Toilantrouble

ANNUAL FOUND POEM PROJECT

This is a "found poem" made from snippets of paragraphs written by my senior literature students last year.

WAR

 

 

It’s a mystery

Why people make war

Maybe that’s why they make war movies

So realistic

Feels like you’re in it

Something so inhumane

Absolutely fascinating

You get to be in battle

You get to use the weapons

To take the lives of people

You get to die in battle

 

It’s just so different from normal life

Because we don’t wake up

With people screaming in pain

Boys or teens that play these games

Want to be called men

This country was made on war’s behalf

Americans love war

 Feeling superior

A sort of revenge

For what is yours

Or what you believe

Football practice

Basketball games

Milk chugging competitions

War is a drug

We were built to fight

Engage in combat

Something about guns

And killing people

Appeals to the young

But at the end of the day

 you know it’s fake

In a game you can die

 and come back to life

 

War itself is completely different

Especially for a mother

 with a dead son or daughter

Human beings thrive off of power

And almost get high

When they see people suffer

You must never lose

I think people enjoy war

The control of it all

People start war

because they want others to know

What it feels like to get walked all over

I don’t think war will ever stop

Animals fight for territory

And so do we

It seems our lives are all about war

The holy crusades, God as justification

Pointless

I have a thought just like everyone else

Why should you fight me for it?

Why should hundreds of people die?

When they could just work it out

Death, separation, pain and sadness

I really like the action but I don’t like the part

When people get hurt

Greed, love, dominance, religion

The government wants us to like it

Honor, family, country, a home for a troubled child

Or it can make a person go mad

 

The blood of patriots

Good guys and bad guys

But the line between them is very thin

A fundamental part of us

To prove a point

But what point?

Young men, ready to venture into the world

Think themselves invincible

It’s a fantasy

Curiosity gets the best of us

War as a getaway

An adrenaline rush

It makes them look powerful

We think of the glory

Not the gruesome reality

Never start it but finish it

Streaks of blood on the theme of history

War is the center of our world

Easy to interpret easy to act out

But I think we overuse it

Only grudges and hate can be spread by war

Why try to harm someone

Play rock paper scissors

This makes it hurt to say

War takes lives away

What makes the human mind tick

In that strange war-filled way?

If I could I would

STOP ALL THE WAR STUFF

STOP ALL THE WAR STUFF

STOP ALL THE WAR STUFF

 

This year's seniors wrote about the meaning of life. The "found poem" is a combination of their words, plus a few idle comments from me and from William Shakespeare.

 

VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

 TO BE OR NOT TO BE

IS THAT A QUESTION?

OR MORE LIKE AN ALTERNATIVE

I ALWAYS THINK OF ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES WHEN I SAY THAT

OR MAYBE IT’S LIKE A CONTROVERSY OVER AN APARTMENT NUMBER

OR AN ANSWER ON AN SAT TEST

OR MAYBE IT’S NOT LIKE ANYTHING MAYBE IT JUST IS

YOU KNOW LIKE OOOOOOOMMMMMMM, ONE WITH THE UNIVERSE

 

The biggest challenge in life is fear

I THINK SOMEBODY SAID THAT

ANYWAY I HEAR AN ECHO WHEN I SAY IT

BUT I’M ALWAYS HEARING ECHOES

HAKUNA MATATA JUST DO IT LIFE’S A BITCH MAKE THE BEST OF GOOD TIMES

GO HARD OR GO HOME

ECHOES ECHOES ECHOS ECHOES

AM I HEARINBG THINGS OR AM I NOT HEARING THINGS?

NOW THAT’S A QUESTION

AM I EVEN LISTENING

LIKE THAT SONG OMYGOD THAT SONG REMEMBER THAT SONG

TIS A CONSUMMATION DEVOUTLY TO BE WISHED

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

BUT I LIKE CONSUMMATION I LOOKED IT UP

DID YOU KNOW IT CAN MEAN LIKE HAVING SEX?

NOW IF EVERYTHING COULD BE LIKE A CONSUMMATION

 

Life is an everyday challenge

WELL OK MAYBE NOT EVERY DAY

BUT SOME DAYS I JUST FEEL LIKE HANGING MY HEAD

WE BORN WE LIVE WE DIE

SOME DAYS THE CONSUMMATION JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN

YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I CONTINUE TO LIVE?

TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

YES HAVING A LIFE AND LIVING IT IS VERY IMPORTANT

WITH OUT IT WE, LIKE, WOULDN’T BE ALIVE

WE WOULD HAVE NOTHING WE WOULD BE NOTHING

IS THAT THE SAME THING?

 BEING,  HAVING

AND THEN THERE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO DO A LITTLE OF BOTH

GOOD HOUSE GOOD CAR GOOD PAYING JOB MY DREAMS

MY BRAIN MY HEART PUMPING BLOOD GIVING ME LIFE

JUST THE FACT OF GRADUATION MAKES ME WANT TO SPEED UP TIME

ALL MY PROBLEMS DISAPPEAR

 

OF COURSE THERE WILL BE SOME DUCK HUNTING

 

 

Return to My Native Sea

    I wrote this poem upon returning from a trip to Rio de Janeiro, where I was born.

 

I went home, although they say you can’t

Tore off my clothes

Took that exhilarating blind and bare bummed slide

But in reverse, to a place encircled in a salt sea

To the hot liquid dwelling place of all paradisal dreams

 

Or perhaps it simply seemed that way

 

A garden herbaceous and delicious

Full of oily flesh in the shape of longing

Embraced in full swelling hills

And the seething, crystalline kiss of Guanabara Bay

 

Sete crescentes de lua, a poet better than I

Called that shape of shorn memory

And I saw those seven crescent moons

Or maybe it was eight, even numbers

Seem to surround this climate

Like the legs of dancers, or the lips of wise young women

Even and round, like the imprint left in the sand

By one pondering the sun

Then dashing suddenly, diving into the ecstatic foam

Exploding into the pounding waves

To be poured, finally, onto the soft and steaming sand