Amsterdam

Notes: I wrote this poem in what my friends and I call "Inverted Tenebrae" form. In this form, we use n lines, where each line respectively has n, n-1, n-2, ..., 3, 2, and 1 syllables. This form may officially have some other name, but we gave it this name because it looks like an upside-down Tenebrae Hearse, the triangular candlestick that Catholics use in their Good Friday service.

Amsterdam


Amsterdam... Two dikes
burst and went down
hard, casting
water-
works

in roles of Thelma
and Louisa
May Alcott.
College-
bound

but none too ruled, we
went Dutch in Delft
blue, coolly
trickling
through

the crowds as dusk hung
from gabled roofs
and framed the
girls in
red.

We canvassed canals
under kites in
the park as
Van Gogh
watched.

We took out Thai and
noodled and spooned
as we played
with our
words.

Over bridges, the
houses bloomed on
barges as
buildings
rose

from bicycles and
vendors pedaled
bulbs. It was
bizarre.
I

saw with diamond-eyes,
inspired by
the coffee-
clouded
smoke.

In the silence, our
emotions were
like water,
our minds,
our

wills, like windmills that
pumped the floods from
fields to let
tulips
grow.