Secondhand Smoke Poetry

Downturn

2010-01-15T12:32:00.004-07:00

Upon applying for college, I was really stressed out with the money situation..especially since I assumed I would be out of state. Everything is so expensive and in this economy and with our government at the time (Bush Administration)...it's like we have nothing..no privacy, no money, no nothing. So from this came the poem Downturn.

This fixed income is not enough to live on

in this country. Each child

is just a liability,

a painted tax.

The letter arrives in shreds,

Not to my surprise.

The envelope has lost its’ seal

and it’s obvious what is ours

is not a secret anymore.

The wires have tapped straight through to our brains,

performing the paranormal,

reading our every thought,

I wonder if they find our trivial gossip

worth the ears of the FBI.

I’m almost certain I’m the bomb,

ticking and exact.

I’m round as a zero,

but lacking a few decimal places.

Maybe they’ll come after me,

pilfer my house, family, and college tuition.

In the night now, I can only write by candle-light,

but the truth is, I can’t adapt

Obviously though, we have adapted to this, though our living isn't comfortable. Hopefully we find a way out of this soon. I put my trust in Obama. Hopefully at the end of these next four years, we'll see the light.

The Company of Musical Notes

2010-01-15T00:48:00.003-07:00

Obviously, I have not kept up with this at all...but it's a new year, so it's time to try a resolution...and I say try because the odds of me keeping it are probably slim, but hey, we all have busy lives right? So this poem was written for the poetry club I'm in at ASU called LUX. LUX is this literary magazine in the Barrett Honors College and they started a small poetry group to just share poetry and get feedback. It's a really great club. I read my poems out loud for the first time there. The group was so inspiring and their feedback was great. It honestly helped my writing. Anyways, each week we would have a prompt. The prompt for this one was to write a list poem, so that's what I attempted in The Company of Musical Notes. It's written about an ex, as a lot of my poetry is, so bear with me haha.

Treble clefs and the turning of tables,

The reminiscing of clubs,

The bars, and the hotel rooms.

The taste of smoke on your breath,

The monotonous tone that covered

your every depth.

The gauged ears and rubber bands,

the tattooed wish, and smirking eyes.

The two cars parked in front,

Your house, the second on the right,

The demons stirring under your bed

That only surfaced at night

The farewell serenade that repeated days

at a disco; the callous dreams that stained

your hands, the plane tickets that

were rammed into mine

and how this summer spent

was too consuming to define.

The catch-phrases during the aftermath,

the messages like comets,

lost orbiting in space.

The unresponsive waves, the glares, the rage,

the intense realization

that this maturity arrives with age.

Besides this, I wanted to share some other poetry related news. These past few days I started getting inspired, so I decided to take my poetry and put it into a book! All my favorite poems from my teens are now available in a single anthology on Lulu. I did it mainly for me, but if it happens to sell..well, that would be amazing. Here's the link and you can all check it out! My book is titled Skipping Rocks.

Strung Together (I Know You Know)

2009-08-15T17:21:00.003-07:00

So the name of this blog is Secondhand Smoke Poetry...The whole idea behind it actually comes from one of my favorite bands, Brand New. They have a song called "The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot" and there's a line in the song that I just find absolutely beautiful.

"Spring keeps you ever close, you are secondhand smoke.
You are so fragile and thin, standing trial for your sins
Holding onto yourself the best you can,
You are the smell before rain,
you are the blood in my veins."

Quite honestly, I find that music, this band in particular is my inspiration for a lot of what I write. Because of this, I wanted to title this poetry blog something that inspires me. and that's how "Secondhand Smoke" came about.

Here's a poem called Strung Together (I Know You Know). This poem is about my friendship with my best friend...it's unlike an friendship I've ever had and she just means so much to me. It was funny actually because I entered this poem in my school poetry contest and won third place. She had read it several times but never seemed to realize what it was about. About a month later, her mom read it and was like, "Awww that's adorable it's about the two of you isn't it?" And of course I told her yes, and my best friend was shocked, and read it again because she didn't even realize it. For my birthday that year, she painted me (she's an amazing artist) a beautiful painting with the words of the poem decoupaged onto the canvas. All in all, I'd say this poem has some pretty strong memories infused into the words.

If you're speechless, forget all words,
Forget the rhythm of sentences and the flowing of rhymes
Just keep our memories hung, dangling from your ears
so that they're halfway between your heart and mind
And like the notes of a chord, we're strung together,
can't play one without the other
and when played, a beautiful melody is formed
as if to say 'from this view the world is perfect.'

Can you hear me?
I know I'm speaking quietly,
whispering down the frequency
but without another word,
I know you know.
It's all found in the motion of eyes,
the gesture of a smile
I know you know.

With the slightest reassurance that you're near
I'm ready to face the world head on
Because it seems no matter the difficulty or challenge
or even the distance needed to travel,
you're still as close as you are when we're standing side by side
It's a reminder of the laughter lingering on our lips
The more jokes told, the more memories made
and the more I've realized what the 'best' in front of a word really means

Can you see me?
I know at times I'm not in view
and the words I'm speaking aren't clear cut
but without another glance
I know you know
It's all found in stifled laughs
that we make at essentially everything
I know you know.

Regardless of the paths our futures hold,
all the twists and turns on crooked lanes,
the one thing that will help ease the abrupt stops
is that together we'll be going forward in a straight line
And our shoulders will have each other for company
and still will as we grow older
And we'll look up to the stars and listen for crickets-
A harbinger of a life lived to its fullest.

Can you feel me?
I know there are times I'm hard to read
and just talking can be frustrating
but forget everything else
I know you know
It's all found in the squeeze of a hand,
the punch of an arm
I know you know.

By the way, I realize these first few poems have been a bit long- I'll get some shorter ones in here soon :)

Sinking Ships

2009-08-15T00:37:00.003-07:00

I never truly saw myself as a blog writer...quite honestly I don't know what I really have to say that anyone would like to hear. I'm just a normal college student, with thoughts, feelings and ideas..the exact same that most people feel. However, unlike many of my peers today, when something happens to me or I feel something strongly, I write about it. When I was younger, I tended to write stories..short stories about like..cats that chase mice and then end up befriending them. But thankfully, I've grown and expanded way beyond silly little stories like those. Instead, I've become a poet. I love the way words sound when they're juxtaposed together in a certain way. And I love the feeling I get when I feel as though I've taken an idea or a feeling and expressed it in such a unique way that anyone could understand what I'm trying to say. That's why I write poetry, and this is what my blog is about- to share my poetry with you lovely readers, if I have any readers that is. Regardless, here I'll post some of my favorite pieces of poetry and give a window into the inner workings of my head.

The poem in this poet is titled 'Sinking Ships.' It was written after I realized a certain person I was close to really wasn't the person I had thought. They had told me they wanted to change but really, they weren't changing at all... It's pretty self-explanatory, I think. My poems are usually really simple and easy to understand- all they are are just my emotions pressed into words. Writing for me, has become a sort of catharsis for every sort of feeling I have, no matter good or bad, so because of that, the sort of things I write about are easy to relate to and understand.

Out late nights with friends you barely know
Back when, you would have call yourself a cheat,
and I admit, I agree.
I’m almost impressed
by your lack of self-respect,
but I’m far too busy appearing to be busy
to give you any satisfaction.
I’m working out the minute kinks now;
bending and folding will no longer
distort the signals our wires create.
But I’ve noticed you’re just one giant knot.
You’re chest is slammed shut
and mine, forever open wide.
The infinitesimal details will be analyzed
at the scene of the crime,
though you may run.
But you’re trying to be the better man.

If I was meticulous and proper,
the conversation would have materialized in my sleep.
The escape routes would have been found
and roped off or blocked.
But your false teeth gleamed
no indication of a tirade, so here we lay,
unconvinced and partially shattered.
For you, to care is to be redundant,
so you’d rather sever what you’ve kept intact.
It’s too arduous to let hope float,
while your ship is down river,
and you’re lost upstream.
You prefer to solve these types of problems quietly.
Anyone else is only a hindrance,
or maybe an eyesore for a short period,
then cast out to sea.
But you’re not trying to be the better man.

A whole eight days since and I
still haven’t been able to share how
I’ve considered you to be most interesting,
despite being less than the standard I expected
you to uphold.
It was what you always struggled to express
in your over-indulgent punctuation.
So now my coat is off, and I’ll turn slightly to face you,
get a better glimpse so I can erase
the character with your name I constructed
to make an adventure out of my dreams.
And he is now replaced with you
and all your considerable traits.
Reality should never be masked if I’ve
learned anything; it’s one helpful hint
you might take to the grave.
But you’re not trying hard enough to be the better man.