Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Creative writing class

Hey, long time no see.

Sorry, didn’t mean to be such a stranger. So anyway, I’ve been teaching a creative writing class with an emphasis on poetry and songwriting. Every day (for a month) my students have been writing poetry and reading it out loud. Each day there was a different topic or type of poetry the students were supposed to practice. I also wrote every day, on the same topics or in the same style as the student assignment. I’ve just gone through my desk and found all the stuff I’ve written. None of it has been edited yet, it’s all rough draft, but I thought, since I’ve got this site, I thought I might post some of them.

Parody (with nothing but respect for Blake and Thomas):

1.
Booger, Booger flapping down
Toward the teacher’s chapping frown,
What fate could bring to this same place
Such ugly thing and ugly face?

What the mucus that should harden
Within disgusting nose-hair garden?
What trapped germs and debris
Which failed to make the teacher sneeze?


2.
Do not go gentle through traffic light
Though police pass out tickets at close of day,
Speed, sped against the coming of the night.

Though zombies live their undead lives to fight,
Because they don’t want to sit there and decay,
They do not go gentle though traffic light.

Some teachers that I know are not so bright,
But want to sit in TV’s golden ray.
Speed, speed against the coming of the night.

Students who may yell and scream and bite,
And learn too late the most efficient way
Do not go gentle through traffic light.

The Buddha, seeing with illuminated sight,
And knowing how the gridlock can delay,
Speeds, Speeds against the coming of the night.

And you, bus driver, before riots you incite,
Gun it with your leaden foot, I pray.
Do not go gentle though traffic light.
Speed, speed against the coming of the night.

Haiku

3.
Columns and rows fall
Number after number falls
Charts slap the floor wax.

4.
Cars rushing along
The concrete precursors of
Future ancient ruins

5.
Still the pencil sits
Its scratchy voice is silent
Waiting for the urge.

The Macabre

6.
Under the earth I lie
Under one hundred and eight cubic feet of earth I lie
No fewer than 46 worms crawl above me.
No fewer than 200 feet of grass root vie for water above me.
But safe, if cold, am I, Protected
In a box of varnished wood and hardened joints.
Safe, if cold, am I, by being no longer stored in myself,
Safe, if cold, am I, being cold matter indestructible,
Save in some atomic furnace.
Ah, warm sun, to see you up close,
To escape,
To push my way to destruction.

7.
Thump, thump, thud
I was woken by the irregular drum beat pounding in my head
Thump, thump, thud
Total dark, still space, Odd, no light from the window.
Thump, thump, thud,
I try to sit up but hit my head.
I try to roll over but hit a wall
I try to yell but my voice is trapped inside a wooden box
With me.
Thump, thump, thud
The air is wearing thin.
Thump, thump, thud.

Pathos


8.
Live is long, too long, except when it’s too short.
All day long life is,
And then, in dream, life is more
Some shadow image of life
Winning slowly over not-life:
Chaos slipping into the greater confusion
That can only originate in order.

And the shadows slip.
They drip...
drip...
drip...
The night falls
Over City Walls
And Shattered shards of Glass
From a broken mirror pass
by like birds looking for a fix
of the ShyDyLinDodima,
the hazard grass,
that brings images of death
winning slowly over not-death.
Shattered shadows of spiteful intent
reflected in a mirror meant to show
the fairest her fairness
in case she forgot
and to wake up the shade from
its dream about the long, long, longing
shortness of life.

9.
The shadow screamed when it broke its knee,
Shattered fragments of shade left behind on
The sunlit floor on which the moon not
Six hours before had projected its love.

Its love was a fish
Pulled from the sea
“Hosea, can you see
“the shattered fragments of darkness
“are not deep enough for a fish
“to have the room to swim?”
Poor fish...fish...fish...
Tape down its lateral line
where its nerves lie
so that it doesn’t thrash about
trying to get out into the
cool darkness.
So much cooler than
the shadow’s shattered knee
fading back into the light.

Atmosphere

10.
Smell of sewage and sweat
and old linins due to be washed.
Metal smells: Iron like blood,
Steel like death
from the bars and doors and grates.
Intoxicating antiseptic smell
from where I scrubbed my cell-mate’s blood
Sangria
from the cement floor.

11.
Black street bakin’ in the summer sun.
Clap, clap, clap: the jump rope in the shade
of an old tree in Old Lady’s yard.
And Cinderella’s still dressed in yella’
like Old Lady’s house used to be
with trim now crackin’ beige.
Some young, brave, foolish soul rides by
on his bike in the heat,
Lookin’ to get out, maybe just for a soda
from the corner store,
But maybe makin’ a break for it.

Persuasive (appeal to emotions, reason, and analogy)

12.
I love you like the water loves the sea
and runs to it.
I love you like fire loves the sky
and reaches for it.
Don’t’ leave me stranded like the water
trapped by a dam.
Don’t let the fire die and
the dark cold take over.

Two is better than one—we belong together.
We have so much fun—we belong together.
Our lives have just begun—we belong together.
Growing in the sun—we belong together.

My love is for you like the tides are for the moon:
You only. Even the sun cannot draw the tides away.

Be with me,
My love.
Be with me.

Sonnet (to a fictional child)

13
Life is hard, little one,
May as well get used to it.
Life is short, too,
Don't you dare waste it.
Go and make something of yourself.
Only you can do it.
I may have some ideas, but don't listen to me.
It's your ideas, not mine that matter.
And your dreams: like stars in the night
Guide sailors home, let your dreams guide you.
And your loves: like the sun in the day
Warms the world, let your love warm you.
It's a hard life, little one, but it's beautiful, and it's yours.
Don't worry, I know you. You'll do fine.

Heroic Couplets


14.
She lay braced as the terrible mask does descend
Completing the suit in which she’ll defend
Our great, collective, inviolate will
With the strength of ten men and a license to kill.
She will serve the people by serving the State
Then realize her error, alas, too late:
The mask has the power to alter perception
And by cleverly using omitive deception
Will compel her to act, ignoring the cost
That she will not see, ‘till everything’s lost.

Parallelism

15.
Over the horizon
On ocean shore
House where the strong man
Has broken the door.

Under the thunder cloud
Down in the reeds
Find the old dame
Who does the dark deeds