AMBER LIGHT

Amber Light
PM 1310042

The light has switched from red to green

to yellow a number of times but I

am unable to move forward when it

goes green and by the time I manage to

coax it forward just a little the light has

switched back to red.

I am in trouble, all signs point to

just go through the red light and hope

for the best,

face the consequences when you get there,

and if nobody sees you, you will be safe until

the next set of lights,

it never crosses your mind to take the car in

and get it fixed,

solve the problem before you get to the light

and then they will all turn green in unison

and you can sail right through

unimpeded.

Why do I wallow in such stubbornness 

when I could easily soar above the land

and watch it as it blends everything up

into the turmoil that is life.

I feel it deep inside me, scraping the insides

and absorbing the refuse

instead of rejecting it.

How can I soar above such an ugly plain

and why does the fog always choose to

roll in just as I am preparing to lift

the front wheels off the tarmac.

Somebody left the side doors open and

now all the refuse of the world is pouring

in, unchecked,

and I can't keep up with it all.

I don't even want to, and as I watch it

flow by I realize that sooner or later it will

clear itself up and run opaque again,

I can't keep adding to it forever,

so if I stop it had to rejuvenate on its'

own, I am not in control, I never will

be so as I lay next to it I can only

pray that goodness will one day come through

and the stream will run free and clean.

Talk about biting off more than I could

ever chew, a small weight lifts off my

insides and reminds me again that I was

once a child,

but on that thought the darkness sets in and

the child I never knew is dead,

he never had a chance,

born without a bullet-proof vest

I took way too many shots to the head.

MCC

DISQUIET WEIGHT

Disquiet Weight
PM 1310141

I thought I had left my hard outer shell

behind, I know it had fallen off and I had

kicked it into the gutter,

it lay there, lifeless and I laughed at it as I

continued walking on, I should have

taken a picture of it because I now

forget what it looks like and now it may

be possible that it never happened at all.

In any case, the shell has begun to grow

back and its hard as steel this time. Nothing

will be able to penetrate it and this should

make me feel safe,

but it doesn't,

I am as vulnerable as the day I was

born and I know something is going

to land on top of me one of these days,

maybe not a grand piano, but something

heavy and the soft spot on top of my head

is the target.

I can't make it safe,

neither can I extend my shell over the

top of my head, it is always out in the

open, bare to the cold, the ill-will and

they try and enter it using a cold hammer

and chisel.

Every time I try to fight back, I grow cold

or I fall asleep,

something always happens to make me falter

and I realize why, always too late and

too quickly, I realize why.

Nothing can escape the final weight that

bears down upon you,

and I can't be strong anymore,

anymore.

I never wad and the lack of strength

has been my downfall,

and the reason the soft spot never hardened.

All would say its best to wear a hat but thats

only more weight,

and I do not need more weight on my

head, I can't carry what I have now.

Sadness is keeping me down and I am

drowning, not in tears but in pools of

self-loathing and mistrust,

unable to fight the monsters, I retreat

and berate myself for being such a coward.

I am not strong and never was,

I don't feel until well after its already

gone and by then is too late,

I can't get up in the morning and I can't sleep at night.

MCC

RAGEOUT

RAGEOUT
PM 1307301



Too many are waiting outside for my
arrival and I can't understand why
there is no one else who can look after
them right away.

I curse all of them inside as I throw 
out my cigarette and realize that my 
soup is going to get a lot colder before
I get the chance to eat it.

People are stupid, and the less smart they
are, the quicker they become more impatient
and more demanding.

I feel like they think I am the devil,
or at least his servant,
thrown here to abuse them and treat
them like the dirt they wallow in
day and night.

I don't care anymore, I treat them as
they treat me, relying on the first impression
to make a template for my future dealings,
but they eye me with such distrust that I have
no discourse but to bristle at them and this
is evident in my eyes.

Once they feel that initial stab, there is
no winning them back,
the poison was released in the
quills and the only antidote is to treat
me poorly,
no greater revenge than to remind me of
who I am and where I have ended up.

Instead of smoothing things over, I stir up
the water into a torrid whirlpool of hate and
animosity,
I stir and I stir until I have made
myself seasick from the motion.
Mal de mer which translates into more
distaste on their part and I know they 
hate me even more.

Even when I smile at them they feel
as though they are being spat upon,
my smile can only be fake now,
false as false can be,
yet I can now flash them at will
and at the very least, I'm not automatically
considered an outcast.

They still leave, seething just a little
as they have paid, and paid dearly
and though they think they are in control,
or at least that they deserve to be in control,
I am the one who has won,
at least for the time being, a shallow victory,
is still a victory.


MCC

ROADSIDE EMPANADAS

ROADSIDE EMPANADAS

PM0906133

The young girl at the side of the road looked no

more than nine or ten years old, maybe she was

twelve and suffered from malnutrition,

I couldn't be sure.

The basket she carried on her hip was huge

it looked bigger and weighed far more than she

did, all sorts of small packages, balls wrapped 

in napkins, steam coming off them in the early

morning cold.

As she climbed onto the bus, nimble as an elf,

the aroma hit me full in the face,

beef and onions, olives, all fresh and just off

the fire I would wager.

She smiled a mouth only half full of teeth,

whether it was her age or poor oral health,

I couldn't be sure, maybe a mixture of both.

I bought four for ten pesos, two dollars, more or less,

I offered one back to her but she refused,

she continued on towards the back of the bus

returning five minutes later with an empty basket,

I marveled at her salesmanship, yet a bus full

of hungry passengers was an easy sell.

They were delicious yet I couldn't help but picture

the bug-infested kitchen they were prepared in

and the less than sanitary hands that crimped the

dough and then so gently placed them in the

boiling oil. The dirty hands that wrapped them

in the napkins and gently filled the basket, trying

not to break any of them and have all their

goodness spill out.

How far did she have to walk to reach the road

and then how long did she have to wait for the

bus to come?

And when she got home, did she clean herself

up and begin the long walk to school,

or did she just fill up with more pastries and

get ready to go and wait for the next bus?

How does one analyze the different worlds

people live in without feeling a stab of pain

and wonder how some people live so poorly, 

and we complain when we are living so well.

I ate those four empanadas so quickly, as if they

were nothing, I didn't resent that I had paid the 

foreigner's rate, I just enjoyed them until the

bitterness arose in me so vile as to how many

might have suffered for me to have something to eat in

the morning after a long bus ride.

Her face was so dirty and sad and I will never

see her again as long as I live,

and she could be out there right now, waiting for

the next bus, an empty desk in a schoolhouse.

MCC

BARBARIAN AT THE GATE

BARBARIAN AT THE GATE

PM0906132

The gates loomed above me as I got off the bus,

I had been looking out the window,

and as I spotted the King David Hotel and

considered getting off and going on to use their

washrooms. The hostel washroom had been very busy

that morning and the smell had sent me outside

to urinate against the side of the wall.

Everyone out at nine in the morning sharp, a cookie

and some orange juice, that was the free fucking

breakfast? The orange juice was canned, we had

passed acres of orange groves on the ride from the

airport and I was given an paper cup of canned juice?

Anybody would have felt ripped off.

Back to the gate, it was so high, how the hell did they

build that without using a modern day crane,

it must have taken years,

I entered, everyone looked seedy, not a smiling

face in sight.

I was glad I hadn't shaved in days and I had

left my backpack at the hostel so I didn't think I

looked like a tourist, a terrorist perhaps! The aroma

of nearly a thousand different food stalls permeated my

nostrils and slapped me right across the face.

Finally I felt somewhere strange, exotic, alien,

everything I didn't want to see wasn't there,

no McDonalds or Dairy Queen,

and not a doughnut in sight. No sign of

the stars and stripes here but the sight of

so many yarmukhas and uzis in the same spot

was unnerving, so nothing I had ever seen before

and as I stopped to buy some sesame cakes

from a vendor I got some strange looks,

as though I shouldn't have been buying

anything from this person.

I walked on, munching, but still feeling very

uneasy and I couldn't dream of a spot I might

fit in here.

The ugly foreigner, perhaps, but I wasn't up to no

good and they should have known that.

I continued on my adventure through the city,

so much to buy and not a lot of money in my pocket,

learn to shop with your eyes at all times, I was told,

you don't have the means to carry any of that shit

around with you even if you could afford it.

Leave it for the rich Americans who could pay for the

extra luggage and who had lots of room to store the shit

when they got back to Albuquerque.

I smelled hash coming from the back of one of the stalls,

now there was something I could afford, and finally

someone smiled at me as I walked towards the back

of the stall.

MCC

FEAR SWEAT

FEAR SWEAT

PM0906131

The red light flashed and a buzzer rang,

but I ignored the customs guy and tried

to nonchalantly walk out the door.

Not today, I was called back and sent into

a room with my luggage.

Screw this, I thought, I'm not in a hurry,

and I don't have anything illegal,

I just want to get the fuck out of here.

I can't take it anymore.

I waited and I waited,

what a bunch of assholes, I just wanted

to get out and have a smoke,

I had been on the plane for hours and if

they had let me outside for two minutes I would

have happily sat there for hours as they tore

through my suitcases looking for heroin and ecstasy,

or whatever it was they thought I was trying

to smuggle back in.

I had lots of alcohol, maybe twenty bottles of wine,

but that's not what they were hunting,

why should they care about alcohol,

and the worst-case scenario was they would take it

away or charge duty on it,

fuck them, whichever they decided, just make the

decision and let me get the hell out of there.

I put on my most uncooperative face and just

sat there as if I had all the time in the

world, which I did, but then again,

I didn't.

I smiled as they pawed through my dirty 

clothes, they looked for secret compartments,

and they even opened my notebooks to see if

they could decipher what was on my mind.

Nothing.... doodles, swastikas are not illegal, we

are not in Germany or Israel,

frown and suck in your breath all you

want, I have done nothing wrong.

I answer the questions that I have not listened

to or understood and I wonder what they really

think of me. They are so interested in my notebook

and I can't help but laugh at the irony, I have 

tried so hard to get people to read what I have

written, but there are so few takers, yet these idiots

seem to be glued to every word, every pen stroke

every nuance, they didn't spend this much time

on my laptop for crying out loud and there could have

downloaded upskirt pics in there that

could have raised an eyebrow or two. Finally

they close my bag, look at me as though they are about

ready to spit and then they send me on my way

with a wave and a scowl, oh that cigarette was Heaven.

MCC

Engineering Open House

Visiting as a parent of a new student, what a different environment! !!!