April 24, 2002 // 9:00 p.m. // Saturday Mornings

This is probably the only poem I've ever written without anyone in mind. It's tough to have a visual image when you walk into class with sixteen words staring you in the face and a new poetry assignment awaiting you.

The poetry style is "Bouts-rime" which basically means you're given the last word of each line and have to compose a poem around it. I love the challenge and the poem came out quite nice.

Note: Diaryland won't likely end each line where it's supposed to end, so the lines end like so:

own/grass/drones/past.
fruit/blur/Brut/wire.
intrusion/mother/confusion/another.
afternoon/Ark/soon/dark.

Those familiar with Shakespeare may also notice the sonnet-like form.

Saturday Mornings

10:00 p.m., outside on the porch is everything I own.
My sister's belongings also nestle on the uncut grass.
My father calls me in the house and drones
that, "in your future, you're bound to forget your past."

Bound to forget Saturday mornings when we woke up early and picked fruit
for the homeless who would eat their food in a blur
while bundled in coats, handed down imbedded deep with Brut
cologne and in the cold which burned our noses when we worked on the car in wire-

rimmed glasses. But now dad looked upon our living at home as an intrusion,
and we watched as mother
cried and looked for forgiveness from us in all the confusion,
but it was she alone who wanted another

chance to hold us after a fire in the mid-afternoon.
She wanted to shield us, protect us, tell us more stories of Noah's Ark.
And we wanted to stay, and we knew if dad came to his senses, soon
we would pull our possessions in from the dark.

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