a pretty poorly written poem thought of on the car ride away from you

Despite Your Imperfections

And mine;
the seemingly apathetic responces when a game is on,
the ceaselessly unnecessary questions comparing me to her,
the lack of letters written,
the lack of futbol experience,
the lazy moments,
the seamless passive aggressivity.
We like - we really like -
We love each other.
And for some reason,
perhaps the monthly rawing of emotion,
perhaps the miles I was painfully placing between us,
a song on the radio almost made me cry.
Yes, it was a country song.
But accepting the cliche and moving forward,
the last verse desrbied and old man
worn and surrounded by loved ones
who told them happily that
this was his temporary home, it's not
where he belongs - meaning heaven was the goal
and this was just a means to an end.
I hate that and disagree
wholeheartedly.
The worst thought that comes in to my mind
from time to time
is the possibility of losing you, leaving you
forever one day.

Because I feel empty when I leave you for a week.
One of the many reasons I know this thing we share is irreplaceable:
despite all imperfections on your side and mine,
despite any bad nights or moments we pass through
every single thing is better when you're near me.
you make my every day.
you make me.

(jb)

footnote: I have recently realized that you have made me bad at writing poetry. At one point in my life, I could have written ten poems a week, and not it's difficult to write one. And when I write it, it's usually an underwhelming work - and it's all your fault. It's all your fault in the best possible way because i love you so deeply and eternally and in every cliched and irreplaceable and indescribable and unconditional way that when I try to put it into words, it comes out into a blob of romantic, corny gush that sounds just like the last three poems I wrote. So yes, you make me love you too much and for that you have made me a horrible poet. Thank you for ending my writing career. I'm so happy I feel this way.

ted kooser

An Old Photograph

by: Ted Kooser
from: Sure Signs (1980)

This old couple, Nils and Lydia, 

were married for seventy years.

Here they are sixty years old

and already like brother

and sister - small, lustless eyes, 

large ears, the same serious line

to the mouths. After those years

spent together, sharing

the weather of sex, the sour milk

of lost children, barns burning, 

grasshoppers, fevers and silence,

they were beginning to share

their hard looks. How far apart

they sit; not touching at shoulder

or knee, hands clasped in their laps

as if under each pair was a key

to a trunk hidden somewhere, 

full of those lessons one keeps

to himself.

                They had probably

risen at daybreak, and dressed

by the stove, Lydia wearing

black wool with a collar of lace, 

Nils his worn suit. They had driven

to town in the wagon and climbed

to the studio only to make

this stern statement, now veined

like a leaf, that though they looked

just alike they were separate people, 

with separate wishes already

gone stale, a good two feet of space

between them, thirty years to go.

a poem on fighting while miles apart

Nights Like This

It’s nights like this: when all the planets, stars align in perfect symmetry - except that special one and two that would have made it what it needs to be. 

It’s nights like this: when all the sounds of darkness live in wondrous harmony - except that branch, that breeze that moves without a purpose other than to simply throw things off. 

It’s nights like this: when cool and warm meet somewhere on the sea and battle through the silence, stirring up inconsequential waves upon the waters - that are only the beginning of it all. 

It’s nights like this: when air brings forth a certain strange philosophy as smells of wet, salt-covered land brings images to mind that would, on any other night, paint beauty on closed eyelids tight but... 

On nights like this: it all turns to puppetry - and rag dolls ridden with chipped cheeks, the nights air reeks of rotting fish, and every wish/desire seems to tire with the sun - and as it sets, it sets fire to the innocence - clouds who knew nothing of now are turned into a sinning lot as flames envelope life. 

It’s nights like this: when brilliant skies resemble hell and everything, it crumbles, in the resonating silence. The beauty is resilient - and yet everyone is blind. 

And as, on nights like this, the sky turns over and birds quickly swim away into the distance: there is no substance in the truth. It’s night like this: when even the perfect picture has a fault, and I can find it, and the ugly turns unthinkable...It’s nights like this. 

It’s nights like this: I fight with you.

(jb)

a poem speaking to collins

Note: I had an assignment once to write a poem emulating the styles of my favorite poet. I, of course, chose Billy Collins. This is my poem, speaking to him in what I tried to make his same linguistic beauty and simplicity. I love his poetry because it is the sort of thing that doesn't always have some terribly deep and powerful meaning, though sometimes it does, but always is enjoyable to sit, read, let wash over you, and then close and put away. (ps-as with the Hamlet piece, we were to use lines from their poetry, those are what the footnotes are for)

Your Student 
written: December 2, 2004

The figures once in front of me,
Having forgotten the law of gravity, (1)
Drifted, disconnected, across my calculus sheet.
Off to complicate another unhappy student.

You begin whispering
Stitched into your own private coat (2)
A few short steps away,
And because my math has abandoned me
I rummage through my other
Unfinished assignments sitting in their respective jackets
To find a new distraction
From your tempting, quiet calls.

Your lures become increasingly urgent,
Gaining volume and resolve.
You ask me to take a bite of poetry
And decide whether its ingredients agree.
You ask me to walk inside the poem’s room (3)
And feel the wall for a light switch. (3)

But I’m not walking, Billy.

You rise above what any normal
Flawed and maturing person hopes to produce,
Scribbling your perfect, quotable pages
For Bess Hokin, Frederick Bock, Oscar Blumenthal
And Mr. Levinson to applaud
While the rest of us sit
Awed, impressed and stupefied.

You are a paradigm of art.

You are the cat that I’ve wished for since childhood.
And now that I have you
There are few moments that you’re mine.

Leaping to an unreachable limb
In an autumned dogwood outside my window
Just beyond my reach
Only coming down to join me,
Comforting my ankles with your pity
When the rush of wind begins to bore you.

(jb)

1) "Not Touching" from Questions About Angels (1991)
2) "Books" from The Apple that Astonished Paris (1988)
3) "Introduction to Poetry" from Questions About Angels (1991)

billy collins: love

 Love

by: Billy Collins

from: Questions About Angels (1991)

The boy at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if he were afraid of expecting someone

and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in

and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakable shape of a cello.

She looked like an angel with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

And because of all of that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,

whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello.

And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manila envelope
now that they have left the train together

is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,

I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God.

a flashback poem from a silent literary heroine (jb)

Note to those who don't know Hamlet: This is a creative writing assignment I did years ago that I just came across and really liked. It was to write a couple verses from the perspective of one of the characters in Hamlet (my favorite Shakespeare play) and possibly add some story that isn't a part of the play. I wrote a soliloquy from Ophelia's perspective.  
All you need to know about Ophelia: in the play, she was Laertes' sister and a possible wife of Hamlet. She tends to be an inconsequential character for the most part, which is why I chose to bring her out and tell her story. Hamlet, as we know, goes mad, as does Ophelia, and she dies by "accidentally" falling into the water and drowning. I imagined, therefore, that she did not die by accident but committed suicide because she was pregnant with Hamlet's child and could not tell him or anyone else because of his insanity and inability to act accoringly in her last few days. This in her final speech before going into the water. (The italicized lines are lines from various points in the actual play of Hamlet, used out of context of their place in the work but in aid to my poem so as to connect my work with the original text.)



The Last Soliloquy
(written: February 3, 2005)

My father lies below me in the soil
My brother’s out to seek his dear revenge
My lover is the one he seeks to kill
And I have found my own specific end.
Nature is fine in love, and where ‘tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves; as at my home
Where photos of you sit upon my shelf.
They wait for dust that soon will start to form
And find a place to spend eternity
As I will find an everlasting bed
Within this water momentarily.
But first a simple prayer I send above
In hopes the heavens let it reach your ears
So you might know the reason for my choice
This night that will erase my coming years.
You told me once that I was in your heart
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so,
And we fulfilled our romance while I did
As you requested and let no one know.
But I could not ignore when sick set in
And quickly pushed your love for me aside.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go,
And so I pulled your mother to the side.
I told her of a secret you don’t know
And she replied with quite the scorning speech.
I knew her lack of temperance was a sign
That for us, joy was only out of reach.
And so, after a day of questions asked
And answered in the quiet of my mind,
With all the options factored in an weighed --
This double suicide’s all I could find
To set this great insanity to rest
And let my soul take flight to better things.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
And one of which is ever lingering.
I pray you do forgive but beg you please:
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven
While like some reckless libertine are you.
I feel the wind of death upon my back
And time has come for my composed surrender
Obtain my final words with tender, please,
Let truth be known and all my sins remembered.

(jb)

a poem for lindsay

they're only here for a cigarette and then they leave

some say short-tempered
some say one-minded
we say unaware and unappreciative
of what we females are going through.

i understand "females" are more emotional,
sensitive, "crazy,"
but why aren't you?

we are in the same situations

together.

we have the same questions

together.

we wonder where this is going

together.

and yet you sit there, playing games
and making jokes with your friends
together. without us.

and it's fine....







.......to you.....


(jb)

a poem written for class

Exam Time Ditty

my bookpile's falling over
and my papers are a mess
it's hard with these assignments
to remember to get dressed

some teachers give us papers
and some teachers give exams
and some teachers do not realize
we just don't give a damn

summer's just around the corner
i'm about to leave the dorm
and all i want is for the calm
that comes after the storm

(jb)

a thought

Dependent

It's late and I'm tired and I don't think I have something that resembles a poem within me. Though my poems are more like sentences cropped and cut and pasted onto somewhat arbitrary lines. But still. I'll just write this to you - curled up in my bed towards the wall, holding Wobby as though someone else isn't in the room - as though I'm whispering, almost silent, my thoughts to you as we lie on our California king, a fire going, in our cabin that nobody knows about. But us.

My father told me tonight to go to a website and fill out a form for financial aid. According to him, I am no longer a dependent for them and I'll need to try for federal support. I didn't ask questions, I'm going to assume, considering I have no money and no job and a year left of college to go, that they're still going to pay for my next year of life. But it did get me thinking. About being a dependent, being independent, and, as usual, my train of thought traveled me to you-

I have always been a romantic. In relationships. In "love" with one boy and then the next. I've always thrown myself into whomever I chose for that month or six months or year. And I thought I knew everything. I truly thought during my last relationship, after my last relationship, that I had seen everything and felt everything and been in every sort of like and love and fall apart there could be in this world. I was wrong.

I was in love with 'love'. Now I'm in love - with you.

I have never been able to spend so much time with someone, 24, 48, 72+ hours with my boyfriend and never get tired, never get annoyed or angry or yearning for a moment to breathe on my own. You dropped me off some six hours ago, maybe seven, and I miss you. I miss your hands and your eyelashes. I miss your smile and calming presence and the way I fit in your right arm as we switch the channels from one forgettable show to the next, quietly letting the unforgettable quality to the day sink, unnoticed, into our skin.

I have always smiled and wished to myself when I watched a couple in the grocery store: both past seventy and moving no faster than ten centimeters per minute, guiding each other to the jams and juices. I don't wish anymore. I look forward to, I calculate, I amaze myself at the amount of adoration I feel for you after almost an entire year. Some would argue my joyful proclamations and boasts - reminding me it's only been a year. I say: those lucky few who stand around a cake and talk with old friends and grandchildren at their 50th anniversary don't have an unthinkable amount on me. I've just spent a tumultuous, challenging, and beautiful year with you. We made it through, and I've never been more in love with you than I am right now - and I will be more tomorrow. I know now that this is it. This is what I dreamed of as a little girl, this is what I stupidly assumed I had before and never even began to grasp. I've had close to one year now with the only person I've ever known, and can ever imagine to know, who I can spend every waking moment with for days on end, and miss after an hour apart. I've done this for a year, never straying, never ceasing, never lessening - I can absolutely do it for 49 more. And more. More.

So life moves forward, and starting just about now I'm going to have a lot on my plate and a lot to think about and situate and take on, but I know I can do it. Because I am a dependent. I am dependent on you. And the best part is, while girls are usually the more emotional and attachable, and so you probably don't feel quite so much necessity for me as I do for you - you don't make me feel silly for it. You have never once made me feel bad for needing or wanting you so much, and even when you must say no to time together, you promise me we'll be together soon, and you tell me you love me. You are my absolutely everything. You are truly the one person I have devoted and will continue to keep my every emotion for - for the next 49 years or more and more, however long you want me. I adore you, buballoo. And I just had to whisper that to you before I fell asleep, curled up in your arms and so safe. So safe. Always.

I am a dependent. Dependent on you. On us. On the best thing I have even experienced in my life. On the best person I have ever known, and the one who knows, without even trying, how to comfort and complete and care for me. Thank you. Thank you for making me, letting me love you - a lock bridge lot. 

a poem written in the afternoon

College Relations

with the rush of semestered classes
paper, projects, printings of assigned readings
that i read and waste into the trash three days past
afternoons drawing squares upon the sidewalk
with friends who only desire a moment of youth
after super and before the work begins
hopscotch in the collegiate world
that attracts the unknown peer to marvel and try
a game just difficult enough
before continuing on to their dorm room,
study group, or work-out regimen
with schedules and subjects to learn and discuss
it is hard to keep up with the calmer moments
like this one here

to be in love steps quiet, understanding, into the background
of the academic clusters, the social demands
and knows that every now and again we'll return
to the moments of acknowledgement
like this one here
lying on a knowing bed in a rented apartment
on a sunday afternoon, just awoken

i watch you move, bent over,
gathering the lucky pieces of your clothing
that will make it to the wash in this
one-dark one-light load sort of day
and i realize the moment that love waited, patient,
for me to own

i've spent the last two days with you
hour after hour spent directly by your side
and we just move through it without thought
of why we aren't ready to part yet
we just keep our hips close on couches
and our hands on thighs or other hands
tracing back and forth the journey
of every vain and every digit

but, to bring this to an end
and to the point i lie here slightly smiling
as i contemplate:

i feel like once you reach a year it is assumed
in the general consensus, in between the both of us,
that we love each other. the end.
it is no longer new, it is known we'll be together
for as long as the other will stand,
and the novelty seems to tire.

but here, on this idle 18th of some month of a year,
i watch you pick up laundry in boxers
that only get use at the end of clean clothes
with the t-shirt you wore yesterday - hair dripping

and i know your hair smells of coconut conditioner
bought last week and already familiar to me,
and your sides will smell of Old Spice,
and your eyes will hide a blue within the green
when you glance up as you empty the trash
to make sure i haven't somehow vanished from your bed
since a minute ago when you glanced last

and i think that maybe the beauty between us
is not that we love each other,
as two can do even when they aren't right,
but that i really like you.
after reaching this place where i know more than anyone
about your thoughts unspoken, your ticks, your movements,
i like the way you speak
the slow drawl that is less than apparent but underneath your words
the different little laughs you do, the way you work on anything
in a way that makes your hands seem too big for the job
and the clumsy moments that are countless throughout a day.
i like your hopeless forgetfulness
and how you are so easily distracted while you drive
and i like the way you look at me
when i ask you a question while you have a mouthful of mouthwash.

i like these things and so many more
that as i lie here thinking about the multitude
i think that maybe this is what being in love is, after all.
a forever feeling that can sit dormant
while the papers are written and the friends are met with
because eventually, we will come to this bed and end together
a 72-hour span
in which we never tired of each other
not once.

(jb)

a poem perhaps too poetic

Daydream

i dreamt of you last night.

i was sorting cards into piles of their suits,

sitting in shallow water,

and it appeared that at the end of the sand

that i carelessly burrowed my feet into

a deep, dark water extended forever.

we were at the end of the world, it seemed.

you sat behind me on the shore

a yard or so away, sharing banter with the boys

passing around what i knew wasn't Camel

and i knew would enhance the day -

calling to me every once in a while to hurry up

so we could start playing.

and i sat smiling, singing, sorting.

i turned to glance your way

and assure you i was almost done

when a dripping mountain arose from the calm

spontaneous and lethal - just off shore

and coming close quick.

i rushed to pile the cards and excavate my toes

when i was pulled in

and thrown up into the wave -

holding tight to the deck and balling my body into a shell

as though my spine would protect me.

i was in this state  of wet and whirl and turmoil

for quick some time and then,

as if the wave was a wall

and all you had to do was reach in and pluck me from it,

you reached in

and you plucked me from it.

you carried me through shallow waters and sat me on a stone

with blue green waters all around and coy fish

wondering what all the fuss was about.

still holding tight to the cards

that had lived shortly as my lifeline i said:

"i think i dropped some" in a pitiful, worn voice -

looking up at you with tired eyes.

you smiled warm and big

and gave me a look - that look

you give when im pitiful and adorable -

apologizing for something that isnt my fault.

"its ok Jess," you said, wiping seaweed from my shoulder

and placing salty strands of hair behind my ear,

"i brought a second deck just in case."

and then i awoke to you kissing my neck

and nuzzling your nose into my collarbone.

i love you. i love you. i do.

(jb)

billy collins: carry

Carry
by:Billy Collins 

I want to carry you

and for you to carry me

the way voices are said to carry over water.

Just this morning on the shore,

I could hear two people talking quietly

in a rowboat on the far side of the lake.

They were talking about fishing,

then one changed the subject,

and, I swear, they began talking about you.

a poem written in one sharpe glance

Togetherness

Wednesday started with a promise of love and lust
an ending to the afternoon and morning
that i could look forward to - salivate to
during the driest moments of my day.

Last night you wanted time to yourself -
an evening to relax and get some sleep,
however blissful you may find it
in the absence of me.

But now you climb into the soccer-mom van,
a rental from over-obliging parents
to a child in a rivet he doesn't want to take the time
to climb from,

and drive away -
four hours time from when you said you'd be back
to pick me up and have our night.
And i look over again once more
the words i sent to you tonight
over the too-easy technology
that we are blessed and plagued with in our modern world.

Yes: i was unreasonable, unabashed, and unfeeling,
in complete disarray and dis-control of my feminine whiles
in this horrid time of monthly terror

but you didn't fight.









You never fight or try

to change my mind,
to reel me in,
to remind me of the promise you have always made
for that night i so look forward to.

You simply drive away
and move forward in the nothingness
you have now accepted as your everyday

as though one night doesn't matter,
as though one broken promise is justified in circumstances,
as though my reaction allows your chill,
as though it will all be better tomorrow
because it always will.

But if you keep taking
from the basket between us that is love
and cant find a way to put some back

we slowly
surely
melt
then
break.

(jb)

a poem on athleticism

Look at You - 
You Don't Know How to Play Basketball

you're not even moving

with apathetic motions you force

heavy feet around the court

not because they are inherently sluggish

but because they are unversed in this particular play.

the confidence and determination i see in you

kicking a soccer ball in detrimental moments or light-hearted games

has vanished and in its place is

unsteady effort to pass the time with friends -

leaning in to your ball-holding counterpart

with a cheeky grin of mutual understanding.

the civil competition will end

and you will walk to the lunchroom

to combine your comrades and anecdotes with mine

and we will sit at a round table exchanging playful banter

before all will go their separate ways

and you and i will end up alone

cuddled on a familiar couch in your apartment across town

watching late-night television and speaking little more than

to whisper the occasional reminder when we feel its been too long

since the last indication of love

and when our eyes grow heavy

and the shows begin to bore our tired ears

we will save just enough energy to listen to

a few more whispers in the dark as we fall to sleep

side by side and completely disregarding of the fact

that you don't know how to play basketball.

(jb)

a quick verse on teaching

A Life in Service

I walk into the classroom and i check the thermostat,
I straighten up the rows of where they'll sit and where they've sat.
I put a box of crayons back into it's given place.
I step into the powder room to freshen up my face.
The bell with ring, the children come - a frenzy through the door
and i will show them things that they have never seen before.
It won't all be smooth sailing, but when they look up and smile
because they finally understand - i'll know my life's worthwhile.

(jb)