Tuesday, December 9- Persona Poetry

Alfred Nobel

Great minds think alike

In business and in war

Create to destroy

Like my father before

No nobility in poverty

No justice in death

Establish peace and prosperity

To give the wicked rest

The answers hide and wait

among the mysteries of science

Reward is always given

to those who live in defiance

An everlasting legacy

of invention, innovation

wealth amassed for the ages

by virtue of creation

Endlessly restless

the world awaits my eyes

lonely and aging

but no one in wait, lies

Changed the world

changed its face

made another instrument

of the end of our race

A paradox of views

a legacy of confusion

champion peace

but its just an illusion

make peace with tools of war

that's what I leave behind

a name associated

with greatest of all time

To Love a Villain

I take the offered flower willingly

But crush the fragile heart when turned around

I veil well this, my hidden cruelty

‘Til the fortress opens and love abounds

Quickly I strike, take what I freely can

Then change the image of my heart to stone

Turn deaf my ears, all her cries I do ban

Then smile in malice when she is alone

Having taken my fill of her pure soul

I leave it stained with my vile corruption

The tears shed in my wake fulfill my goal

To precipitate a hearts disruption

Love is the universal suicide

Endlessly crushing hearts one at a time

Her tears are like diamonds, jewels mined from grief

Eyes like pools of woe, where the dismal die

Like knives at deadly work, her vengeful teeth

Heart saw Medusa, stone enclosed its life

I’m a breeder of the bitter heartless

Ripping out hearts with a broken promise

Putting iron in their souls for hardness

Creating an army of the lawless

With each fresh face which mourns my rejection

The love that’s unreturned comes back to bite

To pay the price of misplaced affection

Makes a holy heart which is filled with spite

The countless I’ve joyously affected

 Have dark hearts that cannot be dissected

The broken girls go out into the Earth

They spread my wicked soul-sucking disease

They do like me, without the vicious mirth

The more my lesson spreads, the greater ease

Their hearts go down like dominoes throughout

One here, another there, all love and lose

In the end love will cease to come about

And all the hearts will ache and feel abused

My victims become that which they do hate

Rejecting poor lovers after they turn

Take what they can, then leave them to wait

And another one has his lesson learned

I enjoy playing with these broken things

The broken more readily crown a king

Thursday, December 4 - Unrequited Love

       The boy was 13 years old and desperate, as most middle school children are, for some kind of "romantic" connection. Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly what people would call attractive. He was short, plump, with thin greasy hair, and an unusually bad case of acne. This, of course led to most of the feelings people associated with him being related either to disgust or to repulsion. He was lonely, and in that loneliness, he became swallowed up in his own thoughts, and they ranged from dark to fantastical in a way only the severely obsessive could.
     One night, as he was looking out his window vacantly he saw a girl of the most radiant beauty. In his eyes she seemed to glow. Her bright red hair glistened under the light of street lamps, and grew in such perfect, straight length down to the small of her back. She was thin, but not gangly and her walk was like that of a gazelle. She was obviously a few years older than he, but he disregarded this fact in his sudden infatuation. He had fallen for her completely, and he didn't even know her name.
     All night he dreamt of impossibilities, as the hopelessly pathetic tend to. The next morning he woke with a spring in his step, and a brightness in his heart. The next time he saw the girl, he would confess his love in the most romantic way he could think of; a song. Unfortunately, he was utterly tone-deaf, and though his voice sounded like a canary's to his ears, to the rest of the world it sounded like a mewling cat poorly playing Rebecca Black's Friday on an old violin. He practiced his poorly written song holding the most obvious of cliches, the worst of rhymes (when it did rhyme) and a tune that could've been found in a kindergarten classes garbage bin all day.
       That night he waited by his front door for her to pass by again. She didn't. He waited for hours until his parents forced him to come inside. He wasn't deterred from his goal however. He would wait the next night, and the next, and the next, subjecting his poor family and neighbors to his awful singing of a terrible song each day that preceded until one night she walked by again. In his excitement, the boy failed to even introduce himself. He only ran up onto the side of the street and began belting out his horrid tune, which I could not, in good conscience, record on this page even the lyrics of. The poor girl was completely shocked out of her thoughts and only stared for what seemed to the boy an eternity. Then her laughter erupted and it was like a dagger to the boys heart. She just laughed and kept walking, and he knew she would never feel the same. He didn't even know her name.
        He cried himself into oblivion for the next week, pathetically sobbing to any who would listen, of which there grew fewer and fewer with each passing day, about how he loved her, and would never love anyone else. After that week of childish folly, he came to a realization. He was not anywhere close to the league of such a girl. He never would be. With this knowledge came the burden that would weigh him down for the rest of his life, anyone in his league would not be a girl to be proud of, a girl he could never love.  So he resigned himself to a life of eternal loneliness, but was better off for it. He never had his heart broken again, because he had rid himself of it forever.

Tuesday, December 2- Top Secret

        I remained wrapped in my warm fortress of blankets to shut out the cold that had set in after the heavy snow-fall. My wife already left the bed to go to work, but I didn't have to. I'm not some unemployed stay at home husband, I'm a teacher. School had been cancelled due to the snow, so I could stay home. After a few minutes, I couldn't sleep, and I got up to use the restroom. When I got to the slightly ajar door I heard my wife speaking on the phone above the rush of water from the shower she had been about to take. I know it's impolite to eavesdrop, but my wife works for a highly secretive agency of the government called the CTU (Counter-Terrorism Unit) and I was never told anything about her job; I was curious. What I heard shocked me to the core.
       "Torture? Of course, don't be stupid. When have we not tortured our prisoners?... So what if he's a United States citizen? Has that ever stopped us before?... Look, I know your new, but you've got to get with the program. We don't tolerate sedition. He won't ever be speaking against our policies again. In fact, he won't be speaking at all ever again." Then she laughed. She laughed.
          I never knew just how heartless and cruel my wife could be. I had always trusted that she kept us safe, secured our liberties and all the things her agency claimed they did. After what I heard, I think it's clear that is not their intention. I was furious, but how could I let her know? She, along with her agency, would treat me much the same as the man they had just discussed.
        I quickly darted back to the bed and feigned sleep until she left. Then I got up and thought over what had just happened. If they knew I knew the things I did, then I'd surely be imprisoned, tortured, and killed, but how could I stand idly by and let such atrocities continue? It was a quandary I was unprepared for, and I struggled over the issue for many days after. I'm sure the man they planned to torture has already been killed. After days of self-debate a thought occurred to me. How would our Founding Fathers have received such news? Well they would have spoken loudly and angrily against such wickedness and blatant violation of the natural rights of man.
      I steeled myself against the inevitable repercussions and began to write. I wrote for hours on end, quit my job so I would have more time. I told my wife I was writing a novel. She seemed very excited about it, but who knows if she feels anything at all? In 2 weeks I finished an essay on what I had heard, and what I believed must be done about it. It was no Common Sense, but its message was clear. This has to stop.
      That was when things got difficult. No matter what publisher I went to, no one would print it. They were either afraid of what the CTU might do, or they simply didn't believe it. I went to publisher after publisher, big ones, small ones, nearly bankrupt ones, all turned me down. I was frustrated and sick and ready to give up, when I passed an antique store and saw an old printing press that looked like it belonged in the Colonial era. I rushed inside and asked the store owner how much it cost. The price, as usual, was absurd, but I paid without hesitation. I wasn't in a position to bargain.
         I took some time to learn how to operate it, then published my paper nationwide, anonymously of course. I'll see what comes of it. Hopefully real change comes about. Hopefully the people believe, and become outraged enough to do something about it. We'll see. This will probably be the last thing I writ; more than likely I'll be arrested and tortured, even killed perhaps, but I'm going to try and go into hiding. This is the start of something new.

Thursday, November 20- emotions

       In conflict for the better part of a month, the situation had finally reached its break point. The massive mood swings from joyousness, to sadness, to disgust, then anger spoke of a deeper mental problem than simple change, but that is to be ignored. At the moment Fear was at the controls within the mind of this little girl, and he was, per usual, clinging on by a thread, not in complete control of himself, more of a disruptive creature than an instigator.  Anger was slowly rising up to take over, in his typical state of rage, unsatisfied with the job being done by Fear. When he reached Fear he grabbed him by the collar and flung him across the room, where he was subsequently knocked unconscious. With Anger at the helm, he did his usual overboard antics making the scene very uncomfortable, or infuriating depending on how one might react. In his usual fashion, Anger made one gesture too many and the grandness of the action knocked him off his perch. Sadness then grabbed hold of the controls and quickly steered away from the entire scene altogether. She sat the little girl in a corner and she pouted for ceaseless hours, wallowing in self-pity. Disgust, disgusted with this pathetic behavior quickly rose out of the shadows and took out Sadness with a quick blow to the head, then took over for herself. She forced the girl up and began berating her for how she had behaved, particularly in that moment of shallow self-pity and weeping. She berated the girl for her ragged appearance after tears had made her nose bright,cherry red, her eyes puffy and bloodshot, and her face in a twisted, lumpy expression. Her overlord, Hate, looked on with approval. One day, if she was capable of keeping control, she being Disgust, then he would take over and up the ante. Joy saw this and knew she had to change the situation quickly, or it would become rather dire. She grabbed disgust by the hair and dragged her to the ground, then took over the controls. The girl stopped her self-judgement and tried to look toward a brighter future. She looked back on a happier past, and felt contentment in these memories. She realized that she was no longer living with that which had given her such wondrous memories, and at that moment sadness quickly took over operation yet again. All four of the other emotions directly involved dove at her at once and the brawl continued. The never ending cycle of emotional change never ceased, much to the ire of Apathy, Hatred, and Benevolence, the three lords of the emotional states.  

Monday, November 17- Found Poem

        The vast majority imprisoned

        a conscious effort to be common

Barbed wires of duty

Made bitter in war

A unique kind of danger

invading homes of strangers

military service itself

schools training people to serve

To volunteer for a "vital" risk

Their lives counter to purpose

3,000: 6,000: 120,000 shot

moved to detention camps

from the beginning perceived

As a war task 

As strangers of war  

Friday, November 14 - Berlin Wall

       Markus was living in a two room apartment in West Berlin. He wasn't wealthy by any means, but he did well for himself, and never was lacking in an area of importance. A perfect image of the hard-working middle class man. He was sitting on his plush chair, looking at the news on his small TV in the living room/kitchen, the only room apart from the bedroom. He was not watching it, only staring blandly at the screen, lost in his own head. He was thinking of a friend from years past. They had been extremely close in their teenage years, before the wall kept them apart indefinitely. The day that East Berlin was cordoned off from the rest of the world, the two friends were heart-broken. As time passed, Markus began to create his own life, but his friend never completely left his mind. It was during this moment of contemplation and reflection that a report on the news caught his attention. It declared that at midnight, East Berliners, "citizens of the GDR" they called them, would be free to cross the border. Markus was taken aback. For nearly 30 years, the East and West had been separated; the Soviets seemed determined to keep the people of East Berlin under lock and key and wall. They were giving up? Markus was dubious, but hopeful. Could he perhaps unite with his long separated friend? He began making plans for that night.
        Near midnight, Markus joined the massive crowd of people flowing out into the streets, many of them with smiles on their faces, rejoicing the end of the internment of their fellow Germans. As he made his way toward the wall, which was not too far from his modest apartment, his feelings of doubt began to slip away, as the joyousness of the crowd became infectious. He gave in completely to hope, allowing himself to be optimistic about the future. He began running towards the wall shamelessly, releasing years of repressed emotion. When he got to the wall it was one minute past midnight. Thousands poured through the gates from the Eastern side, hugging friends, hugging strangers, all so glad to be freed from oppression. Markus was stricken with the starved quality of their bodies. He knew that things were worse on the eastern side, but not how much. He looked all night for his friend, well into the morning hours. At around 7:00 he gave up and went home for some rest, disappointed but not daunted. After a few hours rest, he went out again to look for his friend, going to several of the places they had frequented as young men. For days he searched, never finding him. He decided that the next day he would search the eastern side.
           Tobias had lived in East Germany his whole life. He had never even been to the western side, even when the wall had not existed. He was a guard in the service of the party, and he never wavered in his loyalty. He had killed other guards, policemen, and friends in service to the party, and did not regret a moment of it. He even owned a car, being deemed worthy of the honor for his impeccable standing amongst the party and his perfect service record. He wept when they announced the opening of the borders. He remained in his tiny one room tenement even when they opened. He stayed there for days, stubbornly waiting. He watched as thousands of East Germans made their way to the other side, and even hurled stones at them. Word quickly spread to avoid the street on which Tobias resided.
             About a week after the opening of the borders, and the subsequent destruction of the wall, Tobias heard a knock on the door. He opened the door, and there stood a man about his age, who seemed vaguely familiar...
           A sudden spike of pain erupted in his head, and he cried out.
         "Are you alright?" said Markus in concern, for it was Markus at the door.
         "Go away!" shouted Tobias.
         "What? Why? Don't you remember me?" asked Markus somewhat hurt by this unexpected outburst.
         "I don't know you, get out of my house!" he said still clutching his head.
         "Tobias... it's me." said Markus desperately. Tobias released his head, grabbed Markus by the collar and threw him forcefully out of the door.
        After the door slammed in his face, Markus began to doubt himself. He was so sure this was Tobias, his friend from years past. Was he wrong? He must have been. Tobias couldn't completely forget him, could he?
        Markus left the desolate complex of small tenements and made his way back to West Berlin. He decided to give up on the search. He was no detective, clearly. He would just have to hope Tobias was happy.
       In a few weeks the news would report that a former guard on the Berlin Wall had shot several people making their way to West Berlin, before turning the gun on himself. The identity of the shooter was unknown.