Sonnet Jane Eyre

 

Jane Eyre:

Trembling and fainting from infant panic,

Solitary Jane is confined to a red room.

She is branded a thieving liar and barbaric

At a school that deals in miserly gloom –

Helen waits patiently there for a benign

Un-evidenced God to stop her weak breath.

Serendipity pushes a man down in time

For her to be brought to a house reeking of death

And creaking with rumour and a bastard child.

Rochester calls her into his room for fire-lit

Discussion of her and him while red hell burns wild –

The hysterical ghost tears the white dress in a fit.

But, much later, she hears his voice bidding for kind

Jane return to a black house and a man now blind.

 

This poem is based on the novel by Jane Eyre and also the 2011 film by Cary Fukunaga. I think it is probably necessary to watch the film or know the book to understand the poem.

Ghazal

Earth (Ghazal)

 

Tug out the henge stones like loose teeth from wet earth

And hear a low moan of dread from the spent earth.

 

Baked, bare souls kick up rising dust. Dark eyes are

Used to the sun’s grim ache and finding coins in red earth.

 

Fat cherubs coo down from a cathedral sky

Framed by stars like milk splashed on jet earth.

 

The one thousand arms of a lover hold flowers

Dripping putrid oil on eyes, mouth and dead earth.

 

An old woman gurgles a “thank you” or “yes”

As she is lowered into sacred earth.

 

Impress ‘Cecily’ into dry sand with a shoot

Plucked from a remote garden of unfettered earth.

 

dry earth

 

In this poem I wanted to convey a sense of the gothic found in many Psychological Thrillers. I was also interested in the way that ‘clues’ work within the genre to enable the audience to come to their own conclusion and form their own understanding. The different stanzas can be seen to hopefully  act as these ‘clues’ – often the director/writer only gives the audience only glimpses of a greater whole.

One Sentence Poem

Brighton Rock

 

Hail Mary he thinks on the seedy pier

As seagulls screech over old chips –

Rose, the little slut, serves tea

A cross hangs precipitously over her chest

 

Hail Mary as the Boy kicks old Spicer in his brittle shins

Busting a gaslight open on his way down –

Courting on salt-grass, bent towards a cliff

Shows proper feeling, like

 

Hail Mary burns down in Vitrol-hiss

On a bus rattling through Kemp Town –

It’s a fine day for the races and

Being cut to the bone

 

Hail Mary she belongs to him like a chair or a room

“I’ll never ever leave you, Pinkie” –

So he shows her how to pull the cold metal weight

And leaves it on her lap

 

Hail Mary when the record hits a scratch

And regurgitates an appalling hymn

Like a drone or a chant beating back

To a grainy snap taken on a sunny afternoon.

Brighton Rock Pic

West Pier

Se7en

se7en

Se7en

 

Death was his story,

Destruction was mine.

We had the same climax, and ending.

We had the same time.

Our plots unlike.

Our lives intertwined.

 

Had minds, not bodies intertwined,

Maybe there’d be a different ending to this story.

Maybe his fate could be unlike,

The fate of mine,

But father time,

chose a different ending.

 

But was there ever room for a happy ending?

Linked fate, entwined

with sin, needs only time

for stories

like mine

to begin. Unliked,

 

Unlike,

me, he, ended

his life though ending mine,

like I said, our lives intertwined,

I wish I could go back and tell my ego who’s story

I was really telling, in time.

 

I wishe I took a moment to confess my sins, in time.

but just like

him, thus my story

comes to an end

sin intertwined,

because he knew once he stole what was mine,

 

the hate would drive me out of my mind.

If only I could turn back time,

and intertwine

with a place, a face, very unlike

this, dry bitter, ugly, decapitated end

to this story.

 

when someone tells you their story,

listen until the bitter end,

and never be too vain to think it is unlike

 

your own. You see, any hero, could end up like mine

with the misunderstanding of story and time

your story, your life, yourself and killer could be forever intertwined.

Maine’s Suspect (Sustina)- D. Scott

Dwayne Scott                                                (Sustina)                                                          4/1/14

Maine’s Suspect

There stood the usual suspect,

a Latino man with his back

pressed against the glass window of the china shop

on the corner of Gerald & Main

being questioned by two police officers

as he eagerly waved for the bus to stop.

 

– It didn’t. Buses rarely stopped

for anyone. People suspected

that it was due to their skin color. Officers

had to flag down buses to get them to come back

and pick people up. Things were screwed up here in Maine.

-Another cop showed up. Three cops encompassed the china shop

 

inching closer to the young man. People shopping

gravitated to the city’s sidewalk to stop

and enjoy the show. Maine’s main

attraction on a Saturday afternoon: “Suspect

vs The Justified.” The Latino man looked back

through the glass and saw the reflection of an officer’s

 

hand just before it smashed his head through the window. The Officers

stepped back to assess their spectators, all white shoppers,

all quiet. The Latino man’s lacerated face looked back

to see a bus with its doors open, stopped,

and it’s driver signaling to come. He suspected

nothing and bolted for the bus that lit up, “Next stop: Main

 

Street.” Immediately, he began to regret moving to Maine.

he was constantly being treated differently than the other co-workers in the office

and had no clue as to why he raised all of this suspicion.

The Latino man stared out of the window as the bus accelerated past the shops.

The bus kept accelerating, not even stopping

for a red light. The passengers scrambled to the back

 

of the bus. They knew that he’d come back.

The “Transit Bus Slaughterer” had been the news’s main

story for three weeks non-stop

and the Latino man every officer

was after. The bus driver pulled into an old abandoned sweatshop

factory building and suspiciously

 

reached behind the back of his seat, pulling out the same gun that the officers

use, and picking off every shopper on the bus. The maniac

looked at the Latino and said, “Don’t stop anywhere. You’ll be the first one suspected.”

Assassin–One Sentence Poem

 Assassin

Someone must die, it’s inescapable,

If you had the chance to play god would you,

Could you,

Should you,

Let’s play a game—

 

Scanning the room,

Spotting the target,

TAKE THE SHOT

 

The mirrored imaged repulses you

Scarred, maimed,

If it’s worth it,

DECIDE NOW

 

Suddenly rage fills you,

Your blood has been replaced with pure malice;

 

Hate,

The blade raises in your hand…

 

the world is blank

 

When your eyes reopen,

Blood has been spilled;

It pours, it flows,

You watch the beauty of the crimson river as it exits your body,

 

wondering was it worth it?

After The Dap (Ghazal)- Dwayne Scott

Dwayne Scott                                                                                                                           3/14/14
Professor Van Jordan: Cinematic Movement
(Ghazal)

After The Dap

 

Rhyming isosceles they point after the dap.
And non-camaraderies conjoin after the dap.

 

From Rastas to swastikas to profits and agnostics,
All watch in aww no laws master the dap.

 

Street fights erupt between young teens and some think
That their friendship’s the shit after the dap.

 

No words spoken still a heart to heart moment-
The pressure of the chests’ connection after the dap.

 

The tan race is a fan base for handshakes.
Paparazzi paid in full capture the dap.

 

Through handshakes a real man detects fake.
You can tell he hates by the way he fastens the dap.

 

Business deals still concealed under the table,
Makes it hard to look a man in his eyes after the dap.

 

Crack sky rockets to push profit to thy pocket-
Government’s fatal exchange after the dap.

 

The misconception: you can snap tension with your tendons,
But you never know a man exact after the dap.

 

A man can judge another man’s clutch and reach a verdict.
No satisfaction means he’s wack after the dap.

 

A dry palm and a ripe clap and a snap
Makes a white kid think he’s black after the dap.

 

Now you’re probably thinking that you know D. Scott,
That’s the aftermath of being black after the dap.

black_and_white_handshake-other