I've been kind of indecisive about whether I want to use this blog for my poetry as well as my life events and travels. The thing is, my real poetry tends to be kind of personal, and I've always had a strange fascination with dark poetry as well. I'm not even a particularly "dark" or sad person, I just tend to intensify or exaggerate the human experience of emotion as I write, and I find that it can be healing to write meaningful dark poetry, even if it's not the most uplifting or true to reality. It's sort of a cathartic introspection made into an art form with the sounds and rhythms of words.
But the inner editor in the back of my mind keeps telling me to censor myself. "What if your future employer sees this?" "What if people don't understand it or interpret it the wrong way?" "What if people don't get it?" I used to post poetry anonymously on sites like Figment.com and powerpoetry.com, but now I think it's time to truly own my work.
Some people just genuinely don't appreciate or understand poetry, and I suppose that's okay. But I've decided I want to live a life of being true to myself, and I want to share the things I'm passionate about without worrying about what others may think.
One of my pet peeves is explaining the meaning of a poem, since I feel like it's up to the reader to interpret the poem for herself or himself. However, I'll provide a little backstory/ context to these poems as I post them.
So, with that said, I'm going to share some of my favorite poems I've written.
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ODE TO COLLEGE APPLICATIONS
I wrote this one back in December 2015 when I was applying to college. I felt frustrated by the stress and competitiveness of the application process. While I don't oppose using numbers and test scores to measure college preparedness, I think it's important to remember that there's a person behind every application. I think that education should be focused on learning and developing as a person, rather than memorizing information to pass a test and forgetting it all immediately afterward.
Take my life, or its expression
Then apply a linear regression
And color inside the lines
Prime factorize, catabolize
Analyze, then decide
The course of a life
I suspect I’m a statistic in a system
But maybe that’s my natural skepticism
Yet even through the cynicism, realize
That high school is individualism’s demise
To teach that Life is a multiple choice test
A) Doctor
B) Lawyer
C) Scientist
A hierarchical economic assessment
Society’s intellectual investment
A Common Core to
Race to the Top with
No Child Left Behind
Education with an aftertaste of government
So sometimes I forget
To suppress the distress
When I’m an adolescent mess and
I can’t impress the rest who expect
Only the best
I can’t traverse the disconnect
Between excelling at tests
And reaching success
So I express this, to redress this
As I submit my college applications
With anticipation and trepidation
I hope when they finally assess us
They do not oppress us.
Then apply a linear regression
And color inside the lines
Prime factorize, catabolize
Analyze, then decide
The course of a life
I suspect I’m a statistic in a system
But maybe that’s my natural skepticism
Yet even through the cynicism, realize
That high school is individualism’s demise
To teach that Life is a multiple choice test
A) Doctor
B) Lawyer
C) Scientist
A hierarchical economic assessment
Society’s intellectual investment
A Common Core to
Race to the Top with
No Child Left Behind
Education with an aftertaste of government
So sometimes I forget
To suppress the distress
When I’m an adolescent mess and
I can’t impress the rest who expect
Only the best
I can’t traverse the disconnect
Between excelling at tests
And reaching success
So I express this, to redress this
As I submit my college applications
With anticipation and trepidation
I hope when they finally assess us
They do not oppress us.
___________________________________________________________________
LINGUISTICS
I wrote this one a few years back, after I had taken a hiatus from writing. I was rediscovering how much I loved the rhythm of poetry, and found myself thinking about how words are so fleeting and thoughtless, yet also so ageless and permanent. I love the fluid rhythm of the lines in this poem.
Recapitulation, an unearthing
Of my sound appreciation
For the murmurings of words
And their tooth-stains in my
Aging mouth that crack
Along the fault lines of the
Self-inflicted tragedies
That emulsify the flavors
And the poignant savoury
Seeds of the antediluvian
Attempt at growing the
Trees of life-blood
And the names that spilled
From Adam’s tongue
Fleshy whitish grubs of
Intricate insignificance
Otherwise apprised
As token talents of
Human existentialism
Or simply footprints
Baptized by the tide
Effaced in an ephemeral
Instant, yet inexplicably
Permanent fossils
Etched in consciousness
Transcendentalists
Of Time and Space
Instrument of late-night
Discourse over tea
And stale bread
The chemical elements
Of our communion
Traveling photons of
Solar radiation
Created to give life
But burning the skin
Nevertheless
Of my sound appreciation
For the murmurings of words
And their tooth-stains in my
Aging mouth that crack
Along the fault lines of the
Self-inflicted tragedies
That emulsify the flavors
And the poignant savoury
Seeds of the antediluvian
Attempt at growing the
Trees of life-blood
And the names that spilled
From Adam’s tongue
Fleshy whitish grubs of
Intricate insignificance
Otherwise apprised
As token talents of
Human existentialism
Or simply footprints
Baptized by the tide
Effaced in an ephemeral
Instant, yet inexplicably
Permanent fossils
Etched in consciousness
Transcendentalists
Of Time and Space
Instrument of late-night
Discourse over tea
And stale bread
The chemical elements
Of our communion
Traveling photons of
Solar radiation
Created to give life
But burning the skin
Nevertheless
___________________________________________________________________________________
FOR MADAYA
I wrote this one back in January 2016 when the city of Madaya, Syria was under siege and innocent civilians were starving as a result of the conflict there. I am rather passionate about helping refugees, although I feel kind of powerless to do anything at this point in my life. So, I wrote a poem. At the time, I was just beginning to learn about the situation and about Islamic culture in preparation for Abu Dhabi, so please excuse any inaccuracies.
January 2016: soldiers siege the city
Red rockets, bombs bursting
Expired lives, afterthoughts of pity
War is no fleeting stranger to you
Only dull longing for the Syria you knew
Did you think of the presidents, sheikhs, emirs
Gleaming white palaces, playing at politics
Excess food discarded to the dogs
As they would soon throw you out
Growing fat on delicious prejudices
Did you whisper to your husband
When one kilo of flour sold for $200
His computer engineering degree
Better burned to keep warm
War-worthless except in Celsius
Did you talk to your children of
shawarma and tabbouleh
To make the taste of leaves, grass
And salty, clouded water
Stay inside their stomachs
Did you console your listless baby
Swathed in the folds of your abaya
And hope that it would never, never
Become a burial shroud
Though you dared not say it aloud
Did you pray for mercy, inshallah
As the scornful couch-dwelling activists
Prayed for Paris, posted for Brussels
And bowed their heads to their cell phones
But you were forgotten
Did you weep when the UN envoys came
After weeks of denying your existence
Did you calculate the volume of rations
Divided among 300,000 needy mouths
And realize there would never be enough
Mother Madaya, we will answer to you
Humanity will confess its war crimes
History will no longer repeat, in time
The silenced voices will be heard
The captives delivered
The peace-anthem sung
And from every person’s tongue
Will spring the shout, “For Syria!”
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FORGERY
I wrote this brief poem about a month ago. I was thinking about the power of media to create conformity and fuel a system of consumerism based on feelings of inadequacy.
She was a moon made beautiful by its hollows
She effaced herself in counterfeit
Traced a self in drab eyeliner and red lip
Defaced in the contours of cosmetic forgery
She lost herself in sinister mimicry
The boxing-up people packaged her limbs
Cinched her skin and stitched her thin
She watered the ashes beneath her eyes
Emerged in a garden of thinly veiled lies, and yet--
She was a moon made beautiful by its hollows
___________________________________________________________________________________Finally, I'd like to add a new poem which I just recently wrote. It exemplifies my typical poetic style, which is eccentric but sort of lovely. I take inspiration from e e cummings and other atypical poets.
TROPOSPHERE
Can you feel the air around you?
Tingling epidermis, winter chill
Spidered skin-slivers slough snow
You are dandelion frostbite
Hypertension, hyperspace
Feet lighter than light
Heart-strung tighter than tight
Life infiltrated thick your skin
Gritty atoms in a stardust sieve
Theft your breath there and here
Left spinning kilometers an hour
Gravity that trips you tumbling
And sticks you together
Return to the dust, child
You've iron veins, you earthling
Cry the eyesores away, take wing
If the fracturing excess kaleidoscope
Shatters your fragile vertebrae
When world-weight folds shoulders
No need to stumble, graceless bird
Throw your body to the wind
-Please give credit if copying, sharing, or re-publishing my poems. Thanks!
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