Trying to Understand Is Worth It
They wonder why he writes so much,
That there’s so few will ever read;
And what this strange compulsion is,
This all-embracing need —
But long he travelled through the shadows
Of the vale of night:
He first wrote just to breathe,
But now he breathes
So he can write
(“The Poet’s Fate” – 11/6/2014)
He let imagination play
And spill across each fevered page;
Of life spent at a breakneck pace,
Of love and hate and
Sex and rage
And peaceful moments that would touch
The hearts of any who might see;
But wonders now, and over-much,
If all of it’s
Not vanity
He wanted what he wrote to shine,
The brilliance of a million suns;
But now, he simply wants to write
Some thoughts that you’d read
More than once
(“On The Transience and Vanity of Being A Writer” – 7-11-2015)
Reality’s not what she wants it to be,
And so she makes her own
In the virtual pages she fills each night
In her study, all alone,
At a place and a time and with people there
Who speak to the ears of the wise;
For the thoughts that she spills through her fingers and hands
Serve as a flotation device.
For everyone learns that this world is a swirl,
And each day, and undertow —
That the ropes we may don when we’re very young
Can keep us from where we want to go.
So she casts her words widely, for anyone
Who may read to cling on to:
For kindness, it seems, is in short supply
In a world that misvalues the true.
At a tiny old desk and a darkening room,
In a “you’d-pass-by” surrounding —
Comes a world that serves as flotation device
For all of us
Who’re drowning
At fourteen years, he wrote his love
(as best he could) a letter,
in hopes if she knew how he felt,
that she might love him better.
But that’s not how the real world works
for guys who are not fighters,
who learn they’re on the outside in
with all the other
writers
I always wanted to be the creative type,
Although I can’t say why now, looking back —
You think of it as building sort of worlds,
Instead of filling in some void, or lack —
But what is it but random muscle play,
Or telling jokes in giant empty halls,
Recounting stories no one thinks of twice,
Or crying to the ceiling or the walls?
And yet, when I was six years old, I drew,
And added in the colors: green, red, blue –
And though there was no crowd, no audience,
I knew, at least, that that one page
Made sense
A blog is like a clothesline
With garments out to dry
In full sight of whoever may
By chance be passing by
And though there may be colors bright
They’ll also be some holes
(So maybe, now, a drier
Should be one of my new goals)
An old and worn technology,
To journal out one’s thoughts:
To fill up pages with regrets
And shoulds and woulds and oughts —
But there’s some comfort knowing
Whether unknown, or renown,
Like clothes upon a clothesline
All, at last are
Taken
Down
I see the vistas of your mind
as carried through your words;
the colors of your feelings,
ever-changing –
The way you restlessly explore
each strange and new adventure;
the many places that your heart
is ranging —
And what this is, is hard to know:
your vision, planted in my mind,
a place, I’ll never, ever go,
but can see, nonetheless
Your mind is ever altering,
responding and transforming,
and my own thoughts and feelings
rearranging
