Cheesy Poem with a Cheesy Nautical Metaphor

So tomorrow begins the start of a new term, and so of course I needed to write a poem. The weirdest thing about this year is that I know what to expect, but then I have no idea what it's going to be like. Naturally, what came to mind was the sea. A sailor may think he knows the waters that he frequents, but they are different every day, every voyage, and so the best he can do is assume that anything will be partially familiar and partially chance. Thus I came up with this.

It's nice writing poems again. I usually balk at first, but once I realize that I really should be writing, I let it all flow out. Yay, powers of inertia!

I have been here before,
But in the second time around,
Differences abound.
A wave breaching a familiar shore
And yet aware of little more.

So what can I expect, or brace?
As if the certainty dried out
When the sail came about
And I returned to a place
That thrives in morphing space.

So I close my eyes, let the rope slip,
For I must conserve when needed,
When adversity is greeted,
The weather may be fair this trip,
But many forces damage a ship.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Cemetery

Hey guys-
So about once a season-ish I go outside and sit and write a poem without my computer. It's something I've been doing since last year and an exercise whose results I generally like. My free-verse poem this winter was written thus, as was another poem I wrote in the fall that I haven't posted up here but maybe will if I feel particularly autumnal. Which probably won't happen until... autumn.

BUT ANYWAY, since the weather's been nice, I've revived my walk through Dartmouth's very own cemetery in order to get back to the dorm. It's faster, prettier, and quieter than going other ways, so I figure why not. I often eat lunch there on a little ledge in a clearing, so today I decided that was where I was going to write this poem. Yay, dead people. Yay, inspiration.

Eternal sight of
Silent growing in
The cemetery. Flight of
Frost, green flowing in
Like the spring vacuum
Needs more assurance
That what grows on the back tomb
Will have element servants.

Perpetual waxing, waning,
Cool colors to fiery shades
To nothing, cold sustaining
Until the last winter fades.
The people also stayed the same.
They slept as the trees do,
But did nothing when May came.
Even tombstone color flees too.

They can watch the stages
Forever, and stay objective.
I am privy to its rages
But at least they share their perspective.
I sit, for now's eternity, here.
And bask in what they can feel.
Things here remain, so sincere.
I almost think change is not real.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

CRAZY WEEK AGAIN

Hey all-
So.. I did not post yesterday because I had too much going on with finals. Sorry. But I JUST completed this poem. Hot off the griddle. Or something.


Late Winter

The ground uncovers hope.
It may not be ready,
It may be premature to cope,
What matters is that it’s there.
The scenery a faded trope,
It’s nice to become more aware
As the winter and water eddy,
Brighter, gliding, white glare.
The drizzle slides. Steady.

Winter slithers in the rain,
Patches where spring will go
Here, and there. Ice is slain
Over in this puddle rind,
Softened to a liquid pane.
Gone, but I don't mind.
Rain is not my favorite, though
When optimism is aligned,
At least it’s too warm for snow.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Wheelock Street Snow Bank

Hey all-
So I decided to try my hand at some free-verse poetry. Much to my surprise it was a lot of fun! Let me know what you think!

~CD


Carved snow bank
Like little pebbles were
Bullets, like the cars
Had firebombs in the
Puddles they hit,
The ice glazes it:
Thrice fired,
Thrice ignored,
Thrice reformed
In an ash cloud
Of charred snow.
Trapping specks
In its buttresses,
As if Dresden
Could happen twice,
Every day, along
The road
During rush hour,
It is
Pounded,
Sculpted,
Sliced,
Refined.
The harder the splashes
The more its spires
Point upwards.


Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Broken Refrigerator

If only life were quieter, like satin
Unrolling like spring on a pallet,
On a lawn of verdant sunning.
If only life didn’t need to flatten
Me in total silence with a mallet;
Like I knew my fridge wasn’t running.
Too quiet is never good,
Things weren’t breathing when they should.

As if life were cleaner, like white khaki
And a green immune to grass stains,
Or pastels that needn’t fade.
As if life weren’t the tacky
Essences of ignored moldy rains
Pooling where the sour milk stayed.
I guess life is always a mess,
If it weren’t I would learn much less.

I could only wish for no mistakes,
An effortless collection of easy,
Constant migrations of joy.
I could only wish this fridge breaks
Only once, though. But even “breezy”
Is but an anecdotal ploy.
Though my feelings are mixed,
Even refrigerators get fixed.


Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

HOW COULD I FORGET

Hello all! I was having so much fun until fifty minutes ago (Friday) that I forgot to write/ post a poem! My apologies; I'll come up with something incredibly special for Tuesday. Anyways, here is a poem I wrote in the summer about some lady I saw waiting in line at a pizza place. Hooray for shallots.


The Shallot Woman

The patio apart with glass,
A waned figure bends in the air,
Her wafer arms and thinning hair,
Her face gaunt from a toxic gas.

The gangrene strikes her legs with care,
As they stretch dimly in the shade
Of the thick branches. There she bade
The waiter leave the bottle there.

A starving hope, conformity
Does pry her body in this shape.
When bound by peers, and bound by tape
She yearns pseudo-proclivity.

The layers painted on her eyes
Are peeled back with introspect.
The tinted lenses all reflect
Her future, past, and present guise.

At what inception? It’s been lost,
The process slow like stretching roots.
The plant bears shiny, flushing fruits
That bloom wild at the tender’s cost.

And yet she knows how hard she fought!
As sheen slides down her waxy cheeks,
She does not know that what she seeks
Has long dissolved, replaced with naught.

The toil of peeling every skin
That she compounded on her soul
Is digging in a finite hole,
With no elusive prize within.

For shallots have no inner piece
Because their hearts have been destroyed
And their independence devoid
To hope acceptance never cease.

And when the soul is locked inside
It suffocates from inward rot.
This tragedy I wish were not:
An injured essence likes to hide.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Resolution

Oblivion treads many strides
Before the footprint etches in
The lawn. Too late for a protest
To fall gently on a delicate chest.
Across the field the guilt glides.
And then I excel at naming sin,
Thundering, to list them is to win.
Self-perdition I grant best.
I withhold any gracious sides.

My mind can wield its own crosier.
Absolution in familiar skies,
Thought out clean like splintered glass,
Crew cut on some dirt-baked grass,
Maybe given too much exposure.
But even I tell myself some lies,
Which but discourse can vaporize.
Before forgiveness comes to pass,
Rain always giveth closure.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

A Semi-Divine Driver Watching an Intersection

Hey all-
So this is about as close as I get to blank verse, and even this isn't really blank verse. I wrote this right after taking my AP Econ test last May, because the last thing you really want to have after a test like that is free will :P

-CD

Sometimes when I look off the road,
Pictures paint themselves on the sidewalk
In hues of joy, and apathy, and whatever else is there.
But when I look closer, it is then I see
That it is I with the dirtied palm and chalk,
Smudging and erasing and stomping my foot where
The crevices are. Cracks mean nothing to me;
Just channels for the run-off rainbows, the asphalt’s load.
Driving a while never is something to get excited
Over, particularly when the errand minutely gallops across
My calendar, like what it does every weekday at five.
I get tired of sketching the same characters, the same strolling;
I wonder why I even bother doodling at all. What matters anyway?
For all I know, this façade that is supposed to keep us all alive
Might just be rubbings on rock, ink on silky dross.
Honestly, perhaps whatever hope I’ve been gleaning
Is what my neighbor tossed out when separating the hay.
Hay is quite simple, and that’s why only cattle are delighted
To eat it. But what matters that they’re bovine? What is their meaning?
Sometimes when I look the walkers are like marbles, mindlessly rolling.
But today I saw something different, something I could never draw.
As the red blinked from my eyes to the headlights to the intersection,
It was a smooth red, like what butchers weave,
Pulling strings and knitting out steaks.
Beams paraded across the street, in between Cleveland and Saint
And a school, and there I saw
A little girl, with interlaced golden sinews
Tamed and charmed like baby snakes.
As her gait made little connection
Between concrete and her shoes,
She dragged behind her, across pink paint
A red scooter. The light changes. I leave.
What else could she drag behind her?
In spring, it is that red piece of metal.
In summer, it may be a boy, or any romance.
But come fall, she’ll have trouble pulling along
Anything. Everything will have gone concave,
Like a rusted spoon in a faded stead.
At least by winter she’ll do no hauling,
If things remained how they were,
She’ll be the frail scooter, maybe dead
As destiny and reapers take her to dance.
For far too many things are far too strong,
And Death has no constituents to save,
No matter how hard they push and pedal.
Even Free Will has a higher calling.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Poem About the Son with Knot a Hole Lot of Homophones

So in the spirit of nostalgia, I'm going to post another super super old poem. This is the first (decent) poem I probably ever wrote on my own accord (IE not for school). I wrote this back in the summer of 2006. Because everyone loves a fourteen-year old Cali.

Enjoy!

~CD

To bawl over a ball,
As we haul it down the hall,
We wholly call it holy,
But lo! They call it lowly.
For twelve hours it is ours,
Till a flower subsides to flour.
Till we four just venture fore,
And our sores, oh how they soar!
We see it fall to Sea,
And the light flees like a flea.
And behind the tee of tea,
What can it be? A golden bee!
We say, “hi” as it floats high,
And by and by, a good “Good-bye.”

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Patchwork

The patchwork faded from the year,
With more turmoil than it should require,
The blanket whose whole form is mere
Semblances of far and here,
Lies in the coals of a cleansing dire.
It takes its complaints up with the fire.

And as the seams cut the squares all free,
Their ashes vortex through the space.
When all is done it is time for me
To fashion another from the debris
Of all the moments in their grace.
Their blessing is how they erase.

The segments can be any creed,
And vary in their size and hue.
They’re not a want, but more a need,
And to free them vindicates my greed
And lauds me with a chance anew
To show me what a year can do.

Unpublished Material, ©2010 Cali Digre

Two-Toned Sunset

Hello everyone! So this weekend I was very busy with the holidays and was too busy (read: too lazy) to write a poem this week. So here is a poem I wrote a while back when I woke up from a nap in my dorm and watched the mid November sunset. I haven't written much about sunsets, so I found this poem in particular rather interesting.

Enjoy!

-CD

Two-toned Sunset

The sky exhales a sleepy tan,
As the sun by now has grown wan.
I am but a witness few,
To what a fall sunset can do.
It lingers on the tops of trees,
Like blue cotton, like blue seas.

Like an isle started anew,
Half is sandy, and half is blue,
The atmosphere a salty breeze,
Inceptive like a giver’s knees.
Far before a “will” or “can,”
Far before just any man.

A new world forming, my eye sees,
Just as light withdraws and flees.
The ocean darkens, the colors span,
Until the water does its plan.
This world’s colors are just two:
Black like the trees, blue like you.

Unpublished Material, ©2010 by Cali Digre

Ornament

A tree grew in our house one year.
It smelled of timelessness and wood.
With hands too small, that handled with fear
The golds and reds and glassy stars,
I pointed that I wanted one here,
To hang lightly on a piney hood,
To hang so that my grasp was near.
The needles left me sticky scars.

I made a green pot that day at school,
And stuck large craft stones on its rim.
In my fingers, its touch was cool,
A whole class work’s entanglement with glue.
Accomplishment. Though I was a fool
To think it could hang as a spring hymn
Given its mass. A newly learned rule.
I readjusted, and tried anew.

The fragile ones were at the top.
They mirrored my pawing with their shine.
At some point I would hear a “STOP!”
And I’d recoil in quiet shame.
Once one like a silk web chose to drop
And in its descent I caught what was mine,
Repeated, like a reflective crop,
Blinking, breathing, all the same.

We brought a tree back home today.
I’m trusted with the fragile ones.
I still like to keep them far away,
Because they’re always turning pages.
But one that I will always let stay
Is too heavy for a branch’s sons.
I weigh it in my palm to say:
“The girl on the tree never ages.”

Unpublished Material, ©2010 Cali Digre

New Snow Villanelle

Oh, endless white, like she were starting new!
And even when the sunset marks the end.
The fanning outwards under silky blue.

The endless rain of feathers lost in hue,
When soft whispers of wind cause them to bend,
Oh, endless white like she were starting new!

It would not be enough to have but few,
And many more to earth the time will send,
The fanning outwards under silky blue.

They are too soft for touch, too tough for chew
But blessed with heart, and blessed by grounds to mend.
Oh, endless white, like she were starting new!

Erasing graft lines would be hard to do.
This snowy sketch would not be good to wend,
The fanning outwards under silky blue.

Against the monochrome I can’t find you,
As if your color was all you could lend.
Oh endless white, like she were starting new!
The fanning outwards under silky blue


Unpublished Material, ©2010 Cali Digre

Past

The things that I most fear in life
Are the things I’m less apt to understand.
The things that I know less about,
The things that I could never know.
Things you can hold in your hand,
But in my own would give me strife.
Things I could exist without
But in whose knowledge I tremble so.

The paradox so unpleasant
About which I quiver on recall,
Is how by knowing more of you
The more frightened I become.
I wish you had no past at all,
I wish you only had a present.
I wish I were your inception, too,
I wish I were your only sum.

Like some selfish leech, I adhere
To your current with such need.
I depend on your looking in front,
And so I hate what lies behind.
Albeit I see my own greed,
And how it waxes all in fear,
I forgo tact, and just say blunt:
“I wish your past weren’t so kind.”

When I go back home, far removed,
Though “home” is really just a word,
For I’m a tourist in my stead,
I don’t know how you’re going back.
You’re going home, so I’ve heard,
The meaning of it all disproved
By my own. For in my head
I envy all the things I lack.

SPECIAL DOUBLE POST!!!

Hello! So I'm going to be traveling this weekend, so I will probably be not writing a poem for Friday. Rather, I wrote a poem today to have the conclusion of November, and I'm going to post a poem I wrote the first day of November. Enjoy!
- Cali

first


gray socks on gray clouds,
breaking in their windy boots.
pines break in their taupe-y shrouds,
buildings wear their sunday suits.
hello, November. i missed You.

today’s patchwork fading fast,
decay, delay, and purple skin,
rawness maybe one to last,
thicker layers far too thin.
what, November, don’t turn blue.

quiet save the idle breeze,
dry without the subtle snow,
warmth can travel all with ease,
far better than i could know.
don’t, November, leave me through.

soft is tacky, viscous, taxed,
and yet it all seems fine to keep,
as nature leaves itself relaxed,
i also wouldn’t mind to sleep.
You, November, You can too.


depart

goodbye, grays, browns, mutes,
goodbye November, Your time past.
Your indecisive palette refutes
what i should make of how fast
the time went. nostalgic mange.

between oranges and whites, Your tawnies still
capture the simplicity we should adore.
Your nights can have frost, or even no chill,
Your fluctuations will be here no more.
perpetual cold will seem so strange.

as You sigh softly this afternoon,
Your bare bleakness reminds me of moods,
of how perhaps Your ending soon
will fasten to me different broods.
but Your return You can arrange.

for Your nature is to leave,
and come back when the trees are bare.
it never has done me good to grieve
when i still see You standing there.
thank You for this quiet change.

Parables of the Wind: Part I

The scratching at my cheeks grows thick
And red summoned on their plain
Does little to protect the raw
That round my presence seems to stick,
Governed by some physics law,
Where the exposed will tend to stain.

The faster gusts, my paces quick,
Though in it I have naught to gain.
She pushes me with her guffaw
To whatever on me she can nick.
She snakes to find a mortal flaw,
She persists on me without refrain.

Oh, her free will has made me sick!
She makes cold rubble out of grain,
She turns the flora into straw,
She satirizes each new chick.
Yet just as the blackbirds need their caw,
From her purpose she won’t abstain.

In this existence did she pick
To plant in nature so much pain?
Did she request to have her jaw?
Yet she is subject to the flick
And scratch of a large, unseen claw.
She dissipates, but I remain.

Unpublished Material, © 2010 Cali Digre

Late Autumn Leaf

Oh, how she bleeds anticipation
As she autumns on the limbs
Of some long-dormant oak nation,
The last standing in her formation,
The last one left to play wind hymns,
The last one left to lecherous whims.

And yet the wait makes her anemic,
She grows impatient for the fall.
She claims foul play, one left ischemic.
No words are left, yet her phonemic.
But had she missed November’s call?
And when she slips, will that be all?

She had so pined to all withstand
The blusters that dark autumn makes.
She cups the new frost in her hand,
As if it’s there to reprimand,
To weigh her down until she shakes,
A slice or drop is all it takes.

But then, why has this fall been kind?
The vents are gentle, their breathing still.
And when at last she doesn’t mind,
Her path is slowly down inclined.
She sleeps upon the windowsill.
She sleeps wherever the wind will.

Unpublished Material, © 2010 Cali Digre