Shakespearan Homoeroticism

So my English Higher Level class is reading Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ and I’m having a blast! From hearing Prospero profess his undying love to Miranda for ‘preserving him’, to seeing Miranda go weak in the knees from inner-thigh tremors when she meets Ferdinand for the first time and ‘e’er sighs’ for him, ‘The Tempest’ is laden with sexual undertones in the words of all the characters (ok…more like half). Funnily, quite a while ago I read some theory about how Shakespeare’s work contains a lot of sexual references (can’t remember what exactly). But when a classmate mentioned that Prospero’s dialogue with Miranda was took sexually-connotative and that he was definitely quenching his lustful thirst in an incestuous manner, it set of a chain reaction of finding naughtiness in all Shakespeare’s characters. My favourite by far, though, has to be from Ariel to Prospero, probably because I didn’t expect homosexual yearnings (or quenchings of yearnings?) to be expressed so openly in Shakespeare’s time:

“Ariel:

All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come

To answer thy best pleasure – be’t to fly,

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curled clouds. To thy strong bidding task

Ariel and all his quality.”

hmm…What say you?

Prelude to Our Conclusion

I see Us dying before e we’ve been born

A light that could have been

Dimming into nothingness

Darkness

One that dominates my senses

Stimulates my memory

To a time beneath the velvet skies

Under the canopy of glistening celestial diamonds

In my mind

The fragrance of your hair still plays coyly with my nostrils

The caress of your hands still tingle my skin

Like the sea breeze on a warm night

I can still feel the silkiness of your skin

The suppleness of your flesh

Your eyes still speak a truth beyond words

And your lips

Oh those lovely beckoning lips

Their cherry sweetness still remains unknown to me

Yet who says tt ever will be

For now it seems there is more than I can see

There remains too much unsaid

Too little told

Too much held back

A growing gap

An ‘Us’ that’s growing slowly cold

She

Flowers are too delicate

Wine, too strong

Honey, too sweet

Me, too perfect

You, too good

She, just excellent

Not quite,

Just she

An(Tye)504

*Drumroll*!!! TYE!!!

So my blogger name has evolved from ‘antye504’ to ‘Tye’. It’s different…but not so different [an(Tye)504]. Reason is simple: ‘Tye’ is my personal muse that is also me. Some may term it alter ego but that’s just spooky; I call it my muse that is also my self. It is what I call my creative force and my creative self.

Why the change? Well, ‘Tye’ evolved from a pretty lame alteration (I will not reveal it) of my real name ‘Nana Takyi’ by someone; sounded something like a British accent gone wrong. Then my best friend modified it to ‘Tye’. And I began sign off various things as ‘Tye’. Then I began to sign my writings and poetry, and began to sing as ‘Tye’.

Then I began to contribute to another blog and for the comfort of anonymity, became ‘antye504’; Just in case I said something radical or worst case scenario plain stupid it would not be traced back to me. It’s my email address too so it was kind of convenient in a weird kind of way. Then I started ‘Expression & Poesy’ and the error carried forward. But the games up.

I’m still Nana Takyi Baffour-Awuah, antye504, Tye, whatever you know me as, but when you read pieces of my ‘mind-soul’ you will see ‘posted by Tye’ at the bottom because it is less confusing and because ‘Tye’ creates them…at least for now.

Graduation

It’s sad to think

That one of these days

My friends

With whom I shared

My golden days

Those whom I love

My comrades

Will have to go

Their diverse ways

It hurts to picture

That bright morn

Where there is laughter

But I mourn

For friends

I’ll never encounter

When we’re gone

It breaks my heart

Yet I’ll pull through

For I know that

With old friends

Will go old foes

And with coming days

New comrades

Sometimes I Miss Us...

Sometimes I miss us

Miss your lips and the bliss of your touch

Miss the hurt; when we healed it was heaven

Miss your voice in my ear

Miss telling you that I care

Miss loving to love you

Miss the eternity of your eyes; I could drown in them for all time

Miss having you in my head

Miss holding you in my heart

Miss misunderstanding your complexity

Miss the stillness of your breathing

Miss the uniqueness in your imperfections

Miss the stirring in my spirit when I held you

Miss the home my soul found in you

Sometimes I miss us...

Shards of a Shattered Heart ...3

Yet I still want you, I won’t lie

My heart’s ripped up, yet I won’t cry

And there it lies, there in your eyes

The broken shadow of our fallen love

I can feel your heartbeat in your spoken words

I can hear the melody, the music of your soul

It’s to the tune of the words my heart calls

Shards of a Shattered Heart ...2

I know I said we’d make it work

Work it out, take away the hurt

Guess all I spoke was wasted words

Now reality’s my yesterday’s fears

You made your move and broke it off

Called me up, told me you’d had enough

Guess I thought I could do without

Guess I was right, I have no doubt

Shards of a Shattered Heart ...1

I can see in your eyes there’s a passion that still burns bright
I can see in your smile there’s affection that still resides
I can hear in your laugh an echo of your heart’s rhythm
I can feel in your touch there’s a love you’re still feeling...

The Number 13…

Numbers rule our lives.

Our lives are divided into sub-units of minutes, seconds and other quantities, prompting us to wake up at a certain time, get to work by a certain time, spend a certain amount of money, work a certain amount of hours and ingest and burn a certain amount of calories. Whether we choose to admit it or not, they govern our very existence, so much so that categorizing them as fragments of divinity may not be too far from the truth. As certain people do. Different numbers are famous for, and mean different things to different people, but the number 13 is in my opinion, probably the most popular and significant.

13 represents ill-luck to many people, a belief largely fueled by the perception of Friday the 13th yadayadayada…Point is, everyone knows that seeing the number 13 means something pretty bad is going to happen, and pretty soon. However, what people do not know is why exactly they believe this (see the break in logic, lol). So, I’ve been doing some reading around and I’ve found out a little bit about why most people have more than just a touch of triskaidekaphobia.

If after reading these facts, you do not feel more than a little apprehensive about the existence of the number 13…you’re weird:)

1. King Philip secretly ordered the mass arrest of all the Knights Templar in France on Friday, October 13, 1307.

2. In numerology, the number 12 is one of completeness (12 hours of the clock, 12 months of the year etc); 13 transgress this wholeness, representing discord and destruction.

3. In the traditional tarot deck, the 13^th card is the death card.

4. There were 12 Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur-An alliance of 13: Arthur died, tragically.

5. Did you consider that there were 13 participants at the Last Supper? The last supper before Christ was crucified?

6. Did you know that Jesus received the Magi on the 13^th day of His life on earth?...The beginning of His end…?

7. In Norse mythology, the number of gods that resulted in the activation of Ragnarok (the beginning of the end) is 13.

8. In Campania, the expression 'tredici' (i.e. 13) is said when one considers their luck to have taken a downturn.

9. 13 colonies formed the USA, the most powerful country in the world…with a city dubbed The Sin City (besides this, USA relies heavily on 13 in symbolism in other instances….is the USA bound for damnation or is it intrinsically full of iniquity…) *evil laugh*.

10. There are traditionally 13 steps leading up to a gallows; a walk of 13 steps to your death…morbid much.

11. Apollo 13 was the only unsuccessful mission by the United States of America intended to land humans on the moon….The oxygen tank exploded on 13^th April 1970. The sum of the digits in 1970 is 17, April is the 4^th month of the 12 month year, 17-4=….13.

12. There are 13 ancient Crystal Skulls; pretty, but faaaaar away from anything good.

13. There are 13 ‘gates’ of the body of the human woman: 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, 1 mouth, 2 breasts, 1 navel, 1 anus, 1 urethra and 1 vagina…Daddy always said women were dangerous :)

There, 13 facts about the number 13….So does the fact that the human body has 13 major joints mean that we’re destined for destruction…? Well, we DO die…so does this confirm the ominousness of the number 13, is it a mark of evil and negativity?

A commentator writing about the Aztec calendar once said that, "Thirteen is a basic structural unit in nature. It means the attracting center around which elements focus and collect." In the Torah, God has 13 Attributes of Mercy, and many other good things relate to the number 13 in other instances, hence its goodness/badness is debatable. One may even call the above facts interesting coincidences, but regardless of your stance, 13 still has the uncanny ability to appear in the weirdest places and when you least expect to see it.

Sources:
http://www.thevesselofgod.com/thirteen.html
http://www.virtuescience.com/13.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_(number)
My very own head :)

NB: If you do your own research you may actually find that 13 may be your favorite number…