Adaptation Final

The Tiger
William Blake

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Poetry Journal Entries

The King Fisher – (Haiku)

The red breasted King
A fish in his beak, he flies
Ripples on the lake


The Lighthouse, She Grieves – (Villanelle)

A candle in the night,
Don’t worry, she is watching!
A darkness-splitting light.

Slim, white tower perched upright,
My gaze does span, searching!
A candle in the night.

Guidance of grounded might,
A beacon that is signaling!
A darkness-splitting light.

On misty nights the light does fight
To find our eyes; relieving!
A candle in the night.

But one night there is no sight,
Oh! How she must be grieving.
A darkness-splitting light.

Darkness still, the second night
Now I know she’s finding
Her candle in the night,
Her darkness-splitting light.


The Stars, They Are His Too – (Sonnet)

It trickles down the streams of time to rest
Upon the eyes of children looking up
The light of burning fires, a cradling nest
The origin of Life and of His cup
An understanding weakened by mere men
Restricted to the inroads of the mind
For He exists within a closed-off den
The fence to keep the unknown from mankind
But like the Good and Evil coexist
Like light does trickle down to bathe us so
He watches over us as sparkling mist
Night skies are dotted with a speckled glow
His presence covers all, not just the blue
And once we leave our Earth we’ll know it true


Of Dualism – (Free Verse)

Of dualism
Manifests
Love enduring
Without rest.
Like seeds would grow to blossom true
Until Time does rear its head
To pick apart the wilting petals.
Fear in a smile’s stead!


The Storm – (Haiku)

Howling and windswept
Trees swaying violently
A wrathful typhoon


Cycle of Meat Farm – (Word Cinquain)
Pigs
Round, generous
Rolling, eating, squealing
Slice them and devour
Food


Ubiquitous Summer – (Haiku)

Beating, hitting heat
Summer noon with Sun perched high
Fades to cool breeze blue


The Metal Man Meets His Father – (Villanelle)

Running hard on heavy feet
Turning, jumping, thrashing
It is him you meet

Deceive you did he? Cheat!
You marvelous, marvelous thing
Running hard on heavy feet

You were told you were elite
Different, evolving
It is him you meet

You will never ever be replete
You are but man's thing!
Running hard on heavy feet

Nuts and bolts and joints so neat
A metal body you are heaving
It is him you meet

Caught; he has you beat!
Who should you be blaming?
Running hard on heavy feet
It is him you meet!


My Den; Protecting - (aba cdc ee ff – quadrametre)

I yield to light and wind and rain
Natural force, it sways me so
The elements I can't contain
But broken hearts are faults of men
And women too; the Human Flaw
Lock myself in a loveless den!
Like prison might protect a man
From enemies outside, it can
I'll protect myself forever
My heart's without any tether


Faux Faces – (Word Cinquain)

Smiles
Wear, fix
Widening, loving, lying
They invite but also
Deceive

Explanation of Adaptation

The Tiger by William Blake is a poem that explores the nature of good, evil, human nature and the divine. The word 'symmetry' ultimately implies a kind of perfection, something so far removed from "humanity" that it must be divine - the work of God(s). When Blake implores "Did He who made the lamb make thee?", it is a juxtaposition of the innocence of the lamb and the deadly nature of the Tiger.

We are faced with a query of God - but more importantly, human nature. It is in the realisation that both the lamb and the Tiger are made by the same thing - whether God or simply the labeling, naming nature of humanity - that spells the end of innocence.

Did we, as humans, make lamb innocent? Or did God? Did we, as humans, make the Tiger ferocious? Or did God? What the lamb and Tiger have come to symbolize could be a direct consequence of either "possibility" - but it is the understanding that hand in hand with innocence comes its breaking is what I feel is important.

Perhaps, most importantly, is that the Tiger does not just symbolize the opposite of innocence - it symbollizes human nature and the breaking of innocence that must happen to every child. Presumably, Blake does not believe in the concept of Original Sin.

Of Tigers and Lambs

Simon, sweat-drenched and all of five feet high, was perched high on the bough of a tree and gripping onto its green parasite, those hanging, creeping tentacles - a decade long death. He peered into the gloomy, moonlit night and jewels of light were winking at him; dew droplets scattered on the jungle canopy. Simon wondered at their beauty, that a million gems could form in this harsh, unforgiving place.

He looked down, seeking the base of the trunk that promised him safety, wondering if he would see those flashing eyes again. Oh, those eyes! They tormented him so, hunted him in mind and body, mocked him from afar in some deep recess of imagination before springing, leaping, pouncing to grip his heart with all the ferocious terror of that whiskered beast, that orange beast.

He groaned and clutched at his head and felt the warm, sticky breath against his cheek. His head snapped right, then left. Nothing. She could not catch him up here. No... a Tiger cannot climb this high.

A few Haikus

Beating, hitting heat
Summer noon with sun perched high
Fades to cool breeze blue

--

The red breasted King
Without but a splash
A fish in his beak

--

Jellyfish stretched long
With tentacles all trailing
Traps its prey in shock

--

Howling and windswept
The trees sway violently
A wrathful typhoon

Adaptation

Poem --> Story

Original:

William Blake. 1757–1827

489. The Tiger

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies	5
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?	10
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp	15
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?	20
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

Some Poems

My den; protecting - aba cdc ee ff - iambic quadrammetre

I yield to light and wind and rain
Natural force, it sways me so
The elements I can't contain
But broken hearts are faults of men
And women too; the Human Flaw
Lock myself in a loveless den!
Like prison might protect a man
From enemies outside, it can
I'll protect myself forever
My heart's without any tether


aa bb ab - iambic trimetre

To escape the crimson
Journeys without reason
Save for the fatal flaw:
Instead of heart a claw!
Others would be treason,
Opposed to red love's law

For claws instead of heart
Should so remain apart
Unfitness they posess
To spark a happiness
A blackness that would start
In others; a sadness


Do people look into the night? - Villanelle

Do people look into the night?
Bridge the void that time is travelling
A star is calling, gleaming bright

They look upon blotches of white
On blue; the shining songs they sing!
Do people look into the night?

They tremble with life-giving might
Around which we hover in elliptical sling
A star is calling, gleaming bright

The rings of giants are quite a sight
But to compare would be blaspheming
Do people look into the night?

The moon it dances without fright
Reflecting the gift of Sol, shimmering
A star is calling, gleaming bright

Sol, she gives us warming light
And bestows upon the land the living!
Do people look into the night?
A star is calling, gleaming bright.


Father of a metal man - Villanelle

Running hard on heavy feet
Turning, jumping, escaping
It is him you meet

Deceive you did he? Cheat!
You marvelous, marvelous thing
Running hard on heavy feet

You were told you were elite
Unique as well; realizing
It is him you meet

You will never ever be replete
You are but man's thing!
Running hard on heavy feet

Nuts and bolts and joints so neat
A metal body you are heaving
It is him you meet

Caught; he has you beat!
Who should you be blaming?
Running hard on heavy feet
It is him you meet!

Short Story: Final Draft

A World Apart

It was in the evening that the great garbage haulers slowed, their stream-engines whinnying down in unison and the last tugging influence of inertia pulling them in a silent drift. The garbage men and women of those gargantuan, whale-shaped ships all tuned in to a transmission, nervous.

It would be the most important message they would ever hear.

The sets crackled to life and a fuzzy face slowly sharpened into clarity. It was a familiar face to those garbage men and women watching, grizzled and tired with deep lines dug like trenches, marks of the working man. Nodding heads and murmurs rippled in approval throughout the attending people.

'Good evening,' it said, with a chilling finality and the hairs of the collective pricked to attention. 'My name is John Bishop and I am here to tell you: that time has come.' The hearts of every garbage man and woman skipped, for every garbage man and woman was watching.

Sonnet

Earth! You Have Not Been Forgotten

T'was the light that split the night a crackling
As the pitter-patter rain drops did soak
And the boom that sent the hounds a cowering
The rivers; currents flowed into a choke

And man upon his pedestal did stand
To build his empire further skyward still
His weathered stilts dug deep in bedrock sand
Man made roots clasped to mankind's iron will

As though the stars shine and beckon closer
He still retires when the winds do howl
For mother nature could yet be harsher
And so in the storm he does don his cowl

Though the stars are his true destination
She that birthed him has not be forgotten

Short Story: Full Draft

It was in the evening that the great garbage haulers slowed, their stream-engines whinnying down in unison. The last tugging influence of inertia pulled them in a silent, slow drift. The garbage men and women of those gargantuan, whale-shaped ships all tuned in to a transmission, nervous.

It would be the most important message they would ever hear.

The sets crackled to life and a fuzzy face slowly sharpened into clarity. It was a familiar face to those garbage men and women watching, grizzled and tired with deep lines dug like trenches, marks of the working man. Nodding heads and murmurs rippled in approval throughout the attending people.

'Good evening,' it said, with a chilling finality and the hairs of the collective pricked to attention. 'My name is John Bishop and I am here to tell you: that time has come.' The hearts of every garbage man and woman skipped, for every garbage man and woman was watching.

Another Poem

no rhyming scheme; iambic quadrametre

Skipped, she once did, from star to star
Discovering worlds near and far.
She and her crew were once but one;
Interlocked, intertwined; in love.

Robbed of her were her beloved!
Stripped of them she was naked, bare!

Incomplete, she cried her yearning
It trembled stars, planets alike
A universe weeping with her.
She searches still, a glimmer: hope!
The candle in her night, guiding.

And those who took from her suffer
Enveloped in a sadness.

A Poem

sestet; iambic trimetre

Mountains, they will not move
Or yield to human might.
Its face, a weathered groove
Is not for human sight.
Its rivers, streams and trees...
Humans, we exploit these!

The seas, so full of life
Have ended up beneath
A human, hand-held knife,
One which we'll never sheath!
With reckless abandon
We fish the seas barren.

(some cheating going on in those last two lines)

Short Story: Draft #1, Part #1 (885 words)

It was in the evening that the great garbage haulers slowed, their stream-engines whinnying down in unison to come to a crawl before entering the slight drift of silence, the last tugging influence of inertia. The garbage men and women of those gargantuan, whale-shaped ships all tuned in to a transmission with nervous anticipation and tentative fear.

It would be the most important message they would ever hear.

The sets crackled to life and a fuzzy face slowly sharpened into clarity. It was a familiar face to those garbage men and women watching, grizzled and tired with deep lines dug like trenches, marks of the working man. Nodding heads and murmurs rippled in approval throughout the attending people, all on their respective garbage ships, watching the transmission as garbage men and women, listening to the leader of the Garbage People's Union.

'Good evening,' it said, with a chilling finality and the hairs of the collective pricked to attention. ' My name is John Bishop and I am here to tell you: that time has come.' He stared deep into the hearts and minds of every garbage man and woman, for every garbage man and woman was watching, their children at their sides. Husbands and wives clasped hands. Parents and children shared touch. Friends and loved ones exchanged comforting glances.