A peasant with a penchant for rhyming
4:09 pm Sigma lobby. Based on ‘The Singing Butler’ by Jack Vettriano. Finished 11:12 pm my dorm.
Gain
At last, I danced with Autumn
on the sands that were our stage,
and branded in Blythe’s bowler
every choler of his wage.
A love that stemmed from thorny brush,
to now, my blushing hue,
clutching to the comfort of a dream that died in dew.
-Amy Struthers
February 17th:
Gabe, Ryan, Tim, and myself all meet up in Stewart. Gabe tries to persuade me as to why I shouldn’t leave the university. I didn’t feel up to writing a poem.
February 18th:
Felt like falling asleep in class. I didn’t feel like writing a poem.
February 19th: Fell asleep in the lobby and woke up to get ready for class. Based off J.E.H. MacDonald’s ‘The Tangled Garden’. Started 1:50 pm. 7:00pm.
Johnsy
When paths aren’t all that tangled,
and dreams are spun and cast,
and bushels are as fragrant
as the gardens we have passed,
will you still sing of Behrman,
when you rise to note what’s last?
When some boats aren’t that sturdy
and beaches boast as grand
and hands aren’t all that calloused
by the tilling of the land,
will you still write of playtime when you’ve grown too tired for sand?
-Amy Struthers
Based on Gus Eagleton’s ‘Exhale/Inhale’.
Started 2:34pm. My dorm. Ended: 11:46pm.
Fences
Borders are like bike-locked beaks
screeching for a key in suffocating song.
They’re trees
in plastic planters
spotting images of fading sequoias
and spines
to loose-leafed papers
that capture catfish gliding
in a travel-sized ocean.
It’s lotion
on the landing
and the branding
of a cold sweat.
And paint on the planks where
the city flashes in lights.
-Amy Struthers
Based on Johann Georg Meyer’s ‘Betrayed’. Started: 12:03am. My dorm. Finished: 3:39pm.
The Ant
Pity the creature
that follows its thirst up the cobblestoned path
only to find a well that’s devoid of water
and a breadcrumbed poison rising in a writhing gut.
In a trail that marks its end,
a procession of pill bugs play on.
It’s dawn,
and the sprinklers keep turning.
Thrown like a sash to the flames
a wet,
wide-eyed wonder
groans into a grave of grass.
-Amy Struthers
I’m paying the price for going out late/staying up early with Gabe. Still feeling under the weather. 7:34pm. 7:52pm My dorm. Based on Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s A Bachelor’s Dog.
(Untitled)
Luxury-
that six-lettered lap dog
he sells with a smile
can only afford
a rolled-over belly.
Barking at the telly,
he spits a tooth-marked chimney to the side
and fills his lungs with smoking cash.
With beer on the burner,
Turner churns in the distance.
-Amy Struthers
Started 8:47pm/9:51pm finished. Tim and Ryan’s dorm. Tim gets upset with my first draft and tells me that I’m selling myself short/need to keep working on it. Based on Caspar David Friedrich’s ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’.
Drift
Is this the way the world is?
A slow sail onward
or a deep breath in?
A cloth fin
to the side
of a wide
wind compassing home
or the froth of forgetfulness blurring into
an amber horizon?
-Amy Struthers
February 12th: Woke up early and messaged Alex/watched Chuck Palahniuk interviews. Spent a good portion of the day communicating with Micah. Later in the evening, Gabe and I get Olive Garden. When we return, we’re set to watch t.v. together, but I remember I have a poem to complete and need to answer groupchat. I tell him he has to wait. Started 9:08pm. Finished 10:42pm. (Based on Joseph Christian Leyendecker’s painting ’The Violinist and His Assistant’).
Moonlight on 7th
Who could imagine a tree
singing of heaven
in an uprooted forest
or the Actaeon of ambition
daring to quench his thirst
with a sonata
that waltzes on glass?
Here
stir the sonnets of broken bars
and the metronomed soles
downing the beats
they call
ichor.
Tossing peanuts into caps,
a sleight of hand,
sprouts diamonds from the waterlogged wells
and in a misguided hope, spares a penny for good luck.
In a city that’s forgotten its core,
what’s to make of the hollow,
in which the hair of Pegasus still sounds?
Grazing the grounds,
the stag strings his bow with a quivering arrow.
His marrow?
The moonlight.
-Amy Struthers
