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'.
poetry
compose
hello. what do you need?
do you seek surprise
in the same stride
as symmetry?
you good with danger?
can you be bothered
and accompanied?
do you accept flow
and an unknown
emotion as a
welcome stranger?
these alien tools
rubbing your shoulders
and sleeping
in your head-
can they be seen instead
as well worn gifts
that could create shifts
in your ombré
in your tender below
in your shadow?
when your cool becomes hot
your calm not
do you crave
to stand in dark?
yet not let any part
of it
into
onto
next to
your soul?
if you expect life
to keep happening
to keep unfolding
helping and
shouldering
even after you have
tapped out
the rhyme scheme,
what might that
mean?
we all die,
but could words
help you
to love yourself
to death?
and then
help you hold
onto your wholeness
and breath
and every best
part of it
that is
worth
seeing
craving
saving.
even while
you are suspended
in the moment
before the
moment you are
noted
noticed
supported.
landing
dropping into standing water at the midline of a wheat field the splash down seems accidental not some hidden purpose revealed. when the duck appeared from nowhere in this landlocked shallow stream did it plan for safe harbour there or had it just run out of steam?
receipts
the wind blows one way, so they went the other or good advice became too much of a bother or let’s dig into what they learned from their father or examine the world that surrounds and might smother or ask directly and really go no farther, why did you change?
syllable
by mid life I've become far less gullible. accepting that life to 100 ain't possible. since the men in my family die early is unforgettable. widthy not lengthy life goals are surely more plausible.
fault
the feels you find in my writing are there purposely. but make no mistake by asking me, what meaning's behind all that poetry. in your moment of dare, eagerly mining what's there, you will miss the power of poems entirely.