The Poetry Marathon

I AM…(H1)

how odd it is to me you think
i am what you think i am
no more no less
as if to defy laws of physics or california
or whose ever laws those are that say
it is what it is
which I’ve never understood – not the meaning
but the purpose for saying so

i am what i am no matter what you think
or i think or we think or some group think
determines is so and so writes into law and so it becomes

i am
bic pen
the meter is running out
i am until i am not
in this moment

so why all the fuss
on who
i am
or why
i am
or what i might have been
or what i might become

think all you like about i and you and am and am not
me, i’m going swimming

Seeds of Promise

I see the promise has been kept–

The seeds have turned to bloom.

Early planted, in the spring,

Too much rain, I feared, had doomed.

 

But soon the sprouts broke through the soil,

Then taller, grew each day.

And now, a rainbow shines among

My garden, in display.

 

Pinks and orange, red and white,

With fragrance, nostrils fill;

Those seeds that fell beneath the ground–

Their purpose was instilled:

 

To bring delight to those who pass

Beside the road–so hidden–

Their quiet beauty shouting loud,

“Find me, and love the given.”

 

 

Home (hour 3)

Heavy rock guitar strains on a $5 speaker three floors down.
Smogged marijuana smoke clouds drift higher than my neighbors.
Cumin and garlic marinate this entire apartment complex.
Little clacks from this keyboard make my dog’s ears shift.
Russian, African America, Middle Eastern, and me.

The men next door won’t meet my eyes, but the women love me.
We dance in stairwells, shifting from left to right,
singing, “excuse me,” and, “I’m sorry,”
to the tune of our differences don’t matter here
from an album titled If you need anything, let me know.

The woman below me is Mama. She is strong and her laugh carries,
and I’d rather hear her laugh at 3 a.m., then ever listen to her cry.
I know she knows when we fight and I know that she prays for us.

The people here are whole,
but you wouldn’t know it from looking at any of us.
We are broken too,
but with every pitch of music, every puff and drag, every loud conversation,
we are pulling ourselves back together together,
and it feels pretty damn good.

The refuse of our insatiable need

We make so much ado about our stuff 

I need that. 

she said 

I want that. 

he said 

I’ll have that.  they said…

Bags and bins in piles of piles and dumpsters and pods and piles and piles and more piles of shit

but in the end it’s all leftovers

 it’s 

all 

junk 

it’s all just stuff

Didn’t realize how much stuff I was collecting when it was all in one place. 

Now, scattered about in different piles in different places I ask 

how much do I really need beyond the clothes on my back and the friends in my life?

As if I could visit the stuff from the formless realm as easily as I could connect with my friends and family. 

More stuff does not mean more life

2019 #3-Heard around here

Babies cry

In the apartments around mine

But I’ve never seen them

Only their voices define their existence.

I should mind more

Because they are loud

And they start so early

Bundles of high-pitched mastery

Infants on vocalization crack

Who keep baker’s hours.

I wish I understood them

I wish I could be them

So I could cry and cry and cry

Until someone lifted me up

And held me close

And told me everything would be ok.

The Potter

With her hands,

Clay transforms from mud to majesty;

Bowls, planters, and pitchers

Emerge from the chrysalis

Of gray slabs.

With her touch,

Colorless viscosity rages into vibrant hues

Cobalt blue and napthol crimson;

She casts her spell

As earth, fire, water, and air

Bubble over in her cauldron of creativity

Her art,

Her craft,

Her magic.

Senior Week Trip

I haven’t been to the beach in a very long time.
My mother says the waves make her
nauseous- sorry, nauseated
(My mother’s an English major).

Last week, I went to the beach.
I hated the sand.
I hated the sun (sunscreen
every 15 minutes for this
untoasted marshmallow skin).
I hated the wind tangling my hair.
I hated the salt water spilling
without my permission
past my lips, and teeth, and tongue.

I liked watching the waves.
While my friends napped on towels
or laughed in the roiling sea,
I felt my eyes forever pinned on the waves.
The water pulls and tugs at itself,
folds and bends and crinkles.
It builds itself into towers that,
like Babylon, must fall.
They tumble in so many droplets
still a single wall of water.
It crashes against the surface,
a blow shattering both victim and fist.
It rolls across the ocean surface,
splitting, reforming, colliding.
The wave turns to so many smaller
bubbling crests that race one another
across the shallow shore.
They trip and surge and stumble,
smoothing into a a sheet over the sand,
a calm caress of water against my toes
before the next skyscraper, already plummeting,
sucks it back for the dramatic impact,
the collision of earth and sea
and sky
because everywhere is sky.

I know why the Greeks thought horses sprang from the surf.
What else could breed such stampeding graceful power?

The tide came for our towels, and we left.
Our bags full of sand,
my feet scratched from constant abrasion,
feeling sticky and grainy all over.
I would have rather gone camping.
But I liked watching the waves.

Hour 3

Scent of cold and rotting flowers

Songbirds rattle

Traffic seethes

The brute exhaustion that sleep feeds

but never sates completely

battles

the stealthy dawn

the light creeps around the edges

of this dark curtain.

Hour 3 – Hummingbird Haiku

Hummingbird, confused,

Examines the lilac bush

Its flowers long gone

“You’re not like other girls”

I am at a house party

It is in a suburb I’ve not been before; it is open

And I’m pretty sure everyone who lives there is rich

I smoke a cigarette that I have lit with a lighter

bummed from a punk girl with a mohawk

Some guy comes up to me

He wears Dickies pants and a Trasher sweatshirt

“You’re the first girl I’ve seen smoking Vogues,” he says

like it is some sort of accomplishment

“Do you know Quentin Tarantino?”

I bet he plays the ukulele and writes songs about how sad he is

And that when his mother finds his weed, he will tell her it’s medicinal

He’s so depressed, you see

The world does not understand his unique vision

“You would like Kill Bill, it is totally feminist.”

If I do not respond, will he get the hint that I’m not going to have sex with him?

I don’t want to end up as a voicemail on his new mixtape

or have him vaguepost about me on his finsta

“What about Jean Luc Godard?”

I have seen Le Chinoise and I hated it

Also, you’re pronouncing his name wrong

He offers me a joint and when I decline

He tells me I’m so cool for going against the norm

I’m not doing it to be cool, weed just gives me anxiety

You pretentious fucker

“Sometimes I feel like the world just doesn’t appreciate real art anymore”

Like the “tastefully nude” pictures he took of his ex-girlfriend

(Hint: just because it contains a nipple doesn’t mean it’s art)

He takes a long drag and then he sighs

“Authenticity is just so hard to find these days”

I brace myself for what is yet to come

The sirens start ringing in my head

And I feel an instant headache coming up

He opens his mouth,

and there it comes:

“You’re just not like other girls, you know?”