2/29: A Week in Poetry
February 29, 2008
A response by a Post-everything generation
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1964 sat atop flowered microphones ricochet between forgotten speeches and rhythmically flashing cameras. Guitars strum to the beat of youthful rebellion master jenga and topple civilizations with their nimble fingers. Students born to a revolution. Beatles move and groove to world domination Malcom X struggles to ripple a century of miscalculations and repression. And students, sit atop flowered mud pierce the earth with slogans of democracy and constitutions. March through the Mall holding hands to injustices, eliminate the black and white colors of ropes police clubs and slumped busses. Students born to yell demand and unscrew. But I was born to a postmodernist era. My Generation taught to mouth through fingers pressed against colorful keyboards listen closely to radioactive microwaves. Cell phones replace hands as hands replace words. Where technology is constantly molding to requests of speed and finesse. But as I learn to unlock the sounds of Mrs. Robinson and Jude with oversize headphones, Campuses are void of constant friction, no longer rubbing against authority, wrestling with counterrevolutionaries. Our vocals become petitions, organizations, and bracelets —- a cyber culture without a narrative or philosophy. I struggle to weave a revolution with dust bunnies. Face forward, mind lagging behind. I was born too late. We sponge to the tides allowing the earth to re-patch its pierced wrists. |
by Aviya Slutzky
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#1 With mind-numbing-numbness I stare and I glare at my Watch the hands: they tick-tick-tock. Relentless, it ticks: that insistent clock. No object is Time, or it shouldn’t be, yet somehow (yet somehow) it always seems to creep to the front of the mind and shove more important thoughts like breakfast aside… so, by Time I—yes I— abide by minutes and seconds and hours are Time: incessant, endless, eternal—I digress. So keeping in mind the constraints of Time let me just say I wish (I wish) this Watch were not mine #2 stole to the sand one moonlit night, your fingers intertwined in mine salty, clammy skin held tight, two bodies awash in brine sandy grains scraped sandy feet as two bodies were submerged swayed to the breakers’ rhythmic beat and to their throbbing salted surge now: embracing, touching, and caressing beneath the undulating swell two salty bodies coalescing beneath the deep’s enchanting spell chin thrown back to meet the moon who now is but a silver sliver but ecstasy will ebb too soon so i arouse your final quiver |
by Will Nichols
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The Rush Freak alarm Never happened And the ringing of the phone again and again. Some stupid tone taped and static Coming from shiny pink. Somewhere between wake and sleep with Music disguising the lewd sounds of the night That has died too quickly. Then the rush of awake. A lobbing stab, Alert and brushing off Cobwebs of a drink or a few too many. Shaking ciao to the mop of hair you love, Pillow-buried, in a stream of rising sunlight and curses. Stumble out through thick incense And stuffy air weighing heavy, Sticking to the floor. Tripping around the debris of boundless life, That litters. The hall gushes into you. Your plane somewhere, flying high, Crashing through your mind, As stuff is frantically dragged Down the corridor Down the stairs Till nerves spike a kick, burst through to the outside: A fondly thought-of ashtray, And air cruelly fresh, Not sardonic, but a daring promise, Through sketched black leaves scratching at the sky, And a breath that fills… Then chased by the rickety rhythm nipping after your heels, By the chill and the internal flutter, Striding into the next few minutes. Finally descent Cacophony slowly rising, And the slap to your jaw of an arid embrace, A songless guitar twang enveloping Forlorn and manic faces. And the vast birth of urban madness, Underground. |
by Erin O’Donnel
Aviya's poem is far-out. really speaks to that feeling of lost, of not mattering, of being past our prime, that a lot of us feel.
Posted by: Mike at March 5, 2008 4:44 PM