poetry about poetry

September 14, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

when i show friends
these words
there is an unspoken trust
and an irrational fear

the trust is to read
the fear is that they
have read

but the fear is also
of breaking of trust
that i am still somehow
too much
and not enough
too many poems
not enough time
in our society
that has no reason or rhyme
for when you’re allowed to just sit
and ponder poetry
and when you have to be hustling
because with self-care culture
relaxation has become another side hustle
and being in the moment
is simply a competition
to see who does it
‘right’

but i digress
and am getting ahead of myself
(or really, beside,
because i’m not sure where this poem
was trying to align itself
to begin with)

whenever i show
a friend
a loved one
this here poetry blog
i am both terrified
that they’ll read it
and terrified
that they won’t

maybe i should publish
the first year
just so new folks
have context
for the rest of this
craziness

August 21, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

words melt in my mind
from time to time
thinking them in dusk
in witching hour wants
and needing to write them out
but feeling like that would
break the spell
to spell out too much
to identify in analytic hours
so they simply
melt
become part of me
where they always were
to begin with
it seems

and maybe that’s the lesson
that’s to be earned and learned:
the words neither exist outside of me
nor are fully lost internally
they’re always there with me
as is my power
my connection
my rhythm and rhyme scheme and
spirituality
it just takes a little bit longer for myself
to see.

for where are these words and patterns
and rhymes and smatterings
of slammings be coming from
if not
inside?

August 6, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

someday
i’d like to write
like the words were
rolling off my tongue-
tied to find the perfect
letter/syllable/sound/
the pound-ing in my ear
shifting from
pain and pressure
to a rhythm underneath
every
word
every
word
every
word
i say

July 30, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

does writing
get easier
the more i do it?

no.

does it at least get
more
intuitive?

no.

ok, but does it
seem like
it’s part of me,
like i could finally call myself
a ‘writer’
after writing
every single morning
since early 2020/
after finishing
a first draft
of a whole novel/
after keeping up
with this
daily poetry blog
for 470+ days?

kind of…?

July 16, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

my brain
is not retaining
a track this
morning

and i’m worrying
and resting
all at
once

but the flow
comes and goes
and i have no way to
figure out what
is happening
and where
it is
go–
ing

July 1, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

in the mornings
i am coming into my own
and i write
and i write
and i say
very little

during the day
i am observing all my own
and i think
and i think
and i write
very little

at night, before sleep
my mind analyzes
everything on its own
and i ponder
and i prepare
and i write masterpieces
in my mind
but i really write
not at all

and in the morning
it’s gone.

June 30, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i can feel you
just past my fingertips
lightly guiding my time
here

and i wonder if you
hear me when
i talk to
you

~~~

language
is a slippery slope
a slow burn to
bonfire blaze
flames
licking the sides
of a place
you once called
home

language
and manipulation of it
is spending years
decades even
trying to find
the perfect word or phrase
for every situation/
meaning/
feeling
until you realize
language will never be enough
so you just do what you gotta
until the day when something
comes close enough
that it gives you
a shadow of
that feeling

language
is my art form
and when i’ve done it right
it paints pictures without a canvas,
tells stories sans narratives,
brings others into a close embrace
without ever
getting
near

and for someone who despises words
and their limitations
as much as i do,
i sure hold language dear.

~~~

is it time?
time to prose it up
again?

my fingers now type
automatically
in stanzas
(could i even go back
to straight narrative
if i tried?)

these poems might not be
exactly
what i’m trying to say,
but damn is it closer than any
‘stream of consciousness’
over-writing
will get me.

June 27, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

To Do
Today:
An Experiment;

let’s warm up a little
with this Morning Poetry
but
let the majority of the writing happen
later
after breakfast
after naps
when the day is fully itself
and i feel myself too.
maybe then inspiration can be
things happening
my feelings
my emotions
my thoughts
not just
‘i’m so tired’
or
‘i want to be able to write’

maybe
possibly
this could be
my way in.

June 14, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

poetry has been my solace
for so long;
a private morning activity
to get my brain a-moving,
a way to express myself
when the words of prose
just seem to go
on and on and on and on
and still say nothing close to what i wanted,
but if i try to make poetry
an actual ‘hustle’/
a way to make money/
a full part of my identity
(as opposed to this quiet, nearly secret
part of me),
will it lose its magic?

~~~

that book,
that book with all the poetry
and science,
that book
which inspired me
to look at the world around me
and find inspiration
from the birds
and the stars
and the emotions
flowing through us all,
that book
which i finished
but is still on my mind
one zine
and one other book started
later,
that book
called Figuring

i think you should read it, too.

~~~

i’ve started fudging
words
and concepts
and stories
to fit the narrative
i’ve established
here

and i can’t tell if that’s a good thing

or not…

June 8, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i’ve been reading a book
about great poet-scientists
of the last few centuries,
and within these last few chapters of the book
the author (and voices from the past)
have assessed
that the greatest authors–
the greatest poets
are ones
who are
open
and honest
with their
emotion

and i think i am not yet there.

my poetry is very head-y.
most poems appear in my head
as something like
‘i think’
not at all
‘i feel’

and maybe that is my access to my emotions
[head to heart to body]
and, although i’d like to get there someday,
i really don’t think i am quite there
yet

even my depression
is very thought-based;
a reaction to an over-thinking mind
that won’t shut up about
all the pains and sufferings in the world
and how i could do something about it
if only i were as powerful as i
thought myself to be

so i’m not yet there
emotionally
in my poetry,
but someday
i may be

and when that happens,
y’all had better look out
(because i’ve had so much practice
with these mind-based poems of mine,
my emotion-based art will be
so great)

…(or, watch, it’ll read
like a three-
year-old
wrote it)
(but that’ll be ok
because it will be mine.
and it will
it will
it will be
honest)