Free Form Poetry, In Honour of the Hobbit Film

And now, for something completely different - 
I wrote this back in 2009, when I was more active with the LOTR fan club.  It's free-form, it's very long, so bear with it.  Comments regarding the shame of writing fan fiction should be minimized. :D


A dark tower rose from a dark clearing,
Surrounded by the shadowing eaves of Mirkwood.
Dol Guldur.

Within those walls,
If you listened you would hear
the hopeless voices of those lost forever
in the dark. Noisome sounds of
unknown creatures
skittering through dark tunnels;
tunnels marked by deep scratches
as of clawing hands
of desperate prisoners,
knowing that once they passed through
there would be no return.

Within his cell
he did not need to open his eyes,
knowing it would make no difference;
he dwelt in blackest night.

Footsteps passed his cell.
He paid them no heed -
they came not for him
and that was enough.

Silence again.
So much time here was spent
waiting.

Feverishly his hands
shaking, sought out
two well-worn objects.
They were important
he knew, though not why.
Part of his past -
forgotten, like himself.
He knew only that they were important.

Triumphant, his fingertips
touched the hiding place
of his well-guarded secrets.
Sighing, he sank back,
drawing them out.
Worn fingers brushed over them
reassuring him
of their presence.
Two secrets. His last,
hidden in that dark place
of dark secrets.
A key, and a map.
"The last of the seven..."
murmuring to himself,
he rubbed his finger;
then stopped, confused -
unable to remember
what, or why, that phrase
came to mind - why it
seemed important.

A moment, and his useless eyes
bewildered searched the void about him.
He frowned, trying to remember,
and failing. Shrugging,
he dragged himself across his cell
slipping the precious objects back into their hidden niche -
chiselled from the wall in the
years he spent there -
a fierce smile twisting his weathered face
eyes glinting madly.
"You'll never best a dwarf!"
he shouted at the darkness
with sudden energy,
and burst into laughter wild.
To himself - "Fools, to hide a dwarf
in stone! Does it not
speak to me through my fingers?
Bidding me 'Dig here!' or 'Not here, friend!'
telling me of weakness
and of strength? I am a dwarf!"
His voice trailed off
as weakness claimed him
yet again. He sank into
incoherent mutterings,
then silence.

Later - he knew not how long,
for time had no meaning there -
he stirred, raising his head,
he shifted restlessly, muttering again.
"My son," he said, and
"Fire on the mountain,"
and yet again, “The last of the seven;"
pausing and touching
his hand, his finger, as at the memory
of some pain.
He shuddered, then turning hastily,
scrabbled on the floor
in search of something -
the last solace he had -
where was it, where?!
Frantically his fingers searched the floor,
clawing, bleeding, seeking it -
his one last comfort.

Sudden smoothness there beneath his hand,
and with a gasping cry, he knew
he had found it. Gripping it tightly
he slid weakly against the cold wall
where he half-sat, half-laid, panting,
with the smooth, polished feel
of bone in his hands.
A flute.
Carefully crafted from bone
found within his cell,
carved in those first terrible days after his capture.
He smiled grimly.
He had been there long -
he knew not how long,
and no longer remembered why he had been captured,
or where. Not even who he was -
but - "My son!" the anguished words
once more fell from his lips.

He sat in silence.
Shaking fingers tracing still the polished length
of the flute. At last
he raised it to his lips
and played. Scattered fragments
of half-remembered songs
spun in his brain
and flowed forth from the flute,
lighting the dark with haunting melody.

A spark of beauty there within the night.
He played softly, knowing that if they heard
they would come,
and silence him -
for evil hated music
almost as it hated light.
And as such he imagined it -
a glowing, silver light,
flowing through the darkness of his cell
as liquid music.
He could remember in his mind
just such a light as the flute would make-
it was moonlight, shining fair
upon a vase
of precious metal, though he
remembered not its name.
Wait - mithril, it was called!
He smiled to think
he could forget it.
Then sighed, and music, faltering,
brought his mind back to the present.

But surely he must yet be dreaming -
for lo, though his eyes were opened, still
he saw that silver light
he'd visioned in his mind.
Starting, he weakly shrank against the wall,
slipping with stealthy hand
the flute within his tattered garments,
fearing someone had heard
and torture was forthcoming.
Squinting up, his terror-stricken eyes
beheld, not the orc-spawned countenance he knew,
but an old and gentle face, though worn
as though by care and toil -
the cell door behind gaping wide -
and in the figure's hand a staff
tipped with that wondrous silver light.

"The last of the seven,"
he whispered, distracted eyes
darting over the man's face and form,
as though expecting him to vanish.
Then stretching out a shaking hand
imploringly asked
"What do you want from me?"

The stranger grey stooped towards the dwarf
with pitying eyes, and asked,
"Who are you, friend, and where art from?"

"Last of the seven," he gasped again. Then
rising feebly, Thrain speaks:
"'Ware friend, if friend indeed you be,
for once beneath this tower you are caught,
forever will you stay - eternity
lies here before you in the dark."

The stranger nodded once, and seemingly
the weight of care upon him settled yet more heavily.
"Well I know it, Master Dwarf, for few have come
forth from Dol Guldur once received.
But who are you? locked up
for many years, if appearances speak true."

The dwarf looked down, as though confused,
then up again, and with uncertainty
regarded the stranger closely. Then nodded once,
his 'wildered mind made up,
with shaking step he passed the stranger by,
and reaching down into his hidden niche
drew forth his treasured past -
the map, the key.
He pushed them towards the man,
with desperate face
said "For my son."
Then sank he down, and leaned against the rock
breathing with difficulty
and said again - "For my son."
Then, clutching his finger -
"The last of the seven."
He breathed his last.

The stranger grey looked down at map and key
held in his hands, and sighed.
Knelt there beside the dwarf with bowed head
murmured, "Ilúvatar be with thee!"
And rising silently,
slipped wraithlike from the cell,
seen by none.





"I remembered a dangerous journey of mine,...when I had entered Dol Guldur in disguise, and had found there an unhappy Dwarf dying in the pits. I had no idea who he was. He had a map that had belonged to Durin's folk in Moria, and a key that seemed to go with it, though he was too far gone to explain it. And he said that he had possesed a great Ring.

"Nearly all his ravings were of that. The last of the Seven he said over and over again...But he gave the map and key to me. 'For my son,' he said; and then he died, and soon after I escaped myself."

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Unfinished Tales

The Progression of America's Great Discontent.

Or, How our consumerism is killing America, which in turn is doing its best to kill the Earth.   
[Warning, this will be a somewhat rambling post.  My brain is in a state of shut down due to studying for semester finals this week.]


Humans, myself included, generally gravitate toward self-indulgence.  For a while this was held in check for various reasons - possibly due to income, and personal upbringing, sometimes perhaps through religion, also because of difficulty in transportation, resulting in smaller markets more focused more on necessities and local products.  But in America today, self-indulgence is promoted everywhere you turn.  And Self-Indulgence walks hand-in-hand with a Lack of Self-Control, giving birth to the "Instant Gratification" syndrome.

Modern marketing uses our self-indulgence against us, bombards us with images and sound, to convince us we need things we don't really need, all the while telling us we "deserve" this or that.  And instant gratification plays right into that - we don't give ourselves time to go home and realize that we don't really need whatever it is they're trying to sell us. 

I believe this plays a part in the current "epidemic" of obesity.  Have you ever realized how much advertising is about food?  Due to that lack of self-control, many people no longer eat when they are hungry, but when they want a certain taste.  And with a craving for an instant gratification, it's easy to for people with busy lifestyles (and who isn't busy these days!) to tend toward eating processed, or fast food, or pre-made meals, that contain unhealthy additives, and/or have lost their nutritional value through processing.  With this easy access to food, we also have a tendency of buying more than we can use before it spoils. Did you know that Americans waste 40% of their food?  Forty percent.  That is a HUGE amount of food.

These trends of self-indulgence, instant gratification, and lack of self control have also contributed to widespread personal debt.  So many no longer live within their means, but use credit to live a financially unsustainable lifestyle.  Again, I speak from experience.  I'm learning the hard way how many things I really don't need, and that it's better to live with older things -  possibly less aesthetic things - but ones that still function, and fore-go the "fluff" I thought I needed, than to live with thousands of dollars in credit card debt hanging over my head.

The reason I'm harping on all of this, is that these trends are a huge contribution to America's negative environmental impact.  We don't care that we drive our car when we could just as easily take the bus, because we don't want to give up that bit of independence/convenience.  We don't care that our current lifestyles are carelessly using up the planetary resources, as long as we have the best food, plenty of beef, and the latest gaming console.  The fact that the production of these things is destroying ecosystems, supporting unsustainable manufacturing or agriculture, using our water unsustainably, and contributing to greenhouse gas emmissions doesn't even cross our minds. 

One problem we face as a nation, is that we won't take personal responsibility for our own actions, but would rather make it the Government's problem.  But by default, it's sure as hell going to become our problem anyway, because when the government steps in, stupidity tends to result.   For example, the FDA is trying to class sugar as a drug, because we don't have the self control to limit our intake.  And those laws passed restricting the size of a soda that you can purchase in certain cities.  Come on, people, really?  First off, people who want to drink soda and eat sugar are still going to do it.  Some law isn't going to stop them, just make them pay a little more to do it.  Secondly, when did it become the government's job to do our menu-planning?!

As a nation, as well as a resident of Earth, it is critical that we re-learn self-control.  And secondly, we need to wake up to the ecological damage our decadent habits have inflicted, and start working to reverse them.

Breaking free from Corporate America

Greetings, internet peoples! 

I didn't realize how long it had been since my last post, due to near assimilation by Life's mundane daily grind.  Due to recent events, I am feeling more free and alive than I have in a very long time.  I have finally realized that I had swallowed a lie.  The American Lie so many people see merely as "the way the World works" or an "unfortunate but necessary" way of life.  The lie that you have to "play the game" of work-place politics, that Money is the ultimate god, and we must give up everything - self-respect, quality of life, time for family and friends - in order to obtain more Money, so we can obtain the things "absolutely necessary" for life.  Things being the operative words.  Not essentials, but things.  A nicer car, because the one I have isn't shiny enough, or new enough.  A faster computer, because even though the one I have does everything I need, it's not as cool as someone else's computer.  A nicer house, even though the one I rent is more than I could ever need.

Yes, I am ashamed to admit it, I had begun to believe the filthy lie thrown in our faces all day, everyday, to CONSUME, OBEY, SUBMIT.  God bless Consumerism.

I have my job to thank for waking me up to this fact, setting me back on the path of living within my means, of being content with less, wasting less, and managing the things I have more responsibly.

In short, due to....things.....at work, I quit.  And with no job lined up, which is a first for me, and quite frankly, is a bit terrifying.  (And probably fairly irresponsible considering the economic state right now.)  But for the first time in 5 years, I am free from kissing up to "The Man" in order to preserve a way of life that is really not worth the daily sacrifice of self respect I was offering.  And now that I'm job searching, I've been listening to what other people say about their jobs, and am appalled to realize that most people are comfortable with dedicating over half of their waking life to professions that they don't like, that bore them, or they outright hate.  Because, God forbid we give up that second car, or that vacation property we'll probably never be able to enjoy, or that we not eat meat three times a day, or that we actually have to clean our own house instead of having a maid.

Frak a bunch of that!

I am aware I'm a bit of an idealist.  But the fact that people go to jobs they don't care about at all, that they dislike, or actually hate, and are totally okay with that, is abhorrent to my very being.  I understand we all have to pay bills and eat.  But seriously, why aren't more of us okay with making a little less money to do something we actually enjoy?  Have we really enslaved our sense of worth to the number of dollars we bring home?

Imagine a work force that was enthusiastic about what they did.  Who weren't merely doing time, watching the time clock, and waiting for that paycheck.  Imagine the improvement in the quality of, well, everything.  Work quality, customer satisfaction, home life, the effect on relationships.

In my case, I blame a large part of my issues at work on the corporate business structure.  I've worked for two corporations in my life.  And they were the two most horrific job experiences I have ever had.  The company I last worked for was so big, the people making the rules had hardly any clue how the rules they were making effected the lives of those of us on the "front lines".  Those who did understand the problems we were facing either didn't want to fight the corporate system to fix the problems, or had monetary reasons not to want to improve our issues - I mean, hey, who cares if you burn out a few employees, as long as the boss gets to take the yearly bonus home, and have a week long Caribbean vacation every year?  And the higher ups only see that the middle boss is making money.  They don't care about the bottom man on the totem pole.

So my current theory is small business is the way to go.  Theoretically, the manager of a smaller business is more closely connected to what's actually going on.  Often times, they either started the business, and are intimately aware of how things actually work, or they worked their way from the bottom up...and are intimately aware of how things work.  Plus, it supports local economy.  Not to say that there aren't bad work experiences to be had at a smaller business, but I strongly believe the corporate template is set up in such a way that it reduces people to cogs in a machine, churning out profit at the cost of the humanity of its workers.

So here I am.  Sticking it to The Man, and setting out to find a way to support myself, while not selling my soul to Consumerist, Corporate America.

I'll let you know how it goes.