"etymology"

[written Sunday night]

i am not individual
i am rehashed

i was not spawned ex nihilo
i sprung from womb
which had another mother
who was mothered by another
ad nauseam

i mutated
(through many bodies)
from the early genes

in its onset
the cosmos contained me

"what we made"

friends

believe
do

fun
up

noise
amends

peace

out
sure

love
plans
life

a mistake

off

/

"Hiss"

Legless I walk among the green
Blades and tunnel beneath
The earth to seek a place
Where I am welcome.

I am blamed for your own
Naïveté. Cursed as the bringer
Of sin unto a sinful race in a
Folktale slash history book.

I am feared for my body.
I am run from by the masses
For the way I speak and how
It feels to touch me.

I am shunned for being
Serpentine. Metonymized
With vengeance and deceit.

I hiss to cry. I burrow to hide
The cold abomination that is I.

dark smitten

"dark meets happy"

dark stalks

undershadowed by the world

hooded and tuned

out of the hubbub

moving briskly no direction

mouthing meaning

masked by rhythms

brandishes a pen

and ekes out ink on flesh

he calls emotion

happy squees

at fandoms and she smiles

as a rule

so small and bouncy

she lives wide-eyed

wild and shining

radiant with energy

a sunlight synergy

she looks up

cooks up hook-ups

eager to befriend

dark meets happy

happy smiles

dark smitten

they begin to meld

dark puts on happy

she's appeased

he wonders whether

she can darken

amplify Venn's center

enter zen 

vouchsafe

"Drones"

While worker bees sweat honey from the hive
The queen commands her drones to slave away
Day by day they do her bidding
Working hard but hardly living
Hive mind syncs bees' buzz-buzz
Masterfully siphoning
Pollen from daffodils
All their labour is lost
On the tongue of a man

[Explanation]
This poem was assigned as a metric exercise in my poetry class. We were to write 9 lines of verse as follows: 2 lines of iambic pentameter, 2 lines of trochaic tetrameter, 1 line of spondaic trimeter, 2 lines of dactyllic dimeter, and 2 lines of anapestic dimeter. The lines were not required to flow together as a whole ... but I overachieved. ;P

she stood

"character"

i am nonunique
 am incapable
am inept.
m insignificant
 unaccomplished
These all are words that image
WHO I AM. (if i am)
These are elements of my
character

Now and again
Life taps my shoulder
once every minute or so
to let me know
:all the things people
've been doing with her

things like
Reading
Talking (to people)
Loving, being loved, loving
being loved
Crying
Being happy, loving
Life

:all the things I cannot do

Life likes to highlight character

I cannot cry but I
can feel the pain of crying
and I imagine tears
the same way I
imagine friends
It's almost like they
're real

in a vacuum

"Antimuse"

Antoine

My antimuse sits perched on my shoulder

Whispering in my ear (nay, straight to mind)

The longer I pretend to call myself a writer

The more intense his admonitions grow

If you can't read, you can't write

This mantra is becoming ever more concrete

But I like to write, why should I need to read ?

You need to read to write

Everyone knows this

You know, he tells me, you cannot not fail

Think hard about this

You can't even read a novel

You took three years to read a novel

How can you possibly expect to write one ?

Revision requires a read-through

Everyone knows this

You need to read to write

If you can't read, you can't write

Not well at any rate

I've written plenty of poetry

But is it good ?

It has never shone to me as adamantly

As swiftly now it strikes a blow

And knocks me out

That if I want to stay in English

At all

My poetry needs – needs – to be

Really ... really ... good.

Because I can't fall back on revision

I can't decide to switch to shorts or novels

If I want to write, I'm stuck

With poetry as my only choice

It's all that's short enough

If I want to write, I have to write poems

Since I am inept

As my antimuse continues to remind me

I am inept, he assures me I am

Inept

In a vacuum, if you'd ask your self

Is it harder to read or to write ?

The answer is of course

To read is child's play

To write is a thing reserved for the elite

But I myself live backward

I live – if I live –

Backward live I

I write, right ? I do write

I have the right to write

But have no right to read

I lack the rote I need

To read

Or so my antimuse tells me