DaSani

on her water bottle
the condensation
fingerprints

fluorescent lighting
off the turquoise wrapper
tint

desk

circles;
rippling
shaking
her leg

Haiku

The boy walked by and
was suddenly startled as
the bush chirped at him

A Westerner's take on an Easterner's take of a Westerner on an Easterner

dude,
dude,
dude,
dude,

Karma

Haiku*

Like a bursting dam
the most scummy Persian guys
enter the classroom


*I felt kind of bad writing this one: At the time I wrote it I only knew one of the three guys, and I didn't know how I felt about bunching his two friends with him. Recently however, one of the guys who doesn't know me at all starting tugging on my leg for answers in the middle of a logic test. Now I dont feel so bad about presuming he was a scumbag just because he was associating with the biggest of one them all.

PS- I love Persians but its guys like those that give them all a bad name.

It's all good until he puts you in a sleeper hold.*




* I overheard this older woman in my class talking about how she broke up with her Ultimate-Fighter boyfriend after he put her in a sleeper hold.

Suppressed vocal powers
-- what else was a supposed to do?

Haiku

Lying on a bench
the clouds came down to greet me
burning cigarette

I wrote another short story (very short) while on the flight to Israel. Its very sad when I think about it. As I finish posting the last of the stuff I wrote while I was there, I have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that the trip is over. My mindset goes back to school and other things. This story is a bit more conventional than The Cheekbone, but still, it is a bit whacky and facetious.

Untitled <----link

I had my way with words.

Haiku

My bonzai and I
discuss the pangs of being
physically stunted

Poem

passing time;
hours
in a white room
hours, the room
is still white
only slightly darker
and still
still

Poem


You're always there
even when you're with me

I've written a couple short stories in my day. The Cheekbone is my favorite. It is a post-modern masterpeice. The fabulous Jessica Haroonian (editor) had this to say:

"I don’t know if you want things to seem abrupt, but they are...adjectives and verbs seem really random and just disrupt the reader’s reading. If you meant for things to be expressed as abrupt and random to provoke certain thoughts, then I guess you should just leave it alone. "

This was exactly what I was going for. I'm going to write a full and detailed analysis of the story but I'd rather let people have their own interpertations before I give them mine. It would probably be a better idea if I had posted a more... umm... conventional short story, to prove that I can write ie, "know the rules before you break them," but at this point it doesn't really matter. On that note if you see any obvious typos please let me know.

I'm not sure why but the blogger screws up the formatting when I post it from word perfect, so please excuse the lack of indentation. So without further ado....

The Cheekbone

He said

Socially agressive--
Bully
Dude you should've seen
what I went through

-----*

Stern gaze
on a soft face
sliver of crystal
on her delicate cheek
as she scratches it

From behind her chair
playing with her hair
he can see
by the outward movements
of her slender-pink fingers


*I never finished this poem; I had great plans for it but I underestimated the length of the train ride and I didn't want to finish it with inauthentic observations.

Haiku

Before we vomit
Aaron and I exchange an
acknowledging glance

Poem

The rhythmic tick-tock
of the clock
like a pleasant hum
when you're a bum

Keep telling yourself that... to feed your ego.

-Jessica Faroonian

EGO *munch*hat a cool guy!

EGO *chomp*st guy ever!

EGO *slurp*r so dreamy!

Please don't touch me so I don't touch myself.

Haiku

slippery tears drop
faster than the hair of his
receding hairline

Haiku

a very fat girl
putting her life on the line
working with ice cream

Bus Ride 2

The stench of a brown-eyed
twelve-year-old girl
sitting on the bus
next to a rosy
twelve-year-old boy
sitting on the bus

Butterflies with wingspans
as wide as his smile
in his stomach
while she sits there
slightly irritated

Train Station 2

Jumpy eye contact
trance music
lingering in his head
from last night; a dirty night
with random people
in a train station
your eyes dart.

Bus Ride

I leaned forward
and so did she
I noticed her eye
gazing at me
I leaned back
and with a sigh:
if only I weren't stuck
between a Russian
and some old guy!

Suitcase*

A little epistle
that need not be sent
it only reminds you
of how fast it went

I think this time
I’ll spin it a rhyme
its already quite depressing
the passing of time

You took me to the scene
of your submarine
he didn’t make it
it didn’t get far
the hills still mourn
the fallen Dakar

We went to the shop
that served coffee and tea
girls don’t like creepy–
you take it from me

its ok to admit it
it doesn’t make you a fiend
but that girl we checked out
was only fourteen

blurred images on a train
as the light bends
are even less fleeting
than time with friends

but how much I'll miss
that of bit bliss
when I first noticed
the dark curls
on the heads
of those soldier girls

*This was written as less of a serious poem and more as a way to preserve the memories of that trip.

Haiku*

If you learn one thing
its that girls don't like creepy
you take it from me.



*The original concept for the haiku came about in an interesting way. I was tutoring this older guy in Statistics. I pointed out a girl that I thought was cute and continued to stare off into space (which happended to be in her direction). He thought I was staring at the girl incessantly for a minute and so he started murmuring, "Phil, girls don't like creepy, Phil girls don't like creepy." Then in Israel, my good friend Erez Miller took me to the Shawarma shop where I co-wrote the verse in the post below. Later that day we went to a coffee shop and the words, "Phil, girls dont like creepy" kept repeating in my mind; this was probably due to the age of a girl I was checking out earlier (see "Shawarama Shop"). I knew I wanted to incorperate that line in a haiku. And so with Erez at my side, we co-wrote the above haiku-- we're not perverts although the impressions you get from my blogs may seem otherwise.

Shwarma Shop

Erez and I
staring at the 16* year olds
we never got
and still
couldn't get.

*I still insist that she was 14.