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| << December01, 2007 - Dark Windows #7 - Dec. 1, 2007 |
January01, 2008 - Dark Windows #9 - Jan 1, 2008 >> |
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DARK WINDOWS #8 - Dec. 15, 2007 ===== ===== ===================> POEM Baggage Claim --- Claim your baggage ... material left unclaimed will be stored for 60 days then sold at auction, so Claim your baggage now! This arm must be yours, and this torso, yours. You, sir, should put some eyes in that thing. Claim your baggage now! --- = written 9/86, published in SCAVENGER'S NEWSLETTER #50 (4/88), EOTU Online (6/01), Year of the Twist (2001) ===================> INTRO I've gone a bit overboard, stocking up on odd clips for future issues. I must have over 500 of them. In fact, they may spin off into a blog of their own in 2008. Like usual, the idea sounds good but there's no obvious way to make money doing it. Then again, when did money become the sole object in life? It's sad. Some small portion of our time should be allowed for doing things we enjoy ... but, yeah, there's work involved. The eternal coin flip. In a reasonable world I'd like to make some money writing, so I could afford to spend more time writing, instead of having to squeeze it in between all the things I don't want to be doing. Surely I'd do better work when I'm not already worn out by other activities, right? Through the back door, I find myself back in that argument against the people who say "all information should be free." No, it can't be. What if someone told you should do your job with no pay, just "because"? Should people fly planes and build bridges and make burgers for free? You can see how little sense that makes. Yet there is some chunk of society who think that stories and songs and artwork should be free. Sure, that would be great for consumers, who could stock up on so much free crud they'll never have the time to look at it all -- but when all the artists go bankrupt, what then? Just rattling some bones here. No, I'm not going to ask for money now. I decided this newsletter is going to be free, and I'll keep it that way. My plan is to give out 100,000 words of my work, as a way of introducing myself; and the series should make a nice thick printed book of curiosities in the end. I hope that readers will follow my work into other areas. Meanwhile ... Happy Holidays. = scott ===================> ODD CLIPS: (clips from old "factual" sources) The magpie is, "according to popular superstition, a bird of unlucky omen. Many an old woman would more willingly see the devil, who bodes no more ill luck than he brings, than a magpie perching on a neighbouring tree." [1] "I cannot say that truth is stranger than fiction, because I have never had acquaintance with either. Though I have classed myself with some noted fictionists, I have to accept that the absolute fictionist never has existed. There is fictional coloration to everybody's account of an 'actual occurrence,' and there is at least the lurk somewhere of what is called the 'actual' in everybody's yarn." [2] "Athenaeus mentions a race of dwarfs who were in perpetual war with cranes, who harnessed partridges to their chariots, and were obliged to cut down corn with felling-axes, like forest trees." [3] 1. Leyden, "Glossary to the Complaynt of Scotland" (1801), quoted in "Brand's Popular Antiquities" 2. Charles Fort, "Wild Talents", ch.V 3. J.G.Millingen, "Curiosities of Medical Experience (2nd ed.)" (Bentley, London, 1839), p.9 ===================> STORY For a Wooden Heart (PART 2 OF 2) ... continued from issue #7 ... Colors flowing, shifting lives. Tall spires which must have been trees, spirits rolled one within another like posters of growing. Stones were cold flames of welcoming, fleeting smiles and striations. Colored veils fell like dreams from the canopy of life, they soaked into the ground as nutrients, admired by the fallen leaves of yesterday. As varied as the colors, a world of voices. "Another enlightened man." "Raises your hopes." "Feels like summer." A background sentiment, weaving in and out of language: "Time again time within points of time, we are time." I could not speak. When I opened my mouth, there was no sound, but the world told me that it understood completely. "Small thoughts, warm thoughts." "Undefinable seeds of justice." The underlying chant: "Reaching always reaching, hopes always reaching out, we are hope." I wanted to express my wonder, but they understood. They absorbed my fears, and reflected eternity. They took my every thought and chanted it away as I sat on my flame-rock and tried to hide my face. I could see through my hands. I was a thing of colors, nothing more. The only familiar object was a dark band choking my arm-area. My watch. I threw it from me, disgusted. Yet it reminded me of my unrest. I realized in that moment that I had a mission to fulfill. These woodland spirits understood my every feeling. They were centuries ahead of me in the study of life and reason. But what did they know of the world I came from? What did they know of machines? Day night day night day night ... I moved among the essence of trees, without a voice. How could I explain the crucial concepts of bulldozers, acid rain, and global warming? When I tried, they shook their heads -- no, such things make no sense. The shining colors of the world told me to relax, and share. "The world is eternal. We are one." But they could not listen to a mere man, spouting words. So I tread my path, kicking sand. --- = written 3/25/92, edited 4/6/01 - unpublished ===================> DARKVISION: (captured dreams) storm of doubts - 11/12/05 once there was a dance, not a motion, not a random mindblank party. there was a meaningful togetherness without all the doubt questions & pain. now an empty car, lights on alone, prowling the streets, faces in beds looking up seeing ceiling -- no stars. one planet, one star, lost without the messages all the others shared. a full dinner, a whole day's work & an empty table. sad eyes & a spark keeping hard secrets. a town of shimmering lights behind a barbed-wire fence. a rock & a tree waiting at a bus stop, trying to get away. a man on a bench afraid of his own memories. every day, a taking away. i stay sober & watch the wires. never know when a friend might notice me. try to fade away bored, they think i'm mad (angry?), don't come to talk, try to walk, they follow & bend the path. pointing saying "who is he?" & the whispers of attraction. as i sit saying "who am i?" & wait for another chance. something in the air, thinner than cigarette smoke, like indecision, random hopes, try to defy inhibitions without paying the price of confusion. come in, be with me, don't make noise outside so late at night; neighbors are crazy, never know when they will break. a hundred times, then i feel ignored, but continue, don't know who i am anymore. i opened a door, i opened my arms, a place to go, such an important thing, i tried to give it. taken happily, don't know where i stand, my heart is as empty as my wallet. nothing left to give. patience can never be seen. love is just an echo of a yesterday that never existed. roads are endings, so i try to be funny as i starve. so many failures & incapacities suddenly. open window, cold wind, how does the song go? can't be parties every night, but how can i tell them to leave, afraid they would never come back, or fade to mere echoes, distorted by time. does it matter. we are rocks, islands, but we want to dive into the sea, see other rocks or drown trying; the waves can be brutal, errors smashing us into sand. the air trembles around my voice, imaginary sand, my voice trembles with questions. the stress of reaching. trying to keep all reactions in balance, all anger left me years ago, yet i can still be hurt. can anyone explain mankind-womankind, some kind of insane molecule. point #1, look at obelisks on hillsides, look at ornaments carved in wood, names of lovers on old trees, humans see the world & feel they must change it somehow. anything to leave a mark. like people filling my mouth with words & not looking in my eyes, seeing a blank wall & buying spray paint, laying in a field & thinking there should be a table there, thinking every mountain needs a road to the top, living a sunset & trying to save it on film, crying at night like there was some way to avoid what we are. ===================> MY NEWS: My poem "The art of fishing" is in Amaze, the Cinquain Journal: http://www.amaze-cinquain.com/SUMMER-07-issue-13/virtes.html I created two series of custom postage stamps over on Zazzle.com: one set of zoo animal photos, and a set of fractal graphics. Link: http://www.zazzle.com/scottzazz Otherwise, it has been a quiet month. I really need to send out more submissions ... ===================> POEM At the Lake --- Something down there under rippling waves scraped your foot; Imagine now, had you stepped more firmly, what forgotten thing might choose to recall you. --- = written 9/86, published in STARSONG #6 (1/89), Expression Newsletter (10/01) ===================> STORY BITES: (clips from old fictional sources) "That which walks in Betton Wood / Knows why it walks or why it cries." [1] "Just then into my left ear -- close as if lips had been put within an inch of my head -- the frightful scream came thrilling again." [2] "I was convinced that, if I waited, the thing would pass me again on its aimless, endless beat, and I could not bear the notion of a third repetition." [3] "She seemed forced to look behind her as the rustling came in the bushes, and she thought she saw something all in tatters with the two arms held out in front of it coming on very fast, and she ran for the stile, and tore her gown all to flinders getting over it." [4] 1-4. All quotes are from "A Neighbour's Landmark" (story) by M.R.James ===================> POEM floating tree --- floating tree acrawl with ants several dark birds circle mountains farm patchwork slipping by below walk by on air at mach six casual and kick the twig the birds scatter the tree falls into the city to be kicked again and again miles to the shore broken with a rock by a boy on the sand it screams its slayer backs away it flies high again soaring wiser ... floating tree acrawl with several dark bird-circles ants crawl away from society the destructive all distaste and bitterness never more to be kicked from the sky. --- = written 11/85, unpublished ===================> CREDITS About the author: Scott Virtes has had over 400 stories & poems published since 1986. Look for them in Analog, Space & Time, Ideomancer, Dreams & Nightmares, Cafe Irreal, Planet, and more ... My Home page: http://tales.scvs.com?inw=dkw Notice: Odd Clips and Story Bites all come from original sources in the public domain, or are brief clips in the spirit of fair use (a.k.a. free advertising for the source). All other sections of this newsletter are copyright (c)2007 Scott Virtes. All rights reserved. Please don't grab chunks of my work and post them all over the place. If you ask permission, you'll find that I'm pretty easygoing. ;-) ===== this issue: 1,822 words cumulative: 16,763 words |
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January01, 2008 - Dark Windows #9 - Jan 1, 2008 >> |
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