The Last Spartan

Author's Note: This is a poem I did on a sculpture from the Art Museum. I really liked the piece and it inspired me. In the end of this poem the soldier is trying to find anything he can hold on to, so he can stay alive. He's fighting for his life. PLEASE leave comments because I'm more than happy to change it. This format is an experiment so let me know what you think.

Fighting for Life,
Fighting for Death,
Fighting for Greece,
Fighting for Sparta,

Grit and dust,
Sweat and tears,
Blood and spit,
Sword and shield,

Blood flowing,
Head pounding,
Heart beating,
Hands trembling,

Reaching,
Grabbing,
Stabbing,
Killing,

Falling,
Laying,
Bleeding,
Dying,

Reaching for a sword,
Reaching for a shield,
Reaching for a helmet,
Reaching for a hope,

Failing.

Field

Author's Note: This wasn't my actual journal entry. This was just and awesome experience I had on the Sunday during Thanksgiving break. I know some people would hate this but it was so much fun I can't describe it. I was pheasant hunting with my dad, our friend Mr. Deltorto, and his two sons Nicholas and Max.

Tall grass sways in the breeze. The dog is sprinting back and forth, searching for a scent. Freezing he puts his nose in the grass and his tail in the air and waits. Slowly someone walks forward stepping all around. The frightened bird takes flight with wings beating frantically. A savage roar fills the air as lead shot is fired down the barrel towards the bird. The wild beast that is my gun kicks back while trying to break free of my grasp. Feathers erupt and the small bird falls to the ground lifeless. Congratulations fill the air as I flick the safety back on and pump out the used shell. I was stunned as everybody starts laughing as the dog searches for the dead body. Finally finding it and bringing it back the dog gets plenty of scratches as I put the bird in my sack. This situation would repeat many more times today while I brought down five different birds. In total the group got 15. It was my first bird hunt and it was so much fun, I can't wait for the next one!

Posting

Sorry if I don't have any new posts for a while because I'm working on a really long story. It's called The Blue Vengeance. It's from the point of view of a serial killer. Hopefully it will be good, but I'm not sure.

Trees

Author's Note: I love trees and find them absolutely fascinating. This fascination inspired this poem. If you come across this fun word, Yggdrasil, it's a Norse myth and it's the tree of life. Basically all seven of the worlds the Norse believed in were branches on this tree.

Guardians of the forest,
Older than mankind,
Proud and strong,
Graceful boughs slanting upward,
Sighing in the wind,

The smell of life rises from it's roots,
Giving to all,
The embodiment of life,
Yggdrasil,
Power,
For it is the forest,
And the forest is life,

Nothing can destroy life,
Not the shaking of the ground,
Or the bolts of light,
Nor winds,
Brushing against it's trunk,

Roots holding back,
Demonkind,
From this good earth.

The Awesome Experience of The Turkeysickle

Author's Note: Since it's post Thanksgiving, I just remembered this experience that happened at our cabin. I wanted to include a picture but I couldn't find any on our computer.

During Thanksgiving two years ago my family and I were up at our cabin in Three Lakes. The day before Thanksgiving we set the turkey out to defrost. It sat out all day in some water while we just hung out. When we all went to bed to dream of the feast to come, my dad thought my mom put the turkey back in the fridge while my mom thought my dad put it away. It sat out all night. In the morning there it was just sitting in the sink. My family would do this. So rather than take the chance of eating rancid turkey my dad had to run up to the little grocery store to buy another one. Then while we were making all the food and the new turkey was baking. We realized we still had the old one. What to do with it? This was a challenging enigma for us because we didn't want to waste all that food.

My dad hatched the brilliant idea to drive a stake into the ground and set the turkey on to see if anything would come to eat it, because I think that is the same year Brad and I saw a bear, but that's a whole different can of worms. So looking out the kitchen window and seeing a big turkey on a stake sitting out in your yard is an interesting sight. We left it out there for a day while we ate until we thought we would explode, then slept those calories off. The next day the turkey hadn't been bothered but it was frozen solid. It even had a couple little icicles hanging off it. My dad was forced to throw it away but it still was a fun experience. To this day we still think it froze to fast for anything to pick up the scent. So basically the moral of this story is don't let your turkey go bad, and if it does, set out in you front or back yard on a stake.

Stone

Author's Note: This is how I view stone. Please comment. I would like to see people's responses to this.

A silent guardian of the mountain,

Set in stone,

A foundation of life

Impervious to man,

Impervious to death,

Impervious to corruption,

The heart of the mountain,

The soul of the world,

The spirit of man,

The eyes of Gaia

Truth.

Strength

Author's Note: This is my essay response to Animal Farm but this is my best essay this year so I want it on this blog too. Not sure where this came from as like all my other pieces. I should really find out who and what I am.

Strength is a common idea but the meaning goes deeper than most people's comprehension. The common facet of strength is physical power like having muscle and being able to lift heavy objects. Like a diamond, strength goes much deeper than the surface of physical capabilities and it is this inner strength that is cursed to fail humanity every time it is drawn upon.

Strength of the mind and heart fail when they are most needed. Power of the mind cannot be relied upon to grasp the fragile balance of what is good and what is bad. For example someone who is considered a bad person may think he is doing good and is only thought as bad by the majority of the people. Others may think of him as good. The mind creates it's own reality but it doesn't have the strength to continue when faced with Truth. Good and bad are only views of perception and Truth cannot be perceived incorrectly and so this shuts down the mind's filter thus driving humanity insane. Napolean the hog on Animal farm could not face the Truth that he made the farm worse than it was with the humans. His insanity manifested itself by making him more human than was natural. Walking on two legs and consuming alcohol was too much for the pigs to stay pigs.

The heart fails in pureness. Love cannot be absolute for the heart's curiosity is like the mind's. It wanders from place to place never staying in one place for long. You can tie it down with all sorts of promises and vows but they will not ring true for long. In the end nothing is eternal. We cannot use the power of our frail mind to force our heart to love, even though we delude ourselves into thinking we can. This is the way the heart fails our mind which fails our body and our spirit. Napolean didn't even try to hold his heart in one spot, except maybe on greed. This, in the beginning, is what made him smarter than the rest of the pigs.

Napolean's mind and heart are what failed him in George Orwell's Animal Farm. His heart turned away from love and was forced to fill that hole in his heart with the lusty greed for power. As this was slowly happening his mind was becoming addicted to the absolute control he had over the entire farm. Like how drugs mess with a person's mind the control and power are turning Napolean into a tyrant. Before this power he was just an ordinary pig but afterwards he was worse than the former master of the farm Mr. Jones. His strength of mind and heart destroyed him as they destroy all with absolute control.

Shark: The Gateway to Death

Author's Note: At last another irony. It's been a while since I wrote and irony. This piece came from nowhere and everywhere. I am a mystery to myself.

Stuck in the water with no where to go. Treading water, and struggling to breathe. Death would be easier but I don't want to die. Slowly, gracefully a fin pierces the stillness of the water. It slowly circles around me, waiting for a chance to strike. Seeing an opening the beast of the deep sinks its teeth deep into my leg and I have to unleash a punch that sends it back. The water is now a deep red with my blood and the world is spinning. I fight the pain and the shark with my ebbing stength. The monsterous animal bites again and again. Finally I give up the losing battle and let myself be dragged into those beautiful, deadly teeth. My desperate struggle against the everlasting night is over as my gateway closes and bliss swallows the world.

Politics: You love them or you hate them

Author's Note: I know many of you don't pay attention to this stuff or that many of you might disagree with me but please comment anyway because I love to argue. It's one of my favorite talents.

~Thanks,
Derek

Many of you may have recently heard that the health care bill passed through the House. Now it only needs to pass through the Senate and Obama gets to sign it. Firstly, Barack Obama shouldn't even be president. Look at all the campaign promises he made. Where are they now? Gone from his mind that's where. It's been over a year and what did he achieve? Well he earned the Nobel Peace Prize for absolutely nothing. People say it's for what he will do. Yeah, and I'm Godzilla. Back to the more imposing issue of health care. If this reform passes the very heavy taxes would start right away but the actual health care plan wouldn't be engaged until 2014 and even when it starts we would get insanely long waits and horrible coverage! Doesn't this sound familiar? Hello Canada! We are going to end up just like them. Might as well give me a maple leaf and a hockey stick. No offense to any Canadians out there. Even if you don't have health care the government is now forcing it on you. Either theirs or your employers, who now if they have more than thirty employees, must provide health care. Because of that, about 14 states are suing the federal government for going against the Constitution and many more are well on the way. The Constitution talks about something called state commerce. This means only the state government can mandate something like that. 37 states. Doesn't that show support for the new bill!

The other topic I wanted to discuss is gun-control. Now the government is trying to regulate how many guns are sold. How is that any of their business? They're also trying to stop gun sales completely. That goes against the Bill of Rights. I don't know which amendment it is but one of them clearly states "the right to bear arms". Recently they forced ammunition manufacturers to make the wad in shot-gun shells disintegrate after a certain period of time. Why in the world would they do that? Maybe they don't want people stock piling ammunition for when a revolt comes. I could go on but I will spare you. I will write a sequel to this though. This is all evidence of what Democrats and liberals are trying pull under the noses of hard working americans.

Rain

Author's Note: This is just how I think of rain.

The tears of the gods,

Spilling towards earth,

Bringing strength,

Life,

Death,

Cleansing the earth,

Until the gods cry no more,

And the rain leaves the skies

Diamonds

Author's Note: This is just an experiment in poetry.

The whiteness of the earth,

Trapped in crystalline beauty,

Reflecting the light,

Never going dark,

Conveying a message to all,

There will always be hope,

As long as I stand,

As long as there is a world,

Hope shall exist

Snake

Author's Note: This is what I think life would be like for a snake living in the desert.

I stick out my forked tongue, searching for a scent. There, a distant taste of short-tailed mouse and ugh, the vile stench of humans. I mentally prepare for a long and difficult journey before setting off ready to either find food or defend myself. The endless dunes of the ancient desert present no problem to me. I gently slip my aerodynamic head through the coarse grains of sand and enter the sub-terrainean highways of the my kind. Swiftly tightening my muscles I speed through the tunnel under hundreds of tons of sand and steadily gain on the mouse, and the humans. I hear a rumbling noise that almost sends me into a panic, but then I realize it's only my stomach. Silently I curse this infernal rumbling, it is going to give away me position! Finally after hours of traveling I erupt from the sand and instantly give chase to the terrified mouse. Speeding away from me it dives through a small grove of shrubs with me close behind and snapping at its tail. It breaks into the open but I stop, because a deep and visceral feeling warns me not to leave the safety of the shrub. I want to listen but the force of my hunger drives me on as a cautiously slither out of the shade. I instantly realize my mistake because I am looking at a large group of humans and they are not happy. One of the vile creatures tries to hit me with a club but I leap aside screeching and hissing. Before he can strike again I sink my fangs deep into his leg and the world goes dark.

Lightning

Author's Note: Not sure where this came from. I was a little depressed that day so I wrote an irony.

The dark storm rages against the town, hurling all of it's might on the people. Howling like a banshee, the wind whips through town sending the little children into their parents arms. Not a soul dares venture outside the fortresses that are their houses. A mighty roar shakes the ground, announcing that thunder is here. With a blinding flash of light that illuminates every single blade of grass, a bolt of lightning rips through the sky and strikes the tree on top of the hill that over looks the town. The tree ignites as every eye watches it. The burning of the tree is Mother Nature sending a warning "I am Mother Nature and I will destroy all who stand before me" and this message goes straight to the heart of every citizen in town.

Valentines Day: The Worst Holiday Ever

Author's Note: This is exactly how I feel about Valentines Day.

What is the point of Valentines Day? We just go around giving eachother candy, flowers, and cards. Why?? It's so pointless. Just save the candy for yourself and be done with it! Don't even get me started on flowers! Sure they smell nice but why would you grow them only to give them to someone and let them die in a day? Good flowers take weeks to grow and then you let them die! The cards are just as bad. Why can't you just tell the person flat out? But no! People have to go and write it down and then hand it to the person. That and many other reasons make Valentines Day the WORST holiday EVER!!

My First Romantic Piece!!

Author's Note: This was I challenge to write but I love a challenge and I think this turned out pretty well.

The tall trees grace the sky with their magnificence as I slowly walk between them. Birds tweet completely unaware of me as I listen to their haunting melody. A young fawn perks up its ears as I watch it munch on the sweet, green grass. As I watch the fawn a squirrel lets out a chattering warning call to his brethren. Trying not to disturb it any more I sink back into the tree and be as still as possible. The squirrel, now confident that the danger is passed, climbs down the tree and starts rooting around for nuts. His forage successful, he quickly stuffs them into his mouth and scampers back up the tree. All of this happening around me is the miracle of life.

Journal Entry: Fire

Author's Note: I love fire, so it was only a matter of time before a piece like this came about.

The flames begin their dance with death as the paper gently ignites. They duck around the logs and race to the kinlien. With a whoosh of fire the entire pile goes up in flames. What began as a gentle creature suddenly becomes less friendly as it grows hungrier and hungrier, as it yearns for more wood. But sadly it does not last for in its hunger it ate the logs all to quickly and collapsed into oblivion.

Journal Entry: Road

Author's Note: Again this is one of the many pieces where I'm not quite sure where it came from. I am a mystery to myself.

The road splits in front of me, with one side a barren wasteland full of hostile people and animals and the other a beautiful small town nestled in the mountains. I know that I must make a decision, so I slowly walk to the wasteland for I know I can never find happiness in comfort, and so with my choice made I walk into the desert, my home, because Mother Nature designed a restlessness in me that cannot be stilled. My nature demands of me to fight to survive, I need the hunger in my belly and the thirst in my throat for me to truly exist.

Judgement Day

Author's Note: In my mind this may have already started. Where I pull this from I have no clue.

Man will try to run but it is for naught, for none shall escape Mother Nature's wrath. She will purge itself of the plague that is man. We pocket her seamless surface with buildings and such but she cannot hold our teeming population and will strike us down like the vermin we are. The withering storms brought down from the north will bring man to his knees. The seas will then rise and swallow every man, woman, and child. But when the dust settles a new species will become the champions of Earth. When Judgement Day comes the era of man will fall.