losing focus
abandoning poems
trying to find the dopamine
to follow
(
damn,
if i find it,
i give myself full permission
to follow
fully
)
writing
March 2, 2022
even the poem
i wrote
about having trouble
writing poems
this morning
feels so cheap
and distant
and alien
to what is actually happening in my brain
at the moment
so i guess
i’ll write
this tiny diatribe
about
‘blah’ness
and ‘meh’ness
and the ‘blargh’ that i’ve been
chanting in my head
all morning
and see
where this
all takes me…
February 28, 2022
drive is not enough,
desire is not enough,
ambition/hunger/passion-
-not enough,
when you have anxiety
breaking you down at every step,
when you have depression making sure
you know
that visualization
is just a foolish trick,
and that hunger is simply greed
in a different trench coat,
when you have your own brain
waging war
on every want you’ve ever wanted
it’s not enough
to want
to set the goals
to be proactive at all…
manifestation
only manifests
if your whole being is on the same wavelength
so how
do i
connect
my
divisions of self?
February 24, 2022
i wish i could have the discipline
of folks who literally write every day,
who get up at the exact same time
and write for the exact same amount of hours
and never miss a day
in their 30, 40, 60, 90-year career
i wish i could write/live like i’m running out of time
i think the problem is i do.
but i feel it in the depths of my skin/soul/teeth
where the reminder just brings me to my knees
i see the futility
of years
of words
of works
and it petrifies
and paralyzes
every piece of my creativity
so where’s my legacy?
February 22, 2022
continuing
on
a trajectory;
a reconstruction?
a fun date deduction:
[2/22/22]?
a pondering of poetry and pain?
the contemplations i create
co-habitate in my brain
until the day
they’re ready
to be
set free…
…and even then, they never truly leave home;
they come back and visit
for dinners,
for vacations,
for mid-week excursions,
for time away from their new habitudes
and i conclude
that i’m never truly concluded
with any sort of
meditation
which is good?
i guess?
February 21, 2022
deconstruction time
necessary
to reconstruct
the self
at a later date
February 18, 2022
my brain is not awake yet,
nor is my body, really,
and the first sip of coffee is cheap
when
you know you could sleep for hours
even with the whole mug in your bloodstream,
and i keep getting distracted by tiny chores
which probably could/should be done,
but will it take away from these
morning page poetry streams of [semi-un]consciousness(?)
and
why can’t i think of myself like i did
at fifteen
seventeen
nineteen
when i fancied myself a mini-ee cummings
well on my way to
making language my b*tch(?)
even though now it’s probably more reality-based
to think that someone else has thought of
‘streams of [semi-un]consciousness’
before,
but boy,
did it give my ego a boost
to think i was thinking
entirely new thoughts
new concepts
new words
new communications
with new people
instead of how my brain is now
knowing that there are no new ideas
and instead of that spurring me on
to create without worry of plagiarism,
it instead spurns every concept i have
with the barrage of
‘you will never be creative enough
to think of anything
fully
new’
[
you
].
February 15, 2022
a therapy appointment
a good ‘vamlumtimes’
and a cbd night’s sleep
and i’m feeling ever so slightly better today
than i was yesterday
morning
i’m still a little on
the stuck side
a little on
the slower side
a little on
the i don’t know what to write or if i’ll ever really want to write again
side
but
there is a whole day ahead of me
and instead of seeing it as a negative,
as an entire,
bleeding,
long
ass,
gooddamned
day,
i would like to see it as an opportunity;
not necessarily to get things accomplished
(but that would be nice if that happened)
but to get to do things
i want to do
(don’t know what that might end up being
but i’ll do it
!)
~~~
a therapist once told me
to listen to my body,
to let my desires direct my day
that would be great
if
i knew what my body was trying to say…
~~~
when i tell stories
for the first, second, third times
i am testing out wording,
making sure the way i tell the story
in the future
(the memorized-like-a-monologue version)
is the best one,
the most truthful,
the one that elicits the best response.
but sometimes,
when i tell stories that are more than stories,
explorations of trauma,
a tale of something that impacted me
hugely,
i tell it in such a way that,
in observing myself,
i can tell i’m telling it
in order to understand
how i feel about it.
(because, if nothing else, i sure know how to intellectualize)
February 7, 2022
i keep pondering early in this
panini
when i wrote and wrote
pages upon pages
freehand
freeverse
free of other older morning page expectations
and i wondered what the world would be like
‘post’
pandemic…
and i felt it,
at the very core of my being
that we’d
‘go back to normal’
before it was really,
truly,
clear
to do so,
and that the ‘normal’
we were heading back towards
had the potential to change,
to be a ‘normal’ benefitting more people
than the normal
benefitting a very
very
very
tiny
percentage,
but i felt it,
that it wouldn’t change
we “couldn’t” change
we wouldn’t change.
and lo and behold
all my strife
from mid-march 2020
to april, may, june, july 2020
most of that has come to fruition:
we aren’t ready,
people are still catching
ventilizing
dying
and half the population is still
pretending
this virus
doesn’t exist.
and of course
we’re going
‘back to the grind’
as if that’s a good thing,
as if it’s strength
or a moral righteousness
that gets you through
(rather than random genetics
and generational privileges
and a system set up to benefit
the few)
and as if
this ‘grind’
is our entire culture
(i mean, at this point, it is,
but that doesn’t make it
good
or right)
and i wish i had something better to say
than ‘i saw this coming’
i mean, i’m sure folks more versed in
infectious disease
and sociology
and economy
and the ‘why’s’ of all this
also saw this coming…
i guess i just wish
i’d had more time
to live in a world of hope
than i actually got.
February 6, 2022
three hundred days
not quite one year
three hundred days
far more than three hundred poems
three hundred days
a promise to myself and none other
three hundred days
a streak honestly acquired
(though sometimes through catching up)
three hundred days
i won’t get the alert until after i post this exact poem
but today
i know
i know
because yesterday was 299
i’ve been doing this whole
poem-a-day thing
for three hundred days
and i guess i can be proud of myself for that.
~~~
green around the house
green on the roof
rainbows shifting dancing swirling cranking
throughout the room
echos of classical
(some call ‘evil’)
and the cat scratching
and the fake fireplace flickering
and the humidifier humidifying
and my spouse done cleaning
so our giant table is a table once again
(and no longer just a clutter-catcher)
and though there’s still some more cleaning to do
this house really is starting to feel more like
our
home
~~~
i need a third
here
(what would a three-hundredth day be
without turning into a three-poem-day?)
but my brain isn’t in a hugely poem-izing mood
anymore
and any old poems i might insert
were either re-written there
or up here
so what else to do but
write a poem
about
writing a poem
like all my little meta-hipster-cells
want me to do
[how long is too long
to stare into space
and come back with
nothing]
kipventures 