On Finding Extinction in an Acorn

a synopsis of what's been on my mind lately:

How easily we forget our peace with the trees,
Whilst we writhe like hedons amidst the fallen leaves
And sunder their flesh for the fruit of our own.
In appeasing our lust, our fates have been sown
And in due time, they shall have their revenge
As we shall all be fodder for them.

The Oak will laugh in the morning breeze
As it unfurls its first vernal leaf,
Reflecting on all the species it's known
And marvel at how tall its children have grown
While deep beneath the centuries of leaves
Lie the spoils of war against the trees.

The Academics

 

In a cold bare room they sit

On creaking chairs, all facing

One wall with one cloudy window.

-Idle squalid sitting-

As cracks run down decrepit walls

Like tears draining life

-spilling out onto ashes

Beneath the aching floorboards.

 

And gazing through the abject pane,

The static observers shout out

What they see with Oedipal eyes

Yet do not feel.

Their blind egregious grasping

Makes the cracks drain faster.

      -judgments turn bolder in reply

A million babbling cries,

Yet somehow all the same.

 

The lowly hanging light-bulb dims

And they are left huddled in the dark

Like a pack of shifty leering vultures

With only harried, hollow, jumbled, squawking

Claims for comfort. 

work in progress

Love-pains

 

When I imagine the world’s creation,

It is as a match between lovers.

 

She balks at intrinsic limitations.

He favors play by regulation

And the world is a ball, formed by

His contemptuous envy.

 

So we, a tangible love-pain

Navigate ethereal planes.

 

The stars are not her eyes,

But her twinkling teeth in the night,

While she laughs from millennia away

In cosmic avian delight. 

good luck on your finals...

suckers.

On The Fence

There is a town, not unlike any town. And there is a street, light and lofty in manner, with a slightly noble disposition, often called, by all the handsome and pretty folk, anyway, Main Street, that weaves along through the center square, complete and lively, providing simple amusements for a place such as this. It was late August. All that sharp and ripe exuberance of earlier months was replaced by slow and heavy palpitations of the soul. You would see it in the children first, sad drunken faces recognizing the end of something great. You could find them at the ball-field late into the night yelling beneath the pockets of celestial things . And on days when the summer storms lay dormant, tucked into the valley, at the river, leaping from big old oak limbs into the blissful, cool water below, trying to save the thing they knew was lost.

So, at the far end of town, the bald and dying sun approaches from the West, beating its final breath across the blossom of tall golden hills, torching the feathery crowds of wildflowers that creep along and away toward the towering hordes of mystic mountains, illuminating, near the farm stand, a little ragged barn owned once by Mr. Jones, a house with a long iron fence that began on the street. This house, fashioned with regal blue shutters, a proud red door, even one of those grand wraparound porches, full of a perfect few rocking chairs, plush with velvet cushions, that you might find in photographs of plantation sprawls, was a beautiful thing in this kind of place.

It had been six years. The fence had been forgotten and needed a fresh wash of paint. On a morning not unlike any morning in late summer, the father sat in an open, but again forgotton kitchen, alone with all the shadows of poor lighting. The shadows slid along the warm cherry wood floor, up the curved back of a craftsman chair, into the dark trenches of his face. Pressing his fingers against the warm ink pretending to read the newspaper, drinking a now cool cup of coffee, he looked out the porthole window, poised above a tin sink trying to balance a tower of dirty things, as the sun began to birth again over the far-away mountains. There was never much 'home-cooking' anymore. But as the sun came up and through the window, further warming the room, he folded the paper neatly and placed it into a small pile on the corner of the kitchen table. At the door, on top of yesterday's paper were a pair of leather shoes. The shoes were old and worn and had a smell of use. He would often take walks in the morning, usually without a purpose, wandering across the field of the farmhouse, into the valley, never reaching the mysterious shouts he would hear barking from the mountains. But this day he had the thought of buying a nice cut of pork for dinner. Maybe some summer corn and a few potatoes too.

...this doesn't have a place yet. I am still working on the story..I will keep revising and writing over this post. (There is a young painter in town who does mighty fine work, at quite the price, hired by the boy's father, who was recommended to him when buying some pork at the market, lived on the same block, across the slow and quiet street, neighboring the nervous widow, once married to Old Man Jones, who stood, each night at her kitchen window with her husband's war binoculars, watching the boy, and the friends he had, get all dirty before dinner. Sometimes, she would storm out of the house, frail and skinny arms flailing about crazily in the air, yelling at them to 'clean up and get home for some supper!' All the children would laugh and blow wet tongues still running madly around the yard, some with there hands cupped over little mouths, others with cap guns strapped to tiny leather belts, playing Cowboys and Indians.)

Hi guys

Hey everybody, I'm Michelle, Will invited me to get in on your collaborative & blog so here I am :) Feels kind of funny bombarding in when you all don't know me so I'll introduce myself a little- I'm from MA, going to be a middler, and an English major. I'm reading a lot of American literature right now, on a Graham Greene spree and loving it; and I'm developing an interest in poetry, where I'm definitely an amateur, but starting to get a sense of my identity there.

I was talking to Will a little bit about what it really means, this idea you have going, and while from my first impression I'm not sure what I want to do totally fits in with the general concept of group (synthesis) over individual, I figured we'd chat and maybe get a better idea. I'm going to post some work soon so you can have an idea of what I write like, but in general I guess you can think of two main things that pin me as a writer: one, I seek intimacy, between reader and writer, under the guideline of 'symbiotic witness' which I think is a need that drives a lot of what people do... and two, I have more experience in 2D art and reading & writing fiction, and now I'm starting to try some poetry, so in poetry and prose I value storytelling, imagery, and posturing/dialogue. Which, I guess, is why I think I might not completely fit with your ideals, because I value the individual highly; the writer, the chosen voice/character, the reader.

Okay so I guess I'll just post something now. I don't have anything really polished and fabulous to make a stellar first impression with, but oh well... I actually wonder if you all have any ideas or advice about that; I feel like I can't go back and edit poems or they just lose all their authenticity and sincerity. Here's one I recently wrote, but tell me what you think? I guess right now I want to write poems that sound orally viable, that have a character's voice but still, smart syllables (working on it)...I was also thinking of toying with an unreliable narrator with this... anyways enough, here you go...


Mad Gab/The difference between the two of you:

There's a game where one person reads nonsense off a card
and the other translates it to something real
(and meanwhile tastes it like maple syrup,
tapping it against all the places in the mouth
carefully, tentatively, mouthing and asking it to reveal itself)

I played this with you on the couch. You flipped a card and read,
"End office her render giant almond."
It sounds terrible, I think as I taste it.
END officeherrenderGIANTalmond... endOFFICEherRENDERgiantalmond...

I stop to watch you glare at the card- the little muscles under your eyes flicking, and your lips
chewing the words like a piece of gum.
You want to win. I let you because I don't want to play anymore.
"An officer and a gentleman!" you exclaim like "eureka!".
I'm glad you're having fun, but we split up soon.

The difference between the two of you is this:
he and I play a version
where he speaks nonsense to me in beautiful strings
that wind like DNA helicase and I taste them as wine
drunk slowly and with much delight, sensing grapes, labor, and heat,
and I take out my microscope and unwind the words,
like he unwinds my sounds and asks them to reveal me.
Nothing so complicated as "I love you," nor anything as blunt
(for the time being, no, nothing so conventional
though his tongue fleeted once on a mention of marriage,
where the priest reads the words one deciphers, I guess)

but he instead, says,
"I lost all respect for Mel Gibson. He should've stopped at sugar tits."
"Cellar door ain't lo-li-ta."
"Your feet remind me of humpback whales."
"Maybe we'll be conducting one symphony soon."
Mumbly "sorry," when he rolls to my side, and stays.

And "This, this, this, is my favorite place," he says gently with his mouth.
He sighs gladly through his nose.
His gaze is as steady as a schooner in the bay
and his compass is pointed at me.