A Haunted house at night

Here is this week's poem, in anapestic tetrameter.

On a dark stormy night I came up to a door
And, wet as can be in that nasty downpour,
I knocked, in the hopes to escape for a time
The wetness and darkness of that cold nighttime.

When no answer I got, that door shoved I open,
And found that abode was not lived in by men
The halls, they were empty and dark as can be,
I thought to abandon the place, and to flee.

Then the thought came to me as I stood in the night
I could either be wet or be dry till daylight,
So I set aside fear and just walked right on in
Never mind that it's dark and that ghosts live within.

A lesson in the grammar of poetry

Since I've been posting all this stuff about poetry, I thought I'd post something about the grammar of poetry. I mentioned things like trochaic, iambic, and tetrameter, and for some people, that's practically Greek. I'll try to make this stuff a little clearer.
trochaic and iambic refer to the feet of the poem. Iamb is an unstress, stress, and trochee is stress, unstress. For example, in my poem "Seasons of a tree", it says "beneath the tree there lies a mound." You say that sentence using the pattern unstress, stress. Trochee is the exact opposite. In my poem "My Shadow", the meter goes "'Will you follow me this day?'" That sentence you say with the pattern stress, unstress.
Does that make sense? If your still confused, chant the poems, instead of saying them like you would normally. If it still doesn't make sense, go ask someone else, like Wikipedia.
Other forms of feet are anapest, which goes two unstresses, one stress, (like "with the leaves on the ground"), dactyl, which goes one stress, two unstresses, (such as "down to the creek we run"), and spondee, which goes two stresses (I don't quite understand this one. How can a poem be all stresses and no unstress?)

The other word I used was tetrameter. This refers to the number of feet in each line of the poem. "My Shadow" and "Seasons of a Tree" both have four feet per line, so they are tetrameter. I think that's pretty standard.
The others are:
momometer - one foot
dimeter - two feet
trimeter - three feet
tetrameter - four feet
pentameter - five feet
hexameter - six feet
heptameter - seven feet
octameter - eight feet

I hope that was helpful to someone. Maybe one of these days I'll write about the figures of speech, such as simile and metaphor. Next week I ought to have a poem though. I find it so much easier to write the real thing then to just talk about it.

My Shadow

This is yet another exercise in poetry, this time with trochaic tetrameter.

"Will you follow me this day?"
Called I to my shadow dark
"If the sun shines, then I may
By your side, there will I hark."

All day long he follows me
Fastened to my side
Always will I talk of "we",
He, from me he cannot hide.

Only in the dark of night
Does he leave me by myself
Frolicking until the light
With the books upon my shelf.

Another poem

This also is one that I wrote a while back for school, as an exercise of writing in iambic tetrameter.

Seasons of a tree

Beneath the tree there lies a mound
Of golden leaves, all on the ground
The wind blows more down with his breath,
And sends them down to certain death.

The winter comes, as does the cold
The trees, their arms stretch out so bold
The sky of winter to defy
On coming spring do they rely.

With spring comes leaves, and buds, and sun
The birds do chirp, the kids do run
The trees are born again to live,
Their shade and beauty to us give.

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

This is my Essay for Bible Search, 2006. I know I could have done better, but in one hour, this is what I came up with. And it got third place with a 92%.

The Spiritual Degeneration of Israel

The Book of Judges tells of the decline in godliness that the nation of Israel experienced before the kings were established. Back in the book of Joshua, everything had been going well; they had been destroying the people of Canaan as God had said. So what happened, so that by chapter 21 things had gotten so evil? Study with me, as we look at chapter two of the book of Judges, and see what they did, or didn’t do, which ultimately led to their downfall.

First, let’s look at verse ten of chapter two. “When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which He had done for Israel.” These people did not know the Lord. Oh, I’m sure they knew “of” Him, but they didn’t really know Him. For example, I can say I know the President, but I really haven’t ever met him, talked with him, and gotten to know him. This is what their situation was like.

So, whose fault was it that they didn’t know? Well, it was partially their fault, but mostly it was the fault of the previous generation. It was up to them to teach their children, and that was not done. Now, it could have been that they did teach them, and they just didn’t listen, but it seems to me that this would be less likely.

Today, we can learn from this just how important it is to teach our children, as soon as possible about God and His Word, not just by our words, but by our example, too. It is also the work of the church to teach, but first and foremost, it must begin in the home.

Now let’s look at verses 11 through 15. Here is described the cycle of Judges. First they sin. Then the Lord sells them into the hands of their enemies. Then they cry out to the Lord for deliverance. The Lord raises up a judge to deliver them. Then they sin, and the list starts over. On and on this went for years and years. And it says that with every generation it got worse!

In Palm 1:1-2 we read, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.” By the verses in Judges two, we see that they were doing the exact opposite of this man. And since the man in Psalms was blessed, so the Israelites were not blessed.

One of their big problems can be seen in Judges 3:6. “And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and they served their gods.” By intermarrying with the people of Canaan, and thus serving their gods, they fell away. We can see from this example how important it is to marry those that are christians.

Next, let’s read verses 16-19. In these verses we see that the people of Israel chose to without the longsuffering of God. He freely offered to love them and protect them, if they would only obey Him. Instead they chose to take their own path. But then, if they got themselves in trouble, the figured they could just cry out to God, and He would deliver them. Well, we see later in chapter 10 that God tells them to cry out to the gods they have chosen. Mockingly He says that surly they will deliver them.

From this we can learn how important it is for us to realize the many blessings He has given us. We must never take them for granted.

Last, let’s look at verses 20-23. The Lord is going to leave those nations which are left, in order to test Israel. Later in chapter three, we see, particularly in verse six, that they failed this test. Folly shattered their future.

We must be careful that we do not fall into the mistakes the Israelites did, lest we too shatter both our future, and that of our children.

Who decides what is right and wrong?

This week is exam week, and all we do is exam questions. This is my answer to the question for "Whatever Happened to Justice?", our Government book.

Whatever Happened to Justice?

Discuss the differences between Common Law and Political Law. Tell why living under Political Law can be dangerous, and cite some examples of Political Law in action from the past and the present.

For the most part, when we think of law, we think there is only one kind of law. However, there are two kinds. One is Common Law, also known as Scientific Law. Most people don’t even know about this kind of law. The basis of this law is two fundamental laws: (1) do all you have agreed to do, and (2) do not encroach on other people or their property. Everyone must obey these laws, even the people in charge, like politicians. Scientific Law is science, a discovery. No one can just make up law.

The other is Political Law. This is the kind of law we are familiar with today. This is law that is made up by the people in charge. This can also be the voters. If a politician breaks a law, he can just change the law to get himself out of trouble. Laws are constantly changing, so there is no way we can plan ahead.

It is because of this that Political Law is so dangerous. One day we may be doing what’s legal, the next it might be illegal. Who decides what is right and wrong? There is no steadfast standard. Civilization goes backward when we as all people don’t obey the two fundamental laws.

An example of Political Law in history is Hitler and the things he did. He was legally elected by the people. Everything he did was legal under the laws of Germany. But, he broke the second fundamental law, and things got bad.

An example of Political Law today is the issue of abortion. If we vote for it to be legal, it’s legal. If we vote for it to be illegal, it’s illegal. It can change virtually overnight. And, abortion is breaking the second fundamental law by killing unborn humans.

Living under Political Law is dangerous and scary. May we strive to bring back the stability and safety of the Common Law.

The original Nonsublunary is disappearing

OK, what I'm really going to do is rename this one "Nonsublunary", and delete my other blog by that name. Quite a mess. But, I thought I'd let you readers know that, so you don't get confused.

Two untitled poems written as an exercise in rhyming

For these poems, we were supposed to find words that rhyme in the rhyming dictionary, and make a poem out of them. The first is my favorite, though I think the second has more interesting meter.

There stood a boy, Pierre
In that grand and regal square
And on his face there was a stare
For, hanging in the chill night air
There, before all eyes was bare

An ominous nightmare.

----------------------------------------------------

Out from the midst of that great throng
There rose an earnest chief
Who began to sing out great and strong
A love song.

The song, it was a rich motif
Beautiful, though long
Many did pull forth their handkerchief
That ode to spinach leaf.

His song, it became so long
The crowd wished for a relief
But they found that, all along
There was no love song.

That song, it was not to spinach leaf,
But was a longing for a lunch
Of corned beef!

Nonsublunary

OK, OK. It's been a while since I put anything on here. My excuse is I haven't had anything to say. Today I just thought I'd poke my head in and see how things are doing here, and I found out I could move my original blog, Nonsublunary, to blogger beta. Well, I'm starting to like Nonsublunary 2, so I'm going to keep using it. I'll still have the original around, but I won't be putting anything new on it.
OK, so I haven't had anything to say. That's about to change. For school we are studying poetry, and I'm supposed to write a poem every week, and for the most part I do. I'm going to start putting those poems on here, even if I think they are trash, so all of you who try to read this blog, and find there is nothing to read, will have something to look at. I may also put my narrations on here, depending if I think they are worthy.
I have yet to write my poem this week, I'm supposed to write one about something sad that has happened to me. So far I haven't found anything of this sort to write about. I guess that's a good thing. Depends on who you ask.
So then, I will post a poem from a few weeks past, and maybe eventually I will write my sad poem. Maybe.

Blogger beta!

Well, here's my try at blogger beta. My brother told me about it, and so I thought I'd check it out. I think it's pretty cool, all the different things you can do. I haven't tried messing with the template yet, but I will! We'll see if Blogger beta really is better than the old blogger.

Words

The Empty page
He sneers at me
Telling me
I have nothing to say,
My writing's no good,
I never get
My thoughts straight.
I never win the battle with words.

Words
They are my enemies
I must wrestle with them
Catch them by the hair
So they can't slip out of my grasp

I pin them to the mat
Flat on their back
Make them say
What I want them to say

And to the page
I laugh at him
And cover his face
With my thoughts
My images
My music

My words.