If you live long
enough you might
ask this question:
where does love go?
(I followed its tracks in the snow!)

If you lie long
enough you might
find this answer
around the bend:
(It was living with an old friend!)

Have I tried long
enough to earn
a nice ending?
Rigor Mortis.
(Finally, Unbending!)

There are supposed more of these, but they sound too much like a song, probably because they are a song. Anyway, songs do not really belong here, I think.

New Idea: Useful Graffiti

Was in the restroom, saw a sign: "Please help us keep the restroom clean, flush your toilet paper." I wish signs like this were everywhere, but even this sign didn't go as far as it should have. "Flush the urinal, you wanker," it should have continued, "And wash your hands, too!" it could have ended. But it didn't. Anyway, I felt like scrawling these two phrases on the wall. Really, I think it would have done more good than harm. 

Quotery

Is poetry that includes quotes not from people in Bartlett's but people close to you and when it is written about you it hurts. Quotery, Quotery, Quotery. 

Four unrelated things and one thing that is related to the other four things.

My girl lives in Elgin town,
My girl, she gets arounds
(obstacles,)
My girl lives in Elgin town.
O Elgin O Elgin,
You last line of defense!
O Elgin O Elgin!
I haven't seen her since!
O Elgin O God!
It was all pretense!
O God O Elgin!
Where has she went?

I'm not the kind of person, that can grow a beard!
Do not worry about it, honey, have no fear!
I will change my me what I see in mirrors
next to my face the one I want is here!

I'm so transitory vanity dearest earth
Remind me of all the mirth left on earth
Blame it on the family curse, on earth
That Tabitha put on me in you then see
That makes me want you ingenuinely
Until the day that I'll drop into Cerberus
(This olive garden has the worst service!)
wondering whether you do prefer us
For our minds or for our homely faces
Chock it up to all our comely graces.
(Oh how I hate all the lonely places!)

See how my voice goes in and out
of my body my soul ran out
of time to spend on earth alone
of minutes for my cell-payphone
of patience waiting for a tone.

See how my time runs thin and thick
-ens when I enjoy the crammed thick
smell of perfume you wear
too much of it anyway in your hair
that the people with their fine noses stare.

 Anyway, all the girls couldn't make me love you the way no I mean they couldn't make me love them the way I love you, I love you. My philosophy paper is not any more done than it was just a second to go, I am going to go to sleep and rest and wake up at six and finish my paper--hahaha. That's a laugh and this can be a laugh, too. Incidentally, I've just realized that my poetry is not for reading aloud but for reading alone.

Poem

O drunk people!
     Where would we be without you?
Our photo albums,
      No longer filled with bad decisions.
And all our teenagers, living without shame.
      Small town people,
At home playing board games! 

Today

Listening to Float On by Modest Mouse. Really Happy. Everything Capitalized Inexplicably. Oh, and now Skinny Love by Bon Iver. Thank you, Pandora. Couldn't you say that music might have been in that very box? It might be hard to think of a world without music, but not any harder than thinking of a world without disease, pain, death. Eventually, humanist as can be, maybe those will be story-book words, once-upon-a-time phrases. Living in the domain of fantasy. "Come on skinny love," this song is so nice.

Anyway, I wrote an article for my university newspaper, more of a letter to the editor to the editor. I'm going to be late to my Intro to Philosophy class I wish I didn't have to take but I have to because it is required. I love philosophy though, I'm just upset because I already three philosophy courses under my belt; no one told me that 1301 was required.

The song is over, gotta go...

Something from a long stream-of-conscious-esque thing that I wrote in a notebook...

Sex and sex and sex and sex and,
It was oh so just too much, too easy,
I closed my eyes and made you do hand-stands,
I saw your eyes open but not see me.

Slow down so now, slow now, slow down slown ow,
so sad, retreat to your evening gown,
so not even God can remember now,
burn all the sound, the time, the tapes, the town!

And so, know so, done so, bland so, and so,
Keep me close to keep me closest to you,
And please then teach me to treat you just so,
'til hell heaven, blue earth, burnt earth, all through.

Close me like a couplet if you please it,
And hold me up so all eye can see it.

Above is a metrically-perfect Shakespearean sonnet. I wrote this and then forgot about it. Isn't that wyrd?
Anyway, the efef and gg parts are additions. Probably shouldn't have told you that; now you'll probably remember them as being more awkward and out of rhythm, even if you didn't think that initially.

I am kind of freaked out. I wrote in iambic pentameter, on accident, while presumably half-conscious...

O Catherine!

I love you, Catherine;

You’re just a girl.

I’d love you, Catherine,

But there’s the world.

To worry me,

Carry me,

Up on shoulders of giants,

I’ll never be!

And my passions,

They’ll just wait.

Oh my passions,

Read my face.

Written for a character in The Fountainhead. Catherine, of course. Or Peter Keating? I read this book when I was much younger. Please be kind.

Poetry

You are poetry that lasts.

Not a horse, running,

Poetry in motion.

Or Shakespeare,

Poetry in (Stratford upon) Avon.

Poetry I can feel,

Still, in a dance.

You are the place

Where all the time went,

And all the lines came hence!

Under eyes and through

Names made and

Empires lost.

Love’s the game,

Ne’ermind the cost! 

My Obsession with Ether, et. her.

The fullness of space!

Like emptied time,

Full of moon’s interruption:

“I already said it once!”

                                            

But far too many,

I just need one!

Too distinct,

I’d like an amalgam!


October 12: I now have a bad habit of picking two lone stanzas I've written and deciding that they go together. I put a line between them.

Life isn't Fair

Today, as I walked to the bus stop while reading a blog other than my own, I had an interesting thought.
That's all.

It seems I never actually elaborated on the thought. At the time, I probably thought it wasn't very interesting.

And then, from the sky:

  "life's not fair, some die

early and others young; 

you yourself are a lucky one.

From billions of children 

from times long past,

where life never long lasts,

without running water, 

modern medicine, 

pasteurization."

S4

And you fit so nicely,
With twin iambs for feet
To step on sand softly
and to keep so neat.


No wood to step or splint,
or stick between small toes.
Lone bits of the earth in
the pockets of our clothes.


This poem was originally posted on the 3rd of April. The first stanza is kept in its original form, the second is brand new and replaced the old second stanza which I have destroyed, the final stanza was modified and combined with the closing rhymed couplet. I prefer the new version.


And so the third stanza was destroyed.

Mountain Clouds

my body is an array of sights and sound,
my love stands too close and is too loud,
my hopes are high, mountain clouds
obscure what is and is not allowed.

Mokepic

I don't know how anyone ever had the willpower to write an epic (poem).
I barely have the mental fortitude to write a mock epic, much less an epic.
Here are the first II parts of ?

Part I: Invocation


And let me spin a yarn for you,
(and maybe knit a sweater, too).
Where to begin? A muse, I asked,
Olympus? some laborous task?

Nay, better in medias res,
Or maybe out in the Midwes?
In Chicago and Chicagoo,
In Seattle and the road too.

Part II: Alpha


Nineteen hunder and three's ninety,
from those passionate loins burst me!
Come October, snow a-falling,
so comes yon stork, a-calling.

National Cow Day

Is coming, get your cow costume ready.

Nationals

Currently at TSA nationals in Dallas, of all possible places, Texas. The one year I make it, competition is in the state that I live in instead of somewhere I would actually enjoy going. I am complaining, stop complaining. This trip has been very enjoyable, but the awards ceremony I am viewing is anything but. If this is not hell then it is close. The multitude of trophies lined up on stage never seems to become any less of a multitude, whenever a trophy is removed, some unseen hand must be placing another to take its place. Besides that though, wearing a tie is fun even though it feels slightly like someone is trying to choke me without bringing my attention to the fact that I am choked, like the proverbial slowly boiling frog, I will presumably lose consciousness, but no one is pulling my tie tighter, so I am fine.

Late June

It has been approximately seven years since I last wrote anything at all, especially in the area of poetry or anything even resembling a poem of any kind. Anyway, I am extremely sorry and will try to redouble my efforts. Granted, my last post from early June was very similar to this in that I said that I would increase my post output. Let's see what happens.

Because I Can Do Two Things At Once Instead of Just Thing at Once.

I am coming back here, blogger.
Wordpress feels, foreign, otherworldy, alien, extra-terrestrial.
Also, I am done with high school. Done forever.
To celebrate this joyous occasion I bought myself a new journal into which everything that is of any importance will go. And so it will remain empty for all time.
No, not really. But juvenalia is juvenalia and I am sure I will burn it up some day.

Moving

Moving to wordpress, not sure what my new address will be, will probably change the name of the blog as well.

Not Nearly

I am not
nearly as tall
as I'd like to be
he said with a sigh of relief

oh the many
things that one
can be though I'd
rather still live at your feet

There is hope

There is hope in running water,
rivers, streams, brooks.
I will hold you all that I can,
alcoves, stairs, nooks.

I am walking without my shoes,
stickers, nails, burrs.
My small kitten made a small sound,
meows, mewls, and purrs.

There is fear in growing grape vines,
ivy, wine, sun.
 Nice day for a nice beach, cool day,
sunblock, sand, fun.

I can lift you above my head,
elbows, arms, knees.
I can meet you tonight at nine,
dinner, stay, please.

There is love in feather pillows,
sleep, safe, time.
I will sleep on feather pillows,
you, our, mine.

People in the area that I inhabit

People in the area that I inhabit are sometimes very rude. I expect this from certain people. In fact, I welcome it; thank you douche-bag in the Ed Hardy shirt; up is still up and douche is still douche. Hey, Bluetooth Headset Guy*, thank you for being extremely loud and keeping your private life public.
 Worse than that though, is the unexpected. Politely correcting a cyclist should never result in profanity.

So, here's to you, large college student on a bicycle presumably riding off to play Dungeons and Dragons* in the Student Services building (aka: the building where advisement is held and overweight male college students congregate and play Fantasy Board Games). I regret not following him, I am almost certain that I would have seen him enter said building, secure his bike, take the elevator (he was not a stair-man) to the second floor, and join (or not join) his like-minded amigos in their quest (for something? sunlight? female companionship? I don't know).

This narrative seems very ambiguous, so here, in script form, is what happened today at around 3:50.

Setting
A university, early afternoon, sunny weather, mid 80's. Specifically, a covered sidewalk.

Cast
Michael as himself
Female Companion as herself
College Cyclist as The Spirit of the Douche 
  

oh dim lit room with soft light and explosions,
give me something akin to courage.
because the man asleep
has a cell phone that will not cease

oh dim lit room with house lights and garbage
strewn all over my footprints,
help me exit courteously and without a furtive glance
written on my face.

Regionals

Just came back from my Literary Criticism UIL competition in San Antonio.

First Place!
Going to Austin!
Better weekend than all the people on Facebook claiming to have had the 'best weekend ever'!
Pictures will be up briefly!

I mean, shortly; pictures will be up shortly.

Strange how that works; brief and short are clear symonyms, but add -ly and they're hardly related.

Ballet on tired feet

Down the hallway creeps
princess on tired feet
Carpet beneath her,
Heaven save us.

Behind the door, I sleep
above the city streets,
Running over with..

Good News

I am going to the UIL Regional competition in San Antonio from early Friday to late, late Saturday, hooray.

Now, I understand that many components of my sentences might sometimes be incomprehensible, and the above sentence is no exception.

1. What is UIL?
The University Interscholastic League (UIL) is an organization that creates rules for and administers almost all athletic, music, and academic contests for public primary and secondary schools in the American state of Texas. (Wikipedia)

2. Why am I going?
Because I am super well at Literary Criticism.

3. What is Literary Criticism?
Literary Criticism is one of several academic events sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League. The contest began with the 1986-87 school year.
Literary Criticism is designed to test students' knowledge of literary history and of critical terms, and ability in literary criticism. The text A Handbook to Literature by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman (currently, either the 8th, 9th, or 10th edition may be used), state adopted texts, and the announced reading list for the current year will be used as sources for the tests.

4. Why is this post so boring?
Because I want everyone to know that I am going to Regionals.

Content

Trying to write more comment-friendly posts because comments somehow matter.

 If you blog, how do you feel about comments? Actually, even if you don't blog, how do you feel about comments? How do you feel in general?

I realize that poetry is a strange topic for discussion, so how you are feeling should definitely be more plausible. Anyway here is a picture of some New Mexican art from my grandmother's house because pictures are worth a thousand words and therefore even more comment conducive.

Also, maybe if I wrote non-confessional poetry comments would be easier, oh well.

A Butterfly (I think)

(dancing ulcers, relatives alcohol) wedding

I make my hips oceans,
and teach my heart. 4/4
time is the key to the
dance you seem to like.
Dancing with any one
can be quite nice.

Disappointment I know,
but excitement is new
hopes rise,   high tide,
then sleep in my stomach.
A pearl on the lining.
Honey, thank you.


And I can tell they like me
By the distance they keep.
Dance all night, why don't we?
Feel tongue tied feet slowing.
Feel.
Now glad to sleep.


These are actually very disjointed, I could pretend it was my intent, but it really wasn't.

April 11: Now I really like this collection, go figure.

from Monday

Not feeling so
utility today
much better
used to
sleeping in
on Mondays;
your failure,
my failure.
Same thing,
anyway.
Por que
ultilidad
no es mi
especialidad.
En el
verano,
mas
felicitado.
Pero no es
el verano.

Blog Stats

I've been looking at my stats and I am very confused.
I expect page-views to come from logical places, places that don't make me feel like I've been committing a crime.

For example, one of the referring URLs that led to my page is this URL:

http://anabolmarket.net/

I don't know why. 

And then there's this:

These are the top search keywords for my blog. I can understand the second one, probably one of my friends, too busy to type the url, maybe; but the top one? Pictures of pizza that look like a cat.
Pictures of pizza that look like a cat.

A very specific search, to say the least.
Sadly, none of the searches had any keywords like "good blog" or "funny stuff" or "light verse" or anything remotely positive, so, yes.

sunshine

sunshine met moonshine met a good time
met a nice girl in a place like this
sunshine met moonshine, meta good time
sally and joey, in my peach tree
sunny and moony, in my peach tree
don't speak so softly
mama warned me

Eighteen then two

98:

I am five

to your six;

a race you

win always,

champion,

o champion.

oh, 05,

meet me here,

10 12 years

should be good,

enough to

hold you, keep

you asleep.

Scarification as a rite of passage; poetry

tiny lines,

passage time.

mama say

I'll be fine.

and

half hour scar

I belong.

and look cool

to the West.


I don't really like the second part anymore, it has no rhythm (or rhyme).

Eighteen

92,                                          

that was you.                             
Chicagoo                               
and Texas                                 
couldn't hold                           
anyone,                                      
even you.                                   

93,
that was me.
my eyes closed
couldn't see::
 Chicago,
any lake's
navy pears.

More years are coming tentatively.

Aunt Mel tells me

I miss shaving my legs, aunt Mel tells me.
Suitors in the driveway, here to woo me.
Disused fur shawls hang in walk-ins,
and my vanity bulbs burned out.
Oh, I'd like to go out.
I am forty-one now.
The new thirty
or so I've heard.
I'm glad,
you're young.

Professionals

At my business professionals of america state conference, and I have to say I'm quite discounted; business people wear white shirts and either solid color ties or simple patterned ones; solid colors. Also, no professional should ever, ever wear orange. Surrounded by patterned ties and black silk shirts like the matter at hand is a Sunday service and not professional business. And afterwards, loud loud music from different regions of my state, as if the official soundtrack to business isn't smooth jazz and classical. Dancing dances I'd be embarrassed to know. Jump on it! Jump on it! Another thing, I seem to be the only one here wearing a tie clip.
Awards are being awarded, not a single white shirt in visual basic, visual basic is pretty lame.
Maybe my criterion are silly, a guy in a bright ugly-red shirt won in fundamentals of web design. Meanwhile, music, suitable for National Treasure 3: Torture Is A-Okay, plays. Every once in a while, one of the guys will be in a black suit and tie; those guys are awesome.
Mitchell Musso is here and  I'd like a picture with him. Side-note, blue pin-striped shirts are cool too, especially with purple solid colored ties. Some of these people have shiny items on their lapels which should be reserved for formal events such as dances but in my opinion, not award ceremonies.
I am trying to determine how much of this is jealousy and how much is genuine criticism on business wear. Indeterminate.
One last thing: no one here is drinking alcohol, which is really weird.
All of my opinions on business originated while I was watching Mad Men.
Afterwards:
3:54
Blue shirts might be okay. Definitely with khaki pants, maybe with other things. Also, khaki is really inappropriate for the business world; there is literally no reason to wear it, especially when accepting an award.
4:01
I am really looking forward to uil (university interscholastic league), where I will quite possibly place first place in literary criticism and showcase classic style. Black tie, black suit, tie clip, black shoes, business belt, perhaps a vest, and a pocket hanky folded rectangularly, not triangly.

March 21
Mitchell Musso wasn't actually there, there was just a guy who had his hair and he won in some programming competition and he was wearing a lilac/purple silk shirt(???).

Kitsch

Well I miss you
and love you too
with words that have
just one sound each.

and I like the
curve of time a
look from you brings,
fair, skin-hued peach

and the taste of
some thing near love
that is there near
by in my reach.

and a mind that
has all the facts
and loves me though,
this is all kitsch.

(Feb. 28th)

and my words do
go much to far.
I am not here
to stand and preach.

Believe you, me

believe you me, honey.
I might be offended:
by thoughts that I have lost
and words left open-ends.

lull me, ambiguility,
concrete finalities.
all signs point to:
believe you, me honey
I might be off, ended.
by thoughts that I have lost,
words in op-ed pieces.

Note

Some (two) of my friends sometimes occasionally when they have nothing else to do at all look at my blog. And by look, I mean look; they do not read; a single glance in the span of two months is all I really have to look forward to. I do wish things were different.

Being that as it may, I do not think I am capable of persuading them to actually process the words and sentences arranged on these pages. But, if all they will be doing is glancing, then maybe they can glance with the proper tecnique.

Here is an example of terrible technique. Devil-may-careless technique. You can't even see the fish.

Now, here is excellent technique. Devil-does-care-and-he-likes-what-he-sees technique.
Dozens (millions?) of fish are visible, and the content in the center, everything I've written, my heart and soul, is barely visible.