poetry

As part of a writing exercise a few years back I wrote the following. The exercise was to write something where each line used the next letter of the alphabet. It’s not a poem, really, because it has no meter or whatever it is poems have.

At the start it was just another minor medical news story.
But then I saw a man in the alley behind Tara’s Organic Foods.
Clutching a cat in his hands, he chomped on it like a burger.
Dumbfounded I watched until he’d had his fill.
Eyes turned on me and he sprinted, blood spraying from his lips.

Five days later the police shot him as he dined on a doberman.
Good news, the doctors told me, you can return to work.
Health care officials stream past my office in panel vans.
I’m told it’s nothing when I ask, nothing to worry about.
Just keep your nose down (and on your face).

Killings continue, more pets and then an old man named Gus.
Loner, outcast, found under the train trestle, no pics please.
More health care officials in their vans, DO NOT WORRY.
No suspect yet but we have leads, we have leads.

On the tenth day a woman is found on the street.
Painted on the pavement in her own blood.
Questioning a health official, I am pushed away.
Reassurances are made but I recognize the fear.
Safety will not be found here anymore.

Taking an hour, I pack what I need, my survival kit.
Under one arm I cradle a gun I just bought.
Veiled eyes follow as I go to my car.
Watching as I drive away.

X-rays revealed nothing at the time.
Yet I cannot deny the events behind Tara’s.
Zombies have come and I’m in the mood for brains.

When I next post about this (take two) it will be after I’ve turned this a poem. I expect it to be wretched, perhaps gloriously so.

Soon™.

Here’s another bit of poetry I wrote back when I was forced to do so in that creative writing course I took in college (you can see a couple of other entries here).

This is one in a series of poems I wrote using the title The Ride. Put together, the set of poems was like a concept album in handy text form. Or something. This ride is not as terrible as some of the others but it should provide some evidence as to why I did not go on to become a poet. It’s a love letter to the rollercoaster. Maybe one day I’ll try reworking it sometime to see if my poetic terribleness has changed with age.

The Ride (number eight)

Wooden girders challenge
dare, invite
I cannot resist.

There is a certain smell here
Something faint and not easily determined
Cotton candy wispy, its sweet scent
catching the breeze and riding away
Corn dogs and greasy tacos, a trace of dust
peeling up off hot pavement
and into my face
Memories of others who have stood here
fifty years before.

I queue up, handing a rumpled ticket
that has spent too long in my pocket

A boyfriend squeezes his girl,
laughing as she shudders
A spandex suit with a woman poured in
giggles with apparent excitement

A gang of boys, each trying to outdo
each other with trendy clothes and
unique mousse stylings, declare their
lust for the ride; this is the tenth
time they’ve been here today.

I step up to the gate and watch
as a train pulls in, its passengers
whooping and screaming and swooning
and laughing and sitting utterly still
with no expression at all.

The gate opens and I bravely slide into
the front seat. The woman in spandex
squirms in beside me and a
padded metal bar locks on our laps.
There is no escape.

The train clatters out of the station
and turns to the first hill.
A chain takes hold and we are tilted back,
lifted toward the sky.

An indefinable moment exists
when the train reaches top
There is no feeling of movement,
no sound as the car is released
from the chain
Only the sky, completely clear,
neither far nor near
Then my stomach lurches upward
and I let my arms fly
My tuckus rises out of the seat
and I wonder why people do this

But I know why.

The sensation is reversed going
back up; my organs bob in confusion
What have we done to deserve this abuse?
Wind roars and the car trembles,
seemingly more frightened than its occupants
as it lifts and falls, turns and
hurtles into deep valleys

All too soon it ends.
Distant and not so distant screams
whistle away, the train breathes more calmly
and we are back in the station.

A uniformed and geeky sixteen year old,
blessed only by a lack of acne, quickly
motions us away.
The spandex woman is babbling incoherently.
I think she liked the ride.

She asks if I want to go again.
My endorphins answer for me
and we queue up for another go.

The last time I wrote poetry was when I was made to as part of a creative writing course I took in college back in 1989. This is a good thing because I’ve never been very good at writing poetry. I think this is for a couple of reasons. First, I see myself as a more meat and potatoes kind of writer and such a style does not lend itself to the carefully chosen wordplay of poems. Second, I’m too impatient to go through the process of carefully choosing individual words and weighing them in the context of a poem, which may also explain why I’m a meat and potatoes kind of writer to begin with.

I have looked over a few poems that I wrote back then and am putting them up here for public appraisal/mockery. I may rewrite them to show what I’d change if I was still writing poetry today.

Snake in the pond

Gently, go then
and swim in the
pond
Do not float or not move
There be snakes
in the pond
They are green
and yellow and black
and very pretty
You remember laughter
and scream
It’s in your trunks now
Gales of laughter
Swim with the colors
Slither and dive
You were so young then
You’ll never swim here
again

The Ride (number one)

The crowd waits in the rain
Umbrellas blossomed like black flowers
Gathered as if for a funeral
They wait for the familiar lights

He sees the lights and watches
as they resolve into the shape of the bus
Ritually, the umbrellas fold up
and the people move, not unlike
the poor and huddled masses, he thinks.
Everyone wants to be first

He is swept through the crush of bodies
into the smothering warmth

The smell of damp clothes and musty hair
mingled with an old woman’s odor
(two or three liters, perhaps)
is unavoidable as he inches down the aisle,
a cow in a cattlecar.

Clinging to a metal bar, umbrella soaking into
his side,
he gulps as a titanic shape approaches,
fold upon fold rippling through the trenchcoat
like waves on a rising ocean

He grimaces and is pressed
like luncheon meat as the
woman docks, staring out the window
with a pre-determined expression

He cannot see the window
It is too warm and the
fluorescent lights are
too harsh

The bus moves,
taking him on the most
exciting journey of his life.
Again.