Today's short story that I read was The Wicker Husband by Ursula Wills-Jones at East of the Web. I chose it because the thought of looking through dozens and hundreds of stories to try to pick one I would like seemed exhausting and a waste of time I don't have. I was completely surprised with the piece. It was fantastic.
Quick synopsis: An ugly girl lives in a small village. She hires a basket-maker to make her a husband. The women in the village get jealous and the men get mad because the women want their husbands to do what the wicker husband does. It's a great story about love and what the whispers of people around us can make us believe. It's not an all-out fairy tale, as there is some heartache, but it makes for a great one nonetheless.
The "unknown" poem I read was The Tao of Poets by M. Douglas, who I originally knew as Dark Geometry. His poetry is both raw and refined, ugly and beautiful, powerful but by no means meek. He is one of the very few reasons I cannot leave my post at AllPoetry.
The poem is very brutal in its honesty about poets. We love the lies as long as they sound pretty coming out of your mouth. We'll use our anger and sorrow later to write about you in ways you will never see in a mirror.
The classic poem I read was In Time of Silver Rain by Langston Hughes. I like the idealism behind the poem. It seems to be very optimistic, very innocent, very light-hearted. Perhaps I am just not in a light-hearted way today but it was just too sunny for me with the rainbows and the butterflies. Perhaps I just read it at the wrong time of year, as it is a piece about Spring, and I am in the throes of Autumn. Well, so far as I can be in the great state of (central) Texas where we really only have two seasons: cool and hell.
The essay I attempted to read today was Thunderbolts by Grant Allen. I say attempted because I could not get past the first paragraph. I'm going to be, well, mean here. I was unimpressed by the names he threw out that I did not recognize (i.e., Prester John) nor bother to Google. I also disagreed with his whole premise that thunderbolts are so exciting and enigmatic to us for the simple fact that they do not exist and that lightning is a weary subject as is anything that has been scientifically proven.
Perhaps I am just on the opposite end of the spectrum here. Our views vary with such voracity it made me somewhat naseous reading the piece. I find lightning endlessly stunning and worthy of study, but not Mr. Allen. No. He thinks that anything scientific is "dull...priggish" and believes Greek mythology "infinitely grander, more fearsome, and more mysterious." I have to say, having science prove something does not make something dull. He even throws in ghosts and vampires. To me, things that can not be proven are of no consequence to me, and therefore, not really worthy of adoration, obsession and study. I stick by the adage truth is stranger than fiction and am happy to continue to collection of odd facts about real things.
Like the fact that lightning is about 5 times hotter than our Sun.
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