Sunday, November 23, 2008

A Poem by Me

Bound to the mill by our own device
We mistake the actor for the part
In doing so lose the core of our heart
Forgetting the space beyond the stage
We are caught inside an invisible cage
A prison of time and space, decay and age
No warden but I, Me, Mine
For beyond this we are truly sparks Divine

-ishtar ishaya-

Lee's Book


This is a little bit off topic for the blog, but I wanted to show you anyhow. . . . it is a wonderful photography book just finished by my sister's boyfriend Lee Gumienny.
I am usually not so into photography books, but this one I found to be very engrossing. It is a tale in the language of photography of his time in South Korea as an expatriate English teacher. He published it through Blurb.com and if you are interested there are some viewable sample pictures. Here is the link that will take you there. . .http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/432915. . . . .

Monday, November 17, 2008

Xanadu

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry,
Beware! Beware!His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Xanadu by Samuel Taylor Coleridge