ellyssian: (Default)
Originally posted by [profile] greenmanenvy_fd at Graceful / seasons wane

Graceful

Graceful, 2008





seasons wane

By Everett A Warren

words drift downward
like leaves
dancing with gravity
somewhere between laughter and tears

whispers cling tenaciously
like mists
obscuring tomorrows
somewhere between hope and despair

offerings
of light and love
filter through the trees
sunbeams that flicker and fade
elusively retreating with each step

what does darkness bring as seasons wane
like dreams
upon the waking
somewhere between sunshine and falling rain



Copyright © 2004 Everett A Warren



This poem can be found in the collection Poetry from the Porch Period,
available via the publisher or from Amazon.com
or on order from your local bookstore!

ellyssian: (sphinx)
Originally posted by [profile] greenmanenvy_fd at The Wind Can Not Win / The Wind Remembers from Whence it Came

The Wind Can Not Win

The Wind Can Not Win, 2008





The Wind Remembers from Whence it Came

By Everett A Warren

The wind comes through the trees
and sighs softly in an aside as it stirs fallen leaves
who no more it's way obscure;
bare tree bones tremble and shake and bow their leafless crowns
but not so low as they had of old, for, although they no longer catch the wind up
in green grasp, the wind finds it no easy task to pull boughs down.
The wind, if it were of lesser kind, perhaps would feel thwarted,
but the wind is the breath of the clouds who are the mists of mighty waterfalls,
and the wind remembers from whence it came;
from sunlight descended and leaves assembled,
through heartwood descended and through the roots transcended,
until once more leaves release it, cleansed, to the sky ascended.
The fallen leaves rustle, brought low by the wind, to shelter
and blanket the Earth before the snows;
for the wind remembers from whence it came.



Copyright © 2004 Everett A Warren



This poem can be found in the collection Poetry from the Porch Period,
available via the publisher or from Amazon.com
or on order from your local bookstore!

ellyssian: (sphinx)
Originally posted by [profile] greenmanenvy_fd at Silver / To sing like a drop of rain...

Silver

Silver, 2008





To sing like a drop of rain...

By Mina Ellyse Warren

I am silent,
still, and listening.
The words I seek echo
just beyond my reach.
They crawl through fallen leaves,
dance in the falling rain,
they leave me wanting for more.

As the chill in the air
seeps into my bones,
the warmth I feel inside
calls fondly to a long-forgotten friend.
As timeless whispers
cascade from leaf to limb,
I long to run with them again.

To sing like a drop of rain
on Autumnal leaves -
cold clear waters drumming
on fiery hearts that wander free.
Rising in the mists
to chase the dreams
that are true but shall never be.



Copyright © 2004 Mina Ellyse Warren



This poem can be found in the collection Poetry from the Porch Period,
available via the publisher or from Amazon.com
or on order from your local bookstore!

ellyssian: (Default)
I have a lot of things I *should* be working on... so what happens?

Yep, that's right, as I should be getting up and getting in the shower and going, I catch sight of a friend liking a picture someone posted, and I look at a few other pictures posted on that page, and I catch a glimpse of a picture as I scroll by that might involve a certain watery tart and a sword (but it may not, I didn't look at it closely, so it might just have been a knight-lady in a sunny woodland glade or something entirely different) and suddenly I'm scrambling to open a new window in Open Office, and I'm typing... and this is (completely unedited) what I get:


Lady in the Lake

By Mina Ellyse Warren



That's not how the story goes.

Her voice is raspy, cold, weighted down by the years. There's wisps of grey visible from under the cloak, but not much else you can read from her. Maybe the hunching over, that curve like a sapling that reaches fast for the light and then, over time, bends closer to the ground... maybe that arc is from the weight of that cloak. A thick, heavy, unforgiving material like a warrior might wear. Why scratch the armour when that dense, uncomfortable fabric will turn the sharpest blade and dampen the mightiest hammer. The kind of weight that is not for old women to bear, but is invaluable to the young warrior.

So she tells me that's not how the story goes, and I'm caught. Story is my stock and trade, and I had been telling all about Arturo and Kam and the Table Round and The Sword and I know the tale, know it through and through, the words tripping off my tongue beautifully, and each word lovingly crafted into the whole.

I should know better, because I do know better. And who could know better than I? After all, it was not some poor, bent beggarlady who had watched The Sword from its Sheath leap out into Arturo's hand, glimmering with glamours and preternatural light. It was not some scraggly withered wench who listened attentively to the Wise Woman Myrlynne as she prophesied and advised and taught the Boy Who Would Be King.

And it was not, most certainly and empathetically not, no way, no how, some vile peasant wretch of a hag, a grandmother of shit and dirt and nothing of any worth whatsoever, who slid the blade betwixt Arturo's plate and into that soft, yielding under layer of his flesh, letting his blessed royal lifeblood flow on to the battlefield on that, his last day, and...

Pardon. A moment please.

There.

You see, I was there.

It was I.

I am Mordred.

Oh, some say I was Arturo's younger brother, some say I was his son. We called each other brothers, and although we spilt much blood side by side through the years, the blood that ran within us was wholly our own.

But that is of little matter, it merely clarifies some of the tales you may have heard. Which brings me back to this tale, and the tale I had been telling when this mere woman claims I am wrong and that my story is not what I know it to be, and that the tale I am telling takes a different path entirely.

My anger rises, and the years fall from me, the curse revived, and still... I listen to her, ensnared, myself and my audience now hers. I hear her words wind and twist and echo and resolve, and I wonder briefly if this is Myrlynne, freed from her entrapment -- which I was quite sure involved her death as well, or as close as I could manufacture to it -- and come to seek revenge, because so magickal are her speakings that I can not help but believe.


Copyright 2013 Mina Ellyse Warren

Updatia

Sep. 19th, 2013 01:19 pm
ellyssian: (Default)
The Poetry Page @ EverettAWarren.com has finally been updated with some improved content.

On a fairly closely related note, there is now a GreenManEnvy page, which ties in that site, and provides another avenue to help promote GME.

A few other minor changes were implemented throughout the site.
ellyssian: (Default)
Did you know...

... that there's a feed on DreamWidth for GreenManEnvy?

... that there's also one on LiveJournal?

The one on DW looks purtier in the whole (at the above links), but they look pretty much the same when you view them on your reading page/friends page.

Also, the one thing LJ seems to do better than DW is handle the share. I've been trickling down posts from DW -> LJ -> FB, but DW's share feature just opens up a dialog to email the post to someone, while LJ's allows me to share to my blog, making it look pretty much like I want it to, with very little effort. Unfortunately, DW's feed got updated right away, while LJ's takes a while. Might just have been the timing of the post, and they both might only update every 12 or 24 hours or something. To avoid duplication of posts on FB (i.e. I post it, then DW -> LJ -> FB cascades down), I'm going to just do the share on LJ -> FB of the poems.

Also also, if you have mythic/natural type content you'd like to promote or share, let me know; I want GreenManEnvy to host the works of others, to the point that I'd love to have a post of my content be a rare event. I'm not opposed to hosting interviews or reviews of music, books, or art that hits on the focus of GreenManEnvy, and excerpts or entire (short) works (such as poems) would also be very welcome.
ellyssian: (Forever Autumn)
I will be playing fretless bass on some traditional celtic tunes with the trio Wyndfall ~ Chris Laughery (guitar), Tom Reese (flute & pennywhistle), and Laurie Haines Reese (cello) ~ on the patio at Pub Dunegal (Mount Joy PA) today from 5-8pm.

Bring your instrument and play along, or bring your ears and listen!

The pub has great food and craft beer for your eating and drinking pleasure!
ellyssian: (Green Man)
Two poem / photo combinations on GreenManEnvy...

The first is Broken / the mountain is crying and the second is The Desolation of Smog / a misguided landscape.

Both poems were inspired by the landscape around the Lehigh Gap, and the results of years of zinc smelting that turned that region into what DCNR bigwigs called "a moonscape". The area is a superfund site, the only one in the country that was repurposed for recreation. Green Man Enviroscaping had a role in rehabilitating and maintaining that landscape for a time, and I am extremely proud of my part in that and in the work by the Lehigh Gap Nature Center.

I just need to get back up there and visit once in a while!

Glow / fey

Sep. 12th, 2013 06:51 am
ellyssian: (sphinx)
A new poem and photo (well, from February and June, respectively!) are posted over at GreenManEnvy!

A photo from my hike with the kids to Chiques Rock, called "Glow", is used to illustrate the poem fey ~ sometimes, when you try to catch a faerie, you might get a little caught up yourself...
ellyssian: (Default)
Read this earlier:
Stop Making Me Sign Up

I understand the drive to build the almighty contact list. I wonder how much of a sell it would be to get clients to back off a bit and take it step by step? Key point: build trust before requiring their data.
ellyssian: (Default)
They're not so new, but I was thinking they were fitting, and I couldn't decide which to go with... so I just went with both!

etude in Dm for earth, water, & gravity has been paired with my photo "It's Over My Head", and shrine is matched with my photo "Tip".

You can check them both out over on GreenManEnvy.com.

~ ~ ~

Also, as an additional reminder to artists of all variety (words, music, visual, or what have you) ~ GreenManEnvy.com is accepting submissions of short works, particularly with some angle relating to nature and the environment. I'd still like to grow the site into much more of a community, where it's not just my material being posted. There's no money in it, so it's not a market for anything save a little promotion (hopefully to grow into a lot of promotion!) Have a new book or album to promote? Use the form on the website, or get a hold of me some other way, and we'll see about posting your stuff! =)
ellyssian: (Default)
Less than a month (one day less, but still...) after fancifying the feeds on EverettAWarren.com, I discover the site that hosted the feed mechanism has gone 404. I'm now using the primary hosting for those scripts, so hopefully that fixes the situation. And that just ate into my time I was going to make a few enhancements...

Speaking of which... comments on the site? I'm thinking about getting rid of the Tolkienesque font, but I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on how that looks, especially on different size devices.
ellyssian: (Default)
The next round of changes over at EverettAWarren.com have been completed.

The main fix was to get rid of those really ugly iframe blocks to show content from this blog on the site. The clunky frames have been replaced with CSS-prettified RSS feeds. This brought about an unplanned but welcome change in that links throughout the site now show a dotted underline when you hover over them.

On a couple pages ~ specifically services and writing ~ content will now show and hide itself by clicking on text that will show the same hover behavior as the links.

I made a few minor tweaks and additions in content, and a few other minor prettifications, as I worked through the changes.

I'm pretty happy with how things are looking. The Tolkienesque font for the buttons is still moderately cheesy, but I like how it looks better than the other dozens of options (out of the gazillions of fonts I have installed) that I took the time to look at. Then again, I am a fantasy author, and a programmer... so if Tolkienfonts fit, wear 'em, I guess.

The bread crumbs for navigation are still to come. The RSS changes are significant enough that I wanted to get this out now and not risk starting on the crumbs without the time to finish and deploy the changes tonight. When the crumbs do appear, should the old standby bottom-of-screen navigation go away? Let me know what you think ~ I'm curious!
ellyssian: (Default)
Just when I had caught up with my coursework, I went and spent all day yesterday working through all the pages of EverettAWarren.com to match the appearance of the changes made on the splash landing the day before.

I'm now half a day behind on lectures in the Systematic Program Design course ~ although I wrapped the lectures in the Digital Media & Mobile Apps course ~ and I have a nearly mostly almost usable website as a result.

Most of my time was spent on a somewhat known bug with Safari, and various workarounds thereof, involving onload and the DOM. Theoretically, the onload event triggers after the page has loaded completely. Safarially, the onload triggers prior to any elements being loaded, even if you move the script to the last part of the page, and no matter if you make the proper sacrifices, chant the appropriate chant, and check windspeed and direction prior to loading the page.

I could see that Safari could run the exact code ~ it did so in a JSFiddle ~ but couldn't do it on its own.

In a production situation, I would have bagged the image maps ~ the problem came in while trying to resize the maps with window resizing ~ and gone with individual buttons much sooner than I did, or forced a static window size, but it was just too much fun playing with some more complex Javascript than I have in a while.

The current state of the site:
  • CSS implemented across the site
  • All pages changed (with the exception of the EARN Financial Plan Calculator) to use the CSS
  • Some updates to content as I noticed they were needed
  • Navigation to all major pages completed
  • Main graphic simplified to improve load times


I still need to:
  • Improve the graphics on the small buttons (they've been resized up and down as I figured out the best size, and are fairly fuzzy as a result)
  • Build graphics for the various tags on the blog page
  • Get rid of the ugly iframe handling of the blogs and use RSS or something that can be integrated into the site
  • Breadcrumbs and/or clean up the original text link navigation
  • Write the poetry page already
ellyssian: (Default)
There are going to be a lot of changes over at EverettAWarren.com...

Some of them have already made it to the landing page!

Although I still want to keep the site simple and straight-forward in support of the multiple primary purposes it has (promote my writing, host my resume, promote my business services), I do want it to look a little less basic and more spiffy, as it were.

After the initial facelift ~ which I still need to carry out across the site ~ and a tiny bit of refactoring, I'll be improving the navigation. Prettifying it, really, as it works now... but I'll be using buttons instead of text links, and that sort of thing. After that, I'll finish the refactoring and get everything cleaned up, especially CSS-wise. In that way, the site will better reflect my coding ~ although it will still be on the simpler side. It just doesn't need a whole lot of bells and whistles.

As a further in-construction disclaimer, the main image on that splash page is currently huge, with ridiculous load times. That has already been fixed, and will get better once I push the next round of changes out.
ellyssian: (Default)
So fish tacos. Never had 'em.

I know they're popular nowadays, because everybody and their brother's restaurant serves them. I get the impression they take some Gortons fish portions and chuck 'em in a taco and violas and violins, there you go. But I'm probably wrong.

In any case, this dish I've never even seen anyone else eat, let alone taste it myself, was part of the inspiration for How To Use Leftover Ingredients Before They Go Bad, otherwise known as...

Nacho Nacho Feeesh

  • haddock fillets, quantity determined by appetites at the meal
  • blue corn chips, quantity determined by the square inchage of the pan used to cook the fillets
  • lemon juice
  • olive oil
  • basil
  • chipotle chili powder
  • French's Fried Onions
  • Mexican shredded cheese mix, most of a pouch that had been sitting around for a while


Preheat oven to 400.

Put chips in an oven safe pan. I used a small Pyrex and one fillet, as I was making this just for me.

Squirt the fresh (or at least thawed) fillet(s) with lemon juice and then set on top of the chips.

Drizzle the fish with very little olive oil and season with basil and chipotle.

Bake for about 5 minutes or so, maybe more for thick fillet(s).

Pull the pan out and cover the fish with the fried onions. I crumbled them a little, but not too much. I did not use enough to cover the chips, just the fish.

Dump the cheese on top of the fish and spread it out a little.

Put it back in the oven and cook until the cheese is melted nicely, about ten minutes or so.

Serve hot. Would probably go good with salsa or, even better, pico de gallo. I just ate mine right out of the pan, using a fork and fingers...
ellyssian: (Default)
I had a zipped bag of some fresh blueberries I accidentally slightly squished and I had some thawed out catfish. So I thought a little, and I very nearly almost baked them... but I thought "blueberries" and that led to Maine, and that led to maple trees and maple sugar... and I had bacon ends, and bacon naturally goes with maple...

And so here I am, typing this out as I finish off a delicious lunch of that traditional favorite of the Maine blueberry lumber jacks (they often have to cut down the shrubberies with a catfish, of course) that I invented mere moments ago as I cooked it for myself...

Down East Catfish

  • catfish fillets, quantity determined by appetites at the meal
  • bacon ends, quantity determined by the square inchage of the pan used to cook the fillets
  • blueberries, a handful or so per serving
  • water, about 1/8 cup per serving
  • maple sugar, to taste
  • balsamic vinegar, about 1/2 tablespoon per serving


Heat up your cast iron pan.

Cover the cooking surface of the pan with bacon ends (if you're cooking a small fish in a big pan, less bacon ~ yes, I actually said that ~ is in order).

Pour the water into a small saucepan, and turn the heat up high.

Add the balsamic vinegar and melt in the sugar until the sweetness is where you want it.

Toss in the blueberries.

Let the sauce boil a little, turning it down to mid-heat. Stir it fairly frequently.

Cook the bacon until it's about half to mostly done. Think about how much space the fish will take up, and make sure you're not leaving too much to cook once the fish jumps in.

Turn the sauce down to low and keep it warm. Check the sweetness and add more sugar if needed.

Toss the fish in the pan. I like to cook it first with the flat side (inside) up, so that it's more flexible on the convex outer side.

Move any cooked bacon to the top of the fish. You can leave fatty bits on the pan itself so they melt off and deepen the fry.

Cook the fish until half-done, about 3 minutes.

Scrape the bacon off the fish, flip the fish, and get the bacon back up on top.

Finish cooking, about another 3 minutes. If desired, this cooking step can be completed with a 400 degree pre-heated oven. Just toss the pan (which is, of course, cast iron) in the oven for the 3 minutes cooking that the second side needs.

Get the fish on the plate(s), toss the bacon on top of it again, then drizzle the sauce on top of the fish. If desired, you can screen the fruit from the sauce, but that's the best part (along with the whole rest of it, of course) as far as I'm concerned.

Serve immediately.
ellyssian: (Default)

The Skeleton in Armour

By Mina Ellyse Warren

an excerpt, slightly but not nearly completely edited



My client was dead to begin with.



I'd say that you needed to understand this, or nothing after would seem wondrous strange, but this isn't Dickens and it's not even London. There, I would expect the cobblestones to be lousy with big lugs like this, crawling out of their mounds or wading ashore, as leaky as their tubs they sank to the bottom in, but this is Longfellow's town. It doesn't matter what manner of mischief came over with the Pilgrims, nor what slipped to our shores since from the Old Country or Older Countries, if you catch my angle, but the last thing I thought I'd see standing there dripping all over my fine Persian, one meat hook holding the damask canopy around my bed aside, filling my room and then some, was a massive Viking warrior in full battle array, just several centuries past his prime.


He set the axe down and I took a breath, thinking this just might not be the last thing I see, which took a load off, I can tell you. He almost crushed the little folding number I leave out for my dressing gown, and him not even skin with those bones, because whatever flesh he had fed the fishes long ago. I didn't quite hear his sigh -- no lungs, no air, you know how it is -- but it was there nonetheless as he settled into the chair.




I took a moment to compose myself, then quickly reached behind me and gave out my own little sigh of relief, with real live breath included, no less. My sweet butler sleeps deeply, but not that deeply, and I didn't want to have to replace the furniture if he woke up to find Snorri Skeletonson here in his squeeze's boudoir. Although an ogre's handy to have around for all kinds of reasons, I was more than happy to remember he was working down the docks to make some folding green while seeking his return to a more upscale vocation. As strong as he is, and no matter how I like him by my side, I don't think I would have been able to prevent him from being destroyed. See, I have an eye for power, and the bones before me were old, worn... and if their power were liquid, it wouldn't just drip like the saltwater onto my rug and robe. No, it would put the Molasses Flood of '19 to shame, and I'd have to find a new city to live in.


If I survived.




I shifted to the edge of the bed, leaving the silks behind, and walked across the room. His head turned to watch, flares of light within empty eye sockets following my progress, and me with all the flesh he doesn't have. I am not a modest dame by any measure, and to tell the truth if he had been hale and hearty, I might have done the same. Well, perhaps not, as I would have no need to gather a few things just to chin with my new friend, and I might even just ask him for the robe he's sitting on. Or I might give him lead poisoning, but you can't exactly let daylight into something that's been dead so long there's not a scrap of meat left behind to catch lead.




I grab some salts, some sands, and a little bit of that glitter I picked up at Filene's the other day. I say the words as I walk back towards him, casting a trail of colour with each hand, leaving the marks on the floor in just the right pattern. The glitter? Cut a doll some slack, I was losing out on my beauty sleep and needed something to add a little pretty to my night.




"So... tall, bone-white, and handsome wasn't in my cards. That gypsy girl hyped me, didn't she?"




I sit down in front of him and wait for him to speak. Sometimes it can take a while, but that is all up to them, and there's nothing for me to do but crack light to pass the time. I don't even have to try to think of a good joke, because he jaws almost before I'm even settled in. I listen to what he's got to say, and then I agree to take the case. From somewhere up in there under his deepest blue-green byrnie, where organs used to be, Beowulf's uncle pulls out a bar of gold that looks nearly as time-worn as he does. He sets it down almost gently on the floor at my feet, tops it off with a string of amber, gathers up his weaponry, nods once, and he walks out of the room.



I take it back. Maybe it is wondrous strange. Even with what all I've come across, it certainly plays out something surreal.


I stand, twirl and sweep an arm low, and all the signs and sigils are cleared, carried by little swirls of wind and tidied up in little piles under the armoire and, well, other corners of the room. Out of the way, and harmless enough until some morning when I need something to do. A whisper over the gold and it's off to safe keeping, only a slight haze that fades quickly, and a shimmer of glitter of the genuine variety left behind as I wrap the unfinished raw amber around my neck, glancing in the full length and finding them fair fetching with my fiery red locks. The weight of the gold -- and the even greater value of the amber to the warrior -- is a reminder this little romp won't be duck soup.


To reflect proper gravitas and give Leif Deadguy his due, I smile sweetly at myself in the mirror before a yawn rolls in and swallows me whole. I stretch and collapse into bed, asleep almost before I'm down and covered, visions of runes dancing in my head.






Copyright 2013 Mina Ellyse Warren






If you enjoyed this little teaser, stay tuned for news of what happens next ~ all I have to do is write it! Simple as that! And, of course, get it edited and published. And all those other little niggling kind of things. You can, however, read an earlier fantasy noir tale featuring this same private investigator, The Hollow Man, which can be found in the pages of Fae Fatales: A Fantasy Noir Anthology.
ellyssian: (Default)
What do the Beatles, Dr. Seuss, Emperor Norton I, Burger King and McDonalds, Frankenstein and Jurassic Park, Asimov's Revised Laws of Robotics, the freedom fry, and Charlie Chaplin have in common? They all stop in for a visit and help me discuss some of the ramifications of exploring artificial intelligence.

It's no secret that I've always been a fan of James Burke's Connections ~ more the column in Scientific American, but the show as well ~ and, with the spirt of that sort of thing in mind, I tackled the topic of artificial intelligence in the essay On Artificial Intelligence and Machine Men. The essay's been online since 2006, in a serialized hard-to-read format, but it can now be found in one spot on Green Man Envy right here at this link!

Profile

ellyssian: (Default)
Mina Ellyse

November 2024

S M T W T F S
     12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags