Homework 10: Narrative Poem

Pride||Silence

When the heat roils in the summer

The asphalt shimmering and singing

A congestive cluster of rainbow drunken Pride

Rolls into the city like a July thunderstorm

Thick, sweltering, electric

Promising an unrelenting and percussive

Release of static and tension

Batten down the hatches

Reinforce your foundations

You cannot weather this storm

For a part of it lives in your house

Rattling your roof from within

Pride breaking down archaic walls

Thunder on their breath

Every year when I see this happening

I seek to ride the air 

Get swept into that intoxicating throng 

Chanting, marching, celebrating

Freedom, freedom, we will not be ignored!

Freedom, freedom, we’re worth so much more!

And every time I’m stopped

The last time I did something like this

I had a stalker follow me home

Tell me about all the things he wanted to do to me 

Talk about wanting to murder his father

About how I was item 1-9 on the list

Of people in the world he wouldn't kill

And he was number 10

I remember the time I was told

“You can’t be ace, you’re not a plant”

“You just haven’t rode my dick yet”

“When I’m done with you,

You’ll need chapstick on both sets of lips”

As if that weren’t already my biggest fear

And the reason I stayed in the closet up until college

I remember the time my best friend’s father 

Tried to molest me, so I told him I’d call the police

I remember the time someone grabbed me 

On the school bus in eighth grade and I was frozen

Now, I wish I’d turned around 

And slapped him so hard I’d have broken

His stupid Rayban glasses 

I remember the time I was called a faggot

For wearing a boy’s shirt

For not wearing makeup

For cutting my hair

For having a girlfriend

For being gender fluid 

For being a tomboy

What have I learned from my pride 

Except shame

“Go back into the closet 

Because you don’t look gay

You’re just a bitch

You’re not butch

And you’re not a good femme either.”

I have a boyfriend

So that obviously means I’m not queer

Not like pano-romanticism is a thing

Where you can just love people

Not caring what they identify as 

Because you’re so drunk on the security 

Of being wrapped in their arms

My queerness is weird

But it’s real regardless of a lack of label 

It’s stayed with me, in me, as me

And I keep crawling back to it

Scared and hiding

My mom doesn’t believe it

My brothers don’t think it’s true

So I sit in the darkness

Confined in a closet 21 years too small

And watch as another thunderstorm

Overtakes our city

Rainbow lightning flashing and flying

Sparking and arching and screeching 

Joyous release

One day

I will

Join them

For I

Am of

Cloud and

Lighting, too

Homework 9: Beat Poem

Brother Dearest


When mom was trying to convince you not to smoke marijuana
Because you were fourteen
Already kicked out of one school
For being a troubled kid
You screamed so loud the house shook
Windows reverberating
Walls shuddering
Doors rattling

A sudden, swollen swarm of insults unleashed like a plague
A pestilence so determined to overtake everything
Your tongue the same fire they warn us about
In catechism
In mass
In the fucking bible
In that moment
You were Hell

And she started weeping,
Locking herself in my room with me
Scooping me up in her arms
Recreating the Madonna and Child
And crying into my hair
Lips reciting prayers
Listing Latin and Psalm
Into my scalp

As your storm pounded on my door
Until Dad came home
And with a single exchange
The tempest ceased
Waters calmed
Plagues undone
The house a home again
But cracked

You had kicked holes in the wall
In defiance
In desperation
I don't know
But the holes were there
And you patched them later
But it was sloppy
And we always knew what was under the paint

We lived like this for years
You shouting at mom
For her asking you to turn down your guitar
For her asking you to pull up your grades
For her asking you to be nicer with your words
For her asking you to be nicer to us
For her asking you to do anything
For her just being there

I will never believe you've changed
Even though you've gone to college
Even though you graduated
Even though you've got a house you share
Even though you've got a job
Even though you keep insisting
Even though you keep saying all these things
It's always just talk

Your name means 'traitor of God'
I will always remember the fights
I will always remember the shouting
I will always remember the sobbing
I will always remember what you've done
I will take it with me to my grave
And you will to yours
For the wicked do not go unpunished

Homework 8: Cubist Poem

Loves Lost

Take me please take me and don't let me go
Whisper let me go and whisper don't and whisper let go and whisper please
Let go and let go for freedom is free and freedom is let go
Freedom is let me go and freedom is without you
But let go is lonely and lonely is forgotten and forgotten is let go too much
Forgotten is whispering and whispering and pleading and let go
Take me please take me
Before I am forgotten and let go
Yet I am forgotten
Let go
I am forgotten
Like waves upon shore
Let go
Into sand
Let go

Homework 7: List Poem

Prayers 

Pray to me
When you ache from hollowness
When you almost miss conflict because then at least you'll feel something
When you feel as though you've been rent asunder
When you can't seem to find anyone who'd help
When you're weary of carrying burdens you still don't understand yet are still expected to shoulder
When you're scared
When you feel ashamed for that same fear
When you're twenty-one and still terrified of the dark
When you're scared of what could possibly be stalking you in it
When you feel much smaller than your brothers
When you feel much bigger than those who nurtured your anorexia
When you want to beat the bastard who mocked you on the day your dog died
When you want to scream at your roommate for saying 'owning a cat is a huge responsibility'
When you're the one who regularly cleans up after the cat in the first place
When you're the one cleaning the house alone again
When you have no patience and want the world to burn
When you wish you could just fade away like a dream
When you wish that maybe you had killed yourself
When you wonder if living was really worth it


Pray to me
For the strength to not cry
For the strength to let the tears flow
For the ability to glimpse beyond the current turmoil and see a world waiting for you
For assurance
For assisstance
For whatever I can give
For as much love as you need
For you know my name
For you have taken my name
For I have always been with you
For I know you
For you know me
For we have always been entwined
For I am a protector
For you are my charge
For we are together

One

Homework 6: Ezra Pound, Imagist Poems

"The Image is the poet's pigment; the image is not an idea, it is a radiant node or cluster. A vortex through which, and from which, and into which ideas are constantly rushing. It is as true for painting and sculpture as it is poetry." -Ezra Pound


When writing a poem, I break my lines and stanzas up similar to musical phrasing; I treat my lineation the same way triplets, clusters of eighth and sixteenth notes make up a larger word and grouping of syllables. End-stopped lines are whole rests, an entire measure's worth of silence is to be observed whereas commas or larger spaces without marking are usually indicative of half-rests, or only half the length of a full pause. I like to keep my stanzas small, concise, yet filled with prose or flowery language as a way to convey a musical undercurrent or bring attention to words that are fun to let slip through one's teeth. Words are an oath and testament to language, so acknowledging the forgotten or more ornate ones is like remembering the old inscriptions of house mottos left upon the aging walls of a once great palace.

I agree with the reading that lines that are end-stopped are rather easy to predict and break up into smaller, more predictable pieces. Following what has been clearly marked out in the ink of the poem is usually the path of least resistance and it's likely that the poem had been written and structured in that specific way for a reason. However, I disagree with the idea that poetic phrases without punctuation should be ready through as if they carry on like a traditional sentence until completion. If there's a break in a poem, I think that means that there should be a pause. If lines are broken into stanzas, there should be a moment to cushion them, ponder them, then add them back together into the whole.



Imagist Poems

Kitten

I

Kitten crouches at the door
A javelin readied before release
To split the air 

II

Kitten yowls at thunder
Determined that her rancor 
Should be the loudest

III

The night draws long
Kitten awakes with open jaws
And screams the sun into the sky

IV

Kitten does not like the silence
She shudders with memories 
Being forgotten