May 5, 2024

my head is all over the place
which can make for interesting poetry
when i cannot follow one subject all the way through
but fifteen different thoughts have already sped through
my racing brain
but the sleep is also tugging
and i have no way of judging
which direction to go
or how much to write
or let go
or just let it be
as it is
in this mess that it is in

~~~

if i actually followed the stream of consciousness/
the different trains that blast off from
the one station of *my brain*
i still don’t think i’d have words for most thoughts —
‘high speed’ ‘ugh, typing’ ‘that beat’ ‘coffee’ ‘food’ ‘puppies’
none of those words tell a story
in the way i’d want my poetry to express —
how i called it a stream, but i feel like my thoughts are trains
holding all the context for each word within each car
but they blast off like high-speed rail, something i’d love to have in this
fucking country, and sometimes i’m on the train itself, but sometimes i’m left at the station
waiting for all the thoughts to come back to me, eventually
[hopefully whole, with some new passengers/context aboard]

~~~

i feel like the more i write
the worse my poetry ends up
and i don’t know what to do
or how to think
about that.

April 30, 2024

the drive to write is strong —
but what to write about
never seems to come along —
like i’m sitting at a type-writer
or a pen and paper notebook
and i am hovering above what
could very well be brilliant
imagery/alliteration/metaphor
and simile and allegory all
stuck together, but instead my
pen/finger tip just shudders,
the ache of keeping it up
too long as i wait, the heaviness
of the potential i feel in my
body mind and soul too much
too much for one little
writing utensil/blank screen
to hold, so instead i write
about nothing, i write about
wanting to write, i write over
and over again meta poems that
never seem to come to any sort
of fruition or resolution or
conclusion, and i continue
to write and write and write

and here i am again…

January 19, 2024

collect your thoughts
then spit them out
on a laptop

look at the dregs and see what it says
about you
about your past/present/future
read the spittle like tea leaves
and leave it alone for another day or two
to read them again
with a new eye
a new vibe
a new perception that perspective gives us

[i just want to know what my own brain
is thinking]

December 15, 2023

sometimes
sometimes
sometimes
i want the
aesthetic /
the vibe
of writing
pen and paper /
ink and quill /
notebook
and brain
and nothing
else, but
oftentimes
that is just
too much /
too hassle /
too out of my
abilities in
this world,
so i simply
vibe and vibe
and write
and write and
create in the
best way i
can — laptop
and fingers
and my brain
that simply
will not quit.

November 10, 2023

sometimes i write poetry for the page
tapering each line down just a
little bit lower so that
aesthetically it
pleases

and other times i compose rows and rows of possibilities in my head
waiting for the right syllable to fit in
and taste so good as it fills my mouth
with alliterative qualities
i can’t imagine life without
and rhymes and mines of tongue twisters
laying in wait, waiting to trip up an unsuspecting mouth
but it all settles into something that i can chew and spit spit spit
out
with a rhythm all of my own making
all of my own devising
all of my own words
humbly arriving
as they should

but

most of the time
i create for
both

November 9, 2023

i wish
i wish
i wish
i didn’t make myself cringe
with every thought or written word or
every kind of close to rhyme

i just want to create art
that doesn’t care about being art

[that is the purest kind]

November 8, 2023

what you need to understand
[‘you’ in this case meaning
a new reader to this poetry blog]
is that i do not write poetry
carefully
i do not rewrite and rerewrite and rererewrite —
i throw some ideas on my keyboard
and sometimes they become words
and sometimes those words fit together
just enough
to become a poem.
i don’t write with purpose
except to get more and more art out into the world
[and get these loud loud stanzas out of my head]
i don’t write for perfectionism’s sake
since perfectionism runs/ruins the rest of my life.
what you need to understand
is that this will never be
e.e. [cummings]
or dickinson [comma] emily
or bukowski
or angel nafis
or rupi
[though my shorter poems definitely emulate her]
these poems are rarely edited
barely re-read
not much adjusted to page from my head —
there’s no rhyme scheme
except
what sometimes fits together happenstance-ily,
and helping the chaos
reign itself in
is what i’m doing with these words
again and again and again —
so please,
heed my warning,
don’t expect much literarily from these words/phrases/stanzas/poems —
but expect me to show up
as i am this [and every] morning
and get something out
from me
to myself
[and then to you, if you want to read it]
[no pressure tho]

November 6, 2023

i’m feeling so at odds with my own writing this morning
like it’s a morning for reading, not creating
but i made a promise to myself —
my morning pages are for myself
to just get out what needs to get out
[and it’s ok if the posted poem for today
was not actually written today
but
i do have to write *something* today]
so what is actually in my head this morning?

November 4, 2023

it is kind of wild to me
that art in and of itself
is simply an invitation to
s t r e t c h
any truth we may want to share or inhabit

[any pureness for accuracy
may or may not be
entertaining/
good art anyway

so why not craft reality
to your individual
liking?]

October 19, 2023

i definitely feel like my concentration is a bit
gone
these days

don’t know if i’ll get it back

don’t know if i want it back

but i suppose
this is how
human-ness goes

~~~

how many times must i
write ‘how many times must i’
until it captures this tiredness
from life
and structure
and stricture
and strife
enough that i can leave
that openng phrase
behind?

~~~

don’t know if that poem is
exactly what i was trying to say
but hey —
i said it.