poet

January 3, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i sit here
pining and whining
and wishing and wanting
to call myself
a writer

and i know
i know
my goodness i know
that i am a writer
as soon as i write
and i sit down every morning
and compose poem
after poem
after poem

but this desire is different

i want to create whole worlds with
the tip of my finger/pen/brain
i want to carry an audience on
a whole-ass journey and lead them
from beginning
to middle
to end

what i’m saying is

i wish to write prose
story
script
screenplay
novel
novella
creative essay
anything
i could even do it in poetry
if it felt right
but all i write
are these tiny windows into my own soul
and morning
while day
and night
i have epics unfolding inside me
and the minute i dedicate
a minute
or hour
or day
to getting it down
on paper/document/screen/anything
my skill with words seems
so
elementary
so
amateurish
so
trying too hard and getting not far at all
and i give up after
a page
a paragraph
a word

but the want

it remains

November 1, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

they say to be a good actor
you have to live some life first

is the same true about writers?

they say “write what you know”
and if you know shelter and
safety and never worrying
and never feeling anything
won’t your writing be…
kinda beige?

but as a writer,
as an actor,
as a poet,
we feel things with the intensity of a human being
thrust into the sun a thousand times over;
we take our [possibly mundane] lives
and crank our imagination up to eleven;
we seek experiences to suck life from
and try to make art from the remnants…

is simply living life too much for an artist,
or is it exactly what the artist needs?

[or am i over-thinking everything]

[and isn’t that what creatives do, too?]

April 28, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i don’t actually know what it means
to be
a great writer
a great poet

i’m just sitting here
at my messy dinner table
early in the morning
writing whatever comes to mind
as a way to encourage myself
to deal with the day
that is coming towards me
at breakneck speed

maybe,
when you’re in your ‘fighting a [seemingly] losing war
against fascism with the best tool you have —
kindness’ era
you’ll understand

~~~

i feel like this kind of morning
and this kind of writing
is the reason i started this challenge to begin with

i feel more awake
more aware
more ready to start my day

though i still need to edit and pick and send in the audition
i feel so much more prepared for it
now

~~~

“you look like such a writer!”
of my big sweater
comfy tee
glasses
bun
and coffee in hand

and i do, don’t i?
i do…

December 31, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

nothing like reading
other people’s poems
to make me feel like
a fraud

a fake poet made out of
three tiny actors
in a trenchcoat

a fake poet made of
a whole slew of fake mustaches
attached to fake noses
and prescriptionless plastic glasses

a fake poet made of
a whole buncha prose
lined up
in shorter
stanzas

a fake poet made out of
experiences
pondered

[but maybe
that’s all a
poet needs to be]

November 16, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i don’t understand
how everyone isn’t a poet —
we live in words every day,
as long as we are connecting
with another human,
more often than not
it is through
words

words means talking
jabbering
messaging
writing
yelling
ordering
requesting
helping
explaining
informing
sometimes even thinking
and pondering
and reading
for fun

we live in the world of words —
we deal with them day in and day out;
unless you don’t think in them,
and don’t see another soul all day long,
or work/play/study/learn in a
physical environment
[dance/sport/fight-type-place/
physical labor/
or dealing with animals],
you are probably sitting in words
all day
every day

i think we’re all poets
anyway

January 25, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i used to be so impressed
by those folks who sat
in a courtyard and offered
immediate poetry for any who asked

but i feel
after nearly two full years
of daily writing
and spouting
whatever comes to the top of my poet-brain
i could probably buy a typewriter
and park myself in any park in the city
and ask for only tips in a jar
and write and write and write for others
and maybe that
would be an artist’s life
for me