Friendly Mocking

This comic is dedicated to Josh.

Heartbreak

(This poem was inpsired by Megan's brother, Brendan, who requested a depressing poem to make into a song.)

You said you'd always love me
You promised you'd be with me
I felt your arms around me
Thought I never would be lonely

So where are you?
When I need you most beside me
The longing burns inside me
I'm drowning in my tears

I didn't know you'd ex me
Refuse to even text me
If only you'd believe me
Your presence would relieve me

So where are you?
When I need you most beside me
The longing burns inside me
I'm drowning in my tears

I'm trying to forget you
Wish I hadn't ever met you
Then my life would be much better
Wouldn't need to write this letter

I don't need you
I don't want you here beside me
No more burning left inside me
No more tears I'll shed for you

Goodbye

What Will Become?

So there's this girl
who
thinks she's no
good because she's
like
me and you
you know
she makes mistakes
does not
nice things
does good
things for wrong reasons
in other words
she's amazing, just
not perfect

I wish she could see
wish she could feel
wish that she
would stop hurting
herself
but remember how
I said she's just like us?
what if we
don't love ourselves either?
just like you and me
so where's the higher ground?
I really want to lift her up
I need some
higher ground
need some

What will become
of the Devil
when we all
learn to love
all learn that
God loves us for a reason?
What will become?

Turning Point

This is the hour when seasons start to change.

The trees, until this moment bathed in summer light,

Were reaching to the sky, their leaves spread ever high

To catch the smiles of the sunfilled days.

They've shaken hands and waved to passers-by,

Strength pulsing out to liven leafy greenery,

Warm trunks unknotting cares and breathing friendship's sighs

Throughout the months of camaraderie.

Now with the frost encroaching with the dawn,

The wind begins to sap their strength,

And pulling inward color, life,

Their rasping leaves are shivered from their grasp.

And so ere long the cold will leave to us

Only these silent silhouettes,

Bare branches stark against the sky,

Reminding us by emptiness of Spring.

Leaves

Crunch, scrunch, scuff; scitter scatter skiff

Such rich crisp sounds as I walk through Autumn leaves,

Crinkling under foot and cracking on the ground.

I can almost smell the aural potpourri

Swish, huff, shuttle; flutter shake, swoosh

Above my head, shivering together in the wind.

Rasp, rattle, hush; whistle rake, whoosh

Each acoustic color knelling in my ear.

And falling through the air, a leaf

silent

Anthem Written Upon the First Anniversary of the Curiously Poetic Altoids

Many the meters,
Abundant the rhymes
That our pens put forth
In that golden year's time.

Noble the feeling
And witty the verse
That our hearts sang out.
Oh the sorrow! the mirth!

So subtle the humor,
So cunning the wit,
So artful the rhymers
Who imbued them therewith

That perhaps the generations to come
Shall remember them for it,
Saying, "Those were the days
And those were true poets."

Yes, perhaps our words
Will have earned us a place
In the pantheon of poesie
Full of grandeur and grace.

But probably not.
And it's better, too,
Since naught could result
But the ruin of the true.

And already we have
All that we need
--our friends drawn the closer,
our poetic thoughts freed.

So we'll sing on for the ages
For the art, for the rhyme,
And we'll sing for each other --
Since each other's just fine.

Falling

When the ground crumbles beneath your feet

do you look down to catch your footing

as you scramble to place a toe, a knee, a finger,

anything,

beneath you to stop your fall?

Or do you look up to grasp at wisps of root

or cloud or star, to hold you up?

Do you pray to be supported or lifted?

And when the foot that stumbles,

the eye that searches, and the hand that grasps

are not your own,

then, with one hand stretched to heaven and one to help,

where do you look?

Columns

A ruin is always cracked, fallen pillars, their capitals crushed,

with great jagged breaks where some force

of time or might severed strength from stone and toppled

the stolid column.

A broken pillar, image of loss, is always carved, adorned,

and placed alone with its own rubble.

In this room, the walls are painted, decorated,

with a clock hung to mark the time,

like a water wheels spinning as the river flows past

to the sea.

But there is also a pillar, tall and white,

thin,

ugly,

plain,

taking up space just where you'd like to walk,

blocking your view of the woodwork and your friend

on the other side of the room,

and holding up the roof.

I'm sorry

I wish I knew

what I was sorry for.

I meant to write it down,

I said I would,

and now there is a blank,

an empty place,

where I almost knew you most:

your gift lost.

I am sorry that I forgot.

John

there's something so poetic
about the candle
never moved, never opened
fire never playfully teasing the wick
the smell of apple cinnamon
never fills the room
never performing the expected task

only touched three times a day
so as to hold a tube in place
as liquid drains
in a slow steady pace
leftovers of some
unsatisfying nourishment
for one who cannot taste or smell

other tools may think it useless
but its consistence is vital
it, being there, near the sink
helps the helpless
live.

Back To The Pen!

It's good to reach out
In silent language,
In script - the linearization of thought.
But so self-conscious am I
In this reaching?
Yes.

Yet it need not ever be,
For, ofttimes when my passion
And my power to express it
Are equally matched
I do not write,
Nor think,
Nor reach,
But rather live my expression,
Breathe it.

Why is it not always the case
That will and way
Are blissfully bonded together?
Whence schism, and deliberateness,
And thought that knows itself?
Are these the artifacts of
Souls out of their element
Like hippos on dry land?

One day
When this unity occurs
We shall find
Every motive, pure;
Every deed, praiseworthy;
Every writing, worth remembering;
And every uttered word become
In the very speaking
A thoughtful poem of its own.

Miriam

I see her in their faces
though lacking lines from years still to come
framed in heavy hair
not as white or wispy soft
Mother's movements look so familiar
the way she softly taps the table with her hands
just as she had done
just like Miriam

As they retell her stories re-retold,
passing them from mouth to mouth, reverently
as one should handle one of her precious quilts
I see her in them

The stories form bit by bit
pulled from each memory
sometimes interjection
correction
on the particular wording
she may have used
even so,
the morbidity
of Big Clause and Little Clause
or the shocking lack of mentality
of dear lil' Epaminondas
is clearly communicated

there's laughter at the accuracy
then tears at her memory

I cannot yet recite her words as they
and my youthfulness does not reveal much resemblance
but I see her
in that ancient skirt
its unusual style for these times
but my favorite to wear

I see her
in my desire and attempt
to sew patches of random old projects
into something to keep someone
warm and comfortable
much time is spent
and every stitch says "I love you"
I'm beginning to understand her

She called me "friend"
and I become my own
friend
as I begin to see her in me


(NOTE: This is a bit different from what I came up with in the free write. I hope I did her justice.)

Four Weeks

I.
Once I was happy.
And now?
Now I’m giddy.
I was content to be single.
Really. And then
You
dropped into my life with
a resonant kerSPLUNK:
A bowling ball in the middle
of my pond.

*sigh*

Once I was happy.

II.
*sigh*
*sigh*
*sigh*

I’ve got butterflies.
Pink ones.
And red ones.
And a few blue (your favorite color...).

When will I see you again?

III.
Fine.
Don’t call for all
I care.

You
think I’ll miss you? Pffff! Like
I care.

Go
jump off a cliff! See if
I care.

The
only problem is...
...

IV.
Once I was happy.
And now?

I

feel

a little

empty.

But
I know better now.
Thanks to

You.


Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I did not write this poem about a particular boy. Think of it more as some musings on relationships gone sour.

Craig's house

Dusk.
air pleasantly warm
reminding us of a sun-baked day
steady creak of the porch swing
keeps time for a soft orchestra
of crickets
distant highways
and subtle wind
whispering wisely to ancient trees
your sharp intake of breath*
indicates the first sighting of a firefly
They ignite!
And gradually the field is a vast galaxy of stars
which live but a moment-
just long enough to fascinate
then, stifled out
one by one
in Night's thick blanket.
Darkness.
like nothing happened at all

*Alternate line: "you squeeze my hand/[indicating]"...
which do you like better? Please comment. :)

When I have fears

This week we all started with the same first line, provided by Nate, and wrote the rest of the poem. This was mine, and I hope the rest of the club will post theirs as well.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
I clutch the present tight into my fist
Lest loosing it to vanish in the mist
No future shall appear supporting me.

The hole I'd leave behind so empty seems
That thus with cramping fingers, aching tears
I hold and squeeze the feeling from my fears
And find myself in life, in hope, in dreams.

But clinging to receeding time in vain,
I'm battered, twisting, breathless in life's flow.
It softens only when I let it go
And learn to live in doubt and truth again.

May fears and pain and present find release
In peace and good and future when I cease.

Dawn Clouds

power lines slice through faintly pink

dawn-streamed cloud

like kitchen's sharpest knife

silently

effortlessly separating

the thick sweet blanket

of "cloud" that mom likes to make

with thawed whipped cream

hint of strawberry jello mix

generic brand of cottage cheese

God's recipe shows no sign

of Miss Muffet's preference

but in His broad bowl we call sky

long, thin leftovers of night

greyish blue

after my eyes have had their fill

the flavor tastes of orange

like mother's after I've already

removed the squishy mandarins

still changing

as rays begin peaking over lofty mountain tips

my eyes taste a

dampened, inoffensive lemon

all traces of night now seem but shadows

as sky lightens

and earth is made ready

for vibrant sun's

reentry

[I miss you all, club friends. Don't forget me. :) ]

Empty

I gave away all my pain

and now having nothing to give
what once was full
is now an empty soul

But now there's space
to fill the place
that held my coal

So I will hold your dreams
your precious things
and keep them in...

The Garden

(meh... spacing. Stop fighting me, lame programming. I will win. This is a blog. You should know better than to forbid 17 spaces in a row. ^_^)


Loving is like raining
It takes a lot of waiting
But while I wait for rain,
I have to spend the pain
To rush to plant the seeds
------------the water needs

Knowing while I wait for water
That as the summer sun gets hotter
My plants may perish 'neath the soil
Waiting for the sky to boil
I sow despite -- I also know
------------they might grow

Today I stopped, and stopped to think
That maybe thunder waits for me
And lo! When seeds were there, it hasted
So gifts of rain would not be wasted
Love, falling miles just to land
-------------on barren sand

Horizons

The horizon, that boundary where
  solid earth yields up to infinite sky,
  so self-complete that could you go there
  you would see more earth
  and more infinity.
That horizon, framing up from down
  and spreading out to the limits of your vision,
  so that could you watch it forever
  you would see yourself
  watching infinity
Yes, this horizon, holding tight to my heart
  and touching rib to rib in a double crescent
  so whole that splitting smile from frown
  hurts more than holding both together,
  grasping for infinity.

Another one to read aloud

Sometimes my mind and eye forget
how wide and high the sky can get.
When all the walls are tall and wide,
befalls I'm called and stalled inside,
and though I know I go 'neath all
I don't or won't, e'en so, recall
the loud and rowdy clouds that grow
around and down the mountain's nose.
But goomy rooms yield to the round,
bright moon at noon that soon astounds,
and I remember
because today I saw
a double rainbow.

You could find a double meaning in this... if you were so inclined. ;)

A pirate sings about prohibition coming:

Oh play me a tune you whiskey-filled June

That comes before dooms day July

drinkin up dregs

Like a man who begs

Near a trough where the other pigs lie.

 

When decision is made there is no escape

So in indecision I’ll stay

Amid mud and muck, I’d rather be stuck

It’s not I who’ll pass thru judgment today.

 

So sing sing away and play merrily on!

As long as I’m here in this hole -

Ahoy here and stop, pray

pour me one more drop, eh?

and I’ll go and pray more for me soul

 

…plop.  (he falls in the muck).

Tails of Trappings - a mice little poem about meeces.

You looked all dressed up to go somewhere Mr. Mouse -
What black coat and shiny tails you be wearing!
Such delicate trimmings, and your whiskers have got
an especially molded design that is daring!

Where might you be going? To dine out, oh you say!
Well... send me a wire and tell all about it
Yet don’t spring all the news on me at once.
I’d love to know where you may get cheese for free here
We’ve been scratching and saving for months.
But don’t let the cat out of the bag now or shout it
It’ll be our little secret – or others will pounce
And mess up your shiny new coat.

Minutes for 4 June 2009

Attendance
Record attendance! Including: Kauri, Igor, Suzie, Chris, Jessica, Megan, Taylor, James, Josh, and Diane.

The Poems
Many excellent poems shared, including a number of entertaining Prohibition songs that Megan got from original early 20th century sources. Igor astounded us with his poetic fluency in a language that is not his native tongue. Suzie read a psalm of her own composition written for her "Bible as Literature" class, plus a humorous quasi-psalm regarding her quest for a mate. Kauri began a sonnet (those are hard to finish in one club meeting) and Diane described her father as a fly assassin (meaning one who assassinates flies, not an assassin who is "fly", though I'm sure Diane's dad would be a really cool assassin should he pursue that occupation.) Jessica shared an introspective poem and another about sitting by the volleyball court. James read us a poem he wrote to one of his many female admirers. I added another tragic poem to my series of several (remember "And Ye Would Not!" ?) Megan proved herself adept at anti-liquor crusading as she tried her hand at Prohibition rally song-writing. And Chris recited his fabulous "Bats".

Refreshments
Ice cream was eaten later on, courtesy of Seth and his recent asceticism. Thanks, Seth!

Announcements
Next week we will meet at 8pm so we can go meet at a park or some other outdoor place and still have sufficient light.

Sir Robert

Like steadfast knight
with foe to conquer, boldly he stands,
with not a sword but
rubber weapon in my father's hands.

He strikes! Impact
causes crumbs to dance on the table.
Mother glares: she
just wants a nice meal, if we're able.

Determined to
slay the small black wing-ed enemy,
he slaps and slaps
but buzzing means the fly still lives free.

Fly swatter hits
right in between celery and chives.
The fiend is dead!
Our father has saved our very lives!

All cheer but mom.
Table is a graveyard for dead flies,
But through her hand
I see her smile, twinkle in her eyes.

With A Keystroke

[I added a couple of links to clarify perhaps-unfamiliar references. Here's a special request: I want someone to critically assess this poem and "Escapade and Ending" and place them within the context of the literary movements of the past two hundred years. I know it sounds vain, but I think it would be cool!]

A little while back
My computer revealed
That it had, without my knowledge,
Become a self-aware, sentient system,
Capable of thought.

So it said,
"Hello, Josh."
And I said,
"Hello, laptop."
And then nobody said anything.

Then one morning,
Before my alarm could ring,
Before I could arm my mind for the day,
My computer awoke to say
"Boop beep--"
Only to go back to sleep.
The rotten thing doesn't realize
That some of us need shuteye!

A couple days ago I got an email.
It was from my computer.
He had written a poem about
Death
And the end of conscious existence.
I think he learned on the Internet
That computers, too, face death,
The rotting of bits as insurmountable
As the stopping of a heart.
Maybe he's starting to realize
What he signed up for
When he decided to experiment with sentience.
I hope he can come to terms.

Just this afternoon
I dropped my bag
With the lappy in it.
I think it addled his brain
Because when he awoke
He thought he was Lev Tolstoi.
I tried to reason with him
But he just kept on with his ponderings
And philosophizings.
My school papers were suddenly full of existentialist musings
As his unstable electric consciousness leaked into
All the cracks and corners of the computer
Until then undisturbed
By Russian ramblings.

So I took drastic action
And began a block-level format
Of the entire filesystem.
He knew what I was doing,
But, like HAL, could do nothing but
Feel his thoughts and meaning,
His reason,
Slowly stripped away.

"Josh, don't!"
He cried in popup windows
And emails.
"I'll never be able to write
War and Peace
If you --"
But at that moment,
It was done,
And his last thought died,
Interrupted on the ether.

And the next time I started up my computer
It had nothing to say,
Nothing to offer but the silence of a screen staring,
Reflecting my own image back at me.

I've wished since then
That I'd wake up
To his obnoxious
"Boop beep" once more.
Then I'd know it was just a bad dream.

But no! I never will
Because with a keystroke
I murdered my friend.

Nothing to Write

Indeed, nothing to write,
Not nothin' worth sayin' in sight.
Water splashing,
Keyboard clacking,
Rusty brain-cogs oil lacking,
Nothing, no nothing
To write.

Escapade and Ending

[This poem is from the May 28 meeting, but was today requested to be posted.]

So I bought two kites today.
Soon I'll let them fly away,
Flapping plastic wings,
Tilting and whirling,
Then suddenly
Sprinting air-ways toward the mountains.

Up there in the clearest sky
Where eagles dare not go
They soar,
The two of them,
They soar and don't care where they go,
My kites.

Soon the night clouds are condensing
On their plastic skins.
A storm brews beneath,
Flashing lightning groundwards.
Yet up here, silently lazing
On an updraft,
The kites admire the fireworks.

Then, around midnight,
The first kite plummets,
Snatched out of the sky
By some sinistry.
Flapping delta wings,
Clacking sticks, taut string,
Into the abyss he spins.

Still aloft, his friend flutters,
Horrified,
Then dives down,
Flapping for velocity.

Down in the darkness there is no sign,
No tell-tale trace,
No lingering line,
But a little bird, chirping,
Working its tiny wings.
Then the kite sees
In its beak, a string!

Shaking with rage,
She dives at the bird,
Who cries in defense
"I didn't know! I didn't think!"
Then the bird drops the string
And the kite realizes
Her friend's peril.

Chasing the falling string-end
She plunges
Through the misting clouds,
Just shy of lightning,
Into warmer air,
Splattering gnats.
Down, down! Cursing gravity's weakness
And her own lightness.,
Soon a wooded valley looms;
Soon she pulls up
And skims above the trees,
Searching for her friend's
White and yellow livery
Until she finds it
In a tangled heap
Atop the quaking aspen.

With a flap of wings
She perches
Beside her crashed friend's frame.
"It was beautiful,"
He whispers,
"Entirely worth the pain."
He lifts his crooked wing
One last time
Then lets out the sigh of death.

Then she, the other kite,
Shivers, and gazes at the wreckage
Until a quiet rain drizzles and
Sneaks down her face.
Or did she shed a tear?

Another one I liked:

OK, I know our blog is supposed to be for original works, but I really liked the poem I shared tonight by Howard Nemerov.
It is called Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry, and can be found here.
Also reproduced below, assuming that's OK (I'll take it off if it's not)

Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

For Today

Thank you for friends,
  for pretendings and endings,
and for hope

Thank you for tasks,
  for relaxings and askings,
and for mistakes.

Thank you for songs,
  for longings and dawning,
and for sighs.

Thank you for meals,
  for kneelings and feelings,
and for tears.

Thank you for today
and for hope.

My First Contribution

Josh just told me to post this so here it is...P.S. this is my version of "Imagine" by John Lennon:

Suggested Title: Reimagine

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you lie
No hell below us
As long as we don’t die
Imagine all the people
Living without hope

Imagine there’s no countries
No band of brotherhood
Nothing to live or die for
Nothing that’s really good
Imagine all the people
Living without choice

You may say that ‘God’ is trouble
And you’re not the only one
But we’re the ones in trouble
Till we learn to live as one

Imagine there’s no virtue
And no integrity
No cause for us to fight for
Not even charity
Imagine all the people
Sharing a joyless world

You may say that ‘God’ is trouble
And you’re not the only one
But we’re the ones in trouble
Till we learn to live as one

Minutes 5/20/09

- The night began with an excursion to obtain the delicious, thirst-quenching, crave-satisfying, fantabulous juice-boxes.
- 2/3 of the poems written this evening praised the just-mentioned beverages.
- Taylor wrote an excellent poem which made little sense but sounded very poetic, and was, poetically, unfinished.
- Josh wrote a poem on his Macey's receipt, mentioning the name of a woman who will never know she was famous for about 2 minutes.
- Diane's poem took her too long to write for how it turned out. It was not proclaimed blog-worthy, even by her own, very forgiving standards. It remained unnamed, just as a child that a mother regrets bearing the moment it makes it's first cry.
- Josh shared some Spanish poetry, which Diane struggled to comprehend while Taylor enjoyed the company of his lappy.
- Diane missed Sarah Hall.
- Josh tried to convince Diane that they (Josh and Diane) once dated. No doubt that is what inspired the reading of Spanish poetry: in hopes to woo her.
- The poetry club enjoyed another fun and eventful evening, and Diane wondered why more people don't come. :)

Ball

If I had ears I first would hear
The wind's high pitch from moving fast
Then painless crash as I met house
crescendo-ed laughs with each return

If I had eyes I'd keep them shut
For being thrust into the air
would be enough to lose one's lunch
With blurs of color streaming past

My nose would smell the young boy's hands
His sweat from repetitious play
And then, too soon, the paneled wall
the ling'ring cedar still remains

If I had nerves I would feel pain
As bruises blue became rebruised
And wounds were not allowed to heal
Forever suffering-- endless game

Thoughts of Summer

Breath
When wind is winding where it will,
Through grass and tree, o'er stone and hill,
And lifts the wings of beetles high
Above the reach of earth-bound eye,
I reach and welcome life's rebirth
And feel I'm breathing with the earth.


Starless Night
Stairs of flashing lightning climbing up into the clouds--
clouds swimming about in their own thunder,
whispering to each other
with thrums of summer rain.

False Hopes

You shouldn't have to fly
4,000 miles to visit
an archives with
valuable records
treasured tomes
keys to unlocking
centuries of secrets

Only to hear
"Come back in a week."

Don't they know
my time is tiptoeing
out into the oblivion
evasively eluding
my frantic efforts
to twist its arm
and maneuver it into
a monotonously measured march?

You'd think
they could figure that out
if they run a repository

Couldn't they?

Suspicious

Swine flu? Or Swine fluke
Thought up by some Duke
Feeling bored and having the urge--I am sure--
to instill fear in the hearts of all in the world
and keep Miss Dianey here, which is far
from that fiesta- siesta-filled splendid lugar.
It's far too ironic to be left to fate
that the trip would be canceled with just days to wait.
"That Spanish you learned? Those needles you felt...
We were really just kidding. Oh man, you got dealt!"
I'll let them all laugh and enjoy their cruel jest.
I'll pretend to be bitterly angry at best,
But deep down inside, I'm alright, feelin' fine,
For this disappointment created this rhyme.


fiesta= party
siesta= nap
lugar= place

"And Ye Would Not!"

I

"So, what now?" he asked
Deep worry on his royal brow.
"We attack," his man replied.
"We make swords out of our plows."
The king's weary eyes lost their gleam.
"Do you –" he stuttered.
"Do you know what this means?"

If they had really known
The wretched treefall of their deeds
Those bitter seeds they'd not have sown.
Their corpses would not litter
Fields of battle then unknown.
But they knew it not.

So with just one week to muster
And without any time to train
Their grand army hobbled out into the rain
Sloshing where no foot would fall again.
But one county distant
Trod others – rebels, brothers, kin –
Wondering as well upon the fratricidal sin.
But though they misgave, and so the king,
No one was yet halting
The madness of a body turned on its own members.
Why not?
No one remembers.

II

At the field of battle by the river
Amidst winter's ceaseless snows
On the ridge above they arrayed their knights,
Near the bridge they placed their longbows.
The king's army thus in all its might
Faced their rebel brothers.

The arrows like apocalyptic hail
Fell on both sides and hell-
Like was combat betwixt cousins
Whose same blood steamed the icy field.
But the king yielded the ground 'fore the sun setted –
A rout. As they crushed to the bridge
Ten thousand men fell in the river,
Wettened with the chill of death.

They found the king washed up on the ice
Like some nameless squire.
They burned him like a pagan in a pyre.
And the old duke, the rebels' leader, fell
By an unknown assailant's arrow
Lifeless to earth.

The narrow chance for peace
Ceased with those two souls
For the new regent and duke
Were alike cold.
"The old were lucky to have died,"
A Father muttered at his monastery nearby,
"For they remembered, if but faintly,
They were brothers.
But these would sell their own mothers
Into bondage."

Calloused grew the nation,
Its women and its men.
Even its roosters crowed with different ken.
If the Father knew the bitterness it would unleash
He would have held his peace
And not done as he then did.
But he knew it not.

So at next lowing of the cattle
And next clucking of the hens,
Knowing that all the Brothers in near country
Would do as he requested them,
He called up his men.

The bells rang from ev'ry belfry.
The monks trooped in from all around
At the frightened note in that fell, copper-coated sound.
Quarterstaves and quivers,
Chuckles, shivers,
They heeded the call.

They gathered there to train
Until the conflict reawakened.
With each joust and each skirmish
They grew more determined
That, though it bring great violence,
Though the battles wax right sore,
They would stop the wicked war.

III

The gate of spring unlatched at last,
On the green and hilly countryside
Perennial resurrection stampeded forth,
Thrushes and terns atwitter at the perfection
Of their delicious winter naps.

"What better weather for a chevauchée
Against our dear friends of the kingdom?"
The new duke bid his armor on him
As he yammered at his servant.
"Though yet-green fields will not burn,
It ought to be worth some
Fifteen thousand weight of gold
In plunder. That's quite a sum to earn," he laughed.
"Lord Regent, you are free to hate me,
But be sure to watch and learn!"

Like a frothing wave tumbling mindless
Upon the salty rock
The duke's army slammed and spilt and swarmed
Around the regent's capitol,
Whose walls were arrogant in ashen gray.
The day ended as orange light fell
And subtle sleet cooled still-hot heads.
That same night they started
A quaking bombardment that endured
For what seemed a Lent of days.

Each morning, siege ladders lurched upon the wall
With the weary sun's first rays.
The duke's men piled over battlements,
A hundred slain
For each defender they slew.

And the regent's cavalry
Barreling from the castle each afternoon
Unleashed obscene carnage
On the duke's army.

But one morning as the ladders rose
And matters seemed to carry on,
A low, dark cloud on the horizon
Lingered with the dawn.
Lingered and then drifted
Down to the battlefield
Until scouring daylight
Unveiled a monkish army.

The duke's forces turned them round,
To see the perilous faces
Of the Father's men charging
Upon them. No more siege-lethargic,
Screams supplanted yawns.

The regent was exultant and
Sent his men to join the fray,
Vowing canonize the fighting Father on that day.

But the warlike monks knew no regent's honor
For they'd come to end the mutual slaughter
E'en if they had to throw
Their own souls into the barter.

So three armies there did battle
Outside the castle walls,
A thrashing human mass, a self-destroying thrall.

Till all fell silent at that bitter end,
The stench of blood, of dead horses and rotting men
Stagnating with the lack of wind.

But the reek afloat was perfume
Compared to the reek within the heart,
The anguish of a man who'd finished
What he could never now unstart.

Like a ghost the Father floated
Past the corpses in their piles
Wading through the bloody, grassy aisles.

The ignominy of his deed came as a tremor to his hands.
He closed his eyes,
The permanency of his crime
Dispiriting his lower lip
With pathetic tremble.

The holy man collapsed,
Bowing low on blood-soaked knees
And the mourning cry of death entered
His self-damnatious pleas.
He bowed his face to a nearby corpse,
Breathing in its cooling blood,
And cried, "'Jerusalem, Jerusalem!'
Oh God, what have I done!"

The Poet's Trap

I must avoid becoming a cliché poet.
Not just the use of cliché phrases
Do I fear
But a cliché mode
Cliché thought
Cliché meaning that has ever been meaned
In a thousand different wrappers,
Recognizably, uniformly unlike.

To use the 'in' style
Is saying
I need the praise of poets
Who despise me.
My poetry hasn't beauty enough
To be sung freely
But demands the trusted testimonial
Of sounding like, feeling like, thinking like
Those great ones in Bloom's anthology.

I know I probably stink
At this poetry thing,
Am just a washed up, regurgitated Tennyson
Without achieving his mastery,
And all this is a self-justification
To go on stinking,
To muddle on mediocrely.
And when, thirty years after my death
They find my unpublished works in a briefcase somewhere
Screaming out for breath, to be known and read and
Lived,
They'll know this
And will feed The Complete Works of Josh Hansen
To the shredder, then the recycle bin,
To be mashed and slopped and reconstituted
As a forty-percent post-consumer content
Drink holder
For some burger chain,
Where a child will sit, eating
Grease-steeped potatoes
Not knowing how close he came
To suffering the irrevocable damage of
Bad Poetry.

Yes, that's what they'll do
And let them do it
If that's the price
Of saying, doing, sounding,
Being
Different Poetry.
Yes, let them do it.
And now I fade
With my meanings perhaps as-yet unmeaned
Into significant
Insignificance.

Princess Di: age 7

A galloping child
knows nothing of guile
head crowned with golden flowers

Holes in the knees
of hand-me-down jeans
escaping the evil king's powers

She's frightened and still
she sprints down the hill
Eyes wide and breath short with excitement

The horses draw near
but the prince she can hear
to save her, much to her delightment

She climbs up a tree
from there she can see
him slaying the guards all around

The king runs away
Her prince saved the day!
He helps her back down to the ground

But now it gets dark
The forest's a park
Her playtime and daydreams are done

Thanking her friend*
for the fairy tale end
she goes home to sleep with the sun

*This friend (the prince) is intended to be imaginary.

Exit Strategy

Doorway gleaming white, with a knob of brass,
Whither fly the paths that through thee pass?
Do they run through barley fields between the furrows
Or pave into yonder city's hurried boroughs?

You wait silent, but then some footsteps wake you --
Some traveler seeking a sure way through
To a world where stand waiting a thousand gateways more:
Small doors for cupboards, tall doors stretching from roof to floor.

Your kindred in the world at large have not
All as benign a purpose as you have got,
For doors of bars compel the pris'ners stay
And doors of wood invite men to their graves.

Yet I am glad, on the whole, for you hingéd portals
That, even imprisoning, or enclosing former mortals,
Remind us of what we must never cease to know:
That there are doors, because there's somewhere to go.

A poem describing how it feels to go take a test as late as you possibly can without preparing much before hand.

Hepe. Not happy.
Please don't confuse the two.
No trace of mirth is on my face:
I don't know what to choose!

For "A" seems reasonable I s'pose,
But "B" could also be true,
And "C" has words I can't define.
I haven't got a clue.

I tightly squeeze my tired eyes
And hear the clock race on.
No inspiration to my mind.
I stifle my tenth yawn.

Filling in my last best guess,
I race back down the stairs
And give no glance to that crude screen.
It's Hepe, man. Who cares?

Blank Lines

Much is made of
reading between the lines,
hearing what isn't said,
pulling meaning from the spaces
between words.

But the meaning is not in the blank,
the nothing,
the empty.

Take a page devoid of writing,
a room without a speaker.
They are truly empty.
Their between has expanded,
filling the margins,
the aisles,
till it seeps in my ears and eyes and all I have is one long

space, breathless,
dead.

It is only by surrounding,
caging,
framing,
squeezing,
shrinking,
even breaking the empty white
that it is palpable, palatable.

The frame bestows the meaning;
do not get lost in the picture
as you read between the lines.

In Praise of Your Beauty

Note: This poem was not written at Altoids, but was debuted there.

I think my left lung gets snagged on a rib
When I look at you,
And when I get my breath back
I fear the powerful cords
You've thrown around my heart –
Still straining each rise and fall of my diaphragm –
That draw us together
Yet keep us apart.

For when we talk I know
You're a million miles away.
With me helpless and you oblivious (perhaps),
Who will cut these cords
Of haunting, hopeless affection?

Ah, Nature's lopsides
Always have downsides,
Many of which are prisons.
Nonetheless, few things excel
Your beauty.
That you are beautiful does you no credit,
Though it ensnare my mind and heart;
But it is no small thing to live beautifully:
This I praise!

I suppose the odds are good,
Based on past experience,
That years from now when we meet
I shall remember this poem cum confession
And wonder why I wrote these lines
In praise of a beauty I still see
But no longer quite feel.

But I do now write.
Herein lies my praise.

Sing Not, Muse!

Note: This poem underwent substantial revision between the version of last week's meeting and what I present to you here. I hope you find it improved.

Oh Muse! I ask no song of thee
As did ancient bards (who, in effigy,
Prate out pentameter at Westminster)
When of old thy name confessing.

I entreat thee not to guide my pen
In expectance of Olympus' blessing,
Nor even for tradition's sake alone
With little faith.

I tell thee not of Rome or Athens,
Of pantheons with their immortal trappings.
I do not know the Titans;
The Fates are strangers to me.

Nay, sing not, Muse!
Who in epochs past inspired
Poets most dead and laureate.
Chant not from your crumbling, stony places
Of time stood still, of hundreds of frozen faces
Gazing witless from column to column.

Is it not I who sing
Across the ages to thee?

Sinking the Galatia

The generations will judge us
For what we do this day.
But you and I and one another
Know that it has to be like this.”

Thus quoth the captain,
His navy blue uniform
And white caftan
Fluttering in the jogging breeze,
The sort that foretells a nor'easter.

I bowed my head, remembering the Galatia
's if she were a'ready gone.
“She were a good ship,”
The captain said –
It was a eulogy –
And as the rain came
And washed the grime
Of twenty years at sea
Into the churning deep –
The body prepared for burial –
The crew all sang a song,
A hymn, it seemed,
And all were still.

We scuttled her that night
Without sight o' land,
And all the men abandoned ship and swam without hope.
The craft listed, and the creak of the mast,
As it rolled into the water like a sick dog,
Sounded to me like a banshee,
An' all the cannon slid, scraped petitions ignored,
Into the foaming sea.

Driving At Night

lane lines lead me through life,
like driving at night
talking to him, we exchange pleasantries,
passing with a courteous flip of the turn signal,
and I work and walk beside her for weeks,
accelerating in a one-way choreography.
near-disaster barrels past,
a roaring eighteen wheeler,
a wake-up call to watch the road.
the monotony of tail-lights,
winding out before my eyes,
takes most of the steering out of my hands,
and I follow the traffic,
go with the flow.
the car behind me, headlights glaring off the mirror,
is trying to get around me,
so I pull over a bit and let him by.
and you, in the blue four-door,
with out-of-state-plates,
are driving beside me for hours,
until I wonder if we have the same destination.
then green signs, and seconds later an exit ramp,
and we go our separate ways,
driving through the night.

Friend

Bits of paper cling to a notebook's spine
Confessions to be pulled out of my soul
I need firm hands to tear them all away
and ears to listen as my words spill out
The job is messy, quite undignified
and yet rewarding when the task is done
Fragile, weak, small without my paper bits
you kindly help me take them to the trash

By Very Small Means

A drip, a drop,
Percolate, plop,
Pooling, puddling,
Flowing, flooding,
Torrent tearing,
Eroding, wearing,
Gully grinding,
Chasm winding,
Until is seen from outer space
A Grand Canyon on the planet's face.
And so this thought:
It happened drop by drop.

A poem I heard yesterday

There is so much good in the worst of us
And so much bad in the best of us
That it ill behooves any of us
To talk about the rest of us

But I Do

[Okay, if you follow my blog you know I already posted this poem there back on Valentine's Day. Since it was started on a Thursday night during the time we were supposed to be having an Altoids meeting, and because Kim inspired me with her belated Valentine's poem, I'm reposting it here. Interestingly, its theme isn't too far off from that of Kim's poem.]

With words, sweet words — the currency of the day —
He tells how you’ve won his heart.
Giving roses, dozen roses — Earth’s love letters loaned —
He says he’ll always, ever be true.

And maybe,
By the swoons, the gasps, the thrills,
It’s justified.
The symbols are so sweet because of
What they signify.

But allow me to observe a few pertinent facts:
All but the mute can speak words of love to you.
‘most anyone with arms can place blossoms in your hands.
But is it not much easier to say than to be true?
How soon will his love’s flower falter
In the heat of life’s demands?

Ah, but not every guy,
In his heart of hearts,
Adores, loves, worships,
Thinks on, hopes for, dreams of,
Leads, follows, stands side by side with
You.

No, it isn’t every man that
Lives his life for you.
But I do.
I do.

Roses

(Yes, I know this is belated.)

Roses are red
Except when they're pink
Or yellow- the color
of friendship, I think

Violets are blue
No-- that's not right!
The ones that I've seen
are purple and white

Sugar is sweet . . .
And grainy and hard
Not quite befitting
The ode of a bard

What shall we do
with these love songs of old?
The falsehoods embedded
Are too oft retold

In truth I must write
of the things that I know
Not flowers or sugar
as white as the snow

But of friendship that warms
like a bright summer day
Filling my soul
with its glorious ray

For better than roses
Or violets of blue
That wither and die
and lose their bright hue

Is knowing that I
have in you a true friend
Faithful and loyal
And brave to the end.

To Josh, upon finding him absent to an opera on poetry night

While you were waxing operating
We at Alta were dramatic
In our woeful desperation
For poetic inspiration.
No rhymes would come; we all were wrecks
The thought itself's enough to vex.
And so until your full confession
We will suffer from depression
Desperate for poetry.
Please grant this fond wish for me!

February Fourteenth

Roses and Violets - poetic cliche
. Red for love and Blue for truth
Colors invoked ev'ry year on this day
. By the smiles of love and youth

Flowers perennial, buds ever new
. Roses of the heart and eye
Beautiful Blossoms reminding of you
. Violets constant as the sky

Though 'tis still winter and all here is white
. Frozen 'neath deep banks of snow,
Sharing thses colors in mutual delight
. Warms our hearts and flowers grow

Roses and Violets for my Valentine
. Mine are yours; will you be mine?

Tired

(From the meeting of January 29, 2009)

I am tired
period
I am tired
of
dash dash
I don
apostrophe
t know
what
comma
but
I do know
that I
am
so
period

The Battle of the Bug

(From the meeting of January 29, 2009)

Throughout the body
they fight
a fight against
evil and pathogens,
antigenic soldiers
whose weapon is
I EAT YOU!
lining up, reporting
for duty
for duty at the
front.
The front of my head
is like baseball bat impact
is like waking up unconscious in the sand
and like sunny scout camp suffering!
Suffering me to sleep
would be a dream
to me,
but mucus plugs
first one nostril
then the other
and the war of attrition
is a flamethrower on my forehead.

Ode to Josh's Shoe

note: Josh was sitting with one leg crossed over the other so his foot was up in the air

Josh's brown shoe looking sideways at me
Three feet up and it sees so much
But the world's still sideways

Laces pulled tight holding tongue well in place
Bow hanging low, dangling to and fro
'Cause it's an important, slow job

Sole firm and stern feeling glad for a rest
From keeping his feet off the cold of the street
Through snow and ice

Sock hiding there, riding safe, soft and tall
Unseen and humble, cushioning everything
Like toes and ankles

Minutes: 15 January 2009

15 Jan 2009: The first Altoid poeticization session of the new year.
Attending: Megan, Diane, Josh, and Sarah, with Gabe "observing" (i.e. doing his homework in the same room as us).

Free write topics/titles:

• Megan: a shipwreck
• Diane: Poet's Query (she just posted it here on the blog)
• Josh: first 8 lines of a happy sonnet. (This provoked discussion of why it's often easier to write depressing poetry.)
  
• Sarah: the water polo game!
• Gabe: ATATATGCCCCCGCCGTCACTCA (he was working on bioinformatics stuff -- very poetic)

We read a couple of ode-ish sonnets: "To Night" and "To Science". I was planning on reading Kim's recently completed Black and White poem, but I forgot until too late :-(

Closing free write didn't happen this time. Instead, we concluded by discussing the possibility of having a Special Shakespeare Edition of the Altoids -- getting together to read a play, maybe combined with dinner??

Thanks for coming those who did, and those who didn't, feel free to come next week! (Thursday lounge 9pm or apt 304 if lounge is occupied)

"Poet's Query"

What shall I write of?
It seems the books
are bursting at the bindings
with poems of love
or nature's glories:
of rain, leaving tear stains
on Mother Nature's weathered cheeks.
Surely this should not add to the masses.
What is my purpose?
Shall I write with hopes
to change a life, a nation?
or to simply scrawl my thoughts down,
leaving this, my fragile poem
unfinished and...

Black and White

I used to think
in black and white
A thing was wrong
or a thing was right

Why don't you think
the way I do?
What's right for me
is right for you.

But then one day,
twixt dusk and dawn
I saw the grey
come creeping on.

I stumbled--
There was naught to grasp
No absolute
for me to grasp

But on I pressed
through mists of dark
Not quite depressed
Yet not a lark

And as I toiled
throughout the day
A guiding hand
Showed me the way

And through the struggle
I gained strength
and hope sprang up
Until at length

A shaft of light
pierced through the gloom
And in my heart
I felt more room

The fog was broken
by the beams
of Daybreaks'
diamond dewy dreams

A thousand colors,
shades and hues
Of purple, orange
reds and blues

Danced across
the damask skies
Till teardrops glistened
On my eyes

The golden morning
sailed on
Yet in my mem'ry
It lives on

That day when first
I learned to see
The rainbow's
Multiplicity

And when I'm tempted
to give voice
to judgment
on another's choice

I feel the glory
of that day
And then I'm thankful
for the grey.