A recollection of a project that I worked on in 2006-2007.

Once upon a time I was lucky enough to work for a very nice man who owned a small computer store for fifteen years, in a small town in the country side. Denis had been a database programmer, but he decided to “retire” and open his store, so that he could sell and service computers in his community. The 90s were a boon time, where spare parts and broken or traded in computers piled up so high that one had to slip sideways through the rubble to find the back door of the shop. Well, something had to be done, so Denis decided that the old pig pens in his barn at home would be a nifty spot to store old computer stuff. And that’s exactly what he did for over ten years!

By the time 2006 had rolled around and Denis had decided to close the store, he had a few offers to buy out his computer junk heap. Before he finally got rid of it all, he asked me if I’d like anything from it, so I came over one rainy afternoon and rummaged through mounds of misc computer stuff. I brought home some hard drives to take apart (they amazing magnets!) and a couple motherboard and add on cards, cables, and one of the latest additions to the barn heap, an AT Server Tower circa 1991! 

For whatever reason, I didn’t take a picture of the tower before I modified it, but to the left is a picture where only the lights on the lower right and the stickers are new. I suppose most of the drives are also new, as the original specs were a floppy drive, a CROM drive, and an uber 486 DX66 with a 240MB hard drive and 16MB RAM (going from memory here). It was used for years with DOS by a local financial company and I am sure they paid a fortune for this computer, even though the tower and it’s massive power supply were total over kill – what they had was desktop hardware in a server case. Ah well, they didn’t originally buy it from Denis or myself, so nothing to feel guilty about. Yup, when I saw that tower and it’s wheels, my imagination began rolling!

After much consideration, I thought that the best use of the space in this tower (which weighs a ton even when empty) would be to rebuild it so that it can house a full ATX and a micro ATX computer. That’s right, two full computers in one tower!

Well, allow me to begin by stating that I am envious of those whom own Dremmel Tools. My tin nips, power drill, and manual rivit tool, along with the bench vice, vice grips, and grinding wheel were put to the test to make what once was for a small AT motherboard into something much more… busy. As you can see in the picture of my basement work bench (also known as a life raft in the spring time), I had some old motherboards and hard drives to use for measurements to help me ensure that pieces would fit and what computers would look like when installed.

Having a look at the original back panel, it was obvious to me that it cutting the top half out, where the power supply had been, and simply installing the entire rear chassis of another ATX case would be the simplest solution to adding in one of the computers. Given that this project was about functionality rather than fashion, I wasn’t concerned about having a back that was flush and smooth. Also, I don’t access to a machine shop or anything but the most rudimentary machining tools (I fold metal in a 6” bench vice with a hammer for instance), so even though I have a lot of computer sides that I could use as blank material, it’s not really practical for me to make things like that. Fortunately for me, I have also amassed a small computer parts grave yard which yeilded me a decent ATX case to disassemble, as well as an AT/ATX plastic peg style mounting surface to use. I skillfully drilled out the rivets on the ATX tower until I was left with just the back panel and the motherboad mounting surface attached to eachother. This piece also took care of the power supply and fan mount, though I did enlarge the fan hole to fit an 80mm fan. After correcting a mistaken calculation that lead to cutting too wide of a hole in the back of the tower, but sacrificing a 12” aluminum ruler, the ATX tower parts were firmly seated in the case.

It was at this stage in the project where I began to think how cool it would be to take my Dell Dimension 4600 Pentium 4 computer and max out all of its storage capacity by putting it in this power, so I could then use it as a family media server. The Dell motherboard was very well designed, with 4 DIMM slots, 4 IDE devices, and two SATA devices. When I added in the Promise ATA133 controller and the SCSI controllers that also I had on hand, it became a compelling idea to have all of these drives whiring away. So I put aside using this tower with two computers and made it hold just one, but with an extra set of six drive bays taken from another tower and bolted to the bottom of the AT server tower. I left the project at this standstill for several months, as I was preoccupied by other “hobby time” things. When I finally took some time to look at the concept more objectively, it became quite obvious that there were two fatal flaws in this “hard drive farm” concept, as well as handful of other concerns.

1. I didn’t have a whole bunch of functioning hard drives sitting around.
2. Even at the time, it was more cost effective to buy one or two terabyte drives than to buy a whole bunch of smaller capacity drives.
3. Power consumption and noise.
4. I don’t have a need for a lot of hard drive space.

That said, my initial goal of putting two computers into the tower, rather than making use of every possible feature on the Dell 4600 board, seemed to be the more practical thing to do. So, that’s what I did one day in 2007.

I gathered up my computer parts and headed back to my work bench with some problems to solve. The tower was certainly large enough to house all the parts for the second computer, but I needed to be able to mount the motherboard and power supply in a logical manner, as well as provide some visual indication that there was a second computer in the tower. I was lucky that way back in the 486 days they needed to slow computers down by using the “Turbo” button (when turbo was on, the computer worked at 100% speed and when off it worked a lower speed), because that gave me two “tap touch” on buttons already built into the front panel. One called Turbo and one called Reset! Back then, the computer was turned on with a giant flip up switch, something like a light switch, while the reset button worked much like our modern power buttons do, by simply tapping them once. Physically, all I had to do for the power switches was plug them into the motherboards – handy dandy! The power and hard drive activity lights for the second computer, however, required some actual work on my part.

 

Preparing the front Panel

For something that was built in the early 1990s, this front panel is pretty stylish, particularly when the door that covers the drive bay is attached and closed. It’s made from a modest density plastic that is only a little bit brittle, so I was able to drill and file out two holes for the USB ports and two more holes power and activity lights very easily with a power drill and a handful of little metal files. I found that my small cylindrical metal file worked the best for shaping both holes, but I had to be careful when creating the flat lines of the USB ports. They aren’t prefect, but they get the job done. The USB ports themselves originally came with a PCI add in card and I had them laying around.

The lights are plain LEDs that I took from a different case that are held inside small translucent plastic globes (also from a different case) by some clear silicone. They are held in place by more stinky, sticky clear silicone on the back of the case. I am sure that a plastic epoxy would have worked better, but they aren’t exactly a high traffic area and the silicone worked well enough. Yes, that is an Iomega 100MB Zip Drive!

All things considered, the plastic on the front panel has held up very well over the years and there is a lot room left in it for future modifications. One thing I am looking to do is to completely disassemble the computer so that I can prime and paint all of its surfaces in a matte black finish. As you will see soon enough, I already slapped on some matte black Tremclad paint to the rear panel, which helped to tie in all of its bumps and ridges.

 

Making Space for a Monster!

Back in the 1990s we had more steel. We must have, because oh my God is the metal on this case ever thick, dense, and hard as stone! I suppose it would not have been so hard to work with if I had a Dremmel tool and if I had not lost my angle grinder (strange thing to just up an lose, but I did…). In any event, I had to make way for a power supply mounting hole as well as some kind of access to the rear panel and expansions slots of the second computer. I will warn you now, what you are about to see is not for the faint of heart – this was a “make it work” rather than a “make it sexy” project!

 

To measure out the holes I needed for the power supply, I did the easiest thing possible: I took a long dead power supply apart and used its rear panel as a template. That proved to be much, much easier to do than it was to layout where and the PCI expansion slots were going to go! In fact, it was so hard to estimate where I needed to drill and cut that part that I actually took a break from the back panel and I added the motherboard mounting platform first.

I was fortunate enough to have lots of spare metal on the motherboard platform and I was able to bend and rivet into place using only a handful of brackets. The brackets themselves were simply pieces of computer case that I bent into the shapes that I needed. Drilling out the holes required holding the two pieces of metal together with a pair of vice grips, which I found was easier than measuring and drilling each hole at a time, one in the bracket and one in the chassis.

Once I had the motherboard chassis in place, I stuck in a micro ATX socket 370 board that I had kicking around and some old network cards so that I could measure thing. Well, as it turned out the location where I was putting the second computer was actually where the original AT motherboard was mounted and even though there was an open spot for slots, it simply wasn’t shaped the right way. I spent a long time considering my options and none of them seemed within the bounds of reason, given my toolset. After much consideration, I decided it would be best to bend the end parts of each PCI card bracket 100% vertical. This allowed me to then drill three holes that I could use nuts and bolts with to hold the cards in place. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but actually worked out quite smoothly.

Having the extra parts around, I also thought it would be a nifty idea to add in some internal 3.5” bays, so I mounted them upfront as you can see in this picture of the final product. If you have a look behind those drive bays you will notice that the rear side is blocked by the original mounting surface for the AT motherboard. This proved to be such a huge pain the ass when installing hard drives that I cut away a large portion of that area. I had to be careful though, as the original mounting surface is also an integral part of the structure of the case and removing it would mean replacing it with something else. 

There, it was all ready for me to install my computers. I stood back and was happy that I had actually done something I thought about doing, despite the difficulties I encountered. Then, I headed up stairs and put the following together.

Turbo (Top): 

Okia 700w Power Supply with push/pull fans, Asus P5K-VM Motherboard, Pentium Dual-Core E2160, 2GB RAM, EVGA Geforce 8600GT, WD 160GB Hard Drive, Windows XP Home.

Reset (Bottom):

No-name “Greybox” Power Supply, Asrock Socket 775 Motherboard, Pentium 4 530, 512MB RAM, Hitachi 160GB Hard Drive, Windows 2000 Professional.

Turbo, which turned on by pressing the turbo button on the front of the tower, was my main computer upon which I played games, etc. Reset was my Windows 2000 file sever. Originally I had set up a Slackware Linux 10.2 file server, but I got tired of Slackware (after using it since 1998) and I gave Kubuntu a try. Though it wasn’t hard to set up, I found that the implimentation of VNC and the hard drive power savings were not up to par in Linux and it made the “headless” file server a real pain in my ass. In the end, I still believe to this day (March 1st, 2010), that Windows 2000 is the easier file/media server to set up and use. So, I formatted Reset and dusted off my much beloved and under used copy of Win2k and set it back in action.

After several hours of usage, I found that the Hitachi drive really vibrated the crap out the case, whose side were a little more loose than before I removed a mounting point to accommodate the second power supply. I also found that the cheap power supply combined with the space heater of a processor made Reset’s CPU fan run noticeably louder than it did when it was in its own case. After a couple weeks, I found that I was having overheating issues when playing games on Turbo, even when Reset was simply idling. It was summer time, but it wasn’t overly hot in the house, so I was at a loss. It turned out that my family and I weren’t really using the files (my handful of DVDs and CDs that converted to mp3 and xvid format, as well as our digital pictures) on Reset often enough to justify having it being on all day and it just didn’t seem like we were getting much value for the dollar/sound/heat out of it. So, I decided that I may as well sell the extra motherboard, RAM, and CPU to someone who could make better use of them. And, that’s what I did. In fact, I even sold the E2160 CPU when I upgraded to a Q8200 a couple years later (last fall)!

I learned a lot throughout this project, especially that one does not call sticking a Netburst CPU and a cheap power supply in the same case as another computer a “good idea”. Interesting, but definately not good. At the moment, I am still using Turbo in this gigantic tower all by itself, but I have some plans for the future that involve a complete overhaul to this chassis as well as some much needed beautification. All I need to begin this project is another ATX case to stick my current parts in, as you see, something happened to all my other cases… Then, I’ll take the time to really do justice to this wonderful piece of computer history. I’m thinking that I’d like to,

1. Move the full ATX mounting tray to the bottom of the case.
2. Make the whole back of the tower a thin wire mesh.
3. Mount a 140mm fan in the middle, bottom of the case with a vent that allows it to draw air from the front, blowing it over the CPU/GPU area and out the mesh at the rear of the case.
4. Mount the power supply in ATX style above the CPU and mount the hard drives above the power supply. This puts their clicking and whirring further away from my ears.
5. Rubberize the interior panels to reduce noise and vibration.
6. Perhaps… just maybe… mount a Nano ATX Intel Atom based media server / PVR headless computer on the top, with an external power adapter.

Well, time will tell what will come of these ideas, but my pocket book tells me quite clearly that the Nano ATX computer “ain’t happen’n” any time soon!

In one manner or another, I have had a website since the 1990s.

Lord knows, we’ve all made some terrible HTML in our time, but what really got me about making websites was that I always found it easier to just write/create the whole thing myself – no WYSIWYG editor, just me and the original Arachnophilia HTML editor (not the awful Java based one…). However, I grew tired of doing that, so when I started to use the Opera browser back in 2006, I moved my site to their “blog” hosting, even though I hate the whole “social networking” bullshit people are into these days. Anyhow, that service proved to be quite unreliable when uploading pictures and files, so I finally gave up on it and went back to good old WSFTPLE and my HTML editor. Of course, I don’t really have the time for all of this now that I am a fully fledged adult with kids and a wife and a job, blah, blah, so the o’l website took a kick in the teeth for a good year or so.

Anyhow, Microsoft has really impressed me with Windows XP, Windows 7, their “Live” suite of programs, and yup even my ancient hotmail account. Windows Live Mail is finally the mail client I have been looking for. The “sky drive” and this blog, well I couldn’t ask for anything more… for FREE! Damn it, back in the 90s we had to pay for 5MB of storage!

You’ll find (when I get to it) a whole whack of crap on this site regarding computers, technology, and misc things I feel like sharing for no good reason.

 

This is an anthology of every decent poem I have written. Some of them aren't very interesting and many only "make sense" to me, due to my writing style and the purpose of me writing poetry in the first place; I used to write as a waking mirror of dreaming, where sometimes it was the sound of the letters or phrases that imbued meaning rather than what the phrase literally portrayed. Also, there is a lot of personal satire on this page, so tread lightly when searching for meaning.

Feel free to share these with your friends, but remember: plagiarism is for assholes. These works may be distributed only with my written consent, on a per incidence basis.

Enjoy!

 

Just In Passing

In tortured paddles
The rain poured down
While flashing in its absence
Lightning leaped up the pole
Of my dripping umbrella
Bottom to sky in sparked fervour
Its light dissipated
And another car drove by
Lights off despite the darkened day
Sinking in what could be
Natural thought
Our day was drifting out
Winds tickling the lips of
My pouting umbrella
Giggling like children and lost adults
It hummed
A tune I recall ever so slightly
To just kiss its condolence light
And know I heard it, surely
And while we twirl
Like ivory condensation in winter heat
Cars roll by in swishing whir
The light sabre of my Jedi umbrella
Thrashing its lasers in wicked desire
With casual strollers striding
Striking the ground once shot by
We
Twisting like caramel infinity
Both man and canopy in tremors
Under the sky of incoming night
Until the dawn thrust body to mine
The passer by who did not fall
Lips upon mine
Supple and warm the rain dripped
Down
Slowly down our cheeks
Across our hands held about cleansed
Time handed down its medallion
On to its slowest son
Who laughed in childish glee
As he downed the passer bys
Riding my umbrella round
A top
Up side down spinning at our feet
She pulled me back to look at me
And melting like wax away
Did not breathe petting lips again
We left the world
Our child in the rain.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.09.20

 

In Ethereal Twilight

Braids make tangles beautiful
Sounds of angels sway in motion
From ear to cheek's glisten
Ripen with snow apple blossoms
A fresh scent of history, full
With winter snowmen and stars
Twinkle like ebony inside sapphire eyes
Green with desire
The ocean smiles in water broken
Through shores eroded, partly by life
Lips so soft, supple with only gloss
Her braids were beautiful
Though she may have missed it,
So was she
That evening, others, tonight, and so many more to come
The morning dew settles and shines
With ruby skies around
Hoping to leave roses in its sparkling lawns
To mimic the ethereal twilight of her eyes,
Even nature sees her beauty
Seems to change the world in a breathe
Leaving me breathless to her gaze
And her, nature's subject of lovely induction,
All the world's beauty arrives through Lindsey.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.12.25

 

Smile In The Air

What could one say but wow
So far above the clouds around
Who seem themselves so high
From smaller vantage upon the ground.
Not quite to space,
Under the touch of satellites,
Yet far grander than any bird in flight
And ever much more to see.
Waving or gesture with a smile,
A goodly mention of being civil
But from so high is so futile-
Not ants or specks the people are
And buildings only relevant dots,
As noticed jetting by Winnipeg.
Receiving round red friends
Flirting with the constant hum
Seven-twenty-seven, our engines run
Think of Mars,
The far off world,
Butt getting ever closer here
A plug of chocolate delivered
By the sweetest, kindest face-
Definitely pretty in any case.
Peering out the window
The view is up side down
Grass and trees and nothing
Opposite of the clouds
Where as the pale blue horizon
Is more natural and loud;
Blue, truly, best suits a cloud.
Now a roaring light ever distant
For one to wonder who is on it,
And those so high the same,
When the flight is over
And their terrestrial lives regained.
So marvellous the sensation,
Far away above the land
Being curious humans
Earth still beckons them to land.
Nothing can be safer
Than toes within the sand.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.08.03

 

The Lighter Life, By A.B. Vegan (Revised)

Unaffected by yet another ineffective rambling over top the masses
She took no pride-
Very little pride-
In her colleagues con-gradual expressions
And she new very well,
That nothing had been done.

The days of free trundling baboons-
Going loonie-
dog collars tied to door knobs
Amazon talks about deforestation
And everything done in-fanatic,
Are all past in quintessential memory now
And all that is left,
The level plain of an oblique,
Axiomatic point of view
Tangled with ever perspective,
Ultimately leading to the final fanaticism:
The true of heart
A real equality.

The September there after
And life gone a-free;
She feels emotionally dangling
The instant she falls asleep
And never knows she is dreaming-
Yet she never stops for tea-
Not a nibble on a veganable
Does she need quibble
When she is asleep.

Adrift with no port, forever on a sea
She is out for a century.

In this dream she changed the world
She spoke her words during dawns the world over-
But powerful phrases beyond her own mind
Of whom she knew by intonation
And recollection of their conception
Within her more private hours-
And these words reverberated the world over
And caused a crust of intrinsic insight to gel
  around its life force.

She never revelled in her achievement-
To the extreme-
She instead used her mothers voice to
  cultivate young and vibrant jalapenos.

Soon her words became a science
And her voice an audible god,
But her pride lay in the phrases-
Once come to her in an intangible burst of thought-
As they operate so basic
To coincide with love.

But presently she began to tingle
As mitley needles fornicated with her senses
And her eyes began to see again;
Yet what they slurped in - famishedly
After such an eternity-
Lost a whole century-
Was what she made in her dream.

The September past-
A way, way, back past, when last she was free-
Brought about an accident,
A martyrment
And she had plummeted to her death-
In a vegancopter bound and bent for panda-homium;
The saving of mono-chromium refugees-
But before her body burst incandescent
Her mind was in the dream.

Out past energy
Far beyond the shimmer of distance places
But still abounding within our universe
Is the very force of life
Of whom never dies
But can change, unseen, many lives
As she soon understood.

In recalling now, her subtle manipulations
She seems it curious to consciously dream a reality,
But no-one eats meat
And they only "harvest" trees,
The pillaging of microcosms and mini-worlds
  is beneath a niche market
And the birds roam free,
All bestowed in honor of her passing.

She unleashed intrinsic life,
The enlightened lighter life,
In her ultimate act of comfortable fanaticism
From beyond the bounds of time.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
96.09.07

 

Motions of Time

Maybe I know little of this life
Or have it all wrong in this regard
But I sense great passion amongst us
Nights who shone auroras as we danced alive
Subtle, divine
Never let go, the way you move me
Or forget you stayed at my side
A time we had nothing too.

How many years must go by
Before we know yesterday's not coming back
I know I love you when I close my eyes
I need you now and welcome you home.

Feelings free the disenchantment inside
We'll be alright
Have eternal hope and believe with me
That each day is divine
Pleasures beseech the truths we hide
Need I remind success requires try
I've learnt nothing comes free of pain
And we'll make it home again.

How many years must go by
Before we know yesterday's not coming back
I know I love you when I close my eyes
I need you now and welcome you home.

I've learnt nothing comes free of pain
And we'll make it home again,
In time.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.12.29

 

Ne'er In Time

Because I know the haunting
Of empty halls once alive
And feel the dearness of a child's heart
In reminiscence of mine
Roars free within romantic souls
A passion untwined
Beneath the solitude of mind
I passionately comply,
To present a rose
So in absence retrieve
Through carefree sense ever sweet
A simple scent to bring you me
On quiet nights, lonely flights
And never need be
Alone
There after this summers breeze
Wilts to dust away,
By no chore of aching time
Will your sensuous smile leave today.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.11.22

 

Robert Rose

My one true alias
Rose
A moment that silence poured
With a song of lovers found
And so many good times a test to that
When I hold crystal in my hand
It's diamond
But mostly,
Robert Rose.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.12.27

 

The Nature of Rain

An ocean of pluvious excretion
Washed wildly the waters within
Raising stifled geysers of tremulous fluidity
Of which are memories
Being thoughts I had had not known I had
And regain here within
A feeling of liquid consistency
Brought about in philosophy
By watering kettles of stashious rapour
That bring life
And bring tea.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.09.07

 

Dancing with Incense

Like silk and womens hair
The stream curled around me
A storm of blissfulness took hold
And from abound me
Tantalizing buds of floral passion
Its sent has overthrown me
Grace in movement, a love in arms
A true and ripe lady I have found me
Intense the coils of deep enchantment
Filled the breaths around me
Slow the stick of life life burnt out
But glad I am its grasp be-found me
Its web like spiders and halos twist
Forever hold inside me, this incense stick.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
96.09.07

 

Untitled

Check your baggage at the door
I can look at it, but carry it no more
For you the world turns
Round about and inside out
But soon enough you will come around
And I will be whole again,
Ready to be the friend I am
Check our baggage at the door,
Isn't it ugly and old?!

Still here and loving, yet maybe a little distant
Give ourselves time and don't bother letting go,
That's what users and losers do.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
00.02.08

 

Untitled

Forth coming dreams my dear
Beneath the soliloquy of in between
Where the soft moon pours
A liquid nuance under rapture unwon
For wonders sake
Behold dear ocean break
Upon a star so lovely sent
And whisper here a nothing told
When all the words grew silent
In awe inspired stupor low
Hush within human heart-ship
Kinship known
To plunder new moons sent
And remember when
Love blew across the sky,
Waking silent sleepers alive
In its wake, replace.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.11.29

 

Everfriend

You like the music I hear in my head
and I know your fear as I know my face
your feeling for me cuts through light
like lightning through the deepest night
and i write this for you, and I.

Mayhaps we'll never meet, but we'll be
knowing you're here is my best friend
seeing your smile against the darkened sky
warming your heart when I smile
back at you, my hearts feeds return
and we'll rule the slopes, you and I
I just don't know when
until, let's pretend
the moment it comes will never end
but you know that as well as I.

Don't leave me now
forget the pretend
be me, my special friend
I'll be you in return
in this moment meant for two
as one.

Forget the pretend
and leave me hanging
in the end
suspense makes me melt for you.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
01.11.10

 

At Least I'm Not Paid By the Hour

The road is long and hard
I try to fall as little as possible
The pavement broke my lip once
As I tripped on a turtle
And was late due to that hurdle

I came to an impasse
Out
Side of where I am
And had to decide
Is the road better walked
   in naked feet or in sock
But I gave it up to the conclusion
That, after all,
Picking gravel and stone from my feet
   is an excellent pastime
And why give up such amusement
Hey, is that suppose to be bent?

Well, the rod is hard and long
I think I spelt that wrong
And all my considerations are gone
I choose to watch the road
Where the sun once shone.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1996.07.28

 

Naked Sky

Look up once and while
The sky's not as ugly as yesterday
Raise your head for a while
And maybe tomorrow wont end the same way

Be alive like you can be, but aren't
Be the child you should be
While the man screams out
Take in the faces of the shoes that you always watch
Remember the eyes that are never deservent of trust
And see them tread upon you
Feel them rip the soul right from you
And look away at the ground again
Spinning in your spot
Rile in the fright
Clean the eyes that glow in your head who
   long for the night
And lift into the spot that brought today
Be that cloud that took you away

Look up once and a while
The sky's not as ugly as yesterday
Raise your head for a while
And maybe tomorrow wont end the same way.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1996.08.08

 

Untitled

Bleeding the boundaries of what lies out in front
Growing the trees that scrape the moon's face
Feeling the chills preparing to take the brunt
Screaming in at last to the ending place
Building a re pitour of luscious thought
Consciously scrutinizing this life long fight
Killing the mountains of the front we fought
Dying in the end with nothing but fright
Making the envelope of which must be pushed
Doing the impossible before it's done to you
Holding your ground until it is flushed
Leaving at last with force and what's true.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1996.09.05

 

The Game

The advance was made
Cold the heart wept and silent
When still and dead the enemy laid
The board became an all too familiar sight
Barren with a solitary, stationary movement
It was obvious to what the counter would be
A conundrum of curiosity and endless possibilities
But the two never came face to face
Never felt the touch of cold silver iron
On a dank, cruel morning they anticipated
But the word never came
The Queen never trembled, twitched
The rook and mate still growing moss at their parkade
the call was clear and dark
She never moved, they all slept until,
Until sorrow grew over all the roads and drank the oceans
Bleached by harsh light and weathered
The armies crumbled to dust
But they bring their lost battle past existence
Fighting swirls of clouds in the memory
What is it now but a checkered memory
   of blown out windows of amusement
And still the battle would be a go
If only word were to come
But the pawn stands alone, wounded all the same.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1996.09.15

 

Untitled

I was in a place of many faces
In the company of artificial heights
Where the floor clunked like clockwork
With the drop of each pneumatic shoe
And the windows heaved like violets
   out toward the sun
And my solom self was forced
   to do nothing but look from one.
Out over the pavement, sspatteredwith gum and cars
The clacking, clunking thunder rose,
About the room behind me
A sudden sharp quietness grows
And from the faces of tomorrows world
I became alone.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1996.09.18

 

Remind

As in waking dreams
Remind and remain alive
Forget-me-nots by Salem stream
Creek like a wooden floor
Over mills of endless time
I will remind
Take up in hand yesterdays soil
Grow despite today's toil
And love you the same
As when first we touched.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
2002.01.21

 

Even Lost Knight's Battle

My heart is a fabric woven by you
It's the armour I wear
That nobody sees
But never gets pierced
In the battles of my warrior days
When I trust in my horse
And ride her to freedom
With arrows and axes chasing her feet
My shielding takes damage
My body does bleed
But through all the holes
In my underclothes
About which my heavy sshouldersdo heave
I know that if my stead should fall
Leaving me alone, one sword, one army
And I did not win
that when the battle is done
And all my blood gone
My armour you've sewn
Would still protect me.

Written by: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1999.08.10

 

Bridge St. Dreaming

Want to jump
Float and be a spiral mosaic
Be one with the water
Flow bashfully free in reverence
DDissolve
Leave a Robert coloured silhouette
Who's fashions bulb secretions
And fingers drift away
Want to be part of a course
A thunder storm
A river
And end up in an ocean
Cleansed by a bog
Before my lake like freshness
Colelessed with sea salinity
Where I would drift and rise again
And pour a new beginning
Sheltered by touches of the life within me
Around me...
But I know I'd just be wet.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1997.12.20

 

Loverly Relations

I must ask myself
At times
Question curiosity
Unwind
Find out if I really know
What it matter that even though
In fact of course I will die
Than truly is there reason why
Should I even bother be alive,
And than I think
With some discourse
Towards relation and remorse
On honesty and true soul
that I do surely know
When the door is opened
It will close,
But here again
In question past
If only tried and didn't last
No better or no worse
Would it be to have left alone;
To be stationed on my bridge
Overlooking the waters ridge
Only to be left alone.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1997.05.25

 

Careful, There's a Bear There

Many myths ago
And still today,
Somewhere about the house,
Existed in my daily company
A stout creature of fluff and kindness
Whose presence was not ever missed
Not even to the light of the moon
Bare of reason,
The epitome of obsolecent logic
An acquaintance I kept
Even amongst the strawberry patches
Of my adolescence, the childhood.
Yes, the row around coolly shaded dusty row
Of leafless pobble cobble artichokes
Red ones,
Miniature, extra sweet tomatoes
But with the seeds outside in
Spattered yellow on the green fruits
Darker on the riper
Full of sqaublesom flavour
Percolating through the senses across the tongue;
But I swear I didn't eat them,
my face showed in the sqamish squash of tattered berry
Glowing brightly with a fib
And brighter with elation,
Look, look here
Is this not guilt!,
Poor Bear was so ashamed,
(I made his head a cherry)
His eyes were buttons
But you could see them water
If his tongue weren't felt
Or rather not there at all
My fate would have been disaster;
The bucket toted at my side
Lay in the large languish hands,
My mothers look was beaming,
My bucket, empty.
The sun so high still rosy
And under the rowing jungles equally
A day with more hours than years
To the toppling turviness of a toddler
Me
But we were leaving;
Somewhere he be so warm and gentle
Under the roof with other requiems
Other places,
The day I became born (or decanted)
Beside my side from then
Until always
When toted in the heart you reside
Mimicking continuance at my side;
Casually knowing you're always there
Listening carefully and always with care.

Written By R.L. Bassett, Jr..
1997.07.17

 

Valentine

By looks of these new trends
I am not sure of where I am
Or if I wish to be at all
Th greatest adventurer or alive any more.
Cotton swabs clean pores
But poorly wipe away tears
The softest blanket can be nightmare
Eveloped in its warmth, suffocating
If limbs can't grow trapped
Can imaginations
Can lives.
But who has me
Web-like and drowning
I dash forward to escape my own entrapment
And enlighten nothing
Ne'er the way of fools
Will me on another way
But I am.
Give it time, loan it ears
Send Gypsies from your eyes
And wander little man
You are I.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1998.02.14

 

Counter Pubes

Counter pubes
Kitchen pubes
Pubes on my counter
Very black
A deepened night
But right beside the butter
And curly
Like evening moss
Ones pants not nightly peddles
Closed to the coming in
Or effluence
Of their wavy mongrels
Sure by day the pollen spreads
But not upon my counter
Pubes
Like ants get every where
But no-one is their owner
Not one person claims their ranks
Confesses to their planting
Maybe they do come to life
When nobody is looking.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1997.09.16

 

Cosmicality of Dreaming

Dreams flow like liquid midnight
Embrace a child of starlight
And quote the sight of quasars.
To dream
From consciousness and sky embrace
Relax the faster notion
Of astronauts
And oceaniers
To wash like fluid awareness
Where midnight air
Electricity
And malleable spirit intertwine
Is more an exasperating continuum
Than any explanation of qauzistellar objects
Who defy perception
Who are dreams and tornadoes.
To dream,
To be real
Reality would say
And quietly
Dreams flow like liquid midnight
Embrace yourself
Child of starlight.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1997.12.01

 

Release

Slipping through pages for inspiration
Listing too many codes
Abbreviations to which even this
Brain
Lays back and plays dead to
Many days alone
In a sense of empty rain barrels
Leaking, sinking deep into lust
For the once life they had
When children swam their lakes
And rode their oceans
But left alone
Now
To drain and gather rain again
But never water a leaf to life
The same
Or in any way once recalled as normal
While slipping through pages
Of cascading memories
Brought of kisses upon supple lips
Remorseless and passionate at their
Chance
Instant twist of desire to passion
And
Release.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1999.09.17

 

When With You

When with you
Time seems to dissipate
Like shock waves across a quiet pond
My pond
Full of my sounds, my insects
My creatures
When with anyone
These pleasures still entrance me
And yet with you
These treasures flow more enchanting
And though you were never there, ever
I felt your touches nearer
Each sprinkle of hazy daylight
That dripped soundlessly through the catacombs
Brought the voices back to life
The focus of time stood still
And the water grew back before me
your arms around my waist
his hands held out toward me
While our eyes share eachother
And our rhythms beat together
My thoughtwards yesterdays romanticize
Like cliff top mountain scapes
All that is sorrow degenerates.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1998.07.09

 

My Love

I'm so in love with you
But I don't know who you are
I've seen you so often
But I can never see you
Past your fleeting memory in my mind.

Reaching out into the night
Amidst a memory of love in light
My world grew dark
She flashed and drew close and far
The moon shone across my head
My love was gone.

I smiled in the bed where I wept
In the place where we slept
The sheets of silk that wrapped us close
I can feel you here
Your hair, your touch, your love
But it is you I long to breast to breast
Clutch hard together you and my longing heart.

I am in love with you
I wish, somehow, I could tell
If you were here, in my arms
I would tell
You'll always be real to me
Even if have to die to hold you.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1996.09.15

Crossed With Knives and Stones

Tired of making his judgements
Crossed with knives and stones
He slapped his face with chains
  that bore his name
And the grass beneath his empty shell
Sprouted up,
But never grew again.
Jaded by his own opinions
Crossed with thorns and thicket
They slapped his face with shames
  that wore his name
And the grass beneath his empty shell
Sprouted up,
But never grew again.
Weary of changing tomorrows
Crossed with sands and bones
He tied his neck with reins
  that bore his name
And the grass beneath his empty shell
Sprouted up,
But never grew again.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1996.09.25

 

Clouds Around the Pond

The scraggling soft islands,
Travelling their uplifted, free highway,
Who craggle vaviperously shell-fished
Like the wooden porous moon
May, even though they're not cyclonic,
Return and stutter by again
Perhaps that is their nature,
Clouds who fade away
Perhaps it's their exeunt
When evening quarrels with day,
But none the less they're waving
As they gas towards the sky
And reminisce of generation,
A view that's not alive
While mingling with the tree tops
Peering toward the Earth with care
They scrabble by merrily,
Wishing we were there.

Written By; R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1997.07.10

 

Happy is a Creature

Love me like a rainbow
the setting sun
Behind me is a window
Must have lept through one
Can't say my wow the feeling
Of which wont drift away
A bliss once more an evening -
And snicker jealous ways
And blisters never healing
As some forever say
In their wicked, whirly ways
Just earn me more relieving
From this dream I wont awake
But sleep again beside her
Too lovely to relate.
I wish her well a rainbow
To our setting sun
Toward me is tomorrow
And together we will run.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1998.08.02

 

Running Down

Be concentric with hope
Eccentric with thought
And never lose the moment of death.

Between every number
One onto two through one onto zero
Lay a universe the scope of space
Beyond range of imagination.

An infinite amount of numerals
Strung between each counting unit.

Mathematical,
An asymptotic line may approach zero
Coming infinitely close
Thus being very late,
As it never quite arrives.

Consider life a count down
A full three, two, one, zero
When seconds are moments and numbers the same.

The instant of death mow becomes obscured
Moment of life - moment of death
In some reference, is infinite in time.

Never we born
And never we die.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
1997.10.07

 

When Building

Little worm
I'm so sorry I didn't see you
Now you twitch here convulsing
Roasting the day away
On the rusted hook of our ultra sun's
Shine
Young worm
Stand not in the way of progress
But progress in the way of standing
Little worm
I'm sorry I've stomped you out.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.07.27

 

Reflecting

Life is a void.

Lie the great and majestic willow
my arms droop
and my eyes weep,
a lake in a moment
of pure crystal water
that out shines every star
even our divine blue orb,
past which no star exists
the universe perceived by my eye
as my heart runs diligently from pain.

My legs useless,
not a trunk of such power
to sustain a canopy so dreary,
and down with a heavy snowfall my pillar buckled
a thunder of deafening proportions cracked the night awake.

I went on weeping
my sagging limbs sopping the soul's fluid,
like a sponge to water
while pure emptiness rang out
in the gentle estuary of affections
trembling my entire universe
leaving me cold and unsure.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
96.03.19

 

Down Under Neurological Clutter

Black Caps,
Inverted cones with ribbons and stripes
Lofty and swimming with the wind
Pointed toward the sky,
Just pointed, nothing more.
'Ists of femme and religion
Extreme and defeat;
Daft non-sensical;
One whom favours the ideal
Those who delve into the real
Of creed, shade, or preference;
Oppression;
The different and the retro-real
All turning a tive,
Turning something anyway.
You're an ist!
Piss off!
Punk (type guy)! Loser!
Never am or an
Anything
I just am!
Yeah...So!
Denounce your throne
O' mighty power
And remove your hat,
Pyramids are but funels up side down
Besides,
You look ridiculous.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.08.02

 

Untitled

The night comes with silver beasts
Parasights,
A ripping tortuous entity that all but sooths the soul
Inside me.
Must we love our fearless friendships
Inside our worlds of havoc and chaos
Must we leave ourselves standing behind
While our desires fade with memories
Far into the days of yesteryear
And well past what our consciousness wants to dream
Actuality.
Before I grow old and grow fungus from my
Everything
I would like to put it to use
One time in gaiety
For a cause I deem worthy and ritious of itself,
Have pride in my servitude
And pride in my health.
When light strikes in the same hour as the warmest moon
And nothing is left to be
The scattering of nothing but a wish
A most humble reality
And why do the chimes of sadness
Sing so prophetically, to my ear
When most of this sphere is more lost
Than I'll ever be.
But then and now, in those moments past
We'll touch the hearts upon the latch
A hatch to the other world
Where all could be
And endless matches, with fire
And possibility.
So in a hazy moment, with dispair
A paternostal dinner is to serve,
With kindness and such servitude,
The lanking mire of coldest truth
And shimmer away into the hot moon light
All a dream could have been
Holding away the truest nature of man,
As that's the way it's supposed to have been.

Written: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.06.22

 

High Bluff Island

Maggot sized, barnacle white medallions
Rasp softly against the distant air
And by the true fierceness of their nature
They mock the numbers of the stones
Who themselves rock patiently in their homes
With each wave that comes to visit me.

A slinky pillar with mass attachments
Sits still and malevolent to the taunting nuisance
Of its close encounters with the touch of sadness
Hoping that the sun and the waves beneath him
Aren't the ones who love him.

With exception to the island
And its mariner companions,
With exception to the leaves,
The vast distance the eye can see
Is pitterpattered and widely scattered
With ninety eight percent of me.

At a glance, this ringtailed line
Sprawling along the vicinity
May not seem like much to you
But it is the heart of me.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.05.18

 

To Where Does This Light Shine?

I'm bitter, tired, distrot
Flustered
All intentions motivated
In their blustering, flippent ways
Undoubtedly gone
Left, fly
Good bye.
Where is that window
Dirty, saucy
Always talking back
That filthy fucking pain
The two way sliver,
Of which I'm stuck between,
Tilt me, tip me, toss me
Break me!
I dare thee.
Damn me for wanting
Doing,
That trifle some familiar consciousness,
Seems to leave behind
And all this time
Damn me for wanting
The wicked ways of the wind
Go on and try
Break me!
Out, out
From here I fly.
In Whodenian style
Chains crumble to the eye
In my face
In my mind
A steam of tempered steal
Cuts the heart
The super force of time that binds
And I am bitter
And I am tired
But this insipid temptation
Is but what will not leave my life behind!
And I from here with one good bye:
Peaceful riddance,
And on toward more intrepid times.

Written By R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.04.13

 

The Ubiquity of Comfort

Clusters of roses
The buds of her lashes
And the silhouette of here spheres
Lay turquoise in the background
Cautious to call them less
Then that of the goddess
Who harbours them tightly
Channelling herself in streams of sweetness
Focussing this beauty through eyes
Exceeding explanation in words
More closely a feeling
With beautiful eyes
So lovely is this ether
In which I reside
A ubiquitous moon
Of whom is so lovely
And precised with
A name.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.09.04

 

Liquid Human

A throbbing antisombre of light fighting
Seeing the darkness
And the lighter side.
Surfing the undulating entity of stench
And thousands unblind
Near sighted and trying
With a bus cable to the sky
Three miles wide
One persona of countless person
Of a thousand people
As one unit.
Newton never denied as worlds fall
As continents collide
A smear a gape of awakes to alert
Dance entranced bussed electronic
To bass
Debasement the foundation of a structure
Incomplete without beginning
The anti-somber is energy
And incomplete without surfing
The innocent in diversion.

Written By: Rob Basssett
98.06.30

 

Morning Lately

As far as mornings go,
I can not say that I have had one,
Lately.

What is it that brings the day
Pouring its light upon my bed
And leaves me lying there
Blind to its beginning;
Leaves me shyly there
Away from daily doings.

I imagine people are interesting
Sipping away the morning
Likely interesting,
Working into the evening.

And yet it wastes away
As I restlessly lay dreaming
Begin to wonder more
To others what days are bringing.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.07.09

 

My Anxiety

Maybe I try just a little too hard to please you
I'll pull you closer by a shirt sleeve
But wont let you fall into me.

Are you drifting away
Away from what we see,
It's not what I want
Not at all, but seems to be.

With you I never know
Wearing marijuana coat tails
Such gifts I've never worn
But have been stoned.

You're where it's at
And it brings me closer
To the god I've never known
To the next life of being stoned
With candles that burn in light of euphoria
And mask my love for you.

If I be who I am
Will you fall in love too?

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.12.24

 

My Disappointment

I kind of want to die
What then will be tomorrows world
And never need an end to sleep
Or a start of a new day
Another curiosity
If I were not alive
I'd need not worry
No cares, no cries
No shameful moments
Or best off, no lies
I suppose no hope
No joy, in death
Yet, I kind of wish I were dead
Then I'd expect nothing
and have no remorse
I'd be numb all the time
And I think that'd be fine
Because life is so crazy
I kind of want to die.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.12.24

 

My Affinity

My addiction fades with whispering softness
Through the grey of winter skies
As a match of fluent energy wishes me free.

Shifting from a need to love
I no longer need your love
I'll never fight you for it again
I'm letting go
I'm letting us grow.

Everything with length has a balancing point
Including our lives
And now my desires for you proclaim true equanimity
So wholly conjunctive with equilibrium.

If my awareness is maintained -
As if I were consciously dreaming
And you are a dream
Though I could never sleep to find you
You do visit me
But you're meant for my arm
Not my sleeping mind -
I will never lose you
Nor fall to any perversion.

Alleviated from my addiction
I will always love you.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.12.27

 

One Red Trillium

One red trillium
Bold and honest its peddles arc
Quietly toward the crossing spheres
Splashing out its conic frame
Peacefully expressingthe innocence
Of here iridescent tentacles.
Fragile to the observer
Yet storming with tensile might
And reminiscent of inner peace,
With skies of ancient beasts
Flying like pterodactyls;
A dew drop gone solid
Flaking lightly to the Earth
Only to become water;
But with a twinkle and a whisper
Off she ran away
To go back home her elusive journey
To not be seen again.
Though on a trek trough the yard
Her presence has rekindled
Never before were we met
And now our hearts do mingle.
I know it may seem silly but,
I'll take this omen non-to-light
As I saw her before the white
My first red trillium,
I saw a night.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.05.20

 

The Place I've Gone

As I have explained,
Love is life and life is love.
This is no joke
It all is true;
When love is gone, unspoken, whatever
Life invariably tags along.

So now you have a shell.
This shell lurches about
Scaring off what comes
and what goes the way of it.

Can you see of what I tell?
I'll explain no other hell,
a place with one less sense-
The sense of smell,
Where mold grows in small bottles
And love is now confusion;
A place where things seem right
Are wrong-
If I believe it is right it is...
Oh, it is terrible, the place I've gone.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
94.07.08 - Revised, 97.07.20

 

Too Much Rain, Too Much Pain, I've Gone Slouching Here Again

My body aches
My heart it breaks
And my motions take more time than normal
The lovely quakes
Of my stomach shakes
Builds a nausea that is horrible
Some sneeze fakes
Hurt glands they make
Must my weariness be so formal?
But alas
This time will pass
And with my tea I'll slurp my sorrow.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
96.09.24

 

Say You This, The Sky

Hello dear sky
Do you speak to me?
Your clouds do more
Than speak for thee
And in more ways
They do retrieve
More sultry sense
Than thought they hide.
I see you stare
And share your smile
To think turning words
Would make life worth while
And forming love
From fountains bleed
Finding love nearer
To other seas
Amidst other mountains
Amongst other men.
You see what we thwarted
And speak destiny,
But say you this
My fiend the sky
Would have, could have
Met we no other time
Before distance did
Beseach human day
Would have my love
Gone other ways?

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.08.06

 

Bridges and Water

When a piano tingles sweet rhythm
Soft my heart melts away
A loving world talks to me
Strange bridges with small streams
Whisper I am alone, I am not free
I would run again to sway
In furry a heart rages for me
I know, I feel her
The million lizards about are not company
Dirt paths that must have come from
Somewhere
I know a heart longs for me
I know
If I sit in this water below will she weep
Are these her tears
Or are they mine
Water rushes about in screens from above
Light is a cousin to moons in a stray sky
I can not see
Caught in night with no refuge
I am hurt
These steps and paths lead here
Hundreds of hounds are no company for a man
In love
I dare, I dream, I am one
With her
We are one and dream the same
Nothing so sensual to light than understanding
No caress meets hers I feel within
When we unite, these rivers will dry
No one need cry for loss
For an emptiness rebounds fervour within
In slender she sees me, here
In our land of hounds and man
I know
Little in the rain, in sway
And I would run again, my heart lives on
This little bridge, I'll remain
Perhaps she'll find me here
Ohh god, let the sun not rise alone.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
00.04.30

 

Body In The Air

Break with dawn and crystal moon shone
Airing loftily above the clouds
Several, many times in the past
This sensation felt before
Yet never, not once even ever
Did it break me down before
In tears profuse as ultimate joy
As I strode from isle to room
And back to seat again
Body in the air, mind about heaven.

Over lands without division
And diversion of neutral sense
Where ne'er there may be
Any sense
Of where one may really be
When feet desertion underground
Rooted, unrouted and yet no more
Than words and titles of all diplore!
But keep me not from upon your door.

Shoot me over a time
Some time
And I'll make your dreams come true
But just between we dear folk
I am sure that any time will do,
Every day is life spent loving you.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.08.12

 

One More Fabled Tale

Seven days before tomorrow
Came a bent mirrange of mind
Twisted in the castle tower
The steps that travel up the spine
And rest upon the early glen
With no motion, stitch to mend
And come across the tower floor
Coming through the tower's door.
And seven days the Earth can bend
Lightning, rain, and water shed
While none the thought of where it went
Harder is this ocean sent
But no will have the answer when
To the tower evermore
When water sweeps across the floor
Flooding through the tower's door.
And seven days without a sent
Seven days before tomorrow
Seven ways this child's relent
Knocking on the tower's door
Weeping with the tower's floor,
Rats amongst the skull in mind
Never wanting losing time
And crying out forever more
Whilst none can here this fabled roar.
So, listen for this folk of lore
In the tower evermore
As none can reach the cellar's door
And none have been since eight before.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.06.29

 

Oasis in Blue

Barnacle blue
And haze and distance
Under Sol grew sharp and missing
Beneath our keeper, trolls strobe flashes
The end, a shadowless line
The deepening end, a shadowless line
It sprays out lucently
And furrows in furry
To deeper creatures
At greater depth, in simplicity
Blue likeness forever
Indefinite horizon
And there, brown line
Brown thicket, dark tree
And green
No sticks, not aqua
An island.
Laying beneath blue space unrippled
On blue space betangled
Nesting as the theatre between two worlds
Resting as we met her
Serenity to ancient fools;
Adrift: A trolls haven; A lung -
It exhaled life to islands
And from this we were born -
And now forever we'll get there
But never find home
An oasis on blue,
But in blue is home.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
98.05.17

 

Smokey's Vacation

Riding a dream deep into tomorrow
The beds lay unworn and cold
And memories wash by with the cool winds of autumn
And the soil is rich and black with life
To sprout roots and grow more years
Where the shadows of sadness out mass the sun
And I'm left to wonder where you've gone.

I see you very night
In the dreams that make the hazy cloud
Turn grey and wisp away
I still don't think you're gone
You whisper now and then
And I hope to see you again some day.

Placid curtain on the windos of yesterday
Black paths of memory
And when the cattle cry to the moon
And the trees moan with southern wind
To the tune of your lost return
And sit on shelves of the pains behind glass
I watch the tree sway in the wind
While the brush of your soul I feel
And hope to see you again.

Written By R.L. Bassett, Jr.
96.11.01

 

Howard, The Herald of Sleep

Awkward backward
This word, that word
No excuse at all
Inward outward
That word don't work
Never leave alone
Howard coward
This word, that word
Awkward backward
Never leave alone
Backward coward
No excuse at all
Never leave alone
Backward awkward
Awkward backward
This word, that word
No excuse at all
Leave excuse alone.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.07.17

 

Bailey Dr.

Bipolar, by the way
I turn home each evening
But crumble at day
It seems I', out of phase.

There are dogs in open spaces
And blanketed depths of waters
Only I know,
Grand trees lining,
But dying,
Views from memories windows.
I lack fervour
Cautious thoughts burn gently in mercantile
Willow-withering melancholy over rides
And I,
I just remember it all so well.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
99.01.15

 

Clover Leaves

Like an outwash of river sand
Her teachings part the china fan
Uplifting and diversly spread
To calmly hold fluidic sense.

When too deep with rivers raging
Her soothings mend the china fan
With clarity most understood
Clearing will to circumvent.

In the valley of calm meander
Her early learnings paint the fan
Pastels and oils and no black lines
Enchantments thusly ever-read.

When rivers thrust to empty space
His feelings guide the sapling fan
By simply turning chalk to glass
Unfurling shadows with self embrace.

And these four peddles do clearly build
One green clover whose dream's fulfilled.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
02.07.28

 

Finding Cassandra

Finding Cassandra
Lost on a beach
Caught in world
Of lucid dreams
Will she come home
To her friends and family
Reach out Cassandra
We'll take you away.

Where went Cassandra
When she was free
Princes and puppets
But she was queen
Did she negate
All that was reality
I love you Cassandra
We'll take you away.

Cassandra is a woman now
She wants to let her hair down
And watch all the men flock to her feet
So she can walk away from them.

Reach out Cassandra
I'm hear for you
Touch the hand we've handed you
We'll take you away.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
98.06.20

 

When Ever You're Near

My eyes are the burning torches of desire
The undulating thunder of the last heard of elephants
Is but a whisper to my heart
And I long to sleep in a bed of your caress.

My lips are the budding rose of passion
The quivering hush of a heavy tropical storm
Is but a sweet nothing to ear of my breath
And I wish to dance in a mosaic of us.

My soul is the glow of the midnight sun
When ever you're near
While the myriad of flashes of blue-purple lighting
Are but a chill to my body
And I long to swim laps in your pool of love
When ever it is that you are near
And I wish my heart's whisper was a sound you could hear.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
96.09.18

 

Joy Dependence

To borrow or lend
And live in a fallow
Of forever needing something
From here or there
And him and her.
Hither, thither
Back and forth
Where the only items who move are needs
And they sway to and fro.
Every drop that rains replenished,
Hydration of a brain that shrivels
Only when salted with little time to think,
Every ounce of sleep,
That arrows its daggers behind the eyes
To comfort and dreams of bliss -
Until twisted to dreams of terror or torment -
Or even the solid soft matters
Passed by and crushed with the teeth,
Rely on two spindles
One dowel straight, twisted over -
Like morning glory -
By the other;
Not parents and not friends.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.08.13

 

To Sit Beside a Lady

To sit beside a lady
And listen to her breath
To read a book
The two of you
And never wish to leave.

To sit beside a lady
And feel our hearts retrieve
The boundingness
Of joyful bliss
And never wish to leave.

To sit beside a lady
And her presence does relieve
While humbleness
Is beautiful
And never wish to leave.

To sit beside a lady
Is what feathers down to me
From the tree of happiness
Her caring company
In the shade of all of this
And never wish to leave.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.05.28

 

At The Waterfront

The candle's on the moon
And it's burning
High within the atrium,
The heaveans and dreaming
A tiny flame flickers
Its tip just touching the lobe
Tickling and twinkling
As a rose would to the senses
The flame forebounds and flutters
And boils up the heart for tea
To life again the sensation
Learning curious company
Turning the dark side into brightness
Luminescent from us and free
Exploring spending nothing
And wholly without TV
And the spark of life that started
Ravages the lives between
Creating a ball of fire
Seen clearly to be the moon
Hanging lowly in the evening
Crosshatched with misty strings
And four of the brightest stars,
What bought the moon together,
See the smiles that lay below them
As they stare, quite close and calmly,
Breathing deep within eachother.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.07.13

 

Ventilation

Coldness hearts
Through open windows jump
Holding back a cry
Scream
With death and die
Ventilation.

Curious to me
The heart, the seed, the feeling
The focal lens of no true shape
Who keeps the fever burning
Furious
The tention tormenting feeling
That writhes in side of me
Who keeps the quiet evening
The distance killing me
Who keeps the quiet feeling
The distance killing me.

Curious to me
The lies, the truth, believing
The weight atop th glacier
Who keeps the hatered moving
Furious
The lusting frustration man
That writhes inside of me
He keeps the quiet evening
The distance killing me
He keeps the quiet feeling
The distance killing me
Ventilating here
The sound of someone screaming.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
96.12.10

 

On The Brink

On the brink of indecision
In the nick of time
Past the point of no return
Where am I?

Out there somewhere
Is the reason why
But past the brink of no return
I'll stare and cry
And wonder, Where am I?

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
96.12.30

 

Where I've Asked To Go

In, to the shiny room
Immaculate,
But smelling of a table top
Desk top
While one's nose is pushed aside
In the sleeping sensations
Of a schooling atmosphere;
Wrenching the way across the brown squared ice
Past the box of hot breath and wind
Betwixt that cavernous bandaid
And it's circular shower within,
I rose to the occasion
And pattered across the floor
With haste,
Leaving nothing in my tracks but a jet stream
As I was lucky in this case;
And made it to the porcelain rectangle,
Gleaming with its hubris stare;
I'm sure it scoffs its friends in private,
When only three are there;
Waiting for the pressures end
With sickly send of we in air
And all but I am standing there
As one was over just by one
Stilting toward the other way
While two is smiling in a cleaner manner
And I am fashioned to multiply
One once said the two connected
Somewhere up in the mind;
Spitter, sputter the corner sings,
If those weren't discusting things
Hovering in their lovers illusions
Glues, cemented right to there
Standing below my inward stare;
As none would look around the room
If not left room to roam
In the company of only the room about;
Would be this a worser state
And lack luster smiles
And evening grates
Or drains along the watershed
And float across the squalid yard,
Within the cavern
That does not breath
And no one smell could ever leave;
So zipping up the ceiling round
And squashing along Merrily toward the door
A man, whose hands
Squashed caterpillars before
Destined for such diplore
Rose my brow to touch the door:
My clean hands
Will have dirt once more;
So then I lean from right to left
And sneak away from this clean friend,
Smiling with my visits end
Wishing I could see so clear
His peacock walk
When none is near;
On my stroll towards the rain
To only the force of my regain
Else dry my fretless extentions stay,
A clash need not explained;
Tatter tap
Another slap
Ahh, the box bluffs ever free
And with journeys end so close to eye
I look deep into the convex tube
And try to see me deep inside,
As I can't make out
What's outside;
And off I strode towards the door
Across the squares, so brown and nice
And reaching for the handle now
I recall King Solomen does not live here
And kick the door instead;
But it turns in upon itself
So I pull in disgust
And wipe my five along my leg;
I know if were to turn
Quickly re-enter in that room
I'd seem them laughing and joking there
Latched to there resting place
The wall where they catch what falls
And spend there whole lives living there,
Gleeming the day away
Inanimate when one enters again;
And when I return to that fair cave
I'll slow and enhance his gloat
And visit my white friend again;
In short times will this time arrive
As it's part of being live;
To watch this wonton hubrisness
While I believe all of this,
And see it as truth 'til now
And wish and wonder with eyes of wow.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.07.09

 

Cutie-head...

Love is no solace in empty space
Reaching out for light and day
Through fear and eyes that fade
With time as life drifts away
But love has no place as compaired to truth
Some connections bound like quantum states
It takes more than thought to relate
That the words,
I love you
Are what I want to say
There are lessons in every day
And shadows of moments of clarity
Of which I care to embrace
When to speak and when to look away
When to admit I miss you
When it's for reasons I likely shouldn't say
The last person I'd wish to change
No solace is there in empty space
One friendship truly worth its bond
Through my eyes that fade in time
When I rest my head down last
It is your hand I wish in mine
Because life's so short to not let you know
I'd give up my right arm to never let you go.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
01.09.10

 

Home

So sickly sad I am human
Not knowing what I have
Until it's gone
Always wonder if this that is one
Of just many things
Or people places
I miss
When I have left
Or rightly so, bin' left by them
These items I have forgotten so
And feelings behind doors I didn't close.
So can I say that I miss home
The house the hound the yard alone
And comment on my emptiness
Justly so?
No.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
97.09.24

 

Letter Notes

Common open places shine bright places
Unrestricted winds traverse no barriers
Behind halls and doorways history-today
Where emotion is heightened
Where that one place acts or is
A catalyst to the clairvoyance between one's self
On Earth and one's
Greater self
Elsewhere
And no-one's there to tell me it's impossible
Hopeless and misguided
Earth, in all practicality, is the human universe
Yet here I know I am beyond...
Places where the sky speaks you wisdom
And doors fold three space four
Times I've alluded before
Area less era we'll be a'more.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
98.06.14

 

A Marker of Breath

Air the same everywhere
And we ere in similar ways.
Build and delve and let live
All unto unsimilar fashions
But the same in some ways;
And yet I am amazed we get anything done,
Yet what of this is wrong?

As leaves grow a new
Another calm season passes free
Open to the wilderness
A park or even tree
Sees so much of what we do
But will not let us change.
We are natures beings
Evil, odd and lovely the same
Fervently we try to remain concrete
Ghastly our world is caught in change
Yet human beings remain the same,
As a matter of self preservation?

Air is air and is required
Some will long live silently retired
The rest of us,
We'll die in cities
And never know why life's worth while.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
Spring 99, On a Nelson St. Balcony

 

Depricions

When does one decide to make decisions like darkness
With influences not outside the wash of a street light
And consequences to be found in time?
Empty does not have to mean uncertainty
It can be freedom enough to make whole,
A picture incomplete
Or simply be the peace we need,
To lay us down to sleep.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
2003.08.03

 

Untitled

With lips that drip sweet warming bliss
Like summer rain come early May
With wit so crisp as a winters skate
You are who I would travel for
From western sea to Ontario shores.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
2004.01.31

 

Some Salem Mornings

As would a squirl forage in our feeder
Whos hunger matters little
To his future winter meals
Opportunity calls for gluttany
I see no harm in that
And where nature does not moderate
Smooth poles and gravity opperate
To keep our feed for the birds
The ground a free for all
For our eyes and pleasured minds to eat with cereal.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
2005.02.11

 

Princess Winter Sunshine

Little Princess Winter Sushine
Bring your daughter, play
Bring feathers, bring snow
With clouds of softened rain
Together enjoy the day
Forever rainbow crystals,
With clever thoughful whistles
Little memories made.

Written By: R.L. Bassett, Jr.
2006.05.19

A long time ago, on a hard drive that crashed far, far away, I and my sister’s 486 DX4 100MHz computer made music together. Sweet, lovable “electronica” created with a variety of programs. Eventually, I did end up getting a computer of my own which was a Pentium 233MMX based system, which I upgraded to the Celeron 300a system that I had over-clocked to 450MHz for a good three years I believe. Anyhow, on this modest hardware I some pretty neat things, back in the 1990s and early 2000s when I still had some creativity left in me.

The primary program that I used was a DOS based “tracker” called Impulse Tracker. It was a created by a nice guy named Jeffery Lim, who sadly was pushed away from updating IT by the advancing of time and by the pressure of writing code for his ever increasing (and demanding) fan base. I also had access to Sound Forge, Rebirth, and Reason for a time and they allowed me to make some really great samples and loops to use later on in IT. Absolutely of note is a little program that played the and output the IT files (.mod) called XMPlay. XMPlay ran in Windows 98 and allowed me to do something pretty amazing – when I made a song in Impulse Tracker, I saved multiple versions with only a single “instrument” playing as wave files using XMPlay, which then allowed me to later use Sound Forge to clean up or modify each “track”. After I had each “track” wave file just the way I wanted them I mixed them all together to make a completed song. As effect as this method was, I only ever did it a handful of times, with Cascade being the best example of the technique.

Back in high school I was known as “The Sound Guy” for grades 11, 12, and OAC, a moniker I earned for my work transporting, setting up, tearing down, and designing sound systems for the school board and some community productions. I even laid some duct tape at the Cardinal Carter School for Performing Arts in Toronto, before performing in a community production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Anyhow, none of this translated in me gaining any kind of understanding of music (including how to read and play it at the same time) beyond the sage advice of a friend, “it’s all just theme and variation”. I played the guitar and tooted a harmonica, but in the end I just didn’t have the discipline or the “scene” to really move forward and accomplish anything when it came to music. In fact, what is most clear to me now is that what I enjoyed was the community and the challenge of building and tweaking the systems; Actually making music was just proof that, yeah, the system works! Before my father passed away and life fell apart, I helped some friends record some of their own music and even though the fidelity of the recordings were in some cases God awful, there was some quality music to be had.

It’s been almost ten years since I sat down to make poetry with sound. Things have changed a lot in my life and of course, computer hardware and software has moved on. Not being one who bought into the Macintosh line of computers, I can’t say what they have to offer. However, if I were to make some more music these days I’d take the time to learn MadTracker 2 and the wave/mp3 editor called Audacity. Both are free programs that are essentially modern versions of the software I was using way back when. They also work great in Windows 7 Home Premium. Being an adult now, I’d likely also take a trip up to Toronto to visit my sister and come home with a modest Rolland or Yamaha midi keyboard – something I always wished I had. In any event, I honestly don’t have (and haven’t had for years) the sheer volume of uniterupted hours of quiet and concentration that it takes to make music these days. Maybe, but not likely.

Below you will find links to my favorite of the songs that I have made (mp3 format). Feel free to download and share them. Sadly, I had not one, but two Fujitsu hard drives crash within months of each other and I lost most of the IT and wave files that I used make the mp3s, but I was lucky enough that between my friends and my website at the time, I was able to save at least the final products. Too bad really, because listening to them there are a lot of little things I could have cleared up, such as the distortion in Smiles that was caused by a bad normalization.

Smiles
4.2MB (4:35 min)
Composed:  Sometime in 1999
This is one of my crazy "electronica" songs that is fast paced and happy. I used Rebirth to make some loops for the song, maybe 10 or 15, and then tracked them into a song using Impulse Tracker, along with some other sounds.

Welcome Forgotten
2.4MB (2:38 min)
Composed: November 1999
This is another of my "electronica" tunes, but with a slightly “phatter” sound than Smiles :) My mom said it reminds her of water and Lightverse thought it was just someone else's song, which is a great compliment, really. If you have a thing for the 808 snare like I do, this tune is for you!

My Best Song
5.9MB (6:16 min)
Dec 1999 - I think...
Ahh, "My Best Song". It sure was at the time! Yet another unfortunate casualty of the second Fujitsu hard drive crash of my life time, this song was tracked in Impulse Tracker, but has samples created with Rebirth, Sound Forge, and a wave synth that I have since lost track of. The "glassy" sound was created by your truly from a sine wave; it really shines near the end of the song. None of the music I make ever turns out exactly as I hear it in my head, but this one really hit the fundamentals on the head for me. Oh yeah, the guitar is my first guitar, the Quebec made Lys that I no longer have...

Cascade
2.8MB (2:57 min)
Composed: May 2000
I'm not really sure what to say about this song other than it's different. I think of this song as a thoughtful piece, as its strings bring me to a place in my mind I don't see often. There, in an estuary near the sea, a gentle stream feeds the cascading waves and I lay beneath a tree sipping something cool. The strings in this song were made using an electric guitar and amp I borrowed from Trevor M. in high school. Their names were Bob and Cheri respectively.

The Drifting Unfurl
2.8MB  (3:01 min)
Composed: February 2003
My first real song made using Reason. After years of hearing about the program, it was given to me by a friend on my birthday out of the blue! The basis of this tune is from a song I wrote for Erin R., called Cherish. For many years I have played this melody on my guitar, but the guitar really missed out on the warm, calm happiness that the tune inspired. It's pretty much a lullaby.

Passing Grafton
954KB (1:01 min)
Composed: February 2003
This is the first tune that I slapped together after getting the progam Reason. For some reason, it reminded me of driving to "the shop" with my dad as kid.

Click here to download the rest of songs I have made.

They are exactly the same. Really.

In 2005, Intel was creating the new low power system controller that they required for use with their new low power Atom processor, but despite their ability to redesign the an extremely efficient controller for the RAM, hard drive, USB ports, and what not, they simply weren’t able to come up with an Intel made video adapter in a timely fashion. Given that many OEMs were eager to burst into the now bustling “Netbook” market, Intel couldn’t hold up the launch of the Atom platform to wait for their low power video adapter to be complete. So, Intel did the next best thing: They called up a small, yet industry leading company and licensed  their technology for use in their controller (referred to as a “chipset”).

Inside all of the first generation of Netbook computers, like the Asus EEE and the MSi Wind, is a model SGX535 3D Accelerator created by Imagination Technologies. Intel refers to this as its GMA500 video processor. Now, many people won’t remember I.T., but back in the 1990s they fought tooth and nail with 3Dfx for the 3D accelerator add-in card market, until both ATi and nVidia changed the face of 3D rendering. When all is said and done, earlier and lesser variations of the Imagination Technologies 3D accelerator were used in devices such as the Sega Dreamcast, the Dell Axim, and the original iPhones. It’s capable of playing Quake III Arena at 1024x768 resolution as smoothly as can be. By no means is it a powerhouse, but given it only puts out 120mW during H.264 decoding, I’d say that it’s a very impressive piece of technology.

This same video processor also happens to be in every iPhone 3GS… a device that fits in the palm of your hand that could play some Unreal Tournament or a little Decent: Freespace…

That’s pretty damned amazing, don’t you think?