I had a handle on life, but then it broke.

So, I’ve hit an… interesting point in my life.

I had some trouble this summer and, long story short, I’ve ended up with a lot more time for myself.  I’m still working (probably more than I was in the spring), but I suddenly have plenty of time to develop some new hobbies.  Therefore, I ended up learning how to play ukulele and started a folk punk band with a couple buddies.

Luckily for you all, that means I’ve also started working on my 50-Word anthology I mentioned last May.  It’ll be a little more personal than I had initially planned, but I think that’s a good thing.  I’ve also edited the name a bit. It’s now entitled Everybody’s Something: A Quarter-Life Crisis.  So here’s one of the new, more personal, pieces:

Quarter-Life Crisis

This is not where I expected to be at 24 years old.
A college graduate delivering pizzas
And living in my childhood bedroom.
A teaching degree,
But every sub job increases my disdain
For these students who I hardly know,
Yet focus my frustrations.

Sorry kid, I’m just so tired.

 

Everybody’s Something…

A month or so ago I came across a copy of Carl Sandburg’s first published collection of poetry, titled Chicago Poems.  From the moment I cracked it, I fell in love with the way in which Sandburg describes the people of Chicago and the realness of his words.  In that strain, I decided to try something new myself.  I decided I would write about a few of the people of my hometown while also challenging myself to do it as a part of the 50 word exercise.

So, here’s the first poem:

“George”

A wild-eyed geriatric
Four dollars to his name
Sitting in a 24-hour donut shop,
Tells about microwaved cigarette butts
And drinks from coffee cups that aren’t his.
Brother Lee’s already asleep,
So he’ll wander Wal-Mart all night.

Once a leatherworker in Lisle,
Tonight he relearns how to tie a tie.

World Poetry Day 2013!

I apologize for my lackadaisical posts the last several months.  It seems that I was most productive in my cruddy little apartment as I avoided homework for four or five different classes. Lately I’ve been busy though, working as a substitute teacher off-and-on during the days and delivering pizza in the evenings (it’s a glamorous life). And besides that, I have one online course I still need to finish for my full-time teaching certificate. It’s a big ball of fun for sure.

Anyways, today is World Poetry Day! So I figured I could take a little time out of my day to write a post and participate.

 

            Aim for What is Creative

Rather than existing,

Which can be used as an exploration

Of ethics and authorship,

Experiment with language!

In essence,

Look closely at this chance.

Gather an eye and ear

For opportunity as art.

Abandon convention!

Practice creative choices.

And gain the power of language

For better or worse.

What role has art in the world?

It exists to engage community.

So we are expected,

Occasionally,

To please with brilliant insight.

Tucked away

With no questions asked.

 

Also, I think this man is brilliant. So here is a lesson in Emily Dickinson from John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars among several others:

The Prodigal Poet Returns

That may be a little too pretentious of a post title, but what do want at 2:00am?

It’s been quite a while since the last time I posted on here.  It’s not been for nothing though, and I ‘ve had good reason to be gone!

I’m finally done with my student teaching experience and will be graduating in less than a week!

In the time I’ve had off (specifically late at night this weekend) I wrote a poem I think might be pretty decent.  It’s a poem adapted from an article in one of my old Cultural Studies textbooks.  I created it using a “cut-up” method in which I simply read through the text and pulled out words and phrases that I proceeded to patch together to create a poem.  I hope you all like it.  Feedback is more than welcome as always!

Serial Killing for Beginners

Private desire and public fantasy cross
Convening around scenes of violence
Public fascination
Torn and open
Bodies
Torn and opened
Persons
A collective gathering
The shock
The trauma
The wound
                                                                                         The Unforgiven

Something strange and something new appears
No longer the mark
The stigmata
Neither the sacred nor heroic
A culture centered on trauma
People wear their damage
Like badges of identity
Or fashion accessories

Body and society
Identity and desire
Violence and intimacy
Sex and crime
The stigmatized person
Marked for all time
Potentially dangerous people
                                                            A potentially dangerous individual
The serial killer emerges
The dark intersection
Even when evidence for it is absent
Persons were faceless numbers and types
Awaiting execution
                                                                    “America’s murder epidemic”
A national malady of trauma and violence
The fear
The desire
Murder will spread

A mask of normalcy
Fading into the background
Makes visible this version of commonplace
Natural and collective
Private fantasy and public space
Intimacy and publicity
Corporeal compulsive violence

A malady of agency
The identification of destruction and possession
The logic of killing for pleasure
In a murder machine culture
The species of person proper
 

“The common individual”
                        “Be Your Self”
                                                “Obey Your Thirst”
                                                                        “Each for each”
                                                                                                “All for all”

The profile of a serial killer
The very icon of the mass in person
The mass-market genre of bodily violence
The self-made man
The mass spectacle

Torn bodies and torn persons
The crowd gathers
Sexual
Social
Technological
Artistic
The serial killer makes visible

A lifestyle
A career
A calling
The serial killer has become something to be

Just like me…

 

WordPress won’t allow me to format this correctly, so here it is in its final form: Serial Killing for Beginners

Long ago, in a classroom far, far away

Sorry it’s been so long since my last piece!  Student teaching has been extremely time consuming and I’ve found that I typically prefer to vegetate when I come home to decompress.

However! While my creative writing students were learning and writing haikus a couple days ago, I can up with one of my own.  And bonus… it’s Star Wars themed!

A Haiku for Han

What’s up my Wookies?
Don’t call me a nerf-herder
‘Cause Solo shot first

Sooner than expected

So yesterday I spent my evening drawing up some designs for a punk rock festival happening in Kinsman, IL next weekend.  Some friends of mine are organizing the whole thing so I agreed to help them create some patch and t-shirt designs.  This resulted in me spending most of today listening to quite a bit of folk punk and a couple of the bands that’ll be playing the festival while I drew more designs are colored in my favorites.  After a while the idea for a piece popped into my head and I began writing it as a folk punk song.  This is what I have so far (which will probably constitute the song), but a friend of mine is pushing me to do more with it as a piece of poetry so you all may see another version of this in the future as well.

I’m also posting a few of the designs I most liked after the piece.  Input welcome as always on anything in this post.

Enjoy.

I Fell Off the Earth

I was sitting alone
On a bench in the park
Watching the squirrels play
Heard the singing of larks
Caught the scent of your hair
Felt your kiss on my cheek
Found the taste of a love song
As I began to speak
My feet left the ground
And I flew through the air
But you suddenly left me
With no tether to spare

So I fell off the Earth
And I drifted through space
You had said that you loved me
And then without a trace
You ran off with another
So I pray for quick death
That this vacuum might suck my
Heart right from my chest

I guess I made a mistake
When I asked you to stay
I had thought that forever
Lasted more than a day
Now I’m drowning my sorrows
In a bottle of Jack
And my one consolation
Are these pics of your rack

Midwest Punk Rock Camp 2012 patch design

T-shirt design (back)

Getting back in the groove of things

Now that the camp season is over, I’m hoping that I’ll start finding some time to get some writing done.  Especially since my student teaching experience is going to begin soon.  I’ll finally have something to procrastinate from again haha.

Since I didn’t have any time to write at camp and I haven’t posted anything in nearly a month, I figured I’d post another 50 items or less piece I wrote a few months ago.

Hopefully next time I’ll have something a bit more recent for you all.  I may even post some designs I drew up for punk rock festival once I’ve colored a couple of them in.

 

Tease Me

We want,
But we can’t let ourselves.
So the game begins.
We push each other back and forth,
Each time coming closer,
Each time a breath away from crossing that line,
Barely avoiding the other’s lips,
Hands wrapped around waists,
Begging the other to just do it already!

…Not yet

 

As an added bonus, I can’t stop listening to this song!  Possibly my favorite crooner song of all time and I love this cover by Michael Bublé.

Happy Independence Day!

Between the typical lack of motivation the summer brings to my writing and the business that comes along with working at a Boy Scout camp during this season, I still haven’t gotten much down on paper lately.  But since this is a holiday and I haven’t posted anything new in nearly a month, I figured I’d post a piece I wrote for 50 Items or Less a few months ago.

As always… opinions, criticisms, and raves are completely welcome.

 

Summer Dreams

You try to dial in the frequency on that aged transistor radio. The smells of bratwurst and potato salad start wafting through the park. The charcoal sparks and sizzles as drippings fall through the grate. You duck as a Frisbee sails past your head and smile in the sweet sunshine.

The summer slump

The most irritating thing for me about the summer is that I just can’t seem to motivate myself to write as much as I want.  The problem is that during the school year I tend to write as a way of avoiding my course work.  Procrastination = inspiration for me.  So during the summer break when I have all sorts of time to write, I just wont.  As a result, it takes me forever to start and finish even small pieces like this one that I finished today for the 50 Items or Less blog.

I’ll be away working at a Boy Scout summer camp for the next 2 months or so.  Maybe I can find some things to procrastinate from there and get my creative juices flowing again haha.

 

The Headstone

Paint chipping away, covered in rust, clinging to the last vestiges of years gone by. Undergrowth overwhelms old tracks, and saplings have begun to sprout up between the spokes of iron wheels. Yet it remains like a monument, emblazoned with an epitaph that reads: Here Lies the Progress of Man.

Unintended hiatus over!

I only meant to be gone for a week or two while I worked on all of the papers I needed to write for the end of my semester at school.  Unfortunately that grew to well over a month.  I just couldn’t seem to motivate myself to write anything since then and so I neglected anything I previously said I was going to do for this blog haha.

Finally, a friend asked for someone to write her a poem today and this is what I came up with after a bit.

            The Poet

Lips part
Forming the shape
Of a verse unspoken
Now breathless, eyes meet and leave me
No words