At long last, another poem. Academia leaves little time for poetry... so, naturally, this one was written during class and about a subject I was studying!
I am who am,
and you can call me
I AM.
My flames burn only skin.
I am so wise
I saw our compromise in a dream.
my distillations bleed through the prophets,
and I alone am the LORD.
if I open your eyes you will feel charity
if I peel off your skin you will see you are made of salt
Your mother and father marked my Name on your skin
Your bones will stack up to make your wife
and where there is wailing
and gnashing of teeth,
you will hear the music above
the bleating of the sheep
Showing posts with label my writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my writing. Show all posts
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Gypsy (An early incarnation of the story.)
I've done lots of exercises and a couple of stories centering around a schizophrenic girl, Gypsy, named after one of the Manson killers. Here is her earliest appearance in a full story.
In backwoods Vermont farmland, a trailer-sized home stands in defiance. The tired white paint is tinged with yellow and clay-red around the corners and windowsills. A foot of insulation is exposed on the side, pink like burn scars and thick like muscle. Though grass around the property is scarce, weeds grow as they please, overshadowing the two concrete steps that precede the screen door. Inside the decrepit building are the only creatures for miles: four young women on an organized killing spree.
Sue pulled into the driveway just moments ago; the dirt road is still billowing up in breaths around the wheels of her car. She steps through the door, with brown paper bags gripped in both hands.
“I’m here.” No answer; Sandy and Mary would be asleep. Early morning naps never claimed Gypsy, though. Sue leaves the bags on the counter for whoever might want to claim them, and walks with haste to the bathroom door.
Sue looks at Gypsy through a crack in the bathroom door, deliberating over whether or not bothering her is worth the attention. The girl sits on the porcelain vanity, staring into the mirror. Some schizophrenics lose track of their personalities; Gypsy, she never wanted to acknowledge them in the first place. She doesn’t keep separate names for her separate identities, but merely shifts shape in front of the mirror.
She is straddling the vanity lazily, one foot in each sink. Gypsy whispers to her reflection, softly, as if comforting a child. Single-word murmurs and sissified whines make up her speech. (Is it perverse to be impressed by such an utter lack of normality? In the house, Sue is not alone in her vague reverence. Any contempt towards Gypsy is a veiled attempt at imitation; the respect she receives is similar to masochistic flogging—or better yet, Sue thinks, clinging to a friend who you know hates you, and who, deep down, you hate too.) Sue opens the door gingerly and steps in.
Now Gypsy leans back with one elbow on the sink, her head cocked just a little at her intruder. When she puts on this air of absolute aloofness, it doesn’t matter that she is in gray, ill-fitting underwear, with bony limbs and skin that peels off in patches. She looks cool, intimidating. Gypsy, a careless chain smoker, pulls a pungent stick of tobacco out from between her lips. Sue waits in reverence while the other girl snuffs the cigarette butt on her pockmarked forearm. After one last glance in the mirror, Gypsy speaks. Her voice now deeper, raspy, she says:
“Clean yourself up in some other sink, bitch, does it look like I don’t have enough blood on the tiles?”
Sue’s perpetual scowl twists, and she slouches her shoulders in an accidental display of inferiority. She runs the sink for a few seconds until the water turns clear.
“There’s no other sink to use; Sandy crashed in the tub near the other faucet. I didn’t want to wake her… you know she’s a real pain when she’s hung over.” Sue, of course, did not actually know where Sandy was sleeping. She brings her hands—still dusty, she noticed—to her blonde hair, and fluffs her lazy curls. Testing Gypsy’s patience, she deems it necessary to rifle the bathroom drawers for shampoo. “Anyway, hello. I’ve been out to see Lenny, if you care, and he had a new job for us. It was close by, so I offed the guy on the way home… some KKK son of a bitch no one’ll search for too hard. Fat bastard died easy, but he bled like hell, as you can see. I also picked up booze, it’s on the counter if you want some.”
Gypsy had gone back to the mirror, wholly uninterested in a routine murder. Her glass-stroking and heavy breathing was now far too sexual for comfort. Sue forsook the most stubborn of the blood stains and made a quick escape to the den. Fascinated but scared by the incomprehensible soliloquy Gypsy had now started, she stayed close to the bathroom but turned on the radio.
“You call that music? Turn that shit off, or get away from the bathroom.”
“Yes, Gypsy, I call this music. This is fucking Hendrix.”
“You think that means something to me? You can’t defend that garbage with a name. At best, that kind of music can pay tribute to the real stuff.” She continued on, her voice cracking and rising in volume.
“Music, music is not something you turn on and turn up. You can’t turn off real music, you can’t ignore it, it either keeps you sane or it kills you. What happened to the gnashing of teeth, what happened to sonatas on peyote lying dead behind cacti in Mexico? What happened to real music?
“Music, it’s change in the coffee cup of a beggar that died and looks asleep. It’s that beggar man’s snores, no, no, that’s the last breath in his throat. It’s the Sunday sermon when you’ve just found out why you’re alive.
“When music was alive and walked the streets, there was deus ex machina in every Bulgarian disco. God came from the machine, the machine being synthesizer keyboards, and if you weren’t too high you could see him. If you were too high, you saw something far better than God, and you called it by the same name. Song bridges didn’t change pitch, and they didn’t change melody; they changed reality. With just a few notes, the musician would slice open your stomach and gut you. Your reality turned over to the music, you find yourself hanging boneless on a meat hook while some ignored bassist tenderizes your flesh on a nearby table. Then the song ends, and you’re sitting in front of a mirror or whatever when you thought you were in a butcher shop window with an apple stuffed down your throat.”
Sue had walked away by now. Gypsy goes on, only half-aware of her absence.
“Are you listening? Hear me, hear me say this. When we die, we will die blind. Music is dead but it sees. It sees us, sees everything, everything we do in its streets. And it hates us with all of its love. Are you listening? Hear me say this.
“Music is what happens when the guitars stop and the lead singer chokes on her own vomit and keels over and still finishes the note.”
In backwoods Vermont farmland, a trailer-sized home stands in defiance. The tired white paint is tinged with yellow and clay-red around the corners and windowsills. A foot of insulation is exposed on the side, pink like burn scars and thick like muscle. Though grass around the property is scarce, weeds grow as they please, overshadowing the two concrete steps that precede the screen door. Inside the decrepit building are the only creatures for miles: four young women on an organized killing spree.
Sue pulled into the driveway just moments ago; the dirt road is still billowing up in breaths around the wheels of her car. She steps through the door, with brown paper bags gripped in both hands.
“I’m here.” No answer; Sandy and Mary would be asleep. Early morning naps never claimed Gypsy, though. Sue leaves the bags on the counter for whoever might want to claim them, and walks with haste to the bathroom door.
Sue looks at Gypsy through a crack in the bathroom door, deliberating over whether or not bothering her is worth the attention. The girl sits on the porcelain vanity, staring into the mirror. Some schizophrenics lose track of their personalities; Gypsy, she never wanted to acknowledge them in the first place. She doesn’t keep separate names for her separate identities, but merely shifts shape in front of the mirror.
She is straddling the vanity lazily, one foot in each sink. Gypsy whispers to her reflection, softly, as if comforting a child. Single-word murmurs and sissified whines make up her speech. (Is it perverse to be impressed by such an utter lack of normality? In the house, Sue is not alone in her vague reverence. Any contempt towards Gypsy is a veiled attempt at imitation; the respect she receives is similar to masochistic flogging—or better yet, Sue thinks, clinging to a friend who you know hates you, and who, deep down, you hate too.) Sue opens the door gingerly and steps in.
Now Gypsy leans back with one elbow on the sink, her head cocked just a little at her intruder. When she puts on this air of absolute aloofness, it doesn’t matter that she is in gray, ill-fitting underwear, with bony limbs and skin that peels off in patches. She looks cool, intimidating. Gypsy, a careless chain smoker, pulls a pungent stick of tobacco out from between her lips. Sue waits in reverence while the other girl snuffs the cigarette butt on her pockmarked forearm. After one last glance in the mirror, Gypsy speaks. Her voice now deeper, raspy, she says:
“Clean yourself up in some other sink, bitch, does it look like I don’t have enough blood on the tiles?”
Sue’s perpetual scowl twists, and she slouches her shoulders in an accidental display of inferiority. She runs the sink for a few seconds until the water turns clear.
“There’s no other sink to use; Sandy crashed in the tub near the other faucet. I didn’t want to wake her… you know she’s a real pain when she’s hung over.” Sue, of course, did not actually know where Sandy was sleeping. She brings her hands—still dusty, she noticed—to her blonde hair, and fluffs her lazy curls. Testing Gypsy’s patience, she deems it necessary to rifle the bathroom drawers for shampoo. “Anyway, hello. I’ve been out to see Lenny, if you care, and he had a new job for us. It was close by, so I offed the guy on the way home… some KKK son of a bitch no one’ll search for too hard. Fat bastard died easy, but he bled like hell, as you can see. I also picked up booze, it’s on the counter if you want some.”
Gypsy had gone back to the mirror, wholly uninterested in a routine murder. Her glass-stroking and heavy breathing was now far too sexual for comfort. Sue forsook the most stubborn of the blood stains and made a quick escape to the den. Fascinated but scared by the incomprehensible soliloquy Gypsy had now started, she stayed close to the bathroom but turned on the radio.
“You call that music? Turn that shit off, or get away from the bathroom.”
“Yes, Gypsy, I call this music. This is fucking Hendrix.”
“You think that means something to me? You can’t defend that garbage with a name. At best, that kind of music can pay tribute to the real stuff.” She continued on, her voice cracking and rising in volume.
“Music, music is not something you turn on and turn up. You can’t turn off real music, you can’t ignore it, it either keeps you sane or it kills you. What happened to the gnashing of teeth, what happened to sonatas on peyote lying dead behind cacti in Mexico? What happened to real music?
“Music, it’s change in the coffee cup of a beggar that died and looks asleep. It’s that beggar man’s snores, no, no, that’s the last breath in his throat. It’s the Sunday sermon when you’ve just found out why you’re alive.
“When music was alive and walked the streets, there was deus ex machina in every Bulgarian disco. God came from the machine, the machine being synthesizer keyboards, and if you weren’t too high you could see him. If you were too high, you saw something far better than God, and you called it by the same name. Song bridges didn’t change pitch, and they didn’t change melody; they changed reality. With just a few notes, the musician would slice open your stomach and gut you. Your reality turned over to the music, you find yourself hanging boneless on a meat hook while some ignored bassist tenderizes your flesh on a nearby table. Then the song ends, and you’re sitting in front of a mirror or whatever when you thought you were in a butcher shop window with an apple stuffed down your throat.”
Sue had walked away by now. Gypsy goes on, only half-aware of her absence.
“Are you listening? Hear me, hear me say this. When we die, we will die blind. Music is dead but it sees. It sees us, sees everything, everything we do in its streets. And it hates us with all of its love. Are you listening? Hear me say this.
“Music is what happens when the guitars stop and the lead singer chokes on her own vomit and keels over and still finishes the note.”
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Video Excerpt of "The Rebirth of Communication and the New Distribution of Authority"
View me reading a short excerpt from a recent essay on Youtube. I talk a bit too fast in it, but at least this way you can hear what I really sound like in conversation!
While you're at it, I just recorded myself singing "Fever."
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The Opening Line exploded
Soon I'm going to go through past entries and post audio files for poems that don't have a recording of me reading them. (I'll post links when I do.) Unfortunately I cannot bring myself to read these poems as passionately while sitting in my room as I can when I'm performing for an audience. Ironically, I feel self conscious that my dorm neighbors will hear me! Also, I just can't unleash my emotions as much as I can when I'm actually performing.
I read this piece for a slam two days ago. It may have been my best performance yet! I screamed, I whispered, I put on voices and really gave it my all. I shook like nothing else under the weight of the passion that reading this poem gave me. And all this over a piece that describes a situation that has never happened and probably never will! I don't know how I bring it out in myself.
I'm pleased to report that I did fairly well at the slam, tying for fourth place out of eight in the second round (the one that counts) and tying for first place in the first round. I read the following poem for the first round, and "An Essay On Beauty" for the second.
the opening line exploded
when the curtains drew open and each lip of the unlikely actress parted ways
her voice shot like sparks,
zapped along under-stage wiring and microphones
and reached the audience, whose dresses and suits caught fire.
the sound was sickeningly girlish
yet frighteningly hoarse
and each aristocrat, as they fanned off their singed bustles and
dusted their blackened monocles
could see without imagination
the faraway lips of the painted puppet,
cracked beneath stage lipstick,
blistered with syphilis
pronouncing the words of Desdemona
as though she was still back on Left Street
leaning over car windows and propositioning likely clients
no black sheep amongst the cast,
the prostitute, nay, headliner Veronica May
was at home in the critically-christened “riffraff Shakespeare”
Othello was a Center Street pimp
insistent on draping his plate-gold chains
amongst the Moor’s ruby-gilded sword and African necklaces
Iago,
talent if the New York stage ever saw it,
was a former bum
(currently put up in a Park Avenue suite)
whose drunken rants and delirious, mystic ramblings
nearly contested the soliloquies he’d been instructed to recite
that audience,
still smoking from the initial burst of flames,
cried at the mastery of the bum,
who they had all seen and ignored on the MoMA steps.
they laughed as the sword fights became impromptu gang rumbles
and sat in awe at the notion that the theater had given hope to
these otherwise hopeless creatures
Each addict, whore, dealer and hustler
had a score of understudies,
as they tended to die regularly.
This was not mentioned in the rave reviews.
New York Times:
“Experimental to the extreme. Such a cast does not outshine the mastery of the play, but displays performances equal to the veterans of the stage.”
count this true:
every unconscious body scraped off the sidewalk and unto an endless journey on a stretcher—
every woman bruised amongst the eyes and bruised along the arm—
every chauvinist dripped in chains and lacking in shame—
is a small-time actor
in pursuit of attention
and they are not discriminating.
Intellect and fancy dress
written reviews and eloquent compliments
erased not the need for heroin or the lifelong self-hatred
but every production went on on schedule
and the audience never noticed
no, no one ever noticed
that they were not lifesavers
One more piece of information about this poem: I submitted it and another piece, "I was born today three-hundred years from now," to the Citizen at the beginning of last semester. This was in my freshman year. Then-editor Gabriel stopped me one day in the Dalrymple hallway and asked if I would like to be on staff. I had applied my first semester, when he apologetically said that there were too many seniors and veteran staff members who applied for him to allow me a position. (Positions on the Citizen are paid and therefore limited) Of course I accepted.
Look at me now, editor-in-chief, and nominated by Gabriel by the way. The November issue is coming out Monday. There was a lot of controversy dealing with this issue, and I had to make some tough ethical decisions. I'll write more on that in a future post.
I read this piece for a slam two days ago. It may have been my best performance yet! I screamed, I whispered, I put on voices and really gave it my all. I shook like nothing else under the weight of the passion that reading this poem gave me. And all this over a piece that describes a situation that has never happened and probably never will! I don't know how I bring it out in myself.
I'm pleased to report that I did fairly well at the slam, tying for fourth place out of eight in the second round (the one that counts) and tying for first place in the first round. I read the following poem for the first round, and "An Essay On Beauty" for the second.
the opening line exploded
when the curtains drew open and each lip of the unlikely actress parted ways
her voice shot like sparks,
zapped along under-stage wiring and microphones
and reached the audience, whose dresses and suits caught fire.
the sound was sickeningly girlish
yet frighteningly hoarse
and each aristocrat, as they fanned off their singed bustles and
dusted their blackened monocles
could see without imagination
the faraway lips of the painted puppet,
cracked beneath stage lipstick,
blistered with syphilis
pronouncing the words of Desdemona
as though she was still back on Left Street
leaning over car windows and propositioning likely clients
no black sheep amongst the cast,
the prostitute, nay, headliner Veronica May
was at home in the critically-christened “riffraff Shakespeare”
Othello was a Center Street pimp
insistent on draping his plate-gold chains
amongst the Moor’s ruby-gilded sword and African necklaces
Iago,
talent if the New York stage ever saw it,
was a former bum
(currently put up in a Park Avenue suite)
whose drunken rants and delirious, mystic ramblings
nearly contested the soliloquies he’d been instructed to recite
that audience,
still smoking from the initial burst of flames,
cried at the mastery of the bum,
who they had all seen and ignored on the MoMA steps.
they laughed as the sword fights became impromptu gang rumbles
and sat in awe at the notion that the theater had given hope to
these otherwise hopeless creatures
Each addict, whore, dealer and hustler
had a score of understudies,
as they tended to die regularly.
This was not mentioned in the rave reviews.
New York Times:
“Experimental to the extreme. Such a cast does not outshine the mastery of the play, but displays performances equal to the veterans of the stage.”
count this true:
every unconscious body scraped off the sidewalk and unto an endless journey on a stretcher—
every woman bruised amongst the eyes and bruised along the arm—
every chauvinist dripped in chains and lacking in shame—
is a small-time actor
in pursuit of attention
and they are not discriminating.
Intellect and fancy dress
written reviews and eloquent compliments
erased not the need for heroin or the lifelong self-hatred
but every production went on on schedule
and the audience never noticed
no, no one ever noticed
that they were not lifesavers
One more piece of information about this poem: I submitted it and another piece, "I was born today three-hundred years from now," to the Citizen at the beginning of last semester. This was in my freshman year. Then-editor Gabriel stopped me one day in the Dalrymple hallway and asked if I would like to be on staff. I had applied my first semester, when he apologetically said that there were too many seniors and veteran staff members who applied for him to allow me a position. (Positions on the Citizen are paid and therefore limited) Of course I accepted.
Look at me now, editor-in-chief, and nominated by Gabriel by the way. The November issue is coming out Monday. There was a lot of controversy dealing with this issue, and I had to make some tough ethical decisions. I'll write more on that in a future post.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Growing Up Woodland (unfinished, perhaps), and another stanza
Growing Up Woodland
We climbed the boulders and grabbed fistfulls of pine needles
Cracked twigs with every step
Emily Callahan said she liked Old Blue Eyes
I told her I liked Sesame Street
at the edge of the woods right before the road
there’s a flower i’d never seen before
Emily says stop its illegal to touch it
it’s a lady’s slipper and why didn’t I know that
this was the greatest thing i’d ever seen
bright yellow and so shiny in the sun
it wasn’t so much a flower as
a drawstring pouch like the one dad keeps his fortune cards in
it stooped like an old lady
under the weight of what might be fairy dust
i wouldn’t touch it but i knew
it would give a wish to those who dared
Life is so beautiful, wonderful, so amazing and sweet. Sorry to post two poems in a row without audio, but I promise you that I could never let such behavior become habitual.
Oh, as long as I'm posting maybe-unfinished-but-possibly-not poetry, I should include-- what shall I call this poem?-- perhaps "Stephen", but then, there will be so many candidates for this title as I write more and more under the spell of love for my one and only.
I only regret the lack of rooftops
from which I can shout of my love
and that underwater, my mouth filled with rocks
in the trick of the old orators
my exaltation of a life in your arms
would be muted, softened by the tides
We climbed the boulders and grabbed fistfulls of pine needles
Cracked twigs with every step
Emily Callahan said she liked Old Blue Eyes
I told her I liked Sesame Street
at the edge of the woods right before the road
there’s a flower i’d never seen before
Emily says stop its illegal to touch it
it’s a lady’s slipper and why didn’t I know that
this was the greatest thing i’d ever seen
bright yellow and so shiny in the sun
it wasn’t so much a flower as
a drawstring pouch like the one dad keeps his fortune cards in
it stooped like an old lady
under the weight of what might be fairy dust
i wouldn’t touch it but i knew
it would give a wish to those who dared
Life is so beautiful, wonderful, so amazing and sweet. Sorry to post two poems in a row without audio, but I promise you that I could never let such behavior become habitual.
Oh, as long as I'm posting maybe-unfinished-but-possibly-not poetry, I should include-- what shall I call this poem?-- perhaps "Stephen", but then, there will be so many candidates for this title as I write more and more under the spell of love for my one and only.
I only regret the lack of rooftops
from which I can shout of my love
and that underwater, my mouth filled with rocks
in the trick of the old orators
my exaltation of a life in your arms
would be muted, softened by the tides
Thursday, October 23, 2008
An Essay on Beauty
I always disapproved of bringing computers to class. This is Marlboro, not a thousand-kid university where you can play flash games during discussions and be met with indifference from your fellows.
However, having enrolled in a Digital Multimedia course this semester, I've had to refine my viewpoint on bringing a computer to class. Because, you know, I'm taking a computer class.
So now, when things in class get boring or begin to fly over my anachronistic head, I turn away from the lecture on computers and begin to spend independent time with my computer. And so this blog entry was born.
An Essay On Beauty
short hairs that form a crescent around the knee and curve towards the ankle like ocean waves, just barely overlapping each other, the color of earth.
dirt under the short fingernails of a gardener whose hands are thickly calloused in all the places that brush against hoe and shovel.
red lipstick that has been dabbed off to near transparency by the cloth of a thousand kisses from a lover
curls like ribbons, curls like boat wakes, curls like rosebuds
breasts the color of unpolluted coffee that slope like mountain peaks
breasts as heavy and pale as fog above the mountains that swing in dance and rise with breath after exertion
long male fingers with knuckles that stick out like adam’s apples, resting on the stomach of a woman with child
eyes like night skies, with the glimmer of a single star that shifts in a sped-up universe of turns of the chin
plastic pink nails with blue glitter, falling off the fingers of a little girl
uncompromised nature, where no changes are needed or welcomed, and the body born with is the body lived with and loved
fire hair, smoke hair, hair as black as embers and white as heat
tightly curled hair that runs down the vulva and reaches, like thickly packed branches, down upper thighs
eyelashes that are wishes and toes and fingers used for counting in grade school
the moon that holds the weight of a million sentiments
the woman that holds the weight of a million ambitions
and the god that holds the weight of expectations
and the arms that hold an infant who is sleeping
However, having enrolled in a Digital Multimedia course this semester, I've had to refine my viewpoint on bringing a computer to class. Because, you know, I'm taking a computer class.
So now, when things in class get boring or begin to fly over my anachronistic head, I turn away from the lecture on computers and begin to spend independent time with my computer. And so this blog entry was born.
An Essay On Beauty
short hairs that form a crescent around the knee and curve towards the ankle like ocean waves, just barely overlapping each other, the color of earth.
dirt under the short fingernails of a gardener whose hands are thickly calloused in all the places that brush against hoe and shovel.
red lipstick that has been dabbed off to near transparency by the cloth of a thousand kisses from a lover
curls like ribbons, curls like boat wakes, curls like rosebuds
breasts the color of unpolluted coffee that slope like mountain peaks
breasts as heavy and pale as fog above the mountains that swing in dance and rise with breath after exertion
long male fingers with knuckles that stick out like adam’s apples, resting on the stomach of a woman with child
eyes like night skies, with the glimmer of a single star that shifts in a sped-up universe of turns of the chin
plastic pink nails with blue glitter, falling off the fingers of a little girl
uncompromised nature, where no changes are needed or welcomed, and the body born with is the body lived with and loved
fire hair, smoke hair, hair as black as embers and white as heat
tightly curled hair that runs down the vulva and reaches, like thickly packed branches, down upper thighs
eyelashes that are wishes and toes and fingers used for counting in grade school
the moon that holds the weight of a million sentiments
the woman that holds the weight of a million ambitions
and the god that holds the weight of expectations
and the arms that hold an infant who is sleeping
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Christian, you need not wait much longer for a second poem.
Even Satan from his grip did let slip a ribbon of promise
yelled from hills outside of schoolhouses, "let enough be enough!"
dusty light that slid in and out of the midwife's perception
as eyelids opened and closed in morning fatigue
before the chime of her alarm gave way to the ringing of station bells
promise, promise. ever heavy.
so many blankets in the armload
and to water do bovine hooves arrive,
every trembling, ever driven, ever promised relief of circumstance
children in the margins
I have been very busy today. The sociology prof performed Marx in Soho after my two classes this morning, and now I find myself rushed to get to town and run errands. The day has been kind to me, though, other than the student bank closing after half an hour.
Even Satan from his grip did let slip a ribbon of promise
yelled from hills outside of schoolhouses, "let enough be enough!"
dusty light that slid in and out of the midwife's perception
as eyelids opened and closed in morning fatigue
before the chime of her alarm gave way to the ringing of station bells
promise, promise. ever heavy.
so many blankets in the armload
and to water do bovine hooves arrive,
every trembling, ever driven, ever promised relief of circumstance
children in the margins
I have been very busy today. The sociology prof performed Marx in Soho after my two classes this morning, and now I find myself rushed to get to town and run errands. The day has been kind to me, though, other than the student bank closing after half an hour.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
This poem should be prefixed with the honest assertion that I do not consume illegal substances of any kind. This is not to say that I have never done so, though it is indicative of my decision to never do so again. Incidentally, when I wrote this poem (in November 2007), I was prescribed a form of Ritalin for ADHD.
Little College on a Hill
here i am at my Little College on a Hill
i’m not in good spirits as my first semester draws to a close,
but at least i am well provided for.
i have a good friend who loves ceaser and ancient greek
i have enough acquaintances to keep me company
(even if i always, always feel alone)
i have cigarettes i bought at one in the morning
when two people I admire intensely and I
drove to price-chopper during an all-night study session.
i usually have coffee to drink and
i have a dealer
who yesterday was inspired spontaneously
to read six chapters of
moby dick to me
and i have
good grades and
plenty of ritalin
and i have some talent and i have my health at least
i walked down a hill from class to my dorm
and saw esther playing in the first snow she’d ever seen
i am not surprised by the weather
half of all my years have been white
(but i have those childhood memories at least)
she frolics like a little kid
the right thing to do when vermont replaces ecuador
i remind her to make a snow angel
she doesn’t want to get wet
but the seed has been placed at least
i’ve new experiences of my own at least
experiments become habits
everyday i utilize my lungs
but these things keep me going at least
i hold on to a lucid reality
i’ve been trying to change my reality at least
i think of marlboro college as my home
i call it my home
it is strange to call anywhere else home
so i still remember that i have loved this place at least
winter break is coming
i hope i miss this place soon
either way
i have a family and
i have this place to come back to
and i have some talent and i have my health at least
Little College on a Hill
here i am at my Little College on a Hill
i’m not in good spirits as my first semester draws to a close,
but at least i am well provided for.
i have a good friend who loves ceaser and ancient greek
i have enough acquaintances to keep me company
(even if i always, always feel alone)
i have cigarettes i bought at one in the morning
when two people I admire intensely and I
drove to price-chopper during an all-night study session.
i usually have coffee to drink and
i have a dealer
who yesterday was inspired spontaneously
to read six chapters of
moby dick to me
and i have
good grades and
plenty of ritalin
and i have some talent and i have my health at least
i walked down a hill from class to my dorm
and saw esther playing in the first snow she’d ever seen
i am not surprised by the weather
half of all my years have been white
(but i have those childhood memories at least)
she frolics like a little kid
the right thing to do when vermont replaces ecuador
i remind her to make a snow angel
she doesn’t want to get wet
but the seed has been placed at least
i’ve new experiences of my own at least
experiments become habits
everyday i utilize my lungs
but these things keep me going at least
i hold on to a lucid reality
i’ve been trying to change my reality at least
i think of marlboro college as my home
i call it my home
it is strange to call anywhere else home
so i still remember that i have loved this place at least
winter break is coming
i hope i miss this place soon
either way
i have a family and
i have this place to come back to
and i have some talent and i have my health at least
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