Group 3
Precision Instrument
Databases,
Billions of entries each,
Zip by in the blink of an eye,
Thousands- hundreds of thousands
of miles of wire carry endless streams
of data to the processors,
Each of which is worth more than my
house at least ten times over.
This thing,
A mass of carbon and steel,
Lights and sounds,
Supposedly,
Is guided by the unreal amount of data.
When it hums,
And begins spinning,
Whirring maniacally,
I feel like a rabbit,
being sized up by an enormous tiger.
It beeps and adjusts endlessly,
Such obviously precise and
intentional movements,
Made to look like the ravings of
a mechanical madman
An Odd Thought
A pot set to simmer,
An infuriatingly dim haze
leaks from the lid you
thought was heavy enough,
You can’t remember when
you set the heat,
If you did at all
The Air Of A Rainy Midnight Speaks
Forget in the fog,
The things you saw before,
It seems to materialize,
To grasp your hand,
“Walk with me”,
You feel it think,
Through the wall of vapor,
A pale moonlight sinks
Untitled
I saw the wires sticking out of his eyes,
I saw him fade away and become unreal,
Even in a room illuminated only by the sparks of broken machinery,
The darkness could not keep me from this revelation
4:23 ( “In Time” revision)
Calendar years flow distantly behind me,
A jagged field of misaligned memories,
Full of something I could never now muster,
Oddly shaped steps into a world far from here,
Go there, and wait for it, or me, to appear
In Time
Calendar years,
Which I have lived true and full,
Fall into an awkward distance
behind me,
Avoiding eye contact,
Like a stranger,
Ready to leave the situation
Money Mechanism
Cash machines roll
at a lame pace down Main Street.
For miles,
The echos of mountains of change
seem to grumble,
Feeding into the barrels looming
ominously in front of the heavily armored
machines,
Occasionally,
One will shudder to life,
aim, and threaten prosperity,
The shot has never been taken
Group 2
Untitled
The acid serenades my tongue,
Deliciously corrosive,
A beautiful buzzing ignites in my nervous system,
Every synapse pushed to its limit,
The absolute power of life courses through me
Untitled ( choice poem 1 )
Humans are:
guns/weapons/alive,
Remarkably:
apprehensive/indiscriminate,
They:
destroy/rebuild,
themselves/the world
Highway Driving
Dead ends, twisting and writhing,
Roads to cities in stasis.
Tunnels and bridges
connected by pools of
swimming, shiny things,
Calipers and pistons press
into power and motion,
Burning and twisting
from somewhere,
Liquid hate explodes into malevolent joy
Untitled
Everything became unreal,
It’s not as bad as it sounds,
Waterfalls fade like memories,
It’s hard to know when it’s a dream,
but things feel simpler now.
I’ll give you a hint,
When everything starts to feel wrong,
Lay down and try to be someone,
Don’t worry what it means,
When it was real,
You weren’t any different
Untitled
Time and time,
And now and then,
It’s plucked from you,
and you begin again
Amid The Flowers On A Beautiful Day
Cantilever mountains hold up the sun,
Only sometimes,
The world is a garden,
On a beautiful day,
Soar through the breeze,
And cut the skyline in half,
Pull the sun down and let the lights off,
On such a beautiful day
Overton Charles
Cauliflower trees,
Cardigan tulips,
Imogen windows,
Silver cowbells,
heaps of tin pales,
Found inside breathing wales
Summer Days
Orange-colored palm trees
line the shore,
Redwood fences stacked delicately,
Warm, dull flavored sand,
Licked by the sweetness in the water
cradle the cranberry trees,
They sing the song of |||||||||
Group 1
The Ocean And The Cliffs
The ocean lay vast as it’s shores draw me near,
Into the intrepid waters I gaze,
As not a sailor,
But a man, barefoot and weary.
My feet sink into the sand,
Yet the sun does beam,
And my boat does call,
For it will go or I.
Can I really be called a sailor, or am I merely a man with a pole and a vessel?
Do the fish swim and and dodge with haste,
Or do they fill my net and laugh,
Because I am not a sailor and my hook is clumsily tied and my boat is fretfully slow?
If I cannot challenge the ocean,
The salt dancing on my tongue and the water fighting to throw me overboard,
Then might I be a farmhand, or a paperboy, because I am not a man and I am certainly not a sailor,
So as the ocean lay vast and it’s shores draw me near,
As I gaze into the intrepid waters as half a man and half a sailor,
My feet sink into the warm embrace of the sand,
The sun does beam and my boat does call.
Quiet Violence
Violently,
I’m pushed to the edge of my consciousness,
When I heard of my judgement,
Emotion tore through me,
And lay my mangled heart bare,
It’s not a dream,
Desperately I wish that it was,
As I lie unquestionably awake,
I cling to the hope that everything will be just fine tomorrow,
I don’t know if it’s fair,
I don’t know who to blame,
I don’t know if I’m upset,
I will not go into the light,
I will not look back for a final time, because I will live once again,
And I will dance on the grave of wretched, shattered dreams
Cold
Unrelenting,
Endlessly biting,
It will needle it’s way through,
Until it’s settled deep in your bones,
And the roar of the wind is deafeningly dull,
Every unfrozen synapse will scream,
Will beg you to stamp out that sound,
Beg you not to falter even a moment against it,
Until the pressure on your fingers is so far away,
Lying in the scattered corpse of your long forgotten fire,
From when you could remember to be afraid,
When it’s utterly euphoric warmth wasn’t so tempting,
In your last few conscious moments,
You’ll wonder why you were ever afraid of the cold