Sigma Tau Delta
MSUM English Honor Society

Student Writings

 

Poetry

 

Poems by MSUM student Angie Feuk:


Removing Beauty

the gray sunlight
smells like cabbage
and
it's raining again.

it seems like
the sky in this town
is always
crying,
but i can
never figure out
why
it's so unhappy.

you told me once
that it was just raining
and that my imagination
sometimes liked to
embellish too much.

i told you after
that i thought
maybe it had had
an affair
with the ground
and suffered
a broken heart.

you just laughed
and told me not
to think so much
or i'd take the beauty
out of everything.

but i disagree.
i think the beauty
in how i see the rain,
is that you can
cry in it
and not feel
alone anymore. 

 

 

I (Don't) Miss You

you have a way
with murder

but i can still
feel you breathing
on my neck.

i miss the way you
used to hold me
delicately between
your knives
as if you thought
it didn't hurt
at all.

by the way,
your words
made me feel
always lonely

and i never liked
your aftershave
because it smelled
like fish.

i miss that smell
almost as much as
i miss who i was
when i was around
you.

so when you're finished
filling my paper cuts
with lemon juice,

maybe we should talk. 

 

Ghosts of Chance

my peripherals
have been
flickering all day

with the eyes and lips
of strangers

hoping desperately
for some sort of
connection.

still, i am dead
inside the
confines of my
subconscious

and all there is to do
is count the
slowly ticking years

until i am no longer
aware of my fate.

 

 

Static

you're clinging to me
like bad static,
you say,
but the truth is
i'm just lonely
and nothing like static
at all.

it has electricity
and life,
and i just have me.
seventy percent water
and thirty percent thoughts.

i'm a thinking pool
filled to the eyelids
with saltwater
and when it rains
i lose myself.

but don't worry about me.
you're as right
as you always are,
which is to say
that it's more
than i like to admit.

thanks for thinking
i was like static
though.
it's nice when people
assume something
you're not,
but you wish you were.

it's maybe like
my disguise worked.

Poems by MSUM student: D. A. Paulson

 

 

The Perseverance of Sisyphus

 

Sisyphus—a boulder rolls,                                                                     

Up the hill he slowly goes,                                                                    

Toiling—all the while he knows,           

His work will be in vain.                                                                        

 

Ever and on he pushes as                                        5

The massive stone comes to the top,

It slowly, slowly, nearly…stops…

But instead rolls down again.

 

Trudging ever down the hill,                                                                  

He squares his shoulders, takes the wheel,             10

Shoves the rock and moves it still

—Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill.

 

Hades sitting on his dark throne,

Listens to all the dead-men moan

As Sisyphus continues to drive the stone              15

—Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill.

 

Persephone imprisoned in the gloom,                                                    

Of a tomb without sun, stars or moon,                                                 

Gazes on him as he heaves his doom

—Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill.                     20

 

Why does he do it? Spirits whisper 

 —Lost souls void of living cisterns;

Wailing—they wisp 'round Tartarus,

Though crossing his path again they must.

 

Ixion, on his turning fire,                                         25                           

Condemned not for murder but for desire,                                            

Watches through his eternal pyre,

Sisyphus and his boulder.

 

Ever and on he pushes as

The massive stone comes to the top,                     30

It slowly, slowly, nearly…stops…

But instead rolls down again.

 

Trudging ever down the hill,

He squares his shoulders, takes the wheel,

Shoves the rock and moves it still                          35

—Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill.

 

Prometheus on the mountain's side,

Between each agonizing cry,

Sees the boulder slowly rise

—Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill.                     40

 

Freedom—always out of reach—

Like Tantalus and those luscious grapes,

Sisyphus strives in vain it seems

—Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill.

 

 

 

 

The Pearl

 

Amazing how a grit of sand,

Found festering inside a shell,

In little time can then outshine

The brightest fires of Hell.

 

Eve's offer of that Pandorian viand                                5

Was first when man did wish,

To pass into passion, neglecting else,

And consummate with sin.

 

Around the neck of Helen, Paris

Placed this opaque orb;                                                10

Desire for earthly beauty bringing

A long and bloody war.

 

David watched from atop a wall

Bathsheba bathing there;

Ulysses was stranded eight long years               15

By Calypso and Circe fair.

 

No need to be an Artemis— 

A nun in nunnery—

Becoming Scylla frothing mad,

Or as sirens lost at sea.                                     20

 

Chaste virtue God has given us                         

(Though Jove is no great show)

Of how to be as perfect pearls

That in Heavenly oysters grow.