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 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

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]

September 15, 2024

really
poetry can be whatever we make of it
whatever we want it
to be

but

i’ve spent so much time
trying to get everything
“right”
in other aspects of art and life
how do i ever make anything
that is just only solely
mine?

September 10, 2024

interesting
interesting
i wrote but i didn’t post
yesterday

i wonder what that means
i wonder what that means

and the puppy just freaked out and boof-howled
but she hadn’t done that with Kip not around

i wonder what that means

and the cat has been perching on my lap
far more in the last couple of weeks
than since we lost Louka

i think i might know what that means

and additionally
i feel like
my writing has gotten
so
much
worse
lately

i wonder
what
that
means

April 30, 2024

the drive to write is strong —
but what to write about
never seems to come along —
like i’m sitting at a type-writer
or a pen and paper notebook
and i am hovering above what
could very well be brilliant
imagery/alliteration/metaphor
and simile and allegory all
stuck together, but instead my
pen/finger tip just shudders,
the ache of keeping it up
too long as i wait, the heaviness
of the potential i feel in my
body mind and soul too much
too much for one little
writing utensil/blank screen
to hold, so instead i write
about nothing, i write about
wanting to write, i write over
and over again meta poems that
never seem to come to any sort
of fruition or resolution or
conclusion, and i continue
to write and write and write

and here i am again…

January 17, 2024

the problem with writing
in a different format
[essay and story
i.e. two different prose types]
for so many days
is
it makes
my poetry feel
somehow
Wrong —
maybe less than
maybe too much
maybe just off
from what i’m now used to
but it all just feels so
Wrong
now

October 11, 2023

writing poetry
to local news
and fake laughter
and small chit chatter

writing poetry
as the world falls apart
and explodes
and explodes
and explodes
half a globe away

writing poetry as my life
has fallen to inverse-seeing
and yet i still feel stable
and yet i still feel
nearly able
to be happy

writing poetry
far away from home
but back in a home
i once knew better
than i’ll ever
know myself

writing poetry
that’s my through line
that’s my safety net
that’s my commonality

and only a few of my people
know it
read it
know me
from it

but that’s ok
since i’m writing poetry
[mostly]
for me

May 17, 2023

insert word here
add another phrase
perhaps a whole sentence in this middle place
slow down the thoughts to
one
word
per
line

a slightly askew way of looking at that subject
hangs out in this short stanza by itself

[and that’s how i write poetry]