Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox [w/ Audio]

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all, --
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Poppy Trigger [Lyric Poem]

Two hikers on a mountain trail
pass a solitary Poppy.
One remembers a lost loved one;
one, feeling high and floppy.

Sky Fire [Haiku]

the sky 's afire:
a day's death throes;
bugs mourn loudly.

River of Life [Blank Verse]

If you float that river down to the sea,
you will know long days of peaceful drifting,
but also rocks and rage, oh so bone-soaked.

You will be thrown from the craft, clinging --
trying to get back on to right your raft.
You will find yourself in an endless sea --
connected to all others.

DAILY PHOTO: Himalayan Afternoon

Image

“I was born upon thy bank, river” by Henry David Thoreau [w/ Audio]

I was born upon thy bank, river,
My blood flows in thy stream,
And thou meanderest forever
At the bottom of my dream.

DAILY PHOTO: South Indian Farmland

BOOKS: Batman Arkham: Penguin by Bill Finger, et. al.

Batman Arkham: PenguinBatman Arkham: Penguin by Bill Finger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Drawing from 70 years of stories, this collection of issues involving the Penguin as Batman’s villain du jour really shows the shifting landscape of comic books over the decades. In the early issues, written with a young audience in mind, the Penguin is a skillful thief, but also kind of goofy, camp, and with not really much menace. By the last issue included, we see the hard edge of psychopathy and the gross deformity of this classic villain.

I was pleasantly surprised with this collection. Often these cobbled together comic collections lack coherent storytelling and feel as cheap and lazy as a sitcom clip show, but this volume shows several satisfying story arcs, and — while there is no overarching arc — it makes for a satisfying read.

I enjoyed reading this collection and seeing, through it, the evolution of comic books.

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The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams [w/ Audio]

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

PROMPT: Lark or Owl?

Daily writing prompt
Are you more of a night or morning person?

Morning, definitely.