A Conspiracy of Doves

Third update today!

2008-10-11T02:40:00.000-07:00

I'm going through a poetry writing phases at the moment, so expect to see a lot more in the vein of the last two posts. I've got a much longer poem I'm working on at the moment which tells an entire story. It's got kind of a Poe/Lovecraft vibe to it, at least that's what I'm going for. Here's a preview of the first two verses:

I think that I was born to be a famous man of science
For all throughout my youth, I'd kept not friend nor fond alliance
No, only in the natural laws could I well-found reliance
For men betrayed
And women strayed
And love had no appliance

Unto the neurological field did I give devotion
For I was fascinated by what others called "emotion"
And thought and memory were mysteries like deepest ocean
I planned to be
The one to see
The method to their motion

I picked the meter and a-a-a-b-b-a rhyming pattern pretty much at random. I'm also trying to be very strict with myself by trying to only use words that naturally work with the poem's basic pattern. It slows me down tremendously but I feel it results in a much more graceful finished product.

Poem: Stranger In My Blood

2008-10-11T02:36:00.000-07:00

(The following poem is kind of an ode to John Carpenter's "The Thing", told from the perspective of someone who's been infected by the alien. Hope you like it.)

There's a stranger in my blood
It eats me up like worms in mud
And as tumescent flower bud
It blooms to metastasis

In time, my self will be no more
Subsumed by plastic carnivore
And all whom I have loved before
Shall flee with stricken faces

I feel its strength begin to swell
As tendrils pierce me, cell by cell
I'm sinking in the swamp of Hell
Where many more shall follow

We woke a sleeping God, you see
To sate our curiosity
And now its tentacles we'll be
All lined with teeth and hollow

No kinder fate awaits, I know
Our lives are but a candle's glow
Assailed from all sides by a flow
Of endless pain and violence

So as my flesh strains to distend
To tortured maws, I beg you, end
Your life while it is yours to send
To sweet eternal silence

will i ever even die

fin

Poem: My Seven Million Forefathers

2008-10-11T02:31:00.000-07:00

Last night, while dozing in my chair

I dreamt a dream divine:
My seven million forefathers
All standing in a line

My own Papa stood at the front
(With him I'm well acquainted)
Beyond, a landscape bold and bright
Like Monet might have painted

And over hill and through the vale
'Twixt trees and under bough
Wound fathers' line, both grand and great
To deep past from the now

Papa gave me a nod and smile
But urged that I move on
"You've many more to meet and greet
Before your journey's done!"

The first step brought my Grandad near:
A rake in tie and boaters
But black and white from head to toe -
I knew him just from photos

Great-grandad passed by, quicker now
I caught but one glimpse fleeting
My feet moved ever faster for
My will they were not heeding

Thus did my lineage whiz by
With rising rapidity
I tried to slow, to pause and chat
But I could not - a pity

What stories might these men have told!
What lessons of the past!
Alas, they never had the chance
I shot by much too fast

Yet, there was method to my haste
I sensed as I progressed
Before my eyes, my ancestors
Had visibly regressed

Their clothes grew spartan, rudimentary
Cloths gave way to furs
Then those, too, all but fell away
Save for a groinal purse

Meanwhile, as if not shock enough
To see my line reduced
To scraps of skins - their humanness
Itself, became less lucid

The brow sloped back, the stature shrunk,
The posture turned peculiar
And body hair returned in a
Renaissance follicular

But where the line twixt man and beast
In this long devolution?
Was it to come? Had it passed by?
Not either! 'Twas illusion!

Truth crashed upon me like a wave
Despite my mind's resistance:
Grandfather, brachiating ape -
'Twas but a point of... distance

And of the myriad life forms
From whom I'd not descended?
Each herb, each germ, each coelecanth -
All family extended

Though dizzied by this new insight
I'd gained upon reflection
My full attention suddenly
Was drawn to my direction

For while I'd mused and pondered still
I'd progressed unabated
'Till all about me'd grown strange
And ominously shaded.

I turned towards my forefathers
In hope of explanation
But found them tiny, shrew like things
In states of agitation

As one, with arm, or claw, or paw,
They pointed to the sky
Each bared his teeth, with whiskers flared
And let a piercing cry

The air about me turned to flame
Like Satan's dying curse
For, to my eyes, a meteor
Was striking in reverse

And as the light consumed my being
I finally lost my balance
Awake, I tumbled from my chair
And, flailing, ripped the valance.

Now, in my dreams, I've, humbled, seen
The blurry birth of men
And yet, the deepest truth I've learned...?
Don't drink port after ten.

fin

First Post wooo

2008-06-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

"A Conspiracy of Doves". It's a pretty cool name for... anything, really. It could be a film, a cerebral thriller where Meryl Streep's and Al Pacino's daughter is kidnapped by the Russian mafia, someone fires a gun in the distance, and everyone looks very tense. Or perhaps a breakthrough album by a british indie rock band, featuring a chart-topping single about the poignancy of catching the bus. In truth, it is neither of those things (yet).

The "conspiracy of doves" term was first coined by the renowned ethologist Richard Dawkins, and is explained in detail in his excellent first book "The Selfish Gene". Essentially, it refers to the phenomenon of completely peaceful or "dove-like" behaviour in a theoretical animal population - a state which is ultimately unstable, since the peaceful animals are prone to invasion and exploitation by aggressive ("hawkish") mutants.

That pretty neatly encapsulates the issues I plan to discuss here: Science, reason, morality, philosophy, ethics - you know, all the good shit.

That's all for now. Stay tuned until next time, when I tackle the question: "Should people eat moisturising cream?" The answer may surprise you.