they put me in a class where i have to write a shitass fuckload of poetry...

[redthedragon]

I keep being told that my poems for my creative writing class ae "actually good" and thus I'm going to archive them up here. input is welcomed but not necessary; there's going to be mandated responses from my classmates lol. Updates coming as necessary, I suppose.


1. Original:

Listen: a thumbnail on plaster; back and forth like a pendulum. Don't mind the hours.
Time crawls at its own pace. I should be running.
Are you bored? Are you tired of this yet?
Do you have paper? Do you have a pen?
Have you eaten? A soda doesn't count. What's for breakfast? Haven't you slept?
Listen: the sun rises again, no matter how often it sets.

Rhyming

Listen: picking paint, a nail on plaster.
A pendulum keeps a steady pace --
Well I don't. I should be going faster.
Are you tired? Come on, aren't you bored?
Do you have paper? I'll lose my place.
Haven't you eaten? Not soda, don't be absurd.
What's for breakfast? Have you slept yet?
Listen: the sun again will show its face,
however you see it set.

2.

I'm from wood -
wood floors, warm in the winter, pitted
wood two-by-fours lying in the basement
nails sticking out at odd angles
wood cabinets, wood tables, wood chairs,
amateur carpentry enlisting children's hands
trees in the backyard, spicy-smelling cedars that scraped the sky
pine needles carpeting the ground below.

I'm from snacks at Danielle's
and from toys at Chloe's
flips on the monkey bars,
pushing my friends into acrobatic stunts,
bruises on every joint, falling and laughing.
I'm from Baruch Hashem, Shema Yisroel,
yalla Habibi, bring in the candles,
books in letters I read and didn't understand

I'm from Barbara and Joe and Adam and Mara
and the other half of the family I didn't like,
traditions from Egypt, family in Sudan and Israel,
watches worn upside-down and stories about crocodiles
I begged my grandma to teach me how to make kufta
and I forgot every part within two weeks
Ignore Mike and Karen and Lisa. The only tradition they passed down was pain.

I've never cared for photos. You'll find me
in half-remembered songs from a long time ago
my father with his guitar in oh-six, my mother's lullabies
off-key acoustic renditions of Motley Crue songs
the Syrian shul my grandfather took me to
prayers over holiday meals, the wind between those giant pines.
I'm from a lot of places. I don't care about the old wood.
Throw it on the fire, and in the crackle hear them echo anyway.

3. Understand that I am an egotist. Thus I did one of my own pieces:

in a greenhouse, where every season is warm and wet,
this summer has run on too long, and the fall
is waiting in the wings. It discolors panels, it turns
clear glass green and violet. Age never waits.
The cement panels below, broad slabs, lay stained,
white gone warm gray. Here and there broken
and from cracks spring grass and and flowers,
vines, stems, foliage, creeping leaves and limbs
reaching all the way into the water.
The water! Green and murky, deceptively deep,
black with algae, long grasses from the corners,
lily-pad flotillas scattered about,
each thicket broader than a person
and blossoming pink and white.
Blossoming like the trees on each edge,
green and orange and pink and brown. And just barely trimmed
enough to ensure the sun reaches the pool.
The sun streams through; changing, dappling pink and green..
And below the glass there is life. It is a greenhouse;
the plants are to be expected. But rising from the inky
water is a massive beast, antler-crowned, scaled and dark,
a sea serpent domesticated. And across from it, nude, casual, wet,
a man on a swimming towel, like it is the most normal
thing in the world, unconcerned, hands
in the dirty water. He has watermelons and lemonade.
Around them, the glass summer wanes.

4.

Winter Storm
Bite at my fingers, if you must, but please get out of my house.

5. The requirements of the form can be found here.

perch, in thicket pitch-black
sit, see why; the sky burns
crimson on high climbing
sky-fire glim'ring dimly
serpents flicker smirking
bursts of embers rendered
Dawn's fingers, sun-storm
spawn, burning, turning, gone