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Here is a poem that I made about Hoid its not great but I like it Perpendicularity alight Glowing like stars in the dark of night The traveler moves through worlds of shards Causing mischief with motives unknown Through eons and worlds he roams Seeking to restore what was lost His name unknown He is the Wanderer The Traveler The Dust The Drifter The teller of tales, A conspirator A thief A Fool He is Hoid

Flying figures glow with blinding light as the earth below is drenched by the blood of fallen warriors. Shining blades clash as lightning rips the sky asunder and reveals the shadow of a long dead divinity, The winds create a song which speaks of the end of all souls. This melody is formed of the power which has transcended epochs of death and ages of rebirth. Roars emerge from the mouths of the two demi gods who fight an endless war. Spear strikes sword and arcane energy surrounds them with an aura which seems to turn back reason and understanding. These two titans fracture the wills of all of the mortal souls who watch as the two champions of ancient gods battle for the fate of existence itself.

@Calderis suggested the idea of writing posts in poetic form. Here’s my attempt at an English sonnet, comparing my three favorite fantasy writers. I first read Brandon when Mistborn was new. He captured me as much as Martin did, And Robin Hobb, who wrote Fitz and the Fool. These three became the novelists I read. George Martin has the grandest epic style, Yet better suited visually for the screen. Ms. Hobb is introspective all the while Her heroes suffer horrors most obscene. But Brandon writes a clear compelling tale, With magic interwoven through his worlds. The weakest and the broken become hale – The heroes who receive their just rewards. Though Martin hasn’t finished and looks lame, The three of them deserve their well-earned fame.

A Cup With No Bottom: by ME An empty heart, do you fill it with tears?+ Do you fill it with sand - the passing of the years? Joy, Sadness, Anger, Love, and Fear- All pretty words that mean nothing here. If there were sages who said what seemed true, They'd say the only way to fill it was to fill it with you. But how on earth can I fill it with me, If all earth gave me was the hollow of a tree?

YOU DIDN’T WRITE ME LOVE POEMS, SO NOW I’M WRITING THEM FOR MYSELF. CAPITAL LETTERS ON MY HEADER SO PEOPLE KNOW I’M MAKING CHANGES YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE APPROVED OF. NO MORE SMALL VOICES HERE, I’M LAUGHING LOUD NOW, I’M SINGING WHERE OTHERS CAN HEAR ME, I’M PRETENDING THAT I’M ON STAGE BECAUSE MAYBE SHAKESPEARE KNOWS A LITTLE SOMETHING. YOU NEVER PUSHED MY HAIR BACK BEHIND MY EAR. YOU NEVER HELD ME GENTLY TO WAKE ME. YOU ONLY KISSED ME IF IT MEANT GETTING ME NAKED. YOU DIDN’T BUY ME CHOCOLATE. YOU NEVER DREW ME FLOWERS. WE WATCHED YOUR SHOWS AND LISTENED TO YOUR MUSIC AND ATE THE FOODS THAT YOU LOVED AND I TOLERATED. YOU NEVER HELD MY HAND LIKE YOU MEANT IT. WELL NOW I’M PUTTING IN EXTRA CONDITIONER AND LATHERING UP. I’M NOT WEARING MY HAIR LIKE I USED TO. I’M SOMEBODY ELSE NOW, AND I LOOK IT. MORNINGS ARE BLISS BECAUSE I RISE AND I MEAN IT. I KISS THE MIRROR BECAUSE I’M PRETTY AND PERFECT AND I DON’T NEED TO WAIT AROUND FOR YOU TO REMEMBER TO TELL ME IT, I KNOW IT. I DRAW MY OWN FLOWERS ON EVERYTHING I OWN, I BATHE IN THEM. I MARATHON SEASONS OF TELEVISION WITHOUT WORRYING THAT YOU’LL MISS SOMETHING. I LISTEN TO MY MUSIC SO LOUD THAT THE SPEAKERS START JUMPING. I EAT FOOD THAT FEELS GOOD AND I FEEL GOOD TO BE EATING. AND MY HANDS? THESE HANDS THAT HAVE SCOURED FLOORS AND YOUR SKIN AND HAVE HELD YOU AND HELD US TOGETHER AND PUSHED MYSELF INTO THE IDEA OF WHAT YOU WANTED AND SCRATCHED AND CLAWED AND NEVER TOOK ENOUGH? THESE HANDS ARE ATHENA. THESE HANDS ARE TEMPLE DOOR. THEY ARE WOLF ON THE PROWL. THESE HANDS DON’T NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR WHERE THEY’VE BEEN, THEY KNOW AND THEY ARE HAPPY ABOUT IT. THESE HANDS COULD BUILD CITIES AND BURN DOWN ROME. THESE HANDS GROW GARDENS AND SEW WITH STEEL. THESE HANDS KNOW FIRE. THESE HANDS WRITE ME DESTINY, PAINT ME SKY, SWADDLE ME SLEEP. THESE HANDS ARE STRONG ENOUGH TO PULL ME TO SHORE. I AM FREE. I AM FREE. NO. I DON’T NEED YOU ANYMORE.

Don’t fall for your best friend, even if cocoa is a really good color on you and her shea butter curls feel like silk in your hand. Don’t sleep in her bed, take her to breakfast, and carry the so what are? question under your tongue while you eat. You know what you are: I’m so glad we’re friends. Don’t make her laugh, because her silhouette will catch the moonlight as you sit hip-to-hip on the apartment roof— I see constellations. The Virgo will give you vertigo, will turn your vertical to horizontal on a mattress too small for two people, and the alcohol on her breath will turn to guilt on your lips will turn to choked morning laughter in the choked morning after, to choked mourning, after. Don’t fall for your best friend, because I love you becomes I love you becomes What are you saying? When you don’t have an answer, you’ll kiss goodbye on the cheek when your eyes can’t meet— you’ll bite your lower lip and wish it were hers. Don’t swallow your feelings with two Klonopin and half an Asprin as you sit in the parking lot, trying not to run back upstairs and ask, What are we? What do you mean? What are we? I’m so glad we’re friends.

Are gods really gods if no one believes in them anymore? Zeus takes walks in the rain and tries to talk up joggers in central park. When they bolt, or only return his advances with polite smiles that look like fence posts too high for even him to jump, he sighs. He tells them he is a god, and his words echo back to him, accompanied by laughter. No one believes him He picks up his wife, who might be his sister in this time, in a beat up car with a beautiful flame job, Hera is a marriage counselor with peacock feather bags under her eyes, her advice falls on her own deaf ears as her jealous eyes roam over every girl they pass, and she is right to. She knows this. She has always known. Poseidon’s hands are rough and calloused, he raises cargo too heavy for a man his age, the young ones say. He laughs his fisherman’s laugh, all depths and riptide, because no one should be his age. He reminds himself he is one of the lucky ones, he gets to be around what he loves. He may not have his dominion any more, but salt water and sun still weather his face. Hades stalks the streets at night, women cross the street to avoid him, and he smiles with his needle-teeth, they are right to. This winter he is without a bride, and he still wants to usher souls into the afterlife, the pistol hangs heavy in his pocket, his tongue glints gold, the coin to pay his Charon, his most loyal employee. He brings knives to gunfights and guns to fistfights, he stands with his arms out like their new God, these fickle humans, he welcomes the bullets. He dares them to kill him. They try. Ares and Athena spit curses laced with whiskey from across dive bar floors, they are moving human pawns across a chessboard. They were strategists before they were gangsters, but it doesn’t matter now. Apollo sings in a nightclub, his crooning voice from a forgotten time. He has his sister’s blood under his fingernails, from stitching up wound after wound, Artemis forgets she is not invincible anymore. He sings about the moon and wonders where she is, picking a fight with some would-be rapist, maybe it’s Zeus. It’s probably Zeus. Again. Dionysus drinks away their shared pain, dealing LSD in dark alleyways, he whispers sweet promises and his followers believe him, he was human once and he can be again, like wine, he knew nothing so sweet could have lasted forever. Icarus sidles up to his side, asking if he’s got anything that can make you feel like you can fly. In this life, he is a junkie, and Daedalus watches with ancient, sad eyes. Icarus is melting and Dionysus is letting him. Hestia sits by the hearth and waits for her family to come home. And she listens while they all curse their immortality. She shakes her head slow and clicks her tongue, I know, my darlings, I know. Are gods really gods if no one believes in them anymore? Does it matter?

Pestilence stalks the hospital corridors, frail and pallid as every other half-dead thing around him. He pours illness into the tiles and slathers it like paint across the stark white walls, wheezing a feeble laugh that would be sinister if it weren’t so decrepit. War haunts the law firms, pressed three-piece suit tailored to perfection. He is the reason for the palpable sting of separation— estates and history and children and love split right down the middle, as if along the crack of a broken heart. Famine curls up on a dirty sidewalk, dirt covering his sunken skin and a hole-filled blanket wrapped tightly around him. His heart beats to the rhythm of street drumming and spare change, ma’am? and the rattle of quarters in empty fast food cups. Death glides proudly through the cemeteries, drinking in the names on the headstones, the tears of the mourners, adding to his collection of eternal conclusions. He swallows grief like it’s an energy source, black and bitter and so, so heavy.

i. when you fall in love with an angel, you must understand that there are things you will not understand. ii. when you first go to run your hands through his hair, his halo will slice your palm. and it will hurt. he will will mend it with the touch of one golden finger, and will leave so abruptly that he is gone almost before you blink. the last thing you see will be him standing in the doorway, a terrified expression on his face and blood in his hair. (later, he tells you that he didn’t realize how breakable humans could be. when he explains what it takes to make an angel bleed, you start to understand.) iii. ask him about the sky, about stars and suns and galaxies light years away, about how the universe looks like a blooming garden. do not ask about lucifer, because your angel will become a soldier before your eyes. do not, do not, do not ask about god. do not ask about rebellious older brothers and absentee fathers, do not infer about a war you know nothing of. iv. in a science class you are taking simply to get the credit, your teacher will be talking about quantum physics. she will call planets “celestial bodies” and suddenly you will only be able to think of the way his mouth curls in at the sides, of all the puckered scars that criss-cross his torso, of the graceful arch on the bottom of his foot. when the teacher calls on you and asks you if you are alright, you will flush an even deeper red. (at times it is lovely to be in love with an angel. but other times, it is not.) v. when you fight, it is like the world is ending. his anger conjures a thunderstorm, and soon the entire state is three inches deep in water. you shatter a picture frame. a bolt of lightening catches the house across the street on fire. you are screaming at the top of your lungs—something about duty, something about god—and there is a crash of thunder that shakes the house. the weathermen talk about the storm for days, and you change the channel. vi. then there are the times when he doesn’t visit for months on end, and when he finally comes back to you, he is not himself. there are new scars across his chest, and he does not speak. he sits with you in his arms for hours, his nose buried in your hair and his arms squeezed tight, so tight. he does not cry. you do not cry. you do not cry. vii. when you fall in love with an angel—oh, sweetheart. it’s too late to take it back now.

there’s a cliff in town. you heard somewhere that someone jumped from it back in high school. no one talks about it. you woke up one day and you notice it where your front yard used to be. you’d never actually seen it before. but it’s there now. you tell your mother and tells you to pray. you tell your father and he asks you if you want to fishing. you mention it to friends and they change the subject. you want to ask strangers if they can hear that strange distant ringing too. you don’t want to leave the house anymore. not with this thing in your yard. you start thinking every room is dark with you inside of it. you don’t know if the cliff is moving closer to you or if you are moving closer to it. it doesn’t matter now anyway. coffee shakes without the coffee. who cares. you’re not sleeping anyway. you feel so clumsy. you don’t want to talk about it anymore. you woke up this morning and your feet are dangling over the edge. you can’t remember how you got here anymore. everything is in pieces. everything is rushing. everything is so very very still. you remember the how relieved someone is when they drop something and realize it wasn’t very important when it hits the ground. you wonder if anyone will sigh in relief.

whenever i see a cinder block stuck in the mud at low tide i wonder whose ankles it used to belong to. i want to kiss them and make them better. I’ll kiss everything. i wanted to call and tell you i saw an ambulance today. but then i’d have to tell you i was at the liquor store again. a gray haired man collapsed in line at the register. the paramedics took his lifeless body away. i just wanted to ride back with them to the morgue. i wanted my own cabinet. instead i bought apricot brandy and some ginger ale. anyway, it was strange to watch someone pass away in front of me. i cried. but it wasn’t like when you left. how i expected an obituary. there was no wake. no room full of sympathetic acquaintances gently cooing as i rest a bouquet of sweet williams on a photos of someone i no longer know. lately i just want to blurt things into your voicemail. i’d say things like “i hate the parts of me that miss you. i wish i could cut them out of me.” or “i would be your oyster. i’ll swallow all the things you’ve done to me and still give you this pearl “i love you.” i’m afraid of saying things like “i just want you to be here when the rain stops.” or “i guess i’ll leave the phones sound on in case you miss me.” but you never do. it’s hard you know? doing things people do in someone’s absence. i get so upset thinking about where you sleep or if you’ve been read to lately. i don’t like having to wonder. i hate that you wrote “i’ll never give up on you” on a piece of paper once and then mailed it to me. it makes me think about how the back of stamps taste like goodbye.

You asked me to write you a poem. I’m sure that you hoped for a love poem So sweet that it makes your teeth hurt. I’m sorry but I can’t do that. I can’t write you a love poem. But if you let me I will write you a new sky, Describe to you in detail the way the clouds war In the moments before they’re about to cry. I can’t write you a love poem. Instead, I can write you butterflies. Butterflies that tickle your stomach In those precious seconds before Planes leave the ground, Before lights flicker in the dark, Before a snake strikes, Before you talk to the girl you love for the first time Or the second time Or the hundredth time. I can’t write you a love poem. But maybe, in its place, I could write you a spring breeze. The very same breeze that gently brushed Her hair in her face. A breeze that orders flowers To dance a slow waltz Your hand against the small of her back Holding her close enough to smell her But gently as not to break her. Flowers are best left unpicked. I can’t write you a love poem. But, to make up for it I will write you constellations Describe how loudly they sparkle And how it sounds like laughter From nights spent in trees and Next to fireplaces. Constellations you have memorized in the Freckles on her face Mapped out by the gentle touch Of fingers to skin. I can’t write you a love poem, But I will write you a creaky swing set, A slow moving stream, A cloudy sky, A warm afternoon. I will write you the color of her eyes, The smell of girly shampoo, The sound of burning wood And the heat from it on your skin. You asked me to write you a poem And I can’t write you a love poem. Instead I can write you my love.

After reading Words of Radiance I was interested in the symmetric design of the names and poetry. Soon after finishing the book I was in a poetry class so I decided to try my hand at a ketek. I am fascinated by the differences between truths and lies after all everthing is subject to perspective. So here is my first attempt at a ketek. Lies are truths that see that truths are lies. What do you guys think? Is it too literal? Does anyone else have a cool ketek or poem for sharing?