Venom

I watch the snake whiskfully weave across the grass.
Slowly its wire body bends side
to side, like a paper clip bent outta
shape; it hovers across the green grass
on the lawn.

I am captivated by its motion, right and
left and right and
left again, as it grows larger, fleeing vanishing points
and all else behind it.

I am mesmerized be the dance and entranced
by the slow, simple rhythm; it smiles, flashing a gleam
of white, I am delighted --
struck! snagged by the serpentine tooth!

I fall to the ground, like a paper clip bent outta
shape; I sink into the green grass
on the lawn.

ED

The Painter

Here is a new poem. It's about art, and being an artist. Thanks goes out to IB English for opening my mind to a world of poems about poems and poets. Jolly good, enjoy.

"The Painter"

Each strand and
every sinew within
creaks and stretches so
deliberately as she gently
tickles the canvas with
her horsehair hands
immersed with emotion.

She steers strokes elegantly and
tiny little tracks bloom,
leaving behind bits
of color, fractions of flavor resting
contently atop the cloth.

All of her body's breath rushes
to her extremities as to not
limit her limbs while she slowly
extracts ideas from her
mind and pours them out onto the
canvas, gracefully charting the atlas
to her subconscious, like
Freud and Magellan would have.

She takes a  step back.
Cocks her head to the right; a chicken
observing a washing machine;
a frustrated sigh and a new canvas
are the fruits.

From the gallery,
all admire her failed
attempts.

ED

Coefficient of Static Friction

In this world, the laws of Physics govern our motion. Simple rules like, what goes up must come down, determine the way we experience the world around us. However, the more and more I live and experience this world that I am in, the more I find that these laws also tend to govern the way humans act, and the way events unfold.

This is especially pertinent with the idea of coefficients of friction. The coefficient of friction is simply a number that tells you how much a surface will resist a force applied to an object sitting on the surface. It pretty much lets you know how much extra oomph one must supply in order to get something to move when sitting on a surface. The coefficient of static friction represents how much force one must add in order to put something at rest into motion. This force is much higher than the force required to keep something moving on a surface with friction.

I feel that this is a theme that constantly occurs in life: it takes a lot of effort to get something going. There must be some sort of external motivation to inspire one to take any action; whether it be hunger inspiring eating, or hate inspiring violence, people only act when an outside force acts on them. However, it seems that whenever starting out on a new endeavor, it takes a ton of force to get things rolling. The school year just started for me and I'm trying to get back into the groove of things, but it seems as if the rites of summer have been etched into my frontal lobe, and I can't overcome them. It will take a good deal of force to overcome these habits and tendencies, but I know as school lingers on, these thoughts will dwindle and once again I will be back doing homework and acing tests -- it's simply physics.

This coefficient stands to show that not everything comes easy, and a little effort is required for anyone to get anything. Things don't just fall into your lap -- you have to work for them, and try for them. How else will you gather enough force to overcome your schema? Be motivated.

-Evan Dodd

Judgement

There are eyes all around,

surrounding us, peeping by a

creepy corner, darting through

the darkness, blinking flashes of

white ovals, sprinkled with red thread.

Big brother, with his everwatchful

eye, scanning each pace, scrutinizing

every last brittle bone of naked

figures shivering in the dark.

They silently move through the shadows,

each optical detector cataloging and

detailing defects – scars, pustules,

pimples, ingrown hairs, leaving scarcely

enough room to breath; these artists

with no place to fall, stand doomed,

hoping this judgement will soon draw to

an end – begetting only more

scrutiny. Helpless, frames fall to the floor

and refrain from rising, silently expecting

murmured mockeries as tears

puddle the floor.

ED

So I watched this movie

Kick-Ass should be renamed Suck-Ass.


ED

Unrequited

Carefully, tediously, stumbling through the black space illuminated by darkness. Knowing every single motion, every twitch of my hand, as blindly, I finger the smooth plaster, oh! most intimate drywall; knowing every painted pasture, meeting every intricacy of that wall.

And desperately I cry for a map, simply searching for a light switch with bone-bare fingers, tirelessly scraping at the container, as if to ask, Hello? Is there anyone there?

Sadly, slowly, I await the voice of someone -- you,  a stranger, anyone -- only to be disappointed by the melancholy reply of a lonesome echo wandering through the dark; not even the satisfaction of a silhouette

on its haunches in the black, hovering over nothing. Then there is plastic --

I am alone, amidst the darkness of a lamp.

ED

Ambulance to 6082 St. Augustine Rd.

There, lying on the plate, in a
puddle of red sauce, was spaghetti.
Tangled and maimed, it rolled over,
called out for help--I looked it over;
no one's eyes moved from their own
dish. I poked it with my fork, 
watched in shock as the sauce 
flowed from her forearm, just like noodles
on the stained sidewalk.
She rolled over again, announced that
she had defecated herself and
went back to pouring out sauce.
The tomatoes tasted of ground beef and refuse.

The lights began to flash, the
uniformed men scooped up the pasta,
taped the perimeter around my plate,
asked me a few questions--looking for
some sort of recipe, I suppose; I felt sick
and asked to be excused.



ED


This poem actually holds a lot of value to me. I wrote this immediately after I saw a woman who had been stabbed. It was late, and I was on my way home from class and I saw this lady collapse on the side of the road, so I stopped to help. She had stab wounds on her forearm and her side and was bleeding profusely on the pavement. I called an ambulance and told the police exactly what I had seen. 


Needless to say the event was traumatic. We live in a world where we truly are desensitized to violence, thanks to the media. This was my first experience with someone THAT wounded and it really rattled my morale knowing that another human being was the cause. Now, chances are this woman was up to no good. She may have been stabbed for a number of reasons including drugs and/or prostitution; nonetheless, it's no excuse to stab someone. It should NEVER come to that.


It's funny that we think we are a civilized species, smarter than all the "beasts," but oh, how primitive we truly are. We all have a little animal in us I reckon.

For Sylvia Plath

I crane my neck and,
awkwardly I gawk at this heap
of shiny, plastic accomplishments.


I squint to read little etched
epitaphs -- inscriptions caked with
dust; every letter, the space
between tiles, stuffed with grout.


Illegible from such a distance, I
advance and run my finger along the
antiquated verbage -- kid pitch 2001,
defensive player of the year, 2009,
even that archaic creative writing plaque.
I touch the brittle pieces with my 
old, bony hands and hear the whispers
of yesterday and slowly I slip
back in time --
"That kind sure has potential--"
"Let's just hope he doesn't screw it up."
"It's a full scholarship for him; you're 
set for life!"


And then I'm back, as if I were Smeagol,
sitting atop my mound of mire, mouthing
away about some old ring I once had,
while behind me success rots away
in a mass grave.


ED

The Looking Glass

Shards of a hoary glass,
broken, lie at my feet.
The once elegant vanity tumbled
to the ground, shattering
the visage of every caller
she knew. Each old pair
of eyes cast across her face
smashed on the cheap carpet,
oh so far below. The sharpness
of each point, of every new
corner, catches my eyes, and
where they lie, reach up and slice
through my cornea, as far back as
my retina and into my frontal lobe.
I fall to pieces and hit the
floor, scattered about the room,
broken, lying at my feet.


ED

Bus Stop

Today

I missed the bus.

Every morning at three past eight I

sit on the bench, see the woman

eating her red delicious,

read my newspaper and drink my

coffee -- no cream, two sugars.

At 8:06 the giant transporter

creeps to a stop, hissing and yelping

like a worn-out wildebeast, and

it opens its mouth and we

climb into its belly, sit on its organs --

except

today

I missed the bus.

The fates, snipping at my strings,

tugged my coffee and my marionette arms

dousing my neatly pressed trousers

with java -- khaki to coffee. I went

back to change, threw on some

slacks and was at the stop. 8:07

so

today

I missed the bus.

And I watched it pull away

and I began running after, trying

to make up lost time and

gain ground on the

rolling wildebeast.

and a quarter mile later, you know

what?

I caught the bus.


ED

Imagination

So, occasionally I'll do some thinking; recently I have been exploring the idea of imagination. It really makes me unhappy that we live in a society where our minds and our imaginations are not exercised. There will be no more great advances in society until people decide to learn for themselves, rather than be taught. If you look back on history, any sort of "scientific" revelation has simply been someone who saw things a little bit differently and wasn't afraid to say it. It takes a special kind of person to think through the BS fed to us by whoever is in charge. Newton must have had a fantastic imagination to come up with his three laws. Firstly, he had to come up with names for all of the principles he discovered and working definitions so as to describe them to his peers and associates. The same is true for visionaries like Henry Ford. One day he sat down and said that he was going to build a metal device that would cart people around. I can only IMAGINE some of the looks he got when describing his plans; and that is a true shame. It's gotten to the point where people are ashamed of guessing wrong in the game of trial and error. People are too afraid to err, so that they won't even try. It upsets me that people mocked BP for attempting to use golf balls to clog the oil spill. So it didn't work, big deal. At least they tried something.

In school, we are taught facts, but no one is taught to learn -- to explore the world outside and make discoveries individually. I'll leave you with this: how many facts would there be if no one had taken the time to sit down and imagine this knowledge? Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it sparked fire and invented the wheel. Bend the paradigm.

ED

Insomnia

It’s 2:01

and I’m afraid

to fall headlong into

sleep because

you might waltz

into my dream,

like the most beautiful

Krueger ever to exist;

and when I stir

you will be gone

and I will be alone

again.

ED

Introduction

I like to write poetry. But what good is writing something if no one will ever read it? This blog is my outlet for sharing my poems until I can get more of them published. Follow the blog and you can help me through this experience and witness my growth as a writer and maybe help me get my name out there. You can't be the poet laureate by keeping your poems folded up in a drawer in your desk!

ED