Improv 2, Week 2

This is a riff of the piece, ‘When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer’ by Walt Whitman.

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and
Measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much
Applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

This poem reflects how cross-disciplinary studies can be encompassed in literary works. In the above poem the discipline is that of astronomy. My piece covers the discipline of thanatology: the study of the dead.


When I Gazed at Hear Pale Face

When I gazed at her pale face,
When her bulleted eyes, glacier white skin, were reflected in the moonlight,
When I saw her freeze over his fire rat skin, his peach painted ears, and
Burn him away,
When I in passing saw the clay pot that rivaled her frame with
Concrete tremors,
My pupils reeled, stomach churning itself,
Till briskly gaiting off through the fields,
In the heat of the blizzard, and from time to time,
I’d look down in honorable shame at the tombstones.