Minstrel Song

Filed Under Poetry | Leave a Comment

Grad school starts today! So here’s a poem I wrote fall of third year.

It’s a very important part of a character for my Shadows, Echoes, and Reflections book. You can learn more about this story in a few months, when I start gearing up for NaNoWriMo ’10.

Minstrel Song

Between the harvest moon and withered field
The blackbird sits upon the hawthorn tree.
From passing gracious kin he is concealed,
But when I stop he does not hide from me.

Oh sing once more your haunting melody
Of whispers, rustlings, and your tail of woe
Which borrows thorns from off the tree. The key
To flight is neither drop nor fall below,

Yet watch the ground for shadows of the crow.
He’ll gladly steal your life, your wing, your home;
Your song the one defense against this foe –
Now you have earned the right to freely roam.

          Take heart, small bird, against the pulls of earth –
          It shall not always rob you of your worth.

Smile for the Camera

Filed Under Poetry | 2 Comments

Here is some more poetry from my third year for your enjoyment.

And people wonder why I don’t like having my picture taken…



Smile for the Camera

click – snap – whir
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
stand aghast at the beautiful vistas,
the inspiring mountains, the sparkling rivers,
so amazing that their jaws drop like hawks,
to take in the borderless skies and
the trees slowly exchanging oxygen

crunch – laugh – shout
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
shade their eyes against the glare and
suddenly four animals appear, hugging
and giggling, smiling beyond the summit,
too close to the cameras, squash ‘em with your
thumb or learn to look past them

Mom – Dad – Mrs. Potter
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
can’t recognize what they can’t see,
take indiscriminate pictures of my family,
his family, our family, their family over there,
but check the memories – behind grand monument,
happy children, stressed mother, arrogant father,
you’ll find me

C’est – ma – vie
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
all feature a young woman in my likeness,
even younger if it’s an old camera,
even older if it’s a new camera phone,
I am in over hundreds of photos around the world,
the nameless extra, a ghost on film

slither – slide – paper
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
piece together their life-long efforts, their
masterpiece of film to pin down the ghost, the girl
whose face is turned every shot despite the angle,
despite the friends she stands almost aloof from,
here’s a leg, an arm, the curve of the face

carving – painting – photo
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
merely the newest way to make a shadow:
once the face is captured, ever all is easy,
take the rest of the body, take the soul,
if the film is destroyed, the soul remains locked
away in cloth binders and old shoeboxes

eyes – soul – month
cameras, camera phones, camcorders -
fake beam at the world, but draw screams from bugs that block the wondrous view – without your
face they can’t control you, but when everyone has
a thousand pictures of you, your soul is divided into
thousands of pieces so small they shine like teeth
so smile

The Paper-Boat

Filed Under Poetry | Leave a Comment

Sorry for the late post. Last night was my brother’s graduation (CONGRATS CHRIS!!!) and then I had to drive out of state for work again. So, here’s another foray into my poetry writing.

The Paper-Boat

When the children you’ve left behind
Leave you to sog away,
It’s then your real adventure starts,
Amidst the “ocean’s” spray.

If you’re set upon a stream
Where currents pull you down,
The rocks will surely capsize you
And all your shipmates drown.

But if you’re set upon the lake
To catch the cares of winds,
You’ll find yourself in deeper ends
Before the waves begin.

You’ll sail away beyond the reeds,
Where pirates tend to lurk,
And fish the size of whales swim
Within the water’s murk.

But all adventures have to end,
This you must concede.
You’ll melt away, you’ll slowly sink,
You’ll fall at drifting speed.

Your paper mast begins to fold,
Your paper sail unfurls,
Your paper cargo’s soaked right through,
Your paper hull’s in curls.

The children return an hour hence
But you’ve disappeared from sight.
Only the fish can see you now,
Forsaken to your watery plight.

The English Civil War

Filed Under Poetry | Leave a Comment

I had a long day working and driving across state lines, so enjoy this poem I wrote fall of my 3rd year. I don’t remember who said/wrote the quote at the top, I think it was from something we read in the class.

The English Civil War

“…words are the poet’s enemies, conspirators, and only allies”

“FIRE!”
Punctuation shot toward the enemy, slicing off the tails of p’s and q’s alike, leaving their weary and dried-up soldiers like Pretty, Nice, Good, and Bad to flail on the paper battlefield that is poetry.

“LOAD THE COMMAS!” I roar from my horse.
“We re out of commas Sir!” my faithful Captain A shouted.
“THEN LOAD THE PERIODS!” I demand.
“You just used the last one Sir”

“BLAST!” I dont know why I shout so but I must to strike fear into the inky hearts of our foes “THEN DRAW YOUR WEAPONS! WE WILL PREVAIL FOR RHYME AND REASON ARE ON OUR SIDE!”

Rhyme and Reason decide now would be an opportune moment to retreat and they flee to the safety of the read line that holds other neutral words from entering the war
“Never mind them!” loyal Captain The yells down the lines “Prepare for battle!”
“CHARGE MY EMBOLDENED SOLDIERS CHARGE!”

A and The led the assault pens pencils even paintbrushes held high for freedom Nothing had nothing to lose but words are a large price to pay for written printed and bound immortality Some of the abstract ideals of Honor Love and Death that cannot be held down by mere letters flew over the field searching for the next likely victim

You stabbed The with your illegal keyboard until his letters had slipped into each others places and Teh fell before my eyes “NOOO!” I cry but he is gone

This loss only spurs my soldiers on to greater heights – a likely feat considering       two-dimensional space allowed them       fighting bleeds over       page in blue and black ink and       gray graphite of       in-between of a war      likes of which language has never seen before and will never see again if they only had       eyes to see it in       first place

war raged on and on until as one       armies turned toward the center of       page indented twice to       right and a single chess piece       all powerful queen toppled onto         desk and rolled to a stop

The Zen of Solitaire

Filed Under Poetry | 2 Comments

Here’s a poem I wrote for a class third year. Whenever I was stuck writing, I’d open solitaire and play until I zoned out, and that’s when the ideas would flow.

I don’t have solitaire on this computer. :(

The Zen of Solitaire

At first you’re
caught up in
the game itself:

red on black,
move the king,
six on seven.

but as the cards
begin to blur together
your mind unfolds itself and floats

high above the game, focusing on
bigger problems than “where’s the two
of hearts?” and small details click into place

just like the eight of spades on the nine of diamonds
but into configurations beyond red on black and black on red
until they become a new set of rules all in itself so that the hearts

are supposed to fall diagonally across the board and two and threes are
the true kings and queens of the deck parading up and down the lines in robes of
state with naught but clubs to follow them with bars of gold and diamond jewels for the

real diamonds have spent the lot on bribes to bring their suit to the top of the piles of cards while aces
sneak around like rogues to keep you from winning the game of hide-and-seek that you’ve started but can’t seem to
let go no matter how long it takes and now the cards are back to front and upside-down but it doesn’t matter because all the world’s

a card game and all the men and women merely jacks of spades and other trades and round and round the deck we go beyond the five of stars
and past the constellations with your mind racing at the speed of computer chips but the computer moving cards with a click slower than tectonic plates with columns
shifting like the continents from the Indian Ocean to the Plains of Hearts full of twisting tornadoes that tear up the clubs-houses by the diamond dozens but it’s time to fly and you

X