Pharoah the Mitzri

Reposted from 2009. A parody of Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss. Enjoy!

In the far-away country across from the Nile,

Pharaoh the Mitzri was king for a while.
A bustling land. It was rich. It was neat.
The water was warm. There was plenty to eat.
The Mitzrim had everything Mitzrim might need.
And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed.

They were… until Pharaoh, the king of this plenty,
Decided the Jews in his land were too many.
“I’m ruler,” said Pharaoh, “I stand at the helm.
But the Jews overpopulate throughout my realm.
Perhaps they'd revolt in this land by the Nile.
What if they took over? How horribly vile!
Their ill-boding strength - it just cannot go down.
They ought to be fewer!” he said with a frown.

And Pharaoh, the Mitzri King, gave a command

To all of the midwives who worked in his land

That each Jewish baby, if it was a boy,
They throw in the Nile, to kill and destroy.
He made Jewish mothers get rid of each son
But Yocheved was smart and sent hers on the run.
She made him a teva and lined it with tar.
And sent him a'floating - though not very far.

Meanwhile, Pharaoh said, "Now I am strong!
My kingdom is safe. Not a thing can go wrong!
I’m the king of Mitzrayim! And I rule the Jews!
I’m the king of the Nile! I can never lose!
I’m Pharaoh the Mitzri! Oh, marvelous me!
For when I am ruler, there's nothing that's free!”

And for some time after, he sat up there high
Saying over and over, “A great king am I!”
Until ‘long about bathtime. Then Batya went out--
His daughter, to wash and to swim all about.
And she saw, in the Nile, a baby float by.
She stretched out her hand to console him his cry.
Looking up, she said, “Moshe shall be his name.
For I've drawn him from water. Who knows whence he came?
We'll have to adopt him - he seems rather tame.”

So Moshe grew up in the home of the king
And Pharaoh knew not what bad news this would bring.

Over time Pharaoh started to fear once again
For the Jews were not lacking some big and strong men
And so he declared, to assert his position,
His vision of slavery come to fruition.
"I'll give them hard labor!” his royal voice thundered,
"And then all will know I am king times a hundred!

“Hardship! More hardship!” he bellowed and brayed.
And the Jews in Mitzrayim were very afraid.
They trembled. They shook. But they came. They obeyed.
From all over the land, they came working by dozens.
Whole families of Jews, with uncles and cousins.
They did not have much choice, were too scared to revolt.
And they got no respite, not a moment to halt.

Meanwhile Moshe had run far away

For he killed a Mitzri and so could not stay

Thus he lived in Midian and he watched over sheep

When he saw something that would make anyone leap!

A bush! And on fire! But it did not burn!

Through it, God spoke to Moshe, said, "It's Pharaoh's turn.

Go down to Egypt and take out the Jews.

And Moshe went down, though he tried to refuse.

But Pharaoh the Mitzri who sat up on high,
Did not care one wit 'bout the Jews and their sighs.
“Begone!” shouted Pharaoh. “I’m the king of the trees!
I’m king of the birds! And I’m king of the bees!
I’m king of the butterflies! King of the air!
Ah, me! Do not whine 'cause I really don't care!
I’m Pharaoh the Mitzri! Oh, marvelous me!
And I'll make your work harder - that is my decree!”

Then again, from below, on the palace room floor,
Moshe and Aharon said one thing more.
“Your Majesty, please… we don’t like to complain,
But our Jewish brethren are feeling great pain.
If you won't let them go, we'll be frank, won't be vague,
Our God will come smite you - He'll bring you a plague!"
Though Pharaoh's magicians at first said, "Yeah? Bring it!"
With just a few proofs, knew God's finger was in it.

“You hush up your mouth!” howled the mighty King Pharaoh.
“The Jews can't go free! I will give them more sorrow!
I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There’s nothing, no, NOTHING, that’s higher than me!”

And, while he was shouting, his heart was quite hardened
It seemed that the Jews might not ever be pardoned.
Until the plague of blood and the Nile was scarred-ened.
“What’s THAT?” snorted Pharaoh. “Say, what IS that thing
That dares to be higher than Pharaoh the King?
I shall not allow it! They'll work harder still!
I’ll keep myself higher! I can and I will!
My Jewish slaves shall not ever go free!
I'll keep them forever, now please let me be!"

But, as Pharaoh, the Mitzri King, lifted his hand
And gave out his orders and barked his command,

That bustling land that was rich and was neat

Where the water was warm, where there's plenty to eat

Was smote by God's hand, nine more plagues on the way
Frogs and then lice and wild animals -- nay
They weren't enough, the Jews still had to stay.
Then the animals of the Egyptians all died

Boils, and hail, even locusts, God tried!
Then thick, heavy darkness, which was not enough still

So God killed the first born of each Mitzri until--

Pharaoh, who thought he was king of the trees,
And king of the air and the birds and the bees,

Said, "Get out, you Jews! Go on out of here, please!"
For Pharaoh, the King of the land 'cross the Nile,
Was no match for Hashem, who beat Pharaoh with style.

And today we remember how God set us free,
How He saved us from Egypt, so His we may be.
We got our first Mitzvah after that escapade
For a nation we are now, and so long we have prayed

That next year in Jerusalem our seder'll be made.

Swallow

The prickly feet of every tiny, inky word wills me to spit them all out
But the string of preservation tugs
And I close my mouth.
The tap-dancing words shuffle on my tongue until I swallow them
(scraping and rolling and coiling to the boxing match on the floor of my stomach)
In one big gulp.

The Black Hole Of Never Here

Chug chug chug
Hello! We saved you dinner.
Fling a hug
What's going on?
Missing something--what? Not important.
Well, you're never here.
Chug chug chug
You're back! How was home?
My feet barely touched the soft carpet.
We're off to sing, didn't you know?
Well, you're never here.
Chug chug chug
Long hours in a classroom.
Square walls, powerpoint, smart board.
Chug chug chug
Please be empty, please be empty.
Empty. Quiet. Breathe.
Chug chug chug
Home again! Any laundry? Help bring bags in from the car?
Ah, my bed.
Off again!
Chug chug chug
A train, 1 train, all-day-long train
You missed it.
Missed what?
Well, you're never here.
Chug chug chug
Grandparents! Barbeque!
What? When? No one told me.
Well, you're never here.
Chug chug chug
Oh - it's you! Where've you been?
I'm not sure.
Leftovers from midnight dinner with the boys?
A little motion-sick.
Leaving again?
Well, you're never here.

Never here
Never there
Never anywhere.

Little Footsteps

Little footsteps
Tripping in my stomach
Turning and coiling tight
Into quivering little balls.
I shake my head
And spoon out the cobwebs
To unearth searing clarity.
Why do I do the things I do?
Say the things I say?
Feel the things I feel?
Is any of it real?
Feet pounding on the dirt
Kicking up sand
Breath snagged on a cough
Hand outstretched toward an impossible end
No one can achieve perfection --
That word with no meaning
Because meaning is scratched and dented with deep reds, bright violets, soft blues, happy oranges, frank greens
And perfection is a glass table with an ice tablecloth
That you slide right off,
With the force of your glaring reflection.
I put on the hat that says my name across the front,
The only honest hat I can wear.
Thoughts swish in and out of words
And I cannot apologize for my scratches and dents,
My reds, violets, blues, oranges, and greens.
I can only present them as my painting,
My work of art.
And still, sometimes
Little footsteps trip.

Anonymous

anonymous
a collection of ironed-straight hair,
stiffly gelled curls,
nondescript --
clones.
indistinguishable
blurred blades of grass in an endless meadow
black, white, brown, bright colors streaming
indivisible
watercolors running together,
invisible --
adjectives.
anonymous me.

Solitary

One drop of a drizzle
One drizzle of a rain storm
One glint of sunlight in a deep puddle on the street
One shallow footprint in the hardening snow
White-out world, gray sky frozen fog
Silent moans through the empty rustling trees
Numb fingers, numb face, squished toes
Hat itches
Sand in your head, muffled thoughts
Feeling strikes - burning
Flames of blood churning
Wind blows
Knocked over in the snow
Grip ice
Get up.

Beautiful

That girl, she sits alone in her chair
Off to the side of the room
And the rest of the people are laughing
And dancing
And feeling the flush of their bloom

And that little girl, her hands clenched in her lap
Her hair falling into her face
Her cheeks are pale white like an apple's insides
And she feels terribly out of place

And doesn't she know
She deserves to feel beautiful
Beautiful
Doesn't she know
Someone ought to be calling her beautiful

Tears spill down the cheeks
Of the girls who are filled
With the music's emotion
Those dancing duets
But not on the apple-white cheeks
Of the girl
Who is sitting alone
With no one to stir up her smile
And make her cheeks wet

Those notes pass right over her head
As she loses herself in her fantasy land
A place where a handsome lad
Sparkling a smile
Flashing his eyes
Offers her his hand

And he lifts her up from her seat in the corner
And spins her around so her dress and hair twirl
And they spin and spin and dance in the clouds
And he says she is beautiful
Because don't you know
She deserves to be called beautiful
Beautiful

And after they dance they go for a walk
Outside where the air is crisp
But she is not bothered by the cold
Because the cold cleanses her misty thoughts
And wakens her to feelings that are beautiful
Beautiful

Her lad, he is smart and they talk forever
They walk and talk forever
About life and philosophy
And things that are special
And at the end he calls her special
And beautiful
And important
Because she is
She is special and beautiful and important

The music stops and the room gets loud
Gets crowded nearby the chair
And the girl's eyes are misty
From her fantasy land
And she thinks
For the thousandth time
As everyone finishes their thousandth dance
Maybe next time
I will dance
My first dance
Maybe next time
I will be beautiful
Beautiful

Respect

Respect is like
The way flowers grow up
Towards the rain
And rain trickles up
Through the roots,
The way cliffs of the ravine
Reflect each other's majesty
In their clear mirror faces
So that each mountain seems
A hundred miles deeper,
The way birds sing to the clouds
In their mellifluous warbles
And clouds blanket the birds
In their pillow-like cottons,
The way the Earth circles the Sun
Declaring all its brazen splendor
And the Sun warms the Earth
Lifting it upon golden smiles.

Heights

(Half a poem)

Give me wings so I may fly
To Heights beyond Grand crossroads
And past the glaring lights of Time
Illuminating the sky.

I lift-off like a child learns;
My journey starts expressly with A.
I climb high over the Central playground,
Farther than the Carousel turns.

Give me wings so I may fly
To Heights beside the river
And there I'll stand above the world:
That world that peeks at me, so shy.

Discord In The End Note

Something's wrong
In this song
'Cause it's ending on a low.
But the score-sheet
With the beat
Points to high.
I was sure--
You concur?
That the last note should be A.
But they played--
I'm dismayed--
A low F.

For so long
Heard the dong--
Notes I swear I used to know.
But this feat--
Incomplete--
Makes me sigh.
So I err,
I aver.
Things have not gone the right way.
And this grade
Now waylaid
Makes me deaf.

Thesis Poetry

This is sort of like Finals Poetry, only slightly different. I'm going to write it on behalf of nearly everyone in my apartment who is writing a thesis. (Although I had a post some time ago saying I was done, I merely meant "with a complete draft." It is still being edited and all that.)

Ahem.

I do not like my thesis-
Though it seems to like me.
I really need to finish it--
It will not let me be!

It bugs me when I'm eating
And when I'm sleeping, too.
It prods me when I'm reading
Or even at the zoo.

This stupid thing won't go away.
It's hateful and annoying.
Its unrequited love for me
Is burdensome and cloying.

Do not believe I get this way
With all who come to court.
It's just this thesis I can't stand--
I wish it would abort!

I've started writing now and, well,
The topic's quite appealing.
But I still hate my thesis so,
'Cause all my time it's stealing.

The only way to make it stop
Is facing it like rivals.
And then as rivals we shall join
Towards both of our survivals.

For if I end up well and sane,
Then so will what I'm writing.
So I guess I should get to work,
So we can stop this fighting.

P.S. To my dear thesis, I aver--
I'll always think of you as GRRR.
But in a loving sort of way,
Okay? :)

The Kazoo Snafu

There once was a man
Who played the kazoo
And he tried to enter a band.

But the band did not want
To have a kazoo
And held up their snobby hands.

The kazoo-player sniffed
And tossed up his nose
And said to them, "I will show you!"

He went to a street corner,
Pinned on a rose,
And played the Kazoo Snafu.

It went--
Hmmm hmmm hmmm
Hmmm hmmm hmmm
Screeeech!

And from all over town
The folks came to look
And they paid him a penny each.

"I'm rich!" thought the player--
Thought pennies were gold--
And took this good sign as his cue.

He gathered his money
And, feeling quite bold,
Skipped off while still playing Kazoo.

He's now near a hundred
And lives like a king
And none wish to tell him what's true.

Though he lives mighty fine--
Never paid for a thing--
His life's one big happy Snafu.

Pharaoh the Mitzri

(A parody of Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss - read the original, too!)

(Er, I think this is a rough draft. And it's kinda late. But enjoy! Have a Chag Sameach, everyone!!!)

In the far-away country across from the Nile,

Pharaoh the Mitzri was king for a while.
A bustling land. It was rich. It was neat.
The water was warm. There was plenty to eat.
The Mitzrim had everything Mitzrim might need.
And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed.

They were… until Pharaoh, the king of this plenty,
Decided the Jews in his land were too many.
“I’m ruler,” said Pharaoh, “I stand at the helm.
But the Jews overpopulate throughout my realm.
Perhaps they'd revolt in this land by the Nile.
What if they took over? How horribly vile!
Their ill-boding strength - it just cannot go down.
They ought to be fewer!” he said with a frown.

And Pharaoh, the Mitzri King, gave a command

To all of the midwives who worked in his land

That each Jewish baby, if it was a boy,
They throw in the Nile, to kill and destroy.
He made Jewish mothers get rid of each son
But Yocheved was smart and sent hers on the run.
She made him a teva and lined it with tar.
And sent him a'floating - though not very far.

Meanwhile, Pharaoh said, "Now I am strong!
My kingdom is safe. Not a thing can go wrong!
I’m the king of Mitzrayim! And I rule the Jews!
I’m the king of the Nile! I can never lose!
I’m Pharaoh the Mitzri! Oh, marvelous me!
For when I am ruler, there's nothing that's free!”

And for some time after, he sat up there high
Saying over and over, “A great king am I!”
Until ‘long about bathtime. Then Batya went out--
His daughter, to wash and to swim all about.
And she saw, in the Nile, a baby float by.
She stretched out her hand to console him his cry.
Looking up, she said, “Moshe shall be his name.
For I've drawn him from water. Who knows whence he came?
We'll have to adopt him - he seems rather tame.”

So Moshe grew up in the home of the king
And Pharaoh knew not what bad news this would bring.

Over time Pharaoh started to fear once again
For the Jews were not lacking some big and strong men
And so he declared, to assert his position,
His vision of slavery come to fruition.
"I'll give them hard labor!” his royal voice thundered,
"And then all will know I am king times a hundred!

“Hardship! More hardship!” he bellowed and brayed.
And the Jews in Mitzrayim were very afraid.
They trembled. They shook. But they came. They obeyed.
From all over the land, they came working by dozens.
Whole families of Jews, with uncles and cousins.
They did not have much choice, were too scared to revolt.
And they got no respite, not a moment to halt.

Meanwhile Moshe had run far away

For he killed a Mitzri and so could not stay

Thus he lived in Midian and he watched over sheep

When he saw something that would make anyone leap!

A bush! And on fire! But it did not burn!

Through it, God spoke to Moshe, said, "It's Pharaoh's turn.

Go down to Egypt and take out the Jews.

And Moshe went down, though he tried to refuse.

But Pharaoh the Mitzri who sat up on high,
Did not care one wit 'bout the Jews and their sighs.
“Begone!” shouted Pharaoh. “I’m the king of the trees!
I’m king of the birds! And I’m king of the bees!
I’m king of the butterflies! King of the air!
Ah, me! Do not whine 'cause I really don't care!
I’m Pharaoh the Mitzri! Oh, marvelous me!
And I'll make your work harder - that is my decree!”

Then again, from below, on the palace room floor,
Moshe and Aharon said one thing more.
“Your Majesty, please… we don’t like to complain,
But our Jewish brethren are feeling great pain.
If you won't let them go, we'll be frank, won't be vague,
Our God will come smite you - He'll bring you a plague!"
Though Pharaoh's magicians at first said, "Yeah? Bring it!"
With just a few proofs, knew God's finger was in it.

“You hush up your mouth!” howled the mighty King Pharaoh.
“The Jews can't go free! I will give them more sorrow!
I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There’s nothing, no, NOTHING, that’s higher than me!”

And, while he was shouting, his heart was quite hardened
It seemed that the Jews might not ever be pardoned.
Until the plague of blood and the Nile was scarred-ened.
“What’s THAT?” snorted Pharaoh. “Say, what IS that thing
That dares to be higher than Pharaoh the King?
I shall not allow it! They'll work harder still!
I’ll keep myself higher! I can and I will!
My Jewish slaves shall not ever go free!
I'll keep them forever, now please let me be!"

But, as Pharaoh, the Mitzri King, lifted his hand
And gave out his orders and barked his command,

That bustling land that was rich and was neat

Where the water was warm, where there's plenty to eat

Was smote by God's hand, nine more plagues on the way
Frogs and then lice and wild animals -- nay
They weren't enough, the Jews still had to stay.
Then the animals of the Egyptians all died

Boils, and hail, even locusts, God tried!
Then thick, heavy darkness, which was not enough still

So God killed the first born of each Mitzri until--

Pharaoh, who thought he was king of the trees,
And king of the air and the birds and the bees,

Said, "Get out, you Jews! Go on out of here, please!"
For Pharaoh, the King of the land 'cross the Nile,
Was no match for Hashem, who beat Pharaoh with style.

And today we remember how God set us free,
How He saved us from Egypt, so His we may be.
We got our first Mitzvah after that escapade
For a nation we are now, and so long we have prayed

That next year in Jerusalem our seder'll be made.

Very Like A Whale

By Ogden Nash

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,

Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have
to go out
   of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?

In the first place, George Gordon Byron had had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot
of Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus

   hinder longevity,
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming
   in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf

on
   the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy there
are
   a great many things,
But i don't imagine that among then there is a wolf with purple
and gold
   cohorts or purple and gold anythings.

No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually
   like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red
mouth and
   big white teeth and did he say Woof woof?

Frankly I think it very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say,
at the
   very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts
   about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had

to
   invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate
them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers
to
   people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot
of wolves dressed

   up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets,
from Homer
   to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket

after a
   winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket
of snow and
   I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and
   we'll see which one keeps warm,

And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly,
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.

Not Easy

Robert Frost wrote a poem about two roads diverging in a wood. It's a famous poem. I'm sure you all know it:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Sometimes we are faced with choices that are much less clear cut than this. There is no road-less-traveled. There is just you, standing in the center of intersecting paths, neither of them straight, all of them enshrouded in fog. There is no way to tell which is the right path to take, or the most interesting, even as an Easterly wind tugs you one way and a Westerly one shoves you another. A breeze from the North might want to lift you off your feet, but one from the South could be whistling your name. So what on earth are you supposed to do? Where are you to go?

Sometimes I don't think life is like that - the picking of one road over another. Sometimes I think there must be a way to walk on several roads at once, or at least on one road that touches the banks of many different lands. There must be a way to make choices on your terms, musn't there?

And what if there are no winds guiding you in any direction at all? Or it's all one big confusion and you're not sure what is the right thing to do? What if there are sacrifices you're not willing to make, but you're not sure if you still ought to make them?

What if you feel just very lost?

Can't Sleep

It is difficult indeed
When you find you are in need
Of a single night's good rest--
For, you cry, you try your best!--
But instead of drifting off,
All you're wont to do is cough.

If cough syrup has to taste that awful, the least it could do is work. :(

Edit: Here I am an hour later still unable to fall asleep, still coughing, and a half hour too early to take more medicine. Not that the medicine is proving to be all that helpful.

Ugh. It is so distressing to be awake all because of a stupid cough. It's that feeling where you lie there and want to just be one of those jugglers who swallows fire so you can burn the scratch away from your throat because things like hot chocolate are just not helping. Or you sit there in class and all you can think about is how you need to cough and then you choke on yourself and it's so annoying because, ugh, I just want to SLEEP.

(Sorry, the Apple!)

These Days And More

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of a narrow, square room reading Henry James out loud,
Occasionally shifting to my knees when I get too uncomfortable,
And then switching back to Indian style when I start to lose feeling in my feet.

Again sitting on the floor, this time of the Borders behind Penn Station,
Safe and snug in the set-back corner of the children's section.
Two of us there, each with a hot mint chocolate drink in one hand,
And an iced one in the other: a welcome mistake.

Sitting once more on a park bench,
Firecracker ices in hand--
The red dripping down the white until we get to the Patriotic bottom
Which gives us Smurf lips
And we stick out our blue tongues at each other like a secret handshake,
A family crescent, a clubhouse password.

Lost in the snow, the wheels of the car sliding slowly over transparent ice,
Then we sneak around the hoity-toity lodge
Pretending, for a few moments, we belong there, too.
Then chased by an overeager, over-hungry squirrel,
The iced wind biting at our faces and pinching our cheeks red.

Ice skating, ice skating, ice skating.
Alone, and then with you, and then alone, and then with you,
Around and around and around.
The rink a ring of people--
Pass by the same ones, yet each time you're different, they're different.
Change without change.
Watch out for the jocks who try to cut you off. They'll trip themselves one day, doing that.
They'll never trip me, though.
Here is one place I never fall.

Warm in there, on the couch, on the rocking chair, tired but don't want to sleep.
Awake, awake, stay awake.
Blink my eyes open - when did they close?
Open, yes, they're open.
And I'm wide awake now - but how?
Was I talking?
Whose line is it anyway?

Those glass elevators go up, up, up
I like to look down and see everything get smaller and smaller.
Dizzying -but a thrill because I can make myself look and still want to continue going up.
Let's ride again!
Up and back down, then back up--
Let's stay up, can't we?

Words on the screen tell us to sing.
Sing?
There are people. People!
They might hear us!
Do we even know the songs?
We laugh and sing and sing and laugh.
I am not me, you are not you, we are not we--
We just are.
Having the time of our lives.

These days and more. These days and more.
These days--
And more.

P.S. The Squeaker - the inspiring tale of a boy and his sneaker.

Oasis Of Relaxation

(Inspired by a friend)

I wander lonely as a tree
Amidst the desert vast
Until I find that royal isle
And pause my way at last.

For in that way
Oasis lies
And though it may bring
Sighs and cries,
It's better when my eyes have dried.

Its happiest moments, I declare
Are when we're feeling happy there.

Puzzle's Eclipse

Puzzle’s Eclipse

Immense Indiana Jones boulder,
Giant’s hail crashing down,
Lodging itself in my window,
That rhombus of jigsaw images
Illuminated – once –
Blocked,
That picture, a barely discernable frame.

Blindfolded
My hair a sweaty horse’s tail
Intruding voices stuff the room past capacity
Like an overcrowded elevator stuck between floors.

Hangs a mirror with no reflection,
An impenetrable portal.
And I, unpracticed in the art of dislodging,
Lodge in the corner and dream tea.

A cup without a saucer to catch the spill,
I drink to you, Puzzle’s Eclipse,
And etch these words into that apostrophe.


(If you felt frustrated reading this poem, if you felt there was something there you were just not getting, if you felt a huge mental block towards it - you actually understood it more than you think you did)

The Problem With Bad Poetry: Revised

(This is what we call the process of revision. Some people don't believe in revising poetry because they think true poetry is just an immediate expression of your deep, inner soul and that's what makes it art. I, on the other hand, highly disagree. Poetry is a craft. And this is why this version of the poem is better than the one I posted earlier. Enjoy!)

Poetry conceits.
Claiming she understands the world
By throwing around words like love, eternity, desire, darkness, soul
When really she knows nothing at all
Except abstraction
And pompous generalization that passes for wisdom
Because it leaves room for every contradictory answer
In the vastness of those weak, empty words.
But what does she know about the ache of an arm raised in the air
As the student waits too long to be called on?
Or the grating of a teacher's voice
As he lectures his pupils to sleep
Or the burn of a paper cut
The suffocating claustrophobia of knowing that no matter what
You won't go to bed before three
And you have nine o'clock class the next morning
Hearing your friends laugh in the next room
When you have a paper to write
The favorite color of the three-year-old you babysit
The fact that your brother puts ketchup on everything
The way chocolate erupts in a milky-sweet lava on your tongue
The gripping panic of startling awake in the night when the light's burned out
The tremulous anxiety of messing up (a test? a friendship? both at once?)
The shaky relief of discovering you haven't
For some poets
Do not partake in the world of ants in your kitchen, ink on your hands, sand in your socks
Some poets
Dismiss the little things
Cracker crumbs
Muddy footprints
Overstuffed planners
For some poets
There is only love, eternity, desire, darkness, soul
Forever.