January 21, 2025

just write through
the pain and
the loss and
the lost feelings and
the sleepiness and
the exhaustion and
the boredom and
the mundanity and
the distractions and
the battles and
the fight and
when the fight leaves us
for an hour or a day or a year
or so
we can write ourselves
back into the fight
if it means enough to us

[and yes, it means enough
to me]

January 15, 2025

writing out what i need to work through,
but jumbles of feelings
and half-formed stanzas of
partially-formed thoughts
aren’t really something i’d want to share with
‘the public’
[or even, really, with myself]
so i guess i’ll write about writing
for the three-hundredth
three-thousandth
three-millionth time
and post that here
and hope
it at least makes some sense
and doesn’t feel too
deja vu-y

January 6, 2025

the problem with my desire to write
both poetry and prose is that
my poems feel more like journal entries
and my stories read more like poems
and when i try to make sure one feels like itself
[or even if i force into line the opposite kind
of writing that most folks find stable and ‘right’]
it all feels forced and off and awkward in the daylight

so, i suppose, i should just always write without expectation or label or genre
or even a plan for any words that come to mind?

i suppose, i should just

write?

December 30, 2024

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

December 18, 2024

just a quick little morning poetry today
gotta do it
gotta do it
if only to wake myself up
to be in the moment
and help for tomorrow
and tomorrow’s tomorrow
to get in the habit
again
of writing
and writing
and writing
my thoughts out
each morning
each moment
digested through
poetry

December 12, 2024

hear me out

hear
me
out

[i don’t know if it reads — the first line being
one to a general audience
where i don’t even know what i’m going to say
or, perhaps, why i’m going to say it,
but the second stanza
is me
to me
desperately pleading
though i still don’t know
what subject matter
i just want myself
to hear what i have to say
i need myself
to hear what
i have
to say]

November 24, 2024

i haven’t done my regularly scheduled morning poetry
in days
because of social times
and busy-ness
and re-discovering art
and then
our poor puppy
having so much gi distress
we’re parents of a newborn
sleeping when she sleeps
and waking the moment she indicates
she may have
another accident

at least i can do things for my kip
like be ready with the wipes when they get back inside
or take one of the overnight outsides
so they can grab a little extra sleep
because at least i can nap during the day
they can’t
even without work
their day is
set
with awake

the puppy and i will nap on the same couch
we’ve been sleeping on for days
and again
even during the daylight
i’ll sleep when she sleeps
and be privy to her stirrings
immediately

November 22, 2024

i think
i was enamored
in the myth of celebrity
that i wanted the concept of me
as an artist
more than i wanted
to make the art
i could make

and now that i’ve turned my whole perspective upside down
and realized that celebrity might be a little [lot] too much for me
i’m so lost in terms of what kind of art i’d want to make

but the art still flows through my blood
and makes a home in my bones,
but do i treat celebrity like a goal
or a disease i’m to avoid?

or

[more likely than not]

do i try to concentrate on my art
and turn my head away from all celebrity
good
and bad
and just live in the art
that’s in my head/heart/body/soul/me