Poetic Experiment #13

The rounded globe provides the unseen,
over horizons the limitless light,
hanging there, coaxing our dreams,
a God's calling, an empty sight.
The flat of the land like a palm
upheld, fingers flat and placed together,
makes one doubt the calm
curve, the shadows turn around her.
This is time. The thing we forget
made real by the round and the flat.
Often obscured by the wet
oceans and the sandy plateau.
Broken by mountains. Broken by buildings.
Broken by valleys. Broken by ceilings.

Poetic Experiment #12

I had a waking dream
of friends visiting me
like when we were all
younger, when we were teens
and believed the world
was a vile place and mean.
But there was something
magical in my dream
I had forgotten in my waking
life, my growing older life.
Those connections seemed
stronger and when we said
friends for life we meant
for life, until old age or death
it was a sort of marriage
that often had the same problems:
distrust and jealousy

Finish the poem...I'm interested to see where people take this.

Poetic Experiment #11

Much of being a writer, at first, is like being someone who blind dates after a divorce. Particularly now, with all the dating sites promising forever love.

You see, it is impossible to read every journal that is out there. It is equally impossible to read every issue of every journal that is out there. Many of our decisions on submission must be made on an editorial statement (which is often vague) and/or a single issue of the journal. Sometimes our decision is made without any of these introductions to the journal. We just find one with a contest or with a call and we take our chances. How is this like dating?

Well it has been a while since I dated, but from I remember blind dates were usually conducted on very little information. Sometimes no information. This is the same relationship I have to journals. It is a blind date.

I'm thinking a lot about the professional side of writing. Submissions, process, relating to other writers...all the things that separate non-writers from writers. The fact that a writer is supposed to write daily. I have time to think on these things right now, so I do. I don't have answers. I'm presenting random thoughts. Publication is central to maintaining a professional writing life and yet we should not write with an eye toward publication. Dating is the same way I suppose. Dating is part of pre-marital adult life, but we should not date with an eye toward dating. We should just be natural within the moment.

Being natural is overrated. I think planning is better and a truer reality than being natural or random. I think reading as many issues of a journal as possible and reading the editors' statement or vision are all necessary. Selecting the appropriate work is also necessary. I believe in form and intention. A poem needs to be intentional.

I'm coming to these realizations through contemplating as I have in this and previous posts.

A New Poem (Draft)

I have nothing to say.

Poetic Experiment #10

I read earlier this week in a call for submissions that these posts I've been making can count as publication and that I should not send poems to the journal that appear on a personal blog or Facebook page. I'm fascinated by this idea because the poems are in my eyes not published. This process of posting poetic drafts and ideas through social media on personal pages lacks a significant step in the publication process. The editor is missing. The editor selects. I suppose the author selects as well, but how the editor does so is different. I doubt there is much I've presented in the last nine experiments that would pass for a publishable poem. They are thought vomit. Good or not. Thought vomit is thought vomit...imperfect...unrevised, or moderately revised. It is not as good as spontaneous prosody. The difference between it and something like what Kerouac did is that Kerouac trained himself by constantly writing in journals and writing letters and recording and listening to speech and listening to music for the beat, so when the man got down to typing he could flow into spontaneity in a formed way. He had muscle memory. Thought vomit is spontaneous prosody without the muscle memory. I'm not establishing literary theory here. I'm just free form thinking on what these experiments are and how they reflect my regular poetic endeavors. For one, they are far less formal.
For two, the language is not as rich. I don't spend time trying to find a good word or the best word. I use the first word that comes to mind. Like so,

Kraken, we are all waiting for something
monstrous. Something out of our depth.
Something new but old as slime. The mud
deep knees in the swamp are a dream
of monsters. Kraken, in the water.
Leviathan in the water. All nightmares
are deep and slime covered. All held breath
moments are sticky with it. Did you
not see the scales slipping through waves?
Did you not see the scales sliding through
mud? Everywhere there is water, there are
monsters to keep us out of the water.

Poetic Experiment #9

Nilla Wafers and 2% Milk

in the afternoon. The one from an old box.
The other from a cold jug. Not quite
as good as the glass jugs of the past.
Not sure if there is another way
to get the wafers. It is said they taste
like bananas, but I've never tasted
a banana. I've only ever tasted the wafers.

Poetic Experiment #8

I'm kind of out of steam today. I managed to start weight training again and it seems like exercise takes away from creative energy. Which is strange, since for many people the two feed upon each other. I did think a bit about poetry while lifting weights. I tried to form some lines. Something I could post here. My weights have saw dust in them. That is literally what creates the weight. My dog chewed on them a bit, so now they leak a bit of saw dust when I use them. I may purchase some metal weights and simply sale the ones I have in a yard sale. But none of this has anything to do with poetry except the line I thought of had to do with saw dust. I was trying to get something going with saw dust. Saw dust reminds me of my father who is a carpenter. It reminds me of hours spent working on sets back stage when I did theater. It is a memory inspirer, but how to make that memory into a poem?

Sawdust
Saw dust leaks from my weights
as I count out the reps, embarrassed
by a lack of strength and glad
no one can see the sweat
or the hanging fat slowly waving
under my shirt. I've really let myself
go. Is it weakness to be so weak?
I cannot resist a two-liter. It's
gone in a day. I can eat a whole
pizza without feeling full.
I can sit through three movies
and realize I haven't moved
anything but my finger. I think
on that now as the saw dust leaks
little piles and I like to think of my sweat
drips as saw dust leaking from a weight
slowly lessening its heftiness.

Poetic Experiment #7

1. Right Where It Belongs

   Nine Inch Nails

   See the animal in his cage that you built
   Are you sure what side you're on?
   Better not look him too closely in the eye
   Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
   See the safety of the life you have built
   Everything where it belongs
   Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
   And it's all right where it belongs

   What if everything around you
   Isn't quite as it seems?
   What if all the world you think you know
   Is an elaborate dream?
   And if you look at your reflection
   Is it all you want it to be?
   What if you could look right through the cracks
   Would you find yourself find yourself afraid to see?

   What if all the world's inside of your head?
   Just creations of your own
   Your devils and your gods all the living and the dead
   And you really oughta know
   You can live in this illusion
   You can choose to believe
   You keep looking but you can't find the ones
   Are you hiding in the trees?

   
   

   What if everything around you
   Isn't quite as it seems?
   What if all the world you used to know
   Is an elaborate dream?
   And if you look at your reflection
   Is it all you want it to be?
   What if you could look right through the cracks
   Would you find yourself, find yourself afraid to see?

   Songwriters: TRENT REZNOR

   © KOBALT MUSIC PUBLISHING LIMITED,

   For non-commercial use only.

   Data from: LyricFind

   
   

   
   

   Music has always been an inspiration to me. Much of my poetry is rooted in musicality. I like to think about my poems as lyrics even when they are narratives. Much like Reznor's song above this leads to cliches and common phrases. I think the damn thing is beautiful and I wish I wrote it, but many would say this is not a poem. Perhaps it is not. But the eternal question is "What Makes a Poem" ?

   
   

   
   

   What makes a poem?

   
   

   What is it that shapes sound

   and turns letters into emotions?

   It is not "A" that stabs at the lungs,

   nor "B" that rolls off the tongue,

   yet together they somehow make a song.

   What is it that shapes sound

   and turns letters into emotions?

   It is not "C" that clings to me

   like the longing of "D" whose sea-

   colored lips open wide as she sings.

   What is it that shapes sound

   and turns letters into emotions?

   It is not the "E" reckless with hands,

   nor the "F" who doesn't understand

   how foul the feel of sand.

   Turning the letters into sound

   What is it that shapes language?

   It is not the "G" with low slung pants

   or an "H" intent on her dance

   nodding away in drug-fueled trance.

   Turning the letters into sound

   What is it that shapes language?

   It is not an eternal "I," that inescapable

   poetic conceit. It is possible that it is "J' capable

   as old bards. It is not manageable,

   this language, this rhyme, this song,

   this tongue rubbed raw on the jaws

   ripples. It is not "K" clueless illumination,

   or "L" tied to loving and longing rumination.

   It is not this repetition, this humiliation.

   What is it that shapes sound

   and turns letters into emotions?

   It is not "M" me, mindless and meaning-

   lost. The "N" and all it implies still singing

   or talking through the weening.

   What is it that shapes sound

   and turns letters into emotions?

   Is it "O" the rounded mouth scream?

   Is it "P" the letter driving sexual longing?

   Who can tell me the music 

   is not more than the word?

   Who is not sitting there drumming

   through daymares and nightdreams?

   "Q" cannot finish this song, not enough rhymes

   with, nor the growl of R. "R" the violent letter

   that finds itself mixed with force, ripped, rhythm.

   What is it that makes these letters

   fit together to form something greater?

   Is it "S?" "S" is so smooth over its

   neighbor "T" that ticks likes the clocks used to.

   What is it? These sounds and rhythms

   letters in the ear, poured like wax

   burned "U" and Urizen. A new mythology

   is its own poetry. Or "V" like aliens

   waiting to unzip human skin.

   The sound is fantasy. We try to shape

   it into something absurd. The letters

   are beautiful carved in stone, inked

   on paper. Like "W's" who, what, when,

   where, and why. The letter shapes

   itself like "X" who is really "Chi", or

   "Y" who cannot decide its gender 

   or "Z" that we have given to escape.

   What is it that shapes sound

   and turns letters into emotions?