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The Origin of the River
by Yaul Perez-Stable Husni '11
Poem read at CW's Poetry Café
performance, January 16, 2009
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I follow the river
to where there are no birds on the trees
and no music to the water.
It is as before,
When the continents were one and they held you
as a plum holds its seed.
Now, I find you asleep atop a mountain
The origin of rivers
Your breath the immense silence of snow.
Awakened
You study your land.
Silent before everything you see.
Upon the wheat field you have imprinted
your thoughts
Into the foliage your memories
Like seeds, they are taken everywhere
so everyone may know you --
So you exist in the storyteller's voice
So a boy sees you in the rain
when he is not thinking.
You have slipped between each man's lips
Become a part of them.
Until is is your name on every grave
Your voice we hear as an infant first cries
Your pen that first wrote
Happiness and Sadness
On the same page.
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Kitchen
by Rebecca Straznickas '12
Pitted avocado
Pit of avocado
Streak of breakfast on my empty
Breakfast table
One chair, lone salt shaker
In a circle of salt dust
Age-spotted spoon curved slot in the
Soft avocado meat
Purple stains smudge my fingertips
The juice of the fruit half-eaten, rolled on its side
Strip of the plum's skin sticking to
My clay bowl I didn't make
But told everyone I did
Blatant afternoon sticks through
Flimsy curtains
Casts my breakfast table into unflattering
Shades of beige
Avocado shell nestled against my palm
As I scoop out the last of its value
Like Braille, the bumps could take shape
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The Hero's Quest
by Aly Robalino '12
Argonaut, astronaut, aquanaut, aeronaut,
juggernaut
Destined heroes
Explore space yet unbreathed in
Dingling bells on ships
Smelling the salt of the captain's breath
Putting on bulky gloves
Running trails against the ribbons of the moon
Unstoppable
Living under the sitting sea in a bubble
Beating the coughing engine of the plane
As you trail down through sweating clouds
Grounded to slay a hex-headed beast
And still keep your wits
So here I ask the dusty, musty book
Leaning against time
To be, or naut to be?
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Hymn in Jerusalem
by Forrest Ambruster '10
Praise be to God
Whose skin shines like silver cities in a mountainous
land
As He crouches to gaze at the hamlets He's made
And His eyes are as clear as a young girl's who has died
Laid down so that she may be steeped in the sky
But cold and empty as the air of the heights
They suffocate men with inescapable light
And His breath is like fire, His breath is like rain
That forms worlds without caring on the flat windowpane
And His spine is so craggy, it pulls at the sky
Tears holes in its fabric, where Truth pools in the lies
He topples walls with a word, stones bow towards His
Name
His tongue is a wisp spreading seeds, winnowing shame
His color -- a blade of grass grown rainbowy rich,
A red root heading downwards towards the burning sun's
fist.
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New Year
by Indiana Pehlivanova '09
Poem read at CW's Poetry Café
performance, January 16, 2009
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Kite) If this year were a name
It would have had only one
Consonant, Apo -- late blossoming
Name belonging to a child
Letting go a name
A name as a locked book If this year were
a car
It would have had one eternal meter
It would have been repainted
With so many colors on top of each other
It would have become beige The beige sail
bags I lay on
To watch people cross the road
In the early afternoon If this year were
an animal
It would have been sleeping
In gravel, sprinkled with poison ivy
It would have been one with
Discolored irises, one saved, one last
One quiet as river water When the fog is
to my knees
I run forwards to catch
Never realizing I've caught it
Before so many times and my fingertips
Have gotten used to it I draw this year
on a map
I follow the pencil traces
Those are rocky mountains
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Pink
by Vanessa Cabrera '12
The pulp of the citrus,
is pink.
Pink.
The strong smell,
Of peeled skin
Pink.
Pink paper.
Pink baby toes.
Pink rose petals.
Pink lips.
Pink piglets.
Pink noses in the cold.
The bitter tasting fruit,
is pink.
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