back in the saddle

Remember that poetry class that I took in the spring?  The one that sort of kicked off this whole crazy blog?  Well, a core group of cool people emerged from it, and we've resumed meeting as a poetry circle to give feedback on each others' work and encourage us to keep writing.  We had our first meeting tonight, and it was awesome!  Here are the poems I prepared:

Innocence

Our child was born; they said not to speak to her.

They said she would speak the language of God; she did,

A cruel, inhuman God, with a beast’s tongue,

Who visited her as she sat in the sacred dark,

Who gave her strange things she taught herself to eat,

Who addressed her not at all.

She grew and watched us in her natural state, filthy, gnarled,

Uncorrupted by the sinful educations of Man.

She spat and hissed like a tap, and we drank in the wisdom:

Our living sacrament, our wordless prophet, our daughter.

They bowed and trailed away,

Content they’d brought an angel down to earth,

While my wife smiled fearfully,

And changed another diaper

On our fifteen-year-old girl.

(this first one is about the Forbidden Experiment)

Cleansing

It’s a pretty pop-pop-pop, like rain against a plastic roof,

When the waters hit the shower curtain,

And run away, away…

Down and out of sight, as far out of mind

As the world outside, whose constant droning dulls and

Can’t be heard within this easy mist

That beads on my cool skin and makes me feel at home.

Lay body on smooth tile, for an instant I drift on infinite seas;

Trade myself for an unknown soul, and exult

In the ceaseless, cosmic beating of our hearts.

Eventually (of course) there comes a tapping,

A soft and hard reminder that life out there can’t wait.

The disappointed sigh of time and water running out,

But life is the price of peace.

So you can expect to see more poetry popping up here soon!