but I don't feel like writing them all. luckily, i'm taking a creative writing class, so I can just put things up from class. This is a haibun, look it up on wikipedia:
Lansing
Thinking of you I see us talking- there we are tumbling around our dorm, our campus, our city, up and down hills at a breakneck pace with arms flailing. Anxieties (mine) and ideas (yours) pouring out like revelations. Once a week I would sit on my couch waiting for you to appear in Jeffrey, the most ramshackle car on the road, looking forward to us coasting past campus, past the mall, until we reached the kind of serenity that the Finger Lakes are famous for, planning out our lessons along the way. At the facility we signed in, surrendered our possessions and waited for the guard to buzz us through the door. Then we waited for the adolescent girls to be filed into the library, each in their uniform of navy blue sweatpants and a ratty matching tee-shirt, we would explain the lesson after they got settled. Motion shifted- each movement, each piece of paper, each pencil was carefully accounted for by the guards- but the rhythm in each student’s writing was encouraged and shared. Oftentimes that was all their pieces had-- rhythm at the expense of expression, movement absent feeling and context. When class was over the students would line up again, not going back to their rooms until they were still, some of them sneaking in goodbye waves to us. Some weeks we would drive back along the lake, looking out over it as the sun set, windows down, speakers blaring, students’ papers being lifted by the wind.
road dips and rises
the bright orange sun falls on
Lansing behind us
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3 comments:
Adam inspired something?
Alex,
You sneaky little poet!
Very nice ...
Your piece is great, Alex. It made me think of this poem by Lyrae, my poetry teacher from fall of last year. I can only find on excerpt of it online, but hopefully I (or you) will be able to get our hands on the rest of it sooner or later. OK, here it is, in part & with the line breaks all messed up due to this tiny text box:
At the prison at Auburn I cross the yard. Inmates whet tongues against
my body, cement sculpted, poised for hate —pitch compliments
like coins--(wade)-- their silver, slickening --(in the water)--
uncollected change. The guard asks Think they’re beautiful?
just wait ‘til they’re out here stabbing each other.
Oh, Harriet, the stars throw down shanks:
teach the sonnet’s a cell, now try to escape.
Yes, the springtime needed you. Many a star was waiting
for your eyes only.
Harriet is Harriet Tubman, whose house in Auburn I think you have to pass to reach the jail. She figures into the beginning of the poem. This is the end. I hope you can get a sense of it, anyway.
Hey, I still miss you.
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