Remembering the past...and ah...the poetry of youth.

While watching the news tonight, I find myself thankful that I have not lost anyone close to me in a war. I know many people who have. Currently reading a book about two boys growing up in a war torn country - the book is called "The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini" -it was one of those books my parents foisted upon me. I had finished the Terry Pratchett novel and was hunting a book from their extensive library to read on the ride home. Out came the Kite Runner, which both had read and raved about it. And 50 pages into it, I can see why. A beautifully written novel about two boys growing up in Afganistan in the 1970s, one boy Pashtun, and one Hazara. One is the boy of wealth, one is the servant. It takes place both in the past and the present, and concerns a man living in San Franscico dealing with his boyhood in Afganistan. Brutal and beautiful book about the crimes, upheavels, and pangs of boyhood in another land and in another religion.

Home now from my five day vacation in Hilton Head, rested, happy, and less cranky. Was a beautiful visit - during which I went kayaking, soaked up a little too much sun on the beach resulting in a bit of a patch-marked burn (basically every place that didn't get enough sunscreen), and revisiting bits and pieces of my childhood - which often happens when I go back home. Home now being Hilton Head, South Carolina. Home for me was never a place, so much as the people who raised me. My parents, who seem to cart the remains of my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood wherever they go. Mother remembers everything - regardless of what it was, in detail and she keeps the mementos, much like the rat-packer her own mother is.

While there - I unearthed the Star Wars movies I'd taped in Kansas City way back in the early 90s - when the letterbox edition was first introduced. Watching them I realized that with the exception of Star Wars, that George Lucas did not write or direct much of them. Actually he only directed Star Wars, and co-wrote Star Wars and Jedi. Lawrence Kasdan co-wrote all three. Explains a lot.

I also unearthed a book of my college poetry - poems that I wrote and read in front of hundreds of people approximately 16 years ago. And submitted to numerous publications. Looking over the prose I'm struck by how young and niave I was. And how incredibly brave.

Here's three that I wrote in 1987-88 - I'll let you judge for yourselves how horrid they were, assuming you decide to read them that is, if not, no worries, trust me - I skip over poems online myself, hence the cutting away. I write them here for myself as much as for anyone else, I guess:

( The English Major - or my attempt at a sonnet. )

( Rebirth - this poem I sent to the family of a friend who died of leukemia, something I regret doing now...., but regretting what we do in the past seems both inevitable at times and impossible, doesn't it? At least to me. )

The third is called Study Break - and it's about a bottle of beer, yearning for something and writers block.

( Study Break )

The last poem isn't written by me at all but by a dear lost friend, lost in time, one of those people you cross paths with briefly but never see again. Oh you know they are in the world and all that. But your paths just never re-cross. This friend wrote a poem for me one cold night in Colorado, the snow was falling, three -feet deep, and everyone but me seemed to be in love. It was written in 1988 as well, yet oddly still hits a chord in me from time to time.

I've referred to this poem in other posts. But until now, did not have access to it. I thought I'd lost it, along with many other keepsakes from my past. But this morning, my parents unearthed the journal containing it. So on a whim, I've decided to post it in my journal tonight - to share with others. Is it a great poem? I don't know. I'm no longer a fan of poetry to be honest, have little patience for most of it - the intricate rhyme schemes, the sappy sentimentality (even though I wrote quite a bit of those myself and this may very well be one of those). All I can tell you is it touched me. Course I also happened to like Spike's poem in Not Fade Away. So there you go.

I honestly think the value of any art is in the eye of the beholder at the moment they behold it, read it, see it, devour it. One woman's piece of coal is another's diamond so to speak.

( Love in Winter by Sand Sheff )

Tomorrow I venture back into the hustle and bustle of the city. The frantic phone calls, the bone-crushing boredom, the harried paper-work. Feeling somewhat refreshed from my vacation away from it, yet at the same time oddly jarred by the contrast between this world and the one I just left.

Movie meme ganked from oursin

1. Take this list and paste it into your own LJ entry, and mark the movies you've seen in bold.
2. Add five more movies to the end of the list.
3. Count how many you have seen. Post the score of how many movies you've seen in the subject line.
4. Use an LJ-cut.
( How many movies I've seen on this list meme - by the way I've seen most on tv or rented and I'm not distinguishing, too frigging long a list. )

Approximately 250 of the list, give or take a couple. In short? Methinks I've seen one too many movies. But I love movies, all movies, all genres, good, bad and ugly. (Although gory horror movies and low-brow comedies tend to annoy me.)

Memories of Ulysses ..for those on flist doing a Book Melee

( tid-bits on Joyce's Ulysses or my memories of it, circa 1988 and 1989 )