“The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors’ works have survived even in part.” ~ Richard Stallman

“The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good – in spite of all the people who say he is very good.” ~ Robert Graves

I wrote this a long time ago, or at least the start of it. My initial thought was to crawl inside the concept of an ancient theater that would mourn the actors who played upon its stage, but the more I toyed with it and wrestled with it, the more I considered the concept of not the stage, but the language of the play itself as a living thing. Peeling away the setting left me with the bare meat of communication. There have been a handful of people through time who have woven their presence into the fold of a certain tongue — that transcended the very sounds and silences they employed to convey their cause.

Certainly, French would mourn Baudelaire.

As for English, well, the choice was embarrassingly obvious for me.

That said, I didn’t want to just take a handful of the most well known quotes and mash them about, or try and be clever with obscure references. Instead, I took my favorite passages and snippets and misplaced just enough pieces of the puzzle so that the original image could be remembered, while it tilted and slanted toward my purpose and then tucked that between the framework of my initial intent.

The things that come to us in dreams don’t always have to make sense. Sometimes they just want to be written.

Shakespeare’s Widow

Mezzanine dusted shadows
Lullaby her sweet insanity
Rhinestone rhymes of ancient times
Sphinx-laced riddles and vague profanities
Surviving through the Winters
And discontented vanities

She has not forgotten
No, she has never left
Say her passion’s misbegotten;
Say her alchemy is theft
But there are words that no one owns
Words immortal as the Spring
That is why no one can still her
That is why she sings:

“Come unto these yellow sands and then take hands.
Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered
The prince of darkness is a gentle man
And he hath robbed the rage of Caliban
There are daggers in his smiles
Things beyond all use and I do fear them
I defy the stars their havoc crying
But I am dying, Egypt, dying…”

They infect the spotlit stages
Foreign bodies lining walls
Her velvet sorrows pay their wages
They whore her for their curtain calls
She has suffered fools and sages
And outplayed them, one and all

She has not forgotten
No, she has never left
Say her passion’s misbegotten;
Say her alchemy is theft
But there are words that no one owns
Words immortal as the Spring
That is why no one can still her
That is why she sings:

“Come unto these yellow sands and then take hands.
Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered
The prince of darkness is a gentle man
And he hath robbed the rage of Caliban
There are daggers in his smiles
Things beyond all use and I do fear them
I defy the stars their havoc crying
But I am dying, Egypt, dying…”

She has magic no one owns
Immortal as the Spring
And even though time cannot still her
Sometimes, alone, she sings:

“I am patient as the tides
And I will never give up trying
But I have missed you all these long, long years,
And I am dying, Egypt, dying.
Oh, I am dying, Egypt, dying.”

“The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci

There are odd little paths we walk in virtuality.

When I joined SL, I had already been a writer for most of my life. When I was very little, I would cross out the parts of my storybooks I didn’t care for and rewrite them to my liking. As a tween I wrote terribly cheesy horror stories to try and shock the adults who endured listening to them (to their credit, they pretended to be disgusted enough to sate the miscreant in me). As a full-fledged teenager, I did that whole weeping heart in my poetry journal thing. In college I learned I was never going to become the reincarnation of Oscar Wilde; that took some time to heal. As a young adult I embraced the fact that while artful talent might take its sweet time to develop, I had an inherent skill that not everyone gets a chance to wield.

As an adult I have learned that a muse is a fickle whore of a creature and you take what you can grab from her when she deigns to show herself. Between visits you take turns hating her and pining for her and stitching together the remnants of your ego in cold sweat anticipation of her return.

My particular failing is a lack of brevity. If allowed the space, I will ruin my own writing with length. Even knowing this, I never considered myself a particularly good poet, nor did I ever consider that I’d have any gift for lyrics. It was only at the coaxing of musician friends in SL that I shared some scribblings. When I did, quite unexpectedly, a whole new world of collaboration and expression opened up for me.

I have been writing with Grace and Lyndon since 2007. January or February or June depending on how you want to start counting. I shared Lugo with Lyndon that January and wrote Fallen State of Grace for the girl in February. But it was late June when I sent Boxes to Lyndon and Last Chance to Grace and first heard them put their music styles to my words.

I don’t pretend to be able to express what it’s like to hear your poetry come out of someone else’s lips in a way you never imagined it yourself. I suppose, on an intellectual level, it’s a little like watching someone you love hold your child for the first time. There is a tender pride and a confusing loss that take place in tandem. You are parting with something that will never be wholly yours again, but in that giving there’s a sense of incredible connection.

Both of them have been performing collaborative songs for four years now. Four. Years. I consider myself to be at their mercy in many ways. Without me, both of them could go on to write and perform. Without them, this strange new way I’ve found to use my inner voice would be gone. I suppose I should be frightened by that, but I’ve never felt that way. I send them my scribblings and sometimes they like them enough to imbue their magic into my words. It’s a system that suits me. But I’m never quite able to get my head around hearing them play.

For a while now, Lyndon has taken to playing our songs at open mics around Seattle. And that’s where one of his musician friends heard him play our latest song, The Dangerous, and asked for a chart so he could work it up.

So today, I opened my mail and had a link to the above youtube video. It features a guy I’ve never met, never heard, never seen until today singing words I wrote. It’s one of the most strange, surreal three minutes and fifty one seconds I’ve ever experienced. Myriad flavors of emotion I haven’t begun to identify. (Although, I need to find out how to get in touch with him, if only to find out what the hell is going on with his lamp).

I get angry and frustrated with Linden Lab, Second Life, and humanity in general. I get exhausted by my disappointment at watching so much possibility squandered.

But some days I come face to face with the paths and possibilities that keep me on this particular road, and I remind myself that no one promised it would be paved in yellow bricks or lead to bejeweled cities. But the road does weave its way into places I could never otherwise explore or encounter, and I have to concede these small moments of awe.

People often ask one another why they stay in Second Life. I have several answers, but the one that I can’t get away from is that as a creative thinker and a tentative artist, there is nothing in virtuality that offers me the at-my-fingertips tools to unfurl the creative sinew more than SL. One day maybe open sims, etc will catch up. I embrace the possibilities of what is to come. But I’ve looked around at the newborns slouching toward Bethlehem and they don’t have the juice to fill my jelly jar yet. I’m beyond the whole novelty of the environment part. I’ve logged my time in someone else’s growing pains. If it’s not ready for prime time, call me later.

From now on, I’ll have a much simpler answer.

Why am I still here? That’s just the dangerous in me.

“I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.” ~ Roger Zelazny

One of my favorite books of all time is a little-known treat from the late, great Roger Zelazny entitled A Night In the Lonesome October. It was Roger’s last book and for whatever reason, it has touched me on a child-like level of delight ever since the first time I devoured it.

Zelazny possessed a crispness of style that I covet. His prose is tight and streamlined, but every phrase is also sculpted, crafted to employ just the right language to punch fathomless wells of context into tiny packages. He was always easy to read, and yet the concepts and characters possessed such depth that I often found myself lost in re-read after re-read, soaking up details I had missed on previous turns. You could read him as fast as a freeway, but then you’d miss the exits. So you had to spin round and retrace your path and revisit how the language had fooled you with its simplicity.

It’s a rare gift, especially among science fiction greats who tend to beleaguer readers with too much exposition.

Although Roger is most remembered for the Amber series, I find October to be a far more delicious adventure and I’ve introduced it to many friends over the years who have, without exception, taken equal delight in it.

As the book is broken into 32 chapters, each detailing a day in the life of Snuff, a faithful watchdog familiar, who reveals the mysterious events surrounding a very special October month, I’ve decided read, record, and put up each chapter day by day for those who want to listen and enjoy.

The book, alas, is out of print and has been for a few years, but you can still find copies here and there in used bookstores, and I encourage it heartily. There is also a rarer out of print audio book version of Zelazny reading the story himself, which is far superior to the job I will accomplish. However, my goal is simply to share the story and encourage others to explore further for themselves. To that end, I hope to just not mangle the reading too much.

This is my first outing in using Adobe Premiere to put together video. I suck at it — even this meager little attempt to insert a still frame married to an audio track was a trial. Moreover, compression and compromise to keep the file sizes under the necessary limits is a bit of a bear. But who knows, with luck, maybe I’ll hit on a magic combination as the project progresses through the month. I’ve decided to use video posts uploaded to YouTube for no other reason than because it’s easy and I don’t have to worry about which widgets work for which browsers, etc.

A special thanks to Lyndon Heart who will be helping me tweak my nervous little recordings and who is composing and adding brief musical bumpers to the start and end of each chapter. Yay for talented friends!

Please enjoy the story.

We are the ones who read as children
We know why the caged bird sings
We know the ruby shoes are silver
We know four hobbits wear the ring

We are the ones who read as children
We know Carroll’s portmanteaus
We know nightingales restore good health
We know where the red fern grows

We are the ones who read as children
We know Charlotte is the clever one
We know bunnies whisper “Goodnight Moon”
We know wax wings should fear the sun

We are the ones who read as children
We know which stars to wish upon
We know Karana has a secret name
We know why Charlie mourns for Algernon

We are the ones who read as children
We know that velveteen is real
We know Mrs. Frisby saves the Rats of NIMH
We know how the silkworm feels

We are the ones who read as children
We are abstract and transcendental
We hide the things that you would steal
We are the angst in existential

We are the ones who read as children
Beneath bridges and bell jars
We are the ones who read as children
And all these worlds are ours