pulse

In high school I wrote a lot of poetry, and even through the first...three years of college. In college I had a couple of great nights at the open mic night at The Grind. I read a few times, and it's such an incredible rush to be up there reading your work. Your heart races and it's almost all you can hear in your own ears. And when you finish, you find that you're a little out of breath. It was very different than the Writer's Club I was involved in, and my creative writing classes in high school, because you knew everyone there. Reading at The Grind, I maybe only really knew the girls I went with. Rachel really perfected the Open Mic.

Anyway...I have to admit that my flow of poetry has diminished in the past few years. And I'm not sure what it is. I don't think I'm any less inspired. I think maybe it's because for some time, I was so focused on my prose and my novel that I couldn't really think...well, I don't want to say that I couldn't think poetically because I'd like to think that I can infuse some poetry into my prose.

I came across this poem I wrote this past fall that sort of came to me while walking around DC. It's called Pulse, after the pulse that's alive in this city. That's what I love about living in the city; there's so much life here. I love it here. I love the rush of the trains while you stand on the metro platforms, the snowflake lights down around MetroCenter during the holidays, crossing 16th Street and looking down at the White House...and I could go on.

This is nervewracking. I haven't had anyone read my poetry in a very long time (partly since I don't really write it anymore). I've been wanting to go to one down on U Street, but now I have my French class on the same night. Once it finishes in a few weeks, I'll have to start going to check it out. It'll be some time before I read, if ever, but I love the open mic nights. I just love words and hearing them is just as good as reading and writing them. Who knows? Maybe being around all that poetry will get me writing again.

You can let me know if you felt the urge to snap your fingers.

Pulse

October 2006

I feel your pulse along the streets
your brightness against the lamps above
and the rush I feel from you
with every passing vehicle and metro train.
Something alive
and when I'm there on the edge
I feel it too
for a brief fleeting moment
my pulse matching the beat of the street
and the fluttering of dead leaves
you, my city, are not black and white
something teeming here
beneath the surface but not yet in shadows.
I find myself lost amid monuments
to the heroes of the past
knowing you are creating the heroes of tomorrow
with each beat
a motorcade, a protest, a helicopter, a no-fly zone.
The veins feeding down tot he center
and out from the center
feeding me,
feeding life into me
your pulse setting mine.