Spring semester has started up for me and after a weeks worth of classes, I think I can say I won’t have any really tough classes. I have Logic, Sport Psychology, Computer Communications, and American Lit. I’ve always believed you can get a rough estimate of how tough a class is going to be just by looking at the teacher’s syllabus. If its 4-5 pages including a simple outline schedule for the class, you shouldn’t have a rough go of it provided you work hard. If however the syllabus is over seven pages with long paragraphs, ten dollar words, a lot of bolded underlined text and includes a schedule that indicates what you should have for breakfast on exam days, you’re screwed. Humanities, one of the most difficult classes I’ve ever had, was run by a teacher that handed out a 16 page syllabus and told us that important items were in red–the whole thing was in red.
Anyway in my American Lit class we’ve started out this semester reading some poetry from Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson and it reminded me that I’ve written many poems, but only a few that I thought were any good. To me poetry’s too complicated, too focused on things like rhyme scheme, rhythm and meter, tone, and understated significance. Sure technically you’re allowed to write in free verse and just say FUCK IT! but really–what’s the skill in that?
I’ve decided to post some of my best poems on here for all to see. I’m not really a poet and I think the typical Haiku is a Japanese equivalent of a sneeze, but I think in the following poems I really caught lightning in a bottle. They all rhyme and attempt to tell a meaningful story. They both have a dark, sarcastic sense of humor and will spit in the face of any Shel Silverstein poem you may happen to find during your nostalgic conquests. Remember: even though you may be falling up in life, you’ll still end up on your ass.
Here’s the first poem written about 4 years ago. It started out as a free write brainstorming exercise in my creative writing class. We were supposed to write poems that conformed to all these conventions and I ended up rebelling, writing this poem. Once I started writing it, I got into a rhythm and found I could actually rhyme other words besides cat and bat. I really started to enjoy myself. I finished it in one night and posted it on the Storymania website. The place where you could say my “online writing career” started in the fall of 2002. Before that I had just written two journals about my middle school years. How are they? Well let’s just say they’re like my journal entries on here, just a lot less focused, filled with bad aside jokes, and a love triangle of sorts.
This first poem is called Is That My Fat Talking Again?
The pizza is calling my name.
It calls, but I believe I can resist its playful tease.
Or can I?
The pizza wishes to suffocate me beneath layers of cheese.
I try to resist, but the pizza seems to insist that I eat it.
Oh, what agony, what pain.
Why do I fear weight gain?
But food is the only person or thing
That doesn’t think I’m fat.
Every chair I sit in groans or squeaks.
The ladies whistle and call, “Hey Fat Cat.”
No one understands the pleasures of food.
My meals always end so soon.
All my friends know my job.
When we go out to eat
They eat and drink and chat.
Then I interrupt and ask
“Are you going to finish that?”
I eat so much; I can barely get out of my seat.
I tell my friends stories, tall tales really.
They say, “You’re kidding, you really ate all that in one sitting?”
“Yes it’s true.” I say. This time I’ve bit off more than I can chew.”
Then somebody always says “Why don’t you go marry an elephant at the zoo?”
I have considered this, many a time
But I always end up looking for the nearest elevator sign.
I know my unwillingness to exercise will lead to my demise.
I’m getting fatter all the time.
I’m breaking scales left and right.
By know my weight must be out of sight.
I ask all the ladies out, they all say no, I think I’ll pass
Not after last time, when you passed gas.
I say, “Well what if we just hang out and chill?”
“I guess that’s OK, as long as you don’t eat the dinner bill.”
And if I ever do get a date she says, “What have you been eating? It smells like you’ve been cheating?”
“No I haven’t.” I sigh. “Are you going to finish your pie?”
Oh the jokes, when will they cease?
I know I’m obese.
Children laugh and ask their mothers “Mommy is that man pregnant?”
“No Billy that man is a dunce.
But he does look more pregnant than I was at nine months.”
I am not sure what to say at this.
It feels like I am falling into an abyss.
Maybe women are really what I crave.
Ah who am I kidding? I couldn’t get laid in a cave.
I stare at the pizza, trying to resist, but I give in.
For fat I will be fat I have been.
Is that my fat talking again?
I stumble home, barely making it through the door
It’s always such a chore.
I crash on the couch and turn on the TV.
I put down the remote in shock.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
Some guy thin as a rail looks like he just escaped from the local jail.
“Are you overweight? Do you eat constantly?” he screams.
“It doesn’t matter how much you consume
You can lose 150 pounds by June
using my amazing formula!
All you have to is pick up the phone and call this number!”
Suddenly I want ham, turkey, and cheddar.
So what if I’m fat, I’ll hide it all beneath a sweater.
Is that my fat talking again?
I watch the TV a little more.
Until I am convinced.
After all people who have used this formula haven’t been the same since.
I decide to pick up the phone.
Who am I kidding? I’ll always be an overweight baboon
I’ll never lose 150 pounds by June.
Is that my fat talking again?
Waiting on the Bus 