I Wish to Wear the Sky (another kind of desire poem) 11/15/10
When I finally give into blue,
the thirsty shade makes way
for indigo daydreams,
diffusing diffractions of
a mischievous chicory mosaic.
Above terrestrial parallelograms,
a design, defined inside
the purple prism, inclines
my mind to spin that tone into
a fabricated gown with sequins sewn in sunset stars,
a band of silky lupines looped about the waist,
and an edible baby-blue train bustled up
at the hip like a pompous hibiscus.
This is the pattern of passion--dress of desire--
I long to trim a yard or two of blue straight from
the sky and stitch the fabric, hue by hue, into
the ultimate and unattainable raiment of angels.
Parker, I Will Miss the Music (an object that brings back a loss poem. The format of this poem is important and probably will get messed up in the blog, oh well . . .) 11/15/10
That's the blue Fender guitar-pick Parker
accidentally left. It fell out of his pocket, and I
found it in that couch. If I put it in my wallet I will
think of him each time I buy new strings. He'll never miss
it, 'cause he has so many. Bigger than mine, his dreams were the
kind that always end up in books. The kind that people like to put to music.
The kind that never come true.
Male Pheasant Sighted at Sunrise (in praise poem) 11/18/10
Peeking out at sunrise,
gradually glowing,
green tail feathers slip
through November,
cutting across 13th.
Crisp, clacking claws on
pavement carry him into
the neighbor's corn.
Claiming his kingdom,
announcing his reign,
with a toss of his head
the pheasant consecrates
the morning.
Onions (the zen of housework poem) 11/18/10
Butter melts behind me,
smooth and slimy orb in my left hand,
long, threatening blade in my right,
eyes wide, lips pinched shut,
the first slice splits the onion in two--
butter spits, crackles--turn around,
turn down the heat,
slice, slice, slice, white rings fall
nicely--beautiful circles,
eternal, never-ending; tears tear
through my make-up,
splitting into honesty,
shelling, revealing, corroding
the crystallized covering,
undressing me.
I am crying uncontrollably,
naked,
slicing onions,
in my kitchen.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Poems From Class
Here is a smattering of poetry I have written for my "poetry writing" class. They're in no particular order; I'm just going to randomly slap them up here.
The Boy at the Door -9/8/10 (this was an exercise in writing prose paragraphs)
My eyes watered, my nose ran, and my fingers ached from the raw canyon wind cutting through the breath of morning sunshine. Six steps to the door of the old brick building. I reached out to grab the icy door handle, but before my frozen fingers could get a grip, a hand from behind--brown, strong, and resolute--opened the door. Stepping over the threshold, into the beckoning warmth of the Ray B. West building, I cast a furtive glance over my right shoulder. Around the gold of my hair fallen in my eyes, I snapped a picture of him smiling. His eyes were like deep chocolate; his hair, long and black as frost, was tied back in a primitive pony-tail. The dark forest-green of his coat ignited his skin so it glowed like homemade butter-toffee. To my frozen morning, he was summer. I smiled back, and, without a word, he followed me inside. Then I went my way, and he went his.
Kid with the Croakies -9/8/10 (another expiriment in prose-writing)
A white t-shirt with the insignia of a moose head--Fitch. He types on his lap-top computer, and cocks his head right, then left, then right again. Back and forth, as if each phrase he types is worth deep contemplation. Occasionally, I see himm sit back in his chair and bring his left hand to his mouth. He ponders in this position for a few seconds, the exhales and dives back in. Now he's scratching his chin and adjusting his black-rimmed glasses--he's wearing croakies. Oh! He's packing up and walking away. He probably thinks I'm a creeper.
The Kiki -9/8/10 (more prose)
Light and fragile as gossamer, a web of childhood serenity, it smells of tears and laughter all at once, and its touch calms the stressed-out student and covers the shivering child. The kiki is a hideous mass of pink and flowers, gobs of disintegrated batting, like a cloud, gifted from heaven, struggling to hold itself together. No longer can I wrap it around my shoulders, but I wrap my arms around it, and the wind doesn't seem as cold, the world doesn't seem as cruel, and the mourning of another day gone doesn't seem quite as dark.
Coming out of Surgery--Age 14 -9/2/10 (a memory poem)
slowly waking
a vase of beautiful flowers sits by my bed
lilies and daisies and oh so much green
why am I seeing flowers
remembering
long white sanitized halls
rooms with doors slightly ajar
full of suffering people
some dying
my room was down that hallway
seeing
dark whispering angels in green and white
with needles
monitors and equipment
watching me
waiting for my heart to stop
feeling
rough hospital sheets
i.v. in my right hand
pumping liquid into me
my rebellious spirit fights the drowsiness
smelling
cheap laundry detergent
Lysol and ammonia
that disgustingly orange soap
they made me wash with this morning
before I came
hearing
sterile air squeaking against the walls
footsteps somewhere
the turning page of a book
my heart
beep . . .
beep . . .
says the vigilant monitor
realizing
I'm still alive!
Going out of My Mind -9/27/10 (reanimating dead metaphors poem)
it was tough to escape
squeezing out my ears
I got stuck
once
but after readjusting
schlup!
I slipped right through
and left my mind
behind
September -9/27/10 (my poetic journey--driving south on 12th E. on my way to school in the mornings)
September exists in my hands
like a soundless breathless dawn
brimming bursting overflowing
into a silent valley
light leaking over the edge
of the mumbling mountains
captively cupped
kept
like a handful of sand
slipping through my fingers
Silence is a Bone -10/11/10 (in-class exercise with metaphors)
Break me!
your silence becomes a defiant bone
sweating smooth and breakable
say something
your silence is suffocating me.
Start Pocket Hold Lucky -10/13/10 (play with words)
I started into my lucky pocket
holding the start of luck
with a hold on the start
of a lucky start
in a pocket holding luck
luckily I started holding
in that pocket-hold
a pocketful of lucky starts
starting to hold onto
my pocket pocketing lucky
pockets of luck
my luck
in luck
of luck
by luck
a pocket holding the start
of something lucky
Untitled & Still in the Works . . . -11/8/10 (the beginning guts of a ghazal poem)
purple persistence, I sigh in the dark
inconceivable numbers so high in the dark
of kisses like stars or the hairs on his head
his heart overpowering mine in the dark
those hungering hands parched lips at my neck
devouring desperate time in the dark
the world forgets how to spin for a moment
I whisper my final goodbye in the dark
Germany -10/8/10
I am lost in a noncommittal limbo
of awaiting anguish
waiting for a response, a clue, a smack in the face--
something other than this un-breathable space.
I swim to the surface
of an upside-down sea--bottomless.
I cannot breath,
but I love drowning . . .
maybe, let me be.
Would you be fine without me?
Would your music still fill the emptiness
that used to be me?
Would you find another rose-colored melody to sing?
Will you forget the tune of me,
forget the fingering,
forget the chords,
the chorus, the bridge, the key;
would you forget how to sing completely?
I secretly hate you for being away.
But you aren't willing to think;
you aren't willing to open up an option, a wild unrealistic possibility.
You only say, "Come to Germany,"
but you never tell me why.
Song -10/18/10 (response poem to the poem Song written by someone, I forgot who . . .)
When I am dead, my dearest,
forget me.
Let me snuggle in a flag and ride the current of the sea.
Take down the photograph of me and the painting that I love.
Break the blue guitar, erase my music,
throw away that bottle of my favorite perfume,
take the jewelry, the lacy bra, the nail file, the high-heeled shoes,
and every thread of clothing ever worn by me,
take it all and build a fire.
Do not inhale my smoke or feel my warmth;
only let me simmer slowly.
Do not remember me at all.
Confession of an Ocean -10/25/10 (attempt at writing a sonnet)
Inside of me I hide an awful truth--
a murderer am I. Because of me,
the beauty of a lovely blue-eyed youth,
will wash away and drown. Because of me,
the German prince's heart will never hear
the sound that distance muffles with its blue
and heavy laughter which is mine. His fear
is everything they'll never get to do.
And still I am the killer. I am still
the vastly hidden separation in
the frozen heaping waves that crash to kill
the blue-eyed beauty and the prince--my sin--
I have no sense of sorrow for their pain;
I only feel the cold Atlantic rain.
Untitled -11/1/10 (working with line breaks exercise)
As relaxed as a cookie-cutter on Christmas Eve, and just as pinched
in this perplexing position, like sugar-cookie dough sprawled out on the counter,
stretching thin under Curtis's eyes as they roll over me
again and again, over and over, like a rolling pin,
flattening me, no wrinkles or folds or pockets of air, against the pew and the arm around
me, the arm of the boy I'm pretending to love, like I pretend
to enjoy Vertical Limit, because he is obsessed with climbing, and I
just want to feel someone's arms around me, but in that Thatcher church-house,
Curtis stares--
I can only hope that the sight of me with somebody else
drives him mad.
Trying to Understand Things -11/1/10 (this one has a different format that I won't be able to show in my blog. Just know that it's a lot better in the other alignment)
"Things include a lot of
things,"
he said. Dismal drops of July rain like
brushes on a Zildjian,
chink chink-a chink chink-a
things things things.
Silver strings and callused fingers
sing
the song my heart abandoned, and a
soupy satin tear upon my cheek, an empty
chime,
falls in time, as all the elements of disappointment
culminate that rhyming thing.
A pin-a-ling, a troo-la-loo, a frenzied rhythmic
dunk-a dunk
hollow plunk of stripped piano keys,
a naked symphony of misunderstanding.
"Somehow, I always seem to already know what you are
saying
behind what you actually say." He said.
"And just what is that?"
I ask.
He says, "It's just another one of those things."
That's all I'm going to post for now. There will be more to come! The semester isn't over yet.
The Boy at the Door -9/8/10 (this was an exercise in writing prose paragraphs)
My eyes watered, my nose ran, and my fingers ached from the raw canyon wind cutting through the breath of morning sunshine. Six steps to the door of the old brick building. I reached out to grab the icy door handle, but before my frozen fingers could get a grip, a hand from behind--brown, strong, and resolute--opened the door. Stepping over the threshold, into the beckoning warmth of the Ray B. West building, I cast a furtive glance over my right shoulder. Around the gold of my hair fallen in my eyes, I snapped a picture of him smiling. His eyes were like deep chocolate; his hair, long and black as frost, was tied back in a primitive pony-tail. The dark forest-green of his coat ignited his skin so it glowed like homemade butter-toffee. To my frozen morning, he was summer. I smiled back, and, without a word, he followed me inside. Then I went my way, and he went his.
Kid with the Croakies -9/8/10 (another expiriment in prose-writing)
A white t-shirt with the insignia of a moose head--Fitch. He types on his lap-top computer, and cocks his head right, then left, then right again. Back and forth, as if each phrase he types is worth deep contemplation. Occasionally, I see himm sit back in his chair and bring his left hand to his mouth. He ponders in this position for a few seconds, the exhales and dives back in. Now he's scratching his chin and adjusting his black-rimmed glasses--he's wearing croakies. Oh! He's packing up and walking away. He probably thinks I'm a creeper.
The Kiki -9/8/10 (more prose)
Light and fragile as gossamer, a web of childhood serenity, it smells of tears and laughter all at once, and its touch calms the stressed-out student and covers the shivering child. The kiki is a hideous mass of pink and flowers, gobs of disintegrated batting, like a cloud, gifted from heaven, struggling to hold itself together. No longer can I wrap it around my shoulders, but I wrap my arms around it, and the wind doesn't seem as cold, the world doesn't seem as cruel, and the mourning of another day gone doesn't seem quite as dark.
Coming out of Surgery--Age 14 -9/2/10 (a memory poem)
slowly waking
a vase of beautiful flowers sits by my bed
lilies and daisies and oh so much green
why am I seeing flowers
remembering
long white sanitized halls
rooms with doors slightly ajar
full of suffering people
some dying
my room was down that hallway
seeing
dark whispering angels in green and white
with needles
monitors and equipment
watching me
waiting for my heart to stop
feeling
rough hospital sheets
i.v. in my right hand
pumping liquid into me
my rebellious spirit fights the drowsiness
smelling
cheap laundry detergent
Lysol and ammonia
that disgustingly orange soap
they made me wash with this morning
before I came
hearing
sterile air squeaking against the walls
footsteps somewhere
the turning page of a book
my heart
beep . . .
beep . . .
says the vigilant monitor
realizing
I'm still alive!
Going out of My Mind -9/27/10 (reanimating dead metaphors poem)
it was tough to escape
squeezing out my ears
I got stuck
once
but after readjusting
schlup!
I slipped right through
and left my mind
behind
September -9/27/10 (my poetic journey--driving south on 12th E. on my way to school in the mornings)
September exists in my hands
like a soundless breathless dawn
brimming bursting overflowing
into a silent valley
light leaking over the edge
of the mumbling mountains
captively cupped
kept
like a handful of sand
slipping through my fingers
Silence is a Bone -10/11/10 (in-class exercise with metaphors)
Break me!
your silence becomes a defiant bone
sweating smooth and breakable
say something
your silence is suffocating me.
Start Pocket Hold Lucky -10/13/10 (play with words)
I started into my lucky pocket
holding the start of luck
with a hold on the start
of a lucky start
in a pocket holding luck
luckily I started holding
in that pocket-hold
a pocketful of lucky starts
starting to hold onto
my pocket pocketing lucky
pockets of luck
my luck
in luck
of luck
by luck
a pocket holding the start
of something lucky
Untitled & Still in the Works . . . -11/8/10 (the beginning guts of a ghazal poem)
purple persistence, I sigh in the dark
inconceivable numbers so high in the dark
of kisses like stars or the hairs on his head
his heart overpowering mine in the dark
those hungering hands parched lips at my neck
devouring desperate time in the dark
the world forgets how to spin for a moment
I whisper my final goodbye in the dark
Germany -10/8/10
I am lost in a noncommittal limbo
of awaiting anguish
waiting for a response, a clue, a smack in the face--
something other than this un-breathable space.
I swim to the surface
of an upside-down sea--bottomless.
I cannot breath,
but I love drowning . . .
maybe, let me be.
Would you be fine without me?
Would your music still fill the emptiness
that used to be me?
Would you find another rose-colored melody to sing?
Will you forget the tune of me,
forget the fingering,
forget the chords,
the chorus, the bridge, the key;
would you forget how to sing completely?
I secretly hate you for being away.
But you aren't willing to think;
you aren't willing to open up an option, a wild unrealistic possibility.
You only say, "Come to Germany,"
but you never tell me why.
Song -10/18/10 (response poem to the poem Song written by someone, I forgot who . . .)
When I am dead, my dearest,
forget me.
Let me snuggle in a flag and ride the current of the sea.
Take down the photograph of me and the painting that I love.
Break the blue guitar, erase my music,
throw away that bottle of my favorite perfume,
take the jewelry, the lacy bra, the nail file, the high-heeled shoes,
and every thread of clothing ever worn by me,
take it all and build a fire.
Do not inhale my smoke or feel my warmth;
only let me simmer slowly.
Do not remember me at all.
Confession of an Ocean -10/25/10 (attempt at writing a sonnet)
Inside of me I hide an awful truth--
a murderer am I. Because of me,
the beauty of a lovely blue-eyed youth,
will wash away and drown. Because of me,
the German prince's heart will never hear
the sound that distance muffles with its blue
and heavy laughter which is mine. His fear
is everything they'll never get to do.
And still I am the killer. I am still
the vastly hidden separation in
the frozen heaping waves that crash to kill
the blue-eyed beauty and the prince--my sin--
I have no sense of sorrow for their pain;
I only feel the cold Atlantic rain.
Untitled -11/1/10 (working with line breaks exercise)
As relaxed as a cookie-cutter on Christmas Eve, and just as pinched
in this perplexing position, like sugar-cookie dough sprawled out on the counter,
stretching thin under Curtis's eyes as they roll over me
again and again, over and over, like a rolling pin,
flattening me, no wrinkles or folds or pockets of air, against the pew and the arm around
me, the arm of the boy I'm pretending to love, like I pretend
to enjoy Vertical Limit, because he is obsessed with climbing, and I
just want to feel someone's arms around me, but in that Thatcher church-house,
Curtis stares--
I can only hope that the sight of me with somebody else
drives him mad.
Trying to Understand Things -11/1/10 (this one has a different format that I won't be able to show in my blog. Just know that it's a lot better in the other alignment)
"Things include a lot of
things,"
he said. Dismal drops of July rain like
brushes on a Zildjian,
chink chink-a chink chink-a
things things things.
Silver strings and callused fingers
sing
the song my heart abandoned, and a
soupy satin tear upon my cheek, an empty
chime,
falls in time, as all the elements of disappointment
culminate that rhyming thing.
A pin-a-ling, a troo-la-loo, a frenzied rhythmic
dunk-a dunk
hollow plunk of stripped piano keys,
a naked symphony of misunderstanding.
"Somehow, I always seem to already know what you are
saying
behind what you actually say." He said.
"And just what is that?"
I ask.
He says, "It's just another one of those things."
That's all I'm going to post for now. There will be more to come! The semester isn't over yet.
The Bench Confessions cont.
I guess this is the second part of the bench poetry run. Once the weather got cold enough, I stopped having lunch on my bench, and sadly, I stopped writing "lunch-break" poetry. Don't take these too seriously, please. Remember they're mere rantings and ravings of a bored squiggle.
Young Love's Corpse -9/30/10
There's a coffin under my bed.
That's where I buried you
after you killed me.
A gray shoebox,
covered in dust
like another layer of skin,
tear-streaked fingerprints
seal the lid.
Inside,
an immortal obsession.
A body of paper
and words,
decaying memories,
soul of summer,
rotting,
decomposing,
growing mold
under my bed.
The Sprinkler Guys -9/30/10
the sprinkler guys come
in their little green
kawasaki golf cart
with their flags
and dirty hands
baseball caps
and blue jeans
with green knees
they make the sprinklers
turn on
all around my bench
darn those sprinkler guys
now my shoes are wet
Invisible Girl No More -10/1/10
They do see me!
I'm not just an extension
of the bench.
No cigarette today
for ashtray guy;
instead,
he nods at me
and smiles.
Breadcumbs and peanut butter
in my teeth,
I smile back.
Scarf girl is on time today.
She says hello,
looking right at me through
those square glasses.
A sloshy hi and juicy
bits of gala leap
from my lips.
I hear a hint of
heavy metal
rocking its way down the street.
Yep.
Kid in the car is still
sharing his music
with me.
It's 1:20
and the sprinkler guys are back.
I Am Same -10/1/10
Every day
I wake up at the same time,
eat for breakfast the same thing
I had for dinner
the previous night,
Every morning
I fix my lunch--
peanut butter and jelly sandwich,
smash it,
put it in a bag
with an apple.
I take the same route
to school,
to class,
to lunch,
12:30
every day
I sit on the same side
of the same bench
in the same patch of sun,
and I eat first the apple,
then the sandwich,
picking it off in bite-sized pieces.
Then I reach into the same pocket
to get the same flavor of gum.
I watch the same people
and write in the same notebook,
wearing the same sunglasses
and the same pair of shoes.
My life is so same sometimes.
Same No More -10/4/10
No bench today,
no peanut butter sandwich,
it's zucchini bread inside
for now.
but this couch is nice.
October -10/4/10
September slipped out like a twisted ankle,
tripping me on my way to class.
October came in like a crafty kid,
flinging open the dressing-room curtain,
catching me
completely naked,
and yelled, boo.
Craving Lasagna at Lunch-time -10/4/10
force-feeding myself carrots
ritualistically determined
mechanically automatic
with disciplined conviction
I swear I can smell lasagna somewhere
lasagna leaking cheese
squeezing marinara sauce
it's oozing down the stairs
in rubber olive boots
crunch crunch crunch
and swallow
mm . . . carrots
There you have it. Once October hit, the bench and my precious poetic lunch-breaks turned into girl talk/email hour in the classroom with Stacy, Jess, and Jenny. Thusly, I conclude this season of "Bench Confessions." I hope you've enjoyed the words. Thanks for humoring me.
Young Love's Corpse -9/30/10
There's a coffin under my bed.
That's where I buried you
after you killed me.
A gray shoebox,
covered in dust
like another layer of skin,
tear-streaked fingerprints
seal the lid.
Inside,
an immortal obsession.
A body of paper
and words,
decaying memories,
soul of summer,
rotting,
decomposing,
growing mold
under my bed.
The Sprinkler Guys -9/30/10
the sprinkler guys come
in their little green
kawasaki golf cart
with their flags
and dirty hands
baseball caps
and blue jeans
with green knees
they make the sprinklers
turn on
all around my bench
darn those sprinkler guys
now my shoes are wet
Invisible Girl No More -10/1/10
They do see me!
I'm not just an extension
of the bench.
No cigarette today
for ashtray guy;
instead,
he nods at me
and smiles.
Breadcumbs and peanut butter
in my teeth,
I smile back.
Scarf girl is on time today.
She says hello,
looking right at me through
those square glasses.
A sloshy hi and juicy
bits of gala leap
from my lips.
I hear a hint of
heavy metal
rocking its way down the street.
Yep.
Kid in the car is still
sharing his music
with me.
It's 1:20
and the sprinkler guys are back.
I Am Same -10/1/10
Every day
I wake up at the same time,
eat for breakfast the same thing
I had for dinner
the previous night,
Every morning
I fix my lunch--
peanut butter and jelly sandwich,
smash it,
put it in a bag
with an apple.
I take the same route
to school,
to class,
to lunch,
12:30
every day
I sit on the same side
of the same bench
in the same patch of sun,
and I eat first the apple,
then the sandwich,
picking it off in bite-sized pieces.
Then I reach into the same pocket
to get the same flavor of gum.
I watch the same people
and write in the same notebook,
wearing the same sunglasses
and the same pair of shoes.
My life is so same sometimes.
Same No More -10/4/10
No bench today,
no peanut butter sandwich,
it's zucchini bread inside
for now.
but this couch is nice.
October -10/4/10
September slipped out like a twisted ankle,
tripping me on my way to class.
October came in like a crafty kid,
flinging open the dressing-room curtain,
catching me
completely naked,
and yelled, boo.
Craving Lasagna at Lunch-time -10/4/10
force-feeding myself carrots
ritualistically determined
mechanically automatic
with disciplined conviction
I swear I can smell lasagna somewhere
lasagna leaking cheese
squeezing marinara sauce
it's oozing down the stairs
in rubber olive boots
crunch crunch crunch
and swallow
mm . . . carrots
There you have it. Once October hit, the bench and my precious poetic lunch-breaks turned into girl talk/email hour in the classroom with Stacy, Jess, and Jenny. Thusly, I conclude this season of "Bench Confessions." I hope you've enjoyed the words. Thanks for humoring me.
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