Poems

I went through all this effort in college to produce poetry. When I was in high school, I had a well-meaning but misguided (in my opinion) English teacher who turned me into a wonderful technical writer but turned off my creative talent (if it could be called that). She was a great lady, and taught me a lot of good things, but I've never been able to re-discover that switch that was turned off in 10th grade. The closest I've come was with a creative writing class in college that forced me to write poetry or fail.

I'm going to try doing that again. I have trouble motivating myself to write sometimes, and hopefully this exercise will get me going. There's something extremely satisfying about writing a poem that neatly fits a rhythm I aim to accomplish. Not that they're good, mind you, just that they have a nice lilt.

Glance
Can you hear it too?

This thickly muffled pounding,
dully pulling me forward
from under my ribcage.

I can feel past all these
heavy bones and thick flesh,
pulsing ahead,
becoming.

I can touch all that I
have so roughly lost;
reach beyond these simple
confines of blood and skin.

I can HEAR them screaming
into this familiar emptiness,
silently crying with harsh rasps.

All that I have ever hoped for is
so nearly close, I can feel it
under my skin, and yet
so far beyond my fingertips.

What undying agony is this,
rattling with newly old
cries in my heart?