Category Archives: poetry

Here is where you’ll categorize poetry posts during your field study. A minimum goal is one poem per week, 4 total, posted by Monday PM midnight. One of your four poems must be posted in a “Poetry Observed” video format (www.poetryobserved.com/). The goal is to perform your poetry in situ—within the context of your passionate immersion.

E – Week 6 Poem

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I was four. Which is funny, because

One in four. This number seems low

To me because of who I know. So many

Survivors. People with broken hearts and

Violated bodies.

 

Stuck inside life with the worst moment

On repeat. Hear a loud noise? Away, away

Away I go. Down into the rabbit hole.

Only the rabbit isn’t late. He’s angry.

 

Drugging others is for cowards. The friend zone

Is a place where people live when they cannot accept

That sometimes women want men around for things

Other than sex.

 

And this is why I write. This is why I spent six hours

On four pages when on a good day, it takes an hour to write

Five pages. I am telling the story of a woman who survives everything.

 

Maybe if I tell her story I will believe it of myself.

My Patient Friend

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Siproena Johnson

As Poetry Recycles Neurons

5/6/13

Word Count 236

 

My Patient Friend

Waldo looks up lovingly as he lies on my stomach.

Day break is coming and he motions for me to wake.

This dog can be quite patient with his long gentle stare.

I turn to sleep a bit longer but his persistent nudging is beginning its wear.

Slowly rising from his “pillow” and stretching on bed’s side,

He bends his neck back snakelike and his tail whips my behind!

 

“Okay Waldo.” I tell him. “I’ll take a walk with you, but first of all I’d like it if you’d move off my house shoes.

His heavy sigh pressures me to move but I carry on telling him we will be out soon.

Finally I finish getting dressed for a long walk while at the same time he wiggles on the bed watching me happily like a hawk.

I open the door and bolts past me to the stairs.

His paws sound like thunder as he tramples down alongside the cat making quite a pair.

I watch my footing as I follow them down,

Waldo turns his head occasionally to see I’m still around.

From the cabinet in the kitchen, I grab this boy’s leash.

He promptly knows his cue and is seated ready to receive the leashed collar.

I find it nice that I don’t need to holler.

I grab my hat, ready as well,

We walk out together for a time sure to be swell.

I-another Blake rev

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Experience

Randomly stabbed in the back of the thigh

I wonder why she does not call to me instead

All these ghosts in sailboats

are the reason I have cried.

 

To me, she says “I’m almost there”

but she was always standing there

“Seize him? no reason”

and so my spirit died.

 

But I often tend to be overdramatic–

there are no monsters in the attic

I’m just a little hesitant

is all.

I- Blake response rev

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Innocence

If it pleaseth thee, I shall aid

as not much progress hath thee made

awakening thine “antiself,”

but gesturing toward an empty sky

 

Through the corner of thine eye,

watch the angels whisking by

and listen to the whispers

floating out from underneath their wings

 

Watch them dancing, watch them sing

and unto thee, they’ll comfort bring

then in my footsteps follow

if this is what you wish.

__________

I find it hard to mystify

just from reading books–

I guess I have to realize

The sky is not as empty as it looks.

 

 

Fragments of Perception

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Siproena Johnson

As Poetry Recycles Neurons

5/7/13

Word Count 213

 

Fragments of Perception

Skein; a grouping layering of collected frays,

Finely textured throughout the length of the plane,

Threads found exposed show abrasion has given way,

The now separated binding rely on patches for repair,

The patches themselves rely on the threads for their design,

Vibrant colors begin to fade with the increase of time,

In order to refurbish the patches, the fabric of thought through the plane of the mind,

Minds need one another to grow and create a stronger bind,

Stubbornness to the necessity of social interaction, can lead to abrasions from community in a harsh fashion.

Additional threads can be created if given the time to be woven,

Patience is needed to sift through the materials like silk, wool, or cotton.

Searching for these resources can take varying amounts of time,

Whatever the duration the threads created are worth and with you for more than a dime.

Minds found together can create a great frame,

For better or worse intentions, their desire for greater power remains the same.

Perceptions from mixed origins are placed strategically and put to the test,

The playing field of perceptions can now be manipulated until the time is best.

Revealing, slow and steadily a powerfully functional idea designed from many fractals,

The end creations can become great spectacles.

Week 6 Calculated Poem

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“Imagine a series of Chinese boxes in which each box contains a series of chinese boxes.”
(Fractal Geometry, 22)
“You are everywhere partial and entire.”
(Hymn, A.R. Ammons)

I hold the universe in my curves
A plethora of galaxies hidden in my pupils
Planets far and near tucked with the hair behind my ear
“Everything small is just a small version of something big.”
A wise adventurer once said
so I’ll wear asteroids strung like bracelets,
and adorne stars for earrings
and bathe in ideal redundancies in the echo chamber
so I can hear the angel’s voices
all from the peal of a bell.
I am Everywhere, partially and entirely
committing to no commitments
Queen empress of the universe and peasant to myself.
A Series of me in which each me contains a series of me. 

V – Wedging (poetry in response to pottery)

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(Part One to be used in paper)

This piece was inspired by “Exercises in Style: Sonnet” and my relation to wedging clay.

Here she enters,

moving with precision in her deathly stained apron

and me, wrapped in plastic

all wet and ready to melt in her hands.

some how we’ll start this damned conversation

Then comes the wire – or maybe raw hands – both dry in a shocking way.

With no warning, or even prep-talk, just slipping, and pulling apart my whole.

She pats me in a manner thats supposed to make me melt – melt into a circular style,

to become whole again. Her hands cursing against my skin, and this, I can appreciate.

She pounds me down, again and again. Taking the air right out of me, finding success and a smile when I no longer have pockets within me.

and I know, that when my pockets have been turned inside out, I will become rich in a new way

maybe to hold golden tea

or fermented grapes

or those sweet beans from down south.

She does have my best interest in mind.

                                                               Doesn’t she?

 

Haikus of Evening

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Darkness drifts down now
Silence flows into my soul
I find peace in breath

Whole, I meditate
A star blinks through the trees
My thoughts are now still

Water leaps through rocks
Trees dig deep to find the source
River, tree, bird merge

Head bowed, walk humbly
Become an empty vessel
Gifts flow from freedom

 

Sun in the Storm

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The rain it pours
and the lightning lashes.
Each season comes
and each season passes.

The cycle of life,
the cycle of death,
neither will stop,
neither will rest.

The tree, it stands tall.
The branches, they sway.
The tree teaches
we can all be this way.

I stand in shelter,
still in the rain.
Truly inescapable
is nature’s pain.

And, just the same,
is nature’s light.
Try as we do,
we will never lose sight.

P – Week 5 Poem – “Fruit Stripe Barn”

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Fruit Stripe Barn

 

O fruit stripe barn,

in the wilds of western Illinois,

down an old highway

traveled only by those seeking to avoid others,

you rise from the oppressive flatness,

a beacon of whimsy

in the monochrome landscape.

What farmer planted you there and

what attack of fancy led to the pastel

stripes of your suit; every color of sherbet represented,

faded and peeling but still

colorful after all these years?

You are long disused, a crumbling monument to

different times, and I

can’t help but feel that you

remained standing just so that I

could see you this morning

and smile at your audacity.