1:43 AM
short fiction I drafted senior year of high school, finally complete.

I woke up from a dream about you last night. I could feel a smile on the lips where you had just been, and was dismayed to realize that it hadn’t been you at all, and merely my imagination – taking advantage of my gullible mind, once again. Everything was as it would have been in life (except that the couch we were sitting on was located in the middle of a frozen pond…). Is it sad that I know you so well that even my dreams of you seem true to life?

It was just… your hand felt so solid, so concrete, so existent in mine. Your breath was gentle and warm on my cheek. Our conversation mirrored exchanges we’ve shared before. You know the kind. When I say, “Isn’t this fun?” and you shrug and say, “I miss video games,” but I can tell you’re really enjoying yourself in spite of whatever you say.

I was saddened, and really rather offended, that you chose to dissolve at precisely the moment I trusted you most. You would never do such a thing in life, now, would you? But I suppose you couldn’t help it, being a figment of my imagination and all. I suppose I couldn’t blame you, having created you in my mind, right?

I was awake for a long time after that.

I got a drink of water. Then I ate something that tasted surprisingly good for 1:43 in the morning. I checked on the cats. Even they slumbered on, mindless of my restless state. It was as though the earth, and time, and everything within had come to a halt beneath the isolating, muffling, time-stopping blanket of snow I could feel weighing on the skylight. The only evidence otherwise was the engines purring inside the cats.

It was like being the only one alive in all the world. Eerie. Lonesome. I wanted to fall back asleep, to come find you again, but toss and turn as I might, 1:43 AM did not take pity on me.

I wondered, would it be so catastrophic if I told you everything? Would that destroy the friendship I already cherish? Would I have to be content with this mirage of you… indefinitely?

Infinitely?

Dreams don’t really come true.

“There you are! I was waiting for you.”

“Waiting? For me? I’m flattered. Sorry for holding you up.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“All right.” Pause. “Hey, let’s go adventuring! Look, we can cross the tundra! Let’s pretend we’re pirates, and global warming reversed, so the whole world froze over, and we have to fix it!”

You’re looking at me like I’m crazy. You have no idea. “Sure, okay.”

Commence trekking. You’re not saying much. That’s all right. My ears might be too cold to hear, anyway. Those icy gusts slice right through my snow gear more effectively than our plastic swords ever could.

“Hey. Is that a sofa?” I guess I can still hear all right. Good to know.

“What? In the middle of the tundra?”

“Looks like it.”

“In the middle of the tundra?”

“Let’s go see.”

“Looks like it belongs at the dump.” Obviously that doesn’t bother me much since I sink into it anyway. “Being a pirate is tiring. Let’s take a break.”

You collapse beside me. “Okay.”

“Isn’t this fun?”

You shrug. “I could be playing video games.”

Glare.

You laugh and admit to it. Your smile, your eyes reassure me that you aren’t just telling me what I want to hear.

We’ve lost our mittens. Suddenly our hands find each other. The warmth of your fingers enveloping mine sends chills up my spine. You’re looking at me, truly seeing me, and I realize: this is it. You’re going to kiss me. It took you long enough.

I feel a spark on my lip (and to think we haven’t actually kissed yet). My heart skips a beat or several.

All at once I realize I’m clutching your hand at all, but rather that hideous plushie you won me at the fair last summer. I taste blood: I’ve just split my lip smiling.

I sigh and stumble out of bed. I’m sure you don’t think of me this often. I check the little clock in the corner of my laptop screen. It’s 1:43 AM. Something about that seems eerie to me, but I can’t put my finger on it.

Instant Messenger. Yes. A brilliant invention. Conversation is the best form of distraction.

You’re the only one online.

“Trouble sleeping?” you ask.

“You could say that.”

“Weird dreams?” you ask.

“You could say that.”

“I mean, really – pirates?”

I stare at the blinking cursor, wondering if I’ve lost it. The snow drifts press in on the little bubble of the house, insulating my little corner of heaven on earth. It’s 1:44 AM.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New poetry - Fall 2008
“Bridges”

I’ve been jumping off bridges without you,
and it’s just not the same.
I had a dream that you weren’t there. I went
out to find you in the rain.

The trail you left wound up, up and
nowhere. There I saw you, framed
like the pixels and particles you
arrange so lovingly; framed
in the lilies and the leaves and the toadstools,
framed

in a pool of water deep as the sky
and green with tree trunks mid-cartwheel.
There is something better on the underbelly of this
reflection, and I am going to find it.

Raindrops leave their perfectcircle deathnotes,
scars spinning across the perfectmirrorpool.
It can’t be summer all year round.
Soft, sunshine, don’t you make a sound.
I put my face to the dappled mirror, wanting
to see the inverted city’s wooden skyline
But I drown trying to get there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New Poetry - Fall 2008
Diptych in syllabics - two stanzas, each 8 lines or more, with the number of syllables in each line repeated in the second stanza. Pt. I had to be a tangible object (I chose a letter). Pt. II had to be a response to the object.

"Postcard"

Hello. I am here
to let you know that someone is thinking of you.
He hopes you’re well.
Phase one of boot camp has been hell
but he says he’ll make it through.
Hello. I am here
Because someone carved out time to write just a few
words on a page
in the midst of a loaded day
because he’s thinking of you.

Thank God you got here.
I’ve been waiting all summer long to read his scrawl,
this month the third
Since I last heard from him. His words
I draw about me, a shawl.
Last time he was here,
we sprinted on the sky. When we got tired, we sprawled
in the tall grass.
Unstop my pen. I can’t write past,
“Wish you were here. Yours always.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New Poetry - Fall 2008
Poetry assignment I did with the sixth grade boy I babysit. I got mad because the restrictions of the framework they gave him made it hard not to end each line at the end of a sentence, but amazingly this isn't crap.

"I Am Bored."

I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.
I wonder what’s for dessert….
I hear Cobra Starship playing inside my head and
I want to have a dance party.
I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.

I pretend that I can fly. Sometimes,
I feel the clouds between my toes and
I touch the moon with my face.
I worry that I won’t be able to come back down, and then
I cry for all the people I left behind down there; but
I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.

I understand the parameters. I just don’t like them.
I say a poet should be free to touch the moon with her face!
I dream of creation beyond the walls of this box.
I try to break free, try to put an end to this over-end-stopping.
I hope the frozen yogurt is vanilla tonight.
I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.

So LJ, I've decided we should just be friends. I might not tell you everything about me, but I can still write for you.

The Assignment:
Choose a poem. Take the last word of each line and use those words at the ends of the lines in an original poem.

Where the Sidewalk Ends
Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.


Draft#1:
“Home is Where the Freeway Ends.”

There is a place where the freeway ends
and the Pacific ocean begins,
where the waves are capped with white,
the sand sparkles bright
with gold, and burdens take flight,
borne away by the wind.

There is a place where the ocean ends and the black
pavement begins. The road once had its bends
through the places where palms and pine trees grow,
and we drove slow.
One place remains for us to go.
We drive east to where the freeway ends.

The road once had its bends and we drove slow.
One place remains for us to go.
Although it’s no adventure, well we know
that home is where the freeway ends.


Draft #2
“To Peaceward”

There is a place where the freeway ends
and the Pacific ocean begins,
where the surf froths and crashes white,
the sand sparkles bright
with gold, and anchored earthworms take flight,
origami birds borne away by the wind.

There is a place where the ocean ends and the black
pavement begins. The road once had its bends
through the places where palms and pine trees grow,
and we drove slow.
But now, with one place still to go,
we speed east to where the freeway ends.

The road once had its bends and we drove slow,
the world setting at our backs. Peaceward we go.
We are carved in the sandstone hearts of those we know.
Home is where the freeway ends.


The rewrite is due tomorrow night. Any opinions? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each draft? What should I work on? My prof said to be "more ambitious" after he saw the first draft. Did I do it?

This is not to say that these are all marvelous poems or anything. I just felt like posting something. But yeah, input on these would be fab. I always like input, even if I don't really like it, you know what I mean? ^_~

“Faraway” (Spring/summer 2008)

Faraway cars pass on faraway roads.
I in beauty’s realm repose.
Yellow birds dart chirping past.
Bright ghosts do haunt this frosted glass.
Oh, warmth’s embrace! Oh, sunlight’s kiss!
Who contrived an eye so blue as this?
A robe so green? A cheek so smooth?
What accident spilled starlight in this tiny ocean’s grooves?
What mind imagined bobbing birds of light?
Blazing diamonds crown each ripple bright!
A faraway note in a faraway steeple
Sounds faraway hope for faraway people;
But here am I, touching sunlight’s face
And faraway hope I now embrace.


"Faith vs. Pride" (Revised. Summer/Fall 2008. I wrote the original in high school... probs freshman year, maybe sophomore year. In that version I just.... go on too long about the same thing.)

O fallen daisy, grace my path!
Thou prey of someone’s rash attack.
Trampled beauty, all for naught:
Marred perfection someone wrought.
My heart ignites and burns with wrath.
I ponder: is this bloom, perhaps,
A symbol of the soul? A token
Of a heart at long length broken?

It’s a battle deep inside,
A matter of faith versus pride.
“Soft now, child, take a seat.”
You speak with grace. I sit at your feet.
The pearls of wisdom You impart
Fall on me like the sunshine heart
Of a trampled daisy in my path,
Igniting peace instead of wrath.


“Cold” (Song, Winter 2006/7)

Am I trembling ‘cause it’s cold?
Or because I’m cold?
Once again, it’s that season
I’m asking Santa for a reason
Why these hearts are bitter cold
Waiting for you is getting old
The only thing you give is up
I’m sorry, dear, that’s not enough.

Hold me close, just hold me close
Were we the only ones who didn’t know
That this was how things had to go?
Hold me close, please hold me close
We were the only ones who didn’t know
Were too afraid to let emotion show.

Am I trembling ‘cause it’s cold?
Or because you’re cold?
Once again, I watch for signs
For revelation in your eyes
And I can’t explain the way
Your smile lights up my entire day
But the only thing you give is up
I’m sorry, dear, that’s not enough.

Hold me close, just hold me close
Were we the only ones who didn’t know
That this was how things had to go?
Hold me close, please hold me close
We were the only ones who didn’t know
Were too afraid to let emotion show.

She says, “Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter
Quite like unrequited love,”
And she keeps a jar in the back seat of her car,
Just in case she ever needs a taste.


“Life on ‘Loop” (Song, Winter 2006/7)

I can’t live this double life forever.
I feel caught in lies, and I sense some stormy weather.
I’m not trying to hide – just can’t decide
Which way is better?
All that I know
Is I can’t go on like this

You go around and go around
But you never seem to come around
I’ve had enough of waiting
Three years of contemplating
Would you have ever come around? Come around?
Well someone else is waiting
For me to stop debating
It’s time for me to come around and
Let you go.

Were hearts, like rules, designed to be broken?
Mine’s fading fast. I’m sick of being frozen.
Is this the hour that sets us both
In motion?
One gained, one lost –
What do I want the most?

You go around and go around
But you never seem to come around
I’ve had enough of waiting
Three years of contemplating
Would you have ever come around? Come around?
Well someone else is waiting
For me to stop debating
It’s time for me to come around and
Let you go.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder
But yours just taught my eyes to wander
Your silence screams louder than words
Stop yelling. I already know this hurts.
I guess you’re not who I thought you were.
It’s letting go that’s so impossible.


"Mr. Fair-Play Man" (Excerpt, because the rest of it sucked hardcore. Song, Winter/Spring 2007)

Hey Mr. Breadwinner, where is your bread?
You kind of look like you’re losing your head.
Hey Mr. Fair Play Man,
I can’t tell what has happened to your plan.
We’re all grown up and acting like infants.
I could tell you what love is, and this… isn’t.

Someone told me that true love exists
So long, I’m off to learn what it is.
It’s the wide-eyed, wondering me you’ll miss,
Not this butterfly with her rebel’s kiss.

And I know now you can’t count on
The ones you love to keep things rolling along
But you’ve got to keep moving on,
Yeah I’ll keep moving on in spite of it all.

We’re all grown up and acting like infants
I could tell you what love is, and this… isn’t.


“Foreshadowing” (Spring/Summer 2007)

Now I can feel it coming on,
The way the day is signaled by the dawn,
The way a reckless leap precedes a fall:
Gravity renders it inevitable.

Yet I have no fear of falling,
And you would wonder why –
When our every moment’s spent recalling
Once-shared dreams that taught us how to fly.


"Insignificant Other" (Song, Fall 2007)

When twilight crept in
When you heard the rain begin
Did I cross your mind?
Or did my memory pass you by?

When your roommate played guitar
When you watched the falling stars
Did you think of me, back home?
Or have you left me here alone?

I don your hoodie to combat the chill in your wake.
Why couldn't you have left without a trace?

Nothing’s forever, though we think we could be.
Immortality wasn’t ours to seek.
We’ll sing the melody of a song we used to know
Until we can admit that it’s time for us to go.

I pinned my wishes to a star.
We watched it fall from your back yard.
I always thought that I knew better
Than counting on stars to keep us together.

I don your hoodie to combat the chill in your wake.
Why couldn't you have left without a trace?

Did it take you back in time?
Did you realize that you missed me?
Did the falling stars remind you
of the moonlit night you kissed me?

I don your hoodie to combat the chill in your wake.
Why couldn't you have left without a trace?

Did you miss me? Did you miss me?
Or did you just dismiss me?
Did you need me? Did you need me?
Or had you already freed me?

I don your hoodie to combat the chill in your wake.
How could you leave me without a trace?
If we’re done, then walk me to the door.
I can’t exist to make you smile anymore.


Lynn wants the moon to explode. (Fall 2007)

She’s the butterfly that needs no motive to fly,
The shooting star that needs no reason to shine….
And yet, a lone wolf, howling at a moon
That she can’t quite reach with her lasso.
A firefly, once glowing in the everglades,
Now captive to your jar as you watch her fade.

She’s giving up on promises you can’t be made to keep.
She’d sacrifice the wings you’ve pinned, all for honesty.
Silence is her sentence, but beneath those subtle words,
A shackled spirit longs to join the revelry of birds.
She padlocks the wrought iron gate as she goes.
You built it. You should have known.


VOL DU SOLEIL (Fall 2007)

Ce matin, le soleil prend la fuite.
Morning: my soul with sunlight meets.
And here, cries Fall, is sunlight that has not known
the strainer of noncommittal haze,
nor the suffocating restraint of saturnine skies.
Here, cries Autumn, oh, here is sovereignty.
Behold the commencement
To succeed the denouement.

This morning, the sun
Glanced off the steeple in the distance,
Skated across a patch of ice on the quadrangle,
Cross-hatched the asphalt with the contour of a picket fence and
Illuminated the foliage as though from within the birches themselves.

This morning, the sun
Cast a shadow alongside the coneflower
(one stalk,
one ring of vintage Tokyo violet,
one eye that sees more than I)
that always nods when I pass.

It's been a long time since I posted anything substantial. Goodness, I spent an entire week on the West Coast and never said a word about it. And there are many words to be said. But for now, these one will have to suffice:

“Nothing is so Beautiful”

I’ve never seen so much nothing.
Our headlights flicker against the tombstones of a ghost town,
Pale widowmakers poking out of the plains
like so many toothpicks.
The highway disappears beneath our wheels.
We leave no trail.
Nothing is so beautiful.

We watched the stars fall over Flagstaff,
then flare up on the flat horizon
where the burnt moon balanced,
an orange on a string.
Nothing is so beautiful.

The dawn broke on the canyon’s rim.
Its yolk ran into the crannies and crevices of rock.
To think that someone saw this first!
On the shore of a sunflower sea,
Far-off mountains reared their rocky heads.
Someone slashed the plateau and it bled into the hills.
Nothing is so beautiful.

The rusty smokestacks of Sedona
aspire to be towers and turrets, floating in the sky.
Wind and water shape the places we go.
Why not me?

Written at the shore of Round Pond (which needs a better name, or at least one that actually describes its shape).

I think this poem might need a better name, too. Any thoughts...?



At the Threshold of Springtime

Today, I saw the first butterfly of spring.
The sunlight caught the tip of his wing
– just so!
Black wings had he, with white lace trimmed:
He was elegant, Victorian;
Gothic in garb, yet flimsy in flight,
Connecting-the-dots of dappled light.
He zigged and zagged a lilting maze,
Mindless of man’s empty praise.
Their whetted sickles daunt him not.
O fluttering king! Not soon forgot
Are flight of fancy, wing of whim,
And even less the blink of him
When the sun his dainty wingspan caught
– just so.

April 2008

I haven't posted any of my writing in a while. Here's some.

The New Goliath

Welcome to the sort of town
where everybody knows your name.
It doesn't matter if you’re friends;
they know your story all the same.
And they’re caught up in the grind
Of venge and revenge, intertwined.
And baby, you’ve got style, but
you just can’t quite escape.

But Pollyanna pushed her luck
Each morning when she laced her Chucks.
She let her punk-rock music blare,
Tried some purple in her hair.
She danced alone, scorned sticks and stones,
Stepped bravely forth into unknowns.

She said, “Yours is the example I’m trying to set.
I’m striving for the standards that only Jesus met.”
She wore a silver promise ring,
Was never too ashamed to sing.
She doodled on her blue jean legs,
Knew the bird precedes the egg.

She said, “Life is only what you make of it.
What you’ll get is what you’ll take from it.”
And she was David, face to face
With the new Goliath’s rampant rage.
She demanded revolution.
Slingshot in hand, she faced the institution.

She said, “No more cookie cutter molds.
These photocopies get so old.”
Like burning meteors all aglow,
Like roses in the winter snow,
She smashes through the frozen ice
To save her palm-sized paradise.

She opens the skylight as she sleeps
So all her dreams are moonlight-steeped.
She feels the heavens’ mighty pull.
She’s headed someplace beautiful.
…but though her hometown lacks that starry chrome,
It’s still the one place she can call her home.


Stalled Out

One day I’ll fill my gas tank and
Hit the open road.
I’ll pack a pen and paper and
A camera to capture the coast,
then grab my guitar and go.

One day I’ll drive to California.
I’ve never been there, but I
Read a book about it once.
It sounded just like bubble tea, a genesis,
A break in symmetry.
It sounded like bathing suits and hairspray,
Like colors standing out on rainy days.
It sounded like moonlit paths across the ocean,
And cities shining silver in the sun;
Like smoothie-flavored sunsets scraping skies
And redwood branches grasping like goodbyes,
Their fingers tangled somewhere in the stars–
But I was only faced with ache of heart.

One day I’ll understand why
I stalled out along the 405.
Thought I was going to paradise,
But it was just a different state
of mind.


Seed

I am defeated.
What is left of all I thought I knew?

I called out,
A trembling voice dissolving into chinks of moonlight
Grated through the slats of Venetian blinds.

I listened, but did not hear you in
The footsteps stealing past my door,
The music drifting down the hall, or
The laughter bubbling up in company.

Was that you in
The silver of my father’s hair?
The firefly lighting June’s night air?
The sun that warmed my photosynthetic heart
(in times past)?

Were you there in the weakness that paralyzed me?
Was it you, after all, that dragged me to my knees?
Did you find a home inside
The tears that rained all through the night,
As into the rug melted all I once believed?

Echoes of your voice alighted snowcapped peaks…
But they tasted like adrenaline.
And water in my hands is sweet,
But trickles through my fingers, running dry.
Lord, I have nothing
left, not even
a mustard
seed
.


Photograph
(taken with a filter so I’ll shine)

Supine.
Roses’
Tangled roots
Defy the snow,
Spiderwebbing outward, straining for embrace.
She strikes the flint and burns the chaff.
The city within lies smoldering, a meteor extinguished by the likes of Goliath.

Silhouette,
Prostrate,
Field grasses
Like prickly hairs
Beneath me. I am broken.
But no! the sunrise overtakes the fading moonlight.
I cannot see the change; the silver warms to gold upon my face.

Fallen.
Lifted!
Oh! finally
I am pristine.
My ghostly waltz is finished.
The last word goes to Christ the king.
When you’ve found something to die for, it’s then you’ve come to life.


^ from "The Youniverse is Crumbling All Around Us."


Going to watch My Name is Earl with Bryceface now. Laterz!

Thankfully, I did manage to finish my ten poems. Just BARELY. I still have to write my paragraph responses, but luckily, I've bought myself time by consistently writing these in my writer's journal, which he has yet to collect, so I just stuck a post-it on the first page saying the responses were in my journal and am going to write them before Friday's class. My prof liked the title of the collection ("The Youniverse is Crumbling All Around Us"). I couldn't bring myself to say that that was probably the only brilliant thing about this poetry collection. I think I skipped one stipulation, too, which was editing a poem for repeated vowel sounds. I hope this doesn't have too much of an adverse impact on my grade. Although, the fact that some of the poems suck so bad they make me want to vomit might have an adverse impact on my grade.

Today was fabulous. I was worried that I would wake up from my nap and it would be dark out, but I had to take one because I had only slept 5 and a half hours on account of the poetry assignment. It was the best nap I've ever taken. I actually fell asleep and had dreams! This simply does not happen to me during the day. I'm not a good napper. And the slightest sound can wake me up - mostly voices, actually, but there are a lot of those in my paper-walled hallway, so usually a nap means futilely laying in my bed with my eyes shut until I get too bored. For instance, if I wanted to sleep right now, I would probably have to set up camp in the study room, because a couple of girls who live down the hall are in their room screeching, as usual. They aren't fighting. It's just how they talk. Sometimes I just want to screech SHUT THE MUCK UP back down the hall, but I kind of think it wouldn't make a difference. Especially since they'd probably just laugh at me (screechingly) for using the word "muck" instead of a rhyming alternative.

Anyway, when I woke up from my nap two hours later, it was still broad daylight, so I threw on a long skirt and took a looooong walk in the woods. I have to say that I didn't want to come back. It was so glorious outside today. The sunlight was beautiful. (Oh man, all I have to do is vaguely reference the song "Daylight" to get teeny tiny chills up my spine. Ahaha.) Trish said I was turning into Henry David Thoreau for being in the woods. I was deeply insulted. But if I start telling y'all about how much I spent on branches to build my treehouse with Taz or something like that, please virtually shoot me in the head. Thanks.

It was a poem. And then it became a song. Before I put it to music, does anybody have any input that would make it better? By the way... I'm really bad at putting anything to music. Maybe the semi-iambic rhythm of the verses will help....

Akatastasia
(Instability)

That same damn precipice again:
By now, these rifts are my old friends.
Yes, I know each one by name.
I come and go, but they don’t change.
The question posed is always this:
Pick your poison, kill or kiss.

Will I float? Will I fall?
Am I prepared to lose it all?
I don’t know what comes after this,
Don’t even know if love exists.
Will I swim? Will I sink?
I can’t decide yet what I think.
I don’t know what comes after this,
don't even know if love exists -
But I’ll take it over this precipice.

My footsteps favor backwards routes,
Rehearse, perform the Coward’s Out–
But what did you expect, my dear?
That every qualm would disappear?
You think that I don’t love enough,
But I’m afraid I love too much.

Will I float? Will I fall?
Am I prepared to lose it all?
I don’t know what comes after this,
Don’t even know if love exists.
Will I swim? Will I sink?
I can’t decide yet what I think.
I don’t know what comes after this,
don't even know if love exists -
But I’ll take it over this precipice.

I’ll stitch my heart upon my sleeve.
You’ll never know I’m scared to bleed.
You asked me if I loved you. I
Just laughed it off, and then I lied.
Are you so dense as not to see?
It’s killing me, quite literally.

Will I float? Will I fall?
Am I prepared to lose it all?
I don’t know what comes after this,
Don’t even know if love exists.
Will I swim? Will I sink?
I can’t decide yet what I think.
I don’t know what comes after this,
don't even know if love exists -
But I’ll take it over this precipice.

Hello, cliffhanger, here’s your test:
Toss your heart beyond this crest.
Embrace this threshold. Don’t look down!
Let our alliance thus be crowned.
If you will take my hand to hold,
I’ll bring you roses made of gold.

Once again for my class. I think CO212 is the best thing that ever happened to me as far as forcing me to overcome my lack of motivation regarding writing.


Ichabod

Can I say this in a manner less cliché?
Of the wings that we once shared I will not boast.
They have withered into muted, lifeless grey.

Here’s the truth, then: In my heart, I have surveyed
All that we had. ‘Twas fancy at the most.
Can I say this in a manner less cliché?

Looming thunderheads rolled in to mask the blaze.
Though our animated spirits raised a toast,
They have withered into muted, lifeless grey.

Now the glory is departed. Haste the day
When these burdens shall be shared across a yoke.
Can I say this in a manner less cliché?

Then our wings will span the heavens, framed by rays.
As of yet they are but shadows, lonely ghosts.
They have withered into muted, lifeless grey.

Blood-red rubies flood the ground in disarray.
Broken wings amount to naught of which to boast.
Can I say this in a manner less cliché?
They have withered into muted, lifeless grey.

I wrote this for my writing class. I had to use a set of words in a poem; that was basically the only stipulation, but I'm in a form-poetry phase so I went for the sestina. I actually had a lot of fun with it, too, even though its restrictions posed a challenge. And in spite of the fact that I was running on about 4 1/2 hours of sleep. The imagery is definitely inspired by "Daylight" by Brave Saint Saturn, which I listened to just before writing this. If you don't know the song, go listen because it will give you chills. =)

The Awakening
March 3, 2008

The sleeping forest, dreaming deep,
The twisted roots in blackness steeped,
In blindness, weaving to and fro
Where lady slippers cease to grow.
The white-haired grass is laced with frost
And hope of daylight all but lost.

But rising sun has not been lost,
Nor hope been drowned in puddles deep;
For dormant underneath the frost,
Old threads of being, slumber-steeped,
Anticipate the call to grow
From voices lilting to and fro.

Two children skipping to and fro
Began with purpose, now are lost:
The ever-lurking shadows grow,
Enticing footsteps to the deep.
The journey’s perils grow more steep
As talk is smothered by the frost.

Won’t daylight come dispel this frost?
In fear they’re darting to and fro!
Oh sunlight, kiss these hilltops steep
With watermelon lips, not lost,
But sorely missed in night so deep!
I bid you, golden sunrise, grow!

I beg you, morning colors, grow!
Let streaming light melt snow and frost!
Let veils of mist now shroud the deep!
For wand’ring children, to and fro,
Go to and fro, in nightmares lost.
May your ascent be swift and steep!

Now hurtling through ravines so steep,
They feel that pairs of wings could grow.
Their feet, the ground, their contact lost;
The lady slippers burst through frost,
And tufted seeds drift to and fro,
And they quest homeward from the deep!

Still they are lost, but daylight steeped.
Light pierces deep; awareness grows.
Upon the frost, they’re dancing to and fro.




Give me some words to put in a poem. I enjoy the challenge.

I do, however, wish I could get unstuck from iambic tetrameter.... Ever since that Joel the Troll poem, it's been the only meter I can write in.

The four words poem (chocolate, earth, uranium, and Mary were the words I had to use).

“My Feet, Her Sandals.”

She was the missile for the missive,
Catalyzed by uranium-based Little Boy.
Hiroshima, Jerusalem –
As one, so the other was destroyed.

Mary, you could not have guessed
Of all the women on the earth,
Your womb alone would be so blessed
God’s Chosen One to birth!

So sweet the burden of your soul
(though heavy seems the yoke):
Warm chocolate, drunk out of a bowl
All hail the blessed hope!

~ 2/29/08 ~

The assignment was to write a nursery rhyme for children. (So please, no disparaging comments about my being "too happy.") My professor and Bryce both said it was very Shel Silverstein-esque. I'm thinking that's probably a good thing. ^_^


“Joel the Troll”

In China, on a grassy knoll,
There lives a grouchy man named Joel.
He hides, for he is squat and lean,
Amid a grove of kumquat trees.

Mom says, “Beware that nasty troll!
He eats old nails right from a bowl
Like tubs of milkless Cap’n Crunch
For breakfast, dinner, snack, and lunch!”

His hair is poufy like a lamb,
His odor like a can of Spam.
His teeth are yellow, ears protrude,
His filthy nails would make you swoon.

But Joel has not a soul to hug.
He can’t escape the hole he’s dug
For no one trusts him, bird nor elf.
He eats those nails all by himself.

That’s why he’s grouchy, understand.
He needs a friend to hold his hand.
He needs a smile sent his way.
A cheerful laugh would make his day.

So when you see him, don’t be shy.
He really wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Instead of walking right on past,
Make a point of waving back!


I produced these ones in class with another student. The first is about the nasty sewage smell that always seems to materialize outside of the dining hall, making me not really want to eat (along with the consistent use of the word "encrusted" on the menu). The second is about the misery of walking around campus when it's raining because the sidewalks flood.

"Lane Sewage"

No one at Gordon knows what they're hidin',
but whatever it is, it reeks of Poseidon.
It's eating my brain!
It's worst when it rains.
This stench has quenched my hopes of dinin'.

"An Ode to Galoshes"

When it rains, it pours, and Gordon floods.
The quad is filled with puddles of mud.
God opened the heavens.
There's a river by Evans,
where some freshmen fell down with a thud.

I love that I just made fun of freshmen, and I am one. XD

My assignment for Friday is to write a poem using these four words: chocolate, earth, Mary, uranium. This will be fun.

Unfortunately, my life usually has to suck, THEN I am able to compose halfway decent poetry. I'm not even claiming this to be that (halfway decent, I mean). But it felt good to let out all that angst. Psh, I don't need Bright Eyes; I can mope perfectly well on my own, thanks. Yah and by the way I also made a batch of brownies, which was quite the experience. First I yelled at the refrigerator for not having any more bottles of vegetable oil after I used up the first bottle and only had less than 1/2 a cup. Then I furiously beat the ingredients together until my mom was like, "Okay, I'd say that's beaten. You're done. Put it in the oven." The whole endeavor nearly failed (i.e. we all nearly had to feast on hot batter), and I blame the round pan, but in the end they came out delicious. I piled ice cream, caramel, and m&ms on one, and boy howdy was it glorious! (I think I stole that quote from Matty T.... sorry about that little bit of plagiarism there.)

So anyway, all is right in the world. My new theory is that there are two things that can alleviate any problem short of global warming. One is brownies. Think about it: world hunger. Eh? And the second is music. Think about all those loner emo kids who don't feel like they can relate to anyone, and then they crank some Bright Eyes or My Chemical Romance or something (not that I ever do that or anything) and they can pretend that there's someone out there who feels just like them... there is.

Yeah, this entry is dripping with plagiarism. Moving on to my ORIGINAL poetry, not plagiarized from Matty T, Blink 182, Conor Oberst or anyone else referenced in this post. Yeahhh! Oh and by the way, this one is intended to be a song. Right now I can only think of Taking Back Sunday, Paramore, and, for some bizarre reason, Avril Lavigne, but when I come up with an original tune I'll work on it some more. Maybe it will sound better sung. Less.... lame and cliche and crap.



"Random"

So you think this is acceptable?
The way you act is detestable.
You play pretend – but we’re just friends.
I’d hate to end – let’s still be friends.

All this numbness starts to build up
until close is never close enough,
and all that’s coursing through my veins
is self-injected Novocain.

I only want to dance.
I’m not looking for romance.
We’re asking just to use and be used.
It’s the same old story to the same old tune.
Well I’ll admit that all along,
I recognized how we were wrong,
But it felt better just to choose this,
And I’m not one to make excuses.

I want to hear your voice.
Tell me nothing’s changed.
I know it’s barely been two weeks,
But things don’t feel the same.

We’re drifting (it’s detestable)
Beneath red lights and chemicals.
And now the edges will resolve:
I never meant a thing to you at all.

I only want to dance.
I’m not looking for romance.
We’re asking just to use and be used.
It’s the same old story to the same old tune.
Well I’ll admit that all along,
I recognized how we were wrong,
But it felt better just to choose this,
And I’m not one to make excuses.

I’ve had my taste of lust and lies.
Don’t sweat it, kid, but don’t apologize
Cause I’ll forgive you all too fast,
And I know you don't deserve as much as that.

I only want to dance.
I’m not looking for romance.
We’re asking just to use and be used.
It’s not like we’ve got anything to lose.
Well I’ll admit that all along,
I recognized it: we were wrong.
And I knew it would end this way, somehow.
Sorry, babe, you’re just a random to me now.



Hahahahahahahaha wowwwww okay. Emoooooooo. My most sincere and heartfelt apologies to all.

Here's one that I drafted years ago and finally completed a couple of weeks ago. I would love to write all about my weekend in New York and the Relient K/Switchfoot show I went to (yes, you have permission to be jealous.... most incredible line-up EVER IN LIFE). Unfortunately the institution is forcing me to write position papers instead (I will be addressing the exchange of good craftsmanship for the gospel message and its adverse effects on the transmission of that truth). Meh. This ain't my American Dream.

“Submersion”

The ocean churns into a silky froth
In the shadowy phosphorescence.
Sea spray soars, shimmering silver.
Shivers scuttle up my spine.
The moon seeks solace
in the steely firmament
as the
sea
sighs
“farewell….”

[…suspension…]

The surf crashes with a fury of foam;
Symphonic splashes coat my lips with saline.
The shadow of a stone is smudged
As the first liquid star premieres,
Pristine, and
Plummets –
Plip
Plish
Splash:iamsubmerged.