Poetry

No One Howls Anymore

I’ve been recently teaching my students Whitman, and introduced them to Ginsberg. While I haven’t written any poetry in a while, I really got inspired by rereading “Howl” and “America” by Ginsberg. At the same time, I have come to the conclusion that I fundamentally hate the 21st century (perhaps more on that later). Anyhow, here’s a quick poem written as a nod towards Ginsberg’s poetry and style.

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

destroyed by a billion tiny screens in silence.

Dreams, thoughts –personal fucking agency —

abandoned to the quiet cadence of mouse clicks,

rhythmic typing, fingers touching glass, searching for connection

on that cold and flawless surface.

 

I saw the young bodies of my comrades fold into themselves —

unnatural arches of the spine, heads down-turned in reverence to their

tiny gods.

 

I saw our hours consumed with raving mad images — bodies and breasts and mountains and makeup —

an unceasing scrolling tumbling river of images,

hope and sighs thrown out tinted windows at highway speeds

I don’t think they’ll be returning anytime soon.

 

No one howls anymore.

 

Our pockets contain:  lint, screens, the entirety of human knowledge

and always loneliness, crouching.

 

Where are our words?

Why don’t we use “whom” anymore?

Why did I find the best of our language outside my neighbor’s trash can, sticky and damp from the rain?

 

I want to speak with you, brothers.

I want to touch you, sisters.

Let’s tell the world we knew to fuck itself

and then take a walk in the woods.

Let’s call ourselves pirates and go build a tree house.

 

The only thing the world can’t give us is innocence.

 

Maybe it’s lying in the neighbor’s trash too.

I better go find it under the rocks in the creek,

maybe in the way you take off your clothes.

 

Oh, and my friends don’t fuck anymore.

They recline pillowed heads,

intoxicate themselves with their blue pixies instead.

500 million bedrooms are strangely quiet — it’s becoming unsettling to me.

 

I give up on you, America,

you and your blue pixies.

I’m tired of your madness cloaked in silence,

your impotent, naked demands.

 

You’ve stolen my mind.

 

I’m starting to lose it

and all I can hear is your evil touchscreen symphonies.

I’ll find it though.

You won’t keep it from me forever.

And I’m starting to get the inkling

it’s around here someplace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Arc

They have a certain curvature of the back

— a graceful arc under perfect 15-year-old skin.

This arc is the result of many sunny hours of youth

spent indoors under the soft glow

of computer screens.

 

This is a new bending of a line —

a new curve in a season where curves appear.

But this flawless arc is a darker symbol than the blossoming of youth.

It’s a defense, an escape, a quiet act of surrender

 to a life that provides stimulation in mouse clicks

and lonely words on lonely walls.

 

Outside the world burns and beckons

and the stars on a October night miss the gaze of youthful eyes.

But everywhere there are these arcs — fallen trajectories,

perfect skin pulled taught

over a bent and bowed frame.

And the quiet sounds of mouse clicks.

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River in January

Along the river are trees,

bowed and burden by snow.

They are beautiful,

Their hoary loads cold and sharp.

 

And as I walk by, I involuntarily

grab the tip of one of the trees

and gently tug to release it of its burden.

The snow and hoarfrost slough

from its branches with a hoarse whisper

and I am surprised to see

that even unburdened,

it only rises a matter of inches.

 

And this becomes my prayer tonight:

not for salvation,

but that God would come by and gently tug

around my edges

and that as the cold and hoarfrost begins to slough away

I would rise, ever so slightly —

 

Just enough,

to wait in silence and expectation,

for warmer days.

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Tonight Across America

I ran across this poem that I wrote a while back. And here it is…

Tonight across America

the glow of ten millions screens

illuminate 20 million faces.

They cheer, they laugh, they weep:

the room grows warmer from

human emotion.

Tonight across America

the sound of postmodern life

echoes on textured walls.

The buzz of the dryer,

the beep of the microwave,

and the hum of the refrigerator

sound their quiet industrial symphonies.

Tonight across America

five hundred thousand people

hunch their backs and peer

into their computer screens.

They stare at smiling faces

and other longing souls,

hoping that their clicks

their gently pressed keystrokes

mean a chance at happiness and love.

Tonight across America

I leave America behind.

I climb the trail through the woods

and see the lights of life

yellow and blue and cold

shining  below from a thousand empty streets.

Tonight across America

it is my voice, my breath alone

that penetrates an abandoned world.

Tonight I am nature’s child,

an Adam in a world

that all the other Adams

have left behind.

Tonight across America

one man stands illumined

by the diluted lights of the city.

Breathing in the night

Breathing in the night.

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