Swoon to Death:

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

-Keats

Student Encouragement Assignment ENG115:

Hey Guys,

You can't post pictures to the comments for this account, so I made us a blog just for this class.

1. Go to blogger.com
2. login name: northcentral.writing@gmail.com
password: cardinals
3. upload you photo as a new post.

Ta-Daa!

TO THOSE OF YOU WHO READ THIS BLOG BUT AREN'T MY STUDENTS:

Go to http://nccwriting.blogspot.com/ to check out their Miranda July inspired encouragement banners!

At the Grocery Store

The children
And their darting
Eyeballs want the ground
To turn on.
They spot a thing
Outside themselves
That clicks in
Their brain
Settles into
A spot cradled
By angry need.
They pout until it
Burns in their hands
They touch it
Turn it over
Inhale and it
Disappears. Everything
They touch goes
Invisible. None of this
Scares me.

We Are Not Animals Anymore

Trammel the horses
Who pull your cogs.

Ask around for bait
To quell the lures.

Make haste with your haircuts
Now how do you feel?

In movie theatres,
Concentrate on your hands,
The watchers’ faces,

Discover what kind
Of thing you are

A Revision:

Biography

in the thrashing we shed
bodily parts

organs distilled
from stars

bouts of compassion
compel us to lie

the water is warm
we are in love

it is enough to be a body
for someone else

Reverse Edit

The bug puts to
pounds its twin.

This disaster
makes quick calamity
of you.

I lay peace meal
over the cavities
but then your

Your eyes become
eyes again and resist.

It's drafty in here!

For Mark

We needed this.
A casket the remainder
Of absence.
He was gone before
The body stopped.
That hyena cackle
Was not him. A ringed coffee
Stain on the kitchen
Table on the tip of his nose
Not him.
A damaged screen door
Twined rosaries not him.
There was a radio,
The charade of basic human
Interest. A belt, a dollar
Bill, a cigarette, a brother.
Not him.
These things describe us.
They are what we needed.
A prayer card. We needed this.
A will. A group home. A
Reason. We needed this.
He was sick.
The medication he
Never swallowed we
Swallowed it. Someone
Had to get better.
Someone had to survive.