What’s for dinner?

 

should I eat?

all I see is cardboard turkey sausages

recycled mud-coffee

purple chicken meat

mossy spinach

colorless tomatoes

and…

    nowhere to sit?

 

pretend not to make eye        contact

(walk as if on drugs–

am I on drugs?)

walk     (drugs)

am I drugs?

I drugged?

 

drugs?! where–

no, don’t tell me

but–

    how much for 10 mg?

 

nice

n i c e

f  l   o    a    t     o    f    f

 

go away

please

I don’t need you anymore

I don’t!

Please give me–

            no!

No need

I–need you

I need

I

help, please.

 

 

 

A Youth V E X E D (a journey from haikus to sonnets to free verse)

 

How can I begin

to seek styles that are new when

it’s all recycled?

 

Is it too ambitious to believe that

not everything’s been discovered? It seems

like it’s all been done–well, it’s been written

that’s for sure. To disassemble the stones

that allowed me to stand is the first step–

well, realistically speaking no

tao lies in that way. Gather more stones!

Eh, I’d rise past relatability.

I’m doomed, I suppose, to tread infinite

beaches in search of perfect sand pebbles

and attempt to mold my own glass. Doomed

to look at myriad failures and pretend

they’re examples to follow. Doomed to think

that it’s true I must make it new.

 

Ha    ha    ha

      ha        ha

How proud! the petty poet of Pookeepsie!

 

Am I the mad hatter

for laying a grim scene on a platter?

¡Qué soberbia! All youths think the world

is ours for changing.

Ranging from Dublin to Hades

to Paterson, New Jersey

it’s all crazy and unbelievable

if you believe it.

Walt Whitman jumped high jump rather well

Yeats, too, was great

and so was… oh well too many to name

have knocked the bar too high

for a dreamer confined to old curriculums

and money for a fulcrum.

 

 

 

Future Geniuses of America

 

Now that we’re all gathered here,

under this flag, on this round table,

house of the dying gables,

show me your knowledge, white seers!

 

Tell me what your prep-school education

makes of Jean Toomer’s Cane?

I am sure your wonderful English elocution

has some great insight, an objective frame.

 

A hand shoots up,

“But like wasn’t lynching just whipping?”

The class in silence nods.

I see you took AP US History, now I’ll continue weeping.

 

 

 

Sunday Mornings

 

7.

am

 

Zzz…

   Zoom.

 

Zzz…

   Zoom zoom.

 

ZzZoomZap.

 

I get up to the sound

of fast cars on the tv,

my dad says hi

and asks me if I want coffee.

 

I say I do.

 

Cup of mostly milk,

I don’t even like coffee,

I don’t even like cars,

but my dad does, so

so do I.

 

They’re doing laps somewhere exotic

I cheer for the red car,

Schumacher, the German,

the one who always wins.

Juan Pablo Montoya, Colombian hero,

lags somewhere between 9th and last place.

 

9.

am

 

A brown-green morning,

               jazz is playing.

Waffles,

awesome.

 

Lunch at the grandparents’.

 

Sneer.

 

I tell my mom

I am gonna make a list

like in that Momo book (by Michael Ende),

about every minute I waste.

 

She starts crying.

 

11.

am

 

I ask my dad why he doesn’t watch Formula 1 anymore,

he says Montoya is not in it anymore,

he never cared for racing.

 

So are you done with the TV?

 

 

Is this what patriotism is?

 

14.

pm

 

7 missed calls.

 

“When are you getting home?

“Hey.

“I’m upset.”

 

Can you pick me up though?

 

Silent car ride home.

I try to entertain my dad

with some story from last night.

 

 

Whatever, I thought it was funny.

 

15.

pm

 

Bad pop blasting

smoking ciggies

in the balcony

we share stories of last night’s

conquests.

 

“I was so drunk.”

   I was drunker.

“I was so close to getting her,”

   I was closer.

 

we’re old!

we say we’re so done

with this city,

we know it all.

 

((I love you

because you’ve no supervision

I love you

because you’ve no inhibitions

I love you

because I know you love me back

I love you

because no one has ever loved me before

I love you

because I think you’re like me

I love you

because you’re exciting

I love you

because you’re a friend

   an actual friend

       a friend

           first real friend.))

 

No missed calls on my phone,

“My parents are sooo chill.”

                   Are they there?

 

17.

pm

 

hey xbox,

haven’t seen

you in a while. Jk.

 

Kinda         humid in the district.

dreary in the house.

silent in the family.

 

Kinda         confused            tired            bored

            tired            bored           confused      tired

                        bored        tired             bored       confused

 

Monotonous techno screen daze,

No, I don’t wanna go to the movies today.

Can I go now?

Back to the basement?

Yes, I’m happy,

don’t worry.

Don’t.

Worry.

 

           Please worry.

 

19.

pm

 

Sunday Mornings

always strange,

 

half-drunk/dying

yearning

the range

of possibilities

of childhood,

 

I miss you I miss you I Miss you I Miss You I MIss You I MIss YOu I MISs YOu I MISs YOU I MISS YOU I MISS YOU I MISS YOU I MISS YOU I MISS YOU I MISS YOU I MI–

 

ssed you.

 

 

 

College Epic

 

In an everlasting weekend

a life without an end

a night that’s never ending

where there’s no trend

we slip in our own sweat

on sticky sheety nights

forgetting about man’s blight

our existence is our only threat

when the sound of lightning

counterpoints the bass

in a swirl of delightment

we laugh at nature’s face

that laughs at our arrogance

with thick rains and chili suns

that make it impossible to hold hands

or think about our moms

who grieved as we left our warm duvets

to uniform twin beds and linoleum floors

plastic bottle vodka and marlboro reds

and learned to always want more

than books and dead white opinions

and left no room for utility

or “proper elocution”

but complained about life’s futility

or there being no palm trees

and cloudy cotton clouds

not okay with withering leaves

and thicker shrouds

from second hand threads

uncoil into an endless spiraling mirage

river with floating youthful dead

surrounded by orange foliage

green that yellows and yellow that reds

green that dies and dead who tread

anticipating a life without a vessel

as brazenly the cold we wrestle

and all day rest and all night sin

singing sadness and madness

and seeing the mad madden

out of control and stumble on the floor

       covered in thick layers of snow

           that every week only grows

               and flows crystalizing into the ground

                   we pound

                       and pound each other

                           on tiny closets and wet floors

                               and get frozen.

 

in an everlasting weekend

a life without an end

a night that’s never ending

where there’s no trend

but an obsession with things that pop

and give us warmth on the endless winter

of our hearts. We flop

and let duties linger

as the grey slithers into our soul

on the cold that’s so cold it hurts

not to be dull

and trying to flirt

with a spring that starts marching after March

we greet with happy smoke

that unravels in an arch

as your grandpa got a stroke

and brush off ideas

that never materialize

the immaterial feelings

we try to express

as I wear a colorful dress

to remember to smile

at the mess

we’ve made all this while

bodies rapidly decay

unnaturally raisin lungs ripen

in hazy days

that smell like the dung

that we create and call art

that’s lazily made

and sold at Kmart

next to tour books to the everglades

where we took a break

and realized persona means mask

it’s hard to know one knows oneself

when our hydration comes in flasks

and our books stay on dusty shelves

reminding us to feel sorry for our livers

but never for the commons

communing in turbulent rivers

washing away expired court summons

one last breath of will

to get out and greet the cold pavements

where we’ll sulk and always feel

like we left ourselves in the making.

 

 

M. E Uribe is an undergraduate at Vassar College where he enjoys a nice liberal arts education. He was born in Bogotá, Colombia and has lived in the U.S for the last four years. His poetry has previously been featured in Poetry Quarterly.