Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Project

There’s this girl named Latifa who lived in Afghanistan
And she couldn’t find a husband because of the Taliban
The one time she needed love- she couldn’t find a man
‘Cause they said “Keep your face covered
Because it’s in the Koran!”
The soldier called her Susie ‘cause her eyes were pretty black
Now she could write him letters but he couldn’t write them back.
She knew he was off fighting for the grand ‘ol USA
But the empty mailbox hurt her cause she saw it every day.
Annie couldn’t understand why boys had to be so mean
‘Cause all they saw in Annie was a teenage beauty queen.
She “wanted the top half of him” as my Annie would say
She was weary, tired of waiting for true love to come her way.
I listen and I understand- they steel themselves and trudge
I know all of their stories but my sturdy heart wont budge
We’ve all got things that’re in the way- we feel helpless and small
My biggest problem is that I can’t seem to love at all,
Latifa, Annie, Susie, I can’t seem to love at all ;
Can I call on you to help me cause I cannot love at all…

Monday, April 26, 2010

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Earth Hour

Today it was 9pm
and I realized that I had better change the world.
I usually don't break promises,
and I promised Mother Earth today
that me studying would eventually make up for the electricity
in the long run.

It's not that I don't care.
It's an investment.

I didn't realize until today
that promises
make you debtors.
And human accomplishemnts
don't replenish Nature's coffers.

We should tell everyone.
Except that they'll probably act like me...

I had better make that change
or I'll become the person I least want to be.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Baby

My daddy heard about my day
he came to see me in my room
I didn't turn around, but heard his breathing
staring at his baby.

He leaned one elbow on the bed
and held my middle tight
and I couldn't turn to look at him
so I looked out the window

I wasn't that upset today,
but I never ask for much.
My daddy wished he could see me
with everything I wanted.

I said "you're sadder than I am"
and his rough cheek was on my shoulder
I was still looking out the window
He said "That's cause I love you"

I hold my babies like he held me then
with an abandon, and like
I was something precious, something tha
out of everyone in the world, only he could have.

I don't want to quote him wrong
because he's my daddy, and he's proud of me,
and I don't remember anything more
exactly, except that I knew that

I would rather have my daddy's hug
than anything else in the world.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I might as well be a grownup now.

Everyone is on the same page. Even if we weren't, pages are pretty thin. No person is above another. I don't know WHAT you're talking about.
My freshman year, I had a close friend who was a senior and took enough APs for the both of us to get into any Ivy league we wanted.

One day, she glided into class and slapped her newsboy bag down on the desk next to me and announced.

She won some scholarship from a college in Tennesee. College still seemed very far away to me. I thought about that for a while.

Then she said "I might even come back to teach here!"

I suddenly got very worried.

I was worried- what if in three years she came back and she was all done with college and an adult and I had to call her Ms. Hall and listen to her every word with respect and a closed mind? If she didn't want me calling her Laura?

Then I looked back at her, sitting next to me in an identical plastic desk.

That was the day I realized we are all the same. She would still be Laura. I would always be me, too. Growing up will change who we look like to people who don't know, but to each other, we'll always be the same.
I might as well be a grownup now. Nobody's stopping me.

Nobody who matters, at least.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Pantoum #2

This is my second try at a pantoum, which is a 16-line, usually unrhymed poem in four stanzas of four lines each. Here's the catch though- the second and fourth line of the first stanza become the first and third lines of the next. So line 4 of stanza 1 is IDENTICAL to line 3 of stanza 2. Also, the very first line has to be identical to the very last. I think it's just a form you have to get used to. It wouldn't work for a lot of poems because the repetition really does have to mean something. You sort of have to use the very restricted form as a symbol of something else, you can't sound like you're just trying to get around it. That's my eventual goal.

I write poetry
because I see patterns in things
and no one else sees. It's
like this, you see:

Because I see patterns in things,
I restrict myself in lines and words and sound
like this. You see?
I can not express it, but I will try:

I restrict myself in lines and words and sound.
Something else is keeping me from saying what I want.
I can not express it. But I will try
until I can not.

Something Else is keeping me from saying what I want.
I'll out do it with restrictions of my own.
Until I can not,
I write poetry.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

it does.

the fifteen year old walked into the room and sat in a blue courduroy chair with pale polished legs and the man with rubber lips smiled at her wondering why she was staring at his forehead that was starting to bald so she could see pricks where hair was supposed to be but wasn't and he asked her questions like what word defines you the most and she said

"obdurate."

Monday, April 5, 2010

I started my garden today to get ready for spring planting

I felt like a dry leaf in the wind
I put on my dad's huge boots,
and mismatched snow gloves
because the weeds were prickly.
. They didn't want me to pull them up.
I think I looked silly.
I am not small;
I am not twiggish, or bendy like a pine needle;
but as soon as I had the boots on
and the gloves
and as soon as I was pulling at a vine that reminded me
of the foamy breakers out at sea
I seemed fragile,
hands too big, feet to big, ready to lose my balance
like a gray frigate under the shadow of a storm wave or
like somebody just blew me off my tree.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Yesterday,

I learned how to use
a microfiche. Today
my brother taught me poker.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Dear Mom- I'm Not Phoebe Prince

Today I heard the story of a girl
who killed herself because she couldn't stand
black coffe for a lifetime-
Days were darker and bitterer than
the very end could possibly be.

I don't like black coffee.
I might hate it more than you.
But I'll drink my medicine and sing Mary Poppins songs
to get me through it.
I'm blessed with a vivid immagination.
I can immagine sugar.
It's not really that hard.

If you flip through a couple old notebooks of mine
you'll find me.
I'll be complaining.
I think that if I didn't have to drink anymore
somebody would go looking for me in those old groanings.

Don't be so sad
cause you made coffee taste bad.

But maybe kindness day to day
will scare the bitterness away.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Why I'm Never Sad (#1)

I don't mind failure. I
actually enjoy it a bit.
It's a really good hint towards
how I can make me better.
(I'm going for passable, here)
What I do mind, though
is when I can't figure out where the failure came from
and I can't remodel accordingly.

Ignorance is the only wound that festers.