I've always been interested in Latin. Now I've found the perfect website to read up on it. Sacklunch Latin Index have possibly the largest collection of latin phrases and translations. If you go back up to the main index of the Sacklunch site there's also an index of pen names of various authors. Although I can't say the list is near complete because I tried looking up George Orwell and he wasn't listed. George Orwell's real name was Eric Blair (heh), and before he adapted his pen name, he marked his manuscript with an X.

Came across a site that would be interesting for Eric too. The Zen Buddhism Virtual Library has a good, if not slightly outdated list of websites, but most of the links still work and there's a wealth of information in there.

Clutching to that little bit of hope that held me at bay
A promised land that never was
Molten glass towers mixed with red firecrackers
bits of gold and paper mingled with blood
of the people that believed in the dragon
Machine gunfire in the distance
Metal monsters crushing us down and down
Pulling down the bandana that meant so much
I walk into the darkness and the noise that promised
freedom from all things, freedom from this life, freedom from this place.

Dominoes building a wall impossible to knock down
but with a few tanks one can accomplish almost anything
News flying out south through the lens of the "brave" people who stood by
What do you know of freedom if you are born to it?
Blood building thickly on the ground of this forsaken place
Where heaven turns its eye and for that night did not see
I lend my hand to one who needed help to get out from some debris
He ran towards where I came into the only place that promised life
As I step through the blood and cloth that was someone to take his place
To face the machine that promised death. Little did he know
to me, it promised light.

Waiting for my roomie to get home. She's like a sister, a relative, a sister in the past life? We have a little sorority going on, a mutual dependency. Call it codependent.

I've stayed home most of the day installing the burner and the printer she got from Barrie. Thank god everything worked...now all I have to work on is her laptop which has been sitting there for weeks.

Sent off a poem to Eric a few days ago when he was in Barrie. I was nervous as hell and I think I was nervous for a good 14 hours until I got a hold of him on the phone. I'm not one to express myself and sometimes I look into his eyes and I have so much that I can't say it hurts.

Wake Up

I'm restless, my hand shakes
Sleepless night in late August
My bed is cool and soft. The breeze
caresses my face and I stare at the ceiling
I see stars.

Getting up at 3 A.M. to brush my hair
I think I'm out of my mind
Nothing disturbs me in the quiet. The drunks
and the sleepless are by now - asleep
My ears burn.

Flipping through my diary to find
old thoughts like leaves dried up in a phonebook
I feel comfort in your sweaters. My rubber bhudda
sits on the monitor mocking my worried brow in silence
I feel your kiss still.

Reading Dorothy Parker at 5 A.M.
Her humour lost on my head in the clouds
She's right that I would never learn and it's better that I not
As I drop off at 6 A.M. and wake up with a start to realize
I'm in love.

Poetry.com keep losing my poems...well any of the ones I didn't post as a contest entry anyway. So I'm just gonna throw one right here.

Starfish

A dead starfish washed up to shore
Seafoam caressing its funereal shroud

Love me, love me it cried
Fill this empty shell of mine
Make me meaningful, make me everything
As I disappear into the sand
Merciless sun killing me with its flames

I hold you in my hands
Red soft shell crackling
Nothing left to love, nothing left to save
Red dust falling through my fingers
Fragmented, disjointed tears and pain
Burning in love with love of the sun that kills

I stare at the imprint in the sand
Water slow approaching with the coming of the tide
Remembering nothing that was, remembering nothing of me
Let my face and my love be but a note
Written with the ashes of a star
Gone with the waning of the moon
Gone when the waves take it all away.

Sally Kwan

Copyright ©2003 Sally Kwan