Keyser Soze (The MYTH)

POEM 2: LOVE HAS MADE ME A KID @ HEART... & I LIKE IT

Poem 2:

LOVE HAS MADE ME A KID @ HEART… & I LIKE IT

When u placed ur bets on me
That was quite a gamble
The attraction was obvious
Me: chocolaty, cute, I’ve been called MAN-omi Campbell

2 u none of that really mattered
U saw beyond the posturing
Without dismissing my swagger

AND

U kiss me in the morning

Even though I look haggard

U dig the me that doesn’t have 2 make u laugh
And the fact that if we had an argument the last word I don’t have 2 have
U didn’t care about a car or how much financial cheddar in my account may be heaped
Instead u wonder if I slept soundly no disturbances felt not one peep

U don’t mind that u make me a bit juvenile
And all my poetry lines couplets
U just laugh cuz u don’t care
Then shrug ur shoulders 2 say whatever, fuck it

U wrap me more around ur finger
Everytime ur gaze lingers
Everytime u cry

Or decide 2 let sleeping dogs lie
Everytime u get choked up in ur esophageal
Or exhibit how u keep it real

And if I die b4 I wake God can take my soul
But my heart is urs 2 take.
The wise say love is friendship set on fire
then stand back y’all I’m a 5 alarm 4 u 2 admire.

I choose u because I’d rather be always happy than always be right

Because my minds’ intergalactic synapses finally firing right

I choose you because our family is where I want to be

I choose and so glad you claim me. 

Balled and chained but oh so free

No need 2 say the words

SO:  1 4 3

POEM 1: I REMEMBER BEING INNOCENT

I Remember Being Innocent

By: T.Duran-Olds

Rosy in cheek, and hair so fair

Enter a room, and let’s compare

Was I

Purity’s muse but pushing its boundaries?

Or more like

Cloroxed, Absolved, Bleached

More than chaste and cleaner than laundry

Now

You

Are

Gone

Away

Innocence corrupted

    Seeping

                                                                               out as I learned to play doctor that day

The story goes Eve ate from the tree of knowledge

Well call me Adam with Internet chat & the locker room college

No fig leaf can cover the nakedness of the exposed mind.

If corruption is the prison then I will do the time. 

I remember being innocent and as my tears attest sometimes quite well

As I’m removed from innocent’s comforting womb where now will I dwell?

My actions, so smug, and dangerously rebellious

I didn’t know what I was doing: young, supercilious, & careless

Innocence I meant you no harm

And it pains me to see you walk out the door

I have truly lost the battle and I’m to battered for the war

Explicate Part 1 I hope it posts!!!

Let Me Sing A Song For You…Hope You Like It

SONG

BY FRANK O’HARA

In my review and deep reading of Frank O’Hara’s poem SONG (stuck in traffic) I found myself reflecting on the man, his purpose for writing, and the critiques his poetry has received.  O’ Hara seemed somewhat dismissive his poetry. He often playfully referred to his work as something that just happened, and that his poetry and its construction were not very heavily detailed oriented (Hartman 41). Ironically but apropos his poetry tended to be drawn from moments in life (primarily his life and surrounding events) (Hartman 40).  This idea on his work sets forth the precursory ideas and thesis for the explication of this poem.  SONG with its combination of simple, dense, and foreign language, image creation, stanza composition, and disconnected flow is a metaphor for the irregularities, monotony, pitfalls and awes of life.  These extemporaneous tools of literary construction create a mood and setting that cast the feelings of the labored life, acceptance of the “real”, and promise of what could be.

 O’Hara’s usage of uncomplicated language and nonchalant renderings of matter-o-fact statements in this poem connote three main ideas:  1. He was keenly observant of all the things afoot in his life 2.  Awareness does not mean taking things so profoundly serious 3.  Understated language doesn’t mean frivolity and no worth of the subject matter (his life).  SONG illustrates that flowery language and complex text when mixed with the simple can deliver a profound message, and the on the fly poetry of SONG shows depth in the highest sense of staying in the moment.

SONG reflects a whimsical charm with deep revelation of affection via the usage of metaphor and straight talk to paint a picture of life, love, and the possibilities of both as they happen.  The tone is deliberate, bright, lively, but brief.  This tone in itself seems like a metaphor for O’hara’s life he died tragically at 40. O’Hara is purposeful of painting a picture to grab the audiences attention.   This is to take the reader on a ride composed of literary snap shots.  Each stanza creates a snapshot that feeds off the previous stanza.  There is a connotation of “this is a day in the life of ________” and the blank of whose life is left up to reader to fill in. 

The opening stanza is the set up of familiarity and accessibility to life’s general and daily grind:

I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab,

which is typical

and not just of modern life.   

this movement into and recognition of the mundane is powerful as a  statement and in its simplicity    There is no sense of apology for blatantly pointing out the dreck of life, but there is a second stanza and metaphor usage that lets the readers know there is more to come from life and from the work. 

 In the second stanza, interesting metaphors are used and this application mirrors the happenings that can come about and provide surprises.  These uses of vivid metaphors in juxtaposition to the straight talk of the first stanza also create the second snapshot in the movement of poem and the movement in “the day of life” thematic play.  There is a heavier feeling in this stanza almost a mood change due to being stuck in traffic and being “stuck” in the routine (Perloff 787).  The stanza also introduces the foreshadowing of deeper revelation of affection  that will culminate in the last stanza.  There is also a sense that these loving feelings that are being provoked in the mundanity of the day, and the life leaves the subject of the poem to feel like a foreigner though this is their life. 

The mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves

 must lovers of Eros end up with Venus

 muss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you  

“The mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves” the images of mud being caked on the nerves of a person pulls the readers’ attention away from the actual idea of real life traffic slowing one down and creates the heart’s traffic being slowed down.  Then there is the introduction of the images and questions of affection and gender attraction with “must lovers of Eros end up with Venus”.  These questions also can slow down the traffic of ones’ affections and life.  “Muss es sein? es muss nicht sein”  German to English translation of this line is “must it be? it not must be”  the use of a foreign language and the use of a question and then answer connotes movements and stops in the flow.

The third stanza simply begins with a disgruntled admission and moves forth, “how I hate disease, it's like worrying that comes true”.  In this admission there is a move to change the status quo of life, but one must admit that they are stuck in it all. “And it simply must not be able to happen”  is the final line of the stanza before the close of the poem.  There is a feeling of let’s not worry about the bog of all that slows us down.  This bog of mud and traffic slows down life and acceptance of this fact is key for further life exploration and to be prepared when things start moving again. 

The final stanza and snapshot of the poem goes, in a world where you are possible my love, nothing can go wrong for us, tell me”.  There is a push through the mundane, through the questions and fear that slows life down.  This stanza also closes with no punctuation for there to be more revealed.  This is the final example of the evolution and movement of the day and the life.  Though done on the fly life and poetry can create beautiful images if one chooses to look at them.  I believe this is the genius of SONG  and O’Hara even if he were alive today to say nope that’s not what it meant at all I could always simply say, “Well that’s what I got from it when I read it in the back of a taxicab.”

  

Works Cited

Anne, Hartmann. "Confessional Counterpublics in Frank O'Hara and Allen Ginsberg." JSTOR. JSTOR. Web. 18 Aug. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25167541>.

Gooch, Brad. City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994. Print.

Perloff, Marjorie. "Frank O'Hara and the Aesthetics of Attention." Www.jstor.org. Web. 18 Sept. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/302703>.

Explicate This! Part 2

With The Poem Comes the song!!!!!

FUN FACT:

The barber here is actually on Larchmont in LA! He's Cut my hair before! LOL!

Explicate This!

Frank O'Hara's

SONG
          
          
   I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab
   which is typical
   and not just of modern life
            
   mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves
   must lovers of Eros end up with Venus
   muss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you
  
   how I hate disease, it's like worrying
   that comes true
   and it simply must not be able to happen
  
   in a world where you are possible
   my love
   nothing can go wrong for us, tell me

Esthero-Gone Live

Hi My Name Is Terrance and I Love Poetry.

I think I had my first taste of the good stuff when I was about 5 years old, and I got my first hit from a fat sack of Roses Are Red.  By the time the poem the poem got to the third line, "I think you're cute"  I was hooked!  The last line was, "And I want to kiss you."  I was like WOW this girl is awesome, deep, and so talented (she also had good taste).  I knew I was a fan of poetry for life.

I know that not all poetry will be as simple or direct.  The first introduction I had to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land I knew I had a bad batch or at least and overdose but even in that there was so much to take from it and so much to love.  


Poetry takes the complex and makes it simple, or makes the simple, complex.  It liken it to drug and when used properly can provide quite a rush.  When discovering the "awe" and power of nature and questions of and who God is in Shelly's Mont Blanc I remember rush of blood to my face and my cheeks tingled (I wish I was making it up but it happened).  Most of my poetic addictions aren't so lofty or to out of reach for beginning poetry reader.  At the most base form of attraction for me poetry begets lyrics.  Lyrics are the poetry of our everyday lives that is being pumped throughout our i-pods, stereos, televisions, and etc these poetic lyrics are a quick way for a junkie to get high right in front of world and most don't even know it.  For a quick example I share Esthero and her singing GONE.  Notice how the crowd goes crazy and no even the inflection she's going to use on the words ABOUT to come out if her mouth.  This was a live performance and she changed it up a bit, but the crowed went on singing as the thought she would...ENJOY

Well It's Not Going Anywhere!

    My feelings about technology in the classroom are, at best, described as fluid.  These feelings flow from ecstatic to maudlin.  Ecstatic because as the world become more technologically advance the more exposure our students have to certain technologies and methods of learning the better.  This exposure and education through these technological advances will prepare them for a world outside of the classroom.  

     Maudlin because I think in technology there is an ease that makes retention and learning to easy thing to replicate by simply pressing a button.  So if so easy to replicate then why hold on to any knowledge, why read the book if one can google a summary?  No all students will be (for lack of a better word) lazy, and not all teachers will dial it in (another concern of mine).  However we as a society and as an ever expanding  and  advancing global community are not going backwards or slowing down.  So as educators we must utilize new tools for our advantage as well as showing our students the benefits of being well rounded in all aspects and modes of learning... So in the words or Jay-Z in the song Off That, "Welcome to the future!"  

Off That - Jay Z Feat. Drake (OFFICIAL Blueprint 3 Audio)

WELCOME TO MY BLOG!