'I Remember' - A Poem for My Aunt

I remember a woman who always smiled
I remember it vividly, back to when I was but a child
I remember the cards she sent on special occasions, always
I remember visiting in summer, and I begin to miss those days
I remember she'd call me to ask about wheat bread, white rice, and saturated fat
She knew her body as God's temple--she really cared about that
I remember how much she and my mom would commune
They were like soulmates, but separated too soon.
I remember crying when i heard she was ill
But when I came to visit, I remember her will
She did crossword puzzles to keep her mind bright
And when I lost hope, she had only God in her sight
I remember her strength as inspiration in time of personal spiritual doubt
The cancer took her body, but it couldn't take the praise from her mouth
I remember a broken heart, because that's what I have now
To express how much she will be missed, words cannot allow
But most of all I remember her love, her laugh, how she held us all dear
And though she is far, she will always be here (points to heart)

The Ball

Never talk back
But I say a lot
In my eyes, my run, the sniff
     Sniff
          Sniff
Of my nose, rhyme-time-sublime with the wag of my...

TAIL!

Aw hell, there goes a ball,

Round as the world, but with so more

    joy

        (more joy than a boy with a toy,

             i can rhyme, too cus I feel the spark

         us dogs, we do, we do)

Cus that's what I know, a thing you may lack

    lack

       lack

Because you're mind...or brain, I never knew which was the same...it

WORKS

TOO

WELL

Works as good as a nuke, or a gun, or...what do they call it?

Wars?

But there's my ball again, rolling and rolling like life rolls on.

I'm better than you, and you're sorrow, and cries

    Even your creation, who cares when soaked with lies

      LIES

....lies

Yet best thing about the wag of the tail, the feel of the fur

Is I complete you. I can't heal the pain, the violence, the flaws

But I can catch the ball and replace the tears

With happiness slob.

Why You Don't Talk To Strangers

A Poem by Justin C. Key

They met on Sunday’s wife.

A Saturday—she wore black,

A color of mourning, none other than that of the cat

Ran over in the street. She’d gone to try

To save its life. Time was against her, death to cut

The feline’s string. They met under the next sun.

They first kissed with the background of the setting sun

On the balcony of The Sailor’s Wife,

A restaurant with salmon so freshly cut.

And when the day turned in to black

His feelings for her, he had to try

To say. But in the end they just kissed. Tongues went to the cat

They first fought about the cat

That he bought for her to bring some sun

In to her life and try

To relieve her guilt from that day. His brother’s wife

Agreed to help. No black,

He said. Only white could make the cut.

A month later she slipped a cut

To her finger, startled by the playful cat.

So much blood, the sink went black

He rushed to her and held her wound up to the sun

As tender as if she were his wife.

That night she asked ‘will you love me.’ He said I’ll try.

Marriage wasn’t long after his try

But tries aren’t good enough, strings of anger cut

By any little thing done by his wife

His true love was just the cat

His eyes the darkest under the sun

So cold at noon, like coals of black

That June her first eye went black

That July she stopped tears to try

To be a good spouse for August’s sun

But September came and sanity was cut

And October’s Halloween found a hanged cat

By November she knew she was Chucky’s wife

Her body is all charred with black, for she chose to be his wife

In the end he had tried to try, to bury her out of love with the cat

But it was as if the sun boiled his brain, and like this he began to cut.

My Pen Sings A Song

Light Movement of fingers
Summon to life an unknown story
Adventure’s song playing upon
A canvas of white:
Electrifying

He isn’t real. Neither is she. Or it.
But they are real to the soul of my
Pen
Flowing out of the dark subconscious of mind
And into crafted fantasy life.
Like a child escaping from a pushing wound.

They lived a short time
Crumples of torn and ravaged white paper
Haunt the wastebasket
Ghosts of millions of stories
Never brought forth to light
Maddened, but never truly gone

I ignite heroes
Bring forth dragons for adventure,
Exterminate the fruits of a heart made evil
Evil I conjured
Vindicate the poor
Poverty I gave

If only the world
Was as attentive as all strokes
Of a black pen across endless white
Then life would be just like a snowbird
Free in the purity of the arctic tundra.

Persona Poetry/Juggernaut!

I am not a 'poet,' persay, although I dabble in the art from time to time. What I like about poetry is also the most intimidating: its lack of rules. Also, it is hard for me to determine just what 'good poetry' is. I've taken my fair share of poetry courses while at Stanford and, whether workshop or lecture, people could agree that one poem is brilliant while the next is trash...and they'll look the same to me! Sometimes I'd wonder if 'good poetry' (kind of like writing sometimes) was more defined by the authors than by the actual writing. I truly thought that if you would take a 'shitty' poem and slap Robert Frost's name on it, people would call it a masterpiece. They'd take the elements that make it so shitty and analyze it, saying that the author deliberately wrote it in a way that seemed to lack quality as a sort of commentary, therefore making the piece and his writing ability even more amazing! But I guess, as I've said, that this can be applied to other types of writing, but with the lack of rules in poetry, it just seems like anything goes.

When it all comes down to it, the question, I think, should be about what kind of emotions and reactions are pulled from the reader by the poetry and then you can measure its personal value then. I say personal because if I cannot understand a Robert Frost poem or extract from it all the imagery and metaphors that others can then the poem is dead to me. Whereas, on the flip side, I might be able to connect on some unthoughtof level with the simplest of poems.

I just wanted to background a little bit some of the things I feel about poetry. I think I just wrote some mumbo-jumbo that poured from my mind, but isn't that a kind of poetry in itself?

To get to the topic of this blog post, in one of my poetry classes the assignment was to write a poem from the perspective of someone else (a persona poem). I decided to write about my roommate and fraternity brother. Because of the judgment that may seem to shine forth from this piece, he shall remain nameless. But I thought it was an interesting exercise (if not a little entertaining, especially when I showed it to my roommate) that made poetry writing, for me, just a little bit easier. Sometimes it may be hard to write true to yourself, as we all have hesitance of self-criticism, or, more accurately, making our self-criticism accessible by others. But by pretending to be someone else as you write (I'm just now realizing that the personal posts in my blog have reached some type of theme: becoming someone else when you write....sounds like it would make for a great novel, huh? Too bad Stephen King already did it) you can open your imagination up to a new sect of experiences but also apply criticism (or praises) more readily to those thoughts, mannerisms, moralities, etc, etc.

So, and without further ado, here is my persona poem. My roommate's nickname was, at his peak, the Juggernaut! That and this internet phenomenon inspired this piece.

Juggernaut!

Author: Justin Key

I am the Juggernaut

Bitch

Women flock to me

My fanclub of willingness

All at my disposal.

I am unstoppable.

If sex were a war

Then my army would be undefeated

300 Spartans of Love-

Making

Oh

Before I forget

Please don’t leave your panties

On my floor

Again

Don’t cry

There is hardly any time for tears

And the sooner you smile

The sooner we can do it all

Again

The Juggernaut forgets what love is

Only lust

No pain (except for that good pain)

Only pleasure

I am the Juggernaut

Bitch

It’s not really that hard to understand

Now come, sit next to me

Its OK

You’re in good hands

Just please

Please

Be out by morning

PS: I'm afraid if I continue giving in to my urge to post from my archive of work so quickly, I will soon run out! But, new material everyday, but I guess I also don't want to put it all up for grabs, eh?

The Morning Came

“Life ain’t no crystal stair”

That’s what she told me

Told millions

They all listened

It sounds nice

Poetic diction but not useless fiction

A crystal is bright and pure

Clear cut and serene

Life ain’t that

Vague years ending as death nears

Unheard, blocked by the sound

Can you hear it?

The pain of a billion cries

(Yes I said a billion)

Yet we all have the want to live

A will to live only for what?

The knowledge that the end will still find you

Another day when judgment will ring true

But ‘joy commeth in the morning’

That’s what the good book says

Its morning now

I watched the stars melt away into a blue abyss

Reflecting the world’s tears in their sparkle

Saw the sun rise into the sky

Its massive weight not even able to

Lift my spirits

Felt its warm breeze on cursed skin

And heard the birds sing

Yet my heart sings a different song

One of nighttime sorrows

And apocalyptic mornings