. . . but not a drop to drink this morning at 97 Main because my travel mug is lost! After tearing apart the kitchen and my room in frantic search, it was painful looking at the pot of brewed coffee I couldn't possibly drink at 8:52, eight minutes before Western Humanities. I considered making it in a ceramic mug, but the thought of balancing it all the way down the icy hill to class seemed destined for failure.
I've seen two people today carrying the same Muddy Waters travel mug as my lost one. Everyone's a culprit.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Cavity
I.
After it all went dark, he whispered to her
low growl reverberating, low note
a bow pulled along the bass string
of her spine the better to keep you close,
my dear while Grandma whimpered softly.
And that is how Red found herself settled
in the swelled belly of an unlikely lover,
cradled woman that now lived at the pace
of his caged animal heart. She sang him lullabies
until the ceiling of her world rose and fell
in slow heaves, traced letters on the fleshy walls
of his stomach, spelling words he guessed or couldn't.
When he laughed, she was anointed by faint light
from a place unremembered, because maybe
this is all she ever wanted or could want.
He came to her draped in canvas tents,
unhinging jaws to swallow whole the glowing flame
of all she was, the empty filling the empty:
the sunken cavity of his abdomen
bloating to the belly of a stone Buddha.
II.
When the axe ripped through his furry coat
Grandma fainted mid-novena, leaving Red
to protest too late the cesarean that had torn apart
her world. Standing above him, she felt his nose was cold
and wet. She knew it couldn't have lasted.
Grandma didn't speak again, only rocking
back and forth, bloody organ in a jar
now her always metronome. Red's eyes
looked for something and nothing, both empty and full.
The wine from her basket was gone.
These days, it is always too bright for the lonely,
who whisper the coming of a prophet reborn
cloaked in the trappings of a wolf's hide.
She roams the woods at night
howling lullabies in hollow tones.
This is the first draft of a poem I have to hand in on Monday . . . I have one due every week. We've been reading a lot of poems based on myth and after coming across an Anne Sexton poem called "Rapunzel," I decided to try something in that vein rather than come up with an original theme, which more often than not (read: always) turns out being totally unoriginal and painful to write. Anyways, for reasons unknown I started thinking about Little Red Riding Hood and the bastardization above is what happened . . . unwittingly, an exploration of Little Red's Stockholm syndrome. Oh dear.
I'm only up this late because it is Thursday in Geneseo, and the sad reality of living on Main Street is that if I'm not asleep before 11 o'clock, I can't fall asleep until after 2 o'clock when the bars close. Unfortunately, I didn't make curfew . . . but I did get my poem done at the very least. Other good news: it is officially Friday. TGIF!
After it all went dark, he whispered to her
low growl reverberating, low note
a bow pulled along the bass string
of her spine the better to keep you close,
my dear while Grandma whimpered softly.
And that is how Red found herself settled
in the swelled belly of an unlikely lover,
cradled woman that now lived at the pace
of his caged animal heart. She sang him lullabies
until the ceiling of her world rose and fell
in slow heaves, traced letters on the fleshy walls
of his stomach, spelling words he guessed or couldn't.
When he laughed, she was anointed by faint light
from a place unremembered, because maybe
this is all she ever wanted or could want.
He came to her draped in canvas tents,
unhinging jaws to swallow whole the glowing flame
of all she was, the empty filling the empty:
the sunken cavity of his abdomen
bloating to the belly of a stone Buddha.
II.
When the axe ripped through his furry coat
Grandma fainted mid-novena, leaving Red
to protest too late the cesarean that had torn apart
her world. Standing above him, she felt his nose was cold
and wet. She knew it couldn't have lasted.
Grandma didn't speak again, only rocking
back and forth, bloody organ in a jar
now her always metronome. Red's eyes
looked for something and nothing, both empty and full.
The wine from her basket was gone.
These days, it is always too bright for the lonely,
who whisper the coming of a prophet reborn
cloaked in the trappings of a wolf's hide.
She roams the woods at night
howling lullabies in hollow tones.
This is the first draft of a poem I have to hand in on Monday . . . I have one due every week. We've been reading a lot of poems based on myth and after coming across an Anne Sexton poem called "Rapunzel," I decided to try something in that vein rather than come up with an original theme, which more often than not (read: always) turns out being totally unoriginal and painful to write. Anyways, for reasons unknown I started thinking about Little Red Riding Hood and the bastardization above is what happened . . . unwittingly, an exploration of Little Red's Stockholm syndrome. Oh dear.
I'm only up this late because it is Thursday in Geneseo, and the sad reality of living on Main Street is that if I'm not asleep before 11 o'clock, I can't fall asleep until after 2 o'clock when the bars close. Unfortunately, I didn't make curfew . . . but I did get my poem done at the very least. Other good news: it is officially Friday. TGIF!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Update from the hideout
Confession: I'm at Muddy Waters, hiding from my disaster of a room. Since I have an early morning class and a late afternoon class every day Monday through Thursday, my routine has been to pack up all my work, take it with me in the morning, then go to the coffee shop for the 3-5 hours between classes and get schoolwork done. The plan has been working spectacularly work-wise--I have my assignments finished for all classes until Monday--but because I'm I've been trying to stay focused on work, the state of my room has suffered quite a bit. Most of my outfits for the past week or so have been chosen at random from the floor, and I've narrowly missed breaking a few limbs while tripping and stumbling across the land mines scattered between the door and my bed. I'm not sure why I'm confessing to this giant gap in domestic housekeeping . . . maybe in acknowledging it, I'll be inspired to do something about it. Maybe.
Last night was our first intramural basketball game of the season--there were no subs, so my strategy for the game was simply to stay conscious, which I more or less did. Little victory. We won the game, and Erin walked off the court with a jammed, swollen finger and I with a smashed, bloody fingernail. The elder Pipe sisters may have to abandon any dreams of becoming hand models, unfortunately, but a Geneseo Intramural Champion tee shirt will be a pretty sweet consolation prize.
In other news, it's snowing.
Last night was our first intramural basketball game of the season--there were no subs, so my strategy for the game was simply to stay conscious, which I more or less did. Little victory. We won the game, and Erin walked off the court with a jammed, swollen finger and I with a smashed, bloody fingernail. The elder Pipe sisters may have to abandon any dreams of becoming hand models, unfortunately, but a Geneseo Intramural Champion tee shirt will be a pretty sweet consolation prize.
In other news, it's snowing.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sunday night blues
I've made my morning coffee instead of buying it on the way to class every day this week, which is good for two reasons: one, it means I'm not shelling out the money, and two (and perhaps more importantly), it means I've been waking up early enough to do so. This may or may not have more to do with my relative lack of work than it does with my willpower, but I'll pat myself on the back anyway.
My professor only succeeded in scaring away one student, but another one added the class late so our roster still tallies nine, to his chagrin. The 125 pages of reading I had to do was from Alfred Russell Wallace's The Malay Archipelago, this book that documents the author's journey through the titular region in the 1850s. He stomped around islands shooting anything that moved, collecting pelts and skeletons for various museums back in Europe. A lot of Wallace's "classification" of the different ethnic groups he encounters there is totally offensive and ridiculous, but other than that it wasn't as painful to read as I thought it'd be.
Things that are painful at the moment: trying to write a poem for class tomorrow, and the likelihood that the Vikings are going to the Super Bowl. Egh.
My professor only succeeded in scaring away one student, but another one added the class late so our roster still tallies nine, to his chagrin. The 125 pages of reading I had to do was from Alfred Russell Wallace's The Malay Archipelago, this book that documents the author's journey through the titular region in the 1850s. He stomped around islands shooting anything that moved, collecting pelts and skeletons for various museums back in Europe. A lot of Wallace's "classification" of the different ethnic groups he encounters there is totally offensive and ridiculous, but other than that it wasn't as painful to read as I thought it'd be.
Things that are painful at the moment: trying to write a poem for class tomorrow, and the likelihood that the Vikings are going to the Super Bowl. Egh.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Harrowing mistakes and lost eyeballs
Today, I sent an email to the members of English Club about tonight's meeting. After logging out of the EC account and back into my own, I realized that the bold-face subject in my inbox read "First meeting of the semseter!!"
It really shouldn't cause me this much distress, but I've been fighting the urge to send a follow-up email that acknowledges the lapse in my usually excellent spelling for about an hour. The online community is doubtlessly judging my incompetence at this very moment. I HATE TYPOS.
In other news, classes began yesterday and already I have 125 pages of reading due tomorrow for a class on the ethnography of Southeast Asia. I think the professor is trying to scare the modest class of nine away--he mentioned at least ten times in the 40 minute introduction to the class yesterday that "probably none of you will want to come back, I'll be shocked if there are half of you here on Thursday." I've already bought the twelve books ("You will read until your eyes fall out this semester," he told us), though, so perhaps to his dismay there will be at least one student in class tomorrow.
Maybe if my eyes do, indeed, fall out, I'll have an excuse for future spelling mistakes in the emails I send.
It really shouldn't cause me this much distress, but I've been fighting the urge to send a follow-up email that acknowledges the lapse in my usually excellent spelling for about an hour. The online community is doubtlessly judging my incompetence at this very moment. I HATE TYPOS.
In other news, classes began yesterday and already I have 125 pages of reading due tomorrow for a class on the ethnography of Southeast Asia. I think the professor is trying to scare the modest class of nine away--he mentioned at least ten times in the 40 minute introduction to the class yesterday that "probably none of you will want to come back, I'll be shocked if there are half of you here on Thursday." I've already bought the twelve books ("You will read until your eyes fall out this semester," he told us), though, so perhaps to his dismay there will be at least one student in class tomorrow.
Maybe if my eyes do, indeed, fall out, I'll have an excuse for future spelling mistakes in the emails I send.
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