creativity

storage solutions for emotional baggage part 2

When crisis arrives,
it's often in svelte boxes. 

Generally it 
needs loose parts
to become not-nonsense;

without invitation,
it reaches into the edges 
of my brain,
shuffling and disturbing
odds and ends,

lifting and
divining meaning
in the miscellanea
only found 
at the back 
of that shelf. 

Arriving unfastened,
mostly, 
and held in place
by sheer tenacity,

words and
meanings of words
tumble from its grasp.

I hear my mom saying-
use your words honey.

If they could
be kept from falling
and rolling under
tables and chairs,
I would.

She also has told me to-
hold my tongue.

Confusing.

And funny that poetry 
still came from 
impossibly form fitting 
tensions like these.

Memories never 
fit 
back into a box.

And sometimes
will not 
fit into each other
either.

I have so many of 
these moments
shelved with impunity-
an
as-is section 

near the bathrooms
just around the corner 
from the café 

where you choose 
between bitter truth
or mushy metaphor
for 
your last loonie.

With little paste
to connect ideas, 
 
every line 
needs to have en
jambment 
to make sense,

stressful that one thought,
potentially,
might never end...

The grammar of poetry 
writing has always
been negotiable.

Entitling also.

It's purchase
often made
with words that 
my ass is not really
prepared to pay for.

There are 
just so many things
that do not fit 
back into boxes.

Or on to shelves.

And when they come out,
 
like broken instructions 
for living a 
fixable life,

they avoid
specificity.

Storage solutions

instead of 

problem solving. 

Their intentions
masked and shadowlike
are troubling.

Poems,
forged figurative 
and fearful,

not eager 
to become prose.

the fact that someone notices

we are mostly memories
hoping to be recalled;

given purpose and consequence
in that instant instance
just before the page turns. 

what was it we just talked about?
you know, 
the gloom that brightens 
and slumps at the same time.

the craving that our body of work,
our remains,
continues to vibrate and clang
in some useful measure-
still.

in retrospect,

piece after piece,
a life re-sembles
some of the art 
that frames it.

but 
these are not materials
of matter.

not mortar or 2by4.
no rebar, no shingle.

they will not ever
sit level or
settle into a
foundation.

memory is metaphor.
moments, echoes.

most is just
fleet foxes daring us
to follow around the tree,

tails flashing a beckoning
or a caution,
warning,
in the last minute,
that we have
left the path.

left our home.

we are chapters,
not categories or
title pages,

thumbed and dog eared
by another reader

and our story,
like the fox's print,

will disappear
under iridescent
snow before it
is ever
truly
found.

endless horizon of aspiration

I sit 
in my classroom,
lights off,
halo'd by a single lamp.

Class has just ended.

Laptop open
and some found text is 
bouncing around
in my head.

A conversation between 
Krista Tippett
and 
Rebecca Solnit.

"what if everything 
we’ve been told about 
human nature is 
wrong, ..."

Normally,
I would wait out
the day.

Save my words
for the drive home,
let them interrupt
my music,
distract my driving. 

"and we’re actually very 
generous, communitarian, 
altruistic beings..."

Funny, how the quiet
classroom feels dangerous 
somehow. 

Like the moment
just before a moment;

Unsettled arrives 
and gets settled
in. 

Can I write like this?

In empty time?

Non committed.
Not wedged
between other
moments.
As a choice?

"... who are distorted 
by the system we’re in 
but not made happy by 
it?"

A hopeful thought;
it could be 
dedicated.
It could be
a new routine.

First I 
would have
to admit
I am caught up,
completed,
box checked,
ready. 

Eschew
the guilt
of not being 
an impossibly 
over cooked
swamped teacher
at the 
moment.

Then accept the 
pause after
prep's done;

waiting
in a notable
piece of space;

peace
before the 
parking lot
empties.

No commutes
necessary,
yet.

But as I put on my 
headphones,

that will block out
most noise,

I get this itch
of dread in 
my head.

"What if we can actually 
be better people in a 
better world?"

What if
the phone
rings?

What if
an announcement
bellows?

What if
a student
catches sight
of my other 
side?

What if 
I want to shed 
the adjective,
leave 
the comparison,
drop 
the metaphor;

exit the
comparison 
between 
where I am
and what I 
should be?

"Excerpts" from On Being Podcast with Rebecca Solnit.

answers that i can’t use

as i write
each word, 
each letter,

they look back
one last time

seeking the nod,
a parental prod-

‘go ahead, go on
you can do it.’

assured 
they disappear
and 
turn the page. 

my thoughts
sculpt my form
into 
a very specific
type of 
accelerant. 

every spark 
is
the last line
of the poem 

because it
slaps the page
as it occurs;

fires up
and
burns out

and
nothing
remains. 

i have tried
to 
take time
and bespoke 
stanzas

but 
the longer
i take
to get 
my thoughts 
out

the less likely

each line
launches its
breath. 

the less likely

fruitful arguments,
blind navigations
ensue, 
like shadow boxing-

this word
can’t follow 
that word
and that word
follows nothing. 

the less likely 

a surprise
and a reminder
of the question
I dared not
utter,
appears.

canto

I have high expectations for poetry to spark some light, to wake me up enough so I can sleep at night. Then to feed me and others. To reveal subtle secrets and bothers. To scour out the remains of the day. To be grey. The pen, paper, growl, the games, the time, the noticing of my scowl are all parts of the same approach. The fight for fetching far flung alliterative comparisons begins as eyes open and continues like longitudinal lines throughout my waking hours. And like those perpetually bending lines, my rhymes rarely end. My brain taps out multi-verses of multiverses and only stop once the weight of the day snaps my lids shut. Honestly, I usually have had enough by noon. Or the good stuff has run out sooner. And even though some of my process is compulsive and explosive and sometimes just for show- the only thing that really stops this deal, is when my hand feels, without doubt, that I am giving the world one more counterfeit to wonder about and convinces my pen to stop and say 'no'.