The iced ground is steeped
in syllables and cinders,
boot souls and boot heals. 

Prophet of the Tulips,
you never spoke,
but they still grew.

She breathes out the last of the morning
in the dew on her lips.

Fossilization

Upon a slender line your hand does wave
To dolloped heart strings all at once undone.
A broken beat against the door behaves
As strewn within the blood the white has gone.
Oh, lost as nickels in palms ne'er tightly closed,
A dime and penny sink among the eyes
And out the light that begging iris proposes.
On top, the puddle rings with whistling flies,
Pooled amber o'er their wings is caramelized.
Around in rings the wood engulfs the old
And cut in crimson skies the door is realized
So knocked in walls out walls by windows sold.
Ring right your hand and calm your wavering pulse
Not new for heart strings' snapping ancient force.

Egh, sonnets.

And her hands on her arms—
crumbling bricks
pool around her thighs
Take up arms
create a visage
in cool waves of fires
and the bright spots they leave
forever in her eyes

          Tonight was a Salt Lake City Arts poetry reading, by my teacher Tim Erickson and my other teacher's son, Michael Hansen.  Both of their work was phenomenal.  There's definitely a whole new intimacy to actually hear an author reading their own work, instead of just seeing it written down or typed out.

Ceasefire (Cento)

They  have watered the street,
for once not fighting, just listening, watching the storm.
Not even mild contempt in their expressionless,
agile, impetuous, broad-shouldered
mother, baying her and her baby in.
A weathered monument to some of the dead.

Sources: Amy Lowell, Alan Shapiro, Larry Levis, Campbell McGrath, Evie Shockley, Natasha Trethewey

We're researching different poetry forms for literary magazine.  A cento is made up completely of lines from other poets. 

Warm

This is the smell of electricity.
The spaces between our fingers
burn themselves up,
moving too quickly to contain
themselves.
But we pull away,
and the air sputters
and mutters its inaccuracies.

Into the water.

Some Sets

Am I a bad person,
for liking a man in a uniform,
even though I cringe
at the thought of the material
giving way to daggers
and silver
bullets?
I feel like I am. My gut.
The tree bark watches as this boy—
just a boy, not yet a man,
like every classic love song—
stands cold in the snow.
His boots have worn through the toe
and his toes have worn through the boots.
He slices the snow,
dragging a blade behind him.
Now, thir't, four't, fifth, six't,
lift your rifle.
Hold it at right shoulder.
Walk to your spot
by the snow that has melted
and frozen over.
Stand on the rocks and look
at your reflection.
You will die here.
You will be shot in eight counts.
You will fall,
thinking of the river at home
instead of yourself.
Hold your rifle at right shoulder.
Five, six, seven, eight—

Isaac

My brother was a carpenter,
with wood-stained hands—
more cedar than cherry.
What's a hard wood?
I'm not the carpenter.
I can only use a saw
with help.
He had wooden talent.
His rawness was built
into the heartstrings in his palms.

The psalms face his black shoulders,
and I ask his forgiveness
for boxing him in hard plastic.
I'm not the carpenter.


Inspired/prompted by "Isaac's Remains"

Sapless

She cradles her hands
     against her ribs
with the trying tenderness of a child with a fallen robin's egg.
Her shoes have worn themselves to
               a smell like leather drying
                                                 over
                                                        and over
             in the ceaseless sun of a never
                              gained distance.
Drying her toes,
the curve of her ankle,
the sediment of her calf,
      and huddling
    into the crook of her knee.
She walks on air;
                                                     stings herself
without feeling the rivers of mud
drying her hip,
                  her waist,
           and two false ribs.
         
               The egg falls.
Her lips meet across the scorpion weed.


Inspiration

Seeing all this stuff that is not particularly pleasing makes me feel like I'm schlumping through some sort of bad supermarket called "Dis Is Art, Brah" and I'm sampling all of the generic Cheerios even though I'm not hungry. They're not even Honey Nut Cheerios.
So here's some nice blank space to make me feel like I can wait until I'm hungry and actually have some Honey Nut Cheerios. Ooh, or Honey Bunches of Oats. Or if I'm really lucky, I can have some Cracklin' Oat Bran.

This is just good to have for future reference:  A list of what some users of dictionary.com think are the most beautiful-sounding English words.

Tongue

The taste of a burned tongue
in an open mouth.
There are five fires
in the daisy fields,
burning sweet sicknesses
into an air of smoke.
Kiss the ground and taste
your clay figures.
Lick the ground
and taste the metals
in the sticky dew
of the weeds.
The air is less
than _______.
The taste of a burned tongue
in an open mouth.

"The taste of a burned tongue
pressed into an open mouth,"
written on the silver tile
in water drops with wet fingers.
I used to write the names
of my crushes on the shower wall.
I used to sing school songs
in the shower.
This doesn't mean anything.
It's just a secret habit 
to create impermanent things.

The taste of a burned tongue
pressed into an open mouth.
My blood is boiling
in a familiar weight
of nickles and pennies
on my teeth.
I want that blood
that spills into other people.
Damn hormones.

I burned my tongue on some pasta a couple days ago.  It feels like the taste of blood (in the same way that Cherry Capri Suns tastes like the smell of cat litter).  And for some reason, I did write it on my shower wall, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. 

Also, the word "tongue" is disgusting.  Just like "flesh".

Hybrid Tea

I am cultivated
for my carefully cut
edges to slice me.
Submit. 
Believe it is
the choice of my season
of mind.

I wonder now
why you would deny me
my own retaliation
to myself and my ribbonry
by offering me a rose
when the roses don't
bloom and drift off
their stems
in heavy-headed stupor
until I do.

Good Music

        Since I got myself talking about music with bad writing, I'm countering it with good music.  In creative writing two this last school year, we had an assignment where we were supposed to find a song that we really liked.  Since it was a writing class, I looked through the free Mp3 downloads I've gotten (Spinner and Freegal are how I get all of my music) for songs I thought were well-written.
        I found that, for lyrics, I liked more indie type music, which didn't conform to the "Baby" Bieber expectation that all you need for good music is a pretty face, a rapper, and to speak the common language ("and I was like, 'baby, baby, baby, ohhh!'").
        So anyway, look up the lyrics if you would like.  For the stuff I liked most, it would be just as good if it was simply read.  The music makes me like it more in the same way that hearing my classmates read their work feels so much more authentic and right.
        The song I chose for my presentation was "Curs in the Weeds" by Horse Feathers.



It was tied with "Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes (and basically every song by them), but that^ ended up being shorter -- everyone seemed so restless listening to music that they (I) didn't like that I figured correctly that shorter would be better.

Some other ones I liked were
"David" by Noah Gunderson
"Nightwatch" by Acrylics
And, more recently,
"Sweetness" by Pearl and the Beard
"Futuretown" by Jon Lindsay

I like music.

Technological Addiction

Facebook chat is all over my browser
Smileys, chat bings; it couldn't be louder.
What a crappy thing for a computer
to be the drug for the everyday user.

One Word's prompt today is "chat".  I was Facebook chatting, and for some reason I sang this.  And we all know songs have to rhyme.  At least, if they're gonna get played on the radio. Duh.

The title is because I want someone who is paid a lot of money by a company that owns everything to make this an actual thing.  It's just bad enough that "it's good". Or that's the story I'll stick with.

...Horrible music starts like this.

Tsooh-Hah—

I feel it moving
strings of candy floss
to catch on my arms
while it rides the back of the wind.
The spaces in between my fingers
feel utterly significant,
grasping at moments as they slip
through my invisibly
webbed hands.
I feel the strings rolling
into my lungs
with each breath
that ripples across the lines
of bare-chested dancers.
I rock on the knots of the world.
They tie onto my toes
and bid me to breathe deeper
than I can breathe out
or I can breathe between.
But I try.
I hold the restless air
in next to my heart
until I feel the cold spread up
from my fingertips to my lips
in a swift stream,
and then I release it.
The cotton is still soft
and warm against my speckled skin.
It spins among the fibers
to braid the fabric sky
into a banner of faith. 


I listened to this song on repeat (very quietly) while I wrote this, which I recommend, but it is actually inspired by the physical feeling of taiko drums (best played loudly).  The title is also supposed to be a strange... breathing.  So make it very breathy, if you ever want to pronounce it.

The flicker of gold landed
on my shoulder.
The bringer of good news:
that there would be water
and glitter for the marching band.
Muahahahahahaaa.

Because I couldn't be serious as soon as I thought of "glitter". :-)  One Word's prompt today is "reporter".

        Idea that I want to try soon and do not want to forget:  Sounding out poetry.  Spelling everything as it would be to dictionary pronunciation or to a first grader who still must sound out individual letters.  It will look so strange.  But hopefully cool.

(Title?)

"I say I won't forget,
but that is
a lie."
I will forget that the rings
and your fingers
moved with the displacement
of water and sound.
And I will forget the paper-
thin leaves, with cobwebs
cracked into their stems,
waving over and saying,
"I can help.
Reach out your cobweb fingers."
when you did,
you pulled down the roots
of the merry weeds and flowers
had thrown out.
I'll forget you sank
to where your face was a rock
obscured in the silt.
And I'll remember
your blue lips
when we lifted you out
into the breathing violet fields
and the spider webs filled with dew
drops dripping off the dusty millers.

I want to be a drift of snow
draped upon your knee.
Quilted with crystals
that appear to be emeralds
or some blue stone from the east
when you brush them over
the red-hot stones in the fire.
But then, once you jostle
the logs for letting in the cold,
I want to stand beside you again
to hold you still with warm arms
and yellowing words.

        I went to Night of the Arts tonight, and it was great!  One thing, though -- the school allows the same art they banned from the literary magazine (which is bought by just a few) to be displayed to the whole school.  It's awesome, but so hypocritical!  Agh! 
        Art is great. :)

Project Attempts

I.
You step carefully,
        to keep the hollows
        domed out in the sand,
     on lava bubbles
and paleolithic fish.
They sharpen to red
        when you step over them,
and dull to orange
when they remember
they are sand
and they are orange
        in the sun.
I don't know you.
  But I peek  out from the sage
        and catch the rocks
        blushing
  because they thought
        your shadow
     was an invitation to familiarity.

II.
You step carefully,
        to keep the air
        pressing into the sand,
     on lava bubbles
and paleolithic fish.
They sharpen in the momentary heat
     when you step over them,
and dull again
when they remember
they are sand
and they are warm enough
        in the sun.
I don't know you.
But I peek out from the sage
        and catch the rocks
        steaming with all composure aside
     because they thought
your displacement of the sky
     was an invitation to familiarity.

III.
You hush the sand with the soles
        of  your feet, carefully,
        to keep the air
        whispering in the sand,
     on lava bubbles
and paleolithic fish.
They sharpen in the momentary crescendo
     when you hush over them,
and in diminuendo
     remember
they are sand
and they mumble
        in the sun.
I don't know you.
However, I understand from the sage
        the rocks roll
        in cacophony
     because they thought
your truncated sky
     was an invitation to familiarity. 

IV.

You deepen the sand with the soles
        of your feet, carefully,
        to keep the air
        clear in the sand,
     on lava bubbles
and paleolithic fish.
They brighten to scarlet
     when you darken them,
and mix with the light
when they remember
they are sand
and they gray
        in the sun.
I don't know you.
But I glimpse around the sage
        and see the rocks
        blushing
because they thought
     your shadow
was an invitation to familiarity. 

V.
You lick at the ground with the soles,
        of your feet, carefully,
        to keep the air
        breathing into the sand,
     on lava bubbles
and paleolithic fish.
They burn with spice
     when you linger over them,
and pacify to milky white
when they remember
they are sand
and they are bland
        in the sun.
I don't know you.
But I savor the sage
        and the rocks
        spill together
because they thought
     your salting of the sky
was an invitation to familiarity.

Working on my project... and it's sort of kinda working out.  Better than before, at least!

Sex and Violence

          Today a story and a photo were cut from the lit mag.  I'm upset.  It's not that I'm upset that they were cut, exactly, but for the reasons that they were cut.
          Anyone who's read our school's literary magazine before knows that there can be some disturbing stuff in there.  Which is fine by me, since it's usually not threatening.  There's swearing, drugs, violence, and cannibalism pressed right next to pages about tulips, apple trees, love, and autumn.   And that's alright with me.  I like it to be a relatively free student publication.
          However, of course, it's not as free as the staff would like it, which brings me to why I'm upset with the administration and most Americans.
          The photo that was cut was a shadowy photo of a girl with her back to the camera, arms wrapped around herself, and no shirt.  So, a naked back.  Cut.  But it's semi-understandable.
          The short story was about a boy (presumably in high school) who was God himself.  And he murdered a girl in a bathroom stall for being a "whore", cut muggers to pieces in the streets, and killed a mother.  Pretty graphic stuff.  But that's not why it was cut.  God loved a 12 year-old girl, because she was pure.  No sex involved, even though his attraction to her was implied.  Therefore, it was cut for being "pedophilic".  And that's what makes me angry.  Not because of the descriptions of the murders?? Because of implied sexual content??
          How is it that we can live in a world where anything sexual is supposedly worse than murder?  Where many people would rather have their sons get in fist-fights than get someone pregnant? 

*Shrugs*

I nominated the lamp to take this position
by the window and by the bookcase
to unite the real and the fake
of all that I know
and of all that I care for
which is in everything.

Today's One Word prompt was "nominated".  Ifferblahntersnap. (Shrug)

My writing... gaaaaaahhhhhhgghhhhuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhuhughughughguuuuuughhuuuuh... *breathes obnoxiously*

Finally, after a long hour and a half of tiredness and writing about naps, I concluded my creative writing class with the following:

When do my real naps come in, huh?

Not *Kills*...

Summertime chlorine
kills me a little every time
I remember it.
Sweat and sprinklers
and water and toothpaste
recombine
into an afternoon nap
on the green-leaf rug
in the swampy hall.
I march up the steps,
slower than I ever walked
before my street came up
on the map.


Can you tell I was still sleepy?...  Because I was.  I'm getting sleepy again from reading this. -.o

Why Write When I Can Sleep?

Silence is nice
in the course of a tapping day.
Silence is just quiet;
hands keep moving
and the air conditioner
sounds sleepy and old.
I am sleepy, but I am not old,
and the hospital I think of
is not young,
but black shoes
with white soles are.
The halls are empty
and sloped and curved,
to make walking easy
and to make falling hard,
and the colors on the windows
suggest that blindness
can see color
when faced with whiteness.
Now it is dark,
but still sleepy and old,
angular, orange, and brown.
I'm afraid that I cannot
feel my eyes, though
they never tingled
before now, either.
I am sleepy, and I want to
recline in a white room
with an air conditioner
on the window.

Another sleepy poem.  I was sitting on top of my desk and almost fell asleep, which I realized would probably have resulted in my toppling headfirst off of the desk, so I got down....

For some reason or another, the sound of the school's air conditioning makes me think of a happy hospital.  (Shrugs)

What's Over Doesn't Matter

An overhang drips
over stories of mist
which condensates on a marble.
It grows sticky
with honey-dew
and the dew of rain
on slivers of leaf greens
on the edge of the desert.
A cool sway
with the offshore
roar of water;
interconnected dew drops
stumble over themselves
to be on top and bottom
of the stones.
They rub the rocks clean
and foster growth
of happy slime in the cracks
where they crumble apart,
like dew drops from a breath
of crystallizing blue sky.
The roar of the marble
falling and rolling in in-
describable wetness
is as loud as the shouting
dew drops themselves.

I was really tired in creative writing, and I'm still not feeling inspired in the way that I'm supposed to for my project... but here, have some sleepy sub-conscious, sub-par writing!

Good Morning

A sliver through the blinds
runs across the wood
and puddles underneath the carpet.
It's warmth glows
and the cats lay out
to capture the sun's
growing intensity.

Today's One Word prompt -- because I figure that the best way to get out of a writing rut is to just write!

Yet

This is water
in my hands in the desert --
this is language in
its most basic form.
Red, raw, smooth
inverse infinities .

A trickle on the sand;
a line of glistening particles
stick to themselves
and it is ruined.
And it is small.

My hands lie limp,pouring out to the dry,
dry smut, until a puddle
of mud and water
lays out for the sunfish
to leap from
and leave their scales
darkening in the valleys.

The forbidden quickly
pulls away with a kiss
from the wind
and scrubs itself
clean on the clouds.

Tell me
what is in the center
of an axion

I... have a lot of work to do, from the inside of this "poem" out... #doubtingmyownworkFTW (because everything is Twitter after midnight, didn't ya' know?)

Perfect? To whom?...

          I had a huge burst of creativity after I talked to my teacher about the project that I wanted to attempt, and I was excited.  But I had other homework on that day, so I didn't get on here and write down all of my thoughts about it -- I came home and did my other homework.  Now, all I can feel is this invisible pressure.  Not here, luckily, but whenever I look at the words that I've tried to lay down for this project, it just feels like everything is closing in on them.  Like my computer screen is trying to squeeze them into nonexistence.  It frustrates me.  I'm up to throw a piece out in the writing circle tomorrow, and I have yet to find words that I can be happy with looking at myself.  All of the words that I feel are perfect don't fit what my project needs them to be. 
          It's so hard to destroy something that feels personal.  Letters and words aren't necessarily personal, but just that they can feel that way ruins me.  Things have to feel right, and look right, and if they don't, then nothing should, in order to put it in a different set of rules of disorder. 
          GAH.  I just... I don't even know.  I kinda hate this project.  Or I hate my words.  Or I hate that I have the whole of languages pressing down on me, because the question that keeps coming back to me is, "What is the most basic form of language?"  So I wrote a poem about how writing things down confines language so greatly.  And I believe that to be true -- but that's not my personal prompt. 
          I know that I have to send in one of the poems I've been "working on" (or rather, destroying) for workshop, but I don't want to have to explain what I want to accomplish with it all over again.  I'm even getting tired of trying to explain it to myself, so I can even begin to find what I need. 
          So, the question is this:

If I need to have five perfect poems, is it more important that they are perfect

to people who know what my prompt is, have no idea what the theme is,

or simply to myself?

          I'm automatically inclined to say "to myself", because that's what I'm most comfortable with.  I don't feel like I'll enjoy anyone else enjoying my work if... I don't enjoy it.  So I don't know.  I guess I'll just... do eeny-meeny-miny-mo and see how this turns out? 

There's no better
to do with a mind
than rattle it
with a child-like passion.
With sticky fingers
one can find a niche
in such fascination.

One Word's prompt today was "rattle". 

Literary Magazine

          Because I haven't moved to tell anyone besides my mom yet, I'm one of the editors-in-chief (of sorts) of the lit mag, Chasms, at my school!  It's exciting just because I didn't think my stuff was that good, and I'm the only junior editor.  So yeah.  That's a thing, and I'm sorta proud of it.  I really do like writing.
          But I still didn't think other people would like my writing.  Apparently almost everything I've turned in to submissions this year has gone to the green basket to be put in the magazine... which is pretty crazy.  Especially because everyone hated the first poem I ever put in submissions in that class. X-)  I'm glad that Mr. Jessop has not had us writing many stories, since I don't have much confidence in them.  Which is again crazy, because when I took creative writing one, I liked writing stories more than poems.  Also... I forgot to post the story I wrote for that class.  It's sort of bad, because I stayed up and did it the night before it was due, but it has sarcastic funny moments, so that makes me like it. 
          And I wrote an essay for AP U.S. History tonight, and I hope I get an eight or nine on it. And I used the word "keel", which I really like.
          Unrelated to my own writing, I prefer One Direction -- a billion times over -- to Justin Bieber.  Have you ever noticed that Justin Bieber's "love" songs are all about him?  Whereas One Direction is singing about other people... which makes my heart flutter like I'm a little pre-teen girl who hasn't ever been loved by a boy in the lovey-dovey way, but wants it so badly.  They make me feel like I'm 12 years old!  It's not half bad.
          This has been a random update on writing-related things that is not actually a good piece of writing in itself!  Toodle-loo!

Chocolate

It is a simple pleasure.
I make it swim
in stealth and bathe in sin
because it's not here for my pink
fingers to cradle
or my nails to scrape
to smell Caribbean sea salt.
But I'll take it when I can get it.
My mom scolds me
with her hands clasping her waist
and a crescent moon smile
on both of our faces.
Smooth, dark, and soft,
pulling on the line
of less sinful things,
I turn to swallow
and blush.

This is my first semi-successful project poem.  Hopefully as I finish up more, you'll notice the theme?  Though, the theme will become whether or not people see a theme at all.  It's like psychology and writing put together -- whaaat?

Campfire

From a distance,
white sparks jump
to the empty air
in circles around
Polaris.
Pricks of a needle
through the water
refill, not before
the flicker of a lesser
and greater power
in heat and in passionate
cold.
Unidentified?  We face
the known with fear
of knowing
so we can call it
a lonely truth
in a long-shot
washboard of sky.

This is a failed attempt at a project I'm trying for my fourth quarter creative writing two class.  I can't say yet what it is, just know that this isn't really part of it! Since it failed to meet my parameters, though, it is not necessarily a failed poem.  I'll let you know what poems I write are part of it, and hopefully you'll notice what they do/do not have in common and maybe tell me? ;-)

"You" Is a Second Personal Pronoun to Distance Oneself

You fly off of the hot handle
of a brilliant red pan
where you wish your hand
would rest for
ever.
You whisper to yourself,
"God, you deserve it,"
and God doesn't respond.
You learned it in philosophy,
that some people believe in faith
in God
being the same as faith
in romantic love.
If you talk to someone who
works in mysterious ways,
why do you try to make sense
of a damn human?
You're too similar to distinguish
yourself from yourself.
You mutter your problems,
but will never move to speak
to those who try to help you.
And you feel sorry for yourself.
Damn you.
You.

Drink and Be Mary

I would take your fork
and silence your groans
through grinding teeth
with my hand.
I would guide you to my table,
if you were hungry,
to dine with me.
First with spoons,
cupped to catch the beams
from a skyscraper in the city
that moves with flecks
of inorganic dust.
We would not eat,
but we would dine happily.

We would sit
by an indigo ocean
in a rowboat beached onshore.
We would drink from oily
oyster shells and make
the water as salty
as history made our tools,

but you deserve better.
I would lead you with one
hand on the crook
of your arm or neck,
the intimate places
no one wants to think about.
Into nothing; onto nothing
in the center of everything.
The flame of the sun
slides off the moon
and bleeds yellow watercolor
into our purple sky

and onto our hands.
We would stain ourselves
with moonbeams and beams
of trees through the dirt.
We would have all of our minerals
and smile with fingernail grins.

 Based very loosely on Margaret Atwood's work. Gooooodnight. -.+

Sleep Deprivation

Strange to be the last awake.
To stare into nothing,
pretending to do
something.
To take a picture
from a frame with cracked
paint on the edges, and pull it
to our faces with our mindlessness,
with arms out to catch the rush
of cloud as it falls from our feet.
We lift a feather pillow
to suspend it on top
of the peaches
that grow
out of the living room river.
Now I step on them,
an airy, bubbling jam
or jelly—I never know.
The rug is an ill blue.
The couch retires into itself
and welcomes me
as a worn traveler named
Peregrine.
I still walk on the peaches,
my toes motionless
like the shadowy moving pictures
the painters drew on
the ceiling.
My light and dark matter
makes meaning where I find
that fruit sprouts from only
water.
That makes sense.



Seriously sleep deprived... it's 2:00 A.M.! Yeeeeaaaa! (Does it bother anyone else that "yea" is spelled like "yay" now?  Everyone thinks I'm saying "yeah", but really I'm just stubborn in changing my word choice...)  This is supposed to be based on Gary Soto's work.  Haha.  But it really seems absolutely nothing like it.  But, you know what? Whatevs.  Maybe he'd write about sleep deprivation in whatever way it came to him when he was really freaking tired too.  Kiiiiinda mainly "inspired" by "Looking Around, Believing", I guess?
Last line because... what the heck, it's 2:00 A.M., I can do whatever I want, right?  And... if we wanna get all serious, people have a lot of issues with more abstract poetry, I find, even though this isn't really abstract.  Everyone thought "Above Each Other" was really abstract and couldn't figure it out at all -- but they thought it was okay.  There was only one person who really had issues with not understanding it, and would prefer to... so, still pondering making edits on that. 
WHY AM I NOT WRITING MY LAST POEM OF THE NIGHT?? Gah. :-( I wanna sleep instead.

Cell Walls

It is cool outside, biting
without causing pain.
I'm sitting, cross-legged
because the vents are silent
for five more minutes,
and sleepy with hours
of "nothing much"
looking at photos of daffodils.

I wonder how the plants know

to spring up in the dry cold.

I wonder how they want
to come back each time
after a long, bitter winter
like the mal taste of an almond.

The heat turns on
and makes the curtains
wave to our chloroplast-
filled friends in the dark
and nubs in the dirt,
pale because their two lips
have yet to be kissed
by the fire, silent still.
The air turns on and off
again while my feet switch.
Is it warm in their toes?
They cross and bundle

dead together and alive alone.
I count the minutes until
I'll need to sleep,
weakness of a mind.
I wonder if the flowers count
the seconds between
each cycle of the sun.

This is the first draft of a poem that is loosely inspired by Gary Soto's work.  I needed some stuff to turn in tomorrow for lit mag... so here I am actually trying! :-) (I'm a procrastinator.)  However, I actually do like this "modeling after a poet" idea.  Gary Soto and Margaret Atwood are awesome.  Mostly this is based on the usual simplicity (straight-forwardness) of Soto's work and his brief story-telling qualities.  I'll revisit it soon, I think, because I feel like it lacks a lot of similarities to the best things of his work [his unexpectedly beautiful words, 

"With an eye we lift up the peach tree

And hold it up to the wind —  white blossoms

At our feet." (Gary Soto, "Looking Around, Believing"]

but that's a thing to work on when I don't have hundreds of points on the line.  

 Edits made: "while it's cold" to "in the dry cold". "silent" to "silent still". "sun" to "fire".

A bunch of crappy poems because, you know, what the heck

I Don't Want to Share My Room, No Siree, I Dislike It On Any Day I Do

I really rather dislike
this line thing down the boards
that separates our sides
because yours is a real bore.
I'd rather have a wall
to replace that pallid tape
so I would not have to look
at your mess when I wake.

It really would be nice
to not have to shut my face
because you're chatting with your friends
on that website that starts with "face"! (You see what I did there? That is a perfect rhyme.)
Imagine your joy at it!
To line the walls with black
posters of your favorite bands
and your skeleton mask, Jack.

But alas, our brother lives at home
and still, so true, do we
so when you ask to turn off the light,
NO, IT'S MY COUNTRY TOO AND I'M FREE.
Butnotreally,though.

 An Anti-Ode to Physics

So what if you're law?  Screw that.

She Could Live in the Couch if She Wanted To

One day I was sitting here,
doing what I'm doing now,
when *all of a sudden*
from the couch I heard a meow.

I turned to look at what it was,
"You say Tina fell in the well?"
But my cat just stared at me like I was dumb
And I figured it was just as well. (I'm so good at this rhyming stuff, you guys.)

I wrote a haiku.

It's deep and real meaningful.

Oh, I'm out of space.

And then all of the cheese in the world became stinky blue cheese and I was sad.

You can tell I like to write stuff because of my impeccable descriptions.
"...general blah-ness..."

Teeny Oreo

When cats just wake up
with flattened black fur
on their side and face
and yawn and stretch
to shake themselves
back into their normal state,
that's a beautiful moment,
amplified by laying again
and hiding their eyes
between their paws
and soft claws.

I seriously have the sweetest cats.  Seriously.  And I love them so much!! :)

You’re in a bed of cotton sheets.

You raise your voice, cry, and laugh.

This is where I’ve always belonged,

wrapped tight in peppermint sheets,

surrounded by my sleeping family. 

It’s a tight fit.

Again with my not knowing where something came from.  Also, I am a big fan and proponent of the Oxford comma.
Edit 3/21/12 -- Hey! I think I read Gary Soto's "A Red Palm" for the first time before I wrote this. :-)

Sometimes when the leaves fall,

it’s like they are sinking slowly

to the bottom of a mundane cup.

When I was half-grown, I asked,

“Do you drink tea, Summer?”

She fiddled with her fingers

and rubbed her palms against her cheeks,

(she had pink hair back then,

and it fell over her red fingernail polish

like a bad Valentine’s Day outfit

when she did this),

“Only in the wintertime,

because it makes me fall asleep.”

I was going through my "Lit Mag" folder on my computer (because I'm weirdly organized when it comes to school assignments) and I came across this.  I remember that the final had something to do with a girl who died of cancer and an old acquaintance didn't recognize her photo... but not this draft.  I don't think this had anything to do with the same story (I don't know where the final story is, anyhow), and I can't remember what the prompt was at all... Just thought that it's intriguing to forget things so well.  And that I still have much of the same imagery for this now that I did when I wrote it.  (I think with images -- how do you think?)

Above Each Other

He's the character of man
who thinks himself kind
and generous
until it's all that he is—
a gentle touch,
a loving caress.
Prick and squeeze,
penetrate and hug.
A single finger.
Or sometimes, cuddle
then fool around with needles.
He was not my Adam,
but I was willing to share.

Pushing palms down my legs,
he feels the bumps and rolling
of my muscles where they'll bruise
and prickle with scabs.
Like mountains and valleys,
or skin cells and the empty
places filled with electrons.
A naked goose on a table
readying to be ready to serve.
The flames burn like Hell:
my own hell for my sins
of the flesh, of the white
blood cell, of the ivory
lace of virgins.
I've been undercooked for years now,
my skin too white for my blood.

I made myself this way
by the path of my veins
leading to the core of my body,
pooling liquid next to my liver.
He made me this way,
but he is good.
I am good, outliving
my purpose with muttered words
from someone else,
as I stop my organs and
my organs have stopped
my mouth from working
over the mesas and rivers.

I look out over the table
with pure, hazel eyes.
I can see white wine,
pale bread, wan fish
that I have refused to eat
with my hands and tingling fingers.
I curl my toes and rip flesh.

At the point where my sockets
are blind and reach out with nodes
of pulsing fever, as they're meant to see,
I care enough to shake under
his fist and stare.
I was supposed to see him,
when the final moment came,
but I blind myself with faith
in a lover who fakes sleep
as He removes my unborn children
one by one.  I dull forever
in the 21st century.

This is supposed to be a poem modeled after Margaret Atwood.  I've really fallen in love with her work... because it's beautiful and, gah, beautiful. When I have to present this in class, though, it may get quite awkward... but oh well.

I like it when everyone can draw their own conclusion to/about any writing, but since this is my writing blog, I like to put down what things mean, at least to me, for future reference. So, if you want to purely make your own conclusions, don't read over light words!:

This is about my diabetes and God.  I'm not Christian, for those of you who don't know (though, I do believe in the concept of Jesus, just don't connect myself with the God, so I don't buy the package -- but this is a different conversation to have, I think).  One of the things I always hear, though, is that God created me, and God has a plan for me. And if I had been alive three-hundred years ago, I would have died at age 8.  And if I had been born sixty years ago, I might have died at 30. And if I'd have been born in Pinesdale, I might have lived on celery until someone got desperate enough to know God won't help me, and smuggle me out to a hospital or died. Will God help me? Did God intend for me to live, or do I live of my own free will? If I were to starve myself burning calories digesting celery, would my "time" come when he meant for it to, or when my cells were so degraded and digested themselves that they give up?

All of the sexual references... I don't know exactly how I got so many in there, but it points out to me how illness is in everything, like a faith, even though I like to say my diabetes does not create me at all.

["I want to be a little less like my father and more like my dad."  -- "David" by Noah Gunderson. I've been in love with this song recently, and really like this line of lyric.]

Green

"Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia."
Upon review, the past and future are strange
brothers, sons of a protective parent
with a brow that is vaguely familiarly shaped.
The parent, at present, opened to welcome
a high-flying, steam-washed fiber that follows.

I never took much from that lint, or the wind it follows.
Now, though, I see its hopeful sense of nostalgia
and it spreads its fluffy entrails as a welcome
to a new string of thought that breeds strange.
I wind its intestines in my fingers, a bow shaped
out of one thousand, lucky to be a parent.

In order to appear like the thoughts it is parent
to, she folds in on herself and the elastic that follows,
until she is one mass, one that is shaped
on a growing mound of spaghetti nostalgia.
She pleases herself with being strange,
her innards giving her a strangling, warm welcome.

It makes me uncomfortable, this welcome
that has been through breeders for years with her parent.
Perhaps it is justified that I am strange,
instead of the imperceptible line of youth that follows,
though I find it sure they will ponder nostalgia
because it stirs up what makes us human-shaped.

I remember being on a hillside with a bean-shaped
cramp that hit me with his open, gripping welcome.
I think of it when I think of my nostalgia,
for my past pain is always -- the future is apparent.
A train for stupid emotion manifold follows.
It tears me away and I become again strange.

But even while the past is weird and the future strange
each person finds oneself being shaped
by each successful thought that follows.
A friendly embrace to clothing, and a welcome
to each new bit of knowledge to which we are a parent.
We live in a world where everything reminds of nostalgia.

What follows us as we live is strange
as the nostalgia that shaped our nostalgic glances,
and our welcome for present to be the parent of our future.

Alternate title: Sestinas Are Long-Winded and Difficult
I rather dislike this.  It was kind of like, "Well, I guess I could go with this." Then the second stanza, and I felt okay, and then I just feel worse and worse about it with each successive stanza. Ooooh well. It must be done.

Louis, Time
is not ready for you
Some say it that opportunity
knocks opportunity;
all have to—
the true L'Amour knocks.
    but only once


(A re-organization of this quote by Louis L'Amour)

The Deep Ended

So much depends

upon

the drip-

dropped wires

eating their hearts

out

beside the crusted

dust.

Black OUT

Fling

I wanted to end up in love.
So many trinkets have scattered
and words have blushed
the wind's complexion
as they carry like wishes.
Centuries, for today.
For today I speak it
as if it is to land
on someone else's words
and multiply, like wishes do.

Tradition

My stairs creak, damp
with years of drought. /
Rain becomes routine
when it's unnecessary
and when it lays down in blankets
like it's warming the cement
instead of running cold rivers.
A swift wave of longing
washes over the window again,
dangling hurricanes in the street
while I turn so the small of my back /
watches and my hands
dangle ornaments and mementos
on the briars of the tree / like a fool. 

This is a work in progress, so there will be some changes made.  I just need to publish it now so that I'll remember it later!

Sometimes I miss you,
even though it was just a minute ago that we talked.
Sometimes I don't know what to say,
so I just laugh so I don't listen to silence.
Sometimes I want to stare in your eyes,
but look away because eye contact is generally instantaneous.

Going through all of the drafts I have on here that I never published, and publishing all of the ones that interest me. The onslaught is old.
I can guess who this is about.

Hello, Kitty,

sitting on a teardrop toolbench,

a hammer for the heart,

and one other for the eardrum.

A mallet for the toes to keep on feet and then run round.

A tape measure for the heartstrings, from heart down to ring finger.

Hello Kitty,

Hello, dear.

A glass for keeping eyes in -

No, a face as perfect as glass.

No hammer yet can break it,

But that of the Iron Man

Duct tape for the blood cells

for fixing holes for swimming

No crashing

crashing

crashing dandies

Lovely in their clothes.

What would you have to eat, sir?

One choice, not two, but one?

This one, or the other?

Still one it is, and one will choose, unless one chooses not

No, not

Choose not and you have no choice but to choose one

There's nothing

Nothing better than the umbrella that you carry

To keep in the sun

As a bowl keeps water
Oh, mine music, that sings only like puzzles can

And then tables tip
And left alone again is the teardrop
And left alone again is the toolbench...

One look was all it took. I didn’t want to look away. Even when the cart next over creaked as it turned and caught on wood, I didn’t want to. But I had my book in my hands, and had no more excuses. So I turned away with my fantasy, away from my real one.

Ding, dong, the witch is dead.
Left on the doorstep,
with one newspaper in hand.
Laughing at her!
All of the children laugh with me.
What a thing to say to them, too!
“My, my, my,” says she,
“What a pretty doggie! Yes!”

They sat together on the park bench with a backpack in between them.
“So, what do you think you’ll do now?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know… maybe write some, under a pen name. Maybe paint.”
“That’s all good, but… what about the cops?”
“Screw them. They can’t have my backpack.”

To Celebrate

Two women, bundled
and swaddled like newborns
celebrate,
alike in structure and in
disposition,
the day that light finally
held them and fed them
bread
baked in the dark.

(Inspired by Sleeping Twins by Odd Nerdrum)

All the smiles betray me.

LOL

One nodding,
on one desk lolling.
One          plus          one
                         is 2.
The voice tells them to --
Rub out the chocolate
curses, with salt
on their thumbs,
from their temples.
Granite feet, weighty
and dripping white
on their foreheads;
a temple built over
the temple ground.
Sacred secretions.
   What
happened?
A nod means yes.
   Up, down;
a nod means
       Yes.
But is it not strong to refuse?
To be with them when
they blot out   blue

tears

in the paper
of consciousness.
I refused the lol
-lipop
for a day of classes.

We Be Catching Giants

We pull and gasp, in short, an introduction

to sing the fray our tender ropes will burn.

Descendants ought to put their hands to function,

but never they the splitting end discern.

We shout of those we capture; lay at rest

when yet we still have not ourselves found peace.

In searching out the wave, we miss the crest,

And sit and stretch while eating false release.

Of power drunk’dness, say our foes, we are,

but blurry vision keeps our ears yet deaf.

The fires burn their truths, and seeing stars,

there’s nothing bright as black in charcoal left.

                Our reins are taut on broadly shouldered giants.

                The final pulls will be our dark’ning lights.

This is just a first draft of a sonnet for creative writing two. I won't tell you what I meant by it, because I will not always be present for my readers! But, yes. I think I will like this class.

In the Glory of the Morning

I bend over her

and watch her in bed.

Aaron taught me to be patient –

that the blue sticky umbrella petal

will always refuse to be rushed.

She sounds like an Eskimo kiss

with the slightest nuzzle of star ends,

and before even I can prepare,

hours seem like minutes

and I can taste Ipomoea purpurea

in the early sun-warmed air.

 

Exposed

At the height of spring,

there were seven eggs for me.

Hiding under the old great pine –

that I never thought would be gone,

but now is –

that was the best spot

if you had something

that you wouldn’t want found.

The needles stab at kids’ feet,

but it’s worth it even if there are no eggs

because that’s where the pink paper

walls hang from their roof

with the fluid clinging

of a pretty bleeding heart. 

 

Abortion

Mine is a gentle pull

on waves of royal blue

over a still, solid bottom.

I catch the ocean

in my cupped palm

and drink in liquid gold

from the heavens.

My greed is my demise,

but my children smile

because I have made them

whole again.

Until they are salty tears

of a mere sunflower,

they are alive.

 

In the tool shed!

He’d call to me,

with garden gloves

shaking stalks of –

something or other.

Sure as sun found sky,

he would make things grow.

I brought him scissors

in the summertime

to watch him shear away

sordid suckers of life,

the dandelions.

Dandy Lions

I pucker my lips

as they growl,

the panthers of the garden.

They are strong at root

and weak at seed.

It makes me feel strong,

just as they’d like.

A bowtie flies off too,

with a dandy flippancy.

These are "flower poems" from lit mag that I just found (looking for my best writing to submit to a competition tomorrow -- nervous!).  I really don't like them much, but I've decided to post them anyway because I like to have all of my writing in one place, where I can go back and revise it wherever I am. The last two I don't believe I ever turned in for credit, but they were just more fun for me.

Winged Regality

Somehow, she holds
a delicate balance in the air.
Not graceful—
she tips as if filled
with sloshing, sweet water—
but she stays above the dirt
until she's found her niche
in a colorful shoot that blooms
for her.
Still someday it will find itself
as a part of the honey-like soil
that breeds the air
of her flicker.