Creative Reading Exercise:
Write a poem that borrows from, imitates, or emulates one of the poems this week, thematically and/or stylistically. For example: a poem that begins “What Kinds of Times Are These” or a poem entitled “Self Portrait.”
15 Responses to Week 5 Poems
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Inspired by the 17-Year-Old & the Gay Bar
bless this room where her bed smells like lavender
where we lie in the bright spot
of sun spilling through her window
away from the shadows
the whispers and questions
bless the ambiguity of her touch
how when my mother asks me if we are just friends
i say yes but think
i don’t know
and i don’t want to
bless this place where i am nothing to anyone
free to live in the space between
her thigh and her calf
head in her lap
forever
bless her hips that spell out my name
etch it in stone
for this moment
fingers interlaced
lips smiling
before we go back to the world
this is our holy place
where it is safe not to know
to wonder
but never to ask
Mälaren and the Bay (Inspired by Outing, Iowa)
I wonder how two different bodies of water, 9 hours time difference and a 13 hour flight apart, can have the same memories. The fog of a ferry trip, the spray of water heading to an island, trekking through neighborhoods and gleefully stripping off socks and shoes. Getting my dress, my leggings, my hiked up jeans, soaked then cured by a warm rock (or a shower) and the sweet taste of a custard bun before the subway home. It’s cold. That arctic flow that pierces every sense and leaves your toes numb. But that leaves just enough space for tidepools, ducklings so light they can balance on lilypads, and me.
Inspired by Staying Quiet
My mother’s mother and many more mothers before that did not see beauty as we see it now. The pale skin we always see on TV in lieu of the melanin kissed skin on land traditionally of our brown ancestors was commonplace for all my childhood. Where Indio is used as an insult that is where Mexico stands. My mother who tries her best to explore her indigenous roots calls Europeans the most beautiful and I ask if she’d say that if she never got colonized. I act so holier than thou when I too have succumbed to the same fate and I say when my skin is shades paler than my siblings and I know I too am trapped in standards placed long ago. Tiny nose, a complete disregard for my ancestors. Yet I make it appear smaller every day. There are many things I hated about my ancestors as a kid. My dark hair which was never complimented, my hairy looking arms which were part of everyone before me who existed. Blonde dyed hair and shaved arms and skin paler than most Mexicans. That was my way to cope with inadequacy.
Instead, let it be my dad waiting for
me at the bottom of the escalator
in the airport of my childhood
Let my friend sink into the chair in
the bedroom I grew up in holding
a stuffed animal while I unpack
months’ worth of detritus from misshapen
duffle bags, marveling at how the journey
ripped zippers open and the fragments of
shirts and jackets and pants spill through
holes in canvas, let the duct tape hold together
the things I must send away
Let the open windows blow in the scent
of Texas cedar in the summer and may
the deer stop before running into my
car, which does not need more dents
I hope they move another way
Meditations in an Emergency (modeled after Cameron Awkward-Rich)
I wake up and space opens up. I walk myself to breakfast
& the morning drinking coffee opens the space. I fold my laundry.
I lay in bed again, just a minute, avoiding the coming week.
The wet grass soaking the toes of my shoes, the girl crying
beside me in the library, the joy in her voice picking up the phone
& the woman on the other end, open the space.
When I am sitting at my desk and my sister sends me the first text of the week my chest is hollowed out, left wide & empty.
There is space for what will come. Like you, I know. Like you, I watch the knowing spill from my chest. Space left hollow.
The space behind my lungs, hollowed out.
“Meditations in an Emergency”
(Inspired by “Meditations in an Emergency” by Cameron Awkward-Rich)
I wake up and it hurts my soul. I spread the curtains and
pop open a window. The gust of wind hurts my soul, I shiver.
I go outside, my large hoodie on. I am cold, but I am sweating.
I walk to the car, put the keys in the ignition. The empty tank
symbol stares back at me. Starting to drive, I see the bikers move
past my home, bed of flowers my neighbor tends to the children
leaving for school with nothing in their bags, empty homes and
all of them, hurt my soul. There is a dream I have in which I feel
no pain. I travel to the ends of the Earth, just as each pill swallowed
travels to my brain. There are no borders, only problems. We were
born into this. Born into the pain of unknowing. I was raised in
the constitution of praying, of begging. Hand on my heart.
Hand on my frail American heart.
“Self Portrait as So Much Potential” (Modeled after Chen Chen)
Dreaming of one day becoming as hard-headed as the beetle
Climbing up a languid stem, digging in its jagged pincers.
Pitter patter
Always afraid to fall. Never afraid to flail. I am no beetle.
Meekly, I tiptoe towards the cusp & say I tried. when really I’m just bad at stepping.
swish swish
Prettier than a skuttle, I tread.
I am a soothing humorer & I speak no truth.
Maybe if my shell were as cracked and pointy as the beetle
I would slice through the air as I jumped
Landing on hewn feet
Solid
Unwavering and unabashed.
“The Little Girl Will Never Tire of Freedom” (modeled after Cameron Awkward-Rich)
The little girl sits in the sand, feeling each grain of it run through her fingers as she digs her palm in the warm coast. She reaches her hand to wave at the tide, and she is one with the current. She won’t leave the water. She wants her skin to be enwrapped, swallowed by coldness, to soothe the fire in her stomach. Sometimes an ember escapes. Sometimes I am flaming tantrums like she would. Sometimes I go to the beach, and she’s right where I left her years ago. She says she went to the pazar all by herself and bought a yellow chick, and it’s her pet. She says when the sun mellows down and melts her colors into the sea at the end of the day, she knows to sleep. She’s awake fidgeting with shells and counting stars. I ask her to come with me. She walks away & walks & walks out of sight & I wish she were with me all the time.
Inspired by “Meditations in an Emergency”
I watch the snow finally fall and I hope. I see the
flooding end and I hope. The burnt cities
begin to rebuild. I read the articles,
analyze the statistics, watching, waiting, & hoping.
Have we done enough? The oceans keep
rising. There is no us without Earth.
But there was Earth
without us. How soon will it be
again? The whales are returning home, how
long can they stay? We haven’t done enough. I
hope the world rebuilds. I hope we’ll do
enough.
“Meditations in an Emergency” (Inspired by Cameron Awkward-Rich)
It is the wind that keeps me going. Not hope. The wind.
I feel it in circle my mind and brush through my hair.
I know what the wind is capable of. I know its stronger than me.
The man sat next to me is smiling over the phone.
Somewhere, some moment in time, I was happy.
Chrome shifted to monotone and the world became cold.
Layers and layers ran thin.
Not even the sweater I wear stops the shiver that goes down my spine.
I let the wind carry me as the days blur together.
The only thing stronger than fear is hope.
I cannot muster the strength to feel either.
We live, then we die. You and I.
Everthing in between, is hope.
The man on the phone, my pretentious collegues at work, the inmates in jail cells, and everybody on this planet, has hope.
Not me.
I had hope. Now all I have is the wind.
5 Senses of Beautiful (inspiration and quotes from “Staying Quiet” by Hieu Minh Ngyen)
your words burned, and “magnified into ash”;
I “wore them, buried them, turned them into my currency” of my love.
I hear your whispers in the dark.
a reflection of my past self.
glimmering, and “trapped in a long tunnel”
“of my very own ruin”.
I see your ghost, a shadow of me
that can still smell the old perfume you wore.
“of course no one asked”, not even me.
“I’m running out of ways to describe you”.
“maybe you were talking to yourself”,
even though I felt the way you spoke to me
like hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
the echo of the taste of your words
in the back of my mouth,
scratching my throat
into a bitter mess.
Self-Portrait as So Much Potential (modeled after Chen Chen)
I imagine what it might be like to be a caterpillar
Small life,
Simple life
On the cusp of escaping to something greater–
I think too much
Do caterpillars too?
If I could hide the way they do
Retreat to a cocoon,
Change
Oh how nice that would be.
I’m bad with instinct
How do they do it so easily?
I am stuck inside myself,
Thoughts filled to the brim
Ready to break out of my cocoon
The one that keeps me trapped,
I won’t transition into a butterfly:
I will not be beautifully changed when it all falls apart
Staying Quiet
(inspired by “Staying Quiet” by Hieu Minh Nguyen)
Once someone decided to open their mouth & bring their private thoughts
out of the darkness & suffocation of their inner mind.
I wonder: was this opinion solicited by a question? Was it an answer
or merely that someone’s desire to be heard? Sometimes
I don’t want to be heard & I don’t want to hear you.
I know it’s harsh but the deep recesses of my mind are safe & comforting;
I’m not claustrophobic. Is it apathy that makes me believe
that your mind should be the same as mine? But it’s empathy
that makes me pity you because it’s not. Sometimes
I wish you would stay quiet. Not because I want you to
suffocate. Not because I don’t care what you think.
Because I care what I think. And sometimes that just takes
a little time & some quiet.
Meditations in an Emergency (modeled after Cameron Awkward-Rich)
i answer the phone & it drowns me. i hang up & my
sister’s piano lesson drowns me. the world doesn’t stop
for our little gripes & griefs & fears. my lesson is up next.
i play my recital song with weighted fingers, hear the call
from my dad to my sister, microwave us some leftovers so
we can eat in silence, in waiting. the waiting drowns me.
she won’t come home tonight, but tomorrow–tomorrow
maybe. i don’t think i understand optimism. this year has
taught me to have faith in despair. this year has taught me
breathlessness. a goddamn tightness in these faulty
lungs.
“Let Me Consume You”
I hurt like a scared dog, bared canines and biting words.
Let me lick my wounds.
Let me spit into this open flesh.
It scares me how much I like the taste
of blood. Scares me how much I like you.
Are you sure you still want me?
My teeth ache to puncture your skin.
If this isn’t wrong, why does your name taste foreign on my tongue?
Why does this primal hunger crave to swallow you whole?
Long to gobble your guts and digest your dermis?
To love is to devour.