Ambulophobia

This was a piece that came from a prompt from Aimee, he tasked us to write a Persona Piece, from the point of view of someone else, AND write through this other persons eyes who happen to have a certain phobia. I won’t tell you what the phobia mean, I challenge you to read the poem first, THEN Google it to see if you can guess what it is.

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The day I realize I could never fly
Was the day I understood I’d never be happy
I also knew that gravity is my nemesis, forever.
An that trees were my celebrity crushes that I’d pine over.
When I was small, my mother tells me,
I used to build handsaws out of Legos an
Try to cut my own legs off.
My dreams were invaded by creatures
Fifty feet tall, with forty of those feet being…
Legs.
With their stature they would run
Infinite circles around my trunk.
For in every dream, I was either
A bird, tree, or walrus.
Every year on my birthday, the candles were
Extinguished with one thought in mind:
For the world to stop spinning,
So I could be launched off the surface of Earth
Only to float infinitely through the vacuum of space.
I would never wish to be
A bird, tree, or walrus,
Because I know how those slippery
Wish-ranters try to shaft you.
I’ve seen it many times on TV.
I would be turned into a tree
On the sidewalk in Times Square.
Into a puffin, kiwi, chicken, ostrich
Cassowary, or dodo of old, or
Into a strange, awful humanoid walrus of the future.
Whenever I would tell my shrink,
He would dismiss it as me
Being lazy, not wanting to go anywhere, do anything new.
I went to him for comfort, closure, understanding, and
It only damaged the already weak frame further.
Now I feel insane, a shame of man
Who stands on his hands an locks his legs in place.

Metaphysical Metallurgy

This is the piece I’m most proud of from my week at Omega. It was written in about 4 minutes urin a free-write prompt iven to us by Joy Harjo.

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To the terrorless rings of Saturn,
Leaping to the Andromeda Galaxy,
Swandiving into the toxic gases of Venus,
Through the phantasm of Titan and
Back to the quiet, muted grey of our Moon.
In search of the fragments of my cage,
The wrought-iron, soul-wrencher that I lived in
For far, far too many rotations, revolutions.
The metallurgist I was so long ago, has vanished
Like the breath in the vacuum blackness of this place.
In my journey, my travels will never cease.
As a dog plays fetch, I assume the role of owner and pup.
I sniff out the steely, impossible scents, track them down,
Only to feel the rusted edges for brief moments
Before I take an elongated crow-hop and launch them back,
Back past the farthest reaches.
I pray I find the end of it all, so I may
Look over the ledge and let it all fall.
But if I peer out onto the face of everything,
I suspect I’ll see nothing, my own visage or
The empty and marvelous.
I will not be frightened, I will dare to be brave.
In my dreams, I will turn on my back to the empty,
Facing all that has ever been, tuck my chin,
Leap and back-flip, into the last cannonball.
Splashing stars to shards, entering my own consciousness.
What I will find there, I have the utmost certainty:
Tea forever steeping in a bottomless kettle,
The gentle scent of lilac and mint
Woven together in an effortless union,
The everlasting sensation of knowing I’m home
Bursting from inside me, from every cell.

Epistle to Sam

Another In-Workshop prompt. to write an Epistle, letter poem, to someone or something we could not, for whatever reason, talk to anymore. I surprise myself by choosing to write to my first dog Sam, who I haven’t thought of in months .

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Dear Sweetest Sam

Do you know how much I love you?
Your now-white fur and piercing ice-blue eye
That never said anything other than
“I want to be where you are.”
You gave me more intangible lessons that
Teacher could not, nor would not are to.
The Yin to Cody’s Yang, the goofy playful puppy
All the way until your paw gently
Knocked on death’ doggy door.
I sob as I write this, because
I didn’t  give myself a chance to when
You left me and my father.
A husky Samoyed, a saintly Husky all rolled in one.
Your genuine, yet exaggerate personality
Only surpassed by your fluffiness.
That oppressively pink tongue emboldened by your marvelous coat.
A caricature of loyalty, yet not lacking the seriousness
Of a soldier at his post, sworn to never leave.
Yours was my bedpost,
The joyous way you would somehow wake from deep sleep
To follow my little body up the stairs,
To the right and own alongside my bed.
Protecting me, accompanying me into my dreams.
I always felt scared not having you there,
You were my ward against evil an all the unfair.
Ironic because the chalky feeling of my fingers through your fluff
Was the stuff dreams dreamt of.
It ever-lingered, long after you were away from me.
I wish you were here to look at me now,
I know you would be proud, showing it with endless kisses
With the half-sad, half-perfect way you hopped up and down,
Never reaching more than two inches off the ground.
I would give up everything, just for five minutes.
Five minutes to sit on the floor, scratch your butt,
Behind your never-bending ear, under your slobbery chin.
I remember that picture, the last one of you two.
The one I keep with all my deepest emotions.
At time, they become such an ocean, but
I know you would have paddled the Pacific,
If it meant just to save me.
In that picture, you lay prone on your back,
That way your tongue flopped out the side.
Cody’s stoic look, your front paw dangling, limp in mid-air.
I love you.

I Write…

This was the very first prompt I received at the Omega Institute during my 5 day stay. The instruction was to write non-stop for about 7 minutes using the Anaphora (Repeated line/phrase) “I write” base off of Terry Tempest Williams’ poem “Why I Write”. It isn’t my favorite nor strongest, but I enjoyed seeing how my own creative process works under the “pressure” of a time constraint.
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I write to expel the nonsense in my mind
I write to breathe without my lungs
I write because I prefer to think with my heart
I write because my brain loves to betray itself
I write to take my true self to places my feet cannot
I write to express my gratitude
I write to blow on a dandelion
I write to free myself from my body prison
I write as an act of self-love
I write in an attempt to clarify an ever-cloudy world
I write to clear the clutter in my soul’s closet
I write to forget how to write
I write to find a god I don’t belive in
I write a an act of creating my own god
I write because it is god
I write to shed light on the bottom of the ocean
I write to build a bathysphere
I write to construct a cardboard spaceship
I write because it is child-like wonder in a suit
I write because I will always love
I write to place batteries in a toy Buddha
I write to believe in my own fears
I write to bring myself peace in the middle of war
I write.
I write to read my sloppy handwriting better
I write to put heads back on chicken and horsemen
I write to disembowel the depths of Hell
I write to free Prometheus
I write to tame Poseidon
I write to cruise down a hill on a bike
I write as a conduit to the beauty our cones cannot comprehend
I write to allow other to be inspired to be themselves
I write for everyone to hate me and my work
I write to jump from my porch and into space
I write out of fear of the truth of everything
I write because I can
I write with my freckled hand
I write with the intention of destroying cities
I write with the confused beauty of a blind Adonis
I write to time travel
I write to play hopscotch with Einstein, Thoreau and Sitting Bull
I write with hatred miles from here
I write to better understand how to love
I write because it is a mirror
I write to sneeze in a germaphobe’s bedroom, without them knowing
I write to cleave myself down the middle
I write because it is a cross-section of who I love
I write to clear my conscience
I write to touch my tongue to Earth’s core

To Walk Barefoot Upon a Path

To walk barefoot upon a path
Of jagged rock an shale,
Will you affix your gaze
To the ground below an
Avoid the unexpected bellows of pain
And, yet, accept the shame?
The shame of knowing not
What your journey held.
Or,
Will you allow your neck to remain
Unbent, unbowed to acknowledge the pain,
And, yet, receive the splendor of
An ever-changing scenery?

Remind yourself that even the
Feet of giant can be set astray
By the tiniest of pebble,
For the lumbering way he stomp
His paws display disregard for the
Ground which allow him to live.
Then,
Remember the gentle step of the monk,
Who absorbs the piercing edges
As it were easier than grass
His feet become grasping roots
As to grow around the inevitable ache.
Instead of walking upon the ground,
He becomes the ground in appreciation