Virtues of a Poet

Virtues of a Poet

By: Katie M. Moss

April 28, 2010

Fate is like the wallflower sitting next to me at the cafeteria table.

She sighs, she mumbles, but she doesn't affect her surroundings.

She's there, without really being there.

Love is the same way.

It's what I feel when I sit on the park bench next to the dumpster, next to the bus stop.

It involves a lot of waiting in a period of time that smells like waste.

Hope, don't make me laugh.

I killed it this morning in my garden. It took awhile, but the spade won in the end.

It's all crusted with dirt and worm intestines now. Thanks a lot, hope.

Patience.

I don't have enough to finish this line.

Charity. I'm supposed to clothe my neighbor,

but I'd rather go shopping. Hope that clears things up.

Faith. Because trusting in ourselves isn't hard enough.

The only human I have faith in is my dog.

And he's Canis lupis familiaris.

I wish I had a cat.

I wish this list were longer, but that's enough of that. 

 

Grime

Grime
By: Katie M. Moss
April 28, 2010

This is another piece of love-struck poetry brought about by rapid change.
This is the feelings I relate within my own grey walls of space.
This is today, tomorrow, and next year.
This is more the instant. This is modern language.
This is a type 2 personality profile of a no-good-very-bad day.
This is a gift of pure hack and bullshit poetics covered in grimy mis-matched fuzzy socks.
This is the now. This is rhetoric slime and run-of-the-mill modern style.
This is life. This is a toast to the good, the bad, and the static in-between.
This is to moving on. This is to the fuzzy-headed feeling your dryer sheets bring.
This is monumental, unchanging, unfeeling, and uncertain.
This is you.
This is me.
This is the neighbor in my basement who verbally abuses his spouse.
This is my friend with an eating disorder.
This is to the beginnings of addiction.
This is to long nights.
This is to thinking you're unique when there are millions of others just like you.
This is for humanity.
This is giving a shit.

Cement

Cement
By: Katie M. Moss


Arc of the white bird’s wing frames itself against the circumflex sky
As my thoughts wander freely over the stone-peaked mountains--
Over the chimney-soot houses
Over the color-purple stained sky.
Sheen-golden slanted lightening of the golden, ripened sky.


Knots of the warm-pressed masses pass--
Past windows, streets, doors--
Heading towards a folding destination--
Line forming is a lackadaisical river bend--
Serpent-weaving, marred out of consciousness of thought.


Bands of color brace against the love-stained sidewalks--
covering the relics of the people left behind.
Of war
Of peace
Of in-between.
Of exploration never found.


Of dreams never reached .
Of generations left to find the work again. 
Dropping commodities and cares in the sea of stillness that will never wash away.
We will simply fade and weave--
Like a bird’s white folded wing.

FreeWrite

So, a group did a presentation today in class and asked that we do a "free write" based on being in the following situation: You're on a mountain alone, snowshoeing and you come across this terrifying creature: how do you feel? It was an activity about translation of texts. Now, I can't find the exact picture, but it looked something like this:

---Except facing the camera more, looking more vicious, and surrounded by snow. So, this probably doesn't "translate" well itself since you're seeing a different source than my original. But, to my thoughts:

FreeWrite
By: Katie M. Moss
07 April 2010

Walking on the desolate, snow-frosted mountain-- full of ethereal white beauty and thoughts of the sea,

I hear the steady thump, thump of a heartbeat other than my own.

I am no longer alone with my thoughts in this wasteland wilderness--

My new self is now clearly exposed.

Chills crawl up and down my arms and neck as my breath freezes like a block of hard, rough ice in my chest.**

What I see is a monster---

What I see is myself.

Myself reflected--

A version of myself.

Nature's own version:

Green-yellow eyes and blazing white, rock-shard teeth.

Do I stay and face the beast--
or retreat from nature's mirror- into the snow-covered tangles of branches I should have never left behind? **

My fear consumes the heat surrounding my ice-blocked chest.

My heart melts.

My body remains. 


**BTW, I'm extremely frustrated that I can't fit all of my longer lines on the same line in this format. Please ignore the breaks.