Bleeding Ink All Over the Place

Man, I used to be clever (meaning this is an old poem).

2011-02-25T22:50:00.000-06:00

I try to get the words out, the ones that
Brew until my nerves shout
But I don't speak that language

And I can't
Get it out. I breathe it in
And out and in and out again

And the poetry is dead
And the inkwell is dry
And when I think about it all my nerves start to fry

And the fire should be cleansing
But as I slowly burn I become covered in the ashes
Of the mind that I am losing in the flames.

War Cry of a Strong-Willed Child

2011-02-10T22:56:00.003-06:00

[Author's note: Sometimes I worry that people will read my poems and think they are all based on events in my life. They aren't. I mean, some of them are, but many of them are based on my surroundings or mood amplified. Some aren't even about me at all. If I only wrote about myself I would kind of suck at this wouldn't I? Anyway, here's another poem for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.]

I wouldn't know what to do with adoration
I have no experience with that
But I thank you for your participation
And for being such a damn good sport

And I laugh in the face of your conflagration
That's what you get for your burning heart
For your words and meanings and lamentation
A ribbon-wrapped boot print for your pride

I am quite at home in my fortification
The walls I have built put me at ease
A warm bath has nothing on domination
Control is good to gnash my teeth too

You watch me watch you in your self-flagellation
I see you clawing against my fence
None of this is literal confrontation
I just want to see hope leave your eyes

Don't fool yourself; I'm not waiting for cessation
I put those hand holds there just for you
Much for tribute, but naught for decoration
Will you just Climb up here and fight me?

A Petrarchan sonnet as penance for my long absence from this blog

2011-01-21T15:36:00.000-06:00

One day, as I walked, I found myself

Desirous of your preference and your touch

And, with reluctance, I will here avouch

When ere we'd meet, my will was then your pelf

Yet, unnoticed, you put me on a shelf

This act my acrimony did debouch

Have you mistaken me for Scaramouch?

In your blindness, you have doomed yourself

For you will find Hell's fury is dainty

Weighed with what erudite dames dispense

For you'll ask, but fandango we will not

And you, dear one, will get your recompense

For when you come for me, with certainty

It will be your heart that I have forgot

Clockwork of the Soul (the writing process)

2010-05-31T11:31:00.003-05:00

From the ashes of hearth fires

breed Inspiration

Revolution

and many other firebug lightning-quick

extrapolations

The wary witness catches them

in jars and boxes

and on pages

Errant thoughts-feelings destined to…become

Brought to fruition

They are to be survived upon,

feed those who feed them

Perpetual

motion subsistence farming of the mind

Clockwork of the Soul

There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea...And a Whole Lot of Oil Throughout the Sea

2010-05-28T12:42:00.002-05:00

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is weighing on my, as it is everyone's, mind. My mind, however, is silly and nerdy so of course the well leak reminded me of the children's song "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea", and because I can't let things like this go I wrote my own version of the song outlining the events surrounding the leak so far. Keep in mind that this song is an admittedly overly simplistic representation of what has happened. To see a more thorough timeline of the spill, direct yourself here: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/a_timeline_of_the_gulf_of_mexi.html. But in the meantime, please enjoy my handiwork.

There's a hole in the bottom of the sea

There's a hole –There's a hole

There's a hole in the bottom of the sea

There's oil coming out of the hole in the bottom of the sea

There's oil – coming out

Of the hole in the bottom of the sea

Set fire to the oil coming out of the hole in the bottom of the sea

Set fire – to the oil

Coming out of the of the hole in the bottom of the sea

Put a box on the hole in the bottom of the sea

The box – isn't working

On the hole in the bottom of the sea

Put a tube in the hole in the bottom of the sea

The tube – like the box

Can't plug the hole in the bottom of the sea

Try again with the tube in the hole in the bottom of the sea

The tube – is draining oil

From the hole in the bottom of the sea

Tar balls float ashore from the hole in the bottom of the sea

Tar balls – and lots of oil

Float ashore from the hole in the bottom of the sea

BP owns the oil coming out of the hole in the bottom of the sea

BP lies about the amount oil coming out of the hole in the bottom of the sea

BP –admits

There's more oil than they thought

Beaches close because of the oil coming out of hole in the bottom of the sea

Beaches close because of the oil coming out of the hole in the bottom of the sea

Beaches close – because of the oil

Coming out of the hole in the bottom of the sea

Can't get fish from the water with the oil from the hole in the bottom of the sea

Can't get fish – from the water

With the oil from the hole in the bottom of the sea

BP uses Corexit to dissolve the oil from the hole in the bottom of the sea

BP uses Corexit (a toxic chemical) to dissolve the oil from the hole in the bottom of the sea

BP –uses Corexit

To dissolve the oil from the hole in the bottom of the sea

BP dumps mud in the hole in the bottom of the sea

BP – dumps mud

In the hole in the bottom of the sea

The mud plugs the hole in the bottom of the sea (for now)

The mud – plugs the hole

The hole in the bottom of the sea

To be continued…

There’s Facebookery Afoot!

2010-04-18T12:43:00.001-05:00

I am a member of the Millennial Generation (you may know us as Generation Y, but I really can't stand that label because it implies some nonspecific connection to Generation X and you won't catch me using it). We, the Millennials, seem to be defined by social networking. I mean, The New York Times has a Facebook page and cable news channels read people's opinions off of Twitter for crying out loud. I personally have a Facebook, a Twitter and a MySpace page (which I haven't laid eyes on in quite a while. I wonder, does it miss me?) and most of my friends do likewise.

Recently I have been joking that I don't know what I ever did before Facebook. My Twitter page is of little significance to me although I check it pretty often, but I like to joke that I live on Facebook. Yet it was not always this way. I have not always had a Facebook profile, so what, exactly, did I do before?

I know I must have filled my time with something, but what? It wasn't until I gave this question real thought that I began to reconsider the amount of time I allocate to Facebookery. Before Facebook, I spent large amounts of time on the following:

I read a lot. My friends used to tease that I had a different book every time they saw me.
I wrote a hell of a lot more, and considering that writing is my passion, discovering that I have been Facebooking more than writing annoys me greatly.
I drew, painted (a little…I don't quite have enough patience for painting) and collaged; all activities that I rarely engage in these days.

Part of the reason I spend less time doing these things is because I am a full time student and a member of an honors fraternity and a certain chunk of my time is inevitably allocated there, but I would be lying if I said Facebook had nothing to do with it. The realization that I have been spending the time I used to spend on these things on social networking sites irks me terribly. I'm not saying I'm going to delete my Facebook page. I just think maybe I should use it less. It's so easy to plop down in front of the computer and dick around on Ponzi or Pieces of Flare, but it might just be turning my brain to mush.

So, I have a couple of questions for my fellow Millennials. What did you do with your time before Facebook? Is it just me, or are we all spending entirely too much time online? Feel free to tell me in the form of a comment below, or keep it to yourself if you'd rather. I know you have a Facebook, because most of you will have seen this through the link I'm going to post there. There's no point denying it!

Reporting class assignment

2010-04-14T15:33:00.001-05:00

Leanne Fuller

Professor Alligood

Reporting

03 March 2010

Writer, editor, lecturer and feminist activist Gloria Steinem drew a crowd of 550 people plus overflow seating at MTSU on Tuesday, March 2 when she was the keynote speaker for the university's Women's National History Month.

Steinem was unfortunately suffering from laryngitis and couldn't give the speech she had prepared. The speech was instead read by Terri Johnson, director of the June Anderson Women's Center and student Chanera Peirce, after which Steinem participated in a question and answer session during which she was unable to speak above a whisper.

The speech itself focused on issues which divide people, such as race, gender, and age, and how differences should be learned from instead of feared.

"I'm more interested in changing society to fit people than in changing people to fit society" said Steinem.

At the end of the speech, Steinem proposed a few courses of action for the audience: to avoid media stereotypes, listen as much as you talk, that mentoring is a two way street, not a parent child relationship but a partnership and that we should pay attention to Bell Hooks' shoe buying rule, "if we can buy shoes together, we can walk together."

Before moving on to the question and answer session, Steinem thanked the two women who read her speech, saying it sounded so much better than if she herself had given it.

The first question asked was Steinem's opinion of the healthcare debate. "I am profoundly upset that we don't have the public option" said Steinem, who pointed out that health insurance companies aren't allowed to categorize people by race anymore, but there are still "sex categories, so women pay 40 percent more."

"Being a female is counted as being a pre-existing condition. We still need to pass this bill but it is really inadequate," said Steinem.

The next question was whether women should still fight for an Equal Rights Amendment.

"We do need an equal rights amendment because the constitution doesn't apply. There are still laws that discriminate and some crazy city council can still make discriminating laws.[However] I think in real life we can't get it by a two-thirds vote in congress now," said Steinem, and suggested that maybe the younger women in the audience could see such an amendment passed within their lifetimes.

An audience member asked Steinem if she was aware that in eight states being a victim of domestic violence is counted as a pre-existing condition.

"This is like the Olympics for blaming the victim. Why isn't the batterer counted as a pre-existing condition? One in eight men is violent. That's a minimal estimate, so one in eight women will experience this. And we need to save the men from the cult of masculinity. You can't make this stuff up. It's so surrealistic," said Steinem.

The next question was how to address the lack of support for mothers in the workplace, regarding maternity leave, etc.

"We can attribute an economic value to care giving [of children or elderly people] whether it's done by men or by women and make that tax deductable or tax refundable. It does not take legislation. It takes a change in the tax code. If we contribute an economic value we can do this…It's [a job is] recognized as work because men can do it, so child raising isn't considered work. Any woman who has to ask, 'How can I combine work and family?' should turn to her husband and say, 'Why aren't you asking this question?'" said Steinem.

The last question was asked by a little girl who looked to be about 10 years old. She asked "Why haven't there been any female presidents?"

"When I was a little girl I didn't understand why when Franklin [Roosevelt] died, Eleanor couldn't be president. I think in this last election it made a big difference that we had a wonderful female candidate and a wonderful African American male candidate. I think it was too soon because there are so many of us [women] so we think that female authority is only for childhood," said Steinem.

Lastly, Steinem said, "I just want to say to this little girl, when you run for president I'm going to try to be still alive."

An Exercise in Alliteration (also, quite the run-on sentence)

2010-02-13T19:57:00.002-06:00

Wandering, winnowing, wistful wildebeest,

wishing wonderful wonderments of wit,

crashes carefully, colorfully, colliding with

bounding bounties of bygone boy-scouts, whose

remains remain remnants with restful recyclables,

lacerating liquorish-lipped ladies on lithographs

whilst autumnal authors of augmented albums

propagate perplexingly preposterous pillow-talk with

yelled yelps of yellowed yesterdays and

uttering unflattering, undulating untruths at

frightened and flummoxed flighty females who,

mincing mightily, moreover, monstrously to

westward wonders of wild willows

wish warlords what they will.

A couple of older poems, just to get the ball rolling:

2010-01-27T13:00:00.007-06:00

Snow
The sky is falling
In beautiful soft pieces of frozen love
Snow
Large fluffy scraps like cornflakes
Manna from heaven
Falling on my world
Kissing and caressing the fallen leaves
Which blanket the earth, protecting it from the cold touch of heaven
Ice turns to tears, melting into insubstantial liquid
Sliding ineffectively into the soil
Lost, but beautifully and immediately replaced
By other frozen kisses

Springtime Indoors
The smell of flowering trees is on the air
The sounds of pain and suffering echo by
As afterthoughts of time gone by
Reminding me of all the questions and those who question why
But I am strangely happy on this day
Or maybe not so much happy as
Calm and quite alive

As the wind tries to suck my blinds out through my opened window
The sun plays, running in and out from behind the clouds
The world it beckons softly, wishing that I’d come play
But what’s the use in playing with that which cannot,
With that which you’ve anthropomorphized?

And secrets intermingle with the smell of my shampoo
As the wind blows softly through my hair
And I wonder what to say, to whom, and why
And as the sound of playful laughter wanders in from below my window
I wonder, contently, why would anyone want to ever get out of bed?