Poetry for 3 AM

Trains

Chase me subway train,
Kill me with your steely eyes
I am waiting for my stop—
Really waiting to get on
And she tears me up just wafting by

There are bare feet on the floor
Attached to footless people
We stop, start, push shove
Then my toes crawl away
To find some string and a needle

I lie down on subway tracks
Somehow they leave
They carry people away
They give them new feet
But they don’t come back

Castles

You’re just tired and it shows
Each little sigh is a tiny blow
Like a wish made out of bones
Far from your father’s home
The thousand places you’ve outgrown
The million times you called me on
I’ve spent so many nights wondering oh
How your bed turned so blue
How time had never changed you
How the sun obscured the truth
How everyone is starting new
And where you had gotten to, gotten to?

You’re an animal, a monster, something I can’t describe
You’re an animal, a monster, something I want to get behind
It’s like a brigade tumbling down a cascade
Or a renegade superhero taking free days
Troubled by the hives, you can never stay alive
You’re on the run, on the run, and I know you’ve got a gun.

You’re alarmed and I know
You’re dying with every throw
Of every little stepping stone
That grew from miles below
Or from a place that he never cared to go
I suppose that’s exactly where you dared to roam
(It’s giving me some vertigo)
How I spend my nights wondering oh
How your bed turned so blue
How the night can swallow you
How quickly she withdrew
How happily she pursued
And where we had gotten to, gotten to?

Ziffles

More ziffles than Seuss would know
Lie sleeping inside the picture of where I’d like to go,
A place where all my dreams
scatter and play. They jump at the chance
to be held or hoped for and
they run in flashes of crimson and gray.
The ziffles and zaffes ought not to be mixed,
but who can tell until the zaffes start licking their lips,
ready to monge on the ziffles as they
lick the poppleberry walls of the poppleberry cliffs.
They grow up to be such strong zaffes!
But the mepps and the meeps can sometimes sweep in
to eat up a ziffle (and let it eat them).

Race without race

I have never competed for my race,
Or thought I had one at all;
I grew up Ecuadorian I suppose
Displaced and sort of connected
and apathetic about a theoretical home.
It comes as a surprise to see
that race sometimes counts for me.
Do I belong into a group when I don’t believe?
When I am too catholic for my religion,
Too queer about my straightness?
I am passing white, so fortunate
to have a colorful existence
to be privileged to embrace any race,
just like anyone of any race.
So should I check that box – will I be
brown enough to represent?
I stopped believing in emotions long ago,
so why should I act like they matter to you?
Is it because I know they do?
“But you don’t have a reason for that.”
“But I have a reason why that doesn’t matter.”
I am a little crazy when I run this race.
Even though I am never competing,
I am always tired, with a broken ankle, stumbling,
with not even a good word to write,
and losing.

Cabled

Runaway

So I told myself I’d be a runaway,
And I’d do it from time to time.
Though it’s been fifteen years since the first go at it,
I still can’t get it right.

Woke up to a girl but I was feeling alone,
I’d never been one to care,
She got up and she left without a breath,
The words slipped out of my lips there.

Wondering about my part in the world,
I lost whatever I had left,
So I walked to class and I lifted my glass,
Chasing the good times I’d had.

Pour me a story
and I’ll drink to that,
I’ve your answers and questions,
An essay I pulled from a hat.

No, I don’t think you’re the answer,
Girl, you’re not a lie,
It’s just you and me, so it’s meant to be,
Which means that I’d rather die.

Dream if you want this to be a melodrama,
Paint over the criss-crossed lines,
Call my friends Thaler, DeLillo and Stinson,
And tell them to meet me at 9.

I’m farther from home than I’ve ever been,
I’m closer to giving into the sea,
I don’t know what’s going to change anymore,
What I’d rather be.

A theory for theories

We sat there in the dull and quiet room, waiting to hear the news that didn’t matter. Content had leapt from matters serious, becoming frivolous; creativity seeped from the wall; hope and change were splattered like shot against a battered target. Post-modernism was upon us: theory resplendent. OR, we had become modern again! that nirvana of oscillations between signal, sound, metaphor, and pure, furious noise. Then, swiftly in the night with feathered hooves, meaning crawled back into words. The long, electric dark of the twentieth century stood up on coke-dusted heels, rising with a riveted chin as illusionment drove lattices into still, vibrating space. Words had and did not have meaning then, and now meaning itself lies naked and so, in the modern sense, wasted and understood. It was both constructed and deconstructed: bearing no distinct fruit.

“The test results were negative.”
“The book is in good hands now.”
“She was never going to leave you that house.”

Dizzy in my pocket. She spoke unnervingly eloquently. On 12 Serly Road, we walked out that room, my girl and I, out that detestable space, into Serly Road. Structure, structure, structure. The structure of a dream.

Awake. Tense, escaping tradition, I woke up in a sweat, her words bouncing in iambic pentameter. Shakespearean prose swam through my veins, the effects of falling in love bleeding out a conceit stitched together like a broken capillary. Upwards, of course, I pressed the button to floor 9 ¾. It made sense, like an Arabic narrative, or love in the Russian winter, like Melchizedek storming through Mos Eisley while in search of Lara. I awake again, consciousness snapping forward, the recognition of the dream that exempts you from its grasp. Then complications begin to subside.

The words relax. They loosen their thorny grip. The cup I hold as I wake up is brittle and full; the people around the table are merry for my waking up. I don’t wonder where the thirteenth hand comes from or plot a conspiracy. I am content to swim around above what I believe to be the gentle currents below. And while so many have swum far out to embrace some extraordinary unison between letters and spirit, I will leave myself content at the shore, to walk upon well-known lands in ways well-known men have never known.

A 21st Century Rebel

An Extra Ordinary Rebel

I’m so far gone, I’m going blind,
Can’t see past the hate that’s on my mind,
But you say I’m just an ordinary rebel 
The type that turns out fine.

Have you seen the pain in my spine?
Broken so many times.
Have you seen my friends inside?
Hearts of darkness, hardly alive.

Armed by the ones who’ve died,
They’d cut you down before you take their rights,
They’ll come on the wave of a coup d’etat,
They’ll come (they come) to eat you up,
They’ll run with their forks and knives,
You better run for your fucking life!

And the reign of terror will seem like a pacifist’s dream,
The confusion alone will destroy all our homes,
The good boys will sing about killing disease,
The good girls will dance with my guns in their hands,
Screaming we won’t die without a fight!

The kids on the streets tonight
Are dying in the worst way,
The fire sweeps right by
And the numbers go up in flames.

The darkest light you see
Is the one you spot in me,
I gave up on letting go,
Waiting was too slow,
I light the fires at night,
Tipping the scales, I try.

I might go to hell, hell I might just as well,
I’m the coldest bastard there was
Below the slant of the damned Western sun,
The apathy inside burned out in time,
And tonight, my friend, is goodbye.

Wisdom Teeth Out (28 hours later)

 

Got my wisdom teeth out .. here are my chipmunk cheeks

Revolutionaries soon after

Since

I was born included
with too much freedom.
I wanted to find words
in this (my) reconstruction
to say that I was your friend,
your lover, your soldier,
your brother.

But I  was too free
and picked this up
and I did not look back.

I took up arms to 
fight (betrayal).
I took up reading again
not to write (betrayal).
Though I had shouted and
screamed, I did not
write my history.
And those that did
betrayed me.

I have lost more since
and paid twice and
twice again
the price of too much freedom.

All was atwitter

Wanderer

We are the wanderers, your tired and poor.
Filling desks unseen:
in the closed life,
agnostic aesthetics plan the plans.

The wanderers (I was once among them)
traverse across time, secret spillers.
Legion, playwright ballerinas,
so lost and disenfranchised,
they wander towards nothing, from nothing,
the makers of things made.

 

Swimmers

Swimming thoughts come to the surface for air,
Where they are seized, coveted and admired:
“I always thought this was extinct!”

 

Curious

I took it upon myself to be different today,
and so I wore a brightly colored hat.
Beneath that hat I became a man,
some charming fellow, no doubt,
but I was not him and have no recollections.
I suppose it was that yellow hat that
got me into this business with this monkey
and that girl, but such is the way things go,
I suppose,
When you start to grow old.

Two Kidnappings (Spanish-only)

Dos secuestros

Así empezó, sin duda y sin compromiso allí en la calle en donde la gente desaparecen. La señorita Leira Iturralde, quien trabajaba para la CIA en el división de narcotráfico, estaba caminando bajo la protección de dos agentes. Tenía solamente unos treinta años de edad y ya a cargo de la división, después de haber interceptado veinte toneladas de cocaína en un barco yendo a los Estados Unidos. Nació en Argentina y creció en los Estados Unidos desde cuando sus padres se mudaron en 1982. Era la hora de revolución, la hora de niños desaparecidos y de adultos desanimados.

Primero, yo encontré los cuerpos de los dos agentes, Jackson Trivers y Allison Hanning, quienes habían trabajado por cinco años juntos antes de conocer a Leira. Los dos cuerpos estaban en la calle a la vista, con un punto rojo en su frente. Era tarde pero las luces en la calle iluminaban el charco de sangre que manchaba sus camisas y que pintaba sus caras. Trivers y Hanning fueron importante, pero más que nada, teníamos que encontrar a Leira. Escrito en un papel que estaba en el bolsillo de Trivers era: ≪No las vas a encontrar. Ni en el cielo, ni en el mar.≫ Sí, la señorita Leira estaba caminando por estos calles y ya no.

Leira se despertó en una cama fría bajo una colcha sucia, lleno de lagrimas, tierra y manchas de sangre. Analizó su entorno. Medía todo que podía: el cuarto era 2.5 metros de altura por 4 de ancho y 5 de largo, la puerta estaba en la esquina 3 metros de su cama. No se oía ningún voz. La bombilla estaba colgada desde el centro de la habitación. Ella se sentía muy cansada. Pensaba que si no la hubieran matado entonces ella habría sido importante para mantener vivo. Los pensamientos que no vinieron de inmediato de su formación llegaron lentamente. Era probable que la habían drogado, creyó ella. Después de lo que pasaron unas horas se dio cuenta de que tenía hambre, y que no sabía cual grupo le secuestró, y si sabían donde estaba, y si …

Segundo, busque en los papeles que estaban sobre la mesa encontré mucho. Con el permiso del gobierno, miré los websitios donde andaba Leira antes del secuestro. Vi fotos y videos y correo electrónico. Todo pasó muy despacio y yo me preocupaba por su vida más y más. Yo seguía buscando en cada carpeta de la computadora. Tal vez fue un recuerdo de una cosa que me había dicho de su breve tiempo en Argentina o tal vez fue suerte. Abrí una carpeta titulado “Corrientes.” La carpeta tenía seguros muy avanzadas pero no impenetrables. La vida de Leira, siempre envuelto en el misterio, estaba a punto desenredarse.

El día siguiente, leí todas la información en la carpeta. Leira trabajaba con ambos lados en la guerra contra los narcotraficantes. En 2003, cuando había hecho su gran descubrimiento del cargo en el barco, ella había mandado un correo electrónico a Carlos Ramas, el cual es un sobrino de Pablo Escobar, para notificarle del descubrimiento. Ramas respondió, ≪Bueno. Los demás tienen azúcar. Asegúrese de que no analizan los paquetes marcados con una etiqueta amarillo. Ojala que asciendas con esto. Estamos tomando un gran riesgo contigo. No nos falle.≫

En el cuarto sucio, Leira esperaba ver sus secuestradores y amigos, Ramón y San Pedro. Todo salió más o menos conforme a sus planes. Tenía más hambre. El reloj en la pared de que ella no se había dado cuenta le dijo que eran las cuatro. No sabía si fuera de la mañana o de la noche. Entró un hombre al cuarto, mirando a ella. Leira no le conoció. Por primera vez empezó dudar que estos fueron sus amigos del FARC. El plan era permitirla desaparecer para usar su información de la CIA y para no estar viviendo como traicionera con la posibilidad de ir a la cárcel. Pero no deberían haberla drogado. El secuestro no iba ser cuando estaban presente Trivers y Hanning. Los hechos no tenían sentido. Cuando vino el hombre, no mostrando comida sino puntando un pistola en su cara, ella sabía que estos tipos no eran ni del FARC ni de la CIA. Se levantó con la agilidad de una mujer de veinte años. Ella sabía que sabía demasiado. Por eso no la mataron. La droga ya paró de afectarla. Sus pensamientos tenían claridad. Miró a su secuestrador, memorizando su rostro como si le pudiera parar de hacer lo inevitable. Miró al cielo, a tiempos pasados, a horas desapareciendo dentro de otras horas tras la espalda de un reloj antiguo en donde la gente se pueda escapar y en donde nunca le llega su hora. Empezaron las preguntas.

About the Author

http://www.kevinverbael.com

Nervousness in April

Bankers

Is it a crisis if you like it?
Can you believe we’re so old,
stealing bigger things,
on harder streets, knowing things,
tasting the experience imparted
by the world,
running the world,
in our oh-so-capable hands. And
they don’t like us,
never have,
never had
a chance.
Because we’re running the show now,
and the crisis is something you can believe in
because we’re the ones you have to trust,
and the ones you have to hate.

Spinning, faster

She knows where she’s going, it’s the getting that’s got here down,
The world spins too slowly at times, too fast at night,
Unable to get her hands to make the things she’s got to make,
Talks to herself, can’t  seem to get it right.

The television blinks hello, her computer hot from her knees,
Concerned with who she is, what it all means,
Clocks ring with the same song in her head,
She’s driving a car and missed her exit again.

It all spins too fast to grab a hold of anything you can hold on to,
Too fast to recognize the friends you used to have,
Too fast to pull the hair from your eyes,
Too fast to do anything but burn out or fly. 

Fifteen minutes and a heartbeat from falling in love,
Too distant to make amends, under a gray sky, a gray poem sings,
Where a rainbow peeks to break her concentration,
The waiting for the weekend is just a complication.

It all spins too fast to grab a hold of anything you can hold on to,
Too fast to recognize the friends you used to have,
Too fast to pull the hair from your eyes,
Too fast to remember who you were when you were alive.

She sails to Japan every night in her dreams,
Plays for twelve hours to make up for lost time,
So she has the energy to read until she wakes up asleep,
Where she counts down the hours till the morning creeps.

It all spins so fast you can’t see where she’s going
Too fast to lend a hand,
Too fast to recognize the friend you had.

The Rebirth of My Twitter.

I shall tweet on the intertweets @ twitter.com/kevinv

Lent without Caffeine. 12:01 am Easter: A Can of Coke.

And it was delicious.

ThesisTrack Word Cloud

Link to full-size image 776px x 367px, generated on Wordle.net

new kevinverbael.com

redesigned http://www.kevinverbael.com tonight.

New photos online!

54 photos online today: winter formal, trip to new york, trip home to california, birthday celebrations in california and boston, harvard, you know .. take a looksy!

http://flickr.com/photos/kevinv

For My Country

Some Tuesdays in this country.

A leaf falls waving,

            trailing, where rain

parts a day,

 

A new soul is

         born, it begins

a thought: stolen hope

        from a wicked witch

                    a bystander’s friction and betrayal.

Where these fractured roads split,

         is where the wheres run towards.

 

The sun spills, into the new dimension.

 

We, the oppressed

           hold a knife to our hearts

against we, the oppressors.

 

The America of tomorrow is a fiction.

Change and hope are just words.

The ground has shifted.

 

The cynics have had their say,

while spirits too frail were taken in

            and housed by the specter of the past.

Now, with joy

comes candor and diligent debate,

            colorless and insistent,

storied and statistical,

and meaning is kissed into words again.

 

The leaf falls to the ground.

Nothing is different.

The things that change can never be seen.

            They are believed,

                        made with weary hands,

                                    and they are listened to,

On a day like today.

This Week in Justice: Patriotism – vice or virtue?

Justice

Justice, as you may recall, is a large 850+ student course at the college that walks through various issues in moral philiosophy from a wide and established variety of approaches. Right now we’re studying communitarianism: (generally speaking) the idea that we are not self-owned as a liberal might argue (Locke, Friedman, Nozick, Rawls) but rather we are not so completely free because we have specific duties regarding our commmunity which has part-ownership in all of us.

Poll question

The poll question this week was: “Patriotism is not a virtue but a vice, a prejudice in favor of one’s own kind that we should try to overcome.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Answer for yourself then see the results below:

Stock trading simulator (website)

For computer science 50..

We had to make an online stock trading simulator where each registered user gets $10,000 in virtual cash to play the stock market. I spent a little extra time making the website look and feel nice. Please visit and have fun.

http://cloud.cs50.net/~kverbael/pset7/login.php

YES!

So happy I’m crying! CNN calls it for Obama!

 

Fin.