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| Writers, readers: I, you: we (The first person)
An old way of writing
this I hello, I, you, we,
sailing on in a sea of
words are what we are.
I made this little boat
for us to sail in, not
so seaworthy, but
fit for two, we.
We: I, you, we set sail
salty seas, sea salt stings
my lips, the ocean
says ocean noises.
Wordy paper sailboats
we sail, I steer, you
pull the ropes of
corded syllables
from my lips, wet,
my mind, salty sea
churning, words
crashing, receding
We, our little boat,
I you we, sail me
through my mind,
we set sail.
Blah blah goes below: I've avoided writing poetry in the first person for a while now, since
the start of first quarter this year. In my second quarter I decided to
tear down my poetic style and rebuild it from the ground up, partly
based on the principles of journalism writing, as well as my own
considerations. This was very difficult but seems to have improved my
writing overall, and created a very interesting style and tone. What
you are about to read, however, is something else entirely. In the past
2 weeks I have begun to write a short story in earnest, and have began
reading rather large amounts of short fiction (which I enjoy
immensely). I think these things, combined with a three or four week
break from poetry has allowed me to disengage a little from the rigid
constraints I'd placed upon the writing. This return to a more standard
free verse poetry form, with its egocentric narration and confidential,
friendly tone, may be a good thing, if I develop it the right way. It's
always good to be continually experimenting and perfecting multiple
forms, I think.This new style is a hybrid form- it combines elements of my oldest
styles, with standard poetry, as well as some of the language choices
of my new style, as well as a certain type of logic/linguistic play
that I've experiment with recently with separately from everything
else.
However, I must not abandon the other style I spent so much time
developing this year. I've written some of my best poems with it. (I'm not sure I want to post these yet, but I'll email them on request.)
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| Boy turns 20, car feels its ageI spend most saturdays doing my job, cleaning and preparing my church for sunday services. Depending on how slow or fast I'm working and what sort of challenges pop up I occasionally end up working past midnight. For the last month, in fact, I've usually finished between 12:00 and 2 am. But tonight I turn(ed) 20, and I guess that made me a little more motivated than ususal, because I finished the tasks that have taken up to 10 hours (on reaaly really bad days) in less than half that time and by about 10:25 I was in my car bumping some old school Public Enemy and shifting to reverse.
Now in the parking lot behind the church you have to park between these deadly little stuccoed (the better to grip your paint job, my dear) pillars that have cost many a poor parking person dearly, and today it seems my luck was up. As I excitedly accelerated out of my space, turning in the direction that I knew held a blue dumpster and a thin pole that had probably dented hundreds of cars. I peered through my fogged back window as I turned, trying to see the pole. Apparently, I hadn't already cleared the first obstacle, the column. With a wrenching shudder and a hideous thunk I scraped free of its clutches. I mentally crossed my fingers and continued backing up, determined to ignore it and examine the damage when I got home. As I drove forward, still in denial, an unnerving scraping sound brought me to my senses.
I got out and walked around the front, and found my whole front end on the ground! The bumper and grill were draggin from the left edge of my car, and completely flush with the ground on the right. My left headlight and both blinkers were dangling from their electrical cables. After taking stock of the damage and consulting with home base (the progenitors) I went scouting for some sort of thin strong cables and came up with a roll of electrical wire.
As I was figuring out how to best wire the bumper back onto my car two moderately inebriated figures approached fresh from the pub to check out the damage. After they learned that I had been leaving church, rather than than having drunkenly slushed my bumper off, I "endured" the most gentile and good natured teasing I've ever heard. After I mentioned that ironically, I'd smashed up my car on my birthday hour the girl gave me a great big hug which made me feel a little better (from stunned and apathetic to moderately fuzzy) and then the guy took a look at the blinker that didn't want to fit back in. He decided it needed tape to hold in place, which I'd already decided, and they set off back to the pub in hope that someone there would probably have a roll of duct tape in their pickup or something.
I wired it up.
Knowing that mildly inebriated people -although well intentioned- may not be entirely reliable, I then set out to find my own tape. (To deviate mildy from chronology, I think I may have tried to open the hood before I went to tape up the lights.) After I finished using up my 2nd roll of mostly used duct tape and resorted to packaging tape, a familiar minivan rolled up and a friend and co-worker rolled his window down and his eyes up. For the next hour we trouble-shot and problem solved and once we had everything wired and taped down tight more or less in their proper locations we picked up Dell Taco and just chilled for a while.
I don't look forward to paying for a replacement bumper, or installing it, but I'm actually kind of glad I had such a memorable evening. Tonight I was forced to stop coasting through life and think on my feet, to experience every moment fully in the now. There was no opportunity for disconnect, the only way is to roll with things, accept them, deal with it, move on. The damage is unfortunate, what it taught me about cars and automotive design, curious. What I remember most happily is the simple interactions I had with kind-hearted people tonight.
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| Dear InternetI think we should try seeing other people.
It's not you, it's me.
Let's just be friends, ok?
You won't see me again for a while
I'll write you sometime.
Maybe next week.
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| it's a schizophrenic world, girl.
Hey, whats up
?
I’m sleepy again
Well you see, I forgot
About sleeping
Last night and maybe the night before.
They all blur together sometimes.
Amphetamine undreams
I’m not really sure where I’m going
With this
Free will
And free verse
they’re all my words, the ones I didn’t mean to say.
my words-
Especially the words that I never said
Just resounding voices
Echoing frantic and spastic inside my head.
So hey are you free some time? Do you want to hang out?
Let’s get coffee with ancient starbucks cards.
Or shoot the breeze. I like movies and
Foozball.
And I’m addicted to more hobbies
Than your boy ever dabbled in.
But I have trouble saying things aloud.
This fragment reality it’s a schizophrenic world, girl
The glitter and street walk the same ring.
But street’s scammy and push,
Glitz- a slick flash-trick.
Get burned fast
either way
Seven steps to heaven aren’t found on this earth
Will archeologists unearth
A spiraling staircase to hell?
No, it would be an express elevator.
Buttons clearly marked PUSH.
There are wonders of the world
A dead slave’s silent immortality
The construction worker’s solace
The layman’s way of saying:
"Screw you, poets.
My stone, my iron, my steel towers
Will outlast you and your manuscripts"
What is a name to a dead man?
Do the dead look down from Heaven,
Pleased to hear the praise upon his name,
A literary god among latter day men?
Does a tormented soul
Pause from his agony
To partake in his
Contemporary glory?
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| Rain Down I get excited when it rains, gleeful and joyous when it pours. I run downstairs, do a little rain dance and shout "It's raining!" then trot a few unplanned laps around the house: down the hall, through the kitchen, through the living room to the entry way, and repeat until the centrifugul energy propels me out the front door. I'm dumbfounded by my ordinarily simple, boring, green suburban lawn, now covered with sheets of ever fidgeting water, a hundred million shining pearls. It looks as if the world has been refinished by it's maker, buffed and polished so that it gleams. The air too, is new again, more pure than pristine, fresh and satisfying. Joy is in the air.
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