Mohawk On Display

Just a bunch of random poems and stories from today’s creative writing class. I’m too tired to give explanations or whatever.

***

I can turn back time
But only in my dreams, so
I wake up crying

***

I start in iambic pentameter,
But it seems I can’t find enough words.
My thoughts are becoming quite brief.
I think this page is too big.
A haiku this is not,
But it’s still too short.
To express my
Feelings quite
Clearly.
Damn.

***

Enough to callous the soul.
It depends. Do you love me?
Large enough to frighten, and small enough to bore.

How many roads must a man walk down?
Do you believe in love at first sight?
How big is the universe?

***

If I could, I would take a tiny piece of skin from everyone I have ever met and graft them onto my body, so whenever I hug myself, I know I’m hugging the world, and the world is hugging me back.

On second thought, a human mosaic might be kinda disturbing. Seriously.

***

Drawing me inside
The spiced, fragrant tea boils.
Chai - drink of the gods

***

Don’t hold love too fast
Or it will retreat in fear
I am living proof

***

Dead moth in my palm
Could I have done it some wrong?
Or did it just die?

***

Mohawk on Display
It’s a strange blog, I’ll admit
But visit it please

***

Doorknobs

A drabble (contains exactly 100 words)

They make life simple, it’s true. Just grasp, twist, and pull. Open sesame! But everyone knows that feeling, that sinking feeling in your stomach, when you grasp, twist, and the knob won’t budge. Locked. Now imagine if every doorknob would disappear. Sure, you’d have to do the funny maneuver where you dig your fingers into the hole and pull, and you might get the occasional splinter. But personally, my heart soars when I’m walking through a building and I see a door with its knob removed. I know that I’m welcome here. I was expected long ago. The door’s open.

***

Hey.  It’s 4:30 am, and I’ve gotta get some sleep in before Creative Writing Workshop tomorrow.  But I felt like updating the blog anyway, so here’s what’s been happening in my oh-so-interesting life!

Creative writing on Tuesday was great.  I wrote the three poems and the essay below.  The first poem (Train Companions) I wrote on the way to class.  The other two were in class, and they each follow a certain poetic structure.  A sestina has six verses (plus one tidbit at the end that has some special name I forgot) and what’s cool about it is that each line ends in one of the same six words, just rearranged in each verse.

Next, Terza Rima is a poem with three-line verses, where the middle line of one verse rhymes with the outer lines of the next verse.  When the poem is finished, if you map out the whole thing, it creates a cool interlocking effect of three rhyming lines.

The essay is my attempt at explaining an idea I have about how morality and the afterlife work.  Let me know if you don’t understand what I’m trying to say, and I’ll revise it to be clearer.

Last night was…interesting.  I had a really great time with some friends.  But then I was dumped by my sort-of girlfriend.  It’s very upsetting, but c’est la vie. 

Right now, I’m very happy, because I had lots of fun late-night conversations, which are one of my passions, and I’m listening to Pink Floyd’s album The Wall, which is pure genius!  Any now I’ve gotta go to bed.  Please read the stuff I posted below, and hopefully I’ll have some more poetry to put up after tomorrow’s class!

Goodnight, and if you’re reading this, whoever you are, know that as a fellow human being, I love you.  No matter who you are or why you’re here, I love you.  I think everyone should be told that once in a while.

Night night!

Before birth, each person is given a new soul, devoid of any bias. During life, the soul grows, develops, and learns about the world. It develops its own views on good and evil. Everyone’s soul will have a different opinion of what is “correct” behavior, but every soul will be able to judge whether it approves of its body’s actions, based on its own definition of “good.”

After death, the soul is separated from the body, and is shown an objective view of its past life in the physical world.

After this event, I’m not sure where the soul goes, if it goes anywhere, but that does not matter.  What matters is that the soul, with its ability to judge morality, will either be pleased with the life it facilitated, or will be disgusted by it, and punish itself for failing to convince the body to abide by its own rules, creating its own personal hell.

In summary, the soul has limited interaction with the body.  It can view the world through the body’s point of view, develop views on morality, and then try to nudge the body to do what it considers “right.”  Whether it does a good enough job convincing the body is what determines whether it is satisfied in the afterlife (heaven) or punishes itself (hell).

A terza rima I cannot write:

The rhyming is far too complex.

It was clearly invented out of spite!

–

Why can’t the structure be more lax?

Didn’t the creator realize rhyme

Is a burden poets carry on their backs?

–

This is a class assignment, and my poem’s running out of time!

Do you have Shakespeare’s number?  Or Robert Frost?

I think I may have to drop them a dime.

–

At this point I know I’m completely lost.

I can’t even figure out how to begin!

And look at the wasted paper it has caused!

–

Wait a minute… I finished!  I win!

At last I an turn my poem in.

I lie here tonight within my grave.

The air around me hangs heavy and silent.

The inside of my house is dark.

Around me not even the worms dare whisper.

Everything down here is dead.

For now I am, at last, alone.

–

Above, my friends stand alone,

Disjointed by my filling grave.

They try in earnest to recall the dead,

But, of course, their minds are silent.

To one another they can’t even whisper:

It seems this night has grown too dark.

–

I lie here tonight within the dark.

My soul, it seems, is quite alone.

To God I cannot even whisper:

His presence does not grace the grave.

Now I know what it means to be silent:

Now I know what it means to be dead.

–

Above, my friends stand like the dead.

(You couldn’t tell, not in the dark.)

Just like my soul, they’re perfectly silent.

(Are all our souls, in fact, alone?)

They cannot sense, above my grave,

Even the slightest, slightest, whisper.

–

I lie here tonight within the whisper,

For that is what it means to be dead:

Locked away within a grave,

Thoughts dampened in the dark,

For once, completely and utterly alone,

All noises fade and become silent.

–

Above, my friends stand completely silent,

Wishing they could utter a whisper,,

Anything to pretend they’re not alone,

Anything to pretend they’re not dead.

But still they stand, in the dark,

Dying right above my grave.

–

They are all dead.

They’ve found the dark.

The world is their grave.

People who sit beside you on a train,

And make you wonder (quite in vain)

Who they are, where they’ve been.

Why they’re here and what they’ve seen,

–

Don’t they take a part of you?

(Yes, I know, it’s sadly true.)

For when they stand and turn to leave,

They take a chance you’ll never retrieve

–

To ask them who, and where, and why,

And what was it that made them sigh,

And do they know they’re making you

Unable to your crossword do?

–

For when they stand (I know, it’s sad)

They take the train of thought you had

And leave you with one wishing that

You’d opened up your yap!

A moth landed on my hand.  It was truly beautiful, but perfectly still.  After a minute, I wasn’t sure if it was enjoying my company, or had simply died on my hand.  I brushed it with my finger, and it took off.  It had been enjoying my company.  But did I make the right choice?

I haven’t done any origami in a long time, so I decided to make sure I haven’t lost the touch.  Meet my new friend, Pegasus:

Isn’t she cute?

It’s been too long without any updates:

Click on image to view poem larger