February 9, 2023

is my autocorrect
sabotaging me?
filling in where i mean to leave off?
changing stances in stanzas
that need the awkwardness i placed?

my dear laptop computer,
please—
poetry is a delicate balance
of grammatically correct
and rule-breaking chaos
and i need to tread that line very carefully
so any help from you,
while appreciated,
is really not needed…

so no need to try
so damn
hard.

February 2, 2023

i am in a mood where
sitting still by a blank document
one arm on the table/laptop/keyboard
one in my lap
no movement
just thought
is far more comforting
(and possibly productive)
than churning out poem after poem

~~~

and yet i will write
because that is what i do
and that seems to be my calling
(at least as of late)
and sometimes one needs to have a moment of stillness
before capturing that stillness in art
(if we just try to capture it without fully feeling it
that art is meaningless
wouldn’t you agree?)

~~~

the droopy eyelids
hover over my eyes
laden with sleep
and a few days of tech week
and i am contemplating writing
contemplating huddling back under the sheets
contemplating at least a few moments of peace
before the craziness of today begins

February 1, 2023

writing in bed
is interesting
especially when we’ve established
so many constant things
about writing at the table
downstairs//
but this morning
i think we both needed
something
either a right away poetry day (me)
or a change of space/place/and pace (kip)
or
simply a nicer/slower start to the morning (both of us)

but it now
doesn’t really feel like
morning any more

January 29, 2023

sappy poems
for new york city bakeries
of a spouse still sitting at home without me
because they’re so good at caring for our
little broken puppy
and i’m off playing as an artiste
the way i’d hoped to be

January 19, 2023

my mind fills with stories
my eyes close and see words
language was always about translation
from thoughts to forms others understood

but here in this moment
when opportunity meets momentum
only morning pages
will ever
get done

~~~

but is that
so bad
a thing?

~~~

i know i could write prose in poetry
i know i could tell a story esoterically
but my words still only seem fit
to express the feelings
in my own life

how could i tell another’s?

January 12, 2023

if i write
what i always needed
as a child
what might that be?

because i was pretty satisfied
when i was that age
of the grand adventures
and imaginative natures
of many of the stories
with heroes who looked
a lot like
me

but what i need now
is to have noticed i needed then
a mix between girl and boy/
that any harsh division
is unnecessary/
and that i don’t/didn’t need to carry
the weight of an entire gender
on my young shoulders.

should i write
a protagonist
who thinks that?

or would they simply come off
as
your early 2000’s Mary Sue
(and since when has that stopped
any aging white boy
from doing
pretty much
exactly that?)

January 7, 2023

the whole concept of writing
right now
feels egregious
to me

to sit in solemn silence
and ponder grand plans
tiny details
and all between
and simply translate them
to characters in words upon a screen

i don’t know why i
can go from sixty to zero
from brain chattering every day
so much to do, so much more to say
all the previous yesterdays
and then today
be struck
stuck
stagnant
and frustrated
by the whole concept of language

such is the life
and times
and minds
of writers?

December 14, 2022

i don’t really know
what i’m writing this morning
i just know
i wish i had
some
dopamine/serotonin/anything
to keep me company
through this season

~~~

is my
not having
an up-to-date phone
just a reminiscence of being
four versions out of date
in my aol/internet service
and therefore
a form of
comfort?

~~~

writing poems
and hearing the rhymes
that didn’t make it in
but somehow
making the poem
fuller
is a weird sort of poet magic