Form Poems (Weds)



7 responses to “Form Poems (Weds)”

  1. To my body

    I am trying to write a letter to my body, or perhaps it will be an ode. I will serenade it with words like soft, womanly, and beautiful; blocking out my self-doubts and distrusts. I will not look in the mirror to write this poem, instead I will use instinct and freedom. With a womanly chest and childbearing hips, my body supports me. In the bedroom it brings me pleasure, in writing it brings me ideas. In life, however, it brings me fears and insecurities.

  2. Ekphrastic poem (no really it’s ekphrastic I swear):

    Nocturne (The General Motors Building at Columbus Circle)

    anyways, i was walking down Ashby at two in the morning — y’know, by MacBeath Hardwood where the big bear carving used to be but they took it down and i thought how funny it was to call yourself indifferent after biting me so hard i almost cried then rubbing over that spot with the gentle pad of your finger to soothe the pain before filling in your teeth marks with black Sharpie so it stuck. you said get it tattooed you said. the thing is i would’ve done it too and thank God i didn’t because why would anyone walk down Ashby at two in the morning if it weren’t for someone calling themselves indifferent to your existence.

    i’d like to think it
    isn’t possible to be indifferent.
    for example i wish i
    was indifferent to the
    removal of the
    bear carving outside MacBeath
    Hardwood but really
    it hurts my feelings.

    years ago when Amelia and I
    wanted a lemonade
    stand
    we waited in the
    dark blue 2008 Toyota Prius
    for my dad to
    get a wood pallet for our sign
    and
    the more i think about it
    the bear is my father
    and the pallet is us
    Haha get it because
    we are rotting somewhere.

    so i’m walking here
    thinking about stalagmites and moon rocks
    and how i always
    wanted to eat one
    and so i pick up
    a weed covered rock
    from the alleyway and
    i bite
    into it and unsurprisingly
    it tastes like rock
    and splinters a little
    between my teeth.

    above me there’s a
    telephone wire &
    a phallic kind of statue in the square
    and i think about
    climbing it and
    impaling myself through
    the pointed top
    cause i think it would be a funny joke.

    people would look at you
    and back at my impaled-ness
    and call you Judas
    because you kissed me and now
    i’m dead,
    Haha do you get it??

    the one thing i’m not sure about is
    that Ashby’s pretty dead
    right about now
    though the liquor store that
    has bullet proof & bullet laden
    windows
    is still open if that counts.
    cause Ashby’s pretty dead right now
    that means i’d have to
    stay up there impaled for
    quite a bit before
    someone found me
    and that honestly seems
    like a lot of effort.

    plus there’s a synagogue
    a few streets that way —>
    and what kind of
    asshole would i be
    making people find my dead body
    on their way to morning services?

    Anyways i guess
    the point is that
    the air i breathe is sorta
    silver right now
    and i’m all alone
    cause they took away the
    bear carving.

    the point is that you can’t
    see your own skin
    in the
    blue night
    so even if it was still there
    i couldn’t tell
    where you had bitten me
    and i’m lying right now,
    it was on my left forearm,
    right above where
    the vein tapers off,
    southeast of my
    left forearm’s
    solitary freckle.

    the thing i don’t remember i guess is
    everything else.
    like i don’t remember
    the smell of our
    dark blue 2008 Toyota Prius for example.
    all i know are
    these iron buildings and
    pavement rocks under my tongue.

    not you.
    I’m indifferent to you.

  3. form poem: sestina

    On 3rd street in
    Captain, New Mexico,
    there is a church as
    tiny as a home,
    and a girl stands on the doorstep, shaking.

    Any girl shaking, as we know,
    should be concealed by her home,
    not in front of a church in
    Captain, New Mexico,
    on 3rd street.

    But only 3rd street
    in Captain, New Mexico,
    holds this church that she needs,
    only it’s yellow, sharp walls, like her old home
    whose foundations shook so hard it

    forgot how to shake to the beat of a drum
    trapped in this word called “home”,
    trapped in church on Sunday all Sunday,
    trapped in Captain, New Mexico
    on 3rd street and it can’t get out.

    Yet on 3rd street,
    in Captain, New Mexico,
    the home is the church
    and the church is the home and
    I walk away, shaking.

  4. Form poem: Pantoum

    I think I cry,
    My mom says I do,
    “A pail to fill your tears” she says,
    But she doesn’t cry at all.

    I think she screams
    From stress or overwhelm.
    But she doesn’t cry at all.
    Even when the whole world hears her.

    I think she cries
    but doesn’t want to show
    Even when the whole world hears her.
    She pretends not to know.

  5. Get out
    Of bed, pull on
    the skinniest top,
    Ignore the hunger,
    Paint my face,
    Lips are glossed,
    Think
    About what they will all see,
    Straighten
    The hair
    Shove on
    The tallest heels
    Don’t eat

  6. Pantoum: Passing of time between me and you

    Living in a constant fever dream
    Dancing in the rain
    Blurred like a flashback movie scene
    Nights that have been long forgotten

    Dancing in the rain
    Washing all of you down the drain
    Nights that have been long forgotten
    I wish I wouldn’t have to stay

    Washing all of you down the drain
    Deliciously dreadful nights in other worlds
    I wish I wouldn’t have to stay
    Moments pester running time

  7. Dear Mother

    You called on Monday to tell me that you spent Easter alone, again.
    It was my fault, you said.
    But last time you said, “At least I have knees.”
    On Thanksgiving it was, “If you keep letting yourself go, he’ll leave you.”
    At Christmas when you called family services
    out of love and concern that
    I’d become too fat to be a good mother,
    you drew the line.
    It’s not my fault you’re alone.
    You drew the line,
    but I broke the cycle.

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