Life in type

This one actually dates back to my middle school days at Albion Middle, home of the Knights. This project was called Found Poetry, you take a book you’ve recently read and extract lines to form a poem. This one comes from a book called Stormblade, which is still one of my more favorite books. You should try found poetry some time, its alota kicks.

Qualinost

Four slim spires of the purest white stone,

Gleaming silver veins twine an almost pattern

through the snowy white stone.

In the center of the city, rose the elegant

Tower of the sun,

sheathed in shimmering gold.

It, like all of Qualinost, is empty now,

Empty eyed and vacant.

The houses and shops, the color of dawns light,

are now shells.

Their dark windows and doorways,

filled with the shadows and echoes of memories.

“It will never be the same, it has changed.” One said,

he might have said vanished, or it has died.

Another said “All who live change.”

Wrong, we have known no change for

too many long centuries.

They only change we know is death.

I wish you guys could have seen me after I wrote this. I was sure it was going to get published, or at very least the teacher was going to ask me to read it to the class because it was so darn goodl. Man hoe my eyes were alight with the promise of public recognition. But alas it was not to be. I think I got a good grade at least.

This was a creative writing assignment where we were supposed to choose a work of art from our schools art show and write a poem about it. The oil painting was called Red, Blue, and Green face by Libby Davis. This is one of my attempts at abstraction or imagism, it didn’t work out too well.

I caught it on a glance

or did it catch me?

The polychromatic swirl had meaning,

but it did not understand itself.

“What am I?” the distorted face imperceptibly asks.

I smile as my reply enters the room,

“You, my twisted friend, are the artists misconception

of a very expressive man.”

“I do not understand.”

“Forgive my smile, but you are not as deep

as you would like to think.” reverbs my reply

as the waves dance through the primary colors

of his two dimensional thinking,

“I do not understand.”

I sigh, collect my thoughts, and begin,

“You live a life in two worlds,

Your red hot anger and black hatred take over

causing you to become an unseeing monster.

But when you finally loose your blindness, and gain your sight,

your harsh colors give way to softer hues,

And your face becomes clear and concise,

Shaded with blue integrity, and alive with vivid greens,

All high-lighted by the life giving yellow which is knowledge and reason.”

The colors began to twitch, as his canvas thin reasoning,

Tried to untangle my words, which hung in the air,

Like the silence that follows an amazing musical number.

His mouth opens, closes, then opens releasing this one simple word,

“WHAT!?”

I smile agian in spite of myself,

As I reach for the words to break the barrier of his ignorance,

“You…are a Mr. Hyde of Society.”

The colors contract into a thoughtful pattern

and then relax into the content design of triumph and understanding.

His issues were resolved, so he could continue on

as the thing, the artist created him to be

And I, could continue my walk.

This story originates from my freshman english class.  It was actually a really fun extra credit assignment.  At the end of the semester we could turn in a short story, and we got extra credit points for every vocabulary word we used in the story.  I will underline the vocabulary words so you can see how flawlessly I used them.

The Martinet Who Became a Renegade

     Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, there was a city that was wealthy and prosperous.  All the people, um, creatures, monsters, aliens, mutants, amphibians?  Well we will just call them P.A.C.M.A.M.s (The reason I hesitat to call them people or anything else is because their skin is limpid almost translucent; their entire bodies are gnarled like an old man’s hands, and their legs are barley extant; arms look like vines, and their eyes appear to be sucked into their heads; so what we have here is a walking potato with the mental capacity of 14.345 humans.  Needless to say they are intelligent).  Well, anyway back to the story.  Now each one of these poignant smelling P.A.C.M.A.M.s lived in a commodious house with hisgluglorkhanaferiejanthithalan  (thats the shortened version of the word.  It means family).  The reason they are so well-to-do is because the entire comunity concentrates on on thing, zucchini.  They sell copious amounts of it all over the galaxy in which they live.  They also eat it for all twnety four meals of the day.  Their day lasts for about four of ours.  They stuff voluminous amounts of their zuchini into the gaping holes in the topof their heads.  I guess they can prepare zucchini in many palatable ways.  Actually I think the count is up to 857 different ways to prepare zucchini.  They revel in this accomplishment, and also you can tellthat it is quite hard to find an emaciated P.A.C.M.A.M. in the entire city.  Now, they grow zucchini all day everyday and they have overlookers and farmers.  This story is about an overlooker who over looked nothing inhis overlooking hob.  If one P.A.C.M.A.M. messed up out of the 78 P.A.C.M.A.M.s he overlooked he saw it and saw to it that is was corrected.  You might call the fella a real hard head, a martinet if you will.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s got his good side.  I mean he is compatible, commendable, ardent, assidusous, and is multifariously talented.  He single handedly added 54 zucchini recipes to the total count.  The only problem was that he was beginning to be bored with his work, no matter how hard he tried to take it seriously.  He did a little thinking and decided that the city was corrupt.  Well he’s right isn’t he?  Oh come on?  A whole city dedicated to growing zucchini, Zucchini!  Who likes zucchini anyway?  I for one abhor the stuff.  Anyway he decided to amend the situation and became a renegade without a cause.  (just joking.  I just needed a way to get that vocab word into the story.)  Once he made the decision the change in him was spontaneous.  He noticed that all the P.A.C.M.A.M.s were snobby, well–maybe–even too well mannered, and he had a great animosity towards them.  He now talked to them in a brash manner, chastised them for growing those squalid wretched zucchini.  His corrosive attitude at the parties he crashed frequently caused people to shiver, becase he derided them untill there was nothing left.  He turned town meeitngs into pure chaos.  The P.A.C.M.A.M. was insane, vociferous, turbulent, and any other vocabulary word that means rude, bad, and naughty.  Then he found a grower out a night farming, so he buffeted the poor P.A.C.M.A.M. and then stultified that and many other zucchini patches.  Well needless to say, the city counted this as the last straw.  They came and picked him up.  He went easily because he was thenin a state of apathy.  He was forced to pay an indemnity and by law the P.A.C.M.A.M. that he beat up, got a reprisal and beat the obsolete body.  The once proud martinet was led to a padded white room and left there till he died of old age.  While he was in there he want crazier and crazier because they still fed him zucchini.  His body was interred at deblloooegtedly nenfergus (something cemetary).  On his tombstone it said hertyuglisedwe vezxed futadfov hentriburdianvelsocffergen 24, 7890, hutadfov in ie 78, 7963.  (somehting something born sometime in our month of may and died in the month of september).  This is not a sad story.  It is a warning to all people everywhere:  Never eat zucchini, because eventually it drove the reast of the P.A.C.M.A.M.s crazy.

Just so you know, I think I was the only one to use all of the vocab words from that class.  And I got a thirty out of fifteen on the assignment. 

Dear Readers,

It is with great pleasure that I provide this poem for your reading enjoyment. This poem was written by the high school senior version of myself (who must’ve been insane). As part of Ryans Nostalgic Blogging week, I will be posting several of my high school works over the next week, so stay tuned for great literature. Another thing is that the rumors you’ve all heard are true, I am considering creating a new blog. This blog will be solely dedicated to outlining the many exploits of my long time friend Jack Quimby. It will probably be in serial form so as to make you come back again and again to find out what happens after my cliffhanger endings. But like I said it is currently in the consideration phase so don’t get too excited. And now with out further ad…oo? Adew? A….due? Sheesh, here it is.

MY RED BOUNCY BALL

Modeled after a poem by Jenny Joseph

WHEN I GROW POOR, I SHALL WEAR MUSKRAT SKINS AND BIRD FEATHERS

WITH SNAKE FANGS FOR BUTTONS.

AND I SHALL SPEND MY MONEY ON LITTLE DEBBIE OATMEAL CREAM PIES

AND CREAM O’ WEBER CHUGS, AND SAY I HAVE NO MONEY FOR RENT,

I SHALL LIVE IN A TEN BY THIRTEEN FOOT SHACK AT THE BOTTOM OF THE

GRAND CANYON

AND RUN AROUND WITH MY SO CALLED PANTS DOWN TO MY ANKLES

AND SCARE OFF ALL THE TOURISTS, HOPING THEIR CAMERAS ARE RUNNING

SO THEY WILL SEND THE TAPE INTO AMERICAS FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS.

AND I WILL BE MARRIED TO ONE OF THE GIRLS WHO SUED ME

AFTER SANDWICHING MY BUICK IN AN INTERSECTION.

YOU CAN SCREAM ALL YOU WANT AND LISTEN TO THE ECHOS

PRETENDING THAT THEY’RE YOUR FATHER

AND EAT WILD BERRIES THAT GROW HALF WAY UP THE CLIFFS

AND PLAY TAG WITH THE BEES, HOPING YOU’LL NEVER BE IT,

OR JUST PLAIN PLAY WITH THE LARGE QUANTITIES OF LEGOS

THAT OCCUPY THE NORTHERN HALF OF YOU SHACK.

BUT NOW WE MUST LIVE IN LUXURIOUS HOUSES

AND CONFORM TO THE CONSTRAINTS OF THE “BLESSED SOCIETY”

AND PRAY THAT AN HONEST POLITICIAN WILL BE ELECTED

TO PUT OUR DIRTY TAX MONEY TO GOOD AND NOBLE USES.

WE WILL DRIVE OUR SUV’S TO THE GROCERY STORE, WHERE THE MEATS

ALREADY DEAD, AND THROW OUR MONEY AWAY ON CLOTHING.

BUT MAYBE I OUGHT TO PRACTICE A LITTLE NOW.

SO PEOPLE WHO KNOW ME ARE NOT TOO SHOCKED AND SURPRISED

WHEN SUDDENLY I AM POOR, AND START TO SAY

THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN MY LIFE, IS MY RED BOUNCY BALL.