LIMERICK!

[I love limericks. And I decided my haiku was lackluster so I went back to what I know XD]

I once had a dorm in the Yard.
'Twas crowded with tourists, by far.
They just stand in the way
Every damn fucking day,
And then I would drop all my ahh's.

Haiku

[I haven't written here in a long, long time. So I wrote a haiku.]

I should write haiku,
building up a poem like
a falling snowflake.

Growing up

These small revelations come to me gradually--
like water droplets falling on my head.
One lands on
my
nose.

Now

I recognize it
by another name.

It's called growing up.

Rushing out the door

[Yeah. I ran off to dance right after writing this.]

I wonder if
lack of
time negates the meaning of a poem;
if we measured worth
by time we pay for it
this world would be flipped entirely.

Airplanes

[This ALWAYS happens to me: I listen to a song and the music--not the lyrics--expresses itself perfectly.]

I wish I could write music, codify it,
pin it down and bring it to life.
That's what I'm trying to do here,
I suppose--
write words that are more than words,
combine them, pile them,
layer them
and make them float.
Have you ever built an airplane?
Fusing steel until
it's heavy enough to fly.

Some lyrics buzzing in my brain

[This is a found poem. I figured I might as well make something from all the song lyrics circling my head.]

Here in this moment, like the eye of a storm
it all came clear to me--
suddenly, suddenly, I don't feel so insecure anymore.
So am I still waiting?
All the stars in the world couldn't help me
steer my way out of this kiddie pool.
Sisters, I'm not much of a poet, but a criminal.
Believe me, I'm okay. Trust me.
I'm fine.
Don't waste your time on me, you're already--
It kills me not to know this.
Don't hold me up, now.

Four years later

[This is a response to the following piece of crap poem, which I wrote in 8th grade (sorry to subject you to either of these):
A poem, with tattered wings
flying up--a bluebird sings
a buttercup is perched upon
by a spider dark as dawn
I take the knife
and slash the bars of
my paper cage--the silver stars welcome me
Come up, my daughter
to my arms
a spider's thread, the fragile strength
a rose, dead
of any length is
the string of fate, a maiden's heart
so hard with hate.
The unrest of a poet's soul,
insubstantial, undetermined goal ]


That poem, with tattered wings
Never made it through the screen--
Those mothlike words with broken things
and hopeless causes now do lie.
Now four years later I can see
The glory of the poet's truths
and noble deeds abandoned me--
Or did I see them there at all?
Searching for my destined goal
And grasping for the perfect words;
With four years gone not all is told
But still I see more clearly now.
And in the next four I'll come back
And mock my young words yet again.
What of that vision that I lack?
I'm chasing clouds towards better days.

Frustrated

[I'm taking a stab at angry poetry. I never have much luck with it.]

because I am
and I never think
I deserve to be--
but that doesn't change shit.
I could just explode
outwards
and watch everything
fly out
and away
except for that damn wall in front of me.
I wonder who put it there.

Shadows, breath, and twine

[I don't know if I got ANYWHERE near where I wanted to be with this.]

It breathed. No one
knows/knew can find
proof of
what it was. Is. Could be.
Fragments of shadows held together by
fishing twine and heartstrings
hold more concreteness,
and we are left piecing the abstract
into absolute.
But it breathed. And
it came from where
the ideas come from.

Just another dance poem

[I can't say exactly how I feel when I throw myself into ballet, but I guess that's why we have poetry.]

The only way to describe this is love--the knowledge
that this is the happiest I've ever been beats through my blood
in time with the music.

and You've taught me that
comfort does not necessarily bring happiness;
there is a better kind of Comfort you find
through its opposite.

physical pleasure does not bring happiness.
Muscle, bone, sweat, work:
inglorious things meet with what they call
Art, Motion.  Beauty. (life, I think)

Whether or not I capture these
I have captured the love.
(It has captured me.)

Drops

[freewrite! WHOOT.]

It's almost impossible to tell
that the rain outside my walls
isn't the crackling in a campfire--
spitting drops of flame
through creaking logs.

But then a night breeze
pulls itself through my window
smelling like wet. and damp. and lakewater,
wind brushing past the pine trees
like it's conducting a symphony of
water droplets.

Strings

[I don't know what this is. I've realized, though, that I need to practice to find words.]

Write what you see,
write the truth.

I see people pulled by
invisible strings
and tripping over
stones and things
get tangled up, but
just press on--
not sure if they are
right or wrong.

A Little

Driving just a little too fast,
music a little too loud,
the trees blurring by
on a road a little too narrow
and everything is gold
and green, with light
soaking through the windshield
into my eyes, telling myself that
everything I need is
Here. Right here.
I skip to the right song,
and it feels just
a little bit
off, so I turn the volume up.

Half-familiar

I think now
that is is starting to make sense;
coming together--
a little bit. Naturally
it's not that simple.
But to me
it might have been worth a kind of
indirectness. Though
it has yet to get me
where I want to be,
I'm finding someplace else
half-familiar,
a refrain where I know
I've briefly been before.

Window

[It's gorgeous out today.]

I want to tear myself outside sometimes.
I see trees out my window--
green-gold, flashing, rushing--
framed by blocks of wood and silly walls.
One is a better house for the soul.

Life sloshes

[Life at this point has the tendency to keep falling on my head. It's been trying to make up for itself, though.Ergo, here's some bad poetry!]

Life sloshes,
falling out and
jumping over
cracks in what I
know and what I've done.
(which isn't much) and things keep
spillingover into eachother--
compartments sink like ocean liners,
and it's hard sometimes,
when my head starts to go under
but then something comes along
and I can float.

House

[Thigs really do get worse at night.]

My family sat like a stomach ache in the house,
and I sat with it,
ate almost-gone-bad stale yogurt
and flipped through facebook--
bought some music to keep my mind off the dis-ease
and waited for it to come through.
Now the typewriter keys
are pounding out a non-rhythm
making little letters on my eardrums
and the music won't work.
Things slide downhill through the day
and end in a pile at night.
Wh-- are you.

carpe diem coleos

[Seize the day (by the balls).]

Why the hell not
jump into the fray,
throw a punch--
get kicked in the ribs and
walk home satisfied
with a limp and a black eye.
With Mistake and Regret
being the only lanes to choose from,
maybe I'll make a middle way
on the road not taken.
So when I lay me down to sleep
I'll pray the Lord to take me deep.

dischord

I know (I know)
. I don't know--
with
life slammed down on my
head
un/unhappy with
a headache.

"alternatives exclude"

Possibilities fold
inward on themselves;
collapsing accordion-style
into the one flat sheet
that becomes the path we walk--outside--
excluded from the crevasses of possibility
that we now tread over
and pass
with every step.

I think

[Not much to say here.]

I think
this is one of those times when
you don't feel like writing;

because there's nothing to say
that hasn't already been felt
or thought--

the redundancy would make it
something
ridiculous.

And I think this is
one of those times
when I don't feel like writing.

Waves

[Thought/imagery dump for now--I'm exhausted.]

The sun is setting on this
with fingerpainted blood red
streaks fading into ribbons
of gold and blue that somehow
twist themselves together in
to something more than what was
seen here, now, before all the
fury comes to sweep away
the sky leaving the rubble
of a new star fading down
into an unfamiliar ocean.
I think I'll miss the sunset
but I want to see the waves.

Television

[Here's a really random rhyme scheme for you. I kind of like it though. Maybe I'll bring it back someplace else.]

The television's talking out
like chatty neighbors down the street,
busy with their fragile cause of
turning whispers into shouts:
words can kill
like blood can spill.

The stacks in piles miles high
of silly, silly, useless sounds
just slam together empty words--
Society, the critics sigh.
To them, a secret little known:
The lies you see are each your own.

With all the letters painted black
we still don't know what we can trust,
since truth can hide beneath the type
next to the change we can't take back.
So what remains as seconds fly?
Here lies the truth: the truth can lie.

WOAH. A rhyme scheme.

[What follows is mind vomit, but I do like to rhyme once in a while.]

What do you say
to get the time
to sit and type
and sit and rhyme?
The words stare back;
what could you do,
were you to find
the seconds flew?
exhaustion laying
on my mind
like loads of bricks--
the heavy kind.
With too much here
and too much there,
my mind just goes out
anywhere.

New Pointe Shoes

[There is nothing in the world like a new pair of handmade pointe shoes. People always see them as being girly, pretty slippers. All I see is strength.]

Blanched pink satin,
just smooth enough,
covering the canvas and glue and paper
that hold me up.
The canvas keeps me from being grounded--
from being stuck on the earth--
The satin lets me do something about it.
My feet know the motions,
my mind keeps the beat,
and my fingertips hold the truth.

The [Epic] Battle of Locke Lake

[For a bonus assignment in English class, we had the option of writing a 40-line epic poem. The resulting poem is shown here, and I think I'll try another sometime soon.]

The sun shone long on a scene,
Which the earth has seen but once,
That shall pass again no more; may the guidance
Of the divine Muses in the heavens from
Whence the sun was born come to my aid
As I speak this fateful tale. Two competitors
Stood out on the floating raft, brandishing
Deadly Fate in their hands: wooden pokers sharp
As the prick of a quill, with minds as keen—
The heavenly rays glinted off the frothing foam
Of the Lake that poured itself around the raft
With the wrath of a thrice-cursed sleeping puppy.
And, lo! the fighters faced each other, knowing that
The victor of this fated swordfight must with
Valiant arm push the other into the murky lake
Of sand and weeds. Locking eyes, blue to blue,
They felt their friendship turn to dust and float
To the floor of the deep, to be crawled over by
The bottom-dwelling slug and snail of the seas;
For just as there is no place for George Bush
At an English language convention,
Nullus amicitiae in bello locus est:
There is no place for friendship in war.
Swift as the falcon sighting its prey,
He struck out first. She leapt to the side
With the speed of a rattlesnake; the initial
Blow passed, they circled each other at the edge
Of their platform, water leaping from its bounds
To snap and spit at their ankles. Suddenly, their
Swords met at once, and with a great crack
The wood was slashed from the tip of her poker,
His was split with jagged edge in two—
Quickly now they ducked and parried,
One shoulder stabbed, another hand sliced,
And with their injuries the formidable foes
Persisted in their quests for everlasting glory.
Now, with a great cry, she pushed forward
And struck; the fatal blow was to the stomach,
A deadly wound. The hero stood defeated;
Once more he raised his eyes to heaven,
And, bowing to his opponent, leapt
Down into six feet of water and swirling mud.

Optipessimism.

[I think I should elaborate on my life philosophy a little more fully; I think it explains quite a bit.]

I am (in fact) a
closet optimist, Against
my better judgment and best interests...
I can't help but Think that somehow
things will get better than this--and
This really ain't all that bad. I am: a
cynic, misanthropist, overall overly overt
worshiper of anything facecious that
brings out the best (flaws) in people, and
a pessimist. A hopeful one.
All because, when I'm alone, I can walk barefoot
and hear the ground sing.

force of nature

[Just some thoughts.]

I like to dance when I feel like this--
to pull at my muscles like they're a dogsled team, running horses,
that feel exactly like I do--
a force of nature. When the trees
strain at their roots in the wind
and the water rises up to meet the air,
when aerial sun battles grounded ice,
the dirt keeps in the force of a thousand hurricanes below,
standing triumphant against molten counterpart and simmering,
burning, holding it back for
the life that rests upon it.

shoebox

[I'm just going off a mood here. It's a short piece.]

They like to say that I have a photographic memory. I don't.

I have an empty shoe box, a quarter full with memories--ideas--
where little things sometimes fall in and rest there
only to be discovered again.
I have a shoebox scrapbook where the dusty pieces of fabric
live, and they fray a little bit when I pick them up,
piece by piece, to watch their texture in the sunlight,
and watch them soften,
and watch them breathe.

A (short) Short Story

The sunflower seeds, as always, lay scattered on the worn down, torn-up, red leather passenger seat, basking in their parents' namesake. They were reflected in the extra-long mirror on the right side of the eighteen-wheeler, and a tattooed hand reached down to pull a handful out of the bag while an expert spit blew a mouthful of shells out the window. Concerned parents would have followed the trucks with shrill protestations, had such people known about the drag races--but they didn't. For these two men, it was just a long stretch of beaten-down highway and a tradition formed through long beaten-down years.

     Bill stepped out of his truck first, as custom dictated, walking away from the faded black lettering on his trailer.
     "Name your terms," he said gruffly to Neil. Only the laugh in his eyes granted any softness to the words. Neil leaned out of his window from the high red seat. "And you have sunflower seeds in your beard."
     "Watch yer' attitude," replied Neil, brushing away the shells nevertheless. Gesturing, he pointed to a familiar sign a mile away. "I beat you again, you pay for burgers down at Lou's the next time we're in Springfield. Burgers and coffees and a bag of sunflower seeds for me."
     "Coffee and the seeds."
     "Burger, one coffee, seeds."
     "No coffee, seeds, and a burger."
     "Done."
     They shook. Neil spit. Bill climbed back into the eighteen-wheeler and started the engine in a small cloud of grey smoke. Neil did the same amidst some suspicious clanging that he never got around to fixing. By now, the didn't need to count out loud with blasts of the deep truck horn; each knew when the other would start.
     Three, two, one. Go.

Running

[I like the metaphor in the bottom stanzas. Maybe I'll actually do something with that...]

Seriously?
Seriously?
You know,
I think you exist to disappoint me.
And you do it so well--you make me even turn my annoyance inward
because of how, in the end, I really do give a shit.
I don't think I would care if there were
nothing
else for me to care about, if I had something to occupy my seconds
other than weeks of blurred uncertainty and ticking clocks and glossy advertisements.

I am ready to race,
but I've been stuck behind gates like a penned-up racehorse
just staring at the track
when I want to show everyone watching--
show myself--
that I can be faster than any of them.

Imagine the moment before the gunshot
stretched out
into a day, a week, a month,
almost a year, now, with nothing but
the silence of the waiting thinning the atmosphere.

But, in the air, in the wind that's stirring around my pacing feet,
lifting though the stagnation, beginning a change,
I can feel that this is the run of a lifetime--
in the slam of that bullet I can feel that
this will be something good.

Press '1' for English.

[Sweat the big stuff, guys. Sweat the big stuff. This goes with my SAu post "Press 4 for hypocrisy."]

"Press 1 for English.
 Press 2 if you were annoyed by that request.
 Press 3 if you feel like They should have to press the button.
 Press 4 if you think that Someone should do Something about this.
 Press 5 if pressing 1 is unAmerican.
 Press 6 if that prompt threatens your way of life.
 Press 7 if you were angry enough to complain to someone else about it.
 Press 8 if you haven't wondered if bigotry, school shootings, illiteracy, pollution, and corruption weren't better things to complain about.
 Press 9 for hypocrisy."

A burnt offering.

[FYI, the song I reference is "The Poison" by Alkaline Trio. Of course.]

I keep quoting that song
like it's the answer to all life's questions.
  (Where are my keys? Has the milk gone bad? Why am I still here?)
"Nothing has changed
but now I fight with words."
I do. Sometimes I wrestle with them
and try to pin them down lifeless in the dust,
and sometimes I try to catch them but
they flit away like pixies
laughing at me all the while.
They trick me,
lying down on the ground for me to
trample over them--the dead ones, the ones that
aren't mine, and just when I think I understand
and try to take them for myself
they swim away like that fish:
the one that got away.
I can see it now;
the smoke rising up
from my life, in the future,
burning up in a holocaust to these words,
these stubborn and intangible and beautiful damn words
that I don't think will ever trust me.

Lullaby

[random freewrite. I wanted to try and capture a mood, so I was thinking back to going to sleep in Malden.]

I remember laying in my bed, and how it never got pitch dark.
The big picture window looked out to the pavement,
where the streetlights would color the slats on the blinds
yellow twilight gold.
It always was twilight after sunset,
with a sky the color of dried up rose petals, washed in brown and orange
and the smoke of the smog masquerading as clouds between the stars
that punctured though the electric curtain,
three or four if I was lucky.
The massive pine tree was outside the other window,
dancing like an old man shuffling to a dusty waltz
while squirrels the size of crows the size of pigeons jumped back and forth
like they were playing jumprope in between the needles--
and the wind would keep blowing,
sometimes from the east like three kings carrying gifts of trash, car exhaust,
and air dipped in the salty Atlantic.
A car would go by my house like a blanket
and I would fall asleep watching the pine tree sway.

Leonid

We went over villanelles in poetry (which I absolutely love; look them up on wikipedia) and I wrote one about watching the Leonid meteor shower that happened a while back. The first version is an actual villanelle, and the second is where I rewrote it in free verse.

Leonid (A)

Dragged like cigarette ashes through
the constellations, a comet flies--
the light-pricked heavens painted blue.

I set my alarm clock for three
AM to wake and watch (or at least try)
the light-pricked heavens painted blue.

The soft cool nighttime did not flee
as the comets did; all but one died,
dragged like cigarette ashes through.

The chill, still air spelled peace to me
when I saw it drawing slowly by
the light-pricked heavens painted blue.

It first slid in behind a tree--
a gold-red ember in the sky--
dragged like cigarette ashes through.

An hour later I could still see
the comet, printed on my eyes,
dragged like cigarette ashes through
the light-pricked heavens painted blue.


Leonid (B)

I got up at 4 AM, setting my alarm clock to
nudge me from my bed, and
I put on socks and a sweatshirt--deliberately,
half dreaming and half wide awake.
Things seemed surreal in that dark morning
before the light, and as I slid open the glass
one spark shot through the inky blue night
between the pinprick constellations.
Then another. And I stood and watched,
with no concept of time or cold or impatience,
I stood and watched a gold-red ember fall screaming into
our atmosphere. To us,
it slid in slowly
and dragged itself above the treeline
like the lit end of a cigarette,
glowing past the houses and trees and roads.
In the 4 AM dark, I stood and watched.

L

New Year's Revolution.

[The following is a less cynical companion to my SAu post of the same title. I am, after all, a closet optimist.]

finallyfinallyfinally
Change.
what I've always run from, what I've always blamed.
but now, suddenly!
the closed door seems like an open one
into a room full of light and sound and truth--
and isn't that what I've been looking for all along?
But now.
Change.
I can feel it coming and it feels
beautiful.

L