Poetry

by Steve Norwood

Steve Norwood is a poet living in Lewisville, Texas. Born in Manchester, Tennessee in 1964, he has spent his entire life below the Mason-Dixon Line. His distinctive style of writing does not fit neatly into any category: he tends to feel very old in coffeehouses, very restless at literary events and very slow at slams; therefore, he doesn’t get out much.

Norwood’s work can be found in various e-zines and journals, including smog.net, Kim Holzer-Leeds’ LID (www.lionessden.com) and poetrysuperhighway.com (where he placed third in the PSH 2000 poetry contest), as well as Atom Mind, (this) poetry site, and the 1998 Austin International Poetry Festival’s anthology, di-verse-city, too.

He also two self-published collections, helen could waste away and because I love you so damn much I’d wait for you, as well as two e-chaps, subtle rear-view glances and portrait of the artist as a young man in a ditch.

He can be contacted at scn64@hotmail.com.


Contents

haiku of self-imposed isolation
haiku of chihuahua

haiku for a rat

too long to be the the haiku of consideration

origami haiku

flawed nature
 
origin of the species or a taste for it


too long to be the the haiku of consideration

 

the superego got the night off

and daddy trusts you implicitly

but don't let your id drive the family car.

 

origami haiku

 

origami swans

sit sideways on the bookshelf

swimming through the dust.

 

haiku for a rat

 

honor among thieves

exists only among the

honorable thieves

 

haiku of self-imposed isolation

 

I've been around for

a while; I just haven't been

around for a while.

 

flawed nature

she told me
that man was inherently flawed
self-serving
self-preserving
destructive to self and
others
she told me that
if man does not aspire
to be like the god
that made him
and desire to return
to the truest state
in which man was made
before the introduction
of sin
into mankind
-thereby tainting all-
that if he doesn't aspire
to emulate goodness
he is then left to his own
devices
and stirs up more
self-involved
destruction
she told me
our only hope
is to acknowledge
our flawed nature
and ask god to
restore us
to our better selves
the self he wanted for us
and that the only way
to restore ourselves
is to allow jesus
to be the
deified-human
bridge
that makes it possible
for humans to be
redeemed
in the end
and she added
of course
during our human lives
we can never be perfect
but to god
the striving is all
there is
and then she asked me
if it all made sense
and I nodded
a really good song came on
I asked her if she wanted another drink
but she wanted
to dance.

origin of the species or a taste for it


"slavery"
did not exist until 1551
I read this in
my copy of webster's
"terrorism"
while gaining the spotlight
around 1972
was originated in 1795
"slave state"
came into being
258 years after its
namesake
in 1809
"concentration camps"
were created in 1901
and
"nazis"
stepped up in 1930
"apartheid"
blinked onto the horizon
in 1947
"gulags"
became fashionable
in 1974
and
"lao gi"
is still unlisted…none of these terms existed until the years given
none of these concepts
were "real"until they hit the books
if you believe
everything
that you read…hatred,fear,
mistrust,
all have been around
since before
gutenberg
could type
and blood has dripped
to the dirt
from the hands
of furious men
since before we could
utter
our own names
we are
a race
that thrives on hurting
itself
we are
god's masochists,
suffering pools beneath
our tongues,
and our dictionaries
continue
to thicken.