Oh, look, more poetry.

(For the record, I'm the unexpected guest/jerk in this one. We had to write from the POV of someone else.)

Unexpected Guest

You pop up on my doorstep too late for polite company, unfolded
and tattered in unwashed clothes, still perfumed
in eau du Burger King.

You fall apart in my arms like a
badly pasted paper doll, a waterfall of snotty tears in girl form.
We've only met twice before.

Yes, now that you mention it, this is awkward.

You ring your parents – Yes, Mom, still alive. No, Mom,
not coming back.
You hang up, then tell stories of things that fly, like
fists and words and heavy rolltop desks.

We're friends in the binary sense, but I usher you
to the spare bedroom, the one with a
guttered mattress.

I'm sure you won't mind.

You can eat whatever you want. Finish off my
husband's favorite cereal, why don't you?
Swallow up my free time – gorge on it, if you're able.

How many things can one person flunk out of? Turns out,
it's a lot.
You can fail out of college, get an F in
emotional development, drop out of
your goddamn family, and impressively sputter
and wheeze in Being a Friend 101.

Two poems from my creative writing class today.

This one is based on a prompt to write about a character from a movie, TV show, cartoon, etc. I picked Twilight. ;)

Edward

So this one night I slip into this girl's bedroom,
a handsome specter, a dreamy shadow,
a teenage girl's ultimate fantasy
if you don't count the stalking.

Or maybe you're supposed to count the stalking.
Maybe it's hot when teenage boys aren't
really teenage boys but age-old monsters.
Maybe it's sexy to
rip smooth cheeks and girlish lashes
off the cover of Tiger Beat
(if people still read that)
and stick lashes and cheeks on a boy
who's got no problem committing
B&E and "peeping Tom" crimes.

What do I see in her, anyway?
Is it the empty mind, or the unlocked window?

*

Mouse

For six months they employ me as a house mouse,
curled in a tight ball
in my dusty cubby of a bedroom.

They hired me for my shyness, my tremulous fear, that sneaky
tip-toe dance I perform every morning as
I escape.

I don't start fights. That's a bonus.

I possess a degree in doormat science, can lie
motionless for days, weeks, months as
people walk all over me.

My qualifications are my smallness, that admirable way
I don't get in the way, my ability to take a blow.
I can note my insult-proof skin on future resumes.

I get a deduction for living out of the deli fridge
at the mini-mart, for subsisting on hard-boiled eggs and
instant oatmeal, cheesecake bars and the cheap soda.

I haven't seen the inside of a kitchen in six months.

I type 75 escape routes per minute, but I'm still here.
They pay me well, in pure gold condescension.

Oscarwatch: Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life

Okay, I have to admit this much. I didn't actually finish watching "The Tree of Life." I got through about thirty minutes of it, if that, and walked away. Christ, what an awful pretentious pile of student-film bullshit.

That said, I actually quite liked "Midnight in Paris". I'm usually not much of a fan of Woody Allen's work -- I think the only film of his I've ever liked was "Radio Days", which I can easily blame on the music -- but it's a charming little movie for dorks. And when I say dorks, I mean the sort of person who would freak out just a little bit to meet people like the Fitzgeralds and Gertrude Stein and Toulouse Latrec. I made clappy-hands every time I recognized someone. And yeah, Owen Wilson does do the twitchy-mensch-protagonist that's in most every Woody Allen film, but then again he does that in a lot of his movies, so it's not so distracting. I feel weird recommending a Woody Allen film, but yeah, this was definitely worth it.

So now I have seen every Best Picture nominee, except for "The Tree of Life", which I don't think I was quite enough acid to watch. Anyway.

If I had to guess, I would say it would either go to "Hugo" or "The Artist". I think it depends on in what format the voters view the films. "Hugo" was brilliantly beautiful on a big screen in 3D, but in DVD screener form in 2D "The Artist" could give it a run for its money. That said, I think "The Artist" is the lighter of the two, the winner which would make a lot of people question the tastes of the voters in a few years' time. "Hugo" has the advantage of being wonderfully acted, intriguingly nostalgic, entertaining as all hell, and lovingly directed by Scorcese. I can't see people questioning the win if "Hugo" snaps up Best Picture.

As for the others, I could possibly see "The Descendants" sneak in as a dark horse, or perhaps "War Horse". "Midnight in Paris" is charmingly geeky in a way that's hard not to enjoy, but I'm just not sure it's substantial enough to award Best Picture. "Moneyball" wasn't bad, but it's also more about the numbers than the baseball. "The Help" is well-acted but even the Academy's voters must have noticed the glaring "Thank you, white lady, for this civil rights movement!" BS making up the plot. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" suffers from the fact that the movie is saddled with a main character who's an irritating, aggravating little punk, and it's a 9-11 movie to boot, which the Academy probably doesn't have the stones to award. And "The Tree of Life" is ... ugh, don't even get me started.

By the way, apparently if you want to get a movie nominated for an Oscar this year, cast Brad Pitt ("Tree of Life" and "Moneyball"), Jessica Chastain ("Tree of Life" and "The Help"), Viola Davis ("The Help" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"), John Goodman ("The Artist" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"), Tom Hiddleston ("War Horse" and "Midnight in Paris"), and Benedict Cumberbatch ("War Horse" and "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" with Best Actor nominee Gary Oldman).