Found Poem (Weds)


Between-the-Lines Poem: Choose your favorite poem from the readings. Type out the poem, leaving triple-space between lines. Then, between the lines, fill in a new line of your own which is sparked by the original line. Eliminate all original poem lines at the end. The poem that remains is your own. Tinker with it and make it cohere.


10 responses to “Found Poem (Weds)”

  1. I breathe, and it breaks my heart. I open the door
    And the sound of the fume hoods breaks my heart. I walk over to my fume hood, Mixing chemicals, a reaction happening, a wrong reaction,
    Pairs of eyes. The cheer from everyone else, the door opening
    One after the other leaving the lab room, the harsh
    Tones from those pairs of eyes, everyone else except my lab partner
    Break my heart. There’s a dream I have in which I feel like
    I belong here. I mix and mix to produce the right reaction,
    And those pairs of eyes would not stare at me. There are no limitations, only the sky. Like you, I was born.
    Like you, I thought I was going to be smart,
    and amazing, and Everyone sees me. Hand on my heart.
    Hand on my stupid heart.

  2. The poem I chose for my found poem is “How to Triumph Like a Girl” by Ada Limón

    I’ve always been afraid of horses and women

    so powerful, so beautiful, so free.

    Comparing a woman to a horse is insulting,

    Akin to calling her ugly or fat

    But horses are not ugly and fat is not a bad word.

    I like being a woman,

    A part of this community

    United in their struggles, oppression, and successes

    Because a win for one is a win for all

    Right?

    But then, a loss for us,

    When we are beaten down again and again

    is a loss for all

    Right?

  3. I did two! A small miracle.

    ***

    Can you see it?
    Of course you can’t.
    Shh, sweetheart. Or cry out. Maybe that’s best. You’ll learn
    And you’ll forget. It’s funny, like a movie
    Remember it for a second
    Feel a tense, muscular strain as it passes
    Like light on an unknown road.
    Something strange is coming
    Something always is
    You feel like yourself and look like your mother dreamed
    Angrier, maybe
    But the game is good enough
    For now.
    Life is a long string of feeling
    And all have passed.
    It never seems like they will, does it?
    Wonder if you’ll outgrow that
    Wonder what’s beyond collapse
    Thinking about the long string
    Of people you’ll never be
    All the places, the lives
    You will never touch
    You’d forget, anyway
    So what reason is there to reach, to unwind
    Don’t be afraid
    Of the woven many
    Small lives like yours
    There’s something here, too:
    Thinking of the future against better judgment, with the tide of your will
    Learning to stop apologizing for the things you do to try to understand
    Yourself, and strangers, and selfishness, growing twisted with the knowing
    You picture it often:
    Everyone you’ve ever cared for lingering
    On a landfill of mistakes, speaking
    And laughing together. You
    Are the ghost, here
    Say it is for the best
    Open the window
    And smell the cool earth
    & perfume
    It’s all here.

    ***
    The formatting didn’t quite carry over here! I’ve done my best to adapt it but bear with me.

    I am tired of men
    And their art
    Despite or because I sometimes feel like one
    Despite or because I keep making things
    I keep trying
    For the same reason men keep going to war:
    I don’t know how to touch people.

    / Strangers are the easiest people to project love and life upon: /

    It’s a living, I guess.
    Everyone needs something to look forward to.
    Everyone needs something for the imagination.
    Everyone just wants to be looked at, properly:
    A look that makes you leave your body / Be proud of that home
    Feels glowy, doesn’t it?
    Bodies
    Hands

    / We are always moving to music. /
    That’s what I think, at least.

    I dream that in the next life, I will know how to see people.

    I think about small animals for sale in mirrored tanks
    And the world looking through
    People like these sorts of things:
    Small, and strange
    People like a puzzle until the pieces go missing.

    I am getting better, maybe
    At looking people in the eyes
    Still off balance
    It’s not polite to tell people
    You could love them
    And besides, there’s a crush
    On the ribcage, a scraping
    Of the walls, a hand
    Feeling the cavity smooth

    / Hey, how are you? /
    I am alone more than I should be.
    I like breathing, what can I say.
    I keep fragments of people around
    In bowls and drawers folders
    On the mind

    It’s pretty to look at, isn’t it
    Here: a bed
    A space, unused
    And overflowing
    Sentimentality
    & chemicals &
    Where did they go?

  4. (This is based on “My Tits Are Bruised As If I’ve Been With a Rough Lover” By Diane Seuss, which wasn’t technically one of the readings, but it was attached to “My First Night In New York”, and I liked it better.)

    ***

    my rough lover likes his pears soft
    (after Diane Seuss)

    My pears have fingertip bruises on them
    Even though when I bought them,
    I wrapped them gently in cloth.

    When I unwrap them I recoil:
    Disgusted someone should dig
    Their dirty fingers into my clean, soft, pears.

    On the red windowsill I leave them
    With my disgust
    And am surprised that with every passing day
    They grow harder to the touch.

    My disgust morphs into anger
    As I realize my pears,
    Who had never been mine in the first place,
    Had built a little ruse around wanting me less.

    I am in a stage of my life
    Where windowsill pears are critical
    —have always been critical—

    And as such,
    Last night I fed my lover slices of
    My impossibly hard pears;
    Let him chip a tooth and
    slid silently into the consequences

    As, in his anger,
    He leaves fingertip bruises on my clean, soft, hips.

  5. The Opera Chorus
    Monica Bliss

    The days I feel mentally well
    are extraordinary. Ocean waves. All the people
    I see smile when the see me coming
    they are happy, genuinely happy
    to see me. I am a breathing salutation
    to the sun. Or at least a comfortable
    child pose. What do they call this?
    The days you get out of bed and do not feel
    like everyone hates you. Food in the fridge.
    Enough for home cooked deliciousness Monday through Friday
    and on the weekend. It’s like
    singing soprano two.
    Just sounds like support and bad breath.
    The breath of community. I am not going to bring down
    those I love today, It’s like the time my baby
    was born but then you looked
    into my eyes and I felt and saw
    Like every poem ever written: your love.
    So real. Like ice cream. No, not like that
    It was not ice cream! It was
    Your love, your fucking love! I felt
    mentally well that day. Mother Nature,
    To whom do we pray to express gratitude for this feeling?
    Mother Nature, Mother Earth, the Goddesses
    You don’t know? Enter the opera chorus stage left.
    Let the while audience hear. Come on, Everybody.
    It’s a sing along.
    no doubt no imposter syndrome no feeling like everyone hates me
    Bring in the tenors and the basses. no fear no hesitation not today,
    Man.
    Every day I wake up to you and your love
    and I’m here for it but also do I deserve it, but I want it
    I don’t know what this is.
    Bring back the chorus. Enter stage left (or right) and sing
    Hallelujah!

  6. (Based on “The Wild Iris” by Gluck)

    There is a light at the end of the tunnel
    they say.

    But I am in the abyss,
    I am in the know.

    The shadows creeping loudly in the walls.
    Absolute silence. The light
    dancing in the distance.

    Half-alive
    stuck in my own mind
    out of reach in nothingness.

    The dread of lonesome immortality
    Psyche wandering
    until the end of life, the stillness
    Eros unseen
    whispering to her in desperation.

    The otherworldly forgotten
    the glistening onyx beneath the boat
    A voice from the depth of my mind
    a reminder that living beings
    talk:

    between the heart and the mind
    flows the viscous nectar
    made of long-forgotten memories

  7. Suddenly,
    I am somebody.
    I go out alone.
    I go out to dinner.
    The rain
    Around the New York streets
    Is cold as ice.
    There’s a loud scream
    Down the street
    It rings through my body
    Shaking me
    Watching me
    Knowing me
    There’s many
    Things I want
    To forget. Losing
    my phone
    Or the book
    I wished to buy
    That I knew I would never understand.
    Everything I love
    Will never love me.
    I still can’t find my phone
    So the plans will not be made.
    I’m sorry.
    I want
    To see you
    Underdressed
    In the streets
    Running
    Into your arms.
    We need each other.
    No one around
    It’s only fair.
    Now,
    You’re not here.
    Sadder than you
    But happier than I’ve ever been
    If you need me
    In the New York streets
    There’s a narrow alleyway
    Filled with desire
    Ready for us.
    Think of our love.
    To order the rain
    And all the screams
    As loud as they are,
    I will be here

  8. Tearing apart what’s left behind:
    ragged and hoarse. Breaths
    barely taken. Holding on
    just.
    He’ll never bloom past three o’clock,
    but rot away with dirt and suffocation,
    in slow and sombre fashion.

    Explanation feels so hollow.
    Hollow words and hollow eyes.

    I barely look around, walking down
    stone cold and shivering, as
    the garden burns. Deep ahead
    amongst the rows of hell’s orchards
    hearts burst
    and silently scream
    Till time sucks them
    into a final quiet

    I wonder how I got here
    Death isn’t mine yet I
    Walk through this abyss.

  9. Each sunrise a new coin, each sunset a fading memory,
    Withstanding the wear and tear of life’s harsh weather

    A new warmth to your chest, a fire within,
    pages whispering stories of faded past;
    When the chill seeps in, a familiar ache, a familiar voice –
    Shed the old, rewrite the past

    The voices crawl in and leaves
    their mark and their imprint on your soul remains;
    Trudge through the mire, the memories, the roots

    Words that once dripped sweet like honey
    Now feels heavy, what a bitter irony

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