Keta3’s Weblog

wow cool peom.  I dont think I have ever sleep walked, but it would be cool to say i did.  I wonder if when people are sleepwalking they dream of what they are doing?  Or if they are totally unaware of what is going on around them.  It they are unaware isnt that scary?  The brain is asleep and the muscles are taking over.  Are you responsible for your actions when you sleep walk?  If you steel something, or murder someone… do you still go to jail?  Would you go to jail for manslaughter… cuz someone has to pay.  What about when people talk in their sleep.  I know I have done that before.  I always ask people what I say, but they never remember.  When you talk in your sleep is it your subconsious… your true self talking?  I wonder if anyone has ever been seriously hurt while sleepwalking.  Or does your body take care of itself?  This was the first longish poem i have read and commented on.  I usually go for the shorter ones.  But this one stood out to me.  and i’m glad that I read it.  it brought up some interesting thoughts and ideas tied to sleepwalking.  like how there is always an open door for a sleep walker to walk through and how the people never walk out of windows.  again that is the  body looking after itself.  like surviving.  When the body is starving it will eat itself to stay alive.  Is That self  preservation or what?

This poem evokes some interesting thoughts in my mind.  The author made some interesting comparisons in The Fly.  Like how a man in just like a fly.  It makes you wonder if like how there is a bigger universe around the fly if there is a bigger universe around us humans as well.  How freaky would it be to look out into space and see these other world beings that were 100 times larger than us?  And every time they took a step we had a chance of being squashed?! 

On that same note…. Do you think that fly’s are aware of us?  Do they understand what a fly swatter is?  A carrier of death.  Because if they are not aware of us, that could explain why we as humans are not aware of other beings that are larger than us.  We are trying to find life on Mars, but what if there is a separate universe with its own milky way that we cannot even comprehend. 

This poem has five stanzas with four lines in each.  There is a rhyme scheme that the second and fourth lines in each stanza rhyme.  Sometimes a rhyme scheme can make a poem sound corny, but this poem does not have that effect.  It can also limit a writer’s diction, but again that does not seem to be the effect in this poem.  I’m really proud of how the author represented himself … he did a good job.  I need six more words so here they are J well nine ha ha

In the first stanza it says that two little girls find the secret of life in a line of poetry.  In the sixth stanza the author said that she wrote it but previously in the fifth stanza she says she thought they found what she could not.  So two other people found the secret of life in another person’s work, but that person did not see the secret of life in her own work.  How often does that happen in this world?  And what exactly is the secret of life?  It could be different for every single person.  My mom creating the community garden might seem like enjoyable work to her, but to someone inside the courthouse it may symbolize the secret of life, because plants and nature to me seem greatly intertwined with life. 

Another of aspect of this poem that is odd is how the stanzas are made up.  There are nine in all, all are four lines long, and it is typed up in double columns, like a newspaper or something.  The thoughts are not really connected at all either, when moving to the next stanza the thought kinda breaks, so I have to re read it twice to make sure I got the right idea.  Why would the author do this?  It may be that the author just wanted to make her poetry much different from anyone else’s.  Because isn’t that what poetry is?  Trying to capture individuality like no one else has before? 

The boys in this poem must be very young, because they have not been tainted by the prejudices of their parents.  They walk side by side one white and another black without a care in the world.  This poem must have been written in the earlier or mid 1900’s, because that was the time when racial prejudices ran high.  Now it’s not a big deal at all to see friends enjoying time together with opposite skin color.  It does not bother me at, but maybe it still bothers the people that are still alive from that previous era that still held it against black people that they did not sunburn.  These people are our grandparents and great grandparents.  Now it’s not fashionable to show prejudice to other people, and if you do, then you are the one looked down upon.  When people call other people racial names I kinda think that it’s the speakers true character showing through.  If someone calls someone white trash, then I think the speaker is white trash no matter what their skin color.  There is only one color for stupidity and ignorance and it is ugly.  Also I think there is only one color for liars, cheaters, people who steal, people who murder, just people who do wrong things.  They are not necessarily white, black, brown, red, yellow, green or blue, but a mixture of all of the above, because no one is perfect, and we cannot as a society blame one cultural group for everyone else’s sins.

How exciting is your first concert?  It’s pretty great, I just had my first concert the other week, and it was one of the most fun things I have done in my life.  Which makes sense because I love music, so naturally I would like a concert.  But when you think about the first time you do anything is pretty exciting.   Think back to your first years and remember your first birthday or first x-mas (that you can remember) how great were they?  Now my birthday and x-mases are not so thrilling.  They are still very special, but they seem to wear out like your favorite shirt, or they are eaten up bite by bite until only the crumbs of a once magnificent cake are left.  Does this rule apply to every aspect of life?  It just might.  There is probably even a math equation that shows how the value of an object or experience declines with the number of times it is used.  So what are we to do?  Go try new things I guess, in this life I’m sure there are enough new things to last you the rest of your life.  I find this thought comforting, because doing the same old thing day after day is not fun at all. In a way this could be connected to economics; which is the study of people’s endless wants and how people satisfy them.  How do you satisfy your next high?  Would you go sky diving or parachuting?  There are so many choices to pick from.

Lost brother made me think of Native American folk tales.  They always make references to their brother tree or sister sky.  It’s too bad that we don’t think that way anymore.  Unless you really hate your brother or sister for some reason you would not purposely hurt them.  You would not go mow them over with a car, like the rainforest is being mowed over by chainsaws each and everyday.  If we treated the environment like our brother or sister there would be a lot more “tree huggers” in this world, but maybe that would not be so bad.  Pollution would be less, places would be greener, fewer animals would be going extinct, and we might not have paved roads.  Technology might not be all that good, because the advancement of technology goes hand in hand with destroying the environment in my opinion.  It’s a hard thing to decide.  Once I have had a cell phone or an I pod how I would feel if someone just took it from me?  Not happy at all. It’s like once you have given a person freedom you can’t take it back.  You can run a dictatorship over someone that has never known freedom.

A lot of people think that in the last century we have destroyed our environment.  That may be true but I think we are just destroying the credibility of our stewardship.  If the world really wanted to get back at us all she would have to do is kick us off the world with another ice age simple as that.

To Myself reminds me of thinking of someone who has died.  “Even when I forget you I go on looking for you.”  When that person leaves your life the pain recedes and the years proceed, but one day an object or a smell might spark your mind and make you think of that long gone person.  “I believe I would know you I keep remembering you sometimes long ago but then other times I am sure you were here a moment before and the air is still alive around where you were” In this excerpt from the poem I think the writer is saying that if that person were not dead and they came back today after being gone for twenty years that the writer would recognize that long last person and still know them and their appearance even thought they had aged.  The last part of the quote makes me again thinking that the writer saw something that reminded him/her about that deceased person and they experience de ja vu remembering past memories.  “and I think then I can recognize you who are always the same who pretend to be time but you are not time.”  Being dead in a way defies time, you no longer age, but your are also not necessarily time, the dead are governed by different rules.  “and who speak in the words but you are not what they say you who are not lost when I do not find you.  When you can’t find a dead person they are not lost, their soul is in a different place.

This short little poem was so cute to look at I had to read it ha-ha.  It reminds me of my mother and me.  We will make a batch of cookies, or there will be watermelon in the fridge, and we eat them fast, super fast!  Soon there is one cookie left, or one serving of watermelon.  It just sits there like a stalemate.  We both want them but we both don’t want to look selfish.  Since there are only two of us, we also can’t blame it on some other person; obviously the lie would be spotted and shot down right away.  So for a few days that last cookie/serving of watermelon stands.  But like most things it has to fall.  Someone will eat it and then walk around the next day with her head lowered when the other person living in the house asked, what happened to the last cookie/serving of watermelon?  Something will be mumbled and soon another batch of cookies will be made, or my Mom will go buy another watermelon at Mary’s.

For some reason the last of anything always tastes better.  Just knowing that you are taking that last delicious morsel makes the taste buds tingle.  William Carlos Williams seems to agree, because he says in the last stanza, “Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold.”  Does that mean we should never save anything?  Because if we do someone will snap it up on the first chance that we look away?  Who is in the wrong…the person who takes the last bite, takes the chance of looking selfish, or the person who waited because they did not want to look bad, or they were waiting for a more opportune moment in which to indulge themselves.  

I’m pretty sure that the war Donald Hall is writing about is WWII.  When I read this poem, the only one that came to mind was The Vietnam War.  This poem is exactly ten lines grouped together by two lines so it looks like five small paragraphs.  When I read through it gave the poem a really cool effect, it was also hard to string the thoughts together even though it was the same sentence, just broken in half.  1943 compared the homelife with the horrors of war.  No matter how much Dom boxed he was not prepared for the gruesome battle scene, and perished ten months later.  No matter how much people prepare for war it’s nothing like the real thing.  Fighting over seas and just remembering the realalities of home made thier situation even more unreal.  LIke living at home was some past life. 

I also liked how Donald Hall compared frostbitten feet with white milk.  It again tied the two worlds home and war together in a sick excuse for a life now lived with the uncertanties of every waking minute.  Even though a soldier’s life feels like its crumbling, back home everything is still working like clockwork.  I would think being a soldier would feel like I was caught in a time warped wormhole.  Everything is so different, then just on the other side of the sea everyone carries on like nothing has happened.  LIke a big bubble was surrounding the warfront and there was no way to peirce it to get to the other side.  I know wishing for worldpeace sounds corny, but If that could be accomplished so much good would be created in our world.

One thing i learned this week, is if you apply yourself during school you wont have home work during the weekend:) its taken me a while to learn this lol.  I will be doing  work my projects during the break.  This is kinda lame, cuz its a break, but as is life a guess.  Ill try not to hold any grudges against my teachers lol jk.  Other than doing school work I’m just going to go with the flow.  I know we arent goin on a vacation or anything like that.  It will be fun to have a semi break, im looking forward to it.