listen
to the same song
6, 8, 10 times in a row
memorize the words
memorize the favorite moments
(the parts of the song that make your brain go
‘brr’
)
and still adore it
listen to it some more the next day
and the next
and the next
until you know it like the back of your hand,
you could write essays, diatribes, theses about the song
and then wonder why it is
certain songs
bring up
certain time periods of your life
so viscerally
Month: February 2022
February 7, 2022
i keep pondering early in this
panini
when i wrote and wrote
pages upon pages
freehand
freeverse
free of other older morning page expectations
and i wondered what the world would be like
‘post’
pandemic…
and i felt it,
at the very core of my being
that we’d
‘go back to normal’
before it was really,
truly,
clear
to do so,
and that the ‘normal’
we were heading back towards
had the potential to change,
to be a ‘normal’ benefitting more people
than the normal
benefitting a very
very
very
tiny
percentage,
but i felt it,
that it wouldn’t change
we “couldn’t” change
we wouldn’t change.
and lo and behold
all my strife
from mid-march 2020
to april, may, june, july 2020
most of that has come to fruition:
we aren’t ready,
people are still catching
ventilizing
dying
and half the population is still
pretending
this virus
doesn’t exist.
and of course
we’re going
‘back to the grind’
as if that’s a good thing,
as if it’s strength
or a moral righteousness
that gets you through
(rather than random genetics
and generational privileges
and a system set up to benefit
the few)
and as if
this ‘grind’
is our entire culture
(i mean, at this point, it is,
but that doesn’t make it
good
or right)
and i wish i had something better to say
than ‘i saw this coming’
i mean, i’m sure folks more versed in
infectious disease
and sociology
and economy
and the ‘why’s’ of all this
also saw this coming…
i guess i just wish
i’d had more time
to live in a world of hope
than i actually got.
February 6, 2022
three hundred days
not quite one year
three hundred days
far more than three hundred poems
three hundred days
a promise to myself and none other
three hundred days
a streak honestly acquired
(though sometimes through catching up)
three hundred days
i won’t get the alert until after i post this exact poem
but today
i know
i know
because yesterday was 299
i’ve been doing this whole
poem-a-day thing
for three hundred days
and i guess i can be proud of myself for that.
~~~
green around the house
green on the roof
rainbows shifting dancing swirling cranking
throughout the room
echos of classical
(some call ‘evil’)
and the cat scratching
and the fake fireplace flickering
and the humidifier humidifying
and my spouse done cleaning
so our giant table is a table once again
(and no longer just a clutter-catcher)
and though there’s still some more cleaning to do
this house really is starting to feel more like
our
home
~~~
i need a third
here
(what would a three-hundredth day be
without turning into a three-poem-day?)
but my brain isn’t in a hugely poem-izing mood
anymore
and any old poems i might insert
were either re-written there
or up here
so what else to do but
write a poem
about
writing a poem
like all my little meta-hipster-cells
want me to do
[how long is too long
to stare into space
and come back with
nothing]
February 5, 2022
open the eyes
crawl out of the bed
put on the clothes
brush the teeth
grab the laptop
shuffle down the stairs
write the poetry
be dissatisfied in the poetry
listen to the ‘evil classical’ playlist
zone out for a bit
write more of the poetry
be dissatisfied in the poetry
meow back at the cat
drink the coffee
read the script for the new podcast
gaze at the dog
write even more of the poetry
feel generally ok about the poetry
change the capitalization
copy and paste into the website
publish the poem
get on with the day
February 4, 2022
man
these morning poems aren’t doing shit for me
and i’ve felt adrift since 2022 day three
and i thought i’d found where my serotonin was lost
but it turns out it was just capitalism in a silly mustache
and i tried for a while to follow the dopamine
but i guess that dopamine i followed wasn’t meant for me
so i suppose i could just succumb to the unconscious dreams of sleep
but naps give me less time to accomplish the day
but is it even day if the sky is so grey
and the haze of the rain pounds the panes in sheets
and this playlist slaps but sometimes too much too deep
and i’ve probably lost the rhyme scheme somewhere in this mush of words
but i push and i pull and i try to open new doors
but they scare me so much
i’m paralyzed
to the floor
so i guess i’ll write
and write some more
until i can pull up my feet
and walk outside
once
more.
February 3, 2022
still don’t know what the groundhog said
guess i could look it up
(even tho it has very little to do with anything real,
but we all need a distraction these days, right?)
six more weeks of winter
(as opposed to ‘early spring’)
but six more weeks isn’t terrible;
the full month of February
(which is annoying, but expected)
and then half of March
(March, which lost its status as
‘normal month’ way back in 2020;
i don’t think i’ll ever look at another
March
the same way again)
but i think,
i *think*
i can do it.
~~~
most mornings
the sunlight blazes through
our east-facing windows,
catching in our eyes
as we sit to write
morning pages and morning poems
and things of that nature
and the shine is so great
that half my computer screen
fades to white
and generally
we put up with it
for the warmth
(and for the plants)
but this morning
the sun is barely making itself known
through these dense clouds
bringing with them rain
and drear
and we miss that sun
not just the warmth
but also the light
the indication of daytime
the blasting through our senses
waking us up
in a way
that only coffee comes close
to imitating
~~~
i keep wanting/desiring/being drawn to the
writing
of tough stuff
in the evening
but in the morning
when i have more wherewithal
to contemplate
the complicated
my aversion to tackling
the ‘tough stuff’
grows
exponentially
(but maybe one of these mornings)
(or maybe one of these days i’ll just have to
write
in the eveningtime)
February 2, 2022
2-2-22
[two, two, two two]
and groundhog day
is my delight of fun dates lessened
because i’m no longer in a class where
writing the date is required,
and i no longer have dozens of other students around me
commenting on the weirdness/wonder-ness
of the date
let’s see if i can get that same high
just from spousal conversation;
the delighted “ah!”
akin to the noise [i’d believe] would come
out of the mouth of a baby velociraptor
that just emitted from my blue-haired spouse’s mouth
has made up for
years
without classmates
(and years with)
and how wonderful that i get to live this life
with this Kip
(especially since,
when i was a child in those classrooms,
i was sure,
absolutely, 100% convinced
that i would never be partnered
because my ‘weird’ was too much
for anyone else to love
(and also because, you know, the trauma,
and deals i made with myself
to avoid giving love to another
who may end up leaving me)
and yes, tomorrow isn’t guaranteed
but i now have hundreds of these morning page poems
each encapsulating a memory,
most across a giant, cluttered table,
writing early morning musings
while my spouse does the same
(or programs)
(or peruses the internet)
(or writes emails)
and those mornings turn into days
of silly moments during work hours
stealing a kiss because we missed each other,
and evenings of silly videos
or deep conversations
or delicious meals
or tight cuddles
or cat-hassling
or meandering dog walks
(oftentimes most or all of the above)
and baby HJ never thought they’d encounter
a human being
who could love them so much
warts (and tears) (and weirds) and all.
February 1, 2022
Fauci Ouchie
Round 3:
The Booster-ing
a whole walk
to and from
computer systems
being buggy
acknowledgement of
zero side effects the last two times
told to just go
(no sitting around rest required)
but
i probably should have
due to the [unrelated] stomach pains
that showed up that morning
that 15-20 minute walk
was the most precarious
15-20 minutes in my life
but i survived
to tell the tale
and the only effect of the shot itself
(so far)
is the tender soreness
at the injection site
(and the only effect
of the stomach pains
are loss of sleep
and a tragic aversion to coffee
i’ll soon rectify
because
of that loss of sleep)
kipventures 