Sin Song

The following poem is one of my favorite forms of verse, the villanelle. Villanelles are both fun and challenging to write, as they call for iambic pentameter (10 syllable lines) and an ordered repetition of two lines. Some famous villanelles you might have read are Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and Sylvia Plath's "Mad Girl's Love Song" (a personal favorite, being mad and all ;)

So, here is my shot at the villanelle form.

Sin Song

Where visions of diablerie belong,

I find the trace in these deceiving dreams

That scoff at my own ancient godly song.

They breed desire with glowing siren songs,

Magic seduction with sorcery creams

Where visions of diablerie belong.

Weird romance kisses pink lace dreams along,

Light of aurora demons shine the beams

That scoff at my own ancient godly song.

Burning inside I forget that I long

By icing the fire with Lucifer’s themes

Where visions of diablerie belong.

Shards of black ice are a shattering gong

That wakes me to swim from bloody cut streams

That scoff at my own ancient godly song.

I will rise from the oozy bed of wrong,

Yell victory to oblivion’s screams,

Where visions of diablerie belong

That scoff at my own ancient godly song. 

Eulogy

If consciousness is a disease

then you were health in finest form;

strength pulsed in each step forward

toward the goal that chose you.

Night and day

had no claim on your kingdom

of crisp black suits,

trips to Europe, cars

icy to the touch.

It somehow happened naturally

to claim your immortality,

proven by comfortable days

ruling the world.

You didn’t mean to die.

I read the “Meaningless!”

wails of Solomon

over your bed of oak

lined with mahogany,

as luxurious and sleek

as a body bag can be.

I can’t bring myself to proceed

with the good words

I composed.

Honesty sits like gravel in my throat,

crunchy gulps to stop the lie.

No words can redeem

your life  

of false infinity.

Out of Dust

I.

Soon

others will stand

where you now stand

before Coy pond in ice and sunrise.

She is a Titan to time

that always paints wrinkles

invisible

on young, ripe cheeks.

Her frozen trance,

a habit that outlasts

the bursts of youth

(those green aurora  beams).

Sharp white spirals

leave your lungs

greedily swallowed

by the wind.

Four years.

II.

Stand

weak and rejoice

in your melting dough skin,

snappy coral bones,

a heart’s dependent  pumping,

dance your day of chalk on the sidewalk

erased by sudden rain.

Out of time

claim your lovely (in)finite ending,

No worthy significance proves

His Love

that much more matchless,

kneading the Image

into us,

making meaning

out of dust.

You Are Propaganda

Red, Red

patriotism

woo and wile

the hearts into torpid loyalty.

The screen floats by in

black and white

perfection,

lithe specimens

march with Stalin marquis

of glossy okayness and hungry pearl sneer

to slop glitter on the war.

Red, Red

Teleological ripping from kin

to save

the children

from their mothers’ ignorance

so shave

their heads and mold them

into skinny saluters.

Sedatives rhythming in little hearts,

animal transformation to one

unthinking mind

fluid and dreamy

and full of resolve.

Hunger means nothing

to a tranquilized stomach.

Adrenaline then measured over weeks

into morphine

into the newborn almost robots,

scared and prepared.

Variations of Ecclesiastes

The first version of this poem was recently published in my school's literary and arts journal, The Idiom. After submitting the first version, they suggested some edits, which resulted in the second version. In the end, they chose to publish the first. What do you think? Which one do you prefer?

Ecclesiastes (Version 1)

Meaning
taunts as it blurs
in the eyes
of us farsighted ones
and runs lithely away with the smirk
of a little boy who just pinched
a sensitive sister.

We chase it
with the paralysis that freezes us in dreams
moving nowhere in our flailing, floating
falling chaos
until we are no longer pursuers,
but the pursued.

Time grabs with grimy hands,
roughly etching wrinkles,
sucking color and strength,
curses ours to claim.
Our name is shame
so we must sign a pseudonym.

The sun cycle of chase and die
never gifts us variation,
only a bland groan,
the yawn of a man
waking up to find himself alone;
despite desires gorged and glutted,
every day it means
less.

Ecclesiastes (Version 2)

Meaning

taunts as it obscures

in fun-house mirrors, or

windshield wipers rub the raindrops

into blurry fireworks.

It darts away

with the smirk

of a boy who pinched

a sensitive sister.

We chase it

with the paralysis that freezes us in dreams

blocks our lungs

leaves us legless,

once pursuers, now pursued.

Time grabs with grimy hands,

roughly etching wrinkles,

stripping color and strength,

curses ours to claim.

Our name is shame,

we hide behind our pseudonyms.

This sun cycle of chase and die

never gifts us variation,

but the new mirage convinces some:

after a few years

gorging and glutting desires,

they end

their desert quest

with a bland groan,

lulled into eternity

with a yawn.

But dissolving into dust,

most quietly shriek

if it was meaningless.

Katya Paints Her Mind Black

A reflection on the mind of Katerina Ivanovna, an intriguing and relatable character from The Brothers Karamazov.

Katya Paints Her Mind Black

            Katerina Ivanovna was confused chaotically, yet she knew exactly what she was doing; she had spent enough time torturing her heart to know its true motives. She loved the knife of longing that stabbed her day after day with pain, sweet pain. Somehow, life with his unpredictable inconstancy and constant wandering would make her a martyr of the highest degree, his savior, his angel. Let Dmitri Karamazov walk all over her with muddy shoes; let him ogle other women without a twinge of shame; she would be faithful. Let him deny the God that she praised, for it would reveal a dimension of beauty that could not be reached in the bland regions of soul lethargy in which the rest of the world seemed to be content. No, she would not give herself the luxury of a yawning, barely conscious existence.

            She loved planting false hopes in her heart, deceiving herself that his inclinations would start to shift because of her. Tricking herself into believing that his skeleton words of “nobility” manifested a once in a lifetime understanding of her depth. This understanding would be worth a life of misery if Mitya were to believe with all of his years, “you are different than the others, transcending all I have known, drawing me to truth.” Loving him would be her life’s mission; she would pursue his approval, because if he counted her worthy of wooing into bed, then her identity would not be the fluid, clear nothingness that she feared.

            They could be miserable and lonely together, and in that solidarity of grief they would paint a shade of existence that hinted at joy, cruelly beautiful in its vivid distortion. And when he became distant and forgot her heart, turned into himself and forgot how he oozed understanding at the words that splashed onto her precious pages, she would be content in the quietly shrieking discontent, convinced that the pain made her more alive, that the sacrifice deepened her humanity. It was this promise of unhappiness that whispered seductively into a starving ear, then grabbed Katya’s hand and tried to mesh her fingers with his distracted ones. 

To Ivan

I have had the delicious opportunity to reread The Brothers Karamazov this semester in my Russian literature class. One of the reasons that this book is a favorite is that Dostoevsky doesn't shy away from the hard questions of life; rather, he deals with them aggressively, unashamedly. In my favorite chapter, "Rebellion," the questioning, intellectual Ivan argues against the goodness of God on the basis of the suffering of children. His younger brother, Alyosha, a stark contrast to Ivan in his unwavering, childlike faith, listens to his argument, delivering soft, yet powerful objections to Ivan's sterile, almost mathematical argument. I wrote this poem last year in response to this chapter and to a number of real life manifestations of Ivan's striving for understanding, and I wanted to share it with any who might be interested.


To Ivan

The patrons of the pub
are content in raucous laughter,
naïve to the sickness of consciousness.

But your eyes are late night red, veins prominent
when you relay the news story
of the bruised boy in the E.R. whose father
pummeled him
with raging fists
because he broke a window

by accident.

If this is the Almighty model,
then you return to Him your ticket.
If two plus two is always four, then you are right:
He is, but is not who He should be.

When Job lay sweaty,
naked with boils, encircled
by bloody pottery,
if your math could explain
God, then He should be cursed.

Logically, the hell dwellers
are there because they had no chance
to understand their choice,
casually discarded by that Being
like worthless wrappers.

Rational equals truth (Euclidian)
of course
your logic has no obsidian
tendencies of that ancient snake,
black and glossy postulation:
Did God really say? Your premise remains.

Brother, you think in paradigms
penned in permanent ink;
slithering questions
(the way that you think)
whisper the lie of knowledge
of the Mystery and His ways;

Brother, you think in skeletons,
outlines of life, sterile, dry,
hinting at breath but falling short.
Your mind has cannibalized
your heart.