I hate poetry.
Every word is wrong
Disgustingly simple, cliché
Who do I think I am?
To define a phenomenon
To know you have lied, misrepresented
Or at least,
tried your best and failed
A growling shock of anger,
indignance, despair.
You search for words you know
do not exist.
5/19: A Metal Show
The music is weak
impotent, despite their valiant
efforts to churn the air
The bass swallows,
the treble fades
I know the song yet cannot find the parts
Lost in this sea of adolescents and itching
adolescent eagerness.
My mind strains, and finally
begins to find familiar notes
My body wants to jump to sing to play
Yet locked and bound I stand, maybe a sway
But not for long,
The next band takeds the stage, they
are worth a sound-check—yet
even now the sound is all wrong
Earplugs in, it sounds like
I’m underwater—
My anger builds, I am sure to glare
menacingly at the sound-man,
lolling at the back beer in hand.
I slough off my skin, begin to drop-in
allowing my baser nature to drink in
these emaciated tones—still familiar enough
The crowd begins to breathe and pluse. The
sweaty, teenage white boys with their bored
(amused) girlfriends. There is the
kid who cannot move. He stares. A nod
perhaps, no wait, was just a blip
of noise on the screen.
My hands are raised, the drums begin their
next lumber, my head’s nodding (banging)
We do the dance for them, scream for them
reach out our hands to them
We want
so desperately
some of what they have.
To reach that place
that plane. We are grateful for the journey
the sensational experience.
My head shudders, my neck
twines in a deep way
My shirt sticks to my chest and back
my hair drips.
I drive home shirtless, smile on my face.
Recast Prose as Poetry: Muted Tones
Prose
Sometimes Muted Tones are nice
Almost the opposite
of the blaring
“I don’t trust you
enough to let you find me
on your own
So I’m going to screech”
-colors.
Muted colors
carry a subtlety their
more saturated companions
will never know.
You want a white that looks white, but
doesn’t really feel white;
You want the cleanliness, but not
the oppressive starkness
of a sanitary ward.
Elegance, simplicity
in light.
Muted light.
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.
5/3: In Class – Question Game
What is lemonade?
Two jiggers of kick and a shot of pizzazz.
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…]
- Freewheeling and dealing, we’ll swoon together now
- Blossom and bright in clear fresh growth, rhythm of division.
- Wrinkle twinkle unfold
piece the clean. - Primal comodified
modern jungle pulse - drips on the tongue
jewels of dissolving
(stream upu) - The copper days revolve
the moon charge - Pull me like a puppet
strung up, your be-
bop don’t fool no-one - 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