Poem/Rap #12 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

by Joelle Dratch (with an assist from Professor Miller)

Poem #11 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                         My Father’s Belief


This is my father’s belief
To give my all
And take back what was stolen by the thief

A long journey searching for relief
To climb the city that thrives on the mountain and sound the Prayer Call
This is my father’s belief

A knife, a stone, a pistol, as taught by our Commander in Chief
To stab, to throw, to shoot, to squall
And take back what was stolen by the thief

But sometimes I wonder, can we turn a new leaf?
“They took your land, your home, left you with nothing but a dirt wall!”
This is my father’s belief

“Make us proud, Habif.”
I hide my tremble beneath the covert wires packaged neatly under my shawl
And take back what was stolen by the thief

I am enthralled by my father’s grief
This had not been my intention at all
For, this is my father’s belief
To give my life, and take back what was stolen by the thief

Poem #10 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                        Life and Words

Old friends sit on the park bench like bookends
Visages jaded with words—faces crumpled newspapers
Below each stark, shadowy brim.
As I watch them, I think—how strange to be seventy
When time passes, that perpetual pendulum
Nearing closer and closer to sunset.

A leaf flutters, falls—the fiery park ablaze, a forest of sunset
The old men shrouded in overcoats—books to bookends
Words blur and focus between them. I hear the pendulum
Of their conversation as each gesture toward the newspaper
Between them. The sounds of the city, seventy
Horns going off at once, a cacophony filled to the brim

Can you imagine us, years from today—life full, up to the brim
Winter companions huddled together at sunset
I can’t imagine—how terribly strange to be seventy!
Conversation frozen between friends; between bookends
And what will they say in my obituary in the newspaper
When time finally catches up to me and the pendulum

Stops swinging. That perpetual pendulum
Is only perpetual for who? For G-d, I guess. And the brim
Of my hat will shield my face from the inevitable death in the newspaper.
Now, sounds of the city drift through trees, settling like dust at sunset
On the hunched shoulders of the old friends, sitting like bookends
Peacefully. Sharing, quietly—no need to talk. Seventy

Years or more, between them— that's seventy
Times 525,600 minutes. A pendulum
Unceasing, so far. Will words fill the yearning gap between my bookends?
Soft ones—or jabbing ones—harsh ones—uplifting ones—up to the brim
Until no more can be crammed in before sunset?
Life, to me, is a fleeting newspaper

A brief coverage of events, swiftly growing more crumpled. A newspaper
Filled with stories, each unique—but similar. Seventy
Or more stories, tragedies, disasters, but heroes too. And the weather at sunset.
What will it be like when my time comes, and my pendulum
Is no longer perpetual; rather halted at the brim
Of my now-filled, teetering shelf, precarious books held fast by bookends?

“He was a most peculiar man” reports the newspaper, ominously ticking, a pendulum—
“Died at seventy, found dead in his bath, filled up to the brim.”
I suppose sunset is both winsome and wistful—A beginning and an end. Bookends.

(inspired by and loosely based on a Simon and Garfunkel song)

                                                                         --by Meira Nagel

Poem #9 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

              Sestina for the Washerwoman

The girl is doing laundry. The dull day is going
nowhere, so she allows it to unfurl behind her,
flapping like a white kite towards the sky,
with a tail made from pieces of tied linen
that dance stiffly, snapping to
attention, serving only to break the wind.

It refuses to break; the wind
does at least. That’s not the way the girl is going.
She’s close to folding, knees bending too,
as wrung out as the soiled swaths beneath her.
The air is full with the sound of crumpled linen
as her hands point towards the sky.

It turns to look over its shoulder; the sky
does at least. It hears nothing but a whisper of wind
that sneaks between rows of drying linen,
trying hard to figure out where its going.
These white sheets are all that have become of her,
thoughts surrendered, set out in folds of two.

Soon some old washerwoman will come to
collect the clouds hung on lines in the sky,
pulling them down and away to reveal her
sleeping beneath them, wrapped in wind
with nothing to be doing, no place to be going
except dreaming of linen.

The washerwoman will tug her cloudy linen,
and along with the cloth, the girl will unfold too.
The washerwoman will keep on going,
bound by her duties to storm and sky,
leaving nothing behind but a gentle wind
to tug the girl awake, and guide her

back to the kite, to the laundry, where her
still-warm footsteps linger in piles of unwashed linen.
Back to the dull day, where, although many paths wind,
in her mind there remains only two.
One leads to the washerwoman, to the sky
and the other ends in where she’s going.

                                         --Talia Bean

Poem #8 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                         On Hold

Press one for English, Press two for Spanish
Born to nomads, now in America
Running from the place where we were banished
Met with heaps of stares of hmm? What? And huh?

Born to nomads, now in America
Want me to don traje de flamenca
Met with heaps of stares of hmm? What? And huh?
My cheeks rush into a light blush

Want me to don traje de flamenca?
Or do I leave my history behind?
My cheeks rush into a light blush
Secluding myself from my own kind

Or do I leave my history behind?
The once consumed Pechuga adobada
Secluding myself from my own kind
Bearing the weight of life’s stigmata

The once consumed Pechuga adobada
They say Al mal paso darle prisa
Bearing the weight of life’s stigmata
I’m waiting for this so called messiah

They say Al mal paso darle prisa
But am I a muchacha or a girl?
I’m waiting for this so called messiah
Constantly stuck in this endless whirl

But am I a muchacha or a girl?
Running from the place where we were banished
Constantly stuck in this endless whirl
Press one for English, press two for Spanish

                                         --by Joelle Dratch

Poem #8 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                           What is it?

No Doctor, the pounding prowess of my headache

cannot be a sign of exhaustion.

It might be
a Disease of a chronic nature

that first lurks in the Bowels and Kidneys,

slowly compounding its scientific scheme

secretions suppressed and fluids corrupted,

foul humors pooled like lakes of Dropsy cooled

in the woods and fields of my glandular system.

Now that you mention it

I can feel the disturbance of Dyspepsia

oozing comfortably in its Liver Laboratory

raising levels of biliousness and blood acidity

CAUTION GENERAL DEBILITY

with the flick of a pulsating crimson toggle,

Constipation and Heartburn discharge.

As we speak
Encephalitis with his spindly fingers
zips between my neural synapses
vaulting along my Spinal Cord circuitry,
cutting wires disguised as Nerves to send
electrons zooming down ganglion highways
Meninges inflate with a sputter of sparks.

At this very moment

Erysipelas creeps right under my skin

a matron with no matchless medicine

prodding awake pimples and old sores

blowing in the ear of tawny Jaundice,

who rouses with a blistering roar

to sow salt rheum in red furrows of rosacea.

Not insomnia, but a simple case of  hypochondria?

Well Doctor, I diagnose you with denial.

                                               --by Talia Bean

Writing Experiments for Poets 

(adapted from a list by the poet Bernadette Mayer)

Use this list for ideas for new poems. For the last couple weeks of class, we will use this list for writing prompts.

* Pick a word or phrase at random, let mind play freely around it until a few ideas have come up, then seize on one and begin to write. Try this with a non- connotative word, like "so" etc.

* Systematically eliminate the use of certain kinds of words or phrases from a piece of writing: eliminate all adjectives from a poem of your own, or take out all words beginning with 's' in Shakespeare's sonnets.

* Rewrite someone else's writing. Experiment with theft and plagiarism. You can always cite your source later if you want to publish.

* Get a group of words, either randomly selected or thought up, then form these words (only) into a piece of writing-whatever the words allow. Let them demand their own form, or, use some words in a predetermined way.

* Eliminate material systematically from a piece of your own writing until it is "ultimately" reduced, or, read or write it backwards, line by line or word by word. Read a novel backwards.

* Using phrases relating to one subject or idea, write about another, pushing metaphor and simile as far as you can. For example, use science terms to write about childhood or philosophic language to describe a shirt.

* Take an idea, anything that interests you, or an object, then spend a few days looking and noticing, perhaps making notes on what comes up about that idea, or, try to create a situation or surrounding where everything that happens is in relation.

* Construct a poem as if the words were three-dimensional objects to be handled in space. Print them on large cards or bricks if necessary.

* Write as you think, as close as you can come to this, that is, put pen to paper and don't stop. Experiment writing fast and writing slow.

* Attempt tape recorder work, that is, recording without a text, perhaps at specific times.

* Make notes on what happens or occurs to you for a limited amount of time, then make something of it in writing.

* Get someone to write for you, pretending they are you.

* Write in a strict form, or, transform prose into a poetic form.

* Write a poem that reflects another poem, as in a mirror.

* Read or write a story or myth, then put it aside and, trying to remember it, write it five or ten times at intervals from memory. Or, make a work out of continuously saying, in a column or list, one sentence or line, over and over in different ways, until you get it "right."

* Make a pattern of repetitions.

* Take an already written work of your own and insert, at random or by choice, a paragraph or section from, for example, a psychology book or a seed catalogue. Then study the possibilities of rearranging this work or rewriting the "source."

* Experiment with writing in every person and tense every day.

* Explore the possibilities of lists, puzzles, riddles, dictionaries, almanacs, etc. Consult the thesaurus where categories for the word "word" include: word as news, word as message, word as information, word as story, word as order or command, word as vocable, word as instruction, promise, vow, contract.

* The possibilities of synesthesia in relation to language and words: the word and the letter as sensations, colors evoked by letters, sensations caused by the sound of a word as apart from its meaning, etc. And the effect of this phenomenon on you; for example, write in the water, on a moving vehicle.

* Attempt writing in a state of mind that seems least congenial.

* Consider word and letter as forms-the material distortion of a text, a mutiplicity of o's or ea's, or a pleasing visual arrangement: "the mill pond of chill doubt."

* Do experiments with sensory memory: record all sense images that remain from breakfast, study which senses engage you, escape you.

* Write, taking off from visual projections, whether mental or mechanical, without thought to the word in the ordinary sense, no craft.

* Make writing experiments over a long period of time. For example, plan how much you will write for a particular work each day, perhaps one word or one page.

* Write on a piece of paper where something is already printed or written.

* Attempt to eliminate all connotation from a piece of writing and vice versa.

* Experiment with writing in a group, collaborative work: a group writing individually off of each other's work over a long period of time in the same room; a group contributing to the same work, sentence by sentence or line by line; one writer being fed information and ideas while the other writes; writing, leaving instructions for another writer to fill in what you can't describe; compiling a book or work structured by your own language around the writings of others; or a group working and writing off of each other's dream writing.

* Dream work: record dreams daily, experiment with translation or transcription of dream thought, attempt to approach the tense and incongruity appropriate to the dream, work with the dream until a poem or song emerges from it, use the dream as an alert form of the mind's activity or consciousness, consider the dream a problem-solving device, change dream characters into fictional characters, accept dream's language as a gift.

* Structure a poem or prose writing according to city streets, miles, walks, drives. For example: Take a fourteen-block walk, writing one line per block to create a sonnet; choose a city street familiar to you, walk it, make notes and use them to create a work; take a long walk with a group of writers, observe, make notes and create works, then compare them; take a long walk or drive-write one line or sentence per mile. Variations on this.

* The uses of journals. Keep a journal that is restricted to one set of ideas, for instance, a food or dream journal, a journal that is only written in when it is raining, a journal of ideas about writing, a weather journal. Remember that journals do not have to involve "good" writing-they are to be made use of. Simple one-line entries like "No snow today" can be inspiring later. Have 3 or 4 journals going at once, each with a different purpose. Create a journal that is meant to be shared and commented on by another writer--leave half of each page blank for the comments of the other.

* Type out a Shakespeare sonnet or other poem you would like to learn about/imitate double-spaced on a page. Rewrite it in between the lines.

* Find the poems you think are the worst poems ever written, either by your own self or other poets. Study them, then write a bad poem.

* Choose a subject you would like to write "about." Then attempt to write a piece that absolutely avoids any relationship to that subject. Get someone to grade you.

* Write a series of titles for as yet unwritten poems or proses. Write a poem made of titles only.

* Work with a number of objects, moving them around on a field or surface-describe their shifting relationships, resonances, associations. Or, write a series of poems that have only to do with what you see in the place where you most often write. Or, write a poem in each room of your house or apartment. Experiment with doing this in the home you grew up in, if possible.

* Write a bestiary (a poem about real and mythical animals).

* Write five short expressions of the most adamant anger; make a work out of them.

* Write a work gazing into a mirror without using the pronoun I.

* A shocking experiment: Rip pages out of books at random (I guess you could xerox them) and study them as if they were a collection of poetic/literary material. Use this method on your old high school or college notebooks, if possible, then create an epistemological work based on the randomly chosen notebook pages.

* Meditate on a word, sound, or list of ideas before beginning to write.

* Take a book of poetry you love and make a list, going through it poem by poem, of the experiments, innovations, methods, intentions, etc. involved in the creation of the works in the book.

* Write what is secret. Then write what is shared. Experiment with writing each in two different ways: veiled language, direct language.

* Write a soothing novel in twelve short paragraphs.

* Write a work that attempts to include the names of all the physical contents of the terrestrial world that you know.

* Attempt to speak for a day only in questions; write only in questions.

* Attempt to become in a state where the mind is flooded with ideas; attempt to keep as many thoughts in mind simultaneously as possible. Then write without looking at the page, typescript or computer screen (This is "called" invisible writing).

* Choose a period of time, perhaps five or nine months. Every day, write a letter that will never be sent to a person who does or does not exist, or to a number of people who do or do not exist. Create a title for each letter and don't send them. Pile them up as a book.

* Turn a list of the objects that have something to do with a person who has died into a poem or poem form, in homage to that person.

* Write the same poem over and over again, in different forms, until you are weary. Another experiment: set yourself the task of writing for four hours at a time, perhaps once, twice or seven times a week. Don't stop until hunger and/or fatigue take over. At the very least, always set aside a four-hour period once a month in which to write. This is always possible and will result in one book of poems or prose writing for each year. Then we begin to know something.

* Attempt as a writer to win the Nobel Prize in Science by finding out how thought becomes language, or does not.

* Take a traditional text like the pledge of allegiance to the flag. For every noun, replace it with one that is seventh or ninth down from the original one in the dictionary. For instance, the word "honesty" would be replaced by "honey dew melon." Investigate what happens; different dictionaries will produce different results.

* Attempt to write a poem or series of poems that will change the world. Does everything written or dreamed of do this?

* Write occasional poems for weddings, for rivers, for birthdays, for other poets' beauty, for movie stars maybe, for the anniversaries of all kinds of loving meetings, for births, for moments of knowledge, for deaths. Writing for the "occasion" is part of our purpose as poets in being-this is our work in the community wherein we belong and work as speakers for others.

* Experiment with every traditional form, so as to know it.

* Write poems and proses in which you set yourself the task of using particular words, chosen at random like the spelling exercises of children: intelligence, amazing, weigh, weight, camel, camel's, foresight, through, threw, never, now, snow, rein, rain. Make a story of that!

Poem #7 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                     The Giver

The Giver
The green sits comfortably in its place
Barely a breeze blows by
The ice cream drips beneath the rays
Not a cloud clutters the sky

Rays are fading, a shadowy mask
The air crisp and serene
A crunchy new orange leaf has turned
The world no longer green

A blanket’s drawn, chilling to a freeze
Everything that breathes.
The calm and storm unite as one
Beneath, green rests in peace.

Strangled, suffocating patiently
Until the day it’s freed.
Humbly letting doom dominate
Lifeless green concedes.

Tempers ablaze, the pulse is paralyzed
Breathing beings hide in fleeting heat
Green is hostage, hands tied up
The bondage melts like vanishing sleet

If ever there was a doubt in the faith
That the dead can again come alive,
Take a glimpse at the gentle growth of green
Pushing up the daisies, longing to survive.

A single sweet song carries its report
The growth of green persevering
The melodious music a pleasing promise
The world will carry on breathing.

A feathered creature descends upon
A brown extended arm
A ray beams down in green glory
No longer in captivity, no longer at harm.

Laughing lungs brimming with life
Breathing in the scents once more
A kaleidoscope of dancing colors
Generous green gives joyously as before

                                                 --by Talia Bassali

Poem #6 for Fall, 2015 Creative Writing

           The Hours are Fleeting

Once over the ocean of waves and light,
then back again, returned without a sound.
The fleeting hours vanish into night.

The strings are all tied, packaged neat and tight
sent to the bay, to the king that I crowned
once. Over the ocean of waves and light

that shines to solemn crests of foaming white,
I sail all ships ordained to run aground.
Their fleeting hours vanish into night.

I traveled far but never did lose sight
of golden hills in thousands that I found
once, over the ocean of waves and light.

The wings of seagulls swept by wind in flight,
the eddies swirling, stalks of sea grass drowned
all fleeting hours vanish into night.

The wonder merchant never does me right
by showing visions meant to daze, astound.
Once over the ocean of waves and light
the fleeting hours vanish into night.

                                                    --by Talia Bean

Poem #5 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                       Comple

Like a baby bottle without its nippl
Like Coach K without his breathing tub
Like a smile without a mout
Like Cory without her head in the toile
Like a lollipop without the saliv
Like Alexandra without grey fog in her hea
Like a mattress without its sprin
Like Quinn without a knife at her wris
Like a jack in the box without a clow
Like Donnie without duct taped shoe
Like a home without a roo
Like Patrick without his barren 24 year old wif
Like a side view mirror without glas
Like Kim without stage 3 breast cance
Like a book without pag
Like Annie without her water bottle of Grey Goos
Like a laptop without keyboar
Like Mr.J without demensi
Like a wheelchair without whee


21. Like The World Without Tears

                                      --by Elicia Bessaleli