Haiku's and Tonka's

*Bar Stool Love

All I can see here,
In the clouds of withered smoke,
Is your eyes, gray, green
Soft piano melodies float across
A room, divided, by love.

LIBBY
Swinging back and forth,
The wind ripples through your hair.
But, flowers are Stooopid
And die in the cold winter.
So, pick a better image. Libby.

Lonely Mountain
Wasted on a poem,
The mountain crumbles with shame.
Please, remember it.

Burial.
I saw your likeness,
it will bind us, forever.
I lead, you follow.

*Not actually a Tonka, but written in the same style.

Anaysis of Ode To Maize, By Pablo Neruda

Ode To L.A.

I listened to the sound
of gravel, shifting beneath
the wheels of the car,
and took:

One last gasp
of L.A. air,
One last look
at L.A. towers,
One last picture
of a L.A. landscape,
One last pause,
for L.A. traffic,
One last Hurrah,
For L.A. Dodgers
One last sip
of L.A. orange juice
One last search
for L.A. Movie stars, hotels, plazas, and board games.
One last romp,
through L.A. fields
One last feel, for L.A. grass, textured to a blade, greener than the desert, brighter than the trees, squarer than the spectacles on my Uncle’s face, Hotter than Hot sun, on Hot Women, on Hot Cars.
Somehow,
the grass,
grows greener
in L.A.

The car pulled out,
I pulled out,
my battered CD player.
I listened to:

Punk,
Rock
Music.

Motion
City
Soundtrack.


The seams on the baseball, were tighter,
in L.A.
The smell of suburbs, and dirt, were stronger
in L.A.
The volume of voices, were louder,
in L.A.
The theme parks, more expensive, and the food more delicious in L.A. The High Ways,
More Expansive<>
In L.A.
8 Lanes Of Traffic For 100,000 Cars In L.A.
The Cousins Were Cuter In L.A.
The Wiffle Ball was lighter,
In L.A.
My asthma.
Was gone,
In L.A.

I was sad to leave.
I was sad to kiss,
The windowpanes of a
Foreign house good-bye.
And, once again,
Settle into the nylon covered
Seats, of a Pontiac
Vibe.

I guess,
The Trip
Was Worth It.

Final reaction to On The Road

While reading this book, I was most struck by the youthfulness portrayed in the writing. Everything is fast, entire stretches of road can be described in a paragraph. The characters are bold, sharp, and move as fast as the road does. There is rarely a moments rest in the book, and I think that the "beat" generation, (as Kerouac coined it) was like this. No one was sure what it meant, or why it was important, but everyone understood that IT was important. In one conversation in the book, Dean and Sal discuss it in a car full of strangers. They share innate, seemingly unimportant conversation about cut mountains with their minds as children in cars. About running along side the metallic machines, chasing the wilderness outside. Yet somehow they both arrive at the same need of IT. I think that the memoir is really a pursuit for that imaginary feeling, that is impossible to describe, yet impossible to live without. In On the Road nothing is more important. That is why Kerouac can spend a page and a half describing how a saxophone player plays. How he swings with the flow of IT. They way he vigorously attacks progressions, confirming and denying his possession of IT. With such incredible invigorating writing Kerouac sparks a fire in the reader, making them want to search for IT. Such writing is rare, and powerful. Overall the book is an explanation really, of what a generation was, and what it means now.

On the Road, Journal Three

There are few instances, in On The Road, when the wild crazy events seem "out of the norm". Indeed most cases of all night parties, continuous 48 hour drives, and drug binges seem almost mundane. But, in the third segment of the book, it seems as though the partying life is finally catching up to the main characters. In fact one of the main participants, Carlo Marx, has opted out of the lifestyle, moving into upscale New York, settling down with a wife and kids. When Sal and Dean go there to meet him, they find a different man, who suddenly questions why they do things rather than, when, and what they do. Dean, sees life as one crazy trip, never ending, never standing still, for Dean if life is moving a hundred miles an hour, it's not moving at all. Sal on the other hand, runs through periods of deflation. Where he settles down for a while, only to be whisked away again by Dean, and whatever girl he happens to be in love with at the time. This time, Dean scoops up Sal, and they drive down to New Orleans to hang out with an friend, old Bull. Thing start to get crazy, through an unspecified amount of time, Sal and the gang work their way through several kinds of drugs. Including Benzedrine ( a type of stimulant) and heroine. It feels as though the mood of the memoir has started to shift. No longer is everything happy. Each trip isn't all glory and sunshine. The characters are growing odder, and more desperate at every turn, Bull takes three shots of heroine, administered throughout the day just to stay functional. The effects of such a crazy life style have started to show.

Stormy Class Room

Ms. Anastis had a spacious room. Wide, and gray, it was broken into three sections. One section was a gathering place. An amphitheater, were the children would sit, and Ms. Anastis would read. I always loved reading time. Soothing words, make for good nap times. The second section was the math section. Despite the section's colorful beads, and proportioned blocks, I hated it. The last section was defined by one feature, a gigantic glass window. The window pane was broken into distinct parts by iron supporting bands, criss-crossing the sleek surface, breaking the outside world into its own pieces. The window was a source of sunlight, happiness, and on one particular day, terror mixed with embarrassment. One day, the sky turned sour. Then the wind kicked up, and started flailing the trees. My fear of Tornadoes crept into my mind. The oppressive humidity made my skin sweat. The walls of the classroom started sneaking up on me, closing in slowly, delaying the breakdown. Storms, clouds, lightning, rain, I feared it all. A warm sensation spread down my legs, I knew I was in trouble. I stood there by the window, pants dripping, head hung, trying not to turn and look at the rest of the class. Suddenly, the storm wasn't important anymore, just changing my underwear.