Crankin' out that obligatory first post--you'll thank me later

Welcome to mah blog--not that you need a welcome mat, or an introduction; this is not some sort of nice go-to place when you feel low and need a pick-me-up, nor is it a particularly public forum. Instead, this will be a page splayed with my thoughts, and you are welcome to pick out the pertinent pieces and look over them with awe and wonder while you discard the chunks of chaff. I don't pretend to be well-read enough to stand up to the most learned scholars, and the gods all know that I could use some measure of help in all of my writing, but I hope to refine my technique over the course of the semester.

I'll generally explain what I put here, so if you choose to skip the first part, then that is of course your choice. If you want background, read it. If you don't care what I have to say about my work, draw your own conclusions and skip all the wordy nonsense before hand. It is of course, your choice. So that I don't completely waste time, I'll splash a non-introductory, more pertinent block of text for you to peruse--with my obligatory pre-poem explanation.

I was sitting down in the UCC the other day, and I was hit with a sudden and unwanted wave of nostalgia in the form of my remembering an old girlfriend. It just so happened I was sitting with my current girlfriend, which made things really awful because I absolutely zoned out so hard that she had to ask what was wrong. It was harder, I found, to explain what exactly was wrong, because I didn't know. I suddenly had a thought: long ago, I sat two floors down in the "Wolves Den" as they call it--I had only just bought two pairs of shoes. I was wearing one, and my girlfriend was proud that I bought two different pairs. She had her laptop out, and one of her friends passed by. We talked, and I don't remember what happened after that. The entire exchange was so insubstantial, but I remember just that piece of it without knowing why or how. I just sat, thinking about it, and I am not entirely sure it was even relevant. But, when I decided to write a poem for this free-write, the memory sprang to mind again. Hope you enjoy this. If you don't, tell me why. If you DO, hell, you can still tell me why. I like that too.

Blackened Talapia Over a bed of Braised Carrots Celery


I always feel like time doesn't just end at the junction of seconds;
instead, it flickers endlessly both backwards and forwards
and at the most inconvenient times, it plucks the chords tied to my senses
in the most painful way possible. I stand among a crowd
and I see--right in front of me--windows, full of trees.
Get this, though: my mind overrides this image--the people flitting around
like motes of dust, wriggling tails while their gills pop open and closed
--with an image, three floors down. I am sitting at a bar stool, new shoes on my feet
and a woman is seated next to me who once held me close until I slept as a baby on her bosom.
And now, I stand--swollen with a sharp stab of something hot and white growing in my fists,
balled, quivering--staring out a window.
Sometimes leaves fall from trees and turn brown with age;
they crunch underfoot like cockroaches, but come spring, those leaves are back
and they seem just as green as the year before. I have the benefit of knowing:
those green leaves will raise a cacophony and I can remember the husk of shoes
that have been stripped soleless, entombing younger feet as they churn
useless old leaves to chalk that smear ugly lines across the sidewalk.