Tuesday, June 11, 2013

This is where it gets weird: Chapter 2


     The door slammed shut behind her. Emily whirled around, yet could see nothing in the blackness, and feeling around awarded no cracks or handles or any clue that the door had been there in the first place. Emily became suddenly afraid. "You were foolish and acted quite rashly", she chastised herself, much in the same way as Alice from Wonderland. Emily became filled with regret as she stood in the dark.

     But not for long. For out of the black came a person. Humanoid, but very distinctly not so. It began speaking very rapidly.

"Bed bea geb, deb bea geb, deb bea geb cade beag?"

     "Excuse me sir, I don't know what you are saying," Emily rather timidly and quizzically replied, wondering if she had been right to call it a sir.

        The FedFaded, for that is what it was, made no reply, looking stunned out of speech.

Emily took this time to asses the situation: she was in her piano, 1-1/2 inches tall with a being that look like a dwarf (or was it a gnome?) spewing gibberish at length. Was it safe for her to speak to this creature?
Emily giggled at the thought. The creature hardly seemes dangerous, with an odd piece of wood looking quite like an instrument strapped to his back.

She began, "My name is Emily Baden. I was playing my piano when-"

"Your piano? YOUR piano?!" the creature exclaimed. "Don't you mean the Piano of FedFad?"

     "FedFad?" Emily repeated. Then she remembered: THOSE were the notes she had played. Her piano's manufacturer was FedFad too...

Emily was in her dreams again. She recalled the first time she had noticed that no one else's piano said FedFad. Everyone else's said Yamaha or Young Chang. Emily asked her parents about it one night.
"Well Emily, that piano has been in your mama's family a long time; nowadays people are buying Yamahas and the like. FedFad just isn't well known anymore," her father has said. Her mother had made no comment.

     But Emily hadn't believed that. She searched the Internet for "Fed Fad". It was a fruitless search. Emily had soon forgotten about the whole thing, yet still felt an odd tingling whenever she saw the piano, like she knew she had forgotten something.

     But now it was rapidly returning to her, and the question still loomed: What is FedFad? And now there was the question: How had she forgotten?

     "How do you know about FedFad?" was the only question Emily asked aloud, and warily at that.

     "How do I know about FedFad?" the man scoffed. "This IS FedFad!" The creature looked quite offended. He began muttering to himself and wringing his hands.

Emily wasn't even paying attention anymore. She exclaimed to herself, "So this is FedFad!"

     The creature stopped dead and nearly shouted, "Egad this is FedFad; what else would it be, ababd?!" slipping unconciously into the language of Gab.

     "Ababd?" Emily repeated.

     The creature stared at her. He had waited so long, waiting, watching, giving up everything life could offer, for this?

     "Girl human", the creature offhandedly replied, "which is what you are of course." Bede fell deep into thought.

     Was this it? Was this is abdgab they had been waiting for? Bede found it hard to believe; they had been waiting for so long, and look what happened to that other one. He needed to get the ababd to Madame Butterfly. "Dabe Fab," he ordered.

     Emily, quizzically, gave up on trying to ask what he was saying and decided she should follow him as he started away. At any rate, she was eager to get away form the spookiness of the doorway, or what used to be the doorway.

     Bede hurried along a passage that seemed to come out of nowhere to their left. Emily followed, trotting to keep up with the short Bede.

     "What are you, if you don't nind my asking?" Emily queried, hoping to learn something before they got to wherever they were going.

     "That, ababd, I cannot say." Bede replied. " 'If a potential abdgab appears, no information may be revealed until he/she has met Madame Butterfly,' " he quoted.

     Emily abruptly stopped. "Do not keep me in the dark any longer," she ordered.

     Bede became confused. He did not understand the nuances of English phrases, and even after 20 years of study, he still found trouble with it.

     "I'm sorry, ababd, but there are no lights on hand, and even it there were, no light is allowed in this chamber."

     Emily was adamant. "No, not light, I want information. Who are you? What are you? What is this place? Where are we going?"

     Bede sighed. He could tell this was a hard one. "Forgive me; I am Bede. And as I told you already, this is FedFad and we are going to see Madame Butterfly."

Emily rolled her eyes. She could tell this was a hard one.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Here goes... Chapter 1


        She was at the piano. It was 3 o'clock. Pounding the keys in frustration, Emily had to remind herself why she was there in the first place.

It was two weeks until Sarah's birthday. Sarah was Emily's 8 year old little sister, about to turn 9. Sarah was a simple, sweet, mousy-brown haired girl, and loved the piano and its music. Emily was composing a piece called "Madame Butterfly", named after Sarah's favorite opera. But composing was not coming as easily to Emily as it used to.

Emily played through her already finished bars, something she found herself doing more and more often lately, as she was making hardly any progress. She had had smooth sailing when she started; the notes flowing from her fingers, but then, one day she finished a phrase and it ended. Not the piece, the music. The music wouldn't come to her, but it was obvious it wasn't the end of the piece. Emily was dreadfully stuck.

She pounded the keys again, holding the notes. She started. Something had happened, some sort of click.

Emily quickly glanced at her fingers to confirm what she already knew, something she had learned to do writing music: she had played F E and D in her left hand, F A and D in her right. She shook her head to clear it. Just a trick of her overworked brain, she told herself.

Emily felt something tugging at her memory: her mother, speaking to her. But what was she saying? Then the memory faded away. She had been feeling oddly around the piano ever since... she couldn't remember when. That was the problem, she kept forgetting things.

Emily quickly shifted her attention back to the clicking noise, still uneasy about the memory. She tried banging the piano again; nothing. She tried to recall what she had played, but in vain. The notes had faded with the memory, which by now she couldn't even remember remembering.

Another click reached Emily's ears, this time more a creak than anything else. She saw an odd rectangle of wood above the keys closing into the piano. Emily started again, then snapped to her senses and stuck her finger into the timy hole and cried out in pain. Her finger was wedged in a door. After carefully extracting the aforementioned digit, she wondered how she had gotten there all of a sudden. Then her brain caught up.

She was standing in front of the odd rectangle of wood, now fully open again. How was she standing? Then her brain caught up again. The door had grown larger. Or, she had shrunk. Emily realized the latter was far more likely as she cautiously turned around, and saw her house looming high around her. The piano bench seemed 12 feet away, not a mere 12 inches.

Emily started to tremble. How had this happened? Emily saw no other course of action but to walk through the already re-closing door, though every nerve in her now tiny body was telling her not to.

Emily was confused, and had no idea what to do. She didn't want to leave the safety of her home, but then again her house seemed sinister and deadly to someone her size, and the piano was in her house, wasn't it? But what would she find in the piano? Would she become bigger while in the piano and become trapped? Emily was torn, and the invisible string that seemed to be pulling hew towards the door wasn't helping.

Finally, a fraction of a second before the door closed for the last time, Emily made her decision.

She jumped through the door.

Monday, June 3, 2013

My world

(Courtesy of Irish Girl)

My world is oh so pretty that it would be such a pity if the birds couldn’t fly in the sky so blue if the apples couldn’t grow on the trees fresh and new if the worms couldn’t wriggle it would not be a giggle if the fish couldn’t swim in the foamy waves and if bears could not live in their cozy caves my I am glad there are none of these dismays.

-Irish Girl was at my house and wrote this cool poem. I've been wanting to post it for months. So here it is!

My summer project!!!

One night, Silly Sally asked me to tell her a bedtime story. I didn't really feel like finishing it because I was really tired, so I said I would finish it the next night. Well, after about 2 weeks of saying that, I finally finished the story. I thought it was cool, and thought "Maybe I should write it down." Of course, I never really did anything about it for about a year. But lately I've been thinking about it a lot more, and I've decided: this summer I shall write a book. Because really, the "bedtime story" is more like a novel.
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I started on Wednesday. I'm currently in the middle of chapter 2. I have no idea how long it will be. Writing it will add a lot more "filler" that you just say they did in a story or something like that. I am also developing a language for them to speak in my world. It is called Gab, and uses only the letters A-G. Crazy, I know.
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As I type and finish editing chapters I will post them here, and I will try to make them regular. I am also writing some history and stuff like that about the setting of the story for my own reference, and to keep you busy when I'm in a tough spot with the story. Well, not really not really the story, as I have an advantage that I already know where the story goes and that sort of thing, but writing it with the words and conversations and everything that have faded from my mind in the past year will get me stuck sometimes. Also, recalling episodes will prove hard, as Silly Sally and I are already have debates about how things went, and it's my story!
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So anyway, I'm super excited and will be posting the first chapter shortly.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Pie, again


Once I ate a pie
filled with blackberries and why,
why was it filled with berries
of that blue-black kind,
is what i wondered; 
Most likely beacuse, Edgar
the cook made it that way,
that way with berries and sugar,
that fine day in mid-December.

-Wrote this Monday with the other. Again, don't ask. I just felt the need for posting. I feel a little crazy right now.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Pie


Once I ate a pie
A great big pie it was,
a pie with apples and cinnamon,
and a buttery crust because,
the baker cook made it that way,
that way with flour and eggs,
after eating a breakfast of toast,
of toast and coffee with dregs.

- Don't ask.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Eucharist Poetry: New stanzas


Then the priest
Will say "Body of Christ"
Lifting You up high,
Towards my tongue,
I shall receive,
You, Oh Lord ,
In this Perfect Sacrament
Sacrament of the Altar.

I am munching,
 gnawing on, You now,
Blood and Body,
Soul and Divinity,
The Perfect Host that's You.


You institute this great great Sacrament,
On the day of Passover,
Your flesh, the new lamb
of the new covenant
replaces that of mortal goats,
Your blood, that of wine,
In the sacred rituals,
changed into something new,
A newer, sacred-er ritual,
Instituted by Christ,
Done in memory of You.





-. About the munching, gnawing part: I am not bloody. Seriously. It was not intended as such; the original Hebrew (or is it Greek?) word Jesus used in John 6 when He tells the people about the Eucharist literally means to gnaw, or to munch. 

Thursday, March 14, 2013

A Quick Note: My Writing Style


I realized that my writing style has emerged. Mommy said 2 years ago, that in starting this blog, if I wrote every day or every other day just a little, while experimenting, my writing style would emerge. That made no sense at the time. But I am noticing a pattern. At first, when I wrote poetry, each time it was different. But as I have picked it up this year again, unfailingly, if you go back to each poem, it is free verse, no set meter, rhyming scheme; it is really just as it comes. Oh, and short lines. Those are predominant. 

So my writing style is free verse poetry with short-ish lines. It is weird thinking back to "The House" and seeing how very different that is. I would never have thought that I would be a poet. Whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was an author/writer. Of what? people would ask. Anything, the answer would come. 

But now it is seeming to be more poetry than anything else. It just comes naturally to me. I have a way with words, Mommy says. I guess that is poetically.

Enjoy!

Also, it occurred to me to write a poem about the pope, maybe the papacy, the Vatican, some history... I think that will be like the Eucharist Poetry: a pamphlet-like piece of work, different styles, etc. 

Eucharist Poetry

O Lord, enter my heart,
Enter my heart so gently,
Enter with the aid of Sacraments,
the Sacrament of Eucharist.

The Sacrament of Eucharist,
Communion with Christ,
Never ending, never stopping,
Perfect join to You.

O Lord how I love,
When the priest will lift You up,
In silence I adore,
the Perfect Host of You.



You love me Lord,
That I know,
When I kneel in adoration,
adoring You in monstrance,
gold and silver, lifting You
up to Heaven,
Sweet smelling incense,
filling up my nostrils,
oh how I love You.




Prayers and prayers,
on my tongue,
begging to be released,
yet my mind unable to form words,
sits in awe, trying

trying to comprehend 

this Love,
this great great Love,
that would come down
for me, for me
in this Precious Form,
my heart knowing,
my mind resisting,
the knowledge my soul has.





Why, oh why,
Would you come down,
descend unto this bread,
this humble Form of exsistence,
Oh Creator of all,
when the priest,
as You
repeats Your words,
those holy, holy words
"This is My Body and My Blood
of the holy Covenant"
to be comsumed by me,
tainted, torn by sin;
the answer is for Love.

For love would you come thus,
To humble bread and wine,
to be with us, to live in us,
always, oh Lord Divine.




I thank You Lord, for this gift,
This great gift of Your Soul,
To join with mine,
to be with mine,
forever, ever, Lord.

- The odd capitalization was to put more emphasis on God, while detracting form other words. The long spaces between stanzas show a new "poem".

It was all written together, in about half an hour, but I could sort of sense slight differences between the way they were written and the subtle differences in style. I realized you have to have the right rhythm when you are reading it, because reading it over made me confused until I corrected my reading. Just experiment a little I guess on that matter.

This is a pamphlet of poetry for IMPACT for the Sacrament of Eucharist. Mommy told me to do a project by myself, without Architect A. The poems don't have individual names because, even though it is separate, it is sort of meant to be read together. Also, I've realized I'm a bit lazy when it comes to making names for poetry.

I have never before been able to really express myself in religious poetry before. But this came so naturally and simply to me. I am finding that even in prose, am I writing poetically. Such as then. And I think poetically, not prose-y, so it sort of feels like poetry is taking over my life, but I don't care.

Habemus Papam!

We have a pope! God bless Pope Francis from Argentina, formerly Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, first non-European, Argentinian, and Jesuit pope, and the first pope who took the name Francis!

We love you Papa!

Sealed in Christ

A bishop's hands,
coming, stretching,
toward my face,
dripping with oil,
chrism,
blessed to confirm,
peace and joy,
flooding my soul,
I am sealed in Christ,
the Spirit.

- I wrote this for an IMPACT project I am doing about Confirmation. Architect A is drawing a picture of a bishop confirming, and I am writing the text for the poster. And, seeing who I am, Architect A set me to also write a poem, which I probably would have done anyway.

I wrote this at co-op sitting outside on a rock, with nothing else to do. Everyone was in class and I had nowhere to go. I thought, "Oh, I'll write that poem". It came together in about the space of 5 minutes. Afterwards I felt very close to God, and rather joyful while I waited for Silly Sally to get out of class.

It is probably the shortest poem I have ever written. But it was done.

Monday, February 4, 2013

The House


When once I took a sorry stroll,
Saddned by a tale untold,
that dreary night in mid-November,
(Why I was there I can't remember),
While I stood there watching, waiting,
Waiting, watching, while debating,
Debating whether I should or not,
go home for a bun all nice and hot.

I decided no and proceeded on,
proceeding to a place now gone;
to find the house still there intact,
was quite a shock for me, alack!
I had hoped and pleaded with all my soul,
Pleading it be still not there my goal,
To see it there was troubling to my mind,
a mind that needed saneness, and things kind.

'Shall I proceed?' I asked myself,
'Should I proceed into this place of stealth,
Or turn back and attempt to forget?'
But before my mind was set,
I heard a hoot from an owl.
Looking up I saw the feathered fowl and scowled,
scowled at that annoying bird.
And there am I still, breathing not a word.
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- I wrote this poem exactly 2 years ago. Well, I meant to post it Saturday, but I wasn't home all day. I like it so much that I felt that I should post it on my blog, and I was going to do so about a month ago, but realized I could pretend to have a reason by saying it was the 2 year anniversay/birthday whatever of when I wrote it. I've blown that obviously, but whatever.
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Mommy decided that since it was Edgar Allen Poe's 203 birthday the day before class, her assignment for my creative writing class at SMA would be to write a 3 stanza poem with some of the same elements (e.g., onomatopoeias, alliteration, assonance, repetition, etc.) as "The Raven", by Mr. Poe. It was also supposed to have a creepy, somewhat scary feeling to it, like "The Raven".
This is what I came up with.

I cannot tell you why, but I am very proud of this poem. I just am. I have been proud of it for 2 years. Sometimes with my writing I think, "Oh, I should have done _______". But not with this.

If you haven't read "The Raven" yet, it is one of the best poems and probably my favorite (though I haven't thought about it much, but if you gave me 2 seconds to come up with my favorite, I'd say this). So here is a link to it: "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Friendship


What is friendship?
Something confusing,
complicated 
at first sight,
but upon
further inspection
you find
Friendship is simple, yet much more.

What is friendship?
Playing together,
crying 
over bruises together,
But as you grow older
it becomes
more than that,
sweet, kind, 
loving,
Cherishing the other.

What is friendship?
That lovely thing that enables two,
Two to be
in harmony
like siblings knowing
 the other
Helping herself 
to the other's
snacks,
possessions, rooms,
things, accomplishments,
as if it were hers

What is friendship?
That thing when two
will laugh
and chat
for hours
about nothing
never caring,
For they are friends.

What is friendship?
It is love.

-Perfect example of what I said the other day about all my poems being different.

My friend told me to write a poem about friendship because she was appalled by my lack of posting. So here it is. Well, you've already read, I'm presuming.

This is probably my quickest poem ever. I started it less than an hour ago, at 1:55 (posting time wrong). Then at about 2:10 I was startled by having most of it finished. Since then I've just added a few words and the 4th stanza. And separated a few lines. It's amazing the world of difference it makes when you just separate those lines and change/delete some words. As soon as I did the last thing to make it to how you see it now, I though,"Yes! It's done!" I didn't know why, but it was. You can just tell. 

This is good.

I just made myself a goal. 2 poems/week, how that will work out, I'm not sure. And then the random writing assignments.

Thank you, Architect A!

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Nativity Poem


Nativity, Nativity, such a sweet word,
Bringing to mind the great joy of Christmas that comes to all the world.

In the weeks leading up to that joyfilled morn,
My family watches candles slowly burn
down, and violet, anticipating,
anticipating that day, 
that day when Christ comes down to us,
in a form as ours.

I remind myself as I wake,
That God sent His only Son to me
Because of His great unending love for me
In the freezing cold,
Where the wise men gave him gold,
(So I have been told,)
And I He shall never forsake.

On that Christmas morn I find myself desiring one gift solely,
That gift of God's Son to me,
In all my sin and loneliness,
Only to have 
him die on a tree
for me, for me!


-Mommy got an email about a Joy to the World! Prayer Contest*- well, contest. The challenge was to create a piece of artwork, essay (not really an essay, but a short paragraph; it was only allowed to be 50-100 words), or poem portraying family traditions, how you felt about Christmas, how you remind yourself of Christmas everyday, etc. I, obviously, wrote a poem. The entries have to be submitted by Friday via mail, so I wrote this yesterday, with some editing/additions earlier today.

At first I was so lost as to what to do. I started wondering,"How on earth did I write "The House" [coming soon] 2 years ago?" Well, I'll tell you how. Sitting in front of the computer for half an hour trying to come up with something. And then the words just start coming to you. Slowly, but they come. Sometimes they're just ideas that get translated to words in several seconds.

Now, I know what you're thinking, I know there isn't really a set meter, line length, or even really regular rhyming. But sometimes, and you can really only understand this if you are a poet (I'm not claiming to be up there with Edgar Allen Poe or something, just someone who writes poetry occasionally), something feels right about whatever it is, like I felt like I should add another 'old' rhyming in the 3rd stanza. It just felt right. And I had an incredible urge to do something about it until I wrote that 6th line. And it's hard to explain, and it might not make sense if you don't write poetry. I realized that while Silly Sally was looking at it and said something about "Change this to this. It'd sound better", and I was offended and she didn't seem to understand that that was the way it was supposed to be. I just realized it's like what Michelangelo said once,"In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me...I only have to hew away the rough walls that imprison it." The poem is already there, and even though I don't "see it", necessarily, when I start, changing something that's supposed to be there is like lopping off the nose of a statue, if that makes any sense.

I guess my point is, all poetry is different. I can see that looking at all the crazily different poems I've written.



*name of contest

P.S. And no, it doesn't have a name. Yet.