November 2008
3 posts
Yes, I’m done posting poetry here. I will leave you on a wonderful note:
I got in to Mars Hill Graduate School!!!! WOO HOO!!!
end?
I may be done posting poetry here.
October 2008
3 posts
who you are is who you are is not what you do
“I’m nothing. I’ll always be nothing. I can’t want to be something. But I have in me all the dreams of the world.” -Fernando Pessoa, The Tobacco Shop then then then you are all the dreams of the world if you have nothing inside you then well then you are nothing and i know no one with nothing inside i know those with blood though a bloody mess shrapnel inside though are they the blood...
“Some mistakes, given time, don’t seem mistakes—
I’m counting on...”
– Riding West, by Carl Phillips.
This is kind of the theme of my senior thesis, and of the book I’m reading by Dan Allender, Leading With A Limp
Life with a dog is easier to do
Sorry I haven’t updated in a while. Stressful life. But I’m coping by listening to Christmas music and cuddling with my new dog. Speaking of which, I got a new dog. His name is Orion and he is officially one of my heroes.
September 2008
4 posts
part v. of forgiveness
v. patty griffin descended on a cloud of her own brown curly hair singing promises of florida that the old people would still be there when i got back so i wrote a memoir for her about the women raped and bled all over the slave castle in elmina patty offered me forgiveness at a time when i wouldn’t take it from god so i didn’t capitalize his name and she lay me down in a bed of brown curly hair,...
“The only travelled sea that I still dream of
Is the cold black pond where once,...”
– Ted Berrigan, The Drunken Boat, A Homage to Arthur Rimbaud
August 2008
8 posts
I Am A...Swimmer?
Today the pool was crowded when I went to swim, so I only managed 20 minutes before getting annoyed at constantly bumping into the sweet elderly lady next to me. Regardless, as I got out the guy next to me asked if I swim for the UM Swim team.
I don’t, but that was nice of him.
Update.
It turns out UM doesn’t even have a male swim team. So either that guy was as unaware as I was...
can't stop listening to this song →
poetry from africa
fayola’s post about water in africa inspired me to look over some of the writing i did in kenya/ghana. i was overwhelmed by broken glass, as you’ll see. they’ve yet to be edited.
cracked
i stepped over a bottle of broken glass the pieces all soft wax fusing to the ground to the soft earth melting like no glass should, should i pick up the glass a woman picked up the glass and...
with apologies to the sea
see the scent of her hair cascade as she tumbles her way home at midnight his breath stenches, rotten fish, and he tells the ocean of his fears she tumbles her way home at midnight earth moistens toes born of phosphorus and gold- fish, he tells the oceans of his fears though the ruby-tasting stars won’t hear it earth moistens toes born of phosphorus and gold alive now, and with dew on their...
Old Writing
I wish I’d kept my journals from high school. I was embarassed by my “crappy” poetry and threw it all out, when I really could have re-read a lot of it to inspire myself for future writing. Pretty lame. Here’s something I found…my friend hannah and I both wrote these prose poems that ended up being the last page of our school’s literary magazine our junior year...
July 2008
6 posts
“What is prayer
if not a marriage
of passion and the opposing need
for quiet...”
– Margaret Gibson, Poetry is the Spirit of the Dead, Watching
the response from the tree, or not about failure,...
this poem is like 2 1/2 pages long. this is the first stanza. i may be submitting this for publishing so i’m not gonna share the whole thing.
if my fingers are inside out writing this will blood splatter over the keyboard on the screen if i commit the act of a failure will my blood pour out from the tips of my fingers
posting poetry
i’m not sure i look putting poetry on the internet. i’ve yet to be content with it. i like sharing with friends, in class, with professors, and on grad school applications (c’mon UT Austin or NYU…!) but the jury is still out on the internet. maybe i need to stop posting snippets and start posting whole poems.
I wrote this on the one year six month anniversary of my...
air, air
if every one of the hairs i cut off my chin had a life of its own would there be enough air, air for all of them to breathe?
I had to do one more..
“In sleep he was no more knowable than anyone else. Look. The shrouded body feebly beating. This is what you feel, looking at the hushed and vulnerable body, almost anyone’s, or you lie next to your husband after you’ve made love and breathe the heat of his merciless dreams and wonder who he is, tenderly ponder the truth you’ll never know, because this is the secret that...
“There’s something about the wind. It strips you of assurances, working...”
– Don DeLilo, The Body Artist. (this book is like one long beautiful prose poem with a plot. choosing one excerpt was tough, but I can’t stop re-reading this one, so here we are)
June 2008
1 post
brain droppings
i wrote these 6 lines which later inspired a longer poem..
i’m in love with god and writing i paint words on flesh lick them off with the fruit of my tonsils repeat, scratch anew take breaths deep and slow take flesh deep and slow
May 2008
2 posts
Spiderman much? →
Well, MY tombstone...
“Here would lie J. Edmund if he didn’t keep crawling out and spooking the midnight workers at wal-mart.”
April 2008
15 posts
starbucks
today at starbucks i had an audience of seven black women, all excited to see and hear about the modifcations on my arms. i asked them why white people won’t talk to me about my piercings/implant, and why black people do, and one of them answered “‘cause we’re amazed!” i appreciate the amazement. white people should express their amazement more often.
i've been researching
sex in the 17th and 18th century. apparently, women were considered to simply have internal penises prior to this time, and really had the same genitals as men. lame. i’m glad this boring historical time changed things.
fuck the restoration and it’s literature
a 3-line reflection on my poetry class this...
akwaaba to yes plantains! i have become delusional, wiped clean and the glory revealed i am a white boy
“Then came the ox and drank the water that quenched the fire that burned the...”
– My passover seder was fun!
i saw for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf tonight and it was good but could have been so much better if they would have just chanted i found god in myself and i loved her fiercely and then screamed the last line
“It’s like ten thousand spoons
When all you need is a knife
It’s...”
– Alanis Morisette (makes me laugh :)
here's what i do:
i get stressed. i make bread. i mix it and knead it and the smell is unbeatable. my favorite is a honey oat loaf.
Nostril Orbital →
i’m thinking of getting this. except vertically.
pandora.com →
i’m probably listening to a radio based off of tracy chapman, girlyman, dar williams, the wailin’ jennys, or patty griffin at the moment. (i’m currently obsessed with breathy folk singers)
akwaaba
you are welcome.