Another Self

Friday, April 3, 2009


I felt like I should be hot today, so I wore the shirt featured in the photograph for the spring sports assembly [it's a homecoming t-shirt that I cut up to expose my shoulders - obviously in a more extreme way here]

Aside from that, I think I have decided to do NaPoWriMo, which is a version of NaNo that involves Poetry. From my last post, I have tried to get back into it. But I failed miserably - trying to eke out words was like trampling kittens until they would stay on the page.
Fortunately, that was yesterday and today is today! I picked up Pablo Neruda again and spent an hour sitting outside in my car (a quiet place to enjoy the sun without the freak hailstorms - and if you think I'm kidding you, I'm not). Here is one of my productive poems, in it's rough state:

This is where poetry speaks;
It lives in your breast like
100 bad decisions, and it is the one
Looking for a paycheck.
This is where poetry lives;
The festered lyrical lips
Like two burn victimes
Huddling together
Like the buzz of a motor car when the engine has sputtered out
And the lights won't turn on...
This is where poetry breathes;
It's not glamorous - far from it
Poetry opens its mightly lungs
And warbles out of
Box catacombs and cardboard screens.
Poetry.
It exists in the palm of your hand when you sleep
But when you wake - it's gone.
Poetry...
It twists your sick phrases around and pulls you, partially complete, from your thinking space
Poetry.
It's like a beat
A constant 'ta-ta-ta-ta-tap'
Ringing in the back of your skull (a migraine on steroids)
Poetry-
It paints the memories
In mal-formed lines
And strokes that hidden instrument
Of song.
Poetry
It
is where it lives, where it breathes
Where it succumbs
To the endless hysteria
Of unmarked parenthetical citations
Poetry!
Is a laugh and a half and there's no going back when-
You've inhaled it.
Poetry...
The slow-speed stop
A stride in the right
Direction...
Poetry
Brings us...
Home.


Check out some more posts featuring my photography.
More poetry is also available for your perusal.