Bad Poetry

"Reverse Dexterity" and "On Rumination and/or writing"

Two slower poems, lacking the odd punch of the last poem posted, showing more of my melancholy artistic side. In short, I don't know why I'm posting these, but they were asking me to put them up. I had no choice. It was a poetic hostage situation.

Reverse Dexterity was written for a poetry class but also for Amanda. So I suppose it was written for Amanda using the cover of a Poetry Class. I don't write enough for her anymore. I should. I will.

On Rumination has an odd title, and odd words in it. For ease of use, and in order not to confuse those of you who don't often peruse dictionaries looking for odd words, I will define the three words I selected to be at the center of my work.

Homoousian - the characteristic of God the Father that says that he is one and the same and yet separated from God the Son.

Homopteran - of or belonging to the Cicada family.

Martensite - the resulting hard brittle metal that hot steel will become when immersed in cold water or otherwise cooled too quickly. It tends to be useless.

Happy reading!


reverse dexterity

I had a mirror on my desk
in which I used to practice
writing sentences backwards,
just so I would be able to bring up
reverse dexterity at parties.

I talked to myself then,
wondered aloud at the thought
of a first kiss. Decided it was
the soul at the speed of light;
electromagnetic innocence soaring in space,
until it breaks against beaches of stars.

One day the mirror itself broke.
I no longer remember how,
certainly not against beaches of stars,
but it did fracture perfectly.
The center, dusty silver, was surrounded
by hundreds of lives at different angles,
tinkling dizzily like the cocktail glasses
people’s hands write with, scribbling backwards
as the stars kiss at the speed of the soul.


on rumination and/or writing

Robert Frost’s typewriter
must have gone through
reams of snowy paper
and miles of inky ribbon.

I have no typewriter, no ribbon, but
my monitor screen goes on for miles,
or inches that seem like miles,
or just inches of tri-colored pixels.

Tri-colored like a TV screen,
like the one we had when I was young.
I’d spray the screen with the ironing water
or spit and watch, magnified, the pixels split.
They split. Tri colored. Three. Three. Three.
Down the screen, water ran. Three. Three. Three

tiles of different size repeating on a bathroom floor
always make for an interesting pee.
A pattern. A pattern. I’ll find it. It’s there.
I’ll cross my eyes. I close them. The tiles
dance. Outside, a homopterous buzz disturbs my squares,
my pattern-less tiles, and they flee into post-August air.
I ruminate blankly with no squares to turn in my head.
The cicada sings again. Sings again. And again and…

Or. And/or. I love the way that looks. Inclusive and
exclusive
at the same time. God the Father and/or God the son.
Homoousian, they are of the same nature.
Exclusive, they are not the same.
I’ll be a father and/or a son one day.
And? Or?

My poetry is martensitic. Hot steel
made for hammers will become brittle,
fissured, useless carbide of iron,
when immersed in cold water.
Martensite strength will shatter against
real steel unaltered. My molten against
Robert Frost. Frost. Cold.

Crack.

Andrew

posted by Andy W. Anderson, Ph.D Candidate @ 1:26 PM