Inside The Hearts' Walls

     *    Choir concert
               o    Feb 22: Deadline for poetry submissions
               o    March 10: Choir concert


     *    Unity Celebration / Black History Month
                o    February 22 @ 3:00: DAC please bring favorite poems in the
                      tradition, ones that celebrate our united "diversity", or any voice
                      that needs to be heard.
     *    Poetry/Photo Exhibition
                o    http://www.flickr.com/photos/59025797@N05/sets/72157625832662421/
                o    Now till Feb 22: select three photos from the above and write your
                      poems in response (no longer than 25 lines please).
                o    Now till Mar 1: because we won't have meeting opportunities to
                      gather and read the poems we're writing, please share them with
                      Robin by sending them as attached word docs:
                      robin.havenick@linnbenton.edu
                o    March 1: submission deadline and final group selection of the 15
                      poems for the exhibit

Next Tuesday's meeting will be in NSH-209 again.  Once again we have no prompt, but those who intend to submit a poem for reading at the choir concert should bring them to this meeting. Everyone else should probably be working on their picture-prompt poems.

Based on a nearly completely undemocratic decision-making process, I sent Things I've Learned From a Waterfall Painting as the Poetry Club's submission to the Commuter for the week.  You remember this poem, right?:

http://insidetheheartswalls.blogspot.com/2011/02/things-ive-learned-from-waterfall.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59025797@N05/sets/72157625832662421/

We need to let Robin know our choices by Monday. Pick the three (or more) that you think you could write a poem on, and then send your choices in. If you don't know how to get in touch with Robin, send your choices to me and I'll pass them along.

The actual poems for these pictures apparently don't need to be written until March 1, although this is the only new prompt we have this week.

The club today voted to send Dan Simmon's poem as our submission to the Commuter this week.


Can You Tell?

by Danny Earl Simmons

I could tell you
but you
might have to kill
me
if I told you

I am one
flinch
after another
flinch
all day long

Why do I squint?

I am from space
I am from the between of things
jobs(I am)jobs
girlfriends(I am)girlfriends
apartments(I am)apartments
doctors(I am)doctors
rocks(I am)and hard places

I need
to tell
someone
I need
a gun.

So much of our lives we spend with
an internal monologue our only company
grinding at the loneliness inside.
But don't worry, it's not just you.
This is how everyone feels sometimes.

So you're not alone those hours every day,
when you're so very alone
and nobody cares.
We do care. We all know what it's like,
feeling lonely. We're just busy,
worrying about our own loneliness, just like you.

We're each all too familiar
with the dark pit of despair.
It'd be easy enough to climb out of,
if only someone out there, would lend you a hand up;
which they'd surely do,
if they'd ever just see you there in it.

Nobody's ever interested in you,
physically or intellectually,
it's what you want more than anything
what we all do,
but you're just another cog to them,
one more human obstacle
to be dealt with or avoided.

When you are stabbed again and again,
by the frustration and pain,
despair and hate,
We all know how that feels.

We all know the fantasies that bloom,
your mind shying away from the dangerously possible,
sliding to the bigger ideas, the better catharsis.
Dream of rending the planet,
ripping the whole thing to shreds with your hands,
tearing civilization till it pops at the seams,
smooshing all the little bits that fall off,
crushing everyone and everything,
and bringing an end to the worthless world that has no time or patience
for someone like you, and your pathetic loneliness.

The loathing and rage
shrieking and screaming inside
while outside you're ever more civil, more quiet and numb.
madness and chaos,
venom and bile,
fiery and fury,
fatigue, and exhaustion.

Don't worry, it isn't just you.
I feel that way too sometimes. We all do.
Even if you never tell anyone,
We all still understand.

By Turtle Shell

--------------------

One of 2-1-11's "We live so much of our lives without telling anyone." poems.