September 2016: the Mystical Septem

To the seven seas of septem, as mystical as ever insofar as their power continues to enthrall, and to the stirring possibilities introduced at the very end, which pertains also to a beginning, we tribute and attribute this month. September, insofar as it remains the month of so many dawns and dusks, shall be remembered for ages to come. And so we celebrate the palisades: poetic, Gregorian, seasonal. Embrace the fall, for it is only beginning, but fear not, because it is not through space, but through time.

To Inseafar, a poem that was finished recently:
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Inseafar

Where begins the ocean, ends the sea,
Crimson spears, sky-bound, shattering free,

A dredging darkness deems the door to undoubted doom,
Tears of ocean spray wash ashore legacies of the sunken tomb,

An outcry out-crag jutting, a suicide bomber one day to fall,
Millennium mysteries dashed with white fury, caught amidst a titanic brawl,

Breeze of Poseidon's breath, sands of titanium snow,
Tide realms rife underfoot, a continuous commuting flow,

Twin worlds: a boundless battle, twin armies: a feud of force,
Between: a frothing conflict, of strife, discord, remorse.

Reeking of gullible breeze, the sweeping scent of fishy air,
Bursting with ambient beams, flits a fulgurating flare,

Quick to the skies, a pendent pennant,
Slow till it flies, a puttering penchant,

A leaf amid a torrent, yet a torrent amid the sea,
Disguised as the skies, a melting pot-pourri,

Casual to the end, a solicitous supplication unsaid,
Crosswise the telluric bend, promises in empty stead,

Tendrils of serpent's breath from shadows surge,
Hues of vessel smoke and mirrors contrive to purge,

Before the after––look now––and nevermore,
Pendulous, the perennial ponder thereon the hindmost fore,

A reflection glimpsing prismatic voices beyond,
Past a future, a future past betraying inner bond,

Self-promise, unyielding convolution within dream,
Profuse in deliberation, word by phrase by page by ream,

Gyre of living death, back from blue to calming brown,
Sharp, passing weighty breath, drifting aloft an airy crown,

Silently heave the mighty flows,
Shifting withal flighty blows,

For where begins the ocean, ends the free,
Wherefore sanguine spears, sky-bound, a shattering sea,

Darkness dredging, door deemed undenied to sunken tomb,
Tears of ocean spray fold over footprints of undoubted doom,

A looming rainbow fraught with white fury, destiny bravers ill-fated to fall,
A nigh-gliding nirvana, dashed with obsidian doubt, yet one day to realize it all.

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And finally, to the future.

(Note: sorry for the belated month overview)

Failures and Life Lessons (the two are pretty much synonymous)

I've learned.

After a sudden burst of inspiration, I endeavored to write a short story in a time frame of 2-3 weeks...but I failed miserably. The daily going-ons of life made it so that this chunk of work, much like a large object being shoved into an overflowing suitcase, just did not fit. Persevering in an auspicious moment, I managed to write up an idea and the first part of a potential short story; however, there the line was drawn. There came time after time of almost-opportunities in which I hoped to write the story, but in every instance I was plagued by work that sprang from nowhere, school projects that appeared out of the blue, or various other unforeseen obstacles. In short: progress failed to be made. And with this came a bout of stagnation: one look at the "last published on" Blogger message told me everything I needed (and desperately feared) to know. Driven deeper by this inevitable sense of failure, I pushed back the deadline with excuses, farther and farther back. And progress still failed to be made.

But looking back at the successful poem of the first few months, a question sprang immediately into my mind. Where did that time I had found to work on the blog previously go? Had it miraculously disappeared? It is true that several sources of extra time consumption have been introduced since then (on which I tended to blame the stagnation), but it still did not add up. I remained constantly surprised by how much I had accomplished before. What happened? What changed?

And therein lied the issue. I realized, probably like countless others over the course of history, that the problem was in how I organized the work. As an indefinite number of 5-minute poetry lines, the work seemed negligible. For what is a couple of minutes in the day? But as the clump of work I had deemed the short story, it had ceased to be so. It was not short but infinitely long, an enormous project-like goal that I could never find the time for. I had always assumed that I wrote my best in a 2-hour-long typing session, but this was no longer possible or practical. And thus I resolve to break up the work, to divide and deci(or however many days)mate the work, to split up what was a vast unknown into smaller, more manageable fragment. And the funny thing is, this all sounds familiar. Perhaps this is what every teacher or advisor suggests. Amidst the flurry of speech, it is just a suggestion among a million others. But in the reality of the world, brushing past the chaos and the downfalls of daily life, it is the truth.

We've all learned.

In fact, we've learned so many things that it becomes hard to pick out one from the rest. But experience is the best impetus. So go implement it; I've saved you the painful experience. And in the future, as well as now, with the short story looming ahead more accomplishable and irresistible than ever, I shall too. For everything that is old was new, and everything that is new will be old someday. And in pursuit of that day,

I learn.

Update: Project Looking Glass

After experimenting with different prospects (and going on vacation), I found an interesting path for the short story that I hope to explore: here lies a preview, which I conceived in light of such an idea. I know the project seems to be taking a long time, but I assure you that other than certain setbacks, the full story shall be released in due time. So, the preview. See what you think.

        Six doors stood, pillars of possibility, in front of me. Three to a side, flanking the muted red of hallway carpet, they guarded the seventh door like hounds to a master. Without hesitation, I moved to open each in turn, slowly, carefully, avoiding the wrathful gaze of hundreds that were unblinking, staring from cold lenses at each ceiling corner.
        I knew I could not face the seventh door, what with my family bearing down on me even through the wires of the wall telephone and my inbox flooding with pleading or reproachful comments, and sometimes comments that were both at the same time. It was clear that the seventh door would involve others in a way that was inevitably to inflict the greatest shame on myself. The psychologists that I knew were watching had always meant for this to happen: the polar fusion, the polar tears. Self-sacrifice to self-service to self-shame. The seventh door.

The First Door
        Turning the cool, brass knob beneath my spidery fingers, I awaited the promised. And yet as the first breath hit me, it was not the heat of a thousand fires, but the frost of a million winters that I found behind the mahogany. Or rather, it found me. Irony at its best, perhaps.

To be continued...