ash settle where eagles once stood sentinel.
At the tarnished, silver gates mourn the widowers.
Among the charred, broken ashes of the homes lie their cries.
They had had no warning even as the sentinel was shot down.
As the raiders on horseback swept through with deadly grace.
They chortled at us rebel scum as we fled in vain,
And suddenly surrounded, we could not flee in time.
I wonder if people in the future who read this will understand why we remember at all. It seems like we only try to remember important matters, and what we don't deem as important might as well never have occurred because it will be forgotten. To forget is to deny, remember that, whoever you are who found my haversack. I buried it under the root of the tree near the meetinghouse because it has a necklace for my girl in it, and as the British were destroying our houses after Lexington, I did not want them to steal the necklace. I hope that Susanna is alive and well. If our child is alive, I apologize for his or her unfortunate fate of being born out of wedlock. However, if he or she should read this, then he or she should know that religion neither sanctifies nor permit their birth; Providence does. I believe in God, not the rules of the Puritan church, and this nation would do damned well to realize that the former is made of far greater stock, no offense to Puritanism. I practice it anyway.
I don't have much time before we march to the encampment around Boston.
So God bless you, whoever you are. I beg of you again to please remember us.)
- Jonathan Eleazar of the Woburn militia
April 19th, 1775, Massachusetts
News for Ayelet
Originally, the confusing bits were spaced away from the first collumn, but damnable blog editing pushed them to the side.
Thermosphere glass sphere?
Ionosphere as a bird
Mesosphere
Stratosphere
Ozone layer
Troposphere n
Humus
Topsoil
Eluviation layer
Subsoil
Regolith
Bedrock fearful of a fiery death in metallic hell
Regolith
Subsoil
Eluviation layer Goin’
Topsoil d
Humus o
Troposphere w able to breath easy
Ozone Layer I’m being rip qeb traqa
Stratosphere
Mesosphere
Ionosphere veils of color dancing, hitting a solid glass sphere
Thermosphere Choking beneath the
And suddenly I'm, "FREE!"