My Three-Poems-In-An-Hour Saga

These are three poems I wrote in a row on my way home from work. It's weird because it kind of shows you a typical Corissa thought process (not that I think in poems. Ok sometimes I do). Anyway, enjoy:

Days like these
seem so absurd,
when I can see
my reflection
and the bridge,
looking down
at a water drop
that landed
in my shoe.
When everything
in the water
seems infinite
because there is
no beginning
and there is
no end.

They call you,
claim you to be,
the alpha and omega,
and god how sometimes
I wish you existed.
How selfish.
More selfish still
how I wish that
I existed,
infinite as the ripples
and waves in the water,
infinite as the reflection
in my shoe.

Everything really is nothing
when you live a hundred years,
at best.
And god how I wish
it meant so much more.
And god at the very same time,
and in the very same breath,
it all still means
much too much.
Is this what it means
to be human?
The constant conflict
between being far too little
and far too much.

But 'little' and 'much',
what do these words even mean?
In the very act of using words
they seem to lose meaning
just as in the act of living
life itself seems to become
not-worth-living.
Can one speak
without speaking
or live
without living?
Can one dream
without dreaming?

Even if it were possible,
what would it mean?
Who knows?
At the end of the day,
these things
are all
I have.
And after all,
these are just words
of a poem
written one August day
at a bus stop,
and today
it means far too little.

----------

Today, on the bus,
I want to read my poem,
to stand up and recite it all
just to see
how the world might react.

I'm looking at people,
choosing the ones
I think might get it,
or the ones I think
need to hear it.
Is that arrogant?

You I want to read my poem
because you spent
too much time
on your make-up this morning,
and you I want to read my poem
because you are staring at me,
cupping your face with one hand.

You I want to read my poem
because you have a tacky tattoo
of a Chinese character,
and it probably says 'rice'.
You, well I want you to ask
to read my poem,
because I think
we could be friends.

Among the smiles,
quizzical glances,
and curious stares,
I wonder if anyone
will ask me
what I'm writing.
I wonder if I'll
be brave enough to say,
I'm writing about
you.

I wonder if
they'll ask me
why there's a paperclip
in my hair
where a bobby pin
rightfully belongs,
or why there's a scratch
on my arm,
and I wonder if
it even makes any difference.

I suppose what all
my wonderings mean
is that I want my voice
to be heard,
challenging the world
and its trivial complexities.

So I guess I write poetry.

----------

I saw the same man twice today,
and though I only saw his back,
I knew it was him
because of the way he whistled.

I heard him on my way
to the bus stop,
stopped dead in my tracks, thinking,
'that is an impressive whistle',
turned and watched him,
black t-shirt and jeans,
walking from his car to his house.
I smiled at the eccentricity,
paused, and walked on.

On my way back
from the bus stop,
seven cigarettes
and seven hours later,
who should I hear
from a block away
but the very same man,
black t-shirt and jeans,
walking from his car to house,
whistling.

This time he whistled
something of a different tune.
Stopped dead in my tracks again,
I paused.
Rather than smiling
at the eccentricity,
I wanted to know
why he was whistling,
what he was going home to,
what his idea of success was
at the end of the day,
and whether or not he fit
into his own definition.

I wondered,
if I knew the reason,
would it be something
I could appreciate?
Would it be something
that could make me
want to whistle?
I wondered if the reason
would make me scoff,
wondered if I was better off
not knowing,
then finally wondered
why I was wondering
at all.

A Dare

I'm waiting for you to give an inch
just so that I can take a mile.
Call me selfish,
but more than anything
I want you to leap forward
instead of inching.

I don't mean leaping
in the sense
of commitment
or leaping
in the sense
of blind faith.
I'm not talking
about taking a plunge.
I'm talking about
you.

I want to know
that you are real,
that you think,
that you worry,
that you have qualms
with this universe
and all of its shit.
I want you to care.
I want to share your qualms,
I want to fight them too.

I want to know your opinions,
I want to hear your voice
speaking words
that matter to you,
because that's what matters
to me.

I'm not interested in labels
and I'm not interested
in trophies,
I'm interested in you.
I dare you to show me
what that means.

Take me out on a fucking limb
and talk to me
about truth.
Tell me about the moment
that you hurt the most,
or the moment
that you felt most
deeply betrayed,
and then tell me
what you did about it,
because these are the things
that make a person.

Shed your armour,
and get down from that horse.
I don't want a knight,
I want a man,
real and flawed and beautiful.
As much as I love to dream
and talk about dreams
and imagine dragons
and pterodactyls,
all I really want
is reality.
So pray tell,
who are you?

Fucking Hell,

Another dream.
But this time
it was different.
I don't want
you to think
any less of me,
but I'm still
holding on.
You were there
and so was I
and that was how it was,
until you got distracted
and I turned and walked away.
The only difference
is that this time
you followed.
You took my hand.
And I don't want you
to think any less
of me,
but I can't help
but wait
for that moment
which I know
may never come.

And here's the truth
in so many words:
sometimes at night
I toss and turn,
caught up
in a cold sweat
because of a dream
that I just had
or one I know
I'm going to,
and sometimes
I can't breathe.
For the record,
I've never shed
a tear for you
(but for maybe once,
in a dream of its own),
and I don't intend to.
I don't want you
to think any less of me,
but I somehow
just can't forget.

Obviously I'm still writing poetry about you.

I started scribbling poetry in the margins and gaps of One Hundred Years of Solitude.. I can't help if it's mushy or absurdly fiery and shit ok, Marquez has that affect on me, so don't judge:

In my youth,
passionate,
restless,
unrequited love burns
in my heart
as though it has been licked
by the two-pronged tongue
of a dragon.

Searing holes
unlike arteries
until my heart is nothing more
than rotten fruit,
worm-eaten
and useless
(from the inside out).
A bad apple,
you might say.

Locked up for a rainy day
that is destined never to come,
my heart awaits relief
the stubborn clouds
are unwilling to provide.
Looking to the sky,
the heavens are no help.
Instead I dress myself up
in the image of happiness
and resort to a rain dance
until the sky will comply.

Perhaps this is only youth,
passionate,
restless.

365

Look back at my journal.
I realise that I haven't written
in almost a year.
One entry,
365 days.

And I hate entries about boys,
but this one was.

The only entry
about a boy,
the only boy
I didn't turn down.
The only one
who turned me down.

Not this...again.
A phone call
that makes me think,
I shouldn't be reading this,
and forces me
to put down
Love in the Time of Cholera,
and instead pick up
One Hundred Years of Solitude.




My life sentence?
It could be.

Stupid Question,

but I have to ask it anyway:

Does the aching ever stop?

Relativism Rules.

(Although you may not think so and therein lies the beauty of it)

If there is objective truth, then why can't people agree on anything? Well, because if there is objective truth (and this is what it would be: not value judgments, but the simple state of things), there is no way we can access it. We cannot know it and know that we know it. If we happen to believe correctly, then there is no means of verification. We are a product of our environment. There is culture, there is perspective, there are different moral codes and structures - each with their own pros and cons. But the pros and cons are subjective - and that is why we disagree. We cannot make an objective value judgment. The very natures of the words 'value and 'judgment' are relative.

Objective truth, as the simple state of things, is free of 'value', free of 'judgment' and dependent only upon its own solidity - not our validation.

To point out that I have my own moral code does not defeat my argument. Relativism does not deny a moral code, simply a universal one. You ask me a question, I can give you my answer, but I can give you only mine. I cannot speak with the voice of the world, or the voice of truth with a capital T; I can only speak with the voice of my own personal perspective.

If there were objective truth, if we could all know it, we would at least have a chance at agreement. but as things stand, we do not. There is not only one right and one wrong in every situation. Even if there were, I would not trust the church to be the judge of it. I see no clearer understanding of morality in Christianity than anywhere else - just more legalism.

And that is why I am a relativist.