Relentless [poem]

I stood on the edge of the ocean
on the crumbling wet sand underfoot
looking out at the waves
rushing and screaming and crashing
Unrelenting
and at the people
battling the violent waters
to get to firm land

I sat at home and watched
the sea of white faces on TV
marching in the dark with
fire in their hands
and passion in their eyes
screaming hate and violence
Unrelenting
battling their own demons
for a monochromatic peace

I listened for the sounds of
Spring, for the soft pit-pat
of raindrops on green
for the whisper of lovers
and the songs of the wild and free
for the change that was promised

But all I hear is crashing and
burning
the ominous crack of icebergs
holding the world together
the mournful wail of helpless
creatures
and the leader of the free world
spouting nonsense and intolerance
Unrelenting

We sit in our conference halls
debating the truth of it all
but what have we learned?

Only that
racism is like climate change —
you don’t have to believe in it
for it to kill us.

A Game of Thrones Theory: The Dragons! [SPOILERS]

This theory is based on the what happened after the latest -leaked- episode in Game of Thrones (season 7, episode 6).

For those of you who have not caught up on the latest season of Game of Thrones… 

First of all, what is wrong with you? Season 7 is by far the most exciting season. Everything is coming together. Everybody who was scattered throughout Westeros and Essos are back. There are more deaths. Even someone I have completely given up hope on many seasons ago makes an appearance in the leaked episode 6! 

Second, you should stop reading now if you are not caught up, because SPOILERS AHEAD. 

So this week, episode 6 of HBO’s Game of Thrones season 7, set to air this coming Sunday, August 20 at 9 pm Eastern Time, was leaked. Of course, anybody who is obsessed with Game of Thrones and streamed the episode online, myself included. 

[SERIOUSLY. SPOILERS. TURN BACK NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.] 

A quick recap: 

Jon Snow and company, including Jorah Mormont, Tormund Giantsbane, The Hound, Beric Dondarrion, and the newly-returned Gendry-bastard-son-of-Robert-Baratheon, and some minor characters, head north of the wall to capture a Wight so they can bring it to Cercei to demonstrate the existence of the White Walker threat, and hopefully unite the two warring Queens and the Northern houses against the White Walkers. 

In the process, the party end up surrounded by a humongous horde of Wights and their White Walker leaders in the middle of a frozen lake. They manage to send Gendry back to the Wall, who then sends a raven to Daenarys, who comes to the party’s rescue, but not before a fight breaks out between the party and the Wights and a few minor characters and Thoros of Myr gets killed. 

In comes Daeny and her three dragons, blasting fire at the Wights, and Drogon with Daeny lands to rescue what remains of the party and their captive Wight and saves the day. BUT WAIT! At the last minute, Jon (being a stupid hero) charges at an oncoming Wight while the others scramble onto to Drogon’s back. Meanwhile a White Walker lieutenant takes a giant ice spear and throws it hundreds of feet into the air, AND KILLS ONE OF THE DRAGONS, causing it to fall out of the sky and plunge into the icy lake. (It’s not immediately clear which dragon was killed, but I assume it was Viserion. The reason I say this is because Rhaegal is clearly meant for Jon and Daeny is riding Drogon.) GUYS, THERE ARE ONLY THREE DRAGONS AND NOW ONE OF THEM IS DEAD. NOOOO. 

Jon yells at Daeny to take off and she does, and as she flies off on Drogon with the rest of the party, she watches as Jon plunges into the icy lake while fighting off a horde of Wights. 

While the party return to the Wall and prepare to sail (back to Dragonstone? immediately to King’s Landing?), Daeny stands and watches for Jon, hoping for his miraculous return. Back at the scene of the battle with the undead, Jon emerges from the icy depths of the lake, grabs Longclaw and prepares to fight to the death when, out of nowhere, uncle half-White-Walker-Benjen shows up on a horse and rescues him. HOLY ****! Benjen puts Jon on his horse and it brings Jon back to wall and he and Daeny have a bittersweet reunion as he metaphorically bends the knee, acknowledging her as the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. 

At the end of the episode, we see a group of Wights dragging heavy chains from the lake and we realize, OMG no they’re turning the dead dragon into a Wight… and that is exactly what happens. 

Which leads me to my theory about the riders of the three dragons. There has been many theories as to who will be the riders of the three dragons brought to life by Daenerys. It has become pretty clear that two of them is obviously Daeny herself, and Jon Snow, who is a secret Targaryen. Since season 7 episode 6 revealed that Jon is not a bastard at all and is a true-blooded Targaryen and a legitimate heir to the Iron Throne, there is pretty much no question he is one of the dragon riders. But there has been so much speculation about who the third rider will be, including in some theories Tyrion, and Jaime Lannister (who is also theorized to be Azo Ahai, The Prince That Was Promised). 

Here’s my theory, in light of what happened in the latest episode, that leads to the conclusion that one of the white walkers is (was?) a Targaryen. 

Hear me out. 

We all know about Craster. He was a wildling that lived alone with his daughter-wives and provided information to the Night’s Watch about the wildlings and on the happenings beyond the wall. Craster was also not a full-blooded wildling. According to the story, he was fathered by a member of the Night’s Watch with a wildling woman and who then abandoned them. 

Aemon Targaryen was a maester in the Night's Watch. His timeline and Craster’s timeline coincides. Aemon lived a long time. He could have been one of a ranging party that went beyond the wall at some point and fathered Craster. (Do I remember correctly that in earlier in the series, Aemon said, in his warnings to Sam or Jon about love being the death of duty, that he had never accepted the advances of any women except for one?) 

Craster had many children, both sons and daughters. (His penchant for marrying his daughters and fathering children by them is a very Targaryen characteristic.) He made a deal with the Night King to give up his sons as long as the White Walkers left him alone. As we saw in an earlier season, Jon witnessed one of Craster’s infant sons being turned into a White Walker by the Night King. 

My theory is that at least one of those sons became a member of the Night King's elite group of lieutenants. And now you have a Targaryen White Walker. And now they have a dragon. 

Of course, I can't find any proof that Aemon ever went beyond the wall, but in all his decades of service, he never went on a ranging? That's hard to believe. 

I also can't find anything about who Craster's father is, just that he was fathered by someone in the Night's Watch. He could very well have been fathered by Aemon. 

Craster’s story also goes on to say that his mother brought him to the wall when he was born to show him to his father, but was turned away by the Night's Watch. Who, at that time, needed to keep their honor more than a Targaryen? 

Of course, this would mean that there are far more Targaryens remaining than we previously thought, and that means that Gilly is also a secret Targyen and so is her son. 

But this theory fulfills the three heads of the dragon prophecy, especially now that one of the dragons is a Wight. I don’t know, there are crazier theories, right? 

(I have been told that I am not the only one who has argued this. So, I'm not totally crazy...  https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/3l6khf/spoilers_all_the_parents_of_craster/) 

Perfect Symmetry [poem]

Pieces of us lie scattered through the rhyme
Sifting through the sands of time
Reliving the memories of our prime

Today I practice perfect symmetry
But tomorrow, I don’t know what I will be.
The days fall into months and years,
and the time, it’s flowing freely too.

Truth for truth,
what are you waiting for?
Who are you
and what have you come here for?
The golden eyes of dawn
shoots right through your core.

We want to make sense of this senseless life
creatures of habit, yet no end to the strife
as the needle inches towards the knife

Today I practice perfect symmetry
But tomorrow, I don’t know what I will be.
We all fight for the future of us
What happens tonight, that will be up to me.

Truth for truth,
what are you waiting for?
Day by day,
maybe we’ll go one more.
Do you seek a dream,
or have you found the door?

You find life is unkind and over too soon
As the runoff flows into the ocean proves
Losing to history -- nobody’s immune

I’ll pour you out a cold one
and we can sit to reminisce.
Love, maybe you’ll feel it too
if you wrap yourself around mine,
a simple truth of perfect symmetry.

Love, what are you waiting for?

artcreationist.deviantart.com/art/June-Calendar-671222952

Time [poem]

If you know anything about Time,
you know there’s nothing stopping it
from running out
Though it seems to stretch on forever,
Forever is not too long away
rather it is more a great voluminous
cloud, an expanse, like a balloon
that eventually runs out
of air,
that we depend on, trust in,
believe to the last grain of sand.
They say that Time heals all. They
were wrong — it cannot heal itself.
We are shortsighted,
nothing lasts forever
least of all
Time.

Love story [poem]

Here we are at the top of the proverbial ivory tower of amor. The beautiful facade of sparkling glass jewels, like an ideal — sharp facets, reflecting the blinding sun, the brilliance diverting eyes from the crumbling foundations built up through the decades. The river is shallow, running through the archway, eroding the last bits of sturdy stone. The black is faded near to gray and the white is covered in dust, shabby — grown closer than ever but fading. The snow is whiter than the white. But how does one tell, looking from such a distance. A shadow lurks in the frame of picture perfection. It is there even when not captured on camera. The dull edge of a blade can still cut with intention. Sharp pain can be assuaged by pills while still bleeding out. Paint chips off the fire escape as we stand on the edge, flames obscured, emblazoned by fiery passion.

Come see us in our vainglory. Are we not exactly what you have aspired to be?

teharcohn.deviantart.com/art/Glass-Shards-139683474

Before You Judge [fiction]

The names and people in this story are made up but the story itself is a literary amalgamation of various true stories told by people I have worked with. The legal parts is a basic template of a Motion to Reopen used in actual motions to immigration court, with citations to law and exhibits omitted. I have taken creative licenses in the writing.

The Disappearances [book review]

The Disappearances by Emily Bain Murphy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a digital advance reader's copy of this book through Netgalley. This book will be released on July 4, 2017.

In the town of Sterling, its citizens are cursed to lose something ordinary every seven years and nobody can figure out why. First they lose their sense of smell, then their reflections, followed by colors, dreams, the stars in the night sky, and the sound of music. They are called The Disappearances. Nobody who was a residence of Sterling when The Disappearances began could escape its effects, even if they leave, except for one, Aila and Miles Quinn’s mother, Juliet.

Fifteen year old Aila Quinn and her younger brother Miles are sent to live with the Cliftons, the family of their mother’s childhood best friend, in Sterling after their mother dies and their father is drafted to fight in the war. Aila is thrown into a world of mystery and mistrust as the town’s residences harbor a secret suspicion that her mother was the cause. Aila is determined to clear her mother’s name and, with the help of the Cliftons’ teenage son, friends from the Sterling high school, and her mother’s notes in her old copy of the Shakespeare plays, they work to get to the bottom of the curse. Meanwhile, an unknown menace from Aila’s mother’s childhood stalks ever closer, threatening the lives of not only Aila and her brother, but also those she has come to love, and the entire town of Sterling.

For a debut novel, this was an entertaining and engrossing read. Although the story was fairly predictable and a little slow going at times, it was satisfying. It is a good young adult novel full of the typical teenage angst, first loves, sibling fights and misunderstandings, and the struggle to grow up in a world of loss. Interspersed with the magic and mystery of the Disappearances, it is well-written, the characters are easy to like, and you find yourself invested in finding out what happens to them at the end. In all honesty, I was first drawn to the book’s cover, and then the story’s description was so intriguing, I had to read it. It was overall satisfying read.

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[Untitled] [poem]

The ocean swallowed the beach, but that didn’t stop her
from walking into the monsoon waves,
naked,
cane in hand, hair like fire catching in the salt sea-spray storm —
everything had already been
lost,
there was nothing left to lose — her salt tears joined the salt sea.
Remembering a last birthday, before the storms came, before
the smoke and thunder, before the sky reflected the earth’s
darkness —
before, even, the last of the hummingbirds disappeared —
the flickering candles on the cake fighting for air
in the subdued festivities, uncertainty weighing
heavy
on every illuminated face, each breath waiting to be the last.

She closed her eyes against the oncoming rush, closed
them against the storm, wrapped herself in the warmth
of the candle flames, and she made a
wish
for tomorrow, flung out her arms to embrace the sea in
prayer,
instinct and belief intertwined one and the same,
sacrificing wisdom for madness, for the wisdom of
madness
and she opened her mouth wide and swallowed the sea
whole —

One gulp was all it took, engulfed it within herself,
engulfed by the sea that was the storm that was
hope
riding on the sea winds whistling to the heart of the world,
to the downed trees and the drowned lands,
in the spotlight of the moon, she used to say,
a dog is no longer a wolf, she said,
the freedom of the wild that has been taken, you cannot 
reclaim.
And her cane lay at the bottom of the ocean, excess.

You broke it, now you must own it. 

Stella '17 [poem]

Note: This poem was published in Rigorous, an online journal edited and written by people of color, in Volume 1, Issue 2.


These high piles of snow lining the sides of the streets
has me walking on the straight and narrow, 
starting and ending at the crosswalks, 
waiting for the lights, and looking out for cars,
like you’re supposed to;
no more short cuts between parked cars,
no more jaywalking in the middle of the street,
no more detours through driveways and bike lanes...
I'm left with no other choice but to navigate
thin patches of concrete wide enough only for one person,
single-person meandering walkways,
negotiating with other unfortunate pedestrians
for that precious piece of clean sidewalk
through the white snow, packed snow, dirty snow,
navigating treacherously over brown slush
halfway through the crosswalk, only to be stopped
by a dark gray puddle of melted once-snow,
looking like the cold mush of nightmares,
that you need to leap over, run around, climb past
over the packed slick hills, or risk walking through it
(how deep is it, really?).
I always supposed the straight and narrow
to be the road of least resistance, but now that I realize
it is only full of hidden dangers and unexpected troubles,
I think I prefer my way of clever shortcuts and
shrewd calculations, risking known dangers and
making leaps of faith,
for you are not entirely blind when making your own way;
you are guided by life's experiences.

zig zag

Evening's Land [book review]

Evening's Land by Pauline West
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received a digital reader’s advance copy of this book through Netgalley. What drew me to this title was the description: “The dark elegance of Anne Rice’s THE WITCHING HOUR meets the lush parallel worlds of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN series.” I did not read the description any further before I requested an advanced reading copy. Neil Gaiman is my favorite writer and I would jump at reading anything recommended by him or compared to his writing. And Anne Rice’s popularity and reputation as a writer of ornate prose and attention to detail makes her a notable name among modern fiction writers. So when this book was described as Anne Rice meets Neil Gaiman, I immediately wanted to read it.

And I was not disappointed.

I was drawn in from the very first paragraph. One of the things I love most about Neil Gaiman’s writing is that his metaphors and descriptions make you stop in wonder and amazement at the way it makes you see something in a new and different way. Pauline West’s writing has a similar feel, creating a sense of awe and wonder as it draws you deeper in the story and the lives and struggles of the characters. The metaphors and descriptions hooked from the very beginning: “…his uncle was a big, barrel-chested autocross king, with a scrim of curly red hair that could have upholstered a sofa, and dancing ladies tattooed up both his arms—”. And in describing the first taste of beer “[t]he first gulp was like blood and nickels. The next came sweet and bready and light and suddenly it was going down like Missouri sunshine.”

The story is about a young woman named Ada who has a supernatural ability to open up a doorway between our reality and a dream reality called Evening’s Land. It is about how Ada holds on to her best friend whom she had lost to suicide after a terrible trauma. It is about a young woman coming to terms with her life after trauma and heartbreak, and learning to let go after desperately trying to hold onto a life that no longer existed. She encounters people, other-worldly creatures, and even the dead, all eager to use her and her abilities for their own ends at whatever the cost. As she comes to terms with her powers, she also comes to terms with her sexuality and with the death of her friend.

Pauline West’s writing is beautiful, full of poetry and prose, and near-perfect metaphors that really get at the moods of the moment. Her writing flows easily and masterfully from one imagery to the next, drawing you so deep into the story, you would think you’re right there watching it all unfold. I often came out of a reading session a little dazed and wishing I didn’t have to put down the book to attend to my other responsibilities. The main narrator is Ada, the point-of-view through which most of the story is told, but West uses the points of view of several other characters throughout the book to clarify plot and setting and to increase tension by giving the reader information that the main character does not have. I finished reading the book in less than five days (and I would have finished sooner if I didn’t have to work and sleep).

I must add that this novel is rather dark, dealing with suicide, rape, sexual and mental abuse, and satanism. It is not a light read for the faint-of-heart or for someone with a sensitive constitution (or someone who is easily offended).

This novel comes out on February 20, 2017 and I highly recommend a read!

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I promise to tidy up before company arrives [poem]

I promise to tidy up before company arrives
I wouldn’t want to leave my shoes
and daydreams
all over the floor
covering up the neat facade
of our life together

Today I will move all my half-read books
to the half-empty bookcase
in the guest room
where we rarely house guests,
My places carefully marked with
whatever I can find at hand—
An old ticket stub, faded and yellowed, in
Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons,
a post-it note phone number
of a long-forgotten acquaintance in
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway,
a three-year-old love letter in
Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (how fitting!),
Marking the places I will return to
when I have got the time

Tomorrow I will dust the living room,
and scrub the kitchen
clean of all the food splatters of
day-to-day living—
The remnants of who we are what we eat
scrubbed clean until marble surfaces
sparkle like showroom kitchens.
The dusty layers of disuse
will be cleared from the unlived-in
“living room” which has
become a place of storage for
Things-I-do-not-need-to-deal-with-
immediately

I have become practiced in messy organization,
of tucking things out of sight
in drawers, thrown haphazardly in boxes,
cluttered in closets in the attic,
while you’re not looking.
A pile of correspondence, bills, greeting cards
“neatly” obscures the surface of my desk—
I know exactly where everything is
so long as you don’t disturb my (dis)order

I promise to tidy up before company arrives
so that all they will see is the
practiced perfection, surface beauty
of our happy life
full of hidden chaos

http://www.kerriewarren.com.au/patterns-in-chaos/

In the Shadow of Lakecrest [book review]

In the Shadow of Lakecrest by Elizabeth Blackwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I bought this book as a Kindle First offering in January 2017 at a highly discounted price. The expected publication date for this book is February 1, 2017.

From the first chapter, this book reminded me of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a Gothic romance first published in 1983. Like Rebecca, In the Shadow of Lakecrest is about a young working class woman who marries a wealthy man with a mysterious background. In fact, the parallels are conspicuous, at least in the beginning—the narrator in Rebecca was a lady’s companion and the narrator in In the Shadow of Lakecrest is a governess, both were on holiday with their respective employers when they met their wealthy husband-to-be, and finally, the story centers around the family manor and family’s mysterious past.

I had read Rebecca a few years ago and the beginning of this book, I would say the first quarter of the book, greatly paralleled Rebecca, so much so that I began to wonder if the author just rewrote the du Maurier novel with minor changes in characters and premise. But Lakecrest soon diverged into its own storyline.

In the Shadow of Lakecrest is a light gothic novel about a young governess and companion to wealthy daughters who snags and marries a rich businessman with a mysterious family past. Kate Moore and her rich husband, Matthew Lemont, returns to live at his family’s estate in the pre-Depression Chicago suburbs, where Kate feels ill-equipped to handle an overbearing mother-in-law and high-spirited sister-in-law. She learns that her husband is not the calm and confident man she married and is instead haunted by nightmares of a past that has affected his mental health. She discovers unsavory family secrets and the mysterious disappearance of Matthews aunt.

The story started out well with the build-up of the characters’ relationships and the suspenseful build-up of the family secrets and mysteries. But I feel like the story devolved by the second half of the book, both in the storyline and in the behavior of the characters, which could not be explained by the events that were occurring. It made it difficult to remain empathic to the characters. The storyline also devolved with the seemingly random occurrence of events, like Matthew’s twin sister suddenly eloping with a British nobleman and the summer storm that appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the Lemont’s annual party, pushing the story into its final stages.

The second half of the story was fast and disjointed where the first half moved at a steady pace that carefully laid out the story. I enjoyed reading it up to a point, and then I was just rushing to finish the story and to find out what happens at the end. The build-up and the suspense was atmospheric and gripping, but the reveals and the resolutions were underwhelming, not to mention the uncharacteristic personality twists that Kate’s character went through was ungrounded in her character build-up from the beginning of the book.

There are many great elements in this book that I feel were not fully fleshed-out and was not given the attention that they deserved to be a truly remarkable read, though it is a quick and entertaining read for those not overly-concerned with the writing.

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Something a little different [audio]

An audio recording of myself reading the poem "Let Them Not Say" by Jane Hirshfield. I received this poem in my email this morning through my subscription to Poem-a-Day from poets.org. It seems to be a fitting poem on a day that many have dreaded its coming: Trump's inauguration.

Audio Recording: Let Them Not Say, by Jane Hirshfield

Poem at poets.org: Let Them Not Say, Jane Hirshfield, 1953

Chrysalis [poem]

Caterpillar cocooned, like
an angel in chrysalis,
preparing to proclaim
an ascension

Missed Connection [flash fiction]

I saw you across the platform of the subway station. You were wearing bright blue knee-length tube socks, a loose black sheath dress, and impossibly high black ankle boots, one booted foot tapping out a rhythm over the other leg. I was standing on the opposite platform, watching you, looking at your femininity obscuring the masculinity of your birth. Your eye shadow was a vibrant blue over your eyelids and trailed silver sparkles to your temples. You were stunning.

You sat on the wooden bench writing in a little notebook, oblivious to the crowd shifting around you, blissfully ignorant of the argument down the other end of the platform. I don’t know if it was the way the strange yellow station lights sought you out in the crowd or if it was because of your own special glow, but you were a radiant of light in an ugly setting. You looked like you had fallen in love that night, a smile playing around the corners of your mouth as your pen flew across the pages of the your notebook. You were enclosed in a glow of soft vulnerability and impenetrable strength that only a deep abiding love could provide.

As you set pen to paper, that slender instrument gliding gracefully across the page, I watched the beauty of your face, the almost smile tugging on the corners of your lips, your eyes glowing with growing intensity as your scribbles flew faster. Were you remembering a beautiful encounter, or were you mourning a loss? Because as I stepped onto my train, I saw a single tear fall from your eye onto the page of your notebook. I watched you resolutely close your notebook on that wet stain, inevitably smudging your writing, and hugged the notebook tightly to your bosom. You stared blankly into the tracks. I wondered what had crossed your mind in that moment, what terrible memory had been conjured up to cause the entirety of your person to snap closed in an instant.

You stood up and walked to the platform’s edge as the train was announced over the loudspeakers. You looked up and our eyes met for a split moment as my train pulled away from the station. In that instant, I saw the depths of your pain in your pools of deep hazel, and it pierced my heart to the very core, leaving me gasping for breath as my hand clutched to my chest. I lurched away from the window as I swiveled around, and my eyes searched frantically around me at the faces of the other passengers in a desperate need to confirm what I had seen. But nobody paid me any attention.

As I took a step towards the communications button that would connect me to the conductor, a deafening shriek of brakes from the station we had just left reverberated through the tunnel. Too late. I was unable to save you.

Later, I would read about the tragedy in the news and I would remember that moment of your beauty falling to pieces.

What did you lose?