June 11, 2025

sometimes
i need to remind myself
that i needn’t set out to change minds

when i write from my own soul
no certain goal in my mind
that’s when others’ are impacted
and yes, sometimes, changed

[but what if the mind i need to change
is my own?]

May 6, 2025

spectacular
spectacle
and spectacles help us all
see
wonders
in our own
and each others’
eyes

for once
for twice
for as many times
as we might find a rhyme
and/or reason
to climb
and explore
and discover
and become
one
with some sort of
happiness
[if we can
if we can]

~~~

there’s still a bit of
misalignment
when it comes to
my own self
and my poet self

and i cannot tell if that’s because
i don’t perform my own poetry enough
that it becomes as second nature as
acting
or aerial
or simply listening
but my own poetry
i have to remind myself
‘i made this
and it isn’t
half
bad’

~~~

or perhaps it’s because
i’m all self-taught
and i’m just flying by
the seat of my pants
and i can’t totally tell
what works and what’s a fail
except that
some poems flow like water
and some drip like sludge
and every now and then
i find a rhyme that tastes as good as it sounds
but i don’t know how i found any of that
it just happens
through trial and error
every
single
time

like i’m always starting
from one

April 28, 2025

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…

March 25, 2025

in photography, i have no problem
taking tens
of hundreds
of thousands of photos
knowing that somewhere in there,
there will be a great picture —
gorgeous
experimental
framed well
captured beautifully
and composition, exquisite

and even in poetry, mornings of multitudes,
all my poems
multiple
every morning, i know
not every poem will be great
but somewhere in here
there may be something
to write home about

then why oh why do i shy away from
the writing of prose/novels/
or plays?

as if i need my first try to be
so great
otherwise i should just
give
up

?

is it simply that it takes so much longer to write
longer form, than it does to slap dash down a poem
or capture a second or few
in a non-moving image?

so the effort to output
ratio feels more
[risky]

[or am i so scared of something more/or less scary?]

March 10, 2025

i wish i saw through poet’s eyes
the beauty of the earth at all times —
but instead i see the pain and despair
and try to beautify that
with impassioned speeches/
or try to find the tiniest spec
of lovely
in a day full of pain/
and make the mundane
beautiful again

though it doesn’t really feel like
poetry
to me
without grand sunsets
or allegories of bees and flowers,

i’m over here trying —
making beauty out of angst
and bubble gum

January 6, 2025

the problem with my desire to write
both poetry and prose is that
my poems feel more like journal entries
and my stories read more like poems
and when i try to make sure one feels like itself
[or even if i force into line the opposite kind
of writing that most folks find stable and ‘right’]
it all feels forced and off and awkward in the daylight

so, i suppose, i should just always write without expectation or label or genre
or even a plan for any words that come to mind?

i suppose, i should just

write?

December 31, 2024

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]