For Bosquiat
Unbeknowst to me
I have become a cat person.
Helping a friend
take her pet to the vet,
I held the
ball of fur and fight
through thirteen traffic lights.
Perhaps it was the eleventh light
that the cat looked up,
and somewhere in its
mustard eyes there was
a quiet dignity,
a reserved confidence,
an understanding that though cat,
there is something of gods
in there,
a dusty history, shelved in the stripes
that line the tail
that curls about my arm like an asp.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
May 29, 2009
The girl was large,
conspicuously so. Her
wide body perched
uncomfortably on
a buckling chair
in the hallway.
Her head, a
small grape to the
melon of her body
was slender, if only
in comparison.
She seemed trapped
there, a barrel
on its way over the edge,
a child in an iron lung,
a girl, 19, carrying
the world on her hips.
conspicuously so. Her
wide body perched
uncomfortably on
a buckling chair
in the hallway.
Her head, a
small grape to the
melon of her body
was slender, if only
in comparison.
She seemed trapped
there, a barrel
on its way over the edge,
a child in an iron lung,
a girl, 19, carrying
the world on her hips.
May 28, 2009
Bonfire Remembrance 2009
They flood in, small rivers
these families and students
who did not see Bonfire burn like a canopy,
did not hear Bonfire laugh like a harlequin,
did not feel Bonfire, shaking and shuddering.
here in this place that now echoes a memory
quiet hymns hum in the halls of our history.
Now is the night when their open ears, listening
quiet enough for a ten- tear-old voice
to say, “Silence young soldiers, our work is not over here.
Patience my brothers and sisters, still smoldering.
“We are the smoke and the ashes, the wind
that has yet to die down, that will stir through these logs
“Until you and your progeny, you with our history, you in your destiny,
set stones ablaze.”
They flood in, small rivers
these families and students
who did not see Bonfire burn like a canopy,
did not hear Bonfire laugh like a harlequin,
did not feel Bonfire, shaking and shuddering.
here in this place that now echoes a memory
quiet hymns hum in the halls of our history.
Now is the night when their open ears, listening
quiet enough for a ten- tear-old voice
to say, “Silence young soldiers, our work is not over here.
Patience my brothers and sisters, still smoldering.
“We are the smoke and the ashes, the wind
that has yet to die down, that will stir through these logs
“Until you and your progeny, you with our history, you in your destiny,
set stones ablaze.”
May 27, 2009
These brightest days
are jewels on the crowns
of a few,
the glints from
the swords
of a few,
the gleam
int eh eyes
of a few,
and we, the rest,
are the dark many,
storing light like coins,
hoarding the great treasures
of the chosen.
are jewels on the crowns
of a few,
the glints from
the swords
of a few,
the gleam
int eh eyes
of a few,
and we, the rest,
are the dark many,
storing light like coins,
hoarding the great treasures
of the chosen.
May 26, 2009
From the top of Harrington Tower,
just before the sun slips away,
the dome of the Academic Building
offers a subtle severity,
anachronistic in our clay-colored campus.
From here, this little castle of a building,
with its windowed eyes and lattice balconies,
is not unlike one that some Renaissance
prince would step out onto, survey his land,
and walk back into his tapestried halls.
As I look down among
the grassy lawn of Cushing and through
the heavy boughs of the century tree,
I am not surprised to see
these regal students,
small kings and queens of
monarchies yet unmade.
just before the sun slips away,
the dome of the Academic Building
offers a subtle severity,
anachronistic in our clay-colored campus.
From here, this little castle of a building,
with its windowed eyes and lattice balconies,
is not unlike one that some Renaissance
prince would step out onto, survey his land,
and walk back into his tapestried halls.
As I look down among
the grassy lawn of Cushing and through
the heavy boughs of the century tree,
I am not surprised to see
these regal students,
small kings and queens of
monarchies yet unmade.
May 25, 2009
Qualitative Research
We bring our biases
like crowns
like ribbons
like fanfare.
We announce them
like great orators
on the eve of battle.
We spread them
like thick blankets
over the picnics we prepare,
so when they come to eat,
they will take our research
with great mouthfuls of our souls.
We bring our biases
like crowns
like ribbons
like fanfare.
We announce them
like great orators
on the eve of battle.
We spread them
like thick blankets
over the picnics we prepare,
so when they come to eat,
they will take our research
with great mouthfuls of our souls.
May 24, 2009
Quilted Woman
There is a woman who quilts
and keeps calico cats
in the stacks of batiks
that cover her house,
and her liver spot skin
is a stretched Pollock print.
It’s a dangerous pattern,
her bones sewn within.
And her poetry’s pieces,
her prose cut apart,
but she seamlessly speaks
from her thread-tethered heart.
And her cat is a quilt
and her home is a quilt
and her skin is a quilt
and her voice is a quilt
and her life has been built
by the scraps left behind:
her memory, the thread; the needle, her mind.
There is a woman who quilts
and keeps calico cats
in the stacks of batiks
that cover her house,
and her liver spot skin
is a stretched Pollock print.
It’s a dangerous pattern,
her bones sewn within.
And her poetry’s pieces,
her prose cut apart,
but she seamlessly speaks
from her thread-tethered heart.
And her cat is a quilt
and her home is a quilt
and her skin is a quilt
and her voice is a quilt
and her life has been built
by the scraps left behind:
her memory, the thread; the needle, her mind.
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