Final Piece 5085 words total

Prologue -904 words (5085 words total)
The purpose of ars poetica
according to Viktor Shklovsky, i
n 1917, is to slow the reader
and make her experience the ordinary
in an entirely different way.
This interruption of a person’s perception
allows the “stone to become stony again.”

Enstranged works certainly accomplish this
but I found they were difficult for me to read
as well as write at first.
After the initial reflexive mental resistance
I began finding myself to listen to conversations
and then trying to imagine what they would sound like
if I switched them up on paper.
Music and other types of media have come to be more
of a source of inspiration rather than just the background noise.
I found I was jotting down little things
that made me curious about situations,
such as a conversation overheard
walking across the quad where I overheard a man
telling a group that “My construction worker is dead.”
As I began to read Roberto Harrison and Emily Dickinson
I recognized that even mundane objects and conversations
can be used for inspiration.
For example, the computer code Harrison uses
would be incredibly dull when read on its own.
Harrison’s ability to make it say something
other than it means shows the purpose of ars poetica.
Dickinson is talented at personifying ordinary objects
and turning them into an enstranged work of art.
After I acknowledged that the works
are not always meant to be understood
I accepted it as a way of thinking
I began to have fun with this style of writing.

In my poetry I explored candor,
or the element that is crucial in the enstranged style.
The authors tell elements of truth through polysemia
and seem to experience their surroundings
through their souls first
before they begin to dissect it with intellect.
The love of fate – Amor fati –
is a person that is generous enough to love and accept everything
that comes their way in life
and is a healthy outlook to have.
Deconstructing the notion of I, as Aime Cesaire
demonstrated in Notebook of a Return to the Native Land,
opens the spirit to accept everything surrounding it
and in turn can only bring about good things for our culture.
I tried to adopt these philosophies in my work such as “Musical Muse”.

A shift away from the denotative
into the connotative helps the writer to
deprogram themselves from the metaphors
we are accustomed to.
John Keats supported this idea
by proposing the theory that
a writer needs to be open with their work.
Even if the writing doesn’t make sense,
it is the ability to thrive within
the absence of the predictable
that makes one’s writing a work of art.
This use of enstrangement challenges
the notions of automatic language and stylization.

The following cento from Russell Edson’s selected poems
gives a preview of the enstranged style I tried to accomplish in my works –

Dream man said he will do dreams.
There was an orange that had a dream in a fruitbowl,
A man had built a machine.
But his parents said look it is fall.
A piece of a man had broken off in a road.
Thus falls the attention into itself;

In sleep: softly, softly, angel soldiers mob us with their brutal wings;
So it is given. The young prince is placed under a bed.
Do I make everybody that sick, sighs father.
There were feathers growing on his wall as the flesh and bones under the skin had become water.
Not now, not now, I’m just getting to the lining, he murmurs with impatience.
In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones.
He’s a lonely traveler, and finds companion in the road;
The heroine is supposed to be embracing the hero on the deck of the same ship,
but instead is being strapped down for an electric shock treatment.

So it is given: we follow as through a tunnel down through the trees into the earth.
The ceiling was quite displeased and so it grew pleased again.
The ceiling closes heaven like a door.
Meanwhile, we return once more to the kitchen of Aunt Hobbling,
Can the old fellow get out of the kitchen?
He thinks one of his shoelaces needs tying.
But you cannot procreate with an automobile, said father.
And then he looked for himself and even he was gone.
He could not tell if he had not now become himself feathers and turkey flesh.
What shall we do? What shall we do? He cries.

I had remained in bed longer than it usually takes one’s fatigue to drain off.
A large woman has killed her parakeet with an ax;
She says, it’s wrong, she wants her hatchet.
They are in the house.
In it were the things a man kept,
Actually both arms were missing.
Can we depend on human intelligence to save itself?
I am already reaching for the phone to call a taxi,

I seek a mastery over fate, of which you are,
Now arc the earth, sweet dark,
Grey is the light and a green tree there and the ceiling asleep.
…That’s funny, my watch is melting on my wrist.
Well, at least, if this doesn’t hurt reality,
Which, of course, is sheer nonsense placed in the service of the tongue.
Standing on a cliff overlooking the sea,
Gently, gently out of hell, the ape climbing out of the ape.
Yes, I am afraid; I am not so brave.




Random Beginnings -688 words
Wood smoke, slight and strong
Musky sweet tangling through
Mixed up hair that will not ever wash this away
Fearful to lose the memories of stars and melody
About solitude being born or
The sweet release of bitter thoughts
This is just another hour moving forward
Eyes burn from sun scorched lips
Parched poetry is feeling
Expressions get away from the reverence
Will I allow the open to embrace to acknowledge the unknown thoughts?
Now a phone blast is unwelcome
Must focus harder on blue nervous feet
This cool shirt is a relief of crystal
What tree weeps with wishes?
Now picture smooth rocks seeing night though their eyes
Instead of the stone veil that covers the heart of Them
This gross kidney shall heal an undiscovered friend
I can do without your leathery overdone kale soup
But that popped beer has worked to the surface
With soothing happiness all afternoon
A downturned truck bemuddled with specks is bearing
DOWN I yell furiously!
A turtle flew backwards to show that
A pen cannot be dropped around people managing chairs
A spangled face mows a buzzing peck of asparagus
I love to celebrate nothing, every time
I feel self intoxicating hatred or love disguised in flesh
but with a broken mouth screaming
I shall not embrace the shade
Today
Will empty deliverance sever your adhesive faith?
I gesture to flighty attitudes by sarcastic sailors
Writing blames that acknowledge his forgotten sister quit congress
Tomorrow tolls a summoning and flings the universal
In a red flavor
Streaks claim the sky over
This pear flowing orchard
Flies drop kisses of sweet burial feasts
Awful fast landing for a flinching goose
Mankind can hear pockets of review letters gasping truth
A brave punch stretches standing lumber
It makes me mistake a blossoming tooth for a gnarled ear
His hat begs to talk of a thousand proud prisoners
Who lost witnesses to the stand
This dinner fogs over reduced fat
Its height is in the lathering jam
Too level clocks wound by dollar bills
Shoulder to bat without shallow heels
Spectacular wheat thin is born by the shyness of the wicked hummus
A true friend remembers your perception
Never will she interrupt the talking tough
Whispers almost started the screen melting
Steamy enough with clattering throats
A chapped nail is locked tight during coping hours
Draw on drumbeats yet fingers twitch with empty flames
This catchy obituary reveals ten gates creaking in need of dark water
Tunnels turning paraphrasing into frogs
Leap and the net will let you fall into your favorite line of creaky sonnets
Too much speech will reek the preface
Practice the routine of a technical rhythm
A spoon clatters from above
Those loathing foams
Out to calculate the sour taste of fennel and figs
Collide with me on the floor
These never ending words are too tired to stop chair legs
United thoughts don’t exist anymore
The professor has won
I’ll turn to Saturday night and drunken bars
and too many regrets too soon
but the parties continue
I’ll need to shower and give up before the sun rises
We’ll storm the thread of war together
For those in pain have not heard the truth that their weapons are backward
and do not make sense a true solution
Political stances are all contradictions on a pinhead
Self righteous hope doesn’t make you right
Resolved disbelief and reactions without fight
Is the voiceless cowards’ way out
Say farewell to fake affection you fool
Always begging for change but have you come that far
From where we stood over there when the tide was rising
And speaking the curses of cloudy time
Sparks only show selfish fears in this mindless murmuring
Turn the tables one day and the slurs will vent conviction
Honor can never be free power
Whiteness obliterates possibilities
Stop the bleeding and begin to believe in potential shadows
You cannot chase harder than you can crawl
If we must hide the precious dreams
They cannot be stolen in a sudden breath
You can’t deny you are ordinary
Build up any remedy to keep in the cold choking breath






Harrison Post -633 words
I ease into the bloated rivers of plasma, in the jugular vein of the wasted dealer

All the moors of eastern Scotland
Laugh like the wind
The heart of a rose
Rimming the tomb
Every skull
Grasps reveling chances
To perhaps fuse
The arm in
Find if you can
The snap of a shiny bone
For the hovering luck
Of the rabbit hindered

I surrender to justice that portrays reflection,
The insect serenading
To sleep
A dead memory
In the striped trenches
The swamp of tears
Regain the faces of delicate ladies
Yearning under
The wonder of a birth
Will it do

Every eclipse in light
Gutters the soft yellow glow,
Without a burn
For the footsteps proceed
In the warm quickening night,
On the heated cobblestone
In their flight
Escapes the burning hands of the angry sea

I crawl the distance that webs close behind
I digest the sweet amour
In the heart of the sun the cicadas singe

In the tomb of the end
Is the touch of His hand
Thinking of it punctuates my longing

I exhale in the heavens
I command the celestial knowing
I can protect you from seething peril

In the carat, on the hand, from the ground
Where the children played in the mud
Where they climb the gum tree
Where the winged birds return to sleep in their coronet

Under the brittle bridge
Is the spattering DAM of a rat
In the psychic connection of the creatures, for the lead
For my sleeve in the break
For an overgrown love, for the stream that guides every living thing

I empty dirt from the hearts of my boots

I splice the truth for native tongues

In languages that could pour out of the souls of mutes
It is a sound that detects what won’t be removed
In a ruse that a babbling son can’t accuse
For traveling further still
For waking before noon
For the plops on the shady half of a loop

I retreat to separate my words

I soon space out from the fun

I copy the files of the known poet

For the blooming tiara in June
For the islands that steam
For the flight of soil in a break of earth

The dogs I remember

I slay hatreds

I refresh ideologies

I count through the torrent

Fur heads on the coat
From turtles that sun
For brackets that never enforce

I have begun

I sing

I follow the plummet of the wings off the planes that won’t fly

To ferment the grapes on a lath
To break all the mirrors that were fused
To execute smokes in thick bits


I am a choke that begins from the throat
I am the gums that you poison through with dips
I am the treacherous quivering steps in the belly of lies
I am the void holding everything
I connect
I neglect
I am undone
I falter
I view it all
I drip
I roll over
I heave in the line of fire
I pour the glass through
I tie every count that is numbered
With the land in the sea
That a countess becomes
That which is a body unraveled
Winched above prairies, and forest, and springs
Slithering ears
In the corn made of snakes

I claw up the panther with rakes

I arrive on a herd of horses

I cloud the loss for the eagles

I coyote all the skinny deer

I sink in the hidden ground with the animals

I am an entry of knowledge

I am silence in the host of the praying
I am a desperate cycle in the shell of an ocean tide

I loop before the lines through the arrival from before

I am the corpse of frozen centers
Adrift
Over a lake
Made of lava


Lure of the sea -630 words
I open my soul and connect with the beckoning musePoetry singsThe songs that tell of rippling rainsRed wine travels in rivulets,Sailing through a groveThe cross stretched wide my limbsEvery wound is a journeyEvery return a welcome friendTo ecstatic godsTopping glasses, to celebrate, the remainsOr is it now the beginningI recreate the master’s touch, the embraceSuddenly I’m standing and listeningI translate the sighing of the grassTo be speaking with reassuranceWhispering a welcomeThe memory of what will beI tip downward out of position, the mapped out worldIs swirling beneath my wingsThe mountains scorn and scrabbleTo hungrily lick the remainsBreath of ashThe divide of that most open refrainThe last on the field use weapons of stars,In the endless reverse of the strangeAn overture of the passIn any game made for the winningFor the sense of fools to ponder foulsThat plies a disaster of commentsShouting cursesIt is clear that those one to-one have words in handWhat they have stolen, is the connectionThe blood loss persistsWhere the pain has refused to surrenderWhen the revolving ceases, when the shirt is regainedWhen the ten instruments were not blamedThere is soul in the friction of the gasp of the facadeIn the shadow of gain, the jigs and reels enthrallDrawing in friends and discarding loversAn orange that peels too close to the groundWinding trails of scented fleshThat unweaves from the forgivingQuarters of sustenanceThe worm feedsThat the unwavering almost gives upOr gives inNot that anyone seesA flicker of heat pulls me inThe safest road retreatsThis onward ribbon will labyrinthTrapping me with deception, an illusion of endMy hands meltI am lost in the circuitsI am free of fearI dissolve in these wheelsGone I will beI believeThat the safest cut is to a stemLifting the face freeFrom a tangle of thornsThat painful crownThe painted rose wakesIn the cool submersionPerfumeFortress of charmStolen luck and smoky mirrorsEnchanting towers lure the unbelieversSilken chants and mysterious kissesThe crooked smile tastes of chocolateA cocoa concoction of cinnamon, coffee and hazelnutMy senses drugged I surrender into his spellDrowning in the other worldI believeLaughter touches my handA cold relief from siestaA lake of sweatNightmares swarmI focus on the battleIt is in meAgainst the fossilsA landscape of canyonsFiltering snow in the tracks of the desertThe dust shines through refractionThe eyes of cicadas peer though willow boughsThe nervous lemon spinning under glassVisions press fingertips to my eyelidsDarkening shadows separateInto giant figures that stride at meThrough stitches of honeyGlossy curve of a treeTurquoise shelters the tortoiseThe promise of dancing fishMakes me trembleMy ears are floodingThe rest will take shape with the wind’s caressThe saltwater stings then the pain is vanishedA tug of sand from beneath my feetBurrow for a crabNothing beginsNothing true is intendedNothing runs into the sunNothing bleeds into the seaNothing files remorseNothing is liberatedNothing blinks in the glowNothing wakes in the revolving tideNothing remains of the false webNothing mars the polish of the seaNothing interrupts the timeNothing revolvesNothing weaves through the bubbling surfaceNothing paces underwaterNothing wakes with intentNothing betrays the war of fallingNothing remembersNothing tugs with deceptionNothing gets new againNothing loves to refuseNothing removes the line in the sand
Nothing remains

Emily D. Cento – 622 words
In Winter in my Room (1670)
In snow thou comest- (1669)
A little Snow was here and there (1444)
Quick! Burst the Windows! (1003)
Unto guessed Crests, my moaning fancy, leads me (295)
It ceased to hurt me, though so slow (584)
The Battle fought between the Soul (594)
Unto the Everlasting Spring (804)
Further than Arm could stretch (949)
For treason not of His, but Life’s (950)
Of Heaven above the firmest proof (1204)
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus (1207)
That such a Realm could be- (1360)
Beguile it more and more – (1580)
It makes us think of what we had, (1764)
And Something’s odd- within- (410)
While simple-hearted neighbors (45)
Are settled, and at work – (1035)
Like Men and Women Shadows walk (1105)
To Keep the Dark away (850)

The thinking how they walked alive- (509)
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky (228)
Strong Draughts of Their Refreshing Minds (711)
By pallid innuendoes (1445)
But think enlarged of all that they will tell us (1515)

Loosed the Moon her silver hat (1672)
The elemental Veil (1412)
Lest in a Face so beautiful (1080)
Of unsuspended Suns – (562)
Too Telescopic Eyes (443)
To witness her Goodbye (419)

We wondered at our blindness (795)
And so of larger – Darknesses – (419)
We soberly descend (1118)
Unobserved – a Ribbon slipt, (1363)
A little weather worn (1465)
Down Time’s quaint stream (1656)
Unconscious our returning, (1657)
This – is immensity – (1512)

A Word that breathes distinctly (1651)
Resembles to my outraged mind (1102)
When the Birds begin to whistle (617)
But wrought their Pang in syllable – (544)
And all the meadows wide – (26)
Like thee to dance – like thee to sing – (24)

Ah, said July – (386)
Let go a music –as of tunes (436)
As Forest touch the Wind (1229)
Was Summer to a Score (805)
She was not warm, though Summer shone (804)
To gird us for the sun, (63)
The old-old sophistries of June – (130)

Thine eye impose on me – (429)
Stains – all washed – (428)
As Suns – dissolve a star (515)
Color-Caste-Denomination- (970)
The Beauty that reward Him best- (968)
And never quite concealed (1173)
Silence is all we dread. (1251)

Sweet Pirate of the heart, (1546)
Not any more to be known – (1344)
My Wars are laid away in Books – (1549)
A Rat surrendered here (1340)
‘Tis starving makes it fat- (1509)
He ate and drank the precious Words – (1587)
Round our new Fireside – but for this –(944)
His glittering Embrace – (867)

For a penurious smile. (868)


The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won (1)
The Wind pursued the little Bush – (589)
But could not make it feel. (948)
Even Nature herself (1344)
Has “All” a further Realm – (1341)
Without apparent burden (1723)
Displayed before the simplest Door (1644)
But Nature relishes the Pinks (1641)
An edible Delight (1306)
Until to Her surprise (1081)
Blown tremulous in Glass- (436)
On this long storm the Rainbow rose – (194)
The Breaking of the Day (55)
Easier – for the sky (728)
Is that Great Water in the West – (726)
Riches and Name and Realm (1318)

Such are the inlets of the mind- (1421)
One Joy of so much anguish (1420)
Gathered into the Earth, (1370)
Combined with a seam (1371)
Gravitates within- (750)
Itself to justify (745)
And Dying-Lifetime- (682)
‘Twould ease – a Butterfly – (682)
Of Sunshine-and of Sere- Composed (602)
Far ends of tired Days- (604)
Or who died-yesterday! (277)

The flower must not blame the Bee – (206)
The Rose did caper on her cheek (208)
The Forfeit is of Creature fair (1154)
Best Witchcraft is Geometry (1158)
To breathe my Blank without thee (1153)
The Visage of the Soul (1311)
Shudder to attain. (1315)
Impregnable the Rose (1444)

Niedecker Cento – 318 words
I think of a tree (105)
The surface of the stream the leaves (109)

The wind willow (104)
By freshness from the sky (115)

I have to fly (209)
At times I sit in the dunes (108)

Sleep and it won’t matter (144)
She’d sell dirt, she’d sell your eyes fried in deep grief. (108)

In the great snowfall before the bomb (142)
I fear this war (183)

You are alone (183)
On my doorstep (182)

Fog-thick morning (181)
The branches’ snow is like the cotton fluff (174)

The marsh, down in the ditch(145)
And hear from Ireland (171)

As we walked a city terrace (159)
In New Madrid (165)

In all the world there is nothing (176)
Now I sew green aprons (208)

Stood serene as now-he refused to see (175)
In the old house (164)

Quivering toward light (172)
I rose from marsh mud (170)

Cars out rolling thru the country (172)
Porch’s people, prices, peppermints (171)

Go home where the green bird is- (168)
Inside today’s woods (160)

As I shook the dust (160)
Chopin left notes like drops of water (158)

Something precious, a real good thing (153)
Beside the river-out of flood (169)

Imitation silk black dress (152)
She now lay deaf to death (150)
Moving thru a field (164)
Let me hear good night (151)

Tho what we feel be misery (148)
Three days toward Berlin, one bread for six (165)

Don’t melt too much into the universe (149)
Like parachutes (136)

We must know about the sandhill crane (145)
In the moonlight lies (135)

Let’s practice your dance (144)
Here we last (120)

What would they say if they knew (143)
The world has no notice (81)

Not all that’s heard is music. We leave (143)
Between the river and the Sound (137)

Birds flying through leaves (134)
With tap-dance-acrobatics (134)

No modesty anymore (118)
To wit, the lover said (79)

Not finding where the flowers were (116)
And the extravagant (80)

Raw wind, rain, (81)
How impossible it is (198)

There must be things in the world – (85)
No bread and cheese and strawberries (86)

There was a bridge once that said I’m going (87)
Rise and sore (82)

Land cannot be sold, (99)
And painted in red, a bluebottle gentian (98)

Dickinson and Niedecker Translated - 649 words
****Dickinson****
Our share of night to bear
Our share of morning,
Our happiness in a vacuum to fill,
Our blank in scorning.
Here is a star and a star, Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there is fog,
After that day!

To fight aloud is very brave,
Gallanti but I know
Who charge within the breast,
The cavalry of woe.
Who will win, and nations do not see,
Which is not only observation,
Whose eyes dying, no country
Regards with patriot love.
We trust in plumed procession,
These angels go
Rank after rank, even with the feet
And uniforms of snow

Victory comes late
I keep a low freezing lips
Too deep, St. frost glass doors
You can take it.
In order to sweet taste,
Just a drop!
God was so economical?

The table spread for us, too
If you do not eat tip-toe.
Crumb can keep a small mouth
Cherries separated Robins;
Golden Eagle's breakfast Strangles them.
God has kept his oath Sparrow,
Who is a little love
I know how to starve!

Before you think of spring,
In addition to the assumption
Behold, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the sky Independent hues,
Little time-worn, Inspiriting Clothing
The carbon and brown.
With examples of poems,
As for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
Sexuality was associated with delay
To some superior tree
Without any list Shouts of joy and the But even Angelina!

Bring me the sunset in a cup
Count this morning's flagons up,
And say how many cloth;
Tell me how far the morning jump
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadth blue!
Write me how many notes have In the new robin's ecstasy
Among astonished branches;
How many trips the tortoise makes,
How many cups of the bee partake --
The debauchee of dews!
Also, who laid the Rainbow's piers,
Also, which leads the docile spheres
At the withers of additional blue?
If fingers string the stalactite,
Who counts wampum at night
To see that nobody is guilty?

Who built this little Alban house
And close the windows down so close
My spirit can not see?
Who'll let me some gala day, With the tools to fly away
Passing pomposity?


****Niedecker****
My coat worn,
And Capital Hill
The morning after
the modern.
In this category
Eternal the land of fiction, see through laughter.

Mr.Van It bought 14 washcloths?
Fourteen washrags, Ed Van there?
It must go on the church, I guess. He drinks, you know.
The day on which we
Then came into the kitchen stewed, to mix things, my sister Grace --
Place spices in a bad place.

My husband says that the wind blows from the south,
we go, there is no happiness
Caught that I use multiple burns on it,
and the faces to the east, and the wind in my mouth,
but my husband has been in the south.

Black Hawk leadership: Due
Earth can not be sold,
things to take away, and I'm old.

Young Lincoln postponed general
Papaya flowers, and to this day,
Black Hawk, Reason a small room.

The laundry is in office
no totem-sculptures between master Niedecken
moreover, every seventh day on which they are washed:
Worship service Sunday,
the fear of the rain,
the eyes of their neighbors;
the hands of the earth to heaven,
and hang or fall in with the white to all of them.

Grampa's got hisr old age pension,
$ 15 per month, his own food and space.
But here he comes, Violin and spitbox ...
Tho't I stop with you a little, Harriut,
They were all parents.

There's a better shine on the clock
that what is happening on my hair
and often I have seen there.
Which bird light Moving into a tree
Tree, which I of privacy?
Down in the grass the issue of the incompetent;
sora eyes. . . Not calm.


Musical Muse -641 words
The nodding flute,
its flight
Focused and springing
Trippy

Astounding but
I can’t quite make it say
That this will ever make sense
With you
Swaying me, singing -
“Love inside
Of your head
Love inside
Of my head”
-when Dave Matthews Band
Plays a gig on the big stage

Dave Matthews Band -Beacon Theatre, NYC

Maybe now I can comprehend this statement:
“If only two notes are
Played
Only so much can go wrong
One note or the other”
But look here at
All these empty keys
Taunting me to touch
And clang
Making me wish I was not
Closed in from that splendid dusky light
Sun laughing
Tapping the inky glass
Sky of night
The lyrics drive me out

Diving obliterating thoughts rush into
Dreaming of who wrote
About Seven sons and turned
That nonsense into rhymes
Musty house Smells leaping -
Chasing Nightmares
And demanding equations
What lies should not be told?
That’s a sick game to play
Better to fill this gasping space
With observations of Musician faces
Bitter, Sweet happiness of arrival
Unfulfilled sorrow yawning
With years of too many desires dried up
This is too much
I think I’ll nap
No more
Dancing words and thank
You
very much
Popping on my lips

Abode of humble
Secrets
I want to believe-
In order to Fuse
The past to
The drum
Beats
Are you there?
In this moment
I am taken
In
By it
Forgive it
Accept it
You may wear this façade for me
If you could care to?
Can you receive it without stretched fingers?

Every moment is
Deliberate.
Calculating the angles-
The crook
Of his eyebrow
Says wait and see.
Watch for the play of his fingers
They talk you know
Telling me
I’m so damn
Lucky
For this one night
When the switch
Flips

Drunken geraniums
Bobble in the window box
Bleeding with the fog
A carnage on the glass of my face
Stoic as Unseen strings are
Tying knots into flowers
Twining my prayers into
Something real for you.
Stay Beautiful
Love.

I laugh out
Loud like water poured
From a saxophone
Answering the stars
Spiraling under your feet
What is in this inspiration?
I’m some kind of dope
Tippling away my resistance until
I am so out of control
I’ve lost my cool
It appears I have addressed the muse
Too soon and it disappeared
Just the same as the way the dust likes to crawl across my desk
Mapping out grainy rivers on this plane

The picture that took me over
Was a field of tulips
Brazen and flirting
Until the cello drowned them out
One beauty easily shadows over the other
There must be a message in that
But all I see are shooting cars
And I don’t know any songs but that one
I’ve done my mama proud
Once again
I lost my chances
I got tangled up and misplaced
Wandering through you
And testing the depth of your tactile thoughts
While you held me too close
The strands of your world
Only show you staring back at me
That’s no help what so ever
I’ll focus on your jittering foot instead
Why don’t you set it free
It may be better off
Without you dragging it down
Shine this spot light on
It there in center stage
Let’s see what it can do!
Maybe it can make up for the last
Fifty-six words left
Because I can see nothing else but
Children playing in the street
Just be yourself kid –there on the bike –
Stand your ground against the taller one-
Don’t let them bully the self out of you
Hang on to that bike for all you are worth
Character is easily swindled away these days
Sold to the highest bidder, so you thought.
Joke’s on you kid if you should give in.