Caffeine and No Sleep

Joan went on vacation with her mom today. I was up later than usual last night, having drunk copious amounts of iced tea, and was up at 4:00 a.m. to take her to the airport. After leaving the airport with her unfinished coffee and not enough goodbye time, I had that jittery, fragile feeling I used to get when I did acid. Er, I mean, like I hear some people experience when they do certain drugs. This is what came out. I thought it was the beginning of a poem but the more I look at it the more I think it is complete.

Caffeine and No Sleep

Caffeine and no sleep,
That mescaline-like fragility,
The erotic sense of blood flow,
And a heart that never fails;
Ceaseless and ready,
I could love you forever--
If only you were here.

Chris Kmotorka, 28 Mar. 2009

Restoration

First, no, this is not "autobiographical." It came from a moment of wondering what a full recovery really means--often it is based solely on the physical and not necessarily on the emotional. Who knows how these thoughts flesh themselves out. I don't.

Restoration

I had the love knocked out of me.

A flash of light and ringing ears,

And memories drained and flushed

As though they never were.

This accident has left me hollow,

Drained, it seems, not filled

By the inability to love.

My limbs, though whole, they seem encased

In braces of indifference.

I touch without feeling.

I see without emotion.

And nothingness is all that touches me.

Your fingertips caress my cheek.

Your lips press lightly into mine.

But my heart no longer tumbles,

If once it ever did.

Like phantom limbs that never were,

Gone numb,

I feel I must be missing

What surely once was there. But

A full recovery, they say these words,

And so it seems that it must be,

I have always been this way.

Chris Kmotorka, 23 Mar. 2009

Bedouin

Bedouin

Bedouin, like shadow, drift
On sands shifting, timeless
Scimitars of existence,
History a crescent, curvilinear
Turns back upon itself
Nomads passing in and out
Of time itself.
Trader, merchant, herder,
Recognizing no border beyond
The soul of a man who
Lives without, but thrives.

The World shifts its axis
Around an island of sand.
Crisscrossing deserts
By way of oases
That mark the travels
Of generations, of species,
Of the origins of life.
This is the source of survival:
Welcome the stranger as brother--
One day you will travel,
And the need will be yours.

Chris Kmotorka, 28 Mar. 2009

Classroom Activities in Creativity

Last night I divided my students up into groups after talking about specific details. I then sent them outside with the assignment of finding four specific details, three for the group and one to bring back to me. They had ten minutes. When they came back they gave me my details and then they had fifteen minutes to work a poem that included the details they picked up outside. I had to write my own poem with the detail each group gave me. It took about ten minutes but I'm actually kind of happy with it. It could use a title, but hey, other than that it's not bad for about ten minutes work with no idea what I was going to be working with, etc. Here are the details the class gave me and the resulting poem:

1) Striped Crosswalk 2) hardened black gum 3) iron horse 4)weird nosy people

I stumble on the striped crosswalk

And blame the hardened, blackened

Speedbump of gum and not the

Shadows and the grid, like a cow

Who can't cross a painted cattle guard.

People stare, weird, nosy people

Who should watch their own feet,

The obstacles that block their paths,

Instead of watching me. I flush and glow

In the darkness, my shame hidden by

Sodium light and low-hanging bangs.

I'll mount the iron horse that watches

Over the quad and all these souls

And race away to a place I know

Where I am iron, and I am steel,

And nothing will shame me

And nothing will stumble but the fear

That runs before me.

Inauguration Day 2009

Inauguration Day 2009

And now we must stop making excuses.
Beyond that, I have no words.
No words that seem adequate;
None that seem eloquent enough,
Deserving enough to be shared.

Some two million strong
Along the Washington mall
Wave flags and hats and hands
And wishes and hopes and dreams.
We are all strengthened by their pride.

Wrapped in the icy embrace of
A winter both literal and symbolic,
Their breath plumes white
But their hearts beat warm
And the future smells of sweetest spring.

From ball to ball, tonight
America dances toward the future.
The waltz beat strains of Hope and Change
And all the best the World can offer:
This is what's to come.

So no more excuses. No blame deflected.
Responsibility is ours once more.
Gather up the tools of growth,
And fertilize with faith and hope;
America, your future has already begun.

--Chris Kmotorka, January 20, 2009

Election Day, November 4, 2008

Election Day, November 4, 2008

I want to feel hope.
I want to feel the blissful
Sense of renewal and
The Dawn of a New Age.
I want to know the firm embrace
Of collective accomplishment,
The comfort of a united nation.

I see the loosening of chains:
Real, imagined, metaphorical.
Centuries of oppression
Lifted like a veil by a simple count.
Like a magic trick: 1, 2, 3...you're free.
At least for the moment.
At least for the foreseeable future.

Tonight we shed our tears.
Tonight we feel the weight lifted.
We try to hide our schadenfreude:
Our victory is over more than
The small minded, the short sighted,
The angry few grinding down our foundation
To a rubble of division.

Our victory is over limits,
The barriers that held us back;
Barriers of fear and suppression.
Barriers we helped erect
In a moment of weakness and sorrow.
Tonight we have come together
To reclaim a vision and to swing a hammer.

So tonight, amidst the rubble,
I feel the hope and I see the renewal.
Half sheltered behind these broken walls
Of a decade of ruin, I feel it.
But it is cautious. It is guarded.
For it is newborn and vulnerable.
We must be vigilant for its survival.

-Chris Kmotorka