Broken

Gravity pulls at the skull
and tugs at the spine,
anchoring our footfalls
to the dusty face
of a spinning rock.

It snatches at our heels
and grabs tight to our legs
reminding us that we have:
   Weight.
   Substance.

Some call it a law.
Others argue it’s a theory.
No matter the label,
it rules our lives
providing confidence
that as we move forward,
each step will follow the last.

The wind thinks differently.
Movement is change.
Change can bring the impossible.
It rushes upward,
pushing against the blue.

And as they battle -
   Up.
   Down.
You are shocked to discover:
even this rule
is made to be broken.

the photo in this post was taken by Jan Chavis; you can find more of her work here or here

Thirds

Diced in nine and
edged eight ways -
a seven-fold image
to spark the sixth sense
and ignite the other five.
Four points
from three slices
center two eyes
on one figure.
Framed in math and
composed by numbers,
a great shaggy cow
stands alone in the field
and keeps company
with the blossoms.

You’re sneezing and you’re stuffully
and ache from bone to skin.
The winter night is cold without,
and you are cold within.

You build yourself a quilted fort
and pour a cup of tea -
you know to quickly win this war
good weaponry is key.

Chemical armaments consumed
you burrow in your keep
as tiny armies deep inside
do battle while you sleep.

The idea that legislation which would effectively revoke one of the fundamental rights on which this country was founded, i.e., free speech, could be considered neither “serious” nor “important” is simultaneously frightening and mind-boggling to me. Even if I can somehow manage to put that aside… and I really, REALLY can’t… the fact that this legislation effectively allows large, established companies to shut down rival sites indefinitely (without a trial!) – thereby destroying their livelihood – should, as my father would say, un-kink the colon of every small business owner, entrepreneur, and anyone who cares about them including family, friends, and would-be employees looking for a job in this shit economy.

To those who have compared SOPA to some of life’s other evils: yes, you are right.

Children going without enough to eat in this supposed land-of-plenty is horrible.
Children being shot where they stand as collateral damage in gang wars because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time is horrible and tragic.
The pathetic state of our education and healthcare systems is horrible.

These are all Big Fucking Deals.

But, guess what?

So is SOPA.
And so is PIPA.

These bills have the power to fundamentally change our way of life by making censorship and suppression of free speech a web standard. It would be as ubiquitous as HTML, HTTP, and photos of cats. It would fundamentally break the Internet’s infrastructure and destroy innovation because every time something new came along that threatened the status quo, those who were threatened would have the power to stifle it. That means among other things:

No (or very little) new technology.
Fewer new jobs.
Crippled entrepreneurship.

And did I mention: A LEGAL JUSTIFICATION FOR SUPPRESSING FREE SPEECH! That’s an honest-to-God Constitutional right being violated, people, not an extrapolation/interpretation of what the Founding Fathers meant by this-or-that.

I know that we all have our pet issues – those things that really make our blood boil and make us exclaim, “why aren’t people taking this seriously”.

But that doesn’t make it okay.

Understand what you’re talking about before you dismiss an issue just because you feel something else is “more important”. Ignorance is not an excuse; it is a weakness.

New Year’s Day

The optimists cheer:
“Eat black eyed peas! They will bring you luck.”
The pessimists chastise:
“There is no magic today! It’s the same as yesterday.”

The pessimists are right.
Turning the calendar
doesn’t undo the past
and erase our mistakes
or relieve us of our responsibilities -
   yesterday’s debts are still unpaid
   yesterday’s problems are still unsolved
   yesterday’s failings are still unconquered

The pessimists are wrong.
Often the difference
between feeling trapped
and feeling free
is having an excuse to believe -
   that change can be made
   that solutions can be found
   that forgiveness can be earned

There is power in that.

Embrace it.
Claim it.
Snatch it up
and wring the magic from it until
good luck spills out
like foam from a champagne glass.

The entries are due on Google+ each week by 20:00 PST so I’ll try to have our entries posted here by the following Tuesday (and the first one was due yesterday so I plan to have it up later tonight). I highly recommend following the contest if you’re interested in photography the first round of submissions is impressive. Also, the contest name is a bit of a mouthful and more than I care to type, so I’m going to shorten it to “GP52″ going forward.

A Thanksgiving poem created for work

I worked a half-day the day before Thanksgiving because I was going to a congratulatory lunch for a friend who had found a new job and then I was going over to my parents’ place to do some baking. Rather than write all of that I had the idea Tuesday evening to write a Thanksgiving poem to make the sign more interesting. The idea came to me basically as I was getting ready for bed so I used my new tablet to compose the poem. Unfortunately I was distracted when I left for work the next morning and forget my tablet so I had to reconstruct the poem as best as I could from memory. For fun I checked my tablet when I got home and found I had gotten it 75% right. The poem below is a mash-up of the original and the reconstruction (the photo shows the reconstruction I used on my desk at work). In most cases I liked the original line better but I liked the “toasted” line in the reconstruction better. So much better that I used it for the title.

 
Toasted

Gobble! Gobble! Let’s run away!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day!

If you’re slow they’ll make a winner
of a festive turkey dinner.
Brined and dried and rubbed and roasted
‘til you’re pretty, brown, and toasted.

I guess, at least, this can be said:
You’ll see the guests are all well fed.
But better still is not to fall:
keep feathers, gizzard, beak, and all.

Gobble! Gobble! Let’s run away!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day!

Since I was looking for a collection of short, random source blocks, Twitter seemed like the obvious choice; I scrolled through my tweets from that week and picked a handful to mess with. I used the provided hashtags as titles (for those that had them) and created hashtag titles for those that didn’t. I messed with case a little bit but left the words exactly as they were and, other than removing any emoticons, I only made minor punctuation changes.

Overall I like how the poems came out, but some definitely worked better than others. I found it interesting how you could change the rhythm of the statement in drastic ways just by cutting a thought short or letting it run on.

#ilikemyjuicejustfine

wha?
it’s fruit juice mixed with sparkling water
and
it helps MY thirst
just fine

Should be doing homework but I’m wiped so I’m gonna go to bed and yell at myself in the morning for being lazy #itslikeicanseethefuture

#itslikeicanseethefuture

should be doing homework
but
I’m wiped
so
I’m gonna go to bed and yell at myself
in the morning
for being lazy

#paul
my friend and I laughed
hysterically
and
saw actual past behavior
echoed
in the main characters’.
clearly
we
are
the
target
demographic.

Gaa! “… as compelling AS yesterday’s”… Stupid thumbs! Learn English more gooder! You’re embarrassing me

#shamedthumbs

gaa!
“as compelling AS yesterday’s”
…
Stupid.
Thumbs.
Learn English more gooder…
You’re embarrassing me

I sat down
upon the ground
and saw I’d lost my shoe.

“Can’t go ‘round,
left foot unbound!
Oh dear! What shall I do!?”

Quite bereft
about my left,
I walted in distress.

“Hateful theft!
(Though also deft
to manage the undress.)”

Fantful eyes
and hishful sighs
I retraced where I’d trod.

“Woe! No prize!
So, though unwise,
I’ll go left foot unshod.”

And that is what I did.

 
Commentary

What I Did is a free-form rhyming poem although the rhyme scheme and structure is (very) loosely based on a Petrarchan sonnet. The poem is presented in three pairs of triplets where the first set of three lines provides the poem’s plot and the second set of three lines contains the speaker’s monologue, commenting on the situation. Each stanza is built from sentences of three, four, and six syllables and the rhyme scheme of the triplet pairs is AABAAB. The voice of this poem is lighter and sillier than I usually employ in my poems, which makes for a good contrast with the rest of the “round up” collection, but it’s also an interesting compliment to the sonnet form that inspired it because a sonnet’s form and rhyme scheme are tightly controlled and strictly regulated whereas What I Did is basically nonsense.

The serenade springs lightly from your mouth
slipping and sliding along the ground
until it crashes gently at my feet –
a honeyed, silver wave
lapping lightly at the shore of my soles.

Held fast by chains of trust,
I watch without fear as it rises.

from shoe
   to shin
      from shin
         to shirt
            from shirt
               to shoulder

Until I am drowned
in sugared hate.

 
Commentary

Of all the poems I wrote last semester, I think this is my favorite.

Tides, is a prose poem but it has no prescribed form and plays with the presentation of the words on the page in an attempt to evoke the feeling of a rising tide. I think this poem uses the empty space of the page in an interesting way – more so than any of my other poems to date. I am also very pleased with the repetitive “sh” sound that sounds like waves lapping on the shore but I think the best part is that the poem starts off sounding like a positive poem but has a surprise twist at the end.

The poem is one of the few I’ve written that is based on personal experience. I wrote it after I received an unexpected, emotional slap in the face from someone I thought was my friend and I was shocked by the level of derision and judgmental indifference that her words contained. My hope is that the reader will not see the venom of the last line coming and also experience a symbolic “slap in the face”.