13 Ways

This assignment was inspired by Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" which is a collection of 13 small poems taking different views of a blackbird. Here is a link to it: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stevens-13ways.html

Our assignment was to create 13 original poems about any object we wanted. I chose the hand.

Thirteen Ways of the Hand

I

If idle hands are the devil’s tools,

Does the atheist need to fear?

II

What creates the art we see?

Is it the hands or the mind,

And does it matter?

III

One beautiful wedding,

Two lovers in love,

Four hands tied to a knot,

Eight offspring created,

Ten funerals to come.

IV

With only ten fingers,

Your hands can be

The greatest lover.

V

My hands have a job to do.

To create the shadows you see,

To confuse your mind with tricks,

And to introduce myself politely.

VI

What are your hands,
Are they not simply but arm-feet?

VII

The hand has many faces.

On a killer, a deadly weapon.

On a care-giver, a life sustainer.

VIII

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Five fingers against a palm.

IX

Through its unconscious movement,

The hand can be involved in the cruelest of crimes

X

If a man had three hands,

Would his tasks become easier?

Or would the third hand feel odd,

Out of place, ostracized,

Something that others stumble over

XI

Wet lips, piercing eyes,

Grasping hands

Object of desire

XII

Colored vines stretch outward

And upward toward the sky

Earthen hands collecting life

XIII

Snap clap snap

Drum with rhythm

The human instrument

Anyone with hands can perform

This new poem was for an assignment that required I find a painting to be inspired by. The painting is Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso. It's a very disturbing image of a brothel.

Woman

One of the others looks to me and sighs, “It’s going to be a cold one tonight.”
I nod, apathetic about the weather, knowing that it doesn’t matter
In less than an hour I’ll find myself in a hotel room, lying on a bed
My back enjoying the soft cushion while my front gets fucked hard
This soft or hard, sober or high, clean or diseased is my life
That is why I don’t give a shit about the temperature tonight
That is why I don’t say goodbye as the other girl leaves me standing alone
My emotional state is as much of an empty shell as my body has become
I’m a fuck machine; I’m a track-scarred disease ridden whore
My in matches my out, my dead heart goes lovely with my saggy breasts

Everything that I can offer is displayed to you on a menu
One man wants me to suck his toes, twenty dollars
His best friend wants to watch me pleasure myself, twenty-five dollars
His brother wants me to asphyxiate him while he does me, one hundred dollars

My broken beauty is for you and your men to buy
I am no tragic love story; I am no one that has fallen from grace
I dropped out of high school to marry the love of my life
This seemed the perfect choice until he left me jobless and uneducated
Now I trick, lick, and suck my way to having a warm meal and a few shots of bliss

It’s all easy to ignore, I’m easy to push back in the alley
When one of us is killed, does our death matter, do we make a sound,
Does our murder do anything for society but make it better
I don’t lie to myself, I’m not insane, I know what I do makes all of you sick
This is why it doesn’t matter that it’s going to be a cold one tonight
No one will offer me a blanket while I walk the street
No one will offer me a cup of coffee because I have my drink
No one will offer me a warm room unless it’s to use me as a toy

That is why I don’t care about the weather
Caring isn’t part of what I am

Fate

This was one of those unique assignments. I had to write a poem inspired by a piece of music and then recite the poem to the music for the class. I chose a modern electric violin piece entitled "Black Angels" and I used the first movement, "The Night of the Electric Insects". For those that have not heard it, it's basically loud screeching violins. It's quite annoying.

Fate

I need to give a warning to my own mind
as I sit here with a pen in restless hand
tapping, nodding, thinking, frantically worrying
what is coming up tastes like vomit but smells of smoke
it's coming out on this notepad I stole
I remember stealing it
it was from the store where you had worked
I remember it being fucking cold
that kind of icy chill that makes your balls crawl up inside of you
that day was the second time I had seen you
the first; a week before I saw you order a latte from Starbucks
I was sitting by myself reading one of those pretentious papers
Our fucked up economy, some bitchy letter to the editor
but then there was that latte
I had never tried one before
after you left, blowing over the lid, I walked to the counter
I ordered my first of many lattes that day
I'm not sure if I like the flavor or just the image
now I'm back in the store when I stole this notepad
looking back I think it was fate
I didn't want to write anything
I wasn't looking for you
but there you were
standing in your work uniform
a blank expression
I knew I should have said something to you
I fumbled
I tucked my head in my shell
stole that notepad
ran the fuck out
I know that I'm being wordy and probably boring
but hear me out
all of this does have a point that in my own backward way I am reaching
that thing, that alien, that weird feeling I know you have all gotten
no, it's not déjà vu, it's something else, it's something deeper
fate maybe or in some religions it might be called predetermined destination
that is what I've been feeling for the past two fucking weeks
ever since that damn newspaper and that nasty espresso wreck
it will not go away, it doesn't matter how much I write
it will not go away, I've tried to forget but no fucking luck
I wouldn't even be writing if whatever this is left well enough alone
but of course not
I had to see you a third time
stopped at the same intersection
I had a tugging feeling inside of me
I looked to the right and there you were
sitting in your pretentious help-me-save-the-god-damn-environment Toyota Prius
this time was different
this time I was able to smile
as that alien would have it, you looked back
You flipped me off
You fucking flipped me off
all this build up
this emotional ride that I've given myself
fueled by my own desire of mystery
I don't want to call it love
I'm still not at a point where I believe in love
but there is something I thought I did believe in
that alien feeling
that destination you predetermined
with my notepad and your latte
this magical wet orgasm I dreamed up
You told it all to fuck off

Damn Fool

For this assignment the prof pulled a random line from my previous poem(Morgan's Bitch) and had me write a new poem using that line. The line he chose was "You tear my life with word". I decided that I'd go with a sort of ironic facetious emo theme. I actually used my roommate as partial inspiration for the toasted bagel part. We have an ongoing debate over whether bagels should be toasted before consumption. This is a tribute to that debate! I actually liked the finished product, I hope you enjoy it as well!

Damn Fool

The thin toaster cord pulls from the outlet
Leaving me, standing naked, in the bath
A fool with a black cord around his neck
A damn fool with toast crumbs pooling around his feet
One subconscious glance to the mirror and a smirk
I say out loud, “You tear my life with word”
Torn like the pages from the water-damaged suicide manual
Wet from the car plunge I took into the frozen river

I’m not sure if I ever tried to like myself
There is some love lost between me and my esteem
One more failed attempt, another fuck-up to frame
One, two, three, four, seven, eight, ten, damn
I cannot count under this heavy pressure
How many pills did I just swallow?
How many fucking…who am I asking?
The mirror isn’t responding you psycho

This would be a lot easier if I wasn’t afraid of guns
The cold metal, the noise, that social stigma
You know the one where guys use guns
I’m a guy alright but I’m an emotional pussy
That’s why I sit here, naked and freezing
My hands trembling as I try to count pills
The pills that my therapist gave me to help
I know, the irony, isn’t it delicious?

My roommate will be off of work soon
She usually makes a toasted bagel for a snack
If I don’t finish this soon she’ll notice the toaster
If she notices that then I’m sure the bitch will notice me
Naked and scared out of my fucking mind on the bathroom floor
That cord snaking from my neck to the bathtub and the pile of white pills
I’m laughing again; I can see it in the same mirror
It’s either the irony or that I can’t even make myself disappear

Spenserian Sonnet

This is my most recent assignment, it was written last night. The poem's assignment was to write an iambic pentameter sonnet. For my sonnet form I chose the Spenserian which for those unaware is an abab bcbc cdcd ee rhyme scheme. For those iambic whores out there I do apologize for any shaky or completely missed iambic feet. It's difficult to make it work 100% of the time. The subject is about being someone's bitch. Morgan is one of my great friends from poetry who is a 50 year old grandmother. She often calls me her bitch and wanted to be immortalized in writing. This is now her immortality. I hope you enjoy as much as she did.

Morgan’s Bitch

The chores you gave without mercy, oh please
I do and give and show without back-talk
I scrub up, down walls, the floor while on my knees
I am now stuck in hell behind this lock
The morning rise to show your forceful look
I did sleep too long, beatings are mine deserved
With leather straps, my skin begins to buck
You spit, you scorn, you tear my life with word
What more is there for me to please, my lord
I’ve done and given piece by piece my years
My seconds, hours, minutes for you to hoard
Empty, none left for you but silent fears
It’s clear; I could escape in a quick pinch
My suicide will make me your dead bitch

Oh Poe!

This next poem was a disaster for me. The assignment was to create a parody of Poe's "The Raven" while trying to keep with general tone of the poem. I sat for hours without inspiration until I decided I would focus my dislike of this assignment and use that for inspiration. What followed was a direct attack on the professor and his less than great assignments of late. The reference to last spring is in regard to my previous taking of this class with the same professor. Enjoy!

Once upon a dull grey afternoon, while I sat, bored and tired,
Over many an interesting and weird collection of poetry assignments –
While I nodded, nearly dying, suddenly there came a screeching,
As of some one being raped, raped by a dark alley door.
“Oh fuck, here it comes,” I muttered, “a stupid new assignment –
Always this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I recall it was in the past spring;
And each assignment was a sort of surprise upon my mind.
Eagerly I wished for the next; -- excited for what was to come
From the mouth of the professor – his endless wisdom of poem –
For he is the one in charge of this all, he is –
Nameless here for evermore.

And the words, confusing, that he continued to speak
Nauseated me – filled me with gut-wrenching horror never felt before;
So that now, to continue my pain, he kept repeating
“Your assignment is to write a parody of ‘The Raven’ –
Write a parody of ‘The Raven’; --
That is it and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew darker; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I wanted something more, and so violent you came screeching,
And so horribly you came screaming, rambling to the class,
That I scarce was sure I heard you” – here I pretended I misheard; -- --
But that was it and nothing more.

Sexy sex

This poem's assignment was to write a syllabic poem. The poem's syllable structure is 6989 and is constant throughout each stanza. As a side note, the first stanza was actually added after the professor requested more said about the people. The original poem's intention was to have the feeling of sex without actual people. You may read it how you enjoy it the most.

Sin

Two men with one craving
To express lust in physical form
With a sly smirk and playful wink
Anticipation longing desire

By candlelight aura
Discount champagne with cliché music
Romantic sinful act of lust
Lick the lips and begin the main show

Take it slow, clench all teeth
Relax feel endure suffer enjoy
Patient silence, drip of the drop
Cool relief, panacea potion

Pump thrust grunt scream moan breathe
Flip bodies; roll through the clean linen
Leg up, legs locked; arm up, arms locked
Unnatural act of wasted seed

Build tempo, quicken thrust
Close eyes, open mouth; fingers clenched white
Simultaneous tremble scream
Collapse in tangle of sweat and flesh