aleah's thoughts

Two newer poems

2009-05-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

Cheese Pizza with James Taylor

“Steamroller” playing in the background

James Taylor jumping like David Lee Roth

and playing the guitar with his teeth

afraid to turn towards Jon

tears splashed on the back of my neck

we both gravitate towards the
greasy pizza napkin

no more cheese pizza but two empty

spots for necks

Track 12

Necks rubbing in the dark

my upset stomach ruining the moment

he is finally listening

to the sounds of Simon and Garfunkel

playing Bridge Under Troubled Waters

our criss cross fingers leading towards friendships

only voices of roommates voices making hot dogs

no worries were alone together

but when track 12 is over, so is the romance

Two new poems

2009-05-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

The Doors

Room full of doors

Each door is shaped differently

One door is shaped like lust

One door is shaped like love

Grabbing towards love I hesitate

Lust is so intriguing

So many colors for such a short period

Just a peek inside

Visions of bodies moving up and down

Lips intersect with other lips

On the far wall is a plaque

“No Love No Lust”

Only filtered sounds of Barry White move around

Shutting the door I had to wonder

Lust will always be

Love door opens slightly

The air smells like fresh rain drops

Sounds of Barry Manilow pound through the atmosphere

So many colors of pinks and whites

There are no bodies

Love seems so dull without different colors

Vanilla is the key smell

Vanilla perfume, Vanilla cupcakes and Vanilla sofas

Looking further into love

Only cardboard cut outs of hearts

Petting a puppy on a pillow

A small cut appears

Is it true?

The cliché of love hurts

Maybe lust was the way to go

DJ’s vs. Blockbusters

Garbage Pail Kids the movie is sitting in comedy

Where is Pee Wee’s Big Adventure?

Chairy and Globy need to be in my heart

Action and Adventure section is full of biceps and hair gel

But the romance section should be called Hugh Grant

Moving up the aisle and seeing crunch bars and Laffy Taffy

My eyes meet

Romeo, I am your Juliet

DJ’s video and Blockbuster hates us being together

Obviously Romeo and Juliet turn out great

Married with children

Wait a minute, what?

Language Poets

2009-05-12T23:03:00.000-07:00

I have always been interested in language poetry. There are so many weird poets experimenting with the English language. The first poet I read was Susan Howe. The first poem I read was "Speeches at the Barriers". I have no idea what the poem is about but the language is so beautiful. She used a lot of the same consonants. She used a lot of "f"s, "s"s, "g"s and "w"s. When read out loud, the words seemed like a tongue twister. I would like to know why she used so many similar consonants. Maybe the effect of using the words was for the use of the reader to actually read the poem out loud and not so much to read to his or herself. One of the most compelling lines in her poem is in part one stanza six: "old woman prowling genial telling her story". The image I got from the line was the woman from Mary Poppins. The woman who is feeding the birds. This woman has a story to tell and it is an interesting story. From far away, she looks old but from close up she has beauty in her past. In White Foolscap, Howe is playing with the way she ranges her poems. I prefer the poems not to be crazy positions because it seems to busy for my brain to concentrate. There were two poems that I actual preferred. The poem started with "Running ring" was actually very interesting. The poem is about a wren and her child but the way the poem is formed makes me wonder why she did that. The poem is in a "s" shape. She rhymes and uses alliteration to make her point. The second poem is underneath the "Running rings" poem and most of the words are combined with other words. I did not realize the poems were under one poem called "White Foolscap". I do like the repeating of "I can retrac my steps I who crawl between thwarts Do not come down the ladder i for I haveaten it a way". Susan Howe combines words for emphasis. For an example of her combining words "re trac Iwho haveaten". I have no explanation for why she did that but when I read the words out loud I started to realize the sounds of the words. By using field composition, Susan Howe makes the reader realize the most important aspect of poetry, the words. Lyn Hejinian I like and dislike. Her poetry scheme is a new technique called "the new sentence". "The new sentence" is combining sentences that do not have any connection to any of the sentences. I read Lyn Hejinian's "My Life" fall term and I struggled to understand the concept. I like the way she wrote "My Life". I like actually using the concept of "the new sentence" for good use. When I actually tried the concept I guess I misunderstood and messed up the poem. I like that I have more of a chance to explore more strange and unusual concepts.

One boy four poems

2009-05-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

Zombie Game
Gummy worms piling on the dinner plate
fresh glass of beer bubbling with sounds of pops
pieces of beards falling down to the ground
glass tables viewed from around the corner
four people playing a zombie game
wanna join?

Track 12
Rubbing necks in the dark
Upset stomach ruining the moment
Jon is finally listening
To the sounds of Simon and Garfunkel
When track 12 is over, so is the romance

Motorists
Yelling at passing motorists
Walk in the cross walk
Wanna get hit by two yelling motorists
Keep on walking
Because one day I'll be the pedestrian
getting hit by you

Bathrooms Open
Tapping my fingers slowly on a notebook
I think I'm almost done
Done waiting for an opening
talking to fellow bed wetters
loud thump
bathrooms open

Allen Ginsberg is a comic genuis

2009-04-29T21:26:00.001-07:00

I really enjoyed reading the black mountain poets. There is a real dry humor to a lot of the poets. In earlier poetry classes, I was exposed to Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery. Both poets were brilliant. One of my favorite poems of all time is Frank O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died" poem. After reading poets that were not that much of an interest, I was introduced to Allen Ginsberg. I was fascinated by two of his poems: "To Aunt Rose" and "America". Ginsberg did a wonderful job using descriptions in the poem. When he describes aunt rose, this image of an average looking white female came into mind: "with your thin face and buck tooth smile and pain of rheumatism-and a long black heavy show for your bony left leg limping down the long hall..." Ginsberg made this unbeautiful woman beautiful through poetic language. Through his comedic descriptions of objects and aunt rose he did a wonderful job in abstraction. Through out his telling of his Aunt Rose, he supplies lines that do not go well with the main subject of Aunt Rose. I am unsure that Aunt Rose is his actual aunt or a female character he looked up to. Mid way through his poem, he tells a story about how Aunt Rose helped him out: "the time I stood on the toilet seat naked and you powdered my thighs with calamine against the poison ivy- my tender and shamed first black curled hairs what were you thinking in secret heart then knowing me a man already-" I do not know how to feel about this statement. There relationship seems to inappropriate to be family. He is describing the way she is cleaning his naked body and she is checking out his pubic hair to see if he is a man. As a new reader, I was not expecting this bold of a statement so early in the poem. I am surprised by the content in the poem from when he actually wrote the poem. He wrote the poem in 1958. The sexual revolution would not start for another ten plus years. The last stanza seemed to see the end of Aunt Rose: "last time I saw you was the hospital-pale skull protruding under ashen skin blue veined unconscious girl in an oxygen tent the war in Spain has ended long ago Aunt Rose". The words Ginsberg used to describe Aunt Rose on the hospital bed are chilling. Even though he does not describe his feelings about Aunt Rose on the hospital bed, I could tell by the last line that he wanted the last time he saw her alive to be happy. When I first read "America" I enjoyed Ginsberg's witty commentary. I was surprised to hear how different the poem sounded when Ginsberg read the poem out loud. I enjoyed hearing the audiences reactions and his own reactions. He changed a lot of the printed version of "America". Through out the poem, I got a sense of Walt Whitman. Whitman's love for nature and Ginsberg's love of nature through America. Ginsberg explanation of beauty was completely different from Whitman's version of beauty. A great example of this beauty was "I smoke marijuana every chance I get. When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid". Ginsberg's love of America is trying to get laid in China town and smoking weed every chance he gets. Ginsberg had a surreal outlook on this poem. He is explaining why he loves America in a strange and unusual way. When he thinks of nature, he mentions his love for marijuana. His natural resource are two joints and male genitalia. He is honest with his audience. Instead of using metaphors for describing his love for America, he using funny banter with real statements from his own personal life. Ginsberg was a comic genius who only spoke the truth.

Newer poems

2009-04-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

Chocolate man
Balding chocolate man looking at me
tie died purple alien shirt
zero amount of sleep
day glow friend moving
one pillow for two heads
uncomfortable empty cranberry juice
air smells like moldy bread
slammed door
cold white van
all alone crying
my eyes see you
brand new you
chocolate with a side of prescription
no digits in hand
wait your turn
only two years
dark like turns into fire
oven filled with screams
my first impression
went so well

About ten shots
About ten shots shot down
wicker basket filled to the top
spilling over into gray morsels
a lifeless body sunk in the pollution
only seconds to revive
drive within seconds into brown bath water
A mother's concern about to come true

Aloofa sponge squished in hand
pouring down each birth mark
eyes rolled back in head
no response
laughing is not an option
cleaning the mess with an open eye
dribbling in embarrassment
white towels changed

Picking up comedy through a lens
the audience sees a black man and a white man
discussing politics would be unfair
conversations of Saddam Hussein's sex life
Satan and Saddam butt fucking
no image beforehand
only a girl who doesn't commit

Raw Meat
Flipping raw meat in the air
the uniforms glowing
a field of chest hair popping out
stop turning me on
boy with Ben Savage hair

Greasy Salt Shakers
Greasy salt shakers
moldy brown teeth
side salads with fingertips
he is touching my v-line from behind
the trash is overflowing
eat the feta cheese
because real men have hair

DSLs
He has DSLs
The shape of spicy chicken
smiles from red hair
eating cold chicken strips

Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise flipped on tee shirts
multiple coffee stains on necks
the morning crew kissing
with observation from
John Travolta and a missing ear

Poke

2009-04-23T00:05:00.001-07:00

My friends leave for room in my car
Left alone with the boy I crush
A bunk bed
Room for one more
We share the child size bed
The silence is roommate
Squeaking from above
Sounds like masturbation
Curious of what is above
I feel a poke
From behind
Just touch it
Five seconds
Really, only five seconds
Smiles burst through my fingers
What will happen tomorrow?
You poke me
But is it a true poke
A smile so big
With the best eyebrows
Each brow sharpened by Jack Nicholson
Mike gives me faith in future pokes

Simplicity vs Repetition: William Carlos Williams and Gertude Stein

2009-04-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed reading his poems. The poems are simple and to the point. For once, the poet is easy to understand. The other poets that I have read are hard to understand and William Carlos Williams was easy to read but had great ideas for poems. There was a couple of the poems that stood out in my mind. The poem "The Young Housewife" was interesting with a little twist of voyeurism. The beginning of the poem Williams describes a housewife moving about in her house in a neglige. He is watching this woman outside in his car. I got the impression that Williams has done this before. He has watched this woman from the outside before. The most beautiful line in the poem is in the middle of the poem: "shy, uncorseted, tucking in stray ends of hair, and I compare to a fallen leaf". The image of a "fallen" woman in a nightie outside waiting for her husband is just a wonderful image. I can see her as a once beautiful woman but was tied down to one man and her looks have gone away with love. The outsider (William Carlos Williams) still sees her as a beautiful woman. He sees her as a beautiful woman even with the flaws she has. One of his more simple poems "This is just to say" has a sweet beginning and ending. The poem is about William Carlos Williams eating a plum in an icebox and he is apologizing for eating the plum. Even though the words are not very "poetic" there is still beauty in the way he expresses his words. Eating the plums were delicious but his sorrow for eating the plums was eating away at him. He explains he loves the taste of the plums and he could not help himself. For some reason, his honesty really caught my attention. Another great poem from William Carlos Williams is "The Farmer". I could clearly see the image of the farmer wanting his garden to grow. One of my favorite lines in the poem is in the beginning: "The farmer in deep thought is pacing through the rain among his blank fields, with hands in pockets in his head the harvest already planted". The word that stood out was blank. The farmer obviously pacing back and forth with anticipation for the growth of his field. Blank could also be for his field or also for his expression. The image of a farmer waiting for the plants to grow shows a lot of blank expressions. The initial wait is killing the farmer. Williams has great description of nature through out his poem: "A cold wind ruffles the water among the browned weeds." So far, I have not heard a poet use the word ruffles before in a poem. The simplicity of the poem with unconventional words makes this poem unique.

Reading more and more Gertrude Stein the more I understand the way she writes. A lot of the poems do not make much sense but the sound of the poems are marvelous. She repeats a lot of words which makes it hard to understand. I had to read the poems out loud to get the full effect of the sound. One of the poems that I liked was "George Hugnet". One of my favorite lines in the poem is in stanza 5 line 7: "With out whether it their whether with out doubt." The line sounds so beautiful. The alliteration with the "w"s makes the line stand out. The initial word hiccup "doubt" works with the line because it abruptly ends with an unfamiliar word. The rest of the line matches well with sound but Stein likes to leave her audience with wanting more. Another great line in the poem is in stanza line 13: "George Genevieve Geronimo straightened it out without their finding it out." It is hard to describe because I do not know to much about Stein but I know from reading this one line that she knows how to rhyme and use alteration. What is George Geronimo straightening out? The more I read into the poem I have several ideas. Is grammar really grammar or does grammar have another special meaning. There is this underlyning assumption from Stein that the audience already knows what "it" is. The audience already knows what grammar is. I would like to know more about her real meaning is.

New Poetry

2009-04-14T00:30:00.000-07:00

Iced Cold Beers
We shared the same coke can
Years of torture you gave me
Guessing what's next won't be your plan
Wearing yellow livestrong bracelets are easy to see
Smoking pot in your mom's hummer at Pete's Drive in
I would give you blow job to be around you
Free biggie fries and a Pepsi is a good win
A boy who will never do
Talking about Electric Light Orchestra feels good
Knowing the door will always be closed
Our relationship is misunderstood
Can you ever look at my breasts when they're expose?
We'll meet again in ten years
Maybe to drink ice old beers

Mr. Schwanevelts's Class
Glue sniffing in Mr. Schwanevelt's class
Twelve desks facing towards chalk
White dust sprinkled down
Colorful red, yellow, and blue numbers
Desks full of erasers
The pink color caught my eye
Coat racks full of rain and fur
He
Two talking mouths
One with blonde hair
One with Brown hair
Eyes meeting to sounds of sweeping doors
Beauty and the Beast backpack matched my heart
Rain hits the window sill
Fresh smells of Windex
A man with a reversal moustache stands ahead of the room
Mr. Schwanevelt my one friend
Who saw the potential love of
Aleah and Dustin

Liking the unusual abstraction

2009-04-08T18:20:00.000-07:00

The more Emily Dickinson I read, the better I understand her frame of mind and where she is coming from when she writes her poetry. In the selection of poetry that I read, I have a few favorite poems of hers. The one poem I read that I really liked was poem 328. The poem was easy to understand and the topic was not in the realm of her other poetry. The poem could be about her thoughts on the bird and what it is doing or the bird could be a metaphor for society. She describes the birds actions eating, flying, and observing. The bird could be a metaphor to society because Dickinson tries to give the bird some bread crumbs but she took the opportunity for isolation: " Like one in danger, Cautious I offered him a Crumb-And he unrolled his feathers- And rowed him softer home". She tries to become a part of society but society keeps running away. She believes that people will leave her and run away but she takes a chance with "gifts". The last two lines I believe are about her thoughts to come true about isolation of society: "Than Oars divide the Ocean- Too silver for a seam-". After she gave the bird the bread crumbs, the world turns back into an unloving world. The ocean dividing gives the impression of the world not wanting change and not accepting Emily Dickinson. There are many different analogies for poem 328 because Emily Dickinson is so abstract in her writing. It is hard to find her poems to actually make complete sense.

A great example of Dickinson's vision of abstraction is poem 49. This poem was a bit more abstract than the previous poem but I still had an idea about what Dickinson was talking about. My own interpretation of this poem is about reincarnation. She did not live such an extravagant life but by praying to God she has gotten to relive a different life: "Twice have I stood a beggar- Before the door of God!". She has begged God for a new life and eventually her wish became true: "Reimbursed my store". She may not have gotten a better life but more of an acknowledgement from her father or from other people in her life. It was hard to find these analogies because her wording is so difficult to understand. What is a burglar or a banker? I understand that both a burglar and a banker deal with money and her last statement says "I am poor once more!" I am confused about that statement. What does the word poor mean? Dickinson knows how to make the reader concentrate on one word and to make the reader interpret that one word into several different meanings. I have grown to like her poetry and accept the fact that she will never go away.

On the subject of abstract poetry and art, I was interested in Professor Mohammad's lecture on futurism. The futuristic designs, art, music, and fashion has given me a new outlook on poetry. I like the idea of movement. Moving through the world in a fast motion with new ideas that are so unusual. I liked the video Professor Mohammad showed in class that Andy Warhol directed. At first glance, the video just dripped 80's style. The ore Professor Mohammad pointed the futuristic aspects in the video the easier I understood the craziness of the music video. The clothing in the video had futurism in it because of the bright colors and the height of the clothes and the hair styles. I have learned that futurism is about the movement that is why painters and poets use the image of cars. Cars have moved the world in so many different ways. Painters have used wheels to show the progression of what the world is coming to. The wheels are in constant motion not ever wanting to stop. I am interested in wanting to know more about futurism and the artwork. Some of the art work as so much going on that it is hard to understand.

Advanced Poetry the beginning

2009-04-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

I am listening to "Locomotion" by Grand Funk Railroad and I really want to dance or sing the locomotion. I choose not to do either because I am in the library and I don't think it would be appropriate knowing that I am an English major. I have to start writing blogs for my advanced poetry class. I am interested in seeing how advanced poetry can get. Maybe the class gets the opportunity to finally learn the codes to write "good" poetry. Maybe the we can go on a field trip inside Emily Dickinson's brain. I would prefer to go inside Shel Silverstein's brain but that is besides the point. I have been writing poetry, short stories, and plays for about ten years. I guess there is no way getting around the fact that I will always have writing in my life. Having classes like this one will improve my writing skills and learn more about poetry and the poets who write them.