Tag Archives: Poetry

I am…

Landing in Los Angeles

I am a walking citation
of words and ideas that were not mine to begin with
picked up along the way like shells along the ocean
my mutiplex of words are best understood as a portmanteau
of all I’ve read
or watched
or heard
or lived.

I live on the internet – not quite enmeshed, not quite detached
a conglomeration of bickering ideas
shouted through a cacophonous  imaginary garden
– it’s the planet that anchors me to this world.

My eyes change color.
Some days they see the past
Other days they see the future.
When they’re blue they see the composite of connections of my life.

I was given a name that fits
in its confounding of expectations
and connects me to places I’ve never been
but would like to visit.

My first question was never spoken
though I speak it still
“Is this right?”

I wrestle with the discomfort
of never quite fitting
of being a quarter-beat off
of refusing others’ boxes.

I am becoming comfortable as just myself.

Poetry

image

nor till the poets among us can be
‘literalists of
the imagination’–above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them’, shall
we have
it.
– excerpt from Poetry by Marianne Moore

I haven’t always loved poetry. It’s confusing and obtuse and frequently leaves me frustrated. But I can’t quit reading it.

Because in the cadence of the words there is truth. Poetry is the fastest way to share the indescribable  elements of reality without music. Those real toads are especially difficult to deal with when their hardens are imaginary.

Which is why I hardly ever share the poetry I write.

Not that I write poems that often. In fact, I can really only write poetry when I’m surprisingly happy. And the poems are never very good. (Which is another reason I hardly evershow the poems I’ve written to anyone)

But, despite all the current madness in my life currently, I’ve been writing poetry. These ones would have to be revised (which I don’t have time for), so they’ll still probably never be read, even if they weren’t so revealing.  I’m just glad to be writing them in all their terrible glory.