Any suggestions?

I am having the hardest time trying to revise my poems. I have used both methods but neither are working the way I want them to. It seems like it is so easy for me to think of ways to revise an example poem in class but when it comes to my own work I am so judgmental and picky on what to change. I feel like when I try to change my poems with either method, my poem takes a whole different turn in direction. I could be talking about ice-cream, then when I revise it, it is all about the sun. I am not going to give up because practice makes perfect. I am wondering if anybody else is having difficulties revising their poems to keep them the same, but improved or if anybody has a secret to success!

Difficulties in Revising

It's hard for me to put the revision principles into practice. I find them to all be useful and honestly the improvements made on poems that we've reviewed makes a world of difference. For me though, I struggle to revisit the feeling I had when writing muse work and build upon it. It definitely leads somewhere different entirely. It can seem as if I am trying too hard to improve upon what was written before. And I find myself going so far down a road that is leading me no where creatively. I think I find most of my issues result from the fact that I write more comfortably in prose than poetry. I feel as if I'm not creating work that is worth reading or revising. I will continue to work on my revision and writing skills because I do not think it is impossible for me to find a way to make this work and create some poetry of worth.

I blew my misery into my lucky penny before,

I dropped it from a cliff.

My past was bombarded by sunny days,

Glorified Angels and smiles that never fade.

Explore fate, Never checked the expiration date

for my visions were to last until after life;

like after death.

If only, If only time didn't forget;

only memories can remember,

I guess pictures do last longer...

When they're printed.

What interest me in class currently...

My latest interest in the class thus far would have to be the upcoming oral presentation on one Pre 1950s poet and one post 1950s poet. I am extremely excied and filled with anticipation for the upcoming oral class presentation. I have always wanted to explore poets of my own curiosity, rather than assigned ones, and as a result I know for a fact that I will have fun with this project. I am still kind of unsure as to whether  one of my poets are considered pre or post being that she started writing poetry a little before 1950 and got noticed after 1950 but I'll probably determine that based on whoever i decide to make my second poet.
ASIDE FROM THAT I CAN NOT WAIT TO START PRESENTING!!!!!!!!

Breast Cancer Awareness

Every 3 hours i get 3 texts,

My boss is aggravating,

3 reports due by 12AM,

Arguing with my man,

All the time,

Texting, arguing, back and forth,

walking down the boulevard,

I see my neighbors from the penthouse next door,

accepting their dinner invitation tonight,

the sewer stench creeps up my nostrils,

building E218, my destination,

Sign my name,

Lounging, waiting for my turn,

Thinking 'bout all the work I have in store,

Waiting for me at home,

Along with my man,

JESSICA! my doctor calls,

I scurry, scurry

Asking him to hurry,

3 deadlines to meet,

I must be on my way,

Thinking "Hurry doc, I don't have all day"

"Your mammogram came in" he says

Silence........

I have 3 deadlines! i thought,

"You have breast cancer" he said,

My life flew past me like NASCAR,

12AM deadline,

My man is waiting,

I have 3 deadlines tonight,

I must be on my way

Why Do I feel Like This?

So we have started working on revising techniques. This is great and I'm really excited to go through my work and pick things apart. I'm also excited to help others with their work or give them ideas. I think working together to become better is the best way to become proficient at something. Back to my main point. When we were told to try the new revising technique on our own poem, I found myself not able to interrupt what I have already written. At least it feel like interrupting to me. I feel like to change a sentence or phrase around is destroying what I have already put down on the paper (screen). I didn't know what to do so I just rewrote my poem using different words, technically meaning the same thing it doesn't resemble the first at all. I think this is really running away from the revising technique, but it pains me to want to change to much of a poem. I feel like almost everything I write with feeling is almost perfect the way it comes out. I always do a minor revision going through making sure everything flows, often adding punctuation after it's written. Really it is really frustrating that I can't bring myself to change one phrase and be happy. It's hard to explain the feeling of destroying your own art piece. It may not be great to anyone else, but to me it means something and that's the way I like it. Ordinary or not. I guess, I will have to put my distress at bay and just deal with it.

Clayton

But everything's good until it goes bad...

It's late October and this Poetry class is slowly reaching its end. We have covered quite a vast amount of poets; from the well known like the infamous and ever morbid Emily Dickinson and to others who seem to be known to only a few, such as Guillaume Apollinaire, whom really struck my fancy for his unique (at least to me it is) style of poetry. I'm still not sure if my "muse" has changed or if I've become a better poet. Sticking to all these required forms are difficult; I still cannot get into a poets way of being. You have to be hyper-conscious of the form. Still troubling doing that, and it's especially difficult since it makes poetry into a chore.

I can't wait for the class to end - that means no more poems. But I'm only saying that because I'm still frustrated by the requirements poetry asks of you. Maybe I'm just not a poet, but at least I can appreciate good poems from the bad now. By the last blog post, maybe I can turn my frustration into some sort of muse.

The Right State of Mind

This entire semester I've been trying to determine the best state of mind to be in when writing poetry. I've been angry, upset, happy, in the middle of nowhere free, drunk, on the edge of something crazy, pissed the fuck off, in love, confused....I guess I found that being angry really gives my cruddy poetry cause I don't focus at all it just makes me want to swear all over the page and being happy doesn't make me want to do anything else but color hearts all around the paper. I like the drunk one the best, except reading what I wrote afterwards can be a little difficult. But it gives me some of the best raw poetry to work with. It always needs some edit and more actual thought put into it, but it's when i come up with the most unique language. It's like trying to communicate to get everyone to understand what your feeling and what your seeing and thinking but better because your really not speaking the same language as everyone else. And it doesn't matter if your angry or happy when your in this state of mind because your just trying to explain that to everyone else in words, written words.

Maybe reading poetry in this state would make more sense or the meaning of what the writer is really trying to get across becomes clearer or unbelievably harder to get....let you know how it goes.

Can something be Prose and Poetry?

Sometimes when I'm reading short stories or novels, I find passages that are truly poetic. They have the kind of perfect wording and emotional content that I expect from and associate with poetry, and so I think of them in that way. I've been known to describe prose works by saying they are like poetry.

So... Are they? Can something be both? Can an author have written poetry outside of a poem, (or even a prose poem)?

My dictionary's definition of a poem is:

"literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm"

I think this fits.

Here's some examples of sections of novels that I believe to be poetry.

“Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not dayream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

"A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, 'The fuck you do that for?' and the jumper says, 'Story of my life, man' and other guys starts to smile but he's dead. That's a true war story that never happened."

-Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried.

So why would these be poems?

The passage from House of Leaves incorporates all kinds of poetic language. An hour is personified as someone who can be murdered. There is alliteration, "murder of minutes" and repetition, "you do not" and "no weapon, no blood, and no body." Most importantly, it makes you feel the emotion he speaks of. You are pulled along through these words and images, the metaphor established that, at times, wasting time makes you feel as guilty or blank as killing someone. It's powerful and shocking, and poetic. The conclusion lets this emptiness set in, and as a reader you can reach this emotional realization.

In The Things They Carried I find this passage particularly powerful. It is part of a larger discussion on how to tell a true war story. This section uses colloquial language as its voice, as if written by the soldiers that it concerns. There are short lines, showing the simplicity and quickness of death in war. It is not flashy; it's sudden and blunt. These sentences create rhythm. It also incorporates lies, as he says that the soldiers have time to discuss their deaths right before it. The very idea of a "true story that never happened" is poetic. That's what poetry is. We tell true stories, whether or not they actually happened, in the hopes of communicating that truth. I think that's what he's done here.

What do you all think? Too much of a stretch, or can prose be poetry?

jibberish poem help

Well, firstly I am a physics major and therefore one would think I have not taken many classes along the lines of poetry and writing and such. However I enjoy writing very much, poetry, not the most, but all the same I have had my experience and the grades to show for it, up until now. ;] So I would like to talk about poems that we read that appear to be gibberish and many words strung together with out much meaning or arrangement. Before I jump right in to it I would like to introduce a notion that may seme bizzare to some or hard to uderstand. Now take a look at the sign thats obviously a no smoking sign. Now lets pretend it has nothing to do with smoking and the ciggarete is a small picture of a tree. The small tree is fit in one of the 2 empty spaces right or left of the middle diagonal line going through the circle. Now once you can visualize the tree in its spot now add the word "tree" in the other empty space so both spaces are filled. This is what I will be disscusing to help understand some of these poems. If you think about it what is a word? or a letter for that matter? A symbol that means a sound we make out of our mouths. What if we remove this label for a letter and in doing so un-do a meaning from a word. (mind you this is a crash course on the subject and there is MANY a reeding and papers on this) Now what you are left is a group of symbols ( the word "t r e e") and a picture. Dissassociating our language from words and letters is essential to reach an understanding of where I am going. Now if you take a poem of words that seems to mean nothing, take it word by word. Now say the first word in a poem is "detergent". What is detergent what does it do, how does it work, what feelings are aroused when saying the word. Now lets get away from the meaning, just say the word, look at the letters within now lets say one of the following words was Sergeant. Now think about saying the words after each other. Many times poems can be composed of strung words based upon pretenses that have nothing to do with the meaning or what they really stand for. Now read the poem through. this time hear how the words roll of your tongue, listen to the sounds you are making and draw from that any feelings or moods. Some times poets use a word intentionally to make your mouth move a certain way or create a resonance, ex: " The tree is green" They might also use what appears to be a word completely out of place in a sentence, often times grammatically incorrect. It is our job to read and get away from those meanings and pictures we have been conditioned to see and know when speaking words. I know this seems like B.S. but people have spent their lives studying this including prominent philosophers. I can not explain it very well but I hope this has helped. Any comments would surely help me explain better from your questions or thoughts and I will try and find a link to some reading that do a better job than I. Getting a decent understanding of this will let those who are lost see the beauty in language and understand how emotion and non tangible things can be portrayed through language in ways that at first seem unorthodox.

Sleeping on the Wing book

Since having assignments in the Sleeping on the Wing book, I've found myself enjoying the assignments better than the Making Your Own Days book. I don't know, the poems in the SW book seem more appealing and easier to understand. The poets introduced in class were more interesting, and their work was not as "complex" as the poems in the other book. I liked Emily Dickinson's poem "I Heard a Fly Buzz." This poem was simple but had an adverse meaning behind it. I liked how she was speaking on one aspect then included something that was totally different. The assignment that was geared towards this poem was one of my favorite tasks because the ideas came easier to me for some reason. I read Dickinson's poem over and was able to write a poem by checking in with my Muse. In this particular poem, as in many of my other poems, I'm not so focused on rhyming as I was when I first began this course. I feel that my poetry has developed further because of the exercises and poets introduced in class. All in all, I feel that after this class I'll hold on to the SW book because it has many interesting poems that can ultimately aid me if I decide to go further with poetry.

Poetry exercises

Did anyone else have a really hard time with the exercises in Sleeping on the Wing?  I felt so constrained trying to write like someone else in a particular style.  I don't want to write like Dickinson or O'Hara!  They are amazing poets but I prefer to find my own way.  It was hard to fit my writing into those narrow boxes with specific topics/styles and even worse it felt so formulated.  I understand the point of working towards a connection with these poets/poems and I did enjoy a few of them but my overall feeling was frustration.  I just wanted to share that.  End rant.  I am looking forward to workshop and revisions although I doubt I'll choose the exercise poems.  I won't say that for certain because who knows perhaps I'll mine a gem out of them yet!  Tiny seeds of inspiration that could grow into something more "me" and less "them."

Miranda July

Is there a fine line between poetry and storytelling or can they be the same. I'm going to do another one of those "If you don't know who this person is, you should" kind of posts. This time I will talk about Miranda July.

Who is she? She is a writer of many sorts; she writes plays, she writes movies, her first being "You and Me and Everyone We Know" and "The Future" being her latest. She also has a book, "No One Belongs Here More Than You". She is a performer. She does everything and everything she does is amazing.

In her work, she has this unique ability to describe everything so perfectly. On explaining two friends growing apart, she says: "We were kites flying in opposite directions attached to strings held by one hand".

There was a poem in the Sleeping on the Wing book that reminded me of one of Miranda July's writings. The poem from the book was written by Frank O'Hara and the title was "A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island". In this poem, the speaker has a casual conversation with the sun. Now, if you watch this youtube link, you will see the connection I made. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8OQassYB_4

She also has a poem called "This Person" that is interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lluX-45ap4E You should start it at the five minute mark to avoid an uninteresting introduction.

We forget we will be okay.

Today is a cold day and a good one for snuggling up to write. I wish I had way more time to write but there's so much homework to do. It reminds me of a poem we read this semester that was translated from a French poet. He wakes up in the morning and gets ready, and has so much to do, and so he must write. That poem reminded me a lot of my father and a lot of myself whenever I say I don't have time to write. Here's my vow to write more often.

Today my friend told me a story about one of her best friends who was overseas and lost limbs. They are trying to stabilize him so they can send him back to the States, but he's not doing well. She was very upset. A while later, one of my other friends came by asking for advice about girl problems. He was also very upset... but it puts it in perspective what "bad" means, and we forget that we'll be okay. I hope he comes to understanding that. Although I want to be clear that everyone should be open to expressing their emotions. It made me think though:

Today has been a shitty day

but not for me.

I don't sleep anymore.

but that's okay.

Things could be much worse than fatigue.

Fatigue and yawning.

My legs are both here.

My arms, elbows, hands

My tree branch fingers.

I wish my fingers were longer.

They are not. But I have them.

They are bruised and swollen

But I have them.

And with them, I write.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV-zzojbtfA&feature=related

this is my favorite love poem...although it isn't really a poem I guess. It's an excerpt from the play Crave by Sarah Kane. It brought me to tears when I first listened/read it. Not to get mushy-gushy or anything, but this is how I describe love, whenever someone asks me. Also, any accent really gets to my heart. If you sit, and just listen, not even watch the video, but just listen so carefully, these actors make it come to life. The words themselves jump out, but when spoken it makes me almost shake it's so beautiful.

Before I took this class, I had absolutely no interest in poetry whatsoever. I had always thought of it as something hard and pointless. But now that I’ve been writing tons of poems in the last month, I realize that there’s a lot I didn’t know about the poetry language and the poetry world. I used to always think of poetry as just rhyming, but now I see that most poems don’t use rhyme, or even a meter! Lots are in free verse, which I like the best, and I also really enjoy doing muse work with “Movies of Your Mind.” It helps me think more creatively and outside the box. I like not being restricted and poetry lets me do whatever I want. From all the recent work we’ve done so far, the two I liked the most were Rimbaud and Mayakowsky. Rimbaud because he writes in prose and his poems are not really about anything in particular-there’s no story line so I found it easier. Mayakowsky because it was fun to make everything sound so angry and exaggerated.

I have always found poetry to be the best way to say how I feel about everything and anything. Putting pen to paper helps me to get everything out in the open. It helps me to reflect on different emotions and feelings. It can convey, in beautiful language, what I could never say in person. I have been writing poetry since I was about twelve. I usually express love and/or heartbreak in almost every one of my pieces. However, so far through this course, I have learned that poetry can be used in many other ways. I used to write poetry for myself, and now I have found that it is just as enjoyable to write for others. Here is one of my favorite pieces I have written so far this semester. It is a bit frightening, but it is just in time for Halloween. It is based upon the painting "Lane with poplar trees" by Vincent VanGogh:

I stumble down this empty road, cold and alone

The red eyes of the creature of the night, upon my back

I scurry over rocks and the roots of angry trees

The forest path; winding through the night

The moon guides my way through the unforgiving darkness

Shadows weave in and out

The man with the axe

The rage within his eyes

Is he the monster who hungers for me?

A hyper heart and clammy hands

He can smell my fear

The dragging of his axe;

The only sound I hear

There is nowhere left to turn

Cat and mouse, cat and mouse

Burning circles into the forest

Will he ever grow tired,

Or is this my fate?

Red Velvet Cake (writing a poem that has a climax)

Red Velvet Cake is my favorite, It's Christmas Eve and I am going to the local Supermarket on Flatlands Avenue to get the ingredients I need. Cake flour, vinegar, sugar, butter, etc... . The long walk makes me think about the times I shared with my late older cousin, walking to the store for candy, soda, and chips, a growing child's diet. Back at the house, I stir wet ingredients with wet ingredients and dry with dry. it comes out perfect, even has the pecan topping my Grandmother would have loved. Of course as the chef I get to have the first slice, as I go to take a bit, it drops to the floor as if it was thrown, I repeat and the same thing happens. I feel so empty but can't get full. Suddenly the room becomes over bearing bright, my mother walks right through me, with the same cake in her hand, no pecan topping, no cut out slice. Mother says with a cry that muffles her words "I made the cream cheese frosting just like Diana would have loved", within that same moment a very familiar hand lays on my shoulder.

Letting An Image Move from a Story

A few classes ago , we were asked to draw inspiration from images and music. Pictures and music have always been an inspiration for me. However, I've been used to a certain genre of music and certain types of photographs. Mr. McCoy has introduced me to the classical and cultural aspects of these art forms. the big question I tend to ask myself when trying to transform a picture into a story is "What happens next?" I ask myself this continually until I have sufficient amounts of information to continue my journey. I tend to look at the photo multiple times to try to gain new inspiration. If this does not work, then I close my eyes and let my imagination go to work.

Wisdom and Change

In the eyes of a few and in a few of their eyes

Can understand the truth from the lies

Speak openly, no fear in there minds

We can all do the same if we try

The mask your wear only means something to you and nobody else

If your tongue moves without truth, your only hurting yourself

Be true to yourself, if nobody else

And learn to play the hand that was dealt

If you have a dollar, Only spend what you can

And make something out of nothing

When you learn to do that, you can say you’re a man

Action speaks louder than words, so when you talk your mouth shouldn’t move

Words are much louder when you talk with your hands

When all is said and done, what do you have?

You have some of an infinite present time, with all of your past

Countless lessons learned, or mistakes you never learned from

Life is about experiences, things you can only learn once

Its ironic how the wise can learn the truth from the lies

Appreciate the days when the sun shines

Because they give you something to look forward too when it rains

That’s why we should look at the world in a positive light

Because we only have to look forward to good times in hard times

The good, the bad, it all is the same.

we can learn from reward of we can learn from the pain

whatever you learned you learned it from change.

Sean Ebanks

Don't be afraid

That is my lesson these days.  To shun fear, to open myself up to scrutiny, to trust my own instincts.  I'm trying to feel good about what I write because sometimes our greatest obstacle is ourselves, tripping over our own internal monologue.  I'm finding this works not only for poetry but for everything I write and do.  I envy the young who wake up with such confidence and shine brightly, knowing they will live forever, because the older you get the harder it is and my light is dull on some days.  I have to flick the switch a few times just to get it going, like an energy saving bulb that teases.  Learn to trust yourself and know it's okay to be weird and off balance, like a bicycle with only one wheel and a bent frame, as long as it gets you where you need to go.  Free your mind and the rest will follow is a canned lyric to an old song but it makes a whole lot of sense when you sing along.  Sorry professor this is kinda Muse-like and I'm enjoying it too much to be a blog post.  Oh well, trust that it is sincere and how I'm feeling, open to debate but much easier to delete.  Sing on fellow students and enjoy your glorious Sunday (everyday)!!!

What words can do!

I have never been much of a reader, however, as this class progresses I am beginning to realize that I like it. Not because it’s interesting and not because I enjoy the stories. I have discovered through this class that words can work as more than just words. They can create something that physicality cannot, the mental image. Through the reading we have done and the poems I have started to read on my own, I have been introduced to an entirely new way of expression. Granted I probably should have been reading more as I grew up, teacher and parent pressure to read books and write papers and therefore use words has become an annoyance to me over time. The stress and frustration that becomes attached to writing can be discouraging to many students. They begin to correlate writing and words with work. However, this class has changed my perception of words back to fun like it should be. Although my perception has changed, the years of dormant vocabulary has made it very difficult for me to come up with creative (big) words when writing my poems. I did, however, discover quickly that word has a thesaurus button which has also aided in strengthening my vocabulary. It now is key in assisting me with my writing in poetry and my other classes too. Overall, this class has inspired me to read more and strengthen my vocabulary by making words fun again. I no longer see them as frustrating and annoying but now I see them as a literary paint brush that can create the impossible. (It is still annoying to write papers, it didn’t do that much. :-)

Arthur Rimbaud and Mayakowsky

I kind of like Arthur Rimbaud's poetry and writing technique. (Partly because I can understand it.) I also found it really interesting that he wrote his poems between the ages of fifteen and twenty and then stopped writing. I read all his work in our assigned book and I liked the first one which was called "After the Flood." I tend to like poems that talk about a specific time period like this one...he writes about what happens in that moment in time right after the flood and when spring first begins. I like when a poet can put an image in your head and you can imagine what he/she is imagining or seeing. He is a lot more "simple", I think, then Emily Dickinson and uses dashes (just like her) to make you pause when reading the poem, however not nearly as much. It's more like you are just reading the poem aloud and are speaking it. He names animals such as spiders and beavers, and things such as rainbows and flowers that would make any person think of spring time in order to create a image. You can tell throughout this poem that he likes the "excitement" of changing seasons, but once the season is there, he is bored and wants the change again. He shows this by saying "Gush forth, pond;-Foam, roll above the bridge and over the bridge and over the woods..." He now wants the change from spring to flood to come back. At the end of the poem he randomly throws in a sentence about there being a Queen that knows why the seasons change (I think) but will not tell him why. I probably can understand what this poem is about and what Rimbaud's other poems are about because he was my age when he wrote these poems and was also not an adult that uses highly educated words that I needed to pull out a dictionary or thesaurus for. When I can actually understand the poems I am reading, I obviously do not find it as boring and actually enjoy reading it. On the other hand, when we read Vladimir Mayakowsky's poem, "A Cloud in Trousers" today in class, I liked that one a lot too because of how exaggerated it was. It made it interesting on a different scale.

Woke Up & Wrote...

For the first time ever in my LIFE, I was awakend by poetry.
No I actually woke up and wrote a poem.
The most significant part is that the poem actually had meaning and substance to it,
it was like as though I had this poetic angel kill me and there I was at 10:32 this morning a pheonix that rose from the ashes of my sleep and wrote a poem.
It was that intense...(Im pretty sure at this point you are wondering well what was the poem about?) it was about my boyfriend. Moreover, the teddybear (T.J) we built together at "Build-a-Bear" in Syracuse, New york.
 The poem has no  title (which added to the fact that it was so impulsive.) and here it is:
   
    Just woke up with T.J stitched to my heart,
    like i'm breast feeding.
    Like kobe,
    clutch in my arms,
    and its only Pre-season.
    If I squeeze his left hand
    I can feel his heart beating.
    If I squeeze the "right" one
    I can hear my love speaking.
    Under my comforter,
    Im in a crysallis fetal position.
    Right as I open my eyes,
    Butterflies when will I land on the one im missing.

Connecting with my Muse

        Prior to beginning this class when I thought poetry I immediately thought of my literature class in high school- I was worried this class would be similar to that but I'm finding it to be much more open and creative than the poetry I had to read in high school.
  When I first heard "Muse" writing I had no idea what that meant and immediately only thought of the band. I quickly learned that the band has nothing to do with connecting to your muse but maybe that's where their name came from? After learning about connecting with my muse, I've found it both fun and at times frustrating. I've found that I enjoy writing and digging into the muse much more when something seems to come to me rather than forcing it. I find that I have a really hard time sitting down with the intention of 'being creative.' Rather, I like it to come to me. I feel that my work is much better if I get inspired by something rather than having to sit staring blankly at the empty word document. I enjoy describing scenery and experiences in new ways that I hadn't thought of thinking in that way. Such as comparing waves to aging, or the tide to a new day.
     I particularly enjoyed the music assignment as well as the exercise we did in class. I found myself getting lost in a story that I was creating. Though it was completely random at times, it seemed to connect to me. In my mind, it made sense. As my hand cramped and my writing became virtually illegible it was as if there was a movie starting to take shape in my mind and I was hoping the music would change to how the story went in my head. At times it did, and at times it didn't but however it did change it seemed to add a twist or push my thoughts into a different direction.
    I look forward to seeing what I'll come up with the rest of the year as well as hearing everyones muse work.

Some Poems of Mine

One of you had suggested I post a few of my own published pieces up here; and so I will.

Two are on the online version of Stone Canoe, a journal put out by Syracuse University (just scroll down and find my name (Tim McCoy)):
http://www.stonecanoejournal.org/SC5OnlineIndex.htm

Here are a few others, the first two not recent but published; the other three forthcoming and more recent (and you'll be happy to kn:ow that "Barn-Eyes" was started in a CRW 205 class, during a Muse exercise):

La Ville a l’Est

After the drawing by Alfred Kubin

They saw him coming. The clouds had come before
they awoke, heavy and black. They watched at the edge
of the village. Someone spoke. Someone thought
to ring the bell. They saw him bent heavily on his staff
coming closer, shuffling through the sand. They didn’t know
he’d tried to come back before, fleeing God
for a woman’s flesh. They didn’t know God
wanted more of him. For they hadn’t seen God
swell his face or make his lips drip pus. They hadn’t seen him
stumble, blind in the stinging sand, until he’d turned back
to God. They didn’t know of God’s teeth
that opened his flesh, or of God’s body that slithered in
to purify his blood. They didn’t know the ecstasy
of the grape as it surrenders to the crush
that makes it wine. They didn’t even know why
he’d come back, or why the clouds had come. But they felt something
in his coming, something for them, terrible and bright,
coming always closer, shuffling through the sand.

In the Blue Hour

No one felt the seed

erupt as they slid endlessly

through the ice of dreams. 

No extra warmth entered

blankets, no furnaces

disturbed into purr.

All the snakes remained

asleep, though one tongue

stirred behind a cold, silent tooth. 

Even the drunk in the grass slept

as the frost embroidered

his body, though he floats

now, his souse having broken

his deep ice. 

Only a worm felt the warm thorn

pierce its cold, a small

dissonance in a cold nocturne 

that drove into the chill

earth and started its turn

through a leaf-rib, or through

a socket where sight once flared. 

This almost nothing-force will up

imperceptibly, will down

into root, will stalk and leave

when all things from their cold

spring, when seeds

open violently

their limpid wings. 

Crow-Shift

This moment is open

the crow mouth open        frozen  

the breeze stopped at black

feathers     

This moment is arrested

by the asphalt-stench and

the maples having reddened       

and some branches like bones        scoured by ancient winds

red leaves lost

This twilight moment

beak open        bead-eye open        arrested coal-spark

letting us in       

We are in       

We flicker through our crow-eye

The breeze threads our wings        our beak shuts       

our wings stretched as if to alight on carrion

or blacken red maple branches

This moment is shut

The absence is us        gone to find crow

The rich death in the road beckons

To feed crow-wise is black satisfaction

Barn-Eyes

into the barn-eyes        into darkness blinding as sun       

where I cannot see the tools        the dirt        the wild scrub-grass

with ragged leaves, rough, that I’ve rubbed

inversely        sickly        past

their green wild

towards yellow dry as if sun-stained

to death—

into the barn-eyes        like owl’s eyes       

into blind vision        the inside of fire’s brief circumference

where I arrive

at the heart

where the hay-scent of otherness closes        where I serve

the green and yellow

like a horse leaping through the springdream in celebration

of ground

Towards Poiesis

Wildgrass expanse shaking in the breeze        browning in the sun-eye

Inside

whole antdoms in dirt palaces showing us what might be made,     

grasshoppers in their leaps iterating our needed leaps,       

Mnemosyne field mice collecting

and storing

what needs stored

Two cardinals cross over

into the crabapple.  Birdsong

saturates the day away from human        crossing me over

to other

inside the browned stalks and the farther green corn        superlative green

in a June that burns

like eyes in a Corybantine column     like the bluebells ringing through the lawn grass       

wild purple eyes

of Cybele in her season       

the moths in hot flutter        sun-glance maddening their wings. 

Inside     

I become cobra in the Illinois dirt, warm on my flexing belly

(beetles darting        grasshoppers leaping        field mice scurrying)      

foreign snake        not king, not garter, not moccasin,

I slip into the earth’s closed Corybantine eye       

slithering under

Cybele’s wildgrass expanse       

and under corn        into the prairie that storms roll dark

past the shades of what’s been lost        knocked down

past the latent seeds of spring that later will float towards nascence on a breeze,       

slithering down and

inside       

and home        to the cavern        surrounding rockface smooth, damp       

cottonmouths worrying the pooled water in the center

the hewn throne shaped like a cobra where I coil        standing        hood expanded

being who I am regardless

of loss        of shades—

crossed over

to the new spine        to the blind eyes that see by tongue.

Enjoy!

 

FYI

Make sure when you post on here that you're not just posting Muse work pieces as your assignments.  Instead, make sure you're posting something about poetry or the poetry language.  It's alright to share your work, of course, but these pieces won't count towards the required posts.  I believe I said this when I assigned the blog, but certainly from here on out, no Muse work pieces will count towards your grade.