Email subject lines

I learned somewhere that a lot of internet advertising is tailored to the reader - whether it decides which ads to display to you based on your internet history or your personal preferences on certain websites, etc.

I wonder if spam is sent the same way. I get the generic emails asking me to buy cheap drugs or viagra, but lately I'm getting more fake pharmaceutical company emails. Since I deal with pharmaceutical companies on a semi-regular basis at work, I wonder if somehow someone caught on and is trying to lure me with emails from Pfizer, etc.

I don't know what the point I'm trying to make is, but I have to admit, I was very amused by today's spam with the subject line of "Mass geek suicide." If spam is sent in a manner meant to deliberately pique your interest, I wonder what this email said about me...

Poetry influx

Beware. Poetry looms on the horizon.

"Mother Summer"

Hello summer, welcome back.
You’ve been gone awhile
Leaving us to winter’s cruel rack,
But now you’re here, bringing us your sunny smile.
Pick us up, brush us off, tell us it’s okay.
Place warming kisses on our brows,
Prepare us for the coming day.
To your season we will always espouse.
And in your loving glow we’ll laze,
Lounge by lakesides, play carefree.
Try to extend your stay, elongating these long days.
But if leave you must, despite our giant plea.
Promise that next year you’ll return.
Bringing again those warm days we forever yearn.



"Help"

“Help”



I died without knowing.

I woke to find myself six feet deep.
Walls stretching high on all sides,
Sky out of reach.
Choking, panicked,
I paced my grave.

People passed above.
Some slowed but ignored me.
Others wept and left flowers,
Lamenting my departure.
I feared to call out.
What if they did not respond? Did not turn?
It would confirm my death.

As I followed my path back and forth
I realized I was slightly deeper.
My grave wasn’t a grave at all,
But a rut built over time.

Could I escape? Was it impossible?
Each familiar step merely carried me on.
Five steps forward. Five back to the start.
Deeper and deeper I dug.

Tears did not help.
They turned the dirt to mud
Sucking me deeper.
Scrabbling at the walls brought more dirt down,
Drowning me further in darkness.

Rage against my death I did
But to no avail.
I sat, leaned against root-riddled wall
And watched the living pass me by.
I yearned to join them.
To walk in sunshine once more,
On new paths with new sights.

A single word, more whispered than said
Escaped my lips.

A passerby, one whom oft left flowers heard.
I feared they would continue to their way
But without delay they stopped and extended hand.

Half-afraid, half-hopeful I grasped it.
Working together we pulled and strained
Until, in a burst of light, I found myself resurrected.

I walk among the living again.
I keep one eye on the road ahead.
But the other, the other always remains on my grave.
It follows me, ready to pull me in.
But when I feel its inexorable pull,
I cry that little word
And a dozen hands dart out,
Stabilize me and help me find my path again.

Grade 10 English class

Starting in grade 10 English, we always had a section of the class dedicated to learning about poetry and analyzing the hidden meanings behind it. Often I thought that we put way too much thought into what the authors were trying to say (e.g. We soooo did not need to analyze every bloody word of "Seven Days" By Gary Dunford!), but sometimes it worked out and you got deeper meanings.

How come when I try to allude to things in my own writings, people either don't get it or misinterpret it entirely?

Example 1: "The Letter Opener": I wrote this short excerpt back in grade 12. We pulled random objects out of a hat and had to write a story about them. My object was a letter opener. So for some morbid reason I wrote this short story. However, most people who read it assumed the woman kills herself at the end. I never understood how people got that idea (okay, until now - I just reread the story and finally I get a glimmer of where it's coming from), but my original purpose was to indicate that she was going to kill her husband. I just felt that elongating the story to write his murder would detract from the overall feel.

Example 2: "The Taste of Falling Rain": I wrote this poem for a small online contest at writing.com. The purpose was to take a line they had given you and either incorporate it into the poem or use it the title. I chose the line, "The Taste of Falling Rain." Several people on writing.com reviewed the poem but no one seems to have realized the allusion that I was trying to make. The poem is supposed to be about someone dying. You know, everything was good, and then someone dies, so salty rain falls from sad clouds (I was trying to refer to the rain as being tears) on fresh-turned earth (an allusion to a grave). The end of the poem refers to the time of healing that occurs after any death - you know that the sorrow will eventually end.

Well epic fail on the allusion front for Mau. I guess I'm being a bit too obscure. It's just that when I write things more explicitly I feel like I'm clouting people over the head. Maybe like all good writers, I'll have to wait until I'm dead before people start analyzing my writing. ;)

Taste of Falling Rain

Until now the weather had been clear;
Days filled with blue skies and blue birds.

Nowadays rain squeezes from sad clouds
Falling salty on fresh-turned earth.

At last a glimpse of far-off light
Seen on the horizon, seen in the future
Promises an end to the storm.
Promises rainbows and sunshine
And blue birds once more.