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capri0mniSo, in this comment thread, spiralsheep and I happened to come up with a writing "duel," where we would each write a poem (or story) in a Cycle. This is poem that came to me today, to fulfill the first part of the Cycle.
[And for those of you readers at home, who are following along with your Isidore of Seville's Monster Classification Scorecard, the Monster in this poem (the poem's narrator) would most likely be classified as Category 6 (Mixture of human and animal parts [or natures]) or Category 9 (Born with Disturbed Growth)]
Part One of the Cycle: The Monster Challenges the Boundaries
You stand there, with my file in your hand:
A long white coat beneath fluorescent light.
Your voice is measured, your expression, bland
To thinly veil the arrogance of Might.
With scientific words, you speak your part;
Your glance betrays a superstitious heart.
As though I were not even in the room
(And near enough to catch stale coffee breath),
You lay out (for my mother) all the doom
Of raising such a daughter so bereft.
For I will never walk as humans can:
Upon two legs, and tall, across the Earth.
With crutch tips as my hooves, I'll cross each span
In trotting gait, because of star-crossed birth.
With practiced stroke and swiftly moving pen
(Just as you've done with other children's lives),
You mark me down as something less than "Man."
To fit me to a list that you've contrived.
You circumscribe my life in dark blue ink.
My flesh and mind are mapped (or so you think).
spiralsheep and I happened to come up with a writing "duel," where we would each write a poem (or story) in a Cycle. This is poem that came to me today, to fulfill the first part of the Cycle.[And for those of you readers at home, who are following along with your Isidore of Seville's Monster Classification Scorecard, the Monster in this poem (the poem's narrator) would most likely be classified as Category 6 (Mixture of human and animal parts [or natures]) or Category 9 (Born with Disturbed Growth)]
Part One of the Cycle: The Monster Challenges the Boundaries
You stand there, with my file in your hand:
A long white coat beneath fluorescent light.
Your voice is measured, your expression, bland
To thinly veil the arrogance of Might.
With scientific words, you speak your part;
Your glance betrays a superstitious heart.
As though I were not even in the room
(And near enough to catch stale coffee breath),
You lay out (for my mother) all the doom
Of raising such a daughter so bereft.
For I will never walk as humans can:
Upon two legs, and tall, across the Earth.
With crutch tips as my hooves, I'll cross each span
In trotting gait, because of star-crossed birth.
With practiced stroke and swiftly moving pen
(Just as you've done with other children's lives),
You mark me down as something less than "Man."
To fit me to a list that you've contrived.
You circumscribe my life in dark blue ink.
My flesh and mind are mapped (or so you think).
no subject
Date: 2012-04-01 11:48 am (UTC)Mine is here: http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/385496.html
Isidore of Seville's Monster Classification Scorecard
Bwahahahaha!
no subject
Date: 2012-04-01 06:16 pm (UTC)1] "Superstitious" -- when I was a self-identifying Wiccan-flavored Pagan, I tended to bristle at this word, because it was often directed at beliefs I took seriously, and I would point out that the word simply meant "A surviving piece of ancient religion."
But since my discovery on the etymology of "monster," it occurred to me that "Superstition" is the perfect word to describe medical attitudes toward disability. Doctors and psychologists are clinging to a centuries-old ethics principle as if the fate of the world depended on it. At the same time, they've rejected the world view that the principle was founded on. This is superstition -- a belief clung to out of fear, utterly without thought or reason: a surviving fragment of a dead faith. Whereas Wicca is a living faith.
2] "Human" -- I've told you before, in other discussions, about how it annoys me that the Pteranodon Family on Dinosaur Train are depicted as bipedal, when all the paleontological evidence of the last forty years (closing in on fifty, now) has shown that they were quadrupeds. The reasons for this are two-fold: the family is intended to be an allegory for a human family, to help teach toddlers about learning to get along with others of their species, and the computer animations of the characters are formed around video of adult human actors in full-body puppet suits.
The thing is: I've heard a podcast interview with two of the current leading experts on pterosaurs, and they both said that the way to recreate and understand pterosaur locomotion is for a human to use a pair of crutches. ....Which would have been perfectly easy for the Henson production company to do, if they thought about it. ...But we all know that humans walking with crutches are no longer walking like a human, so no human in the audience could possibly identify with that...
3] Up until I was a junior in high school, I used crutches almost exclusively for my daily locomotion (now, I use a wheelchair, almost exclusively). When I was an eight year old, I thought the coolest thing about using crutches was that I could move in the same way as horses do -- 'cause, you know: Horses!
This site, here, explains the different forearm crutch gaits (the "movies" they offer to illustrate are animated .gifs, so you may be able to view them). http://www.walkeasy.com/interact/crutch_gait2.asp
My three gaits were: four-point (the walk), alternate two-point (trot), and alternate three-point (canter).
no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 09:10 pm (UTC)What was the last/impossible title? ::checks back:: ONWARDS!
This has been going through my head since we began the Monster Cycle so I thought I'd share (listen with caution cos it's very catchy).
(I need to write something for my next poetry group meeting too, gah.)
no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 10:00 pm (UTC)http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiBEARWLTZ.html
no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 11:08 pm (UTC)The story, in one of Gordon Bok's liner notes, is that Dr. Seuss's original lyrics were about "Uncle Terwilligher," and nothing else was changed. E. Poddany applied to the Library of Congress's licensing people for permission to sing his version, and they duly informed him that it was a wholly original song.
[USian copyright law is baffling].
Anyway, I hope you can hunt down an audio version you can hear, because the melody is really sweet, and you deserved to be earwormed with it...
no subject
Date: 2012-04-01 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-01 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 04:58 am (UTC)Very powerful! Excellent writing! I like the scientific/superstitious contrast, the doctor's hidden hypocrisy.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 04:08 pm (UTC)Yes: the doctor's hypocrisy is so hidden, even he can't see it.
...And that's what makes it so dangerous.