Stargrazing

On nights like these
we like to call ourselves stargrazers,
deep sky tourists.

We head up to the headland,
where heaven grafts itself to earth,
stitching the breeze between
our cheekbones, our fingertips.
Below, the sea stretches out
with an endless hush. You tell me
we'll sit in the rift
of the tide's smile to keep in touch
with the muchness of being
and believing. But seeing

beyond that pale of blacklight
is another matter. You have a map,
so you take the back of my hand
and paint a picture in mime
and synaesthesiac rhyme:

Our sky is like cat's eyes
kaleidoscoping along a wide road,
a highway of air and neverending
distance, with stars that sink deep
into tar - or maybe sheets - like sleep.
Think of travelling by car, you say. Of flying
then falling. My stars stutter
and flicker with motion sickness.

Our sky is like quicksilver,
mercury melting and jigsawing
across the universe. Sometimes,
metal seeps into the image
of a bird, a snake, a mask –
remnants of a late-forgotten past
and old light, slipping between
floorboards. You tell me to think
of a fence, of running my fingers
over the bars of metal, and feeling
distance, opening itself like an oracle
in the inbetween. All or nothing.

Our sky's a broken bone, home
of frostbitten toes, flyaway hair
and the way my cheeks chafe
against the wind. The sky splits
where the sunset sits on the horizon,
like an open door:
you say, and something more -
but you must be looking away
because your words are hushed, lost
in the anatomy of the Milky Way.

I understand,
I do.
I - I - stand
and shiver.

Your sky's a treasure trove:
a hoard of metaphors for
light, love, and the empty spaces
between the stars. It's your future,
your oracle opening onto the wide
unknown. It's matched to your map,
this place where the heavens
unhitch themselves from earth
and float from your throat
to where the moon is berthed
against a sea of sky. It's here, you escape
to Space, shuttling
on the back of the sea's
uneasy breath, her salted perfume.
While I sit and split; lose touch.

You tell me it's beautiful,
but I'm not sure I believe you, not yet.
You say to keep an open mind.

But how can I know what beauty is
when my sky, all I can see, is blind?

* * *

Written for the Spoken Word Poetry workshop hosted by The Writers'-Workshop.

This took so long to draft and re-draft, and I'm still not completely happy with it...
The formatting's not quite right here (as always). It's slightly better on my dA submission, but still not perfect there. Sometimes, the internet just hates my poetry. :P


Inspired by the lyrics to Stolen Babies' Mind Your Eyes:

Doors will scare me,
Windows leave me blind. :heart:

.Liquid Mercury

Writers-Workshop is holding a workshop on concrete poetry at the moment, and since it's been quite a while now since I last entered one, I was determined to rustle up something for it.

So here we are, a visual/concrete version of .mercury.

Please go and see the full-sized deviation here. For some reason this has gone all blurry in the resizing... :|


Stock:
+ Texture from Insan-Stock
+ Photo by moi

You can read the rest of the mythology series here and here.

Earthspun

Home is held in a dark place, a dank place,
beneath the musted plates of glass where, once,
I curled and crept into the rusting lungs of some cabbagepatch god.
Here, words are trapped, tapped into the husks
of my fingernails, the mouldering beds of marrow.

In the silence, I have learned to turn and face the wall;
to let the earth knot and clot in the back of my throat.
My tongue is swollen to a bulb: a stopped geranium that’s fixed to falter,
enthralled by the depths at which I can slumber without
going under. In this silence, I have learned to burn

and breathe beneath my breadth. O the beauty of usage!
I will weight in this angle of repose till I am fully gorged.
And then, when I seed and sleep, my bones will grow and strike their maps
of rot and roots below, to a Mother who is all glut, all mouth.
I will be sown - a row of milk teeth and raw kidney stones –
into the gut of the undergrowth.

I am already half unstrung, and plumped for hunger.

Just a little longer –
till I am gone to the ground, till I am sleeping sound
amidst the cracked vowels of the earthspun song.

Just a little longer
till I truly belong.

* * *

Alternative title: Sowing Stones in Glass Houses

More mythology poems are coming soon, I promise! But first, this: my entry for Lit-Community's contest, of which the theme is 'belonging'.

There are several references here to Plath's poem Who, which is the first in the Poem for a Birthday sequence (on which this is also based).

Operation Enduring -

Once in a while, it rains. And it rains hard.
A dislocated pictogram remains of the past:
the shafts of broken glass, the wedding ring picked
from the ash, the rag and bone anatomy that’s
strewn across the street. Under the tin shell of a bunker,
the people stuttered to defeat whilst waiting out the storm,
watching as the debris of their lives is sunk into the sands
of Helmand province. A man laid waste land.

This is home, someone says of a lean-to:
a couple of knotted sheets and the smell of old blood.
Next door houses heartache, Hell.
There’s an open wound in the concrete
where it’s been beaten back into a gaping,
a hunger. The children linger round the rim
like restless spirits; red-eyed, bent-backed, thin;
their skin scarred and puckered by the indents
of a rib cage, the shards of shoulder blades.
The throb of leaden hearts. This is a place

where the sky closes over heads
and mountains, sealing secrets; the broken
teeth and bones. Where a legion of poppies
raise their opiate eyes, open-mouthed at how
quickly the children can find themselves lost,
unborn.

Here and there, a stack of rubble slumps
like a charnel house or a cairn of cold stones,
which must leave them something like a sickness
for home.

* * *

My entry for Penessence's contest Afghanistan: The Pity of War.

Finally, something new. The process of writing this took several days, and even now I'm not sure it's quite as I want it to be. War poetry is not really my area, so I did a bit of research into the genre. I found some wonderful examples here, if anyone's interested.


Oh, and some more good news! Recently my poem .vesta was awarded a Daily Deviation over on dA. This is a pretty big thing for me, since it's an award I've wanted ever since I first joined dA (which is over four years ago now, eek!), so I'm super happy. :)

And do you remember that piece I wrote a while ago, Dog Days? Well, I won first place in The Flame(s) contest!

Muses and News

So, my laptop is currently suffering from some lovely kind of virus, which won’t let me do anything on the computer – no internet, no opening files, no nothing. I have to use my laptop in safe mode, which, if you've ever used, you'll know is incredibly clunky and slow, and generally infuriating.

This is making it difficult for me to write anything at the moment – seeing as I write everything on the computer because of the massive amount of drafts and edits I go through for each piece. Added to that, I seem to be running dry on inspiration, which is never a good thing. I need to find new methods of self-inspiration. Perhaps a trip out to somewhere cultural (the middle-of-nowhere where I live is a bit lacking in 'points of interest')? A change in weather would be nice, too. Divine intervention, anybody?

But my writing-life isn't all bad. Lately I've been lucky enough to get a couple of features around dA: a DLD on my piece .vesta (my third, hehe), this week's featured member in the wonderful group TheWrittenRevolution (which has been an amazing help to me over the past few months; it has loads of fantastic members, many of whom have helped me improve my writing through their helpful comments and feedback), and a lovely journal feature of my mythology series from the wonderful KneelingGlory - who is a far better writer than I can ever hope to be (*cough* goreadherworknow *cough*). As always, it's a surprise and an honour, and a definite cheerer-upper whilst my laptop has died. :D

Dog Days

This year, the dog days flung
a layer of smog over Moscow;
hung a stray aurora glow
over smoke-choked streets.
A fleet of trees, collapsed black
on themselves like matryoshka dolls,
was licked clean by the keen
tongues of flames – a scar
beneath the wildfire eye
of the dog star.

* * *

BBC News: Dense wildfire smog grips Moscow in heatwave

Of course, this is a problem that is still ongoing. I just wanted to write something in awe of the dystopian beauty and sheer horror of it all.

For a 50-word lit contest, The Flame(s). I haven't entered a contest in ages, so the challenge was nice.

More mythology poems are in the works, never fear. :)

Nobody's Home

1. Spare Parts
She did it to feel real, or so she said:
cut out her caustic catatonia, and donated it to the collection
tin – spare change, or rather, change
spared, as she still keeps her splintered trophies
hugged close to the air, along with the trackmarks that cut
across the ceiling, and the rouged wrists that are just that: bruised
like fruit, with juice just as sweet. But she knows
that fate can’t be rearranged or exchanged –
a foetal-hearted metamorphosis is the inevitable
lullaby that dulls her days,
and though it's only first light,
the time is ripe
for the whitening of her bones.

As the sun unhusks itself
to an earth-spun hush, her silhouettes shatter – collapse
into the blackened bracken that’s struck its roots
through the floorboards
of nobody's home.


2. Birth Day
Her bones crackled for some time
before they were subdued to a satisfactory hue,
and she was tipped from the spilt-ink womb
to the lidless rooms of nobody's home,
where she found her whitened bones had grown
wild amongst the cabbage-roses of the carpet.
A garden weeded with spare parts.

So she sat among those thorns, pumpkin-crowned
and indolent, innocently waking,
waiting for answers
from the mute bulb-skulls
of the flowers.


3. The Waves
She had sat there for hours in vain
when the waves came; breaking against the windowpanes
with their foam-haired brows and rasping mouths.
At first, she was afraid - she shook,
and puked, and pared the moons right out
of her fingernails. It wore her thin,
desperate. Sleepdrunk,
she wormed her way through the wardrobe
and lodged her heart, disparate, between
a hard place and the stone face
of the wall.

It was months before she crawled
back to the surface. She learned
to brace herself for the impact
of the wracked waves' hollowed
bodies; their great blue tongues:
the elaborate act of composure.
Now she meets them with the
stone-lidded eyes of an angel.
Hallowed, statuesque,
she's abandoned all her prayers,
her layers of hope,
and holds only
a fistful
of dust.


4. Whitening
Sometimes, a child is born that is happiest alone. And when alone, they find that Nobody has locked her fingers into theirs, and dragged them to Nowhere, where Nobody keeps her hollow home. Here, Nobody takes their bones and buries them amongst the roots of her bracken-built throne, where they chatter and snap into maps of the heart –
impenetrable dark, where a tunnel opens upon a tunnel, upon a tunnel, upon a tunnel, upon a vein, upon a throat, upon a great blue tongue and the sound of the sea -
widening, whitening,
until there's nothing left but the whiteness
of a whitewashed heart of stone.


5. On Reflection
And she has no stories to tell,
but her clasped hands make a well
to cup the babel; a shape for shadows.
Her eyes are made of glass; her lashes, cut-grass -
they reflect, like mirrors, one whole.

{The mirror is a hole which she fills
until it becomes a glass half-
full.}

She's stuck in the deadlock of
a dumbshow with nobody –
and Nobody’s not giving anything away.


6. Barren
The silence is broken only by footfalls;
the soft calls from cut to cut,
inching the length of her arm like worms.
But there's no mine to be dug deep -
though rot aches from the maggot-jewels
of her eyepits, mouldering peach pits,
Nobody is barren.
Yoked too tight, she steps
carefully, cracking the fragile domes of ghost-shells,
cabbage-rose skulls -
each step and each snap
echoing like a harsh word angled
amongst the scars.

The girls who come here think they are birds.
She'll break their necks else
they fly.



7. The Door
Night time, and nobody's home –
she's left alone to roam the rafters
of the attic. Seeing the framework
of this ghost house is like peeking
behind the scenes, or peeling back
skin to see the skeleton within.
And by God, she's tried;
clawed at all those doors.

But in this time of silted moons,
something's shifted.
Everything is eerie in the dusk: even she
feels estranged, changed
by the low light of rumoured angels.
Little more than whispers, but they’re
the shadows that she’s shaped.
She'll unfurl their fevered wings and
fold them into form. Then,
they'll hold their candles high and melt
their waxen faces until their bones
burn to ash;

till she unravels the map and breaks
through the skylight of Nobody's home -

the knowledge of which is
weighted like stone.

* * *

I'm not going to lie – I quite like this one. I've been searching for the words to write something this personal in ages, and it's so good to finally get it out of the system. I feel like it's the most honest I've been able to be with myself in a while now.

The form is inspired by Plath's 'Poems for a Birthday' which is similarly written in seven parts, each section working as a stand-alone poem, but also as part of the larger piece.

Please go and read this in it's proper format on my dA page.

Which brings me on to some good news - my poem Of Star Guts and Satellites was recently awarded a DLD! This is the second time I've been featured by the group, and just goes to show how much my poetry has improved since my first real attempts back in the summer of 2008 (trust me, you don't want to see those!)

Rag and Bone

We’re in the cellar – six feet of earth below
the berth of the sun. The air is sour, choked
with dust balls and the smell of pressed flowers – home
to our rag and bone collection
of junk. Here, fragments of our past
sunk beneath dust resurface – broken shells,
toy boats and the water-logged faces
of old photos. The ghosts of childhood float
round this mute room as if passing through
the chambers of the heart. But it’s this debris
of memories that keeps us anchored still: for we
have always been hybrid creatures,
fixed in double exposure; the flint-stitched
children of junkyards.

But despite this jumble of spareparts
and all our patchwork surgery,
there’s something missing -
for if you put your ear
to the floor, you can’t hear it breathe,
and the chest in which we rest
is wooden. Outside our silver-tongued sleepscapes,
these walls are dead; vaulted - and there’s
no message from beyond. The lips
of our bric-a-brac limbs twitch
without sound whilst we founder
in the depths
of our materialist-mothership
wrecks.

Now we long for rebirth:
for the sweet smell of earth,
pockmarked with rain, the feel of grass
between toes and the freedom of growth -
blossoms burgeoning colour and opening, opening
to the pulse of the world. Whilst here, behind glass,
nature’s papered cousins, her blistered sisters, fold
and curl, hiding their beaded hearts
from the daylight that would shatter
their plastic prisms; their stone-cold hold
on life. The same chains that blind us,
bind us to this shadow-barred prison.
This four-walled womb.

We are running out of room. The air is too thick,
too low, and we are forgetting how to grow.
Rag doll daughters, we will breathe water
until our seams split – when the coiled stair
will fold open, jut out -
and we’ll break

into air

.

* * *

My entry for The Written Revolution's Born Again Contest.

This originally sparked from a theme we were given in creative writing group which was 'opposites', but it has gone through a lot of changes since that first, rough draft - which basically spawned the third stanza.Since then it has been through many, many changes of tense, voice and title ('Children of Junkyards', 'Shipwreck Sisters' and 'Rebirth of a Rag Doll', to name a few...) - hopefully all changes for the better.

Any feedback / con crit. etc. is, as always, most welcome. :)

Lazarus' Lover

Here you are again, at my door:
clawed back from the fall with the same
old call: ‘tell you all, I shall tell you
all’. Well guess what? That’s the last straw.
It’s hard to be amazed
when there’s no audience to enthral
and you’re trailing frayed
paper guts ‘cross the floor. But no
more! Each time you come back back
back to me, your heart bleeds blacker
than blue, but there’s no remorse
for what you put me through. This time,
‘sorry’ just won’t cut it; you can cry
yourself dry for all I care: ‘cause
each time you pop out of thin air, I swear
I’d stick a knife through you before
I’d take you back. Well you can chew
on cut glass all you want
whilst my heart break-
fasts on all the halfboiled sunrises
I’ve spent waiting for you
to stick yourself back together. Sure, there’s glue
on your hands, but blood too - mine from
each time I believed your stories.
Back from the dead? Screw you! I know
how you lie, and how we’ve been tied
by fiction fractious as us – but
no longer. From each bruise
you left in my chest I’ve grown stronger,
and this time, dear lover,
I’m through.

* * *

OK, so this is my entry for the Writers' Workshop workshop on Poetic Monologues. The workshop criteria was quite challenging, and a little out of my comfort zone, so I read up on writing poetic monologues, and one of the examples was Plath's 'Lady Lazarus'. So a lot of the inspiration for this came from that, and from Plath's poem 'Daddy'.

The bit of speech quoted from Lazarus is taken from T.S. Eliot's poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'. The actual quote is:
"I am Lazarus, come from the dead,Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"

And the 'form' of the poem (if I should call it that) was inspired by a series of poems written by Carol Ann Duffy that are monologues written from the point of view of the wives of various literary / mythological people, such as 'Mrs Aesop' and 'Mrs Midas', which I saw her perform live recently at the Warwick Words festival (she was amazing!).She has in fact written one called 'Mrs Lazarus', which I didn’t know of until after I wrote this, so mine bears little resemblance.

Oh, and of course, if you don’t know about Lazarus, here's a handy link to the Wikipedia page that should explain all...

The 'Lazarus' she's talking to in the poem is not meant to be the actual Lazarus, by the way, just someone who keeps disappearing and coming back. Call it 'Lazarus Syndrome', if you will. (:

In The Mother Tongue

And now,
after winter’s spite left
the sun rung white,
it begins:

the stirring of survival
under sleep, where the waters
meet and fold into gold-
lipped petals; the buds of blossoms,
strung illusive as dovetails; the
malachite movement skyward –
the earth-sung pulse
of spring.


And I, too,
am crowned cornflower
blue when I speak
in the mother tongue,
grasping the wish-
bone split into seeds that
feathered plumes untie -
so that each breath, godlike,
unfurls worlds into honeyed airthat melt into the cloud-cloven sky.

* * *

I've been waiting for days for the inspiration for this to strike me, and it finally did!
My entry for devLIT's contest themed New Beginnings.
Wish me luck!

Oh, and some excellent news! You know my visual poem Vox Vitalis? Well, I placed third in the competition I entered it into, and got an honourable mention! Yay!

The Crows

It’s February, and a dismal forecast when you and I
meet under an ashen sky for the last time. Our breath
makes clouds which suck our voices out of the air,
and you’re wary - conversation is a little too close
for comfort. You’d rather cut
the cords between us and feed my good intentions
to the crows - those black angels sewn
across the skyline and below
where they line the fence, your last defence. Or
is that mine? – the horizon melts into my spine,
shot through with stones and bits of bones
that the birds pick at, but I won’t let
your cold words break
me. You can hiss and lie or kick
and cry all you want, I won’t retaliate – just
weight my words and tip this balance
against you. You spit venom into vapour, but
you won’t atone – you don’t even realise
that this bird’s already flown,
in a flurry of feathers
to crown the end.

The presence of the crows
grows - their wings beat airborne heart-
beats; the fence bleeds black. A fitting
backdrop for what you’re due:
and drop
you
do

.

As for the crows and I,
we’ll take form from formaldehyde
and let our wings kiss the sky. For
the crows know I won’t hide
from the inquisition of their eyes - a weapon
I cannot defuse; an invitation
I cannot refuse – a look
with all the intensity
of love.

* * *

One of the groups I'm in on dA set a monthly challenge called Let Music Be Your Muse, which is really exactly what it sounds - write a piece inspired by music. And this is my entry.

Seeing as my poems are usually inspired by at least one song, I tried to do something a little different and exclusively base it on the idea of one song; that being 'Crows' by QueenAdreena - although, as the album it's from, Djin, is a concept album, I must admit I did take inspiration from other songs on it too.

Any constructive criticism is welcome, and wish me luck in the challenge!

Birthday!

It's my birthday - YAY!!!

So I spent my last day of childhood making faerie wings; a fitting use of my time, methinks. I'm having an Emilie Autumn-esque faerie-themed midnight tea party later this week. I can't understand why more teenagers don't celebrate their birthdays in this way...
I'm probably just way ahead of the trend, or something. As usual.

And I'm sure every eighteen year old should receive Disney dvds for their birthday too. I swear Robin Hood is one of the most underrated Disney films ever!

Oh, and more features! Hooray!

Good News & Updates

Just some random news and updates.

You know that poem I wrote recently for another workshop, Monologue(s)? Well, for the second time in a row, I've been featured by the host in their summary of the workshop. The workshop was quite tough, but I received a lot of constructive feedback, for which I am very grateful.

And I've been featured again over at dA. This time in the lovely Lune Bleu's featured artists of the month. This is such a wonderful surprise, and I am honoured to make the list.

As far as general life and prospective updates are going, I'm pretty busy at the moment. Got far too many things planned for the next few weeks - on top of the disastrous mess that is my history coursework - so updates are likely to be few and far between. That said, there is another poem in the works - I just need to find the words and time to finish it off.

Oh, and Happy Women's History Month!

* * *

edit: Holyhell, I just got given a DLD (a feature by Daily Literature Deviations) and was made their Pick of the Day! I can't even describe how much win this entails! Squee! ♥

Vox Vitalis

my body is
made of paper; my
mind’s an open book. look -
my skin’s a palimpsest
of secrets, of
voices
etched in vellum - your words,
mine,
imprinted in tissued flesh. each phrase spells
‘m a g i c’,
conjuring me into being: like origami, i am
folded into form. see –
my mouth
is an inkwell that
spills
at the seams; my blood’s a
flood of sighs. the world
inscribes my paper bones with its whispers
(its flickers)
of life.
and thus,
i
am.

i am myth,
fact
and fiction. i am
the truth and
every lie.

i am a neverending story:
a paper bird who
trails a tail
of cursive words.

* * *

This is my entry for DLD's Anniversary Contest of which the theme was paper. This is actually a visual piece, but the file was too large to be posted here, so PLEASE go and see the 'real' version, in all its glory, here.

I learned to make origami cranes for it and everything, so I will be very upset if you don't... :)

And I have a question for everyone. Recently, I joined a new writers' group on dA that allows you to submit any lit. in your gallery to group where it will receive more critical reception. Which of my pieces (you can see them all in my dA gallery - you can also laugh at all my old drawings whilst your there!) do you think I should submit first / if at all? I would greatly appreciate your feedback!

Monologue(s)

Curtains draw: it’s 4 o’ clock and
the stage echoes with the sound of hearts beating
in tandem.

Listen –

I can hear you breathe
again; your breath seething
beneath my skin. Your
whispers fill the night with alkaline
and I am
heavy; heavy and
falling.
Your words weigh me,
and crack my sulphur lips
like kisses.

(beat)

I never asked for this.

There’s a movement,
a balance shifting,
and the darkness begins to lift
like a veil.
//
The Other stirs and
speaks:

And I,

I never answered: you
never let me – just kept me
locked up here, lodged somewhere inside
( ( your ribcage ) ), feeding me
on blood and bones,
acidic sticks and stones,
whilst I
am left fighting for air,
flighting heartwards.

But now it’s 4 o’clock and
your electric eyes cry moonshine, and
my heart beeps noisy beats
in tandem
with your own.

(beat beat - pause)

Listen –
can you hear it?

//
The stage opens up, and there is
a fleeting possibility of awake
before the day breaks.

We step into the spotlight and
our fingers lock together.
We are the key.
It fits!

Together we are
(halfhalf) and
- O -
everyone knows that
these two halves make
a hole.

* * *

Extract from Emilie Autumn's 'The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls':

'There is something that goes on in the minds of many manic depressives when entering into either a manic or a depressive state ... that nobody claims to understand, but that many bipolars in the far corners of the world can attest to, and that is the consistent waking up at four o'clock in the morning. And when I say four o'clock, I mean four o'clock on the fucking dot. ... And the thing is, you don't just wake up. You wake up with your mind racing, music churning over and over inside your head, the internal noise, words, pictures, absolutely unbearable...'

* * *

Can you believe this took far longer to format (and reformat, and reformat) than it did to write? I hate you, Blogger.

Another poems about the same fucking thing. You must be getting sick of these by now.

I know I am.

Written for a workshop on Speaking in Tongues that I'm hoping on entering. Please comment / critique it, especially keeping the idea of 'voices' in mind.

* * *

CREDITS!!

• Emilie Autumn (how I love thou!) - her book, 'The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls' (which is incredible) and the song '4 o'clock' (one of my personal favourites!)

• 'my heart beeps noisy beats' is a subversion of 'my heart bleeps noisy beeps' - a song by Räuberhöhle (which you can download for free here)

• The phrase 'heartwards' was invented by absyntheminded, who suggested I use it for the random poem I wrote in creative writing the other day. I hope she doesn't mind if I commandeer it for this poem too (because it's beautiful)

News

So the holidays are almost over now, and it's only a few days until I have to get back on that treadmill and start the hard slog of coursework and pre-exam revision (although it feels as if I never really stopped!).
Unfortunately, that most probably means that my posts will slow over the next few weeks, although I will try and keep this as updated as possible. I've got a lot of reading to do, so hopefully some interesting musings will come out of that - along with some useful coursework info, one hopes! I have already planned some posts, but whether they'll actually ever materialise is another matter. I'm hoping the words will find me...

But now on to some good news. Remember that poem 'You're' I posted on here a couple of weeks ago? Well, I submitted it to that workshop, and it has now been featured by the hosts as one of their favourites from the workshop! (I'm angel-in-pieces, in case you didn't know). It really is a great honour for me to be selected out of over forty amazing entries (really - do check out some of the others. Elmara's 'Instructions to the First Maestro in Space' is a personal favourite), not to mention highly surprising. So I wanted to say a massive thank you for your encouragement and comments and everything.

Unfortunately for you, that probably means there will be more creative stuff to come...