"Erasure"

I keep typing and backspacing all of my thoughts, so I will simply leave you with the following lovely words:

-Stephen Dunn, Riffs & Reciprocities

Goals: Revised

Be(lieve you are) beautiful

Be(lieve you are) memorable
Be(lieve you are) kind
Be(lieve you are) pleasant

Be(lieve you are) happy
Be(lieve you are) thoughtful

Be(lieve you are) awake

Be(lieve you are) adventurous
Be(lieve you are) bold
Be(lieve you are) intelligent

Be(lieve you are) wise
Be(lieve you are) punctual

Be(lieve you are) well dressed
Be(lieve you are) well rounded

Be(lieve you are) brave
Be(lieve you are) attentive
Be(lieve you are) mindful
Be(lieve you are) creative

Be(lieve you are) rare

Be(lieve you are) inspired
Be(lieve you are) inspiring

(Because it is probably true.)

[original]

Breakfast

On mornings like this
I wish I were at home
eating oatmeal I've never really liked
and watching the morning news
with my mom,
talking about how Grandma used to call it mush.

Goals

Be beautiful

Be memorable
Be kind
Be pleasant

Be happy
Be thoughtful

Be awake

Be adventurous
Be bold
Be intelligent

Be wise
Be punctual

Be well dressed
Be well rounded

Be brave
Be attentive
Be mindful
Be creative

Be rare

Be inspired
Be inspiring



(see revised)

I Made A Little Chapbook

We made chapbooks in my poetry class. Mine is a tiny 4x4. I like it and I'm a kind of sad we can't keep them. Because I don't often compile anything of mine into a little book.

William Shakespeare

Today was Poem Memorization day. It was a joyous occasion. "Joyous" here meaning "I don't recite poetry in front of people unless it's in my small workshopping group in class because I need the grade, or in front of select family members because I'm trying to find a poem to memorize. So please don't make me speak this language of poetry in front of my class' entirety."

Needless to say, butterflies were occupying my stomach every moment I thought about this day in all its poetic glory.

I chose to memorize two of my poems. This one and this one. Since they were my own poems, I memorized them relatively easily. The key word being "relatively". Because in the first part of the test (writing the poem from memory) I nearly forgot an entire line. Luckily it came to my brain at the end. And then came the reciting part. The part where we can have the poem(s) in front of us, but we can "only look at it three times". I was one of the last to recite. I thought to myself as people recited, "If I forget a line, I'm not going to say 'sorry' like many of these people are doing. I will simply look down at the stinking poem and move on.'"

Then I got up to the front of the class. Blessed day. My face turned red. My stomach churned. I blinked. I began. My mind went blank a jumble of times and I said "sorry" to the scoffing students. I also looked at my paper about seventeen times. "Seventeen" here meaning "more than three".

But, nevertheless, I finished my poems. I sat down. And William Shakespeare took his turn and cleaned up my poetry mess. He acted out his monologues. There was shouting involved. 

If I didn't pass, I'll know it was because I didn't have props or anger to help me out.

Page Strewn

I have a new poetry blog. Note that my photography blog has been replaced over by all my blog buttons. Maybe someday I'll use that, again. But as for now, I'll continue onward in the posting of photographs and perhaps poetry on this blog,

But now I'll have a page that is dedicated solely to the use of my page strewn brain of poetry.

Feel free to follow.
Feel free to not read it.

Either way, it's there.

Bellowed

Perhaps beneath 

A sallowed wail 

Endures a lasting resonance 

And below a belted, 

Blowing tale 

Results a fading adamance. 

From drafts 01.04.12

Adventures Awaiting

Today I think I'll climb a tree
Or skate up to the clouds
Anything there is to see,
I want to see it loud

Beyond the stars I'll journey, then,
Leagues beneath the sea I'll soar
I'll find the sights worth seeing there,
I'll find them, mark my words

And when I voyage through the stars
A gliding dragon by my side
I'll go searching for that stone and sword
A band of pirates as my guide

But even when I'm far from sight
Or wandering past the moon
I'll be wondering just how you are
And please know I'll be home soon.

Secrets

It's hard when I'm tired
When I have work tomorrow
And it's late

And almost everything is
Just almost in its place

But there are those little
Envelopes I sealed in my brain

Because too bad they'll maybe
Probably
Never be opened.

Tattered Relics

There is a stairway leading

To an impossibly careless room

Of idle pages strewn about

Tired reflections of dusty gloom

The paper on the walls is peeling

Sagging with its age
Just like those recollections reeling
I vow to forget, and soon

This ancient room of decaying dreams

Tears away my breath

And I’ll never find what it means

To forsake and tear my past

-Polished from Poetry course

December 2010

reminiscence Emerging

Sometimes I think about how I wish things were
And nostalgia wraps itself around my brain.

I miss it, even though I don't know it.

Then,
Even though I can only pluck the strings and strum half-songs the guitar

Blisters on my fingertips

And play the same bundle of songs over and over on the piano

If I don't think, I don't stumble on those notes

And imagine book-writing and photographing, music-filming, song-covering and traveling

Impending-wheels reeling

The nostalgia somehow drifts away, inside my brain
And a comfortable anticipation emerges.

All It Takes

Sometimes all it takes
is updating your journal
And your brain
then thinking about everything,
Crying
then Praying

and then Breathing.

Because even though I'll be a hobo
sooner than you can say
"unupdated resume,"
Things
will probably turn out
Just fine.

It All Comes Down To

Sometimes it's hard to try and decipher the tongue-ties and the accuracies.

Sometimes it's hard to interpret the tongue-ties
And to filter through the accuracies.

Sometimes it's hard not to.

And sometimes it's hard not to eat everything you find
And everything that finds you.

matter

as much as i'm glad

the 90s are through

i miss when

indecision

didn't matter much

until i was choosing

ice cream

Surmising

Shifts in speculated shoulds

Should be speculated

On either end of the spectrum.

Labels

She went to the store to buy a label machine
Then she came back and put a label on me.

The label said “clumsy”, “dumb”, and “mean”

On just one tiny label, but it was easily seen.

She went and placed labels on all in sight

And I saw what she saw, only seeing in one light.

I was surrounded by babies, by whiners and brats

Only noticing by the words on their shirts and their hats.

She went to the store and bought a label machine

Altering my thoughts; I only saw what she had seen.

One Hundred and One Famous Poems

       "Think not, because no man sees, 

            Such things will remain unseen."

       -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When I graduated this spring, my grandma gave me a book of poetry. One Hundred and One Famous Poems. She read to me some of the poems she likes, but after that, I only found time to become familiar with the cover. 

Tonight I pulled the book out. I only planned to glance through it, considering the time. But I re-realized the brilliance behind the worded-art, and my glancing through it became a delving.

People are lovely. Words are lovely. And I now have many scraps of paper marking poems that I find intriguing and lovely.

And to think that I used to get a horrible taste in my mouth whenever I tasted poetry.

enervation

[ m u t e ]

Beneath the Estimated

It's funny how things turn out.

It's funny how things don't turn out.

Sometimes my indecision morphs into fickle-mindedness.

Sometimes my fickle-mindedness repeats itself, quite generously.

But then I just sift through everything, and I smile.

But sometimes a frown peeks from behind my lips.

It's funny how things turn out.

It's funny how things don't turn out.