Franks Poems—Second Round

(about ½ of class)

World shift.

Who knew that the world was white,

The clouds were blue,

The sea is black,

The night is grey.

Borders are red,

Blood turns yellow,

Bananas are purple,

Plums are green,

And that leaves the grass.

One thing that I still have yet to figure out,

In all of the words tossed about,

In all the fingers that have curled,

What color is the world

—Michael Gjorven

Untitled

If ideas were meant to be sidewalks then,
Poets were the drunken Irishmen who built St. Paul,
And lived in nice square brick houses on summit
Next to Fitzgerald and Keilor,

Who sometimes heard
The whistling of a man turned old
Walking Dixie in the subzero Minnesota cold
And buttoned up their hatches
To keep out the tune
“quiet quiet” they whisper
To their own close group of friends,
“it is simply the air grown cold again,
it gets heavy, you know,
when it’s this cold,
 and sinks sometimes
and you can hear it brushing
against the sidewalks…
But it never has anything to say
besides the obviousness of the ground
and the dull cold.
 And say did you hear,
 the northern lights were out last night,
brilliant I heard, (though I didn’t see them myself)
I heard someone hearing about them at market,
brilliant I heard…”

—Erik Kornkven

Untitled

It is 5:18 and I am floating near the end of class

So far Pollock has painted,

Lady Day has died,

And I have finished a can of Squirt which reminds me

Of a dusty ’66 Ford truck without seatbelts

Unsuccessfully spitting sunflower seeds out the window

On the way to the lumbar yard on scratchy unnatural upholstry

And I notice the rust on my hands after I slam the door.

Hardly anyone speaks up in class, yet as soon as it is over

No one can hear because all speak at the same time

The tiled floor and and molded tin ceiling

Reflecting the voices, turning them into noise

Broken sentences flying about hitting me in the head

As I try to hide, entrenched behind my laptop,

Barracading myself from the schrapnel of those statements.

The truck was sold long ago

And with it went my childhood

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon when my innocence

Drove away in the hands of a man I had met only once before

And would never see again.

I hope he treats it well, but inside I know he won’t

The classroom has now emptied and all that is left are

Flickering flourescent lights

The hum of electronics left on, forgotten in the corner

And me

Still hiding

Wondering where the truck is now,

Maybe I could buy it back.

—Jenna Barenthsen

This is CNN

The economy is incredible

it keeps going up and nothing can stop it

war is proving to be beneficial in some way

at least that’s what we want to believe.

The economy is slowing up

of course it’s slowing up it has to,

it can’t go up forever that’s impossible

everything has its own saturation point

so why should the stock market be any different?

The economy is dropping some

and no one is quite sure why

but that doesn’t stop people from guessing

which leads to mass misguidance across the country.

The economy is really dropping lately

and suddenly the warnings are being heard

and no one knows what’s going on with their money

people start to panic as the Dow drops five hundred.

Is my bank safe even though his bank isn’t safe

and my bank really is safe then how can I trust that

my money in my bank is safe and just what the hell

does restructuring mean?

No one knows what’s going on. No one knows

how to stop the market from falling. No one can prevent

a catastrophe from happening. But we can watch

—Deven Wegener

Untitled

I’m sitting among my half-dazed classmates

Wearing their college best

(which is a polite way of saying t-shirts and jeans)

I wish I was at home with my tortoiseshell cat

She likes to knead my stomach and put me to sleep with her purring

I have my own little fuzzy masseuse.

It makes me feel lucky.

The Sigma Tau Delta sign on the wall

Yells out “Sincerity! Truth! Design!”

Like yelling it would make it happen.

I want to be in my own haven of noise,

Music blaring, videos playing, cats meowing,

Not the jarring sound of a water bottle hitting the concrete.

--Sam Schultz

Untitled

I rushed out of my house, 40 minutes till class

I reached down and zipped up my pants

Before stepping into the car

Where’s the post office? Do I have time?

I asked myself as I watched the streets

void of the people going to work traffic

I notice the gas light’s on

And I still need to pick up the carseat

From my wife’s car downtown

There’s the truck. There’s the car.

Do you mind if I park in the street

My zipper is down and I pull it up

I drive away, 15 minutes till class

Should I drop off my mail

Where’s the mailbox? I still need gass

Fourty dollars for 12 gallons

And still no mailbox. My fly is

Down again though, it must be the pants

I see the pants I’m wearing are those

That I should have thrown away long ago

The stupid zipper falls down for fun

There’s the mailbox, and class has started

So I slow down, light a ciggerette

And enjoy my morning like any millionaire

Maybe if I catch my shirt in my zipper

Then it will stop falling down

Did anyone just see me pull it up?

--Chris Graves