Havok's ranting, now available on paper

[Remington]

That's right, another poetry/writing thread.



In the Lives of Trees

In the lives of trees we see the lives of men reflected,
One reflects the other, their paths of life connected.

In the youth of Spring both beings flourish and expand,
New shoots and buds for tree, new height and strength for man.

When Summer rolls around both man and tree are at their prime,
With quiet confidence and strength, they while away their time.
With their height and strength they give the small and weak much aid,
Both seedlings and young children will find shelter in their shade.

When the time of year is right for fall to show its face,
Man and tree slow down, age begins to check their pace.
Leaves fall, skin sags, and the strength of youth is gone
With nothing left to life but helping the new generations dawn.

And when the time for man and tree has finally run out,
Winter creeps into the land, and their fates are beyond doubt.
For, at Winter's chilly side, comes his companion Death,
Taking life from man and tree with his all-chilling breath.
Once again the land falls silent, deep in Winter's thrall
Until at last the land begins to hear Spring's gentle call.

But lo, behold, in Spring's warm glow, a miracle is seen
The tree returns to life, with buds in vibrant green.
Amazing, that a simple tree could defy Death's icy grip,
And then return to life, giving good old Grim the slip.

Perhaps then there remains a spark of hope for humankind,
A loophole in our mortal fate that we have yet to find.
We can live on through our art, through the creation that art allows,
But for how to cheat our final death... only the trees know how.


I'm also working on a really good piece called The Price of Knowledge, which should be done within a week or so. It was inspired by the Black Iron Prison, actually, so I thought you guys might be interested.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Wow, I'm really picky about poetry, especially rhyming poetry because it's so easy for it to go horribly wrong, but that was really good.

[Chairman Risus]

Gotta say I liked it. The end brought it home for me.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I hate rhyming poetry.

Unless your name is Rudyard Kipling.

[Remington]

Sorry, I'm not quite desperate enough for attention that I'll change my name to get it.

Yet.

[Remington]

Here's a piece of flash fiction/short story I've been working on. I got the idea for it from the Black Iron Prison, actually.


The Price of Knowledge

   The book was old and tattered, the dark green of its cover barely visible under the fading of the years and the thick layer of dust that covered it. Robert reached out tentatively, brushing his finger lightly across the cover, but pulled it back when he realized what it was. It didn't matter what it was about, he definitely shouldn't read it. Definitely not... it was too dangerous.
   He had found the book deep in the back of the library he tended to, behind an old wooden shelf. His apprehension was certainly justified: the book had no State-approved seal on the spine. Reading unapproved books was a capital crime, this was known. It was rumored that the Police knew who has hiding old pre-War books, that lists were kept. Those who went on the lists... disappeared. The best thing to do, the old librarian thought to himself, would be to simply dispose of it in the furnace. Yes. That is what he would do.

   The evening came, the morning came, but the book remained unburnt. Robert tried to do it, he really did, but he couldn't bring himself to throw it away. The book whispered to him as he stood in front of the furnace's hungry flames; it whispered to his curiosity and to his desire for the unknown. It whispered to his thirst for knowledge, the thirst that was such a fundamental aspect of his being. His mind told him to throw the thing away, it told him of all the horrible things that might befall him if he chose to read it, but his heart whispered that he should keep it. In the end, that is what he did; for it was a true piece of history. It was a piece of the real history, not the constantly edited version that the Party enforced upon the people, and Robert could not bring himself to destroy it.
   As the next day passed, the old librarian's thoughts kept returning to the book. The evening found him sitting on his bed, the old tome in his hands. Silent minutes went by as his thirst for knowledge warred with his common sense; a stillness broken only by specks of dust that blew in from the open window. Then, with a sudden movement -as if to stop his common sense from staying his hand- he opened the front cover.
   Decades worth of dust filled the air, stinging Robert's eyes and sending him into a coughing fit. He stifled the sudden noise with his hand, fearful of being discovered. Setting the book to the side, he got up and opened all the windows. Once the dust cloud had dissipated, he sat back down and began to read.
The cover proclaimed the book's title in bold, ornate lettering: Greatest Literature of our Time. He turned the page. The first page had only two lines of printed text, centered and in a simple font. "Knowledge is power" proclaimed the first line, and the second was similar: "The truth shall set you free". Robert was mesmerized.
   The night unraveled quickly as he read, swept away by dreams and visions conjured up by the greatest authors of ages past. He drank in the knowledge, like a man dying of thirst that had finally found an oasis. The works of such great authors as Shakespeare and Voltaire sparked in him a flame that he had long thought extinguished; the fiery desire to explore the unknown; mankind's innate hunger for knowledge. He continued reading, enraptured, until the bright light of dawn began to shine through his window. To his surprise, the clock on his wall showed six o'clock... time for work. He tucked the book away behind his bed and stifled a yawn as he walked out the door.
   The next week went by in a sleep-deprived blur, the reality of the grim and filthy library in which he worked supplanted by the complex and engaging illusions of the stories he read at night. His body forced him to sleep on the third night, and also on the fifth, but otherwise he stayed up every night. The characters and scenes were crafted with elegant description and the subtlest of characterization; they seemed to spring from the pages. They were real, as real as the world he lived in. More, perhaps. The novels and stories produced by the Party were always the same: the heroes had to root out rebels or other "dangerous" people, who were always trying to destroy the rightful government. The heroes followed the Party's directions blindly, and the Party was always, always depicted as the ultimate good. Everything was black and white... even the slightest hint of grey meant that that person was a traitor.
   But these stories were different. The characters fought, they cried, they lived. They agonized over their choices, they wondered whether they had done the right thing, they wondered what was right and what was wrong. No-one told them what to do and what to say. Friends became enemies, and enemies were not the faceless, horrible monsters you had assumed them to be. The characters swam in a gray-tinged sea of moral relativity, and he loved it.
   As the week passed, he grew more and more exulted. It showed in the way he carried himself; with a swing in his step and a smile on his face. He was happier than he had ever been, and for the first time in his life he felt the warm glow of freedom. It was true: knowledge was power. He noticed things now that he would never have seen a week before. He saw flaws in the illusions the Party had created for everyone... small flaws, easy to miss, but still there, visible to the eye that saw and the mind that thought. His mind was becoming free, and it was a wonderful feeling.

   Saturday night found him curled up on the bed again, rereading the old stories by the flickering light of his table lamp. The words wavered before his eyes as the sleep he had put off so long fought to claim him, before dissolving into a sea of black and the mist of dreams. The stories would not be denied by such a simple thing as sleep, however. Visions of Adam and Eve floated in his mind, misty imaginings of those who took from the Tree of Knowledge and were damned forever as consequence. God's voice boomed from the heavens as he pronounced their fate, and-
   Crash. The noise of the door splintering echoes harshly through the room. Robert struggled to sit upright. The confusion of sleep still clouded his mind and blurred his vision, preventing any thought other than an overwhelming sense of fear. The door cracked even more under a second blow. The third blow broke the aged and cracked wood completely, and the sanctuary of his room was broken by the flash of searchlights and the yelling of voices. Robert found himself squinting blearily into the glare of four flashlights, held by dark and indistinct figures. His tired and sleep-fogged brain finally clicked, and he realized who they were. Who they were, and why they were here. He cowered in the corner of the bed as the men moved in, a cornered mouse with the cats moving in.

   The men hauled him out of his room, while a man in a perfectly tailored suit picked up Robert's book. He had a disgusted look on his face, as though he were handling something particularly foul. Indeed, he held the book gingerly, as if it were radioactive. He tossed it into the nearby furnace with a negligent flick of his wrist, and Robert yelled. He struggled against the men holding him, desperate to stop the flames that ate away at those precious pages. It was futile, of course. All it earned him was a few murmured words from the suited man to the ones that were restraining him. His head rang like a bell, and everything went black.
   He woke up in a damp prison cell, still cold with the frost of morning. It seemed unreal. He hoped... prayed, even, to a God that he had only heard about through the old stories, that this was all a nightmare and that he had never actually woken up. He knew, though, that he was only deluding himself. He was hustled into a trial before noon. He merely sat, dazed, as various suited men came up and decried the horrible evils that he had done. He didn't know why they bothered. Everyone knew the outcome of the trial. The truth wasn't important, only how the public saw it.
   The sun was setting in a blaze of fiery red when he stepped out into the plaza. The crowd roared when they saw him step out into the plaza, their entertainment for tonight. He took a deep breath, and began to walk toward the platform in the center of the city square. As he walked closer and closer to his doom, his fear and despair began to boil away. They left behind only razor sharp clarity. He made a decision, then and there, that he would not die as he had lived. His back straightened, his stride lengthened, and he climbed the steps to his execution platform with courage in his heart. His mind was strangely calm as the charges against him were read out, the calm in the centre of the hurricane of enraged spectators. A single thought came to him as the firing squad prepared to fire, a single revelation. The truth will set you free, he thought. I am free.

[Arafelis]

I enjoyed the writing, and of course the dystopian revolutionary is a sympathetic character.

But I'm not sure the irony of the story was intentional.  Here you have a hero: a liberal academic taking a stand for truth and freedom.  He is a Good Guy.  And a villain: the impersonal totalitarian State.  They are Bad Guys.  The Good Guy lives his life under the lies of the Bad Guys and as abandons their corrupt ideology as soon as an opportunity presents itself, upon which they destroy him with no remorse or explanation.  What makes this ironic is that within the story the hero condemns black-and-white storytelling, yet himself is living one out.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I actually like this about the story.  It makes it very Discordian.  What I would like a little more is for the story to be exaggerated to the point where the irony becomes more apparent to the casual reader.

[Remington]

I enjoyed the writing, and of course the dystopian revolutionary is a sympathetic character.

But I'm not sure the irony of the story was intentional.  Here you have a hero: a liberal academic taking a stand for truth and freedom.  He is a Good Guy.  And a villain: the impersonal totalitarian State.  They are Bad Guys.  The Good Guy lives his life under the lies of the Bad Guys and as abandons their corrupt ideology as soon as an opportunity presents itself, upon which they destroy him with no remorse or explanation.  What makes this ironic is that within the story the hero condemns black-and-white storytelling, yet himself is living one out.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I actually like this about the story.  It makes it very Discordian.  What I would like a little more is for the story to be exaggerated to the point where the irony becomes more apparent to the casual reader.

Hmmm... yeah, that irony wasn't intended. Perhaps it's my pesky subconscious mocking me again (it does that).

Food for thought.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I really enjoyed this; the writing was quite good with an excellent use of language and imagery. I like the subtle irony and wouldn't ham it  up any further; the dense aren't going to get it anyway, and it would only ruin it for the more perceptive.

I don't know if you're looking for any suggestions, but if you are I had a couple:

he opened the front cover.
   Decades worth of dust filled the air, stinging Robert's eyes and sending him into a coughing fit. He stifled the sudden noise with his hand, fearful of being discovered. Setting the book to the side, he got up and opened all the windows.

This wouldn't happen, so it detracted from the flow of the story for me.

God's voice boomed from the heavens as he pronounced their fate, and-
   Crash. The noise of the door splintering echoes harshly through the room. Robert struggled to sit upright.

This is all very passive voice for the situation, maybe a little reworking? "In an instant Robert was jolted from his reading by the splintering noise of the door crashing open. The sound of impact as it slammed against the wall seemed to echo harshly around the room" or something like that?

[Remington]

I really enjoyed this; the writing was quite good with an excellent use of language and imagery. I like the subtle irony and wouldn't ham it  up any further; the dense aren't going to get it anyway, and it would only ruin it for the more perceptive.

Rather ironically, the subtle irony wasn't intended. Perhaps that means I'm one of the dense ones, or just that my subconscious is smarter than my conscious is  .

I don't know if you're looking for any suggestions, but if you are I had a couple:

he opened the front cover.
   Decades worth of dust filled the air, stinging Robert's eyes and sending him into a coughing fit. He stifled the sudden noise with his hand, fearful of being discovered. Setting the book to the side, he got up and opened all the windows.

This wouldn't happen, so it detracted from the flow of the story for me.

I'm always looking for suggestions  

The book is old... anywhere from 60-100 years. Robert's room is also quite stuffy.

God's voice boomed from the heavens as he pronounced their fate, and-
   Crash. The noise of the door splintering echoes harshly through the room. Robert struggled to sit upright.

This is all very passive voice for the situation, maybe a little reworking? "In an instant Robert was jolted from his reading by the splintering noise of the door crashing open. The sound of impact as it slammed against the wall seemed to echo harshly around the room" or something like that?

Perhaps, I'll think about it. I tried to write the story in a more passive, detached tone to emphasize that the result of the story was really inevitable. That's one of the few physical action scenes, though, so perhaps a more active tone could be used.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I enjoyed the writing, and of course the dystopian revolutionary is a sympathetic character.

But I'm not sure the irony of the story was intentional.  Here you have a hero: a liberal academic taking a stand for truth and freedom.  He is a Good Guy.  And a villain: the impersonal totalitarian State.  They are Bad Guys.  The Good Guy lives his life under the lies of the Bad Guys and as abandons their corrupt ideology as soon as an opportunity presents itself, upon which they destroy him with no remorse or explanation.  What makes this ironic is that within the story the hero condemns black-and-white storytelling, yet himself is living one out.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I actually like this about the story.  It makes it very Discordian.  What I would like a little more is for the story to be exaggerated to the point where the irony becomes more apparent to the casual reader.

Hmmm... yeah, that irony was intended. Perhaps it's my pesky subconscious mocking me again (it does that).

Food for thought.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I really enjoyed this; the writing was quite good with an excellent use of language and imagery. I like the subtle irony and wouldn't ham it  up any further; the dense aren't going to get it anyway, and it would only ruin it for the more perceptive.

Rather ironically, the subtle irony wasn't intended. Perhaps that means I'm one of the dense ones, or just that my subconscious is smarter than my conscious is  .

I don't know if you're looking for any suggestions, but if you are I had a couple:

he opened the front cover.
   Decades worth of dust filled the air, stinging Robert's eyes and sending him into a coughing fit. He stifled the sudden noise with his hand, fearful of being discovered. Setting the book to the side, he got up and opened all the windows.

This wouldn't happen, so it detracted from the flow of the story for me.

I'm always looking for suggestions  

The book is old... anywhere from 60-100 years. Robert's room is also quite stuffy.

Well, it was also in a library, which are usually not very dusty (for obvious reasons) and the dust would be on the outside only. Also, Robert is a librarian and would presumably think to wipe the dust off. Last, unless there was a dust bomb inside the book, opening it wouldn't cause a big dust cloud. Not trying to nitpick, just letting you know where thinking about the story interfered with reading the story.

[Remington]

I enjoyed the writing, and of course the dystopian revolutionary is a sympathetic character.

But I'm not sure the irony of the story was intentional.  Here you have a hero: a liberal academic taking a stand for truth and freedom.  He is a Good Guy.  And a villain: the impersonal totalitarian State.  They are Bad Guys.  The Good Guy lives his life under the lies of the Bad Guys and as abandons their corrupt ideology as soon as an opportunity presents itself, upon which they destroy him with no remorse or explanation.  What makes this ironic is that within the story the hero condemns black-and-white storytelling, yet himself is living one out.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I actually like this about the story.  It makes it very Discordian.  What I would like a little more is for the story to be exaggerated to the point where the irony becomes more apparent to the casual reader.

Hmmm... yeah, that irony was intended. Perhaps it's my pesky subconscious mocking me again (it does that).

Food for thought.

My bad, fixed. See? My subconscious is fucking with me again!

The dust thing was essentially an attempt to underline the book's age. I'll pass it around to some other people and get their opinion on it; if they mention it too then I'll probably change it.