Quickie (Quiz, *sigh*) but Amusing

Found this one over at Doug's blog the other day, but had to wait to take it because of Websense :(

Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?
this quiz was made by Lori Fury

13 Days?!? Now for Poetry & Art

Hopeless - Lichtenstein

Alright, thirteen days between posts is ridiculous, even if I'm suffering from a bruised heart. (Courtesy of Mr. Be Charming and Pursue You Relentlessly and then Silently Decamp to Explore Feelings For Someone Else, grrr. But, he always wanted me to mention him on the blog *innocent smile*)

One for Mr. Bruised my heart:
The Flower
I think I grow tensions
like flowers
in a wood where
nobody goes.

Each wound is perfect,
encloses itself in a tiny
imperceptible blossom,
making pain.

Pain is a flower like that one,
like this one,
like that one,
like this one.
~Robert Creeley

Black Iris - O'Keefe

One for all of you who understand my sense of humor ;)
XXVI
Good creatures, do you love your lives
And have you ears for sense?
Here is a knife like other knives,
That cost me eighteen pence.

I need but stick it in my heart
And down will come the sky,
And earth's foundations will depart
And all you folk will die.
~A. E. Housman

Pepper No. 30 - Weston

And some love poems, because I still want to find it...
i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
~e. e. cummings

Rose and Driftwood - Adams

SOMEWHERE ON THE WAY
I wanted to say a lot of things:
I wanted to say how often lately
Your bright image has wandered through
The dark rooms of my mind;
I wanted to say how good it is
To wake up every morning
Knowing that the day contains
Something that is you.

I wanted to say a lot of things:
I wanted to talk about
The changing colours of moments,
The silent secret language
Of bodies making love.
I wanted to say that you
Are always only as far from me
As thoughts are from thinking.

I wanted to say I love you
In fourteen foreign languages
But most of all (most
Difficult of all) in English.

I wanted to say a lot of things.
But they all seem to have lost themselves
Somewhere on the way. And now I’m here
There’s nothing I can say except
Hello, and Yes I’d like some coffee, and
What shall we find to talk about
Before the night burns out?
~Peter Roche

(I don't know who did this sculpture)

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

~e.e. cummings

Mischief and Repose - Godward

Now, just because I love them so much:
Pursuit
Each thing I do I rush through so I can do
something else. In such a way do the days pass -
a blend of stock car racing and the never
ending building of a gothic cathedral.
Through the windows of my speeding car, I see
all that I love falling away: books unread,
jokes untold, landscapes unvisited. And why?
What treasure do I expect in my future?
Rather it is the confusion of childhood
loping behind me, the chaos in the mind,
the failure chipping away at each success.
Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape
and so move forward, as someone in the woods
at night might hear the sound of approaching feet
and stop to listen, then, instead of silence
he hears some creature trying to be silent.
What else can he do but run? Rushing blindly
down the path, stumbling, struck in the face by sticks;
the other ever closer, yet not really
hurrying or out of breath, teasing its kill.
~Stephen Dobyns

Starry Night over the Rhone at Arlis - van Gogh

Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
~Mary Oliver

Bewitched Mill - Marc

More Fun: Two of My Favorite Guys

Okay, these are more of the altered manga-esque transformations, this time of two of my favorite guys. First is Billy, who keeps me sane, and saves me from myself over and over. Next is Brian, one of the most amazing people I've ever met.

Bad Nights

Weeping Nymph - Jean-Jacques Henner

There are nights when I try to sleep, and all I see behind my closed eyes are the awful things that have happened - even if I didn't really see them happen. Tonight, it's the writhing, agonized convulsions of the injured squirrel in the road I saw on the way to work the other day. It'’s what Trey must have looked like, after the stray piece of metal sliced into his head before he launched through the windshield and landed far from most of his car. It's what Caleb must have looked like inside the makeshift tent with the gas line from his stove tucked inside. It's what Carrie looked like in her coffin, the livid purple mark on her forehead where she must have hit her head when she collapsed and died.
There are times when it's not good to have a vivid imagination, when I am sorry I spent so many years processing accident and autopsy pictures. when I need pictures of my friends nearby, when I wish I had a list of good thoughts to turn to. There was a list of compliments from friends, which in moments of depression and loneliness I would read over. It was on the laptop that crashed, and may yet be recovered. There is a photo Ferris wheel by my bed, full of pictures of me with various friends and family members, to remind me that I am loved, that I am not truly alone.
I'm sure that part of my insomnia is due to my being unable to shut my mind off, to redirect the negative without getting up and doing something. I am sometimes afraid of what might appear in my dreams, on nights like this. If my waking thoughts are of pain, loss, and death, how much worse will it get in my dreams?

Fun With Two of my Favorite Girls

So, I've been playing again, using small pictures of Carla & Elaine, the Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer (http://www.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~morph/), Corel Draw 2, and Paint Shop Pro 9. I'm still learning, that's for sure. The first image is the original, the second one is the transformed image, and the third one is the one I tried to refine, with varying results. Two things: I'm not familiar enough with Manga as a drawing style, and I'm still learning at a crawl on the image editing programs. These are cute (how could they not be?) but I hope to be able to get better with all of the techniques. To all of my friends whose pictures are not up here this time, I'm still working on several of these, and hope to post more next week.

First Lines Meme

Okay, this meme was fun to do. Put on you media player, select "random" or "shuffle" and write down the first line of each song that plays, then post those first lines, without the song name or band. Post your guesses in the comments, and remember that using google is cheating :)

1. If there’s a prize for rotten judgment, I guess I’ve already won that.
2. You don't have to be beautiful to turn me on
3. All the birds have been blue, they don't know what to do
4. All around the country and coast, people always say what do you like most
5. When you're walking down the street and a man tries to steal your business
6. As I sit here surrounded by people and lies, along with my drink at the bar
7. I wrote her off for the tenth time today, practiced all of the things I would say
8. There's a lot of ways of saying what I want to say to you
9. I'm feeling nothing but all alone, just missing someone I don't even know
10. This is the one situation I wanted most to avoid
11. I had no choice but to hear you, you stated your case time and again
12. You know your old man was with me last night
13. Every finger in the room is pointed at me
14. You think you're gonna take her away, with your money and your cocaine
15. Hold on, hold on to yourself, for this is gonna hurt like hell
16. My friend the communist holds meetings in his office
17. As I walk this land of broken dreams, I have visions of many things
18. I can see you were right about this place, I can make a perfect likeness of your body if I trace
19. We've all seen the man at the liquor store begging for your change
20. Coming out of my cage and I'll be doing just fine

Wilbertina, my personality pig

The cut & paste code didn't work, and I don't know enough about html to understand why. So, here are my results:
You drew the pig:
Toward the middle, you are a realist.
Facing right, you are innovative and active, but don't have a strong sense of family, nor do you remember dates.
With many details, you are analytical, cautious, and distrustful.
With 4 legs showing, they are secure, stubborn, and stick to their ideals.
The size of the ears indicates how good a listener you are.
The bigger the better. You drew large ears, you are a great listener!
The length of the tail indicates the quality of your sex life.
And again more is better! You drew medium sized tail.

HA! if my sex life is medium good, I'd really hate to see what bad would be...
Here's the link, let me know how your pig turns out :)
http://drawapig.desktopcreatures.com/gallery/large.asp?id=1087078&p=0&hof=1&q=personality+test