Blog Response (Chiaroscuro)

Blog Response (Chiaroscuro)

Brandon Lazovic

                So for my blog response this week instead of writing another response to an assignment in class (because I don’t have any other assignments to write on) I’m going to elaborate on one of the poems that I wrote this week, Chiaroscuro. It’s technically my thirteen lines assignment (when you take an object and write thirteen different ideas about it). Originally I thought about writing about emotions and the different ones that people feel, but I ended up writing about the Seven Deadly Sins. I’m not really sure why, but I just had a spark to write about them and ended up doing it. To fit the assignment I ended up accompanying them with the Seven Holy Virtues in order to make it fourteen lines instead of thirteen (close enough). In a sense I stuck to the emotion format, but tweeked it to make it more specific.

                Throughout the poem I write one sin and one virtue side by side to what I thought would match up the best (the opposite ends of the spectrum to fit each other). As I got down the list it got kind of hard to match them accordingly since some of the virtues didn’t quite match up correctly with the leftover sins, or any of the sins in general. I also wrote the poem in a ‘Ye old tyme’ format, to the best of my ability. I’ve always enjoyed the way older poems from previous centuries are written compared to modern times and wanted to emulate that in my writing this time, or at least try to incorporate certain aspects of it into my style of writing. Each quatrain is written in a ABAB format similar to a sonnet, along with the 10 syllables per line, except the last line I changed it to a 12 syllable sentence instead to lengthen up the conclusion for the sin or virtue.

                The rest of the poem is written kind of cryptically and vaguely, enough so that the reader can still have a general idea of what it’s about on first glance but the sentences need to be elaborated on in order to fully understand them (similar to that ‘ye old tyme’ style). The only other note worthy thing about my poem would have to be the title, Chiaroscuro, which in Italian means “light and dark.” It’s generally used in artistic contrast and style, but I thought it was the perfect title for my poem considering the poem bounces back and forth between sin and virtue, the worst aspects in people compared to the most highly regarded aspects in human nature. Some of the content of the poem has a few allusions, just enough to make the reader think a little in the context they’re used in without going over the top and overfilling the poem with them. In regards to what the poem’s content is it basically goes into detail about the sins and virtues. Again, it’s written cryptically to make the reader think about what the underlying meaning is, but in the end it’s all about the sin or virtue listed. But that’s all I have to really say without being too specific or picking apart the content of the poem, so read it and enjoy!

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro  

Brandon Lazovic

Wrath, thy hearts angst against fellow human

An angered state of provoked emotion

As thy blood courses and pumps on demand

Crimson mercury spilt by preconceived notion

Prudence, thou’s wisdom unhindered in strife

Blinded in foresight thine eyes cannot be

Reason forever valued in thy life

Thou’s unmarred vision forever a guarantee

Greed, the downfall for those insatiable

Forever chasing wealth, status, and power

Thou art insidious, tyrannical

Thou’s desire shall lead to one’s final hour

Charity, friendship of man for Him

Benevolence reflected in thine heart

Even in circumstance proving most grim

Love for thy fellow man cannot keep thou apart

Sloth, encompassing state of dejection

Apathy of both body and spirit

Beware thy star’s silver inflection

Mischief befalls those whom laziness inherit

Faith, held in thy hand during time of need

Opening thou’s soul for thy Creator

As other’s speak untruth and heresy

Thou standeth against deceit, the serpent traitor

Pride, inflation of one’s mentality

Leads to thy demise and place infernal

Egotistic thoughts fool reality

Goliath, once proud and tall, slumbers eternal

Hope, optimistic interpretation

Eternal happiness thy only quest

Through the virtue of thy Divine Union

Ceaseless against hardship, thou’s light worn as a crest

Lust, thine guise masterful and unending

Intense desire forever burning

A bright phoenix flame thou art offending

With dark dragon’s flame burning thy soul through yearning

Temperance, a staple in character

Human spirit cannot maintain itself

Without control of excess poor feature

Restraint key in thy visage, building thy soul’s wealth

Envy, downfall in the hearts of many      

Wishing upon other’s inheritance

Spying through a lens procures jealousy

Benign or malicious, it shalt bring emptiness

Justice, thy art of reciprocity

Caught between the selfish and the selfless

Neutral standpoint, cousin of Charity

Giving those due of moral and legal assess

Gluttony, thou art a sin in excess

Shameful as thou binge to gratify tongue

 Immorality withstanding, but lest

Thine own image crack in thy reflection when sung

Fortitude, the quality of heroes

Apathy against thou’s antithesis

Thou’s moral courage is admirable

Venus’ silver tongue would prove even speechless

The Bird of Hermes

The Bird of Hermes

Brandon Lazovic

Reaching toward the sky

As Icarus flaps his wings overhead

Grasping at the sun

The wax begins to melt

Feathers fall to the Earth in clumped chunks

Making splashes in the vast sea

The biggest splash of all penetrates its depths

All he ever knew was the blue sky

Beautiful, yet unmarred, empty

The sky was the limit for his dreams

But it was fool’s gold, he soared too high

Reality grabbed hold with its foul grip

Pulling him forever downward

No fluffy clouds to buffer his descent

No winds to cushion his fall

No Benevolence to save him

Upward was a feathered silhouette, similar to his

It watched at a distance as he crashed into the sea

He thrashed about in the waters, gasping for air

The current and waves thrust themselves relentlessly

Forcing him into the cold ocean depths

Clinging for dear life he returned above surface again

And again

And again

And again

Gasping for breath

Flailing his aching arms to the sky above

Wishing to soar above the world

Having a mere taste of freedom

But his thread had been cut

And with the same scissors of fate his wings were clipped

His efforts were in vain and he sank into the sea

With hand outstretched towards the sky

The same that had immersed him in warm embrace

Now shunned him, taunting him with its brilliance

The sea overtook him, the sky becoming darker and darker

His hand still reaching above until not even the light pervaded the ocean abyss

The bird of Hermes is my name 

My wings were clipped to keep me tame

But falling to Earth seems so inane

Is clipping my wings really humane?  

Fiction Packet Summary

Fiction Packet Summary

Brandon Lazovic

               

                So this week’s blog will be about the short fiction packet that we are reading. This packet contains content from various authors, each story about a page or so. I’ll only mention stories that stood out to me since there are so many. Each description though is going to be a little short considering the length of each entry. The first story in the packet is Survivors by Kim Addonizio. This story tells the tale of a gay couple who have been together for quite some time. The main clincher is they are arguing about who is going to die first. The cause is somewhat hidden, but the first sentence refers to them counting down to their last T cells. I feel as though it is a reference to AIDs, considering they are gay and the AIDs virus kills off antibodies and other cells in the body as it spreads.

                Next up is Colonel by Carolyn Forche and the thing that stood out about this story is the fact that this colonel cuts off peoples ears, stores them in a sack and just litters them upon a table to show potential enemies not to mess with him. The shock factor is definitely what made the story stand out in my mind. It’s pretty gruesome in a simplistic way as it doesn’t really go into detail about the ears.

After this is Walking the Baby to the Liquor Store by Michael Van Wallegxen. I found it kind of bizarre as this father takes his child to a liquor store to spend time with her. The child adores the liquor store and when they get home they even take a drink together. But of all the fixations a child could have, why a liquor store? Maybe it’s his own fixation manifesting and that he is actually the one who adores the liquor store and is using the child as a crutch and an excuse to go. But that’s just my own personal explanation.

                Resident by T.J. Beitleman describes a man named Esterowicz who used to fly kites in his youth. Years later as he becomes older he contemplates life, a hermit who moves from town to town. He comments on the wind as it’s a main point in the short story. My thought on this is the allusion that the wind is actually a sense of freedom, as he blows with the wind and moves of his own volition from place to place. But the kite that he used to fly as a child restricted him as he was the one who ground it down so it couldn’t fly away. As a child he didn’t have the absolute freedom that he does know as an adult, hence why he doesn’t fly kites anymore. He is the master of his own destiny in a sense.   

                The Letter from Home by Jamaica Kincaid was really interesting to read. In the beginning it discusses this woman’s daily chores, but it enters this stream of consciousness format. What really caught my attention was the way everything was described; brief and not too descriptive. Towards the middle of the story the description of certain things started to take on a cause and effect aspect which was interesting to read/pace. But as the person thought about things each train of thought would lead into another train of thought. For example, “the earth spins on its axis, the axis is imaginary, the valleys correspond to the sea, the sea corresponds to the dry land, the dry land corresponds to the snake whose limbs are now reduced.” A large portion of the story is like this and it’s just interesting to read it in that perspective. A few portions of the story are normal and it leads me to believe that they are significant and have a purpose to why they were written, but to what effect I’m not able to discern.

                But what was her Name? by Dawn Raffel caught my intrigue. It’s vague in a sense, but basically it describes the life cycle of a woman. She is first born into the world ‘by some trick of oxygen,’ then is forwarded to being an adult in the kitchen cooking, having born kids and married. It jumps again, this time to her sitting in her chair as an elderly woman, grown senile. “A man she as raised delivers a slipper. Look at him! He wears the groom’s robe. Her fingerbone will not release the ring. “Father?” she says. She sees her breath. She has white in the bed of her birth. The past had taken hold of her—the heart’s last sleight.” She’s grown senile, mistaking her son for her father. She soon dies, remembering the past. People say that the last thing you do before you die is see your life flash before your eyes and that is what she did, seeing her father from the past, long dead. Regarding the story I enjoyed the way it was written, it made me think more in depth about of the story.

                Morning News by Jeremy Stern was another story that interested me. The main gist of it was that a man with his wife received bad news. He thought about life and how he would spend his last week, or month, or year in life. He imagined a final meal atop the Eiffel Tower, but ended up buying a sixty inch television in a warehouse. The main message is to not take life for granted and live in the now rather than the past or the future as well as to appreciate what life has to offer from day to day.

                This packet is interesting to say the least. There are several fiction shorts that are definitely worth a read, but overall most of the stories are different from each other in topic, diction, vocabulary, syntax, and the overall message they are trying to convey. Some of them are very peculiar and strange, but I feel as though that’s their draw point. The diversity of the packet as whole made it a worthwhile read.