Poems from my teenagehood (oh boy)

I pulled all of my old poems off my parents' computer. Some of them were 3-4 years old. Some of them surprised me and I feel I can work with them, but some were just baaaad. But hey, we all have to start somewhere right?

The "good"

Chai

Night-time grips the skyline
as a tissue scuttles across
the road like some kind
of wounded wretched creature.

No matter whose house it is my heart pounds.

A flutter in my veins
as we discuss places and
services in the world.

White privilege and spiritual partners and I
don’t like to use the word “love” because it is so heavy.

The amount of my life that hasn’t
been spent in internal dialogue
could fit into this two-dollar chai.

I am enamored with
the slenderness of your ankles;
wondering if the flaw within
me is in him or in my perception
of him- all strife is internal.

The clock says 8:45 and I don’t believe it.
Time is not the fourth dimension but I
suppose all is relative.

I never realized how long his legs were
until I nervously tried to keep up
with his steps without disrupting
the conversation.

What have I missed out on
with my numbing attempts?
I ask you.
And you respond,
“Everything you think you have.”

My eyes are tired and my heart sunken,
as a tissue scuttles across
the road like some kind
of wounded wretched creature.

Expectations

I’ll go in five minutes
not before I crank
out a poem about
my and your wrongs.

Too in love
infatuation, denial
something
to see straight
to be angry
to feel mistreated.

I watched tv with him
and sat outside.
No right
to have expectations.

No right
to want
to be poured
over.

We walked his dog in the rain.

Joy

Stretching in the shower.
Hairspray makes the cuts show clearer.
Puffy red to match the stuffed animal.
Bloated sodium starvation stomach.

Itchy itchy exploded blood vessels.
Penny taste fingernail cuticles.
Flakey folded wrinkly elbows.
Fat stump jaundiced knees.

Chewing chewing chew.
On every pillow case and straw.
Scratching scratching scratch.
On every green segment oxidized.

Sit-ups on chilly midnight mornings.
Squats in bathroom stall lunch breaks.
Architect of maniacal beauty.
Builder of Splenda joy.

Void empty hollowness.
Epitome of effort.
Hyperbolic sensitivity.
Plummet spiral.

My Rimbaud Body

Caffeine and nicotine spit-
dirt packed under nails,
and entrenched in cuticles.
A drawer of laxatives
and generic sleep aids
to write a poem à la Rimbaud.
Mais il n’y a pas assez de talent,
my efforts at enchantment
are nothing more than narcotic
nurturing. Relapse without relapse.
The cuticle on my left middle finger
is peeling and oozing and I tend to it
with serrated canine edges.
Scar tissues forms slower if
wounds heal faster and I know
how much you enjoy my scars.
Mountain ridges on an otherwise
smooth landscape to tell of tales
of bitterness solitude hate and
everything else that you are
too full of just youthful spirit
to undertake and comprehend.
Let’s guide our bodies to tell
us stories and recite poetry of
ancient archaic love lost gone.
These words on this page at this hour
could not possibly summarize to you
the trials that my cuticles have seen
as I’ve tried out my Rimbaud life.


Not my best stuff, but keep in mind I wrote these at about 16 or 17, and as Rimbaud said, when you're 17 you know nothing.

The ugly:

Here's this monstrosity for your enjoyment. What was I thinking with that aaaa hard rhyme scheme?! UGH!

Not Much Else

The leaf flickers across the board,
as the gentlemen are being told
about the women who scold
without conscience of what is old.

She is awake when she is confused,
questioning this or that and being used.
Glowing in misery, dripping news
of her once man now paying his dues.

And she says, “Where are these gentlemen?”
She lay on her leather couch in the den,
where have all her tears and leggings been?
Clouds drifting in this mis-en-scene.

He claims it’s a poem by Rimbowed.
She turns to him, thinking Rimbaud,
but he’s gone with the word in tow.
Oh well, she thinks, not much else to know.

Since I've been on this Bourdain kick lately (I've always loved him but for whatever reason now I REALLY love him) and many of the above poems concern food, I'm going to feature an actually good food poem. This is a poem by Li-Young Lee, an Indonesian born poet who taught at my college, the University of Arizona, for a few years. I have to admit I'm not much into international poetry with the exception of French and Russian. No particular reason, it just hasn't happened. However I find Lee's compressed style oddly liberating and powerful. This last line is a killer!


Eating Alone

I’ve pulled the last of the year’s young onions.
The garden is bare now. The ground is cold,
brown and old. What is left of the day flames
in the maples at the corner of my
eye. I turn, a cardinal vanishes.
By the cellar door, I wash the onions,
then drink from the icy metal spigot.

Once, years back, I walked beside my father
among the windfall pears. I can’t recall
our words. We may have strolled in silence. But
I still see him bend that way-left hand braced
on knee, creaky-to lift and hold to my
eye a rotten pear. In it, a hornet
spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.

It was my father I saw this morning
waving to me from the trees. I almost
called to him, until I came close enough
to see the shovel, leaning where I had
left it, in the flickering, deep green shade.

White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas
fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame
oil and garlic. And my own loneliness.
What more could I, a young man, want.