that poem again!!!!

Argh... It shows up in weird places and at strange times -- irregular as clockwork and just as reliable as the tide's ebb. Each time I read it I remember the first time: that time when I was reading with my heart, because one I held so close was in agony because of it - and with his suffering I was suffering. Because of that, it holds a 'twinge-y memory' in that it's beautiful writing, and had I read/found it under other circumstances, I would have loved it. But since I was introduced to it the way I was, well... it aches me inside still.
I posted it on my other blog, but it needs to go here, it belongs here, especially since the other is no longer. Read it. Take it for what it is - to you - and make your own memories of it. Mine, aye, mine will also be twinged with the chill of that late-winter night when I read it within the context of an email and my eyes burned and my heart trembled from the hurt it felt... And yet, even then, even now, I must recognize the power. The truth. The strange wild untamed beauty. I remember. *quiet smile* And I love.

Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!--
An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
~ Wilfred Owen

The V Club and YA Lit

Well... After a long absence, I ventured back into the world of YA Lit. It was nice to be back, but I still prefer my classics. (Although Spinelli's Stargirl would be a good read tonight...)

The V Club
It was good... typical contemporary Young Adult lit: fluffy and trivial and worldly. Howsomever, it DID have some star-points. Namely, it dealt mainly with keeping friends in a enemies-everywhere highschool world. Much like the Sisterhood books. :-) Also - while the whole thing is dealing with this purity-scholarship, there seems to be a heavy undertone for sexuality. HOWEVER, even with this, it is written so the 2 "purest" characters are the ones who win your hearts and attentions. You cheer for klutzy, shy Eva as she finds her dream and falls in love with "beach boy" Riley who's vowed to wait for marriage.
[Spoiler Warning] When the two end up sharing the prize and ..... you're very very happy for them.
The other girls all come through as better people too. I like it on the whole... But i wouldnt buy it. It's still no Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants! ;-) lol...

A sidenote diversion before I head to bed...To those of you who teased me for beginning my summer reading with Anna Karenina, well, guess what? I was reading the vogue book of the summer before any of us knew it was vogue!! Oprah has chosen it as her Book Club book of the summer (I suppose?) and it's a number 1 seller! How's that for coolness? ;-) And you give me grief for reading Russian classics... tsk tsk.

Off to read of Italian horse races...