tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39011374949600078922024-03-12T19:46:12.100-07:00A Box Full of Suggestions for your Possible HeartSomething creative and new every day for 30 days...are you up to the challenge?EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-75867389861129511372007-05-16T04:45:00.001-07:002007-05-16T04:45:39.743-07:00SLAM FESTIVAL THIS WEEKEND!!The first Harford County Youth Slam Festival!<br /><br />May 19th <br />12:00 -3:00 p.m.<br />Bel Air High School<br />Admission is only $5<br />**Venue opens at 11:30<br /><br />Come see the following high schools duke it out in a War of Words!<br />Bel Air <br />Edgewood<br />Kenwood<br />North Harford<br /><br />As an added bonus, see the Nationally renowned slam poets Jamie Kilstein, Katie Wirsing and Andrea Gibson as they swing by on their East Coast tour.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-17231960881497295672007-05-16T04:39:00.000-07:002007-05-16T04:41:51.466-07:00DAY 28- 5/15If animals could speak,<br />we would have no need for doctors.<br /><br />A quick sniff <br />to the face has nothing to do<br />with what treat you had before to leaned down to pet them.<br /><br />When the nostrils pulse inches <br />from your face <br />as you mind races with <br />urban legends of whole faces removed by <br />crazed canines,<br />they are not plotting fountains of blood <br />and tearing apart eyelids like chew toys.<br /><br />Dogs can smell cancer in out breath.<br /><br />And each time they hover inches from out open mouths,<br />they are trying to detect the possible death that <br />smells like toe nail polish or drain cleaner <br />on our tongues.<br /><br />So I wonder how many urban legends would <br />be crushed if people knew this?<br /><br />How many women would dangle their children <br />inches from razor sharp teeth<br />to breath a little easier?EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-9676528216018903912007-05-16T04:32:00.000-07:002007-05-16T04:39:24.637-07:00DAY 27- 5/14Last one… I think<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Walter<br /><br />Leave 30th Street Station with Starbucks<br />and head to the food truck operated by a white haired<br />Greek man with albino chinchillas for eyebrows, and a<br />wife that doesn’t speak English, unless it’s on the menu.<br />But she can cook a steak, egg, and cheese hoagie on a long roll<br />that would make Kate Moss want a second serving.<br /><br />I see the beggar.<br />A duct-taped trashbag at his side.<br />The layers of clothing make him appear able to be peeled.<br />An onion of a man, who, the more you remove, the <br />more your eyes water.<br /><br />My eldest uncle could have been him… if he had been unlucky.<br />They probably went to school together.<br />He’s probably somebody’s father…probably a Walter—<br />he looks like a Walter.<br />Cast aside like an annoying insect for his illness—<br />he shakes like a virgin at first touch…but he doesn’t stop—<br />then I notice the silver band on his wrist that binds him- a shackle stamped with three letters<br />P.O.W.<br /><br />Avoid contact, keeping my head low as if in prayer-<br />(Praying that he won’t see me)<br />and my hands in pockets, pressing my keys against my leg,<br />so that they won’t be confused with loose change.<br /><br />“Spare any change,” he asks, as he extends a beaten Styrofoam 7-11 cup.<br /><br />I walk on…<br /><br />I order my food and my palette is revolted as I chew and swallow my recent actions.<br />I break into a run towards 30th street.<br />Sprinting—an admittance of guilt in Philly.<br /><br />And I am guilty… Walter has been shooed away like a pigeon seeking crumbs—EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-42152672731405473762007-05-16T04:31:00.000-07:002007-05-16T04:32:13.238-07:00DAY 26- 5/13- DAY OFFAt this point I was driving home from North Carolina on no sleep!EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-90350882660279737062007-05-16T04:30:00.000-07:002007-05-16T04:31:27.578-07:00DAY 25- Post for 5/12Oh, did I mention that I used to write a lot of poems about Philly?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Eli Price’s Fountain<br /><br />Listening to the city, I perch myself <br />on my stand. Chained like Prometheus<br />by awe to this concrete geyser.<br /><br />The city attacks me like an eagle,<br />yet sets me free with a swing of its sonic hammer:<br />John Henry—being of noise, static, music.<br /><br />City spreads out before me <br />like an orchestra I conduct.<br /><br />Steps of a million feet tap out a cadence for John’s blows <br />that lay rhythm out like the beat of a bass drum heart.<br /><br />Bullets strike a snare roll while<br />Eli’s dream trickles out—a flute song.<br />The motion of the masses <br />staggers into a cello’s moan. <br /><br />The orchestra shifts to my right <br />to an R&B song as a white-haired <br />black man sings with all the passion<br />of a gospel choir after it has made love to a swinging jazz band. <br /><br />The singer silenced…<br />A siren breaks ht tempo <br />like a bottle of Boone’s on a brick wall.<br /><br />And I know somewhere a mother is screaming out <br />like an electric guitar riff on WMMR.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-80171703534675589702007-05-16T04:29:00.000-07:002007-05-16T04:30:31.151-07:00DAY 24- Post for 5/12Sometimes you write a lot of poems about a city. Most of the time they are under-developed.<br /><br /><br /><br />Center City<br /><br />Steam pours up from a rusty, green gutter like an exhaust fan from hell, <br />as if Lucifer needed some relief.<br /><br />Across the river is a train yard,<br />long since abandoned--<br />desolate and stripped.<br />A skeleton of all that it once was.<br /><br />Raped by inactivity,<br />Consumed by the capital-crazed who saw it no longer feasible <br />to support its existence. Eventually, the juggernaut of racing iron<br />slowed and starved to the carcass that remains.<br /><br />I gaze up at the prominent figures of the Center City skyline.<br />If I strove to their heights I would have a long way to fall.<br />Stare at the lights atop a building's peak and realize the futility of wishing on that star.<br />At my feet is a fallen angel with newspaper wings to keep him warm.<br />He looks up at the same distant beacon of lost hope through a Mad Dog gaze.<br /><br />The man with the five month shadow that creeps <br />from his sad eyes, down his face.<br />Long since abandoned--<br />Desolate and stripped.<br />A skeleton of all he once was.<br /><br />Violated by isolation--<br />a job and family that saw it no longer feasible <br />to support his habit. A brown bag and grime become <br />permanent accessories to his ensemble of misfortune.<br /><br />Casualties of a starved city.<br />Its dinner guests--tycoons with insatiable appetites, <br />And we are their spring lambs.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-59259406926632882352007-05-16T04:28:00.000-07:002007-05-16T04:29:34.295-07:00DAY 24- Post for 5/11This is what happens when you run into a bully from grade school while you are in college. Then you write a poem about it (before you know how).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Class Reunion<br /><br />As I walk with my wife along <br />the fruit covered funnel cake signs and<br />Clak clak clak of the roulette wheel; <br />candied apples and corn dogs.<br />I see a man that bears resemblance to someone<br />I used to know.<br /><br />The black nylon jacket says Coach and Tom<br />and yes, it was him,<br />so I walk up and he grins beneath bushy eyebrows and<br />Makes monkey noises.<br />My name for him.<br /><br />In school when he played every sport and <br />I weighed a buck fifty with a wet parka on<br />I would mock him<br />against better judgment.<br /><br />He would retaliate—<br />Throwing me into a stack of<br />aluminum chairs,<br />clanging against my laughter.<br /><br />Our little game,<br />neither of us winning,<br />just keeping a constant volley <br />of repartee and repercussion.<br /><br />And I don’t think we disliked each other.<br /><br />Now we reminisce, we laugh,<br />As we did when I would collide <br />with metal chairs and linoleum.<br /><br />Our game, your pride, my acceptance.<br /><br />So I drop five dollars in the jar for your little league team.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-55193777858973619282007-05-16T04:25:00.000-07:002007-05-16T04:28:36.239-07:00DAY 23- Post for 5/10Getting caught up…<br /><br />So due to team finals, senior grades being due, and preparing for North Carolina, I have fallen behind on my posting.<br /><br />So I will attempt to play catch up. Here we go…<br /><br /><br /><br />CHASING SILVER<br /><br /> I moved into Uncle Chase’s Washington Hill row home on an unseasonably warm December day the year my father like a deadbeat cliché announced to my mother and brother that he needed a pack of Pall Malls for an after dinner smoke.<br /> Two hours later, my mother phoned the police department and the Thanksgiving pies had cooled too much on the counter. My brother sat asleep in my father’s recliner, as I got the feeling in my stomach that something was wrong. I had had this feeling before, when Jim Smithson took off down Moravia Road and wrecked my bike into Mr. Hathaway’s new Chrysler. Then, the feeling latched onto the back of my head and spread like a dream over my eyes in the familiar déjà vu. This time, the feeling was different and like a cancer, what I would later name abandonment crept across my stomach and hardened.<br /> Uncle Chase, or Caleb as he was born, had a half dozen row homes around Baltimore. One he rented out to a widower on Eutaw Street. The second and third rested a block and a half from Patterson Park. The fourth was on long term lease to a night-shift, emergency room, nurse two blocks from Johns Hopkins. The fifth was the one we moved to in 1967, the same year that Johnny U got his start over Shaw. The sixth sat unfinished in Federal Hill a few blocks away my new home. <br /> <br /> My Uncle Francis lived in the large townhouse with the rest of us. Chase had furnished a small basement apartment for Francis when he returned from a spell in Vietnam. I went down to this apartment twice in my entire two years I lived there. Only one of the times was it by invite. That trip ended with Chase telling Dennis and I, “Stay out of Uncle Francis’ room. It is for the best.”<br /> Francis never real left the war. His apartment was immaculately kept. The bed, a military issue twin, could have bounced a quarter. Everything else fell into place…the footlockers filled with Francis’ personal effects. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought yourself in the barricks of some boot camp. <br /><br /> One would think that Uncle Chase would have made his claim to fame as a Realtor, given the sheer amount of property he owned. Yet his true gift, that which would immortalize him was found in his namesake.<br /> He was a silver chaser.<br /> Unlike nowadays when you give silver to the people at the mall and lasers burn away that which is precious, Uncle Chase worked with chisels. The thing about this way of doing it is that there is always something left behind. And in the case of silver, it slides up the chisel and curls around itself until it falls off in discarded metallic ringlets. <br /> Those who were skilled at this type of work looked as though they were chasing the silver clean off of the surface. My Uncle made gardens appear from dull gray, like the flowers were always there just below the surface and he simply cut back the weeds of a monotonous landscape scene to make them show through.<br /> And I wonder if he knew the weeds that grew inside of him, if he would have chosen a different path. Because the only thing worse than realizing that silver was never worth anything is to have it tarnished by something that makes it useless.<br /> But that would not happen for some time. Back to the story at hand. <br /><br /><br />INSERT REST OF STORY HERE<br /><br /><br /> But as with chasing anything valuable and temporary, the chase leaves something displaced, missing. And when it is finished, and we have obtained what we sought, we are left with another type of longing. We long for the chase.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-23281004151519524412007-05-09T05:43:00.000-07:002007-05-10T08:36:22.225-07:00DAY 22; More from the AVAMI'm going to Missouri <br />to steal myself a dog.<br /><br />And this is a feat because<br />I've never been to Missouri,<br />my car is in disrepair,<br />and I'm allergic to canines.<br /><br />But somewhere in Missouri <br />there is a dog named Jim.<br /><br />Jim can decipher morse code,<br />he's picked the last seven Kentucky Derby winners,<br />and he can tell the sex of your child before science can.<br /><br />and I'm going to steal him.<br /><br />And it is not that <br />I want to break some secret government code,<br />that I want to develop a gambling habit,<br />or that I have illegitimate children.<br /><br />Ok, so I'd totally take him to the track.<br />But that is really secondary.<br /><br />I realize that Jim is the exception.<br />He is the doghouse equivolent of<br />the Harvard student or the Rhodes scholar.<br /><br />For every gender guessing dog that exists<br />there are a dozen dogs that are good for little beyond <br />licking themselves<br /><br />often.<br /><br />They are working with what they were given.<br />And Jim has a lot to work with.<br />Like me...everyday. Because every morning <br />after a night at the track, <br />we would go into the classroom.<br /><br />This dog can decipher morse code.<br />And while it really doesn't have <br />any practical application anymore,<br />it is impressive.<br /><br />And that was just what God gave him.<br />He has no control over who teaches him<br />or what he decides to learn.<br /><br />But all of you do<br />becuase you are humans<br />with control over what you do<br />and what you decide to learn.<br /><br />So if dogs can<br />learn to smell the gender <br />of unborn children, <br />the least you can do is open a book. <br /><br />And too often I hear people <br />complain about their situation.<br />If life has left a crappy taste in your mouth,<br />LEARN TO LICK SOMEPLACE ELSE.<br /><br />Because we are humans and we have options. <br /><br />Because every one of you can be exceptional <br />if want to.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-61747101563756570702007-05-07T11:10:00.000-07:002007-05-07T11:13:33.797-07:00DAY 21: Morning Offerings<strong>Morning Offerings</strong><br /><br />I always believed that girls<br />like you would never give <br />me the time of day.<br /><br />The type with hips like <br />grandfather clock pendulums in slow motion. <br />Setting a room on stun, freezing time <br />and leaving fantasy in their wake, <br />eyes of men glazed over like <br />frosted glass watch faces.<br /><br />So our lives revolved around<br />seconds of second glances<br />that would never add up to minutes of conversation.<br /><br />But then they did. <br /><br />I told you how I was a morning person <br />and you said that you could sleep for hours, <br />sometimes into the afternoon.<br /><br />I explained how sunlight meant sheer potential <br />a day with a story waiting to be written.<br />Hours of minutes with no agenda <br />except possibility.<br /><br />And I wondered how you <br />could possibly sleep all day<br />and all of the potential moments that <br />were wasted buried under covers.<br /><br />I decided that I would give you the gift of my mornings.<br />I heralded them in as we watched the sky lighten,<br />you slept on my shoulder <br />and we fit together like carefully carved cogs.<br /><br />Watching you walk to your doorstep with dawn in your hair <br />I remembered how we said we made cameo in each other’s waking dreams<br />and knew that this must be potential <br />must be providence.<br /><br />That night my fingers became sundial stopwatches <br />by candlelight tracing shrinking shadows <br />across your skin.<br /><br />Morning daydreams were interrupted <br />by the sound of your bare feet <br />on my kitchen floor. <br /><br />You wore my favorite button-down<br />and left over kisses like morning offerings.<br />Your skin still smelling of the oranges <br />I had traced along your lips, the curve of your neck.<br />I wanted to make memories of you synchronize with <br />the smell of citrus.<br /><br />I wanted to give you my mornings.<br /><br />If I were a magician,<br />I could somehow stretch those last days into weeks.<br />I could get you to hear the choir claps and halleluiahs <br />that chimed every time you looked at me.<br /><br />But not even magic could saw in half, <br />dissect the moments we spent together enough <br />to make me believe that I had a rabbit’s foot dangling <br />from my chest,<br />the one you’d been waiting for,<br />disguised in the mornings on a mundane life. <br /><br />I used to be a morning person <br />knowing that sunlight meant sheer potential <br />a day with a story waiting to be written,<br />hours of minutes with no agenda except possibility.<br /><br />But mornings aren’t the same <br />without you in them, <br />and now I sleep through to afternoons.<br /><br />As morning creeps across my bed.<br />I hope that it might find you there, <br />where you ought to be.<br /><br />But it never does.<br /><br />So seconds pass thinking of you<br />thoughts never manifesting as second chances,<br />unable to freeze time, and <br />waiting for you to bring back my mornings.<br /><br />Waiting for you to give me back the time of day.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-6772249514007282962007-05-06T14:16:00.000-07:002007-05-06T14:18:08.621-07:00DAY 20: Another day of restTaking off this Sunday to get ready for Baltimore Finals.<br /><br />Check out www.slamicide.comEMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-77847031983487048942007-05-06T14:05:00.000-07:002007-05-06T14:16:43.029-07:00DAY 19: More ideas from the AVAMJust wanted to post a few things that I found:<br /><br />"I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her."<br />--Ellen DeGeneres<br /><br />"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men." <br />--St. Francis of Assisi <br /><br />"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."<br />--Albert Einstein <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />WONDER DOGS & HEROES <br />There is a monument in Marshall, Missouri to "Jim, The Wonder Dog" (1925Ð1937), a black and white setter. It is said that Jim was able to follow complex directions spoken or written in a half-dozen different languages. During a joint session of the Missouri Legislature, Jim demonstrated he could accurately interpret commands tapped-out in Morse code. When presented with the list of entries, Jim correctly picked the winner of The Kentucky Derby seven years in a row and was renowned for identifying the sex of unborn children in dozens of pregnant townswomen. After extensive independent testing, even the most skeptical university professors from the fields of psychology, agriculture, and veterinary medicine concluded that Jim was truly a wonder. No trickery or collusion from Jim's owner, Sam Van Arsdale, was ever found. Van Arsdale never sought profits from any of Jim's predictions and refused all commercial endorsements - turning down offers of big Hollywood contracts, lucrative dog food promotions, and six figure bids to buy his beloved Jim. <br /><br />That there may never be another dog quite like Jim doesn't belie the fact that almost all dogs can hear and smell in a range far beyond human ability. That dogs also exhibit a capacity for extreme faithfulness to humans has made their talents particularly invaluable. Most people are familiar with how important "seeing eye" dogs are to their sight-impaired owners, but in the last few years the number and variety of trained service dogs has skyrocketed by the thousands. Service dogs help warn their owners of oncoming epileptic seizures, diabetic sugar imbalances, and panic attacks. Because dogs have a keen perception of time, they are also being trained to inform forgetful owners when to take medicines. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The single most common theme of visionary artists worldwide is their personal reconstruction of The Garden of Eden - or some other utopian, personal world.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-80612990762670840832007-05-04T12:22:00.000-07:002007-05-04T13:18:24.257-07:00DAY 18: A few fragmentsSo today I went on a field trip with my Creative Writing students to the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore. HOLY CRAP! If you have not been, you need to go.<br /><br /><br />The three hours we spent there was an exercise in unfair. <br /><br />Everyone should go.<br /><br />Here is something that came out of the trip.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />"I'm trapped inside that apple tree" <br />he told them, but they had heard that sort of talk before. <br />When you work with shizophrenics, <br />you get used to the splinters of words that snag <br />you as you walk down the hall.<br /><br />But somehow, he convinced them to take<br />the tree that had fallen on the west end<br />of the asylum back to the common area.<br /><br />And this man, who had never <br />out pen to page, brush to canvas<br />said "I need to create myself in my own image."<br /><br />So they let him.<br />Once per day, <br />under strict supervision,<br />he chipped and chiseled away.<br /><br />And when he was done, <br />it was exactly as he appeared<br />the chest caved in from his <br />ongoing struggle with tuberculosis<br />like the soil over the uprooted tree <br />he used to recreate himself.<br /><br />There was no exageration, <br />the eyes that were carve into the wood<br />were the same sad ones that strolled<br />through the courtyards.<br /><br />But unlike him, this sculpture<br />th only work he would ever create<br />would be remembered <br />and last <br />forever.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-71841509585848955202007-05-03T19:22:00.000-07:002007-05-03T19:29:07.231-07:00DAY 17: Crazy weekSo I've had a real interesting week with lots of things to keep me from cranking out new stuff. Therefore I have to hit the vaults again. I hope that next week (once grades, lit mag, and finals are over) I can return to new thoughts.<br /><br /><br /><em><strong>76</strong></em><br />Driving into the city I focus on the galvanized landscape:<br />an arboretum of artificiality that sets the stage for an industrial tableaux.<br /><br />To both sides of the highway are rows of billboards <br />--incollapsible dominoes--lined like the mummers we came to see.<br /><br />Putting on costumes, fabrications which are no way <br />reflective of their lackluster lives--they seem plain when they<br />put out our fires and take out our garbage…nut today they are spectacles.<br /><br />The boards wear their costumes…<br />NOKEA, MARLBORO, YUENGLING-- <br />the vestments of sequins and feather of the stationary dancers. Yet, <br />in the distance there is one barren, sickly-white dancer,<br />naked….<br /><br />Only scraps remain scattered across its chest<br />like the bits of glue and paper that nostalgically cling<br />to a beer bottle. It wears the bits of old fabrications in splotches across its void--<br />NEWPORT maybe-- but<br /><br />It stands there an awkward without arms to cover its naked flesh<br />or legs by which it can run.<br /><br />Even those wearing the ugly HEROIN DETOXIFICATION CALL…<br />or WHO'S YOUR DADDY? dna tests are more pleasing than vulgar,<br /><br />exasperated white. <br />We wear our NOKEA's and MARLBORO's, even<br /><br />Our HEROIN DETOXIFICATION CALL…<br />In designer jeans, haircuts, and metal <br /><br />studs that seek our most sensitive parts,<br />procreate, and start dysfunctional families.<br /><br />Adorn ourselves with attitude like YUENGLING<br />for to be a the pasty ghost of a fleshy billboard is unacceptable.<br />For your sake, don't be a barren domino, you are not fixed in concrete supports<br /><br />And you will get knocked down.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-69477634021825470372007-05-02T09:40:00.000-07:002007-05-02T10:38:59.713-07:00DAY 16: IdeaSo we are in the midst of senior superlatives. I was just thinking, what if we had real superlatives that mattered? What if we did them as we got older? Do we already?<br /><br />Another thing, what if we gave superlatives to classic writers? <br /><br />Who would you pick for:<br />Most likely to succeed<br />Best all-around<br />Most spirited<br />Class clown<br />Friendliest<br />Least Friendliest<br />Best Dressed <br /><br />Post your responses.<br /><br />PS I know this seems like a cop out, but I am going somewhere with this.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-77198338093669455172007-05-02T09:35:00.000-07:002007-05-02T09:39:48.351-07:00DAY 15: At home for week 3Something old and pretentious. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em><strong>OCKHAM SHAVING</strong></em><br /><br />FIRST INTENTION<br />William shaves the faith from<br />the reason of his face.<br />“Musn’t complicate the chin <br />with plurality of hair…<br />to do so would be vain.”<br /><br />He finds all the pieces unique<br />in the basin and laughs—<br />“I think I will name that one Aquinas”<br /><br />SECOND INTENTION<br />William assigns Aquinas <br />the symbol “hair”<br />and it begins to loose significance <br />resembling the other floating <br />objects in the white water.<br />Aquinas becomes hair.<br />No longer particular or individual. <br />“What a nominal idea,” William says.<br />As he dumps the basin of universals from <br />his second story window,<br />they no longer exist. <br /> <br />It is easier to rid ourselves of the namless.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-14633990633465814652007-04-30T05:40:00.000-07:002007-04-30T05:47:18.047-07:00DAY 14: Without a netSometimes<br />my heart is on <br />the flying trapeze<br /><br />launched into nothing <br />but a spinning, free fall <br />of motion. <br /><br />My stomach is an acrobat<br />flipping end over end<br />in my midsection.<br /><br />I practice this routine daily.<br /><br />Each time <br />I wonder whether you <br />will be there to catch my <br />outstretched hand.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-12804863976457649862007-04-30T05:21:00.000-07:002007-04-30T05:22:09.884-07:00DAY 13: Sunday- Another week, another day offJust got back from peer leadership. Working on the lit mag. Taking the day off.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-78170812722659793302007-04-27T04:55:00.000-07:002007-04-29T09:49:18.987-07:00DAY 12: Day OffTaking this Saturday off.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-87664826212621596972007-04-27T04:51:00.000-07:002007-04-27T04:55:20.818-07:00DAY 11: Something oldI have to leave for a retreat in 8 minutes. So here is something really old- it is actually the first poem that I wrote for Slamicide.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />9:00 am <br /><br />Third day<br /><br />British Lit<br /><br />When He asks arms, crossed, <br />booked closed,<br />legs extended…<br />first row,<br />“Why do we have to read this?”<br /><br />And there it is, <br />the question that sticks <br />out like a giant hairy mole;<br />the one on a first meeting that you try to ignore<br />but you can’t;<br />so you are left uncomfortable.<br /><br />And I stall, because I know the <br />real reason;<br />it’s what I’m supposed to do.<br />It is covering the ground set <br />by navigators that <br />I know <br />are <br />lost.<br /><br />“Well you see,<br />Beowulf is a historically <br />important text to Anglo Saxon culture in England…”<br /><br />“But we are in America…”<br /><br />And suddenly my classroom is transformed<br />to the OK corral,<br />the showdown has begun <br />and even though he is right,<br />I draw and try to shoot him down,<br />cause, after all<br /><br />mutiny on the first week is never <br />a good thing.<br /><br />“Well, it shows us the cultural ideals…<br />The hero was what a man should be in that society.”<br /><br />“But that isn’t our society…”<br /><br />And he’s right…<br />We don’t have men willing to <br />humble themselves, <br />lay down their weapons,<br />and fight <br />bare-handed <br />because it is honorable.<br /><br />Weakness hides <br />behind blue steel,<br />black powder,<br />and a trigger.<br />Cause that’s what <br />makes a man.<br /><br />Or else it is six <br />on one<br />beat downs in hallways and <br />bathrooms.<br />Turbulent seas of baby blue… <br />as if cowardice has become <br />something to be strived for.<br /><br />Boys sulk away from<br />obligations to new life like <br />an armless Grendel<br />to sink themselves deep <br />into the marshy fen of the <br />next naïve girl.<br /><br />Father figures are <br />fading fast and <br />what remains are <br />simpletons <br />that tell our boys that <br />passing pills and <br />making money is <br />more manly than <br />doing right.<br /><br />I want to defend the <br />planks of these<br />hall-my Herot,<br /><br />Rip off my shirt and <br />stand bare-chested<br /><br />“You want this place? You gotta get through me first.”<br /><br />But I know that Beowulf dies<br />and I’m not sure that I’d take with me <br />the dragon that plagues our young men.<br /><br />So I stand there, book in hand--<br />broken sword.<br /><br />And fight a <br />question <br />that can’t be silenced<br />or answered<br />in 180 days.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-13665268424009174652007-04-26T20:03:00.000-07:002007-04-26T20:16:09.017-07:00DAY 10: An apple a daySo in honor of Syracuse, I did a speed writing exercise with my last period class. You throw ou a theme and everyone writes for at least two minutes on that topic. When someone yells STOP, everyone must do just that. The stopper shares and calls on five others. When they are finished, the stopper picks the next theme. Repeat.<br /><br />Someone threw out the phrase "an apple a day..."<br /><br />I decided since I need to post and writing poems about fruit will win you a National Indies Champ title that it was worth a shot.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Someone once said<br />that you cannot peel an apple <br />inside your imagination.<br /><br />You could spend hours <br />thinking of each curve<br />the way the light reflects off<br />its skin<br />be it red, green, or yellow.<br /><br />It doesn't matter.<br /><br />Once you try to <br />slip off the flesh,<br />strip it of color,<br />it will change.<br /><br />The bruises that <br />appear will shift<br />their location.<br />The knife will <br />melt into another <br />knife when hidden beneath<br />waxy skin.<br />The length of each peel will become distorted.<br /><br />They also say that <br />an apple a day will<br />prolong your life.<br /><br />But I think that <br />if you keep trying to peel it,<br />you will improve<br />so that as your <br />last breath slips like <br />an orchard breeze from your tongue<br />heaven will appear.<br /><br />But not as a brilliant white light,<br />but as a naked apple that will never turn brown<br />sitting perfectly beside one<br />complete <br />unbroken <br />peel.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-47462455570454862302007-04-25T10:23:00.000-07:002007-04-26T20:03:04.805-07:00DAY 9: Sick DaysToday my hatred of the outdoors <br />is liquefied<br />and sloshing around inside my head.<br /><br />Mucus is an incubated chicken inside of my skull<br />it is pushing against every side <br />pressing against eardrums <br />chipping at the slimy, white prison.<br /><br />I wish that when I heard it stirring<br />I could get crocheting needles<br />and prod into my ears<br />that have been as congested as the <br />New Jersey Turnpike since birth.<br /><br />I would spray those standing too close with <br />geysers of thick yellow snot<br />like a liquid light show<br />that smells like sickness<br />and ruins clothing.<br /><br />More than anything, I wish my kids would realize <br />that the reason that I am screaming <br />is because they are screaming.<br />And I in addition to wanting to lance my own ears,<br />it is painful.<br />Every time I move my head to shoot one of them a <br />look like "I will cover you in snow first."<br />the contents of my head shift<br />like a poorly packed moving van.<br /><br />I would take a sick day, but I can't.<br />I know this is my fault.<br /><br />This is the same reason that my father set out<br />pills made of his sickness<br />the fever that plagued us ever time the temperature rose.<br />His routine of protected him until the pollen <br />settled around him with the falling leaves. <br /><br />If he missed any work<br />it was for the most serious of ailments.<br />He never hid from his flaws but instead <br />took them in until he became immune. <br /> <br />In my class there are 6 empty chairs<br />in a class of 29.<br /><br />Maybe it is too easy<br />to hide from our flaws.<br />Take a sick day from our problems.<br /><br />But what if we took them in-<br />inject indecision under my skin <br />like an allergy shot,<br />take two doses of my own passive nature,<br />and call that someone in the morning-<br />the girl with that smile that causes me to look away,<br />the better job that complacency has prevented.<br /><br />I would spread symptoms and cures simultaneously- <br />to the close mouthed kid that the only way you are going <br />to overcome the speech impediment is to speak.<br /><br />That we need to take in every bit of our <br />problems until we learn to deal with them, <br />so that we never have to call in sick again.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-17123108439784904752007-04-24T19:11:00.000-07:002007-04-24T19:36:18.623-07:00DAY 8: Driving/ Not Paying AttentionWell here ia an idea that came to me while driving. It is a new post though nothing to write hoem about. Day 8 down.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I want to tell him it's too late.<br />That steel plus neglect always equals <br />screwed to the power of slow decay.<br /><br />But these are not things you say to someone suspended<br />fifty feet in the air,<br />working nights,<br />pissed off, <br />with a welder.<br /><br />But he knows better than anyone <br />that once water slips like a lover <br />beneath the sheets of paint<br />that you either catch the symptoms <br />or begin the process of deconstruction.<br /><br />But this overpass has been forgotten<br />patches of brown flakes <br />creep up the side like industrial ivy<br />and these men are asked to revive this city like<br />some secret garden.<br /><br />But in the tending of <br />sparks and flakes<br />they are sowing <br />splinters of metal that move when you press them<br />even years after the restoration.<br /><br />Their fathers planted<br />marigolds of sickness in their lungs <br />through years of <br />sucking in the pollen of their livelihood.<br /><br />But some circumstances only allow so much growth.<br /><br />So sons of blue color grow to<br />fill the same gaps in the latticework of <br />Baltimore that their fathers did.<br />Once this life slips like water into your lungs<br />You begin the slow drown of blue collar. <br /><br />Each night as his wife winces <br />in the dark at the touch of his hands<br />from the roughness of his neglect,<br />he wishes that he could turn fingertips like <br />briars back into <br />thick mounds of tilled soil. <br /><br />it's too late<br />but he already knows that.EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-91537590401025539612007-04-24T19:08:00.000-07:002007-04-24T19:11:19.257-07:00DAY 7: SomethingTHOMAS<br /><br />Yellow lines lay down like the perforated promises.<br />St. Christopher hangs from my rearview as necessary as an appendix.<br /><br />Dusk descends—a Pentecostal spirit—as my eyes begin to sag with Jesus-posture bearing their cross of exhaustion.<br />Terrain as barren as her eyes when she said, “It’s been fun.”<br />The sunburned dust finds comfort in the baptism of twilight.<br /><br />I pull up to the solitary stone figure on the landscape,<br />a psychedelic light show of stained <br />glass illuminated like a multi-colored moon.<br /><br />Smiling seraphim <br />Welcoming.<br />Oak doors, wide as possibilities at age five,<br />Thick as close-minded hate.<br />Take the hammered steel handle in my hands<br />And pull with an almost-prayer<br />To find the house of God is closed for renovations.<br /><br />Chuckling Cherubim is laughing his angel ass off.<br /><br />Excommunication,<br />Return to the roads flagellation…mea culpa.<br /><br />SERVICE STATION 1 MILE<br />Steeple of double crosses, slightly slanted<br />calling me to repent the road. <br /> I must confess my faith is restored<br />in commercial gas chains.<br /><br />Gospel:<br />Willie Nelson wailing the commandment,<br />“Thou shalt not let thy babies grow up to be cowboys.”<br />Sacraments a chili and cheese dog with a Coke.<br />Jim, grease stained pastor, dons his vestment overalls and cherry Skoal breath<br /><br />Another 158 miles to my next confession…EMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901137494960007892.post-54918480243799222622007-04-22T18:08:00.000-07:002007-04-22T18:09:32.345-07:00DAY 6: At home week 2 (a sestina)Something from an old notebook; I am going to count it as my at home this week. (Be minful that this online format may change the line breaks a little).<br /><br /><br />Parole<br />First memory of the morning—footsteps<br />that sounded on the dusty ground of the prison<br />like steel-toed raindrops. The sleep that barely found me was the eye<br />of the storm that brews in the courtyard below. A tear<br />slides down my face, for the hunt<br />in progress has ended my slumber—jarred by the stirring beyond these walls.<br /><br />Shake the morning’s dew from my head and find the far wall<br />is papered by a large, dark man who steps<br />cautiously towards me as if he were hunting<br />some furious beast. “I assure you I’m not dangerous imprisoned.”<br />He smiles, he doesn’t know my language, but tears<br />me from the urine-stained cot a sadistic satisfaction in his eyes.<br /><br />A priest greets me at the door with sorrowful, avoiding eyes.<br />He would like to help me, but I see the crucifix on the wall<br />behind me and think, “Who saved him?” If only I were still Catholic…long since torn<br />away from that disillusionment. I turn from him towards the steps<br />that lead me to my release, far beyond the prison.<br />Rays of light strike me like the arrows of the sun-hunter.<br /><br />Frantically try to shield myself—hunting<br />for clarity. Hoodwinked by the light’s haziness, my eyes<br />finally find themselves. Guards line the farthest side and a sniveling mass of a prisoner<br />the other. Fuego. The ground becomes a palate blood, saline before the canvas of wall.<br />A uniformed man steps onto the Dias. A guard tears<br /><br />my knees from function with his stick. Shirt torn<br />from my back—a flogging maybe—the man hunts<br />for the words—conspiracy treason. Sticks step<br />across a drum. Sadist offers me a cigarette and a blind for my eyes.<br />Take the free smoke. Towed to my predecessor’s pool, I wish the wall<br />would embrace me like a protective lover. Another priest from the prison<br /><br />asks me if there is anyone I would like to write outside the prison<br />I blow smoke into my eyes. Maybe I can blame it for the tears<br />that have arrived like unwelcome guests. My only love, the wall,<br />knows my sole desire. My hands hunt<br />behind me for a door that I hope my eyes<br />had missed. The priest hangs his head in the soon to be memory of me and I step<br /><br />back hard hoping for mortar of the prison will give way. Fuego. Bullets hunt<br />my organs with precision as they tear through me, leaving me with a dozen blind eyes.<br />Painted on the wall with each bullet’s brushstroke, I crumple. Sadist takes my cigarette—I die to his fading footstepsEMOtionally closed offhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820009495787129744noreply@blogger.com1