It's hard to stay caught up

With the MTTC exams and finals I've had a tough time keeping this blog up to date. Now with my main rig hanging out at the Apple store waiting for a new optical drive, I'm stuck without digital copies of the piece I wanted to revise and submit for this week (and, ahem, the week I missed).

So there you go.

My excuses.

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone. I'll be back soon.

In the meantime, here's Langston Hughes to put my work to shame:

Dare

let darkness

gather up its roses

cupping softness

in the hand--

till the hard fist

of sunshine

dares the dark

to stand.

Frost Wall

My apologies for the missing week. I spent last weekend studying... and this Saturday filling out tiny scantron bubbles with my trusty #2. At least I have blogging to fall back on if I didn't pass the exams...

At any rate, here's one that seems (almost) seasonally relevant. I wrote this a couple winters ago. I look forward to the winter departure of my syntax this January. New work soon, ideas are churning, but so is my ever hectic schedule.

Frost Wall

bite hard and grind

teeth to taste to touch

to see fall

tipsy toddler

find feet (align with ankles)

over black ice nursery rhyme

catch snow smoke stink

and steam

hand follows wrist

numb

under sleeve

tug down

curl fingers and find

tight 'round cigarette

burned too close

tongue like paste

pressing luck time and into

roof of mouth

eyes dried wide

in white-out fury.

The (second to) last piece

Collaboration with rbannal at permanentstrangerladyhand:

part 1: "Love Song for the End of Summer"(rbannal)

part 2: "Morning in Late September"(fragondruit)

part 3: "A New Sunset" (rbannal)

part 4: "Crash on M-131" (fragondruit)

part 5: "on being a raindrop" (rbannal)

And here's part 6.

And We All Fall Down

Every raindrop that falls

reflects the ground as it approaches,

copies the umbrellas that scuttle

like beetles across hot sand.

As they plummet, slippery images

mirror reflections of umbrellas

and falling raindrops,

no longer remembering being falling raindrops,

reflections of reflections of

others like them, until

at the end of their journey,

they shatter to the ground,

draining into a pool, lake, stream, gutter.

Acceptance in the community basin.

Others are blessed with the embrace

of an outstretched tongue.