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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Poems from Yesteryear

I looked through an old flashdrive today, where I stored some of my writings from over a decade again. I was a voracious poet in high school,  constantly writing. I used to hate looking back on them, but now, 10-11 years later, I find it remarkable how many still reflect the way I feel about the world. Some of them don't, especially the ones that have to do with being lonely and wanting love, but many of them still capture the way I experience emotion and the way I see the world around me. So I am going to post several of the poems I wrote in high school for you today, I hope you like them. 


This one is one of my father's favorites. 

Colors

Red Slithers,
Black shivers,
Green grins mysteriously.
Blue watches,
Brown blotches,
Pink preens surreptitiously.
Gray cowers,
Purple overpowers,
Yellow raises arms to the sky.
Manila complains,
Orange stains,
White flies high.

These next ones are good examples of how I saw the world around me as a teen.  I was apparently even a sociologist back then! 


6/13/00 
Poverty #2

In the city poverty
Is a nauseous rot-
Appearing,
Disappearing
In the disturbed blink of an eye.
In the country poverty is aired out
Displayed
A show for all passerby’s
To avoid,
Uncomfortable with their suburban prosperity
In the midst of such degration.
But a city pretends
To be whole and alive
A leper in an Armani suit,
Dancing and drinking to the music of his own demise.

10 6/27/00 
Pursuit of Happiness
The piƱata shop
The hair salon
The small dying businesses
On the wrong side of town
All trademarks of The Poor’s pursuit of happiness.
Far after Costcos and Walmarts ruled the earth,
There are still these paint-chipped
Dreams
With meager handmade merchandise
Shyly displayed on starving shelves.
They scream:
Do not let us die!
We are someone’s
Hope in the world!
We are all they have left!
It is our sparse business
Keeping them from the streets!
For what song will the world sing for them
 But that which they sing themselves?

 3/23/01 
It Starts Here
The Heavy-Hipped females
glide their way through the
Hormonal Crowds to
Rub their bodies against pubescents who
Sweat and sickly grin for
each party trying to find Romance
that they are too young for and will
ruin themselves before their prime and
Their heavy-hipped bodies will become
Heavy-Bellied with the illegitimates that were not on their Christmas lists,
Just like their mothers, lended to lust when love is scarce and abuse when attention is scarce and dance to the sickly tune of dirty beds and hearts too old for their owners.

And, one lighter one to offset all the intensity:

3/19/01 
Bicyclists

Bicycling breeds goats of men
With laconic wives missing
Stomachs and Rears
(Sweated off over years)
Bikers are wizened little drivers
(Like stones smoothed by rivers, indistinguishable from their vehicles)
They are nymphish pipe cleaners
Wound about metal
Feet encircling pedals and
Bodies so entangled
No cyclist remains,

Just tight spandex shorts and a

bouncy water bottle pedaling by…









2 comments:

  1. How wonderful that you kept them. How do you think of them now?

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  2. I think some of them are still rather good! I am surprised by the depth I had at that age, as well, and how aware I was of social disparity. It also struck me as funny that there are a few I've looked back on which I really can't remember why I wrote them, or what they are about!

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