Realization

So here I am, behind schedule, tired to the point of fighting sleep as I type this (hoping for a third wind to be honest) and wanting to keep up with a commitment I made to myself to write this blog. I was supposed to write about realization last week. This week it dawned on me that there were several reasons why I hadn't been keeping up with this writing:

1) I was taking it a little too seriously. I was writing a draft in my notebook, typing it up, and then, well at first anyway, having someone read over it. Now. That's not to say that I shouldn't take it seriously. After all, I'm posting it on the internet to be there for, I guess, forever, and it's writing, and I take my writing seriously, but, I think I should trust myself to blog, instead of draft. To not put so much of a burden on editing myself.

2) I wasn't having fun. This follows naturally from taking it a little too seriously. I was trying to come up with different formats, unique angles to approach the words I wanted to discuss, when I think I should write what comes up, in the time I give myself to sit down to write. This way I can look forward to the time I get to sit and think on the page, and not think about the process of drafting,  about what I have to do next.

3) I have too much to do. I won't go into it here, but it is true. Writing is something that I want to do. And I am determined to make time for it while I have too much to do. Still, it is a reason for why I have gotten behind. When it comes down to it, the obligations I make to other people are more important than I feel that this blog is, and even more than I am determined to make time to write, I am determined to make good on my commitment to those I love.

I'm typing this on the couch. I'm in my underwear. I'm listening to Accents Radio show. I'm about to get up and brush my teeth. Kiss my daughter goodnight. Kiss my fiancée goodnight. It took me 37 minutes to write this post. And I enjoy it. There's no poem here. No prompt. There probably won't be for some time. There might even be mistakes. I'm not going to proofread. I am OK with that. I'm having fun. I'm looking forward to this, again.

Next week I'll be talking about gratitude. 

Mistakes

Learning from your mistakes it the lazy and dangerous way to handle mistakes. The common phrase “learn from your mistakes” you hear is inviting though. It gives us permission, of sorts, to mess up—as long as the lesson you take away from the mistake is valuable. I don’t mean to say that you can’t learn from mistakes, you can and should. Most mistakes anyway. Some do lead to death and dismemberment, so I want to suggest alternate way to deal with mistakes, that is to anticipate what would or could go wrong in a given situation and work to avoid it. To do this I’m going to use an analogy to playing the trading card game Magic the gathering.

What you need to know about the game to understand this is that (1) you have to make decisions and those decisions can either help  you win by defeating your enemy (who must die!) or lead to your downfall (death). You also need to know (2) that your decisions are based on known information (your cards—I said it was a trading card game ) and your opponents cards—unknown information. The parallel to real life is apparent, I hope. In a given match, usually lasting between 25 minutes to 4 hours, you will make many decisions that will impact your chances of winning, as is the case with any game of skill (luck is involved, sure, but life has it’s luck, as well).

It is crucial in the game (and life) to figure out what decisions will be the best decisions and what will be the mistakes. The best players anticipate what a mistake will be before they make it and seek to understand why it would be a mistake, and what would be an acceptable alternative. This is how victories are won consistently in a game where variables are changing constantly, much like life.

 A lot can be learned from making mistakes, but that is not an excuse to make them. I’m not sure my poetry has benefited from this thinking, but my life has and those two are linked in the most intimate way.

Rivalry

What interests me about rivalry is the community that must exist to support it. Community exists on many levels. In family a rivalry can exists between two siblings, between parents, between cousins. Small towns and big cities have sports team rivalries. I suppose these are the two common kinds of rivalry, though technically a rivalry is simply a competition for the same objective or for superiority in a field (according to google define, anyway).

What makes a rivalry noteworthy is the spectator. To properly fuel a rivalry the spectator has to be a member of the community that is shared by the competitors. The competitors have to care about the spectator, perhaps this is way family rivalries are so vehement. The spectator should feel as if the well-being of the community rests on the outcome of the rivalry being in their favor. This is more common in sports rivalry, because in family rivalry there will not be a “spectator” in the way I mean it. Though family a rivalry can spread to immediate family, extended family, to the local community and beyond.

This is probably a modern interpretation of rivalry, highlighting the competition, the performance aspect of obtaining a goal or proving dominance.

 

In poetry, the one clear area of competition is the slam. I tried this for about a year. It was my entrance into poetry. I competed in a regional slam and was placed on the national team as an alternate. Basically, I went to watch, to be a spectator. The nature of slam creates rivalry. There is community amongst teammates, spectators within those community, and judges who evaluate superiority.

I moved away from that. Still I think that as we seek to publish and reach people with our poetry, competition is inevitable. There are, after all, contests for individual poems, chapbooks, full-length books.

What I like about the non-slam, local community I live in is our attempt to overcome rivalry. We are all seeking the same goal, in the same field, trying to be our best, but we aren’t seeking superiority over each other. In fact, the opposite may be the case, we are trying to advance each other to understand and cope with our own inferiority.

Metaphor

We understand the world and each other through metaphor. A metaphor is best when used to explain complex emotional states or take an emotional state experienced by an individual and translate it to a larger, cultural experience that could be understood by a group of people. In this, it is easy to see how clichés form.  We seek a common way to understand each other and we see a common way to communicate thoughts, emotions, and ideas. This is what compels us to take a wolf’s skin and spread it over a sheep. Or, wait, it’s the other way around. The wolf puts on the sheep skin, but is that interesting? Not really. Not anymore, I would say. Maybe it still has some use as a teaching tool. Still, because of this clichéd metaphor, when we think of the reverse, a sheep in wolf’s skin, we understand what that might be like. There are even several other clichés to explain this metaphor:

his bark is bigger than his bite

he talks the talk, but does he walk the walk

 

But of these, imagining the sheep walking around in a wolf’s skin seems far more interesting. Maybe it is because we (or at least I) haven’t encountered this before, but also because it takes a common metaphor, one most of our culture would recognize instantly, and uses it to communicate. What’s communicated is fresh and exciting. Mentally stimulating. It’s one of my favorite parts of poetry.

 

 

Next Week I'll be discussing rivalry.

   

Observation

The following are observations recorded in my notebook from 2009 to present.
 
 
A poet has three ways of looking: observation, memory, and imagination. (Could be a quote that I don’t know who to attribute to.)

 

I have to look at pictures of myself to remember who I am.

 

A friend is like a book of memories.

 

If you adopt someone else’s voice are you taking it away?

 

Once you become everyone, you are no one.

 

It’s dangerous to watch time too closely.

 

Train lovers seldom lie on the tracks.

 

Eventually we all become our representations.

 

There is pleasure in being alone in someone else’s home.

 

We leave marks on every place we visit.

 

I don’t want to live anywhere I can’t outrun the buildings falling.

 

What drives people to write on bathroom walls?

 

There are few things more painful than having the only seat in the bar that faces the married couple in the middle of an argument.

 

A baby’s sleeping form projects her mother.

 

The worst part about living in a cardboard box is anyone can kick your door in.

 

Students write their names in boxes.

 

Face, hands and feet are the most color-filled parts of the body.

 

I have imagined the death of every person I love.

 

Grass should be wild like pubic hair.

 

I haven’t observed much.

 

Next week I'll be thinking about metaphor.

 



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Go through your journal and write down every observation you have made.

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Conversations

I am not a very good conversationalist. I checkout out of conversations and rely on stock phrases to appear interested:

That’s funny.

Interesting.

You think so?

How do you mean?

Maybe.

Really?

Eloise, my fiancée, calls this Autopilot Chris. She even has games she plays with me when she realizes that I am not fully committed to the conversation. Most of the time it’s nonsense, and when I feign interest in the absurd or overtly perverted remarks engineered to get my attention, her point has been proven well enough. Occasionally, she will throw our daughter’s toys at me. Or knock whatever I’m reading out of my hands.

 

In groups I often feel like the only way to contribute is talk about myself, and even I grow tired of that. Most of the time.

 

In groups of guys, I usually have nothing to contribute to discussion. I don’t like sports; I don’t drink or smoke cigars. I’m a head nodding master.

 

Formalities escape me. I can forget to ask someone how they are, in as little time it takes me to respond to the same question. I will prattle on about something I’ve done or am doing and not realize that whoever I am talking to has been saying:

That’s funny.

Interesting.

You think so?

How do you mean?

Maybe.

Really?

Sometimes I don’t even care. I just like to hear myself talking.

I value my opinion more than most other peoples, which must mean that I think what I have to say is more important.

I don’t listen enough.

I write this blog, which isn’t a conversation, really. It’s really just me talking and some of my friends and family reading (which I am super thankful for).

I write poems.

I’m a horrible conversationalist.

 

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Record a conversation between you and someone else.

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Confession

The following is a fictional account of a true story:

 

The confessional crowded in on Jacob and a low pressuring light made him feel sticky with sweat. “Why are you here my son?” His voice was smooth and captivating. Jacob felt like he could trust him immediately. The way he trusted that if he broke a mirror he would get seven years bad luck. The way he trusted if he stepped on a crack he would break his mother’s back. In the same way if he couldn’t say the prayers this man gave him to say, he would go to hell.     

“Forgive me Father for I have sinned.” Jacob felt like crying.

“What is it that troubles you?” he asked.

Jacob kept his eyes on his boots and dredged up every time he could remember that he had ever been called bad and told the Father: every incident where he had been grounded, spanked, sat in the corner at school, or put in time out at his babysitter’s. He told him everything.

When he finished telling Father Ferrell his sins he felt dirty and exhausted. He told the Father doing all those wrong things made him feel guilt-ridden, nervous that he would go to Hell for doing them.  But really he had no idea what that meant. “Do you feel sorry for your transgressions?” Father Ferrell asked Jacob.

“Yes Father.”

“Then go and repent. Say the Lord’s Prayer four times.”

“Yes sir,” Jacob said.

 Father Ferrell was silent and when Jacob glanced up at him there was a delicate smile on his face. Jacob pulled open the door and walked up towards the altar. Jacob saw Sister Crump sitting quietly with her rosary draped over hand in the pew behind the rest of his class mates. Had she told Father Ferrell that he didn’t know the Hail Mary, how else could he have gotten away with no Hail Marys?

Our father who art in Heaven, he began and finished the prayer.

Our Father who art in Heaven, he began and finished a second time.

Our Father who art in Heaven, he began but stopped a little over half way through.

He didn’t even start the last.

 

 

 

A confession requires the following: a confessor, someone or thing to hear the confession, and a shared understanding of what is right and wrong and the consequences of having done something wrong. Usually there is an attempt at absolution, but the confession itself is separate.

 

The confessor could have any number of motives for confessing. Like Jacob above, the confessor could have an overwhelming fear for one’s self. That is, Jacob felt, at least at first, that his soul would be damned without confessing his wrongdoings.  The confessor could feel genuinely guilty for the wrong they feel they have committed. These two I feel are the most common reasons for confessing, though there are many others:

 

commiserating with someone else’s guilt or fear

manipulating someone’s perception of you

believing that a confession will lessen the atonement

 

 

There doesn’t seem to be any rules as to who can hear a confession. Undoubtedly some will be better trained than others. Typically the person will have some knowledge of the severity of what is being confessed. Their reaction is everything to the confessor, who has come specifically to this person anticipating, to some extent, what the outcome of the confession will be. Jacob anticipates that he will be asked to recite a prayer or a number of prayers and this will give him absolution. Other anticipated reactions:

 

a murderer confesses and is put in jail

a cheating husband confesses and finds his clothes on fire

 

These scenarios have a clear perception of right and wrong that has been established. Even the person who uses the confession to manipulate understands that there are perceived “rules” that were supposed to be followed. A second-grader (Catholics give their First Confession in the second grade) like Jacob would confesses breaking the rules of his parents and babysitter and teacher because those are the boundaries of right and wrong that make up his life. When he doesn’t follow directions he gets punished:

 

timeout

spanking

grounded

bed without dinner

 

I think part of the reason Jacob never finished his prayers, never achieved absolution, is that the reparation for not sharing, for being too loud in class, for throwing a tantrum didn’t seem to be related to knelling in prayer and certainly not Hell.

 

Poetry follows all of the above when it is confessional except that the audience does not get a chance to ask for reparation. In this way a poem I think that a confessional poem is the confession and the absolution.

 

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Write a lighthearted confessional poem.

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Humor

There is a scene in Julius Caesar after the death of Caesar, when Brutus and Cassius are arguing over honor. It is an intense debate in which Cassius tells Brutus just to kill him. Chest bared and dagger pointed at his heart, the melodrama could hardly be thicker. Couple this with the many times Cassius tempts the heavens to kill him, says he’ll take his own life, if he needs to. When the argument begins to cool down, a poet interrupts the scene, and begs the two to stop feuding. Brutus and Cassius make fun of the poet and his bad rhymes. Brutus, the honorable man, even calls the poet a “jigging fool.” When the poet final exits unceremoniously, the scene turns back to a serious discuss of war tactics. In teaching my students to understand this scene, we talked about comedic relief as transition between two serious and dramatic discussions, a brief break after a climactic moment.

 

For my writing, this scene reveals to me how self-aware Shakespeare must have been. After all, Shakespeare, poet and playwright (maybe synonymous terms in his day), had realized there is a power in understanding how people can apply a lamentable part of a whole (all poets try to force bad rhymes on people) to an individual. The ability to laugh at yourself can free you from the confines of your roles, in a way that is pleasing to the audience and liberating for the mind.

 Next week I'll be thinking about confessions.

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Make fun of yourself in a poem.

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Half Tuck

These days I put my pants on last, remembering

it wasn’t always my body resisted folding over itself.

How recently it prefers the ease of straightness

and, perceiving the lack of gymnast’s grace in tumbling

while putting on mismatched socks, wants to sit

on the edge of the bed while I stare down at my toes,

slide them into a pair of slip on shoes, imagining

ten sleek divers and no splash.   

Roles

There are the ones you choose, and the ones you don’t. All have models for success and failure. These are my roles, the models I follow, and how they impact my writing.

 

Son

I was born into this. Oh, how I have failed, disappointed, and abandoned. Oh, how I have succeeded, made proud, and returned.

Reader

 

Maybe my oldest chosen role. I read for pleasure and to learn. I’ve developed a system for reading that allows me to read all genres. Teacher and reader go together. In fact, my initial reason for wanting to teach English  was because I would be able to read books for a living. Reader and writer go together. I learned this from my brother, who, while I was content to just be a reader, encouraged me to write too.

 

Student

 

I tell my students that I have been in school my entire conscious life. Even now I take summer classes. Sadly, I am not the best student. I often slack on homework, procrastinate, settle. This blog is a weak replacement for an assignment given to me by my poetry mentor. I was supposed to write every day, not once a week. I am eager to learn and eager to please, I don’t know if that makes up for my shortcomings. I plan on being in school for the rest of my conscious life.

 

Teacher

 

I chose this role when I was in high school. I have been teaching for two years now. I like that there are clear guidelines. A good teacher does this, this, and this. There are the standards and etiquette. Systems you can study and learn. I get paid for this role. The pay is worth it.

Gamer

 

This is a role that I’m trying to let go. It consumes my mental space and my time. I enjoy playing games. The strategy involved has made me a sharper thinker. I met my best friend while learning to be a gamer. He taught me to take games seriously. Each action counts. Doing your best counts, even if you know you’ve lost.

 

Writer

 

In the seventh grade I won a poetry award for a poem I still remember:

 

The dew on the grass waits

for the sun to break

the barrier of darkness.

 

I remember writing it, and reading it to my teacher and her saying it was very good. Who knows if I’d even be writing this if it weren’t for that encouragement.  I was delighted that she found my writing pleasing. Still, I want my writing to be primarily enjoyable. I try not to put any constraint on my poems or thoughts. By this I mean, I avoid writing as social activism. I enjoy the story telling aspect this role, the humor and the pain of telling about life. My models for this are Stephen Dobyns, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Billy Collins, Anis Mojgani and the list goes on. These people capture life simply and complexly.

 

Friend

Being a friend is one of the hardest roles of all. The expectations are often murky. The relationship built along the blade of a knife. It requires energy, awkwardness, trust, respect, a shared history or future. I have to believe I can learn from my friends. They have to have some admirable quality that you wish to see replicated in yourself. I’m fortunate to have many good and great friends.

 

Husband

 

Coming Soon.

Brother

 

I have two sisters and a brother. I focus mainly on my role as a brother to my brother. There is much violence in this coming from Greek mythology, Christian mythology, our history. There is competition. There is a deep and physical love, and a desire to better one another. The poems I write about being a brother have a hard time capturing the volcanic relationship.

 

Father

 

There is more space in this role than I can ever fill. Even in my poetry I have a hard time exploring it. I think about my father a lot, his physical absence. I think about the physical absence of a God. I want to be, and am, present in my daughter’s life, but that’s not even the hard part. In the beginning of her life I felt unnecessary. I didn’t provide sustenance. Now that she is growing and learning more and more each day, I have more to offer. I focus on these smaller roles within our relationship as I write. I am the bath giver, hand holder, book reader, nighttime comforter, silly song singer, and so much more.

 

Next week I’ll be thinking about humor.

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Write a poem addressed to the person who gives you a role to fulfill.

 

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Daughter

 

Teach me the meaning

of both hands stretched

toward the sky: your balance

abandoned as you cast

yourself into a room

full of light and toys.

Addiction

I am addicted to praise and validation. In all shapes, colors, sizes, quantities. I cannot control my desire to seek it out. Whether in my career, my hobbies, my writing, it feels great to know I have worth. Often I volunteer to help with something just because of the praise it will bring or the validation I will get. For the most part it is easy to hide, as long as I also do the job right, make sure to say it was nothing, I was happy to do it, don’t mention it. While inside, I’m glowing and bursting and hungry for more more more.

 

I recently read a collection of essays by Stephen Dobyns. In a particular one on Rainer Maria Rilke, Dobyns discusses Rilke’s struggle with writing. One quote struck me:

Just as the creative artist is not allowed to choose, neither is he permitted to turn his back on anything: a single refusal, and he is cast out of the state of grace and becomes sinful all the way through. (Rilke)

To the creative artist, the “state of grace” can only mean the place in which good, imaginative thought and writing occurs, and to be sinful all the way through would be the corruption of all that that writer could produce. My desire to receive praise for my work is corrupting my poetry. This I have felt for some time. I hardly approach a poem without thinking almost exclusively about its value to others outside of myself. Is it publishable? Will my mentor like it? Will my fiancé? My workshop? I am sinful all the way through. My writing is suffering.

 

As anyone who has known an addict (of any variety) can tell you, there is usually a long list of mistakes they have made. Here is mine:

 

·         Submitting poems I know to be completed to a poetry workshop

·         Intentionally criticizing myself or my work to encourage the opposite reaction

·         Bragging about mediocre success and things that almost happen

·         Asking more than once, “Do you like it?”

·         Not being honest about other people’s work so that they are more likely to praise mine

·         Feeling anxious about not being involved in something that could make me look good

Considering the distance between people I have likely harmed by my actions, the most I can say is I am truly sorry. That does not go a long way to make amends I realize.

The question remains: how can you live and write without seeking praise or validation? I have talked with my mentor about this several times. She says to treat it the same way as rejection. That in mind I will set a few guidelines for myself.

 

·         I will not ask someone to critique a poem I believe to be complete.

·         I will not self deprecate.

·         I will not publicly celebrate every poetry or professional accomplishment.

·         I will always say what I think or feel about someone’s work.

 

The last step for me is to help others. I don’t know if I can actually do that. But maybe this post rings true for some of you out there. The most we can do is try, though we may fail.

 

Next week I’ll be thinking about roles

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Write a poem about addiction, yours or someone else’s.

 

 

Secrets

Secrets are powerful. Their reputation as villainous and hurtful is engrained into our minds: the destroyer of families, crusher of hearts, weapon of treachery.

Secrets, secrets are no fun

All they do is hurt someone.

It is the weight of knowing , the desire to know, and the fear of not that makes the existence of secrets unfortunate. More often than not, they are used for vindictiveness, for breaking, bribing and blackmailing. They are used to trick and torture.

There is a long history of this. There is even a secret that has the strength, when known, to literally destroy a human. 

In the story of Semele and Zeus, Semele, the lightning god’s lover, requests to see Zeus’ face. Zeus, having sworn on the river Styx that he would give her anything she desired, was forced to acquiesce.

The weight of knowing that his true form, a thunderstorm, would destroy any mortal who looked upon him, forced him to beg Semele to change her mind.

She would not. She had been given the desire to know by Hera, Zeus’ wife. Hera knew that no mortal could look on Zeus, and as revenge for his infidelity, she punished Semele with the desire to see Zeus’ face.

When Zeus revealed himself, Semele was destroyed; she could not bear the weight of knowing.

This is more than a cautionary tale for desiring to know something we should not.

 

For humans, a promise can be broken, and we are not bound to tell our secrets. The desire to know (Hera) can be thwarted. The weight of knowing (Zeus) does not have to be shared, and so I think the fear of not knowing something for certain (represented by Semele) is the most human part of the story.

Semele not only desired to see Zeus’ face but wanted proof that he was indeed a god. The suspicion, insecurity, and I think, most importantly, fear of not knowing is where secrets get their negative perception and connotation, and yet, we live with the fear of not knowing. It compels us to seek out answers to the mysteries that can potentially harm us. Whether it is where your lover is at 3 in the morning, what your lover truly thinks, what your lover looks like in their god-form, or answers to what is unknown about the world and universe.

Poetry is an attempt to dispel that fear, an attempt to know secrets, to ask our gods to reveal themselves. The story of Zeus and Semele tells us that sometimes those answers can be used as weapons, sometimes the answers are so magnificent they destroy us, though I think I know what Semele would say, if asked: Was it worth asking? Was it worth knowing?

 

Next week I’ll be thinking about addiction.

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Keep a secret.

Questions

What about them?
 

I have a few.

 

Doesn’t everyone?

 

Yes. That’s part of the reason why I like them—how human they are, how curious.

 

There are other reasons to like questions?

 

Sure. I also like how they are infinite and how kids seem to understand that much better than adults—that there is never truly an answer. You can never satisfy “why?”  There is something sublime in that.

 

Anything else?

 

How they desire to have something to accompany them, even if it is just a simple yes or no. They invite relationships. They can open a person up.

 

You’re a romantic aren’t you?

 

That’s beside the point.

 

What if someone refuses or can’t answer?

 

Maybe that itself is an answer.

Maybe the question has already been answered.

Maybe the answer isn’t important, just the question.

 

Do you have an answer to everything?

 

No and I never will. Life is punctuated by one gigantic question mark.

 

You mean death? You are making life a sentence metaphor?

 

I guess so. I think it works, too. But I don’t think life is about pursuing just that particular question. It’s one you can spend a lifetime asking, though.

 

Do you believe in life after death?

 

That is beside point.

 

What is the point then?

 

I don’t know. Like I said, I have a few questions.

 

Next week I’ll be thinking about secrets.

 

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Answer a question, a hard one, with a poem.

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What Would It Be Like

For dinner a gourmet hamburger and fries

at the kitchen table facing the wall.

 

Knowing where all the remotes

to the television are, and my shoes

when the garbage is finally full

after weeks, maybe months.

Ties and v-neck sweaters and slacks

all without stains or wrinkles.

A new book every week.

Some different poem

about what it would be like

to have a family.

Fear

When I was in sixth grade my father took my brother and me to the Upper Peninsula (Michigan) to visit my grandmother. She lived on the edge of Lake Superior. The jetty for the neighborhood was within walking distance from her house, and my brother and I took a 5 five gallon bucket, some night crawlers, and two poles down to fish from the edge.

 

Not having the patience for real fishing, we began throwing rocks into the water soon after we arrived. Not long after that, my brother walked back. I stayed and cast out my line a few more times.

 

The fish I caught wasn’t particularly spectacular. I don’t remember if it was long or short, fat or skinny, but I was proud of that fish, and I let it flop around on the concrete while I splashed enough water into the bucket, excited to show everyone.

 

I ran home full sprint, except for a slight, unplanned, wild and seemingly unnecessary sidestep.

 

I was told to put the fish back in the water, which I didn’t mind doing;  I had left my fishing pole anyway.

 

On the walk back, in the same spot as the involuntary sidestep, I lost control of my limbs. I dropped the bucket, kicked it over; the fish skidded on the dry concrete. I couldn’t see. I lost my breath.

 

Maybe it was only a second. Probably it couldn’t have been much more than that. As my eyes refocused, I saw the snake—blue-gray, perfectly blended with a chunk of turned up rock and rubble.

 

I threw rocks at that snake just to see it move. Seeing it, I wasn’t afraid of it anymore, and it took only a moment to come to the realization that I had been afraid, more afraid than I had ever been, a subconscious, instinctual terror.    

 

It would be hyperbolic, and an insult to that snake, to say that writing poems feels like the fear I felt standing on that Michigan jetty, but maybe a primordial fear of snakes is just one end of a vast gamut of what I fear.  If so, for me, many things fall in the middle:

 

heights

planes

tall buildings clustered together

failure

being a bad father

being a bad man.

When I write, I fear what other people will think of it. It is acute, like a snakebite

 

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The next poem you write, do not censor the content or the form during the first draft.

 

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It’s 3:30am and you are disappearing 

 

Not in the same way you hide behind your hands.

Not in the same way I leave and return through doors.

 

Yours is evaporation: a vanishing of ounces.

 

They say (the doctors) they’ve never had one blow away.

They say (those who don’t know) so petite, so small, so tiny.

They say (those who do) they’ve never seen one so happy.

They say (the books) you don’t even know you exist apart

from your mother.

Struggle

Poems are not necessary.

They are want; they are desire.

I don’t need to write poems. I want to write them.

It is the struggle inherent to desire that I find necessary. Necessary to my poems. Necessary to being human.

I teach high school. I have a daughter, a family. Most days I don’t have time to work on writing. I write poems during lunch or on planning. More often, little bits, a line or title, will strike when I can’t write it down. I use my phone; if I’m driving, I tell Siri to take a note. Some of what is recorded is unintelligible, hilarious:

“Birds on a typhoon of conversation taking place in their Thailand.”

I can’t remember what this was supposed to say exactly. I don’t think it would have turned into my greatest poem, but I tried, and I continue to try. I sometimes repeat lines over and over again trying to memorize them:

“There was no ceremony about you / only the slapping and biting / of…”

The rest is gone, but it is a start.

I keep a notebook. There are months when I don’t write a single word in it.

I read as much as I can.

This is about struggle. It is about want and desire.

I don’t need to write, but I want to.

 

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If you have time, return to a poem you started but didn't finish, for whatever reason.