Cleis

From Sappho

Sleep, darling
I have a small
daughter called
Cleis, who is
like a golden
flower
I wouldn't
take all Croesus'
kingdom with love
thrown in, for her

---

Don't ask me what to wear
I have no embroidered
headband from Sardis to
give you, Cleis, such as
I wore
and my mother
always said that in her
day a purple ribbon
looped in the hair was thought
to be high style indeed

but we were dark:
a girl
whose hair is yellower than
torchlight should wear no
headdress but fresh flowers

Sappho
tr Barnard

dead boy's poem

Born from silence, silence full of it
A perfect concert my best friend
So much to live for, so much to die for
If only my heart had a home

Sing what you can't say
Forget what you can't play
Hasten to drown into beautiful eyes
Walk within my poetry, this dying music
- My loveletter to nobody

Never sigh for better world
It's already composed, played and told
Every thought the music I write
Everything a wish for the night

Wrote for the eclipse, wrote for the virgin
Died for the beauty the one in the garden
Created a kingdom, reached for the wisdom
Failed in becoming a god

Never sigh for better world
It's already composed, played and told
Every thought the music I write
Everything a wish for the night

"If you read this line, remember not the hand that wrote it
Remember only the verse, songmaker's cry the one without tears
For I've given this its strength and it has become my only strength.
Comforting home, mother's lap, chance for immortality
Where being wanted became a thrill I never knew
The sweet piano writing down my life"

"Teach me passion for I fear it's gone
Show me love, hold the lorn
So much more I wanted to give to the ones who love me
I'm sorry
Time will tell [this bitter farewell]
I live no more to shame nor me nor you

And you... I wish I didn't feel for you anymore..."

A lonely soul... An ocean soul..

Akira Toriyama

Back in the days when children-friendly shows (meaning: those that children can enjoy) were scarce in the Philippines and the limited number of channels are still difficult to tune in to, my friends and I would huddle around our 14 or so inches black and white television and take turns holding the television antenna just to view the Dragon Ball animation series, shown every weekend in channel 9 (yes, there was still a local channel 9 then).

For most Filipinos my age, may it be the first or not, the animation became part of our weekly lives. It became a sort of reward after a week-long of grueling nights of homework and ear-shattering nagging of our mothers.

Needless to say, if not for Akira Toriyama, life then would have been unbearable.

Akira Toriyama, though his name escaped most of us while we were watching Goku doing his Kamehame Wave moments, is the one we should be thankful for. His craft and imagination brought Dragon Ball to life.

Akira Toriyama was born on April 5, 1955 in Kiyosu, Aichi, Japan. Because of the phenomenal effect of the animation Dragon Ball, not just in Asia but also in Americas (both north and south), he has become an acclaimed and world-known Japanese manga artist. He is the one responsible for both the manga and the media franchise of the said animation.

Toriyama’s fame already started way before Dragon Ball became known world-wide. Owing to his influences, Osama Tezuka’s Astro Boy, and Walt Disney’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Toriyama was able to come up with 20 or more mangas, contributed character designs for five video games, and even came up with a children’s book.

MANGA

• Awawa World
• Wonder Island
• Today's Highlight Island
• Tomato
• Hetappi
• Dr. Slump
• Escape
• Pola & Roid
• Pink
• Mad Matic
• Chobit
• Dragon Boy
• Tongpoo
• Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater Vol.1
• Dragon Ball
• Mr. Ho
• Lady Red
• Kennosuke-sama
• Sonchoh
• Mamejiro
• Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater Vol.2
• Karamaru
• Wolf
• Cashman Saving Soldier
• Dub & Peter 1
• Go!Go!Ackman
• Chotto Kaettekita Dr. Slump
• Tokimecha
• Alien X-Peke
• Bubul
• Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater Vol.3
• Cowa!
• Cashman Saving Soldier/New Cashman Saving Soldier
• Tahi Mahi
• Kajika
• Neko Majin
• Sand Land
• Bitch's Life
• Kochikame
• Cross Epoch
• Untitled Masakazu Katsura Collaboration

VIDEO GAME (Character Design)

• Dragon Quest series
• Dragon Quest Monsters series
• Chrono Trigger
• Tobal
• Blue Dragon

CHILDREN'S BOOK

• Toccio the Angel
  

dragon ball z

With the success of the Dragon Ball anime, Dragon Ball Z was created. Airing on the 26^th of April, 1989 until the 31^st of January in 1996, this seven-year running anime has completed the phenomenal success of its predecessor. The animation was so successful that it was dubbed in several countries, including North and South America.

If Dragon Ball was all about the conquest of the young Goku from that cute ass-kicking kiddo to the one who kicked the butts of then rivals, Piccolo and Vegeta, Dragon Ball Z concentrated more on them fighting off aliens who wish to conquer earth. As Goku and the rest of the casts in the previous animation mature and each of them having their own family and children, and as Vegetta and Picollo join the cast of the protagonist, the intensity of the series also increased. From the light and action-packed story, the series has become more dramatic and serious in tone as it included villains who commit mass murder and genocide..

Tonight I can write the saddest lines

please feel free to add your comments about the poems and let us try to share ideas

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example,'The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before. Her void. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her. Pablo Neruda If you are in the mood to tear your guts apart because of a bitter romantic interlude, this poem actually tops the list – beating other love songs and movie lines. I first encountered this poem when I was in college in one of my classes. And like what it always does to people who read it, it captured my heart and it has always been the poem for many a painful stories to tell. Funny really because even if the poem wrenches your heart out, you would still feel the overpowering aura of romance. Though bitter, it’s a kind of bitterness that makes you put an end to all of the miseries because it seems that the poem itself, though so packed with miseries, absorbs every pain that you feel, giving you a sense of resolution to all of your what-if’s.

SAPHHO

the poet in the isle of lesbos

I have not had one word from her

Frankly I wish I were dead
When she left, she wept

a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."

I said, "Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love

"If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared

"all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck

"myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them

"while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."

Translated by Mary Barnard

Please

Come back to me, Gongyla, here tonight,
You, my rose, with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired.

Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess,
Whom I now beseech

Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see.

Translated by Paul Roche

Untitled

On the throne of many hues, Immortal Aphrodite,
child of Zeus, weaving wiles--I beg you
not to subdue my spirit, Queen,
with pain or sorrow

but come--if ever before

having heard my voice from far away
you listened, and leaving your father's
golden home you came

in your chariot yoked with swift, lovely
sparrows bringing you over the dark earth
thick-feathered wings swirling down
from the sky through mid-air

arriving quickly--you, Blessed One,
with a smile on your unaging face
asking again what have I suffered
and why am I calling again

and in my wild heart what did I most wish
to happen to me: "Again whom must I persuade
back into the harness of your love?
Sappho, who wrongs you?

For if she flees, soon she'll pursue,
she doesn't accept gifts, but she'll give,
if not now loving, soon she'll love
even against her will."

Come to me now again, release me from
this pain, everything my spirit longs
to have fulfilled, fulfill, and you
be my ally

Translated by Diane Rayor

To Andromeda

That country girl has witched your wishes,

all dressed up in her country clothes
and she hasn't got the sense

to hitch her rags above her ankles.

Translated by Jim Powell

Untitled

Some an army of horsemen, some an army on foot
and some say a fleet of ships is the loveliest sight
on this dark earth; but I say it is what-
ever you desire:

and it it possible to make this perfectly clear
to all; for the woman who far surpassed all others

in her beauty, Helen, left her husband --
the best of all men --

behind and sailed far away to Troy; she did not spare
a single thought for her child nor for her dear parents
but [the goddess of love] led her astray
[to desire...]

[...which]
reminds me now of Anactoria
although far away,

Translated by Josephine Balmer

To Atthis

Though in Sardis now,
she things of us constantly

and of the life we shared.
She saw you as a goddess
and above all your dancing gave her deep joy.

Now she shines among Lydian women like
the rose-fingered moon
rising after sundown, erasing all

stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea
and over densely flowered fields

lucent under dew. Her light spreads
on roses and tender thyme
and the blooming honey-lotus.

Often while she wanders she remem-
bers you, gentle Atthis,
and desire eats away at her heart

for us to come.

Translated by Willis Barnstone

Sappho
circa 630 B.C.

Things you need to know (the technical stuff):

• born some time between 630 and 612 BC
• an aristocrat (rich!!!)
• had a daughter named Cleis
• dwelled in Lesbos, thus the word lesbian
• made the Sapphic meter (thus the name)
• one of the few who started using the first person point of view in making poetry
• innovated lyric poetry, in style and meter
• only one of her poems exists as a whole, most are just in parts

·

you actually think that would work

I have always known that no matter how you explain how you feel to others, they would never understand. Emotions, abstract as they are, are difficult to share.

Well, to explain them in a “it’s like this shit and it’s like that fuck…” fashion is easy. Like, well, “I’m feeling sad because somebody close to me died” or “I’m not in a good mood because I had a fight with somebody” are plain explanations and could be done even by those who are not experiencing the feeling.

But to actually share what you feel, to let others feel what you feel so that they could REALLY understand, well, it’s like telling somebody to fart for you.

Funny really because they say that to let go of the feeling and to make yourself feel better you need to share what you feel.

Now, tell me, how many times have you poured your guts out because you felt so fucked up and the only reaction you got is, “Okay, don’t worry, everything’s gonna be okay,” and you actually felt nice afterwards?

As if those words actually just erased your pain away, so to speak.

If they actually did well good for you, you have actually been so good in convincing yourself that the world is a big, fat, candy-colored shit.

Sorry about being cynical and all but it’s better than to actually lead or force myself to believe that such a pathetic line such as everything’s gonna be fine could actually make things fine.

I have stopped believing in Santa and the church a long time ago.

make you believe - scarling

I, know all your secrets
and I, have no one left to tell
when I, split into fractions
'cause I, I know the story well
but I, have no one left to tell

Burn your truth,
make you believe in god
make you believe in ghosts
make you believe in me

I, I'd tell all your secrets
if I, had some one left to tell
and my, my fearful deceptions,
because, I know you lie so well
but I, have no one left to tell

Burn your truth
make you believe in god
make you believe in ghosts
make you believe in me (x5)

Burn your truth
make you believe in god (x4)

OF UNFINISHED INQUIRIES

If I tell you what I feel right now, would you think you could empathize? If I tell you that I have kept the things that have been bothering me so deeply that even I could not understand what they are, would you believe me?

What if I try to list down all the things that have been bothering me, do you think you could tell me which of them really bore deeply through me?

the mist

The Mist (also known as Stephen King's The Mist), is a 2007 American horror film based on the 1980 novella The Mist by Stephen King.

The film is written and directed by Frank Darabont, who had previously adapted Stephen King's work and had been interested in adapting The Mist for the big screen since the 1980s.

With an ensemble cast including Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Toby Jones, and Andre Braugher, Darabont began filming The Mist in Shreveport, Louisiana in February 2007. The director revised the ending of the film to be darker than the novella's ending, a change to which Stephen King was amicable. Unique creature designs were also sought to differ from creatures in past films. The Mist was commercially released in the United States and Canada on November 21, 2007.

in solitude

have you ever wonder why there are relationships that do not work this question has always bothered me though people say i am not difficult to deal with once they know me. well, that is if they get a chance to know me. somehow, you wonder what makes relationships work - may it be grounded on friendship, blood relations, romance, among others. it makes you wonder what makes people hold on and what makes people let go.

maybe there are those who were destined to walk this world alone, in solitude. for if they happen to get attached with others, if they happen to entwine their lives with others, they only cause pain - if not for themselves, for the people they become close with. such miseries are avoidable if we only know how to become more giving and open-minded. oh, such words are sweet. if only they are achievable. because in this world, those people who give and understand are the only ones who get hurt and those who can't give and can't understand end up devouring those who can.

Yoshihiro Togashi

Yoshihiro Togashi was born April 26, 1966 in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. He is a Japanese manga artist. He is most notable for having created YuYu Hakusho, for which he received the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1994,^[1] and Hunter × Hunter. According to Shonen Jump,^{[citation needed]} Togashi received the Tezuka Award, the most influential new comic artist award in Japan.

Togashi is married to Naoko Takeuchi, the creator of Sailor Moon (he mentioned their marriage in volume 5 of Hunter x Hunter).^[2] From February 2006 to October 2007 Togashi had been on "sick leave" from his current manga Hunter × Hunter. Hunter x Hunter made its return on 2007-10-06, then quickly went back on hiatus on 2007-12-05. It returned from hiatus on 2008-03-03.

Manga creations

Ōkami Nante Kowakunai!! (狼なんて怖くない!!, Ōkami Nante Kowakunai!!^? "I'm not afraid of the wolf!")

Published in 1989, this collection of short stories includes Togashi's debut story, "Tonda Birthday Present", as well as "Buttobi Straight", the winner of the Tezuka prize, "Occult Tanteidan" 1 and 2, (the band of occult detectives), "Horror Angel", and the title work, "Ookami nante kowakunai!!". Each of the stories is an illustration of Togashi's tendency to write about the supernatural. The art style in these is simple and cute.

Ten de Shōwaru Cupid (てんで性悪キューピッド, Ten de Shōwaru Cupid^? "Wicked Cupid")

Published in 1989 and running until mid-1990, Ten de Shouwaru Cupid was published in four separate manga tankoubon (volumes). It was Togashi's first attempt to serialize a weekly manga publication. The series (like all of Togashi's other works) was published in Weekly Shonen Jump.

YuYu Hakusho (幽☆遊☆白書, YuYu Hakusho^?)or Poltergeist Report

Togashi's most famous series. YuYu Hakusho was first published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1990 and ran until 1994, eventually spanning a 19-volume tankoubon set. It features Yusuke Urameshi, a dead boy with an attitude and a high level of spiritual energy; eventually he returns to life and spends his time defeating demons either in tournaments or as a service to the God of the Dead. A team of demons and powerful humans form around him, and aid him in his fight. YuYu Hakusho was made into an extremely popular anime series (titled Yu Yu Hakusho in English).

Level E (レベルＥ, Level E^?)

"Level E" moves into the realm of science fiction, spinning into a fantastic universe in which extraterrestrials draw an innocent human into their rather strange intrigues. It was first published in Shounen Weekly Jump in 1995, and ran until 1997. It spans three volumes of tankoubon.

Hunter × Hunter

Beginning in 1998 and still running in Shonen Weekly Jump, it features a return to Togashi's original "cutesy" art style. The main character of HXH is named Gon, a bright-eyed, good-hearted boy with talent, who wishes to become a "Hunter" like his father. "Hunters" are people with fearsome skills, who bend all their formidable attention towards reaching a specific goal. Along the way, Gon picks up friends and enemies, and his world gets extremely complicated.

Church!

This is a dōjinshi series written by Togashi. Church! Volume 3 - We're Carried Away Here was advertised in page 187 of volume one of Yu Yu Hakusho. The United states and Canada edition of Yu Yu Hakusho Volume 1 published by VIZ Media, which contains an advertisement for Church!, states on page 187 that the series is no longer available.

Togashi also created a series called Trouble Quartet, a sports manga with homosexual characters and cross-dressing. According to page 116 of Volume 1 of Yu Yu Hakusho, Shueisha decided to not publish the comic in Weekly Shonen Jump. As of 2007, the comic has never been published. The main character of Trouble Quartet was named Gen Otoda (音田 弦, Otoda Gen^?).

Illustrated books

Oboo-nu- to Chiboo-nu-

Written by his wife Naoko Takeuchi. A children's book drawn for his son's birthday.

Anime

• Ōkami Nante Kowakunai!! (single-episode anime)
• YuYu Hakusho (adapted from all 19 volumes of the manga)
• Hunter × Hunter (adapted from the first 18 volumes of the manga)

Of this genitalia-ruled society

I have failed you my child - or better yet, I have failed myself and what I believe in. I think I hold the banner of those who have been trampled upon by the bias concept of this genitalia-ruled society. Yet, I have been a hypocrite. I have become my own monster - my disappointment mirrors my views of my own sex. I am not worthy to be called a woman. For even as I bear you now and celebrate womanhood in its peak, I have shunned the idea that we, in your future life, are the same.

yuyu hakushu: ghost fighter

Yusuke Urameshi is a street-brawling delinquent with a tough guy approach to everything. Yusuke's mother Atsuko, an alcoholic, had him at the age of 15 and took a backseat in raising her son. He has a reserved seat in the guidance counselor's office, and numerous other delinquents in the city are trying to take him on. Yusuke is pretty fed up with life.

However, no one expects a sudden act of heroism on his part: he dies trying to save a little boy from a speeding car. In fact, when he arrives in the afterlife, he is informed that the child would've miraculously survived without a scratch, had it not been for him (now the child has minor injury); his pre-matured death was unexpected and unnecessary, and they were not prepared for his arrival.

After numerous tests to gauge his worth, Yusuke is eventually revived, and is assigned to work for the Spirit Realm as a detective investigating demonic cases in the human world. He comes into spiritual abilities of his own, and enlists the help of numerous friends from Reikai (spirit world), Makai (demon world, translated in the English manga as the Demon Plane) and Ningenkai (human world) to aid him in his cases as they fight off demons and humans seeking to rule over all three worlds.

when my living ceased and nobody knows

i have finally put an end to my living

you should know

you see me

transformed into the dry, cracked statue that i am now

a mechanical fertility emblem

trying to look good in these odd clothes of motherhood -

no, i am not regretting

i have so long wished to cradle my child in my arms

but sometimes it just gets so new

so strange

that i have grown distant

and more

i have no one to talk to

a leaf falls loneliness

please feel free to add your comments about the poems and let us try to share ideas

l(a

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness

--e.e.cummings

it's not just a one-two-three step

Writing is a process - something that follows steps, procedures.

Writing is ideas expressed in words put together in order to become sentences that would later become paragraphs.

Writing is just another technical how-to that could easily be taught to anybody who is patient enough to follow its a, b, c's.

Oh, writing is just a process similar to tying one's shoelace or setting a computer.

If only these things were true about writing then I wouldn't have to worry about what to write for my blog entries. I wouldn't have to worry how to teach my Korean students how to write using the English language. I wouldn't have to worry writing about things that I really don't want to write about.

If writing is merely a process then escaping from my self would be as easy as 123. If only such things were true about writing, then half of the people I know, those who have used writing as a sort of medicine they need to maintain, would be sane.

Oh, if writing is just another process then I wouldn't have a hard time ending this entry.

izumi shikibu

www.kunisada.de/.../ka4852m.jpg

this is the only woman i love that makes me bleed through her words

• Even if i saw you only once, I will long for you through worlds world.

• They say the dead return tonight, but you are not here. Is my dwelling truly a house without spirit?

• Trampling the dry grass the wild boar makes his bed, and sleeps. I would not sleep so soundly even were I without these feelings.

• Will i alone be left to tell the story of our past - destined to be numbered with old tales of painful loves?

• In this world love has no color -- but how deeply my body is stained by yours.

• When I think of you, fireflies in the marsh rise like the soul's jewels, lost to eternal longing, abandoning my body.

• Come quickly - as soon as these flowers open, they fall - this world exists as a sheen of dew on flowers

• This heart is not a summer field and yet - how dense love's foliage has grown.

Who is Izumi Shikibu?
http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/izumi.html

The daughter of a Japanese provincial governor, Izumi Shikibu began service at court in her early teens. In 995 she was married to the governor of Izumi, and in 997 she had a daughter, Ko-shikibu. Izumi had been known as a poet before her marriage; she had already written one of her most popular poems, "I go out of the darkness."

Around the year 1000, she began an affair with Prince Tametaka (977-1002), the son of the Emperor by a junior consort. The affair was apparently not conducted discreetly, for it became the subject of gossip; Izumi's husband divorced her, and when Tametaka died, his death was rumored to be due to his visiting Izumi during a plague season.

A year after Tametaka's death, his brother, Prince Atsumichi (981-1007), began to visit Izumi. It is the first year of this affair that the Izumi Shikibu nikki describes, from the early summer of 1003 to the spring of 1004, when Atsumichi's wife left his house in anger. Although called a nikki (memoir) Izumi's book reads much like fiction: the story is told in the third person; the thoughts of various characters are given; and the two major characters' names are never given: they are simply "the lady" and "the Prince."

The affair continued until Atsumichi's death in 1007. In the next year Izumi went to court to be an attendant to Michinaga's daughter, Empress Shoshi /Akiko (joining Murasaki Shikibu, who had been there for a year or so). If Izumi Shikibu nikki was written during this period, one of its purposes may have been to explain her indiscretion to her fellow courtiers. Certainly many of Izumi's poems (Izumi Shikibu shu) not included in her Nikki appear to come from this period; a good portion of these are poems mourning Atsumichi, while other reflect life at court.

Around 1010, Izumi remarried and went to the provinces, apparently never to return to court, although she continued to write poetry; 240 of her poems were included in later imperial anthologies. We don't know how long she lived; the last official reference to her was in 1033.

this is my space

Literature appreciation has gone from a boring necessity back in college into a need that connects me to what i was born to do, to write.

Sadly, not everyone can be a poet, not everyone can be a writer...before!

Thanks to the 3 w's and the world has become friendlier for an undeveloped wanna-be like me. It has become a refuge for the times my itch to write calls me. Of course, I do not write my poems here. For even if not everyone can be a poet and/or a writer, everyone can be a critic. Instead of directly itching the place that has been burning with the desire to be itched, I scratch somewhere else - somewhere safer.

so if you too feel the need to appreciate literature, may it be a a hobby, a kink to turn you on or whatever, feel free to air your views here.

This blog has a wide range of literature appreciation: poems, stories, novels and even movies, animation, comics, manga, and music...