Happy Poem Re-Write

V.1
Wading
through the mind’s sludge,
You see, a search light
drag across
the jagged waters,
you onward trod, ever vigilant,
hoping (against hope) to
find something
of value
to your own
thrashing executioner.

5/10: Chiffon Air

Chiffon air rapture
She screamed as
she fell,
thirty stories
down, down
her mad judo skillz couldn’t
help her now.
Squalid asphalt caught her
archipelago of emotion
(Did she bounce?)
He looked at the calendar,
too many lonely years
ahead. He put down his
fork, and jumped.
They could not prevent
the closing of
his palendrome.

5/2: In Class: Music/Movement

[Each of these poems was written after moving to a piece of music, then writing this while listening to the music again. Each number corresponds to a different song. If anyone else posted theirs, link to here so we can read how they’re similar…]

  1. Freewheeling and dealing, we’ll swoon together now
  2. Blossom and bright in clear fresh growth, rhythm of division.
  3. Wrinkle twinkle unfold
    piece the clean.
  4. Primal comodified
    modern jungle pulse
  5. drips on the tongue
    jewels of dissolving
    (stream upu)
  6. The copper days revolve
    the moon charge
  7. Pull me like a puppet
    strung up, your be-
    bop don’t fool no-one
  8. Dredging flight
    veer past monoliths of
    fright

5/2/06: Translation Poem

Translation of this poem by Han Shan. (The top one)

Musical ocean lightning
Disenchanted flame
Falling tree of smoke
The tadpole flies over demon bats
Squat man watches
As the butterfly lights
Flits about
He ponders the lightness of being
His wife of virtue and fertility jagged
Climbing
The heart
Points towards
the heavens’ ascent.

Version 2.
The hard silence
of lost balance,
the flight of an early amphibian.
You taunt, but
the butterfly alights,
leaves you with your
thoughts and human nature.
Command the
Airborne assault,
Raining earth,
Bedrock lodged beneath
The last moments
The heart
paints
the heavens’ ascent

[free association, first with no theme or cohesion, second time with some cohesion.]

5/1?: Green

Green is grass
Green is prepubescent flowers
Green is a new recruit
Green is seasickness
Green is camouflage
Green is burning copper
Green is guacamole
Green is St. Patrick
Green is a blackboard

4/27 Snapshots II: Joan and Adriana

Joan was cool;
she was just young enough to
still relate, still have enough
spark to indulge in childness,
but responsible and rock solid.
Her car, the tank she called it
and old boat of a buick
that swung wide when she
spun the pizza sized steering wheel.

—//—

Her name was Adrianna
but we called her Ahh-dee,
That was her name and she helped raise me.
She had dark skin, and she spoke only español.
I’d be in restaurants,
years later—
before it shriveled from disuse—
Translating to my parents the conversations
behind us. But she is a mystery.
My Dad tells me that
everything she touched
was made neater, more beautiful.
She said she had to
leave, that I was growing quickly and
needed more
Needed English

4/26: Leroy

Leroy
Solitude of living
the myth of a jungle paradise
jamborees with all our lemur pals
playing exotic disney songs and
swinging from the branches.
100% polyester. No fingers, just a
flat palm
stitched lines no movement.
Yet he has more than that already.
The power to transport—to a fantastic
dimension, away from the horrors
of this world.
But ignoring, too, the horrors
of the polyester jungle—
No malaria, dengue, or Ebola.

[personal object: stuffed lemur.
word: solitude]

4/27 Snapshots I

nanda
She waited
Parked patiently on the road across from school
for the bell to ring, and the stream of eager children spilled
out of the large green front doors
I spotted her car without trying,
it was hard not to. I wasn’t sure
how to explain, or whether to do anything
but shrug as she ____ to carve enough room in her back seat
for my friend.
I sat in the front
Duct Taped windows offering a glimpse
of the true chaos—the sea of feathers—
a symphony of smells.
When she spoke she pursed her mouth
showing her deep thought. Wrinkled her brow
pushed up her glasses.

notes:
[Describe car – List poem?]
[feathers]
[pictures of hindu gods]

4/26

RAGE
Hippopotamus swimming in a still lagoon
sweetly large and curved,
hiding its rage

Solitude
An empty rowboat floating
listlessly—embedded in the glassine
surface of the lake.

History
Epstein with his hunch, hump
still full of fire
though not even 60