Story Line 2

Sterquilinium
It was a bright and glorious day. Hansel Daggerfjord stood on the edge of the railing, and leaning over, spit as monstrous a hocker as he could muster under the circumstances. His mouth was quite dry, but the chest cold he had been nursing for the last few weeks provided him with the ammunition he needed. The lougee flew out from his lips, staying mostly intact as it arced its way down to the crowd below. Then... impact! He had caught the very brim of one of the offensive blue caps in the crowd below. Ducking his head backward fast, he stepped away from the railing, his bright red tresses streaming away from his face and masking his features.

The Story

Guys, I'm going to kick off a little experiment in creative writing.

Here's the first line to a story...I only ask that you copy everyone else's work so that your post (and the story) has continuity:



"It was a bright, and glorious day."*


*(The editorial staff reserves the right to change the first line of this collaborative work - in the interest of qualification for the Appalachi Prize for Collaborative Literature).

LET'S ROCK AND ROLL !!!

O Naugahide

Sterquilinium
(to the tune of O Christmas Tree)

O Naugahide, O Naugahide
Thy texture doth confound me
O Naugahide, O Naugahide
With Naugahide surround me

From whence you came
We cannot know
The Nauga's land
No compass shows

O Naugahide, O Naugahide
How lovely and profound thee

Hiking Hippies

The scene opens in a rugged, mountainous terrain. There is a sense of movement in the air, and the sky is crisp, and clear. The trees above sway gently in a morning breeze; it is one of those days when there is zero humidity, and the conditions are nothing short of perfect, if you are a couple of hapless hikers trekking across the magic of the day that is about to be...

Raisin: Gee Charlie, getting back to nature sure is fun. You remember mom and dad?
Charlie: [He just shrugs, not wishing to seem indifferent, only trying to conserve his breath as he is terribly out of shape and has been bragging before to Raisin about what a rugged outdoorsman he really is].
Raisin: You re-mem-ber [really drawing it out] my Mom is Strato-digit and my dad, Orbitalis...
Charlie: [He shrugs again, but this time, only to "mess with" Raisin].
Raisin: Common Charlie, NObody forgets mom and dad.
Charlie: [This time he shakes his head as if he now suddenly remembers] They were the ones with hats?
Raisin: EXactly. The very ones. They like to impress people with how normal-looking they can be, considering their names and all. Of course, their's are adopted, unlike mine which is natural.
Charlie: They adopted their hats?
Raisin: No, silly, they adopted their names. Their hats belonged to them.
Charlie: Their names don't belong to them?
Raisin: I'm confused. Their names is what we call them. But they have real names, I mean, from their former life on the "outside" as they call it. Your world Charlie...they have names from your world.
Charlie: As opposed to...?
Raisin: As opposed to...what?
Charlie: As opposed to what other world? The one I'm walking on now is the only one I know of...are you saying they come from a world other than this one?
Raisin: No, no silly. The world is what you make of it. They simply make something different of theirs.
Charilie: How did they make a world?
Raisin: Charlie, sometimes I think you are just being obtuse.
Charlie: [really out of breath now - in more ways than one] Isn't that some kind of geometric figure?
Raisin: What?
Charlie: I guess I just misunderstand.
Raisin: Boy, I'll say.
Charlie: Anyhow, back to your mom and dad.
Raisin: Yes! Well, you see, Mom and Dad always, and I mean ALWAYS talk to me about how great it is to "get back to nature". I never exactly understood all that, cause we always lived in an apartment in Manhattan. I think it might have had something to do with the hot tub out back, cause that is what they'd always say the next day. "Isn't it nice to get back to nature". I just wonder if they only had the hot tub to remind them of some of these streams up here in the Smokies?
Charile: What would they know about these streams. Do they trout fish?
Raisin: Trout fish? I don't think they do. I have never heard them talk about "trouting". They mentioned something about "trotting" one time ... something to do with a ranger who had found their "mountain getaway", their commune away from the commune way back in the woods- with all their friends from high school. They always emphasize the word "high" when they say that for some reason. "Back in HIGH school". I think it is some kind of freaky quirk of their generation.
Charile: I see.
Raisin: Although, I never really understood the whole concept.
Charlie: What concept?
Raisin: Of the commune. I mean, is it a community they are speaking of? That is what the people down at the mission would talk about. "Our community". I heard them talk about a "faith-based community" once. I think maybe it has something to do with this.
Charlie: I think Trotsky lived on a commune.
Raisin: Maybe that had something to do with the time they were "Trouting"...I'll bet so. Probably trouting for Trosky or something...or maybe "Trotting for Trout"...they were forever doing stuff like that.
Charlie: [A truly confused look]
Raisin: Oh, you know. "Race for the planet", "Run for the cure"...I didn't know the band needed a race? They've got some pretty good music, you know. "The Cure"...they are really good...kinda out-dated.
Charlie: [more confused still]
Raising: Like once, we were at "the commune", you know, their code name for the penthouse on fifth avenue...
Charlie: [interrupting] Yeah, how is it you all came to live there anyway?
Raisin: Oh, daddies dad was a regular tycoon. That's what mum used to say. She would say a lot more than that too. I don't think she liked Grandpa. I'll get to more of that later.

[At this particlar time, they are both truly startled by a rather large and comparatively sophisticated-looking stag deer that bound across the trail (as Raisin would later relate it to her family) "like a gazelle prancing in a ballet staged so vividly on the planes of the Serengetti". The reason for the stag's rather hasty jump across the trail became readily apparent by the cougar that followed. After jumping into Charlie's arms he then immediately notices the rattle-snake that is sunning on a rock beside the trail.

He is startled, yells "SNAKE" and takes a couple of steps backward.

They both tumble and fall back, over a rock and out of view

The curtain falls to some thumping and screaming.]


Scene two opens in a spectacular palatial cabin perched high atop a mountain. There is an imposing picture window looking out over a lovely mountain scene.

Charles: That is simply...I can't think of the right word...simply...out of the ordinary. Unbelivable. I cahn't think of the right word dahling [in best emulation of one from the noveaux riche - extremely nouveaux].
Petunia: Oh Chuck, when are you gonna stop with all that high-falutin' stuff. You just ain't got the vocabulary for it. I make a million dollars a week uh sellin country music, and here you gotta sound like one of them Vanderbilts from way yonder across them mountains-O'er there in Ashvull. Nobody round here sounds like that.
Charles: Oh Petunia, for once can't you just humor me. We should set an example for what rich folks is supposed to sound like. Think of poor little Chuck.
Petunia: Yeah, poor little Chuck. I'll bet he is right now somewhere a runnin' a round and chasing some cute little honey or something...I darn sure know he ain't looking to rub elbows with no Warbucks er nuthin.
Charles: We should set a better example for the boy.
Petunia: "The boy" is seventeen years old. He drives the best sports utility SAV the money can buy (and it ain't saved me nuthin) He eats at the best rest-o-rants coming and going and you want to set a better example for him? I think he's got it purty darn good.
Charles: He's gonna bring home a girl from a really good family one day and you will be very sorry you haven't taken my advice. Have you read that book I bought you for Christmas back in ought-ought?
Petunia: "Amy Vanderbilt's Guide to Proper Ettiquette" ?
Charles: Yes, exactly.
Petunia: It is sitting on the back of the toilet I think.
Charles: Wonderful place for it Petooni. Just wonderful. Ever take any of the advice that's in it?
Petunia: Common Chuck.
Charles: It's "Charles" to you...Charles. Why can't you get that. Charles.
Petunia: You crawled straight out of "Sludger Holler", Chuck. I'm surprised they didn't call you "Chewwy" er sumthin.

Richards & LaMeinge

Sterquilinium
"But what is morality," he said, "but an bottomless bucket into which every man pours the dregs of his cup. Moral high ground? Ha! Forget it! That hill is slippery with the defecation of its ten-thousand previous occupants! Give me the castle of ethics instead. It is clean and has been empty for many years. It is strong and unyielding - its foundation never changes nor stirs, for it was constructed not on the swamp of good and bad, but on the bedrock of right and wrong."

"You're an idiot," LaMeinge said in return, "what will you cite now? Natural Law? The Social Contract?! It's not worth the paper it's not written on! Will you bring in Rawls with his idiotic veil of ignorance? Where is this bedrock, eh? It's a castle in the sky, my friend, a castle in the sky."

"And what would you offer," Richards answered, his eyes laughing.

"What would I offer? Absurdity first and the people second!"

"Two unrelated themes"

"Unrelated to one of you, who insist on structure and movement. My philosophy is amorphous, which is why you'll never defeat it. You cannot grab it and you cannot aim at it. It moves, it shifts. Its purpose and method are never constant. That is the absurdity. Yet its target never changes. The people! The People! The PEOPLE! Don't you understand? We win every time because we know the game. Change! Something New, new new. They swallow it every time. Idiots!"

"Wrong LaMeinge. We win. Not because you lose, but because the prize you choose is worthless. You and your kind will always exist - and you will claim each age as your own. So be it. We don't care. We exist at your periphery, and we control you, not because we wish to, but because we cannot help but do so. And without it you would die. The parasite cannot exist without the hunter. Without us you people would starve."

"And without the people, you would starve too."

"Yes, but we know it, and they don't. Hence our power"

Narrow Couplets

Icke always despised Seamusinog Brown as being rather simple minded. Icke on more than one occasion used his influence at court to have Brown passed over. But the Irish poet did outwit his Hungarian contemporary every now and then. Such was the case when he published his collection of short verse called "... and then some" the same day as Icke's lengthy anti-war poetry collection "A very few..." was released.

Of course neither book was well recieved but the frequent short epilogues in Brown often seemed to rewrite the intended meanings (where they could be found) of Icke's verses. Though Brown died that same year and was soon forgotten, Icke continued to curse his name as he himself fell into obscurity.

Here is one of Brown's typical short response poems called "Narrow Couplets"

Just so thin a line of thought,
A fragile web reason has wrought;
From stable point to point it drew,
Restricted paths now bounded to;
And ever distant truth remained,
No more revealed, no less contained.

This shuttered sight neglects to see,
The everywhere present mystery.
Yet in that wholesome word both dwell,
The heights of heav'n and depths of hell.

Al Gore's Sphincter

Sterquilinium
Al Gore’s sphincter never fails
To close up tight when he hears tales
Of catastrophic doom delayed
Of free men who are not afraid

O Puckering Al, why do you gloat,
With every iceberg now afloat:
"Tragedy! Hearken to me!
For I’ve been preaching prophesy!"

What will you do if doom’s o’er long?
If Cassandra is just simply wrong?
What would you do if you were free
To invoke the doom you long to see?

WHAT BECOMES THEE, VERITAS?

Rage and hie, tyranny's torrent.
Broadcast bellicose blast over unseen airs,
leaving chaotic boulevard in your wake,
Oh beadle of the badlands,
Oh sexton for the crass.

Tear down all that hinders thy goal,
Oh simoom of dastardly feat.
How could the God of Truth
again harness thy powerful fleet?
Oh curate of licentious, oh rector of deceit.

Better to ride vapid yet righteous ray,
than to once again tangle with one untrue.
You vile and selfish whore,
You traitorous intruder of genteel lives.
oh beast that always craves more.

Oh breath of unseen and raging beast,
destroyer of truth, maker of myth,
Expatriate of peace,
With cries so blasted liberal, shrill
Not even wolves can hear thy stingy squeal.

The scythe-sword of enemy once veiled
and sheathed within your laws.
You have sharpened sheik's broadswords,
while spies have let you fall,
Now kneel! before your lords.

Blather over still waters,
rage against leaders true.
Invade homes and blast thy blow
where demons lie, sinners cry
and the wise remain aloof.

Your volition shall twist their minds,
as your torrents may twist fertile ground
turning straight steel to screw
and reducing mighty tree to only splinter.
Thus blow your lies. Thus speaketh your untruths.

Wastelands and deserts await you,
vile destroyer of truth.
Sands seek life in squally stagnant breath,
and the weak they seek salvation
but in you, find only death.

Blow on self-righteous liar,
Sea mists will quench thy thirst,
and those demons below the wave
await libelous liberation - rebirth;
nourished with your hate-filled facade of mirth.





Find in treetops waiting,
mindless monkey in lewd pall.
For in their treetops swaying,
mindless chattering chimpanze,
awaits your whistling call.

And foul breath it awakens,
they hear your whistling sigh,
upon their hearts mistaken,
they see truth,
but in truth, hear only lies.

Tear down all that hinders thy goal,
of destruction absolute, complete.
Oh breath of unseen, raging beast,
destroyer of truth, maker of myth
expatriate of peace.

Thy words are as meaningful,
as the curt and fleeting nature of thy substance.
For man of reason peers in your soul,
and sees only broken remnants
of what with God was once whole.

Blow on boisterous blather,
Blow across the seas,
In old country there lies a land,
that seeks thy lying breeze.
Blow on. Blow on.

Germany Before and After Bismarck

In the aftermath of 1848
when Louis Napolean was great
the German states
were locked in a political stalemate.

Austria had blocked Prussia
with diplomatic support from Russia
From unifying Germany above
(what William IV would dearly love!)

Economic forces undermined the status quo
and modern industry (like William) began to grow & grow
And tarriffs, once so strong, were made so very less
that Austria's protected industry was feeling quite repressed

Prussia had emerged with a parliament of sorts
mostly in the hands of the lib'rals & cohorts
The middle class, like the rich, were overrepresented
inevitably something that the lower class resented

The parliament, not king, commanded ultimate power
and parlaiment was growing more liberal by the hour
King William considered abdicating to his son
But summoned instead Bismarck! And an era had begun.

Then came without delay the Austro-Prussian War
Bismarck spanked the parliament like he'd spank a Belgian whore
And French & Prussians fighting was a German statist's dream
Thus in the end 'twas Bismarck whose power reigned supreme

Italy, Germany, Austria formed the tripartite alliance
With Britain, France, and Russia all seething in defiance
With Prussian soldiers standing at each European door
Thus Bismarck paved the way for that zany first World War

Office Escapade:

The story is centered on a set of office cubicles and the inhabitants of this progressive work camp.

The lead character (Leroy Thorndackey) is considered by most to be a man of extremely high character. He never fails to deliver his projects on time and spot on, and he is always there for everyone in the department; but he has a terrible secret that he tries, desperately, to keep from his fellow workers: he is a chronic heavy drinker and has access to a netherworld “speak-easy” beneath his desk.

Under his desk he keeps a rather large and antiquated computer equipped with monstrously large reel-to-reel tapes on the front panel. He calls it “Big Daddy” and tells everyone it is the secret to his success.

The reel-to-reels are actually combination locks and by turning them in precise manner, he gains access to a fellow named “Lucky” who mans the door just behind and to the right of the computer front panel.

Set the combination, pull gently on the door to the CD and the denizens of Bacchus are his to have and hold.

The pass code to get by Lucky is “Have you been to the bull ball by the bay?”.

Lucky always answers with something different, like, “I heard Miss O’Leary carried an iron lung in her trunk”, or [emphatically] “TIECONDAROGA”.

There is a bar tramp named “Lucy” who has delusions that she is a top-level manager…in the world beneath his desk, she struggles to be taken seriously, constantly dealing with comments such as “I’m going to have a round with the boss” or “you ever been called on the carpet with her” …but on the rare occasion that she can get past Lucky and “climb the ladder” into the office above, she takes on the personage of the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), who is elusive and generally only known by her male secretary “Dirk” and a cast of “customers” who visit the office regularly for high level “talks”.

The workers in the office only know that she is the brains behind the operation and essential to keeping their jobs.

The male secretary unwittingly keeps the operation running, but never asks questions when COO is not there and assumes she is away on business with her “customers”.

The bartender is a leprechaun who keeps our protagonist, Leroy, fed with information to keep his projects on track and remain the hero in the world above. His projects are always money-making ventures and will typically involve public works projects (dams, missile silos) and crooked politicians.

They have a full-scale ventriloquist’s dummy that sits in Leroy’s chair when our hero is “down below”. It is peculiar, but no one seems to be able to tell the difference between the real character and his “dummy” counterpart.

The leprechaun, "Lynn", has a cast of his pals (also leprechauns) who man the dummy upstairs when Leroy is visiting the bar. The leprechauns are involved in an all-out war with some troll who live down the pike. They hate trolls and will tell anyone as such - always going on about their stench and the manner in which they wear their beards.

Lynn has a tough time and is forever trying to find someone to "man the dummy".

The only time any of Leroy's co-workers note any difference in Leroy and the dummy Leroy is when they get a new leprechaun at the controls, each brining something different to the dummy's personality.

When anyone other than Leroy escapes to the “upstairs office” a talking bulldog with a Scottish accent, speech impediment and a horrible temper tracks them down and returns them to the underworld. They call the dog “candy”, but his real name is Butch (when he sais it, it sounds like “BOOSH” due to his speech impediment – some people call him “BOOSH” and it makes him very angry).

The leprechaun is his friend and tells everyone to be nice to “B-U-T-C-H”.

47b "Tender Life"

Sterquilinium

An early work by the neo-progessive Icke, this comes from his short collection "Experiments in Shape." All these "musings" were untitled and so this has has been labeled 47b or a "Tender Life" by various editors.

Tender life, horrid cage, the saw chips wreak under paw,
Your life, poor creature, an endless wasteland of needles,
Acids and bases become salt on your wounds.
You are the holocaust to corporate greed.
The play thing of our science.
Voiceless and pitiable.
A nothing.
A life.
End.

Prophecy

Sterquilinium
AND the Beacon circles, taunting
while there's no hope of control
and the sails fly, whipping meanly
snapping their dying calls
while the masts bend under force of wind
and the foredeck madly rolls
and the sea pounds its passion
on the somehow fragile hull

AND a darker heart of blackness
its low crags but implied
reaches closer, some hellish gravity
that calls my vessel toward its spikes
that calls my reins so futile
and there's no hope of control

Shattered splinters sing the ships surrender
and the great wheel spins, unheeded
Spars plummet toward the scuppers
and lines once so noble now entangle
all in the travesty of once-majesty
while the Beacon circles, taunting,
still warning of what I cannot change.

O wild horse who is the world
in your mad rush to destroy us
you but sign your doom and ours
for you act in part our enemy
though sometimes you will gently
place your mane toward our hands
for simple stroke or carress.

But we will brook no enemy
nor accept our fate -
the fate of your precarious blessings
or worse: your curse -
for we are masters.
And though your seas may take me now
and silence me and hapless crew
a thousand men will come behind
and mark our doom across your face.

SO take me, cursed blessed mistress mother
I am Oedipus, Agemmnon, Theseus, Paris
I am your death as you are mine
and my bones but mark your grave.

On being brought back to life

Oh to the good doctor!
Oh to the wizard of juice!

In electrified elixer,
rejuvination! rejuvination.

Lady electron,
you course through my veins.

My heart races, heightened.
My thoughts burn like flame.

Like a sprite turning Giant
or a moth, licking flame;

my life, stuttered phases,
my life - a whole, new game.

Race on gentle warrior,
race into that night;

fearing not lurking darkness,
fearing not! left-leaning spite.

Chance on chance being offered,
and chance being norm.

My life sports new fashion,
new destiny of old form.

Race on iron warrior,
race into that night.

Your life now a bastion,
new purpose minus fright.

Summer

Sterquilinium

Like a dim reflection
of warm childhood days
reveling in sunlight
unencumbered by freedom

All that's the same
is it shares the same name
warmth lost to sweltering heat
running on long-tired feet
Summer's romance
one fleeting chance
to walk through now echoing streets

And when summer's over
again comes the winter
driving a nail
in the coffin of childhood

And we face the year
with bleak expectations
longing once more
for summer's dim memories.

Pop

A greyed and torn remnant,
from a page on a shelf.
Years, overlooked...
sitting, waiting by self.

A key therin lies
to a fortune untold.
A memory of a time,
when it wasn't so old.

The knowledge in that page,
while tattered and torn,
reminds one of places,
of times, and of lore.

I think I shall leave it
having read it before,
for disturbing fragile surface
might render it torn.

I'll remember a time,
when the hand that wrote it,
would tussle my hair,
and for luck he would stroke it.

He taught me a lot
that father of mine.
This page on this shelf,
I'll leave leave for a time.

One day comes another,
stumbling along -
looking for answers,
but in life, finding none.

Perhaps that old page
will call out his name,
and he'll be enlightened
ever changed, not the same.

For now it is history
and gathering dust-
but one day will be opened,
and as reading, a must.

Like the fathers before it,
it waits for that time,
when its words will bring meaning
for the lad, like new wine.

Darkness

Sterquilinium
It may be true that darkness
cannot overcome the flame
but when God elects to snuff one out
the darkness comes the same

Yet through the "glass but darkly"
beyond all tears and strife
a myriad candles flicker
as another springs to life.

Zarqawi Contest Winner

Sterquilinium
The winner of the Zarqawi Poem Contest is:

Xavier Martel.

There were only two entries, and Stan Visum invalidated his own entry by ignoring the rules and making his poem about Shiezen. Thus, I am forced to withdraw my pledge and award myself the valuable prize (cash value not to exceed $1000).

Scheizen Contest Entry No. 2 (get it)

Sheizen, sheizen where art thou?
Thy nasty stench
now vapors wrenched
on breeze that blows through bough.

Terror, terror - terror I say.
Behind your towel, terror fades away.
But to the serpent, of forked tongue
Terror lives in the lies of day.

The terror of tongue, it's mighty in deed,
where contrition of act
whether worthy of fact
Bleaches truth and force righteous to bleed.

Zarqawi Contest Entry 1

Sterquilinium
O bearded one,
your beard unplucked,
you lay upon the dirt
And unto death
you bind yourself.
You naughty little squirt!

No chequered rag
about your head;
no rifle in your hand
Just fleas and flies,
your faith and lies,
and bloody Persian sand

The Quandry

It was a serpantine sight indeed - twisted and coiled.

Corners once so straight and precision engineered now peeled like the lid from a sardine can; and oh those steel girders - twisted like Christmas candy.

This present danger, undone - their woven plots and plotting unraveled and untied - now reduced to unfettered maroon twine.

"Could we have made it a slight bit bigger," he wondered.

"Large enough to cause massive plunder, but not so big as to render the building and its occupants and their form, function and identity obscure and unidentifiable."

"Of course, we could have," said the Newsman, "but then what about the show? We need the smoke, and the dust, and a broken skelton"

"Oh yes, the show. We need that impact upon the world as much as the one the bomb made upon the building - perhaps more. I suppose it's good enough, flattened as it is".

"Good enough indeed," said the soldier.

"Tonight, we feast - but tomorrow, it rages on. On until the last cloud of its existence vanishes from that far, red horizon".

And together they dined on a feast of tarry and talk.

The odor of memory

Sterquilinium

Icke has been quite neglected; an askew situation that must be rectified. Recall his punctuation? I repost here for you, in his memory, his famous poem.

The Melon-Eaters

In abjuration, the wet seedy horror unmasks itself
Soul to Face, Orbis and Atlas
The glossy pearly pearl-like white dagger into the flesh
(Pulp if you prefer, i prefer flesh)
Textured in form-firm purity, oh cracked orb!
Scooped in semi-lunis or divided and ravaged?
Mended? Never. Consumed and halted.
Lonely rind with termination left not complete.
Carcass left on the bone dry to whither yet not to cease.
Does the unbroken fleshy-flesh, not firm-form with pearly-pearl whites
Drop of sorrow like the orb sheds?
No cares not and sends rind to putridity

Who are the melon-eaters? I ask.
What are they, and what is their task.

A Letter to M.S. On the Occasion of His Coming To His Majority

Sterquilinium
Whither your strumpets now? Alas, that you had not previously heeded my none-too-anxious warnings and divested yourself of some tentatively objectionable pastimes. Nevertheless, there is hope that in the abandonment of certain indiscretions, you might find that there are sundry ways by which your interests might be adapted to more suitable venture. I speak, of course, of Tillingsley & Barlock's offer to you, late withdrawn. But I have it on good authority (a certain gentleman of mutual acquaintance who you will no doubt recognize by his moniker "X.J. III"), that aforementioned offer just might be recognized afresh were you to adopt the proper attitude.

I have spoken to Titsy about it and she greeted it with aplomb. I believe her exact words (inasmuch as exactitude is achievable - I reference our dialogues from June past quarter), were (and of course this is Titsy's idiom, and not the author's) "Swivens! Our well-beloved young friend were daft not to place his boot into that Heaper!"

Monsieur V_____ of St. B_____ was also in favor, though he expressed some reservations, notably attached to your prediliction for pecadillos, which had caused him certain uneasiness in regard to the Chives Affair, a matter which, I am sure, you would find agreeable no less than I, who am, of course, a fair disinterested party, being affected in no small way and yet free of pecuniary interest. Nevertheless, I assured Monsieur V_____ that in no way was there a contingent tendency on your part toward those less affectionate among the said items, but rather, when raw probability is consulted (as it must be, unless one were to adopt fortune against all natural sciences), any situation proferred to you would be no less a grievance than if your proper stipend were withdrawn at the pleasure of those agents of Dwilsler Street (who might gain by the mischance).

Respectfully yours,

I am,

Euclid Araneus Percival, Jr, (S.P.T.)
Chaplain, Royal Society of Brest
Order of Penumbrious Termitians
Argsdyle, Battlecock 577
12 Dongsly
Rutterfard-on-the-Smith

Landmarks

On mountain majestic a road is cut
and winds round to a cabin high.

A wound it opens up
and bleeds upon the eye.

The scar it leaves for progress sake
and a home built in heaven ethereal.

Yet upon my soul, there is a rend
perhaps only heaven can heal.

But time does pass
and weather's erosion wipes clean.

And the soul within
lives on, and yet never the same.

The Blue Dragon

Up from the depths
Seven stories high
Blue Dragon! Blue Dragon! Blue Dragon!

Upload Your Mysterious Looking Photo!

Lost

They say that I have had a loss
that I have lost my wife,
my daughter's lost her mother
and you have lost your life.

How can this be, when you have left
this wasteland for your home?
And it is we, bereft, forlorn
the wilderness to roam.

Art

There is a lack of great art, not because there is a lack of great artists, but because the subject of art has become petty and small. We go on trying to describe the majesty of a blade of grass without considering that there is none there; except what could be attributed to the Author of the grass' existence. But such attribution is too medieval for us, so we make the blade of grass nothing more than itself, and thus unworthy of glorification, and incapable of edification.

Introit: Sterquilinium

"Wherefore?" the mottled harlot whispers, as the day ceases to allure and settles into its last brandishment, neither golden nor crimson, but a pale brass that cheapens all before it, and makes the heart sing to oblivion.