May 6, 2025

spectacular
spectacle
and spectacles help us all
see
wonders
in our own
and each others’
eyes

for once
for twice
for as many times
as we might find a rhyme
and/or reason
to climb
and explore
and discover
and become
one
with some sort of
happiness
[if we can
if we can]

~~~

there’s still a bit of
misalignment
when it comes to
my own self
and my poet self

and i cannot tell if that’s because
i don’t perform my own poetry enough
that it becomes as second nature as
acting
or aerial
or simply listening
but my own poetry
i have to remind myself
‘i made this
and it isn’t
half
bad’

~~~

or perhaps it’s because
i’m all self-taught
and i’m just flying by
the seat of my pants
and i can’t totally tell
what works and what’s a fail
except that
some poems flow like water
and some drip like sludge
and every now and then
i find a rhyme that tastes as good as it sounds
but i don’t know how i found any of that
it just happens
through trial and error
every
single
time

like i’m always starting
from one

April 28, 2025

i don’t actually know what it means
to be
a great writer
a great poet

i’m just sitting here
at my messy dinner table
early in the morning
writing whatever comes to mind
as a way to encourage myself
to deal with the day
that is coming towards me
at breakneck speed

maybe,
when you’re in your ‘fighting a [seemingly] losing war
against fascism with the best tool you have —
kindness’ era
you’ll understand

~~~

i feel like this kind of morning
and this kind of writing
is the reason i started this challenge to begin with

i feel more awake
more aware
more ready to start my day

though i still need to edit and pick and send in the audition
i feel so much more prepared for it
now

~~~

“you look like such a writer!”
of my big sweater
comfy tee
glasses
bun
and coffee in hand

and i do, don’t i?
i do…

April 23, 2025

make your words like waves
gather them together
and wait
and hold
back
until they start to free-flow
into the next
unsuspecting
person
a line a line a line at a time
pull them under
take them back
with you

until you
spit them back out
at a later date

March 25, 2025

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?]

March 14, 2025

so much happened yesterday
and i
didn’t even poem about it
[yet]

~~~

{trigger warning: suicidal ideation, mention of eating disorders}

my overanalytic brain
that runs through every possibility
that made a whole “pro & con” list
on which eating disorder
to give myself
is probably the same thing
that has saved me
from actually killing myself
every time i’ve gotten close
in these
ideations

~~~

distracted
and distractable
and not what i wanted
from my day at home
preparing to do things
i should be doing
should have done
days
weeks
months
ago
but am i just going to
nap
again
until it’s time to leave
again?
again?
again?

March 12, 2025

i really don’t know
what i should be doing
when all is in limbo
and my mind flails out for
something
anything to do —
if i should be going out for roles
clearing out those spiderwebs and
putting my acting brain to task

if i should be writing more
and speaking up against power
with the words my fingertips
help me find
morning after morning after morning

if i should be using my body
in the ways i’ve learned
so recently — power in muscles
consistently picking up my own bodyweight
for fun
for art
for staying fit
in imminent societal collapse

but when i can’t figure out what i should do
i tend to mend things that need mending;
i darn my own and my spouse’s socks,
i close up a hole the puppy has torn in her
cheaply-made and roughly-loved toy,
i patch up jeans
and other pants,
and make art out of scraps,
and maybe that’s the “should” in all this
uncertainty —

make sure we
are not as beholden to consumerism
as we very well could be

March 10, 2025

i wish i saw through poet’s eyes
the beauty of the earth at all times —
but instead i see the pain and despair
and try to beautify that
with impassioned speeches/
or try to find the tiniest spec
of lovely
in a day full of pain/
and make the mundane
beautiful again

though it doesn’t really feel like
poetry
to me
without grand sunsets
or allegories of bees and flowers,

i’m over here trying —
making beauty out of angst
and bubble gum