"princeton" poems
“Top of the Morning to ‘Yuh, Guv’nuh.”
Oh, to be father of a
Cockney flower girl,
To be Eliza Doolittle’s
Dear old Dad,
Alfred P. of that surname.
Oh, to be a cockney dustman,
On this fine day,
Another fine day in
Northern New Mexico, as I
Sell my daughter to
‘Enery Iggins, or
Some equivalent
Princeton poofter.
I am Rhett Butler,
Daring blockade-runner,
Persona –non-grata
For any decent
Family—including my own,
Charleston Carolina.
In time, I crave
Social acceptance for
Bonnie Blue—my ill fated
Would-be equestrian offspring;
I surrender my daughter to the
Upper Class.
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 1:40 PM UTC
He entered our classroom
Quietly
Something in his hand
A slip of paper
Assigning him
to English 11b
English words
Thick in his mouth
He whispered his name,
Jaime Chavez
Jimmy Changa!
someone mocked,
Had one of them for supper
Nice to know you burrito boy.
Jaime Chavez smiled,
And remembered.
He entered our classroom
Quietly
Something in his hand
A book
Shakespeare
Carefully noted
In Spanish and English
Jimmy Changa
Someone mocked
Whatcha got there?
A book?
You don’t need them to cut my lawn.
Jaime Chavez smiled,
And remembered
He entered our classroom
Quietly
Something in his hand
An award
Superior achievement
English 11b
Jimmy Changa
Someone mocked
You didn’t earn that,
******* ****** ****
Jaime Chavez smiled
And remembered.
He entered our classroom
Quietly
Something in his hand
Full scholarship
Princeton University
In English Literature
And something else
A bumper sticker
"God Bless America,"
Which he carefully
tacked to the bulletin board
My name is not Jimmy Changa.
My name, is Jaime Chavez
And he smiled.
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 4:07 PM UTC
Uncle Sam sometimes whispers a little bit too close.
I’ve felt so many scraps scraping against my cheek-
those numerous numberless things he carries in his
beard by ‘accident’. So many things get stuck there
and I feel them all, whenever he dares, and he dares
often, to whisper alittlebittooclose. One time the grey
beard leaned in and touched me in my sleep and
planted in me strange dreams of faraway gothic towers
passing off as libraries: Harvard dreams, Princeton
dreams, Yale dreams: I haven’t quite slept since. The
shaggy scraps stuck to the forest of strands on his face
would never let me. They scratch away at me often
even in the brightness of day, and claw jaggedly in the
darkness of night. Little heart of mine has lost its own
beat. It beats to the beat of a beat on a beat from a beat
with a beat by a beat which beats those beats and beats
beats that beat not of my beat. Little heart of mine, when
did you lose your own pulse? Why won’t you tell your family
that Uncle Sam’s whispers are more than whispers? Why
won’t you tell your family what Uncle Sam does to you
in the brightness of day when everyone is smiling as Uncle
Sam pats your shoulder? Little heart of mine, why doesn’t
your family know what Uncle Sam does in the darkness
of night as he whispers whispers under your whispers and
what he does beneath your skin? Didn’t you know, little heart?
They have laws that say that greybeards shouldn’t be digging
into little boys’ insides, don’t they.
(Uncle Sam has travelled
far and wide, far and wide to tell me lies.
Recall that this is not the first time…)
But little heart you know why. This is not the first time.
It is the natural progression for a Coconut like you:
darkness of night on outside and brightness of day on inside.
Your skin doesn’t matter; you all taste the same.
Cut you off the homeland-tree and cart you all away.
Then, in this way we can say and say the homeland is “Rising”-
Uncle Sam tells the world of his diversity in selection
of little boys to touch with strange dreams.
And I like the feel of the scraps in his beard. Maybe
I can become one of them. One with them.
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 10:58 PM UTC
Roar Bean Got
Chosen
Sipping on taste
never forgotten
So miraculous power
rising.
Been told so
Boldly,
her uniqueness
Only it's mode of
attachment
Sips up on you like a
Goddess
in fragments
Her spell of the blend,
Coffee lips he was sold
kissed her hand
Mystical bow
Thought's love-arrowed
Through "Hearts" Wowed
All her poem's
Quick thinking
The (Quickie) hour?
Coffee lips ******* the
tower money showered
Home-body
Coffee__steamy
he raided my book
Crystal ball showed me,
"Everyone"
Oh! my he dated
(Holy-Coffee)
My Ego got inflated
Digging gold dreamily
Flower Lily mated and
seeded
Please "Lips" dream on
Opening up the invitation
Coffee? Me or You
Masquerade flower's brocade
Spellbound red poppy I fooled you
Coffee says cheesecake
Mystical play awake
Chosen One Bean
Clean Godly-scent
Cat nine rumor years.
coffee live's pretend
Million in one tear's
gallivant super stirred
Small World Cafe
Big University Princeton NJ.
Mister Mystical laptop taking
a sip New Jersey
The kaleidoscope Blueberry
Go Girl Godiva-raspberry
Coffee lip me
Not over my lip's
He takes another sip
Carmello, He's the
good fellow
Italian mob cappuccino
Leave the Cannoli
Take the gun movie set
"Tarantino"
Here's his handle I'm his
Secret Gun-it lips
I told you
my secret Streaming
play scout
The smell of his aura cup
In his eye's only James
No games just coffee?
Bonds
What about me?
Her chosen bean
Luna blue blueberry
His sugar flight
"Shimmering Chandeliers"
Hello musketeer's fight
Mystical Coffee well suited
BMW car's
Wedding Bellringer
We are destined to star is born
Judy my Mom the singer.
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 9:44 AM UTC
Third Date
She talked and talked and talked,
an East Coast, cultured accent;
"So what are you anyway,
half-German? *** really?
But you look so......British, I guess..."
He stroked her knee.
She gesticulated loudly,
and talked.
"So you were at Princeton,
WOW, that's impressive."
He squeezed her knee.
"I baked cupcakes on Friday night,
my Mom's recipe.
I don't even eat cupcakes,
what's that all about?!?!
He squeezed her other knee.
She wore a mid-thigh,
black and white dress,
swirls, that sort of thing,
interesting cleavage.
He was back on the first knee.
She looked Italian
(it was 'Ristorante Acqua al Duo' after all),
Amy Winehouse eye flares,
head swaying,
resting on her palms,
swaying again.
He had his back to me.
She fingered the wine glass,
tall and generous,
devoured
the last inch,
came up for air and talked again.
He wore a blazer
and cavalry twill pants,
loafers and no socks.
She was hot,
really hot,
fanned her brow with the dessert menu
"Tiramisu was so deeeelicious".
75 degrees on the Prudential window.
He perspired,
fidgeted,
loosened his collar,
looked for the waitress.
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 6:45 PM UTC
I already have certain years
that constitute my life
CT, MA to NY
All the tiny things I did
Shape me into this version of me
Writing on a laptop at night
Yes, I feel like
I have seen enough things
Done a lot, good at being broken- hearted
Maybe could've broken more hearts.
Truth is, probably not.
I learn to accept fate as they come
Yes, sometimes I try to veer it towards the way I want
But life is never about
Achieving what you want
Rather, use the things you got
And turn it into everlasting , mesmerizing
Splendid sparks.
Am I cheesy being only 26?
Or you're sneering at me,
Ha you're not that young?
I look up for a sign and an inspirational quote
To only see myself in the mirror smiling back
and the past ghosts at the end of the tunnel
He said he does not want a relationship
I said I don't want my future baby to have ugly teeth
He said he will marry me for a million
But I said I don't want our baby to go to Harvard
He said, ***** Harvard!What about Princeton?
Sep 26, 2018
Sep 26, 2018 at 12:14 AM UTC
The patterns
of rainfall and afforestation,
the veins of village streams—
I colored them in
as I saw fit.
My beloved spiders
wove a second pattern
on top,
which I approved
before leaving.
Günter Eich (1907–1972) was a noted German poet and radio dramatist who won the Georg Büchner Preis in 1959. His translator, Michael Hofmann, is a poet and German translator; his versions of Eich will be out soon in book form in Angina Days: Selected Poems of Günter Eich (Princeton).
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
Rattle Snake Bob came swaggering in
with a gun in his boots n' smell'n like gin
He had one green eye, and a wandering blue
make'n ya wonder which one was look'n at you
With burry vision, and a sloppy slur
the swanky restaurant went silent in a minute, or two --
cause he was standing bear *** naked wear'n just a single shoe
waving his gun up in the air --
with last nights Chili n' gum mixed in his hair
My- oh -my how everyone stared
everyone knew to hit the deck
when the bullets went fly'n and bouncing like heck
See --
Rattle Snake Bob had a twin named Rob
who'd gone to Princeton and was a total snob
he'd majored in golf n' minored in Law
with a penchant for ladies...
that were dating ...Bob
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 7:35 AM UTC
Bach's "little fugue"
played while figure eights
whistled in my head,
along with mathematics
to an un-equilibrium point
where self-confidence
meets self-doubt.
So, in
illusions created by the exact same demons
that saw the bottom from the top
and the pope as part of a conspiracy,
I created a theory, and ended in a padded room.
I painted spots on walls not assimilating
anyone others works,
became my own victim,
committed to rationality
while acting eccentrically.
Visions came to me, I sought refuge in them,
things I saw the real world calls bug-brained.
There I envisioned the cosmos as a limit imposed
on one's relation to self. I saw the dynamics of human conflict
as interludes of forced sanity.
I went as quick as I came.
forced into what I don't want to do
I enjoyed the chorus arranged in my head.
Like a game between people I don't understand.
I sneak into Princeton and proved the existence of God. in red sneakers unaware my theory was economic realism.
Then I rejected voices.
And won the Nobel Prize.
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 9:03 PM UTC
1. I was born in Princeton University.
2. That's the closest I was to getting in.
3. As a kid I enjoying stuffing round pegs into square holes.
4. I knew it wouldn't work.
5. That comforted me.
6. I grew into jeans I didn't own.
7. So I could stop wearing other jeans I didn't own.
8. Come to think about it I use a lot of things I don't own.
9. I have two parents.
10. My mother used to be anorexic.
11. Now she wishes she was.
12. My father makes a lot of money.
13. Yet he is unsure of whether or not he is successful.
14. He does not want me to make money.
15. He believes he's done enough.
16. I am tired.
17. That's probably because I don't sleep a lot.
18. I am tired of being tired.
19. I doubt the redundancy matters to my brain.
20. I used to want to be an astronaut.
21. I only said that when I looked at the moon.
22. Now I want to work in Tv.
23. Maybe that's because I always watch.
24. I look for inspiration under every rock.
25. All I find is dirt.
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
12/24/2016
to G.G.
*"When the sons of Princeton
Gather anywhere,
There’s a place they think of,
Longing to be there.
It’s the one and only
University,
Situated and celebrated
In New Jersey
-Traditional Princetonian song, "Going Back to Nassau Hall"*
You worried I
wouldn't contact you again
I laughed because it was funny.
I'd told you
my favorite beach boys song
was That's Not Me
He moves to the city and regrets it
I guess maybe the feeling of being in
over my head prevailed in my life.
Speaking of which–
we sat in the deserted
Prospect Garden
where Fitzgerald did once
And it was donated in 1879
people wrote of it:
"Its grounds, like eden"
I wondered if this was ephemeral
looked hard for the temptation.
I didn't see any fruit trees.
I stared straight ahead on the bench
into the piercing dark
English Yew
behind us
and the red gravel.
I said:
"I can't use thin spoons"
I didn't look at you when I did.
"When you say that,"
A pointedly deep breath
I turn to you.
You continue: "I feel like I love you."
I laughed, not because
it was funny
But I laughed in its simplest form-
Is it not an expression of human happiness?
You told me that you
didn't know why
I seemed to
Dislike the things
that made me great
I laughed because it was funny
And turned to kiss you
you were the first person to ever say
I was "absolutely" beautiful
What do you say to that? I
smiled and
tried to not look
At you in a way that
betrayed to you the feelings
I was trying so very hard to conceal–
they said this:
That I was starting to feel the affects
of a very deep fondness.
As time passes
my poetry, more
succinct.
i fear i am losing it
but does it
matter?
we'd talked about vanitas.
it was hard to say goodbye
and i
turned to you as you walked away
focused on the way you walk
watched you become smaller
and went out to the car.
in front of nassau hall
and i
thought of the next time.
Dec 24, 2016
Dec 24, 2016 at 4:11 PM UTC
1/29/2015
princeton thursday night
all out of coffee
and, sitting by wood slats of the
sad sunroom i
smile at a dead beetle
set the record down on
helen forrest and all she does it talk about
how she loves so madly
the sun sets on the west
sourland bramble downwards the cul-de-sac ridge
was in my line of sight long walks
but pulmonary bruises like the radiators
and that was in what? october? april?
no. april's too early
i close my eyes in bed and
i still hear that ****** song
enraptured i sink back and
i open again i open!
i can't afford to die or lose
same thing, just yet
i have dorms to sneak into and
cigarettes to put out,
more lifetime flatlines to complain about and
drain pipes to stand next to and
grass to sink into when it thaws and
unexpected phonecalls from past men
to receive.
month long in absentia you never called me first and now
i gotta go flip this record over, man.
stand up down the stairs off the bed
remind me not to blink for too long.
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 8:37 PM UTC
hello poetry, can you put me in the mood
give me your sacred anthologies
your oceans and rivers too
human insight seems to fail in everyone I knew
like painted sandcastles on a gravel beat
a song lyric draped in Princeton blue
don't hoard the cadavers from both of us
this is one right you cannot undo
licorice rope to tie the knot, in the coma you've slipped into
Oct 7, 2015
Oct 7, 2015 at 12:30 AM UTC
3/18/2016
rockefeller college, princeton university
i was staring down the
barrel, the bottom of it
petting my past, an ewe
men looked at us
found nervous excuses:
"sorry," putting down coffee next to us
we scoffed,
made 'em nervous
i forgot what we were discussing
but white noticed a
stare and swiftly turning,
said "i'll be dead in three years anyway,"
that turned him around!
neck snap
"this is just like last year," she spoke
"yea, that's stupid isn't it"
i stepped over a wrapper
recalled i haven't been to princeton
since the summer
she told me that night
she wished she felt that way every day
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 4:08 PM UTC
5/31/2015
5/2/2015
sitting in the darkened 10pm stadium
with a six pack of beer and a pack of reds
talking about our lives. She asked me how my poetry is going
"Well," I took a swig as drunk princeton students messed with the announcement system
"I don't have time to express listlessness I guess."
there was a very particular feeling I wanted to convey though and
oh, I can't quite put my finger on it.
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 10:13 PM UTC
Do you remember?
remember the sound
The million cicadas humming so loud
That we didn't remember they were there
Until we left Princeton and could hear the silence again.
Those cicadas were 17 years old.
Ten years older then us.
Just discovering life.
Just like us
Remember the day we carved the four faced Jack o' Lantern
Our artists mothers let us be messy
Paper mâché bodies never grow up
Can you count the times we jumped from the oak tree? On to the trampoline.
Your brothers were mean
The times we plotted against them.
The times we went on adventures to the woods
The time we tried to dig to china using spoons in my front yard.
The time i fought over you with another girl
The time you liked me back but never said
The time you got sick and couldn't play
The time the doctors took you away
And you came back with a scar on the back of your head
Stitches and bruises and blood on the bed
The day we didn't play as much anymore.
The day when we sold our house on palmer lane
The day your mom's fiancé left and never came back
The day we spent by the river
And the day after when your mom brought roses
And sprinkled them on the road
As we drove south with the big yellow moving van
Remember forgetting the time we remembered
do you remember?
Nov 21, 2014
Nov 21, 2014 at 5:03 PM UTC
There in the road lay a free-minded crustacean.
Turned out to be no more than a wayward piece of insulation.
.
.
.
“Please allow me to introduce myself; I’m a man of wealth and taste”
Turned out to be no more than a man cleaning up basic waste
.
.
.
Good morning fool…
I said to myself.
Reaching for the uniform on the bottom shelf.
Spent a few minutes putting it on,
Insuring the curtains weren’t fully drawn.
Stood a minute posing before the glass…
A man bellow presented himself as a colossal ***
So I dropped a loogie just over the edge
Poor aim left it hanging from my window’s ledge
.
.
.
The streets were swarmed with the innocently vain,
Looking for regal alleyways to make a social gain.
Marching through the “Slickers” campus,
Watching the bobbing of books holding tidbits on the hippocampus.
.
A new year comes.
The freshman student runs.
Princeton ushers in a new breed;
Teaching that blue is the only blood to bleed.
.
.
.
As I stumble towards the school,
Can’t help but feel I’ve been made to feel the fool.
Snickers jab at my waning pride.
Preppy children always seem so snide.
Overhear a remark mocking my attire,
Said by an ascot wearing boy filled with mire.
Left the path for ivy coated building.
An hour later, the day’s dwindling.
.
.
.
A teacher stands at the front of a classroom.
A man at the back sweeps with his broom.
The professor,
Proceeds with his lecture.
Spreading misconceptions on malformed events.
The man at the back cleans the covers on the vents.
There, a question is put toward the crowd.
The janitor in the back answers aloud.
.
.
.
I shouldn’t have opened my ******* mouth!
Who cares if bigotry’s still relevant in the south?
People glare in mocking jest.
Blankness sits on the faces of the rest.
I’m only here to pick up the trash,
A job I use to make some extra cash.
They all have money for a proper education.
There’s no time for me, and my financial situation.
.
.
;
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 9:34 PM UTC
i want to be everything all at once forever
— casually, like: **** dude, they said you could be president, too? i’ll rock paper scissors you for it
i **** at rock paper scissors, but i **** more at sticking with things that only make me ½, ⅓, ¼ happy
not to mention things i’m bad at but do you even know how good i am at a subject you don’t teach?
columbia, harvard, princeton, yale, brown, dartmouth, upenn, and cornell do
they just don’t know they do, so shhh. i wrote someone else’s name on those essays
i don’t care who knows mine, i’m just trying to keep it out of the obituaries
just one more year ‘till i’m too old to die young
— but who’s counting?
not me, not me, not me.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 12:52 AM UTC
Living hell escaped with vroom,
until the wheels stopped spinning 'round.
Dodged that bullet, a year too young for Vietnam.
Lived homeless to stop from growing that extra 4,
stop the shot-maker from throwing down,
down, down to the ground, nothing to be found.
Instead of Princeton, Columbia, 2 years minimum wage,
soul ripe for rage, but none could ground,
studies, between heaven, Earth, lost became find,
life's eternal river, Dharma's wheel run.
Spun though, life's circle's stymied spin done,
not a sip of backslider's wine.
Jun 11, 2020
Jun 11, 2020 at 12:12 AM UTC
The magentine and orange yellow garrote of the twilight has yet to strangle the youth of Princeton, but it soon will. Sun sets over stockton and delphinus sits on the shelf of the sky next to the half moon ready to maurade over Marquand. Most of the store fronts, they shutter, a year closes in like a train in a tunnel and most do not know anything yet. Cannon and Tower boys do not go to Town anymore they go home to their Bay and Gables, their saltboxes ready for suburban consumption, for the dirt world of finance and brokerage, ready to pray their scandals are quickly smothered and they will be- meanwhile here sits youth, which drools in a corner, never to be invited by a bickeree again, watching the low shrubs and mafia graveyards of Linden parade through the train window, a melded scene like a watercolor. The limestone walls of Princeton sit up straight in vigilance, the heavy doors shut along with the adolescene and the stores. The sun sets over Stockton and rises over Beekman.
Jun 17, 2016
Jun 17, 2016 at 8:40 AM UTC
Dedicated to Pastor Todd Boddy of Princeton, Texas
His name is Todd.
It rhymes with God.
People know Todd
as Man of God.
Feb 4, 2013
Feb 4, 2013 at 9:29 AM UTC
7/14/2015
"I mean I just don't get excited
anymore, you know?"
but even that
statement drains all the life out of me,
grabs a spot in my ribs, twists it, pulls it out like a dandelion ****
I decide walking on 3rd avenue in
a Brooklyn neighborhood that I don't
need energy anymore
or, I've been doing well with the scant
supplies I have of it.
The day before, blow dried hair sticking to my neck because the windows are locked,
I had listened to the radio
Billie Holliday: oh lover man where can you be?
I know **** well where mine is,
unfortunately across the hudson
but I think I am happy for him because
any sane person would be otherwise in
princeton after a while
I count and recount the oaks and pines outside my house and the cardinals and bluejays and mocking birds, try to find something, don't find it,
Read a book, and I yell to myself:
"'That’s funny! there’s blood on me.'
- Frank Ohara."
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 11:08 PM UTC
A sudden realisation, revelation came to light.
The grass isn't greener on the other side.
He travelled across seas and desert sands.
If only he knew, he had been watering barren lands.
The seeds won't sprout and the roots won't sink.
Nothing he did, will ever amount to anything.
His boots were worn out, blisters and toes showing,
But he trudged, in the dark, sandstorms blowing.
Teary- eyed, sand granules rained fierce on his corneas.
Wandering blind, accompanied by his own fears.
Buzzing in his ears, he no longer hear what's dear,
But what's clear, he gave up on ideals and ideas.
Cause they are not real, mirage in the heat wave.
No corner that he felt safe, so he began to dig graves.
Hid in one, till he was found by a bedouin chieftain,
In that instant, he be doing fist feints,
Caught off guard in an unfamiliar fiefdom.
Like a ****** in the university of Princeton.
He didn't need assistance, but he definitely needed help.
Like a she-wolf, lost, and looking hard for its whelp.
Not soulless, just a soul lost, for many moon days.
With His saving grace, he prayed he will be soon saved.
Jun 5, 2017
Jun 5, 2017 at 1:42 AM UTC
9/30/2014
Manhattan, new york city, new york
you got to wonder
September saturday nights
walking down church street.
the man on his smoke break
gives me a smile on the corner of 9:30
at night and i return it even though it
isn't wise because
it seems kind,
a smile i’d like to get to know better.
in the taxi
i think uninspired thoughts,
running along the sidewalk’s lining
sidewalks i’ll probably never walk on
and this is when i realize
Manhattan is a small island.
back on the train
i think that monday mornings wouldn’t
be so bad if I lived in Manhattan
crosby street or wall,
but then i think of all the
manhattan schoolkids
that seem like they know everything
and i think: do I really want to?
back in Princeton
i think that i am bored
and i realize far too much has changed
from april,
the raw essence still the same
seeping at the core of the stem, however
and i accidentally step on an ivy league
cufflink. I think to myself
i probably wouldn’t think so much
if i was in manhattan.
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC