2Cellos + "Oh Captain! My Captain!"

Greetings Literary Comrades (and I mean that in the most Capitalist way possible),

          Tonight, as I listen to the serendipitous recordings of 2Cellos, I was inspired to sit down and write down my third entry.
          A few days ago, I was pondering upon what to write about for my third entry, and I came up short on ideas. I then took to the internet, as the vast population of people do nowadays, and began to search for a poem or short story to converse with you all about. I searched high and low, within authors including Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, and a few other authors, both known and not. Then I happened upon, not directly a poem or a story, but a memory. I thought back to times when the country seemed to united under a single idea or shared opinion, and then it struck me: death. No, I didn't die, obviously, but I remembered after the beloved actor Robin Williams passed away that my Facebook newsfeed was filled with quotes of "Oh Captain! My Captain!" I, being the occasional nonsensical dimwit I am, never thought that it could be more than just a quote from a movie I hadn't seen, but then I remembered it was a quote from Dead Poets Society. POETS. I then proceeded accordingly to Google this quote and stumbled upon the Walt Whitman poem from which the movie had quoted. Upon reading the piece, I found myself on the very ship, staring horrified at my captain's dead body lying there on the deck of the seafaring vessel, smelling the salty sea air mingled with a sense of foreboding. Not literally, of course, but after sailing back home and into my own mind, I thought to myself, "Now THAT is a splendidly authored work!" The imagery was so very descriptive that I could actually place myself in the shoes of the one speaking in the piece. How marvelous it would be to be so trained and have a talent so honed that you could instantly transport a person into a whole new dimension of thought. It reminded me, too, of why I am majoring in English as a college undergraduate student. It also inspired me to watch Dead Poets Society, a deed I have yet to complete.
          If you have not read the magnificent work of "Oh Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman, here is your chance:

"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

                         But O heart! heart! heart!

                            O the bleeding drops of red,

                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead.

"O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

                         Here Captain! dear father!

                            This arm beneath your head!

                               It is some dream that on the deck,

                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

"My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

                            But I with mournful tread,

                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead."

            Isn't that simply lovely? Of course, it bears quite an unfortunate end, but a necessary end indeed. I found the transition of the tone throughout the piece to be interesting. In the first and second stanzas, the speaker seems to be hopeful that he was wrong about the captain's death, but alas, finds he was very correct indeed. By the third stanza, the speaker has fully realized the severity of what has happened, and treads heavier because of his grief.

Do you have a poem or work of literature you would like me to write on? Leave a comment with a suggestion! Thank you for reading once again. -M

Pinterest + Patient Love

Top of the morning to you, my friends!

Last night, after the birth of this blog, I couldn't sleep. I found myself in a haze of thoughts, most seeming to not pertain to my life in any manner. What did I do? I accessed my Pinterest board of writing prompts and soon fluttered into a world entirely of my own creation.
This writing prompt told me to "write a scene beginning with the words 'He waited for her'". This I did. Well, it may not be a scene, but it is something. Perhaps it lands within the classification of poetry. I'm not sure, so I leave that up to you, my darling readers. Below I have written out my Pinterest-inspired work. Beware, you may find yourself in a more solemn mood after reading it.
--
Patient Love
--
He waited for her.
Suitcase in hand, plane ticket in his breast pocket.
He stands in the drizzling rain and just waits.
Never once does he falter in his faith that she will come. They had been planning this trip for a long time.
His cellphone rings but he doesn't answer it, he doesn't even hear it.
Twenty minutes pass. She wasn't there.
Still he stood.
Thirty minutes. No sign of her.
Never does he waver.
Forty five minutes.
He looks around at the people rushing past him, he hears the sirens.
An hour has passed.
"Things have changed around here," he thinks to himself, "and still she hasn't come."
He takes the ticket out of his pocket and reads the date and time of a flight they had missed 20 years ago.
He sets down the empty suitcase.
He stands on that corner every year at the same time, trying to relive last time he was truly happy.
When she was his and he never had to share her with anyone or anything.
And now he shares her, but only with a coffin and a tombstone bearing her name.
But still he waits for her.
--

Leave me a comment or two about what you think of my work. Thank you for reading it. -M

Pilot

Good Evening fanciful inquirers,
On this, the evening of March 4th of 2015, I am beginning a new way of presenting my material. What material, you ask? Well, I fancy myself a bit of a writer, a consumer of literature, and other such things, but this material will most likely cover a vast number of things.
Within this blog, you may find some of my personally favored works. I may comment on them, or I may choose to let you, my audience, interpret pieces for yourself.
Within this blog, you may find things I myself have written, or perhaps things written long ago by minds much more brilliant than my own.
Within this blog, you may also find commentaries upon happenings in my own life, however biased they may be. After being told by my math teacher during my first semester of college that "my life is the stuff novels are made of," I began to find that it is indeed a tragedy for a writer to ignore their own life, and to not account for events in their literary potential.
Within this blog, you will find a great number of conflicting theories, whether within my own mind or within a written work. Do not worry about such things, for they will most likely never be settled, so worrying is indeed a trivial pursuit.
Within this blog, I am not promising to write in an annual method, nor do I plan to ever attempt such a silly thing. I am not one to sit down and write when inspiration is far from my grasp.
However, one thing I can promise, dear reader, is that these will not be predictable quarters.
So, shall we begin? Tallyho, Allons-y, Geronimo! On we go!
-M