In Honor of National Poetry Month...

A poem by John Crowe Ransom entitled Piazza Piece.

--I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying
To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small
And listen to an old man not at all.
They want the young men's whispering and sighing.
But see the roses on your trellis dying
And hear the spectral singing of the moon;
For I must have my lady soon.
I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying.

--I am a lady young in beauty waiting
Until my truelove comes, and then we kiss.
But what grey man among the vines is this
Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream?
Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream!
I am a lady young in beauty waiting.

I will not torture you with verse of my own, and trust me, as of right now, I have a great deal. Some of it even rhymes.

Rather, I will torture you with why I'm fond of the piece and what I think it means.

Ostensibly, it is a conversation between an older gentleman(wearing a dust coat) trying, it seems, to woo a younger woman who is waiting for her ideal love child to come and sweep her off her feet. There can be other interpretations, death being, perhaps, the first voice with the Maiden, or, it has been suggested by my anthology, December and May. Regardless, though I invite individual interpretation, I will go with the initial assumption for purposes of whatever it is I'm writing.

I'm fond of the rhyme scheme, for starters, I am also told it is an adaptation of the Italian sonnet, a form that, dry lover of academia though I might be, I am rather fond of for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it is Italian. (On a sidenote, I find it interesting how certain ethnic groups, i.e., the Irish, have such extreme pride in their heritage, while others, like Lithuanians or Czechoslovakians have none at all. And then, we have me. I claim Swiss/German decent, however, I ignore these, preferring to place pride in a nonexistant Greek, Roman, Italian, Russian, British, French heritage. What did the Germans give us? Naught but Nietzsche and Rilke.)

I like the rhythm as well, and honestly, I've always thought of myself as prematurely old, and so any attempts at wooing female individuals would seem, mentally, at least, like the above. Plus, Ransom taught Lowell and others at Kenyon, started, in fact, the Kenyon Review, a most excellent literary magazine with a brilliant reputation(from what I'm told by authorities at Kenyon College) and so he is on my "good" list.

But we are ignoring the obvious. Ever the lover of fine words, I dig how he combined "ture" and "love" to form one superword(truelove, thus accenting the second speaker's naivete.

A Brief Political Entry

Dear Senator (or whatever you are anymore) John Kerry,
Please stop considering running for president in 2008, everyone knows you are. I, who am the king of being vague, am especially certain, shown by your responses on your recent appearances of the Colbert Report.
Yes, we need a change from the current Republican regime, but we also need a change from the Democrat's lukewarm trend. America might want only a second rate president after Bush, settling for less when they know they've just experienced the worst, were you to be elected, we would again receive a third rate candidate. I really just want someone who knows how they feel about everything, who is willing to be bold and courageous and do things that I can't.
You aren't that person.
Trust me.
Love,
(my name)

Just ignore that.

The Confused and Manic Post(One in a series of adjective-based headings)

My epitaph will read as follows: Mild-mannered soneteer Jayson Myers died in childbirth yesterday. No, this was not your standard childbirth, rather, he was giving birth to a baby poem, artistic genius, if you ask the editor of the paper. Thank goodness no one else was in the car with him, usually, when driving with others, he tries to avoid childbirth and its often costly repercussions. The artistic genius?(new line)Salt and sweet mingle their ashes
As I sigh the ever infinite sigh,
We’ve been squashing our love before it could have started,
There could probably be worse ways to learn to cry.

The best thing I've written in ages

When one considers the epitome of the genre of sports, chess hardly comes to mind. “Only,” one might say, “will the truly perverse suggest such an outrage! Chess is a petty board game, not something as bold and exceptional as a sport!”
But my friends, this is where you would find yourself in the wrong! For chess is a sport, indeed, the mightiest and the best of all sports! How do I figure?
First, to elaborate on how chess is truthfully a sport. When one thinks of sports, sweat nearly always comes to mind. I cannot, in fact, think of a sport that does not result in a large quantity of sweat, chess included. I sweat profusely whenever I play chess, just as all those playing with me sweat. It’s crazy. I believe that if you are not sweating while playing chess, you are flat out doing it wrong.
Thus, we have established why chess is, in fact, a sport. What, then, makes it the best sport?
I consider chess superior because no other sport allows for the intellectual activity provided by this game of kings and queens. Chess requires you to strategize, to think ahead, to lift up the weight of a mighty empire and place it, if only temporarily, upon your shoulders. As opposed to pettier, more trivial games, chess requires you to keep in mind the lives of each and every citizen on your playing board, forcing you to make life and death situations. With the exception of all out war, what other game requires such responsibility?
I have be harmed greatly, by my own brother, no less, for my stance on this issue, I assure you, no good will come of it. Great legions of human beings stand behind me on this issue, we are all willing, nay, we promise, to fight should another great number, led by a king, queen, bishop, squire, and rook, strive to attack us by force. I vow to keep this promise.
I wish ardently that you support me on this issue, please, turn to the light! By agreeing that chess is the best sport, you aren’t really forsaking your previously more beloved extracurricular activities, there is room enough in everyone’s heart to love more than one sport, just so long as the largest room belongs to chess.

Something I wrote for English...

Prelude in Ab Major: Alright, so we have to do this Romanticism project for English where we journal in some place that makes us think seven times, and then write a reflective essay about it, "and be creative! the possibilities are endless!" and take pictures, lalala, auld lang syne.

And lately I've been, perhaps, just a bit too cynical, turning up my nose at projects that are supposed to inspire creativity and relishing, like a ravenous idiot, in the ones that are supposed to drain all sorts of creativity from you.

We've been reading examples of these essays in and out of class, and Sands seems to dig the ones that reflect upon some certain object for long periods of time, like a leaf or a pond or whatever. And, being the sarcastic ass I can often be, decided to place my tounge firmly in my cheek for the duration of the assignment, refusing to give way to the typical cliches of high school depth, sentimentality, and eloquence, and allowing my love for absurdity, vagueness, internal conversation and sentence-long paragraphs to run free.

This is what we are left with.

Now, it should be noted that I have only journaled in my thinking spot once to date(Borders) but I can kind of see where my thoughts will end up going. Here it is...

Yes, I could write about the two things I find most beautiful about Borders, books and coffee, though the endless list of connections and memories I’ve made at the store and others owned by the same machine worldwide are more valuable, though less tangible, than these two inanimate objects that seem to spring so close to true life that I can almost feel a pulse beating within them as I press my naked palm to their exterior—how I adore their ephemeral wonder, how I swoon when I even think of them, so much so that it might cause the Beloved, an all-seeing representative of the divine forces that govern our daily life, to worry that I might be pulled astray.
But I am not going to meditate upon my love for coffee and books, for they have been, remain, and, I suppose, will always be, static, one of only a few constants in the ever-changing marketplace of my life.
Rather, I have come only recently to appreciate the simpler things in life, for even they, under close examination, reveal just as much complexity as something we consider so advanced, like the microwave. I have come to admire that which we seem, for little reason, to hold least sacred, that which so few hold with any sort of high respect.
I am speaking of the table and an infinite number of variations thereof.
I am amazed at how few people admire, or are truly willing to admire, their respect for the table; when I inquire as to the state of my friend’s appreciation for this structure of wood and wonder, I am typically met, or would be met, were I to actually ask, with blank stares and stuttered statements.
“Jayson,” they’d say to me, I am certain, “I think it’s just about time you conform to standard patterns of thought.”
And I would laugh that crazy, maniacal laugh I get when convinced of my personal genius, for, if professing my admiration that supports my habits, (both good and bad, that supports my studies, indeed, supports the basic foundations of the essentials of life, if this is wrong, than I shall indeed remain in the wrong!
I say this as I am writing, not on a table, or a desk, a rather common variation, (my bedroom desk is, in fact, our old dining room table!) but upon a clipboard, a most despicable alternative. This board cramps not only my hand, but my style as well, for I yearn almost tragically for a space that could adequately attend to a steaming cup of organic, dark roasted coffee, or an aromatic spot of Earl Grey tea. It has not the capacity to embrace my set of Merriam-Webster reference books, nor the novel or collection of poetry I happen to be in the midst of. It cannot contain the five or six books I require to be by my fingertips at all times, should I feel the craving for new inspiration or my daily dose of other’s artistic genius. It is a disgrace to the piece of furniture I have sanctified above all others, it pales in comparison. Clipboard, I dare you to stand next to a table and demand some semblance of glory! You would faint from your lack of dignity, I am certain of it. You are small, unpractical. You lack the reflective, waxen sheen to be found on even the most second rate desks, you are flimsy; made, perhaps, of balsa instead of a mighty oak, you are unstable. It would require more fingers and toes than the set I have at my disposal to count the number of times my pencil has slipped, leaving tiny holes in my paper, most unsightly to the eye.
Might I then compare my table, my desk, the tables to be found in the café at Borders, to a summer day? No, the answer is no; the table, made of what one supposes was once the stateliest of trees, transcends all seasons. Trees transcend each and every one of our lives, they were here long before us, when they fall out of existence, we will as well. I see writing upon a desk, or eating upon a table, or any of an infinite number of daily functions that are performed upon the above, as a communion with the spiritual realm of nature. For, even when one is in the middle of the most desolate city, one will always find a desk, and that desk, if made properly, will have been made from what might be considered God’s greatest gift to mankind.

(I have not edited, I have no even read through it the entire way yet, I am still uncertain as to the actual existence of the G man.)

(Here I stand.)