Death in the house on the manmade lake

Geese sitting in a manmade lake.
A hottie washing her BMW.
A clever license plate in hexadecimal.
A phone call.
Death.

Geese screeching.

A mild wind.

"Independence"

I am on fire.
Sitting here, stir-crazy, fever over,
head full of bliss and thoughts flying faster than-

On the edge of a cliff
I look out towards the horizon and see such sights-
What's there? I want to sail out and touch the sky
Soar into space
Breathe the breath of an untouched land.
Discover a place of my own.

The numbers rattle in my head.
Zero, one, rpush, copy, skip if zero-
if, foreach, do-
my fingers brush the keyboard as I stare into a blank-

It's on the tip of my tounge. I want to say, to shout, to pronounce
It's here! The time is now!
I know the language, but the thought eludes me.

Buffer, drawback, vector, rotation, input, output-
servers crashing behind me like towers collapsing
I jump the fence, the fresh breeze of sea air filling my lungs

and I'm here.

Sitting here, stir-crazy, fever over,
I am on fire.

"Fire/Frustration"

Why can't I write
like I feel?

Damn.
I thought I was better
the letters don't flow
It's my fault.

Why can't I have
more discipline?

Beat, beat
beat myself up
all the time

I'd better go easy.

Frustration.
That's the word
curdled and burned,
a wreck, technically.

A slob.
Can't be bothered for
rhyme and meter,
consonance is the best I can manage
in this vers libre.

I'm sick of it.
I should quit.

But I can't stop
spewing on the page
Jesus, it's not like I'm
some sort of tortured artist

muse burning a hole in my pocket.

God.

Does everyone do this?

The doubt.
Will it last forever?
Never. It comes and goes
coming up roses
pricking my calloused fingers.

Well, that was cathartic.
The least I can do for you
is to cut off this self-referential bullsh*t before it becomes ridiculous.

Here's something new,
a poem within a poem:

"Negeb"

The ocean breathes so openly
the sand beneath my skin.
I walk across the desert
seeking somewhere to begin.

A seagull floats above me
with its polished charcoal eyes
it followed me, an omen
in an animal disguise.

Kicking up the dust, it clears
so that I can see the stars
I freeze, held by the stare
of the sharp crimson eye of mars.

I close my eyes. God, guide me
back to safety, teach me trust
the darkness closes in on me
step slowly in the dust.

I stop. I am surrounded
by an ever-growing light.
"Son, do not be so foolish;
this is why I gave you sight."

A cascade of manic energy
the rise, the fall, the crash
neurons fire, sweet desire,
rage like hot volcanic ash.

Will they ever understand?
How can I show them, make them see?
That truly being a Messiah
is our responsibility.

"In time, son. Go to sleep.
remember this: to Love and Be."
alone, I head for home, now
Israel lives inside of me.


I hope you liked my poem. I can only write what I know.
Or don't know. Whatever.

I think I'll stop wasting your time.
Think on it.
I would be consistently melodramatic if I said
that I can't rest until I've told everyone.

Drifting
In a box
Locked?

Don't know.

Coasting...
Not quite.

My dream is bigger than this.

It's simple
Not easy.

Please,
Just stand with me.

Time passes,
Distance heals.

The clouds part

I see a little clearer.

In everything, more than just
her face.

My God.

Who's there?

Someone, someone who knows

Someone who loves.

Alone.


I raise my eyes

Breeze across my face

Light falling in beams

And I know you're there.

An untitled poem which meanders from nonsense to sense and current personal truth. I would like to do more on these themes later with a better balance- i.e. making more sense and being less preachy. But I like this anyway, so here it is.

I.

Oh, how I hold!
a borderline, dime
drawn from the depths of the
etherland.

Will. Tell,
the tall tale of daring,
caring, stricken
struck down and
pound

free-flowing, towing
the dawn
a ship of more oars
a thousand ears
dead men's nails,
tails.

To which waters
brickety-bracket,
brackish,
of the brakhage
glue and dirt.

Hurt,
Lost, tossed
Pain, blame
Love, over

To what end.

I love.
I fear.

I die an easy death

Oh, to lay down in the lillies,
lillid,
amidst the blithe, lithe
bed of grass itch and greens

Ani L'dodi v'dodi Li
And if I could only love God
as he Loves me
Love others, as he loves them,
the world would be right

Look for the dove with the olive branch
not the crow with the black eye
bound, found
amidst the muck and grime
of your heart.

Start,
today,
Pray about it.

God knows we can't do it on our own.

II.

Have I lost my purpose
or found it again
amidst the drudge beauty
of this life?

Wandering
lost, found
the sounds resound too loudly

Proudly, I open the gate
Only to find what awaits
is not what my ego expected.

But I am not damaged.
This pain is not coming from higher truth.

Ergo,
the peace I find
Serenity of mind and body

Haughty, sometimes
when I'm out of control

The toll of pride,
wide expectations

no humility.

But that is no way to live.

III.

So what is my higher truth?

Love. Be.

Peace. Grace.

Don't feel guilty for being human,
but take responsibility for bettering yourself,
improving your corner of the world.

Colors are so bright!
Tastes so rich,
Air so sweet,
The sky so blue,
Trees so majestic,
People so pure
When you walk in Grace.

Oh, to be Loved!
And to Love.
How fond God is of this little rock
on the edge of nowhere,
in some odd universe.

These humans,
How wonderful are they.
To delight in Creation, creativity
art, music, learning
Hurting, yearning, killing
Giving in to their darkness, indifference

Turning away.

Hurt. Pain. desolation.

Weep. Sob. Cry out,
for the Love not begetting love,
Grace not begetting mercy,
Kindness begetting selfishness.

But we are all children of adam.
We all have our piece of the puzzle,
our part to play in the bigger scheme,
for better or for worse.

Love. Fear. Be in Awe.

Be grateful.
Life is so much better with gratitude.

Don't take this world for granted.
It is a precious gift, our one and only home.

Every day is full of miracles,
big and Small.
All you have to do is look.


NB: Ani L'dodi v'dodi Li is from the Song of Songs, and translates to "I am My Beloved's, and My Beloved is Mine"

Yesterday was the 7th anniversary of this blog. I try to make a post on that day every year, but as of late I've been pretty involved with life, introspection, my girlfriend, etc. Still avoiding work like I always have been, but overall I feel like I've been improving a lot. I got straight A's for the first time in recent memory, and I hope to do very well again this semester. A lot of stuff is still up in the air: Will I get an apartment next year? Where will I live during the summer? Will I get an internship? Am I on track to graduate on time?
I'm trying to deal with this kind of stuff more and worry about it less.

A few interesting things have been happening here at Chapman. Salman Rushide came to speak; he was enlightening, witty, and entertaining. He signed my copy of Haroun and The Sea of Stories, the same copy I received in middle school. It has been one of my favorite stories since, although I have only read it twice.

Today, I went to a poetry reading by William Stobb to promote his new book of poetry, Nervous Systems. I went on a whim with the intention to leave if it "wasn't any good", but I found his writing very interesting. His language, especially the way he read it, possessed a kind of floating quality that's difficult to describe. He generously gave away some copies of his book at the end but I paid for mine on principle and he was kind enough to sign it. The crowd was pretty thin (pretty average for Chapman actually) but I enjoyed it a lot and wanted to plug his book here.

One of the things that I brought up during the Q&A session afterward was the small audience of people who enjoy poetry, and I think we both have similar feelings about it. I don't usually write for an audience, I write to get ideas out of my head and play with them a bit. I don't know all of my reasons for publishing them here, but I figure that if someone happens upon them and enjoys reading them, they have done more good than if they had been sitting around my hard drive or notebook.

That line of thinking is the main reason this blog still exists. It's been here for me when I've needed it, and occasionally has been entertaining or useful to others. By that notion, it has been faithfully serving its purpose for seven years.

Here is another one.

The web dev went totally pallid;
His XHTML was invalid.
But with an additional
made his doctype transitional
and put closing tags on this ballad.

I've started composing Limericks for Randall Munroe's LimerickDB. Here is my first go:

A man with great knowledge of media
wrote an article for Wikipedia.
But sadly, the "Moogle"
didn't show up on Google;
Its deletion could not have been speedier.

So, first year of college is finally over. It's a relief- it was crazy. I disappointed myself but managed to pull a decent average out of the bag, so what the hell. I'll try to not slack off so much next year.

This summer has been mediocre so far, although I've been trying to pack it full of stuff to do and I think I've more than succeeded.
School has been out for almost a month. A lot has happened, and a lot hasn't.

Things I'm looking forward to:

• A part-time job at the Apple Store, if I get it.


• Getting microeconomics out of the way, and hopefully finding some way to apply it to:


• the production business I'm trying to start with Nate. If all goes well, our first video shoot will be this weekend at the Fox.


• ¿Internships?


• Getting shit done on Project Aqua.


• Finishing Liquid Strike 3, finally!

Things I'm not looking forward to:

• Post-post-postmodernism or some sort of dadaist new wave


• Death and taxes


• Our sun burning out, universal entropy

After making that list I figured I should just get it all off my chest, so here's a post-post-modern dadaist new wave poem about death, taxes, the sun burning out, and universal entropy:

Sun shifter?! The identity
FACTOR of which killed
and from reborn, WHAT<>
I wait below
above, beyond
moon sun rain earth die
cold showers broken, nozzles
die, die, dead.

I hate pretentious poetry, but this really happened a few minutes ago and this is what ran through my head, so here it is.

Dammit. I stepped on a snail today.
He didn't do anything wrong.
I had nothing against him.
I never even noticed him until he was dead.

If I had seen him,
if I was paying attention,
I would have stopped.

But I didn't, and his feeble armor
was pulverized by my weight.
And his brief existence
came to an end beneath my shoe.

Is that what it means to be mortal?
Is this how God feels when he steps on a man?

I came up with this short vers libre poem in the middle of a class called "War and Human Nature". It sums up my current position on philosophy pretty well.

So you want
to be
a philosopher?
To read, to learn,
to read again
and to teach
perpetuating
the eternal spiral
of academic nothingness.

so now you're in college
you're out on your own
and you wish to indulge;
to go out on the town

you hear of a house party
in some off-campus place
you decide just to get there
either stag or a date.

you first try the miller
but that was too light

you then taste the budweiser
but that's not quite right

here, have some newcastle
now that's a bit better

oh shit you just spilt some
all over my sweater

Let's have margaritas
and other mixed drinks

Cap'n morgan and cuervo
have entered the rink.

You mix in some coke
and some lemonade too

You don't care no more
all you want is more booze

you start chugging cheap wine
and cheaper champagne

you chat up some girl
with mush for a brain

then you black out!
you wake up in your dorm

you're next to your vomit
and the hallway ain't warm

you need to get back there
and find your damn car

okay, I know this time
I went way too far

so next time you want to just chug like a sink
you kids, please remember
JUST DON'T DRIVE AND DRINK.

It's been a while since I've posted any silly poetry, so here's a poem I wrote last month:

I often get confused with the writings of Descartes
with Sartre, Nietzsche- philosophers of existential art.
Their ruminations are too stiff and long-winded to read
I'll be not in their school of thought with referential creeds.

Far too much time they used to spend on silly rumination
and intellectual treatise bred of self-infatuation
"An object's own existence is a purely Boolean state;
the meaning of an object often calls for some debate."

"So what," I oft think to myself, "who cares? It's all the same."
I'd rather spend my time on things I think are far less lame.
The one thing I agree about, while gazing at the steeple
as Sartre phrased so naturally, "Hell is other people."

At the guidance office once again. I think I failed my Chemistry test last period. It's kind of stupid how we get graded on practice tests for the STAR test, as our score on the STAR doesn't actually affect our grades.
This week is turning out to be kind of dumb. We're not doing much in class because of block scheduling, which is all for the better. We had to write a poem about a work of art for English class. I selected something from Boring3D, called "Tar Dipped Carrot Wired For Combat".


Here is the poem:

sitting in a bushel
one tiny, one orange
carrot is plucked
from the pack
and taken
to the vat

cast in
like achilles
simmering in tar
then lifted
our warrior
the atlas carrot

it must be brought
under control
we shall retrofit it
allowing for remote
access and we
have ourselves a superweapon.

Target [+locked+]
swishing, zooming overhead
carrot of death
is on the war path
the flight path
the doom of us all

Last week, in the yawning void between 2nd and 4th period that is AVID, I was having a conversation with Chris. Josh had just recited The Raven in English, and I was musing that he would have an easier time meomrizing his lines if they were written in verse. Seeing how I had nothing to do, I wrote a poem set to the rhythm of Jabberwocky.

Deadarkadiy

`Twas morning and the mountain road
did host a river through they wade
all peaceful was the ivy grove
where Arkadiy found his grave.

"Shit." exclaiméd Lash at once
"Hm, Conner" Alloy called the tag
he pulled the noose from off his neck
"We're getting out, in body bags."

"I've got some feelings, bad, of this"
a nervous Muller once did cry
"Shut up, we're getting on with it"
"You heard the man, it's time to die."

"Did you hear that?" was Barker's bark
"Of course we did, now hit the ground!"
"Goddamn you Alloy!" was the spark
for Alloy had not gotten down.

"We must get up there," ordered Wolf
"if needed, you shall be our martyr"
Muller ran and tripped a mine
"and dead we'll both be in the water."

"WOLF YOU JACKASS!" was the cry
"The path was mined, I did not know
demeritous, I call that meme"
"I do not care, you stupid ho."

And so, without another note
Barker stretched out on the ground
and he remarked upon a hope
"Just line `em up and shoot `em down."

"Wolf, he's dead" was Lash's call
as Barker lay, deluged with blood
"Shut up, you fool" was someone's thought
"I'm cold, I'm tired, soaked with mud."

Bang, Bang, Snicker-snack!
and Wolf was dead
so Lash's dread
called for a fade to black.

`Twas evening, and the mountain road
did host a river for their graves
all peaceful was the ivy grove
where Gamma Squad is laid.

Carnegie Melon

A student attending at Carnegie Mellon
Had during his finals a craving for melon.
He went to the market and looked through the store.
He purchased their stock and then asked for some more.

He sliced up the gourds with great care and great speed
and washed them all down with a pint of cold meade.
His belly was full and he almost did spew
out some ripe canteloupe and some fresh honeydew.

The student, now full, returned to his dorm
and through his studies came back to the norm.
However, young children will ask for a tellin'
of the student who ate up at Carnegie Mellon.

One might say
he was as
cool as a cucumber

The problem is
that my cucumber
is quite warm.

You see, if you
leave a cucumber
out on the
sidewalk

it begins to
heat up and
burn.

Now, if I
were to slice
up my heated
cucumber

I would most
likely find
it sour

so the moral
of the story
is to

keep your cucumber
inside until
you plan

to eat it.
the end

Stinky and boughten
at the bargain fruit stand
wrinkly and rotten
it squelches in hand

My rotten tomato
so ripe and so red
I squeeze and the juices
pour down on my head

It dribbles and drabbles
down the back of my shirt
not ribald, but rabble
so rancid it hurts

For tomato juices
it'd spoil my press
it's practically useless
'cept for making a mess

My rotten tomato
so flat and so red
my rotten tomato
all over my head.

Ode to a Radish

I heareth a sound
and turn'st around
to find a red radish
at rest on the ground.

Who hath placed you here
O riveted radish
Drank he too much beer
and a salad established?

"Nay," quoth the radish
though veggies can't talk
"I was ripp'd from my crevice
Pulled right by the stalk

and the man who had yanked me
took a bite with a sting
with a holler he spat me
and me did he fling

so here'st I rest
torn up on the ground
tastless at best
and imperfectly round."