GUIDE FOR NEW TRAVELERS
M. Rephun, (c) June 28, 2007
The Caterpillar is a private man
He sits on a Mushroom, and puffs, puffs, puffs
Away on his hookah. Fat and quiet, a perfect gentleman.
When asked a question, he gives no direct answer.
Beware of him.
The Cheshire Cat's a spy
Always watching in the trees
Appearing out of shadows to steal you with a grin
The Cheshire Cat's a spy, knows the game's secrets. And how to win:
The Cheshire cat's a spy
Beware of him.
The Hatter is a thief
His riddles make off with your mind
And the dormouse trips you when you walk in
Look out Alice, look out
The only one you can trust here is yourself
AFTERNOON
A secret love runs through my veins
A secret lust runs through them
Here in the streets of Passaic
Where the trees rustle softly in their sheath of copper
Donned for the afternoon
Like warriors in Paradise
Out of place
And a girl stands under the boughs
In her hair a red light shining
The clouds are fingers splayed
The boughs,.fiery fingers splayed
And my own hands splayed at my side, cold as knives
Trembling, waiting, waiting for the moment
Staring at a statue, which will not come
At a statue, blind as stone
Which does not behold my face,
But peers cold and burning through the flesh
Listening to the heart race, the nerves flicker, tremulous and soft
Waiting, waiting for the moment
While all about her the leaves blow
And the wind whips about her face
Her hair; she stands in a sea of leaves
She stands in a sea of leaves and does not falter
Knowing my fear
While the sun goes, and the moon rises high behind her
Here in the streets of Passaic, here.
M. Rephun (c) July 1, 2007
Read More »MEASUREMENTS
5-foot-4-inch man
When my veins are bloodless
When the fever-rush has stopped
And they cart me off to the House of the Dead
When all the dust has been shaken out, when they scrutinize every fault
What runs through the cracks, eh, what runs through the cracks
"The look of love nourished in your eyes
The absence of love there
A field of snow where my feet ran
Before they grew tired,
A boy plucking an apple in the woods."
5-foot-4-inch man
You were never very tall
A sturdy little fellow
Though rather weak of mouth
How your blue lips trembled!
When Love caught you by surprise
5-foot-4-inch man
I look into your eyes
I look into your eyes
What did you see?
"Eyes, distant as an isle of fire Love, fleeting, but always in my hands Chaos, in the world I left behind, never to revisit Sleep, now that all is done".
Dead and silent man
What dreams run through your head?
What is it you have done?
You have left yourself here to be examined
Every hole and nook,
But what runs through the cracks, eh, what runs through the cracks
M. Rephun (c) June 28, 2007
Read More »
IN A GROVE
In a grove of palms
Love caught me unaware
Leaning on a fountain
Boom, boom, burn
Burn, how my heart smoldered
Long, long ago, in a grove of palms.
In a field of cypress
Drawing from a well
The smooth movement of limbs
And a look from your eye that told me
All I needed to know
In a grove of cypress, how my heart trembled!
In a land of Love
Girls in a dance
A thousand maidens, fairer than the hills of Haifa,
And the only one among them who could move me was you, my love, the only one who could move me
In a land of palms, long ago…
How I thought of you, for length of days
Of the cypress, your eyes, and the sweet incense of love!
M. Rephun, (c) June 24, 2007
Read More »
Psalm From the Attic
Long time I lay in the cold
And shadows of the room.
No one sent for me, though far below
I heard the murmur of voices, the insistent patter of feet.
A little silver bird on the window
Was my companion:
In my ear she whispered songs
About Eternity, and flowers that grow from the tomb.
As time passed I came to withstand
The pain that coursed from my heart to the blood of my spleen.
"It’s only a dream," She said.
"Just close your eyes
And when you wake there will be Summer-time and roses."
I listened, of course, but then I opened them again and there was nothing
M. Rephun (c) November 2008
Read More »In F.E.A.R, A World of Ghosts and Shadows
M. Rephun (c)2008
I’ve often been faced with the accusation that video games are "a waste of time". My response to this is that video games are not a waste of time because they, especially the games that are being developed nowadays, are an art form, and like any art form they demand critical appraisal and analysis by people who can appreciate what they have to offer. Anyway, here it is, my first videogame review. Enjoy!
From its very first moments, when a madman emerges from the shadows to strike you with a piece of plywood, the aptly named F.E.A.R is a game that holds you firmly in its clutches, leaving you terrified to take a step further, yet absolutely compelled to go on, if only to see how the plot will resolve itself.
And what a plot it is. Assuming the role of a nameless, genetically enhanced member of the elite government squad from which the game derives its title, you are dispatched to investigate paranormal occurrences at an abandoned warehouse. Things only become more twisted and disturbing from there, however, as you confront clone soldiers, disappearing ghosts, and most prominently, grotesque nightmare-visions of a ghostly girl with a penchant for vaporizing unsuspecting soldiers and setting things aflame.
The game’s design is brilliantly creepy, with levels that shake the games atmosphere and storyline for every ounce of tension and dread they’re worth. As you go from abandoned offices, to factories, to shadowy warehouses littered with blood-stained corpses, the game never fails to do anything less than chill you to your core.
F.E.A.R has been criticized in some circles for the repetitiveness of its environments, a complaint which has some validity: the endless maze of corridors and dark, haunted office buildings do tend to become a bit bland and tiresome after a spell. But ultimately this is a flaw that can be overlooked, as the game throws enough incredibly inventive surprises your way (ceilings replaced by rivers of blood, and confrontations with the ghost girl Alma) to hold you more or less spellbound the whole way through.
The sound in F.E.A.R is another great contributor to its unique mood of terror and mayhem. The music (when present) is beautiful and haunting, with an almost classical feel to it, and the alien sounds and ghostly noises which permeate the game are remarkably effective at inducing panic, even if they are along the lines of what one would expect in a game of this sort.
The combat system in the game is another aspect worth mentioning, since it contains some very interesting elements. One of these is the ability to temporarily slow down time, in order to more effectively combat one’s enemies. This is a feature that has been used in games in the past (Prince of Persia, God of War, and more recently, Timeshift), but here it works surprisingly well: in addition to making the game slightly easier, the visceral thrill that comes from watching one’s opponents blown to bits by the blast of a shotgun or grenade is truly something to marvel at.
In the end, F.E.A.R is the kind of game you play with the lights off–or on. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, your heart will be pounding, and the ghosts will still be there, lurking in the shadows.
Read More »Hymn
M. Rephun (c) December 24, 2007
When I was a child
I imagined I was growing
Taller, and that my head would reach the stars
But when I got older
I realized my body had shrunk
And my Heart had become a tiny speck
Of Light, stretched across oblivion.
When I die, let my soul become a star
A tiny dot, that at first sight,
Seems like nothing:
But whose glowing light expands, and whose brilliance grows
The closer one draws to it.
Children and lovers will watch me from the hills
My face one among the swarming millions
But they will see me, and will laugh with delight
Knowing that it was I, a million year old being,
Who first touched them with my rays
When they felt the World’s coldness on their skin:
And they will be reminded of a Face,
They once knew, bright as a Star
And which they thought had gone from them forever.
Travels
M. Rephun (c) December 16, 2007
I traveled to the East, and came back
With bags full of diamonds, rich spices and alloy
That only weighed me down.
I traveled to the North, where the wind blows cold And the Sun is dimmed by grey clouds and returned With a tonic for head-aches.
I traveled to all these places
And came back with empty hands.
And now I hope my feet will take me someplace
That is not marked on any map Where the People (if there be any) care for nothing
And I will return (if I care to) with nothing
More than the remembrance of a warm embrace
And a glance that sustained me through evenings filled with snow.
In the cities…
M. Rephun (c) January 11, 2008
In the cities they are building
A Golem of iron and steel
Its esophagus churning fuel
Its belly a molten furnace
Belching out cinders and ash
As it lurches forward into the dark night
In the cities they are building
A monster to fence them in
Steel walls, and skyscrapers won’t do
We want an end to the old ways
Fortresses and ramparts kings used
To shield their wealth from barbaric hordes
We require something new
Something that will guard us
And that is made in our image
With ice gnawing its insides
And eyes that burn like hellish fires.
And the crowds on the plaza
And the people who ride the subways each night
With no idea where they are going
And the men at the gas pumps do the work
They are all golems in miniature
Building an idol to worship,
And bow to in supplication,
As the cold wind of Death sweeps their rags
"Oh yes, its not very fair to look at But it keeps out the cold…"
In the cities they are building
A golem of iron and steel
A beast of terror and flames…
Parallel
M. Rephun (c) December 7, 2007
I had a dream
That you had never been born
And that I was an invisible speck
Of dust: drifting among the crowd
Or sitting on the face of the sun
Watching the stars pass, and the planets:
Looking down on the world,
And feeling oh so miserable
