original poems
Because I really should start writing poetry again, here are some poems I wrote years ago that don't suck as much as some of the other poems I wrote years ago! All of these are high school stuff of one sort or another, all written for classes.
The Thing Is, Is
So, um, the thing about it is, when
No, wait, see the thing is, I mean, when you don't
When it feels like you don't have any
thing dependable, or, when, I guess,
you don't have any control
over those things that are dependable
(which things will be, dependable, that is,
and how they are planning on deciding
whether they will choose to stay
like guests at a picnic casually,
at your life, (which is certainly no picnic for you
god knows) and it makes you vibrate with nervous
energy, because this is not a casual thing at all,
or possibly it is, and you're not sure which would be worse -
or plead prior engagements).
And the thing about that is, is that
it's like when you know, pushing against
the muscles between your ribs, that you've forgotten
something, and you don't know what,
and you're queasy because something is not there, it's not
there, and it should be, and you don't
know what it is, and it is terribly important or possibly not
important at all, and you're not sure
which would be worse:
to have forgotten important things
or to have forgotten which things were important.
It's hard to say.
Shells
Starts sharply, and curls back
From your bottom teeth, up
Through a clear, pure vowel
and over your curved tongue.
The ending is slow, a liquid
Consonant which tapers away...
A word like blowing a bubble:
Burst of expansion and tense tender close,
Pressed out exoskeletal sigh.
Sky bends down over a sandy shore
Where children cut their feet
On shards of shell - slow diffusion
Of spreading blood, the sting of salt.
Calcite rinds form cenotaphs
For battles obscure and marine.
No part of your body will fit
So precisely as that dead tenant -
Still, the shapes echo you:
The inside of a cheek petrified,
Palm of the hand molded in plaster.
I might sleep in a shell for seven nights
Before the sea would cease to calm me,
Stirring me restless and blinking to rub my wrists
Against the encircling headboard.
Salt will crystallize faintly on shells
Like the crust on eyelashes in the morning.
The shell itself awakens also,
Arching its brittle spine to the sun.
Pomegranate Pantoum
Your skin is soft like the skin of peaches.
I want to push you down into the damp grass.
Your lips are red as pomegranates.
I want to taste the entirety of you.
I want to push you down into the damp grass,
The taste of pomegranates lingering on your lips.
I want to taste the entirety of you,
Even the humming thoughts of you.
The taste of pomegranates lingering on your lips;
The thoughts that buzz between your eyebrows,
Even the humming thoughts of you.
(I don't think I will get my fill.)
The thoughts that buzz between your eyebrows
Flicker like heat lightning when I try to sleep
I don't think I will get my fill of this
Especially your hair, especially your mind
Flickering like heat lightning. When I try to sleep
I feel the whirr of your organic machinery,
Especially your hair, especially your mind
Which spread across the pillow to devour me.
I feel the whirr of your organic machinery.
The plinking clicks of joints and dreams
Spread across the pillow to devour me.
It is important to me that you dream.
The plinking clicks of joints and dreams
Distracting me everywhere you are,
It is important to me that you dream.
My dreams without you disappoint me.
Distracting me everywhere you are,
Your lips are red as pomegranates.
My dreams without you disappoint me.
Your skin is soft like the skin of peaches.
Omissions in a Seventeen Year Friendship
Please forgive me for jiggling my leg
so that the table shakes and your perfect
handwriting goes all wobbly.
I did it on purpose.
You probably wanted to talk, that time you broke up with your boyfriend
again. "Let it go," you said, and sighed
too loudly to convince anyone. Please
forgive my inability to give a shit.
It was the fourth goddamned time.
Please forgive me for talking about you
behind your back, especially
because it was all true, especially because
I wanted to be overheard.
Please forgive my silence.
Please forgive my speech.
When the SATs come up in conversation,
my earnest belief that test scores
fail to measure intelligence
is not the entire reason I cite you
as an example.
Please forgive me for peeling the dead
skin off my chapped lips, which is disgusting
as you never fail to point out,
sprawling on the couch beside me.
You look lovely in the blue gleam
of the TV screen. I regret not telling you
this. Please forgive me:
It was not an unconscious
omission.
I think you can see why I'm not a lyricist. Oh, HEY, actually, could you guys help me out? I can never manage to force myself to write poetry without assignments. The best of these (in my opinion, and I'm not saying which one it is) was entirely written and revised under a 30 minute deadline. So give me prompts (not - not fannish prompts. I don't know if I could do that) and I'll try and write some poems for y'all? It would be a big help to me!
The Thing Is, Is
So, um, the thing about it is, when
No, wait, see the thing is, I mean, when you don't
When it feels like you don't have any
thing dependable, or, when, I guess,
you don't have any control
over those things that are dependable
(which things will be, dependable, that is,
and how they are planning on deciding
whether they will choose to stay
like guests at a picnic casually,
at your life, (which is certainly no picnic for you
god knows) and it makes you vibrate with nervous
energy, because this is not a casual thing at all,
or possibly it is, and you're not sure which would be worse -
or plead prior engagements).
And the thing about that is, is that
it's like when you know, pushing against
the muscles between your ribs, that you've forgotten
something, and you don't know what,
and you're queasy because something is not there, it's not
there, and it should be, and you don't
know what it is, and it is terribly important or possibly not
important at all, and you're not sure
which would be worse:
to have forgotten important things
or to have forgotten which things were important.
It's hard to say.
Shells
Starts sharply, and curls back
From your bottom teeth, up
Through a clear, pure vowel
and over your curved tongue.
The ending is slow, a liquid
Consonant which tapers away...
A word like blowing a bubble:
Burst of expansion and tense tender close,
Pressed out exoskeletal sigh.
Sky bends down over a sandy shore
Where children cut their feet
On shards of shell - slow diffusion
Of spreading blood, the sting of salt.
Calcite rinds form cenotaphs
For battles obscure and marine.
No part of your body will fit
So precisely as that dead tenant -
Still, the shapes echo you:
The inside of a cheek petrified,
Palm of the hand molded in plaster.
I might sleep in a shell for seven nights
Before the sea would cease to calm me,
Stirring me restless and blinking to rub my wrists
Against the encircling headboard.
Salt will crystallize faintly on shells
Like the crust on eyelashes in the morning.
The shell itself awakens also,
Arching its brittle spine to the sun.
Pomegranate Pantoum
Your skin is soft like the skin of peaches.
I want to push you down into the damp grass.
Your lips are red as pomegranates.
I want to taste the entirety of you.
I want to push you down into the damp grass,
The taste of pomegranates lingering on your lips.
I want to taste the entirety of you,
Even the humming thoughts of you.
The taste of pomegranates lingering on your lips;
The thoughts that buzz between your eyebrows,
Even the humming thoughts of you.
(I don't think I will get my fill.)
The thoughts that buzz between your eyebrows
Flicker like heat lightning when I try to sleep
I don't think I will get my fill of this
Especially your hair, especially your mind
Flickering like heat lightning. When I try to sleep
I feel the whirr of your organic machinery,
Especially your hair, especially your mind
Which spread across the pillow to devour me.
I feel the whirr of your organic machinery.
The plinking clicks of joints and dreams
Spread across the pillow to devour me.
It is important to me that you dream.
The plinking clicks of joints and dreams
Distracting me everywhere you are,
It is important to me that you dream.
My dreams without you disappoint me.
Distracting me everywhere you are,
Your lips are red as pomegranates.
My dreams without you disappoint me.
Your skin is soft like the skin of peaches.
Omissions in a Seventeen Year Friendship
Please forgive me for jiggling my leg
so that the table shakes and your perfect
handwriting goes all wobbly.
I did it on purpose.
You probably wanted to talk, that time you broke up with your boyfriend
again. "Let it go," you said, and sighed
too loudly to convince anyone. Please
forgive my inability to give a shit.
It was the fourth goddamned time.
Please forgive me for talking about you
behind your back, especially
because it was all true, especially because
I wanted to be overheard.
Please forgive my silence.
Please forgive my speech.
When the SATs come up in conversation,
my earnest belief that test scores
fail to measure intelligence
is not the entire reason I cite you
as an example.
Please forgive me for peeling the dead
skin off my chapped lips, which is disgusting
as you never fail to point out,
sprawling on the couch beside me.
You look lovely in the blue gleam
of the TV screen. I regret not telling you
this. Please forgive me:
It was not an unconscious
omission.
I think you can see why I'm not a lyricist. Oh, HEY, actually, could you guys help me out? I can never manage to force myself to write poetry without assignments. The best of these (in my opinion, and I'm not saying which one it is) was entirely written and revised under a 30 minute deadline. So give me prompts (not - not fannish prompts. I don't know if I could do that) and I'll try and write some poems for y'all? It would be a big help to me!