If you would like to submit a short story, poem, etc, feel free to send it to Paul Szpunar roadrunner@centuryinter.net
All work is copyrighted by the individual authors
Poetry
Fiction
WHY?
by Michael Christopher Johnson
Michael McCormick (mist@ins.infonet.net)
I am a lyricist and composer for a progressive rock group (Elan). I have
always responded strongly to the "Sense of Life" portrayed in Rand's novels,
and have worked hard to convey the same through my music and lyrics.
From the songs "FIRESTORM" and "INTO THE BLUE", on the ELAN CD FIRESTORM,
copyright 1994.
FIRESTORM
Michael McCormick -- copyright 1991
INTO THE BLUE
Michael McCormick -- copyright 1992
DENYING THE QUEEN
Michael McCormick (mist@ins.infonet.net) -- copyright 1992
(part one of Chasing Princess Moon)
HEALTH CARE
John Enright
THE LION (FOR VICTOR HUGO)
John Enright
RECANTATION
John Enright
WEDDING CEREMONY
John Enright
NEWBORN
John Enright
TO THE STATUE OF LIBERTY
John Enright
ROMANCE
John Enright
(published in Nomos #45)
by Peter Saint-Andre psaintandre@mcimail.com
Editor
by Peter Saint-Andre psaintandre@mcimail.com
(to be published in The Classical Outlook)
by Peter Saint-Andre psaintandre@mcimail.com
(to be published in The Classical Outlook)
by Peter Saint-Andre psaintandre@mcimail.com
by Peter Saint-Andre psaintandre@mcimail.com
by Peter Saint-Andre psaintandre@mcimail.com
The Problem of the One and the Many
(A Serious Nonsense Poem)
by Peter Saint-Andre psaintandre@mcimail.com
This seems to be a simple question,
But asking brings some chaste reflection
from Mystic sects that preachers lead
that warn to Logic's Faithful, "Heed!"
"These things you seek cannot be Known!"
"I think, therefore I am Alone!"
"Pretend your mind's like Uncarved Stone!"
We live within the strangest season:
Noble search for truth and reason
is paramount to cosmic treason!
One's life is meant for exploration;
theirs is 'hope for revelation!'
It all boils down to this reply:
They wish.
I do.
That's why.
Inflame the mist
Embrace the conflagration
Beads of burning moisture
celebrate the dawn
Blinded by the clearing sky
The clarion burst of sunlight
resonating without end
Insistent wind
fans and feeds the flame
Swirling shrieking eddies
race to the sky
Figure in the raging tempest
Flesh of iron from the forge
Brazen gaze of firelight
When the heat subsides
and the hero is cast
deep within the cooling form
remains a burning core
everyday reborn
draped in rhythm
sapphire wet
scattered whispers
teasing light
silver shadow
vibrant touch
sighing shimmer
shattered glass
into the blue in a breathless embrace
trailing chains of crystal through the mirror's face
salt swells melt in a swirling web of tongues
as we rise and fall in the dance of our obsession
held in motion
flowing sight
pouring diamond
dipped in speed
coiling flashes
twisting thrust
arching vision
soaring arc
Queen
Mother
In all good conscience
I cannot serve
with the blinded dove or the hunting hawk
Oh, Queen
Mother
Leave me be
In your arms
forgiving maternal warmth
leaves me cold
Embryonic mist
into infant's trust
and youthful wonder
Learning to question
finding your answers
my mother
are lies
Can't you hear
the screams of your children?
Do they deafen -- or delight
to be needed
I need not
And in the night
under an ivory light I ride
to the whispers of the moon
and I deny you
So you want a right to health care?
I'm glad to hear it, friend.
We've bundled up a bunch of laws
To help you meet that end.
A friendly little system, where,
No matter what your state,
We'll slice your paycheck, just because
It makes us feel so great.
And if you're feeling poorly, well,
We'll put you on the list
Of those who need a doctor bad...
And if you still exist
A year from now - why - what the hell
We'll let you see a nurse
Who'll tell you what it was you had
And why it's gotten worse.
We'd let you see a doc, except
We're kind of understaffed.
We told them what we'd pay them now
And most of them just laughed.
We threatened them, we begged, we wept,
And told them they must stay.
But strangely - we're not sure just how -
They all have slipped away.
Worry not! We'll fix you yet!
We're training new recruits.
Fellows much too bright to go on
Sweeping streets and shining boots.
They're doing great at school - you bet!
We're grading on the curve!
Brains they're slightly low on,
But we believe they'll SERVE!
One came. Amidst unknowing men he walked,
With unmeasured pride. And when he talked, he talked
Like none before.
A lion, with a roar. Untamed.
Soon, he was famed,
And his tread filled with dread
The men of emotions unnamed.
So Envy, approaching,
Announced: you are poaching
On land that is not your own.
Our women you steal --
Our weakness reveal --
In short, dear sir, my clients feel --
But from his throne,
He roared.
Then, kindly ignored
The quivering mass of jelly,
Not fit for lion's belly
Are such things.
He shook his golden mane.
They did not come again.
Galileo, having confessed
The error of his ways,
And having promised
To follow true doctrine
All his remaining days,
Was released by the Inquisition.
Considering afresh his position,
He stared at the ground and declared,
"IT STANDS QUITE STILL!
IT STANDS QUITE STILL!
AS THE CHURCH COMMANDS!
AS THE BIBLE PROVES!"
He lifted his head
And quietly said,
"Nevertheless, it moves."
We stand, and know a moment in our lives
Which shall not be repeated, and we say
Words which shall follow us along our way;
Words which shall, as long as we, survive.
If there are none to stand beside us here
Just now, yet they surround us in their spirit;
Friends and heroes, souls by us held dear,
Worthy witnesses, all come to hear it.
Before the world today we sanctify
The sacred bond which has between us grown;
With rings of gold, with calm and steady eye.
We stamp each other for our very own.
Before the whole wide world we stand alone,
Proudly, arm in arm. And we march on.
With this ring I do thee wed.
With my heart and with my head
I take thee for my lawful wife;
To share with me whatever life
Is mine.
It shall be thine.
Because we live,
We give
You birth.
What is love
Unless we share it?
Inherit
The earth.
Torch --
Scorching the firmament,
Proclaiming your realm,
You stand at the helm
Of your battlements.
Liberty your text of law,
I pronounce your name with awe.
Lady of the Harbor, hear me!
Your land
Is dying, and your lesson
Is forgotten.
Statue, sear me!
Lend me your flame!
Let me be a weapon in your hand.
Grant to me the fire that cannot die,
So that your torch may ever scorch the sky!
A volume bound, no, not by what exists,
For hardly half could pass as history --
Even to a child, whose mind, still in the mists
Of ignorance and fancy, easily
Is taken in by those who would deceive.
No, none would think to literally believe
The stories which, enscriptured here, they find.
They know that what the artist would achieve
Is what could happen -- heaven of the mind.
No, not Nirvana, not the Lethe's deep
Blind, drunken stupor of the mind's demise;
Romance has naught to do with death or sleep --
It is the art of life and open eyes!
Eyes open to the world and its potential,
Not dwelling on details of death or dearth,
But, through the nonsense, glimpsing the essential,
Beholding, through the worst of woe, the worth,
The joy, the power, of man's soul on earth.
A volume bound, by rules each must discover,
Apart from those the schools would now instill.
Rules known but to the maker and the lover:
The nature and the limits of the will.
Man's holy will! Oh, through the clouds of facts,
Shines clear the value of its sacred fire --
Repudiating temporary lacks,
Proclaiming now the force of that desire
Which ever lifts our being -- higher -- higher!
If hell is other people, as all the gloomsters say, then emphatic
I agree:
For heaven's other people - and the closer we lie together the
nearer my god to thee.
There's nothing that's quite as horrific
As an editor's pen prolific
Marking off which word, which phrase, which page
Survives unscathed the editor's rage.
['Rampage', perhaps, is more specific - Ed.]
You'll start to feel the imposition
Of add and cut and transposition,
You'll start to fight for your wordy dream
Against the changes that make you scream;
Confronted with his erudition
Your protest ends up in contrition.
Eventually you'll drop resistance,
You'll change it all at his insistence,
In this and each and every instance.
And all of this madness for a fee -
You'll only wish that he just could be
Edited right out of existence!
Don't seek, my friend, we cannot say
What end's in store for you, for me -
Don't trust in vague astrology.
Better to shoulder what will be,
Whether you soon will die, or stay
To watch the shore exhaust the sea.
So drink some wine while your hours flee,
Put small trust in posterity,
And prune your hopes - but pluck the day.
You shun me like a fawn that's seeking through trackless hills
her mother peeking, ill with fear of the woods and breeze;
When pliant leaves the spring winds rustle or lizards through
the bushes bustle she trembles in her heart and knees.
But not I like the tiger savage or wild lion seek to ravage: so
come, you're ripe a man to please.
Society is you and me
And a thousand million others;
Our interaction sets us free,
But government action smothers.
How high, we ask, has the sun yet climbed?
We wonder, hope, but do not know.
No other star we can see so shines,
And yet perhaps it's only show:
It can seem our star has risen far
At some times and in some respects;
But then past glory or future hope
Becomes all that our world reflects.
Except the troubled ascent of man
The world's not seen a sun like this,
That rises, and falls, to rise again -
Abyss to bliss to precipice.
Yet looking closely the mind discerns
That, even when our sun goes dark,
In the molten core a fire burns,
Ignited by an ageless spark.
We are all familiar, I should say, with the way geese gaggle,
Bees swarm, and oxen yoke - the way that sheep and seagulls straggle
When they unwisely stray from their appointed flock.
But do you have an inkling of the strange and wondrous habits
Of creatures as divergent as rhinoceri and rabbits?
Animals guard secrets their fancy names unlock.
To begin, we know that a group is made of ones who muster,
And our animal friends gain fantastic names when they cluster -
Like the nightingales, who en masse become a watch.
Watches of birds, though, I dare say, are nothing nearly so strange
As troops of kangaroos (in formation) hopping on the range,
Or holy exaltations of ecstatic larks!
But turn from sacred to profane: consider the lowly crow,
Whose group is called a murder! And the elks, who in numbers show
Themselves to be a gang - yet still they roam our parks!
A litter of piglets, a pod of seals, turtles in a bale:
Shall we tie them with a string of ponies, set them out for sale -
On a bed of oysters, for optimum display?
. . . The words are stuck like a knot of toads, to tell me who I am,
How I should live and travel: whether grouped like whales in a gam
Or alone, like a needle in a stack of hay . . .
A company of parrots may be founded by one who dares,
A school of fish or a band of monkeys formed by one who cares;
The peace of nations dreamt by doves who league in dules.
Hens and chicks, or so I've heard, have tendencies to brood and clutch;
The hogs just drift, the hares are down, and the foxes skulk so much
They've lost their craft at leaping over spans of mules.
See the mustering of the storks, and the vicious hordes of gnats!
Hounds are mute and the woodcocks fall 'midst the clutter of the cats
While the herons' siege runs strong, sounder than the swine.
But hark, glad tidings of magpies! For the finches love to charm:
Bouquets of pheasants (they are aware) can surely do no harm;
Sparrows play gracious host, and cast their hawks like wine.
Pride, all but the lions know, is commonly counted a sin -
A plague of locusts on your house if you let such vices in
As peacock ostentation and the sloth of bears.
What can one build? Perhaps a nest, of rabbits or of vipers!
Or a route of wolves for trips of goats, safe from tribes of snipers,
Where cattle drove in fear of dragons in their lairs!
Build and build again: rafters of turkeys, colonies of ants:
Seek the aid of an elephant herd to help you make your chance,
Ignore the starlings' murmurations while you're young.
What can we learn from animal terms against which you may rail,
From teams of horses and ducks, from coveys of partridge and quail?
The question, I'm sure, is on the tip of your tongue:
Am I just part of a swarm or clan, Mere member of some coterie?
Or perhaps, perhaps, am I a man - Alone, myself, uniquely me?
Return to the Objectivism home page