Sample poetry paper from a previous 210 class (AUBG student).
"God, humans are creatures of habit,".
I say to no one particular,.
myself, the man who calls himself my.
lover, behind me in the next room.
The way we laugh when we hit the switch.
knowing there's no electricity,.
or turn the faucet to wash our hands.
anyway, plumber downstairs, no flow.
Do what you've always done, and you'll get .
what you've always gotten. This is our.
homily these days, and I believe.
it. God, humans, creatures, here we.
sit in the cosmic chain of being,.
him in the next room, me at my work.
He is reading, quietly, poems.
that make him moan. This is sweet because.
they are my own. He, of course, is not.
There is a woman some miles away.
who yet is here with us, a corner.
of the room and our consciences just.
for her. Seems I've always been the third.
angle of the triangle, the heart-.
shaped chaos created by a yes.
born of a no. And what I now know.
is I want him alone, the slow moan .
mine, no more shadowed eyes peering.
from corners, through blinds. Do what I've done.
always? always, I'll trace clandestine skin.
_____________________.
Does it sometimes strike you that what you are doing in a particular situation is largely prompted by the habits you have? Indeed, when we give thought to it, we understand that at times, our decisions are fueled more by how we are used to acting than by pure reasoning. In her poem "D'habitude," Moira Egan reflects on this idea, applying it to a secret love affair, in which the speaker of the poem finds herself entangled. She points out that acting by habit – d'habitude in French – is appealing to all humans, even if it contradicts with what reason tells them. Perhaps, this is because of the comfort and joy we feel, which make particular habits preferable to us in the first place, and because of unwillingness and implausibility of changing the habits that arise from human passions and desires.
