not knowing what to write about
when i don’t even know
if i have time to write it
[but family is worth it]
not knowing what to write about
when i don’t even know
if i have time to write it
[but family is worth it]
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
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
not really feeling
the writing right now
but i know i should
and i gotta
and i will and i am and i have been
and i did
just
rocking out
to some ratatat
[instead of writing
these morning pages
like i should be
like i should be]
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?]
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
ugh, i can’t even write a poem
about being unable to write a poem
because being sick sucks…
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
but still
i’m here
i’m writing
i’m still here writing