UW Sustainability Courses

EARTH POEMS : Round 2

I mix beer-cheese soup with New York cheddar and a can of Heiniken
Thinking of Chad Vogel and the Eldorado Grill,
Although I see him no more,
Part of him lives on,
In this soup.

I am torn
Torn as a Mother who must decide who her favorite child is
I am torn

I am here to help
As if I were a doctor who was placed on this Earth just to make the discovery of a lifetime
I am here to help

I am here to harm
I am like a virus that must destroy for its own survival
I am here to harm

I am torn
Torn like a person who is faced with saving their own life or that of their friends
I am torn

I know what I should do
Just as a child knows they must eat and drink
I know what I should do

I know what I want to do
Just as a composer knows what he wants his music to sound like
I know what I want to do

I am torn
Like a person who know what is right but loves what is wrong
I am torn

A solar system of organs around my heart
and satellites of sense around my mind.
My blood is a river, yielding sustenance to millions.
Each day worlds are created and destroyed within me.
I am old as eternity and yet renewed each day.

Jiggling the lock free using my credit card,
I bound carefree through the garden gate.
Shoelaces untied, ready to be thrown off in the yard,
Because waiting on the other side is my date,
The man whose love makes my heart beat hard.

Standing and watching the game,
In my polyester uniform,
Saliva runs from my mouth,
As I watch football player’s butts.
Cheerleaders have the best view.

Her ballet skirt swishing around her middle
She ran crying
Taking with her a crushed ego
Leaving only a swinging coathanger
To prove her fleeting presence in the studio

While his parents
Enjoyed the ballet
He practiced his own
Draped in the elegant stoles
Falling from the coat hangers.

The overcoat is slipped off its coathanger.
Placed over the “fancy dress”, the one that only comes out for special occasions.
A hand is slipped into another hand. A door is held at the entrance to the theater.
A seat is reclined enabling a view of all the dancers in the ballet.
A hand is placed around the shoulders, cloaked in the overcoat. A smile is exchanged. A love is renewed.

The tree sings like a choir, each branch a member, each leaf a different note, all reaching out into infinity.

Face burning and desperate
Frantically searching for another credit card
Rejected, eyes welling
Hiding, reaching
For a shoe lace that didn’t need tying.

Flip flops on top of towels
Gazing into the sparkling blue
Clearing my throat
Blowing the whistle
Walk!

Thank God for my credit card.
Which weaves my life together
And keeps me in one sturdy piece,
A small item that I depend upon
The shoe lace of my consumerism.

Find me a bookmark
So I can mark the page
Where mankind lost its taste
For fresh green asparagus
To purple colored goldfish crackers.

I have the power to make the sun rise,
With the smile on my face.
My positive energy is so strong
The north and south poles
Kissed my cheeks.

I stretched my arms
As wide as I could
And managed to hug the world.
My eyes are stars
That hold my dreams
And shine, shine, shine.

Landfills with cappuccino,
Smell the generation x,
Do not open your eyes,
Lug nuts and gasoline,
Give us your tired and your poor.

Sleepwalking Radical

Reality’s limit is the absence of dream
For in a state of slumber
I stole the bolt of Zeus’s thunder

Last night restless belly shook at the seam
Fingertips pulsed with electric fire
As I fed the mouth of Earth’s desire

Nymphs and muses work as a team
Enlightenment iridescent on quiet eyes
Passion provoked truth to silence lies

Percussion’s sadness makes sentient heart weep
An organic form my body did take
As each limb began to wake

Fall’s frosty kisses on naked skin run deep
But not even the Sirens could turn me around
Angry flames prompt piercing alarms to sound

Newspapers romanticized the tale of my sleep
Modern day Athena wages war on new construction
Torching the mall project at Consumer’s Junction

I am the tree of life
Rooted in fertile soil of wisdom and patience
Slow growing
Branches build on centuries
Roots palpitating the forgotten molecules of soil
Extended deep into history
Beyond the reach of mankind’s folly axe
I stand unfettered
Lightly blown by breezes from Asia
Warmed by basking in African suns
Watered by hurricanes of Latin America
I am in it and in me the world is as one.