Yellow - Unedited

A clean yellow sheet
Spread out before me,
Laid out - waiting for me,
I’m talking about a sticky note, mind you,
Not a legal pad - ew.
What will I do with it,
With this wide yellow expanse
Of pure potential?
Will I make another paper plan,
A wisp of a smoke of a tendril of nothingness,
An idea of a thought of a dream,
Nothing more, nothing less?
All the numbers in place,
The figures and the data,
The pros and the cons,
The crows and the sparrows,
Everything ready
Except - me.

~ Sam 

Star-addicted

Virtual reality-
The stars above you,
Two inches from your face,
Turn left and they're so much closer-
You can see the crystals, the sharp edges-
Right, and they're distant lights again.
Is that how life is?
(This is where this gets pretentious.)
Look up close at the sharp angles and mistakes,
Or far away at the general joy
(General Joy, salute, mandatory reference made)
and sadness, regrets and nostalgia.
Who makes this choice, are we born with it?
Do we decide how to see the glass,
Half-full or half-empty, beer or wine?
(I don't know what I'm saying.)
Oh yes- the stars-
They're beautiful, are they not?
So pretty, so romantic,
Those burning balls of fire,
Consuming gas, imploding, exploding-
Whatever it is that stars do.
Whatever it is that lovers do.


~Sam 

Marvel

At the dewdrop delicately balancing on the leaf,
Unmatched by any tightrope walker in any circus.
At the flock cutting across the sky,
An annual journey I could not compete with in a lifetime.
At the sky, oh the sky,
All the painters with all the paint could not paint its hues.
At the ant, scurrying about its job,
What does Wall Street have to that ant?
At the indomitable cockroach, wriggling after being crushed,
No Howard Roark could out-spirit that cockroach.
At the beauty of cities,
Are they ever so beautiful as when you're leaving them?

Is the sun ever so beautiful as when it bids goodnight?


Being all sentimental and shit,
~Sam.

A Walk on the Terrace

You stand still as the sky moves around you,
Each dark leaf silhouetted in the midnight orange-blue.
The wind and the crickets take turns speaking to you,
Can this too be law school?

Hugging yourself, fluttering against the breeze,
On a square of terrace on one of many clustered orange buildings.
You're barely discernible from the darkness-
Only a pair of shining eyes, reflecting stars unseen.
You can feel the sky, the wind, the slow spinning of the earth,
As the clouds are shepherded by above.
A forest of trees surrounds you, protects you, beckons you.
You're alone in the world-
It's only you, and your story and adventure,
Waiting to unfold.

You stand still as the sky moves around you,
Each dark leaf silhouetted in the orange-blue.
The wind and the crickets take turns speaking to you,
And you realize- this too is law school.

~Sam

Despondent

I don't even have anything to say,
Just a feeling of sadness which won't go away.
Juvenile rhymes give me a moment of gladness,
But even my closest friends can't stem this sadness.
Like a wave it crashes over me,
Like the sea it just gets to me.

It's silly, the reason this started at all,
But isn't that always the way sadness falls?
I'm lonely, I'm inadequate, I'm stupidly insecure,
And all my friends are on far distant shores.
The despondency just crashes over me.
Indomitable as the ocean, it just gets to me.

Funny

Funny how quickly we get used to things,
The atmosphere of deceit and pretense,
The new classroom,
The new year.
It's only when you realize you've been writing the year as 2011 for days now,
Lost in an inattentive haze, that you notice how much has changed.
How much you've got used to.
Funny how we are all unique,
And all uniform-
How unaccommodating the world is to anyone truly unique,
To anyone different, abnormal.
To a long-haired man.
Funny how intensely private I am about my writing,
Even as I hope the world sees it.
And funny how one of the most common blessings around here
Translates literally to "keep living."
Because isn't that the most difficult thing of them all.

____

Insecurity.
The way you pull down your shirt as you stand to leave,
Chin up, eyes down, lips pursed. Unseeing.
Insecurity.
The way you eyes touch the ground softly,
Harden against others' faces.
Defensive against an attack which hasn't even been considered.
Insecurity.
Nose in a book, shunning them before they can shun you,
Ignoring the happy chatter you didn't even try to be invited to.
Insecurity.
The way you're the first to laugh at yourself,
When that much-awaited attack does come.

The way you cut yourself,
Before they can cut you.


~Sam

Brain Surgery

I wish you could do plastic surgery on your brain.
Erase memories, add intelligence.
Maybe add some thicker skin-
Sensitivity is so much more attractive in others.
It just seems to be painful in oneself,
This ability to feel and empathize and notice and relate.
I wish you could do plastic surgery on your brain.
Add total self-awareness, or none at all,
This middle path really isn't working out for me.
And an off switch-that's the most important one of all-
The ability to just shut it off and go into auto mode.
We need an auto mode.
I wish you could do plastic surgery on your brain.
Fix things so we actually were the rational beings Economics thinks us to be.
A simple cost-benefit analysis- and all our questions answered.
Who needs feelings anyway?
All they've ever done is complicate-
And add joy and sorrow and depth and humanity,
And make the human experience human-
But who needs humanity anyway?

~Sam

Will There be Fire?

What do I dream, what do I desire?
What burning thoughts flame my inner fire?
Is there a fire, is there desire?
Or has it gone out in this daily quagmire
Of routine and work, sunken hopes and dying dreams.
So all that is gone which once burst from my seams,
So all that is gone which once burned in my eyes-
Fires and desires smothered in implacable ice.
I drown in poetry, I dream of Literature,
And yet, "Get down to Earth," snaps my law teacher.
Was it the right choice, will I ever know?
Will the fruits of taking the safer path ever show?
A glint in the eye, the sigh of a desired job well done-
Will passion and flame ever my insides burn?
Or will it forever be hopeless fatigue's turn?
Will there be fire, will there be desire?


~Sam

In flux.

Neither here, nor there,
We wait.
Wanting here, yearning there.
We wait.
Here in the waiting room,
Of life.

For life.

---

We are the tormented novelists,
Not the protagonists.
Suffering, creating brilliance,
Not guaranteed of a happy ending.


~Sam

Peace and Poignance

Things are so poignant sometimes.
Simple things, daily things.
The leaf lying on the grey road,
Unremarkable, old,
And yet I want to take a picture.
The tilted bench against the brick house,
The grown puppy teetering around the door.
Nothing new.
All routine sights,
And yet, I want to capture them all.

-----

Just a mood.
When your mind is scattered,
Unfocused, adrift,
A certain sadness hanging,
In the dusty shelves that comprise it.
Just a mood.
When you can wander every-any direction,
Direct your steps here,
Then there, at anyone's beck,
And call.
Just a mood.
When you're peaceful,
Not worried, not thinking,
Just looking and seeing.
At one with the world.
At once away from it.

-----

Why is it associated with sadness,
That peace,
That comes with calm,
That comes with acceptance,
That comes but so rarely in our existence?
Why is it associated with sadness,
That emptiness,
That connection,
Which comes with nature,
Which drains and nurtures?
Why is it associated with sadness,
That bliss,
That emotion,
That for which we have no name.
That for which we have no name.


~Sam

Rain, a cut and a bandaid.

Darkened tar on the roads
Offsets the bright fallen leaves.
The cold wind hurls rain at my face
Through space and sorrow and fluid green trees.
A cut and a conversation are the cherry on top,
And a bandaid and a childhood cure make my joy complete.

(Yes, I have an irrational fascination with small wounds and bandaids.)

~Sam