I think I can, I think I can. College is hard and sometimes lonely. I wrote this when I was sitting in a courtyard, texting my best friend because no one would talk to me in real life. People are strange
The Biographies of Strangers
1.
I spent a year falling asleep in bathtubs around southern California.
2.
My mother wasn't my mother.
3.
I love my sleep. Life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, y'know?
4.
The moon sings for me, but I may have hit my head on something.
5.
I have scars on my hands from touching certain people, but I made sure they had broken jaws.
6.
I'm pretty sure it's peanut butter- but oh, fuck allergies.
7.
Rehumanizing is such a long process
Friday, August 28, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Theme post! Poem one!
I've gotta tell the truth here. I am a lazy, lazy writer. Which really wouldn't be a problem, except I want to be a damn good writer and when those two crossbreed, the result is like a mule - unproductive. As I head off to college the fabulous Mills, I am afraid that the inevitable distractions of college - like oh say, earning a degree- will distract me from one of my real passions in life.
So this is my challenge to myself. I am going to write a poem a week for all four years I am in college. If we take a second to do the math, thats 52 poems a year multiplied by 4 years so
52 x 4+= 208 poems.
My God, that is a lot of poems.
But that's part of the challenge. If I can stick to this, I can do just about anything. I've fallen through on a lot of things in my life. I want this blog to be a practice run on how to follow things all the way through in my life.
And with that said, here's poem numero uno.
Barbary and Bengal
they say that gladiators fought the Barbary lion in the Coliseum
that if we flipped over cobblestones onto their bellies like beetles
we would discover dried varnishes of blood, DNA gathered by the sword.
those lions, they say, fought gladiators and pirates
(people who no longer exist except as Halloween costumes)
we don't think of it much, they way we don't think of lies
that broke down, kisses that broke lips, but tigers used to tread in Turkey.
there were lions in Italy, until we killed them.
at the death the twentieth century, the only Barbary lions and Bengal tigers
were left in private collections; Saudi Arabian oil sheiks, Russians
who ran from the collapsing empire with their pockets full.
aren't we all private collectors of one kind or another?
our memories padding the locked cages of our minds smelling of predator and fear.
The only things that survive are clawed.
So this is my challenge to myself. I am going to write a poem a week for all four years I am in college. If we take a second to do the math, thats 52 poems a year multiplied by 4 years so
52 x 4+= 208 poems.
My God, that is a lot of poems.
But that's part of the challenge. If I can stick to this, I can do just about anything. I've fallen through on a lot of things in my life. I want this blog to be a practice run on how to follow things all the way through in my life.
And with that said, here's poem numero uno.
Barbary and Bengal
they say that gladiators fought the Barbary lion in the Coliseum
that if we flipped over cobblestones onto their bellies like beetles
we would discover dried varnishes of blood, DNA gathered by the sword.
those lions, they say, fought gladiators and pirates
(people who no longer exist except as Halloween costumes)
we don't think of it much, they way we don't think of lies
that broke down, kisses that broke lips, but tigers used to tread in Turkey.
there were lions in Italy, until we killed them.
at the death the twentieth century, the only Barbary lions and Bengal tigers
were left in private collections; Saudi Arabian oil sheiks, Russians
who ran from the collapsing empire with their pockets full.
aren't we all private collectors of one kind or another?
our memories padding the locked cages of our minds smelling of predator and fear.
The only things that survive are clawed.
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