You + Me

For you, I will wait. Your conflicted mind
says that you can never feel love for me.
That is fine, I feel I must say. Your kind,
though, will sometime, stumble upon the key
to the heart of a girl with everything
to give. My one wish? Myself is that girl.
Give anything to be your everything.
Like I'm lost- waiting to be seen. A pearl.
You hold me close- my heart races with love.
You hold me close- you feel naught- just warm bod.
The bible told you about that white dove
and that man that was faithful- with the rod.
You can be faithful- just like that one man.
I can be pure, like dove. For you, I can.

Poetry to me

Whenever I hear the word  "poetry," I think back to years in school when teachers used to make you read poems and dissect them to get every last piece of symbolism and meaning out of them. I hated doing this. I like reading a poem and enjoying it- I do not like to pick them apart. I do enjoy reading poetry, though. I find it very nice because you get to explore the deep side of people and sometimes you feel a connection to what they are saying, and that makes you think about something in your life. Poetry is just a link to the deeper side of a person and it is amazing.

My Dear

Divine, prolonged, forever remembered.

The feel of our hearts intertwined, lingers.

Mind drifts back to that euphoric September.

My hand in yours, together our fingers.

I want you forever. Too bad, I guess.

You broke my heart, but still held on to me.

My feelings for you will never be less.

Everyone warns; If only I could see.

It’s been a while now. I still hold on.

The days drag on, but for you, feelings stay.

Your sweet memories will never be gone.

Now alone, in my soft bed, I must lay.

Oh, if only you could love me once more.

My heart, my life, perfect forevermore.

The onet is a versatile poem of fourteen lines." Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 9th ed. New York; Pearson, 2009. 900. Print 

What's the Rush?

Things seem to go by very fast these days, do they not? People rush through life and it seems as if you never get a chance to really enjoy life as you are going through the motions. Wouldn’t it be nice to have one solid, stable thing in your life that you took slowly and were completely sure of? Doesn’t it seem as if marriage should be this way? For some, it is. But for others, it seems just the opposite. It seems that some people are happy at the thought of a failed marriage, or are happy when given the opportunity out of a  marriage, like the woman in “The Story of an Hour” I, personally, find this sad.
                In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, a woman’s husband is supposedly dead and after the women cries about the circumstance that has so suddenly befallen her, she goes to her room and rejoices. She realizes that she is free and no longer has any responsibilities to a man; “She said it over and over under her breath: free, free, free!” (Roberts p.332).  In the story, it states that the woman was young, which probably means that the man is young, also. I cannot help but to think that the couple rushed into this marriage, without really critically thinking about the consequences on themselves. In the story it is admitted that “She had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not” (Roberts p. 332), which completely flabbergasts me. I don’t see how on Earth you can be married to someone you do not love with your whole heart and stick with it.

This relates to me, somewhat, because my 24 year old brother recently got the crazy idea that he is going to marry his 19 year old girlfriend of five months that he “loves” so terribly much. Now, five months is a short time to be saying vows, anyway, but when you add in the fact that my brother was just shipped to Japan for two years in the Navy and his fiancé is still in college in Florida, it seems even more unrealistic. What are the chances of this marriage actually working out so my brother and his current fiancé will grow old together? I would say slim to none. I don’t understand how two people can be this naïve, but I suppose it is possible. I cannot help but to think that if, God forbid, something was to happen to my brother, or Liz, his fiance, and they had been married for any length of time at all before the accident, the one still alive would be thinking the same thing as the lady in the story- that they are free. No more having to worry about a broken relationship, no more having to worry about the other one at all, no more wondering if they are being true, it would all just cease. And the one left would be free.

Personally, I find this a terrible truth. Marriage should be taken slowly and should be thought into deeply so both parties agree that it is the right thing. Marriage is a vow before God. Anything to that degree should be taken with complete seriousness and sureness, in any circumstance. No one should be happy about a broken marriage, and I believe the source of this joy is the result of rushing into things. The couple in "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Choplin should have waited to get married to make sure they were really right for each other. So please, think about the long term consequences of your actions. Not just on you, but on anyone it might affect. Like a younger sister who just wants her brother to be happy, even if he seems to be completely against it.

Works Cited:

Roberts, Edgar V. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing Ninth Edition. New York, NY. 2009. Pearson. Print.

The Mind of a Man Seems to be a Confusing Place

                Having to watch the movie for Poe’s “The Black Cat” in English class was very traumatizing, I think. We have previously watched Sweeney Todd and that did not bother me, but for some reason, “The Black Cat” was just very disturbing. Not only because of the continued animal cruelty, which I did not think would affect me, but it did. But also because of the insane way Poe acted in this story. The love Poe’s character felt for his wife was enormous, we could all tell, but still, his love for alcohol overpowered it  every time. How could someone act as disrespectful and selfish as Poe did in this story and still have those feelings of love towards the person you are so disrespectful and selfish when it comes to? How, if you are content with what you have, could you still always feel the need to search for more? Poe seemed perfectly content with his wife. He just could not understand that there was nothing he could do to help her. It seems that a normal person would yes, be very depressed, but I can’t bring myself to believe that they would get drunk whenever they could and disregard their wife’s wishes about drinking so often, because honestly, what is that helping besides you drowning in self pity? I am convinced from this movie that Edgar A. Poe was a worthless, self pitting man that was full of himself. I have to believe that if he truly loved his wife and wanted her there with him because it made them both happy and in love, and not just for his personal satisfaction that had nothing to do with the way his wife felt, then he would have had the decency to listen to her wishes when she was so sick and helpless. Men need to stop being so selfish and think about other people for a change. Who knows, maybe things would have turned out differently, had Poe had even the slightest hint of self control. I like to think that they would have.

Barely Human Emily

         The short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner was a very disturbing story, I thought. In the end of this story, you find out that this lady, Emily, sleeps beside a dead man (that she killed) every night and she enjoys it. By enjoys I mean she is not, or does not seem to be, creeped out by the fact that a corpse is her nightly companion, considering she has him there by choice. This makes you think "what is wrong with this disturbed lady?"

         We have just finished learning about feral children in Sociology, and I cannot help but to compare Emily to a feral child. Feral means to not have traits of normal humans and to act animal-like. One Sociologist said the two traits necessary to be considered human are the ability to know language and empathy. Of course, Emily is not feral. She can communicate, though she does not often do it. And she does have mainly human traits, but it seems that she cannot feel empathy. I say this because of what she did with her father in the beginning of the story- how when he died she kept him in the house as long as she could before the authorities made her give him up. This is completely selfish from a religious standpoint. Most people would want their loved ones to have a nice, respectful burial, but not Emily. To me, this makes it seem as if Emily does not possess the trait of empathy because she is thinking only of herself when she keeps her father. Emily also kills her “lover” and retains his dead body in her house. Unfortunately, no one knows of this incident until Emily dies and the people search her house. Also, Emily is like a feral child because she does not really have human contact. I mean, yes, there is the servant man, but who knows how much she actually converses with him, and besides him, her father, and Homer Barron, she does not talk to anyone unless they are complaining about something to her. This is exactly how feral children come to be- they have no human contact, so their traits can sometimes be described as barely human. Wouldn’t you say keeping corpses for companions and not having real conversations with anyone after your father dies aren’t normal human traits? So from these characteristics, I think it would be safe to say that had Emily been as secluded and selfish as she is now, her whole life, she would have been on the verge of, if not completely, feral. This makes me feel empathy for Emily. So I must be pretty much normal, right?

Singers Make the Movie

I never knew Johnny Depp could sing. He is an amazing singer, though. We just finished watching the movie Sweeney Todd in English class, and I thought it was a great movie with great music. I loved the song “A Barber and his wife” just because Johnny Depp’s voice was so amazing. I also liked the way Depp sang “My Friends”. His voice is like none other. I’ve always wished that I could sing, but I’ve always been terrible at it. All day after class I would always have the tunes from the songs from whatever part of the movie we were watching in my head. While this could sometimes get annoying, it could also be fun to hum along to Sweeney Todd randomly throughout the day. The other actors in this movie were also very good singers. The actor that played Toby had great range. In the song “Nothing’s Gonna Harm You”, Toby went up very high, but he also sang low. Of course it helps that he is a young boy, but still. He had great vocal control. I also thought Mrs. Lovett had an angelic voice. If you gave her something sweet to sing, she could really serenade. I bet it took a long time to pick out all of the actors for this movie, but I must say they did a very good job not only acting, but also singing.

Simple Shakespeare

I don’t think this English class is ever going to fail to surprise me. First, I realized that black and white movies aren’t as terrible as I once thought they were, and now I find out that Shakespeare can actually be interesting, and not tedious to read!

                We just finished reading the Shakespearian play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and I thought it was a fairly enjoyable play. The only other Shakespearian play I have ever read is “Romeo and Juliet” in 9^th grade English class, and I found it very difficult to read. Maybe it was because I wasn’t really trying to take my time to understand the play, and maybe it really was just too hard for me to understand. Whatever the reason, reading “Romeo and Juliet” left me with the frame of mind that Shakespeare is a terrible writer and I would never enjoy reading one of his plays simply because I could not understand them.  This is why, when the class willingly chose to read Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” I was furious. I didn’t understand how anybody in their right mind would want to read something that that awful William Shakespeare had written. I went home that night, and started to read act 1, anyway, simply because I did not want to make a bad grade because I did not want to read a work. To my surprise, I did not find this act to be too terribly hard to read. In fact, I understood what was going on quite well. When we discussed this act in class, I realized that I could do this without a problem. Shakespeare was not that bad and could actually write an intriguing story. 

I read act one, two, and part of act three right out of the literature book  with only minute difficulties. I even took notes to better understand what was going on. I felt so proud of myself and was very happy that reading this play had not become a chore. I happened to be at Barnes and Noble one day, though, and remembered that the teacher said something about a book called “No Fear Shakespeare”, that had the Shakespearian text on one side and the modern language text on the opposite side of the book. I decided to buy this book. I finished reading the play out of this book, but I am sure I could have finished and understood the play without it. It was just an aid.

                My point being: Shakespeare is actually a good writer and is not too hard to understand if you take your time reading his works. While sometimes there is need for clarification, it is very easily do-able to read a Shakespearian play, contrary to my previous belief.

Black and White

               For the first few days of my English class, we watched the movie Arsenic and Old Lace. This is a movie directed by Frank Capra, and starring Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, and Raymond Massey, about a man, Mortimer Brewster, who has previously written books and articles against marriage, but in the movie he gets married. He also finds out something rather surprising about his two aunts, with whom he has lived his whole life. Needless to say, Mortimer’s life changes in more than one way this day.  When the teacher first announced that we were going to be watching a movie, instead of going over the syllabus, which would have been the third time I would have had to listen to practically the same rules and guidelines that day, I was very excited and could already tell I was going to like this teacher very much.  So the lights were turned off and the movie began. My excitement stopped there. I noticed the credits were already rolling and the movie had just started!  Also, I couldn’t see a spot of color on the TV screen. I thought to myself “oh, great, this is going to be even more boring than going over the syllabus. Old black and white movies are always terrible.” By the end of the period, though, my whole idea of what a black and white movie is like had, changed.

                I liked the movie from the very beginning scene (after the credits had gone off). It started out with a lively, but random, baseball game, and then went to the Marriage License Bureau, where Mortimer Brewster was getting married. Keep in mind that Mortimer had previously been completely against marriage. He once wrote a book titled Mind Over Matrimony. This is just one of many examples of irony in this story. From this point on the movie was filled with comedy and more irony. Every scene made me laugh and some things were so unexpected and shocking, you couldn’t help but be amused. When I found out what the aunts did, I did not believe it at first. I loved how they were completely fine with what they were doing and did not think a thing about it. Mortimer said “But there’s a body in the window seat!” and the aunts replied with “Yes, dear, we know”. I found this very shocking and comical. The best part of this movie, I would say, is that the people you think would never hurt a fly are the ones doing most of the terrible things.

After the initial shock of realizing we were going to be watching a black and white movie wore off, I did not ever realize again that this was not a normal movie. In fact, I think Arsenic and Old Lace was a much better movie than many of the movies made today. There was no cussing or sex in this movie. While there were some creepy parts and some non gruesome murder, the content of this movie was nothing like the terrible things you can find in movies now days, which is definitely a plus when trying to find a movie the whole family can watch.

                After my experience with the movie Arsenic and Old Lace, directed by Frank Capra, I will definitely be more open to watching older movies, even if they are black and white, in my future. I have come to learn to not judge a movie by its opening credits. This movie was very funny and ironic throughout. Given the chance, I am positive that I would watch this movie again, without hesitation, just to have some laughs. I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone wanting to have a good time.

Works Cited:                                                                             

Arsenic and Old Lace. Dir- Frank Capra, 1944 o.r.d. Warner Brothers. Screenplay- Julius J and Philip G Epstien. DVD 2000