Words From A Northland College Classroom
Some Words From A Northland
College Classroom
Here are some writings from an unedited Creative Writing notebook, all crafted in Wheeler Hall at Northland College. Creative Writing was one of my favorite classes, and getting the "creative juices" flowing during class was often attributed to opening my blue notebook not creating masterpieces, but creating enjoyment and a feeling so free it was simply just seeing what happens.
Immaculate Infinity
You walk down the sidewalk with your hands in your pocket, palms sweating. Your head is high, but you look down, still able to see the stop lights go from green to yellow to red. Leashed pets walk by you, their owners paying no attention. Horns honk and tires screech, but you don’t look. Your shoe came untied three blocks ago, but you continue walking. It doesn’t matter. You need to get where you’re going.
The footsteps behind you make you walk faster. Your jaw is clinched, teeth gritting together every step of the way. Even though the stench is not overwhelming, you smell cigarette smoke at the sight of each butt smooshed to the concrete.
Impassable Counterbalances
Hybridism painstakingly impregnated the sea
So too did fossiliferous barriers that paralleled the impassable isthmus
Only migrations counterbalanced the utmost struggle for nutriment
A Photographer Devours
Green velure covered by a rainbow of billiard balls
Orange, illumination fading on the walls
Creaking hardwood floors
Leading through invisible doors
Tables glow of Neptune blue
Stained darker than a morning dew
Shampagne fizzes over glass
As if to say no room for middle class
Large bouquet of colorful flowers
Like a sunset sky a photographer devours
What’s Your Perspective?
When you see the stars,
do you see places impossible to get to?
Do you envision eutopias filled with life?
If you do, does that life see our star as the same?
Or are we just another star that’s impossible to get to?
Does each one have its own unique glimmer?
Or do they all shine the same?
Do you see specks of light a few inches apart?
Or can you imagine the vastness of the endless reaches of space, where the stars burn billions of miles apart?
Suburban Legend
Kathy is the God Emperor of crockpot potlucks
All the potlucks she’d been to, she’d make
the other dishes all smell like velvet Elvis
She was the suburban legend built to succeed
“All your hard work will soon pay off,” she told herself
as she waited for the red wine to soak into the turkey
The neighborhood kids and their itchy socks
were coming to annihilate the suburban legend’s scrumptious slow cooked meal
Seasons (Haiku)
Repeated, never the same
Inevitable
Fish Tanks (Tanka)
Orange and white fish, brown sand
Glass transformed to green
Box of mystery, wonder
Biodiversity slice
What the Glacier Knows
The glacier knows no fast time
slowly creeping its way to oblivion
Its Neptune-blue ice bulldozes and levels
Mother nature’s creations
A time so slow it is inconceivable by man
yet man knows not how to slow it down
Men can walk across eons in a second
Any glacier can outlive a hundred men
but it’s slowly dying
scooting its way down the valley to its inevitable broken death
Personal Leisure on Public Funds (Found Poem)
Paid written response
Lodging packages: $7,858.08
Rented cars
500 hours of unearned vacation & sick time
$36.38 per hour
Meal per diem
Golf course fees
$18,982.90
Funds to a felony count of embezzlement
Paid himself, did not return
An Ode to a Croc with a Broken Strap
A croc with a broken strap has seen many miles
Some have maybe even been on kitchen tiles
Or in the car turning up the music dials
A croc with a broken strap can still get you to your destination
Limping along without medication
All the way to the train station
When you get where you’re going
The croc is already ready for its next showing
Out of the spotlight, helping you move along
To your next game of ping pong
A croc with a broken strap is so strong
Bill’s Sleep
Bill couldn’t sleep. He got up to put Bob Ross’s painting tutorial on the TV. He was asleep in seconds.
Bigfoot’s Firetruck
I admit it,
I’ve lied about a lot of things.
The Cherry Street road sign that went missing,
I took that.
The town’s firetruck that disappeared,
I took it for a joy ride.
But I can say with the most amount of truth,
even though the local newspaper & nobody else believed me,
I saw bigfoot when I swayed at the top of that pine tree.
Zeros
time is counting down for
all of us dont be afraid to chase zeros
its just a number
