Something So

When something so distracting hits the eye
And scoops the mind up off from its soft perch,
And with the thoughts in tow it soars the sky
Then descends the atmosphere and sweeps the earth;
When something so exciting takes the breath
Out from the lungs and stops the beating heart
So teasing life with short glimpses of death
And no apologies does it impart;
When nothing so does happen to my being
It leaves me with an emptiness inside.
Like eager eyes forced to go unseeing
Once opened, from the sunlight they would hide.
It’s dangerous to live, but even though
I fear my death, I long for something so.

Book Review

In his latest novel, The Last Line of Defense, author Tom Clancy breaks free from his usual action-adventure genre and finds himself writing a grotesque attempt at a love story. Try as he might, a romantic writer – let alone a Harlequin novelist – Mr. Clancy is not. Just as competent as Clancy is at relating an action-packed escapade reveling in every nuance of war, espionage, and international intrigue, so is he incompetent at successfully writing a romantic love affair.

The novel follows Jack Ryan, Clancy’s favorite recurring character, as the young man attends Georgetown University. While getting an education that would one day lead him to serve our government and even eventually lead it, Ryan experiences the hardships and heartaches that come with pursuing the opposite sex. The novel chronicles his one-night-stands, sexual flings, and many other romantic romps in post-adolescence, but in true Clancy style, there is plenty of heart-pumping action along the way.

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Grandpa Terry

It just hit me today: With his goofy demeanor, lame puns, and childish humor, my step-dad would make a pretty good grandfather.

Ben Folds

Ben Folds is coming. And I have tickets.

Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters and Other Worthless Crap

The only thing that sucks more than Gertrude Stein is wacked-out avant-garde freakos in weird costumes doing interpretive dance to a narrator with a voice synthesizer singing a short play written by Gertrude Stein.

Shoplifter

If Hy-Vee grocery store calls, you have no idea where those six pumpkins went.

Dork

You know you're a dork when you've got the song stuck in your head from Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope when Luke and Obi-wan go into the cantina on Tatooine. (Also, you know you're a dork when you refer to every Star Wars movie by it's full and complete title.)

Announcement

No more papers. No more tests. No more missed classes. No more floats. No more parties. No more drama. No more Homecoming.

I am sleeping through this entire week.

I Hate You

Yesterday, I hated the entire world.

Today, just the western hemisphere.

What Happens in Seneca, Kansas stays in Seneca, Kansas.

Here are the totals for this weekend:

Friday:
hours spent in a car: 4
Smashing Pumpkin songs listened to: 30
Simpson's quotes spoken: incalculable
legal limit of alcohol percentage in Kansas wine coolers: 3.9%
legal limit of alcohol percentage in Kansas beer: 3.2%
beers smuggled over state line: 114

Saturday:
hangovers: 1
weddings attended: 1
inappropriate thoughts while in church during wedding: more than 10
trips to bar at reception: 5
bad eighties songs danced to: well over 15
cigarettes smoked: 13
shots taken: 1
times vomiting: 2

Sunday:
hangovers: 1
beers left over: 12
hours slept on trip back: 3

Chapped

I don't mind chapped lips, but a chapped nose? C'mon, that's just annoying!

On Almost Getting Fired from a Restaurant:

As it turns out, in addition to being a bad dancer, a bad student, a bad writer, a bad Christian, a bad friend, and a bad son, I'm also a bad waiter.

Who knew?

Die Again in Autumn

Turn and die, leaves, 
fully confident 
that your reincarnation 
will come next Spring, 
only to die 
again in Autumn. 
Like one thousand 
tiny green Jesi
resurrecting themselves 
to dangle off the tree,
once more they come. 
For whom 
do you die 
so many times?

Gimme a Break

It's my Creative Writing class. I promise, after this semester I'll stop writing so many lame poems.

On Being Blanket and Warm in Winter

When her snow
soft lips would
winter sweet nothings
(in my ear)
her December cinder
soothe under wool 
would fire flesh,

making my Autumn heart
smile from my chest.

Pockets

Both my pockets have 
holes in the bottom
-- drainage for loose change --
that are big enough
to stick my finger through.
This makes them only useful
to protect my hands against
the biting September air.

ATTN: Kid on the Stairs

Just because you're foreign doesn't mean you have to be stinky.

The Cody Monster

behind the bed
	under
	in
	on
the shaggerous
shadow of a tiger
	waits
	watches
while the
tivelless child
plays content
	smiles
	laughs
until unexpected
	exploding
from the dark
claws scrape
	walls
	pillows
	sheets
teeth wrend
	hair
	fingers
	limbs
the cody monster
with ruthless
fangarity
	crushes
	devours
its idontic prey

Thomas

I used to play with the towel-head and the chink from down the street. Jerry didn’t really wear a towel-on his head, but that’s what he was. I think he said his family was from Pakistan or something. And Sing-song – that was as close as we could come to pronouncing his name – even though his parents were from Korea he didn’t talk funny at all. He talked really good for a chink. In fact, if you talked to him on the phone you might have thought he was a regular person. Both Jerry and Sing-song talked just as good as anybody else.

So, I always used to hang out with them – ride our bikes and pick on the younger kids mostly – because they were the only guys the same age as me on my block. Well, Sing-song and me were the same age, Jerry was a grade above us in school, but besides us, the only other guy on the block was Thomas, the retarded kid.

Sometimes we used to wait at the bus stop until Thomas got off the short bus and we’d pick on him for a while. We weren’t really that mean or nothing; we didn’t hurt him. We’d just ask him dumb questions and he didn’t know no better, so he’d always answer them funny and we’d all get a big kick out of it. Even Thomas most times. I think in his head we were all best friends, which I guess was kind of true, seeing as we were the only people that talked to him, besides his family. After we were done picking on Thomas every day, we’d always take him home, mostly so Jerry could see if Claire was home.

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On the Merits of Cigarettes

"And that's what smoking is. It's twenty little conversation-starters in a box."

--Jay