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DARK WINDOWS #10 - Jan 15, 2008 ===== ===== ===================> INTRO What kind of freakishy lame world produces correspondence like this? Gwynne reaccomodates petite sucker Hereford composes bright underbrush Lewinsky topples curious periwinkle Freddi poultices faint julep Rodina smocks obnoxious molding Gwynne books outrageous septuagenarian Gerek organizes curious learner Hereford backlights few baconer Gannie rubberstamps fragile nightingale Lewinsky overornaments short gauger Damn spam. Every technology we create gets abused by criminals and losers. Strange programs trying to trick us into replying, to steal our souls. We try to build tools to get our jobs done, to make our lives better, but instead we're sitting targets, victimized, under constant attack ... in fact, I spent two hours today overhauling someone's online forum which had been maliciously hacked. What if a few years from now we have to spend 8 hours a day doing maintenance and security tasks. When would we find time to do any real work? On the other hand, this message (from my archives of ridiculous emails) shows how poetry is more than just a heap of words. It's easy to show what poetry isn't. Much harder to explain what it is. When I write poems, it seems to me that there is a stream of ideas in front of my eyes, almost tangible, and that my task is to pull things out of the stream, capture them, make them permanent. I don't judge the things, just record them. Luckily, all minds share a certain amount of wiring, so the efforts can be understood by some percentage of readers. Transferred. Task completed. = scott ===================> POEM My-tosis of sorts --- My mind bent My mind snapped twigs of My mind fell breeze caught My mind-fall shreds of My mind rooted again within the earth My mind is routed stimuli nourished My mind seeds patient I play back My mind scenes then stalks of My mind grope for air touching the air My mind leaves grow many of My mind plants rise My mind is the many but which one is me? --- = 11/86, published in In Transit v1n1 (3/88) ===================> ODD CLIPS: (clips from old "factual" sources) Pulverized toads were not only employed in medicine with supposed advantage, but were also considered a slow but certain poison. Solander relates, that a Roman woman, deisrous of poisoning her husband gave him this substance; but instead of attaining her criminal desire, it cured him of a dropsy that had long perplexed him. [1] Affection deprives death of all horrors. We shrink not from the remains of what we cherished. Despite its impiety, there was something refined in that conviction of the ancients, who imagined that in bestowing their farewell kiss they inhaled the souls of those they loved. [2] The Romans of the regal and of the early republican periods regarded the unappeased souls of the dead as most dangerous to public and private welfare. They were capable of inflicting not only disease upon men, but blight on the crops. Hence the worship of the ancestors became one of the most important functions in the religious life of the people. The central motive in this worship was not love for the departed, but fear. [3] 1. Curiosities of Medical Experience (2nd ed.), by J. G. Millingen (Bentley, London, 1839), p.30 2. same, p.60 3. Disease-Spirits and Divine Cures Among the Greeks and Romans, by Cesidio R. Simboli (Columbia Univ., 1921), p.31 ===================> STORY The Impossible Tome by scott virtes --- Abstract lamps shine down without words, lighting the cluttered desk where the mage Arano Grye holds his head over the tome of deep mysteries. Each page he turns adds a line to his face. He struggles to comprehend. He ends the night none the wiser, just a shriveled dusty thing with an almost-smile. His hands make one last attempt at moving: they try to rip out pages in the abstract night. Shadows gather and whisper an ancient lullaby. The candles go out with a final snap of wonder. His bones quickly fade to dust, then nothing. The tome is still there, waiting for the next hopeful fool. ===================> DARKVISION: (captured dreams) Hill Street Dream, part 2 of 2 (continued from issue #9) --- "Help there's some horrible smelly demon-thing lurking in the barn here's a baseball bat come bash its brains out for me oh thank you thank you eek!" she shouted. I muttered something about the show Twin Peaks eating away the fabric of reality, and figured it was worth a detour. Besides, it was me in the barn, and I knew I wasn't in the barn anymore, so even by dream logic I wouldn't need to bash my own brains in. Maybe if I just thumped and yelled a bit, I could be a hero before breakfast. The sun came up, a strange piece of clockwork that ticked off the roosters something fierce. They staggered around and checked each other's batteries. Ramona pushed me towards the barn, her hair still turning white with the terror of the Stranger she had encountered in there. I recited something bizarre from the Book of Mormon (any page will do), and stomped forward, trying to look brave. Luckily the barn became an apartment building before I could get there. Ramona's cousin from the city came outside with a glass of o.j. and a copy of Julian Jaynes's THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND, and I thought I should say hello. I said I had just published a story about the guy, who was, in my opinion, totally technocentrically nuts. I'm always annoyed by people who downplay the abilities of the men (and women) of our ancient civilizations. "The guy is the Von Daniken of the psych psychos. Oooh." But she managed to convince me that his entire argument, and all arguments ever told, made sense, as I stared into the depths of her eyes. Only when she blinked was I free to look away. I had a copy of the OMNI with me. The picture was cool, a seething dust storm with a hundred faces. The title? THE BICAMERAL WIND. An opaque breeze blew down upon us; the pages were ripped away. I woke up twice, and one of me was already on the way to work, thinking there was some deep meaning to everything. The rest of me stayed behind, knowing that there are only glimpses without answers. --- end --- ===================> MY NEWS: My first blast of submissions for 2008 has landed with a bit of a thud. 35 submissions, mostly poetry. 10 rejects, two "maybes" from Postcards from Hell, the rest are totally silent. Delivered two new cover assignments for SamsDot: "Christina's World" by Marge B. Simon, and "Scifaikuest Feb 2008." ===================> POEM Funeral for a car --- All the traffic passes silently now solemn lights in procession the square-lit outline of the trailer-truck hearse in front with running lights low. Within the truck in soft halogens see the long box shining chrome with the stripped-down victim inside flowers under its wiper blades peace on its cold grill. At the destination the warm rain the graveyard crane strains old cables lowering the coffin into the earth while onlookers circle in low gear headlights flashing their grief. The bulldozer grumbles and groans covering the pit, the crowd moves on now the bodies in the car in the box deep in the earth wake up from their vagrant sleep pounding and wailing for nobody to hear. --- = 12/86, unpublished ===================> STORY BITES: (clips from old fictional sources) I should have liked to run away, but in the court the dog was lamentably howling, the night was coming on, and the room was full of shadows. [1] I was destined before the commencement of the ages to go this evening to the custom-house; to walk in the alley of Saint-Landolphe; to come in spite of myself to this cut-throat place [...] and to see Death gathering painted flowers! [2] A shadow, motionless, appeared before the window, against the light surface of the river. This shadow had a man's shape, and seemed suspended between heaven and earth. Its head hung down upon its breast, its elbows stood out square beside the body, and its legs straight down tapered to a point. [3] 1-3. The White and the Black (story) by Erckmann-Chatrain ===================> POEM the fire witch --- I look into the fires, I see myself in the flame arms that dance so seductively. I see myself against the warmth of the flesh of the dancer her heat like August sunburn searing my eyes her image like the sun etching after-visions. I wish to touch the dancer to hold a moment's peace however mindless -- I reach out swiftly, my fingers pass through the flame of her she flips gracefully away. I try again and my hand catches fire curiously I look at it blackening charring, my lesson learned how it burns like the pain of all lost dreams I am looking into the fire. --- = 12/86, 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)2008 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: 1,628 words cumulative: 20,471 words |
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| << January01, 2008 - Dark Windows #9 - Jan 1, 2008 |
February01, 2008 - Dark Windows #11 - Feb 1, 2008 >> |
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