Random Stuff
So recently it has been brought to my attention that I used to write poetry. Granted it was really, really bad due to the fact that it hardly made it more than one draft.
Nonetheless, I am now a comsumer of other people's work. The Writers Almanac has been a great help, and I started almost everyday with Garison Keillor for about a year now.
Anyways this is all leading up to this poem that I want to share because it sums up a lot of feels that I have been carrying around with me.
The puzzled ones, the Americans, go through their lives
Buying what they are told to buy,
Pursuing their love affairs with the automobile,
Baseball and football, romance and beauty,
Enthusiastic as trained seals, going into debt, struggling -
True believers in liberty, and also security,
And of course sex - cheating on each other
For the most part only a little, mostly avoiding violence
Except at a vast blue distance, as between bombsight and earth,
Or on the violent screen, which they adore.
Those who are not Americans think Americans are happy
Because they are so filthy rich, but not so.
They are mostly puzzled and at a loss
As if someone pulled the floor out from under them,
They'd like to believe in God, or something, and they do try.
You can see it in their white faces at the supermarket and the gas station
- Not the immigrant faces, they know what they want,
Not the blacks, whose faces are hurt and proud -
The white faces, lipsticked, shaven, we do try
To keep smiling, for when we're smiling, the whole world
Smiles with us, but we feel we've lost
That loving feeling. Clouds ride by above us,
Rivers flow, toilets work, traffic lights work, barring floods, fires
And earthquakes, houses and streets appear stable
So what is it, this moon-shaped blankness?
What the hell is it? America is perplexed.
We would fix it if we knew what was broken.
By Alicia Suskin Ostriker
So we are making name tags in class and many stundents want an English Name for class. So a girl wanted help with thinking of some so she asked me. Apparently it is really hard to come up with names out of the blue so the only list that I could think of to go down was names of my ex-girlfriends.
I will renew my contract if they let me (which they should by all accounts). Apparently I do not have to return to the United States, and I am thinking about not. Instead I would like to go to Jeju-do or Thailand for a SCUBA trip and just sit on the beach minding my own business. It was be a shame not to as I am already halfway there, and the USA will still be there next year.
However I am unsure about the timing. My understanding is that late summer is the typhoon/rainy season for both Thailand and most of Asia. So it would be a bummer if I went there and it was hot, humid, full of mosquitos, and worst of all minimal amounts of sun.
I do however crave the idea of spending days sitting outside on the beach or hiking through natures. I have had this desparate itch for awhile now.
It has been raining pretty steady here for about a weak. I welcome the change in weather, but I hate the humidity.
Nonetheless, I am now a comsumer of other people's work. The Writers Almanac has been a great help, and I started almost everyday with Garison Keillor for about a year now.
Anyways this is all leading up to this poem that I want to share because it sums up a lot of feels that I have been carrying around with me.
The puzzled ones, the Americans, go through their lives
Buying what they are told to buy,
Pursuing their love affairs with the automobile,
Baseball and football, romance and beauty,
Enthusiastic as trained seals, going into debt, struggling -
True believers in liberty, and also security,
And of course sex - cheating on each other
For the most part only a little, mostly avoiding violence
Except at a vast blue distance, as between bombsight and earth,
Or on the violent screen, which they adore.
Those who are not Americans think Americans are happy
Because they are so filthy rich, but not so.
They are mostly puzzled and at a loss
As if someone pulled the floor out from under them,
They'd like to believe in God, or something, and they do try.
You can see it in their white faces at the supermarket and the gas station
- Not the immigrant faces, they know what they want,
Not the blacks, whose faces are hurt and proud -
The white faces, lipsticked, shaven, we do try
To keep smiling, for when we're smiling, the whole world
Smiles with us, but we feel we've lost
That loving feeling. Clouds ride by above us,
Rivers flow, toilets work, traffic lights work, barring floods, fires
And earthquakes, houses and streets appear stable
So what is it, this moon-shaped blankness?
What the hell is it? America is perplexed.
We would fix it if we knew what was broken.
By Alicia Suskin Ostriker
So we are making name tags in class and many stundents want an English Name for class. So a girl wanted help with thinking of some so she asked me. Apparently it is really hard to come up with names out of the blue so the only list that I could think of to go down was names of my ex-girlfriends.
I will renew my contract if they let me (which they should by all accounts). Apparently I do not have to return to the United States, and I am thinking about not. Instead I would like to go to Jeju-do or Thailand for a SCUBA trip and just sit on the beach minding my own business. It was be a shame not to as I am already halfway there, and the USA will still be there next year.
However I am unsure about the timing. My understanding is that late summer is the typhoon/rainy season for both Thailand and most of Asia. So it would be a bummer if I went there and it was hot, humid, full of mosquitos, and worst of all minimal amounts of sun.
I do however crave the idea of spending days sitting outside on the beach or hiking through natures. I have had this desparate itch for awhile now.
It has been raining pretty steady here for about a weak. I welcome the change in weather, but I hate the humidity.