Raphael Sparrow Lynn

Raphael Sparrow Lynn Dec 2019

Living

Told my therapist I was burning
hot and freezing cold at the same time.
Had been for two days since his name
reappeared on Facebook.
"Do we know that he's still living?" she asked.
I said yes. Lied.
I could not consider the alternative.
Will anyone tell me when he dies?

Or will they let him live in my burning, freezing skin forever?

#love #sad #missing

Raphael Sparrow Lynn Nov 2019

To an Actor

Isn't it funny how sometimes
you don't know who you are until you see it
in someone else?

I had never seen myself performed before,
my reflection moving on its own.
"Who does this guy think he is?
How does he know me?"

Sometimes I wish you did know me.

#actors #acting #identity #mirror

Raphael Sparrow Lynn Nov 2019

The Non-Traditional Student

3:30 pm
i walk to my class early
sun showers outside

i can hear oceans
in my hands pressed to my ears
when white dreads guy talks

i count the minutes
till i can get a word in
without smelling him

#college #haiku #humor

Nov 2019

E. B. White

The Spider's Web

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

Raphael Sparrow Lynn Nov 2019

Teacher's Pet

"I see you're smirking still." One eyebrow raised,
an accusation of my happiness.
She sees through me: an addict to the praise
and thanks and jabs and jokes at my expense.
My friends are certain I derive almost
a ****** satisfaction from all this.
It's true my heartbeat does betray the ghost
of some attraction straining to exist.
And just what is it that I want to do?
To be with him, my teacher, scandal? Or
just get attention? Or do I love school
enough that it has really bubbled over?

Or maybe when it comes to it, I am
still crawling from my father's clawing hands.

#sonnet #teacher #student

Raphael Sparrow Lynn Nov 2019

Tír na nIontas

We board on the lazy sea crawler,
us cowards, in tea and cream and glory.
Martha, hands in her hair, in her sweet age;
We lurch, cold, remaining in sweeter earth,
And I into Sam's cloud of august.
We are hearts only bent on fame,
While the ashes of our cousins —
A new lineage in lieu of dirt —
Begs us in their choral aching for a keening.

Title means "Wonderland."
I chose a paragraph at random from an Irish translation of Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I then "translated" the paragraph into a poem based solely on the sound of the words, word by word, rather than their meaning. This was the original paragraph:
"Bhí bord arna leagan faoi chrann os comhair an tí agus bhí an Giorria Márta agus an Haitéir ina suí aige: bhí Luch Chodlamáin ina suí eatarthu agus í ina sámhchodladh, agus bhí an bheirt eile ag baint feidhm aisti mar chúisín, a n-uilleanacha ina luí uirthi, agus iad ag comhrá le chéile os a cionn." (tr. Nicholas Williams)

#family #travel #heritage #death #wonderland #language