The Force trenched deep within the chosen ground—
That fallow land once hallowed by the Light,
Betrayed by wounds of old Imperial might—
Will through the Order find new strength abound.
That fierce machine, with sun-struck power crowned—
'Twixt snowy lands that parted like pale thighs
Receiving in its depths its lover's might—
Will triumph through twined flesh and heart and sound.
How glorious the cataclysm there—
The deluge of the crimson o'er the black!
Collapsing 'neath the heat of red and white,
The Forceful—shaken, bounty all laid bare—
Could not, before that lethal corps, turn back:
Together bound in monstrous appetite.
Poetic explanation in the notes on AO3 here.
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My brain was too tired to write old-fashioned prose last night, so instead of working chapter 3 of my Beauty and the Beast AU I did this instead. Have another moodboard because apparently I just can't help myself.
Can we have a list of all ur aliens? Like the crowns n the box kites n whatever else you’ve made? They’re super cool and I wanna know everything about them :)
No one's given me a prompt on my shower notepad for awhile, alas, so this morning I scribbled out a Garashir pastiche of my favorite Shakespearean sonnet instead. As you do.
(Transcribed with light editing below the photo. The original poem is Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth, which I memorized on a whim in high school and has thus been rattling around in my brain for the last 20 years or so.)
When my love swears that he is made of truth
I do believe him, though I know he lies
For his culture finds honesty uncouth
(Or so he says, with mischief in his eyes)
Whene’er I question him about his aims
In response to my many wearied sighs
He sits across our table and proclaims
That all is true, especially the lies!
But when I think on secrets that I keep
Not just from him, but all those I love best
This seeming lack of trust cuts not so deep
For on both sides is simple truth suppressed
And I have learned a new truth of my own:
That love lies not in trust of words alone.
Sonnet Reducer (pay-what-you-want, starting at $0)
Susan Sontag once wrote: “If I had to choose between the Doors and Dostoyevsky, then — of course — I’d choose Dostoyevsky. But do I have to choose?” When I first read that quotation, I thought of a journal entry I wrote in 2002, wherein I said: “I love Shakespeare and the Ramones. People want me to choose between high and low culture, but do I have to choose?” If I had to choose between the Ramones and Shakespeare, then - of course - I’d choose the Ramones, but the great thing is that I don’t have to choose.
This zine lives in that split between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture (which is a false dichotomy, anyway, but I digress) - sonnets (which are often considered a pretentious form of poetry) about punk stuff, stuff like mosh pits, drinking on rooftops, battle vests…and the Ramones.
I originally wrote and published this zine in early 2014, but it has been out of print for a while, so I decided to upload a .pdf version of it.
The poet urges the young man to reflect on his own image in a mirror. Just as the young man’s mother sees her own youthful self reflected in the face of her son, so someday the young man should be able to look at his son’s face and see reflected his own youth. If the young man decides to die childless, all these faces and images die with him.