Sweet Jesus, Superman
As I was talking to MP today about song-writing, I reflected on the last poem I wrote, which happened to be an assignment in 11th grade American Literature. It was a spin-off (?) I guess you could say of Lucille Clifton's poem "Note, passed to Superman."
I googled the first line "Sweet Jesus, Superman", and actually found the whole 4-poem series of her Notes to Clark Kent.
if i should
enter the house and speak
with my own voice, at last,
about its awful furnitutre,
pulling apart the covering
over the dusty bodies; the randy
father, the husband holding ice
in his hand like a blessing,
the mother bleeding into herself
and the small imploding girl,
i say if i should walk into
that web, who will come flying
after me, leaping tall buildings?
you?
further note to clark
do you now how hard it is for me?
do you know what you're asking?
what i can promise to be is water,
water plain and direct as Niagara.
unsparing of myself, unsparing of
the cliff i batter, but also unsparing
of you, tourist. the question for me is
how long can i cling to this edge?
the question for you is
what have you ever traveled toward
more than your own safety?
final note to clark
they had it wrong,
the old comics.
you are only clark kent
after all. oh,
mild mannered mister,
why did i think you could fix it?
how you must have wondered
to see me taking chances,
dancing on the edge of words,
pointing out the bad guys,
dreaming your x-ray vision
could see the beauty in me.
what did i expect? what
did i hope for? we are who we are,
two faithful readers,
not wonder woman and not superman.
note passed to superman
sweet jesus superman,
if i had seen you
dressed in your blue suit
i would have known you.
maybe that choir boyclark
can stand around
listening to stories
but not you, not with
metropolis to save
and every crook in town
filthy with kryptonite.
lord, man of steel
i understand the cape,
the leggings, the whole
ball of wax.
you can trust me,
there is no planet stranger
than the one i'm from.
I actually like the first three better than the one I had previously known. The fourth just seems to be a fangirl-y declaration, whereas the other ones have more emotional and personal substance that the latter only alludes to. Especially that line about "dreaming your x-ray vision / could see the beauty in me" really spoke to me, because I've been there, as I am sure many girls have in high school.
My poem was actually about Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.
It went something like,
Sweet Jesus, Dorothy
If I had seen you
feet in ruby slippers
i would have known you
maybe ______ would have cried
blah blah blah
blah blah auntie em
but not you,
blah blah blah,
the whole puddle of wax.
you can trust me,
there's no [something about feeling out-of-place
or in another world]
Very eloquent indeed.
So yeah. I should really be working on a project for Management Strategy now. Case analysis of Alpen Pharma w00000t!!! OMG I'm so PSYCHED!!!! (no. not at all)
The Disabilities Awareness arch sing in C-Town was canceled due to inauspicious weather conditions. Well, I got about 50 minutes back, if you consider the waiting times for the other group and the warming up, and the walking there times. It is so easy for an hour to go by when you are wandering aimlessly across the Cornell campus, I have come to realize. Sometimes even if you are plowing through all the applicable shortcuts, it may still take a lot of time if your planning is inefficient.
Of course, the largest waste of time is probably procrastinating something that should have been done hours, if not an entire day, ago by reading Perez Hilton. Oh yes... the rotting caverns of my mind.
I googled the first line "Sweet Jesus, Superman", and actually found the whole 4-poem series of her Notes to Clark Kent.
if i should
enter the house and speak
with my own voice, at last,
about its awful furnitutre,
pulling apart the covering
over the dusty bodies; the randy
father, the husband holding ice
in his hand like a blessing,
the mother bleeding into herself
and the small imploding girl,
i say if i should walk into
that web, who will come flying
after me, leaping tall buildings?
you?
further note to clark
do you now how hard it is for me?
do you know what you're asking?
what i can promise to be is water,
water plain and direct as Niagara.
unsparing of myself, unsparing of
the cliff i batter, but also unsparing
of you, tourist. the question for me is
how long can i cling to this edge?
the question for you is
what have you ever traveled toward
more than your own safety?
final note to clark
they had it wrong,
the old comics.
you are only clark kent
after all. oh,
mild mannered mister,
why did i think you could fix it?
how you must have wondered
to see me taking chances,
dancing on the edge of words,
pointing out the bad guys,
dreaming your x-ray vision
could see the beauty in me.
what did i expect? what
did i hope for? we are who we are,
two faithful readers,
not wonder woman and not superman.
note passed to superman
sweet jesus superman,
if i had seen you
dressed in your blue suit
i would have known you.
maybe that choir boyclark
can stand around
listening to stories
but not you, not with
metropolis to save
and every crook in town
filthy with kryptonite.
lord, man of steel
i understand the cape,
the leggings, the whole
ball of wax.
you can trust me,
there is no planet stranger
than the one i'm from.
I actually like the first three better than the one I had previously known. The fourth just seems to be a fangirl-y declaration, whereas the other ones have more emotional and personal substance that the latter only alludes to. Especially that line about "dreaming your x-ray vision / could see the beauty in me" really spoke to me, because I've been there, as I am sure many girls have in high school.
My poem was actually about Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.
It went something like,
Sweet Jesus, Dorothy
If I had seen you
feet in ruby slippers
i would have known you
maybe ______ would have cried
blah blah blah
blah blah auntie em
but not you,
blah blah blah,
the whole puddle of wax.
you can trust me,
there's no [something about feeling out-of-place
or in another world]
Very eloquent indeed.
So yeah. I should really be working on a project for Management Strategy now. Case analysis of Alpen Pharma w00000t!!! OMG I'm so PSYCHED!!!! (no. not at all)
The Disabilities Awareness arch sing in C-Town was canceled due to inauspicious weather conditions. Well, I got about 50 minutes back, if you consider the waiting times for the other group and the warming up, and the walking there times. It is so easy for an hour to go by when you are wandering aimlessly across the Cornell campus, I have come to realize. Sometimes even if you are plowing through all the applicable shortcuts, it may still take a lot of time if your planning is inefficient.
Of course, the largest waste of time is probably procrastinating something that should have been done hours, if not an entire day, ago by reading Perez Hilton. Oh yes... the rotting caverns of my mind.