Short Poems from an Early Spring Quarter Notebook, 2008

Modern British Literature

U Of C

Spring on the breeze
And gorged clouds
Up above the campuses
In Hyde Park the courtyards
Are blooming green about
The history and all the dead
Brown ivy
The new grass sure is right
About something,
As it reflects the black
pocketbooks
And well-tailored suits
Of the white people
Walking around this
Seemingly un-white
Belt.

I know it's the clouds fault
That the endless blue cries
Above them.

They remind me that I don't
Feel their caucasian white I
Feel prettier things.

Flannery O’Connor

“You think you been redeemed?”

He went with them
Although he only knew them
In battle. In his mother’s
silver-rimmed glasses, his
Eyes closed as he ran
Alongside the sins of the

Allied Army recruits.
Six hours later he woke
Up in a berth crying out
To Jesus. A black man
Laughed reassuringly and
Told him he was dead.

Everyone's Gotta Believe in Something

I overhear a girl
Who reminds me
Of a friend I used
To know. She’s
Talking about weed
Like a prayer whispered
to the night wind

The embodiment of
a friend. Someone I
Used too as I listen...
A loud bandana A
fashionable voice
I think about her
Eyes. Her nose
Snorting coke.

Seventies Child

Fuel our war of sin
Conflicting with how
America was founded

Forget the Puritans
And their locks of
Curling religion

Lady Liberty eats the
Lives of those who don’t
Believe in Christ.

"May We Live TIll We Die and Then Grow Wings"

A shirt from a pub reads on the back of some
Man whose hair is graying quietly behind
A brain that believes faith and drinking
Are one in the same like repenting
Sins right after they are
made.

To The Asshole Who Doesn’t Raise His Hand

Look, man,
I’ve got things to say
Too and I can’t get them out
Because you choose to sit
In front of everybody else

You forget the fact
That you are one
Among many and
Not the professors
Best budding friend

So please sir, do
Raise your hand
You’re not the only
One with a hard on
In the class

18^th Century Restoration Comedy

Walking In a Park With Etherege

Drinking coffee like its
Going to get me drunk

Gulping it down like
A gin and tonic

Takes the edge off
Always helping

To forget it's nine
AM in the morning

Haha: A Duet With Margaret Cavendish

Arrow rain
Sing your periwig song
& hide yourself beneath
The quickening dawn

With a lap dog smile,
Bid your pain
And sorrow
To the clichéd

Western wind
Whistling the
World a tune of
Praise and bragging

Rights: You’ve
Learned to love
But Choose to
Love yourself