Cannon Delight

None of these took me more than five minutes to write. So I'm pretty proud, considering. -->

•••

Country, country, oh far and wide.

Unceasing sight for sight to see,

see the light cease at night,

for forts we fight, fortnights lay siege.

Discomfort fester in a sea

seeking comfortability

wind still whirring, stirring tea

to all the fish, afloat, or flee.

Lifeless, lustless, headless, hauntless

harness lifelessness, be gone with

such and such, or so for whats,

As reason slips. And skips. And cuts.

A newfound friend, a foreign hand

Oh country, country, now our land

You bled and burned and dried and now

this blessed land, not for whom, but how?

•••

Unrepenting southerner, I lay to thee a blow

For somewhere out among the stars,

your reason stands to grow.

Not here, nor there, nor everywhere,

may you tread, black tires forwarding.

Heed, rebellious confederator,

that old Civil forewarning.

•••

I found a cut upon my lip,

Tender and wet across the tip.

My tongue massage, lather, and sense,

whether one slice, or increments.

I found a cut upon my brow,

I saw it yes, but don't know how.

To thee I muse, and feel thy soul,

No clear mirror could I cajole.

Now it is night, I lie awake,

As effects upon my face take.

To know that nicks and cuts abound

returns me to thy battleground.

•••

Away the redbird flew to morn,

wormless, chirpless, now forelorn.

A song he sings to doves and gulls,

"Be mindful of the trigger pulls.

While all wiser, the early riser,

Curtailed hopes may spare a miser.

So dream your dreams and find your fun,

But know I speak for everyone,

there they are,

there may they stay,

lest they sing:

Men, bombs away.

Two-fold is it true for thee,

a stainless bird, a crooning she.

As ivory feathers adorn our nest,

My scarlet cometh from war out west.”

--Eliot Sill

Nick - In The Arms Of God

All kind deities cast aside
In favor of some shadowy appendage
Reaching across the sky to bring me to this moment

To cradle me in darkness
And soothingly assure my restless heart
That heaven would hold no sway through its reign

And all the bright shimmering believers
Will be cast down by this cruel god

Safe in its reach I ascend the steps to hell
Finally rewarded for my oozing soul

Knowing what fate awaits
How many good citizens would defect
Casting aside all love and goodness for salvation

And aware of evil's triumph
Would there remain any paragons
Who sacrifice their soul to ignite some fleeting kindness


-Nick.

Some storm we knew we'd brave

False, lying, incomplete.
There's an unfathomable essence in this room.
Something's not right — well, so
you're not here.

When I felt the warmth that day,
it reminded me of your shirt
pressed against my invulnerable skin.

Some things, they say, are meant to fade,
others vanish quickly
no more lonely days,
I'll take this planet with me.

You've found me, you see me, know my name
I'm-so-enjoy-you're glad you came

Don't think twice just take me with
we'll find some land and spread our arms wide.
We'll take it in, and it will be ours
to groom
and grow
and grace
and give.

We won't have to leave, not even when we think we should.
This place of ours, our neighborhood.
Our roundabout, our philanthrope.
Some reason won't wedge between us and it,
nah, it would never work out

that way. When we're older
we won't have to cry,
because no one's going to say
to us a bye.

Independence, independence
independence, independence, independence
oh no. Independence, independence.
Oh no.

Fighting back. Fighting back. Fighting back
fears—

--Eliot Sill


An afterword:

I feel the need to add — the need to explain myself. See, I've never ever liked poetry I've attempted. I've always written my poems, loved them, then hated them within an hour. It's the form of writing I'm least confident in.

Poetry stirs us that way. To try and use words as brushstrokes and craft art out of letters is a difficult task. Especially when it's abstract in the way (my) poetry is. I've found myself better describing emotions and images, rather than trying to use words as them. But I'm not alone. Poetry is an oft neglected art form.

It's not cool, it's never cool to do poetry, at least not in a public forum, (such as Classic Brian), but I feel like it's one of those things where it's awkward to read someone-you-know's poetry. Because you're used to them expressing themselves in a different, normal way. But when someone thinks they have this mind bending concoction of flowey words and sappy imagery painting phrases, it's sort of a matter of pretense. You don't respect the person writing because they aren't above you enough to write in that way.

Having said that, good poetry is good poetry. It'll make itself known in a crowd of crap, like most good things.

But here I am, I don't feel confident slinging poetry on Classic Brian like it's something I'm entitled to try. Like fiction, but to a greater extent. I am backing up that poetry with prose because, damn it, I can do prose. Anyone can do prose. But, anyone can do poetry too. Not good poetry mind you, but who said prose was easy to rock. Certainly, I think, it's easier. Especially for someone like me, who meanders on and on and can give you 1,000 words on any little dumb thing (like a dumb poem).

I wrote this poem because I didn't feel like I had any solid CB ideas, but yet I had a lot on my mind. I tried to think of topics, and only words came to my head. Words that sounded good together. Words that sounded bad together. Words that sounded nonsensical, frightened, and alone. Words that desired the companionship of other words. I put a lot of myself in its three-hours-ago state into that poem, and I feel like it relieved some stress, just typing it. But I still can't look at it like it's good. I hate it.

And, going back to the as-a-writer thing, it sucks that I don't feel confident in all walks of write. I wish I could bang out poetry and fiction in the same way I can do the things I do semi-decently. I've never been a songwriter, and I've never been a poet. I think I sound overall corny and always too desperate to sound cool.

Regardless, thanks for reading.

Poetic License... to Kill

The author, left, pondering existence on his friend's knees.

by Brendan Cavanagh

As a budding English / Education major, I am required to take a creative writing class focused on either prose fiction or poetry. My good friend, already a practicing amateur poetry and song writer, opted for the latter, hoping the class could hone our skills for future self-indulgence and potential school-wide publication. Instead of eating dinner at five o'clock like I do every day, I vindictively throw off my mutinous stomach and metabolism on Monday afternoons and instead attend the only poetry class of the week, from 3:50 to 6:30.

So far, the class has been amazingly fruitful, instilling in me the intestinal fortitude to write poems casually throughout the day into a pocket-sized spiral notebook- when I'm not already memorizing alluring alliterations I can tell flow together well or texting myself concepts for future poems. And what I love about writing poems- what the pious love about prayer- is that I can do it at any time of the day, in any location, in any fashion I choose. And I could potentially do this for the rest of my life and never tire of it. There is an endless array of words and sounds and ideas to play around with- unlike your favorite James Bond game on Playstation 2 that's a little too easy to beat, or that novel you love that seems to end all too soon. Unless, like me, you sit down to write something unique and inventive and find that the only words you can cull are obscure lyrics from your favorite songs. But that'll pass if I am feeling particularly inspired.

For instance, there was a period of about a week and a half earlier this semester where I'd ride my bike to the Butler Prairie on the far end of the campus across the canal and hike through spiderweb-ridden forest trails to a secluded spot on the bank beside the hidden White River. There I'd sit on the massive, mangled roots of an ancient tree and read under the shade, and hopefully incite the burning poet inside me to break free ablazin'.

But I digress. The point is, having an inspiring location is just one of the many ways in which to relax and write freely, from the soul, without over-thinking.

After much deliberation, I've decided to just go ahead and post a poem I wrote to be workshopped in class last Monday. It loosely evokes what I saw and felt on a solo walk around the campus' neighboring neighborhoods. I unfortunately haven't sat down to revise or alter it since it was openly critiqued in front of me in class (I wasn't allowed to speak until afterward) by my cliche, free-minded, aging hippie teacher, the reserved, ambiguously-aged teaching assistant and hodge podge assortment of classmates. It was tough to watch people pick out little things in my poem that they didn't made sense or sounded good, lines or images that I thought were subtly nuanced. But it was a healthy critique- I'm glad to have gotten much written and oral feedback on my work so that I can improve upon it more adequately in the future. Anyway, I haven't changed anything  except I broke up the lines into smaller, more readable lines (at the unanimous behest of my class) for your benefit. Here it is, without a title and in an inexplicably different typeface, so interpret at your own leisure:

The setting sun beams on rusted reams

of rising dust emanating from pickup truck pipe dreams,

and I



(along the narrow path I tread,

peering silently at the serene sight taking place

before me)



adrift in the palpably hovering mist,

like a motionless spider

resting among the clouds on a lofted window.

Beneath a withering willow tree I see

each of the ninety billion particles of

light peeping through the tinted horizon.

A lone

sparrow calls from atop a tall brick wall,

falls to the freshly trimmed lawn and calls again.

Alas,

the time for sunglasses has passed,

Though, boldly advertising

name-brand plastic black frames,

I shamelessly remain walking

upright through the silent, stiff chill of twilight.

Shivering in misery

below the moon's stellar gloom,

I shuffle home alone as

night begins to settle in.

.                            .                             .

Don't ever tell yourself you can't write poetry! Anyone can write poetry. Even the 6'5" athletic, senior frat guy in my class. Nice guy with- unbeknownst to him- a surprisingly melodic ear for sound which gradually emerges from within after rigorous practice. So if you have only ever written bland, automated haikus about Autumn Leaves for mandatory junior high assignments, or you want to write poetry but doubt yourself, or your favorite poem can be found on the funny pages of Hustler, take some time out every now and then to see what you can create. You'd be surprised what you can produce with a little motivation and imagination

Sketches of an Adequate Blog Post

by Brendan Cavanagh

I have to work ALL DAY today, which is a bummer because I have all these ideas for a post today, and little time to fully divulge any one of them. So I'll assemble here a small collection of the few things that have been on my mind lately:

Playing Piano

I'm bored. Oh look, the piano. Sigh, I guess I'll entertain you with a few ditties. What's that? First I think I'll pretend like I don't really know what I'm doing. Tickle a few keys here and there. Throw in a few sharps. Oh hey, I'm improvising (even though I don't really know how). Now I'm leading these arbitrary sharps and flats into a real song- Hungarian Dances No. 5? Sure. Now they know I know something of considerable merit. I'll throw them a few bones and play it twice as fast. Bask in their applause.

I think I'll just jump right into an impromptu set list. Up next we have Rage Over a Lost Penny by Beethoven. I'll play it really loud like, sound more important than I am. Just like Evgeny Kissin.

What's that? Something more contemporary? Oh all right then, I'll just play The Beatles' Let It  Be. Nah, I think all I'll give you is the opening piano bit and just a couple notes of the first verse (because that's all I know).

Yeah, okay, let's jam a little bit. I'll play the same two chords over and over and over- Bob Dylan's Sittin' On A Barbed Wire Fence.

Let's play Hungarian Dances No. 5 again, see if we can successfully play that cascading waterfall of notes in the middle of the song. Damn it! I can't do it. Try again. Again. Again. Give up. Start over. Give up.

Okay, let's take everyone's mind off my inability to play those notes and impress them with my best song- Pachabel's Canon in D. Yeah. I think I see a tear in my parents' eyes. This song is still impressive after seven years.

Oh, I'm going to attempt to jam some more, even though I know I really can't do it. These black keys sound real good together. I bet everyone thinks I'm playing a real song. Nope!

Fur Elise! Just the good part.

Uh...Hedwig's Theme!

Rage Over A Lost Penny again. Okay, I give up. I'm going to get up like everything that just happened wasn't a big deal.

Mix CDs

I love and hate making mix CDs. I mean I agonize over making them. There was one time when I was trying to make a then-important mix, and I spent several sleep-deprived nights trying to narrow down 150 songs to twenty, ultimately settling on a double CD containing in total about forty songs. Like anyone, I become invigorated by the prospect of constructing a decent playlist of songs that I feel are important to me for someone who is important to me. Except I think I put too much thought and effort into my mixes. Like, I somehow hope that there's an easy way to arrange all these different types of songs together in a fluid fashion, so that the CD will maintain a constant and unbreaking flow. But that's just so damn hard to do. Eventually what ends up happening is the first six songs on my mix will sound incredible when placed one after the other, but I give up attempting to fit the next fifteen songs in an engaging way that I see fit. But I know it still sounds awesome. And then right when I make it, all of a sudden everything on the CD seems so cliche and then I fear that the mix is too strictly temporal in that it lists the songs I'm crazy about at one particular moment in my life. So I'm afraid that in the near future, even I will find my own playlist dated and obsolete. But maybe that's the great part about my mixes- that they catalogue the most important songs to me in one particular chapter of my life and paint a picture of how I'm feeling at that point. Sometimes I think I should just start making mix EPs because they'd be about five songs long and undeniably powerful and groovy.

An Incomplete Poem Inspired By Mada's Latest Post
(from the point of view of John Wilkes Booth's reanimated wax figure at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, upon seeing the armies of resurrected Lincoln's surrounding him)

My only regret is that I had but one life to live

Four scores of top-hat hordes advance upon my waxen figure
Adhering to the commands of a long-fallen leader
146 years of lying in a tomb culminates in honest revenge
He emancipates his way through courtroom suits

HEY CONOR, LOOK HERE LOOK HERE, CONOR

What's your favorite movie, and why? Mine for a long time was Shaun of the Dead. While it's still one of my favorites, I feel like I'm clutching at it, trying to tell myself it's still my favorite, even though I know I've seen many better movies. I think Annie Hall or something has probably taken over its number one position. But I'm afraid to let that happen. What do I doooooo?