[pathopoetry] jagged jigsaw

jagged jigsaw


Sometimes you think I am crazy, no
if it were that simple; I’m a jagged jigsaw
a hole in the middle when you fit me together
missing a piece never found

without it the portrait remains incomplete
what would the lost one reveal
have I misplaced this place in a heart
or maybe you’d shape it for me

[virii] Hindsight

Hindsight.
If only you could bring it forward to your face when you need it.
"In hindsight..."
Ah. My dear little sight, why are you always slightly behind? The orbs spin backwards in their sockets, but still cannot anticipate the mind.

[virii] A bout of writing at 11.05

Listen to that. You know what it is? It is the sound of some kind of thought. Tap tap. Slug-slugga-chug. Glug. That’s what it is. A wooden spatula, churning up thick batter and molasses up in headspace. Preoccupied with the onomatopoeia of your subliminal messages.
Anxiety, though, makes BLASTS of noise. screeeeeech screeeeech scratch-scratchety. The deeper you furrow your brows the higher in pitch it becomes. Listen! LISTEN!!! Yes, the urgency. You can close your ears, but can you close your mind?
If the brain dies. You are brain-dead. I suppose you hear nothing then. I suppose…snip snip synapses, how will you send the message down now? Not even head-sound. You know? Sound in your head, they say when you sing you have to get the sound up, in your head, have it hum there, take it up out of your forehead. But if there is no sound. Not even head-sound.
There is the sound of me typing at 11:12 pm. Trying to sophisticate a sludge of thought into a slurry of words into a cascading cacophony, a rhapsody in sound.

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist.1 #9 Killer cold, or cold trail?

Is a virus a "bug"? I'm used to calling bacteria "bugs" even among trained professionals...but I guess I stop short of viruses due to the whole alive/non-living debate. I do see the usefulness of such an identification for media purposes though - "Killer cold bug" makes a better headline.

Speaking of which, I wonder if and when that new strain of adenovirus serotype 14 will become a real media scare. I wouldn't call adenovirus a "cold" (that I would mostly associate with rhinovirus/coronavirus) but you do get cold-like syptoms. You may have heard that this new strain of Ad14 has been shown to cause severe respiratory illness and mortality in quite a few cases, which is something to take notice of since adenoviruses do not usually cause fatal illness. However, I have seem some strange things floating around the net (internet flotsam?), like conspiracy theories linking the failed HIV vaccine (delivered via an Ad5 vector) to the emergence of the new Ad14 strain.

I have a soft spot for adenoviruses. They are so very cool, and really useful in terms of gene therapy.

As far as pandemics go, we are indeed due for a flu pandemic...but pandemic just means a "worldwide epidemic," not necessarily a high-mortality-epidemic. I guess we'll see.

To read:
Fact sheet for Ad14 from the CDC

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report(MMWR) 2007;56(45):1181-1184. ©2007 Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)


This is great. I may no longer be in the world of Microbiology, but I'm connecting with it all the same. That makes me happy.:)

when i.write

My cold fingertips
reaquaint themselves
with an array of keys
smooth from dull jabs, and words
beat jarredly from the gaping screen
l e t t e r by lett- shrink back - streamoutlong
swift. then; one sweep, whole lines are seized
a white slot hole
the text bar blinks, bemused.

Fragments - December 5th

See this post.

--------------------------------------------------------------

1
I'll let you in on something. When the subway rumbles loudly, and I lose some of my 60-before-60 decibels of hearing, and it becomes hard to even hear your own thoughts, I sing.

2

Lately it has been My paddle's keen and bright/Flashing with silver. I keep repeating silver, trying to will my voice into a new tine.

3

You know what? When you fall asleep on the bus, and are totally drowned in subconcious, and you get a feeling that you should wake up...and your eyes look out the window just as the bus slows into your stop...and when that keeps happening in different circumstances...subhanaAllah, subhanAllah.

P.urge

Oh, do I have much to say. Spinning mind, copious thoughts, and time in disarray.

Points to note before internal combustion:

1) I never realised this, well I realised something as I was handed my bouquet of flowers and signed construction paper card smiling yet completely taken aback while I thought myself insane for curtailing tears after being in that classroom for but a month:
I must teach. I am glowing now, glowing with wonder at how well this fits despite the insanity, how good this feels after uncertainty yet deep in chaos yet again. More later.
2)I miss my friends though, all of them. All of those thunderous wonderous folk I've met, from elementary to highschool and beyond. Much love, drop me a line.
3)My head is spinning, I am really overwhelmed, and truly wasted this day, which is horrible.

4...3...2...Boom!

strung

I need to be a little muffled, a little more
underwhelmed. I
need to be curtailed somewhat
stuffed up with cotton, I
need plush stuffing in my head ears coming out
in white gauzy trails I need
something to smother me

not to hear
not to feel
drawn string taut bow stressed out high gear
I need

time to shut down
time to think and dumb down
time to get it all down and out of my mind I need
time

thunderous wonderous

What have you got
that I haven't got
That makes you so thunderous wonderous, oh,
Have you possessed
An item so blessed
That lets fortune court you wherever you go?
What do you have
That I haven't had
To make you victorious glorious? - "Why,
just this I do:
you judge by a 'You' -
and I weigh myself by an 'I'. "

a mind that shrinks away

compel me to cry
because I am something hard
I am something hurt
I am growing old

once remembered,
once more forgotten
I have raised my hands
placed my head on ground

everything seems to close
calmness is in breathing
strange, it's tangible, this...

I will settle down
in this unbroken state
once I reassure
an agitated mind;

[pathopoetry] a daisy

hashalillaah; the daisy -
long l o n g
stalk
bright
face
flawless floating honey-centred  milk   fan

the grass lies flustered at her feet
at her precocious hovering grace

[pathopoetry] butterfly words

for Neelain Muhammad

My eyes shine
at the fleeting butterfly
from your heart     to words

and the roll of your accent
like gentle, old man river

the simple joy of expression
beneath the humble cap, white robe
your skin belies
the warmth of your concern

so put on your glasses
dip your head
to the microphone and
your eyes shine

Bismillaah 'irrahmaan 'irraheem...

[pathopoetry] two names

I know your name
you know mine
our most distinguishing features

it's wonderful
a confidence
defining

I will carry it in apostrophes
over our
electronic common ground

you will come up
in all sorts of interesting places
with marvellous identities and
surprising images

giving you a sidelong glance
I will read your puerile comments
you will sneak a peak at my angst
laughing at what is archived
mortified it's still there

then from time to time
when we remember
we'll wonder

when there's a good link
after that click
that sudden pulse is
binary

so we'll keep the secret
until we are disconnected

then with our hearts brimming
we'll tell someone
to grope the databases

last, and first

[pathopics] on the other side

[pathopics] despite

Tawaaf

Trying to follow up on my resolution to write fragments (see previous post), I wrote this down as it came, though my old intention was to write a more complete piece on my Umrah experiences. I posted it up in my other blog, as is. It might need footnotes, it might need an explanation of context, but I won't add those, I won't drag this out, I'll put it up as is. If you still need them, you can always ask.
------------------

I don’t know how to explain what makes Tawaaf different from all other religious rites. You really have to be there to truly comprehend. Tawaaf is so raw, so stripped down, so simplified, so real that you can’t compare it, you just can’t compare it to anything else. You’re not singing, you’re not dancing, you’re not eating. You’re not ringing bells, you’re not lighting candles. You’re not garlanding a figure. You’re not meditating in seclusion in a manner that can only be mastered with long training. You, all of us, illiterate and elite, you’re doing the same thing you have been doing since you were born: you’re moving. You’re walking, maybe you’re running. You don’t need to be taught. You don’t need to be told. The Kaa’ba is there so you know where to go. The black stone is there so you know where to start. But in the end, it’s all you. You’re turning.

I’ve heard a lot of interpretations. We go anticlockwise to mirror the movement of the constellations. Or we circumambulate like the angels. They could be all correct, but that’s not the point. The point is what you feel. I can’t tell you that, because it’s what you feel. I’ll tell you about myself though. I felt like I was swept into a current. I knew I was moving but I wasn’t paying attention to my own inertia. I experienced something so unique it is rarely replicated in the world: conscious transcendent contentment. What the world tries to do is get you at this state by getting you out of your state: by getting you drunk, high, making you whirl and couple with spirits, giving you an andrenaline rush. But the strange thing about tawaaf is that you slip into it while being 100% conscious and in control of your senses, while being the same person you were seconds ago before starting, and yet feeling something that completely envelops you, something that is so rare to feel that you are confused about it initially, and only realize it after the fact. You’re not in a trance, you’re not inebriated – you’re completely aware, and yet you’re emotionally overwhelmed. I was praying, and I never wanted it to end. I felt that I belonged, for once, for ever. How can I explain it? I was at peace with myself, with what I was doing; I understood why I was there, I understood where I was going. Towards the end, I was terrified of leaving. I knew what the world was, I knew how quickly my heart could change from the piercing humility of that experience.

Unfortunately, due to my occupation as a reader, I had come across several pedantic, baseless articles – that were nevertheless being toted as true and widely circulated – by some caustic individuals trying hastily to mark the rites as some meaningless, despicable, cultist, pagan ritual. There’s no need to debunk this (any scholarly book would suffice), but I thought to myself: how I pity, how I wish any one of them would do a single tawaaf. There are seven tawaafs around the K’aaba; in any one of them – in all of them – , you could pray for whatever your heart desires. But when you are in the midst of all those people, old and crippled, young and beautiful – what do you hear? They’re praising God. They walk, they cry, they look up, and they praise God. This is the time to get your wants fulfilled! This is the time to ask! And they do ask, but more often than not, they gradually forget why they are asking. The urgency of the prayer of want they so meticulously crafted back home, dissolves into semi-significance and they are puzzled by it, why was it really that important? Because they understand something. Something clicks. You never want to tear yourself away from a tawaaf. You feel that, if I did just a few more, I would reach complete tranquility. Everything would make sense. Why, why did that material thing matter? Why didn’t I spend more time with my loved one? Why have I done all those senseless things? It’s as though you have been looking at life with severe myopia and someone just handed you a pair of glasses for the first time. Everything comes into perspective – your life comes into perspective – and you are dumbfounded that God has held onto you so long for all you are. And you are overwhelmed.

Fragments of this week

I like things to be pieced together well, particularly my own writing. I know when I'm satisfied with my Writ: words may seem strewn but I knew my purpose in scattering them, yes there was a blueprint for the chaos, method in the madness. I'm no Dostoevsky, but I know when I've got it down the way I wanted to.

Unfortunately, as I think I have explained quite sufficiently in the previous post (and even in this post), there is sometimes no time to be so thorough and so careful with it. No - I should correct the latter part of that statement: I think I have realized that I am so careful always - even when I force myself to spin out the words and throw caution - and the words themselves - to the wind...well, how uncanny, I find that I have imperceptibly been fitting those same words with tiny paper wings so that when launched, they would have a safe glide home. I've been doing it even now.

But I think that other part was right: sometimes, you just can't be so thorough. That's what held me down in the lab - I was being too meticulous, I was taking too much time. I was doubting my own precision. You know what? I was doubting that I could do it right the first time.

I've decided that, to stop me from falling back into the trap of procrastination, I'm going to write fragments. Yes in the other post, I resolved to write something at least a couple of times a week, and if I can that's great, but that's not the issue. What I need to do is get myself to write when I have something I feel needs to be written. I need to get it down when it comes, and then expand it, or else I'll probably never write it. Now, I may not get others to read those clipped thoughts, but I ought to write them for my own sake.

Of course I've come to this conclusion before. I think I've even posted some of those fragments here. I guess I just wanted a preamble.
--------------------------------------------------

Fragment 1
Some statistics sink in deeper than others. You can hear 10 statistics in one news segment or read 20 in one article, and chances are that the odd one or two will embed themselves into your long term memory, the others you will forget tomorrow. For me it was the statistic: " 3 out of 4 Iraqis are without clean water" (BBC news broadcast, yesterday).Immediately, my mind converted the ratio into a fraction into a mental picture: 3 out of 4, three quarters, three quarters, that's 75%, that's you me and the kid next door, minus the girl down the lane. Clean water. To wash your hands with. To drink. To wash yourself with. Murky water in rusted pots to put on your face and clean your child with.
...
In the midst of this post (see ellipses), I go to the BBC website to make sure of the statistic, since I don't like regurgitating anything unvalidated. Hmm, is that part of my thoroughness - that I don't like posting without sources? How interesting; reflexive writing.In any case, I find what I believe to be the html page based on the broadcast (here: Iraq faces alarming humanitarian crisis, by David Loyn, Jul.29th). And the statistic is from a July Oxfam briefing report: "Rising to the humanitarian challenge in Iraq." So I really had a Statistic, not a perception, and it really could be validated.
The Oxfam report said 70% of Iraqis had an "inadequate" water supply and 80% of Iraqis "lack effective sanitation." I guess BBC put two and two together. At the end of this passage, I feel no better, rather worse - the sanitation statistic did the trick - though there was a brief glow at discovering I was not mistaken and this was credible. Which meant I had a right to feel that initial surprise, feel pity and sadness, feel indignant. Which meant there was a chance that I could get someone else to feel some of that too, because of the truth of it. So that the next time they saw a statistic, they would know what to do: imagine.

-----------------------
I was going to write other fragments but I really did drag this out and I really am tired.

Write

I have this peculiar characteristic, which I know I’ve mentioned a couple of times before (like: in this post), but which strikes me as so particularly incompetent I find myself curiously revisiting it time and time again. Especially in those Time Agains where I feel it necessary to make excuses, such as now. I have found colourful ways to word this phenomenon of being, this sad habit, characteristic, blip in the mien, this trait I would like to paint as a shameful anomaly, not as a product of ill-wit and lethargy: in poetic terms, in sultry prose, in –
have I started again?
can you understand the game that causes me to heave up this vacuous carcass of a sigh and declare it:

When I really need to write, I have no words.

Hmmm, you see? Didn’t that come off poetically? I actually like that. I can say that and pretend that I am not ineffectual in my craft, not in the least a procrastinator wallowing in my own sloth, not even a sloth wallowing in the swamp of my own indecision. It comes off beautifully. It even – the blissful irony! – allows me to write something. I can produce something, I can prove my value by virtue of my own ill-proven state! It is unbelievable in its effectiveness, it is supreme.

But it doesn’t help.

Because I am kept restless by the thoughts which pressed me to word them, which depended on my supposed skills as a Conveyor of Thought, Distributor of Meaning, Purveyor of Words. Enlightenment, understanding, depression, contentment, confusion – I held them, scintillating and marvelous, and they said Tell! and I replied wait. They said express! and I said I’m busy. They said Help others know – and I complained I was distracted, I wanted watermelon, that seemed taxing, and I was tired. Those thoughts, those truths, those experiences that, voiceless, drew up a contract with me when we first met in an unspoken declaration of promise:

What you have been privileged to feel, you are obliged to share

To write. Too right. I have squandered time and health. I have been selfish. I have been frightened. I have suspected a revelation of my inadequacies as a writer when truly pushed to the pen, and used this unjustly to justify my inaction. I have also made a good long blog post of it. But I will snub the blog post and Do Right. I Will Write.

Luckily I have friends who write beautiful art without excuses, who I am startled to realize still read my misgivings despite the fact that the poems in their heads surpass the poems in my hand. Something awoken, the vivid russet soil they unearth in their mental excavations settles beside the dust of my dilapidated words. Luckily I have a sister who would think well of me were I to write drivel, coat it in syrup, and sprinkle it with nonsense. Every time I settle into this inept state, I am shaken out of it by the surprise that, they actually read. Then, I must write, for them I must write well, because they read.

But come, let’s dig a threepenny trail together. Only this time, we’re digging up.

Can I keep this promise? I may have to put it in writing.

[pathopoetry] things

There have been a lot of Things.
Small things. Big things. Things in between
we've stood on toes, cradling love
and hurled it - smash - at each other

we've picked it up
we've cocked our heads
analysed shards
discussed the mess

in the end the cracks pretty much
were invisible.

- I just want to tell you - it's ok I know -

so is it enough
not to say

End of a beta-Microbiologist

My brief stint as a beta-Microbiologist has ended, and it is only now beginning to settle into me – the meaning of the thing. I called myself a beta-Microbiologist because I wasn’t a Microbiologist, and though I was studying Microbiology, I still wouldn’t end up as a Microbiologist. I was then, just beta-testing– yes, I was there to work through it all, get all the bugs out, then leave.

So comes the purging. But I’ve been consciously avoiding the confrontation: between the self that embraces the end of a taxing experience and delves into the practicality that is to come, and the other, the hopelessly frightened other – frightened that this exquisite thing is now to be cast permanently away, frightened that what is to follow bears no relation it. Today, the practical self considered the selling of my old texts. Of course, this was the logical thing to do, the proper thing to do for bulky, expensive blocks of plasticized paper and card taking up much needed space – the thing to do quickly before they became outdated or unneeded and were not sought after again, the smart thing that will enable you to buy more texts later, for unrelated things. The thing – but this was impossible, said the other. My texts? Must I? I looked at them. Brock Biology of Microorganisms, Janeway’s Immunobiology in fuchsia; I have a dense primer on Genetics and a formidable treatise on Biochemistry. I have stiff unturned pages and glossy unsmeared pages and spines bent floppy in the frustration of research. Must I? But of course! Why not? I won’t look at them, I hardly did before when I ought to have. But, no, I will! Because otherwise…because without them… I won’t remember – I’ll… forget. How can this be? These four years of mine have been condensed to a crisp paper with a pretty stamp – a pretty glossy red stamp, which I would have admired with shining eyes as a child. Slowly every intricate detail I learned will dissolve, gradually every ray of understanding will dim into nothingness. I will be left with this triumphant page, while the pages of my mind turn blank.

So this is what education is? The painstaking attempt to prove that you know, the heartbreaking realization - that soon enough, you won’t.

I vant to suck your blahd

I wanted to do a bit of research on malaria (a disease I am particularly interested in, for both scientific and personal reasons), but before I hit the online journals, I did a quick Google search. High on the list was a page from the Nobel Prize website - stick me with some quick info, I thought. But when I got there, I was quite bemused, somewhat amused, and slightly disturbed to find: malaria games. Yep, have fun flying around as a mosquito looking for unsuspecting humans, and drain them of 10 microlitres of blood! Or, be a sneaky malaria parasite, infect someone, then multiply multiply multiply! If you're fast enough, you can make the high score!

How...morbidly amusing?

Ok, to their credit they do sneak in a ton of useful info about the disease within the game, which you might otherwise have scorned to read. The games are pretty in the usual Flash sort of way, and you actually get quizzed on what you learn. So I gradually lost some of my initial feelings of discomfort when I acknowledged the educational aspect of it. I still however, couldn't help feeling bemused throughout, though some things were quite funny. Like hearing the mosquito buzz for the first time (they captured that annoying noise a little too well for my liking). Or the karate-slap and ensuing "UHH!" when your poor parasite was engulfed by a macrophage :)

So if you're feeling decidedly vampirish or pathogenic, give it a go.
http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/malaria/

And thus, it begins again

Lately I've been feeling the obligation to blog - ah, how that perfectly lends itself to newly-coined corny term, the "oblogation." I don't really want to shake this oblagation mind you, since I have made a (rather poorly adhesive) mental note that this will be the Summer of Writing, where I will pen all those ponderous thoughts and amorphous short stories (a dozen or so, last time I checked the mental archives) that have been lurking around since oh, the last (unfortuitous) "Summer-of-Writing."

Mental note number 2: stick to resolutions.

I also have some things that are actually worth reading up in that brainspace - you know, accounts of visiting the best place on Earth, experiencing true spiritual calm, etc. - but it will take me some time before I present anything that will even marginally graze the surface of what that experience was like.

InshaAllah.(God-willing)

Reinfection

I'm back from my wonderful one-and-a-half-month break, which also ended up being a strangely satisfying break from the Internet entirely. So it's with a combination of mild fondness and much trepidation that I return to the fray - and of course, with considerable disappointment at the lack of interest in my blog as evidenced by the excruciatingly sparse commenting on the previous post (here's your chance then, since I only now realised the inane comment settings that were on, where only Blogger users could post; so now you have a brilliant excuse you can put to work in your comment. I would particularly like to hear feedback on the font/layout/formatting of the blog - if you read the blog, and the setup doesn't make you frown or cringe or squint, I will be relieved and won't bother changing it, otherwise I will truly take your comments into consideration. After this, I'll disallow commenting; though clearly it makes no difference!). I am very hesitant to resume my usual grazing of the world wide web, as I have put much in perspective over my brief break, and have experienced briefly the reality of living with a sharp and raw connection with circumstances rather than a leading an iLife - and really, there is much about this electro-social snare that I want to untangle myself from. I would like only to succumb to the screen when I can produce words of some worth, which may distil my experiences into emotions that send a current of understanding into someone else.

In other news, none of my friends missed me :) Ah, c'est la vie, non? Friends, if you exist and are reading this, sufficient reparatory measures can be made if you feign missing me and then give me a call, as
a) It's about time you blew the dust from that ancient device known as the Telephone and initiated contact with me through it (rather than gush to me about how you were meaning to do so when you're already on the line)
b) I have laryngitis. Haha, out-trump that excuse!

Take care all, I really do love you. In a sly and seething sort of way.

And one viral replication cycle later...

It's been a year and a bit since the Stylus Virus first infected the blogosphere and wrought havoc on our neuronal cells. I fondly remember the first post; I had decided to let the blog take its own course, and determine its own development. It became more literary and less scientific than I had originally envisioned, and now I think I will rejuvenate scientifically with the kind of articles and commentaries I had hoped to have in the beginning - showing where the line between science and poetry blurs. For those who have enjoyed my poetry, I will probably post some/much of it on Disconnected Verses in the future.


Stylus Virus has a very modest readership at best, so to all that have stopped by: Thank you. I sincerely appreciate it, and hope you had a good read.

To avoid pandering to my vanities, I don't allow direct commenting. But I do feel its important and necessary to allow feedback. So, calling all "blurkers"! You have about a month to come up with witty retorts, snippets of sagacious wisdom and - hopefully - some constructive criticism too.

Feel free to comment on any and everything you wish to about this blog(courteously). If you have some concerns to air, or something thoughtful to say, here's the chance to say it. Or, if you like, just drop me a one-phrase comment :"I read/have read Stylus Virus". And may you have a productive viral infection.

[virii] about a death

When death comes, everything becomes irrelevant.
Be it a death in the family, your friend, your friend's family. Something you had stressed over so severely for days, suddenly dulls down into insignificance. Something that you complained about, that you harboured ill feelings about, shames you now with its pettiness. Then you realise the real reasons to hurt and grieve. The real burdens that weigh upon a soul.
When death comes - that's when you realise what's relevant.

[virii] prayer

Pride has become cancerous in this heart, turning patches into flint; contracting in arrogance, they strike against each other in anger; how one impetuous flash, burns down a garden. Ya Rabb! erode away the malignant stone with the constant stream of Your remembrance.

قَالاَ رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ

They said : Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If Thou forgive us not and have not mercy on us, surely we are of the lost! [Al-A'raf (The Heights), verse 23]

[pathopoetry] the paper

I heard you wrote for the paper
so I thumbed through the pages, searching for you

- you were bold, and seized me by the hand.
For a moment my eyes were stopped in recognition
...then they resolved themselves, were glad for the encounter
pleased at the chance for conversation
even though the voice in my head
wasn't completely yours

Since when did you articulate like this?
When did you become succinct
how your thoughts would effuse

So you can be straightforward when you want to be.
You can be pithy; a tepid read.
It's well that more can now recognize your worth
though you had to blunt the angles of your words
those starbursts that had dazed me with their hues

but even this semblance of yourself
was worth seeing, after such a parting.
Perhaps it's better, so that in closing this, I know
I am not closing you

how could you fit
between the margins

[pathopoetry] Paper birch

My friend leaves me in the wind
And with the wind I sigh

And open the hand holding leaves of love

My sister far, when her sun will rise
the sun sets in my eye

I open the hand with the seeds of love

Wind, my leaves at the feet moving on
Cause them to pause and to understand
Seed, my paper birch above the clouds
Shading my dear under every sun
while the leaves receive her hand

and never let our boundaries move
places our sentiments lie.



-----------

[pathopoetry] I miss my sis-

I miss
my sis-
-ter, we
are far
she is
my star
my sun-
-flower
with words
exchanged
we part-
-ially
relieve
the strain
on both
our hearts
until
those days
she's near
those days
I try
to slow
the pen-
-dulum

Mind of a bemused essaist (and blunderous typist)

Engrossed in a reference book whilst preparing an essay on 11th century Andalusian poetry, I suddenly came accross a poem useful to quote and, instantaneously animated, kept my eyes locked to the page in fixed contemplation as my fingers rapidly and mechanically typed out the opening lines:

A full moon – a midday sun – a stem on a dune of sand – fragrant musk


But, looking up up at the document, I realized that instead of a delicate description of the beloved, I had unfortunately reduced her to:

A full moon – a midday sun – a stem on a dune of sand – fragrant muck

[pathopoetry] I and the robin

I and the robin, the songs we sang!
We sang, oh sang, we sang, but oh!
I and the lark - what saving grace
Called forth the nightingale, cast out the crow!

I and the robin, our colour is true!
Sing we cannot, but song we must be
I have abondened my wreath of rue -
For broader a branch, for greener a tree

Hearts abreasted, love in array
Our colour is true, for truth we display
So friend, forsake me or keep me, I say:
My love will surpass you, do then what you may.

I am the song-, the love-, the blue-
I am the nightingale, casting the crow
I am the lark, but am I the True?
I am the robin; God help me be so.


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[virii] March 10th

You stop to write, and it is as though you are pausing at a fountain to cool yourself, and wash the dirt from your hands. It takes a while to get used to responding in living terms, to allow your thoughts out of their well-tended pasture and into the barren desert of a page that skeptical eyes may wander over. There is the tendency to make diminutive everything you’re trying to say, to busy yourself building that beautiful greenhouse for your beliefs, barricading yourself inside, and smiling through the glass. But how can you hope to grow ignoring that we are all under the same sun?

Leave the blooms to brave the wind
The wind will bear their legacy
Roses that under bell-jars grow
Though fairest seem, wither alone
And never will a garden yield
Nor fragrance swept, nor flower field.

[virii] March 9th

Tell yourself to write something, and you’ll feel adequate.

You’ll feel necessary. You’ll feel willful all of a sudden. I wish I could type as fast as I thought; I’m not much of a typer. I prefer the physical connection involved in writing. I don’t want to hear my words twice when I write. I don’t want a double echo. I don’t want to fall behind on my feelings.
In any case, this is what happens when you haven’t been at it for a while. Innuendo creeps in. It must be made more important. Stream of conciousness has been overdone. The reality eludes you. Before long, you’re talking in tongues. There you go again. What really defines you? And your sentences are too terse.
You’re still too slow, you know, the thoughts aren’t there yet, pick it up pick it up. I’m not looking at the screen, you know. You can chastise me later. I’m not going to edit this. I want to write, God help me, that’s what. Is that enough? I’ll correct the spelling afterward (look I told you I was a lousy typist. I’m not even a touch typist. I’m an all over the place typist). Like the words, the finger thoughts. You worry none of it will make sense. So what, ha. You’re not intent on creating genius. So what if people are confused. Listen you’re going to publish this? The reason is to give legitimacy. I didn’t like that line. But I’m not going to edit it.
It seems overdone. I said, stream of consciousness is cliché. My fingers hurt I’ve explained why see above. In any case, I should take typing lessons.
There’s a scratch and some redness on my hand because my hand is so dry because it’s so, so cold. Listen, I’m still wearing my winter coat. I had good things to say but this is what comes out when you’re just writing and don’t take the time to say anything. I’m feeling stressed. My stress rises in crescendos. I have multitudes of stress..stress (pause why am I pausing?) multitudes of stress…flies buzzing around impertinently. I want to read a book. And stop being needy. And pretentious. And see my friends and give them hugs (those that I can hug…the female variety). I worry about not making sense. I shift tenses. I start the work. I hurry to do something else, and I say: I will end.
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Excerpt from "Present Tense" a semi-autobiographical work of circular progress

[pathopoetry] Friend of a thousand

Friend of a thousand dispositions I
am only predisposed to call you friend
soul of a thousand questions without ends
are answers to be inquisitions why

mais je suis, je suis tout le temps   amie
pour toi pour tous pourquoi je pense pour qui

5-minute pseudo-masterpiece whilst trying to write up a mock grant proposal

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - #7

I was amused when my copy of Microsoft Word© underlined with angry red zigzags the word "pathogenicity" in my document, reminding me of what I really meant. Although I really wouldn't like to live in a "pathogen city."

(tired) Mind of a beta-Microbiologist -#6

Lemons Lemons Lemons
They're so sour
They're so nice
I like them squeezed in water
With some sugar
and some ice.



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That, my friends, is what you think about after spending the day toggling between NCBI searches and assignment typing, and realising that your sanity shows significant deviation from expectation (P=0.011).

[µstory] Partridge

He would a’ bought me a partridge. I can see him now, runnin ’round town, visiting every farm and pet store and ’splaining his ridiculous scheme, and the owners grinning from ear to ear, some laughing, You’re mad! they’d say. Course if it din’ work out he’d get the bright idea of catching one out’o the wild, and lo he’d ’a done it too, near fright’nin the poor bird half t’death I would guess, his head all a-feathered, ha ha! And at night, when we’d all be right fast asleep, he’d a’ got out with the poor thing, climbed up the pear tree in the garden with it in a litt’a cage in the crook o’is arm, and got his head pecked a dozen times, and muttered and sworn and oh my nearly fallen off, but he’d do it. Break o’dawn he’d ’a called us I’m sure. Come out to the garden! he’d be grinning and Look out the window why don’t you, saying we’d be fair surprised. And we would be.

Random writing fragment

An interval.
It has been long since epiphanies flashed before your eyes, long since you felt the sharp stinging pain behind your eyelids that comes with this enlightenment. Shut tight, the light spots warn you of madness, remind you that reason lies beyond. Open, and force yourself to look at Truth in its brilliance; but for that glimpse, you must be blind to all else. Shut tight, and your vision is saved. But there will be only darkness for you to see.

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - #5

Neisseriae
Are in your nez
Attached by Type IV fimbriae
That from the inner membrane grow
From single units of PilA
And out the outer membrane go.


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To be continued? :)

The pathopoet returns...?!

So I’ve started a new resolution – rather, I’ve revisited an old and oft-recycled resolution to write some worthy matter every day, or at least twice a week, depending on how it goes. The problem is, I tend to compose veritable epics in my brain and fermenting soliloquies which never end up seeing the light of day, due to the following:

1) I have a strict policy of preening any text that fumbles out of my mind into something decent before penning it down. I try to follow the route of Raymond Carver in my preoccupation with precision; I do believe, like any good poet (not that I’m calling myself a good poet, but merely indicating that I subscribe to similar theories) that things ought to be edited and refined; I vaguely remember my favourite poets and writers concurring through various quotes. However, this tends to mean that I end up writing absolutely nothing. So to remedy this, I am trying to edit absolutely nothing. Oh yes, I shall force myself to post this piece up while I cringe at its jagged corners.

2 )I have quick thoughts. Interestingly quick in Middle English means “alive,” and that is a fitting description too. I can never write as fast as I think – as for typing, will some kind soul please show me how on earth to patter down on these keys without looking? I compose what I consider to be good pieces, only to get hopelessly frustrated as I try to write them down. I am at thought number 998,786 and have gotten down four words. The end result is something that is painfully trying to catch up with the original sentiment, by then long dissipated.

3) I think of good things when it is most inconvenient. By the time I get some sort of writing implement or manage to reunite with my mechanical scribe, the muse has long since gone for a coffee and left me with fragments of ideas which barely make up a paltry sentence.

4) I can’t bear to jot down nonsense. Somewhat bemusedly yet with reasonable trepidation, I realize I am doing just that at this very moment. I love to flirt with sophistication, I am enraptured with subtleties, I gurgle with delight at that elusive complex metaphor. Which has thus far gotten me square in the middle of nowhere, as complex metaphors are wont to do.

5) I am obsessed with Purpose and Theme. There should be a Purpose to all things writ; and if they happened to be writ in a place with a little layout and quaint headings and labels such as “Stylus Virus,” then isn’t it awful to slide in something that is hopelessly disjoint from the whole elaborately established Theme?!

No, I suppose it’s not. And so, I just did.

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - #4

Corny things to say when you're a microbiologist - 2:

Q:What do you get when you cross an enteropathogen and a glass slipper?
A:Salmonella.

. ..
Okay, my head hurts due to severe corniness.

[pathopoetry] Revival

Most Merciful.
  elevate me
far from subliminal
from horizontal
i have my eye on that
rim of sun

[µstory] Sand in the throat

He still felt some uneasiness in his throat as he continued to stare out the window. He saw the wind whip up the sand into angry, rising circles. He watched sand raised over the lip of sand, watched air become haze and haze dissolve into dust. Then words came clearly from the back of the jeep, arriving in fragments, as though they first had to be retrieved from deep archives and, once recalled, moved rustily through the throat before being deposited by the tongue.

***

Excerpt from "Sandstorm," a short story