TEN NATURAL POEMS OF STORIES
One. The pavement of the desert
cracks, and the nomad leader
wanders for higher ground.
Two, Three. A secret, a gentle crunch, sits
in the lower corners of a
"nobody is around to hear"
forest.
Four. Sometimes, the lonely pain
of money entices me. Wealth is
stronger felt, not worn.
Five, Six. When digging for China,
Kool-aid is life. Cats fall on their
heads in a place where the ground
is up.
Seven. Songs are first in my poet life,
but ranting in an abstract edge of
television is a song I shun.
Eight. In a limitless library, the book
covers are all grey and red. The story
was designed there.
Nine, Ten. Watching the sky, sharp traces
make me hope the man working on
atomic bombs still remembers chilly stars
and cardboard moons.
This poem was written in my first few weeks of High School. My teacher, without my knowledge, entered it into a state contest, where it took first place in grade levels 7-9. I got $20 out of it, so I never complained. Much.
THE RACE (HAZEN 1990)
Like, I really know
all the words...
under the eaves,
raining in drops
around puddles
in the
street.
Words like
interdependent.
Not thinking words.
Not sleeping words.
In a cartoon landscape,
Nosing around my dreams,
Gaining on me even though I am running harder.
BAND WAITING AREA, ABBOTSFORD B.C.
Band tour '90; we stand in the crowded
parking lot, discussing life and music.
the noise thrums painfully, the loudest drums
command a thousand ears.
The most popular songs are mimicked
Over and again. "Birdland" , "Louie, Louie" , "Born to be Wild"
The first band suddenly straightens
into strict rows and columns. The others
quiet to listen as the band marches out
onto the connecting street. Their drums sound
a simple tap, and as it dies away
other groups follow. Some march out to a tap,
others flourish their cadence.
As they leave, the parking lot becomes bigger,
silence creeps in. The sun sneaks away from
the clouds, but the plaza is only becoming darker.
The last band pounds a proud cadence as they leave
but then it only lingers as a memory.
A lonely paper tumbles across the empty lot.
Parades are interesting beasties, put together with a little bit of luck and a little bit of common sense. For instance, there is danger in mixing the clowns with the bands right away. Enough time for that kind of fun on the route itself. In the Abbotsford parade, we all ended up in the same parking lot, all the bands there for the annual contest.
When practicing in a parking lot with fifty other bands, loudness makes up for badness. We had five drummers in our band. One of the bands there had fifty. We didn't get very loud.
This was another parade that I didn't march in due to the heat. Heatstroke is a lovely thing to keep getting during parades, innit?
NIGHTMARES THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW
I heard the rain thrumming against my window
And groaned deeper into the blankets.
My pillow seemed flat and hard -
Not like the cement on a playground.
Not like a table in algebra.
More like stacks of blank typing paper.
The cat scratched mercilessly at my bedroom door,
A sudden crash of binders and textbooks
informed me that she had found her recently
buried food dish.
A dream whistled through the crack
in the window sill, and after coasting
across the room for a spot to land,
settled on my pillow, purring.
I sighed back to sleep, but awoke
at a shout of thunder. An uneasy emotion
stirred, and my eyes opened to the empty
room.
The cat heard me wake, and revved loudly
across my bed. I hoisted myself to look out
the window, my eyes turned away to the cloudscape.
I watched nightmares prancing,
Silver and chalkboard blue,
over the hills and valleys
of the upside-down sky.
The silence fell like the ending of a song,
I shook awake as the alarm
scolded me.
GREEN M&M'S AND LEGOS
Certain times I wonder,
what really is the power
in Green M&M's?
Do they capture the summer evenings
with soft sunlight falling away
a coolness spreading
across green brown grass,
Or is it the laughing crispness of sleds
singing down a steep hill?
Maybe they hold the autumn
friendships drifting through relaxed
school hallways,
or the yelling relief of
the children leaving those halls in
springtime.
Perhaps...
but the glowing orange ball
sinking into the trees
says that I savor that taste,
only because
it is gone.
A lot has been said about green M&M's, but only this was real to me: my sister told me when I was very young that they were magic, and that you could make a wish on them and it would come true.
BLACK WALLS ENCRUSTED WITH
SILENCE
The light switch
would only
make angry
words
darker.
PROUD EXPERIENCES
I have never seen
a dying old bum
with cane in hand
and mug held for money.
I have never seen
a starving child
with large blue eyes
and bloated stomach.
I have never seen
a friend in pain,
Drunk and pinned
in a smashed car.
Yet I smile bravely as
the diploma is given to me,
signifying that I am ready
to face the real world.
The Reflections contest is a contest for creativity that many school districts, including mine, participate in. One year, the theme for the contest was "Proud Experiences". I was rather annoyed at this, because I dislike all the themes they'd come up with in all the years I'd participated in it, so I twisted it as much as I could into this poem.
It won 3rd place in the school, and got me an honorable mention in the district. Go figure.
DAYDREAM/NIGHTMARE
I envision
Running football players sound like rain.
Uniform band members march to a tap.
Airplane engines thunder over the screaming crowd.
What if, when the cheerleaders yelled "GO!"
nobody yelled "HAZEN!"?
The stadium sits tiredly next to the airport.
And we file out, cheering,
at the end of the game,
The band playing "Twist and Shout"
and "Fite Song".
My poetry teacher objected to my spelling of "Fight" in the title of the school fight song. However, I proved my point after showing the piece of music to him. With the bold words "FITE SONG" right at the top. Musicians, ya gotta love 'em.
AFTER A QUARREL AT GIRLS' CAMP
I sit in the shadows, the wind
Whispers by and wipes
Liquid pain from my cheeks.
The flashlights and voices
Ignore me, do not know I
watch. I clench my hands, as hatred
Sings, The colorless
night dumps sadness and
Whistles through ancient evergreens.
A fire burns in the distance,
The one inside me
flares higher.
THE FOOTBALL GAME
The instructor said to "just write." It's hard to write
and not be sure what you are writing about. Normally I
write about whatever moves in my mind but today I feel a
story and the words are not forming. One time, not long
ago, I got a ride with a friend to a football game. James
picked up two others and the three of us got to the stadium
in plenty of time. We waited for the game to start by putting
together our instruments and playing jazz blues. The whole
band arrived in groups like ours and the stands around us
started filling up before we got there. When the game started,
the crowds flowed all around us, behind and to the right
sat parents and to the left were the students. In front
of us lay the stadium track and the cheerleaders stood in
the cold, yelling. When the football team ran out onto
the field we hardly noticed we were so busy eating and laughing
and playing jazz blues that the band director hates so much.
Then the other team came out and we began booing and continued
laughing and eating and playing jazz blues. Then Mr. Burpee,
the band director, yelled at us to start the national anthem
and we all stood up and tried to remember the notes and
a cold silence followed. Then the drums began and we remembered
except that half the band was playing the B-flat version
and the other half the A-flat version. By halfway through
we were all in B-flat and had quieted down so you could
hear the singer who had no tuning problems. Then we finished
in a flurry of clapping and started the Fite Song then sat
down to finish out candy and laugh and play jazz blues again.
I glumly watched the game, and sometimes, during a break
in the action, I would watch the band. The noise bit at
my ears and I would every once in a while yell instructions
at the players on the field, but invariably they would run
my play and fail. And I looked at the scoreboard and the
band and began to understand why Mr. Burpee hated those
jazz blues so much. We won the game, but I was disgusted
because I had psyched myself for a big loss. I was grumpy
as we left the stadium. Once, during the game, we had stood
up to play a song and nobody knew what song we were playing
so half the band and the drums began "We Got the Beat" and
all the bass and the other half started "Mission Impossible."
The drums won. And at halftime we once again forgot the
routine but played it out O.K. and everybody said "Good
Job" as we came back and fought for our seats from the parents
who had come at halftime. As I got into James' car I must've
looked grumpy because Chris said "Hey, smile! We won!"
and laughed when I said big whoop-dee-doo. Then we drove
past some Boeing strikers and Chris rolled down his window
saying "Honk, James, and show them we support them" and
I said I would tell them what I thought of the strike and
Chris had to cover my mouth so they would not hear what
I thought of the strike. And the jazz blues ran through
my head, and James dropped me off and smiled and said see
you in school Monday. And as I walked up our sloping lawn
I shut up my gloomy brain and tried to laugh but those awful
jazz blues kept running down my brain so I went to my room
as soon as I entered and sat down at my cluttered desk and
tried to write a Poem. The words came later, but I got
the true emotion down. When I read it the next morning I
found that the emotion had not lasted, and threw the poem
away...
6-4-90
FROM A DREAMER'S SCRATCH PAD
I always read stories
for fire and lazers,
Space cadets and Knights riding
dragons. Or Starships
that crash in icy hope.
Then I dream.
I hear the door crying
behind me,
And fight empty tornado wind
in the feathers of a
Roc.
I turn. Homework
on the table, hand on
the pen.
The beast swings down
to forget me in deeper sand.
Images sigh and crinkle as
The door opens and sends me
To my room, windows drawn closed.
I see my sister's yell and
Hear the open book.
STARBURST WRAPPERS AND TYPEWRITER THOUGHTS
Sometimes
I sit
in a stained corner of the simulated
wood desk, with a medium point
black ink pen in my right hand
and an empty white paper
in front of me.
Sometimes
I think
in the last row of the blaring
blue band room, holding a
fading brass trombone, staring
at the shining black music stand
that clutches the ditto-blue
dots and lines of "Louie, Louie".
Sometimes
I wonder,
crunching across a black track
sparkling like chalk in the moonlight.
About grocery-bag textbooks and Pee-Chees
and what comes next after "z".