Works from Poetry 217
The following are the poems that I am wrote for my creative
writing class, Poetry 217.
True Story #1
My friend Russ
He's got this car
Right
It's this 1989
Four cylinder
Ford Mustang LX
And it's totally
Falling
Apart
It's got a hundred and eighty four thousand miles
Bad wheels
Bad alignment
Shaky steering
A stick shift
Duck tape over a broken window
Been broken into two times
In two days
In two
Different
States
Nothing taken but a bookbag
And maybe a suitcase
Of course
Nobody'd take the car
Late Morning
The wind through the trees
Plays sun spots across my
Sleep drowned face
Calling forth this corpse
Into the working world.
I pull my cold feet
Under the warm blanket,
A cool breeze chills my shoulder,
I wrap my arms around my hot love
And close my eyes to the sun.
No need to move today boy.
No need to move today.
True Story #2: Aubade
No need to move today boy
Just a blear eyed
Storm bleak
Saturday afternoon
Rainclouds looming out the window
Three o'clock
Saturday
What day?
October third
Holy Shit!
The Rent is due!
Get up get dressed get out the door
Or you're gonna get evicted
Shirt socks boxers pants
Don't forget the check you fool
Running through the drizzle rain
Moving fast to make it
So that I can get that postmark
October third 1998
"No-
I swear
It's not late
In fact
It's right on time"
and
Whew
Thank God
So am I
True Story #3: Job Update
You know
It would be just my luck
That I would get to personnel
Five minutes after they closed on Friday
Then come back on time on Monday
Only to find
The position I'm applying for
That I have been considering
For the last three months
Was filled
On Friday
HOW TO MAKE ANGRY ART
Hollow your soul
With a white hot spoon
And fill yourself up
With a cold black anger
Thick and putrid
Liquid Hate
Fused with stony patience
And sealed with wax
So that when the time comes
You will boil
And rise
And spit that hate
Onto the canvas
In volcanic orgasm
Rich and bloody
Screaming with pain
Till the Hate drips
Like honey from the comb
Leaving tattered fragments of joy
Stuck like feathers in tar
Begging and crying
"Make it stop!
Make it stop!"
Rainscape
Just as the sun starved
Tulip tree turns her
Hundred thousand Thirsting mouths
To the blue black
Cotton covered sky
So too do I
Turn my rain starved
Lips above
Eagerly awaiting that
Waterfall downpour of wet
To see it bursting in
A billion tiny coronets
On the dry
Cracked
Dying earth
Raising dust enough
To choke me
Till I drown
In a mudslide of
dusty rain
HAIKU
The following haiku were done in roughly the sequence they appear here with some of the worse ones omitted. They don't necessarily have independent titles. The section though entitled A Dream as Real as Death Itself is based on a nightmare that I had on Sunday Nov. 1.
When staring at my
Naked wrist, I wonder what
Happened to the time
Police officer buying Potato Chips
11:05 At Night
In the Ice cream store
Erick working
behind the glass
Poet scooping Ice Cream
I was sitting in my window
and then I just lost it
My mind took a jump
Pen standing tall
Like a soldier
in a regiment
A Dream as Real as Death Itself
I
A pit in the snow
Fifteen shivering and cold
1943
II
The sickle cuts her
Blood falling red on the snow
She screams, "I'm Bleeding!"
III
The guards lift her out
Put her head in a bucket
down falls the hammer
IV
Her arms twitching like
Fish on a line when one pulls
Out of the water
V
The Guards throw her down
The snow receives her body
Rabbi says Kaddish
VI
Snow begins to fall
Thirteen more beside me
Waiting in the pit
VII
My eyes cold and wide
My breath leaving faster like
smoke rising from trains
My hand covering my mouth
Fear as chilling as the wind
Slob
Why yes, I am a total fucking slob.
I never wash my stinking clothes or do
the dishes when they're piled six feet high
or take out the trash until it's over
flowing and reeking like a melting salad.
I have some melting salad in the fridge.
if you want to have a taste I could serve
a bit inside a dirty bowl, and get
a glass of filthy water to wash it down.
Or if you like, perhaps, this crusty sandwich
I left on the counter yesterday? No,
That's just not good enough for you. I know,
I've got some pizza under my bed.
It's still in the box, so the bugs didn't
get to it yet, in fact I think It still
has that pack of garlic butter inside.
Well look at that, it does!
Sonnet: This life is Holy
This life is Holy. Watching light fall here
and there, when pouring rains have fallen hard
upon the earth, and clouds are split by winds
driving them home across the seas cold wake
and shafts of light pierce the shattering sky
like swords to strike the stony hills, my eyes
begin to swell with tears, and then I take
a breath. The waves begin to calm again,
and setting sun gives way to shining stars
and yet will rise again, as every year
fades into year, and every life leads on
to other lives. This sand that speaks today
tomorrow may fall silent. So, my son,
Today I give this song of hope and praise:
This life is Holy.
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