Books

I'm changing forcus for a second, switching from posting poems to the other source of inspiration: books.  I'll be the first to admit that books are like crack for me, specifically the Star Wars brand.  Just the feeling of reading a book, watching a world explode around you, diving into another person's insane Wonderland and not knowing exactly what will be on the next page is exilerating.

Recently (against my better judgement and with protest from homework) I read Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol".  I won't spoil this but it has weaved together the speed and feel of Angel's and Demons with the skepticism of Da Vinci Code.

Set in present day Washington DC, Robert Langdon is once again thrown into a world of symbolism, shady history and life and death situations.  I won't spoil the plot, but this is one of the best Brown's written.

One of the things about this author's approach to writing I like is the weaving of fact with fiction and maintaining a skeptical protagonist as a parallel with those who believe that Dan Brown is merely writing from a Conspiracy Theorist standpoint. 

Orion

Eyes unblinking, a fixture of humility and silence
forever more gazed upon with seeming awe yet unreachable.
A curious squinting eye can piece together a biography,
yet one mystery remains:
With blazing stories of yesteryear, why no sound?

Frozen like granite, your emotions unknown
yet so detailed description is unfathomable.
Grounded atop the catherdral of the world we know today
how will the future marvel at your uniqueness?
Uncaring scorn?  Praise?  A cold shoulder, shunning your glory days?

I've looked into your glowing eyes to find the truth I do not understand,
But your answer has always been what I needed to hear:
silence.
An unbaised response to show that individual choices are our own.
Each day is made from the memories of the last
It is our question, it is our answer.

Your message is key: fight the good fight or forgo tomorrow's sunrise.
Your immortality, is it your gift, or a curse?
Or is it your work; to make a child question the question
what mysteries lie in wake.
If you listen, you can hear the winds whisper my answer,
silence.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing...i've always been interested in the ways that big and small name companies can get so ambigiously creative when it comes to viral websites to market video games, movies, books, etc.

www.arkhamcare.com is a perfect example.  It's a site made to look like a medical website for Gotham City but to those in the know, they know it is a campaign for Batman: Arkham Asylum (ps3, 360, pc).

I wanted to try and emulate the feeling of a viral website for myself...and with a class assignment of creating a website I jumped at the chance.

My website for class is centered around a short story I crafted nearly a year ago.  The short story is based in a reality in where the Yellowstone supervolcano has erupted and follows one man as he tries to get home.  The website however, entitled "The Resurrected States of America", is what remains of the thirteen colonies 83 years after the eruption.

I tried to add small teases of what I plan to do with the story, and also give it a simplictic feeling of a survivalistic society returned to the primitive dark ages before technology ruled.

If i can figure out how to upload the site, i'll be more than happy to post it, and once class work ebbs, i'll post the first journal entry of Icris 316 of Colony Horizon.

Wishes

Wishes

By Derek Prior

To all who come to this happy place, welcome.
The plaque reads from the castle steps.
One step forward,
Leafs rustle innocently along Main Street
A train yawns awake far off.
Ragtime music sweeps through the airy courtyard,
Raising a wind deep inside.
One jump ahead,
And through the castle gates I soar,
Returning to the land
Where age stands like a frozen hourglass.

Down cobblestone drives and English manors
Over mountains and around the river bend
Past temples and amongst comets I meander.
Every step a memory,
Every blink a moment longing for a glimpse
Into the imagination of the creator.

Faces fly all around, off to Neverland
Youth clutching the unmoving sands of time,
This land cannot be tarnished.
Upon my head,
Two golden spheres divulge and absorb

Laughter.

Excitement.

Peace.

Slowly, a path beckons like a poisonous apple,
Down the rabbit hole I tumble
And awaken, the hourglass loosening the particles,
Back to reality.

Traffic.

                              War.

                                                       Anger.

                                                                                 Hate.

                                                                      Destruction.

                                                                                                                                Evil.

That’s what lies before my unwavering eyes
As the world swirls past my porthole in life.

But a smiles rises by night.

For up to the heavens jewels I glance, wishing.
My eyes unearth the second star to the right,
The hourglass flies from my hands, shatters
The grains falling like a meteor shower.
I can go the distance.
For one man’s imagination has become a sanctuary
Strangers like me flow toward it each moment,
Escaping the reality to enter a whole new world.

It’s a tale as old as time:
Wishing I could be set free
Wishing upon a star
To defy growing up,
To be a lost boy.

But only one thing remains, one last wish.
I’ll navigate my magic carpet in jungles unknown,
Climb the snow-covered mountain for all mankind,
Discover ocean mysteries with me hardies yo ho
Only to wish for to share this small world
With you
If you shall come too.

Had an interesting sort of situation present itself.   I've been for a number of semesters contemplating enrolling within the Disney College Program.  As from my previous post, i've been swept up with the way Disney goes about their storytelling and mythology behind the man himself.  I settled down, allowed a roll of the  dice to tempt fate.   I decided to take the opportunity and leap.  This poem was one that I had written a while ago after trying to determine what it is about Disney that inspired me.  What I came up with, was the ability to allow anyone to leave the troubles of the world at the front gate and become a child again.  

Also, I tried some experimental positioning to showcase my own twisted feeling of falling down the rabbit hole which I feel fits with the mood well.

Hope you all enjoy.