Poetry that Focuses on Theme and Rhyme

Dear Dr Frankenstein by Jericho Brown

I, too, know the science of building men

Out of fragments in little light

Where I'll be damned if lightning don't

Strike as I forget one

May have a thief's thumb,

Another, a murderer's arm,

And watch the men I've made leave

Like an idea I meant to write down,

Like a vehicle stuck

In reverse, like the monster

God came to know the moment

Adam named animals and claimed

Eve, turning from heaven to her

As if she was his

To run. No word he said could be tamed.

No science. No design. Nothing taken

Gently into his hand or your hand or mine,

Nothing we erect is our own.

Emulating the theme and rhythm of Jericho Brown’s poem, on creation

“Dust and Dirt”

Ash Wednesday made my head spin

Remember, man, that thou art dust

Had I forgotten?

No, but sin

It makes one feel so rotten

You think it’s all right with me if I’m just dirt

And then the priest says that—and—

That soul inside hollers out, “But I’m not!”

And you walk outside, and feel sun on the face

How does any of this make sense? This place

Created by man, city of man

And yet here I am, exiled and called back

At the same time

Like spirit and flesh

At the same time