[pathopoetry] a gloom made agreeable

I have the urge to re-hash old poems
that speak of such quiet moroseness
as has returned to me

with due reason
in all seriousness
and absurdity

this calm thoughtful melancholy
tempered by sense; my covered gloom.

wise to the uselessness of indulgence
of such a humour, I dampen the response

I would have wallowed
if logic didn't sneer

there's something comforting though
in the allowance of some benevolent commiseration
towards myself
for such serene despondence

to search for a hyperbolic verse
that will amuse
and console.


--

[pathopoetry] When a good friend stays over

when good friends stay over
I don't mind them seeing
the clothes in the bedroom
the dishes in the sink
but I try to be neater
and make sure
the bathroom is cleaner

and I throw on a well-loved worn-out T
but I'll make a real meal
and a good cup of tea
and remember the coasters
while we sprawl on the sofas

and when the alarm rings in the morning
I get up right then and am quicker in the shower
we'll make breakfast and have enough time to eat it
if I make sandwiches I'm generous with the Nutella

because when I have a good friend stay over
I can just be myself
and maybe even better


---

[pathopoetry] growing ourselves

you and I
we will be superfluous together
we will link hands, gaze solemnly at our wilting
nod heads, hold tight, lower our eyes

and where we feel empty
we will overfill each other
where the hollowness lies we will pile the russet earth
we will make warm mounds
over recesses we've carved
from our self-effacing blame

dry roots gently pulled

plant me
I'll plant you
with something to lean to
we'll grow



--

Whoa, jumping characin - Copella is revisited!

Those who've followed this blog since it's conception might remember my philosophical-phylogenetic musings on Copella arnoldi, the jumping spawners (complete with hand-drawn illustrations!) If you've missed that article, you might want to read it - frankly because I marvel at how much time I must have spent on it! ;)

In any case, finally you can see the actual footage that inspired me to write that treatise! So I guess interested readers of the original post can now just skip the explanation part altogether and move on to the musings.

The snippet is from a documentary entitled Equator: Rivers of The Sun. Do watch, it's amazing.

[µstory] The ants, I admire from afar

"....I get a rash on my hand that feels like fire. I blame the henna and am angry, but then get rashes all over my body and am in too much pain and burning itchy discomfort to be properly angry. I tell my then-med-student (now doctor) sister, who says, "Hives." What are those? I become acquainted with them well. I then remember being bitten by Something on that very same hand recently when picking up a cousin from a tropical farm house. I file this away mentally, sleuthing through the facts to pinpoint what on earth could have made me so miserable."

View/Download "The ants, I admire from afar"

[pathopoetry] The hungry mania of a single person after a draining workday

I am hungry, but too tired
to exert myself in the search for sustenance
I can starve myself to be symbolic, I think, while secretly
thinking, food

would be really good to have, yet sleep
would be fabulous, then my stomach protests
you are never good to me, oh no
oh no, you are far too spoilt

what with chocolate in the evening, recall?
and some random fruit for health
still you have grabbed at my abdomen
quite inconsiderately, I felt

the wrench of your complaining, did you
need to groan so low? don't you know my aching back is creaking
don't you see my eyes are glazed and burning


my spine is a sine curve, still reeling
from all those years of calculus carrying
so that I am still spited by those schooltexts
doomed to bend double long after working

and my dark circles are smarting

but you swear you are internally collapsing
(and I feel it too, my ribs meet my navel)

so I will fight my soporific fantasy
tear myself slowly from my comforting stasis
to put something, anything substantial, in you

so you can shut (up)
and I can go sleep.




-----
View/download "The hungry mania" poem

[virii] Writer's Rejection (+ new system: uploading files!)

No, I did not drop off from the face of the earth, but a lot has happened since my last post.

But now lets indulge in this as the literary digression it is supposed to be. I am really excited at the chance of finally being able to post whole stories now (and long monologues, haha), because I'm going to be using drop.io to put up my documents (a true gem of a site and app, I laud it profusely and sincerely, and you should definitely check it out). This way you can finally:
- Preview my work using iPaper so you can skim through the piece easily, and not have to scroll through a copious amount of text if you don't want to
- Download my large pieces and stories to read at your own leisure
- Even print out the stories if you are so inclined
- Have all my literary texts uploaded to one location which you can peruse

Depending on interest (and trust in your discretion), I am thinking of posting a link to the "drop" (where all my literary uploads can be found) in the future if the number of docs grows significant.

Now: on to it. The first piece is no story, but (ironically or appropriately?) yet another Seethe about writing :) Hope you find it amusing.

View "Writer's Rejection Seethe" - and download if you please!

[pathopoetry] Song of the Platonic Sweetheart

I have been meaning to write this for some time, and have been mentally turning it over, and physically reworking it for a while now, so I am very glad and even relieved that it is done. I really wanted it to turn out well and I hope it has; I may still revisit it in the future, but for now I felt that I really must end it, and so I have.

To my dear friends. You know who you are.

Song of the Platonic Sweetheart

No ballads have been sung for this.
Such tempered affection cannot inspire
Spontaneous odes or lilting melodies -
This steady beat won’t make a harmony
Ours was a love the world does not define.

Moth-wing romances resonate the air
Ubiquitous pollen lusts usurp the ear
Expunging fevered words from swollen lungs
All that is oversung, but sung and gone

So that’s the reason that I sing for you
Your care, I knew, deserved a longer line
Love beyond blood is not reserved for lovers -
We forged a link those notes could not endure
And our oaken timbre was sustained

Each other’s understated inspiration
In mutual admiration of our idiosyncrasies
Trading our shoulders to withhold the burdens
Of one another, we remembered God
And birthed a sun unclouded by desire

How many epiphanies can we claim
Within the clustered grove our thoughts have grown
Since we began this green companionship
Revealing truths we started to assume;

Though now we hang on different reaching boughs
I know the very moments I will miss you
The instances this distance will be felt
as some expanse, not solely by our footsteps
but by the different ways we card our lives

I sing for you to gently shore the waves

Remember my perception of your depth
Know that you made an imprint of yourself
Within the silvered lining of my mind;
Ours was a love the world does not define.

mascara

eyes hurt (eyes hurt!)
why (dirt?) no (squirt?)
no; I played with mascara,
even with sophisticated primer (aka
gunk) to add millimeters
to your eyelid hair before you
slather on blackness;

perturbed me
those disembodied spiderlegs
so maybe I scrubbed my face too zealously
grimacing at mudslides of concealer
anxious to be
re-revealed as me I
hardly avoided
that delicate eye area
until I was satisfied my skin had returned
smiled triumphant but my eyes ran burning
(that salicylic cleanser
really, is just soap.)

a few crocodile tears later:
eyes calm (eyes fine)
by all that rubbing, I may have removed a few lashes
but oh, are you winking at me, mirror?



--

Summer is a-comin' in

So here it is, another summer. A couple of life-changing events later, and Spring dandelions have long since peppered the green below my window.

It has been an interesting, eventful few months. I've had the entire contents of my laptop (all 6 years of it) wiped out - an unfortunate occurence which later seemed wholly insignificant after that very sudden death of a very dear person. I've had the great fun of explaining the digestive system with blue paint, plastic tubes and soda crackers; of making some geometric art and tissue paper flowers and sneaking some sketches in at the museum; of reading Shel Silverstein poems out loud and recieving poems written about me from a bunch of wonderful young people.

My life is spinning into a brand new direction, and it seems that this summer will be the time for significant change. But to me, summer is my time for poetry. I may end up anywhere, but I'll see you at Stylus Virus, friends.

grocery vanities

I desire a certain adulation
being selfish again and craving
a word about some wonder in me
as I shuffle doubtful by the aisles
coated and booted I claim no grace
at the cash register, holding tomatoes
my eye wanders lustful to gerbera daisies
browning at the petal-tips at 10pm

hockey-shouldered, I fumble with change.
drop your voice an octave and tell me
among this I am worth a careful sentence
murmur something only you find true
that I can pretend to cast aside laughing
silently soaring, hoping -;
and adoring.



--

Snowly Lullaby

Silently the gentle wind
Moves the earth below
Beneath the clouds the branches sway
softly falls the snow

this is why I need to say
that I love you so

Carefully the tender breeze
Takes the leaves below
Carries them so gingerly
Till they kiss the snow

this is why I need to say
that I love you so

Slowly in this careful night
I recede below
Into thoughts that still remain
drifting in the snow

this is why I need to say
that I love you so

Hoplessly the night moves on
On the earth below
Life will leave and what will stay
sifting in the snow

this is why I need to say
that I love you so

Strangely soon will dawn the day
Rising from below
If I wake, I hope to pray
As recedes the snow:

show me Allah the way to say
that I love you so




--

Nature insight:host-microbe interactions!

I picked up an old copy of Nature today (October 2007 issue) to read in the library...and guess what I found?

An "Insight" supplement on host-microbe interactions!
What's more, you can read it free online here: http://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/insights/hostmicrobe/index.html

For more features, visit the Insights archive on the Nature website: http://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/insights/. All are free to access for 6 months from the date of publication.

[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!