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.


------

[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.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.



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

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.


--------------------------
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.