Friday, March 27, 2009

The Tornado and Clara: two poems

The Tornado

You are a raging column 
of grey firmament,
a single serpentine finger
spiraling down to sweep the earth,
a razored mouth devouring,
chewing, spitting,
stripping
mothers of daughters,
fathers of sons,
leaving chains of crumbling homes
in broad, dead daylight.
Not one soul stands a chance
against the deafening rumble
of your twisting walls of wrath,
so clamorous 
that all sound 
cracks
like ancient, stone cities
being razed to the ground,
or like
the birth of a new world. 

Clara

She was the lover of a tyrant,
perhaps a beast herself,
but lying there, dead, in the open cold,
on her back, the concrete her last bed,
flesh riddled with gunfire, with swollen face
and a chest shredded, partially 
exposed for all kinds of mockery,
the soul of the world wept interminably:
that such crafted beauty was now lost
to the hands of foaming men,
a body never to be loved again. 

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Joy

Psalm 16:11
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 

John 15:10-11
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. 

Friday, March 20, 2009

Two Poems by C.S. Lewis

1.
Master they say that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it's all a dream
- One talker aping two. 

They are half right, but not as they
imagine; rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo! The wells are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
The listener's role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus while we seem
Two talking, thou art One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream

2. After Prayers, Lie Cold
Arise my body, my small body, we have striven
Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven.
Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go,
White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow,
Undress with small, cold fingers, and put out the light,
And be alone, hush'd mortal, in the sacred night,
- A meadow whipt flat with the rain, a cup
Emptied and clean, a garment washed and folded up,
Faded in colour, thinned almost to raggedness
By dirt and by the washing of that dirtiness.
Be not too quickly warm again. Lie cold; consent
To weariness' and pardon's watery element.
Drink up the bitter water, breathe the chilly death;
Soon enough comes the riot of our blood and breath. 

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Give me! Give me! Give me!

Aren't we all starved for human love, for warmth felt from the fires of our human brothers and sisters? We are drowning in its bottomless depths. Is this folly? And how easily the strings of our hearts are plucked, and ring loud in our hollow chests! We feel so much. 

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

In The Dry Riverbed

I wrote a new poem today. It's rather simple:

In the Dry Riverbed

I wish someone was here with me,
seeing and hearing and feeling
as I see and hear and feel with the waters of my soul
now in this dry riverbed not far from my home,
where the swaying reeds,
the praying bushes,
and the clumpy, loose sand below
live on after the river's death. 

I wish I could have heard
someone else's gravel-steps crunching with mine 
along the levee trail,
our eyes squinting because of the ever-bursting sun,
which still hangs low now in the California sky,
looking like a Mexican gold poppy
or an exploding orange.

Up ahead, across the dry river's waist,
and beyond its embankment,
I see steep, green hills lying in delighted rest,
still tickled by light and wind.
Newborn grass, sprouting
from the rains a week ago,
cloak its round shoulders and hips.
And at one end,
a herd of solid brown cows dot the hill-side,
their heads all bowed low to the ground.
I can hardly tell if they are moving at all
in their slow-going graze.

I look down,
a black beetle slowly passes me by,
an oval-shaped stranger unconcerned 
with my bulky presence
and unannounced visit to his home.
He startles me with his alien approach.
Its tiny, insect feet sink into the sand
as it awkwardly makes its way out to find
firmer ground.

Finally, somewhere in the bushes
I hear crickets chirping in a charismatic chant,
and hidden birds are ending their wispy songs of the day
before the sun completely fades from their marble eyes 
and their tucked-in wings,
and 
I
am 
here alone,
sitting very still on a river-ridden log,
wishing someone was here with me. 

Friday, March 13, 2009

I Can Feel It Comin' Down

I wrote a song yesterday. Kind of out of the ordinary. It's pretty average, but I kind of like it noetheless. There are bunch of little kids in the library right now. And my day just got a little brighter.
Here are the lyrics. And as a side note: writing lyrics is so different from writing poetry.


I Can Feel It Comin' Down


I can feel it comin' down
But my eyes are locked tight to the floor
My soul thirsts for a morsel of your love


The clouds are openin' up their doors
To shed some light down on my face
It's hard to look up when I know there's only grace


Please Lord, don't let me throw this life away
Like scraps thrown to crows in the cold.
I hear your voice callin' me back home


I'm scared how many wars I'll have to face
Before I get to be with you
Sin hits hard, and the blood runs so much too


The road is getting far too steep
My bones crack loud with every step
But I know it's all right to be the one in my own shoes


Well, I've grown tired of myself
This world, these tired dreams, and everything
Restore my life, and the joy of your salvation

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The time: 1:20 a.m. I exist. Barely.

I think being self-aware is a puzzling notion to ponder. There is a quote from the movie, Wings of Desire, that I find quite soul-enriching for some reason. Perhaps it will better describe the state of puzzlement I feel now at 1:20 a.m., on a Tuesday morning, a time when I feel least eloquent. Well, now it's 1:27 a.m. Not much has changed though. My desk is still here, thankfully, just as cluttered as ever, and my stuffed penguin is still staring at me with his lidless eyes. You know what else I find puzzling? That I possess a reservoir or words that together comprise a unique language. I was thinking about that today. For example, whenever I desire to communicate an idea or thought or image in my mind, the words are there for my use. But sometimes the words are not there, and I get very angry.

I have digressed. 

Here is the quote:

"When the child was a child it was the time of these questions: 'Why am I me and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? Where did time begin, and where does space end? Isn't life under the sun just a dream? Isn't what I see, hear, and smell, just the mirage of a world before the world? Does evil actually exist, and are there people who are really evil? How can it be that I, who am I, wasn't before I was? And that sometime I, the one I am, no longer will be the one I am?'"


You know what else puzzles me? This picture:







Monday, March 2, 2009

Well every highway that I go down seems to be longer than the last one I knew about oh well. Thank you, Jack White.

My ears are ringing. I am am in in the library. Staring.

I've had somewhat of a creative writing spurt lately. Actually, my prolificacy has not been entierly due to my own free ambition. I wish it has been, that would seem more noteworthy and artistic to say - and it's quite in vogue to appear artistic these days. But maybe it's always been in vogue. Interesting. At any rate, all artists need deadlines, and for what it's worth, I've been writing for a creative writing class of my own this semester. This Spring semester. Spring. It's not Spring yet. Plenty of deadlines going around in there, in that class, which is helpful. Whatever it takes to get the pen to the paper, or the fingers to the keys, I suppose. Poetry had been sparse, and still is. I lacked inspiration as usual. There had been no new thoughts or feelings. It was time I enrolled in a creative writing class. And so I did.

Short stories were first on the agenda. Two and a half short stories later and I have fallen in love with writing again. My vision has been somewhat restored, at least I like to believe it has been. And I can imagine myself with ambition and purpose once again. But enough. This is all so superfluous, and I only wrote about this because I couldn't think of anything else to write about.

I am including some excerpts of my short story. The story is tentatively named, When the Seagulls Left. Here are a couple of separate paragraphs I have worked hard on. The story isn't complete yet.

***Will buried his bare, white feet into the warm, Californian sand. He felt its pulsing, primordial heat, and imagined himself feetless, which brought a smile to his freckled face. He stood there like that, by himself, in the white sand, feetless, for several minutes, wiggling his toes to feel the coarse grains pass between them, and moving his feet ever so slightly, one at a time, to watch the sand above them shift and change, creating tiny, new landscapes from tiny earthquakes. Will delighted in this simple act. He delighted in it to such a degree that it soon became a bore to him, like swimming alone in a pool quickly becomes a bore, even though the idea sounded grand to begin with. The sand had changed. It was no longer a comfort to him, a way to secure him precariously to the earth, proof of his residency. Instead, it had become a burden, a burden to his freedom, weak clamps around his bony ankles trying to render him inert, trying to keep him from the rushing tide that reached for him with every new surge. And he wanted out.***

***But despite the severity of her beauty, she carried herself with such charm and ease that any angle of severity was softened to a cat's purr. But was it the purr of some sleeping jungle cat perched high above in a broad, overhanging branch of a forest tree, Will asked himself. Did she have dramatic stripes to caution you of her claws, like a tiger does? She was enigmatic, a paradox embodied. A smiling moon. A symphony of sleep. The grace of a tornado. The sweet scent of the afterlife. Claws hidden inside a velvet paw.***