Writing Course Projects.

I am taking an on-line writing course for the next while and I thought it would be good to post my projects up here. The first 2 weeks required us to write poems. One thing I learned through the critiquing of my poems was that my style is more prosaic than poetic or rhythmic. So I worked hard on getting my poems to act/be more like poems. Here they are:

Autumn Existence
by Brett Gitzel

Indoor, brittle, cold, and settled.
I shiver, throwing gazes at the wall.
Daily News in open hand,
lost thoughts in the mind.
Furnace clicks an empty, vague, moan.
Depth, distant, rattled tone.

Outside, brittle, cold, and settled
An oak tree, disappointed, slumped to fall.
Leafy hues slowly stripped,
the summer slipped.
Skin dry as death, tempting flame, smoke.
Bitter wind snakes a coiled clench, choke.

In between, rustling disrupts.
Whirl awakes, sweeps at it all.
Stormy brew of leaf, dust, and yard,
roaming near, far.
shaking, gathered, lazy, flown.
Hollow, distant, rattled tone.

Inside out or outside in.
tremble, shiver, we share the monotone.
Fingers carbon black,
limbs withered and meek.
Divided by glass, together, on our own.
Not distant, yet hollow, rattled tone.



Oath to a dying woman
by Brett Gitzel


Lonesome, busy with useless chores.
Closed doors.
Not to notice. Not to know you.
To forget, not forgive. I am not these,
lost in the bliss,
I promise you this.

You walk on, the world turns off.
Sunshine shattered, birds dirty noise.
your regret, your grief.
Love stolen by a thief,
replaced with a kiss,
I promise you this.

The night is cold, my heart is warm.
Your dreams are dark, brittle hands pressed together,
broken prayer.
I wait for you, and hope renew,
to not dismiss,
I promise you this.

How will they remember you?
photos, memories, thoughts?
Will they at all,
when you fall,
Out of touch, out of view?
Yes, my friend, I promise you.