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