Looking into submitting some stuff for a writing award. Problem is, I have five poems here and can only pick three or four of them. You've probably seen these all a few billion times, but please please please show some love and rank them for me, starting with your favorite.

(If you don't have Xanga, you can e-mail me--orraya [at] gmail.com)

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Czechoslovakia (pt. 1)

So the boy called himself Czechoslovakia
Fearless boy, as smooth as velvet
Twirling a revolver in a dangerous game
Fate left to the hands of the clock in his mouth
Melting, dallying, choking, gagging
Falling to his knees on the side of the road
So every car he's ridden in has been poison
Speeding by without another word
So he gasps for air on the side of the road
Just a mile away.

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Sonnet #2

I find myself under your darkened skies,
In the promised destruction of the Earth,
And wonder to what extent is my worth
In gently smould'ring clouds and radiant eyes.

Waiting in the heart of senescent Rome
I watch as temples and towers collide.
Breathing in the dust of the great divide,
The quiet stillness of a catacomb.

Hollow and empty are these shells of men,
Sins and virtues seeping through broken walls,
Reflecting heaven, as their cities fall,
Ravaged by your will, time and time again.

You are a sublime and merciless force;
The universe yields as you run your course.

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Dream Sequence

I
What happened to dreams, I asked one night.
Looking up past the UV rays and the atmosphere,
Stratosphere, there's a whole other world out there.

II
Where do they go to rest or die?
Caught in-between waiting arms and wanting hearts,
Do they choose life on Earth or wishing stars?

III
Who will bring them back to me?
Who will fly through galaxies or backwoods country roads,
Haphazardly guessing my name, my address, my zip code.

IV
And how and when will you arrive?
By fast car or satellite, time machine, Adidas,
I'm sure you'll be in time for tea,
It's always tea, it's always three.

V
Perhaps while I am waiting,
I will put the kettle on, and not watch for it.
Nobody likes to be watched while dreaming,
Still, still, seeming--shrill, shrill, screaming.

VI
Why you? Why me, myself, and I who lose sight of dreams,
Find some ephemeral beauty in the deepest questions
Hypothesizing, what-if and maybe-this--
What if we answer the greatest questions after all, what then?
Maybe this: the universe will end at our feet.

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The Can of Beans

One would have still to discover,
In the stillness of its movement,
A can of beans, in a state of existing, with
A luscious froth, sunwarmed and rubiginous,
Pooling beneath the edges.

Weedy life folding their heads over in sloven grace
Look up as the hot black dust rolls by.
Unexpected, but some things by God may be destined,
Thus, there is no need to feel startled, it is time.
For the can, not to flinch, only turn as did before.

Turn around slowly, the only telltale ripples spread
Just so. A spoon will not suffice to salvage the leaking wisdoms,
Nor a plate, but perhaps a deep, deep bowl.
Through a tiny wound pours a bold and saucy vigor,
But still there remains a canful of beans.

To look at it directly would seem simply a can.
To catch it out of the corner of one's eye is simply not enough.
To blink would undoubtedly spoil the illusion for oneself,
On the roadside, a failed drive-by shooting, some hallucination or miracle--
One would continue to contend with one's ideas.

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Morning of May 25th

Stand firm on the belief that today is today,
However, I have to see this for myself.
You would not believe in the principles of destiny, fate,
Or love at first sight.
Especially at a gas station in a bad neighborhood.

You would have only seen the neon green,
And caffeine and bubbles of the 7-Up machine,
That was not a woman driving the truck,
Stopping to refuel or unload a cool fizzy morning.

Not to mention saying a brief hello to the man in the parking lot,
A grungy stranger on the corner, you would have only seen
The bottle of beer in his left hand and his stained denim jacket.

The thing was, I turned back to look a little longer.
I stand firm in the belief that he was waiting, not loitering.

In his right hand was a long-stemmed white rose.
 

1. Senioritis, or so they call it: My schoolwork is at a low point. I tried to pick hard classes this year, mentally challenging ones so that I would have to work at it. Unfortunately, finding out that I don't have to make much effort to get a decent grade hasn't really helped. Neither does napping in class.

2. Fine line: I feel like I should be more serious/mature about things like politics and relationships, because at some point I'll probably have to. Unfortunately, it's more fun/easy to be fucking immature.

3. Person to talk to: I want somebody to talk to at school that I can hang out with on a regular basis. Female or male. I don't do too well with groups; there is too much to have to pay attention to. Everyone I know at school is part of a group, and me being me, however well-associated, is always on the edge of those. I am tired of talking to people through the Internet, whom I never see face-to-face and seem to look at me condescendingly whenever I do.

4. General inadequacy: Contains all the above. Vestiges of insecurity. Disgust with peers, former friends, acquaintances. Retaining far less than thirty percent of all things learned. Unmotivated to achieve both short- and long-term goals.

Something has got to be said for feeling awesome about writing a little program to calculate the sum of a list of massive numbers... and then seeing that some guy on a forum can smoosh all that down into a text file and a simple, one-line program.

print str(sum(int(x) for x in open('numbers.txt','r')))[:10]

Stabbity-stab stab.

I think this had been a line from one of my stories at the time, randomly scribbled on a back page.

"...and you can tell her you think she's pretty, but I doubt that she'll believe you, because it's the first time that anyone's said so. But I guess there's always a first time."

How time flies.

Short term:

-Write science comp essay

-Reread Fountainhead

-Write Fountainhead essay?

-Study Earth Science

-Learn more Python... and be able to use it : /

Long term:

-Get through second semester

-Search for good laptop.

-Get muscle : ( or at least get some exercise.

Whenever:

-Become proficient in weaponry... how many practice points have I accumulated?

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I'm too good at setting goals I don't keep.