Desire Sonnet (all 4 drafts)

(revisions in reverse order)

Desire Sonnet
draft 4.
How intoxicating human desire/
Imaginations and passions inspire/
All-encompassing, these needs created/
By which nothing real* can be abated/

Desire refocuses human vision:/
Within, our souls surrender decisions;/
What we want to possess, possesses us/
We are controlled by our uncontrolled lust/

Within all living beings there exists/
A primitive saboteur who then twists/
Our selfish wants into eternal needs/
Without conscious awareness that it’s greed/

Our deep lusts, fantasies, (& tiny wants)/
Are fruits of our subconscious Ego’s taunts/
*true

Desire Sonnet
draft 3.
How intoxicating human desire/
Imaginations and passions inspire/
All-encompassing, these needs created/
By which nothing real* can be abated/

Desire refocuses human vision:/
Within, our souls surrender decisions;/
What we want to possess, possesses us/
We are controlled by our uncontrolled lust/

Within all living beings there exists/
A primitive saboteur who then twists/
Our selfish wants into eternal needs/
Without conscious awareness that it’s greed/

Our deep lusts, fantasies, & even needs/
Are flowers of our Ego’s little seeds/
*true

Desire Sonnet
draft 2.
How intoxicating human desire/
Imaginations and passions inspire/
All encompassing, are needs created/
That nothing mortal can at all make sated/

Desire refocuses human vision:/
Within, our souls surrender decisions;/
What we want to possess, possesses us/
We are controlled by our uncontrolled lust/

Within conscious human beings there is/
An enemy spy with a trite “pop-quiz:”/
Biological or cultural? What’s/
That which overrides or undermines thoughts/

Our deep lusts, fantasies, & even needs/
Are flowers of our Ego’s little seeds/

Desire Sonnet
draft 1.
How intoxicating human desire/
Imaginations and passions inspire/
All encompassing, are needs created/
That nothing mortal can at all make sated/

Desire refocuses human visions:/
Within, our souls rescind decisions;/
What we want to possess, possesses us/
We are controlled by our uncontrolled lust/

Within conscious human beings there is/
An enemy spy with a trite pop-quiz:/
Biological or cultural? What’s/
That which overrides or undermines thoughts/

Our deep lusts, fantasies, & even needs/
Are flowers of our Ego’s little seeds/

Pleasure

Philosophy Haikus 35

1/14/13

1. My Lavish success/
Ability to enjoy/
All humanity/
#haiku

2. Vocabulary/
Reorders awarenesses/
Throughout our thinking/
#haiku

3. Indispensable/
Reconsiderations make/
Happier people/
#haiku

4. Superlative thoughts/
Create original worlds/
Out of common things/
#haiku

5. Exquisitely made/
Dreams come from optimism/
That cannot be sold/
#haiku

6a. Shirking convention/
Optimistic dreamers grow/
Originally/
#haiku

6b. Shirking convention/
Optimistic dreamers grow/
Unusual joy/
#haiku

Future History

47. Walking with a friend/
Conversations spanning years/
Verbal time travel/
#haiku

48. Verbal time travel/
Words orbiting histories/
Preparing futures/
#haiku

49. These preparations/
Fastidious & complete/
Create the future/
#haiku

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 13,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 3 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

CUNY Administration Declares War On Rebel English Department

Reblogged from :

URGENT UPDATE, September 16:

I've spoken with a QCC faculty member who has confirmed the report below and added important new details on crucial elements of the story, including the vote count from the faculty meeting, the nature of the administration's threats, and the department's plans for the future.

Please read and distribute today's post before continuing.

•          •          •

Read more… 718 more words

Headline #haiku: "Administration/ Declares War On [A] Rebel/ English Department"/ #haiku #CUNY #QCC

Fire Island Day 30

Reblogged from todaysphotograph:

1. Sitting on the shore/
Molding sand into castles/
Hope flowing like waves/
#haiku

2. Nonetheless knowing/
Our human activities/
Are temporary/
#haiku

3. What counts is action/
Never the final outcome/
Life is made doing/
#haiku

4. In simple actions/
Existence is completed/
One soul at a time/
#haiku

5. Create your person/
In behavior &actions/
Thoughtful & thoughtless/

Read more… 50 more words

Fire Island Day Eleven

Reblogged from todaysphotograph:

18. Absolutely flat/
Bay reflects the iron sky/
Setting a new mood/
#haiku

19. Absence is presence/
The lack of waves and wind says/
Something bluster cannot/
#haiku

20. Why do I write here?/
I write because I have to/
I have words to share/
#haiku

21. Is writing Ego/
Or a noble endeavor?/
I may never know/
#haiku

22. Are these words wasted/

Read more… 135 more words

Solitudes words/ On philosophical theme/ Trying to matter/ #haiku

Fire Island Day 10

Reblogged from todaysphotograph:

2. Life's small surprises:/
Often the most important/
When looking backward/
#haiku

3. Important events/
The fullness of time recasts/
As meaningless things/
#haiku

4. "Being Completely"/
Means accepting any changes/
To narrative's weight*/
#haiku *To story's meaning

5. The stories we tell/
Contain meanings we cherish/
Others see others/
#haiku

6. Stories' meanings tell/
The interpreter's values/
Rarely any truth/

Read more… 132 more words

Today's Sunrise Thoughts/  More humility #haikus/  On my photoblog/ 

The Glossy Shopping Bag

She hurried up the avenue looking for shelter. The rain, now biblical in intensity, was filling the glossy bag. Her clothes were soaked, but they’d dry. The bag, advertising a Madison Avenue shop in rigid plasticized tag was all that she had left of her image of consumer prowess. The shiny bag with the cotton cord handles represented her dream life which her earnings could not support. She had kept it crisp and undamaged through the weeks of her homelessness, folding it flat as she slept on the F train. When the rain accumulated was a pint even, the handles and the bottom seams simultaneously failed. The city papers, her clean underwear and a water bottle fell to the sidewalk. Her homelessness was laid bare to the doorman who helped her pick up the items. He got her a Gristedes’ bag, helped her organize her belongings, then asked her to move from under the Park Avenue awning he was bound to protect.

Autobiography for Class (Draft 2)

Stafford Gregoire

ENG101.1211

Professor Gregoire

30 April 2012

 

the shy[1] rebel

Stafford has always had a strange sense of the world. Even in 1st grade he admired the kid who couldn’t do the normal 1st grade assignment, “naming his parents and grandparents and where they were from.” “Tony” was a kid from down the block and his parents and parents were always around our block. They were from Cambridge, the town we lived in, Stafford could have done the assignment for Tony: “my parents and grandparents are from Cambridge, Massachusetts, just like me,” he should have said in Mrs. Pierce’s 1st grade class. Instead he wet himself in front of the class: “Stafford’s hero!” For some perverse reason, ever since then whenever Stafford encountered a “freak” who couldn’t or wouldn’t “behave normally,” he had a new hero. I think that this is because his parents told him to respect people who stood up for themselves, and never to shame children who refused to conform to the norms of society. Ever since then Stafford has elevated people who refused to conform to society. Personally, I think that he elevates eccentric people to defy conformity and make himself more unique.

As soon as Stafford grew up, he left home. Arrogant, he wanted to make his way in the world on his own as a bicycle messenger. He moved to New York City in 1979, just after the city went bankrupt and was allowed to default by the federal government. The crumbling city was perfect for Stafford because “[t]he small community often tolerates eccentricity. The city, on the contrary, rewards it” (Park, cited in Kidder 307). Like yeast in moist flour or hops in a brewery or a bully on a 3rd world police force, Stafford had found his perfect environment. It is a place where he can live the fantasy The Toronto Star reporter Cheney described as “[l]iving by your own skill and animal cunning, like a gladiator in the Roman amphitheatre, surrounded by fat and decadent citizens” (Cheney A1). Of course, that is a young man’s dream of rebellion. And if you look at most of these imaginary heroes of the street, they prefer to keep these fantasies to themselves. So Stafford lived his fantasy life of an urban warrior.

_____________________________________________________________________

Works Cited

Cheney, P. “Bicycle Couriers in Love with Life on Mean Streets.” Toronto Star, 27 March 1993, A1, A8. Print.

Kidder, Jeffrey. “Appropriating The City: Space, Theory, And Bike Messengers.” Theory & Society 38.3 (2009): 307-328. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2012.

 

 

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[1] passive aggressive