Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine: Me Me Meme Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine: Me Me Meme Tuesday, May 27, 2008

GUD magazine is a good magazine! Check out their Meme and muse about your latest reads. I’ll update as cleanly as possible in a moment . . .

* What was the last story you read?

Bruce Durham’s “Valley of Bones” from The Return of the Sword. Added to a great weekend! Previous to that was a number of stories in the upcoming Summer Special from Flashing Swords Magazine – a zine of Fantasy Fiction, emphasis on action and character.

* What was the last poem you read?

I’ve been cruising the blogs listed on www.poetryblogrankings.com and rating them. Too many to note here. I tried to find my copy of GUD #0, because I recall there were a couple poems there of which I was very fond – and because one really should cleanse one’s palate with good wine now and again when tasting new wines that may not be of a par with those already of notoriety.

* What was the last comic you read?

Comic? Book or panel? Don’t recall. I tend to look at the pictures and wish I had the skill to draw more than the occasional eye or fly.

* What was the last movie you watched?

That football Disney flick with The Rock as a QB. Cute movie. I wanted to watch the TCM classic Monkey Business, but I got outvoted. Monkey Business is an hilarious pseudo-scifi comedy with Cary Grant. That guy had a wonderful career!

* What song are you listening to now? Say something about it–what it means to you, who introduced you to it, something like that.

Song? I’m auditing the audiobook version of Machiavelli’s The Prince. Later I’ll listen to an eclectic mix of music from 1940-2000 or so. Leaning toward Tori Amos for no particular reason.

* What’s your guilty-reading pleasure?

E-mail.

* Say something about the last poem you wrote!

“Something about the last poem you wrote!” Now, having said that, I did in fact write a poem this morning, which is below on my blog. I’ve been thinking of uses for Ottava Rima, but the subject of the poem was rather not conducive to endrhyme. So I just did it in octets. Had no idea what I was writing until I was done. It’s okay, I guess. I try not to judge my own poetry in the same year as the first draft . . .

* Say something about a story you’re writing now!

I’m working on a story that got out of hand and needs a complete overhaul. I’m not certain of how to go about that. It began as a short story aimed at a specific target market, but it exploded on me and now I’m working through it to get the story down so that I can go back and fix it. I’m coming up to the story climax . . . It’s somewhat erotic in a couple of scenes. Hot stuff. At least I hope it is . . .

* If you were a fictional character, who would be writing you?

I would prefer to be my own fictional character. Otherwise, put me in Stephen R. Donaldson’s very capable and poetic hands!

* Last story you recommended to someone?

The whole anthology, The Return of the Sword. Others are stories from Flashing Swords Magazine.

* And a link to your favorite magazine, because they probably need your help.

http://flashingswords.sfreader.com/titlepage.asp Ooh! Ooh! http://www.gudmagazine.com/

I don’t much play favorites, but these are two EXCELLENT magazines. Flashing Swords for your adventure fiction and poetry and great illustrations, and GUD for a more general kind of content and super illustrations as well!

* Lastly, link to a friend’s copy of this quiz!

Um . . . got it straight from the horse’s mouth . . . Link me! Link me!

Soul War

This Everlasting Battle

How many faces you have, oh Tempter!

In youth, you tempted from the yellow

wrapper of a Butterfinger bar: steal me.

How many times did I slay you? How

many times deny your suasion? How often

spit scripture in your face and race away

to safety in the chapels to pray? And yet,

you are relentless as time. Calling to me

 

from between sweet thighs, small tangles

of your nets woven in woman curls and

pungent scents of desire. I heard you

first from Her sweet sweat of desire

at seventeen—for the five years previous

it was but an abstraction of hormones,

but in that year it became a battle among

angels and demons. Every woman was

 

wanton in your lecherous accusation,

and you, Tempter, sat with me in every

moment: she is yours to take. And yet I

had fallen in with the Romantics and knew

that such was a prize to be won by ardent

deeds of heroism and some higher Love,

sanctioned only in marriage—there you caught me,

for youth has no patience, at least not mine.

 

And once that sweetness soiled my lips and

sundry parts, then no temptress was safe

from the growing inferno of my lechery!

Still, I tried to resist you. And failing that,

married and tried to cloister my savage self.

Meantime, you had come to me in a bottle.

Though rarely given to gluttony, I found

drink to soothe the deep blue sky of my

 

exile within myself. It was then I learned

your voice was not mine, but something

elemental, something chemical and un-

natural to deny. Was that your deception?

What nature are we? What nature you?

Now, coming to middle age, I find you

calling from every open grave: sate your

curiosity! It takes but a breath to die.

 

No. Again, I deny you. Get thee hence!

My life is my own, and yet I wonder . . .

I did not give myself life; it is therefore

not mine to take from myself. Did God

create me for this life? Had He a plan?

Or am I, are we, simply a lawn gone to seed?

And still, we wage this everlasting war

among despair, faith, wonder, and curiosity.

David M Pitchford
27 May 2008