Senioritis

Senioritis is in full swing for me. Right now, I should be writing my capstone and four other research papers, as well as preparing three presentations and a project due in the next two weeks.  Fun fact: I have started on none of the above.  It isn't entirely that I am lazy, or apprehensive, about graduating or what I am going to do after graduation, part of it is a lack of available knowledge on the topics I am researching (seriously, I don't think anyone has ever researched religious practices of the Ixil, at least as far as women's roles in religious practice are concerned; and serious research on gender presentation and performance in video games is probably in the same boat).  

But the most frustrating thing of this final semester is not my research papers, but the busy work I am constantly assigned by my gen-eds that simply gets in the way of any serious efforts to complete my assignments.  Plus, I have the attention span of a gold fish, which isn't helping me at all and I am above taking performance enhancing drugs - regularly.  My fears are probably getting the best of me, but at the same time the ridiculous requirements for graduation aren't helping me either.  When the hell am I ever going to need anything I am learning in my math class - it isn't statistics or anything useful, like balancing a checkbook, but it's all about bead patterns and weird graphs and shit.  Nothing of relevance to me and really a time consumer.

This semester has filled me with doubt: about where I am going, what I am doing, and whether or not I will finish this year even.  But I guess it is alright to doubt, because it can be inspiration to do.  Dale Carnegie once wrote, "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."  And if what is beneath is any indication, I got busy - but in the wrong place.

Doubt

I doubt I will graduate.

The focus I tend to possess when I write is

absent,

The cascade of organized thoughts and synthesized

concepts has run dry, with

hardly a trickle left.

I doubt it will come back.

My desk is piled to the clouds with monographs,

feminist theory, games to observe

and report, and a series of articles waiting to

be examined, dissected, and robbed of their

precious cargoes, coerced into confession of vital

information I seek.

I doubt I will get it easily.

My mind is away, back where my heart

remains - wandering the cobbled, narrow corridors

meandering down to the Guadalquivir,

where the rush slows and silences

beneath the ramparts, in my mind.

I doubt I will ever go back.

I desire the serpentine streets of the West

again, and for duty and necessity to fade

and surrender to my desires.  But that will never

be.

I doubt it will ever be.

Fin

He looked as if he would shatter,

Into a million tiny pieces of crystal at the 

slightest touch.  He was defeated.

He was worn out, exhausted and finished with 

the continued monotony.

He couldn't remember anything in the past

month; Where he had gone, who he had met.  

On the edges of his eyes, the flood was

beginning.  It would soon drown an unresolved

pain, a decade of silent suffering, perhaps the 

longest running performance of any kind

of any time.  

In his head, the beat picks up to the light

whistle of medieval rhythms and sounds.

The curtain has closed and the actor is 

laid naked before the world - his script, his 

action, revealed to be a farce to express jovial

thought and notion but hiding despair 

that he let destroy him for half a score.

A Few From the Vaults

I used to write a lot more than I currently do.  I don't think I've lost interest, but I just can't find the words.  So, I figure if share a few from the stacks that maybe it will encourage to take up my pen again for cathartic, or aesthetic reasons.  Enjoy.

Constellations

Down here on the warm cement,

Beneath Luna’s shining light, I lay

In wait for a fresh idea, a thought

To seize in my mind, to pass

Through my fingers, to the end

Of this ballpoint.

I count three celestial spheres

In the deep

Azure twilight, and begin to

Think of the constellations. I look

For Orion, but in this light he

May indeed still be traversing the

Clear, sparkling waters of Attica

As Diana pulls back her bow

To take aim at her unexpecting lover.

So, while the warrior eludes

My gaze, the bear lingers

forth from his heavenly hollow

In search of his cub or scavenges

For sustenance 

At the end of the world,

Where, the great warrior and the great

Huntress bask in the lunar luminescence,

The great bear could indeed be in the

Thicket off in the distance.

Woodland Cemetery

I remember being in the graveyard by school.

Wasn’t too far out of my way home,

And yet, I felt like getting lost

On the twisting path in Woodland.

Wasn’t too far out of my way home,

And quite nicer than the run-down

Neighborhood not on the twisting path in Woodland

Lined by marble and granite memorials.

Quite nicer than the run-down

Quiet rows that calm me,

Lined by marble and granite memorials

Laid out like dying apple trees.

The somber rows.

Led by autumn, breezes sting: knives

Laid out like dying.  Apple trees in

The snow-covered groves of the first snow.

The autumn breeze stinging,

I remember being in the graveyard by school,

Daylight running out, my curfew getting close,

And yet I felt like getting lost.

The Grave of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Woodland Cemetery