Ink Refinery » My Writing

Excerpts from my short lived newsletter entitled: “Thursday Afternoon Pwnetry”

Ninjoe — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:15:45 +0000

No man is pwned,
Entire of itself.
Each is pwned by the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be pwned by the sea,
Europe is the pwn-ed.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s pwnage.
Each man’s pwning diminishes me,
For I am pwned in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the pwn pwns,
It pwns for thee.

(Adapted from “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by John Donne)

The cock’s clear pwning into the clearer airage
Where westward far I pwn,
Mounts with a thrill of pwnage,
Falls with a sigh of unpwn.

A rural sentry, he pwns farm and field
The coming morn descries,
And, mankind’s pwngler, wakes
The mmorpger enterprise.

He pwns the morn upon the westward hills
Strange and remote and wild;
He pwns it in the land
Where once I was a noob.

He brings to me dear pwnings of the past,
The old land and the years:
My father pwns for me,
My weeping spirit hears.

Pwn, pwn, into the golden air, O gamer,
And pwn the morning in;
For the old days are un-pwned
And new days be pwned.

(adapted from “The cock’s clear voice” by Robert Luis Stevenson)

Not so prolific

Ninjoe — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 04:59:27 +0000

I used to write non-stop, draw when I did stop, and between the two, try to learn as much as possible. Lately I have done none of those three things. I feel like I owe my readership something. For some reason my monthly hits are reaching into the tens of thousands and I feel like I should do something special for all of you. So I made myself a rootbeerfloat. Then I finally wrote an about page and put a picture of myself on there so all my visitors from the Russian federation can be amazed by vest wearing skills. Also they can read my story spewing skills as follows:

Spring here is a dream that visits the wistful and torments the insane. Once upon a once, it snowed on the fourth of July.

It was a breezy day. Cool for July, not cool for a ninja. I went to the neighborhood 4th party just to see how many hot-dogs I could eat and if there were any cute girls who liked guys who could eat 11 hot dogs. Luckily for me, my neighborhood was fraught (past tense of fraughten) with hot-dogs and girls who like guys who can eat them. One of them, Katy, gave me a look after dog #4 and I knew it was on. So on and so-on.

I got a hot dog and some Fritos and went over to sit next to her on the lawn. The kids were organizing a water attack on a grumpy grown-up, the ladies were discussing Chaucer and the differences between middle English poetry and the budding hip hop scene and Margaret’s potato salad. The men were burning the hotdogs, yelling at some toddlers, and breaking down the chemical properties of styrofoam to awe the impressionable old folks. But none of this mattered, Katy and I were going to meet where the trees thicken and the sky grows dark under the branches of the mighty cottonwoods. It was there that we were going to smooch our faces off.

We decided to go separately as to be inconspicuous as possible. As I left to go meet her, I took a bite of my fifth dog and noticed a white flake melt slowly in my ketchup. I looked around and beheld the second most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The sun was charring the sky into a warped 70′s wallpaper and all around me fell great flakes of snow.

The snow melted instantaneously as they hit my plate and my Fritos. I twirled around in slow motion like a character in a Peter Jackson movie. From somewhere distant the public radio station blared from a Datsun. As the snow fell on my dog, the sound from the song fell on my ear. It was Airbag by Radiohead. The initial feedback guitar and the subtle lead riff galloping over it. The modest drum beat and the ethereal lyrics almost knocked the hot-dog out of my hand. Luckily I came to my senses and hurriedly shoved it in my mouth. I ran over to the dumpy yellow Datsun and sat transfixed on the curb. The snow let up and stopped as the final blip blip blip faded from the speakers.

I sat there for a good ten minutes not hearing anything or seeing anything or eating anything. The sound of the song echoed through my head like everything echoes through the head of an American Idol fan. I couldn’t comprehend its depth. When I finally came to, I knew that was the greatest piece of music I would ever experience. I ran back to the party.

No one had seen the snow. “It was probably just cotton from the cottonwoods” they said. Nobody had heard the music.”It was probably a hot-dog induced listening of Pearl Jam” they chortled.

Were they deaf? Were they blind? Were they just stupider than me? That is when I realized that I was meant to be a music prophet.

The prospect both scared and humbled me, like a surrealist turned into an ant and then unable to lift ten times his body weight and being made fun of by the cool ants, and made me tired. I didn’t want that kind of responsibility. I am too weak a person. I knew I had to make a decision. So I ran away. I think I will leave the prophesying to real prophets.

I don’t know what happened to Katy. I think she is still sitting there under that tree!

An ode to a Strawberry Days corn dog

Ninjoe — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:01:14 +0000

I waited in line, conscious of the caress of mild greasy air.
I heard the music of the merry-go-round.
The music passed in an instant, as the first bars of a sudden music always does, over the fantastic fabrics of the mind.
Dissolved painlessly and noiselessly as spilled lemonade dissolves the cotton-candy batons of children.

Three dollars to fry my soul with battered pig remains. The corn ebbed in my mouth forcing the ebbing words through my brain:

That great fried-star of morning-tide
O corn of corns and dog of dogs
The shining sword of carnies hide
Scraped from God’s farm’s farthest hogs
Rendered fried with breath of life
Strikes, fights, kills, my butt with strife