writing

June 30, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i can feel you
just past my fingertips
lightly guiding my time
here

and i wonder if you
hear me when
i talk to
you

~~~

language
is a slippery slope
a slow burn to
bonfire blaze
flames
licking the sides
of a place
you once called
home

language
and manipulation of it
is spending years
decades even
trying to find
the perfect word or phrase
for every situation/
meaning/
feeling
until you realize
language will never be enough
so you just do what you gotta
until the day when something
comes close enough
that it gives you
a shadow of
that feeling

language
is my art form
and when i’ve done it right
it paints pictures without a canvas,
tells stories sans narratives,
brings others into a close embrace
without ever
getting
near

and for someone who despises words
and their limitations
as much as i do,
i sure hold language dear.

~~~

is it time?
time to prose it up
again?

my fingers now type
automatically
in stanzas
(could i even go back
to straight narrative
if i tried?)

these poems might not be
exactly
what i’m trying to say,
but damn is it closer than any
‘stream of consciousness’
over-writing
will get me.

June 27, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

To Do
Today:
An Experiment;

let’s warm up a little
with this Morning Poetry
but
let the majority of the writing happen
later
after breakfast
after naps
when the day is fully itself
and i feel myself too.
maybe then inspiration can be
things happening
my feelings
my emotions
my thoughts
not just
‘i’m so tired’
or
‘i want to be able to write’

maybe
possibly
this could be
my way in.

June 21, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

normally
getting mindless tasks done
before poetry-ing
helps me concentrate on
this creative process

but right now
i have little
(to no)
interest
in writing

interesting…

June 14, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

poetry has been my solace
for so long;
a private morning activity
to get my brain a-moving,
a way to express myself
when the words of prose
just seem to go
on and on and on and on
and still say nothing close to what i wanted,
but if i try to make poetry
an actual ‘hustle’/
a way to make money/
a full part of my identity
(as opposed to this quiet, nearly secret
part of me),
will it lose its magic?

~~~

that book,
that book with all the poetry
and science,
that book
which inspired me
to look at the world around me
and find inspiration
from the birds
and the stars
and the emotions
flowing through us all,
that book
which i finished
but is still on my mind
one zine
and one other book started
later,
that book
called Figuring

i think you should read it, too.

~~~

i’ve started fudging
words
and concepts
and stories
to fit the narrative
i’ve established
here

and i can’t tell if that’s a good thing

or not…

June 8, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i’ve been reading a book
about great poet-scientists
of the last few centuries,
and within these last few chapters of the book
the author (and voices from the past)
have assessed
that the greatest authors–
the greatest poets
are ones
who are
open
and honest
with their
emotion

and i think i am not yet there.

my poetry is very head-y.
most poems appear in my head
as something like
‘i think’
not at all
‘i feel’

and maybe that is my access to my emotions
[head to heart to body]
and, although i’d like to get there someday,
i really don’t think i am quite there
yet

even my depression
is very thought-based;
a reaction to an over-thinking mind
that won’t shut up about
all the pains and sufferings in the world
and how i could do something about it
if only i were as powerful as i
thought myself to be

so i’m not yet there
emotionally
in my poetry,
but someday
i may be

and when that happens,
y’all had better look out
(because i’ve had so much practice
with these mind-based poems of mine,
my emotion-based art will be
so great)

…(or, watch, it’ll read
like a three-
year-old
wrote it)
(but that’ll be ok
because it will be mine.
and it will
it will
it will be
honest)

June 6, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

once again
i am stuck
pondering
what in the world
i’d thought of
to write
last night
when this morning
my brain
doesn’t seem to light
up
with any words
or concepts
or phrases
just stages
of grief
over lost
concepts

June 3, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i [might] have
hit the point
where my body of work is
Prolific
[but quantity doesn’t indicate quality]
[though practice makes perfect—
or
at the very least permanent—]

and is it actually
Prolific
if i am the only one
aware
of it all?

~~~

400+ days of writing
poetry
every morning

a solid amount of those mornings
(like this very one)
Three-Poem-Days
and even more housing
multiple drafts of multiple poems
not yet seen by
The Internet

but if i’m simply writing free-form/
stream of consciousness/
‘do it but don’t worry about it’
kinds of things,
churning
but not editing/
or revising/
or analyzing/
or anything of the sort

does that not become
at some point
Junk?

~~~

my greatest poem
within this experiment
was seen by more people
but has not been posted here.

a slam poem written
from a prompt
intended for a monologue
(originally from a spell)

i learned (from that poem) that prompts are friends
and a one-week due-date
with daily revisions
and one solid subject matter
are useful in my creative process

i am actively proud of that poem
and i want to write more like it
(with the passion/
and verse/
and poetical devices/
and wholeness)
so why do i not
actively
seek out
prompts,
nor let myself
take time
to edit
any of these
anymore?

June 2, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

poems pulsating
through my mind
as i find
myself
at that coast of consciousness
trying to remember
the words as they came together
the alliteration and rhyme
after so much time
asleep

and in the morning
nothing
ever
comes to me.