Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Past to Present

The other day I was digging through files for the hell of it and interestingly enough came across a folder entitled "College Writing Fall Semester 2002."

I discovered all my short stories and poetry which was either written as assignment or on my own. The one below is dated September 23, 2002 and I must have written it while I was in the "window period" awaiting the accurate test result from my experience in the story posted below. I completely forgot about having written this poem but I'm happy to share it now.

It's a villanelle poem, meaning: The villanelle is poem that is made up of 19 lines. These lines consist of five tercets as also a final quatrain on two rhymes. In the first tercet the first as well as the third lines repeat alternatively as a refrain. This closes the succeeding stanzas and is joined as the final couplet of the quatrain.

"Safe Sex"

My heart in the back of my throat
Inevitable flooding forthcoming from my eyes
In Arizona's oppressive heat, I, desperate for a coat

This needle sticks like truth from my vein, the blood afloat
This is how it is, when regret cries:
My heart in the back of my throat

Waiting for the results, dread, becomes the sea underneath the boat
Ten thousand pounds on my brain, a strength nothing denies
In Arizona's oppressive heat, I desperate for a coat

I'll say when twenty-one I used to gloat
Before the crowbar, separating health and infect, pries
My heart in the back of my throat

My life, feelings, become a castle, isolated by mote
preparing for the reaction of limitless sighs.
In Arizona's oppressive heat, I, desperate for a coat

Change it, forget it, push it back, but it sticks there like a note
The difference between positive and negative it all lies
My heart in the back of my throat
In Arizona's oppressive heat, I, desperate for a coat

4 comments:

theszak said...

Get Tested for AIDS @ Your Library
December 2, 2008 - 9:34am — birdie
http://lisnews.org/get_tested_aids_your_library

As the world focused on the AIDS crisis yesterday, officials said a large number of Iowans and UI students were tested for HIV so far this year. The Planned Parenthood sites across Iowa have issued 1,500 more tests so far in 2008 than in 2007.

Daily Iowan reports: Though no exact reason was given for the substantial increase, one official attributed it to more sites offering rapid HIV tests, which only take 20 minutes to develop.

"We love to see the increase, and we hope to move all of our sites [to rapid testing] by January 2009," said Lindsay Eliason, the HIV integration project coordinator at Planned Parenthood for Greater Iowa. "It is really great."

In 2006, the CDC said HIV tests should be a routine part of medical care for people age 13 to 64. Two local groups made that recommendation a little easier Monday by offering free HIV testing at the Iowa City Public Library. The Iowa Center for AIDS Resources and Education (ICARE) teamed up with the Johnson County Public Health to offer the testing on World AIDS Day.

"You hear about HIV in Africa, but HIV at home is still a concern," ICARE program manager Heidi Cuda said. "It is out there [in Iowa], and we want people to get tested - it just takes that one time."
http://lisnews.org/get_tested_aids_your_library

theszak said...

The correct term is always... safer

There's never zero risk.

edward2nd said...

WOW! Hauntingly beautiful. To think that you wrote that while in college. As a writer of music & lyrics that blew my mind.

dpaste said...

I thought this was called terza rima?