3rd poem (draft)

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The following poem isn’t entitled math, but that’s the basic assignment/prompt related to this poem. You see, two weeks ago (when the assignment was given) Prof. Dungy told us, her wide-eyed pupils, to think hard about the scaffolding, the architecture, of our poems. Poems need structure and rules. These may be something the poet comes up with, or things based on past traditions, or both.  For the assignment, I decided to go with past style/forms of poetry. This poem is technically a villanelle. One of my many strange attempts to hearken back to an era where poetry could pay the bills. The poem’s title is “Zodiac Tattoo.” Hope you enjoy.

Math_poem

(Note: Boreal Owls ROCK!)

As always, if you have any constructive critiques, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

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2nd new poem (draft)

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The following is a draft of an omission poem for Camile Dungy’s Advanced Poetry class. In truth, I am not that proud of this poem as I was for the first one, but with some edits I might be able to salvage something here. Any and all constructive criticism is more than welcomed. Thank you and enjoy.

Road trip

 

1st poem of the New Year (Draft)

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The following is the first poem of the new year. It is also the first poem written for Camile Dungy’s Advanced Poetry class at SFSU. This poem mixes Tagalog with English. It is one of my many attempts to do this well. It is also a poem for my mother. I hope you enjoy it. All constructive criticism is more than welcomed. Thank you.  (o^_^o)

A Prayer on a Ying Yang Rosary

The Rose has Spoken!

14 Hills Issue 17.1

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Two post in one day?!?! <insert le gasp!>

What I’ve been up to during the past few weeks has largely been centered around work, school, family and friends. Not necessarily in that order, but I degress.

This past semester, I have worked with and on 14 Hills: SFSU Literary Magazine. Currently as a member of the PR team it is my duty and my pleasure to announce the release of Issue 17.1

The party that will kick off the release is on next Thursday, December 16, 2010. 7pm at:

COFFEE BAR
1890 Bryant Street, San Francisco
(entrance at Mariposa and Florida)

For more on this, please see the links below:

http://fourteenhills.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=51989988844&v=info

Will Rose be there? Yes. Will there we dancing? Also yes. Will Rose come dressed as a anime character? No, but that is a good idea.

So come on down to have fun, see what we’ve accomplished, and to celebrate finishing off another new year with something spectacular.

-Rose

First an apology

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I must apologize for not updating the blog during NaNoWriMo. Sorry, but I was not able to finish any story this time around. Instead, I outlined about 2 novel length stories and one short story during this time.

CPU’s basic story plot has been outline and just needs to have me sit down and put some meat on the bones, so to speak.

Dragon’s Lair is a tricky one, though. I have the Prologue outlined, down to where I know how many main characters will take center stage, but I have yet to begin finishing it up. The issue is a simple one really: I lack a conflict for the MC.

Within the prologue there is Baloo the bugbear, who acts as the MC for the prologue. His conflict is easy to get to and one that is familiar to most people. Once it is resolved though, the root of the conflict is still there. I suppose the easiest thing to do about the novel’s MC would be to have her (yahoo for gender identification — took me two months before November to decide on gender . . . a boy would have been good only if … well … you’ll see) deal with the root of the original conflict, which itself speaks to the larger issue of the story which I will give away now.

Dragon’s Lair will be deal with the question of What do we do, as a society, with the “Other?”

The Other is, of course, subjective. If you are an English major walking through a Science convention, you may be considered other, and visa versa.

The question applies to society as a whole when the definitions of the Other become more general. Obviously, the Mystics are the Other but for the particular MC I have in mind, she will be an Other among Others among Others. So she is triple removed from the larger society.

Twist is simple and it is the reason for the mental block: SHE DOESN’T CARE . . . in the beginning.

The large conflict has yet to be established through smaller ones . . . which make up the big one. So, in a sense, I am stuck with the image of a pie and the recipe but no ingredients and my oven blew up due to over-use and lack of care.

Hence the lack of a finished novel.

Lame excuse but an excuse it is.

The point of me writing all this down and posting it, however, is because this “failure” is also a part of the writing process.

If you don’t fall flat on your face a couple of times, you will never be able to know where the ground is in relation to the sky.

It’s also a humbling process — you become less incline to judge a piece of art, literary, visual, musical, etc, harshly when you know what went into making the finished product. On the flip-side, when a poorly crafted piece of what-some-call-art becomes popular to the point that you cannot walk into Church without seeing somewhere totting the image of the art around, well . . . then you begin to feel cheated. . .

But it takes years to know the difference between fluff and substance.

As for the stories that I am working on, I WILL continue to post updates on them as sections of the stories are main. Yes they will be first drafts and yes I will edit them later. The edits however will not be posted because by the time the stories are edited down, I plan on sending them to publication of some sort.

This is the writing business from start to finish, and I plan to take you through the journey by example.

On a personal note, I plan to take Advance Poetry Writing next semester at SFSU. It is being taught by Camile Dungy (http://www.camilledungy.com/). She is an amazing poet, whose work I highly admire.

What poems I create will probably be seen here throughout the semester, so stay tuned for new works.

See you online!

-Rose

Dragon’s Lair (post 1)

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PROLOGUE: Throw Away Treasure

Thousands of beginnings exist within every single solitary second. How then should I begin my tale? I suppose, for simplicity’s sake, I will begin way back when, about twenty so years ago, on the night after the Monsoons ravaged the Bay.

The skyscrapers and the storms were doing battle over who would have supremacy over the city — who would loom over the small lives that dance undertow? The storms had been winning the war; thrashing the mirrored glass of countless windows asunder, bending the steel framework of the new and old until they cracked under their own weight. These storms were putting human architecture to the test. Many buildings collapsed during the Monsoons, but these were mostly the newer ones; those built by profit-driven businessmen from the Lower Heights district.

The safest buildings were the low-lying, older mansions, shacks, and homes of various designs. These were buildings created with respect, or a patronizing sense of respect, to the storms and in honor of the Earth from whence we came and to where most of us aspire to return.

When the storms had past, the wreckage lay splatted across in all directions of the city. Of all the tall buildings erected to stab the sky, only the old clock tower remained swaying in the evening breeze. It’s foundation, untouched by the storms, sparkled crimson under the remains of the fallen buildings. Above the wreckage the tower stretched high into the sky, it’s weathered stone thicker than the height of a man and twice as strong as his soul gleamed like the scales on a Black Dragon’s neck.  The onyx stone gradually gave way to pure white marbled that shined mother-of-pearl when hit by the eastern sun. A single silver bell hang high onto of the bell tower, under a roof-top laced with bronze and gold. As the sun rose, the bell rang out over the once glorious city of Kenae (note to writer: Mykenae = greek city-state).

Most of the citizens, this day, were mourning the dead, counting their loses, and asking WHY in one continuous howl. However, there were those who not only lacked the time, patience, or luxury of sorrow — they lacked the sense of lost all together. For them, Kenae was never theirs to begin with. Separated by politics from family and friends, forced to work by for those who think less of them for little to no pay, suffering various indiginities until they begin to forget that they too are human. No. These poor souls could not mourn for a city that was never theirs to begin with, for they are and will forever be Mystics.

Due to the politics of the day, Mystics were herded into three large groups: the Crafters, Operatives, and Laboreres. The largest group was the Laborers and on the day of September 29, they were out in full force cleaning up the debris, lifting the carcasses of fallen metallic giants off the ground and into large green steel trucks known as Turtles. The Turtles carry the remains into the processing plants on the outskirts of town where Mystics rummage through the trash and extract anything of value before the rest is sent to the incinerator deep below the ground.  The treasures are usually sent to recycling once they reach the processing plant and are sorted out. But where there’s treasure there will always  be treasure hunters. Or as those who possess the fortune to be righteous call them, vultures.

But Mystics by nature do an efficient clean-up job. They began restoring order before it was even lost. They did not do it for home or country — they did it to survive on their daily wages — comforted in the knowledge that their pay checks came from the tax surplus drenched in their forefathers’ blood.

They own no one anything and thus can take whatever throw-away treasure comes their way.

One in particular knew no family at all. Well, no family beyond the forgotten scraps that were once important for a particular task. He collected tin cans, rusted nails, gears, cogs, pistons, panels, sockets, tools, antique trinkets, jewelry, and what ever else he found in the trash of the wealthy.These were kind and kin to Baloo the Bugbear of Trash-Heap Hallows (as he would famously boast in pubs until it finally stick).  His flat roofed, aluminum clad  shack sat a mile east of the processing plant, right in between the plant and the city landfill. It was no bigger than 4800 square feet wide and 7 feet  tall. On the outside, it looked like a very large aluminum crate with an outrageously ornate elm door set into the right corner facing the road. Ply wood steps lead to the door and formed a small porch where tin cans were gathered, standing like sentries to a castle. The earth around the shack seemed to be more mud than earth, but despite appearances formed a strong foundation for the shack and hid the true nature of it fairly well from would-be tax collectors.

You see, Baloo was a treasure hunter and he built his small isolated castle out of the treasures he found before they reached the plant.

He was the best.

Update

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This is a quick update on the progress on both stories:

I’ve outlined the prologue of Dragon’s Lair a bit.
Need a name for the city where the story takes place. Perferably Greecian.
CPU has been put on backburner.
A new story idea has taken up my brain-space and for now the working title is Suicide Box.
The basic permise of this story is that there is a Main character (MC) whose life story is reflected on while walking towards the Golden Gate bridge. It is clear that this person has been suffering and/or is suffering from sucidal tendencies. It is unclear whether or not MC will commit suicide as the story unfolds.
This story is inspired by personal life traumas, Iricdescent by Linkin Park, Several songs by the Fray, One Republic, Josh Groban, and other musicians.
This story is very personal and may even be acted out by yours truly.
Don’t worry.
There is a happy ending in the works.
As far as word count goes, until I type up everything I don’t have a word count. If I had a scanner I would simply scan all my handwritten work but alas, I do not have one as of it.
Hope this update suffices.
Talk to you on the Cyber-side.
Peace, love, and Pancakes,
-Rose

CPU (post 1)

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Ch.1

From a dusty window, orange light poured into a room filled with cardboard boxes. Some were labeled “books, clothes, shoes, and junk,” but most were labeled “fragile” in a haphazard pen. One box, battered and bruised, was labeled “Not Fragile, kick around to your heart’s content!” That one sat quietly near the trashcan by the door. Five large boxes labeled “Bed Stuff” and one small box labeled “Pillow” took up one wall while the other boxes were pilled high to the ceiling where an electric lamp flickered with wasted light. A loud snort came from the fabric boxes, and then a large sniff followed with a mucous filled spat. An arm sprung out from the fabric box closest to the window and hung listlessly from the side of the box. Clear thick mucous dangled from the finger tips for a while before being wiped off on the outside of the box. The hand, nail-bitten, bruised and stubby, felt on the ground for a moment, looking for something. Failing to find anything within reach, the hand and the arm retreated back into the box. There was a rustle, a mumble, and a very low curse as the box shook. Out from the fabric box the quilt-clad head of Corvus Parallax Ursa appeared.

Corvus, Para or CPU to her friends, lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps her whole life in a box. When her parents found her as an infant, she was in a box. Whatever she ate had to come from a box. For Halloween she would dress up as a box. For any formal occasion, including her cousin’s wedding, she would wear a dress with brown squares on it from a designer specializing in box fashion. She never goes out of her box, so long as she can help it. Unfortunately for her, though, she lived in a very non-box oriented world, a world where humans live peaceful (for the most-part) lives with beings of pure energy and beings that resemble animals, insects, plants, and everything in between. Corvus unhappily occupied the “everything in between” part of her world’s spectrum.

An orphan raised by a brain surgeon and a mechanic (both of which claim to be human but act suspiciously un-human), Corvus was soon found to be an ANGEL, an Anthromorphic Neo-Generation Electric Life-form. These beings have a distinct birth mark that resembles a pair of wings on their back, commonly called Wing Slits, which are used to identify ANGELs when they are born. CPU’s parents saw a simple pair of black wings on her back that happened to resemble crow wings, hence her first name. Of course most Wing Slits are black but who is to fault two loving parents. Being identified as belonging to a certain group is all well and good in CPU’s eyes, just another box to fit snuggly into, but ANGEL and international law dictates that once an ANGEL turns 2 they are to be assigned a personalized set of wings that match the mark on their back and a HALO (Hovering Analog Locating Office-port). The wings are usually hand crafted for the child by one of the elders of their village. Unfortunately for Corvus, she was an orphan living in a far away from any ANGEL village. As the saying goes, “ANGELs do their work in Maya, but live in Nirvana.” Since Nirvana is hard to get to, even by air, CPU’s parents had to go to a local wing dealer to get her a pair. Wing dealers use a government-backed system to produce wings for ANGELs born in Maya: they scan the child’s back, send the desired information into a computer, lay the child down on a cold metal table, and let the machine create and fit a pair of mechanical wings onto the child. It is a pain-less process, most of the time, and if the job is done in central Maya, the wings would not only be functional, they would be beautiful. That, unfortunately, was not the case with Corvus’s wings. Her parents went to West Maya to get her wings, an area notorious for both violence and mechanical know-how. They had a family friend, Jacob McNeal, who was at the time going into the wing crafting business. He was cheap, near, and a celebrated genius when it came to mechanized technology. Completely imbecilic when it came to children, safety regulations, and painkillers, but a genius nonetheless. Her wings to this day are among the most advance, black steel crow wings ever created. They are also the most painful. Corvus had to have her whole collar bone and part of her spine replaced with steel ones. Growing up, she was the only kid in class who wasn’t allowed to play with the magnets. And . . .

. . . .

SHUT UPPP!!!!!!!

Okay, I am taking over my own narrative! You gave them more than enough back story to satisfy even the most anal of critics. Yes, I like boxes, Yes Uncle McNeal, though sweet, is an incompetent boob when it comes to medicine, but for Gods sakes get over it. Oh and you there reading this, you probably forgot what was actually happening so let’s recap: it is late at night on the day I finally move into my apartment across the street from my university. I have just woken up from a very long nap (I went to sleep the moment I closed the door after Mom and Dad left). Oh and I am not 2. I am 23! And NO, I do not plan to keep these boxes around like this in my room; they were just for moving for Heavens sakes. Oh and that narrator you were listening to, THAT was my HALO. It talks. None stop. All the time.

“I do not!”

SHUT UP!

Okay, it mainly talks when it knows I can hear it. It drives me mad! But, before I get to that little mechanized mistake, I should probably get out of bed, I mean these boxes, I mean, well you know what I mean. Sheesh!

So here I am. . . Getting up . . . Just got to find my glasses. They must be somewhere in this box.

“Why not try, oh say, the box labeled ‘Eye Glass?’ You know the one by the foot of your make-shift box bed?” says my annoying government issued torture device.

There they are. Man, my room is a mess.

. . .

Aside from being a very bad morning person, CPU, is for the most part, deep down inside, a very good person. To everyone except her HALO. Where did all this animosity come from?  Well, it isn’t the HALO’s fault to be sure, but it may have something to do with how she acquires such a unique device. Most ANGEL’s receive their HALO’s after birth, right there in the hospital that same day as their parents rest. Receiving a HALO is all apart of the ANGEL registration process, you see. An ANGEL is born, registered into the hospital database, and their information is then even to ANGEL HQ where a blank HALO is selected for processing. Processing usually takes about an hour but on CPU’s birthday, something went wrong. Their was a malfunction at HQ during her, and countless other ANGEL’s, registration. Someone had hacked into the system in an attempt to send a virus into all new HALOs. Thankfully it was caught in time before anything too drastic happened. Unfortunately HQ could not destroy the virus programming in its entirety, they could only take away what made the program dangerous to others. In the end it was decided that the virus should be quarantined in the last HALO that was infected: CPU’s HALO.  It is a harmless defect, to say the least, but it did leave one very unique and disturbing quality to her HALO which has already been dealt with.

“And who ever heard of a flimsy metal disc that could talk and behavior like it is some higher sentient power! ARGH!” shouted Corvus into the darkness of her box-crowded room!

Still feeling the effects of a three day all-night packing binge, Corvus stumbles out of her box on her very shaky legs. Her hair is wild, curving up in little black tendrils all around her head. In the darkness she looks like a black sun rising above a mountainous range and into an orange sky. She kicks around some boxes, stumbles over the smaller ones and finally, with many blasphemies under her belt, she reaches the light switch next to the door. She releases a heavy sigh as she places her hands on her hips and stares blankly at her new abode.

“I guess I should start by fixing myself up, no sense in going back to sleep. Took me three hours just to get my happy ass up,” she says.

“Well, to be accurate you took about 4 hours to get up but who’s counting?” replies her imprisoned HALO.

“I want none of your sass today mister!” she replied.

Bending down by the trash can, CPU lifts up the badly bruised box labeled “Not Fragile, etc.” She peels back one side of the cardboard top and pulls out her silver HALO. With as little grace as it is possible for one of the female gender to perform, she tosses it on to her head and walks on before it has had sufficient time to connect to her DNA.

 

To be continued.

-Rose

Well this isn’t exactly the beginning but . . .

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You see, I have actually two story beginnings, both of which are for NaNoWriMo . . . One about a dragon and another about a sci-fi angel character. One is new and one is old. One has been a day dream for about a year or so and another was a past NaNoWriMo project.

The problem comes in where I don’t know which to put on the blog.

Solution?

BOTH!

Yes both!

Depending on my sporatic writing ideas and work-load I will post two different stories: One with the working title of CPU and the other DL (Dragon’s Lair).

Is this insane?

Yes.

Why do both in one month?

Because I am weird like that.

Look forward to CPU before Midnight tonight.

Also: GO OUT AND VOTE TOMORROW!

Much love,

Rose