So I'm in a Poetry Workshop...

...and it's pissing me off. My poems are not well-received, so I decided to compromise, and tweak myself to the expected with each assignment. In the name of getting a good grade, and for the sake of updating, here are the results of the "riddle poem" exercise based on one by Sylvia Plath, and the "sensory poem" exercise:


(Riddle Poem)

A pride of tomboys
The bane of peaches
A sensitive stain that spreads into yellow
A sallow reminder
A painful regret
The tender kiss from an angry fist
A crocodile shadow in a still pond.


(Cute, right? I hope you can figure that out.)


January in a Dark Room

I smell your skin as you come in
from the rain, clothes heavy
and constricting. In my bed,
You smell familiar, chemical,
clean in the way sweat cleans.
Pouring from pores, in your hair,
into pooling sheets, it seeps:
signature, sweet, nostril-deep.
Damp, close, and smoke-rich,
you smell as incense might--
at night, alive and breathing calm,
after sex, before you wake--
incense burned as autumn falls
into place after a wet-dirt summer.

Heat rises; so do we.
You leave, and leave me drenched.



So there you have it. Concerning important matters: How 'bout that fire?

Independence Day

Flares in fireworks
Over summer skin and tables:
Glare-screened bravery
Spreading like a window-cat,
Spidering in veins
Of darker legs,
We anchor the noose
To an unstained ceiling
(a new disease,
afraid of healing)
Soon hands retreat
Into sweatshirted shyness:
First palms, then knuckles
Curl into silence--
A dull, sweet static
Approaching dogmatic--
Familiarizing logic
With assuaging return;
Now we count minor keys
At a slower speed.