For John Keats

“For John Keats”

With no name

they buried you,

and distant.

Feel the flame!

To awaken

you must sleep.

A Prayer Against Dreams

I wrote this a couple years ago it seems, but only copied it to Facebook. So here it is here.

 

A Prayer Against Dreams

Oh merciful angels, let not the effluent garbage of my neurons rise up as I lay here in this bed and become the screen onto which I look.

Take me not again to the house of my youth with the Last Rites crucifix, and the missing grandfather, and my grandmother pressing shirts next to the huge oak dining table, for I have returned there too often, and it is a bad and useless habit.

Save me from the smile of the half-lovely stranger in the green dress, for I know that she says lies, and her lips are not the proper shade of red.

Let me not exit the bus in the dark valley with no trees, amongst houses and fences that are not my own.

Restrain in their courses the mad flowing blonde bubbles in the cavern of the shopping mall as I step off the shaky escalator.

Let me not scream out in anger against someone from long ago, for I am tired, and everything now is seemingly long ago.

Lead me not to the woman with the beautiful crystal eyes, whose name I cannot remember, and who I almost had the chance to love.

Empty my mind, oh all you saints, of all the shrill things that come in the night to kill my hopes, for they alone are the things my soul will fear at dawn.

Take me by the hand, my God, if I should fall asleep, and lead me never into that wasteful world of dreams, for they are unkind, and I know they are ultimately false, and speak to me with an always bitter voice.

Game of Thrones Sequels

I have a confession to make: I’ve never watched Game of Thrones. Not even once across what seems to be eight seasons. So when I heard that the series finale will be broadcast tonight, I had to do a lot of fast research even to find out where the plot was at after the last two episodes.

But one thing seems clear, this finale is not really a finale, and GOT will certainly generate full-length movie sequels. I read in Rolling Stone recently that in its time the series had racked up over a billion viewers — a first it seems. So if Star Trek OS and Next Generation generated movie sequels, you can pretty much guess that a cash-cow like Thrones is going to generate a few.

And what could be better for that than to give the televised finale an Unhappy Ending? Because people generally want a Happy Ending. They want justice to prevail. So even though they are talking about a movie prequel, I seriously suspect that the first thing we will will see is a sequel which turns things around, at least a bit.

Until then — All Hail, Queen of the Ashes.

A Million Days

See that guy on the right with the scepter and crown? That’s Sargon II, King of Assyria. And about 1,000,000 days ago he was a really really big deal.

Not so much of a big deal now.

We with our big egos. And our glorious free will. But we’re all simply souls on a speck of dust. 

Strangely, the Creator has figured us into it all anyway.  I guess he has his reasons. Teilhard de Chardin said that God wanted us to participate in His grand Creation, to in a sense be co-creators along side him — in a small way of course. That, and to take care of one another. Yes especially that one.

Which brings up the question: Where will the people of this planet be a million days from now? 

 

All Hail, USCG!

USCG 47′ MLB off the coast of Oregon.

“The 47′ Motor Lifeboat (MLB) is designed as a first response rescue resource in high seas, surf and heavy weather environments. They are built to withstand the most severe conditions at sea (winds up to 60 knots, breaking surf up to 20 feet, and impacts up to three G’s) and are capable of effecting a rescue at sea even under the most difficult circumstances. They are self-bailing, self-righting, almost unsinkable, and have a long cruising radius for their size.”

Now THAT’S a boat, mate!

And a great thanks to the men and women of the USCG. 

Mega-Yacht Park, er Marina

The Pacific Eagle may look in the photo above like a fairly ordinary ketch-type sailboat cruiser. But appearances can be deceiving. Imagine you are at Jurassic World, seeing a brontosaurus at a distance. Seems rather ordinary. But then you get up close…

And that’s the same with this boat: this boat is a mega-yacht.

PACIFIC EAGLE

Builder: Alloy Yachts International
Year: 1989
Designer: Don Brooke
Flag of Registry: New Zealand

Dimensions
LOA: 102 ft.
Beam: 25 ft.
LWL: 88 ft. (guessing)
Draft: 8.5 ft.

She carries a whopping 3400 square feet (yowsah!) of sail. And if that’s not enough, it can get through 200 nautical miles per day on her dual 240 hp diesel engines.

Also, according to the description, she “holds 5000 litres of fresh water that produces 4 litres per minute. She has a massive storage on-board, including over 30 cubic feet of customised freezer space and can be self-contained for over 6 months.” Simply put, this girl was meant to circumnavigate — whether you stop and party at every port is up to you.

Current cost for this mega-yacht (and remember the Pacific Eagle is now almost 30 years old) is EUR 1,950,000.

It isn’t the biggest sailing yacht in the world. Since 1989 there have been even bigger boats. But the Pacific Eagle was one of the models that launched the limited yet very enthusiastic craze. Me, I’d feel pretty alone on that big ketch all by myself — guess I’d have to hire some friends. LOL

Well, I’ve got about $20. So I was thinking about buying the Titanic. $20 should be enough considering that particular mega-yacht is lying at the bottom of the ocean, broken in two big pieces.

 

 

The Wild Wind is Roaring

My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring,
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For above, and around me, the wild wind is roaring
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.

The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing,
The bare trees are tossing their branches on high;
The dead leaves beneath them are merrily dancing,
The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky.

I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray,
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing
And hear the wild roar of their thunder today!

— Anne Brontë

Sailing the Globe All Alone

The Guppy.

The youngest person to circumnavigate the globe single handedly in a sailboat is currently Dutch sailor Laura Dekker, who completed her 518-day trip at the age of 16. She was sailing the Guppy, an older style and slightly modified Jeanneau Gin Fizz ketch.

The oldest human to circumnavigate the globe is Minoru Saito of Japan, who completed his extremely difficult “wrong way around” (west to east) voyage at age 77. He did it in a custom 50’ sloop, the Shuten-dohji III.

This is what the nav station of a circumnavigator looks like (on the Guppy).

Rilke: from The Book of Hours

You are the future, the great sunrise red
above the broad plains of eternity.
You are the cock-crow when time’s night has fled,
You are the dew, the matins, and the maid,
the stranger and the mother, you are death.

You are the changeful shape that out of Fate
rears up in everlasting solitude,
the unlamented and the unacclaimed,
beyond describing as some savage wood.

You are the deep epitome of things
that keeps its being’s secret with locked lip,
and shows itself to others otherwise:
to the ship, a haven — to the land, a ship.

 

– Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems from the Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
Translated by Babette Deutsch.

 

Private Reserve

My private reserve.

Of one bottle. 

But that is acceptable. I drink hardly at all anymore. And as far as celebratory occasions go — well one can always hope but in truth that would be a rarity. 

The Browne’s Addition label refers to a neighborhood here in Spokane. My own neighborhood. Which is why I bought it. In truth though as far as the dancers on the label go, that is the Marie Antoinette Ballroom at the Davenport Hotel. Which is very close but actually downtown, not Browne’s Addition.