poetry

well, i'll be rioting against bad poetry at bennington's writing seminars starting this summer.

grad school!! frad school!!

Bad Poem

Across the lake,
I see people.
They look happy.
I'm not happy.
This makes me happy
because I'm a wrist-cutter.

Breathing in Greatness

In those bits of time
when I feel magical, I wonder
if it is because I am breathing
in air particles that used
to belong in Houdini's lungs.

Or when I feel cute,
maybe Marylin Monroe's air.
And when I just feel great,
I like to think I am sharing
oxygen with Honest Abe, just
a couple hundred years removed.

But if I'm taking in Abe's honesty,
I'd have to guess that I am also
breathing in a bit of Mary Todd's
crazy, or some of Robert Todd's
spooky, which I suppose
just comes with the territory
of breathing in greatness,

though I do now plan to stay
away from the next three presidents,
lest I be to them
what Robert Todd was
to Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley-

a presidential foreshadowing
of death - black hood pulled loosely
around my unsuspecting ears,
listening earnestly to the clud

of the railroad wood, not sure
which politician might be outlined
in chalk once I finally
reach my destination.

As we traveled across the cotton

sands of your bed

during that whole month

of August, the dust-stale

air of summer

thick with passion and sex,

sweat dripped from our

adolescent necks.

Looking back, we were sad fools.

pupils in the schoolroom of the bedroom.

I was your boat

and you were my albatross.