Poems From Transformational Writing 101

By Stephen Palmer • August 31st, 2009 • Email This Post • Print This Post

We’ve been having a blast with our first writing class.

The students are doing phenomenal work, as witnessed by the three poems below:

The Struggle with Parting

By Eric Dowd

The siphoning spear probes for prey
An unheard scream; recoiling move
Slight arms and legs shove spear away
It isn’t hushed till half removed

A future ripped from calm of womb
Tornadoed fetus into sludge
Sterile machine now yields as tomb
The stench of death, marred form and
blood

God-Blind

By Heather Burton

Light from origin
Reflected on snow
Overpowers
Inuit hunters

Slitted goggles
Allow narrow sight
Shielding from snow-blind

In the reverse
I see these three

I.
“I have awakened,” he asserts,
“To the hypocrisy of my belief.”
(“Surely all others believe blindly, too,
Plodding overpowered by their own dull will
To remain unseeing.”)
I watch as his eyes narrow,
Lashes sealing out
The searing brightness of a gifted life,
A gushing stream of advantages, privileges, chances.

II.
“It is to suffer,” he assures,
“And God is absent in my suffering,
Therefore, he never was
And never gave in my ease.”
Looking away, twisting from
The hand I extend,
From the chorus of cries for his pain,
From the Balm, unopened.
“My blinders are off,” he speaks.

III.
“If you tell me God loves me,” she taps, edgy,
“I won’t believe it.”
Hanging heart, clouds of opaque, determined tears,
She falls to emerald grass
Nodding heads of jewelled delight
Bordering her bitter garden.
Trees — sentinels — shimmer, beckoning her, Look up!
Infinite space,
azure in this moment of pure breeze,
yet
“There is no sign,” she concludes.

…………………………………………………………………….

Could it be,
I open, then close, to wonder,
Pain, doubt, sorrow, unknowing
Goggle ourselves and narrow vision
Against the Brilliance
That all things denote?

And shunning Light,
We choose
Unseeing.

I Walk a Walk

By C.S.

I walk my walk
I stride my stride
firm, steady, full of pride
onward, directed, always straight
whole-hearted, unfaltered, never lead
always focused and affixed

she walks her walk
she glides her glide
saunter, sashay, must be tried
a swivel, a slink, becomes a wife
so soft, so yielding, so not my life
asking for notice, she will win

Yes
I now walk her walk
but I slide her glide
more like a monkey
I just look funky
I stilt her swivel, I stunt her sashay
unnatural, contrived, an incorrect way
I’m a fool

No
I walk their walk
my ancestors, pioneers
who forged the plains
not modeled the catwalk
firm and steady and faithful
unflinching, unswerving, I again unafraid
I walk my walk

_______________________

Want to get your writing groove on in our next class? Contact us now and we’ll reserve your spot.


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By jon on September 7th, 2009 at 5:40 pm

Very well written, Eric. That haunting perspective will surely disturb my dreams. Kudos for depth and style.

 

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