A winters day
In a deep and dark december;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Ive built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Dont talk of love,
But Ive heard the words before;
Its sleeping in my memory.
I wont disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

You know, a much more effective way to get people to stare at your ass as you walk away would be to loose some of the weight. Plus you wouldn't be a laughing stock, just a . . .gazing. . stock.

Didn't you know? Here in the USA, sex is evil and woman's naked bodies are dirty wretched things that can cause blindness if you gaze upon them without the protection of a licensed priest holding your hand.

>> ^Skeeve:
A lot of comments on how good the movie is here. I have never seen it, but from watching this clip I know I wont because it made one of the mistakes that I really hate. Gabriel is a masculine name, hence the feminine Gabriella. Even though I don't believe in any of this stuff I'd like it if people got the story right. Gabriel is male. Just as I wouldn't appreciate it if a movie mistakenly made Apollo female I just don't like it when movies/books make Gabriel a woman. It's unfortunate, because the movie sounds like it is pretty good otherwise.


get it right?
ok..here is "right".according to the 25 apocryphal books based on angel mythology:
1.angels are androgynous,which this film depicts quite well in tilda swinton.
2.gabriel in particular sided with lucifer along with 1/3 of heavenly hosts and lost their bid to "sway" god.according to myth gabriel was destroyed by god,resurrected and then absolved of all prior sin.this is why gabriel is known as the angel of resurrection,and his punishment/duty is to stand watch over the four watchtowers- north(might be south,too lazy to check)and will utter no sound until the end-times(book of john,gabriel blows his horn).
3.gabriel is told to be the size of a sun and for any mortal to gaze upon his true form would be instant and painful death.thats why the arch-angels use lesser angels to do their bidding concerning humanity.
4.this movie is based on a graphic novel.

if religions cant even keep their theology straight,how can you expect a writer or film-maker?
this is just material i pulled off the top of my head,there are massive VOLUMES of material to sort through,and much of it contradicts each other.

but maybe your deal is just with gender naming,in that case i cant help ya buddy.

What in the fucking hell were they thinking? I do hope they did something like AC suggests, because hell, this would have given me nightmares now. (that first scene anyway)

>> ^ponceleon:
yeah, way to quote fail:
He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.
-Friedrich Nietzsche


Heh, correction fail.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26964.html

Pff, dragons.. who ever heard of dragons?

yeah, way to quote *fail:

He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

>> ^Samaelsmith:
Also, what's with the monster fighting and abyss gazing quote being attributed to Mark Twain? I could have sworn that was Neitzsche.


I completely missed that quote, but yeah, it is a Nietzsche quote... Wtf...

Also, what's with the monster fighting and abyss gazing quote being attributed to Mark Twain? I could have sworn that was Neitzsche.

the gaze of murder.

In reply to this comment by rasch187:
Kafka was Czech, not Polish.

And he certainly wasn't a philosopher, just a brilliant writer.


thanks for the clarification on kafka's place of birth,thought it was poland.
but i disagree with you in saying that kafka was not a philosopher.
aristotle,socrates,nicodemus,sun tzu?....no.
but are not all writers,and especially poets, constantly perfecting their craft in condensing the real,and unreal,into a concentrated vision of truth?
they gaze unblinking at the void and expose their souls for all to admire...or admonish.
that, my friend, takes courage few have.
is that not..
in essence..
the very core of philosophy?
before you can think..you must LOOK..
before you can FEEL..you must experience..
we all are tiny gods in our own way.
petty philosophers tinkering with the creation that is our life.
but the greats...
neitzsche,hegel,jung,tielhard etc etc,
ah..they had BALLS.
they stared into the abyss unflinching.
sighs..
i wax melodramitic here..
but i cant help it.
kafka's poetry is infuriatingly obtuse at times,but his genius in rare moments cannot be denied.
but to be honest...
it's J Keats who always makes my feeble attempts appear small,fragile and
a stunning tribute to pure hackery.
that man WAS poetry.
interesting that both kafka and keats died of consumption.
in any case..
thank you my friend for setting me straight,
and allowing an old man to babble about his heroes.
till next time..
namaste.

Nature is a temple where living columns
Let slip from time to time uncertain words;
Man finds his way through forests of symbols
Which regard him with familiar gazes.

"...it's proof that you're a partisan tool with no thoughts of your own."

No one here needs any more proof of that. Quit feeding the troll, please.

Also, I wish the programming gods here could find a way for our "ignores" to carry through when the ignoreds' ignored comments are quoted in someone elses comment. It is simply too difficult to avert my gaze quickly enough to prevent some small smattering of lemming-spawned shit-wittedness from inducing a small portion of the evenings repast of Del Taco and Broken Halo IPA back up. It burns.

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine - who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle - I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence.

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

"O! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it, sir."

"Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!"

"Pip, sir."

"Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give it mouth!"

"Pip. Pip, sir."

"Show us where you live," said the man. "Pint out the place!"

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself - for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet - when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.

"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks you ha' got."

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.

"Darn me if I couldn't eat em," said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, "and if I han't half a mind to't!"

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying.

"Now lookee here!" said the man. "Where's your mother?"

"There, sir!" said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"There, sir!" I timidly explained. "Also Georgiana. That's my mother."

"Oh!" said he, coming back. "And is that your father alonger your mother?"

"Yes, sir," said I; "him too; late of this parish."

"Ha!" he muttered then, considering. "Who d'ye live with - supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about?"

"My sister, sir - Mrs. Joe Gargery - wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."

"Blacksmith, eh?" said he. And looked down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.

"Now lookee here," he said, "the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file is?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you know what wittles is?"

"Yes, sir."

After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.

"You get me a file." He tilted me again. "And you get me wittles." He tilted me again. "You bring 'em both to me." He tilted me again. "Or I'll have your heart and liver out." He tilted me again.

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, "If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could attend more."

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weather-cock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:

"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a-keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?"

I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning.

"Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!" said the man.

I said so, and he took me down.

"Now," he pursued, "you remember what you've undertook, and you remember that young man, and you get home!"

"Goo-good night, sir," I faltered.

"Much of that!" said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. "I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!"

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms - clasping himself, as if to hold himself together - and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.

When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy, or the tide was in.

The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered - like an unhooped cask upon a pole - an ugly thing when you were near it; the other a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But, now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.

Wow. Didn't see that one coming at all...

Simon's adoring gaze @ 4:02 is priceless.

You, legacy0100, are involved in the search of where and who you are "out there", of exactly how and where you "fit" in that "structure" out there. The amazing thing is that there is no real "structure" out there, except in each individuals mind. So you were born on a spot on Earth humans labeled on a picture of the earth as "Korea". Then you moved to a different spot on the picture labeled "America". Before you moved you were you, and after you moved you are you. It is the same with each and every person. The categorizing and evaluating of self based upon how we perceive and believe others are categorizing us is invalid!!! Gaze into my eyes. Experience yourself relaxing and letting go in that way that iS JUST RIGHT for you. Letting go as you realize, in a very comfortable and secure way, that it will be SO delicious to send ALL of your money to me, your friend that LOVES who you are!! Easily and naturally, in a way that is just right.