"Drill" by Michael Collier

"Drill" by Michael Collier

When the fire bell rang its two short, one long
electric signal, the boys closest to the wall
of windows had to raise the blinds and close
the sashes, and then join the last of our line
as it snaked out the classroom onto the field
of asphalt where we stood, grade-by-grade,
until the principal appeared with her gold Timex.

We learned early that catastrophe must always
be attended in silence, that death prefers us
orderly and ordered, and that rules will save us
from the chaos of our fear, so that even
if we die, we die together, which was the calm
almost consoling thought I had each time
the yellow C.D. siren wailed and we would tuck
ourselves beneath out sturdy desktops.

Eyes averted from the windows,
we'd wait for the drill to pass or until
the nun's rosary no longer clicked and we could hear
her struggling to free herself from the leg-well
of her desk, and then her call for us to rise
and, like herself, brush off the dust gathered
on our clothes. And then the lessons resumed.
No thought of how easily we interred ourselves,

though at home each would dream the mushroom cloud,
the white cap of apocalypse whose funnel stem
sucked glass from windows, air from lungs,
and made all these rehearsals the sad and hollow
gestures that they were, for we knew it in our bones
that we would die, curled in a last defense-
head on knees, arms locked around legs-
the way I've seen it since in nursing homes

and hospices: forms bedsheets can't hide,
as if in death the body takes on the soul's
compact shape, acrobatic, posed to tumble free
of the desktop or bed and join the expanse
and wide scatter of debris.

How To

How To

breathe, Megan, breathe

inhale the sweet scent of Spring

pollen catching on nosehairs

descending to lungs, alveoli

there it rests

builds

breathe, Megan, breathe

take in the smog of your city

the fumes of exhausts

carcinogens invading

the body’s sanctity

is lost

breathe the sweet in

with the sour

the pleasing in with

the displeasure

breathe, breathe

breathe until you have

no breath left

no will in your body to live

all life’s breaths escaping

in one long exhale

and know that

this

is how to breathe

New creative writing workshop: "For the Love of Writing"

First meeting of our new creative writing workshop: "For the Love of Writing" on Wednesday!

Because I have been unable to find a suitable poetry workshop in the community (for free!) I have decided to start my own! This Wednesday we will have our first orienting meeting at Saxby's Coffee in University Mall (10637 Braddock Road, Fairfax) from 8:00-10:00pm. They close at 10 so if you're coming make sure you come on time!

This creative writing workshop is for anyone interested in any form of creative writing, whether poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir, short stories, songwriting...anything! Experienced writers as well as those who are not as experienced are equally welcome.

This workshop is going to be very casual. It will be like a group of friends hanging out talking about writing, nothing formal and stuffy. Regular attendance in the future is not necessary, but it would be great if everyone could make it as often as possible!


FOR WEDNESDAY:

Writers, bring anything you will need to write: laptops, paper and pen/pencil, quill, ink, and parchment, whatever.

Also, bring in your favorite piece of writing. It can be a poem, short story, novel, song, etc. You will be asked to read it to the group, so if you choose a novel or short story, please pick your favorite excerpt that can be read in no longer than 3 minutes. **Make sure this is NOT YOUR OWN WORK! It MUST be from an author that is not you**

Optional: Bring a piece of your own writing to read to the group so that we can get a sense of what you like to write.

Response to Arthur Sze's "The Ginkgo Light": Chrysanthemum Reach

As a response to reading Arthur Sze's "The Ginkgo Light," my professor recommended thus: "think about what the poems show that he values and avoids in his poems. These can be formal things, methods, kinds of diction, values, ideas about Beauty (or beauty), subject matter--whatever you notice. What do you suppose he would say a poet should and should not do?" My response is the following poem:

Chrysanthemum Reach

Envision. Enrapture.

Recall, remember, recite in fragments.

Introspect on observation.

Ignore nature, not.

The natural permeates all.

Acknowledge a duality of life.

Everything holds weight-

Nature, the manmade

Experience, interpretation, pain

Beauty, suffering, healing.

Experiences envelope, envelope experiences.

Do not fail to acknowledge, notice

Parallelisms

Succession of life

Momentary deliberateness

You say, “I am happiest here, now.”

"The Memory-Keeper" by Sharod Santos

The Memory-Keeper
by Sharod Santos

The smell of pine and bacon grease,
a house in a piney tract of land, a kitchen
in the house, a stove in the kitchen,
a skillet beneath which lowly burns
a bluish flame the jets discharge when a match
is held against their sound, a sound
that travels outside in from a metered box
where a boy sits watching the radium dials
record the backward passage of time,
and time itself, the beginning
of time, and beyond the beginning
the mind in the act of calling to mind.

"At the Playground, Singing for Psychiatric Outpatients" by Peter Enterwine

At the Playground, Singing for Psychiatric Outpatients
by Peter Everwine

The bright-faced children have gone home,
trailing the sun to supper.
Tonight,
these others have come,
almost sweetly shy, starched
for their monthly party.
Nurse herds them into metal chairs.

I've come to sing, Nurse tells them,
and they fold their hands
--these lately mad who failed behind a door
or slipped under in a jammed street,
whose eyes blossomed like silver
fists in mirrors, in plate-glass windows.
Nurse is waiting for me.

So I sing for them,
for the boy
in the front row, groping
the stiff corners of his pockets;
for the ugly one in pink anklets
--her legs have never felt a razor,
though her wrist has; for him
whose fingers are eaten by ants; for her
whose face sags like a torn sack.
They do not like my songs,
but infinitely polite, they turn
their smiles up into the dark
as if a smile should fall softly,
obliquely, like rain.

"Home on the Range," Nurse calls out,
her sure fingers on the pulse of America.
I start in faltering voice,
half-forgetting those dead words
sung at campfires in the past.
One joins, and then another:
Home, home on the range. . .
Where the deer. . .
And the skies are. . .
The voices crack and lurch, we
are singing--the boy, the ugly one--
singing like crows in the empty
prairie of a children's playground
where if there are distances that shine
they shine like the eyes of pain.

Book review: "Disappointed Psalms" by Brian Clements

Brian Clements’ book of poetry, “Disappointed Psalms,” is a sort of public service announcement for society to open their eyes to the world around them and realize that we are existing through rose-tinted glasses. It is divided into four sections, or poems, I am not sure which, so I will refer to them as sections. The first section titled “Corpses” begins with a description of corpses being burned and dragged through the streets. The narrator reflects on the scene, and with the lines “Yes, I hear the whispering of many-terror on every side!/ But my tongue is stuck to my jaw” I am reminded of the actions of people during the time of Nazi Germany and Hitler’s reign. While aghast with the horrors of the Nazi Regime, no one dared to speak up, for fear that they would be the next target for extermination. All too often we are beaten down, feeling defeated and almost too exhausted to stand up in opposition to that which we do not agree: “And all my bones are out of joint/ And I can barely stand to speak.” We are “…like a deaf man who doesn’t hear./ …like a dumb man who doesn’t speak.” We are bombarded by the atrocity of death multiple times a day through the media; we do not want to hear of such horrors-we do not speak up because we assume that in doing so no one will hear our lowly dissention over the noise of the world. The narrator in this section shares the sentiments of many: what good can one person do? Instead of speaking up we instead turn away, perhaps hoping that what we see is not real, perhaps even lying to ourselves that everything is fine in the world, “Their mouths chew lies/ And their bellies are filled with lies.”

The end of the “Corpse” section is met with one entitled “Mouth” where the narrator speaks of his/her disappointment in God and His followers. Those that produce the corpses that were spoken of in the previous section are not struck down by the hand of God. It seems as if God (and the moral teachings of Christianity) is nonexistent, insubstantial, and purposeless. “But we’re all still waiting” for God to punish these transgressors, yet he does not. “You are become many deaths, Lord,/ And you do nothing but/ Sit in ambush in villages/ And murder the innocent./ Even your enemies shall be ashamed.” However, the narrator does not wish for the word of God to be stifled: “I will allow your name to be shouted/ Over the rooftops and over the gunshots” so that maybe someone will take heed to His teachings and stop the atrocities of war, famine, disease, and suffering. “Mouth” ends with the line “Be moved by this prayer for action.” The narrator feels that perhaps not all hope is lost, and perhaps speaking up first to God will produce the necessary results.

The following section “The Word” is the shortest of the four. The narrator questions God about the validity of His word, His teachings. It ends with the narrator telling God that he/she does not believe in Him. The final section titled “Without End” is a list of daily concerns of a member of our society, such as: “You start heroin, television, gin, wearing black, jerking off, running,/ playing cards, and there is no end./ …You start lending money and there is no end./ …You start blonde and turn red and brown and ash and there is no end.” We are too caught up in our lives and routines to concern ourselves with issues that matter, such as those the narrator speaks of in the previous sections. The end result is a Nation of Complacence: a world that lacks empathy for its fellow man, lies to itself about the atrocities before its very eyes, and continues its routine as if nothing is amiss.