Look, I printed one of my poems, “8 Beatitudes,” on a letterpress. Here’s a few others:



Find Your Way

With simple means
and using your own personal measurements,
determine a height you cannot reach
and a width you cannot walk.
Call loudly for help if you are alone,
and keep on calling.

 this is a found poem i made using text from the Orienteering section of the Boyscout Handbook.




Breakdancing for the Pope

Four kids took turns
bucking and twirling
on a marble floor
in front of a throne
where the Pope sat.
One boy, the last one,
stood on his head
on this stage made of stone
and set himself spinning around
like a globe, and the Pope said, “I love you.
I love you very much,” he said.

When I was a kid
I learned how to pray
beautiful memorized prayers like songs
and my teacher told us that prayer is
talking. It’s two-way, she said,
so I talked and then listened
like waiting for echoes
inside my head
but only got silence,
dusky like church.
But words put on paper
are tin cans with string
like full-body prayers
they twirl and buck in
my mind, then in yours
and we’re dancing together
on this globe made of stone.




 Warping the Loom: A Pantoum

Before you the threads are strung in two taut rows, ready.
One fluid movement will bring them together.
The threads, which point in opposing directions, must meet
at perfect right angles, making of the many, one.

One fluid movement will bring them together,
this riot of threads in reds, yellows and greens,
at perfect right angles. Making of the many, one
throw rug or scarf to keep out the cold. It's a practical art.

This riot of threads in reds, yellows and greens
stand at attention and wait:
Throw rug, or scarf to keep out the cold? It's a practical art,
this patience to watch and see what becomes.

Stand at attention and wait
to see your work completed.
This patience to watch and see what becomes
is the thing you can learn from a still-quiet loom.

To see your work completed
the threads, which point in opposing directions, must meet.
Is the thing you can learn from a still-quiet loom
before you? The threads are strung in two taut rows, ready.

this poem is a Malaysian form called a pantoum.




 Obsolete: The poetry project of Lily van der Spiegl