Eucalyptus Mint

I love those trickle of rain
Dancing across window sills
And clouded up skies, foggy
like the way milk opaques coffee.

It lets me stay in bed,
It let's me negate the guilt of staying in bed,
When I need to:

Work-
Study-
Live-

It lets me pause my life
And say,

"Well, how about not today."

And then I can just pretend
The bed is a life
And I am living it

I can surf aimlessly the ends and outs of the internet
The last, lone thing connecting me to a ribboned out society.

I could, theoretically exist.
In this bed.

Ordered food and clothing off the internet.

Forever. 

I'm not sure I would even get bored.
I might just become discouraged
Causing me to sink deeper into the woven together blankets and pillows from which I've built my nest.

And at the end of the day
I would feel so alert
And so awake

I wouldn't even sleep.
I could take the actual world by storm.

At night.

11/29/2014
Riley Welch

Favorite Fridays

This poem is a lullaby my grandmother used to sing to me and my sisters. She wrote quite a bit of poetry, and I plan to post more once I find them, this one I know by heart. 

If you can't tell, the holidays brings out certain emotions that make me miss her a lot, lot, lot. 

BY: LaRa Woznicki

Go to sleep, my little one
Go to sleep, the day is done
Soon you'll see the rising sun
Go to sleep my little one.

Go to sleep, close your eyes
Go to sleep, and by and by
Angels guard your little bed
Go to sleep, my sleepy head


Go to sleep, my little one
Go to sleep, the day is done
God watch o'er you all night long
Go to sleep, 'til mornings dawn

305

Thank goodness for these people

Though they may be here but a second

Thank goodness for their goodness

For their caring

For their split second hugs and hot coffees

Thank goodness for these people

For their ability to listen

And their ability to ramble

And thank goodness for these people

Knowing I need the distraction

Agreeing to be the distraction from the real world

Thank goodness for these people

For laughing

And lifting

And just for caring

Because I know people care

But from all angles of your life, it is so unique

Thank goodness for these people

All of these people

All around me

Inhabiting cracks of my life I didn’t know I was lonely

Thank goodness for these people

And all that they do

And all that they want to do

And all that they couldn’t do

But that they really tried to do.

Thank goodness for these people.

11/20/2014

Riley Welch

Favorite Fridays

This weeks poem is also a song, both of which I have posted below! This is by my wonderful, lovely TA in the lab I mentor, Catalina Gempeler. And yes, it is about science!

Here is the song: 

https://soundcloud.com/daryl-bolling/microbiome

And lyrics:

Microbiome

I can see

Through your skin your bones and joints

in your bowels and  your blood that flows but 

more, there‘s more, ten times more cells than your own, that live and 

breathe and call you home, that live and breathe and call you home. 

If I was born in any other way I would have

a different set, I wonder if they would do as well

Cause mine agree with living down in Texas 

And they like to swim, I wonder if they picked me or

If I picked them, while doing things I like

By working late, by petting dogs or playing darts,

Just tell me what you think, Once you know all the creatures that keep me company

Cause we like it here, yes we like it here.

If I was born in any other way I would have

a different set, I wonder if they would do as well

Cause mine agree with being down in Texas and they 

like to swim, I wonder if they picked me or

Cause this song is about your micro biome

you re not alone they call you home, 

you re not alone they call you home, 

SOC

Rumble tumble

In one ear

And right out the other

Passing over and under the thoughts

That sticks themselves inside your head

But avoiding contact

Because they are only present for a minute

And they only represent a minute

11/18/2014

Riley Welch

80122

When you come from snow

You understand the stillness. 

The creeping of the silent flurries -

Hitting the snow.

Piling up.

Pillowing up.

Silently,

Because snow doesn't need sound.

And the bright pure white

Reflects every speck of light

That comes into its view.

And if the clouds are still hanging low over the landscape they reflect the stars and the moon

And the world becomes lit up with all this reflected light

And being outside at night isn't scary.

It's like being in a room with a nightlight,

But the nightlight is bouncing off every white wall,

And maybe a mirror,

And the white of the carpet,

And curtains,

And sheets.

And you could hear someone coming from miles away

Because it's silent

And light

And sparkling.

11/11/2014

Riley Welch

Favorite Friday

Unfortunately this Favorite Friday is actually a Favorite Saturday. This poem is one my mother sent to me a while ago "to inspire me", which I would say it did. 

Perfection Wasted

BY: JOHN UPDIKE

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market —
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

Mugged Disappointment Part Two

The bitterness scowls your nose
Into a grimace
Your nostrils are hooks
Sinking into curled back lips
Showing your teeth
Snarling

This is genuinely -
The worst -
Cup of coffee -
Ever tasted -

But you have to keep going
Because this is the liquid of life
This is what keeps you alive
Keeps you going.

You don;t finish this,
You don't speak for the day

But more importantly, you don't listen

So that black slimes claws its way down your throat
Carefully
Avoiding your taste buds
My disappointment snaps from the disgusting coffee
To the slacking baristas
Who made it.

Please utilize La Marzocco
And those fresh harvested beans

...

I don't have time for poorly brewed water

It's sad,

It's gross,

And I'm already asleep.

10/16/2014
Riley Welch

Lights.

Faster, faster

Speed of lightening

Crushing, crushing

Smashed punched peeled

Whirling whirring

Fast paced

The sound of a thousand things happening at once

Blending into one unifying sound

The way every voice and scream on our Earth sounds like a solid static to everyone around us

Traffic horns and sirens

School bells and marching bands

And music, TV, footsteps, high-fives, crinkly fabrics, papers, key boards clacking

All rhythmically in sync with an unknown beat

We complete the motions

And together create one tone

Ringing out into what we don’t know

Harmonizing with other galaxies

Speeding along faster than what is imaginable

Screeching brakes slam

And finish the chorus

We launch bombs and they steady the ever charging, marching, base line

It's there

Always there

You don’t have to know about it,

You don’t even have to know your part

And you add the to speed

The eventually shattering speed

The eventually shattering speed that will increase and increase

And increase and increase

And increase

Until it reaches the end

And we don’t know what the encore is either

Which is okay

Because in the middle there will be silence.

11/5/2014

Riley Welch

Gas-lit Stars

Streaking air bubbles cast themselves towards air

Looking for escape

Pulling itself up through the bitter sweet 

Reaching the top

Reflecting onto glass like stars streaking through the universe

Circling rings

Planets

Stretching across universes and passing through Suns and systems and spiraling past comets

Answering questions that we know will never be answered

Answering questions that we won't even know to ask

And someday that streaking reflection might show itself

Might tell us what it learned

But until then

It'll reach the top

Bursting through that bitter sweet

And surfacing to rejoin it's likeness

Or enemies. 

11/2/2014

Riley Welch

#5

A shining blazing sun

Lights up the hot before evening but not afternoon

And cars with automatic lights 

Look out of place 

As they shine into already lit space

Blinding eyes by the sun and the streets

Looking into bright white LEDs 

And heat penetrates layers of jackets and the skin underneath lights up

Ablaze with sunlight

Beaming that hot almost evening but not afternoon. 

10/30/2014

Riley welch

Favorite Fridays

In the Back of Reality

BY: ALLEN GINSBERG

railroad yard in San Jose 
I wandered desolate 
in front of a tank factory 
and sat on a bench 
near the switchman's shack. 

A flower lay on the hay on 
the asphalt highway 
--the dread hay flower 
I thought--It had a 
brittle black stem and 
corolla of yellowish dirty 
spikes like Jesus' inchlong 
crown, and a soiled 
dry center cotton tuft 
like a used shaving brush 
that's been lying under 
the garage for a year. 

Yellow, yellow flower, and 
flower of industry, 
tough spiky ugly flower, 
flower nonetheless, 
with the form of the great yellow 
Rose in your brain! 
This is the flower of the World. 

Stationary Static

With symmetry comes illusions

Like circular wheels

Turning so fast

You think they're standing still

And the road is just pulling itself up to keep the car going at the speed the dial tells it 

And the people behind them

Get caught up in the bunched up mess of the worlds spin

Like a bunched up rug the grip of your shoe can't grab

Or a wrinkled table cloth pulled quickly enough to leave dishes in place

Like that car

Standing still at 75 miles per hour along the road. 

11/2/2014

Riley Welch

Word Search

I could drown in piled up words

Covering my head in a pit of jumbled letters

Humbling down my slang ridden speech

And punctuating every sentence I thought didn't need it.

I could drown in gags and suffocation 

Gasping an thrashing among serif 

And sans serif edges

Climbing up the edges of crisp Helvetia L's but I slip and topple into the dictionary sea underneath me

Trying to scream for help

But my tongue

Can't seem

To form

The words

10/23/2014

Riley Welch

DAYS

I feel I wander aimlessly
I don't know what is next

I don't know what day it is
They all get jumbled up

Weekdays have no curfews
And weekends, early starts

I swirl cursive letters, neatly on receipts
And scrawl out notes in class
Like there is no need to read

I cannot focus on the next, just vague dates in the future
Weeks and months are blending

Together, drifting further and further.
Until my schedule realigns.

10/27/2014
Riley Welch