Song

Even near the terminus of college, paper-writing never slows down. I'm writing an essay about the relationship between mood and nature in the works of John Clare. Something of a forgotten Romantic, Clare wrote a lot of bucolic scenes using irregular punctuation and grammar. Because he didn't receive a prestigious formal education, his work was brushed off as "pastoral" and "unsophisticated." Recently, his work has been "rediscovered" by scholars, and so we're learning about him alongside Shelley and Keats and Hemans and all the other writers from that period.

I could talk all day, but there is work to be done, so I'll leave this poem right here.

"Song" by John Clare 

A seaboy on the giddy mast
Sees nought but ocean waves
And hears the wild inconstant blast
Where loud the tempest raves 

My life is like the ocean wave
And like the inconstant sea
In every hope appears a grave
And leaves no hope for me 

My life is like the oceans lot
Bright gleams the morning gave
But storms oerwhelmed the sunny spot
Deep in the ocean wave 

My life hath been the ocean storm
A black and troubled sea
When shall I find my life a calm
A port and harbour free

Written in 1843, first published in 1949

"Groceries, Without Incident"

So theses are due tomorrow, and I definitely haven't worked hard enough. But I did read at the Boston College Intercollegiate Poetry Festival last night, which I've told myself counts as work.

After I performed, someone came up to me and told me I had a "silky" reading voice. I don't know why that comment made me feel so good, but it did. Naturally, I rehashed that remark with everyone I've seen today, and am doing so again on this here blog.

Anyhow, before I digress too far, this is one of the poems I read.

"Groceries, Without Incident"

Susanna lives somewhere along the Rock Island District— 

when I don’t see her waiting for the train 

she’s pricing soups at Food-4-Less

I still read her nametag each Tuesday afternoon 

but we have never said more than 

two words to each other 

Last time I went to the supermarket, 

I was shopping for taco ingredients 

too shy to see down past her plastic nametag. 

Susanna, shy too, wouldn’t look me in the eye 

until she handed me my receipt. 

I wondered if she had a someone 

if she too told him “not tonight, I'm tired” 

and what he’d known under her nametag 

I thought she would drink up my soul like Kool-Aid 

(on sale, 39¢/packet).

Marathon

"Marathon"

                                                Petals

on a river, a tree in blossom, one

pink bud—unopened—falls

& is carried downstream & out

to sea. From

above the other petals seem to 

carry it. Closer—

this is our map, these our

footprints, we

grew up drinking this water. At the

start there

was doubt, we lit a torch, no one

believed we would

make it. Closer—

the legs, the heart, the lungs. It's

too soon to say

we were lucky, it's too soon to say

anything

until the cloud is pulled back

from the sky, until the ringing is

pulled back from the bells. Look—

everyone we've ever known

runs without thinking

not away but into the cloud, where we are

waiting

-by Nick Flynn, from My Feelings (2015)

BNSF

Here is another rough thesis poem. It doesn't feel finished, so if you have any insight, please feel welcome to share it with me.

Thank you for reading this, as always.

"BNSF"

She harbors his ardor

at the arboretum

on noisy Wednesday afternoons.

Misty junipers burn along the tree line

parallel to the train rails.

The severe summer sun

sticks to the skin of her

back like cellophane.

They profanely sit

by the railroad tracks

pressing hot pennies

beneath the wind of a boxcar.

By now, he must have lost

at least a dollar

tossed across the rail ties

Antebellum

This is a rough poem from my thesis, which is due in a week.

Crunch time GO—

"Antebellum"

This is a cold and murky 4 x 6

from our retired home, by

a broken AE-1, leftover from the canon

of junk our grandparents

finished using.

This is January-sharp,

the air where playground students

pretend to smoke twigs

while their tunafish mothers sit in cornflower kitchens

with closed windows and filled trashcans

smells that won’t leave

and curled posters of unknown forests.

This is moving forward

to a younger house

that never had slaves

or the pecan trees

These are students, climbing.

Northampton

Weekend views; Northampton, MA

From NOLA

A house, wherein lives a man named Chris.

Naked, If I Want To

Forever forward.

- "Naked, If I Want To" by Moby Grape, from Moby Grape (1967)

Fue Perfecta

How is it possible that, all at once, I want to both roll around in the snow outside and climb deep into my bed for hours?

-"Fue Perfecta" by Amor Elefante, from Amor Elefante (2012)