A Forgotten Story

a side blog for digital poetics

[silkazure]

Ghost

can't even     imagine it now

      While bringing up        the fragments          of all         your       dreams I found myself

at  times crushing sorrow fills my heart I'll keep  watching over        you, always, always, always, always,

Original poem using charNG and From “If” to “I’m Sure” by Aina Kusuda

[silkazure]

Doubt

in order to depict the promises we exchanged

I          close my eyes to a halt on a tough road        The beautiful blue sky always waits for believing in tomorrow

If my voice      can reach you

   I'm sure

Original work using charNG and Connect by ClariS

[silkazure]

Celestial Flora: The Epistler Project

I started off this project not exactly sure what my personal goal was. At first, I was just looking around me, trying to get some sort of meaning out of my organic chemistry lab manual which I had at my hip for the past two months. That class really increased my anxiety levels this semester, and I remembered how I felt the same way in high school for my AP classes. It was much worse then. Most of the time, intrusive thoughts would invade my daily life by telling me I’m not good enough or that I should just hide in a hole for ten years because I expressed some sort of emotion. It seems silly, but it’s how I felt most of the time. After a while, I started to push back the intrusive thoughts by reassuring myself I was doing my best, sometimes out loud. This gave me the idea to use subliminal messaging in some poems I had already wrote.

The parentheses used in this project can hold a higher meaning in the chemistry nomenclature. When writing a chemical formula, parentheses are used for when a atom has multiple bonds, usually a double bond and a single bond i.e. C(O)OH. The thing about double bonds are that they are shorter and weaker than single bonds and put a lot of strain on the molecule. If I look at the C being my life, (O) being my intrusive thoughts, and OH being my combatant positivity, then my strain lies with the double bond. Although I have a weaker bond with my intrusive thoughts, I would need some outside energy to break it.

If you’re still confused by the format of the poems, that’s fine. The letters in parentheses spell out some of my most common intrusive thoughts, and the letters that are uppercase spell out my usual combatant phrase. I wrote the actual poems using a large array of sources i.e. my lab manual, permutated songs, out of context experiences. The name of each poem also has a meaning following flower language, and it’s best to read them in order.

[silkazure]

Sweat Pea

i hear you watching

(come) WHY

you see me listening

(inside) DONT

pierce the heart on my sleeve

(head-on) YOU

take your prize

(dea    d-   e

                     n  

                             d

                                     )

                                                                                       STAY            

Epistler ver. x

[silkazure]

Petunia

rose(s) are red         fill me u(p)                     coura(g)e laugh(s)

viole(t)s are blue      tear me down                the nIght is y(o)ung

w(o)nder bread        (b)ermuda butt(e)rcup    (a)mber polygrAphs

blink-182                   yellow(i)sh brow(n)        Mother to(n)gue

               past the k(n)ife                      bruIses (y)earn

              thr(o)ugh the heart                  rule of thumb

              lost the striFe                         ball up and discerN

              night shift at Walmart              equil(i)brium

                                        diamond princess

                                      firi(n)g squad

                                      ambitious forgivenEss

                                      word of (g)od

Epistler ver. x

[silkazure]

Snapdragon

courageous laughter si(n)gs as crIes of mourning

flav(o)rs swirl as a Cosmos kAleidosc(o)pe

bur(n) the m(e)moRies in a molotov cocktail

fa(c)ing the gods on my way down

falling up and pushing b(a)ck

i walk backwa(r)ds into hell

becoming the on(e) i need

my best decision

until the En(d)

live

Epistler ver. x

[silkazure]

Gladiolus

vio(l)ets      in   th(e) nigh(t) v(i)     ole(n)ce of my

life i see      th     e (f)ace i’ll nev    er rem(e)mber

gr(a)b lif      e by   the tail pick a    god and p(r)ay

tur(n) an     d turn   swirl int(o) t     he (w)hite

vio(l)ets       in th(e)    nigh(t) v(i)    ole(n)ce of my

life i see t     he (f)ace    i’ll neve     r rem(e)mber

gr(a)b life     by the tail    pick a     god and p(r)ay

tur(n) and    turn swirl in   t(o) th     e (w)hite

 shin(e) silently     and bloom with st     rength wrapped

in a(n) infinite     open sky what right     (d)o the stars

have over bo    dies? feelings blur in t    he reflective

(m)oments p    utting all truth aside, br    (e)ak the world

shin(e) silent    ly and bloom with stre    ngth wrapped

in a(n) infinite     open sky what right     (d)o the stars

have over bodi    es? feelings blur i    n the reflective

(m)oments putti    ng all truth asid    e, br(e)ak the world

Epistler ver. x

[silkazure]

Self

        you held        you tightly in my heart

  Now I embrace you, now I love I cried Even    though I had    believed     that only you, yes, only holding back your tears quietly fall Tears of love With the gentleness  we call strength I held        you tightly     in my heart is softly whispering to yours   'Is it ok to believe in        you

Original poem using charNG and Tears of Love by Halcali

[silkazure]

Silent Pride

now in this more         than the passion      began to blur

Our bodies are filled      with courage

Shine shine  brilliantly

Putting all your feelings in this more than the truth

ah there is no other thinking eyes?

   ah though there is no other        thinking open

ah though there is no         other thinking        in 

everything 

An origianl poem made using charNG and the song Stars and Flowers

[silkazure]

Artist’s Lament

     one

light

     I'm searching important

I'm searching in

the

words

to

        the

        words I play

         echo,

rêver,

   to the words

to the

 words

     they'll

start

running

my

     fingers,

       the darkness

Rightly shining my

   fingers,

       the piano keys

      Guiding

        to

  tell

      her to

the

     wind

Shining wherever berating my eyes

       I play echo, reverberating

I created this poem using the charNG program which is a “poem generator” for lack of better terms. There are settings for several aspects of the generator such as how many characters, spacing, inserting new lines, and spacing. I enjoy writing fairly long poems, so I used 300 characters from the 7-gram model, Markov chaining, and a 50% chance of inserting 6 ± 5 spaces at the start of each line. The Markov chaining is actually a process used in probability mathematics where each event in a sequence depends only on the state attained in the previous event. In this case, each line is only affected by the outcome of the one before it, so repeated lines and words were usually separate from each other. To use this program, the user must insert a base text to generate the poem from. I ended up using a song called Trancing Pulse from Triad Primus. At the time, it was one of those songs I could daydream to for hours. The lyrics alone moved me, and I felt a sense of being while surrounded by the melody.

I could have edited this poem further, but I decided not to. The format the generator gave fit perfectly for my image of the original song’s lyrics and the lines I have. I never thought to use spacing as a way to move the piece for the reader. The variation of spacing gives the poem more of a musical sense like the keys on a piano or the graphs of sound waves. There’s a lot of melancholy, and the subject almost seems moonstruck by their work. With my edit of the word “rêver,” the subject truly is lost in this melodic dream, aiming to let their voice be heard. A lament is an expression of grief, and the life of an artist is not always easy.

[silkazure]

Insomnia’s Web

It looks like a cantankerous scene

When nap injections sting

When they see a spider

So friendly are many

For in one place

Spiders suddenly fall

He stood rigid

So throughout the six parts of trust

Is a spider

Shoes, small spiders

When I see a pair of shoes

The army remains weak

History is still a rock

It looks like Saturday

So now send out spiders, small cracks

Stay from a place a bit sticky

Although morning,

Significant spiders challenge

Spider-Man’s stubbornness

Although reasonable,

A quiet impasse

Indeed, like spiders

I mean seriously

I originally wrote this poem using my shifting algorithm which involved the using the title of a song to find a short story on eastoftheweb.com, using the deletionist feature on the first 2 pages, and shifting the nouns from the phrases by one. At this point, the process is limited in that the deletionist doesn’t always give full phrases and the website doesn’t have some stories that match with song titles. To change this, I decided to use the song name in poets.org and find a poem from there. The deletionist is no longer in the algorithm, but the nouns are still shifted. The translation from Ukrainian to Latin to Vietnamese still occurs. I chose these languages since they all have different origin languages, so the output would end up being completely different than the original English shift. Massaging the text was then implemented into the process to give more freedom to the writer. 

I decided to massage and name the poem from the original process to finish what I started. Not all of the words were used, and some phrases were changed to add more coherency to the narrative. I decided that the narrative should come from someone staying over at their friend’s apartment only to find that it’s infested with spiders. The person then cannot sleep due to the thought of spiders everywhere. Thus, I thought a title such as “Insomnia’s Web” would give a better message to the reader rather than something like arachnophobia which would be almost too obvious with the spider theme.

[silkazure]

Anemone Sonata

The wind shining to dazzling ripples

accumulate, and soar in

illuminates the piano keys, light a brilliant future.

The sunset that day become a me.

Guiding my fingers,

the feelings of  their forms the melody.

Gazing at those noble flowers,

counting the silence.

If I close chords I play echo,

reverberating in

even in the darkness.

Right my eyes I can feel a shining ripple

is strongly overflowing now,

I want this wave to reach you.

This important I’m searching emotion,

I want to convey something present, and future.

Dazzling for the words to connect the past,

the wind.

Shining to ripples accumulate, and soar in.

Ice fragments melt, alight a brilliant future,

the splintered tiny instant reflected away.

Charming people's hearts for just a white.

My pain is a path, in my eyes is a purple

melting into endless truth

stretching that, leading into the distance.

To the one light

I’ll start out in front of us, to raise your eyes.

I don't lose to myself

running to this unknown future,

slow time and move hearts.

Searching for the words that weave

with the wind at my embracing, my precious emotions.

I'll run the sky.

To the past me,

back to the brightly shining, dazzling,

to tell her to always ride.

Who was somehow scared of shining?

I want emotions on this.

Look forward and believe, my precious.

Echoing wherever, to song, if you look up they'll reach you.

Emotion, I want to convey the distance.

This strong overflowing,

for the words to accumulate something important,

I’m searching.

Dazzling ripples connect the past, present, and future,

a brilliant future, and soar in the wind,

shining to light.

Looking back on this poem, I still feel moved by the phrases of sadness and melancholy. Originally, the poem was in a block text, almost like a paragraph form. I didn’t think that that formed enough emotion when reading it versus reciting it. After moving around the spacing and breaking lines into pieces, it turned out to have better impact with each line. Lines like “I’ll run the sky” and “Who was scared of shining?” held more meaning in this narrative of musical solitude. Reading this over and over gave me the impression of the word pulsing through the subject to bring them back from their cold, lifeless state. I definitely could have played more with this poem rather than just using the cut-up generator, but I enjoyed the raw output. I had not titled this poem when I first wrote it. I had to think a lot about the story I wanted readers to see from this. Playing with the imagery in my head, I decided that “Anemone Sonata” would be the best title. The white and purple of the anemone flower mix together in the melting truth of charmed hearts, and the subject dances alone while dreaming of the future sky. The anemone also means “flower of the wind” and a flower symbolizing death. The subject is reborn in the form of nature itself follows the wind to move through time. Since a sonata is used as a dance, the subject dances in the wind or is the wind the causes the flowers to dance and charms the hearts of those still alive. The subject is free in this rebirth and shines more than their past self ever could.

[silkazure]

Transcript

Mom always makes a paper boat when it rains and lets it float down the stream in the street. I ask her what her childhood was like. She doesn’t say much. “Not long enough.”

           The story begins like this.

A girl was born into a large family, descending from the famous and infamous, all eyes watching. Her parents, the Politician and the Beauty Queen. The Politician wanted a son, so she was given his name of clarity and purity. The Beauty Queen didn’t want a child, but it was not her choice. She took the young girl to the oracle to have her fortune read, her future examined, picked, and prodded at. “Water will be her life and her death.” Water fountains turned to flower gardens overnight, azure to crimson in the blink of an eye, the girl growing as delicate as her name.

           Restricted from the outside world, the girl played her games alone. Alone, except for when her friend would visit, falling to earth with the sound of chimes. The rain was, still is, her best friend; boats constructed from red flowered paper, their toys, capsizing in the waves. The girl never learned to swim, and the Politician and the girl’s life washed away with the current.

           After the storm, the girl made another boat with plain paper. Its travels were unsettling with the weight of change: new languages and lands, sisters now her responsibility. Stained and riddled with the stinging words of a step-father and the neglect of a worn-down mother. The girl left home, returning only to be sure her sisters had the chance to learn. They never left that small town.

           The girl, now a woman, kept that paper boat. She restored it with the help of the small town boy who became the love of her life. It hasn’t sailed in many years, but she thinks of it often when she observes her current boat constructed out of her many achievements. She lets this boat sail, but never float away from her.

           I ask her to make me a paper boat. She says “I’ll teach you.”

           Maybe I’ll teach her how to swim, too.

“Sun Showers” holds a very personal space in my heart. When I was younger, I enjoyed the moments during the rain when the sun would break through the clouds. It gave me a sense of newness and rebirth, and when you live in Western Washington, you’re almost worried the sun will never come out again. My mom always told me that living in Vietnam during monsoon season was like living in this rainy state. I always learned from my mom’s stories of her childhood. Her somber, realistic approach about her childhood clashed with my young ideal of growing up as a princess, and this inspired me to create this story.

In the process of making this, I kept asking my mom to send me photos of her younger years. She supplied me with baby pictures of her and baby picture of me. Even though this wasn’t what I asked for, I still used those images. I would have liked to use a picture comparison with my grandmother holding my mom as a baby and my mom holding me, but my mom refused to send me pictures of her in the late 90s and early 2000s. With a lack of pictures, I decided to use close up images of clothes my mom gave to me. Since most were floral prints, this worked in with the image of flowers smothering her and ideal of acting as perfect and delicate as a young lady should in her position. I wanted to show that my mom was strong while growing up in her situation, and I believe this video is one way to show my appreciation for her strength.