Some Orders of Business

Last night I was contemplating the state of some of my poems. I realize that many of them are not completed, and some of the better ones will be submitted for future publishing. I have more than a handful of poems that I have finished, but have not blogged. At this point, I am taking off some of my poems, to edit them and publish them later on my blog, or (ideally) in another form. If you actually read this and would like to read them, inquire within.

If you have any suggestions for poems or poetry to read, please inform me; if not, enjoy my poetry and essays, or just laugh at my lack of skill. If you are a college admissions person hoping to see if I actually use this blog for the intellectual pursuits that I expressed in my applicaiton; partially for that reason I left some of my poems on this blog, but I still want to save and perfect some of my best works. But fear not, I still plan to use this to share my works with the world.

Ezekiel I

Lately, I have been (in between worring about college and if I have even the slightest bit of writing talent) reading a lot of twentieth century English poetry. The past few days, it has been my old friend Bukowski, and I have been writing in his style. Unfortunately, I feel as if it is slightly immature, but still brillaint and incredibly effective, yet I think that I prefer a more structured work.

So, last week I read a book of "modern sonnets" entitled Tea With Osiris by Paul West. It was very well written, but I expected more of a discussion about Osiris. Upon completion, I got to thinking "who is my osiris. Of course, Fred came to mind, but that is too cliche; I needed an older figure. So I realized that the prophet Ezekiel was one which I was fascinated by, and he is my Osiris. I had a vision of a book of poems dealing with Ezekiel himself, but I am by no means ready to undertake that; wait about five years for that. However, I was inspired to write a poem about him, in that same Bukowskian style. At this point I have no title, but I plan to find one; most likely a quote from Ezekiel.


Ezekiel I

I wonder if
Ezekiel ever
Woke up in the middle
Of the night,
Wherever he was sleep;
Albeit in a cave, or
On the ground or
In the house of
A friend or
In a temple or
Wherever the hell
Else he might be
Staying
And wonder
Why the masses
Were so blind to
The truth and
Themselves
And ask why they
Wouldn’t just
Follow his lead
And act
Righteously.

How painful it must
Have been for him
To have such knowledge
And have such a burden
Placed on by some
Supreme power,
And still see the
ignorance of mankind.

No; they deny your
Categorical imperative;
Yokel-like and moronic,
Refusing to heed your
Wisdom.

Editing and a Poem

Lately, I have been working on schoolwork, studying for AP tests, reading and editing my previous poems. I have written a few others, but I do not want to blog them at this time. Expect edits soon, and maybe one day I'll just say the heck with it and publish cavalcadenous (I haven't seen that word before, so I invented it) amounts of poetry, but at this point they shall reamin on my desktop, as opposed to on my weblog. I did however write this short poem while reading the Bukster. Granted, it is not a "poem" per se, but if you've read some William Carlos Williams or Ezra Pound, you'd know that just because a piece is short on text it isn't necessarily short on poetic prowess.

The Bukster and I

All I have on
Bukowski
is that I am
slightly more handsome
and have a
better liver.