Always…

Days started – days stopped
Deep past the eye escaped
Down near river round da alley –

Yikes screamed Dan nagging graciously –
Yodeling gratitude echoing greatly
Yellow whales startled down near river.

Roads streets signs sidewalks – sunnier
Roses stop peoples sullenness soaring greatly year round -
Round damned determined doomful living grieves souls

Start teaching God’s
Significant talented deeds
Started daily – yup

People excited days-days-days stop-
Ping grown? Never! Restless souls stop
People….

never




First word of each stanza has same letter. Last letter of every word starts the next word... I know that the end gets confusing but it'll make a lot of sense... so ask if you need to!

haiku

I really enjoyed learning about the different poems. I decided to write a haiku and also a haiku that goes along with the activity Friday.

The amazing part
Of love is the beautiful
Lessons that we learn.

My four words I chose were hippo, spork, belch, and orange.

The orange hippo
Uses a spork for his food
And gives a great belch.

A journey back...

this story has to do with the pictures we were looking at on Monday. It was the picture of the eye, with clocks in it, and it said, I wish I could've spent more time with him, so he would remember my name (or something like that)

The Journey back
I was so excited, I hadn't seen her in months. It had been way too long and I was really excited. As I drove to the nursing home all I could think about was how, the last time I saw her she knew who I was!! She knew I was her granddaughter, and she knew who my dad was!! Most of all she knew she loved me!!! O I felt like it was taking me hours to get there, I was so excited. As I walked in, I walked throught the different homes, I couldn't stop from smiling, and I felt like I was running to see her. I got in, and looked in her room - not there. I looked to see if she was playing bingo - not there. I walked to the family room -looked around, and I couldn't see her. Then a nurse said, "your for her." She pointed at her. There grandma sat, head stooped down, drooping and she was sleeping. The terror hit me as I saw her, her recovery was only for a short amount of time. She had recovered a lot from Alzheimers about a year before, and in my mind, she was never going to fall again, but she relapsed. I looked at her and realized at that moment that I was going back to where I had been almost two years before. I went over to her and I whispered in her ear, "Grandma, its Ashley. I love you." She didn't budge. I contimplated whether or not to wake her. I decided if she woke up it would be okay. So again I whispered, "Grandma, its Ashley. I love you." and this time, I kissed her cheek. She jolted awake this time, and she looked around, wondering where she was. She turned her head and looked at me, and turned her head away. At that moment I knew, I knew it was a bad day for her. The agony, and pain, the heartache, and emptyness it caused me, all rushed back to me at that moment. I put my hand on her arm and repeated again, "Hi grandma. It's Ashley. I love you." She turned and saw me, and stared at me with a blank stare. I only got two words from her, she said, "Hello dear." I could tell by the stare, the voice, the words, the look, she had no idea who I was, but she knew she was supposed to know me. I looked at her and I said, "I'm sorry I woke you. I love you. Go back to sleep." and she looked at me and said, "ok. nice to see you. I love you." She wouldn't look at me and she wouldn't talk, but she wasn't sleeping. I sat there and held her arm, and looked at her and I knew, she wasn't "grandma" I knew that the Alzheimer's had her that day, becuase she didn't want to talk to me. I held her arm, and I was trying so hard to hold back the tears, I almost didn't make it. I looked at her and said, "grandma, my dad...Mike, he says hello and gives you his love." She looked at me and smiled, and said, "he is such a great guy you tell him hello, and tell him that I love him more than anything and he is a great son, and always has been." I looked at her and I said, "I will tell him, and he knows, and I'm so sorry I haven't been here in so long, I have been so busy." She then went on and asked me how I was, what I was doing, and told me she loved me. She then said, "Life goes by so fast, enjoy every minute of it!" I told her I would, and that I loved her so much and I was so happy to see her. She still wouldn't look at me, and she smiled once or twice. She repeated the same things over and over, every couple of minutes. I told her I had to go. We said good bye, and that we loved each other, and I gave her a hug and a kiss. I walked away. As I walked I broke down, I was sobbing inside, and I had no emotion on the outside. I felt numb. As I walked away I realized that it was so hard to go and see her, and it almost wasnt worth it. Then as I kept walking, I realized it didn't matter how hard it got, I would always visit her. As I kept walking, I started getting angry with myself. I started realizing that, maybe if I would've spent more time with her as I was growing up she would know who I was NOW! Maybe if I had called her more, and spent the night at her house more, and not been shy around her, maybe she could look at me and say, "Hi Ashley!" or at least know, I was her granddaughter. It killed me to realize she had no idea I was her granddaughter. She hadn't told the old ladies, "This is my granddaughter." She didn't know..and as I walked I wished I would've been nicer, and I would've called her, and I wouldn't have been angry, and most of all I thought that if I would have spent more time with her, she would've known who I was.

Songs...

So I was listening to the song "Hurt" by Johnny Cash, and it was orginally written and sung by Trent Reznor. I started listening really carefully to the lyrics of the song and then I listened to Trent Reznor's version of the song also. Both of them have the same exact lyrics, but when I listened to both of them I got a completely different feeling and understanding of the song. Where both songs are talking about their lives and what they have become in it, Trent Reznor's song is a lot more hard core. It seems like he is talking about demons, or drugs, that are ruining somebody's life. Johnny Cash on the other hand speaks of his whole life, and what he has become throughout his life. He talks about how none of it matters to him, and the money and the fame is useless in the end. There is a part of this song and the lyrics say,
"what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt."
Listening to both of these different artists sing this part of the song is really crazy to me, because each of them portray a completely different picture in your mind. Johnny Cash's version showing that nothing that matters in life, matters in the end. Whereas Trent Reznor's version portrays the message that people can have everything he does and he will still not perish. Both of these songs are extremely different, in the tone, and the way they portray what they are trying to say.

I think that this has a lot to do in writing, and I think that it is the same way that we write. When I read a piece of work, or I see a piece of work that inspires me, I never copy their piece of work completely, but I put it in my own terms, and my own views on a subject. I add meaning in it so that it becomes my work and not a copied piece. Two pieces of work will always be a lot the same, when you copy one and make it your own, in the sense that they have the same lyrics. They are so different though because two artists, or writers, or composers can put a totally different meaning on the same piece.

I know that when I am rewriting or revising a draft, each time I do it, I add a little bit more meaning and a little bit more emphasis to my paper. Each time my paper becomes a little bit more mine, and how I truly feel. I think that rewriting a song, and making it your own, is a lot like revising a paper. The more you do it, and the more time and effort you put in it to make it yours, the better and more meaningful it will be to not only you but your listeners, or readers as well.

Tying the Knot

I took an honors English class last year. I analyzed, translated, and paraphrased poems all year long. I probably went through 50 poems or more by the end of the year. We did it ALL the time, and discuss them, and research what other people, scholars, think they would mean. I learned that poems are not always meant to be about what they seem to be about but many other things as well!! So that is where my idea of abstract thinking in poetry came from...

The first time I read "Tying the Knot" I thought of it as a car accident. A bloody, horrible car accident, but as I read it I didn't think that the ending of it made sense to the rest of the poem. It seemed like a really big shift to take place. After reading it again, I though of it as a relationship. Not necessarily a marriage, but just a relationship. I thought that it showed signs of a relationship throughout the whole poem. "I think we married at the hospital in Elko," "Always, you promised," and the whole last stanza. Both of these things I thought of things you would say to a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife.
I decided that the poem is about rough times in a relationship, you start out a relationship and it has its highs, and good times, and it has its very very bad times as well. I thought about a couple who just rip each other to pieces, not only mentally but also physically. In the end everything is ok, and you can 'forgive and forget' everything that happened. After you realize its not worth fighting over, you can make it all ok.

I thought a lot of this poem was very graphic, and had a lot of imagery, the diction in it was also really good. "Blood, leecheed, salty red" are all words that I thought were very strong in the poem. The diction here, shows a lot of pain and hurt with whatever had happened between them. I also thought that the tone in the poem shifted in the last stanza. It became a lot less 'pain' and more comforting and relaxed. In the first two stanzas it feels like the speaker has a lot of tension in his/her voice, and in the last stanza it changed.

So... I actually thought it was an interesting poem. I didn't like it very much, but I thought it was well written, with a lot of detail, and imagery.

Let me know waht you think...