Master Ethan's Poetry Night

The other evening my friend organized a poetry night. The only requirement was that you bring a poem, either that you wrote or otherwise, and share it with the group. His original plan was to have it outside around a campfire, but because we didn't want to freeze, we improvised--I came up with the idea to have a crackling fire on our laptops, which we then put in the middle of the circle. To complete the illusion, occasionally I would lean forward and warm my hands in front of the screen.

It was surprisingly enjoyable. One of my favorites was when my roommate read a composition by M. Cyrus, which turned out to be the words to "Party in the U.S.A." He was so serious reading it, we all pealed over in laughter. Probably my favorite author of the night though was my friend Ellis. I asked her for some of her poems afterwards, which I've received permission to include below.

Spork
They tell me
I'm a bastard child.
What's it to them
If one night,
The washing done, my mother,
Nested with her sisters, defied
The constraints of compartmentalization
And slid to lie beside my father with a scandalous clink?
Let them scoff at my stubby tines
And incomplete curvature.
I'm proud to be a mutt.
Let those stuffy segregationists
Toss me in with the tea strainer,
The asparagus tongs,
The cracker scoop: other freaks
Who won't stack. They'll change their tune
When the chicken noodle
Soup is served.

Autumn Smolder

When the first flames
Break out in the scrub oak
I live head turned, neck craned,
Eyes devouring the mountain's
Smoldering shoulder, seized
By pyromania.
Soon I hear dulcet
Tones from the canyons, calling
To a deeper, brighter burning.

In the canyons, autumn
Spends itself in one wild conflagration,
Ignites pyres of crimson maple and blazes
Of golden aspen
That lick at the hillsides.

I breathe this fire in,
A Joan D'Arc clinging
To the stake, knowing too soon
Autumn will burn itself out,
Leaving only charred black
Branches stretched up to receive
The first white flakes
Like falling ash.