Poem x 4

Nothing all that exciting happened today, though I did have to read Fuglane (The Birds) for class, where (surprise) birds were a major motif. This incident has happened a lot in my life: see birds on street, chilling, hopping under the shadows. Car comes, they do a weird swoop thing, catch a current, and leave. There are a lot of birds here in Norway. Yay birds!

Moral: departure can be beautiful

The birds float on the sidewalk
Like leaves, unstuck from the ground.
They are too light for silence,
Too quiet for the sunshine.

But they are keen on a violence
Approaching them. So they talk,
Decide which path they have found
Has the most meandering line

And then they depart.
You could almost call it art.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Poem poem poem

This poem was inspired by the hour I waited in line outside to sign up for a weekend excursion. People were not particularly fun or exciting, but I certainly wouldn't say the same about the shadows from the building I was standing under and how it moved over the sidewalk.

Moral: Our choices are affected by what others are and do, sometimes negatively.

Slow, little shadow, slow.
Your post is a building,
But yet you move, and grow.
I can even watch you gilding
The sidewalk, your wake the sun.

But is it really your choice to glide?
I wouldn’t think so. Under a cloud,
You cower, soften, pull your head inside.
You vanish under any shroud.
Your free will doesn’t have much fun.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Poem dos

This poem was inspired by a snippit of information I heard at a lecture I attended about Norwegian history. Apparently during the Black Death it was commonly believed that the waves of people who died were caused by a powerful witch. When she used her rake, most died but some survived. When she used her broom, no one survived. Thought it was a very interesting image. Enjoy!

Moral: Death is arbitrary.

She uses her rake on us,
To sweep
Our mortality in a rustle
In one
Motion, with the grime.

The broom goes thus:
All souls go to sleep,
No light, no muscle.
She spares none,
Some of the time.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

POEM ONE

So this is the first poem of the resurrected Digre Poem Project! I'm super excited to be starting this again. They are all inspired by random stuff that happens during the day. This inspiration came out of looking out the window at a bus stop and seeing this one lady looking back at me. I started wondering -yes, this was during class- how different time would be if she and I, or any two people, switched places. I came to realizing it wouldn't actually change all that much; we would create our own realities, or our own times, on the contexts we're given. Finally, each little ten-line poem will generally have some sort of moral. Not all of them. Sometimes I'm lazy and get taken in by stuff that doesn't have any higher meaning but is just pretty. This was not one of them.

Moral: People affect their surroundings far more than their surroundings affect them.

And from the bus stop,
I see her. She sees me.
A different wind, a rain’s second drop,
Imagine if our lives would swap.
It would just be the same, you see.

Though we will never meet again,
We could be just the same soul splice,
Where time balances on the point of a pen.
We are part of the same amen,
And any context would suffice.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Early post? And BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! And a plug.

Why yes, this is an early post. It is because I am in the Amsterdam airport right now. I have a layover and do not board for another hour, so I decided to kill time like this. I was watching the clouds on the airplane and saw how they changed when we went through them. That gave inspiration to this poem, which is relatively long.

And the big announcement, as sort of promised/alluded to: I am relaunching The Digre Poem Project. For those of you who are not familiar with it, I wrote a ten-line poem a day for fifty days in the winter of 2007/ 2008. I had been inspired by photographer Ray Brandenburg's similar endeavor and did it myself. This project had a huge impact on my life and on my poetry, and I then proceeded to write and talk about it in every single college interview I attended. Now, three and a half years later, I want to do it again while studying in Norway. I'm starting it next Monday the 27th, so mark it on your calendars!

Finally, shameless plug: check out my other blog while I'm in Norway and Britain! www.fiskandchips.blogspot.com. I suggest you do, especially if you like mundane travel details and culinary accounts.

This is the most I've ever written in an entry.

FINALLY FINALLY, the poem.


Who envies a soul
Whose being shifts
So effortlessly? What blend
Of will and outer lifts
Create a cloud? In the end
Do they really have control?

They change their shape
Because they cannot
Control. Blame the wind,
Blame the whole lot;
Look at the landscape
And imagine it not pinned

By the breeze. Imagine it wild,
Bitter, full of anguish,
Freedom for freedom’s sake
Tossing its head in a wish
Of something crucial to take
From the wind. And not mild:

To reach for the position
The wind holds. The power
It exerts could be a cloud’s.
But to dissipate with a shower,
Or be influenced by the mission
Of the tornado crowds,

Cannot be in the heart of the gust.
Oh, it’s not your power to exert!
If only you clouds knew your place.
Oppression surely must hurt,
Rolling, clinging onto space,
But who else can we trust?

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Lights going out in the Dormitory

Hush, light. Hush, heart.
The night slides slow,
Laboring over the pavement,
Subjecting the glow
To an opaque enslavement.
It’s dark, so the lights start

To fold over and disappear.
The dormitory could not hold
Every light as if they were alone.
The douse makes my walk cold.
The rooms all dark, each bay its own,
Like a smothered chandelier.

Stars II

oh, crude street lamp!
the tinge you cast,
that sickly orange, passed
my shadow. that hue’s clamp
pulled it back til it went last
along the sidewalk. the damp
light forced it to encamp

just under the post.
i look up to nothing kind
but a flickering mind,
in itself too engrossed
to see beyond, behind,
upwards, the skyline coast.
where light is made the most.

but You’re there
even when the fake,
when the imposters make
their fluorescent glare
stronger than i can take,
i trust on nights this fair
that Your light can share.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Cold Night

There is no one more
Important than me
For me. I learned this
From the cold kiss
The wind gave free.
How kindly I ignore

What I feel and think
And hold what I want
In disdain as if maybe
Only a similar gray be
The extent of my détente
‘Tween life and the sink

-Ing I call the rest of
The world. A cold night.
A perfect time for one
To hold a greater need to none.
To make my self-thought right,
And I myself can love.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INFINITE PATIENCE!!!!!

At long last I am settled back at home and have reconquered most of my life. So that lets me write poems again. The idea for this one came when I was walking through the Green at night and the wind had an interesting effect on the grass and the lights from the street lamps. Walking through campus at night gave inspiration for two more poems which I will write shortly.

Also, as a reward for putting up with my tardiness, I have a miniature surprise for you all. Sort of. I apologize if you all are not the surprise type.


Spring delivers when the night needs squalls.
The force drapes the blades over my feet
And street lamps give tawny to the lawn.
But these squares flicker in the gale,
As if the light refracted through a sea,
Enough to leave their sobriety,
Enough to let them set sail.
But in the ecstasy the grass is gone,
The lawn is smooth, the dampness sweet.
The ocean appears where the light falls.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Well, what do you know?

This final period has been terrible for me, and it seems like I will go the entire two weeks without writing a poem, much to my sadness. I had not anticipated this at all, but when it comes to priorities, term papers must be put before verse. However, I do have some very nice ideas for some poems that I will definitely put on paper once I've decompressed.

I look forward to writing on this blog with a clearer conscience and boundless time.

P.S. This is me in the 4th floor stacks of our library. No escaping here.