Syllabics

An interesting conversation took place today between Whiskey and me, and I thought I'd open it up to my faithful reader(s). Does the word "power" (and similar words i.e. fire, flower, hour, fuel, spoil, etc.) consist of one syllable or two. I contend that it consists of one. I site for my authority the ear of the poets, Shakespeare, et al. It seems the debate hinges upon whether diphthongs (long A, long I, Oy, Ow) should be considered one syllable or two. For those of you who would consult a dictionary, you will find support for both pronunciations, and indeed, in a vacuum, without context, the words may very well be both. However, in use, especially when that use is most important, i.e. in poetry, the scansion of poems that contain these words consistently pronounce them monosyllabically.

Addendum: Schwas are also a bone of contention: does "preposterous" consist of three syllables or four? If you say four, why then is "preposterous" intelligible when pronounced "prepost'rous" while "fallacious" can never be disyllabically pronouced "F'llacious"? (I consider that initial "a" to be a schwa)

Thoughts?

On Form

It has recently been brought to my attention that when God revealed himself to Moses, he said "I am who Iamb." I think this is fairly conclusive proof that God writes poetry in form (and in English!) and if from is good enough for God, it's good enough for me.
I think it's also probable that God favors trimeter...just a hunch...

Two poems

For very little reason other than they suit my mood. Both are recent productions. (I've added some improvements to the first poem, including a name change)

Disclosure

Huddled, the black bantam,
Quavers in the dark of not-yet-morn,
And sees in every rustled form a phantom
Of plundering wolf or weasel, solely born

Of falsifying gloom,
That beady eyes conjecture into seeming,
Until dawn breaks all images of doom,
Into the solid shapes its set to gleaming,

Then, as if in pride,
Our fowl stands up and ruffs his feathered mane,
And boasts to the entire countryside,
His "I will duel with all" in rash refrain,

For, when what’s been feared
To do for caution’s sake, can now be done,
And every lingering shadow’s disappeared,
Into the brave arrival of the sun,

Then what sudden strut,
What crowing, and what swaggering about
Ridiculously seizes those who but,
A moment since were shy and dumb with doubt.

Yet let us not mock,
Such innocence and absence of composure.
Joy's source, being revelation should not balk
To revel in an act of such disclosure,

As when lovers, full
Of that same bravery born of morning’s light
Laughing at last night’s discretion, pull,
The covers off their bodies’ honest white.

The Tight-Rope Walker

His body, wholly swept up in the cause,
Of mere remaining, gently tames the cord,
Suspending his slow expedition toward,
A pole shaped like a printer's obelisk.

As stony eyed as any basilisk,
He views with inward eye his statued pause,
Kept by his strict observance of the laws
Of gravity, and wills one taut accord.

This tensile harmony is his reward,
The joy of held control, peaked by the risk,
Recalled to mind with every gentle whisk
His arms make as they weigh his footsteps’ flaws.

Been a while

So, since I cannot spend one more minute on a paper I know is due tomorrow, I thought I'd turn to my long forsaken blog. It is not out of pity that I turn to my blog. My blog does not need me. Nor is it out of need that I turn to my blog. I do not need it. I come freely, as men strive for right. Or something like that.
The thing is I have a bit of a niggling worry. Maybe its the realization that I may soon have to leave this place, and the people here, or perhaps its my vocation itself thats bothering me. In any case, I've felt the unwelcome return of a restlessness. Whereas last year I felt I was taking great strides in the right direction, I now feel myself stagnating, mired, static. Being still I suppose is fine when you realize your grand motion is sweeping you off in the wrong direction. But now I feel antsy. I don't feel ready to thrust myself forward in a new direction, and yet I don't want to stay where I am. I feel like all directions represent a running away from, not a running towards, and I despise that. The ivory tower is losing a bit of its luster. It just isn't a place I want to reside in...its a thing I want to help build, and then protect, while I'm out sleeping under trees. But for now, I stay inside, note the cracks in the mortar, the rotten timbers, try my hand at some rough carpentry, in the hopes it will one day be of use...and what? Wait. Patience is learning what lullabies to sing my knotted stomach....

Sancho Stanza, Don Quipolis, and Lady Dulcisophia

If we take the three branches of thought that the school offers: Philosophy, Literature, and Politics and compare their uses and functions, what relation can we find between them? It seems Literature is the worldly wise servant to both, the Sancho Panza or Samuel Weller to Pickwick Politics and Lady Philosophy, for literature makes efficacious the will of these, and though they may make pronouncements in their own straightforward style, it is Literature that is trusted to play diplomat to the masses. Politics is a chambered lord, forever concerned with wills; the will of the people, the will of the government, will the crops fail? will there be riots? will there be justice? will there be war? Lady Philosophy turns politics head of course, deciding who the people are, what a government is, why there are crops, the horror of riots, the necessity of justice, and the reasons for war. It is Lady Philosophy who knows the truth of things, and keeps this truth holy;Lord Politics must see how best to apply these truths.
Each of the three is impotent or infertile with out the others. So are you a diplomat, a law giver, or ...what? cleric?

Christ is risen

He is risen indeed.

Specificity

So, I was talking with Whiskey about animals, (there had been a cat outside the school), and he commented that I seemed to really like cats. It's true, I do. It got me thinking why I like animals in general so much. I really like watching squirrels, or birds, or bugs-It isn't purely scientific, though I do like noting their peculiar colorations and behavior. Ultimately, what i arrived at was that I liked the specificity of life. A squirrel is not a rabbit. It is its own thing. This could be seen as a love of variety, but that's a red herring. Even if their were only one, I think I would like its one-ness. Beyond that, I like the specificity of each individual thing. I like thinking about the millions of squirrels I have missed, the millions of people I have missed, the millions of a million other things i have missed, because I simply was born, centuries earlier, or in another place. My life must necessarily be filled with a limited number of specific things. I don't see a squirrel. I see that squirrel. This specifity seems peculiar to life. Surely their can be a specific rock, or location or cloud...but these seem mutable, or lacking identity...clouds smush into each other, and lose their cohesion, oceans and landmasses and locations all have blurred edges. You can't tell where they stop and where a new ocean, or landmass, or location begins. Life is limited to the bounds of the particular....I still feel like I haven't put my finger on it exactly...

Coinage

After last night's Milton class, I felt inspired to coin a new phrase- "Necrohippic Sadism". This term names a disorder characterized by obsession with a certain idea, and the inability to approach a new idea, or even to approach the same idea from a different perspective. The result is an endless solipsistic conversation which continually attempts to say the same thing over and over.