New Twist

So I've been sick this past weekend, which is why I didn't get a poem up yesterday... supposedly. But anyways my last poetry assignment in my class was to write a section poem, which I decided to do on the nature of Norway. You will see that these poems are familiar: these were part of my summer project, and I reinterpreted them to create new poems. This was actually really interesting. It was fun to see things redrawn this way. Anyways, yup. I've included the original poem and then the redraw.


7/3

Water blends too well with things,
As if it were all on single strings.
A certain place finds my eyes,
Not to be described as one noun.
They clouds are gray, this place like ashes.

And so I watch it, and I
Am positive that this is the sky.
But a little boy splashes,
And then I realize
I’ve been looking down.


Water Blends Too Well with Things

In its aquamarine interpretation of trees
And people. The softness, serenity of fluid outlines,
The impertinence of detail.
Because they way one moves is often—
More important? No— more conspicuous.
Only the clouds look the same, but that may be because of their
Movement. They float under the lilies like gentle fish.
The breeze sighs among the rocks and some tumble in casually,
The pond catching its breath once they all finally sink.
My face never had so much movement.

7/8

The duck swam.

Its feet made waves
In a perforated triangle.

And the duck spoke: “I am
A master now. My choice saves
This certain grass from being eaten.

“But oh, I am so far from the highest view.
The danger I feel! Often I think a wolf will mangle
Me by my neck. But, even then, a wolf can be beaten.
By you.”



To a Duck:

Why are you so fragile? Your shivers ripple through
Your glass skeleton. I expect you to shatter, your hollow bones
Whistling like a bent oboe among the reeds.
You assert yourself as if you were an unorthodox question,
Incredible shame for an innocent inquisition,
Grinding out of an indecisive mouth.
I can imagine many more ways for you to die
Than for you to live,
Though I suppose if you weren’t so brittle,
I wouldn’t find you so beautiful.

7/22

rolling quiet
just static of
shock a scream
couldnt pass through
the air is too brittle

no birds
but ashes
no weeping rain
but smoke hangs
too bleak for rain or birds

7/23

Save me, trees! I cry.
You are more fortunate than I!

How you stand, foreboding
In endless array. How you stand
Forever, keeping hold of the land.
How you stand unafraid in the dark.
Never telling if you are imploding.
Never telling save your bark.

I’ve hated you for having no soul.

But you sure have this all under control.



The Forests in Hallingdal, Vestlandet, Norway

Every glass building in Regjeringsstrøket
Has more of itself on the street
Than in its iron framework.
These trees are older than the government.
Never has Oslo been so lit with flowers and prayer candles, but
Flora grows back every spring, after the forest fires, of course.
A bullet to the head can instantly kill a fifteen-year-old boy.
It takes at least twenty axe swings to fell an oak.
We make cemeteries out of people.
We make churches out of trees.


7/27

The dark could but converge.
It hung at a fixed point,
Incorrigible to urge.

How stubborn was it one
Evening. The clouds floated
On the darkest cusp, a joint
That was quickly demoted.

For the days are shorter.
And as for the sun,
I’m not sure if we can afford her.


A Month’s Aging of the Midnight Sun

There used to be an eternal day, the sun bowing to a point
Then escaping the darkness, swimming back upstream
Into the sky. I suppose it was perseverance.
But the summer aged.
The air is damp from too much movement,
From too much life doing too much too fast.
The sun limps behind the thick clouds,
Its light sallow compared to June.
She sleeps longer now, and sometimes she forgets to wake.
I have not seen her in three days.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Pleasant Arena

Our next prompt was to write a poem about a place that has significance to you. Of course I picked Pleasant Arena. This poem is a huge departure from what I've written in the past. Just trying different ideas.

Everything I know about life I learned at Pleasant Ice Arena

I know from a bottle cap in the vending machine we were forbidden to use
That a cow can go up stairs but not down.
Grasshoppers and spiders can cross-breed.
We call them “sprickets,” and it’s good luck if you squish one
Trying to put your skates on.
“Fungus” and “among us” are good rhymes,
Though I wouldn’t like to divulge where I heard them together.
It takes three toe picks in the ice to dig out the rusted paint
That falls from the ceiling like tetanus confetti.
I found one in shape of a blob once. So did a lot of people.

In the summer I can still smell
The compost site, divided by the parking lot,
And how we would sit on the hill for hours
And guess what people had thrown away.
The fourteen hundred and seventy-seven steps
From the front door to the nearest Bruegger’s
Go by more quickly when you’re holding someone’s hand,
Still cool and somewhat damp from a session of falling.
They go by slowly when he moves to Florida
And you realize the little bastard still has one of your magenta gloves
And it is probably infested with ringworm from being in that bag
That always smelled like bread, in the bad way.

I learned that the more you fall, the less it hurts,
That sometimes there is a God,
But only after a damn good session.
You’ll have better results with the innards of a spricket
Smeared like oil on the sole of your tights.
The other times the only thing you can feel is your blade carving,
In that soft growl, resonating across cement walls,
Making your mark on the world before it is wiped clean by a zamboni.
That doesn’t matter. Just start over again.
The paint on the ceiling restarts its celebration every ninety minutes.

That happiness is in a Snapple bottle
I hid under a yoga mat for a year
And then found this August, and finding out
That I don’t really change all that much.



Unpublished Material, ©2011 by Cali Digre

A terrible half-way point

As you may or may not have already heard, there were twin bomb attacks in Oslo this afternoon. A bomb went off at the city center about 5 km from campus, and I actually heard it and thought it was thunder. Later in the afternoon, there was a shooting at a youth camp for the Labour Party in an island. All in all, I've heard of 18 casualties. I was almost not going to write a poem, but I decided I had to capture what I felt when I walked outside shortly after hearing. Everyone and everything was so fragile. I will also be out of the city this weekend, so I'll be posting twice on Sunday again.

rolling quiet
just static of
shock a scream
couldnt pass through
the air is too brittle

no birds
but ashes
no weeping rain
but smoke hangs
too bleak for rain or birds

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

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

SUPER LATE

Hello all-
So.. I was traveling again this weekend and it was all hectic and stuff, so I couldn't get in a post yesterday or today (technically). But here it is finally. I got a middle seat on a very obnoxious flight. So much to write about.


22B

Between Movement
And Vision,
I have neither.
Both’s passive derision
Implies any improvement.
I’d bide with either.

In forced freedom
From the glass pane
Or the aisle,
I find my simplest bane
Is watching the greed some
People rile.

So simple if they
Could not make me watch
Their little lives
And little hearts blotch
My life. Have I something to say
About how their life drives?

All I hear are dismembered
Words and phrases that
Mean nothing to me.
Tweens scream like a cat
That has just remembered
It is free.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Cali's on a Plane

Hey all- So I'm traveling this weekend and I had the privilege of 10 hours of travel time. So that sucked. BUT I got to enjoy how everything looks the same from up on the plane. Yay planes. Maybe not airports.

Seat 7A

Forest smog
Parking bog
Downtown thicket
Wheat field picket
Freeway river
Migraine giver:

Aluminum
Wings and numb
Fingers where
A nap was. There,
My book shakes,
Sickness takes

Motion and
Makes a grand
Adventure out of
Tiny text or
Maybe of a score
Of weak glances.
Only my chances

Of relief are
Small. But then far
Away the ground
Will meet us. Found
Footing. Airport hive.
Airplane dive.

Haiku.. In Japanese

Hey all-
So lately I've gotten into the bad habit of writing haiku as a surrogate to doodling. So here are five haiku that I've written this week, in Japanese. I'll provide translation, obviously.

Enjoy!
~CD

食べものは
ちょっとまずいけど
いただきます。

Regarding this food,
It's a bit bad tasting but,
I humbly accept (Literally, a phrase you say before you eat thanking someone for the food)

天と話す。
水をよく聞いて。
だれもいない。

I talk with the sky:
"Listen close to the water.
No one else is here."

わるいうちに、
君に来たいけど
もう出来ません。

In this awful time,
I want to come to you, but
I can't anymore.

雪と氷、
おゆとつめたいの。
何もある。

Oh, this snow and ice、
Hot water and cold water,
All of it exists.

雪と氷、
いつもたてもの
を作ています。

Oh, this snow and ice,
They are forever making
Buildings of themselves.

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

DOUBLE POST!!! Again.

Hello all-
So as promised, here is something sort of special. These two are fairly simple poems whose inspirations were during fairly mundane tasks: cleaning my room, reaching into my pocket. I figured I write so much about bigger things, it'd be nice to write about something... simpler. Anyways hope you enjoy them! Oh and I'm going to be gone this weekend, so this is kinda my post for Friday... Yeah.

~CD

Scissors

The manicure shears
I’ve been looking for
Have yet to make themselves
Known. On my shelves
I’ve made myself pour
My attention. Hope appears.

The stacks of stacks
In broad harmony
Across my desk
Leaves my room grotesque,
A slow-borne sea
Of too much lax.

By now I perhaps won’t find
Them. Things like to walk away
When their place is not known.
So for now I may be alone,
In the clutter of today,
In the clutter of my mind.


Hole in my pocket

The contents not within my grasp,
My palm empty, dissatisfied,
The realization, a well-worn gasp,
My inner voice, a well-thought chide.
What was there when I left today
Has just so happened to go away.

It does not do to dwell in the trust
Forsaken in that lazy tear.
Eroded fabric, now I must
Patch you up. It's only fair.
As if its purpose were but to mock it,
Much is lost by a hole in a pocket.


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

Blackbird

dear blackbird
on the Green
what I’ve heard
what I’ve seen

breakfast sandwich
that you stole
with beaked stitch
and eaten hole

your feathers loose
january
eyes and puce
tongue you carry

they all watch me
as if to say
“this was my fee
now go away”

but my approach
still gives you fear
and I encroach
you disappear

you make no sound
you turn not back
and for the ground
feathered black

Unpublished Material, ©2011 by Cali Digre

Road Trip

Why can’t I quite look past
The first line of darkened trees?
The lighting on the road sufficient,
I can see all of it quite omniscient.
But what I cannot see with ease
Is what I know is built to last.

The road gives way to stronger woods,
As if it knows that they were first.
But yet the lamps that map the route
Drown out the nature in a bout
Of harshness. This is the worst
Of our “wants,” our “haves,” our “could”’s.

I’m never one to hate any light,
For showing any path is fair.
But to have existence so intrude
I find perhaps to be too crude.
I wish I couldn’t see here, but there.
I wish the forest were more bright.

Perhaps my favorite thing about cars
Is how they are likely to be stopped
Without notice. So I look left
To quickly marvel at her deft
Work. With the high beams dropped,
I can look freely at the stars.

Unpublished Material, ©2010 Cali Digre