12.13.2009

Attempt at Erasure #1

in the spirit of my last post, here's attempt number one. original is below, erasure's below that. i took a passage from moby-dick, predictably.

But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over, three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.---It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.---It's the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.---It's a blasted heath.---It's a Hyperborean winter scene.---It's the breaking-up of the ice-bound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?

puzzled and confounded , hovering
in a nameless yeast. truly,
Yet indefinite, sublimity
froze , till
a bright but deceptive midnight
blasted --- a Hyperborean winter scene.--- the breaking-up of Time. at last that one portentous something
, and all the rest stop; does it not bear resemblance to
himself?



unfortunately, i don't think the format of this post will let me preserve the exact white space. alas, what can you do. enjoy. or hate. watevs =)

3 comments:

Dr. Hilarious said...

loves it

klroti said...

you're so smart, sweetie, even if you don't ever use capital letters. You need to keep up with this whole blogging thing (and do it more frequently) while you're in London. And I am officially giving you permission right this minute to turn your blog into a travel diary... if you think of it that way, there will be no pressure to wait until a brilliant thought strikes you to post.

Okay, let me try this whole erasure poem thing...

need to
up whole
diary it
right
until
strikes to


... how'd I do?

k said...

haha you're so witty sis. love you!