Who Watches the Watchmen?

I just read Watchmen, one of the best books I have read. I'm really a growing fan of graphic novels, and this one is quite astounding. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This book won the Hugo Award for science fiction in 1988, and was noted in Time magazine's list of 100 best novels. The plot layers various have been heroes over the very real cold war, and the future of the world. Quite moving as a piece of fiction, and very poignant as a piece of satire. The characters have extraordinary depth for being part of a 12-part comic series. The characters represent different parts of the human condition, and all together create a dynamic story. There is the all powerful, yet apathetic Dr. Manhattan, a product of nuclear testing; there is Rorschach, the isolated madman, and his counterpart the Comedian, both crazy and fighting for their own agenda in ways equally reckless yet different. The conclusion gives new meaning to the word doubt.

So, what else have I been up to? Aside from working on my on my research project (due in Friday... can't wait to be done with the bloody thing!), I've been developing more ideas for my project. I didn't manage to stretch any canvas today, but I might just paint on board or something. Cheaper.

I'll be working more on writing this week too, in preparation for writing group starting up again on Thursday. I wrote this today. It doesn't have a title yet, and is only a first draft:

I’ve heard of a ghost,
a billowing curtain or a fluttering
bed sheet, whispering across the floor
to grab people’s hearts, stop
the rhythmic fluid-breath, arrested
in a state of explosive apathy; a collapse
into the feathered mattress
the ice-lids closing with a painful crack,
salt resealing the fleshy envelopes into darkness.

Is he a courier, or simply our legend,
a malevolent gas-form, fragmentations of mourning tumbling
into a chasm deeper than the infinitely hungry
black whole, leaving the body to seize, the mind to
scatter and melt into disuse, ceaseless habit
creating a layer of grime embedded into flesh?

A fleece blanket to bring you back to life,
candle light displaced by the polished moon
and then he returns with a secret,
thrusting into your chest to start the warm trickle
of blood into your throat, eyeballs open
again to the dark walls
and the sun making the daily round.