Inside The Hearts' Walls

Thursday, June 2, 3:00.  This is when the book signing will be. That's the last week of classes. Half-a-week before Finals. One week before commencement. Three weeks and two days from today. Twelve days after Judgement Day, from what I hear. Mark your calendars.

Also, a prompt:
"I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."
Whitney is keeping the poem it is from secret so that our inspirations on how to write to it will not be tainted. So don't google it until after you've written your poem!


Edit: Okay, here's where the prompt was from.

When Death Comes


When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver ~

by W


I know
 what happened to a dream.

It was diffused, not deferred, it was a silver dandelion
that blew away in a spider web and  sprinkled
its dream  pollen on ground and on grass and caught
in long  hair and landed in the wondering eyes of small children.

People once thought it would melt in the sunlight.
It grew into fields full of stars.
 
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This is this week's submission to the Commuter. Whitney's stuff is always so dreamy, isn't it?

by Turtle Shell


Where do dreams come from?
And where do they go?

It's hard work, dreaming.
More than wishing or wanting,
A dream is an intention, a belief.
Amidst the hard lessons life teaches
It's difficult to hold faith
That a distant desire can actually be had.

It's harder still to make one come true.
To dream is to sacrifice, to persist,
Inch ever forward, practicing and learning.
Keep betting on it,
Keep rolling the dice,
Keep paying the price,
Until they finally roll right.

Not every dream gets chased.
Mutually exclusive dreams will rip a person in half.
Impossible dreams must be let go, or fail.
There is a catacomb of once living dreams
Starved withered husks clutter a psyche's dusty alcoves;
Curios, nostalgics
Don't stare too long, you'll only make yourself sad.

And be warned,
Some aren't as dead as they appear.

Oh hey, here's something I probably should have linked to a couple weeks ago: It's a book!

That's right, the Words & Pictures book is available to be printed on demand and shipped to wherever things like that are able to get mailed to. But before you rush over to buy your very own copy, don't forget that Robin is buying a bunch of them in bulk to save on shipping costs and that the Poetry Club will later on this month be getting together for a book signing/selling party where they will be dispersed.

Edit: By "this month" I of course mean "next month".

by Langston Hughes


What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

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

Our prompt for the week is 'what happens to a dream when it gets deferred?' I don't think we have to restrict ourselves to the list of options that Langston Hughes provided.

In other news, we're looking for LBCC Poet Laureate applicants for next year. Not 'we' the LBCC Poetry Club, precisely, but near enough. So if you know anyone who might be interested, get them in touch with someone who can help them apply (Robin probably would be best, or someone else in the English department). There's apparently a $250 per term stipened sweetening the pot for whoever is chosen to take up the mantle.

A Nathan is a name that claims the bearer is a gift from god.
As if that were more true for them than any other random clod.
While pompous parents gasconade their divine honorarium,
The apostate child conceives an autonomic planetarium.

Now to be named a Knight implies a certain measure of command,
Of horses, weapons, armor, plus a duty to the sovereign hand.
The prudent, pious, gallant man must vow to serve the polity,
And demonstrate a creed of polished gender inequality.

The baggage of a storied name is not that which I long to bear.
Though knights are fun and 'gift from god' yet has a charming ancient air.
Tav is the name that I go by and means just what I want to be,
It connotes naught and no-one else, it's wholly, solely, only me.
 
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I think this one is only half as long as it deserves to be, but it was hard to write and I don't feel like spending hours more coaxing words into tight verses just to make the flow feel less abrupt. Sorry if it sends you scurrying to find a dictionary, thesauruses are just a little bit too fun sometimes. And speaking of having too much fun while writing poetry, in case you didn't notice reading it through the first time, this poem has a verse structure (and implicit background music) ganked from a well-known song called The Elements by Tom Lehrer. 
 
...hee-hee, just kidding, I know it's actually originally from The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan. Though you should click here if you want to see the version of the tune that got glued to the inside of my skull in my formative years.