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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
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February 19, 2008 (Jenny.G., Heather Avila, John Moro)
Category: Writing and Poetry
High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution
February 19, 2008
Hello and Welcome!
Today marks the triumphant return of High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution! The last year has been very hectic for me, but I am finally settled enough to begin work on this Magazine again.
There are likely to be a few changes--the first is that I will not press myself so hard to get an issue out every single day. Twice or three times a week would be a bare minimum, as I foresee, but this will vary based on the amount of submissions I recieve.
I have a tremendous backlog of submissions I have recieved over the last year--anything that was recieved before midnight on New Years, 2008, will be eligible for the 2007 Anthology. There is no definite time for the release of the Anthology, but I will post details as soon as I have them and they are concrete.
I will be spending the next few weeks trying to get back in touch with all of our past contributors and benefactors--hopefully we will all be one nice cozy family again real soon.
Anyone you know who may be interested in reading or contributing poetry, short stories and artwork to the magazine, please refer them this way!
Enjoy and as always, your comments are highly appreciated!
Michael J. Bernard 
Shredded Grain of Dignity
by jenny.g. 
seeping in and down, the clear white clouds, turn tainted brown.
pity, it was such a tragic event, all is now lost that was once found.
and these fucking hypocrites turn their heads to me, whispering words of ludicrousy.
they haunt my dreams and bind my feet and burn me with their eyes of heat.
and pelt me with their words of hate, telling me lies of lifes new fate.
this fucking world goes round and round, flinging life into the ground.
led by lives with tarnished sins, that bind us to the graves we're in.
and, one by one, perhaps we'll see, that life is now what it was never meant to be.
demon eyes, peering in, beating down on doors of sin.
righteous ones, for who they might be, are blinded by the sight they see.
this fucking world, that spins, that groans, is bitter by the life it's shown.
this fucking place, this fucking show, there's so much more than what we know.
forgiveness yeilds like quiet defeat, sullen in the lives we greet.
and this fucking world, it goes round and round, keeping sin where life is found.
Emptyness
by Heather Avila 
emptyness
sign away your life
"No" means nothing here
this pill is your ticket out
all hope lost
more pills
spinning downward
addiction
why isn't this working
fill me with lies and false hope
i eat it by the handful
i'm not happy
better off clean
or maybe just one more...
Heroine
by John Moro ![Sir Johnathon! [SP]](http://a232.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/119/s_263637be8f9eb8f4fd3d2912bd7aa817.jpg)
hes been gone for hours
in the world hes made in his mind
no one can seem to reach him
to him theres nothing left
the pain is gone
his eyes in the back in his skull
his whole body is cold
consumed by the deadly fire antidote
in his thought hes on top of the world
but in reality, he sinks into a deeper hole
in his mind he is soaring through the sky
but he just lays there
motionless
speachless
solid
hes soaring until he hits a wall
a wall he can not get around
he goes back
but to find another wall as well
searching for an opening
the walls draw closer
tears run dow his eyes
the walls draw closer
he cries out form his soul
but everyhting goes black
the walls are done closing in
his body numb and cold
in his dream and in reality
5:25 PM
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Saturday, February 10, 2007
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February 10, 2007 (William Blake, William Shakesphere, Albert Camus, Mikhail Bakunin)
Category: Writing and Poetry
High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution
February 10, 2007
Hello and Welcome!
Today I wanted to display two of my all-time favorite classical poems, and two essays by two of the most profoundly influential writers I have encountered up until this point.
Michael J. Bernard
http://fargoneworld.blogspot.com
THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
1794
Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
1609
Power Corrupts the Best
by Mikhail Bakunin
The State is nothing else but this domination and exploitation regularised and systemised. We shall attempt to demonstrate it by examining the consequence of the government of the masses of the people by a minority, at first as intelligent and as devoted as you like, in an ideal State, founded on a free contract.
Suppose the government to be confined only to the best citizens. At first these citizens are privileged not by right, but by fact. They have been elected by the people because they are the most intelligent, clever, wise, and courageous and devoted. Taken from the mass of the citizens, who are regarded as all equal, they do not yet form a class apart, but a group of men privileged only by nature and for that reason singled ouit for election by the people. Their number is necessarily very limited, for in all times and countries the number of men endowed with qualities so remarkable that they automatically command the unanimous respect of a nation is, as experience teaches us, very small. Therefore, under pain of making a bad choice, the people will always be forced to choose its rulers from amongst them.
Here, then, is society divided into two categories, if not yet to say two classes, of which one, composed of the immense majority of the citizens, submits freely to the government of its elected leaders, the other, formed of a small number of privileged natures, recognised and accepted as such by the people, and charged by them to govern them. Dependent on popular election, they are at first distinguished from the mass of the citizens only by the very qualities which recommended them to their choice and are naturally, the most devoted and useful of all. They do not yet assume to themselves any privilege, any particular right, except that of exercising, insofar as the people wish it, the special functions with which they have been charged. For the rest, by their manner of life, by the conditions and means of their existence, they do not separate themselves in any way from all the others, so that a perfect equality continues to reign among all. Can this equality be long maintained? We claim that it cannot and nothing is easier to prive it.
Nothing is more dangerous for man's private morality than the habit of command. The best man, the most intelligent, disinterested, generous, pure, will infallibly and always be spoiled at this trade. Two sentiments inherent in power never fail to produce this demoralisation; they are: contempt for the masses and the overestimation of one's own merits.
"The masses" a man says to himself, " recognising their incapacity to govern on their own account, have elected me their chief. By that act they have publicly proclaimed their inferiority and my superiority. Among this crowd of men, recognising hardly any equals of myself, I am alone capable of directing public affairs. The people have need of me; they cannot do without my services, while I, on the contrary, can get along all right by myself; they, therefore, must obey me for their own security, and in condescending to obey them, I am doing them a good turn.
Is there not something in all that to make a man lose his head and his heart as well, and become mad with pride? It is thus that power and the habit of command become for even the most intelligent and virtuous men, a source of aberration, both intellectual and moral.
1867
Neither Victims nor Executioners
by Albert Camus
Yes, we must raise our voices. Up to this point, I have refrained from appealing to emotion. We are being torn apart by a logic of history which we have elaborated in every detail--a net which threatens to strangle us. It is not emotion which can cut through the web of a logic which has gone to irrational lengths, but only reason which can meet logic on its own ground. But I should not want to leave the impression... that any program for the future can get along without our powers of love and indignation. I am well aware that it takes a powerful prime mover to get men into motion and that it is hard to throw one's self into a struggle whose objectives are so modest and where hope has only a rational basis-- and hardly even that. But the problem is not how to carry men away; it is essential, on the contrary, that they not be carried away but rather that they be made to understand clearly what they are doing.
To save what can be saved so as to open up some kind of future--that is the prime mover, the passion and the sacrifice that is required. It demands only that we reflect and then decide, clearly, whether humanity's lot must be made still more miserable in order to achieve far-off and shadowy ends, whether we should accept a world bristling with arms where brother kills brother; or whether, on the contrary, we should avoid bloodshed and misery as much as possible so that we give a chance for survival to later generations better equipped than we are.
For my part, I am fairly sure that I have made the choice. And, having chosen, I think that I must speak out, that I must state that I will never again be one of those, whoever they be, who compromise with murder, and that I must take the consequences of such a decision. The thing is done, and that is as far as I can go at present.... However, I want to make clear the spirit in which this article is written.
We are asked to love or to hate such and such a country and such and such a people. But some of us feel too strongly our common humanity to make such a choice. Those who really love the Russian people, in gratitude for what they have never ceased to be--that world leaven which Tolstoy and Gorky speak of--do not wish for them success in power politics, but rather want to spare them, after the ordeals of the past, a new and even more terrible bloodletting. So, too, with the American people, and with the peoples of unhappy Europe. This is the kind of elementary truth we are likely to forget amidst the furious passions of our time.
Yes, it is fear and silence and the spiritual isolation they cause that must be fought today. And it is sociability and the universal intercommunication of men that must be defended. Slavery, injustice, and lies destroy this intercourse and forbid this sociability; and so we must reject them. But these evils are today the very stuff of history, so that many consider them necessary evils. It is true that we cannot "escape history," since we are in it up to our necks. But one may propose to fight within history to preserve from history that part of man which is not its proper province. That is all I have to say here. The "point" of this article may be summed up as follows:
Modern nations are driven by powerful forces along the roads of power and domination. I will not say that these forces should be furthered or that they should be obstructed. They hardly need our help and, for the moment, they laugh at attempts to hinder them. They will, then, continue. But I will ask only this simple question: What if these forces wind up in a dead end, what if that logic of history on which so many now rely turns out to be a will o' the wisp? What if, despite two or three world wars, despite the sacrifice of several generations and a whole system of values, our grandchildren--supposing they survive-- find themselves no closer to a world society? It may well be that the survivors of such an experience will be too weak to understand their own sufferings. Since these forces are working themselves out and since it is inevitable that they continue to do so,there is no reason why some of us should not take on the job of keeping alive, through the apocalyptic historical vista that stretches before us, a modest thoughtfulness which, without pretending to solve everything, will constantly be prepared to give some human meaning to everyday life. The essential thing is that people should carefully weight the price they must pay....
All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice. After that, we can distinguish those who accept the consequences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being. Since this terrible dividing line does actually exist, it will be a gain if it be clearly marked. Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless strugle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a thousand times the chances of success than that of the latter. But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions.
1946
9:03 AM
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Friday, February 09, 2007
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February 9, 2007 (Stephen Mead, Corinna Underwood)
Category: Writing and Poetry
High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution
February 9, 2007
Hello and Welcome!
My brief writing "17" was published today in Dogmatika, click Here to read it!
I encourage you to enjoy today's High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution--and remember, feedback and encouragements in the Comments Section is always appreciated!
Michael J. Bernard
http://fargoneworld.blogspot.com
The Botanist's Romance
by Stephen Mead 
Everything is so bewitching,
filled with the particular light and silence
I crave most. Everything-----
a dazing blanket,
the radiance so peaceful
its softness surrounds.
At least this is the way it seems to me.
Exhilarant, gleaming and smiling,
content to myself,
I pace the clean corridors and drift
like an angel past these plant's feral rows.
As though held aqueous, under a spell,
such herbage is lush with an earthy
sensuous fragrance. It flowers thin
and incandescent as something grown
beneath a forest's emerald roof.
Of course this ceiling is slanted though,
and clearly yellow with the light
specifically designed for such greenhouses.
It can't be found anywhere else.
At first the luminosity is dense.
But gradually flowers bloom and consume it
with an ungodly racket.
Their petals smudge my eyes like ashes.
Their stamens are the nucleus
from which all living things glimmer.
At the tide's peak the moon collaborates.
Then their moisture content is at its height.
Then they are one with both sea and moon,
having nothing to do with me whatsoever.
An inferior beast, they think I use up their air.
I'm bothersome to them as the moths
their petals resemble.
Those moths pick and batter away
at the blossoms to eat the one they're most like.
I tell you, they seem jealous, as am I.
I, like the moths, am a lunar casualty
to this chaos.
Daylight comes. Again green enters.
This brilliance should be enough.
But desire remains.
Waste
by Corinna Underwood
The light spilling over the window sill
reminds me to turn over
before I see it pool in the sheets
where emptiness lies.
Each morning I am beside myself.
Shadows are newly poured
around my face and body
filling all crevices
and hardening to crust.
Afternoons only defer nightfall.
Movements are matchsticks
snapping with flintless tinderness
until I splinter.
And from these pieces
grow thornflowers for a desert.
7:22 AM
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Wednesday, February 07, 2007
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February 7, 2007 (Kristen Chorba, Tiffany Poole, Kristina Wood, Casey Jones)
Category: Writing and Poetry
High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution
February 7, 2007
Hello and Welcome!
I encourage you to enjoy today's High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution--and remember, feedback and encouragements in the Comments Section is always appreciated!
Michael J. Bernard
http://fargoneworld.blogspot.com
Here Comes the Rain
by Kristen Chorba 
Here comes the rain, another storm
Another time to feel alone and torn
You hide the clouds to make the rainbow seem real
It sometimes seems you don't care if I feel
Anything at all…
How hard I always fall…
I thought that maybe this time it would last
But again it ended…you are always gone so fast.
How could I have been so wrong
To trust you all along
And think that everything was going so well
And how is it that I can never tell
That you are planning to leave
Right after I begin to believe
The tangled web of lies you've spun
And there it is; the heartbreak's begun.
You never change
You never change
Why do I always think you will?
You never change
You never change
To you I'm just some cheap thrill
That lets you talk me into these lies
You'd think that I could see it in your eyes
That all along you thought I was a fool
How ever could you be so cruel?
When all I really wanted was for you to care
And maybe even for us to share
Some time together where we could be
Happy, being together just you and me.
But again I've fallen and I was wrong
I cannot let you in for long.
I know what you want, wait, no I don't
But I cannot let this happen again; I won't.
From the beginning you had my heart
But now I'm learning, I have to start
Being brave and being smart
And learn to place you apart
From the people who do care
And the people who are really there
And while it is hard to set myself free
I am worth more than the misery
I let myself feel when you walk away
Leaving behind not even a day
That I don't wonder what went wrong
And why again this didn't last long
And what you're doing and who you see
During the time you are not with me.
Goodbye
Goodbye
You cannot stay
Goodbye
Goodbye
Please be on your way
Your memory will not fade fast
But hopefully, soon, at last
Thoughts of you will wane in my mind
Because the only thing I can do is leave you behind.
Getting on with my life, getting on with my day
Without you is the only way
I can follow my dreams and be who I wish;
Because, in the end, you were too selfish.
Poem to a Poet
by Tiffany Poole 
I want your soul to
Span the skies, you
Told me
And instantly, images
Were provoked to
Fly –
Your effect like
Gale winds on
My prose –
Each word
Straining
To your depth
And tripping over
Unlaced phrases,
Ambling awkwardly over
Alliteration to
Reach
The length of your lines.
And stanza to stanza we
Two-step,
My fingers flying
Across the page
Because your heart is
Reading every line.
As your glance touches
My expression,
Visions explode
Of meter and rhyme:
Heartbeats,
And rhythm serenading
Words upon ream
After ream.
You look,
And write back –
Tickling the
Corners of my lungs
By exhaling my
Name,
And I breathe in
Your rolling
Hello.
What ink and
Wood could not
Create,
You do.
Each phrase laden
In honesty,
Verbs in rhyme
Rewinding
In my mind
From first sun to
Cool moon.
Your pen is paused and yet
Space and time is
Filled
With verbiage
Unable to be penned.
Each yawning soul-gap
Made fat
By invisible vowels
And consonants.
Just gibberish
You say, and yet
Your nonsense is
Pressed
Into my back pocket –
De Bergerac in denim –
Cloth too think to look beyond your
Meaning:
For in your eyes
Your words are there,
And in your
"Delightfully attentive"
Smile,
And in the hands
Moving liberally across the
Page to write those
Words
To me.
Meditation
by Kristina Wood 
Glimpses of the pale moon,
Out too soon...
Never waning,
Never running from the faces,
Who wasted the lives...
Of the faceless,
Graceless,
Impatient...
Looking into them I can see,
The emptiness I once knew,
How my eyes turned from brown to blue.
Look up at the blue sky...
Dripping its grace and radiance upon us...
Throwing my soul upward,
And touching the clouds.
Inside...
I am touched by them.
They penetrate and melt through me.
They be me,
They see me.
All at once the world is blinding bright,
And in an instant everything goes black...
I am inside me,
Inside me I am free.
I breathe in...
And all is silent.
I inhale the peace of the earth,
She sees me and waves...
I exhale all of the turmoils of the self,
I let go of all pain...
Now I am free.
Inspiration
by Casey Jones 
Somewhere
Hidden deeply,
Held captive by time,
The construct of thought,
A belief,
Begins with a faint tremor,
A choir of fantasy,
Singing sweet suggestion,
With comfort,
Then contemplation,
Continual and residual,
Infancy and adolescence still echoing,
From high above,
We wait,
Staring down into this canyon of possibility,
We have not forgotten,
Everything still remains,
Assessed facts,
Collected fictions,
They are our truth,
Our circle's reflected depictions,
Maybe even our souls,
It is who we have become,
Then who we shall be,
Acceptance of finite fortune,
Beginning with the faintest of tremors,
The energy of idea,
The power of creation,
Then with compelling thunder,
Dynamic inspiration.
8:28 PM
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Tuesday, February 06, 2007
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February 6, 2007 (Theresa C. Garcia-Newbill, Chelsea L. Mulzac, Scott Frady, Shiara MacCrasik)
Category: Writing and Poetry
High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution
February 6, 2007
Hello and Welcome!
I encourage you to enjoy today's High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution--and remember, feedback and encouragements in the Comments Section is always appreciated!
Michael J. Bernard
http://fargoneworld.blogspot.com
"It is only those who have never known love, who think they do not need it...And it is only the foolish among us, who think they can survive without it."
-Robert Brian Newbill (June 30, 1969 - July 3, 2006) Hartselle, Alabama
Quick Death Take Me!
by Theresa Cecilia Garcia-Newbill
I
In the solitude of the sea
white winds bid a warm depart,
the desperate flapping of wings
fervid with zeal, compelling air
with power, intimidating ordinary
men raw, snatched one last gust
with breathless abandon; winged-clipt
sea gull, silent seasons steal the moon
in the casement of Orion's glittering
form. I loved you well, where you once
dwelt tender upon our journey, your
forever yours, my forever mine, all
that our souls contain.
II
In those last days, you were the poet
the romantic chanticleer who brought
down for me a waning, brilliant orange
sun that shone away social thirst I once
had felt from earliest days, evaporating
my fear indicating "There is no danger here."
I followed your glance
so tender and dear, taking my chances with ease.
A promise of love slipped from tethered wanting
to a sea of joy and fulfillment.
Together we hovered along prolonging
a moment in history,
praying time would simply make it stop for us.
III
But Time's enchantments ceased and through a
gateway She betook you. To hell with blasphemy!
Why would thou give the gift of life and love
only to take it away?!
Cruelty is thy name!
Time is thirty seven, his rocky domain!
I stand here in the rain
smite upon Her Runic stone, at a lonely cross
where bye-roads meet
red faced with anger among a multitude of headstone
grass, facing the tidings that hath slain the day
and praying with persistance and sorrow
to have quick death take me!
No Fear Through Warfare
by Chelsea L. Mulzac 
Thoughts from the past try to rear its ugly head
I can't look back I must walk with the living and continue to forsake the dead
Run back to my old ways, God forbid
I have shall persevere because I am a child of his
So many decisions to be made and things to let go
Some days I got answers and then some days I just don't know
Wolves in sheep's clothing hang around in packs
Trying to catch me slipping hoping that I fall off track
Surrounded by a heap of shams who still wonder why I don't claim them as fam
Counterfeit smiles filled with deceit and beguile
Nevertheless, my radar sensed the crew and though it seems to be many
I fret not, because me + God make plenty
Loneliness tries every now and then to tease me with the fact that I'm single.
Whispering in my ear, You're never gonna meet your mate if you don't get out and mingle." Yet past landmarks remind me of what I had and what I don't want seconds of
Therefore, I wait on the Lord, stay optimistic and will only embrace a man who truly loves
Single parenting is in a league of its own
Taking care and raising a child ain't easy
Yet still I manage to make my house a home
Trust and believe I too will benefit from the doctrinal seeds that have been sown
Daily doses of knowledge keep my mind ahead
After applied knowledge, wisdom does her thang
Oh, yeah! My spirit is well fed
Revelations from my battles shoot me up the ladder
Insight from Gods word makes me fatter
My spiritual bank runs over; truly, God's way is enriching
Those who can't relate; sorry to say but u suffer from malnutrition
Backstabbers and vile doers a conviction for you is secure
Your defense is of no avail
With God on my side
There's no way in hell that evil will prevail
The fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much
And in case you haven't noticed; God's anointed can't be touched
You've been defeated and rejected
Life without God is just too hectic
Might as well, bow down and respect it!
After the Cataracts
by Scott Frady 
Matisse saw the world. With slow eyes
He wandered the earth and drew its pictures
With colors, pigments
Sediments and layers;
Intricate like spider architecture
Delicate, naked
Studied and captured.
Jackson Pollock saw dots and
Bill Gates found them useful
Making pixels words, creations from the void;
Granting permission for mediocrity on a global scale,
Instant pudding poetry, devoured
By a million bytes .
The voices of the dead
Don't bother us anymore, because Warhol has triumphed with his soup cans and love of plastic.
The prophets today speak in xylophone tone;
Their words a sweet tune in the king's ears.
But ironically I saw Bob Dylan tonight in
Black and white, his songs are in slow motion,
Baby blue singing a dirge;
A funeral march that leaves us
Itching to change the channel.
The curse of poetry is upon the world.
We are given obscene imposters,making their
Concession to the loss of language
The lack of subject.
Constipated in mind
Dissipated in sight
And lost in their obscurity.
The curse of poetry is
Obscurant burial
A death by attrition,
By slow degrees of drowning
In all the billion words
Passing through wifi,
Until at the right time,
The couplets and iambic pentameters,
The free verse, the beat generation,
The Romantics, The lefty, pinko utopians
Bubble up Like spring water
Cold, startling,
Killing all numbness;
An end to false summer
A good cleansing snow.
The tadpole caught today
Is nothing like the pixel frog.
The frog that went a'courtin' is
Nothing like the animatronic turtle.
We can laugh but cannot feel.
The clear eye of the poet sights the
Quarry of our souls and takes the stinging arrow from his quiver to strike the heart of the beast;
Who has mistaken life with eavesdropping,
Feeding on self-perpetuating crime, Never bothering to
dust for fingerprints;
No smudges on the floor, no handprints on the walls;
Nothing that reminds us of caves and paint that lasts three bibles long;
The preferred medium being water color,
The fade and feint slight of hand
Disappearing dry chalk waste
Leaving us the color of empty.
We Regret To Inform You....
by Shiara MacCrasik 
You stand tall and straight and proud – nameless shells in dress uniform.
Your hands don't shake and your eyes don't waver. It's your duty to inform
the father, the mother, the sister, the niece – family members that love him, and wait
for him to come home, tall and proud as you are, his head held high and his back straight.
But you know he won't. Now you have to tell us."We regret to inform you," you say.
"Your son, your brother, your uncle, your friend, was killed in action today."
We knew it as we watched you approach, but hearing it makes it all real.
We cover our ears, our eyes, and our hearts - no defense against the hard steel
of your message – the one from the "We" that your uniformed group represents.
Truth settles in, years after you're gone, but it still doesn't make sense.
He was twenty-one, but in so many ways he was just a little boy;
His sister's angst, his father's pride, and his mother's tears and joy.
"I'm doing fine," he wrote to his mom. "We're doing good things," to dad.
But to Sis he wrote, "I want to come home and have what other guys have.
I'm scared out here. The war's going to start. The bullets are soon going to fly.
I have a bad feeling. I can't shake it off, but for you and the guys I'll try.
"When I come home, I'll to go to school and make something of my life.
I'll meet a girl –someone you'll like – well, I hope – and make her my wife.
"I do want kids, eventually, a boy and a girl – like us.
Yes, I know they'll fight all the time. They'll outgrow it – just like us.
"I love you, Sis, never forget. See you, Gary," his letters were signed.
Then your "We" came along and shattered my life, told me he'd left me behind.
You regret to inform me – I'm sure that you do. I regret being informed.
Copyright @ 2006 MacCrasik
8:54 PM
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Monday, February 05, 2007
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February 5, 2007 (Gerald Daniele, Alex W.J.P., Aleathia Drehmer, Jean-Pierre, Jon Gordon)
Category: Writing and Poetry
High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution
February 5, 2007
Hello and Welcome!
I encourage you to enjoy today's High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution--and remember, feedback and encouragements in the Comments Section is always appreciated!
Michael J. Bernard 
Suburbia
by Gerald Daniele
Four kids three cars two pets and a wife
Five-bedroom estate-it's a wonderful life
Suburban escape from the gun and the knife
Looks like the American Dream
Dad's drinking and driving from work every day
He pays no attention to the bills he won't pay
Just go to the Go-Go and watch the man stray
Things aren't quite as they seem
Mom sends the kids off to the bus every morning
Then goes on the Net and spends with no warning
On Dior and Coach and Lennox and Corning
Yeah things are really great
In a room sits a daughter with no self-esteem
She'll give you a hand job for coke or ice cream
Her acceptance is based on 10 cc stream
And they all make fun of her weight
Their squeaky-clean son, a professor of rock
His black light turns on as he dead bolts the lock
Supplying the drugs to the rest of the block
He's this close to suicide
And then there's Timmy the littlest one
The result of a night when they had too much fun
He never was wanted from the time he was one
He's in for a bumpy ride
Four kids three cars two pets and a wife
Five-bedroom estate-it's a wonderful life
Suburban escape from the gun and the knife
Looks like the American Dream
Sane Man
by Alex W.J.P 
I'd sit quietly in the corner of my room
Over the creeping shadows of the winter's bloom
In a cardboard city under the wide, vast blue
With a boiling coffee and some sweet music too
Looking at my plastered pictures of Lily
It's alright for some but to me a triviality
There must be something more
I know that life's not this much of a bore
It was the first day of summer that I donned my coat
Taking to the road with perhaps too much hope
Tramping over the bittersweet undergrowth
The stench of Mother Nature bore all I could cope with as I headed South
Towards the winds that blow cold, hard and fast
Where benevolent warmth might idly last
While my loves would look into the ether aghast
Is it really that bad?
Around this way it's like one of those pop-up books
All the animals in the Ark arise before me so I can take a look
Their words on the walls are as clear as a midsummer's day
They're made of plastic, paper and glue so there's so much I can say
Yonder on the hazy horizon I spy a house
Its windows shut tight to keep the missionaries out
There's more colour in here than there was all about
I'm in with a shout with a spouse without eyes or a mouth
In the kitchen there's an unending conveyor belt
A procession of enough well-refined coffee to make your heart melt
All the hopes, dreams and truths I've ever wanted are clearly spelt out
My headstrong desires clung to me like a shroud
But still the wind and rain claw at my stained-glass windows
There's time enough for other such stuff to follow on behind
Everyone lodging with me pays rent in faithful adulation
Though I can't help but wonder if there's too much surface to these salutations
After a brief stop I packed up and deserted that little nation
It might have been a well-meaning invitation
But yet I chose to take back to the road all alone
I donned my coat, my cute little bow-tie suit and hopes and I started back home
Where I know I'll be forgiven my insolence
Where walls draped with white flags will mark the end of my absence
Some might say it's better to throw caution to the wind
But it swept me off my feet before I could even begin
In this warm bed I'm lying in
I feel like a sane man again
Although I might dream of what fire awaits within
Somewhere down the line is a deep hole to bury me in
Possibilities
by Aleathia Drehmer 
We spent the day living like the Hopi
on a reservation in the desert.
We shot bow and arrow,
ground corn on a mortar,
made our own tortillas,
patiently crafted candles
by the fireside.
We built adobe bricks
and watched them bake in the sun,
we made sand paintings
with the understanding that the
Earth Mother could take them
whenever she blew her breath.
At night, we walked with the candles we made,
through a sacred, open air temple
that was simple yet enveloping
shaped like two half circles embracing.
The candles lit our faces,
young and burgeoning with hope
and blind to differences.
The moon spun a silver hue
over the ground when we all blew
our candles out at once.
We stood there with the sense
that we could feel the lives
of those who passed before us,
and when we all lay under the
expansive night of stars,
we reflected on the possibilities
of a future where the wealth of one
did not mean the poverty of another.
Feel It For Life?
by Jean-Pierre 
If I were to, God forbid,
Pass away and no longer live,
Would you mourn me forever?
Or would you mourn me for now?
Would you be crippled as a mother losing her baby? A father losing his son, best friend, and protege?
Tell me how....
What would you seek, what would you do?
Would I just be a memory that you no longer hold onto?
The feelings, the emotions, the teachings that I would have instilled,
Would you make that the foundation for our kids lives to build?
Would you walk every moment of your life almost unable to breathe?
Would you see me with one wish, and ask me to never leave?
Would you regret wasting time, and not becoming my wife?
Tell me if you would feel this pain for life?
If you were to, God forbid, never again be able to live,
My heart would be gone with nothing left to give,
For our kids I would be strong, but inside I'd be dead,
My spirits would have to breathe air into my body to provide simple direction to my head,
If you were to go, God forbid, so suddenly I wouldn't see,
Understand, please, listen very closely,
You are my vision, my ears, my nose, and only vein,
You are the many vital organs that make up the heart and allow it to remain,
You would be mourned, and cherished in every and any way,
I would not for a moment allow your soul from me to ever go astray,
Days would be long, nights would be even colder,
Seeing our daughter in you as she grows older,
I would kneel to you everyday at your grave,
Proposing to you over and over and asking you to forever entrust your life with me,
I would pray for that one wish of you to miraculously return,
I would feel for life our love, and never allow its beautiful colors to churn,
To capture you and hold you so close once again.....
You, to me embody love, mom, wife, honey, my best friend.
©Jean-Pierre 2007
The Haunted Guitar
by Jon Gordon 
It hung in the store window. A large red semi-acoustic guitar with one tone control missing and three pick-ups, two of them humbuckers and the middle an open magnet type. It looked ancient. The tuning keys were faded silver and large. The neck looked ok, and there was a six-position tone control on the upper left of the instruments body. Danny Crossan had a pocket full of notes, and a new guitar was exactly what he'd wandered over to the southside looking for, at Al Burnside's guitar store where he was, after 18 months or so, something of a regular customer. There were other instruments in the window but the price was right and with a touch of cosmetic alteration it'd do just fine for the show Danny was working on. Something with a bit of character, a bit of flair.
Danny walked into the cluttered, airless shop. Guitars of all types were arranged in racks across the floor, hanging from the walls and ceiling. Acoustics, electrics, expensive vintage models and budget priced copies of more expensive models. Al was behind his counter, with Rufus, his elderly alsatian dog slumped in a corner behind him. Only ever seen him move once, thought Danny – the dog, that is. Al looked up from a magazine he was reading.
'Al, how are you? I ain't been here for a month or two, did you sell that gold strat?' Al grinned. 'I took it home and gave it a respray. It's up on Ebay right now. Are you still interested?' Danny shook his head. 'Not so much the strat but I am interested in that red semi acoustic in the window. What's it going for?'
Al grinned again. 'You're the first customer to ask, I only put it in the window this morning. I would've put it on the floor but I'm running out of space so it's in the window for now. Matter of fact, I can sell you it but it needs a bit of work or at least a clean. I only collected it last night. Want to plug it in?'
Al brought the guitar from the display, held it up and gave it a brief strum. ' I can't really tell you very much about it but we get them like this every so often, older stuff I'm not so sure what I can do with.' He connected it to an amplifier and handed it to Danny, saying 'in its present condition, about a hundred and fifty, plus a bag if you need one'.
Danny pulled over a seat and took a plectrum from his coat pocket. It was in tune, if a bit quiet. Playing some warm-up open chords and working the tone and volume controls it was quickly apparent that the guitar had more than one style to offer an experienced player. Alternately sharp and smooth, the neck hadn't worn out so badly and when Danny turned down the treble and added about two points of reverb, it boomed like a full-bodied acoustic. An expensive one. As an exercise Danny began playing a song he'd written years ago, when his first proper band had looked as if they might do something other than occasional bar gigs, the song that was the b-side of that 100 copy vinyl single they'd recorded (and broken up over when no-one could agree who was paying for it). 'Broken Rules' was a song he was still proud of.
I forgot who I was yesterday/ I remembered you but you never say/ what's gonna happen and what just won't/ and don't ask me cause you know I don't .....
'I'll take it, with a bag'.
Danny got home to the one-room flat he was attempting to turn into a recording studio, sort of. There were two 4-track recorders on the floor, two other guitars, one a bass, and a keyboard which had a choice of rhythm tracks which he could demo songs with. Anything more complicated could get done in a proper studio. It was doubtful he'd ever get anywhere near a full-size 48 track again though, like he had with The Heatseekers. They'd gained enough interest to get some label interest although looking back that was perhaps the only interest Polymorphic ever had in them. It had all sounded pretty sincere and if it had gone through, then there might've been something in it for all the band, instead of just the drummer who went off to join another of the label's outfits and got his picture in the music press once or twice. 1989 had been quite a cool summer though, what with one thing and another. A lot cooler than 94.
Danny ran a shower and made out a plan for the rest of the evening. Do some food, clean the guitar up, give Ben a call at the studio for next week. The new songs were coming along alright. Some reworkings of older material and about four new numbers. If he got the gig with Ben's platform night that'd work out just fine, the open mic tryouts had gone well enough. He dried himself off and walked back into the living room.
There, with the bag folded neatly beside it, was the large red guitar he'd just bought. Danny blinked slightly, thinking he hadn't taken it out of its cover or if he had he didn't remember doing it. He picked it up and started to strum a few chords, checking the neck more closely for imperfections, wear and tear, any cracks or obvious flaws in the instrument. Feeling a bit inspired, he put the guitar down and switched on the stereo. Probably the only copy still in existence of 'Last Machines' b/w 'Broken Rules' by the Bay City Robots, and Danny put it onto the turntable, like he did every couple of months. It sounded like it always had: flat, tinny, underproduced and definitely a product of its time. And Danny knew every chord change, every hiss of the background tape, for that matter every scratch on the vinyl as well as he knew anything. Except what that mumbled voice said at the end of 'Broken Rules'. He'd never found out if it was a band member or the studio engineer or anyone else that'd been there on the day, but it had started an argument that'd ended the band entirely. The record crackled to its end. Suddenly, the red guitar slid down the wall and landed with a hollow chime. Danny jumped to his feet and quickly placed it more carefully against the wall, as if that could've stopped it falling in the first place. No upset neighbours this afternoon, fortunately.
Later that evening Danny took both himself and the guitar over to Ben's Budget Studio, with a view to trying out some of the new songs through a full PA system. There were a few bods around the pool table in the studio lounge, and Ben himself in the office. Danny walked in just as Ben put down his phone. 'Any chance of a late booking this week?' 'There might', Ben said without looking up from the thick black folder in front of him, 'so long as you pay upfront'. Danny handed over some paper and coins and walked into the smaller of the two rehearsal rooms. Everything was set up for a full band rehearsal and it took a couple of minutes to set up his instrument through the PA system, but after that everything was just as it would on the night, save for a lack of audience.
Halfway through the second number the studio door swung open. Danny stopped playing and half-shouted 'hey Ben, wasn't that enough for two hours!' But it wasn't Ben who was standing in the doorway. A stubby figure in a thick overcoat walked into the middle of the room. Possibly in his sixties, definitely over 50 and a little unsure on his feet. Almost entirely bald and with a chin beard to compensate for this, he stood looking at Danny with bleary grey eyes. Danny started to say 'I've booked this room already' but the stranger said, a little loudly, 'I know that guitar, son'. Danny let the instrument slide to his side, wondering exactly what was going to happen next. 'I said, I know that guitar.' He waited for a reply. Danny thought quickly. Al wouldn't knowingly sell anything hot. Would he?
'I bought it today from Al's store and I paid nearly two hundred for it so if you've any problem with that I suggest you take it up with Mr Burnside, and I don't appreciate you breaking up my rehearsal either so before I get you thrown out of here ....'
The stranger put his hand up. 'Listen to me son, I know that guitar. You look at the back of it, right down beside the strap fitting, and you'll see there's a couple of small marks right there. Those are someone's initials, and do you know whose they are?' Danny shook his head. 'That guitar, that guitar you're holding in your hands right now, it belonged to Albert Warren.'
He paused for effect.
The name Albert Warren rang only a very dim and distant bell with Danny Crossan. Some name from the early 70's, sort of a blues rock type who'd made three or four albums before ... well, Danny really didn't know enough detail to make any connection between the guitar he'd just bought and some half forgotten 70's muso. 'A bit before my time, mate' said Danny, and added, 'I got this from what I would describe as a reputable source and it's a decent enough instrument apart from one or two cracks, and I should add I've every intention of keeping it so say what you've got to and I'm sure Ben can phone you a taxi'.
There was a sudden silence, then Danny asked, 'you're not Albert Warren, are you?' The stranger shook his head. 'He married my sister in 1975. I never liked him much, what with the long hair and those grubby clothes and you don't know what, and it was me that got arrested when I tried to get that guitar back from him because it wasn't his,' and he started to shout ' IT WAS MY DADS'. Trouble. Danny felt himself moving, subconsciously, to the back of the room. The stranger continued, 'that was one of the very first electric guitars in this country and it belonged to the Bernie Maxwell Orchestra, of which my dad was an original member. One of the biggest dance bands of their time, they were, and when they broke up in 1961 my dad brought that ' he gestured towards the instrument 'back to our home as a souvenir, which is where it stayed until my sister Margaret married that bloody hippy!' Before Danny could say anything more he continued 'and no I don't want it back, it's a worthless piece of slapboard, but you mark my words son, one day that guitar will cause you more problems than you know how to solve'.
With that, he turned and walked from the room. Danny looked around blankly. Who was that ignorant piece of crap and how had he got into the studio? After a few minutes, he walked out of the studio and into Ben's office.
'Hey Ben, did a little old bloke in an overcoat just walk past here?' Ben shook his head, saying, 'there's been nobody.' If he'd left the building he must've done. But Danny went back into the studio. And the guitar was gone.
The very next morning the body of an elderly man and a broken guitar were found on the pavement outside Ben's Budget Studio. Apparently he'd fallen off the roof.
8:17 PM
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18 Comments - 16 Kudos
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Friday, February 02, 2007
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February 2, 2007 (Karl Koweski, Harmony Yucuta, Dee Servance, Peter Keomanyvanh)
Category: Writing and Poetry
High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution
February 2, 2007
Hello and Welcome!
Maybe because I am not very intelligent, but for some reason I have always had the hardest time spelling "January" and "February" correctly, consistently.
Today is Groundhog's Day, so let's all hope that Puxsatawney Phil see's his shadow---if that's what means the winter is going away, anyways...
We've got a really solid line-up today, one that I am most proud of. Long in coming, Karl Koweski joins us with "Breakwater". Harmony Yucuta, Dee Servance, and Peter Keomanyvanh give us different glimpses of this troubled world we inhabit.
I would like to say that I have been following Mr. Keomanyvanh's work for coming up on two months, and I am very proud of the development he has shown----When I think of his work, the first thing I typically think of are poems like today's "Tibetan Prayer", and his previous poem "Boom, Boom, Boom", but he has shown a much wider range recently with poems such as "Was She an Angel" and "When the Sun Rises".
Eulalie Cholmondeley has been collecting material from various online resources on some of the Poetic Masters, which goes along the lines of what I have been preaching lately (READ! Read everyone, read everything new and classic, but most definitely READ!). Her articles on Ezra Pound, Arthur Rimbaud and Sylvia Plath are most highly recommended. Ms. Cholmondeley is quite a prolific writer, and her blog is absolutely bursting at the seams with poetry that I enjoy quite a bit (and don't comment on nearly enough).
Past contributor A.D. Winan's has been posting quite a few poems in his blog, and his most recent "One too Many Poets One Too Many Poetry Readings" is also highly recommended.
I sincerely wish I had more time to read, comment, and then promote the various artists who I have come to enjoy reading on an almost daily basis. I look forward to reading many many other people, but because I am usually so stretched for time I don't leave comments nearly enough. Don't be surprised to see "kudo's" from me much more often than actual comments.
And, as the hippocrite that I am, I leave you with the obligatory message:
I encourage you to enjoy today's High Contrast--Literature of the Digital Evolution--and remember, feedback and encouragements in the Comments Section is always appreciated!
Michael J. Bernard
Breakwater
by Karl Koweski 
if you remain in your car
all you can see
is the breakwater.
ragged chunks of concrete
pieces of rebar jutting out
like mummified fingers.
Lake Michigan lays there
a dead ocean
indistinguishable from
its mortuary slab.
smell the embalming fluid,
a noxious mixture
of detergent and petroleum
byproducts pumped in
by the refinery and
the surrounding mills.
after climbing the breakwater
and finding a smooth boulder
of concrete to perch on
I watch the February storm
approach from the northeast.
the sky and sea seem
to merge creating a
seamless shirt of the world.
ten years gone
and nothing really changes.
Chicago still glimmers to
the west;
the distillation towers
of Amoco refinery sulks
in the east.
and all I ever succeeded
in doing this last decade
was killing time.
I murdered ten years
so cleanly
I didn't leave so much
as a witness.
Time to Wake Up
by Harmony Yucuta 
Now´s the time to wake up,
time to shout,
tell the people you meet
what you´re really about
no time for hiding,
no time for shrinking
gotta show the world
what you´re really thinking
cos the frequency is rising
the frequency is rising
the power is rising
the power is rising.....
things are gonna get even more surprising
cos time is quickening
change is quickening
no time for slackening
face the mystery,
the biggest events in recorded history!
don't want to miss out, miss the show
who knows how long we´ve got left to go?
cos Pachamama´s angry,
Pachamama´s crying,
she can only forgive our disrespecting so long.
for once we´ve
trod on her, spat on her,
tore her up, cut her down
smothered her, poisoned her
forgotten that she´s even there!
what can she do but rise up, rise up
shake us up. spit us out,
get rid of these parasites
who always think they´re always right!
who never use their eyes and eyes,
too blind and deaf from all their fears.....
so here´s the last chance lottery,
here´s the choice for you and me,
can we change how we´ve lived so far
evolve to who we really are,
come together, use our powers
stop thinking that the world is ours!
for we hold more magic in our hands
than we can possibly understand
until we wake up, open our minds
leave the old ways of fear and boredom behind
cos what you think, you create,
whatever you love, whatever you hate,
and you decide your destiny
whether you´re trapped, whether you´re free,
you chose your parents, do you know why?
you´ll see yourself if you stare in their eyes,
life´s a joy, life´s a game,
deep, deep down we´re all the same,
i´m your sister, he´s your brother,
don´t like the game?! well, choose another!
you choose the players, you choose the rules
don´t blame me if you´re surrounded by fools!
that´s obviously what you needed right now
to learn your current lesson, somehow
cos life´s just a process of evolution,
evolution is revolution!
cos if we change the way our minds run
we might just change the way the world´s run
learn at last to respect the Mother,
learn to embrace not to kill our brother
join with Pachamama as she is reborn,
hold our heads high, see a brand new dawn.
instead of cowering in the dirt as the earth shakes in anger,
hiding in out homes as the weather gets stranger,
well you can´t hide forever, you got to make a decision
are you going to wait until the waters have risen
and washed you away?
are you in, are you out
It´s time to wake up, time to shout!
A Second Chance
by Dee Servance 
We are a blind society
Cloaking ourselves inside every day vanity.
Walking through the world
As if the problems of other humans
Do not exist.
Covering our faces
With the shadows of simple things
As we hide behind imagined unrealities.
We ignore the real and tell ourselves
The horror is not there
Making it an afterthought, saying it's not true.
Lying to our hearts as we banish the sorrow to a corner
Or a dark space that we pray can cover
Or diminish all that shouldn't be there.
But it is there. I's everywhere.
Surrounding us, encompassing us
Foreboding and looming
Over everything and anything, seeping into every space
Throwing itself into our faces
Brushing against our skin.
Grasping on until we can not breathe.
Forcing us to see, pushing us to realize
That it is there.
Standing beside us, breathing upon us.
Silently praying
Desperately crying
In front of us.
Begging for light
Hoping for a hand of a sign that it's all a lie.
Wishing that it wasn't true.
Simply asking for a second chance.
Tibetan Prayer
by Peter Keomanyvanh 
Interviewer:
So, China has claimed Tibet to be a part of China and the United States
Has no official position on the crisis.
Chinese Insider:
Yes, yes, China illegally claimed Tibet
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