writing about not writing

August 15, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

do i have writer’s block
or does writer’s block have me
in a chokehold
from which i’ll never be released

do i have writer’s block
or is writer’s block my best frenemy
stalking me
fighting
and making up
and i keep them around for…
…for what?

do i have writer’s block
or is my whole life a lie
based on wanting to write
but never knowing how or when or why
or even if i really should
so i just
rush back
into writer’s block’s arms

do i have writer’s block
or are these excuses
to keep me from writing out
my whole soul?

July 1, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

having not written
my full 300 words
in damn near five days,
i expected to struggle to even get past
the first hundred mark

but here i am
skating over into the two-hundred zone

and i should have known
i should have known

it’s not that i’d forget
poetry-writing
or block it up
for future poetics

it’s that i haven’t been able to get things
out
in days

and i am a fountain
about to unleash
a river’s worth of flow;
a dam
that is bursting at the seams
with words and stanzas
and ideas and dreams
[and, of course, metaphors and similes]
there is a flood of poetry
erupting from me

i really should have known

June 4, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i have so many ideas
and concepts
and words
and stanzas
running through my head at all times

i am damn near constantly in a state
of needing to get something
out
of my system

but i don’t write when i need to
i save it all up for the morningtimes
and in the morningtimes
when i’m ready to write
i come up with almost
nothing

March 25, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

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?]

February 9, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i keep feeling
almost
ready to write

like i
almost
have a concept i’m happy with

or i have
almost
found the optimal writing situation/
location/
time of day/
mood/
lighting/
sound/
something/
etc.

but

if imperfection is what i’m looking for
in the product
then perhaps
i should look for that, too
in the process

December 30, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the poetry is stilted
today

usually, if i get distracted
i catch myself staring off into space
for minutes
before i look back at my
half-finished poem

and then i take a moment to figure out
if i can reasonably get back into it
or not

but there is a moment
between realizing i’ve lost my concentration
and trying to get it back
that i know so well

and i keep having that moment
that feeling
without the minutes of staring off into nothingness

like my brain has decided it cannot concentrate
on even one poem this morning
and instead i must shatter my attention
into a million tiny bits
and hopefully i can repair them
into something resembling
a poem