006 [video]
[The view is rather dark and hazy, but one can tell Raven's at a rather hipster and somewhat gothy cafe, looking a little annoyed. It's open mic night, and someone reading a poem can be heard in the background:]
...Flowers of the night, come to me and save me from my Dark doom,
If you can hear me, for Darkness is the same as deafness,
and they are deaf to the silent cries I make to the Core of my heart...
[Raven winces and gives a "can you believe this?" look to the camera. She starts walking out of the cafe, and the reading fades in and out as she gets closer and then farther from the stage.]
I pray to your silent moon for my lost love
This... is worse than at home.
But he is gone: pushed over the edge by the Pull...
[She pauses outside the entranceway, looking pensive.]
I used to think poetry was just about shouting things like that at the world. You know, getting really serious about yourself, and then feeling like other people understand you, even if you don't understand what you're saying yourself. But now I think poetry is less about you and more about being able to stand on its own. Like, it's what you get when you put words together in a way so that if you changed it, even a little bit, it wouldn't be the same. Telepathy, you know: taking an image from the writer's head and bringing it into yours.
What does, um, everyone else think? Anyone else have any slightly better poetry they want to share? [A brief pause. She flips through a notebook which she's holding in her hand.] If you don't mind, here's a sonnet that I like, to start you off.
All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world:
Favored, while suddenly the rains begin
Beyond the window, she lies on cushions curled
And nibbles an occasional bonbon of sin.
Prim, pink-breasted, feminine, she nurses
Chocolate fancies in rose-papered rooms
Where polished highboys whisper creaking curses
And hothouse roses shed immortal blooms.
The garnets on her fingers twinkle quick
And blood reflects across the manuscript;
She muses on the odor, sweet and sick,
Of festering gardenias in a crypt,
And lost in subtle metaphor, retreats
From gray child faces crying in the streets.
[Her reciting isn't particularly amazing, but it's more invested than most of her sentences.]
A highboy, by the way, is a kind of bureau. A chest of drawers. In case you're wondering.
...Flowers of the night, come to me and save me from my Dark doom,
If you can hear me, for Darkness is the same as deafness,
and they are deaf to the silent cries I make to the Core of my heart...
[Raven winces and gives a "can you believe this?" look to the camera. She starts walking out of the cafe, and the reading fades in and out as she gets closer and then farther from the stage.]
I pray to your silent moon for my lost love
This... is worse than at home.
But he is gone: pushed over the edge by the Pull...
[She pauses outside the entranceway, looking pensive.]
I used to think poetry was just about shouting things like that at the world. You know, getting really serious about yourself, and then feeling like other people understand you, even if you don't understand what you're saying yourself. But now I think poetry is less about you and more about being able to stand on its own. Like, it's what you get when you put words together in a way so that if you changed it, even a little bit, it wouldn't be the same. Telepathy, you know: taking an image from the writer's head and bringing it into yours.
What does, um, everyone else think? Anyone else have any slightly better poetry they want to share? [A brief pause. She flips through a notebook which she's holding in her hand.] If you don't mind, here's a sonnet that I like, to start you off.
All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world:
Favored, while suddenly the rains begin
Beyond the window, she lies on cushions curled
And nibbles an occasional bonbon of sin.
Prim, pink-breasted, feminine, she nurses
Chocolate fancies in rose-papered rooms
Where polished highboys whisper creaking curses
And hothouse roses shed immortal blooms.
The garnets on her fingers twinkle quick
And blood reflects across the manuscript;
She muses on the odor, sweet and sick,
Of festering gardenias in a crypt,
And lost in subtle metaphor, retreats
From gray child faces crying in the streets.
[Her reciting isn't particularly amazing, but it's more invested than most of her sentences.]
A highboy, by the way, is a kind of bureau. A chest of drawers. In case you're wondering.