Poem-A-Day #136 : Self Help

I'm without internet for a few days so I'll be trying out the Blogger app for the first time. I'm afraid. Hold me.

Which is exactly what young me was telling himself in this journal entry.

See what I did there?

Side note: young me should have written self help posters. Or Hallmark cards.

1/25/99

Stop them from doing it to you
Stop them from making you into what they want
Stop the incessant voices that hurt you
Stop being who they need you to be and be who you are
Stop looking for ways out and open the door
Stop staring trough the glass and break that shit open and let the air in

Poem-A-Day #135 : What I Wish I Wrote

The more I dig around in my old journals, the more I realize that my mindset has changed little. I've learned more, read more, discovered new ways to frame my thoughts. But, in the end, the thoughts are the same

Young me liked list poems. I still do, but I try to not be so bald-faced with them. Young me was also very dramatic. Which I'm still ok with.


What I Wish I Wrote (1/25/99)

I wish I wrote about the way to get home, the roads to follow to an ideal place.
I wish I wrote about the paths not to follow and the pitch forks thrown your way.
I wish I wrote of the ocean, or, at least, of the salt on the tongue. The crystals that settle on lips and eyes.
I wish I wrote of the very alphabet, of the history of the word 'adequate'.
I wish I wrote of the road home. I wish I wrote of love. I wish I wrote of hearts.
I wish I wrote of the waves, the people that are inside them dancing to the shore. But I fear the water.
I wish I wrote of stability.
I wish I wrote of self-reliance, but I am not alone in a cabin by a lake.
I wish I wrote of the wilderness, but I never venture far from home.
I wish I wrote of who I am, but...
I wish I wrote of others, but I have exhausted so much time on people not worth my time.
I wish I wrote of the road home, but I don't know how, I don't know what that place is yet.

Poem-A-Day #134 : Vessel

I'm pretty sure this is a really sarcastic response to Ode to A Grecian Urn by John Keats. I'm not sure where the oysters come in. I didn't keep notes. It is obviously me trying to ask what is and isn't art. A question that I still struggle with.

Keats dies at 25 and only published 54 poems, yet he is perhaps considered one of the most important English poets of the early 1800s ,if not of all time. This is Poem-A-Day #134. I've already written over a thousand other poems. Either I'm winning or I lost before I started.


Vessel (10/13/99)

Is it kitsch?
Tacky?
Does this object
leave you a little cold?
Is it the appropriate time
or place
for it?
Is it art?
Or is it
boredom
formed into shape
Is it social commentary?
Is it egocentric?
Does it deserve attention?
My span can be short
so it needs to shock me now
This could be art
Or worth nothing
Is it subversive?
Does it mirror?
Is it just a vessel
filled with oysters
and hydrogen
fused with oxygen
and nothing more?

A drawing by Keats of the Sosibios vase.
Which he never actually saw in person.

Poem-A-Day #133 : I See

I've been thinking about my reactions to culture today vs. when I was a teenager. When I was a teen, I wrote long poems about how we were all going to hell and the world was on fire. Today, while I don't write in this way any more, I look at these poems and I feel like little has changed for me emotionally.

It's hard not to want to scream constantly in America these days. It is also hard not to feel helpless in the face of our collective lack of humanity and humility. It is difficult to know what to say.

I've combined a few lines to make things more sensible, young me had a tendency to break lines where punctuation should go and it makes everything confusing. It's over the top and melodramatic and I love it.


I See (7/1/99)

I see hunger and millions crying
I see hatred, bigotry, voices raised in anger
Poverty
Many living in dirt

I see tantrums, ignorance, that many choose to be blind
I see a wish of uprising, devastation, a lack of history
I see land engulfed by man
Baren land

I see a future uncertain
Masses converging, myself in those faces
Bodies
I see history repeating

I see millennial crisis, worlds colliding
Voices rising, disease, everything wiped out
I see a world bare
A tent city raised, a post-apocalyptic hell

I see people turn away
I see a mirror refusing to reflect
I see myself, unintentionally acting out violence on others
I see hypocrisy spilling on the floor of zealots

I see what I take for granted
I see that becoming a missile aimed at myself
I see destruction come forth and I see everything collapse

Poem-A-Day #132 : Untitled (Feeling Today)

This is from October 2000. It kind of sums up a feeling that is absolutely not describable in language.

Untitled

Feeling today
like my arms are gone

Poem-A-Day #131 : Tea Bag

I got the first galley of my book last night. It is real in the world and in my hand. It will be available to pre-order on Amazon in the next week or so. You will go buy it. You will go buy it. You will go buy it.

Here is the cover:

I decided to keep it light today. And I'm not going to edit it because it's silly and oddly sexual and I like it as it is. A poem about a tea bag.

Tea Bag (9/8/99)

It smells of mint and cold

winters, this little pouch of

sleep

Wrapped up gauzed plant

bits, this thing that looks

up from the counter

I taste it

Lick it

Suck on it

Taste the knitted fabric and

herbal seasoned leaves

Heat liquid blue in a

black glazed mug

Tiny packet unleashed in water

Cool and warm fire, this pouch

drunk in contentment

Poem-A-Day #130 : Boxed Storm

This was written 16 years ago today. I think my intent was to talk about the self as a sort of container for our swirling emotions and egos. I've decided that it's also clearly a mirror...

Original :

Boxed Storm (7/8/00)

Solid white vision
of a black box
polished crimson
in a purple light

Seamless edge
blue stone inlay
a rose or lilly

Reflection of self
imposed on the surface

Cold to touch
inside glowing white
water


Edit :

Boxed Storm

There are eyes here
they imagine themselves on the surface of a great box

Cold to the touch
the seams are red with welding the interior a blur of noise

We could call this a real thing
that it represents a soul or some intangible self

The face reflected on it
It is mine and yours and ours