I am God and
God is love.
--
prompt: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” –Hemingway. Write a short poem that is also “truest sentence that you know.”
Monday, April 22, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
#15: The Bop
The young pale-skinned red-headed English teacher
(the thin one other teachers complained about for breastfeeding
under a blanket at the faculty meeting,
the one who inferred my fourteen-year-old secrets from my writing portfolio and kept them quiet)
blows her nose, how she weeps as we
write for the fifty minutes until the bell jars us awake.
Every so often I look up to her silhouette at the black chalkboard,
did she know someone in New York in those clouds of smoke and
panic and terror and frenzy, coughing up their lungs until there were no alveoli left?
It takes years for the young to understand the pain of their elders
Time passed and the bleeding, the amputees, the horror
etched into their faces like rushing rivers that make a canyon
echo, oh, Boston, we flirted for a mere few days before your streets
charmed me, and I loved your chic quaintness even post-heartbreak,
and this stomach weathered enough since New York to sink
and burn and spill its acid from my eyes.
It takes years for the young to understand the pain of their elders
I remember her encouraging handwriting
the wide cursive letters, friendly but elegant,
the angled imperfection of the stem of the "d."
Twelve years have taught me the depths of her love for
strangers.
It takes years for the young to understand the pain of their elders
--
prompt: Rules, Schmules
"Experiment with a poetic form. Break all the rules! Not sure where to start? Check out this list of forms: http://bit.ly/3JIt9K"
(the thin one other teachers complained about for breastfeeding
under a blanket at the faculty meeting,
the one who inferred my fourteen-year-old secrets from my writing portfolio and kept them quiet)
blows her nose, how she weeps as we
write for the fifty minutes until the bell jars us awake.
Every so often I look up to her silhouette at the black chalkboard,
did she know someone in New York in those clouds of smoke and
panic and terror and frenzy, coughing up their lungs until there were no alveoli left?
It takes years for the young to understand the pain of their elders
Time passed and the bleeding, the amputees, the horror
etched into their faces like rushing rivers that make a canyon
echo, oh, Boston, we flirted for a mere few days before your streets
charmed me, and I loved your chic quaintness even post-heartbreak,
and this stomach weathered enough since New York to sink
and burn and spill its acid from my eyes.
It takes years for the young to understand the pain of their elders
I remember her encouraging handwriting
the wide cursive letters, friendly but elegant,
the angled imperfection of the stem of the "d."
Twelve years have taught me the depths of her love for
strangers.
It takes years for the young to understand the pain of their elders
--
prompt: Rules, Schmules
"Experiment with a poetic form. Break all the rules! Not sure where to start? Check out this list of forms: http://bit.ly/3JIt9K"
Thursday, April 11, 2013
This is not a poem
I find myself waking up everyday wondering why I am doing what I am doing with my life. The feeling began to gnaw at me a few months ago. Now it bites me at night and I wake up to find blood all over the sheets.
I used to enjoy cooking. I used to relish the creative process. These days, my ATP is scarce. I'm in Guatemala. I mostly eat out of a deli. I bring the plastic-wrapped food back to my room and gulp down whatever sandwich I've picked. And then I breathe a sigh of relief, because I have avoided social interaction with the friendly Canadians and Koreans who currently share the communal kitchen with me and the hostel owner.
They're sweet, but the itch of what I haven't resolved pulls me upstairs behind a closed door and into a faux-solitude. I half-heartedly and unsystematically respond to emails. I close facebook windows as quickly as I open them. And I procrastinate on filling in the outlines that stare at me from black and white word documents, because I am afraid of what I won't write: a masterpiece.
People told me over the years that most MD/PhD students go through mid-PhD blues. They say it has a lot to do with seeing your med school classmates graduate and leave you behind to your life of fairly unrewarding tedium--you're typically still at the stage where things are not working.
That's not what it is for me. The wiser ones have told me about another struggle: accepting that many of us will just be "good enough." We will not revolutionize our fields, but we will be good-enough researchers. We will not be mind-blowing clinicians, but we will be good-enough doctors. The recognition has been sinking into my bones slowly, but I'm still trying to fight it.
There are dying embers of hope that I try to stoke in the hearth of my heart: embrace imperfection, this uncomfortable feeling of straddling two horses, and maybe you will again be able to craft words as easily as you did when you were ten, and the poetry flowed through your veins.
The child, imagination wild, possibilities endless, barely lifts her quill from the parchment. The twenty-six-year-old is lost in an open space, full of potentials, but confined in her mind, too worried about the future to think freely and scribble and doodle and make a literary mess.
How I miss that freedom.
I used to enjoy cooking. I used to relish the creative process. These days, my ATP is scarce. I'm in Guatemala. I mostly eat out of a deli. I bring the plastic-wrapped food back to my room and gulp down whatever sandwich I've picked. And then I breathe a sigh of relief, because I have avoided social interaction with the friendly Canadians and Koreans who currently share the communal kitchen with me and the hostel owner.
They're sweet, but the itch of what I haven't resolved pulls me upstairs behind a closed door and into a faux-solitude. I half-heartedly and unsystematically respond to emails. I close facebook windows as quickly as I open them. And I procrastinate on filling in the outlines that stare at me from black and white word documents, because I am afraid of what I won't write: a masterpiece.
People told me over the years that most MD/PhD students go through mid-PhD blues. They say it has a lot to do with seeing your med school classmates graduate and leave you behind to your life of fairly unrewarding tedium--you're typically still at the stage where things are not working.
That's not what it is for me. The wiser ones have told me about another struggle: accepting that many of us will just be "good enough." We will not revolutionize our fields, but we will be good-enough researchers. We will not be mind-blowing clinicians, but we will be good-enough doctors. The recognition has been sinking into my bones slowly, but I'm still trying to fight it.
There are dying embers of hope that I try to stoke in the hearth of my heart: embrace imperfection, this uncomfortable feeling of straddling two horses, and maybe you will again be able to craft words as easily as you did when you were ten, and the poetry flowed through your veins.
The child, imagination wild, possibilities endless, barely lifts her quill from the parchment. The twenty-six-year-old is lost in an open space, full of potentials, but confined in her mind, too worried about the future to think freely and scribble and doodle and make a literary mess.
How I miss that freedom.
#10: I Remember
I remember the bright brown old oak table we used to have
I remember the night that it rained so hard that water leaked through the roof and we put buckets all over the house
but not soon enough to save the table
I remember how it bulged up at its seams when the water seeped in
and the water never seeped out
I remember how I used to love myself with abandon then
I remember the first day the Neutrogena commercials began to brainwash me
I remember wishing my hair were as straight and predictable as Jennifer Love Hewitt's
I remember the daily battles with mediocrity that started when my age creeped closer to 30 than to 20
I remember the seasons changing in the leaves of the maple tree in the front yard
which we eventually cut down with hollow hearts because its roots prevented the grass from growing
I remember how the grass never grew back
--
prompt: Don't Forget
Listen to an excerpt of Joe Brainerd’s “Remember” here: http://buff.ly/14GJb1c Write your own version.
I remember the night that it rained so hard that water leaked through the roof and we put buckets all over the house
but not soon enough to save the table
I remember how it bulged up at its seams when the water seeped in
and the water never seeped out
I remember how I used to love myself with abandon then
I remember the first day the Neutrogena commercials began to brainwash me
I remember wishing my hair were as straight and predictable as Jennifer Love Hewitt's
I remember the daily battles with mediocrity that started when my age creeped closer to 30 than to 20
I remember the seasons changing in the leaves of the maple tree in the front yard
which we eventually cut down with hollow hearts because its roots prevented the grass from growing
I remember how the grass never grew back
--
prompt: Don't Forget
Listen to an excerpt of Joe Brainerd’s “Remember” here: http://buff.ly/14GJb1c Write your own version.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
#7: I Regret to Inform You
I regret to inform you
that these words that are bursting forth from my left
ventricle don't circulate in my blood in the pattern you were taught
in school but move through my sternum as a sound wave suppressed
that is channeled into my fingers.
I regret to inform you
that these thoughts are so dark
that those who love me are too scared to finish reading
and I am too scared to read these stanzas to the ones
whose blood my smile helps pump
(better that I howl absurd as Allen Ginsberg
than close my eyes to make the world drop dead
as Emily Dickinson)
I regret to inform you
that sometimes these poems are reminders of
the essence of life as death
and the enjambment can only make me hope that
after death
comes nothing.
--
prompt: 7. I Regret to Inform You
"Write an ode to one regret that you have."
that these words that are bursting forth from my left
ventricle don't circulate in my blood in the pattern you were taught
in school but move through my sternum as a sound wave suppressed
that is channeled into my fingers.
I regret to inform you
that these thoughts are so dark
that those who love me are too scared to finish reading
and I am too scared to read these stanzas to the ones
whose blood my smile helps pump
(better that I howl absurd as Allen Ginsberg
than close my eyes to make the world drop dead
as Emily Dickinson)
I regret to inform you
that sometimes these poems are reminders of
the essence of life as death
and the enjambment can only make me hope that
after death
comes nothing.
--
prompt: 7. I Regret to Inform You
"Write an ode to one regret that you have."
Friday, April 5, 2013
#5: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner Soup
Pink spice, orange sugar, yellow zing, white sulfur
water
pressure
lentils
and the love of a friendship that continues to grow
in new directions after many years
but at the base has always been
cumin.
--
prompt: Look What I Made
"Make something. Anything! Write a poem about your spontaneous making experience."
water
pressure
lentils
and the love of a friendship that continues to grow
in new directions after many years
but at the base has always been
cumin.
--
prompt: Look What I Made
"Make something. Anything! Write a poem about your spontaneous making experience."
Thursday, April 4, 2013
#4: No hay señal
This webpage is
NOT AVAILABLE!!!!!!11
google
chrome could not load
the webpage because
w
w
w
DOT
amazon
DOT
com
took-too-long-to-respond;
the website may be
down
or you may be
experiencing issues with your Internet connection.
Here are some suggestions:
--
prompt: Found Poetry
"Look to Craigslist, newspapers, Twitter, anywhere for unintentional poetry. Using the original text, punctuate and use line breaks to turn it into a poem."
NOT AVAILABLE!!!!!!11
chrome could not load
the webpage because
w
w
w
DOT
amazon
DOT
com
took-too-long-to-respond;
the website may be
down
or you may be
experiencing issues with your Internet connection.
Here are some suggestions:
--
prompt: Found Poetry
"Look to Craigslist, newspapers, Twitter, anywhere for unintentional poetry. Using the original text, punctuate and use line breaks to turn it into a poem."
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