Days and Nights:

“You, me, the broom, my writing, my typewriter,
Florence, the house, Katherine, everything.”

How to Start an Apology:

I am a coward
Too afraid to end this
Or you are in love
Too afraid to end this
We both are curious
You should let go
I should let go
We can pretend
We always pretend
Or feel too much
Or don’t speak
I say too much of the wrong things
We are bound by language
Do not translate
Want everything
Of each other
I fear you’ll discover me
Hiding between the lines
Yes, me, I am the pathetic one
Of course I love you
Want to tell you all the things
Choking me in my sleep
Of course I am selfish
Everyone is selfish
But I won’t burden you
With grand gestures
Or more weak secrets
Won’t trouble you
With more pretext, context, insufferable
Flight for security but here
I am, binding myself
Holding you back
Asking for signatures
Building sandcastles
Writing again
Always writing
Providing goblets and no tonics
Sending pictures and no captions
Of course I need you
But now is not a time or a place
It is a question
It is a position
It is a regret
None of us know
What we are doing
We are all scared
We are all slipping
But with you the slide
Is a dance
The dread is my body
Becoming weightless.

I See Your Bishop

A Love Song


What have I to say to you
When we shall meet?
Yet—
I lie here thinking of you.

The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.

There is no light—
Only a honey-thick stain
That drips from leaf to leaf
And limb to limb
Spoiling the colours
Of the whole world.

I am alone.
The weight of love
Has buoyed me up
Till my head
Knocks against the sky.

See me!
My hair is dripping with nectar—
Starlings carry it
On their black wings.
See, at last
My arms and my hands
Are lying idle.

How can I tell
If I shall ever love you again
As I do now?

-WCW

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