Wherein I wrote a poem for a class that isn't a writing class

On a Modern Maiden Most Fair

With pants so tight I don't know
how blood gets from top to bottom
and back again.  I mean it,
I really don't see how your
sultry knees bend more than two degrees.
I'm near one-hundred percent certain
you stood behind a curtain
and pranced in a tub of India Ink,
or doused yourself in latex-free paint.
And your shoes!  My god your shoes.
You took the term 'stiletto' and ran
off with it.  Those heels haven't seen
the light of day since renaissance Italy,
since literal cloak and dagger play.
Blacker than the night when all the stars have died,
with imitation rhinestones to remind us
how those heavenly bodies used to twinkle.
And you jingle! With every stabbing step
you take across the floor, distracting me
from wondering how your feet don't sink.
You've got more fake gold than a Ralex vendor,
more fake gems than a bedazzler gone wild.
It's amazing you can even lift those
arm-like sticks hanging from your shoulders.
And the only thing sharper
than your weaponized footwear has to be
the embarrassed-red nails on the end of your skeletal fingers.
How you got in here armed to the teeth is,
to put it simply, far beyond me.
Your hair is a hayfield
in the middle of a monsoon, a wind-blown
strand damn near obliterated my eye from across the room.
What a black and tangled mess nests
above your head, I bet
even Medusa would fill with dread.
I'm not sure what else to say,
other than it must be uncomfortable, having
an octopus orgy raging above your brow.
Looking at you I now understand why
Picasso stopped his brush.
You stole all of his paints and threw them
on your face in a way so haphazard
a haz-mat team is on their way.
Your eyes are bluer than
that clue-seeking dog.  And your lips,
oh those lips, are two Hindenbergs in bloom.

wherein i did not win a poetry contest

which honestly isn't a big deal! it cost me nothing, literally zero things, to enter it so it's not a big loss at all. the good news is now that the contest is over, i think i can post my submission! like i said in the last post, it's a revision of an older poem of mine, so it might seem familiar to the two readers i have. without further ado, here it is!

Thoughts While Flying Home

One

steamboat’s weight worth

of cicadas’ droning

drowning out whatever

my cousin twice removed is saying.  It’s not important

that the sun hangs low or

that the air is closer to a stew,

thick and bubbling with the scent of heat.  I’m numb to it,

the vibrations of countless crystalline

wings blocking it all out

everything

block out the sun

two

times this week I sat legs crossed

head back laughing while grilling meat

told a tale, full of sizzle with a spiced up plot,

our mouths drip dripping with lust,

and our tiny plastic pitchforks hungry in the air

three

nights straight we sat while artificial

stars on our vine hidden porch blinked in time with

their highborn stellar kin.  And all I

could do was sit and watch, bourbon

in one hand and cigar in the other

four

kids in a tree,

no fears, no cares

responsibilities unheard of

sap the only worry, once it sticks

to hair or skin the only way out is a bath.

back to the tree one day and

all we found was a stump

five

redneck hick prick bastards

hollering that the South will rise again,

too full of cheap rotgut whiskey to realize

the South they want, She’s not ever coming back

She never really fell in the first place

No, she just changed, she just grew

into something a little less ugly,

a child after a tantrum

hi there i am alive still

i entered a poetry contest.  the poem i submitted was a revision of "thoughts I had while flying home".  i'll post it up here sometime next month, whether i win or not.  i was proud of it, there weren't huge changes, but still.  also i am totally going to make more of an effort to post on this thing more than once every few months, i promise.

pinkie swear

wherein i write a poem for someone

so, as some of you may or may not know i practice a martial art called arnis.  i've been involved with it since i started college way back in 2006.  now, i have learned a lot of things; how to hit dudes with sticks, how to not get hit by sticks, things like that.  i've been able to help teach the class, been able to pass along some of my own knowledge.  it's been an absolutely wonderful experience that i would highly recommend to anyone who has even the slightest interest.  it helped me a lot with self-confidence among other things.  all in all, it was an excellent decision.

and as a kind of 'thank you' to our instructor for teaching us and passing along all kinds of knowledge, every year our club gets him a christmas present.  one year we got him some nice tea, along with a nice tea set.  another year we got him some nice training weapons.  this year we gave him a nice set of kendo armor and some associated gear.  but this year i wanted to do something else, something a little more personal.  now granted, i'm not skilled at making things, and i don't have a lot of money to spend on lavish gifts, so i wrote him a poem.  it's about things i've learned through the years, not techniques or drills, but more philosophical things i guess, more along the lines of life lessons.

lesson plan

face your life head on, straight
backed, controlled, and proud.
only raise fist in defense,
never hate nor rage.

remember that fear does not mean weak,
running in the face of it does.
courage and bravery are both decisions
and it's up to you to choose.

step not from your holy ground
let no foe profane
and when you finally leave this world,
leave behind good name.

wherein caolan and the author imagineer a burger

alright fans here we go.

my roommate caolan and i have imagineered another amazing burger.  let me break this down for you

one half-pound patty
half pound of bacon
table spoon of butter (not just any butter mind you, but a highly specialized butter made by caolan and i.  it was butter mixed with pure bacon grease.  and garlic salt because we're out of regular salt)
bun made out of four regular buns.

i have dubbed it the Triple B, which might be the only thing i have ever capitalized on this blog.  the Triple B of course stands for (bacon)buttery bacon burger.  caolan further specialized his by creating a bacon frisco sauce. how he did this i will never know, his sorcerer ways are too far beyond my mortal understanding.

the patties themselves were cooked in the oven at 350 degrees for somewhere around 15 minutes i think.  i lost track of the time because i was busy looking up bacon grease butter recipes, of which i found exactly zero.  i have created bacon grease butter, this is my legacy.  this is what i will be known for in history.

the main concern i had for this creation was whether or not the buns would hold up.  after all we basically took a four bun thing and cut it in half to create the bun for the Triple B.  it held up reasonably well, until i started dipping the Triple B into ketchup.  i think the stress caused by picking it up and turning it over and doing the tango with it and all sorts of other dance moves/sports plays.  it was then that the move called the Triple B division was created.  the Triple B division is done by flipping the burger in half, and then in half again, creating a monstrosity known as the Triple B tower.  caolan, using the unholy power that flows through his veins, was the first to master this technique.  my attempt only brought shame to my family.  i fully expect to be disowned for my transgressions.

pictures of the Triple B summoning process will be up tomorrow probably, i promise.

also also

TREY FACT OF THE DAY: whenever i talk to my grandmom or granddad my southern accent comes out like a guy on broadway (did you get the joke)

that wasn't the main point of making this blog post believe it or not. a little while ago i gave a friend some ideas for his comic and he decided to use one sort of! hurray for me! here's a link:

http://www.asandiford.com/2011/09/a-tragic-end-not-easily-avoided/

now granted i know you are all going to check that out to support me in my endeavors, because that's what a cavalcade of crazed fans is for. HOWEVER it would be awesome if you checked out the rest of his comics too, which are pretty neat even though his canadian i think

wherein i reveal a secret of my writing process

TREY FACT OF THE DAY(read: POST [read: MONTH OR SO]) i have been drinking hot chocolate like it was going out of style (if it goes out of style i will simply cease to exist).

okay so i guess something worth mentioning is i have a specific process for revising poetries. i do it as i go along, so really by the time i've finished writing a poem it's already been revised a bunch. granted it's mostly things like word choice and line breaks that get revised but i mean, that counts right? i do occasionally go back and add more to certain poetries, but for the most part nah. does that make me a bad writer? yeah probably. do i care? yeah a little. so i guess what you can take from this is that any poetries that show up on here are still definitely works in progress and i totally reserve the right to say they suck and take them down if they suck so bad i have to take them down.

that being said here is a poetries! it's about a sandwich i made one time

(untitled for now)

a loss of sight and sound means i have an excuse

to ignore the clicking clacking vorpal fangs that are said to lurk

always three feet nearby. Or an excuse to ignore

the high pitched whining nagging banshee scream that i get

from my smoke alarm when I go Dr. Frankenstein with the eggs

and the bacon that I exhume from the fridge. I call my frying pan Igor.

I slice and dice and splice together an abomination and grin wildly

when the grease pops bomb my bare flesh, melting the skin ever so slightly.

The Bacon Tomb is what this monster will be called when it terrorizes the villages

of my arteries. Six strips,

two eggs fried in bacon-born grease,

and untold amounts of peanut butter dripping through the cracks

and holes of buttered bread. The satisfying crunch echoes

in my mouth's cavern while the grease rises in revolt

and the bacon takes to arms

and the eggs boil tar and strip feathers

But I am too in love with my creature to notice my tower burning down.