The second of two machinima pieces. More...if and when RL settles down enough for me to play.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Machinima 2
The second of two machinima pieces. More...if and when RL settles down enough for me to play.
Machinima 1
This is the first of two SL Machinima projects I've done, focusing on Midian City. Both make use of a blend of stills and video. Enjoy.
Epithalamium
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
- ee cummings
Carry her, bent, bloody and broken.
Life dripping, spent, spattered on the dust of broken roads and buckled dreams.
Splinter your knuckles on the rough, ragged wood.
Let the soft pillow of her ragdoll charm lie in the cold, and dark!
And when the screaming, scarlet dawn drags its ragged, broken fingers over the eastern sky - listen for the sounds of desperate, stifled agony.
And swim in the lonely, forgotten ocean of her flawlessness.
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
- ee cummings
Carry her, bent, bloody and broken.
Life dripping, spent, spattered on the dust of broken roads and buckled dreams.
Splinter your knuckles on the rough, ragged wood.
Let the soft pillow of her ragdoll charm lie in the cold, and dark!
And when the screaming, scarlet dawn drags its ragged, broken fingers over the eastern sky - listen for the sounds of desperate, stifled agony.
And swim in the lonely, forgotten ocean of her flawlessness.
Coil
Now Rann the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free--
The herds are shut in byre and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call!--Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!
-Rudyard Kipling
That Mang the Bat sets free--
The herds are shut in byre and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call!--Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!
-Rudyard Kipling
Shifting, midnight rambling. Frozen whispers chip away, chip away, chip away at the frosty edges of conciousness. Desperate pleadings, the soft grunt, pop and scrape of the switchblade shuffle.
But something new is in the air...
Something...familiar.
Sparks dance along myelin, a twitching, itching ripple up the spine.
Overhead, the stars have collapsed. A searing, flickering void, a low, whining keen that causes a resonance in the skull.
Feel it through the subtle shifting of the crumbling concrete.
It. Is a She.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Broken Bridges
We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us., with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that our eyes once watered.
- Tom Stoppard
The creak and shift of splintered wood underfoot is sharpened by the soft, persistent sighing of the wind. Every step is a single day, a memory, a lifetime.
- Tom Stoppard
The creak and shift of splintered wood underfoot is sharpened by the soft, persistent sighing of the wind. Every step is a single day, a memory, a lifetime.
Look down and gaze at the reflections of faces flickering in the slow-moving water. Ripples distort, amplify, evoke.
The soft, glottal sloshing of liquid over stone...echoes of the hiss and spatter of another, crimson river.
Taut, prickly hemp threatens to burn flesh with friction. Its phantom heat, the revenant of dim, helpless struggles.
The smell of distant storms, mixes with the memory of cheap whiskey and the dust of the plains. Heated fumblings with handfulls of flesh, and sweat pooling at the base of the spine.
Motes float suspended in the flickering electric light hung high over an ancient quonset hut. The feel of warm steel and grease on the hands, and the distant lowing murmur of cattle in the paddock.
Her mouth covers your own, filling it with graveyard dirt and peppermints. The film of sweat across the back cools straining shoulders, giving lie to the desperate shuddering beneath the skin.
And the music comes like machine-gun religion, tinny and filled with the screaming static of imaginary angels.
There comes a sudden groan, and a splintering crack...
The azure sky blazes above, a distant, uncaring canvas.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Rangers
And Nuh did certainly call upon Us, and most excellent answerer of prayer are We.
- The Quran
The constant, arrogant susurration of the human cancer is almost lost, here. An almost-forgotten prayer, answered with the soft sigh of the wind.
The green smell of earth, turned, mingles with the slick feel of dew beneth bootheels.
And the hollow, buzz of a twisted voice mixes with a sly whisper.
Emerald promises, slipping with stealth below a flickering sky.
Steal away, with a chestful of something clean.
- The Quran
The constant, arrogant susurration of the human cancer is almost lost, here. An almost-forgotten prayer, answered with the soft sigh of the wind.
The green smell of earth, turned, mingles with the slick feel of dew beneth bootheels.
And the hollow, buzz of a twisted voice mixes with a sly whisper.
Emerald promises, slipping with stealth below a flickering sky.
Steal away, with a chestful of something clean.
Gates
Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
-Kahlil Gibran
A dream turned dark and twisted, shuffling and scraping through the night.
The groan of a rusted hinge, muffled whispering.
And in the distace, the far thunder of forgotten music, drifting like smoke through a wire screen.
Candy-apple nightmares, the stuttering, lonely fear of forgotten children.
And the steady, aching emptiness which comes from realizing you have simply been...
-Kahlil Gibran
A dream turned dark and twisted, shuffling and scraping through the night.
The groan of a rusted hinge, muffled whispering.
And in the distace, the far thunder of forgotten music, drifting like smoke through a wire screen.
Candy-apple nightmares, the stuttering, lonely fear of forgotten children.
And the steady, aching emptiness which comes from realizing you have simply been...
discarded.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
The Road to En-Dor
The road to En-dor is easy to tread
For Mother or yearning Wife.
There, it is sure, we shall meet our Dead
As they were even in life.
Earth has not dreamed of the blessing in store
For desolate hearts on the road to En-dor.
-Rudyard Kipling
The old ones say to be wary of the stranger you meet in a lonely place. They say that oftentimes, what you meet may not be entirely human.
Shake your head. Focus.
Forget you haven't seen your own footprints for the last ten miles.
For Mother or yearning Wife.
There, it is sure, we shall meet our Dead
As they were even in life.
Earth has not dreamed of the blessing in store
For desolate hearts on the road to En-dor.
-Rudyard Kipling
The old ones say to be wary of the stranger you meet in a lonely place. They say that oftentimes, what you meet may not be entirely human.
Shake your head. Focus.
Forget you haven't seen your own footprints for the last ten miles.
Lethe
All things one has forgotten, scream for help in dreams.
-Elias Canetti
-Elias Canetti
Coppery tang and slippery teeth, drenched in the memory of rended, dripping ruin.
A cool, ancient voice whispers a soothing, wordless murmur.
Let it lead your padded footsteps, guide your spattered skin, sooth the rustling, hot parchment of your ancient heart.
Shrug off the slouch and slaver. Arch the back and roll the eyes toward the stone arches of this most ancient of wombs.
Be born.
Again.
Rage
Passion and shame torment him,
and rage is mingled with his grief.
-Virgil
Packed tight and stinking of night-sweat, greed, lust and fear.
Concrete canyon, abattoir unrealized.
Petty, self-important, wretched refuse, mocking the soft embrace of the
grave.
Casual cruelty feeds cancerous sneers, malignant, uncaring...unaware.
Hubris cries out, and is answered with a sly, soft rustling in the leaves.
I see you.
and rage is mingled with his grief.
-Virgil
Packed tight and stinking of night-sweat, greed, lust and fear.
Concrete canyon, abattoir unrealized.
Petty, self-important, wretched refuse, mocking the soft embrace of the
grave.
Casual cruelty feeds cancerous sneers, malignant, uncaring...unaware.
Hubris cries out, and is answered with a sly, soft rustling in the leaves.
I see you.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Empty Kingdoms
Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne,
He travels fastest, who travels alone
-Rudyard Kipling
You know how it goes. The feeling at the back of your neck like someone's watching.
Except, this time, it's a feeling inside your head. Altering your course by a few, scant degrees. Barely noticeable. Minute.
Just like continental drift.
This is a place of titans. Filled with memories of fire and smoke and laughter and shouting. The echoed splash of water gives life to memories of sleep and the smell of skin and cooking meat.
Remember that Kipling passage about the cost of debts and dogs.
Wonder.
He travels fastest, who travels alone
-Rudyard Kipling
You know how it goes. The feeling at the back of your neck like someone's watching.
Except, this time, it's a feeling inside your head. Altering your course by a few, scant degrees. Barely noticeable. Minute.
Just like continental drift.
This is a place of titans. Filled with memories of fire and smoke and laughter and shouting. The echoed splash of water gives life to memories of sleep and the smell of skin and cooking meat.
Remember that Kipling passage about the cost of debts and dogs.
Wonder.
Bridge of Sighs
The sun don't shine
The moon don't move the tides
To wash me clean
-Robin Trower
The sibilant whisper of a dying breeze carries the echo of ancient laughter, distant and dying.
Sun-scorched skies flicker orange and red on the far horizon.
And the kiss of stone against well-worn leather is an empty, lonely thing.
Wanderers come here. Most ignorant, but a few...a few must see and feel.
The not-quite-vanilla scent of ambergris...something clean...but something buried.
Feel the dirt beneath your fingernails, the rich smell of loam and peat moss on your hands and knees.
Take one last, long breath...turn your back to the sun, and your face toward the moon, and home.
The moon don't move the tides
To wash me clean
-Robin Trower
The sibilant whisper of a dying breeze carries the echo of ancient laughter, distant and dying.
Sun-scorched skies flicker orange and red on the far horizon.
And the kiss of stone against well-worn leather is an empty, lonely thing.
Wanderers come here. Most ignorant, but a few...a few must see and feel.
The not-quite-vanilla scent of ambergris...something clean...but something buried.
Feel the dirt beneath your fingernails, the rich smell of loam and peat moss on your hands and knees.
Take one last, long breath...turn your back to the sun, and your face toward the moon, and home.
The House of Hyperion
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The flickering candle of a dying sun offers strange comfort in this ancient place. Stone, stained with the promise of a lush embrace, arches everywhere. The heavy, still air whispers autumn promises, but delivers a memory of newly-slumbering summer.
Close the eyes and smell it.
The sharp tang of hollow laughter, the cinnamon of whispered secrets.
The first Watching Place.
The faint tingle of trickling, electric silk brushing across a back.
Spin, search, smell the air.
There.
There it is.
A caern...buried.
But alive.
Threshold
Yeah, it's fine
We'll walk down the line
Leave our rain, a cold
Trade for warm sunshine.
-Alice in Chains
We'll walk down the line
Leave our rain, a cold
Trade for warm sunshine.
-Alice in Chains
The name came in whispers, fading echoes and distant memories of jounreys past. The Plains of Aleion, the wanderer's empty, haunted heaven.
The massive gates hung worn and weathered. Stone glyphs rendered into cyphers by time and the elements.
The gentle scraping of boots on mossy stone is accompanied by the occasional haunting cry of birds in this lush loneliness.
Unfold the old map, onion-skinned and translucent with antiquity. Fingers trace carefully the inked passages, drifting over the old legends, and guiding eyes to the last of the Great Harbors...now a shattered, sunken ruin.
There comes a silence, so gentle and smooth it seems as if the world had always been as empty and pure. Motes sparkle in a wayward shaft of honey-colored light, and the air drifts, languidly.
Then comes a slight shift. A gentle carress as a teasing draft carries the smell of something both ancient and familiar. It is the smell of a promise, waiting to be kept.
Follow.
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