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November 30, 2004
Three
1.
Tired of connecting lines to fit
neatly until it hurts to even think
about why you even tried in the
first place or why anything is
worth doing and when does the
fun begin
2.
Im ready for fun to happen to me
creating fun for myself has lost
its lustre its pride entertain me
fun your the one not me that should
be doing all the work wracking your
brain till it feels like spaghetti
whats that supposed to mean why
dont you tell me why theres nothing
funny but this hostility holding
guns pointed right at me
3.
Ah the freedom of Kerouac
the freedom of the pen
to scribble and run sprinting
through lines care free of worry
Ing about that there or this
here slipping gears doesn't matter
let it fall apart what good did
it do putting you together anyway
Posted by andy at 10:34 PM | Comments (3)
November 24, 2004
Crescent Moon
It was at dawn that she was created. Light
began sinking into the precipice of rain
like a morsel of cloud deep across the night.
Roots were lavendered with honey and bright
images that sleep under her grain.
It was at dawn that she was created. Light
swims across her lips and makes her tight
body reflect her smile: simple and plain
like a morsel of cloud. Deep across the night
soft waves began treading with heavy might
towards her. Her taste can not contain
the dawn that she created. Light
and dark blending their choices fight
to touch her skin and stain
the morsels of clouds deep across the night.
She brings with her the inspiration to write.
It was at dawn that she created light
and morsels of clouds deep across the night.
Posted by nervo at 06:36 PM | Comments (3)
October
October
I have seen the ocean sway, pronouncing soft
with careless lips your name on the sand. The lost
horizons lifting flames and morning back
and forth, began to wash Octoberís black
unscented rose. In that sky I said my strife
that you are the one Iíve waited for all my life.
I never left the mark you left on me,
deforming me and bruising willingly.
Before the rain, the winds, the storm, the words,
I never tasted shame. I was absurd
and infected with flavors filled with sand- with you.
And still, the ocean swayed, the horizon grew,
the rain freckled behind, and you pronounced
my disinfected place, no end announced.
Until October left its mark upon
the sky and everything I loved was gone.
Your name became the only thing you left
behind, repeating, pronouncing carelessly soft.
I have seen the ocean sway, again the same
sand washing over the same lips and your name.
Posted by nervo at 06:04 PM | Comments (2)
November 18, 2004
ANNOUNCEMENT: Kathryn Hohlwein Award of Merit
I wish I had done this earlier..
...for those that don't know, the Kathryn Hohlwein Poetry Award of Merit deadline is tomorrow, Nov. 19th. Winners receive 500$ towards their tuition. Submissions must be sent no later than 12:00 p.m. tomorrow, in Calaveras 104.
No more than three possible poems to be submitted, with two copies and a cover page attached. I hope to see everyone here submit.
..also, the allegheny review offers a 250$ award for winners, and is published in an undergraduate review. I don't know much else about it , so take a look at it
and find out more: http://review.allegheny.edu
Posted by tony at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
Betrayal (revision 11/21/04)
I offered a token to your wife at the end
and faced up to the facts, as your best man.
This is the only thing that has ever happened.
I decided to take this time so you might mend,
to show my case, how this...it...began:
I offered a token to your wife. In the end,
I thought I was going to go mad. I wonít pretend
I knew you didnít not know and lie again.
This was the only thing that always happened.
I donít know why she told you. Why defend
Venetian je míen foutisme? A plan (Way of thinking)
to offer a token to your wife. Your end
beginning... me. You know what should have happened?
Look at the way she looks at me and then
know that thing that should have never happened
was me. I should have had her, in her white, blackened
her in white before the wedding. Wishful demands
offer a token to your wife, but end
the only thing I ever willed to happen.
Posted by tony at 12:35 AM | Comments (5)
November 15, 2004
untitled
ìI love this man!î
The first disingeuous thing I remember of you,
then you run down the aisle
in a wide-brimmed hat with ribbons and flowers.
I circuitously make my way through familiar and
strange dresses, suits to approach
your beautifully made-up face
sparkling at guests from a golden corona.
Your giant tombstones flash readily for your second
husband, mother-in-law,
the photographerís waiting with his soul-stealer,
I canít wait to be next.
Luminescence falls on my face for a second
my life is better than possible,
your gaping semblance of warmth seals into a disapproving scowl.
Now I see only sunlight filtering through blonde curls,
sea-foam blue layered on distrusting eyelids,
cruel pink lipstick-stained teeth.
Your milestone anniversaries seem impossible, I turn the page.
A groom smiles through a drooping mustache,
a bride surrounded by congratulations,
your lives dilligently mapped out on round-cornered pictures.
I canít remember what I looked like because Iím not here,
then I remember my place in your world, and
gingerly put your celebration back where it belongs.
My hands shake in remembrance of my egg-shell existence,
sending porcelain mementos fumbling through desperate fingers
until I stop grasping and blurt out what has been
abusively vibrating under the surface.
Like a suffocating fish, your husbandís eyes blink in wonder
at the far reach of the fisher-womanís hand.
Heís been watching me wriggle at the end of your barbed hook
while heís been expiring,
his blurry eyes revealing everything.
Posted by amber at 09:22 PM | Comments (6)
November 13, 2004
This Is A College Education (rev. 11/16/04)
Worlds apart with worlds of distance
in the distance between hands
on a steering wheel,
the white lines of new
parking lots are keywesting
these rolling hills once scrub
oak and childhood.
A swimming pool gambit ñ
too young to be something and too old
to be nothing.
This landscaped future sheds
leaves down a long paved path dampen
the sound of retreating feet.
A child sculpted in bas-relief
sees his books sealed
in plastic crates, garaged and shelved.
It rains at 2 a.m. in a room in the bottom corner of a house
where I try to tell him this is a college education.
Posted by Josh at 09:43 PM | Comments (5)
November 12, 2004
ANNOUNCEMENT - new subtitle ideas?
Hello everyone. We talked a little about rotating subtitles.
Leave your suggestions in the comments section, eh.
Posted by Josh at 09:20 PM | Comments (7)
November 11, 2004
Dangerous Fruit
Long-bladed plants made
softly shuffling violins
by the breeze,
I sit and chew.
You ask if you can sit down,
sliding your tongue over your teeth
like you want to get to know me.
A bee floats helter-skelter
in figure-eights around us,
inspiring you to say:
Its dangerous to eat a banana around here
-you watch me take a bite-
then yelp, slapping your neck,
and move on.
Posted by amber at 02:35 PM | Comments (4)
November 08, 2004
As Much (revised 11/20)
My arms
spread perfect-
ly horizontal:
a seven-forty-seven
ready to soar
and cargo given
to air:
I stretched
through fragile shell,
weed cracking cement,
till glazed downy wings
made first reach
beyond small body.
(underneath)
An expanse
of warmth and
feather enclose me.
Soft stomach close yet
weathered wings stretch
beyond my new
realization of nest.
Posted by Amanda at 10:13 PM | Comments (6)
November 07, 2004
ANNOUNCEMENT (thus spake Josh)
The last couple of posts spawned a few ideas that I feel should be made into the site's very first ANNOUNCEMENTS.
ï The FIRST RULE OF CHOP SHOP is - Thou shalt post comments on three poems that precedeth thine before thou mayest post a new poem.
ï Please try to remember to assign your poems to the category "Poetry". I know this seems redundant, this a POETRY Chop Shop after all, but it makes some organization issues easier on the back end of things. Plus it just looks nice when you go to the Edit Entries screen and everything is all lined up real pretty like... and if we do not have our organization in place, can we truly label ourselves human beings?
ï We have officially unofficially decided to try posting poems in the Extended Entry box so that the site creates a link to your poem rather than showing the whole thing. It makes the site look nice (see above for Josh's compulsive reasoning behind this) and it creates an individual page for your poem with all the comments shown below.
ï Still working on the printer friendly pages... please bear with...
thanks!
Posted by Josh at 07:20 PM | Comments (6)
Childe Roland (original draft for now)
"He that endureth to the end shall be saved"
-statement made by a friend of Robert Browning about Browning's poem, "Child Roland to the Dark Tower Came"
I watched the window plane glide into the wall like a pomegranate
bursting. Into the wire, sent my angel, of danger, of self-respect; there
was a hoary cripple on the plane wing, splitting the edge's spine with a boxcutter.
Why should I see some freak show's malicious eyes like that, I says to myself?
The tears of the wing the plane the malediction the self-content, what is the fear?
What is the malediction?
-How you know how I feel what you say what is real what is cold what is steel-
An aside stance, I look to the landed plane. There are dark holes bursting
in the seams of bulk, a nuisance to the turbulence of removal of
passengers.
There is screams; a skull-like laugh.
I vantage to the right of me: there are no passengers. I venture
to the left of me; I see bullets; I see slow motion grounders; I see bloomers;
I see trousers; I see stars. The plane is not moving at all; there is explosions.
Is there?
Is there stillness where the Dark Towers hide?
-Do you care how I care do you dare when I stare is there air when I stare
ground air
(How should I know that this window out the window stares into
U.S. paranoia kinda sorta see ya going solo out there do you care you
if I why should I why should I not blaze into the future,
almost as if I shot Kennedy)-
I watch men in false beards saturate in headline news
their morning coffees. I dance under the plane seats,
smelling the sweat of nervous third world wannabe Jihad
revelers tampering with portholes speaking through blowholes
eating gunshot wounds in the face of the U.S. reserves.
Wait, where am I? I have dwindled into a ghost;
I am on a plane, still gaining altitude from the thoughts and shouts
of Holee Jeehad Yeehaa, towelheads saluting the pair of buildings
like a set of ungodly twins.
Where am I really? Am I a prisoner to these false deities?
Or am I enslaved on a plane? What ever happened to the
James Cagney, strong silent types?
Is my life founded on a soul pitch white?
Where is that white noise coming from?
Why not aske the road? You muste solve it!
The plane lands into a third floor spiralling window; 6th avenue flying out of
floors with their own zip codes. Rockefeller is spiralling in his grave,
into the 106th, I am still mumbling, clinging to the seatbelt that is
twirling around my midsection, cradling honey roasted in my lap and
spooning a life preserver between my thighs;
no grieving can resolve my posture.
-Is this ridiculous are you ridiculous why this is ridiculous am I to blame am I for
shame am I for God's sakes am I for God's stakes in this share of land that
prepossessed envy obsessed deny oppressed shared equality
what should I care I have 401K when should I dare to leave as I stay-
There is darkness in gulps of the Last Judgement's fire. There is
a high pitched siren encompassing every lukewarm seat.
There is a mad brewage in the pitching of crows; there is the living frame.
I feel the searing burns of the licks of a thousands of tongues, red and yellow,
that speaks in unfettered dialects, in unbroken dialects.
It says, Just this, It says, Just THIS: my eardrums hear all,
shunning the mouths of young children
from distant countries on lifesavers, my vocal cords express indignation
at the childe sent back for good. There is twilight in these dark clouds,
these autumn sprinkles.
The outside.
And the tower(s).
(The childe Roland sleeps within).
Posted by tony at 11:29 AM | Comments (4)
November 05, 2004
all in a days work *working title*
begrudgingly
i dig
past
topsoil and
roots
past
earthworms
and gopher
paths
towards
eternal
rest
Posted by garth at 08:29 PM | Comments (9)
Storylines (revised 11/12/04)
It is early and I have been
to the store to buy
coffee and compliments.
A mother of one said
Cool sweater and gave
me a look that said
You I could get to know, or
When we were young we
were the ones that fell
for people in line.
Go home and write
that montage, filling
in the spaces between
my buying coffee and
Marlboro Lights, between
my smoking them on
the sidewalk and your driving
away. Poignant previous mornings,
afternoons, and nights with
lovers and fathers and loneliness,
captured somehow, in
persistence of vision and violins.
Posted by Josh at 01:01 AM | Comments (7)
November 04, 2004
An Empty Sky
Dry wood
yet unable to catch fire, despite
endless friction, attempts in vain
still stubbornly dry and without even a sign
of the beginnings of smoldering.
Stacks of yesterdayís news
amashed unceremoniously in unsatisfyingly empty holes,
thick, choking, smearing smoke--
quieting the honking geese and stopping the chatter of sparrows.
Butterflies awkwardly bang their beautiful wings together
returning to nearby fragrant clusters, doing a strange sexless tango.
Forget the waning fire and focus!
The soft spring grass is carpeting the ground below the bare geese feet
the bees hum in numberless multitudes in a far off tree
the butterflies do their clumsy dance
among floating flittering remnants of twice-read old news,
the old wood is barely smoldering, hissing, refusing.
Where is the glory when the grandiose plan peters out?
Justify the old woodís useless presence
when it is forgotten and its purpose has passed,
when disease and pests have ravaged it from the inside out.
It has lived too long.
Surviving infernos of Dante-inspired intensity
and yet,
brought down to its proverbial knees in its prime,
and what then, does God see?
Does God bring comfort to the last smokey sputterings?
Does it ask for forgiveness for its everlasting soul?
Standing before the fireless smoke, stinging eyes and tight chest,
standing next to a similar soul,
accompanied by comforting hissing and buzzing,
dancing butterflies, the sliver of a moon,
lights from nearby man-made amenities:
God must be all around, God must be right here!
But the sky is so far up, devoid of stars and empty.
Satisfaction so often lies in the most obvious,
so where is the comforting angelic presence,
the comfort of a single set of prints when the walker is too exhausted to go on?
The sad sighs that are passed off as contentment testify to the tangled mess
we humans have made of things.
Tangled tangled mess and sighs,
while witnessing miracles in front of human eyes,
and the damningly dark sky holds no brilliance tonight,
where is the elusive Presence?
Soft sighs, a presence so near,
a million meaningful words unsaid through meaningless glances.
Is it enough?
Twisted hunk of dried wood, sputtering nothing
uttering nothing,
an existence for something but not all things
not the thing.
A huge part but not the whole part,
but so much a part that when its gone
nothing consoles, nothing appeases.
Abandoned straight away under the guise of still remaining.
----------------------------------
A lump in the throat,
a furtive glance at the dark sky,
a frustrated sigh from the efforts to catch fire,
a stinging loneliness of being alone while surrounded.
Posted by amber at 07:29 PM | Comments (7)
November 02, 2004
Halloween
Halloween
Today I slept past noon; recounting dreams
of the night. Children of the night believe
in ghouls and ghosts, things grown folks canít conceive,
unless itís Halloween. The wind blows screams
from tree to tree. October always seems
to breathe new life into death; a reprieve.
Ah! As the heart grows older falling leaves
no longer consume beliefs- hopes and dreams.
Today I slept past noon; to mold a mask
of dreams (I will not be known even to
myself) October, empty as the last
unknown truth, has been clothed with sheets. Holes to
be cut for eyes. The leaves fall heavy and fast
the sidewalks slowly suffocate; dreams too.
Posted by garth at 06:11 PM | Comments (2)