Sunday, December 21, 2014

Snow

"Upon the Thoughts of Snow"
Borë Néj  Snijeg Lumi Neige Schnee Theluji Snö Zåpadå

Part (I)

Upon recent thumbing through my beloved book, I was delighted to read through this year's first experience of snow for me and as I read, something hit me quite impetuously. It was a voice as firm as concrete conviction. Do you know what it whispered? It whispered this: "You, my dear, love snow." And it's true. But I don't just love snow. I revel in it. If I could roll around in powdery precipitation draped in nothing but delicate clothing to bask in the musky breath of snow, if I could but leave my bedroom window ajar every morning to let the sweet scent of snow drift in, I would. Yes, indeed I said "the scent of snow" as snow--despite most misconstrued beliefs--has a smell. It is a wondrous smell to behold, filled with chilled nostalgia and powdered excitement; it is musky and heavy with ideas. Sweet snow is something that once inhaled completely strikes your senses so fiercely it seems to coil its frigid fingers around your soft core until it too becomes frigid and freezes over beautifully, making you its work of art and not the other way around.
And then there is its delicate and intricate appearance. Truly there is nothing in the world to compare to the craftsmanship of winter crystals, like sophisticated diadems carved from the Angels above us. I can see them now in pearly gowns tucked behind their exquisite wings, bending through the clouds gathering lumps of ice between the folds of their skirts and carrying them to their prestigious tables where they gently scrape and sculpt every shape imaginable for a flake of snow. Then the moment their artistic creation is complete, they release their sculptures into the wind and watch them drift into the unconscientious-ness of our dreary, crumbled dreams the misconception of heaven has slid behind our eyelids.
See what I mean?
Snow does things to people, it makes them gentler and think more beautifully. It has a gravity of its own and once you're compelled into it, you never want to leave its mystique atmosphere.
Ah, snow, how I love you dearly.  
(k.b.)

December 3, 2014
Wednesday
4:59PM

Part (II)

"My socks are soaked.
It all started when I was up in my room finishing an episode of my new fetish, Gilmore Girls, when suddenly, I stopped with the sudden impulse to open my screen-less window. Climbing upon my desk )(a usual habit of mine) I was caught dead in my tracks by Drew--who decided to join me in my impulsive deed. I nudged my friendly window open only to be surprised by delicate, yet colossal flurries of this year's first snow fall! Together we reminisced in the splendor of its quiet beauty. Drew duly noted on its silence, while I delighted in its smell. I spoke quietly to revel in its sacred beauty. There is a solidity in the stillness of a snow fall, particularly the first. It deserves reverence and so I spoke in hushed awe and contemplated [quietly] if dipping my bare toes in its first blanker was too much. Soon Adam came, but I confess it was difficult to devour its arrival (the snow) with both of my slightly distracted brothers in my room. But try, I must. Shoveling everything off my desk and onto my bed, and also sliding my italian shells carefully to the side, I comforted myself right beside the open window and the illusion [of] warmness [from] my lamp. Ah, to inhale the smell of snow is to feel alive! My eyes searched its calm, scintillated dancing, while my body fought the urge to join it. I'd been waiting for this night; my mind ached for it almost as much as my senses. If I leaned one way I could simply fall into the noisy warmness of my lamp-lit room...but if I  but [flickered] another way I would plummet into the soft pillow of renewal that reeked of memories and things, great things, yet to come. Tempted as I was, my [knobby] fingers were the only pieces of me that made the treacherous trip. After settling the fact my brothers wouldn't be leaving, I begrudgingly shut my window and made for  my safe seclusion with nothing but essentials:
My Pen.
My Blanket.
And this book.
I contemplated for a moment as whether or not to turn the porch light on as it might better illuminate my snow storm, but concluded my pink flashlight would suffice. And there I sat completely wrapped up in myself and my quaint snow storm. I felt content until something hit me--or someone. I refer to my heart as 'someone' because it makes it easier to hate and easier to talk (or yell) to. There it was sitting cross-legged just like me, its arms wrapped within its folded body and then it leaned to me, tucked my hair behind my ear and (because it knows I love that) and whispered inside me, "Why are you crying? Don't you know the snow is for you?" Only two heavy tears escaped me. But I didn't care. All I seemed to care about was this: Why? Why-oh-why can't I be in love? Just for once, why can't it be me? I told the sky just that. I wanted to shout it just to erupt  the silent, yet noisy, snowfall.
But I didn't.
Couldn't.
"Please." was the last thing that left me before I heard a noise to the left of me. Was it Drew on "my" roof? Was it somehow the love I'd been ludicrously asking for? Well, whatever it was I never found it. I got my socks soaked trying to find it. My favorite white and blue, polka-dotted socks. I flicked my flashlight against the sky and falling snow as if to find it there, but nothing. Melted snow squished between my toes as I trudged back into the house, the musk of snow clinging to me and the cold trail of tears still slapping my senses. I didn't even make it far. I fumbled into here, the dark living room, crumbled between the couch and folded into the pages of this book feeling no less empty or heavy as before, only elated by the first fallen snow and saddened that I have no one to share it with (but you)."
(k.b.)
From the excerpts of my book
November 22, 2014
Sat. 12:40AM

Part (III)
It hasn't snowed in weeks. Being in Utah, that is not okay. People are beginning to think that it isn't Christmas without any snow and I for one happen to almost agree with them. Almost. (obviously, it means more to me than a bit of precipitation). We went to the barn today (boy, don't I sound like a little country gal) to continue decorating for the wedding that is now under a week away. It was a while before I saw it--something was coming, though I didn't know it until my eyes did. Around 2:00-3:00pm today, it at long last snowed. I don't just mean light little flurries--no--it full on, big flakes the size of Jupiter, snowed today! I remember my family didn't see it as first, but it almost called me by name. I was pulled to the open barn doors, beckoned by its graceful burial service. Yes, that is what it does. It buries the earth in white. At first I ran to it, delighting myself beneath its alluring beauty. Chips of snow cluttered my eyes and clung to my hair like drips of honey. It was a pretty image, seeing my cascading curls bejeweled in stones of snow. I enjoyed the sensation of it tingling my skin into a shiver that in no way bothered me at all. Then my tongue begged for the same commotion. I retreated back to the large oak doors and stood there, captured by the infinitive downpour so much bigger than I ever could be. I rested my head against solid support, but felt the enormity of every flake falling in a different pattern, a different pace, it's own dance from the sky to the ground, as if it were all around me. A little black bird  flickered above me, I couldn't help but admire its dauntlessness. It is strange how much stands still in a snow fall. The only ones that move are the ones that either compliment its dancing or betray it. I wasn't sure were I stood on that precipice, but I gladly twirled beneath its beauty in graceful adoration. Truly there is nothing to compare to the bliss and solidity of serendipitous snowfall twirling.
(k.b)

December 13, 2014
Est. 4:33PM
Forget about the Umbrella


Saturday, December 13, 2014

Unintentional Costume Party


December 12, 2014
After 7:00PM
Friday Evening

"One Eclectic Costume Party"

Call it what you want, but last night was one of the best night's I've had in a long time. Too long of time, in fact. It all began with a special basketball game we Westlake students call the "Silent Night" game where we all dress up as spontaneous and eclectic as we possibly can--but the fun doesn't end there, folks. Once we come, look around, and throw carnival-like glances at each other, some complimenting the sheer brilliance of others and some wondering why on earth anyone would come out in public dressed like that, we sit. Yes, we sit down at a basketball game and suddenly as the clock nears its end of counting, just after the national anthem is patriotically finished, we wait in silence for the tenth point to come. What happens while we do not talk? People ask. Mostly unaccounted whispers and heavy breathing rich with anticipation. I respond. Why are we silent? Others contemplate. Just wait and see. Is all I say. Even last year, as it was our first year doing this new tradition, people looked at us in deep confusion, speculating it was some sort of tribute for a deaf person or something. Most just thought we were lunatics. Every basket made, every good call from a referee before the tenth point was cheered for by the waving and epelectic shaking of our hands. I referred to them as "jazz hands" but it was the best we could come up with as a substitute for our lack of cheers...until the tenth point, that is. Legend has it, once the tenth point is alive and breathing--so are we. Even more so! As soon as the ball swirls through the hoop we are on our feet screaming, cheering and dancing as boisterously as humans possibly can! We cheer just one step away from ballistic. It's quite an incredible sight to behold and experience. I know last year was just plain ridiculous. If I'm not mistaken, several people were injured as we stormed the court just before half-time was about to begin--yes, half-time (the poor basketball team had been so nervous about this new idea that they didn't score ten measly points until a few seconds before the second quarter ended). Anyway, that year we were permitted to "storm the court" which actually turned into a major mosh-pit/dance party that left no one unscathed. I happened to be wearing a watch of my mother's from her young adult life and even though I still can't account to this day what caused it to break, I can still remember looking down and seeing nothing but a bare wrist and this feeling of remorse of what she would say once I got home flooding through me. This year, there would be no mosh-pit. And this year I only jammed one finger. After the tenth point, I remember feeling something wet hit the back of my neck from all angles--spit. Yuck. The kid next to me (a sassy ginger-polynesian) was screaming so cacophonously, moisture was spewing from his mouth and hitting me. It didn't help that we should've been exceeding the limit of humans on one bench at a time and so I was forced to be squished really close to him and everybody else. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant position. But, the cheering sent chills down my back and to top it all off we ended up winning our game by a landslide! Us! Little ole Westlake who never wins anything but band! (No offense kiddos, as awesome as band is, most of us would appreciate to be cheering into victory for all events at our school too). Dripping in sweat and all pleasantly surprised by the fabulous turn out of the event, we all laughed and enjoyed ourselves inside the gym long after the game ended. It was good to reiterate all the good things that happened and all the ludacris fun we had cheering in our strange outfits and being close as peebee and jay. After that, everyone but one person knew where we were going next. Maddie Lauder's eighteenth birthday was only twenty-four hours ago and so Jentry (her best friend and also a close friend of mine) had planned a very top-secret surprise party for her at her house and so slowly and very inconspicuously we departed in clumps until all but two arrived. (Jench had created a sudden diversion of a milk-run escapade for Maddie to fall into until everyone was in position). Suddenly, she knocked on the door and when she came in it was a multitude of hyperactive cheering and extreme hugging and jocund favor! It was great. Really, really great. Maddie didn't even have a clue about the party...or so I heard. The rest of the night only escaladed in enjoyable memories, most of which have escaped me, but the ones that sticked were simple: There were many kids of all ages eligible for high school at this strange and assorted costume party of sorts, there were delicious and rapidly disappearing Swedish Fish and there was at one point a "Circle of Trust" that consisted of us sharing our first kiss stories and what not. It actually ended up as a highlight of the night as most of the stories were interrupted with laughter and endless jokes parading all over our "unofficial"rule to stay quiet and only let the person with the "Speaking Hat" tell their story. Our circle was small, but heavily compacted with members. It was hot and by the end of the night I remember remarking that the basement smelt really strange and can only assume it was because of the major occupancy of teenagers and the ruckus they had caused. I floated between anyone and everyone--except I made a point to avoid the sophomores, as well, you know, they are sophomores--and enjoyed mostly listening to everyone tell random stories that had nothing to do with anything. Clay Baggage was most especially talented in that area. At one point I was caught in a web of one of his strenuous story about something I can no longer remember, but I do remember it was long. My eyes kept wandering about the room becoming rudely distracted by kids playing billiard pool and chucking exercise balls a little too close to my face for my liking. Then there was this other kid that really turned my head upside down. You may not know this about me, but I'm not exactly the life of the party. In fact, most would associate the "wallflower" with me. I tried my best to interact, but often found myself wanting (and refusing) to retreat. Daydreams of running out the back door and under the sleeting rain often popped into my head (especially during one of Clay's notorious stories). Sometimes it was almost an overbearing sensation to run away, but I refused. Something inside me wouldn't let me, and sometimes I really hated that little jerk, but most of the time (usually after the party) I was grateful for its sensibility. Through out the party, some were found buzzing by the piano, pretending they could play or otherwise trying and failing to teach others how, as I had done a few times, and if you took a break from the rowdiness in the theater room, you would only find a different kind--one that ignored the holiday movie and instead insisted on starting everyone in the room into a heavy conversation about anything but the movie. It also ushered people in and out in a constant flow of indecisiveness that both annoyed and understood everyone in the theater. I hardly ever deluded myself to that room. After about 11:30 kids starting dropping like flies. I found one sprawled out on the bean-bag in the theater, but the most humorous was Tiffany whom we found cuddling on the floor next the couch, completely asleep and defying her usual party habits. By midnight, most everyone was gone, but the few that left last were extremely drousy on the drive home and honestly made me very nervous to ride home with. But even that situation wasn't as uncomfortable as a sophomore frequently telling me all about his dream about us making out on Jentry's couch. Yeah...and I thought I really knew awkward before that. All in all, this night was one to remember and what do you know--it was the best unintentional costume party I've ever been to. 
(k.b.) 
December 13, 2014 
11:43PM SAT

Monday, November 24, 2014

Philias...

Philias...

The suffixes –philia and –philic are related to –philePhilia is actually also a noun which means “amity, affection, friendship; fondness, liking,” coming from the ancient Greek word for “friendship.”  When you add –philia as a suffix, it means “love of <something.>” Below  I have compiled  a list of some the philes that define me. They are quite precise and also the only "real"philes I could find that truly relate to me:


astrophile: a lover of the stars

bibliophile: a lover of books; a book-fancier

logophile: a lover of words.

theophile: one who loves God

xenophile: fond of or attracted by foreign things or people

pluviophile: a lover of rain.

Being a lover of many things, I do not limit myself to only defining myself by the official philes as listed above. I decided to craft some of my own philias by compounding a favorite subject with its Latin, French or Greek root. Observe:


phonophile: fond of or attracted by music and/or sound


pathiophile: fond of or attracted by emotion

ocuphile: a lover of eyes. 

phyllophile: a lover of trees or leaves.

artemphile: fond of or attracted by works of art.

putophile: one who loves to think.

animophile: fond of or attracted by life and/or spirits.

cryptophile: fond of or attracted by secrets or keeping secrets.

esthaphile: fond of or attracted by beauty; a lover of sensation and feeling.

juvenphile: fond of or attracted by youth or young things.

oestophile: a lover of bones. 

mariophile: a lover of the sea or ocean.

cosmophile: a lover of the universe. 

graphiphile: a lover of the written word or writing.

amiphile: fond of or attracted by love.

urbophile: fond of or attracted by the city or urban envoirnment. (also known as "poliphile/philic/philia")

auctumnusphile: one who loves Autumn.

niphaphile: a lover of snow.

plexaphile: one who loves braids or intricate designs.

anthophile: a lover of flowers (specifically peonies).

pothichephile: fond of or attracted by pottery or more formally all things in relation to "Harry Potter".

anthrophile: fond of or attracted by people and/or human cultures (also known as "popophilic" or "demophilia").

hyperintelligeniaphile: fond of or attracted by knowing, knowledge, or growth in understanding. 

montiophile: a lover of mountains.

pseudoanticphile: fond of or attracted by things of or belonging to the past.


Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Hoppipolla by: Sigur Ros


The moment takes place during “Hoppîpolla” by: Sigur Rôs This song has a very uplifting, inspiring feeling about it. It never fails to elevate one’s spirit.

This is the closing moment, at the peak of all that is lost and crumbled and seems to have no way of being fixed.
Sliding right into the moment the song quietly begins after a slight moment of silence.

Her slender fingers slide along the clean window seal staring down the rain splattered glass. Her eyes, they are filled with sorrow as she gloomily looks into the window. Rain pours. She expects to see nothing, to feel nothing. Everything is wrong. But suddenly, a figure seems to emerge from the smudges of rain (the song begins now). She sits up. Could this be? Her face is pushed against the window until finally, she understands.Withdrawing her frozen fingers from the cool glass, she scurries from our view. Now we see the man, walking through the gushing rain, toward her doorstep. He stops. He knows this is right, but somehow a sliver of doubt stabs his mind. Maybe it isn’t right. He hesitates. Next the door bursts open, wide open like a gaping mouth of distressed hunger. The rain. The man. The woman. They stop a foot away from each other. A glimmer of hope and a hint of sorrow mixing in their eyes. Her eyes, his eyes. They are quizzical until suddenly, with a shrug from him and a shrug from  her, they meet each other. The hands embrace, the lips touch toughly and then the rain is upon them both. It gushes and gushes sliding over their tangled embrace. Now they pull away for a moment, racing around covered earth faster than their heartbeats. Twirling, dancing, splashing, living. They know they are free. Their feet are bare, toes are embedded with mucky earth and sink into the pillows of puddles. He lifts her, spins her, kisses her. Then the thunder roars heroically, the sun begins to peek into view eventually caressing them all into its slender, radiant arms. The earth sparkles from its dazzling new wardrobe of liquid, glints off the lovers eyes until they’re lost again in another kiss, this time for good.

The moment pulls out, up past the couple, high past the stormy clouds and fades into the sun and the song plays until the end has come. (k.b.)

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

You Are Not Invisible To Me

September 2, 2014
7:07PM
Sunset, Sundress



By: Kiersten P. Benson
(1997- )

I see your eyes and wonder how a shade of blue could ever 
Be so stirring.
It's untempered, like the sea. 

They are restless. 

Then the lips.

You speak words that melt inside my hands.

Words that drip from your mouth,
Catching on my tongue.
Igniting light into darkness.


You are the song that won't leave my head.
The broken end of a song
That I both adore and curse all at once. 

My sweater snags on the thought of you.
Fraying, ripping, tearing.

An elegiac pigment. 

Sinking, I'm drenched in silence.
Waist-deep in thought. 
My fingers are just above the rim of nothingness.


You glance, but then again you see.
It's in your eyes, dear one. 
It's in your eyes. 

If only you knew that my heart is like my backpack,
Tight around my shoulder-blades. 
I keep it locked up to silence all the hunger.
All the pain. 

But I'm just an ordinary human, darling. 
I have eyes that flicker when you pass, 
A heart that paces when you look. 
My veins are red beneath my head phones. 

But how destructive we are.
Humans.

We always like to smudge.
To smear and soil and scrape. 

Curious lips are my trouble. 
But you, oh you darling. 
You are my problem. 

I deny it.
But truth is, I'm falling in love with you.

One
.

Tragic
.

Piece
.

At
.

A
.

Time
.

Then all at once, liking you 
Collapsed into loving you.

And it is beautiful 
And terrifying at the same time like
The stars themselves.

And though the white fire can't reach us, 
You're not invisible to me, darling. 

And oh, what you see when you finally
Stop looking. 

(k.b.)



September 17, 2014
4:41PM
Wednesday 


Monday, September 1, 2014

My Poetry "Kick"


MY POETRY "KICK"
KIERSTEN BENSON
(1997--20--)

IS IT WRONG that I now have this profound, ubiquitous love for poetry and all things like it? I now find the very straying thoughts wandering from my head searching for it, looking under tables and the small spaces between the couch and carpet.  My food is no longer food, but words aligned into poetry. My drink? Its existence. I wake up to hear its slumberous song tapping on my window and no long drift asleep to solace, but to magic; to passion wringing out on a small clothing line draped with nothing more than words and aestheticization. Upon rediscovering a book sent to me inside a packaged box months before, my passion for poetry was ignited. "The Romantic Period" is the name (edited by: Albert Granberry Reed)  of my kindle. The admiration I have for it seems to be indescribable. I want to sleep with it, caress it, bury it inside my soul and at the same time wish nothing more than to simply set it down and stare out the window hoping all I've read will somehow nestle inside me and stay there. 
It makes me think. 
And then there is another book drifting into my thoughts. It is any book with which poetry inks its pages. It is every word that intrigues my inner poet and fascinates my inner guilelessness. But tell me dear, poet, how your words can strike me so? Tell me how you can smite my heart and spirit with a few dancing words and then proceed to do it over and over again? 
Tell me. 
Because it is agony to leave me beyond curious.  
But going back to the wondrous book I found, on a day I had quite a bit of time to slaughter, I read my dear little book with my hands gripped quite tightly around it and then nearly fell off the warm bench with which I sat upon after finding a poem that not only spoke my name.
But sang it.

(Elaboration:)  



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)
LUCY POEMS


STRANGE FITS OF PASSION HAVE I KNOWN

STRANGE fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in  the Lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came near, and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature’s gentlest boon !
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover’s head !
“O mercy !” to myself I cried,
“If Lucy should be dead!”

(But then my dear song continued and here is what it sung:) 


SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS

SHE dwelt among untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.

A violet by mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye !
--Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me !


I  TRAVELED AMONG UNKNOWN MEN

I TRAVELED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England ! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

‘ T is past, that melancholy dream !
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy’s eyes surveyed.



THREE YEARS SHE GREW

THREE years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, “A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

“Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.

“She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

“The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the Storm
Grace that shall mould the Maiden’s form
By silent sympathy.

“The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

“And vital feeling of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this  happy dell.”
Thus Nature spake--The work was done--
How soon my Lucy’s race was run !
She died, and left to me
This health, this calm, and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.


A SLUMBER  DID MY SPIRIT SEAL

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force,
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.


WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)
LUCY POEMS


Did you hear it? Did you hear the song ringing so clearly to my soul? Of course you did not, that would defeat the purpose of it being my own song, but still I shared it. When you share something that is so obviously yours it can be difficult, but it also can be defining. Giving away a piece of you shows what courage you can have to trust a person to see it, hold it, and then appreciate it. My song, my dear "Lucy Poems" did that for me the moment I began to read them. And then it ended as sweet as a song bird's song drifting from the tree it sat upon and to the sky and it was then that I substantially realized poetry moved me. Poetry picked me up, stole my soul and sung a song only I could here all at once. And it was in that unforgettable moment that my profuse love of poetry began.
I'm telling you, compelling even, the moment you open a book
Magic Happens.  


August 30, 2014
Saturday 
3:20PM
On an over-cast, 
Cheerful day