(of mother)
A beer and in front of me:
No visible sign of shame
in the shitty restaurant; oh
what does this suppose to mean?
I am all questions answered
unable to ask for the simple explanation
I already know.
I too give up,
and slowly sarcasm
and vacuous wit pour
into my hollow throbbing chest.
Experience at the Restaurant
Summer
At dusk on certain evenings you will, quite unexpectedly, come to an easy halt and, with the warm ground teasing your soles, you’ll gaze vaguely upon nothing in particular. Pleasant fire flying, the warm night air apparent, your skin smooth; the linen strips, not clinging but resting upon bronzed shoulder. Look out, and see nothing. With welcoming eyes, rest. Insects do not trace 'cross the brow their giddy calendars. Theirs are days yellow marked, the buttercups their reminders. Look out, and, alone, be thankful for what we share with them (down there). Close your eyes and inherit all they’ve. On certain evenings, I’ve heard, on some distant peer, a band plays simple, lovely things, and wafting down to you, drops like honeyed breeze, sweet life.
On this Place
This is a poem about my experience at TJ that I've just drafted for a scholarship contest. It's always difficult for me to write when I can't simply follow my mind's whims, but this is what I've got. Some of the typesetting, especially around the few phrases in parentheses, doesn't show up well in this format, so excuse those.
Years ago, I looked
forward; towards
something I, willingly,
could not grasp.
Day and night
were not unsimilar,
then; I would slowly push
my way – clearing the air –
each day parting opaquely,
an unknowing sweat:
the patina that, so slowly,
brought clarity: the surface,
my brow bent low.
Time passed and
conservatively I came to –
(understanding.) My fingers,
guided by those earnest hands that
with great patience, teach.
Then, measurement was my
chief concern: a ceaseless procession
of fact, dense with indifferent subtlety, passed
before me, nearsighted.
I worked to understand,
to share in the apparent pleasure
of knowledge – that
(apparent) fount of good stories
and warmly lit futures well-
told years from now.
And yet, a certain confusion
persisted: a liberal absence of sense;
Beyond each opaque day, there lied
more than patient hand could convey.
Time passed
(and) slowly, my urge to measure the world,
to sum things up, to
reduce down to the essentially empty
an experience that I had barely begun to grasp,
faded from my thoughts.
Then, for the first time
truly, I was free.
Each passing day brought new
the bounties of this truth which,
only by accident, I had found.
At first, thereafter,
I was angry.
Why hadn’t those patient hands,
handed to me the
right to be free of worry?
Why was such importance placed
on the facts of life, the means to ends,
that, without allegory, without
the shadows they cast upon
the plain things of day and night,
lost all meaning.
Slowly, though, I was
but simple relief.
Time, as always, passed and
at Time’s insistence,
I turned up my softening gaze and
with a new appreciation
faced those people: real people,
who spent their days
guiding the many hands of youth.
I saw then their faces:
brows down, the sweat
of a tired man or woman
lending glory to the
otherwise meek;
a pride too, there,
an inimitable sense of pride,
restrained by necessary distance:
the gap between mother and child grown.
I saw then their faces and
saw myself.
Surely this: this recognition
of our inherent similarity,
this undeniable empathy:
a shared existence and
appreciation thereof;
Surely this: lessons of history,
of math and science, of music, of all
maginable places: all equally
lessons of our time and of each-other.
Surely this base significance,
this foundation against which
everything has meaning,
s the greatest thing of which
I have, here, learned.
In my everyday, I extoll
this truth; I am
thankful to this place, to
the many hands, that
with great patience, guided
my trembling fingers to grasp
that which I, alone,
had to learn.
another poem
Labels: poem |
Yesterday was Today All Over Again
Labels: poem |
Gravity (In the midst of wreckage)
Labels: poem |
The first post.
Hello all. I'm excited to have a place with which to share my writing. You can expect to find stories, poems, and papers here as well as my general thoughts. I can not guarantee that I will be vigilant in my posting, though I hope I shall. Stay tuned, though; you might just find something you like.